Going through therapy with a professional counselor was the best thing I could have done after leaving Teen Mania. I highly recommend it if you are struggling through these same issues.
The next milestone in my recovery, was about 3 years ago. I was driving across town listening to the radio. Just another ordinary day. Then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere God’s presence hit me hard and stayed with me for the entire one hour trip. During that ride, I felt him speaking to me and revealing the true Gospel to me.
You see, I had always thought that the point of following Jesus was becoming holy and avoiding sin. Everything in my Christian life seemed to be about this. I was constantly taught both in the church and at the Honor Academy how and why I should overcome the sin in my life. Spiritual growth was spoken of in terms of how little you sinned and how good you were being. That seemed very normal to me.
But, as I was driving in the car, it stunned me to realize that “not sinning” was not the point of Jesus coming and dying on the cross. Forgiveness of sins is a MEANS to an END, not an end in itself. Forgiveness of sins is so that we can have relationship with Him. Learning to live in His love and acceptance and strength.
This was an absolute mind change for me. I had always said that Christianity was not about religion but about relationship….Yet, I acted as though the sole point of that relationship was to keep me from sinning! I had it totally backwards. In reality, the Christianity I had been living only served me. I was using God to become more holy so I could feel good about myself, so I could feel spiritual and like I had it all together. I was using God to become spiritual.
That might sound crazy to you, as I know it did to me at first. But the truth is that our spiritual maturity is NOT defined by how little we sin – because, let’s be honest, we are usually only judging outward sins anyway. It is not defined by having spiritual things “figured out” or appearing to be the most spiritual.
True spiritual maturity comes when you realize the absolute depth of your own spiritual poverty – you have nothing to give God. So you stop trying. And you start to receive from Him, to depend on Him.
There is a really big difference between relying on your own spiritual growth for salvation and relying on Jesus. And sometimes its hard to tell the difference until your ability to trust in your own maturity is yanked out from under you.
12 comments:
A-HA!! What a blessing this was for me this morning! Thank you so much for sharing!
I wouldn’t have known how to get counselling for the kinds of problems Teen Mania creates. I wouldn’t have known who to go to or what to tell them. I think also I felt too embarrassed to talk about my feelings. How did you find a couselor and what did you look for in one? How did you begin to explain your problem?
Being away from TM 10 years, I’m pretty much recovered — just the scars remain. I no longer need professional help, but it would have been nice to know what direction to go in back then.
The Bible helped a lot with my recovery. I read and studied passages that had to do with grace and free will. I discovered passages that contridicted things I had been told by TM. However, I felt so isolated not being able to relate my feelings to anyone. I would have loved to have found a blog like this back then.
In a sense, Recovering Alumni, your blog is a kind of ministry for those recovering from spritiual abuse. Your blog is especially helpful for those of us who are now skeptical of organised Christianity, and are looking for a more authentic way to digest our experiences. Thank you!
Well, luckily, the Christian college I was attending offered counseling services free to students. So, that is where I went.
As far as explaining the problem, I wasn’t even close to being able to articulate it the way I can now. I just started by telling them what happened and how depressed I was…that started the experience of processing through what was good and bad about TM. I couldn’t have done it without a counselor – I needed someone to tell me it wasn’t my fault and give me permission to acknowledge my negative feelings.
Thanks for your encouragement. 🙂
i agree with recovering alumni.
i ended up seeing a counselor as well, although i couldn’t necessarily articulate what was going on, or what was causing it…i just knew that i was seriously depressed and having a hard time coping with my own life. it was only through a few months of conversations that we were able to begin illuminating some of the issues, and even then i couldn’t link TM to them, necessarily…that came a few months later.
counseling to me was just a huge validation–yes, it’s okay to feel the way that i do, yes it’s okay to not be perfect, no that’s not what God wants for me…and it was fantastic to have a neutral third party to just LISTEN and give unbiased thoughts as an outsider looking in.
i highly recommend seeing a counselor if anyone is struggling–it’s okay to ask for help. it doesn’t make you less holy, or even weak–it takes tremendous strength to acknowledge that you can’t do life on your own. and sometimes it takes an outsider to look at our lives and help us acknowledge connections and potential causations…this is not a journey you need to do alone.
Lovely insight. One way I learned this for myself, regarding what you wrote . . . .
~ “In reality, the Christianity I had been living only served me. I was using God to become more holy so I could feel good about myself, so I could feel spiritual and like I had it all together. I was using God to become spiritual” ~
I did the same; in a sense, its like I wore God. But I think the more accurate way to present truth is that God wears us. Seriously. I was inside out before, until He gently transformed me from within.
One of the greatest things about counseling is that they don’t just tell you what your problem is – they know how to ask the right questions so you can discover it for yourself.
Luna – that is deep. I like that idea and I’m going to mull on it for a while.
huh. Thats a good poing recovering (on your last comment). One of the most frustrating things for me at T.M. is everyone always told me what my problem was. It would drive me nuts. That seemed to be what T.M. produced – people with “answers” and were very vocal about it. Maybe it was common but I never saw that anywhere as frequently as when I was an intern.
AND at TM people like to tell you that you have problems you don’t.
What a true and freeing story you have written. I have and am going through some of the “dark of the soul.” I have gone through various stages of this since college, but particularly after 2005 when my husband and I really started wondering, “What do I want to be? when I grow up?” I had based so much of my purpose and “identity” on the TM fasting retreat life purpose that I never figured for myself what I wanted for myself. I took a stab in the dark and enrolled in Grad. School for Graphic Design, but at the end of my first year and $20,000 further in student loan debt my husband’s career took our family out of state and away from the program. I was disheartened regarding the program in any event and started to doubt my own abilities and self-assurance. While I was in the graduate program I felt purpose and hope that I was going to do something I enjoyed and could succeed at. Yet after leaving the depth of my self-doubt so consumed and consumes me still that I have hardly touched any graphics programs. Six months after leaving the graduate program and moving to our new state I started a new job and discovered that I was pregnant. Four months after that I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Within a year to the day of being diagnosed I had given birth and later underwent surgery to successfully removed 75% of a benign ganglioma. The surgery left me 50% blind on my left side. As I had been laid off just before my son was born, my surgery recovery time was spent at home and I started falling into depression. I still flounder with wonder of what is my purpose? What am I to be when I grow up? What plan does God have for me? I know God and I know he loves me. What does he have planned for me? Who am I? Where do I go to shake this depression and find my path? I ask him but I do not hear an answer. This is my dark soul.
Beth,
What a very very hard season you’ve been in!!! I’ve been through my own “dark night” and honestly find that very little makes everything feel better in the middle of it. I did want you to know, though… that you’re not alone in experiencing this dark and difficult time. Just keep breathing. There IS an end.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful story, RA. You’re courageous for putting it all out there like this for all to see.
Thank you. This post was very helpful to me.