Poison dart frogs are so generous. They have a built-in warning sign so other creatures know they are toxic and dangerous. I often wish abusers came with similar warnings. It would have spared fifteen years of my life had certain spiritual abusers been ornamented with a vibrant indicator to alert me to their lethal venom. Instead, they blended in to subtly lure me, groom me, and then rob me of so much of my life.
“This is the call to discipleship,” I was told at age 18, sitting at a starchy, cloth-covered round table in a hotel lobby after a very emotionally manipulative conference talk. “For me to disciple you, you need to be loyal to God, to me, and to the ministry.” In just a few short words, under dim lights, the only spiritual leader I had ever known put himself and the “ministry” of Campus Outreach on the same level as God. And then he demanded my loyalty in order to “help” me spiritually.
I want you to pay dearly
For what you stole from me
Say that you won’t
I'll burn down the door
I want it paid to me
It's that easy, oh
In any situation of abuse, there is robbery because abuse is the misuse of power to steal what being an image-bearer gives us rights to have -- autonomy, agency, creativity, dignity, life, and emotional and psychological safety. And in the wake of that robbery, the emotion that at once smothers and saves me is rage. As a victim of spiritual and emotional abuse, I'm not interested in repentance. I desire restitution. I want them to pay dearly for what they stole from me. And I want what they stole paid back to me.
But over time, I’ve wondered at whom my rage is directed. Is it towards my abusers? Towards myself? Towards God? It’s probably all three. I know it is. How could these people I considered closer than family do this to me and be like this? Am I this stupid for falling for their lies and manipulations and becoming a liar and manipulator myself? How in the hell could a good and sovereign God let this happen? Why didn’t he step in sooner?
These questions swirl and brew like a midwestern supercell charging slowly to release destructive forces. Lightning. Torrential rain. Tornadoes. For me, these unanswered questions swell into rage. Yet instead of denying it, rejecting it, or even trying to transform it, I’m learning to listen to it, to lean into it, to let it teach me. I’m breathing it in deep and letting it fill me because I’m learning it possesses a hidden power — it is a reconciling agent tethered to love.
Cole Arthur Riley, in her book This Here Flesh, tells the story of the abuse her gramma experienced within the church and how rage mended her relationship with God, which was on the brink of fracture:
"She left...the church, and tried to leave God himself, but found herself tethered to him by rage. A mercy she did not readily comprehend. But in the end, it is much easier to locate love in rage than in apathy...[Apathy] moves you away from a person. Rage comes for you. It is inherently relational. It might come with fire, but it's still moving towards something, and in proximity, there is hope for reconnection [to God]. In this way, anger itself is a function of reconciliation. It is a bringing together. And it was anger's sacred bond that kept my gramma near to her God."
My rage at the injustice of fifteen years of spiritual and emotional abuse at the hands of spiritual leaders may be what is tethering me to God. It also has afforded a small glimpse into the wild prayers of David in the Psalms pleading with God for vindication against his enemies and even asking that God break in their teeth (Ps. 3:7). The rage may be why I am still here, showing up on Sunday, writing about my story, and trying to believe he is big enough and safe enough to hear and handle even the ugliest parts of my anger.
I hope you're not
Hoping I
Fall to pieces
I'm not losing sleep
I'm not begging please
You won't find me weeping
Oh can't you see
The seeds you've sown are ripe for reaping
You picked a fight, but you got a war
Like a fire needs a flood
I want you to pay dearly
For what you stole from me
Say that you won’t
I'll burn down the door
I want it paid to me
It's that easy, oh
Woah
You lit the spark
Now you've been marked
No use in trying
It's clear to face you've wounded grace
Stop your crying
Oh
Oh can't you see
It's time you pay the price for buying
A fight you know you can't finish
It ain't over till it's done
I want you to pay dearly
For what you stole from me
Say that you won't
I'll burn down the door
I want it paid to me
I want to look in your eyes
See them looking back at mine
All that and more
To settle the score
I want it paid to me
It's that easy
I said it once
And now I'll say it more
When I get you I won't let you go.
I want you to pay dearly
For what you stole from me
Say that you won't
I'll burn down the door
I'll get it paid to me
I want to look in your eyes
See them looking back at mine
All that and more
To settle the score
I want it paid to me
It's that easy
Oooh
Woah
It's that easy
Songs of Lent is a group of people from Christ’s Community Church in Fishers, Indiana wanting to experience the fullness of Lent through music that connects us with the universal human longing for the divine.
Thanks again for your vulnerability, Cameron.