| Author | Message | ||
| Colleentinker |
Madelle, I also understand your anger and confusion and somewhat agnostic position. One thing I've come to believe is that the burden of proof is on God. If you really, honestly want to know if he's real, if he loves you, if he will pay attention to you, ask him to reveal himself. Be willing to suspend your disbelief. Be willing to receive whatever he brings to you. But tell him your confusion, and ask him to reveal truth to you. I have no idea how he will interact with you. God tailor-makes his communications with us. None of us relates to God the same way. But I do know he loves us, and he reveals himself in whatever way we can perceive him. We only must be willing to accept him. I just read this amazing sentence about Moses in Hebrews 11:27: "By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king's anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible." Wow, he saw him who is invisible! How does one do that? By faith. God's love is eternal and overarching and, above all, REAL. It's not possible to describe it, but it is real. God wants us to love and trust him IN SPITE of our limitations and doubts. He wants us to know him, not just know the things he does. He wants to be real to us in a way that transcends the merely physical. Madelle, I can't tell you what to do. But I do pray for you! I do praise God for his love which never leaves us. Colleen | ||
| Madelle |
Thanks guys! Maybe I'll survive this massive crisis of faith. | ||
| Trippllb |
Madelle, In part, I can understand a bit of what you are feeling. It's only been a few months that God chose to take the blinders off of my eyes and show me the folly of EGW. It's easy to feel bitter that you 'wasted' all those years trapped in legalism. And it's easy to get mad at God for not helping you avoid those blinders and live by his grace. It's easy not to feel special anymore. But you are special. You are one of the few SDAs that he has chosen and removed the veil from your eyes and make the truth abundantly clear. (I'm not talking about the point-by-point truth of the SDA church where everything is just handed to you, but the truth that there is a greater truth out there that is based on his saving grace that you need to start looking for.) What happens next is between the two of you. I have had an ongoing argument with God for the last 12 years. In my late teens, something happened to me, the details of which I'll hold close to myself for now, which completely changed me. I was so angry with God that he didn't keep me from having to experience the pain I had to experience. When someone would ask why I wouldn't go to church with them, I'd simply tell them that God and I weren't getting along right now and that I didn't feel like going to be with him right now. After 12 years, I'm done arguing, have realized that he was right and that he loved me through my rebellion, and that he never wanted to do anything other than save me the whole time I was away. Well, as the years have passed, I have been able to heal, and pass the story along to those who were feeling the same pain and I could work with them to help them heal. I didn't realize it at the time, but God was working through my horrible experience to help others work through theirs. At the time, it didn't make any sense to me, but now it does. That's not to say that if I had MY choice, that I would have things happen the same way, but God has proven to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that he can bring good out of EVERY bad situation. And based on my experience, he does it even when we don't have faith in him. He does it when we're mad at him, and he does it when we don't even want to hear his name. The one thing that I thank him for is his persistence in persuing me. There are a million different pieces of theology and probably as many different interpretations of what the various nuances in the bible may mean. Just look at the state of the dead...I can prove it to you very convincingly either way you want to spin it, and I can do it from scripture. I won't tell you I know what everything means (so far from it!), and I won't tell you anybody else does either. The only way to find the truth in the Bible, is to ask the holy spirit to give you the wisdom you need to discern truth from lies. Read the bible and get a good knowledge of what is there. The holy spirit will help you sharpen the finer points as your ready for them. Just start by building a personal relationship with him and the rest will come. It doesn't matter what you believe about the (insert any theology point here) if you don't have the personal relationship behind it. I think that the Bible makes clear the points in the bible that are truly important right up front. If you spend time reading the bible for yourself and not letting someone else interpret the bible for you, you will not be able to miss the concept of grace spelled out in the bible. You will not be able to miss the fact that Jesus loves us and came to earth and died on the cross to remove our sins. I think that the Bible was written with some 'reach' built in. Jesus wants nothing more than to have a close personal relationship with his children and to save his children and bring them home. If we are always searching for the truth and looking to him, we build that