Dark Attractions
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It's sad, but when many of them go home at night, they have a mournful spirit, and it's no wonder that suicides have increased. If only they found Christ, they would find rest. The answer is so simple but often overlooked in today's modern society. and we always think we can fix them but because their spirits are different from ours, sadly, they tend to end up hating us.
I think it has to be kept in mind that a lot of people have these backgrounds and know the Bible well enough to challenge us for a reason -- it's because many of them were born into or raised with Christianity, and know the foundations as well or even better than we do.
I know everyone is different and I can only speak from my own experience, but God brings me a lot of people who are like myself. I have wonderful, loving Christian parents, but my worst pains didn't come from the world -- they came from the church, and people who claim to be God's most devout followers.
Many of the people I've met who've turned to Wiccan and Satanism have done so because they feel God failed them, let them down, or were taught completely warped views of who God is. I have talked to many people who were sexually abused by those claiming to be good Christians and have even worked in ministry. And many have had parents who claimed to be good Christians but, when their own children tried to tell them they were being abused, these good "Christians" turned a blind eye and allowed it to happen because they didn't want to face divorce or being alone. Some abusers even told their own children, "This is how God wants you to show love to adults."
How would you feel if you were raised in what your parents self-proclaimed to be a Christian home, but one of your parents was allowing you to be used on a regular basis? How much trust would you have in God or anyone claiming to be a Christian?
This is why I often don't wear Christian symbols, recite Scripture, or loudly proclaim my faith everywhere I go (and why a lot of Christians have criticized me for it.) I know my calling, and it's often to people whose worst hurt has also been from other Christians. My first mission is to try to subtly demonstrate that not all Christians are enablers or abusers, because there seem to be a lot of people who unfortunately don't know that.
Bringing someone to Christ isn't always a magic formula to find peace. I know one girl who said, "God didn't save me. I grew up and got myself out of that hellhole on my own -- I saved myself." She couldn't believe in God as a savior because as much as she prayed to get out away from the father that was abusing her and the mother who told her she was lying, she didn't escape until she became an adult, and, in her eyes, made her own way. She lost faith in God over the years of her childhood abuse, and her entire family telling her she was a liar.
Another time, I went to my parents' church a while back and started talking to one of the youth ministers. I had never met her before, but suddenly she started talking about her whole life history, and we missed the actual church service because for an hour and a half, she was tearfully telling me about her horrible childhood and though she had gotten away and found Jesus, the things she'd suffered were still negatively affecting her Christian marriage in the present.
On the flipside, I knew a girl who'd lived in the world for a while and brought one of her friends to the church I was attending. I asked her how it went and she looked down for a minute, then said, "As soon as people saw her tattoos, they pulled back and refused to even shake her hand."
This kind of thing sets me on fire. The church claims to want to see the lost saved but only wants them if they're already clean, pristine, and up to all the standards they see themselves as living up to.
And the kind of people like this that the church rejects are exactly the ones I go after (sometimes to my own detriment.) I was so happy to see this girl visit the next Sunday -- I made my way through the crowd, shook her hand with both of mine, and told her how glad we were to have her there and that I hoped she'd come again any time she was in town.
For the few people who are attracted to dark things but still have a chance that there hearts could be turned, how many churches would be willing to work with them where they're at -- tattoos, piercings, unnaturally-dyed hair and all -- and not where Christians believe they are themselves and want everyone else to be?
I know there have to be a few out there, but usually in larger areas than where I've lived.
I keep hoping I'll be able to find one someday.
I know everyone is different and I can only speak from my own experience, but God brings me a lot of people who are like myself. I have wonderful, loving Christian parents, but my worst pains didn't come from the world -- they came from the church, and people who claim to be God's most devout followers.
