Thursday, July 16, 2015

The Anatomy of Hate

She wandered down the aisle and said in her condescending voice, "You know, Debby. We love you." And I , for the first of many times to come, drew myself up into my inner strength and said, "No, I was sent to teach you love."

And that was the beginning of twenty years of hell living in a place where the most wounded of the most wounded lived. God was teaching me the 'why' of the  message of God's love. Why did people need to hear they were loved unconditionally without any effort or merit on their part? Because they were filled with shame and remorse and guilt and sorrow and despair and fear and hopelessness.

Take the woman, for example. Later, I was told by the son of the lover, how this woman's husband had carried on an affair with his assistant for fifteen years. Now, in her eighties, her remark at one gathering that the woman she most admired was a neighbor who use to babysit for her husbands love child while he and his lover went on tristes, eluded me.

But I had lead a church into truth telling and a desire for repentance, an old fashioned word that means "I don't wanna do that stuff that's hurting me anymore'. She was fearful, although the entire community knew about it, that she would be publicly shamed. I simply HAD to be removed.

So she, and the treasurer who was having an affair with a treasurer from another church and had been embezzling money got together to get a phone campaign rolling, and a year and a half later, they successfully maneuvered themselves into a win. The church had been growing in leaps and bounds and people were just at the point of joining when the whole thing was dragged sideways.

In the midst of all that, there was much more woundedness revealed.

In shock and disbelief that such evil could win, I wandered for twenty years destitute and couch surfing or going from one bad rental to another as the hate campaign continued and I lacked the resources to leave. Ironically the further excuse for abuse came from a fledgling Domestic Violence agency which had stumbled it's way into affluence and favourtism where it circled around the unhealed histories of those involved.

It was a lot to endure. And yet, God was faithful which is why this telling is recorded on my 'faith' page.

Countering the bad, I met amazingly kind and loving people who were eager and willing to live from the center of their lives out, and again and again came along beside me with physical resources and comfort and aid and encouragement and faith and joy and blessings and cheer and wisdom and networking and love.

Do you see how much longer that list is than 'they booted me out without anything in the middle of winter with just me and my birth children right after my husband left me and I lost two adopted kids to their birthmothers and the husband who abused me.'?

The hate that was extended to me came from a place inside those people that included almost everything listed in the first descriptor I offered of why people need to hear they are unconditionally loved. It comes to a place where the heart has been squeezed so tightly blood and love cannot flow. In it's place enmeshment and codependency and dependency and a willingness to denigrate and defile filled the veins like electricity.

What is flowing through you? For me, it was the ultimate test. How was I going to respond to hate. That is the topic for another essay. But it is the question I must ask myself everyday. The hate continues. See haters aren't set right by the truth. They are only set right by repentance,  that indicates some degree of engaging with base behavior or attitudes or thoughts and turning around into another direction.

In a tale that is wonderful to tell, I did make the choice to repeatedly forgive and God richly blessed me because of it, not with riches but with faith and opportunities for positive influence. It wasn't easy and I wasn't always willing , only willing to be willing. My circumstances did not improve much. From the outside my life looked pathetic. But inside, where it counts, I had joy and peace and hope, lots of hope.
More later, when I speak of the power of love
Love,
Deborah



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