CHAPTER 3 THE FELLOWSHIP OF FEAR

UBecause of the sexual and emotional abuse I
received at home, my
entire childhood was filled with fear. My father
controlled me with
his anger and intimidation. He never physically
forced me to submit to
him, but I was so afraid of his anger that I did
whatever he told me
to do. He did force me to pretend that I liked
what he was doing to
me, and that I wanted him to do it.
The few times I timidly attempted to speak out
in honesty about my
situation were devastating. My father's violent reaction-his ranting
and raving-was so frightening to me that I soon
learned just to do
whatever he said without objection. I believe
that my inability to
express my true feelings about what was
happening to me, and my being
forced to act as though I enjoyed the perverse
things he did to me,
left me with many deep-seated emotional
wounds.
My father worked evenings and would come
home around eleven or twelve
at night. I can remember how my entire body
would fill with fear as
soon as I heard his key turning the lock. I would
get stiff all over,
because I never knew if he was going to come in
my room and try to put
his hands on me, or if he would come in mad
about something he did not
like. One of the hardest things for me was the
lack of stability of
ever knowing what to expect; I lived with
the fear of never knowing what I could and
could not do. I could do
one thing one day, and my father would be fine
with it, but I could do
the exact same thing a few days later and get
slapped across the room
for it.
Fear was my constant companion: fear of my
father, fear of his anger,
fear of being exposed, fear of my mother
finding out what was
happening, and fear of having friends.
My fear of having friends stemmed from two
factors: If they were
female, I was afraid that my father would
attempt to draw them into
his trap also. If they were male, I was afraid
that my father would
harm them, or me. He violently accused me of
being sexually active
with male acquaintances from school. He would
not permit anyone to
come near me because I "belonged" to him.
While in high school, I was never allowed to go
to a football game, a
baseball game, a basketball game. I tried to
develop acquaintances at
school, but I never allowed the relationships to
ripen to the extent
that I would be expected to invite my new
friends to my house. I did
not let anyone feel free to contact me at home.
If the phone rang, and
the call was for me, I would panic thinking,
What if it is someone
from school?
All the time I was dealing with a fear of having friends and of being
lonely, I was still unwilling to
involve anyone else in what was potentially a
disaster for them, and
one that would certainly cause me more
embarrassment and shame.
Fear! Fear! Fear!
My father drank heavily every weekend, often
taking me with him on his
drinking bouts and physically using me at his
will. Many times, he
would come home angry and beat up my
mother. One time he beat her
because he said her nose was big. He did not hit
me very often, but I
believe that watching him senselessly beating
my mother was just as
damaging as if he had been hitting me.
My father controlled everything that went on
around him. He decided
what time we got up and when we went to bed;
what we ate, wore, and
spent; with whom we associated; what we
watched on television-in
short, everything in our lives. He was verbally
abusive both to my
mother and to me, and eventually to my only
brother, who was born when
I was nine years old. I remember wanting so
desperately for the new
baby to be a girl. I thought that maybe if there
was another female
child in the family I might be left alone, at least
part of the time.
My father cursed almost constantly, using
extremely vulgar and filthy
language. He was critical of everything and
everybody. It was his
opinion that none of us ever did anything right,
or that we would ever
amount to anything worthwhile. Most of the
time, we were reminded that we were "just no
good."
At times my father would be just the opposite.
He would give us money
and tell us to go shopping; sometimes he even
bought us presents. He
was manipulative and coercive. He did whatever
he needed to do in
order to get what he wanted. Other people had
no value to him at all
except to use for his own selfish purposes.
There was no peace in our home. I actually did
not know what real
peace was until I was grown and had been
immersed in the Word of God
for many years.
I was born-again at the age of nine while visiting
relatives out of
town. One night I went with them to attend a
church service, intent on
finding salvation. I do not even know how I
knew I needed to be saved,
except that God must have placed that desire
within my heart. I did
receive Jesus Christ as my Savior that evening
and experienced a
glorious cleansing. Before that moment I had
always felt dirty because
of the incest. Now, for the first time, I felt clean,
as though I had
received an inner bath. However, since the
problem did not go away,
once I returned home my old feelings returned.
I thought that I had
lost Jesus, so I never knew any real inner peace
and joy.