relationship. If the Bible was clear cut, easy to understand, and everything was spelled out for you, you wouldn't spend as much time communing with the holy spirit searching the scriptures for truth. By searching and praying, you build that personal relationship. Even if your not ready for a relationship with him right now, if your ticked off and want nothing else to do with him, I think I can promise from my own experience that he will continue to persue you as his child until the final moment. As I look back on my life, I realize that I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. That my rebellious spirit would be punished in some way. But when I think about it, he has never done anything that wasn't necessary to bring me back to the fold and save me. All he wants to do is save you and he will go to the ends of eternity to do it. I am so sorry that you are going through the questioning and doubt you are feeling, and having to go through the things in your personal life you are dealing with right now. No matter how hard it is to stand and hold yourself up, know that he is standing beside you just waiting for you to ask him to help you get through this. We got through trials in our life to strengthen us. Steel can never be as strong as it is capable of being without first being tempered by fire. Good luck and I'll keep you in my prayers. | ||
| Madelle |
Trippllb You really do know what I'm talking about, don't you. Thanks. I talk regularly with a friend in MI who sees very clearly the EGW issues, but she's still attending church. She wasn't raised in the church so she's better than I am at taking what she needs from it and leaving the rest. When we talk, I know her experience has been different from mine. Her father raised her to be a Christian, not an Adventist. She's supportive, but she just hasn't waded through this in quite the same way I have. Sometimes I feel like I'm feeling sorry for myself or just whining, but I'm having a hard time getting past some of this stuff. Dale was right when he suggested this forum. It's like AA. It helps if you've been there. Thanks again. I know you won't let me whine for too long. | ||
| Trippllb |
Madelle, Unless you were born and raised SDA, people can not understand the feeling deep in the pit of your stomach when you realized that everything you knew to be true may be a lie. Not only that, but the anger you feel for being betrayed all your life, the years lost, the wasted time, etc. Boy do I understand that! I don't know if this will help, and I feel like I'm so early on in my walk that it's almost too early for me to give advise on this stuff, but here goes anyway. I was worried that everything I knew was a lie. What I did was started with the very basic truths and made sure those were right. Once I realized that the foundation was pretty solid, I felt better. It was kind of like the wind had been knocked out of my sails and I could breath again. I was still apprehensive, but didn't have that urgent feeling of searching for something and running around in circles getting no where. Believe it or not, barring EGW and the Investigative Judgement, the basic foundation is actually pretty solid. As long as you have a foundation to build on and a master carpenter at your side to hold you hand and teach you, you can rebuild the rest of your beliefs piece by piece on HIS schedule. The thing that I've found on this search so far is that the beliefs that I have now are stronger because I found them with HIS help and they weren't just given to me. What I know, I know with all my heart and I'm just trusting my best friend to give me the next piece when he thinks I'm ready. Maybe it's like giving a kid an allowance for work they do around the house. They appreciate it more becasue they worked for it. It's OK to be angry, frustrated, and just plain pissed off (can I say that in a religious forum?) at God. You can be that way for the next 20 years and He'll still be there waiting for you when your ready. And if your not ready then, he knows you, and he loves you, and he wants to be your friend. And believe me, his patience is greater than anyone elses, so whenever your ready, he'll still be there, ready to amaze you at what he's capable of. But you can trust me on this one point (another one of those things I know with all my heart because I learned it for myself.) You can NOT put God in a box! Just when you think you have him figured out, nice and predictable, and up in that box neatly on the shelf, he goes around a corner, pulls something out of his sleeve you never would have considered in a million years and amazes the heck out of me. It's those times when I'm just in awe at his power and sometimes at his sense of humor. No matter how hard life gets, try to have a sense of humor and give yourself a break. We are much harder on ourselves than he is. His burden is easy, we're the ones that make it so hard. If you want to email privately, feel free to email me at lisa_bailey@hurricanepctech.com. As you can tell from my posts, brevity is not my strong point and I like to talk. Either way, I'll keep you in my prayers. | ||
| Lori |
