So now I'm not a Christian...
This evening Andrea and I had an interesting conversation. I am torn between being so angry I could spit nails, feeling compassion for her immaturity, and wishing it would all just go away.I'm sure that my most casual reader knows or at least suspects that I struggle with depression. Heck, I may have even said it before; I just can't remember. I've been in the middle of a pretty serious bout of depression for a while now. We're talking "hide the knives and shoe laces" serious.
It really bothers Andrea that I'm dealing with this depression. She thinks that I haven't prayed about it or that my faith isn't strong enough. She thinks that if I just prayed harder or asked more friends to pray for / with me; everything in my life would be rosey. Given my current mood, I won't even begin to tell you how I feel about this theory.
Usually, Andrea feeds Elizabeth and eats her own dinner before I get home at 7:30 or there abouts. But tonight she waited to eat with me. I thought this had to do with yesterday... I thought she was trying to make nice with me. Well, I thought wrong.
As I mentioned before, Andrea is leaving this weekend for her three week vacation. I'm not entirely sure of her motivation, but I think she was worried about me leaving me for three weeks with out convincing me to pray harder and improve my faith. Almost as soon as we sat down to dinner she started preaching to me about how I just needed to have more faith. I would be so much more happy and my life would be so much better if I just had faith. If I could pray and ask God to heal me and if I really had faith and believed that God would heal me... then he would answer my prayers with such abundance and I would be so happy and I would never have to deal with my depression ever again.
I tried really, really hard to let her words roll off my back. I did my best to just smile and say I would pray harder next time. I think she means well. I think it's a matter of immaturity on her part... I'm not sure if it's an immature faith or just a general lack of life experience, but she's definitely looking at the world through the eyes of someone who doesn't want to see pain and suffering.
I didn't really see the point of picking a fight with her. It was a no-win situation. There is no way that a single conversation could give her the maturity she would need to understand that it's possible to have even more and even stronger faith in the middle of difficult times. And my frustration level is really, really low right now; so I would just get myself all worked up trying to explain it to her. So I tried. I swear I tried to let it all just roll of my back and not let it affect me.
But then she did it! Then she went and pushed my buttons. I don't know if the buttons had big red signs that said, "Press here for explosion" or if she just found them by luck. But somehow she found them.
First she said that God wants us to have nothing but joy and happiness in our lives. If we just accept Him into our lives; He will bless us with happiness that we can't comprehend. If we just accept Him and had total faith in Him we will no longer have any suffering in our lives.
Well, now I was over the line... I really didn't want to share my personal life story with her, but the question I really wanted to ask her was this... "So are you saying that I was sexually abused by multiple relatives as a young child because my faith wasn't strong enough; but if I'd had a more pure faith those relatives wouldn't have done that to me?" But I just didn't have the energy to go there with her. So I asked this instead... "Are you saying that anyone who has a handicapped child is not a true Christian?"
She looked at me for a second. She was processing this question. I could see she was deep in thought... maybe debating the pros and cons of an honest answer on her part? Who knows. But finally she said that she believed that was true.
OK.
Now I was really over the line. I was in a complete and total free fall of anger and rage and disbelief. So I gave her my follow-up question... "So, I guess you're saying that my family really isn't Christian. I guess you would say it's my fault that my brother is deaf. Because I prayed for him to be healed, but he's still deaf. So do you blame me that my brother is deaf? Is it my fault?"
She wouldn't answer the question. Instead she went and got her Bible. She told me to read Matt. 21:21-22. She made me read it out loud... it says, "Then Jesus told them, 'I assure you, if you have faith and don't doubt, you can do things like this and much more. You can even say to this mountain, `May God lift you up and throw you into the sea,' and it will happen. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.'"
Then she made me read Matt. 17:20. "'You didn't have enough faith,' Jesus told them. 'I assure you, even if you had faith as small as a mustard seed you could say to this mountain, `Move from here to there,' and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.'"
I did defend my position. I said that I believed a faith that withstood hard times and managed to stay strong and steadfast during those hard times was a stronger faith than one that was never tested... but she would have none of that.
Luckily, just when I could feel the veins in my head throb to the point I thought they were going to explode and just when I could feel the pressure pushing against my chest to the point that I just wanted to scream... Luckily at that moment she got a phone call and I went and hid in my bedroom for the rest of the evening.
Like I said before I can't decided if this is a matter of immaturity on her part or maybe she just wants to deny pain. Maybe there is something in her own life that she can't face and therefore has to have this perfectly happy faith scenario. I don't know. I'll never know. I'm just trying to have compassion. I know she means well. But couldn't she just go and mean well some place else?
posted by Liz at 2:12 AM
8 Comments:
Sounds like she's fallen in with the "health and wealth" folks. They tend to be in the charismatic tradition quite a bit ... what is her church like? It can seems immature, but there are plenty of very mature people out there who believe this stuff ... they have a hard time reconciling the difficult stuff they go through because it doesn't add up. But then ... there are plenty of people in the plain vanilla evangelical church who believe this too. When Ross had his back problems, we got a lot of that. Just pray harder ... God will solve your problems. That's just so much bullshit. How do you reconcile those verses, with "take up your cross and follow Me." I think Jesus made it pretty clear that following Him meant we were not in for an easy time ... it just meant that He would be with us as we walked through it. Tell her to read John 15-17 ... and while your at it ... have her read her verses IN CONTEXT. I hate it when people pull a couple of verses like that out of context ... look those up and find out what Jesus was really talking about.
