Seeing things differently

[delila]

Having escaped the box, the trap of the GG mind, I'm now re-examining what I took for truth, how I took what I took for truth.

Circulating in my blood stream this morning is this, a paraphrase of course b/c I still haven't cracked my bible open.  And I'm glad btw, that I haven't, yet. Incidently, I also get sick to my stomach when I get "Oh, you'll come around, and when you get to that place... " like when I'm healed, I'll look and talk like you guys.

Why don't I want to be like many of you imply I should?  It is still the box, full of GG's lingo and implications and views life through a straw.  There's a lot more to see.

the circulation:
We don't know what we shall be but we know that one day we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is.

Selah for a long time, please.  Think about it.

Delila

[editor]

Having escaped the box, the trap of the GG mind, I'm now re-examining what I took for truth, how I took what I took for truth.

Circulating in my blood stream this morning is this, a paraphrase of course b/c I still haven't cracked my bible open.  And I'm glad btw, that I haven't, yet. Incidently, I also get sick to my stomach when I get "Oh, you'll come around, and when you get to that place... " like when I'm healed, I'll look and talk like you guys.

Why don't I want to be like many of you imply I should?  It is still the box, full of GG's lingo and implications and views life through a straw.  There's a lot more to see.

the circulation:
We don't know what we shall be but we know that one day we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is.

Selah for a long time, please.  Think about it.

Delila

Delila,

If you tell me who it is that is telling you "you'll come around, etc."  I'll personally harrass and intimidate them.

How dare they!  What arrogance!

I think you're doing just fine, and God forbid you become like some of us.  If were all so great, we wouldn't be here, and we certainly wouldn't have been in the Assembly.  

Good for you!

Brent

[al Hartman]

    ...I also get sick to my stomach when I get "Oh, you'll come around, and when you get to that place... " like when I'm healed, I'll look and talk like you guys.

     When we come around, we'll be utterly humiliated that we ever suggested such a thing to someone...

 

 Why don't I want to be like many of you imply I should?  It is still the box, full of GG's lingo and implications and views life through a straw.  There's a lot more to see.

     ...reminds me of when Cathy & I were young parents:  I had been brought up in a "waste not, want not" atmosphere, so if anyone didn't finish off what they had been served at table, I usually took over for them.  It was apparent that our toddler daughter was done drinking her milk, so I chugged the remaining half-glassful.  In so doing, I treated myself to a mouthful of soggy bread that had been lurking beneath the surface of the milk.
     Lord deliver me from viewing life through a straw!!!

   

the circulation:
We don't know what we shall be but we know that one day we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is.

Selah for a long time, please.  Think about it.

Delila

     The Word of God had no chapter & verse references for millenia, and doesn't depend upon them any more today than then.  God writes His Word upon our hearts and convinces us of His intentions for us by His holy Spirit.  The Bible as we know it is a marvelous convenience, but should we be denied ever seeing it again (as many in other lands have been), what we already know of it and what faithful others speak to us of it will suffice.  Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God...

Blessings,
al

[Kimberley Tobin]

Delila:

I rarely "crack open" my bible these days.  I too, have had a hard time going back to reading the bible.  There are many good intentioned individuals (non-assembly folk) who have tried to encourage me to "crack it open", but I have sooooo much GG/assembly stuff running around in my brain, that I just can't.  

I don't have a "morning time", I don't have a daily "prayer time", but I am closer to God and my family than I ever was.  I know that at some point I will again "crack it open", but it will be in my time, not some person telling me that in order to be spiritual I must read the bible.

I hope you feel accepted here on the BB with wherever you are.  Noone here is going to tell you there is something you have to "do".  Everyone has a process they have to go through............but it is your process, noone else's.

[delila]

"The Lord Spoke to me in this chapter..." is utterly phoney, phoey to me right now.  I know that then, when I 'shared' all those chapter summaries, I was sharing what I though I should be getting out of the chapter, whatever was in line with what I was being taught, nothing that ever made me question assembly doctrine or practice.  Hence, I was a liar.

And now, I have these "Aha" moments, as Oprah puts it.  When my children are playing, or I wake up from a dream, or I realize that the sign above the largest concentration camp in the world was very much the slogan of the gg dynasty, paraphrased: the work makes us free, or the work is our salvation.

And when we said, "Walk in the light" we meant in every sense of the word, that we were looking to the light that we claimed shone out of G's backside, the light by which we climed the assembly ladder, on the heads and hearts of others, for a closer look, and to kiss up.  

Yes, thanks all.

