Needing Answers and Peace Desperately! Please Help! Long...sorry

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NneedofGrace

Guest
#1
#1
Hello All. I am new to this site and I actually have some reservations in posting here. I have a lot of issues/fears of developing true friendships and other issues from my past that I am dealing with plus I am extremely busy, so please don't get frustrated with me if I don't answer back quickly. With that disclaimer, I am in need of some deep answers and healing.

Some background relevant to my situation: I was raised in an extremely abusive home where I was abused in all ways, in one form or another, for a very long time, from the time I was born to early adulthood. The one abusing me was my dad and although my other siblings were abused, the brunt of the abuse was on me. All the while, my abuser would tell me about the love of Jesus and God. My abuser often used God as an excuse for his actions or he acted as if God condoned his actions. I was so confused over who God was but even in my young age I tried to serve Him, although I didn't know it was for the wrong reasons (mainly pride, as in I'm right, you're wrong and fear because I thought if I did anything bad God would do to me what my dad did).

In 2010, I finally understood the gospel and was saved by the true Love and Grace of Christ Jesus but my life is in shambles and I don't know if I am angry at God, God is playing a cruel joke on me, God is using me as an experiment, or I'm just plain cursed. I need help and I've forgotten how to pray. I met and married a man who claims Christianity. He isn't a bad man but he frequently mistreats me. He controls me and is very self centered. If he doesn't want to watch the kids, help around the house, even go to work, then he won't. I love him but I feel trapped sometimes when I try to talk to him.

He blames all of our problems on me and my abuse ridden past. He can never be wrong. I found that I stopped doing the things I love because of him and where I used to be happy and bubbly, I am now withdrawn and self conscious, anxious, nervous and unhappy. To make things worse, I always wanted to have a lot of children when I decided that I would get married. I now know that this can't be the case because I get extremely sick during pregnancy to the point where I am hospitalized and my unborn child's life as well as my own is in danger. I have the worse pregnancies known to man and my health has suffered greatly.

Finally, my newborn child was born with heart defects and Down Syndrome. I love my baby and the disabilities don't change that but when is it enough? Am I being punished by God? Am I such a bad person that I deserve to be in misery my whole life? I'm not a pessimistic person by any means. In fact, I'm an eternal optimist filled with hope that things will get better and that God will use me and my family for His purpose to His Glory and our good but I am faltering right now.

I'm trying to understand why are these things happening to me while those who don't even love God or blatantly hate Him are doing great. Even if God hates me, then why involve my children? It's not their fault they were born? Why should my child suffer for what I did wrong? Please help me. I need answers and hope. Thank you.
 
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wwjd_kilden

Guest
#2
#2
YOU are NOT guilty of neither your fathers nor your husbands actions. (Nor are your children)

1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.
2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.
5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
 
U

Ugly

Guest
#3
#3
Hi NeedofGrace
You are with a, more or less, abusive man because that is your past, your comfort zone and your mentality. Because of your upbringing you become more prone to attracting abusive men because you are accustomed to being treated wrong. That you have followed this pattern is not God but rather a result of what you experienced and it's continuing effects on your life.

God is not punishing you, or your child. We live in a world of sin. Sin causes sickness, illness, etc.. Because your child has these issues does not mean it is what God wants but rather is a result of the world we live in.

Likely much of what you're going through (other than the pregnancy/child issues) is a result of the mentality you have, even if you aren't aware of it, from your growing up. Have you received any counseling?
Most people anymore rush into marriage too quickly. I don't know how long you knew him before you married, though, but on the average i'd assume not long enough. And because of your abusive past you seem to be oblivious to warning signs of abusers, as there was likely sings there all along.

Sorry to hear about all you've been through, and are going through. Just don't think that it's a punishment or that you're being ignored or played with. It sounds like you and your husband need counseling both together and separately. Though the majority of abusive people do not change. Hope you find some help and encouragement while you're here.
 
A

atwhatcost

Guest
#4
#4
NneedofGrace said:
Hello All. I am new to this site and I actually have some reservations in posting here. I have a lot of issues/fears of developing true friendships and other issues from my past that I am dealing with plus I am extremely busy, so please don't get frustrated with me if I don't answer back quickly. With that disclaimer, I am in need of some deep answers and healing.

Some background relevant to my situation: I was raised in an extremely abusive home where I was abused in all ways, in one form or another, for a very long time, from the time I was born to early adulthood. The one abusing me was my dad and although my other siblings were abused, the brunt of the abuse was on me. All the while, my abuser would tell me about the love of Jesus and God. My abuser often used God as an excuse for his actions or he acted as if God condoned his actions. I was so confused over who God was but even in my young age I tried to serve Him, although I didn't know it was for the wrong reasons (mainly pride, as in I'm right, you're wrong and fear because I thought if I did anything bad God would do to me what my dad did).