Ooops ... Ross corrected me. She's probably in a Pentecostal church. These are hugely popular with hispanics (among others) and also spend a lot of time preaching this ice cream wagon theology ... pray harder and life will be good. If your life is hard, it's your fault ... which ignores the Fall and a lot of other things too. It's really unbalanced theology.
Andrea's attitude is really the last thing you need when you are depressed. It sounds like you handled it really well. As ridiculous as it is that anyone can see it that way in the face of real life proving them wrong, it seems that when it comes to depression even the less crazy get a little ridiculous. I've run into plenty of 'normal' christians who believe depression has something to do with the 'sin' of despair and that we ought to be able to lift ourselves out of it through faith. I've also run into nonchristians who think they can snap you out of it by 'doing something fun'. Or they remind you of all the ways you are blessed. Then that adds a guilty feeling to the mix because you feel like you shouldn't be depressed. Maybe it has to do with our culture's emphasis on independence.
I'm sorry to hear that you're in one of those hard times. If you ever want to talk, I promise I won't try to 'snap you out it'.
Sometimes the best approach is to agree. "Wow, Andrea, maybe you're right, I don't have enough faith. Would you please pray for my brother and make him well?"
If she tries and can't... well, then the tables have turned, haven't they?
I'm trying to have compassion for Andrea and respect for her point of view, but you know what? Andrea can bite my butt. You don't need that heretical BS in your life, Liz. You have my deepest admiration for you for relating to her with such monumental patience in the context of your own depression. But I think the cross of the illness itself is heavy enough for you to bear without the additional weight of this indefensible, immature, unloving idiocy. That shit went out more than 2500 years ago with the inspiration and composition of the Book of Job. Any believer in a biblical faith who still thinks like that should read the damn book and shut their damn mouth.
Sorry to be so judgemental. This is not a subject I'm capable of being objective about.
Oooooh, I like Dee's idea.
Liz -- it sounds to me like her faith is rather fragile, actually. And, as you say, untested. I'm gonna blindly guess that she's clinging to it for dear life as the only thing that's familiar to her here. But a little maturity and wisdom would help her realize that, regardless of what she believes, to lecture you is a) not a good idea on a personal level, and b) not a good idea on a professional level. If you didn't scream at her and/or fire her on the spot, I'd say you exhibited lots of patience.
Having spent 25 years in the name it and claim it bunch ... I can tell you ..everything she said is wrong ...
God never ever told us it would be easy!!!!
LOOK ...Elijah (or was it Elisha?) got suicidal!
Jesus said that to every man is given the measure of faith that they need ..and that if they have the faith of a grain of mustard seed they could say to the mountain it would be moved into the sea ...
now think about it ..that means WE'VE BEEN GIVEN ALL THE FAITH WE NEED!!!!!!!!
So what does that mean ... that means that it isn't UP TO OUR FAITH!!!!!
When people say that we're not believing enough, praying enough, having enough faith, it is putting the responsibility for healing or answer of prayer on our shoulders! Well, I'm sorry, but I have no power ..the power is in my God ... and God is the one who can do all things!
God will make me whole, not me!
My faith was given to me ...and it is enough, every man was given that measure of faith ..but the power is in God,
And what gets done when is in God's timing and God's will, not ours!!!
Andrea, needs to get a grip and read all of her Bible, and not just the happy verses. Scripture, interprets scripture!
Having been both charasmatic (cool/slick) name it and claim it and (old fashioned) pentecostal, the belief system is alive in both movements. It's a doctrinal view of the bible that reads EVERY verse with colored glasses. They jump through hoops to turn EVERY thing into a support of the faith doctrine. It always comes back on you, the one needing the miracle/healing, as being the one having to do *more* to make it work. Although it claims to be all about faith, it really boils down to being all about works, just do more of X spiritual practice/good work/give money/ etc. and your faith prayer will come to pass. If you can mix the concoction of your life up juuuuust right, then you supposedly put yourself into position of 'recieving' your miracle. It puts it all on you as the one required to make the miracle come to pass and it's a very self condemning place to be in when it doesn't.
She's approaching the issue of faith from a mathematical "Do X you'll get Y" stance. That's the whole faith movement. They remove much of the mystery and require you to get lathered up in God to the point where you are "fully convinced" that your miracle will happen and then they say that it will. They camp out on those verses you mentioned she brought up. I heard them at practically every church service.
I don't know if you can win an argument with someone who is trying to "cast down every doubt" and is taught to mentally fight with every thought that contradicts her view of "faith". It took me going to enough funerals of friends that had handled all the specifics of the formula right that left me with questions. I saw enough miracles to convince me of it all and then saw it not work enough times to "unconvince" me. I think it's a discovery process that has to happen on the inside. You can find some books and materials that refute the faith points from a doctrinal standpoint if you're interested. One that wasn't really doctrinal but a bit more therapy oriented I read was "Faith that Hurts, Faith that Heals". I really learned a lot from it. If you'd like to borrow it, just let me know.
But you know, it's your house. You're her employer. You have a right to set the environment and allow what kind of treatment you'll endure in your own home. Don't be afraid to draw boundaries of where she is allowed to go with you and where she is not. You hired her to provide care for your child. In the process of her living with you some friendship/relationship may develop, but she does not have the right to assume "spiritual leader" and think she's guiding you anywhere. Silence on your part can connote permission and you certainly have the right to let her know when she needs to back off.
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