The Betrayal
What about my mother? Where did she fit into
all this? Why didn't she
help me? I was about eight or
nine years old when I told my mother what was
going on between my
father and me. She examined me and
confronted my dad, but he claimed
that I was lying- and she chose to believe him
rather than me. What
woman would not want to believe her husband
in such a situation? I
think that way down deep inside, my mother
knew the truth. She just
hoped against hope that she was wrong.
When I was fourteen years old, she walked into
the house one day,
having returned earlier than expected from
grocery shopping, and
actually caught my father in the act of sexually
abusing me. She
looked, walked out, and came back two hours
later, acting as if she
had never been there.
My mother betrayed me.
She did not help me, and she should have.
Many, many years later (actually thirty years
later), she confessed to
me that she just could not bring herself to face
the scandal. She had
never mentioned it for thirty years! During that
time period she had
suffered a nervous breakdown. Everyone who
knew her blamed it on "the
change of life."For two years she underwent
shock treatments, which
temporarily erased portions of her memory.
None of the doctors knew
what they were helping her forget, but they all
agreed that she needed
to forget something. It was obvious there was
something on her mind
that was eating away at her mental health.
My mother claimed that her problem was caused by her physical
condition. She had an exceptionally hard time
during that period of
her life due to severe female problems at an
earlier age. Following a
complete hysterectomy at age thirty- six, she
was thrown into
premature menopause. At the time, most
doctors did not believe in
giving hormones to women, so this was a very
difficult time for her.
It seems that everything in her life was more
than she was able to
handle.
Personally, I will always believe that my
mother's emotional collapse
was the result of the years of abuse she had
endured, and the truth
that she refused to face and deal with.
Remember, in John 8:32 our
Lord told us: "You will know the Truth, and the
Truth will set you
free."
God's Word is truth, and, if applied, has
inherent power to set a
captive free. God's Word also brings us face to
face with the issues
of our lives. If we choose to turn and run away
when the Lord says to
stand and confront, we will stay in bondage.
Leaving Home
At age eighteen, I moved away from home while
my father was at work.
Shortly thereafter, I married the first young man
who showed an
interest in me.
Like me, my new husband had lots of problems.
He
was a manipulator, a thief, and a con man. Most
of the time, he did
not even work. We moved around a lot, and
once he abandoned me in
California with nothing but one dime and a
carton of soda pop bottles.
I was afraid, but since I was accustomed to fear
and trauma, I was
probably not as affected as someone with less
"experience" would have
been. My husband also abandoned me several
times simply by leaving
during the day while I was at work. Each time
he left, he would be
gone anywhere from a few weeks to several
months. Then he would
suddenly reappear, and I would listen to his
sweet talk and apologies
and take him back- only to have the same thing
happen all over again.
When he was with me, he drank constantly and
had relationships with
other women regularly.
For five years we played at what we called a
marriage. We were both so
young, only eighteen, and neither of us had had proper
parenting. We
were completely ill-equipped to help one
another. My problems were
only complicated more following a miscarriage at
the age of twenty-one
and the birth of my oldest son when I was
twenty-two. This event took
place during the final year of our marriage. My
husband left me and
moved in with another woman who lived two
blocks from our place,
telling anyone who would listen that the child I
was carrying was not
his.
I remember coming dangerously close to losing
my mind during that
summer of 1965. Throughout my
pregnancy, I lost weight because I could not eat.
Without friends,
money, or insurance, I went through a hospital
clinic, seeing a
different doctor each time I had a checkup.
Actually, the doctors I
saw were interns in training. I was unable to
sleep, so I began taking
over-the-counter sleeping pills. Thank God, they
did not harm my
unborn child or me.
The temperature that summer rose to more
than a hundred degrees, and
there was no fan or air-conditioning in my third
floor, attic
apartment. My only material possession was an
old Studebaker
automobile that got vapor locked on a regular
basis. Since my father
had always insisted that some day I would need
his help and come
crawling back to him, I was determined to do
anything but that- even
though I did not know what it would be. I can
remember being under
such mental strain that I would sit and stare at
the walls or out the
window for hours, not even realizing what I was
doing. I worked until
my baby was due. When I had to quit my job,
my hairdresser and her
mother took me in.
My baby was four and a half weeks late. I had
no idea what to expect,
and no notion of how to care for him when he
was born. When the baby
did come, my husband showed up at the
hospital. Since the baby looked
so much like him, there was no way he could
deny that it was his. Once
again he said he was sorry and that he was
going to change.