In 2010, I finally understood the gospel and was saved by the true Love and Grace of Christ Jesus but my life is in shambles and I don't know if I am angry at God, God is playing a cruel joke on me, God is using me as an experiment, or I'm just plain cursed. I need help and I've forgotten how to pray. I met and married a man who claims Christianity. He isn't a bad man but he frequently mistreats me. He controls me and is very self centered. If he doesn't want to watch the kids, help around the house, even go to work, then he won't. I love him but I feel trapped sometimes when I try to talk to him.

He blames all of our problems on me and my abuse ridden past. He can never be wrong. I found that I stopped doing the things I love because of him and where I used to be happy and bubbly, I am now withdrawn and self conscious, anxious, nervous and unhappy. To make things worse, I always wanted to have a lot of children when I decided that I would get married. I now know that this can't be the case because I get extremely sick during pregnancy to the point where I am hospitalized and my unborn child's life as well as my own is in danger. I have the worse pregnancies known to man and my health has suffered greatly.

Finally, my newborn child was born with heart defects and Down Syndrome. I love my baby and the disabilities don't change that but when is it enough? Am I being punished by God? Am I such a bad person that I deserve to be in misery my whole life? I'm not a pessimistic person by any means. In fact, I'm an eternal optimist filled with hope that things will get better and that God will use me and my family for His purpose to His Glory and our good but I am faltering right now.

I'm trying to understand why are these things happening to me while those who don't even love God or blatantly hate Him are doing great. Even if God hates me, then why involve my children? It's not their fault they were born? Why should my child suffer for what I did wrong? Please help me. I need answers and hope. Thank you.
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First, welcome to CC. Glad to have you here. And I'm honored you trusted enough to write this.

Second, no kidding you're busy! My niece is disabled in similar ways to your child. (She has a rare syndrome that mimics Down Syndrome's cognitive effects, and now she has MS, which compounds things.) Your focus will always be mainly on your child, so that is busy.

And to answer your question from a different angle. Imagine a person born in a windowless doorless room and never having the opportunity to leave, but he hears there is an outside. Don't you think he's going to imagine what the outside is like and try to improve himself enough to do well out there? Don't you think that would be impossible unless he had help?

You're kind of like that. You have been stuck in one abusive relationship after another. (And just because your husband isn't as bad as your dad, doesn't make him "not a bad man." Yes, he is a bad man. He's not Hitler. He's not your father, but still he is a bad man!) You're problem is you've never had the opportunity to learn the difference. Worse yet, never the opportunity to experience the difference. You don't yet know what is good or bad, outside what Jesus has given you. And, yes, Jesus has given you plenty and will continue to do so, but how will you grow in him, if you can't grow past where you're stuck now?

Don't panic! That wasn't a message of doom, but hope!

You see, I'm married to a man with a similar background to you. There's four ways to be abused -- emotionally, mentally, physically, and sexually. He got the grand slam out of that. He too is a believer. He too had to learn the basics of how to survive and flourish once he escaped that windowless-doorless room. (Figuratively. He wasn't imprisoned in such a room, but he was, like you are, imprisoned by the mentality, because no one was around to tell him what normal life is like, since the abuse came throughout his extended family.)

Once he was old enough to leave home, he started experiencing the outside, but, because of his upbringing he had the same thing happen to him in his relationships. If all you know is abuse, who else will attract you but other abusers? His was his first wife.

He also came to know the Lord through some powerful Christians. (Powerful in the Lord and a wonderfully sweet couple. They weren't famous or anything.)

They helped some, but he was always ramming his head against the same mental walls that blocked him too often. It wasn't until after we married that he decided it was time for counseling. He found a wonderful Christian counselor to help him learn what was right and what was wrong. (And, like you, he too understood right from wrong, but just like you, he had a tendency to labeling people "not a bad person," when they really were very bad, just not as bad as his parents. It would be hard for someone to get that bad!)

Please, take the time to get some Christian counseling. Hubby only saw the counselor for 9 months but he learned so much, it was almost like I got a different man. The good that was always in him and timid came out, took over completely with no fear left.

And, just because a counselor happens to be Christian doesn't always (or usually) make him/her a Christian counselor. I mean find a counselor who bases his/her practice on God and the Bible. It's so absolutely worth it!

No. God doesn't hate you, nor did he jinx you. He wants you to have true joy in him, but to do that, you first need to know the difference between true joy and some guy you think loves you enough to marry you.

If you're willing to do that, let me know, and I'll see if I can get you started on that journey. (I'm not a counselor, but I know someone on here who is. I just don't want to ask him to come on here, unless you say it's okay. And, you can PM me to tell me, if you don't want to say on here. It gets a little squirmy, because I've also met a false counselor on here too, and I don't want you to get pulled into that snare.)

There is hope, in Christ, and through Christ in others. It gets better than this, I promise.
 
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