Every once in a while I need to be reminded that no one's telling me to fit the mould or the mold or whatever - that I can be comfortable in my own skin, in my own mind, making the connections that I can honestly live by, without pretention.  That's what I appreciate about this website most.  We do have freedoms undreamed of in George's House.

Love You,

Delila

[al Hartman]

     I sometimes wonder, Delila, whether you realize what a breath of fresh air your posts bring to this BB?

     BTW, folks, I have a fairly recent photo of Delila, and she is really much more feminine than the photo that accompanies her posts!

 ;)al

[delila]

Dad!

Quit it.

[Mark C.]

Good Sunday Morning to All   !

  In reading what Delila and Kimberley have written here we can see exactly the kind of evil that the Assembly worked in the lives of innocent believers in Christ.
   When we follow a pseudo Christian message and discover that it is false we lose the child like quality of simple trust and can become cynics.
   Oh, we may still deep down believe the Gospel, but all we hear when we read the Bible, or attend church, is the GG/Assembly spin.  Actually, we feel great anxiety and pain before we even hear a word!
   What God intended for our blessing, to tell us how much He loves us and to build us up, has been stolen from us!
This should make us as angry as Jesus was when He cleansed the Temple with whips!!  The Jewish leaders took God's House and turned it into something it was not supposed to be, and thus turned it into a means of self enrichment (Delila's point that the Assembly was a place to climb the social ladder on the backs of God's people).
   I have mentioned some things that I have found helpful to me in facing these kinds of emotional barriers and most assuredly the application of religious disciplines in one's life is not the answer ( AM times, regular devotional reading,etc.).  Trying ways to think about God, and one's life in Christ, that are different from the ways we did things in the Assembly might provide a way around what always triggers painful memories.
  Delila mentioned her children and thinking about how much she loves them.  She also mentioned that God must look at us with at least as much love.  Kimberley mentioned learning to connect with her family again in graceful ways and this is a lesson to us also of how God wants to relate to us.
   We are told by Paul that peace with God comes from placing all of our soul's baggage in His care, for He cares for us.  We are also told that we can think on "whatever is good, lovely, etc." and that is how we need to view God now--- a good friend who is the opposite of the Assembly twisted image.  None of these things are about "spiritual disciplines" but still form in our souls new ways of thinking that replace the old view of God and His Temple.  More than anything else I think this will enable us to take back what was twisted and stolen and make it ours again.
   Anger had it's place in Jesus' life and with us it can stir us to spit in GG's eye, so to speak, and take back God's Temple in our life as a house of prayer and of peace!  When we see that God truly does care, and is a wonderful person and friend, a real healing work of grace fills our souls'.
                           God Bless,  Mark C.

[Kimberley Tobin]

Mark's post today re: how we were affected by what we were taught in the assembly (and particularly by the leadership) is why I believe our anger is completely justified with these men and women who so greatly influenced (for the bad) our lives.

I have heard the leadership in the locale I came from are "hurt" and that my "anger" is what prevents them from contacting and "making right" their involvement in my life and my family's life.

Poppycock!  I am righteously angry (as Christ was at those who defiled his father's temple.)  My anger is not sin and my calling these ones publicly to account is not sin.  My families humiliation and abuse was done publicly and I am calling out for a public apology.  I don't buy off on the excuse that they are "hurt" and need to heal before they come forth and apologize and make things right.  It is just that......an excuse.  I have waited for over a year to hear from these people...............and yet nothing!

I am dealing with my family's fragile psyches (each child is suffering in numerous ways) and the road to recovery will be a long one.  These children need to be apologized to (particularly my oldest daughter who suffered the most abuse).  I lay squarely at the leadership's (and particularly one LB's wife) the state of my children's spiritual lives.  These people represented Christ to my children.  Their heavy handed, guilt ridden, controlling, manipulative tactics have tainted my children's view of Christ and Christianity.  My oldest daughter has nightmares nightly which makes it difficult to sleep (she is soooooo aftraid to go to sleep) and she is needing counseling to reprogram her thinking (from having been brainwashed her whole life).  

Where are you leadership in making things right with those whom you have so greatly affected by your teaching and leading?

[Mark Kisla]

...
I have heard the leadership in the locale I came from are "hurt" and that my "anger" is what prevents them from contacting and "making right" their involvement in my life and my family's life.
...

But Kimberley, you have hurt them to the core.  I hope you did not go so far as to call their "precious" a cult!  Now that would merit excommunication Eh??

Think about it! those poor leaders have been sooo mistreated by the others.  Their heart is right, but the rest well...  Don't you feel sorry for them??

