Melissa Bolden on Spiritual Abuse Part 2

Hi, this is Rachel on recovery. We're back with Melissa Bolden and she's going to tell the rest of her story. What are things that trigger you in the church today or is there anything that was triggered yesterday? It's hers. Oh gosh, this is more coming off of the last three years or so when the church, when so many in the church have been so adamant about politics, vaccines. So I I right now I'm triggered when I hear and if you say you listen to a certain person or a certain person said this and that person is of this camp of the political camp. I I, you know, I I get tense. So I guess what triggers me now is just politics in church. Yes. No, I I had to leave a church because of politics. At church I was so triggered, especially during the last couple of elections, have been very heated to say the least. So I I think that, you know, we have a separation of church and state. We should also have a separation of church and politics. Yes. No, that's a yeah, that's a whole mess right there. But yeah, no church politics, the US politics in the church and then there's the church politics in the in the church. That's the whole other people can't get rid of 1. But the, you know, US politics at church, we can definitely get rid of that. Most definitely. How has God helped you deal with the fundamental and legalism inside the Church? How does just really give me a message of grace? And that is my message to to the church, is that we have to understand that the work on the cross was final. It was complete. It was enough. And because of the atoning work of Christ, I am you are forgiven. You are loved. You don't have to earn God's love. You don't have to work for God's love. And I think so much of what I grew up with was, OK, let's work really hard so God will love us. And I want people to be free of that. I want people to just receive the love of God. And then what we do is not a vibe for God love. We're not working for God love what we do. It is an expression of what how God loves us. And that's that's my message to the church. My message, my message to the church is to receive God's love and then go out and be an expression of that love. That sounds simple. I wish. But we know it's a lot more bad, really, than that. It really isn't. It is really just received God's love. What? What? What makes you think is complicated? Well, first, a lot of people have a very dark understanding of love. Especially those who grew up in very toxic relationships that are either dealing with borderlines or narcissists or any of that. So their interpretation is love is very messed up, Especially you know, when we compare God's love as a father's love, that really does. It triggered me as well, so. And I think a lot of people don't understand the full concept of that. I agree with you. I mean, they have a tiny little smidge of what they think love contains, but it's so much bigger than that. And and and my again, my remedy for that is to receive God's love and and God's love is not something that he downloads. Overnight. It's not like you can pray. Lord, give me a revelation of your love and the next one and you wake up and you have a 100% understanding of God's love. It is something that he is constantly unveiling and showing me and every day I'm not, I don't. I think it is so vast and so wide that I will never understand it on this side of heaven. But. And my goal is every day to grow further into his love, right? So for those people and I, I was part of some of that. I mean some of that growing up, I had a father who didn't didn't grow up with the mother's love. And so my father was very harsh and he was in no way a perfect man. So. I didn't grow up with this. Father's a father's love that was representative of God's love. That makes sense. I grew up, so I I had to unlearn a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff I had to unlearn. But. And I'm still unlearning. But part of that part of the journey. It's just sitting down and say, Lord, give me a revelation of your love. And so if we can, if we can ask that for those of us who didn't have perfect parents, which is all of us, if we can begin to just ask God for a revelation of his love for us, I think we will find so much more healing. And again, most definitely it's not. It's not like this magic thing that you can take and it's going to happen overnight. It is a constant. It is a sanctification, if you will. It is a constant every day just asking God to give you more and more and more and you will. You will never get there, but you can get better, most definitely. Accept that love and and learn to love other people. It'll it's life changing, most definitely. What is one thing that you pray for that you want the most for the church? Can I? Can I? Do I have to limit it to one? No, go for it, The Church one. I pray that the Church would know her worth and her power. I think that and you. I think it was evident, and when we talk about the church and politics, I think when we understand how powerful God has made us, that he's given us his spirit, that he's equipped us to fight the enemy, that we have authority over the enemy. I think once we realized that, we would stop vying for political power. So that's one thing. I want the church to know who she is. I want the church to know that she is the beautiful bride of Christ that's been equipped to overcome the enemy. I want. I want the church to know there's grace and there's mercy. Like I said, I want them to know we don't have to fight to earn God's love, that the work of the cross is complete. So we're forgiven. And we're the righteousness of God and Christ Jesus. I want the church to to remember who they are and do what God called us to do, which is feed the poor, take care of the aliens, the immigrants, take care of widows. I want us to know that we're supposed to be the the, the hands and feet of Christ. Yeah, that's, you know, I want us to know we have power. But that power is not to manipulate or to force. That power is to love and and and to show the world the love of God. Most definitely. I mean, they, you know, they should know us the way we love one another, the way we