When my husband had started to lose impulse control and I was finding myself more and more frequently facing dangerous situations with him, I started living a life of almost constant fear. The stress was almost unbearable. I couldn’t sleep at night for months at a time. I was honestly concerned that I’d wake up some night and find my husband stabbing me in my bed with a kitchen knife (or some other equally awful thing happening). Due to his sometimes violent mood swings and sudden crazy impulses, and according to doctors, counselors and social workers, this wasn’t outside of the realm of possibility for someone with his condition (Frontotemporal Lobe Dementia, aka “FTD”).
I met several times with my pastor at the time and finally one day he said, “Debi, I hear you constantly using the word ‘fear.’ All fear is a lack of faith, so consequently all fear is sin. You’re seeped in sin right now and need to repent of it before you’re going to find healing in this situation with your husband.”
I was dumb-founded. Here I was trying to negotiate a life-threatening situation and all he could do was point out that he thought I had a bad attitude? Hm.
He mumbled on for awhile longer about my need to repent, etc., when I finally stopped him.
I said, “If you were in the woods with an angry, wild bear chasing you, you’d probably feel more than a little bit of fear. Now, would that fear be sin? No, it wouldn’t … that fear would be a God-given response to a dangerous situation, given to motivate you to take action to protect yourself. If you were to say to the bear — as it was barreling down on you, ready to eat its lunch (you!): ’No, Mr. Bear, I don’t believe you’re going to hurt me because God has promised to protect me,’ that would be absolutely ridiculous. God protects you from the bear by alerting you to danger and providing the fear response to inspire you to RUN!”
The pastor looked at me for a bit … and then I could see a lightbulb moment happening in his mind. “Oh, I see what you mean.”
So I continued. “I’m living with a bear in my house. It sleeps in my bedroom, prowls around endlessly, and at any moment could spring and hurt myself or my children. The fear I feel isn’t sin … it’s a God-given response to a dangerous situation that motivates me to want to take some sort of action to provide a safe living environment for my family.”
That poor pastor was so shaken up. His whole “fear equals sin” doctrine was a basic part of his ideas about healing and deliverance. I found through the past couple of years, some of the most hurtful things said to me in the midst of everything that was happening came from the mouth of this particular man. His doctrines that seemed sort of dumb – and appeared on the surface to be relatively harmless – were honestly some of the biggest detriments to my spiritual/mental/emotional healing.
Needless to say, in order to find sanity and healing, I needed to find a new church.
Further thoughts on fear in the life of a Christian: Fear and Faith
How easy to sit back and judge another’s reactions to a horrible situation, labeling it as “sin”, or whatever! Unless you’re in that situation, you’ve no idea what it’s like living with fear 24/7. Good for you that you didn’t allow this person to paralyze you with guilt, that you could see that his belief system was faulty and shallow.
~Debi
I agree with you & good for you for speaking up to the pastor. Yes, fear and anger are natural emotional responses given to us to protect us in life threatening or dangerous situations. Living our lives paralyzed or controlled by them is when the problems arise. Good luck to you in your journey ahead. But you sound like a wise woman who can handle whatever comes her way.
As a person who is heading into the ministry later in my life, it’s people like this guy who really piss me off to no end. I think that finding a new church is a good approach to have, if your pastor does not show that he not only sees what is wrong with what he assumes about the nature of God, but if he also does not apologize to you for putting his own “dogma” in front of his call to Shepherd, guide, and comfort his parishioners. These days it is hard to find a good church family. If this is a regularly occurring thing, find a new place to worship. But if this is a one time thing, you may have just become a catalyst of change in your pastor’s life that can effect how he treats his whole congregation. The church today, in my opinion, is hurt most when the people in a church and the pastor of that church forget that the pastor is still on a spiritual journey, as well as those in his church, and will need to be proven wrong at times as well as given a chance to correct their ways just like any one of the members of the church. Does this excuse the fact that what he said was not only insulting, or that it was completely self serving to his own idea of how faith is supposed to work, not at all. But it is an opportunity for you to speak truth and change into the life of a person who has influence and sway over the spiritual development of many people.
If he is completely dense and has no ability to see what he did was wrong, then kick him to the curb.
It requires a strong and wise person to be able to stand up in the face of judgement and push it off. It amazes me the healing you have done for yourself in the midst of an incredibly difficult situation. I’m not sure you will ever know just how many people you have helped and inspired by sharing your story.
