Catching Up

Received via email sometime ago. Sorry for the delayed post.

It’s been thirteen years since the Lord Jesus rescued me and brought me out of darkness (LFF) and into His marvelous light. I only spent four years there, but they were the formative years of my relationship with Jesus, and it has taken years to unravel the harm that was done to my soul by abusive leaders. He has been so gracious to me throughout this entire experience and tonight after reading the blog I am filled with faith that each of you will find your road to healing in Him and be made whole again, or for the first time. Your pain is real. I validate you, not that you need me to validate you, or anyone really, but sometimes that helps. I was not so fortunate. I did not have a blog to turn to. In fact, the first church my hubby and I attended didn’t even know what to do with me, so we began going to every church in our town and surrounding towns looking for someone who understood and it was a few years before I met someone who had been through a Shepherding movement and was delivered from it. He and his sweet wife heard my whole story-it took hours and hours. They cried with me, held my hand, we got on our knees together and wept and cried out for Jesus to heal my broken heart. This validation healed me. I had thought I was losing my mind and had disqualified myself like Esau from his birthright (because I married a divorced man). I left that room a healed woman. I got in my car and felt happy for the first time in two years. These sweet people were so wise. They told me to be patient with myself, to forgive myself frequently, to talk to Jesus a lot, that He was not some mean dictator in Heaven waiting to hammer me into dust and that it might take years before all that ugly pharisaical leaven would be worked out of my life. They were right. Even as I read this blog I realized that some of the issues I have with my darling daughters is because of the harshness in discipline I experienced myself at LFF.

I also learned through the years that Our Father in Heaven is nothing like these people who ruled over us with an iron fist and kept us in fear. He is kind, and it’s His kindness that leads us to repentance, not someone digging around glaring at you and confronting you with your “whatever” sin. NO, He is not like them at all. He saved me from this mess and I still thank Him to this day for His amazing love towards me. I also thank Him because the man I married is also amazing. He has been so patient, gracious, loving, and gentle with me over the years. He has also endured much as a result of what I allowed LFF to do to me. When I got done reading this blog I just ran over to him and thanked him for being my hero. He told me that I was worth it all! At LFF I was not worth much at all, always screwing up, always being confronted with my attitudes and sin. Now, I must admit, there were times this was merited, but again, I have learned that the Holy Spirit, given the chance, will convict you of all sin and give you the opportunity to repent and change. They never gave Him a chance. The other thing is He is gentle and lowly and they were harsh and vindictive. In order to heal well we must discover first who God really is—not looking at people, but at Him. How we choose to view Him will determine everything.

I thought it would be valuable to write to encourage the wounded to persevere—healing is possible. God has been gracious to me and as I chose to be honest and lay it all out like it really was, in time, His love has covered over a lot of inadequacies. He has also restored so much. At the ten year mark, after I left, I received a phone call from one of my precious friends from those days, she asked me to forgive her and I was at that time ready to do so, then another wrote asking for forgiveness, then Kari and I saw each other and she asked me privately, away from our mutual friend, to forgive her, thankfully, I already had. This was another piece of the healing-to be able to forgive before being asked, but that takes time. Then, Julie Kobelin called and asked me to forgive her (she had been the most abusive towards me) and I already had forgiven her too. She wanted me to specifically tell her all that she had done to hurt me so she could specifically ask forgiveness, but the cool thing was, I couldn’t really think of anything, all the sting was gone. Love had covered over the multitude of inadequacies. Now, I do not have any real relationships with anyone from LFF except one and she is a treasure indeed, but I have no desire to pursue any of those relationships. It is time to move forward and those that really loved me came forth—one. That is a sobering reality after you spent so much time with people only to discover what you thought was real wasn’t all that real after all. I really have no issues with anyone from LFF anymore. However, I have a huge heart for those on this blog and those who are even now being harassed. I have been praying for years for freedom to come to this place. I will not give up in prayer.

Reading about the PCS kids breaks my heart to pieces. I will commit myself to pray more for you. You suffered the most. I was a nursery worker and loved you so very much and my heart ached that you were never with your parents…oh sweet souls may He who is able bind up every single one of your wounds and plant you by healing waters. There is a chapter in Ezekiel 34, I think, anyway, about the bad shepherds and the sheep roaming the hills, you are those precious hurting, lost, and wounded sheep wandering the hills, but not forever—hang in there.

I guess we all want to tell our story. It amazes me that when I attended LFF no one dared ever speak any of these things, yet so many of us were feeling them…big sigh…we were just being critical, oh how we needed to know that testing the spirits is of God and that we also were the Lord’s anointed…..how dare they touch us…His sweet children…may the Lord have mercy.