I agree with the previous post--someone that didn't grow up an Adventist doesn't have the same shock experience that those that grew up Adventist do. At first, I felt like my entire world had fallen apart--I didn't know how to be anything but an Adventist. Everything that I had believed all my life appeared to be a lie. When you grow up an Adventist and after you become an adult you discover that you were forced to miss out on most of the normal activities of life because of your religion which you now find out was based upon lies. You get angry, I think that's a normal reaction. I'm well past the anger now. But growing up the way we did gives us a better insight into how very difficult it must have been for the Jews to abandon their ritual/legalism and accept Grace as salvation. It's hard! There are alot of things that you can't/won't/are afraid to let go of. Hang in there Madelle, there are a lot of people on this website that care and understand. | ||
| Allenette |
There are people on here who care to different degrees. SDA PK's who have/had traditional upbringings...no swaying from the party line, have much different experiences than their peer-age members, Trust me. I dont see very many former SDA PK's on here AT ALL, or on any other SDA websites. GO figure. We were held to a MUCH HIGHER standard than the average member. AND>...we were indoctrinated in a much more severe (exclusive???) mode. We were expected to live up to a MUCH HIGHER STANDARD than our peers (as little as they were, age-wise, for example). If that changed after I got away, I wouldnt know, but, whatever Madelle says, if she chooses to, I can probably corroberate. What's that worth? (not much) but I would guess that we wont probably cotton onto a lot of platitudes so dont bother. :-) Enough of the negative stuff. (I gotta quit watching the Sopranos and comparing it to organized religion) ta ta for now Madelle give me an email shout if you want to :-) | ||
| Richardtinker |
Hi Allenette, I had friends at boarding academy who were PK's. My upbringing was way more conservative and had many more demands than theirs had. But then I'm sure that there are always exceptions. Richard the WK (worker's kid) | ||
| Chuckiej |
Madelle, I am very sorry for your situation and I am praying for you. And for once, I agree with Allenette: stuff does happen. Jesus said as much in Matt. 5:45 about the sun shining and the rain falling on the just and the unjust. Then there's the thing about the servant not being above his Lord. If He could be persecuted, we can't expect to waltz through. I am definitely not trying to minimize your pain, but the fact is that struggles are a part of a wholistic Christian worldview. God hasn't really explained in detail why he allows us to suffer, but with our limited perception, it seems premature to me to say it's inconsistent with His existence. A kid might not understand why he needs a shot, but you and I both know it's better than getting Rubella. Even if they were told the consequences, they might impulsively say they'd rather get the disease than have the shot, but we know better. I think it's entirely possible that God has good reasons that just haven't been shared with us yet. It hurts and it's difficult, but it doesn't make me doubt His existence. On the subject of not protecting folks from false doctrine, there isn't enough evidence to convince people who are stubborn, obsessed with novelty, arrogant, what have you. The Israelites saw the Red Sea parted and dozens of other miracles and still wouldn't do right. Jesus said folks who didn't wanna believe wouldn't even if somebody came back from the dead. Sure enough, He raised Lazarus from the dead and they still plotted to kill Him. There's enough evidence for those who want to believe, and there can never be enough for those who don't. On the subject of the existence of God, I would recommend the works of Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga. He's considered the most eminent Christian philosopher around. I'm currently reading his book "Warranted Christian Belief" which explains how Christian belief can be shown be completely rational. In the last section he refutes several "defeaters" (things that are apparently logically inconsistent with the existence of a loving God) including the existence of suffering and Evil. It's a little hard to wade through because I don't have a philosophy background, but the really technical stuff is set off in different type if you just want to get to the meat. I highly recommend it. Finally, here's a link to a traditional Christian response to Spong: http://www.tektonics.org/BH_LNS.htm | ||
| Maryann |
HI! Allenette, I only knew one PK when I was a kid in Collegedale TN. The only thing I remember about him is that he had a German Shepard that growled at my German Shepard. With that challenge to my dog, Captain Caesar Agustus, I said, "sssssssic" and the PD (preacher's dog) was dead in short order! :-(((( I never did that before or since and if you are out there, PK Wentland, I'm VERY, VERY sorry! (33 yrs. late!) I remember after getting involved with an SDA offshoot when I was 10, I was always held up to this "extra high" standard. I was older, had more knowledge etc and so on making it a given to be the "example" to the younger kids. Granted, there were not many kids in my life, but the few were supposed to look "up" to me and see someone doing what Jesus would do. The mainstream PK's, I'm sure, had a lot of pressure. I am here to tell Y'all that us offshoot kids has some serious pressure too. With PK's, it was a given that they were supposed to be "GOOD" and everyone knew it. With us offshoot kids, ALL of us were told by our parents that we were to be examples to the rest. I as an older one, a younger one to shame the older one and so on. Each parent had a corner in the "holy market" and felt the need to display it through their kids!!! Maryann.....OK=Offshoot Kid;-)) PS....Allenette, when I get some time, I'll get with you and be an "example" of some kind;-)) He he he he....Hmmmmmmph! Good to see ya, girl! | ||
