Childhood Abuse

Phyical, Spiritual & Sexual Abuse Workshop Transcript #3 (of 4)

Transcript for Session #1
Transcript for Session #2
member #1 member #2 would you like to open us in prayer today?

member #2 sure
Gracious God
thank You for Divora and her willingness to share her journey with us
we are not made to struggle alone
and CIR helps with that so much
bless this time together
may we leave here with more than we came with
in Your name
amen

Phyical, Spiritual & Sexual Abuse Workshop Transcript #3 (of 4) Read More »

Spiritual, Emotional & Sexual Abuse Workshop Transcript #2 (of 4)

Transcript for Session #1

Obie Welcome everyone Session #2 of our workshop
Spiritual, Emotional & Sexual Abuse Workshop: Connecting the Dots of our Disconnected Lives
Finding Healing Through Cooperating with God
(Healing is not instantaneous, there are actions we need to take, attitudes we need to work on. God is our strength and He helps us, but His help requires OUR response)

Without further adieu, I hand the mic over to DvoraElisheva who is leading out workshop

DvoraElisheva Thanks Obie. Hi everyone. I’d like to ask Member #1 to open in prayer.

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Phyical, Spiritual & Sexual Abuse Workshop Transcript #1 (of 4)

Transcript for Session #2

I would like to welcome everyone to the Spiritual, Emotional & Sexual Abuse Workshop. DvoraElisheva is our leader today. She is joining us from Israel.

Being raised in a Christian home did not protect Dvora Elisheva from physical, spiritual, or sexual abuse. As an adult, her memories were more like short video clips with significant parts of the plot missing. In 1982 she moved to Israel. She became friends with a Vietnamese-Chinese family that had found refuge in Israel during the Vietnam war. This led to her 20+ years of work amongst Chinese students, teaching English using the Bible as a textbook.

After having built up a successful life in Israeli hi-tech and within her spiritual community she met her husband over the Internet in 2006. They married in 2007 and she relocated to the US to be with him and a new ready-made family. In 2010 her husband died and in 2011 Dvora returned to Israel.

Well-acquainted with grief and loss, Dvora has been transplanted back and forth between America and Israel, is a Messianic Jew living in a land that views such faith as a betrayal, and plays an active role in a Chinese church in Israel.

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What You Say Matters

And all they that heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, What manner of child shall this be! And the hand of the Lord was with him. Luke 1:66 King James Version

Two days ago when I was at the store, I saw a precious little baby who was probably one month old. When I looked at him, he immediately started smiling at me, clapped his hands, kicked his feet and started laughing. He got excited and happy because someone was paying attention to him. How sad and tragic it is that when children grow older, we stop paying as much attention to them as we did when they were little. Sometimes we turn on the television and let the television become our babysitters so that we can do the things we want to do and not be bothered all day with the children. The thought came to me “This little baby is already acting like a missionary because I see the kindness of Jesus in his face”.

What Transforms Tender Hearts to Hard Hearts?
What happens to make these precious tender hearted and sweet babies turn into people who end up with hard hearts, become criminals and possibly even end up on death row? There has to be a reason that they stop loving people and start hating people. I believe it is because as they grow older and people begin to criticize them for everything that they do and say harsh and sarcastic things to them that their confidence begins to fade. They become suspicious of everyone and they stop trying to do nice things for others. I believe that they think what is the use of trying anymore as I will just be criticized again.

WhenDiscouragement Sets In

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The Under-Discussed Damage of Spiritual Abuse (Part 1)

This is a two part article. See: Part Two

When someone mentions the term, “spiritual abuse” today, sexual molestation of a child often comes to mind. We have too many accounts of priests, pastors and Sunday school teachers preying on the children in their care. And yes, sadly, that is spiritual abuse.

But this kind of abuse can also take on a more subtle form as well. Its definition hinges on the manipulation of power enforced by a spiritual authority figure, with the abused party feeling helpless and coerced.

Children, of course, spring to mind as the most vulnerable. But the net spreads wider.

And a heartbreaking reality emerges: loving God does not exclude us from being hurt, even in the seemingly Godly setting of church. We are all susceptible when it comes to spiritual abuse.