Hugs
Jennifer
Thanks for the kind words. Today’s my birthday so it feels like you gave me a present.
~Debi
You should not look for approval amongst people in my opinion. You should look inside yourself for answers. Follow your gut. Your woman’s intuition.
What a scary situation to be in where you fear harm from the man you’re married to. Except it is an illness causing these reactions of your husband. I will pray that you are kept safe along with your children.
~Debi
Happy birthday, Mom!
~Kelsey
Wanted to pop by and wish you a very happy birthday. I know life doesn’t look like you thought it would look even a year ago, or even two years ago… Thankfully, our lives are in His hands and we have hope for the future. Praying God’s blessings on every aspect of your life. {{{hugs}}}
Thanks for the birthday wishes. Life sure is a lot different this year than last. It’ll be interesting to see what next year brings.
Blessings,
~Debi
Happy Belated Birthday!
I’m so glad that you had the presence of mind to respond to that man as you did. His teachings are doing great damage. I’m glad you left his church. It is hard to get that thinking out of your head, though, isn’t it? I still struggle ten years later to get the bad theology I was raised with out of my head.
Happy belated birthday,I left you birthday wishes earlier on Kelsey’s blog but am not sure if you saw them.
I so admire all the strength you are showing though all of your life’s issues, you are an inspiration. But sharing your story, I know you are helping others
Bless you
Bill
You know Debi, I think that people who are in positions to help people really ought to know how to listen and understand what people say to them. His fear is sin speech might actually have been appropriate once in another situation and from then on he started using it as a blanket solution offered to those who came to him for help. But every situation is different. Every person perceives their lives differently – clearly you were in danger – how this person could not have recognized that is beyond all rational reasoning.
But maybe the bright light is tht it caused you to look for a new church and perhaps that new church is the one you needed. Know what I mean?
WC
PS: Hope you had a very happy birthday.
geez! that is just another example of ‘religion’, only in the ‘word of faith’ circles. Jesus told people to ‘fear not’ to help take them to the place of supernatural overcoming, not to beat them up for a bad attitude!
why didnt your pastor (retorical question here) help you with something encouraging, to boost you up?
its not a sin to feel fear. and personally, based on what ive read on your blog, i dont believe you act in accordance with anything but what the word says. regardless of what you feel. that is the definition of faith anyway. has nothing to do with feelings.
im so sorry that pastor was so insensitive. ive been in battles where i needed a word from God, and been told to ‘just repent’ by someone clueless too. argh!
kïrstin♫
I’m so glad you had the courage to speak up to him. (And you spoke so well; don’t know if I could have mastered a reply like that.) It sounds like God used this moment to teach this pastor something. Even though it sounds like he was somewhat open to what you had to say, I think you are right to leave this church, given the fact that this is not a one-time thing.
It is such a blessing that you have a solid relationship with the Lord that isn’t damaged by people like this man. My fear is that he would really hurt a new Christian or one whose faith isn’t very strong.
You are going through a lot right now. My prayers are with you.
A reader
I think the pastor may have been right in some situations, but your fear was certainly not wrong. I have lived in a somewhat similar situation and know what it is to be afraid of a mentally ill man (my father). Fear for your safety is not necessarily wrong, but never allow your fear to overrun your faith in God to keep you safe. God bless you.
I agree – not all fear is leads to sin.
There is RATIONAL fear which preserves and protect us (which you so clearly describe in your blog).
Then there is the opposite, i.e. IRRATIONAL fear which doesn’t protect us but leads to the opposite and paralysis us in the very place where God wants to renew us, i.e. in our minds. Irrational fear cannot co-exist with faith.
My jaw seriously dropped reading this post. I’ve been reading back posts from your blog since I just started reading it a month ago. Eric and I really believe in the importance of pastors having serious counseling training, even if not a counseling degree, doing an intensive Christian counseling program. So many pastors see their goal being to “fix” a broken marriage. I’ve known women who have been told the Bible requires them to forgive and submit to their abusive husband since he said he won’t do it again, and nothing was said to the husband about why he’s abusive or requiring him to get help. Arggh!
The only question I found myself asking when I read this was, why the Hell are you still with him? For God’s sake, RUN!!!
Left that situation a long, long time ago now. Indeed I ran.