Many of the people I've met who've turned to Wiccan and Satanism have done so because they feel God failed them, let them down, or were taught completely warped views of who God is. I have talked to many people who were sexually abused by those claiming to be good Christians and have even worked in ministry. And many have had parents who claimed to be good Christians but, when their own children tried to tell them they were being abused, these good "Christians" turned a blind eye and allowed it to happen because they didn't want to face divorce or being alone. Some abusers even told their own children, "This is how God wants you to show love to adults."
How would you feel if you were raised in what your parents self-proclaimed to be a Christian home, but one of your parents was allowing you to be used on a regular basis? How much trust would you have in God or anyone claiming to be a Christian?
This is why I often don't wear Christian symbols, recite Scripture, or loudly proclaim my faith everywhere I go (and why a lot of Christians have criticized me for it.) I know my calling, and it's often to people whose worst hurt has also been from other Christians. My first mission is to try to subtly demonstrate that not all Christians are enablers or abusers, because there seem to be a lot of people who unfortunately don't know that.
Bringing someone to Christ isn't always a magic formula to find peace. I know one girl who said, "God didn't save me. I grew up and got myself out of that hellhole on my own -- I saved myself." She couldn't believe in God as a savior because as much as she prayed to get out away from the father that was abusing her and the mother who told her she was lying, she didn't escape until she became an adult, and, in her eyes, made her own way. She lost faith in God over the years of her childhood abuse, and her entire family telling her she was a liar.
Another time, I went to my parents' church a while back and started talking to one of the youth ministers. I had never met her before, but suddenly she started talking about her whole life history, and we missed the actual church service because for an hour and a half, she was tearfully telling me about her horrible childhood and though she had gotten away and found Jesus, the things she'd suffered were still negatively affecting her Christian marriage in the present.
On the flipside, I knew a girl who'd lived in the world for a while and brought one of her friends to the church I was attending. I asked her how it went and she looked down for a minute, then said, "As soon as people saw her tattoos, they pulled back and refused to even shake her hand."
This kind of thing sets me on fire. The church claims to want to see the lost saved but only wants them if they're already clean, pristine, and up to all the standards they see themselves as living up to.
And the kind of people like this that the church rejects are exactly the ones I go after (sometimes to my own detriment.) I was so happy to see this girl visit the next Sunday -- I made my way through the crowd, shook her hand with both of mine, and told her how glad we were to have her there and that I hoped she'd come again any time she was in town.
For the few people who are attracted to dark things but still have a chance that there hearts could be turned, how many churches would be willing to work with them where they're at -- tattoos, piercings, unnaturally-dyed hair and all -- and not where Christians believe they are themselves and want everyone else to be?
I know there have to be a few out there, but usually in larger areas than where I've lived.
I keep hoping I'll be able to find one someday.
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I have struggled with suicidal thoughts since childhood.
I can remember very clearly wanting to die starting at about age 9.
When I was very young, there was a story in the local paper about a 9-year-old boy age who had hung himself with his own shoelaces. I remember wondering what could be so terrible about the world that a child so young would want to kill himself, but it seemed as I got older, I started to find out.
By about age 11, I was starting to find my calling, and that's when others started talking to me about the abuse they had been through. Mercifully, God seems to send me people who talk about what's happened to them in years past and are trying to work through it, so I haven't had to made the choice of whether I need to get the police involved or try to have someone removed from their home.
I went through about 10 years of counseling, sometimes to Christian counselors (it depended on what insurance would pay for,) and the various meds they prescribe.
Some Christians told me I'm not a real Christian. Others told me I'm meant to help people find out who they are in life, and that's why the devil was always coming at me with thoughts of death.
I don't know about all that. I just know that people always talk about how things will be perfect when we're with Jesus, so in childhood, a thought imbedded itself into my soul that it would be best to be with Jesus as soon as possible.
The Lutherans (at least the ones I grew up with) said it's an automatic ticket to hell.
The Once Saved Always Saved say you'll still go to heaven but only if you were truly saved, and if not, well, you were never saved to begin with.
Yeah.
It's not confusing at all.
I can remember very clearly wanting to die starting at about age 9.
