How do you know that God really has your best interests in mind?
I was at a self-help group meeting. There was a discussion of "God having your best interests in mind." How do you know this is true? I surely had a difficult time understanding what they were talking about. I was the only Jew in the room (that I knew of). Is this a Christian concept and not a Jewish one?
Can anyone tell me that God had my best interest in mind while I was being abused? Was there some greater need for this to have happened? No one has ever been able to explain this to me. Please if anyone would like to try, I'd love to hear what you have to day.
posted by Bughouse Square @ 2:25 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Thank you jewishwhistleblower for responding!
I was feeling like I was talking to the wind. I had no idea if anyone was reading my blog.
I feel like I have nothing to hold on to, nothing that is real.
I have my mind, but so many people tell me I don't even have that.
No one ever protected me.
No one ever risked anything to make it stop.
No one wanted to get involved, even though I begged them for help.
No one will answer my God questions.
That's not completely true. One rabbi sent me an e-mail. After a few exchanges he wrote me told me to stop blogging and volunteer my time visiting people in an old people's home instead. That really freaked me out.
I felt like he was trying shut me up, and show me some people have it worst then me.
I tried responding back to him, but he stopped writing.
Some times I'm envious of holocaust survivors. I know this sounds sick, but at least they were suffering with others. For me I suffered in secrecy and silence.
Dear Bughouse Square:
Came across your blog and wanted to write to wish you well. Your struggles are heartfelt, and real and NO ONE should stop you from expressing your anger, frustration and questions.
As a rabbi I wish I had answers for you. As JWB put it so well-- the question of undeserved suffering is beyond any of us in theological terms. More has been written on this topic-- why the good suffer-- than any other theological question and we still don't have good answers.
So I am not trying to answer you. I do, however, want to respond. One Chassidic master, when asked where God is, answered, "Where ever we let Him in." Your abuser did not let Him in and he tried to banish Him from your life as well. And no one can blame you if you feel betrayed because of that. We should have been there for you!
In my work in the areas of abuse, I have found many who have felt abandoned by God, rabbis and by the Jewish community. But I have also have found many who are motivated by their faith in God and their belief in the Jewish community to help others, to heal wounds, to comfort and encourage and advocate for victims/survivors.
Some who came out of the Holocaust lost all faith; others came out with their faith even stronger and more determined. I don't know why some had it one way and some had it the other.
But you are connected. you wouldn't be asking the questions you are asking and struggling through the struggles through which you are struggling unless you really felt connected to God. You see, the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. And you are not indifferent.
So look at your relationship with God as a dysfunctional one that needs lots of work and therapy. Really. Talk it out. Fight it out. Yell, scream, cry, blame.
I beleive that, despite it all, God does love you. And I believe, despite the difficulties and the silence, that there is a way to find help and support and safety in a relationship with God within our own faith tradition and within our community.
There are people out there who won't turn you away. there are people out there who will listen. There are many of us (t)here for you.
Rabbi Mark Dratch
www.JSafe.org
hi bughouse,
i don't know much about how to explain god, but i think that it wasn't god who hurt you when you were little but people who made really bad choices. i don't know how god rules the world and why he/she (whatever god is) makes the rules god does, but it seems that people have the ability to choose good or evil and that those who hurt you definitely chose to do bad rather than to do good. it doesn't mean god wanted this to happen, but that god gives people the right to choose. and some people made (and still make, if the state of the world is any indication) really bad choices.
i don't think god is jewish or chritian or anything like that--i think god is god, for all religions and that people make it into separate entities.
you ask if god had your best interest in mind when you were abused--i don't think god works that way, i mean, maybe in the big picture there was a meaning to your being harmed--as maybe there was a bigger picture in other atrocities throughout history--but there's no way i can believe that it was 'for your own good' that you were hurt--that would be a sick thing to believe. there's pain in the world, and there always was pain in the world--maybe it is part of the human existance, but it doesn't mean that we ought to be helpless about donig things to change it.
and you are doing things to change it by speaking out--just like the people who hurt you had a choice and made a really bad choice, now that you are grown you have the choice what to do with what had happened to you--you can speak up, you can advocate for children, you can ask difficult questions. this is also a choice, and that may help other children not have to go through what you and so many others had to go through.
i'm sorry you feel so alone--you aren't really--there are many people who understand, either because they went through similar things, or because they can recognize terrible things when they hear about them and are willing to work to change them.
no one can give you back your childhood or completely answer your questions and need to be saved--no one saved you then, and it was really bad and sad that no one listened, but now you are grown, and you are no longer as vulnerable: you can call your power back and you can make a community for yourself. you can be around people who understand that child abuse is something that is real and that needs to be stopped. you can choose to avoid and not let in the stupidity of other people, who minimize the reality of child abuse to who cushion things in words that don't help you. you can write about what happened to you. you can share it. you can be who you want to be. it is no longer about those who hurt you--it doesn't need to be.
anyway, i'm probably rambling and not helping, but i hope that you get some relief in knowing that you may have been alone then, but you aren't alone now. and that god--however it is you define god and feel it--govern in ways that aren't transparent to us humans. if you're angry at god, that's okay, i think god can manage it...
i don't believe god wanted this to happen. i don't know why god allows things to happen, but i don't think it was personally against you. bad things happen by bad people.
i guess that's my view.
take good care of you. i think the world is what you'll make of it--now that you are an adult.
best,
healingsong
Thank you everyone for responding here. Life is hard sometimes in survivorhood.
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