I was a brand new convert zealous for Jesus and eager to find a church like the one in Acts. I thought I found that at LFF. My life was transformed at Heartbeat Retreat. It was the real deal. I have not been the same since. Water baptism was powerful for me and I spent my whole Freshman year full of the Holy Spirit and just so in love with Jesus and following hard after Him in any way I could. I did not start out wanting to please leadership only Jesus. This was a great year for me. I found freedom from my previous life of sin and rest for my soul. I will always remember that year with great fondness. Then, I became a JCD my sophomore year and that all changed. The truth began to stare me in the face, but who would dare say anything, not me, I didn’t want to be rebellious, or critical, even though I always was found that way. I was a messy person, messy with a lot of worldly baggage, a lot to undue to become more like Jesus, but now I see, I was a mere infant in Christ…holy moly…it’s a miracle any of us survived this kind of scrutiny.

The first time I realized that something was seriously wrong was when the Koeblins were leaving for Russia and I went home and cried tears of rejoicing because Julie wouldn’t be around anymore to torment me with her ceaseless demands and cruel words. I couldn’t tell anyone why I was crying, it was so lonely. Then, that summer after visiting my mom, after begging for permission to be released from my unbelievable ministry responsibilities, I was on my way to Pullman, pulled off at Ellensburg for gas and when I got back on the highway and without realizing what I was doing I found myself heading back towards my mom’s house, oh, how I should have kept on going….it went on like this in many ways my whole senior year. The Lord was good to me and caused me to have a back problem right after my senior year that forced me to rest and made people say way judgmental things to me about my condition. God totally healed me, but then I was in massive pain due to the healing….

During this time it became even more obvious to me that He wanted me out of LFF, but I was struggling because my pride was so invested into this place. He and I argued a lot about this, but He kept bringing situations so I couldn’t avoid the truth anymore. When I left to student teach I actually felt strings being cut from my back (like rubber bands) and the strings were retracting back to LFF. I felt free and felt guilty for feeling that way. I had no idea that my high school sweetheart was waiting for me to get home so he could steal me away from this craziness—he was my knight in shinning armor, though at the time, I thought he was sent by satan. Finally, the Lord convinced me that it was truly His will for me to marry this great guy, so of course the cost on my side was losing all my “friends” at LFF, but many had already forgotten me, out of sight, out of mind, but I went back one last time just to be sure it was God that I marry this guy—of course the leadership said no, he was divorced and used goods (even though this happened when he wasn’t saved…the unpardonable sin…) and as I was there I was sooooo confused, but it was good to see them all. I really missed everyone. On my way back to my mom’s house my car broke down on the pass and God told me that my boyfriend needed to be the one to come get me although I called many and many were willing…I had stayed totally pure in my relationship with him, but the thought entered into my head that if I slept with him I would be so humiliated that I would never go back to LFF and it would be easier that way-YIKES, so I lured that poor guy and made him compromise himself too---just so I wouldn’t feel so condemned about leaving LFF. That is my largest regret—that I didn’t have the guts to just leave LFF, but thankfully, God has forgiven us this also, but I saw clearly how whacked this whole thing was and just said good-bye.

Now, I have to say that I really do believe that God takes everything and works it for good and I have often thanked God for all the many things HE did in my life while I was there. I did learn how to serve others in love, I did learn how to do everything as to the Lord, I do have a solid foundation that I have continued to build on, I did learn how to hear His voice and how to go against the flow in order to follow Him. I am grateful that there was good to be taken from such a harmful situation. I still have a whole lot of love for people who have left and the people there. I actually really love the Vances and pray for them often. I didn’t know the Barden’s all that well, but I do pray that they would find freedom and seek to restore what they broke down. I believe all things are possible. I really believe He is who He says He is and that His word and His Spirit are enough to satisfy and bring us to wholeness again. I pray that as believers we will stop harming each other and start assisting each other in His love and under His direction, not under man made religious systems full of the traditions of men. I pray for the Church that call themselves by His holy name to rally under His banner which is LOVE. I pray for people to stop following men and their opinions and to follow Jesus the Christ—our savior our kind Lord.

We home churched with another couple for five years and it was the BEST…we really learned how to rely and depend on Him alone. He has just recently brought us out of the wilderness and called us to break down religious systems that are killing God’s precious children. I feel awake, alert, and sound of mind for the first time in too many years. God’s spirit is moving everywhere…He is roaming the hills and finding His lost sheep and restoring them. In fact, one of the small home groups we attend is called: Compass Ministries, our whole focus is Jesus and being His hands to comfort those who have had so much stolen from them. God keeps collecting them and bringing them to us. God is raising up an army of those wounded who He is healing and He is taking their brokenness and glorifying Himself in it. The world doesn’t want religion---it wants a Jesus who saves them from the torment of sin!!!! The church needs a Jesus who is real and binds up their wounds.

Oh I pray for the comfort of these hurting people Jesus, be ever near their aching hearts, place your presence around them that they may know that Your love is perfect and Your ways are sound. Touch them with gentleness and take off heavy yokes and burdens and show them that Your way is easy and light. Lift off the depression, self-loathing, and sting of the harm done against them. Touch each one here with Your real concern and care for their individual situation. Jesus, bring back to them seven times what was stolen from them.

I will keep praying.