Marcia
(sarcasm intended)

Sure it will be tough for them, they have been groomed to be Junior Georges and Mini Bettys

[al Hartman]

Mark's post today re: how we were affected by what we were taught in the assembly (and particularly by the leadership) is why I believe our anger is completely justified with these men and women who so greatly influenced (for the bad) our lives.

     When I came to this board just over a year ago, I was outspoken against the anger I witnessed here.  I am posting this to apologize for my early opinion.
     What I failed to recognize then was that
[1] my departure from assembly life was very different from those of most posters here;
[2] I had had over twenty years to adjust to non-assembly living;
[3] the assembly system had grown incredibly more oppressive than when I was a part of it;
[4] I had done precious little adjusting since leaving and my spiritual life was a shambles.
     My year here has meant a lot of enlightening and changes for me, for the better.  I don't have anger issues today, but I certainly respect the anger of others.  My family and I still suffer because of the trauma of our assembly years, and I fault no one whose ire is raised because of such treatment.  Please forgive me that I ever did.
     I have mended fences with those who I am aware of having offended, but if anyone is still offended by my former (or present) expressions, I would be grateful for the opportunity to apologize personally...

In Christ's love,
al Hartman

[vernecarty]

Mark's post today re: how we were affected by what we were taught in the assembly (and particularly by the leadership) is why I believe our anger is completely justified with these men and women who so greatly influenced (for the bad) our lives.

     When I came to this board just over a year ago, I was outspoken against the anger I witnessed here.  I am posting this to apologize for my early opinion.
     What I failed to recognize then was that
[1] my departure from assembly life was very different from those of most posters here;
[2] I had had over twenty years to adjust to non-assembly living;
[3] the assembly system had grown incredibly more oppressive than when I was a part of it;
[4] I had done precious little adjusting since leaving and my spiritual life was a shambles.
     My year here has meant a lot of enlightening and changes for me, for the better.  I don't have anger issues today, but I certainly respect the anger of others.  My family and I still suffer because of the trauma of our assembly years, and I fault no one whose ire is raised because of such treatment.  Please forgive me that I ever did.
     I have mended fences with those who I am aware of having offended, but if anyone is still offended by my former (or present) expressions, I would be grateful for the opportunity to apologize personally...

In Christ's love,
al Hartman

Hey Al!
See you in the kingdom buddy!  
Verne

[jackhutchinson]

I rarely "crack open" my bible these days.  I too, have had a hard time going back to reading the bible.  There are many good intentioned individuals (non-assembly folk) who have tried to encourage me to "crack it open", but I have sooooo much GG/assembly stuff running around in my brain, that I just can't.  

I don't have a "morning time", I don't have a daily "prayer time", but I am closer to God and my family than I ever was.  I know that at some point I will again "crack it open", but it will be in my time, not some person telling me that in order to be spiritual I must read the bible.

Kimberly,

You took the words right out of my mouth.  I keep thinking that I should be past the "I can't read the Bible" stage by now, so I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one that hasn't gotten back into a rigorous spiritual discipline.  I have, however, just started to watch the preaching from a local Calvary Chapel on the local public access channel.  The preacher's mannerisms are so different from George's that it doesn't trigger disgust.  In fact, this preacher doesn't have any mannerisms to speak of.  He's so plain that he doesn't come across as pretentious.  Also, he only preaches for about 40 minutes or so.  I can't stand watching preachers that seem polished, etc.

Lately I've been speaking with my mom often, and we've both been enriched by our conversations.  My visits with the rest of my family are much more enjoyable as well.

Recovering at my own (and God's) pace,
Jack

[d3z]

You took the words right out of my mouth.  I keep thinking that I should be past the "I can't read the Bible" stage by now, so I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one that hasn't gotten back into a rigorous spiritual discipline.

I recently started attending a new small-group at my church.  We are going through a study of Christian essentials.  I'm really looking forward to this.  It isn't extremely intense, and is only every-other-week.

Dave

[Kimberley Tobin]

Jack:

When we were still in LA, we had found a church right away that was great.  Great preaching (actually they were preaching out of Acts at the time and really hit on some cult stuff that revealed what we had just come out of - refreshing stuff.)  We also were in a bible study there, that was basically fundamentals of the faith and grounded us in what our faith is (far from the assembly dogma).  The bible study was alot of questions and answers (rather than preaching) which enabled us to resolve many questions that were stirring due to our leaving.

All of that being said........I see how lucky we were for God to have led us to this church.  I didn't mind the preaching, opening my bible to study during bible study.........but now we've moved.  Haven't found a church like that yet......I'm praying we will find one soon.  Without that kind of vehicle to help me, I can't go there myself.  There are different seasons in life.......I happen to be in Winter.  But I am eagerly awaiting Spring!  I am sure it will come, it always does.