love the world. Our goal. God told Abraham, I will bless you and you will be a blessing. And I think we've forgotten the second part of that. We want God to bless us, but we forgot we're supposed to be a blessing. We're supposed to be a blessing in the world and not just with other Christians. We are supposed to show the love of God. So people would be drawn to Christ most definitely. Because I mean the world. Well, the world is a very anxious and depressed society that we live in, and love can conquer a lot of that. Because if people were receiving the love, and especially God's love, I don't know if we would have near the anxiety or depression that we have today in our society. Yeah, because the Bible says perfect love cast out fear. So when we receive the love of God, Oh yeah, that cast out all fear. It cast out the our anxiety. In my book, I think it's triumphantly free. I talk about a situation where my husband Job was tenuous and I unfortunately brought like fear into my heart. And when I recognized the fear, I began to pray, Lord give me a greater revelation of your love. And once he did that, that fear was expelled because God showed me in a very miraculous, very beautiful way that he would take care of me regardless to whether or not my husband had a job or not, that he was my provider. And so fear, that fear is based in torment because you don't know you're saved. You don't. You don't know God will provide for you. That's what causes us to fear. But when we understand there's a song, one of my favorite songs says that God is good and I am loved. And when we understand those two things, that God is good and that he loves us and he wants to be good to us, then that eliminates the fear. Most definitely. Most definitely. And I think, I think as Christians, you know, I think fear not is one of the most used phrases in the entire Bible, because we are, we are fierce creatures. But you know, I think with God we need to realize that he's in control and we are not. And he is gonna provide for us every step of the way, cuz he's a really good guy. He's really good at what he does. Yes, he is. So what's the next question? What advice would you give ministers today that are dealing with spiritual abuse personally or trying to help their congregation? You know, I thought about that question a lot and I've, I've thought about what I've gone through in the last year and I am now at a a very small church and I feel safe there. So I was just kind of thinking of what has. These pastors done to help me feel safe And so I would say this, I would say one is we have we cannot minimize people's pain. So I think the first thing that the church has to do. Is be a place where we acknowledge people's pain. We give people the space to have pain. We give people the space to question church. I was, I heard part of a conversation. This little girl, she looked to be like 12 or 13. And her grandmother had brought her to church. And she was saying, I, the little girl said, I hate church. And I heard the people around. And I was walking out the door and I didn't know where my place was. But this child has been on my heart since I heard that. I heard the people around her sort of minimize her words, like to say, oh, well, you'll grow out of that or you really don't mean that. Instead, instead of allowing the young lady to just say I hate church and saying to them, saying to the young lady that's okay, God still loves you. Or instead of saying to the young lady, well tell me why you hate church? Because we don't know her story, right? We don't know what she's experienced. We don't know. We just don't know. And so we have to be a church that allow people to share. We have to be willing to sit in people's pain and allow them to express that pain and allow them to share their pain without minimizing it. Without making it smaller, I think that's one thing. I think we also have to stop the the narrative that if you don't attend church regularly, you're not saved. Yeah, I mean, your salvation has nothing to do with your attendance. This is a it's not school. There's no truant officer coming to your house. So I think we have to allow people the space to step back from church and let the Holy Spirit draw them back in if he wants to back in. But I think that's important as well. We we explain to people or let people find a way, you know, that could be online church or it could be I think community is important, but if you've been hurt. You may not be ready for community at that moment, so you may just need the word. And so that's okay. If somebody steps back and says, hey, I'm just going to watch on television for a little bit, or, you know, I'm just going to read my boggle, whatever, Give them the space to do that while you're constantly reaching out to them and letting them know that when they're ready, they can come back. But if you need space, that's okay. And and so no shame, no guilt, you know, Oh no, I mean, I talked to a lot of survivors of clergy abuse, whether adults or children. And, you know, the ones that I mean, some of them would never come back to the church. And what nothing to do with it. And I think a lot of that it depends on if you have an actual relationship with God before the abuse. And it depends, you know. And that that's between them and God. But I know we have a lot of guests on here that have just struggled with going back to church or being super involved again because they were so burned so badly. Yeah, I I hear you because been there, done that. And I think allowing people to jump in where they can again without that pressure. So you know. If I can come in once a week, I know when I first started going to the church, I'm going to, I would come late, leave early and that's just where I needed to be at that moment. Giving people the space to come early, leave late, come come late, leave early, giving them space to do that without judgment. I think if, I think if pastors want to make their churches safe. That they need to be transparent. So I think all all churches should have like a way that is very known. If you are if you're having a problem with the pastor, what what's my remedy? So you know go talk to the