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Message |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 2245
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 04, 2005 - 2:29 pm: |     |
Julie, Diana is right. God will show you who you are. I remember as we were leaving I felt I was losing myself. I was more ADVENTIST than I was anything else: I was Adventist first, then somewhere down the line I was American, female, wife, mother, professional--and I was losing my most defining identity. I was depressed and felt so lost.
God showed me one evening, through the words of the Shaker song "Simple Gifts", that He was causing me to "turn, turn" until I found myself "in that place just right...in the valley of love and delight". I realized then that God was asking me to surrender all my identity to Him. I was to allow Him to strip me of everything I thought made me ME and allow Him to give me His identity.
Now I am Daughter of God--that is my primary identity.
It reminds me of the amazing scene in CS Lewis's "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" when rebellious Edmund got lost in a dragon's lair and woke up in a dragon's body from which he could not escape. He was frantic, until he met Aslan at a lake. Edmund tried to strip off the scales from his body and wriggle out, but no matter how much he scraped off, the dragon body appeared more and more permanant.
Finally Aslan said, "You can't get rid of it unless you let me do it." So Edmund submitted to Aslan. Aslan pierced deeply into the dragon skin--so deep that it hurt Edmund. Aslan carefully split open the dragon body (a painful process), and at last the real Edmund could break free. When he emerged from the dragon body, Aslan took Edmund into the lake, plunging him deeply into the clean water where he was cleansed from his ordeal, and when Edmund and Aslan emerged, Edmund bore no more trace of dragon characteristics.
Jesus is stripping you of the identity that the world and the Adventist church gave you, Julie. He is freeing you from its bondage, and He is bringing you into the freedom and inexpressible peace of being identified only with Him. Who you are in Jesus is infinitely more wonderful than anything you had imagined yourself to be.
I praise Jesus for calling me out of the church which was the world I had to leave in order to follow Him. I thank Him for making me His.
Talk about celebrating freedom!
Colleen |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 1692
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Monday, July 04, 2005 - 6:00 pm: | |
It is interesting to me that I learned I was a child of God in my 12 step program. I do not remember being told that as a child at church or school. When I had a problem and would talk to a program member, I would be told , do not forget, you are a child of God and God does not make junk. I thank you God for my 12 step program. You used it to help further my learning about you and leaving the SDA church. You did what I needed and I did not know that until I finally broke off with Adventism. Thank you so much. I am awed by You and in awe of You.
Diana |
Patriar
Registered user
Username: Patriar
Post Number: 100
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 05, 2005 - 12:06 am: | |
Julie:
I am rejoicing with you! What an AWEsome experience to have the veil lifted.
I have just began studying Galatians with my husband. We started tonight and I'm already excited...we've only studied 1:1-10! I just LOVE being in the Word. 
Pork...it seems that Ellen said it would cause 'cancerous humors' or something like that. hehehe I can't quite get myself to eat meat, but am REALLY trying. I CAN do chicken, as long as it's completely unhealthy and fried to a crisp! Then I close my eyes and say, 'just pretend it's fri-chik'! I crack myself up! LOL
Pierced ears! I LOVE THEM. Diana: I just got mine pierced in October and I am thrilled!
Patria
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Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 1694
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 05, 2005 - 7:35 pm: | |
Congratulations Patria on eating chicken and on getting your ears pierced. I am happy for you.
God is so good and the freedom He gives us is fantastic. There is no way for me to express it except to say he is awesome.
Diana |
Patriar
Registered user
Username: Patriar
Post Number: 102
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 05, 2005 - 10:00 pm: | |
AMEN!!!
Patria |
Lydell
Registered user
Username: Lydell
Post Number: 697
Registered: 7-2000
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 06, 2005 - 6:58 am: | |
Julie, I'm betting we all had that sort of off-balance feeling when we left the denomination. And now, isn't that interesting....my hubby and I and our friends were not raised SDA....yet we still had that off balance feeling. hmmmm
I've been thinking alot lately about something. Does it seem to the rest of you that Adventism sort of strips a woman of her feminine identity? Within the first two weeks of attending an SDA congregation I was told that it was wrong to: wear makeup, wear jewelry to include my wedding band, eat meat, sugar, salt, vinegar, spices, white flour, milk, eggs, and to go to movies, etc. etc. etc. That some day I should put my kids in day care and get a job so I could start getting money to put them in "church school" (I was a stay at home mom). And I was not welcome to be in an adult sabbath school class....no, because I had a baby it was assumed that I should be shuffled off to a cradle roll class.
Quite a difference from the first two weeks at the church we are attending now. There I was told that God knows all about me, all my failings, areas where I struggle, but passionately loves me.
Julie and others, I have just finished reading a wonderful book. "Captivating" by Stacey and John Eldridge. Finally a Christian book about women that isn't talking about what we are supposed to DO, but about WHO we are! It really is good and I highly recommend it sometime on your journey to regaining your identity. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 2262
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 06, 2005 - 11:42 am: | |
Lydell, interesting you would mention being stripped of feminine identity. I've had exactly the same thought. After I married Richard and the boys were young (Nathanael was two) I really "got told" on a couple of occasions for not "taking my turn" in Cradle Roll. At that time (first couple of years of marriage), I was still teaching jr. high, and the last thing I was about to do on Sabbath was sit through the morning with toddlers. (I was already having a great deal of adjusting to do just being a step-mom--and things did get easier once I quit teaching.)
The other thing I've pondered about this identity issue is this. In Adventism, women seem to try desperately (at least in the Loma Linda community where being a "professional" and highly educated is very important) to be "as good as a man" in any given field. There are many women administrators and educators, and they have a somewhat routinely androgenous appearance. You know, the short haricut, tailored clothing (often rather severe suits), minimal makeup, of course no jewelry, etc. There is a persistent undercurrent of competition between men and women--and also between women.