| Madelle |
No matter what I did it would get back to my father. He would say, "A little bird told me that you did . . . . " Girl came up to me at church one week and told me it wasn't right to wear a red dress to church. I stayed a little long at the drinking fountain during church one week and sure enough the little bird talked with my father. And here's the rub, I was a fairly good kid. Never got into trouble at school. Made good grades, never disciplined. Can't you just see the legalistic system starting. No matter what you do you're not good enough. And Richard, yes I count "worker's kids" in a category real close to most PKs. They had most of the same pressures. Allennette, my home e-mail is mrbecker@staff.uiuc.edu. | ||
| Madelle |
Chuckiej Good point about what it takes to convince some people. | ||
| Madelle |
Trippllb I sent you an e-mail at lisa_bailey@hurricanepctech.com and it came back as undeliverable. Madelle | ||
| Trippllb |
I'm sorry. Change the '_' to a '.' . I hardly ever send myself an email so bear with me. Try to send it again. lisa.bailey@hurricanepctech.com | ||
| Sherry2 |
Yes I agree that worker's kids have almost as much pressure. I was an LE's kid (Literature Evangelist), and me and the PK's always hung out together because we related so well to the pressures. The expectations are outrageous! But I had a father who always rocked the boat. He worked the LISTEN program and took a survey at Cedar Lake Academy about the amount of drug use on campus, etc., etc. The faculty were so pissed off at the results they forbid my dad from ever speaking on campus again. They didn't have a problem they reasoned. The survey to them was just hog-wash. And "social"...did anyone else get put on "social"? Good golly, miss molly...seems I was always on "social"....I cannot even tell you the things I was accused of doing on campus that were just plain aweful. Boarding academy was one of the most painful events in my life. Despite the fact that by the kids I was labeled "Goody Two Shoes", the adults thought of me as a ...well...slut...How on earth those two worlds came together, I don't know. Maybe it was because, althought I hung with PK's, I also hung with the underdogs who came from horrible homes. I didn't have any safe place with peers or adults. It was just pure hell period. And from my experience, they never addressed painful situations that got kids in trouble..they just kicked them off campus...No support...no help...just you blew it and we don't want anything to do with you. I ODed on pills once, and though I didn't get kicked off, I got community service hours of cleaning toilets, and told I would go through counseling, but they never sent me anywhere. You know I think I have totally forgotten this stuff, but I start writing it, and I just come to tears. It was aweful!! But all I know is that Jesus perserved my life from suicide more times then I can count. I am telling you He knew my heart and how badly I wanted to know I was loved by Him, how much I wanted to do what was right, but didn't know how to please Him. The verses of His grace never matched my life experience, and didn't know what was truth. I am so thankful to be loved by Him, and know I'm secure in Him. I am thankful that His hand was over me the whole time. I run into many people today who are struggling with His love, suicidalness, and I know that I am given an opportunity to share the comfort that I was given by the Holy Spirit to these people and help them. | ||
| Madelle |
Sherry2 There truly is an emotional/psychological component to recovery. It's not all doctrinal points. Some of us have suffered stuff that is real close to abuse from our "church family." Not only do you have to recover from that, you have to deal with the fact that this is the ONLY form of religion you have ever known. (Read the book Nina and the Panther sometime. She had a very unpleasant experience in Adventism.) When I was younger I used to think that time healed wounds. I now know it doesn't. It just puts a scab over them. Pick at that scab and the pain comes back. Thank God we're not still in that situation! We're not helpless little kids anymore. We're adults with the power to object or to leave. Madelle | ||
| Trippllb |
