Abusive Bible Counselors [287]
Flying Free
Natalie Hoffman
5.0 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 6 August 2024
⏱️ 42 minutes
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Summary
Have you ever dealt with a Bible counselor who just doesn’t get it? Or maybe an elder from your church? Or have you ever been excommunicated from your church? Sister, I’ve been through all of the above, and I write about bits and pieces of it in my newest book, All the Scary Little Gods.
In today’s episode, I’m going to read three chapters from my book, and they all have to do with the different counselors and elders I dealt with during my emotionally abusive marriage. Grab your favorite beverage, and let me bring you into my world as we explore what can happen when you get Bible counseling for your abusive marriage.
Read the show notes and/or ask Natalie a question here
Related Resources:
- My newest book, All the Scary Little Gods, is a spiritual memoir about healing from religious trauma and toxic programming.
- Are you wondering what is happening inside your own painful and confusing marriage? I wrote another book just for you called Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage: A Christian Woman’s Guide to Hidden Emotional and Spiritual Abuse.
- Flying Free is my online membership program designed for Christian women in emotionally abusive marriages. Whether you want to stay in your marriage or leave, we want to equip and support you through this program.
- Flying Higher is my online membership program for divorced Christian women. Come rebuild your life after divorce with women just like you.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Natalie Hoffman of Flying Free Now.com, and you're listening to the |
| 0:09.2 | Flying Free Podcast, a support resource for Women of faith, looking for hope and healing from hidden |
| 0:16.4 | emotional and spiritual abuse. |
| 0:22.1 | Welcome to episode 287 of the Flying Free Podcast. Today I'm going to read you three |
| 0:28.6 | chapters from part three of my newest book, All the Scary Little Gods. This is going to be |
| 0:35.2 | chapter 58, chapter 63, and chapter 65. Now all three of these chapters are |
| 0:42.1 | about my experiences dealing with Christian |
| 0:45.7 | counselors or Bible counselors as well as the elders from the church that eventually |
| 0:50.7 | excommunicated me. So they all have that theme to them and I thought about actually |
| 0:56.6 | just putting the audible recordings right here on the podcast, but then I decided I'm actually just going to read you |
| 1:05.2 | as if you and I were sitting in a living room |
| 1:08.0 | and I was just reading to you from my book. |
| 1:10.2 | So you might hear my pages turn and you might hear the rain outside. It's raining right now. I'm not sure if you can hear that or not. You might hear one of my kids interrupt me. We're just going to get real here and I'm just going to read to you. |
| 1:23.6 | Okay? All right, here's chapter 58. This chapter is called Bible Counseling. |
| 1:29.2 | In May of 2014, I wrote in my journal, |
| 1:33.5 | I have been a child my whole life, |
| 1:36.1 | and I need to grow up. |
| 1:38.0 | I'm afraid to walk away from people |
| 1:40.1 | who drag me back to being a child because they are the God figures in my life. |
| 1:45.4 | If I rebel against them, I am rebelling against God himself and then he won't be with me. |
| 1:51.6 | See the twisted thinking. |
| 1:53.0 | Wanting God has kept me playing this child role, but that isn't what God requires or wants. |
... |
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