Brace For Impact

(This blog was inspired by my dear brothers and sisters in Christ who, like myself, have experienced trauma at the hands of a man of the cloth in the form of spiritual abuse. I write this blog in an attempt to bring hope to the next chapters of our stories; I truly believe that the best is yet to come.)

I was faced with a situation this week that caused loss of sleep and trepidation of heart.  

My husband and I were invited to meet with our new pastor and his wife over dinner to discuss a ministry opportunity at the church.

Such a scenario should sound non-threatening and should be seen as an evening to look forward to—unless your experience with pastors and churches in the past has been painful.

I prayed throughout the week each time the feeling of dread and fear attempted to override my thoughts.

After many years of not being able to articulate my thoughts on spiritual abuse in a way that another could understand, I was finally given a picture in my mind of what I am calling my airplane analogy:

Imagine that you are a passenger on an airplane. You’ve flown many times and are confident that nothing could possibly happen to the plane because, well, you’re on it! 

Suddenly the voice of the pilot interrupts your thoughts as you hear these words come over the intercom: “Brace For Impact!”

The plane begins to plummet. You’re no longer able to think about anything except how helpless you feel. Your world spins out of control. Your stomach rises to your chest; you fear you will surely die. You have never felt as alone as you do in this moment.

By the grace of God, the plane stabilizes and is able to make an emergency landing, you do not receive so much as a scratch to mark the traumatic experience.

Life goes on, and you remain thankful each day that you are a survivor. Though you appear unscathed to those who know you; the trusting childlike heart within you has been raped.

In the still of night you awaken with a gasp to the moment that emerges unwittingly in your dreams—the plane is crashing— the pit in your stomach once again churns with fear.

Eventually the day arrives when you must face your fear—you must board another plane. You don’t want to, but you know you must. Who do you talk to whom might understand your trepidation? Who but God can be trusted with the true state of your heart?

The four walls of the church is the airplane we tiptoe around hoping to avoid for a very long time, if not forever, once we have been spiritually abused.  If we have been hurt once, twice or three times how can we trust that the next plane won’t crash too? We feel foolish to think we can trust those who have already failed us, hurt us, and left us fighting for our lives without so much as a backward glance. The question which hovers tauntingly just beyond the reach of an answer remains: "Can I trust another pastor?"

We readily admit our inability to endure another near-fatal crash and begin to doubt the earnestness of our long-professed faith.

It feels safe to stay home, lock the door and drop the shades to self-protect. The father of lies whispers defeat, despair and destruction meant to sideline us, render us useless, and destroy the very core of who we are as believers. 

For myself, I have had days where I have self-protected. God has not left me alone on the days when I believe the lie that I will never again be able to fly.  Though I finally understand that I will never be the person that I was prior to the moment that I braced for impact; there is a steeliness that continues to fill me; a determination not to allow fear and lies to rob the beauty nor the strength of God’s Spirit within me. 

The same Spirit resides in each one of us believer-survivors. After all, we survived for a reason. Our lives are not our own; we have been bought at a great price. This is a truth worth remembering.

I know from my own story that I cannot ask anyone to give church another chance, nor would I attempt to do so. But I do know that the desire to be a part of both the local and the universal church will never go away; that’s part of the gift of the Spirit of Truth. We are God’s children—imperfect, limping, broken and hurting—His beloved sons and daughters. We are His church.

Many years later, I am learning that the gift we have been given from an experience that was meant to destroy us, is the ability to look in the mirror and see the truth of our own humanity, not in spite of our stories but because of our stories.  We must dig deep into the grit of our souls and walk through those church doors trusting Abba, our Faithful Pilot, that the plane will not go down.

As we drove away from our meeting with our pastor and pastor’s wife, my husband stated with relief in his voice, “That was the best meeting we have ever had with a pastor.” I agreed and reached out to hold his hand as we drove quietly toward the future with a third companion--our long lost friend, Hope.

Stay the Course…

Sheila