Sherry, Either all SDA boarding schools are the same, or you went to the same one I did. Man, I haven't thought about being 'SPed' (Social Probation for those who missed the experience). How absurd. I'm sitting here with tears rolling down my eyes from laughing. But I agree that workers kids have it harder. My dad was the Bible teacher at the boarding school I attended years before I went there. He had moved to teach at a different school by the time I went there but many of the same teachers were the same as I remembered when I was a kid. Well, wouldn't you know it, the FIRST day I was on campus, I was walking from the girls dorm (opposite end of the campus from the boys dorm) toward the caffeteria (dead center of the 2 dorms). In the middle, there is a long sidewalk with columns on either side so it's often used to obscure the stolen moments of students from view of the faculty. Well, I was walking from one end and a guy that I had not even met was walking from the other end. We met right around the turn to go toward the door of the cafeteria. Just then one of the teachers that 'knew' me from before stepped out from behind one of the columns, told me that I knew the rules and would be SPed for a week from the guy. I laughed thinking he HAD to be kidding. Well, my reaction added an extra 3 days to the sentence. Myself and the guy that I was now SPed from introduced ourselves and said we'd see each other in 2 weeks. :-) But I firmly believe that if I had been any other student, the teacher would have cut me slack and realized how absurd his observation was, but because I 'knew' better, I got it. Did your room get 'flipped' regularly by the deans in search of 'contraband'? They'd do regular inspections of the rooms to make sure you didn't have a radio (whoooooo) or a deck of cards (WHOOOOOOOO). I had 2 deans while I was there and one of them was a raving lunatic. Her 'room inspections' were more like a lock down prison cell search. When they were done, they'd leave your mattress laying off of the bunks and stuff pulled out of the drawers. I'm so glad that she hadn't heard about full body cavity searches or we would have been in trouble then! :-) Myself and my roommate both worked off campus at the local nursing home. Well, we both picked up a wicked case of the stomach flu. I have not been as sick since then as I was with this bout of the flu. I don't recommend the experience. Well, it got so bad on Friday afternoon that both my roommate and I were laying on the floor in the bathroom near the toilet with our faces on the cold tile floor because it felt sooooo good against our faces. (I realize how disgusting this sounds now, but at the time, it was bliss!) The school nurse left at 3:00 and we both slept through Vespers. Then Saturday morning we both skipped Sabbath School. Psycho Dean was in our rooms about 45 minutes after the start of Sabbath school interrogating us. She said that our RA had just informed her that we skipped Vespers last night and that we weren't in church today. Anybody with a pair of eyes and a nose could have immediately known that we were sick. When we told her we got the stomach flu from the nursing home, she insisted that unless we had a note from the school nurse, we were to be in church before the main service started. I can be a real smart alec, so I told her since the nurse wasn't available, that next time we felt the urge to puke, we would be sure to do it in a bucket and leave it by her door for the nurse to examine on Monday morning but that she had better hope the dorm didn't get too warm before the nurse got back. I told her that I would not be in church that morning and she'd have to drag me to get me there in that condition. (D'oh, smart mouth gets me in trouble every time. I lost 'Rec' priviledges for a week on that one.) No, I'm not bitter about this treatment or anything. (Said dripping with sarcasm.) All I know is that my child will NEVER be subjected to the hell that is SDA boarding academy. | ||
| Madelle |
And that type of treatment really made you feel loved and made you want to grow up to be just like "them" didn't it? Yeah, right! I went to a year of boarding academy on the west coast. It was fairly enlightened and we had a wonderful dean the year I was there. She was very good to me. But yes, we had social probation. We would play Rook while sitting on the floor and then hide the cards under our skirts when anyone with authority came in the room. Actually we worked so hard paying for our tuition that we didn't have much energy for anything. After my year there the doctor recommended to my mother that I not go back--too hard on the health of a growing girl. I was glad to hear it. There was a certain amount of "hazing" activities. I felt a lot more comfortable at the day academy where I finished my last two years. | ||
| Madelle |
Course I forgot to mention that the chemistry teacher at the day academy made a pass at me! My mother had to go "have a little talk with him." | ||
| Therese |
Your stories are so sad. I am so glad I took my son out of SDA church after 5th grade. I took him to the local public school with my knees knocking because EGW said "The worst SDA school is better than the best public school." (Does any know if this is really an EGW quote. I've heard several people say it to chastise those of us who have our kids in public school.) There were problems in the local church school and I didn't think my son would learn very much. Also, the teacher he would have had for 6th grade was having a nervous breakdown or something and had roughed up some kids. Such terrible stories of abuse come out of the local SDA academy, I don't see how a concerned parent can put their child there. Public school is not perfect, but it has been a much more positive experience than what you all have experienced and what I have heard about the local academy. God bless all of you. Therese |
