Healing from Spiritual Abuse

Spiritual abuse can be a difficult thing to define because, in a sense, all abuse has a spiritual aspect to it. For the purposes of this post, however, I am going to use this definition—when someone in authority in the church uses their position to manipulate, control, undermine, and abuse someone that they have authority over. Abuse is a situation that people always believe that they will see coming and something they will never find themselves in. I was one of those people. In fact, I have been trained in my Master’s work to recognize the signs of abuse as I spent 3 weeks working in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, ministering those affected by the Rwandan genocide and continued violence in the region.

I never ever considered that I would find myself the victim of abuse and definitely not spiritual abuse but here I am, three years later, ready to tell my story. I have shared it with some smaller groups but I shared it publicly today for the 1st time and called it for what it was. Below is the transcript of my testimony. I pray that it would bless those who might be in the same boat. There is healing after abuse.

---

In May 2014 I graduated from Seminary with my Master’s of Divinity. After taking the rest of the year off, I was planning on heading to Canada to get my PhD in Septuagint Studies in Spring 2015. At this point, I was exhausted, stressed, and sick because I had been determined to graduate with honors. I hadn’t eaten or slept properly in months and I had a permanent eye twitch. Because I was so busy with school, I didn’t have community, barely saw my friends and family, and I only went to church because I worked at one part-time. So when that church offered me a full time pastoral staff position that summer that would be a combination of the administration work I was already doing but giving me pastoral experience, I put my doctorate on hold and said yes. I thought, at the time, that perhaps God was opening a door in the local church that I had not previously considered. I was excited for rest and community. However, the next year would be not be what I expected and hoped for.

As I stepped into my new full time role on pastoral staff, I was given little guidance but was always held to unexplained expectations. The lead pastor would frequently call my work tacky, would question my heart to serve, my dedication and loyalty, and even question my salvation. After some time it became clear that I was not going to have the aforementioned pastoral opportunities even after I was credentialed as a minister in that denomination. When I asked for more opportunities to serve in this capacity, I was told that I needed to earn them and prove myself to the pastor based on some unexplained metrics in his mind that he wouldn’t share with me. I was routinely demeaned and put down. I was told that nobody cared about my gifts and talents. I began dreading going into work and looked forward to the days when I knew the lead pastor wouldn’t be in the office. And the eye twitch came back. But the worst part was that I didn’t recognize for what it was—spiritual abuse—until it all fell apart.

In May 2015, I laid it out on the table. In what I thought was a healthy communication, using all the skills I learned in Seminary, I asked for the opportunity to prove that I was “pastoral” enough with three specific things I wanted to be in charge of. The next day, I came in and I was fired. I was shocked and hurt. The pastor told me that I was just someone good at getting stuff done. I was cold and nobody liked me. I was not pastoral. Nobody cared that I could read Greek or has a passion for theology. I didn’t belong there. Basically, I was not good enough. I would have 2 days to teach his wife my job and then I was done. If I wanted my severance, I had to come in and not say anything to anyone about why I was leaving. As he took my church credit card away from me and took my keys, he also told me that I was no longer welcome to attend church there. In one sweep, it was all gone. He later told me that “I don’t have to explain myself to you, I am the pastor.”

The next month is honestly still a blur. I was absolutely devastated. I didn’t sleep for weeks. I cried harder than I ever have, wondering why it was all going wrong. I knew my identity in Christ and I know the calling he has on my life but that pastor’s words continued to echo in my ears. You’re not welcome here, you’re not good enough, we don’t like you repeated themselves over and over. It was the hardest time of my life, but I knew I had a choice to make. Would I turn into God in the pain or would I turn away? Would I turn to the world to provide the temporary balm to my heart or would I turn to God and give him the tattered remains to do with as He pleased?

The thing about this choice is that turning to God in these situations is almost always more painful initially. You can’t hide… it’s all there. I had to invite Jesus into my pain and let him transform me there. But that would hurt. A lot. He would leave no stone unturned in the process. But I knew any temporary relief from the world would lead to far greater pain down the road. So I took a deep breath and turned in.

And as expected, it hurt. I struggled with understanding why God would say something over my life that would then fall apart? I struggled with feeling betrayed and confused and out of control. But that time also transformed. I countered Satan’s lies with the truth of the Gospel, I learned to find my worth in Christ in ways I never had before, and I learned a dependence on Jesus’ strength when I had none. That year I had chosen to word “blaze” to be my word of the year and that’s exactly what the Lord did. He blazed out parts of myself He wanted gone and blazed new truths into my heart. I know without a shadow of a doubt that I am worthy, I am valuable, and God is always in control. I didn’t ask him to take the pain away, I asked him to use it. I continually kept turning in, calling out, and laying my life down. I let him use this experience, and me, for his glory and for that I am changed. I look more like Jesus today then I did then because of that experience.

In this life, there will be people hurt you and those people are often the ones that are closest to you or the ones you had trusted the most. They may even be pastors that hurt you. But Jesus is the perfect Shepherd and he’s so much bigger than harshly spoken words. We don’t often get to choose what happens to us, but we do get to choose how we respond. We get to choose to respond out of brokenness or out of wholeness in Christ. Because I chose to operate out of wholeness, I grew in areas that I needed to for my calling. Jesus, who has always proven himself a redeemer in my life, has now given me the amazing opportunity to serve at 2 Rivers as both the co-leader of the 18-22s in Awaken and as the ministry leader of Christian Education.

Jesus has spoken His truth over my life in times of joy and times of pain. And in the face of anything else in this world, I choose to believe that He does, in fact, have a unique story that He is writing just for me and I am thrilled to see it unfold.

TLDR: Abuse happened. It hurt. Jesus healed. I was transformed.