When it was time for me to be discharged  from
the
hospital, we had no place to  live, so my husband contacted his
brother's ex-wife, who was a wonderful
Christian woman, and she let us
live with her for a while until I was able to go
back to work.
I think you can imagine from these few details
what my life was like.
Actually, it was ridiculous! There was nothing
stable in my entire
existence, and stability was something that I
needed and craved
desperately.
Finally, in the summer of 1966, I reached the
point of not caring what
happened to me. I could not stand the thought
of staying with my
husband any longer. I did not have one ounce
of respect for the man,
especially since, to top it all off, by this time he
was in trouble
with the law. I took my son and what I could
carry and walked out. I
went to a corner phone booth where I called my
dad and asked him if I
could come home. Of course, he was delighted!
After I had lived at home for a couple of
months, I learned that my
divorce had been granted. That was in
September of 1966. By that time
my mother's mental health was growing worse
by the day. She had begun
to have violent fits, accusing store clerks of
robbing her,
threatening the people she worked with over
meaningless details. She
even started carrying a knife in her purse. She
ranted and raved about
anything and everything. I distinctly remember
one night when she beat
me with a broom because I had failed to mop
the bathroom floor!
While all this was going on, I made an
occupation of steering clear of
my father. As much as possible, I avoided being
left alone with him.
In short, my life was a living hell.
For "entertainment," I began to go to bars on
weekends. I suppose I
was looking for someone to love me. I would
have a few drinks, but
rarely ever enough to get drunk. I really had
never cared much for
drinking. I also refused to sleep with the various
men I met. Even
though my life was a mess, there was a deep
desire in me to be good
and pure.
Confused, afraid, lonely, discouraged, and
depressed, I often prayed,
"Dear God, please let me be happy . . .
some day. Give me someone who will really love me-and make it
someone
who will take me to church."
My Knight In Shining Armor
My parents owned and resided in a two -family
apartment. One of their
renters worked with a man named Dave Meyer.
One evening Dave came by
to pick up his friend to go bowling. I was
washing my mother's car. He
saw me and tried to flirt with me, but I was my
usual sarcastic self.
He asked me if I wanted to wash his car when I
was finished with mine,
and I replied, "If you want your car washed,
wash it yourself!"
Because of my experience with my father and
my former husband, I did
not trust men at all, and that is an
understatement! Dave, however,
was being led by the Spirit of God. Born-again
and
baptized in the Holy Spirit, he loved God with all
his heart. At
twenty -six years of age, he was also ready to
get married and had
been praying for six months that God would
lead him to the right
woman. He had even asked the Lord for her to
be someone who needed
help!
Since Dave was being led by the Lord, my
sarcasm only served to
encourage him, instead of insulting him. Later
he told his friend from
work that he would like to have a date with me.
At first I refused,
but later I changed my mind. We had been out
on five dates when Dave
asked me to marry him. He told me that he had
known the first night we
went out together that he wanted me to be his
wife, but that he had
decided to wait a few weeks before proposing
marriage, lest he
frighten me.
For my part, I certainly did not know what love
was, and was not eager
to get involved with another man. However,
since things were getting
even worse at home, and since I was living in
total panic all the
time, I decided that anything would be better
than what I was going
through at the moment.
Dave asked me if I would go to church with
him, which I was willing to
do. Remember, one of my prayer requests had
been that when the Lord
gave me someone to love me, he would be a
person who would take me to
church. I strongly desired to live a Christian life,
but I knew that I
needed someone strong to lead the way. Dave
also promised to be good
to my little boy, who was ten months old when
we met. I had named him
David, which was what my brother was called
and was my favorite name
for a boy. I am still amazed at the way the Lord
was working out a
plan for my good, right in the midst of my
darkest despair.
Dave and I were married on January 7, 1967,
but we did not live
"happily ever after"! Marriage did not solve my
problems, and neither
did going to church. My problems were not in
my home life or my
marriage, but in me, in my wounded, crippled
emotions. Abuse leaves a
person emotionally handicapped, unable to
maintain healthy, lasting
relationships without some kind of intervention.
I wanted to give and
receive love, but I could not. Like my father, I
was controlling,
manipulative, angry, critical, negative,
overbearing, and judgmental.
All that I had grown up with, I had become.
