Thanks again, this is a powerful example of change in the cycle generational abuse.
Hugs, Darlene

What I came to know is she did the best with her world view. She didn’t have the power to stop what was going on, and took the defense of buffering the abuse, and enabling him to be the douche he was/is. Did her best to protect the family “image” by teaching us to not share what was going on in our family. Which she learned from her mother, and her mother by her mother, and on and on and on. For the ripples of our family disease started generations ago. Now they have reached the shore, and crash violently to destroy the illusion.

I am blessed with great inner strength, and determination to stop this dysfunctional way of life with me. By teaching my children how to interact as loving family, that does not physically and verbally abuse each other.

Part of my healing now, is to help my family see how this past destruction can no longer be ignored and enabled. My family is still living in this illusion. Bleeding this illness into the next generation of our family. I’m doing my best to be an living example of compassion and loving conflict resolution.

Ghandi said “be the change you wish to see in the world”

I was only making a commentary on the book of Job the way that I see the story unfold. To me it’s about getting away from religion and telling God exactly what we feel. When we do this, we find relief. We are all going to suffer in some way in this world. Right now, in my part of the world, there are major floods going on that have ripped entire towns apart. Some people have died because of this and now their relatives are suffering the loss. When we get fired unduly, we also suffer. When people don’t treat us as well as they ought to – we suffer. When I was sick a few days ago and am still sick – I’m suffering physical pain. I’ve suffered childhood trauma that I finally got over with many years of growing and understanding what had happened to me.

I want to apologize to a certain extent for having brought up my view on this book here because the subject is the “Why of Suffering”
I wasn’t trying to give every reason Why because that would be impossible for me to do just give my opinion on Job.

I will say that much of the suffering that many of us have had is because someone else was abusive to us and that cannot be the will of God for anyone. Abuse is abuse and their is no excuse for it. That said, God gave every human being a free will. Some people with that free will can abuse of other people including children. I believe that now that I have some knowledge on what abuse is that I can choose to not become an abuser and I could also choose to help others in abuse prevention. This is still my choice. I still have a free will. God is not making me abuse anyone so if I were to choose that road, then that would be my fault or sin as some people like to say. Happily, much to the contrary, I want to help people to ultimately find relief where I found relief in God who lead me to understand myself, to understand that other people’s sin (or abuse) can affect me even at an age that I couldn’t fully understand or deal with it.

So we all are going to suffer in this world in some way. Some of us were abused and it was a wrongfull and devastating thing for that to happen to us, but it happened. Now we are trying to recover and the recovery is a long process (at least for me it was). I totally empathize with everyone here reading and looking for the answers to “Why” we suffer. I can’t blame it squarely on God if I know that God has guaranteed us all a free will. So each person should look out for the best interest of the other – so it should be if we choose. The best we can do is Love one Another Through these difficult recovery periods. I love what Darlene has done here on her BLOG. I have found much relief just to be able to express myself. I’m so sorry if something that I have said offended anyone – it was not my intent. Please forgive me.

As far as the book of Job is concerned, I didn’t write it. I only expressed my opinion on what it means to me. I’m against church abuse and spiritual abuse so that’s why this story is so meaningful to me.

Manuel Jones

Here is a small excerpt

“So, Manuel’s theory is that it was Job’s lack of personal relationship with God that caused his suffering? And once he got that fixed he was blessed? Or at the very least, Job’s lack of personal relationship caused him to not be ok with his suffering? Caused him to ask questions? You see, that’s BS in my book. That puts it all back on the victim. They are somehow at fault for either their sufferings/calamities or their pain due to those sufferings/calamities.

This is saying that Job didn’t have a real relationship with God when he suffered in life. THAT is what is BS.”

The types of abuse that I write about in this blog are not the same type of trials and tribulations that Job had, and one of the ways that spiritual abuse happens is that we are told that if we had enough faith we could get over it and even worse that God LET it happen to bring us closer to Him or that we were being punished for something. All this contributes to the victim feeling re-abused. I am not saying that is what happened in the post comments today, I am just saying that so many victims are very sensitive to the way that the Bible is presented because of how misrepresented the Bible has been and continues to be. Having said that my primary reason for having this blog is purely about mental health and mental health recovery. I personally would like to remain neutral when it comes to religious or spiritual beliefs as was modeled for me in therapy. I had “permission” to wipe the slate clean because I was spinning on a million things and I would like all my readers to have the same opportunity.

I am not against the biblical comments or any other type of religious comments either, unless I find them abusive. (I won’t allow people to use the bible or any religious or spiritual teaching as a weapon on my blog) and I am only posting this comment for the benefit of other readers who found the Job comments difficult to digest.

Thanks to Everyone who has contributed to this post!
Hugs, Darlene