Delight
How would you label the expression on the face of that Ugandan boy?! When my granddaughter started up her new bubble-making machine, the 50 or so noisy Sunday School children stopped suddenly with their mouths open. They’d never seen bubbles and were afraid of them! After being shown that they do not hurt, the children were delighted. Ecstatic, some were still afraid to touch the bubbles and used small branches to pop them. When is the last time your heart was so thrilled that joy and delight registered on your face? Is this even possible in the midst of severe trials? Everything God does is to increase our joy in Him. In the midst of our unworthiness and our pain, God’s love, majesty and tender mercy actually bring joy and awe. He delights in delighting us. “God is good and does good.”1 M... Read more
The Abuser’s Arsenal – part 1
“Why does she stay? It doesn't make sense!” An abusive husband with a Bible-believing wife has an advantage - a secret weapon. The Bible, used in a twisted way, enables him to habitually control his wife and children and get that to which he feels entitled. There are a variety of verses in his arsenal, but his Tsar Canon is God telling wives to submit to their husbands. If a self-serving husband can twist the meaning of these verses to convince his wife that God mandates unconditional obedience, he knows she will not “argue with God”, but rather choose to suffer “for Christ's sake” to please her Saviour. While I confirm that God's plan is for wives to submit, church leaders unwittingly confirm the abuser's extremism. Why? 1) not taking the effort to truly educate themselves about abuser's... Read more
How Can We Help the Sexual Abuse Victim?
With society's current focus on the Duggars, maybe it'd be a good idea to look into general principles of how to help the victims of sexual abuse. What does a victim deal with? The abuse paradigm is a unique issue in which we need to educate ourselves. “She feels more shunned and rejected than the criminal,”1 explains Dr Dan B Allender in his book The Wounded Heart: Hope For Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse. A victim's shame, betrayal and powerlessness can manifest outwardly in lack of trust, self-contempt, depression, self-harm and self-protection by living life behind a facade. In order to survive, the victim frantically pushes down deep the ugly forces that were set in motion – to become like a boil that festers and poisons. The pain and consequences are worse if the authority i... Read more
The Church’s Response to Abuse
"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” - Deitrich Bonhoeffer She comes to her pastor trembling, testing his reaction to her tip-of-the-iceberg disclosure of the cruelty that persists behind the closed doors of her home. Not sure she will even be believed, she has forced herself into this vulnerable position because she is desperate. Inwardly, she fears that even telling anyone about her husband's abuse must be a sin. What will her pastor say? How should he respond? The church is the first place to which a woman should be able to run for protection! “A support group such as her church family can help her fulfil her role to “do good” to her abusive husband by coming alongside her with encouragement... Read more
