Monday, September 8, 2014
Synod Responds within Hours
Within hours of my last post that a registered sex offender was listed in the Synod Yearbook, I received official word from the WELS Synod Administration office that they had already taken the necessary steps to remove this individual from the yearbook. It was an oversight that he was included in the first place and they do not have his name in the 2015 synod yearbook.
I feel like a thousand pound weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I have struggled for months over that one issue and if that meant God condoned what happened to me also. Today knowing, without a doubt, that it was NOT intentional and the Synod does NOT condone that type of behavior, gives me a tremendous amount of peace and relief.
Over the course of time, my thinking has become so warped that I no longer know what “my way” of thinking is and what is “normal” thinking. In my mind I am terrified of God, therefore, I constantly look for ways to further doubt him and “prove” that he truly is evil and condoned what happened. My brain is so programmed to proving that God is evil that it is an instinctive reaction to everything now. I have dwelled on that yearbook point for countless hours wondering, whereas, a “normal” person would be able to immediately process that as unintentional and go on with life. I, however, let it become a major stumbling block of doubt for me instead.
I think one of the biggest impacts in my healing has been writing because as I write, I get responses from people that truly mold my journey and aide with the healing process. I have become SO convinced that God is this “evil being” up in heaven causing pain that it’s my primary focus now. However, through this journey, I am finding many people who are proving that theory wrong and showing me a loving God instead. That it’s “my way” of seeing God and not how God actually is.
Several pastors have also written offering me tremendous amounts of support with my journey and that, combined with the Synod Administration response, gives me an indescribable amount of peace today. Up until TODAY, I always had that nagging doubt that God condoned this. Today that was finally put to rest.
Today is the VERY first time, since this all began that I can honestly say God doesn’t condone what happened - and actually believe it. I can’t even find the words to describe the peace that I feel because of that. When you have been terrified of God for so long, and to such a degree, coming to realization that God and the church, as a whole, doesn’t condone what happened is the most amazing feeling on earth!
Maybe I can survive this journey after all. Maybe there is hope for recovery. To all the pastors that are showing me how God, and the church, really is thank you. Thank you for hope and this incredible amount of peace that I have today because of that!
I feel like a thousand pound weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I have struggled for months over that one issue and if that meant God condoned what happened to me also. Today knowing, without a doubt, that it was NOT intentional and the Synod does NOT condone that type of behavior, gives me a tremendous amount of peace and relief.
Over the course of time, my thinking has become so warped that I no longer know what “my way” of thinking is and what is “normal” thinking. In my mind I am terrified of God, therefore, I constantly look for ways to further doubt him and “prove” that he truly is evil and condoned what happened. My brain is so programmed to proving that God is evil that it is an instinctive reaction to everything now. I have dwelled on that yearbook point for countless hours wondering, whereas, a “normal” person would be able to immediately process that as unintentional and go on with life. I, however, let it become a major stumbling block of doubt for me instead.
I think one of the biggest impacts in my healing has been writing because as I write, I get responses from people that truly mold my journey and aide with the healing process. I have become SO convinced that God is this “evil being” up in heaven causing pain that it’s my primary focus now. However, through this journey, I am finding many people who are proving that theory wrong and showing me a loving God instead. That it’s “my way” of seeing God and not how God actually is.
Several pastors have also written offering me tremendous amounts of support with my journey and that, combined with the Synod Administration response, gives me an indescribable amount of peace today. Up until TODAY, I always had that nagging doubt that God condoned this. Today that was finally put to rest.
Today is the VERY first time, since this all began that I can honestly say God doesn’t condone what happened - and actually believe it. I can’t even find the words to describe the peace that I feel because of that. When you have been terrified of God for so long, and to such a degree, coming to realization that God and the church, as a whole, doesn’t condone what happened is the most amazing feeling on earth!
Maybe I can survive this journey after all. Maybe there is hope for recovery. To all the pastors that are showing me how God, and the church, really is thank you. Thank you for hope and this incredible amount of peace that I have today because of that!
***
GJ - One Satanic temptation is thinking that such evil is condoned. Most people are disgusted and alarmed at this behavior, and they do not comprehend what is being hidden from them. The greater the scandal, the greater the motivation to hide it.
Jeske's Church and Changers have engaged in gorilla warfare for years to get their guys in jobs and their wild hair projects funded. They are bullies and thugs, as everyone has seen from the Engelbrecht-Patterson debacle with Ski and Glende, who are both former hirelings of Jeske.
Moreover, such Dreck as this item from the WELS Meditations is sure to encourage the worst in everyone -
This is from WELS's Meditations, March-May 2014, for Monday, 17
March 2014. The howler is in the second column which reads: "No matter what
you did yesterday -- or failed to do -- and no matter what you will do tomorrow,
God has forgiven you."
Everyone should encourage Lillian Armstrong, because she has been willing to put her experiences on display to help others. Continue to contact and support her. Here is the contact information for The Shattered Pulpit blog.
Some think that nothing can be done, but things happen as soon as light is shed on evil. Web pages are erased. Denials are issued. Problems are fixed - or at least massaged.
The situation has to change to the point where officials fear that cover-ups will be even more damning than the facts.
