SPOUSE & FAMILIES

The unthinkable has happened. 

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The one you trusted has betrayed you and left your heart in a million broken pieces.

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Dear one, no one understands your pain like your heavenly Father. He promises that He is near to the broken hearted and that when no one else can be trusted, we can run to Him - the One who is faithful and true.

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As you begin to sift through the broken pieces, you may find yourself angry, afraid, confused, and just plain sad. Your feelings are valid. You are going through something orchestrated by hell itself, and the broken pieces are very real.

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Take heart. God's presence and truth brings healing, and He isn't done with you or your family yet. 

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But it will take courage to face the brokenness, unhealthy patterns, and painful realities that landed your family and/or marriage in this position. Don't give up, Press into Jesus - the One who bore every sorrow and every disappointment and every shame on His back for you and your family. Take courage, dear heart.

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We are so sorry you're walking through this dark valley that has shown up as an unwanted surprise on your doorstep. We have walked through this heartbreak ourselves, and we know something of your pain.

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We're here to point the way to hope. It does exist! We promise, but the truth is that hope comes through dealing with reality which can be difficult. Peeling back the layers of understanding may bring more pain. But Scripture tells us that "the truth will set you free." Courageously facing the truth will equip you to fight the right battles aimed at the right enemies. Like a patient rushed into the emergency room, you want surgery performed on the right body part. It would be malpractice for the doctor to wrap your arm in an ace bandage and send you home when you really need a kidney transplant. Dealing with the truth is the beginning of real healing.

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This journey will be painful. You are already experiencing that. You and your whole family will need support, care, and great counsel. But the thing that will bring you all to freedom is the truth. Cling to Jesus - He is the One who IS the Truth. And He will lead you through.

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An Important Key - When You're Ready

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The most painful, surprising thing to grapple with may feel foreign and condemning, but it is actually just a sobering, painful reality - one that is difficult to swallow. But it is an essential piece of rebuilding your heart, life, and home on truth.

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The spiritual abuse and/or sexual misconduct that has hit your family was not an affair. It was an abuse of pastoral position and power. So many factors may have contributed to this situation: undealt with conflicts in your marriages, character flaws out of check, deceit, pride, unwise boundaries and counseling practices, untenable pressures at church and at home... you name it. But in the end, the crossing of sexual lines are the complete responsibility of the healing professional/the person in power: in this case, the pastor. 

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Due to the imbalance of power in the relationship between a pastor & a member of his congregation, there can be no mutual consent to any type of intimate behavior or sexual activity. 

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The goal of highlighting this information isn't to bring blame to one person and absolution for another; it is to bring a fundamental component of this relationship so that true understanding, repentance, and healing can happen for all involved.  

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Both parties (victim and pastor) need encouragement and strength. Not encouragement to continue in sin, but rather to see it for what it is, turn from it, repent and seek forgiveness. 

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When the true dynamics of what has taken place are understood, both parties - and their families - can receive the appropriate counsel, help and healing they need... dealing with the actual issues that played into this nightmare. The victim may find patterns of codependency, past or present trauma, among other gaps and vulnerabilities. The abuser must deal with the underlying reasons for the abuses he exhibited and the hurts he inflicted - to the victim, the church, and to his own family. Diving deeply, humbly, and honestly into his own brokenness and tendancies will open the door for the potential of generational healing and freedom for him and his family.

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Keep holding onto hope. God does His very best work when we're at the end of ourselves, and He is just getting started with you.