MK forum

@mango: I only remember one bonfire out at the airstrip during my time at Via, so the use of the plural "bonfires" might have been misleading . . . .I do, however, remember hauling the benches out there and back . . .so while singing kumbaya and swaying gently under the stars might have been fun (though, I think "leadership" would have thought us charismatic! lol), the travel time under the burden of benches was NOT that much fun!

Hmmm as for knowing me . . . let's just say field day, for me, was fun and rewarding!

mangotree: I was not offended by your example of the broken leg. I get that you were trying to find someway of relating. Some of you may know this already but the statistic on sexual abuse is that 1 in 3 girls are sexually abused and 1 in 5 boys are also. With that in mind, we hardly ever go one day without having contact with someone who has experienced sexual abuse. I mentioned in a previous post that I have read almost everything I can about sexual abuse. (I was actually going to go to school to be a counselor before I switched to business.) Anway, in recent years I read a book called "Threshold of Hope" which I would really recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about sexual abuse. The author (I don't remember her name) is a counselor who has counseled many sexual abuse survivors in her years of counseling. She shares many examples from her patients. She goes into great detail about how sexual abuse affects every area of your life and the many symptoms that sexual abuse survivors have to cope with, work through, heal from. Even though I had been sexually abused, I didn't have all the symptoms that are talked about, but it really opened my eyes to the great magnitude of the damage that can be done through sexual abuse. And it doesn't just affect the victim either. It'll touch everyone in that victims family to some extent and perhaps the worst result is if the victim doesn't get healing, it's very possible for the victim to then become an abuser. I think everyone should read this book. You will also understand after reading this, why it is so aggravating when people say "Just forgive and get over it." It is not that simple. This is also why I think the abuser needs to face some consequences. Why should the victim have to spend the rest of their life suffering as they work through the healing process, and yet the abuser can just say sorry, and walk away. They need to realize the extend of the damage done by their sin.

As angry as we get about the spiritual abuse, can you imagine how God must feel? I mean, just think about. These people who abuse spiritually are making God out to be someone who he totally isn't. I'm not sure how God can hold back his anger. But it does make me feel better knowing that "Vengence is God's." He will get the final say, one day. And I can not imagine that God will let spiritual abusers off the hook that easily.
BTW, I can recommend a really great counselor in the Rockford, IL area if someone is wanting a counselor. NTM paid for my counseling. It had great significance in my healing process. I have heard horrible stories before about different counseling situations so I was a bit nervous to go to a counselor. But one thing I did which I think was helpful, is that I had an accountability group around me during the counseling. After each session, I would e-mail my group and talk about the session and what I was thinking about. I wanted to have a sounding board in case my counselor was midleading me or giving me advice that wasn't right. When you are so open to someone like a counselor, what they say has a great influence on you and I had heard really bad stories before about people who were told horrible things by their counselors. This caused great damage to them. Just a warning and some advice.