elders of the church that's you know or. Talk to the pastor supervisor. If they're denominational, I think that path should be made known to the congregants and pastor should be very open about that. I think pastor should be very humble and say come from a standpoint that we are all learning this together and I am. My theology is not perfect. But we're all learning together. I think that's important because I think, again, that has been the spiritual abuse. I'm the pastor. I know this is what is going to happen without saying, because nobody's theology is perfect. Nobody, most definitely. How would you, how do we rebuild trust with those who've been abused by the church? You know, I think the question is, is the same. I think we do the same thing. We give them space. We allow them to jump in. We we are transparent as leaders. We model transparency so that our our leaders are those who are under us are as transparent as we are. We just, we just make church a safe place to be in terms of, you know, no guilt, no shame. And it's weird that you'd have to say that about a church, but a lot of churches operate in a lot of church from guilt and shame. We motivate with guilt and shame. And I I think that has to be eliminated completely from churches. Because it's not a God, yes. And that we would just be open to hear people's stories and allow people to share their stories and allow people, people are angry with God, allow them to be angry with God. So I think that is how we we walk through that most definitely. How was. Working against the spiritual abuse affected your faith. Well, I think I'm learning to put less faith in man and more faith in God. I think part of the spiritual abuse is. Because we allow ourselves to see men and our women as larger than life. And yes, what my faith is, what I'm learning is God uses flawed people. So even though a person. May have character flaws. God can still use them. I was I was telling my Bible study about this experience I had a few years ago. I was in my car driving to work and I was listening to the song by one of my favorite worship leaders and it was like the spirit of the Lord just filled my car. On my drive to school and I am just crying. I can just feel the tangible presence of the Lord in my car. I'm just crying and weeping my way to work. That happened a few years ago and what I've learned recently is that worship leader was involved in a an affair and a marital affair. He he was having an affair on his wife, and the other person on the song has now renounced their faith. But my experience was real, right? So do I discount my experience because it came at the hands of flawed people? No. God used those flawed people to speak a message to me. And so that's what I'm learning in this season. Is that people are flawed and I don't. They don't have to be perfect for God to use them because God is perfect and and I can. I can respect flawed men. I can receive from flawed men and women, but I just have to have an understanding that they are flawed. I don't know if that answers your question, but that's what I. That's where my faith is, is that God can use for people. And so my faith has become stronger into what God is doing and less than what man is doing. And what do you do for self-care? Well, I didn't get out of bed today until noon, so. I I enjoy Bible studies. I enjoy reading the Bible, and I enjoy sitting with women and breaking open the Bible together. So that's part of myself care. I mean, of course I'll, you know, I'll go get my nails done, I'll go get my toes done, but I really just like sitting in this presence and. Sharing the word with women and sharing the word with other people, that's my self-care. All right. Is there any questions we forgot to ask or anything you would like to say that I have? No, I think we've been pretty thorough about spiritual abuse. I think we just need to know that spiritual abuse looks like many different things to many different people. And if you suspect. You know, I would say this to your audience. If you you feel like you're in a church or in an environment where you're there is spiritual abuse going on and I think some of the signs of that, if you're sitting under someone who doesn't allow you to question him or her, I think that's a that's a sign. If you're sitting under someone who you know, if you disagree with them, they just say, well, the Lord told me, I think that's a warning sign. If you're sitting under someone and you feel as if they're not allowing any other voices to speak to them, you know, if it's, then I think that's a sign. And so if you feel like you're under under spiritual abuse, or if you if you're sitting under someone who is just trying to be controlling to control your life, to control what you do. I think you need to look and find some help somewhere. Maybe, you know, go into the the the council at your church, the board, you know, the elders at your church asking questions and it's okay to leave a church. I don't do that lightly. I wouldn't say that lightly, but if you have serious, serious concerns. I would say, you know, try to find some place that's healthy. Yes, most definitely. I mean, there are all churches or hospitals, but if it's affecting your health to be in church, then you're in the wrong church. That's true, because Kerry should be a place of safety. And and again, you know, no church is perfect, right? And we don't go to church. To be I tell people you don't go to church to be fed. You should feed yourself. But you do go to church for that community, and there's certain things that you want to look for and certain, you know, warning signs that that you want to be on guard against. And again, if you feel like the person is being overly spiritual, with the prophetic if prophetic, if you feel as if there's a sense that this person can't be questioned or is never wrong. You know those Tamir warning signs? Yes, most definitely. I think that's it. Thanks for coming on my shell and we'll be out. And thank you guys for listening. This is Rachel and recovery always TuneIn on your favorite podcast or social media platform. If you have any questions, reach out to rachelandrecovery.com. Thanks.