Happy New Year Friend,
For some of you entering 2025, right now is not a happy time. I get it. I truly do. There are things that happen to us that we have zero control over. But can I ask you a question? What might grow and be different in you in 2025 if you stopped obsessing on what you cannot change, and you resolved to spend your energies solely on what you can change? Practice this shift for a few days and notice the difference in you and the things around you.
Today’s question will give you a peek into how you might begin to do that.
This week’s question: I do not normally do this, but I am lost and broken. You see when I met my husband, we both were Christians, but I was hurt from a church so pulled away. This resulted in me going through the motions with church. My husband was much the same but for different reasons, however, once COVID hit things changed.
My husband connected with a fundamentalist church, and everything changed. All of a sudden I was expected to home-school my kids, quit my job, and drop out of my master’s degree for counseling since it was seen as worldly.
I was expected to obey and follow my husband at all costs and not doing so made me the enemy and unrepentant, dishonoring God. Furthermore, the church was controlling but my husband didn’t see it. They told me I was no longer allowed to come, they separated my family and encouraged us to spank our kids which I do not agree with. This has led me to lose my husband, and I worry, also makes me lose God. I have become angry with God. I have started to dislike Him if who the church says he is he truly is. I have also realized that I cannot save my marriage without submitting to abusive control, and I will lose myself and God if I do. I am just lost and broken and don’t know what’s next as I have no one left in my life who is there for me.
Answer: I’m so sorry you are going through this. I was hoping to do a more uplifting blog post for the New Year, but your question drew me in because it is so related to my last two blog posts, What is Spiritual Abuse, and How do you Balance Mercy and Strong Boundaries? Please read them as I won’t repeat what I said there.
You are facing a tough dilemma that many godly women in conservative churches are struggling with. The questions you must answer within your own heart are these: Is your husband your final authority for who you are, what you are to do with your life, and what’s true, good, and right? Is that how the Bible defines a husband’s role, headship, and marriage?
Second, does the church speak for the Holy Spirit, who Jesus says lives within your heart, guiding you into all truth? (John 16:13). Does the church have the authority of God to tell you what to do and punish you if you refuse, not because you’re sinning, but because you disagree?
If you want to become healthy and whole, you must wrestle with these questions because your husband and church leadership have overstepped their role. They have distorted the image of God for you, which is spiritual abuse. They are speaking for God, as God, but what does this God look like? From what you’ve written, their view of God is that He is male-centric. Females are created for a purpose, to serve the man, meet his needs, and care for children. As a woman, you must submit because you are not capable of thinking about God’s truth for yourself. You do not have the right to say no or have any God-given wisdom or Holy Spirit discernment of your own. That can only come from a man (husband/pastor). You are bad, wicked, and sinning, if you don’t believe this or do what the males in your life tell you to do because they are your “authority” and believe they speak for God. (To understand more of this teaching watch the documentary Shiny Happy People)
No wonder you’re angry – at them, at God. But trust me, friend, you are not going to change them. Power is an intoxicating thing to have, not easily surrendered by those who abuse it, even those who claim to know God.
But let me show you where you do you need to spend your energy. When I get confused about who God is I start reading the red print in the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John). The Bible tells us that Jesus came to show us what God is like. (John 1:18). The Bible also says that Jesus exactly represented the nature of God (Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3). If that’s true, then we can best know who God is by paying close attention to Jesus. Not what others say about Jesus, but by reading closely what Jesus said and did. As you read, notice how Jesus treated women, especially those that society labeled “unworthy” or “sinful”. Read carefully what Jesus specifically warned his disciples not to do. He told them not to abuse their power over people as leaders in his church. (Mark 10:42-45). You see, even in Jesus’s time, there were those who were religiously powerful but spiritually empty. Jesus described them as whitewashed tombs. (Matthew 23:27) or worse, vicious wolves. (Matthew 7:15-20).
In my previous blog on Spiritual Abuse, I share the biblical story of the Rich Young Ruler and the story of the prodigal Son. In each of these stories, the person had choices to make. Jesus didn’t force them to make the choice he wanted, nor did he discard them for not making the right choice. He loved them. And my friend he loves you. There is nothing you can do to earn his love, nor is there anything you can do to lose his love. His love is unconditional.
In this New Year, as hard as it is right now, the most important relationship repair you need to work on is not your marriage but your relationship with God. He will help you see yourself more clearly, (as a precious daughter and image bearer) and see what’s going on with your husband and church more clearly. God isn’t asking you to lose yourself to your church or your marriage. He asks us to die to ourselves (our old immature, sinful ways), in order to become what he designed us to become from the beginning of time. Death to self doesn’t mean annihilation, but transformation. So how might you need to grow and transform into a stronger, more stable, mature woman through all this?
The second thing I notice in your question is that you feel all alone. You said, “You have no one left in your life”. This often happens when you are in a destructive marriage and/or cult-like church. Outside relationships are frowned upon and there is so much pressure to submit to groupthink that it’s difficult to have outside friendships. God made us for connection. Relationships are important but strive for healthy relationships, not controlling toxic ones.
Is it possible for you to spend your energy right now on your own healing and growth instead of fretting about what others think or say? Do you have family in the area? Another church you can join? A woman’s bible study you can attend? A hiking club, or other activity that can help you meet other women? Go back to school and finish up what you quit? You aren’t meant to walk through this life alone. However, marriage isn’t always the answer to loneliness. Marriage can be one of the loneliest places to be when your marriage is toxic and you have no outside friendships. I believe that if you continue your growth towards Christ-like maturity and can learn to Biblically love your spouse with good boundaries (Read the blog on Mercy and Boundaries), those changes will have the best outcome for your growth and potentially have a positive impact on him, and your children. No guarantees, but I can guarantee you that if you do not do your work, things will not get better for you, for your marriage or for your kids.
Pain in our lives warns us that something is wrong. Is that because it forces us to pay attention? Is it possible that God loves you so much he doesn’t want you to be stuck in this oppressive church or marriage? This pain you’re in is here to motivate you to take action. To grow and take your place as a mature woman of God who now embodies her voice and her choice. Your husband and pastor may disagree, and may not like it, but they don’t get to define who you are or what God wants for you. That’s between you and God.
Friend, how have you learned to trust God again after seeing him as supporting the bully at home or in the pulpit?
