1) The right bait that will have the prey keep "its eye on the prize". Of course flies won't fly into your mouse trap, nor will mice stick to fly attracting glue strips.
2) A confinement system that is easy to get in and hard to get out.
3) Really mean traps have a function where the animal wounds itself in the attempt to get out, like a wolf in a wolf trap with teeth, getting even more stuck in the trap, eventually tiring out in pain and defeat.
(Paraphrased from "The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse", Chapter 17)
Dear Reader!
In the last post I tried to get to the bottom of why I chose to stay in my group, even though we had moved way past the honeymoon stage and I actually suffered emotionally, spiritually, and physically. Today we will look at how everything got nauseating worse as I tried to define the living condition within my jail cell, but instead of running the other way, I still stayed. Trapped in false hope.
Recapping the season I am going to describe to you today is still a raw and painful place to visit for my husband and me- almost 7 years later. We have decided that the major reason for experiencing that total sickening sensation stems from the fact that our lives were led by crazy people.
My now-husband and back then boyfriend James came to visit me a few weeks after my trip to Elk River. During our time together in Minnesota he had started a relationship with God, after having a very personal revelation. The leaders had suggested he should attend a men's conference that they were offering that fall in Germany. I gladly handed him over to their care, for I trusted that they would disciple him. It soon became clear that they did not see much in him but an over-mothered spiritual baby. The co leader asked me if someone like Peter from the New Testament would date a spiritual baby. James told me that they had made fun of him for not finding a certain book in the Bible straight away.
Note to self here; Ridicule only serves one end: To elevate the ridiculer and to downgrade the recipient.
They only saw one solution to the spiritual mess they considered him in- as a Philosophy student not being able or willing to simply repeat decrees of faith or accept certain theologies as dogma without understanding them first; he needed to get baptized.
James didn't want to get baptized. He didn't think he was ready. He wasn't even sure yet if he believed in Jesus as his personal savior. He wasn't sure yet what that meant. But all that did not matter. So I became the handyman of the co leader in the plot to corner him until he would agree to get baptized asap. I told James that I wanted to go to a certain bar with him, but did not mention the part where the co leader and another guy would be waiting for us there.
We all were successful. James gave in. It wasn't the promise of an "open heaven" at this step of obedience, nor that he thought it was the right thing to do, he gave in to the pressure. James trusted me. So, in a freezing cold moonlit November night the love of my life James got coerced to be dunked under lake water in the leader's neighborhood, he then had to change outside by the lake into not wet clothes, and then endure an "angel tracking prayer", led by the leader, that went on for about two hours and had us attempt to retrace the steps of an angel that I swore I could perceive in vision. Every once in a while I would open my eyes and see James shiver with his wet hair and stare perplexed, but the sad truth is that I thought to myself that he needs to man up. If the leaders thought this was the right thing to do to help him not be a spiritual baby (aka: a new believer) he should joyfully embrace it.
He got very sick a day later and we had to part, as he had a return flight scheduled, leaving both of us in an ongoing terribly confused emotional state. We liked each other so much, but could not agree to the spiritual terms that I had been taught were untouchable and unquestionable. That made me question if he and I belonged together.
Within a few weeks I was told that my personal angel was on vacation time right now because I had lost my spiritual authority by being with James. During that particular prayer meeting it was decided that I had to break up with James and "fast" communicating with him for three weeks. I remember the leader, a high ranking police officer, saying that they could get into a lot of trouble for seemingly coercing someone to break up with their partner. I was just a sad shadow of myself by then. The most gut wrenching part was to call up my James and tell him, with an ocean between us, that we were bad for each other at this point. But I did it anyway. The whole reasoning behind that I explained in the last post. I decided I needed to be loyal to the people that had made such a difference in my life, no matter what I personally thought or felt. I just knew I was in such pain over being with James, whom I loved, that I wanted to believe that they knew how to get rid of that pain, like they had done before.
It was Thanksgivings Day for James and the way he recalls it that phone call could have gone much better if I hadn't cried like I was dying and talked as if I was forced against my will. Looking back over the two year on and off long distance relationship we had, the first breakup was probably the worst, as I would go on having somewhat learned to sound like the person that actually believed in what they're saying, and he got more and more aware of the fact that I indeed was in a cult and my leaders did not want us to be together.
By Christmas the three fasting weeks were over. I had not received any clarity on my relationship with him, so I had to make it up. I over-spiritualized every little thing about my trip to the US and how "soulish" it was to allow myself to fall for a spiritual baby. But still, when I ended up calling him after those painful three weeks, I knew that he was my homestead on earth. But it couldn't be. I was torn between my hopes and feelings for him on the one side, and knowing about my trusted leader's disapproval of him on the other.
My transparent upset demeanor at our group's New Years gathering was followed up by one of the famous "being called up by a leader to talk" the next day. In my three years with them I had a few of those and they were all problematic to say the least. The main leader basically said that he was shocked with my appearance and he was wondering if he should just release me to go to the US and be with James. That was a wake up call. Or a turn your brain off even more diligently call, if you will.
Now I could only see two options: I either would be dishonorably released and delivered over to my own soulful will, wouldn't finish college, marry James right away, or leave James behind for ever but act according to my leader's approval. Why I could not see that neither James nor I were the real problem in the scenario, but it was their involvement that made our relationship so painful, I do not know.
I also did not see that I really wanted to finish my studies and then go to the US, but that was not part of what they had offered me, so it was not on my radar. I, completely out of trust in my own decisions, caved in. I wrote James an email saying we couldn't have contact any more and that I wish him a nice life. I so badly wanted to feel my old self again. The self that was happy, felt full of purpose, and close to God. It was all gone. And honestly, taking that step with James only helped a little bit, and only for a little while.
Father, I ask that you would heal the hearts that have been so damaged by entrusting their lives to bad leaders. Knit us closer to your heart as you deliver us from all the emotional and spiritual residue. Teach us who and how you really are. Amen
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