Filled with self-pity, I
was verbally abusive, depressed, and bitter. I
could go on and on
describing my personality, but I am sure you get
the picture.
I functioned in society. I worked; Dave worked.
We went to church
together. We got along part of the time, only
then because Dave was
extremely easygoing. He usually let me have my
way, but when he didn't
it made me mad. As far as I was concerned, I
was right about
everything. To me, I did not have a problem;
everyone else did.
Now remember, I was born-again. I loved Jesus.
I believed that my sins were forgiven and that I
would go to heaven when
I died. But I knew no victory, no peace, no joy
in my everyday life.
Although I believed that Christians were
supposed to be happy, I
certainly was not! I did not even know what
righteousness, imputed
through the blood of Jesus, was. I felt
condemned all the time. I was
out of control. The only time I did not hate
myself was when I was
working toward some personal goal which I thought would provide me a
sense of self-worth.
I kept thinking that if things would change, if
other people would
change,
then I would be all right. If my husband, my
kids, my finances, my health, were different; if I could go
on vacation, get a
new car, buy a new dress; if I could get out of
the house, find a job, earn more money, then I would be happy and
fulfilled. I was always
doing what is described in Jeremiah 2:13- I was digging wells that had
no water in them. I was making the frustrating, tragic mistake of
trying to find the kingdom of God, which is righteousness, peace, and
joy (see Romans 14:17), in things and other people. What I did not
realize is that the kingdom of God is within us, as the apostle Paul
explained: "which is Christ within and among
you, the Hope of [realizing the] glory" (Colossians 1:27). Jesus
said, "For behold,the kingdom of God is within you [in your hearts]
and among you [surrounding you]" (Luke 17:21, emphasis mine).
My joy had to be found in Christ, but it took me years and years to find that out.
I tried to earn righteousness by being good, through works of the
flesh. I was on the evangelism committee and
the church board. My
husband was an elder in the church. Our children went to parochial
school. I tried to do all the right things. I tried
and tried and tried, and yet it seemed that I just could not keep myself from making
mistakes. I was worn out, burned out, frustrated, and miserable!
I Was Sincerely Ignorant Of The Problem It never occurred to me that I was suffering from the years of abuse and rejection I had gone through. I thought that
all that was behind me. It was true that it was no longer happening to me physically, but it was all recorded in my emotions and in my
mind. I still felt the
effects of it, and I still acted them out. I needed emotional healing!
Legally, I was a new creature in Christ. The Word says, "Therefore if
any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah)
he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous
moral and spiritual
condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!" (2
Corinthians 5:17). But experientially, I had not then I would be all right. If my husband, my kids, my finances, my health, were different; if I could go on vacation, get a
new car, buy a new dress; if I could get out of
the house, find a job,
earn more money, then I would be happy and
fulfilled. I was always
doing what is described in Jeremiah 2:13- I was
digging wells that had
no water in them. I was making the frustrating,
tragic mistake of
trying to find the kingdom of God, which is
righteousness, peace, and
joy (see Romans 14:17), in things and other
people. What I did not
realize is that the kingdom of God is within us,
as the apostle Paul
explained: "which is Christ within and among you, the Hope of [realizing the] glory" (Colossians 1:27). Jesus said, "For behold,the
kingdom of God is within you [in your hearts] and among you
[surrounding you]" (Luke 17:21, emphasis mine).
My joy had to be found in Christ, but it took me years and years to find
that out.
I tried to earn righteousness by being good, through works of the flesh. I was on the evangelism committee and the church board. My husband was an elder in the church. Our children went to parochial school. I tried to do all the right things. I tried and tried and tried, and yet it seemed that I just could not keep myself from making mistakes. I was worn out, burned out, frustrated, and miserable!
I Was Sincerely Ignorant Of The Problem
It never occurred to me that I was suffering from the years of abuse and rejection I had gone through. I thought that all that was behind me. It was true that it was no longer happening to me physically, but
it was all recorded in my emotions and in my mind. I still felt the
effects of it, and I still acted them out.
I needed emotional healing!
Legally, I was a new creature in Christ. The Word says, "Therefore if
any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!" (2Corinthians 5:17). But experientially, I had not yet taken hold of the new creation reality. I lived out of my own mind, will, and emotions, which were all damaged. Jesus had paid the price for my total deliverance, but I had no idea how to receive His gracious gift.