Can anyone offer advice?

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[superwoman21971]

My story is long and involved.  I am 40 and I have been involved with GCM since I was 18 up until 4 years ago.  I was literally brainwashed for a number of years.  My family is all still going to one of the churches.  My husband thinks I am rebelling against God and won't leave the church.  I have been "shunned" by the church.  I feel my children are in danger because I have impressionable teenagers.  My 16 year old is so involved in the church that he is on 2 worship teams and attends 2 different bible study groups per week plus 2 youth group events per week.  He barely has time for school.  They are telling him where he should go to college and what to major in.  His father just this week was encouraging him to keep personal information about his life between just him and the youth pastor and to leave his mother out of it because it should stay within the church.  I feel like my life and my marriage has been ruined by GCM and I am having trouble trusting any church and even God.  Is there anyone out there who can help families like mine or does GCM just continue to get away with what they are doing?  I have read the testimonies and they are all the same all over the country.  People are experiencing real trauma from this group of churches, but what can we do?

[G_Prince]

Dear Superwoman,

Wow, I am so sorry to hear what you are going through. From personal experience I can say I've been there. I grew up in a GCx home and no longer am involved. Family life is still a bit tricky, but I have to say after some hard times there is light on the other end of the tunnel. Do you have family or friends that do not attend? Do you have people or resources outside the church you can trust?

[MidnightRider]

Superwoman,

Not knowing anything about where you are and what your circumstances are, it is hard to give a lot of specific advice. But you sound like you feel very alone, so the best idea I can think of is that you seek out someone to talk to about this. Even if you are having trouble trusting "any church", I would suggest seeking out a pastor at a (do I have to say it?) non-GCx church. You may have to go to several before you find one that appreciates the situation you are in.

Please stay in touch with us and let us know how you are doing.
 

[EverAStudent]

Dear Superwoman,

Yes, I have a piece of very specific advice.  Go to the NANC website (National Association of Nouthetic Counselors).  These are spiritual counselors who have been certified; they are NOT psychologists or pyschairatrists.  On the website there is a counselor-finder function to find one close to you.  Most of them do not directly charge for their counseling since they are usually paid by a church, so find one that does not charge unless you have the money for that kind of thing. 

These counselors (some are women, some are men, some are husband-wife teams) are generally excellent in this kind of issue resolution.  Please contact them.

[Huldah]

Welcome to the forum, Superwoman. It's very sad to hear that your husband is undermining you to your children. This is not the way a godly husband should act.

One element to consider is that your husband and children are spiritually blinded. We don't wrestle merely with wayward human ideas; we wrestle against malevolent opponents in the spirit world as well. It's important to pray that God will reveal the truth to your kids. If you yourself are a believer*, prayer is your greatest weapon of protection. In no way am I downplaying the importance of good counseling, which I hope you will seek out. I'm just saying that nothing your husband does can prevent God from intervening in answer to the fervent prayers of a godly wife & mom.

Also, kids aren't stupid, they just lack perspective. Even if they're not paying attention to you right now, things will look different to them in a few years. They'll understand who really had their best interests at heart all along.

*When I say, "If you are a believer," I'm not doubting your faith. I'm acknowledging the possibility that in any church, not every member actually knows the Lord. This is especially true in a church like GC that tends to confuse "fruit" with "frantic activity and mindless obedience."

[Janet Easson Martin]

Dear Superwoman,

I am praying for you.  I believe others on this site are praying for you because our hearts go out to you.  Even though it may seem so overwhelmingly difficult, God really does know exactly what is going on; and the moment it was lifted up in prayer by you or others he went to work for you though we cannot often see it.  Read Psalm 18 to see (by faith) how he dramatically responds to your great need.  Oh my gosh, he sweeps through the heavens to rescue us!  Ask Him to give you a very specific promise to stake all your hope on.  

God understands so tenderly that it is bewildering for you to put your trust in Him now because His name has been used in the context of hurting you and your family.  I know a very happy and godly woman today who for a season couldn't even read her bible because of her extremely hard circumstances.  I, myself, felt very condemned when I read the bible during a certain season of my life because I was reading it as if under the law ; and felt that I was supposed to be totally conformed on the outside to everything it called believers to do.  Whenever I read it, I always fell so short.  But I learned real Christianity is not about how perfect we perform all of God's commandments, it's about learning, crawling, and walking, and falling, and getting back up again with Jesus' outreached and pierced hand for us.  It's about going in the right direction.  Personally, I can't even conjure up my own passion for trusting or following Christ, I depend on God to give me that.

Tell God how much difficulty you are having trusting Him, and that you need his supernatural help to even have faith right now.  If you can't read anything else, read the Psalms.  They are so comforting.  And, if you are reading too much GCx into what you read in the bible (from repeated erroneous doctrine), try a different version you haven't read before.  Or read some good genuinely encouraging books like The Grace Awakening by Chuck Swindol, The Grace of God by Andy Stanley, Believing God by Beth Moore, the new cd or dvd series by James and Betty Robison and Beth Moore called "God's Kingdom in You", or any encouraging and scripturally accurate author.  These will inscribe true, comforting and encouraging thoughts about God where negative and false ones have been attached.

Testifying to the Hope He gave to one hopeless,

Janet