My New Dilemma

[FishermanDoug]

Its been a while since I last posted, but I am coming with a dilemma.

My girl has had these dreams supposedly for months on going back to a church she was at for 10 years where she was very involved in the worship crew. Long long long story short some very bad abuse of power and outright spiritual abuse happened and she left. Its been a while since she could forgive them for what happened and we had church hopped together since then trying to find a decent home to root ourselves in to grow. Now she comes to me and says shes going back to visit the church, that she feels these dreams are from God. They are dreams of her singing there again. This has caused a slight disturbance between us if you couldn't gather by now because for one, the wisdom side of me is saying "forgiveness is good, but that doesn't necessarily mean you should go back to the abuser." and secondly, I haven't received any tug in the direction to join her. We visited a church last week that we both seemed to like...this campus is just starting out, and growing.

I totally respect her for forgiving them, as she should have done. Thats totally cool. Thats hard to do. However, Im just not sure that going back is the thing to do.

 

[snoochface]

My two initial thoughts:

1) The dreams could mean, more than going back to that church, going back to helping with worship at church. Not necessarily THAT church. That church is just the context the dreams are taking on, because it's where she felt she was contributing the most. A place to contribute is more important in my view than contributing in THAT particular place.

2) If you both have visited a church you both liked, and suddenly these dreams mean, to her, going back to the abusive church, I might wonder if that isn't a bit of a spiritual attack going on. Satan doesn't want you in a good church where you will learn and grow and be part of community and contribute toward worshiping God. So it's not out of the realm of possibility that, when you finally hit on a church where you might have all that, he starts whispering, "But what about this other church you've been dreaming about....?"

Going back to visit once, maybe for closure, maybe to settle the forgiveness issue once and for all, wouldn't be a bad thing. If the abusing people are still there in the same roles, I definitely would not make going back a regular thing.

I hope you can work things out with her.

 

[Annessa3]

you say she wants to visit the old church. What's wrong with that? She hasn't suggested re-joining it. Perhaps she needs to put the past to rest.

 

[FishermanDoug]

I hope it's the closure thing really. I lost sleep over the feeling that this is a bad idea to go trotting back to that church. And point 1 of yours is what I initially thought and in fact a bit of point 2 as well...seems to be a good consensus. Being her protector and knowing I have the gift of discernment it just doesn't sit well with me. It's going to be fun trying to settle on a decision.

 

[FishermanDoug]

Annessa that's all in hoping this is. Just a visit to bury the hatchet and be done with it. However knowing how passionate she was about serving in the choir there it does cause me a bit of concern.

 

[Verve]

I agree with snootchface.

 

[FishermanDoug]

So she has dug her heels into the ground stating this is what God is calling her to do. Now we are really torn. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and visited this church with her today just mainly for her but I went in with an open heart and mind....no connection what so ever...this really sucks.

 

[snoochface]

So she's wanting to go back to that church full-on as a member? Not just visit for closure and forgiveness?

 

[FishermanDoug]

Scratch that...we had a talk today and suddenly she isn't going through with it. She said its not worth all the strife it has caused us. We are going to talk to someone and get some spiritual guidance, because honestly I was feeling like my spiritual leadership in this relationship was being undermined. I tried to tell her that just because I didn't feel the church I wasn't trying to take something away from her. I'm doing what I can to build us a foundation for us to grow together. She realized it was an "us" decision, and not a "me" one.

 

[snoochface]

This sounds like good progress.