Spirituality Classroom Blog
Is It Possible to Find Comfort While In a Trauma?
Today I'm thinking about one of my favorite Scriptures from Isaiah. It reads this way:
But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. (Isaiah 43:1-2)
This passage of Scripture has always comforted me. Even though I know that Isaiah meant these words for the people of Israel, I also hear them personally, as though the Lord is telling ME to “Fear not, because He has redeemed ME." And that no matter what life events come my way – even the traumatic ones – the Lord will never leave my side. Since I believe that that is true, I am comforted. And somehow my faith grows.
If we sort of back out of the Book of the...
Three Definitions of Spiritual Abuse
I’m surprised that I continue to run across any number of people who don’t know what spiritual abuse is and, in fact, have never heard of it. I suppose I’m surprised because I’ve dealt with it for so many years in my personal struggle, it seems that everyone else would also know what it means. Clearly that’s not the case. Apparently there are church members for whom “church” means only something positive and good.
Therefore, those of us who have experienced spiritual abuse in churches must be a subset group of “everyone else.” Even among that subset, there are folk who don’t know to call the traumatic events done to them – they don’t know to call that trauma by the phrase “spiritual abuse.”
So what is spiritual abuse? If so many people don’t know what it is, then I must begin my blog by attempting to define it. Barbara Orlowski, in her book, Spiritual Abuse...