Further, while many "professional" and more liberal men rather unctiously defer to women, ask for their input, give lip service to their worthiness (including worthiness for pastoral ordination) in public, they simultaneously treat them personally with condescension and sometimes even subtle disdain or with thinly disguised flirtation.
As an Adventist, I felt it necessary to have BE EXCELLENT at what I did in order to "deserve" approval and support from the men I worked with or from men in my field. I really had a continuous subliminal awareness that I had to be as good as the men around me, or I would be toast.
When we joined Trinity church, one of the most surprising things for me was how women were treated. They were treated as WOMEN--respected, different from men, but not less able. They were respected for their uniqueness, but they were not demeaned or treated with condescension. Ditto for the flirting. They didn't have to prove anything, because they were not in competition with the men.
Perhaps the biggest example of the difference was Elizabeth Inrig--who, in worldly terms, is a powerful woman in her own right: bright, educated, and the national director of women's ministries for the EV Free Church in North America. Yet she wears her hair in a soft style (notice the word "style" as opposed to just a non-nonsense "cut"). She has her nails done (that continues to be a symbol of femininity to meóI never saw that among the "professional" women in Adventism). She doesn't wear severe business suits but wears feminine clothes that are not girlish or remotely seductive but look good on her. To top it off, she doesn't wear those predictable plain pumps the SDA administrative types wear.
Nope--she's "all girl"--and yet she has authority and deep respect for her husband and the church's elder board to whom she answers in her role at church, and she is a powerful Bible teacher.
I've concluded that one of the things God gives us when He makes us new by the Holy Spirit is our identities as masculine men and feminine women. If we embrace our God-given identities in Him, we have the strength and authority of the Holy Spirit working through whom He made us to be. We don't have to compete with each other, and we women don't have to "be as good as a man" because we can NEVER fill the shoes of a man. We might do similar work, but hopefully when we are in Christ we do our work as women or as men, not as some androgenous caricature that loses the strength of either gender.
Goodness, I guess I got on my soapbox again, didn't I?! Sorry!
Praising God for giving me His identity,
Colleen |
Tisha
Registered user
Username: Tisha
Post Number: 108
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 06, 2005 - 12:34 pm: | |
When we first left the SDA Church and started visiting around, we visited a Seventh Day Baptist Church. It was so different because the Pastor's wife greeted us so warmly. She was wearing pearl earrings and a pearl necklace! It just seemed strange! After Church they were having a potluck picnic and after that a baseball game, in which everyone - young and old, men and women - participated! What a wonderful day of Christian Fellowship. But it did seem odd to be playing baseball on "The Sabbath"! But they don't worship the Sabbath, they worship God! They know that we are only saved through Jesus Death on the Cross - not by our works!! It was so refreshing.
I remember my daughter coming home in tears (from 1st grade in the SDA School) because she had a tuna sandwich and was told she could not go to heaven because she ate meat! We took her out and put her in public school shortly after that, due to that and other experiences in the first few weeks of school. At SS she was told she wasn't a Christian because she went to public school! Talk about warped kids!! I'm so glad to be away from all of that!
And, Colleen, you're right about the ability to be feminine again with no need to prove my self-worth! It is so nice to see men that respect women without demeaning them. I think it has really helped me to understand what being a wife is all about! I can respect my husband without giving up myself. What a blessing when we can honor what God intended for us!
Welcome to all the new "faces" here. I was gone for about a week and came back to a bunch of new names. It will be fun getting to know all of you.
-tisha |
Wooliee
Registered user
Username: Wooliee
Post Number: 19
Registered: 6-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2005 - 2:29 pm: | |
I really appreciate everyone's comments. They are very helpful and uplifting.
Tisha, I am sad to hear that the sandwich thing happened to your daughter also! I guess the food police just start young.
Colleen, I like what you said about God giving us His identity. That is what I want. Lately, when I read my Bible and pray I also close my eyes and ask Him to speak to my soul. One day I fell asleep, but I woke up feeling amazingly peaceful and renewed! I know I had been touched by my heavenly Father, and I continue to be. I can see why king David leaped and twirled before the Lord...He just brings out the most amazing joy.
Leaping and twirling,
Julie |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 2268
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2005 - 3:42 pm: | |
Julie, I'm so happy to hear that God is revealing Himself to your soul! Isnt' He awesome, to borrow diana's phrase?!
Colleen |
Patriar
Registered user
Username: Patriar
Post Number: 104
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2005 - 10:20 pm: | |
Julie:
I LOVE that! I'm leaping and twirling with you!
Patria |
Javagirl
Registered user
Username: Javagirl
Post Number: 27
Registered: 6-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, July 17, 2005 - 11:37 am: | |
Grrr, just had a long post lost again because Microsoft encoutered a problem.....Guess It wasnt meant to be lol. Does the Holy Spirit use Microsoft! Anyway hi Julie, I am praying for you and wonder how you are doing. Hope you are still leaping and twirling. Things are a constanst roller coaster for me of emotions and ideas and questions. I did tell a SDA friend of my posts on this site, and I think she will come look. I trust her relationship to Jesus, and know she will support any search for truth. |
Wooliee
Registered user
Username: Wooliee
Post Number: 24
Registered: 6-2005
| | Posted on Monday, July 18, 2005 - 2:59 pm: | |
Hi Javagirl, I am doing well. Thank you so much for your prayers! You are in mine as well. I am with you on the roller coaster of emotions. Big changes are very stressful, especially when they involve your spiritual life and everything you thought you believed in so deeply. I NEVER in a million years thought I would question Adventist beliefs. Sometimes I wonder where God is leading me, but I trust Him. He is all my hope!
Thanks again for your prayers. I will also pray for your friend! |
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