“…Many spiritual abuse victims find themselves struggling to make decisions, and may even have a hard time disciplining themselves to do basic everyday functions such as getting out of bed and brushing their teeth. For so long, we allowed the group/leader to think for us, formulate our opinions for us, and make decisions for us. No wonder so many of us struggle for many years learning how to find ourselves again after leaving a spiritually abusive situation…”
“Spiritual Identity Crisis?” www.churchabuse.com
Used with permission.

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Overcoming Self-loathing

I am astounded by the number of young people who approach me with such intense self-loathing. I frequently hear them say things like…

    “I hate myself; I’m so ugly, disgusting and stupid.”
    “I hate myself. There’s nothing good about me.”


When I ask them, however, why they feel that way, I usually get this response:

“I don’t know.”

For what I am doing, I do not understand…” Romans 7:15

Statistics show…

“One in every 200 girls between 13 and 19 years old, or one-half of one percent, cut themselves regularly.”

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Is Your Finger on the Feelings Button?

Years ago, there was a popular song, “Feelings.”

As the lyrics go, “feelings, nothing more than feelings…whoa…whoa…whoa…”
(It’s bad Karaoke, let me tell ya).

Anyway, I’ve been giving some thought to the feelings factor. I’ve seen how it has done some damage in my own life. Temper tantrums, crying jags, meltdowns of epic proportion- whatever you want to call them – feelings, let’s be real, rarely lead us to make great decisions which improve our lives.

But wreck our lives? Well, that’s a different story.

For those of us in recovery, for those of us coming from abuse, the feelings thing is a tricky course to navigate. In my case, because feelings weren’t safe in my home, growing up, I learned to suppress, stuff, until…boom! Explosion happened. Not a good coping mechanism.

And so, a girl of extremes, when life moved on, I was determined to fully express my feelings whenever I had them. Oh yeah. This was fun and games. No one was going to control me!

Hence, I was OUT of control.

The cliché in life is true: it’s about balance and moderation. And that was NOT something I was good at. I was not good at dealing, in a healthy with my emotions.

Scripture tells us, like it or not, we all need to do this:

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Proverbs 4:23

Years after the immediate damage of both my eating disorders and my childhood abuse, God has patiently- and gradually- led me into honestly looking at my heart, the factory producing all of these blessed feelings in the first place.

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Another’s Critique is Not the Final Say

I recently caught a viral video of a turtle repeatedly head butting a cat. The feline, annoyed, swishing its tail, eventually got up and moved. And the turtle was on its way. Is it a lesson in adversity? In persistence? In forging ahead, despite negative feedback?

Other people hold mirrors up to us. And a significant mirror came to me in the form of a critic to my beloved baby, my book, “Thin Enough.”

They say we’re supposed to embrace the criticism and the ugly truth. Well saying that, doing that and feeling great about it don’t necessarily happen all at the same time. But criticism and unpleasant comments still occur, often while we’re in the middle of something as challenging as recovery from a compulsion, addiction or disorder.

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Domestic Violence: Your Family & Friends

Every year 4,774,000 women in the USA are victims of physical violence.The number of American troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq between 2001 and 2012 totaled 6,488 However, the number of American women murdered by current or ex male partners during the same timeframe was nearly double that amount at 11,766.

Every nine seconds in the USA, a woman is assaulted or beaten. One of them could be your sister, your cousin, your neighbor, or your best friend.

Domestic Violence: Your Family & Friends Read More »

What’s in a name?

But now thus says the LORD that created you…”Fear not: for I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name; you are mine.” Isaiah 43:1

What’s in a name?

We cannot get around that question. From the start, we are named. As life continues, we bestow more names to children, pets, toys, places, projects, et cetera.

This naming business is far from insignificant. Consequently, it can often subject to negative, extremely personal and abusive behavior. It can challenge the recovery from our individual hurts, histories and obstacles.

I’ve personally encountered this toxicity. I have had people call me derogatory names; profanity and misogyny have often been at the center of those names.

It’s startling, infuriating and potentially harmful to my health and recovery. Often reeling from these encounters, my only recourse is to

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