Spiritual abuse recovery
Last year I blogged about Dr. Barb Orlowski’s research on spiritual abuse. Barb contacted me during a time when I was going through a very difficult period in my own life and she was very helpful to me in both her active listening and in her own decision to contact the District church leaders that she knew personally to act on our behalf. Her intervention resulted in an investigation that dealt with the abusive situation. While the cause of the abuse was ultimately removed, I had to privately go through my own grief and deep sorrow. I was raised as a preacher’s kid and had always seen the church as a place of safety. As a result of the spiritual abuse, the idea of church as a safe place was no longer that same place of safety to me. Time does a great job of helping us heal, but I am not yet sure when I will come full circle and be back to where I started. Spiritual abuse is that devastating. I have never made any of the details public although I am currently working on a DVD project that is a result of the things I have learned as a direct result of the abusive situation I endured. God certainly is able to work all things out for good to them that love Him and are called according to His purpose. What seemed like evil to us can and will be used for good by God who holds us in His hands. …