When I was very young, there was a story in the local paper about a 9-year-old boy age who had hung himself with his own shoelaces. I remember wondering what could be so terrible about the world that a child so young would want to kill himself, but it seemed as I got older, I started to find out.
By about age 11, I was starting to find my calling, and that's when others started talking to me about the abuse they had been through. Mercifully, God seems to send me people who talk about what's happened to them in years past and are trying to work through it, so I haven't had to made the choice of whether I need to get the police involved or try to have someone removed from their home.
I went through about 10 years of counseling, sometimes to Christian counselors (it depended on what insurance would pay for,) and the various meds they prescribe.
Some Christians told me I'm not a real Christian. Others told me I'm meant to help people find out who they are in life, and that's why the devil was always coming at me with thoughts of death.
I don't know about all that. I just know that people always talk about how things will be perfect when we're with Jesus, so in childhood, a thought imbedded itself into my soul that it would be best to be with Jesus as soon as possible.
The Lutherans (at least the ones I grew up with) said it's an automatic ticket to hell.
The Once Saved Always Saved say you'll still go to heaven but only if you were truly saved, and if not, well, you were never saved to begin with.
Yeah.
It's not confusing at all.
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I have a good friend in my hometown who has a gift for talking with the homeless, which is something I do not have. We had some regulars that came into where we worked, and she was the perfect amount of both stern and sweet with them.
Many years ago, I suggested to her that we run an experiment with the local churches -- we would attend services as first-time visitors in mini-skirts, fake tattoos, fake piercings, and outrageous hair colors -- and gauge how each church reacted. In real life, to anyone else, we are about as conservative as it can get (with the possible exception of me always wearing T-shirts of possibly controversial 80's cartoon shows, like Dungeons & Dragons -- I loved the show, but never played the game.)
Would anyone talk to us, let alone welcome us back?
Would churches claiming to want to save the lost live up to their claim if we showed up looking like what many church people would guess were the lost of the lost?
We never did run that experiment, but there are times I wish we had.
Many years ago, I suggested to her that we run an experiment with the local churches -- we would attend services as first-time visitors in mini-skirts, fake tattoos, fake piercings, and outrageous hair colors -- and gauge how each church reacted. In real life, to anyone else, we are about as conservative as it can get (with the possible exception of me always wearing T-shirts of possibly controversial 80's cartoon shows, like Dungeons & Dragons -- I loved the show, but never played the game.)
Would anyone talk to us, let alone welcome us back?
Would churches claiming to want to save the lost live up to their claim if we showed up looking like what many church people would guess were the lost of the lost?
We never did run that experiment, but there are times I wish we had.
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Indeed, it does not help that we have been raised on Prosperity Doctrine/ Gospel, that Jesus is gonna swoop in and rescue us from all problems (when Jesus actually says the opposite, "in this life you will have tribulation."). I think another problem is that Puritan, Pietist, and Quaker Christianity has made Christianity very bubble like, and not "in the world," and it deter people who like Goth stuff, and darker things. I mean God made the "creeping things of the Earth," and Darkness too, and maybe the Church needs to stop having a culture that makes people feel like they have to dress in white robes and sing like angels.. I mean Jesus is coming back in a very dark way, with Blood for two hundred miles, in a Robe dipped in Blood (Revelation 19).
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Yeah... I wonder if it's going to be a happy time for God when he returns. He will put an end to sin, but there will also be judging the lost.
It's easy for a Christian to feel vindictive against sinners, but sometimes I wonder if God would have returned sooner but he's holding off because he just doesn't want to have to turn so many people away from heaven. Not just yet.
It's easy for a Christian to feel vindictive against sinners, but sometimes I wonder if God would have returned sooner but he's holding off because he just doesn't want to have to turn so many people away from heaven. Not just yet.
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My theory is by the Time Jesus returns, there will be antichristic generations that want nothing to do with the gospel, so that it will not be an issue of any possible converts being lost; a lot of lukewarm Christians and those on the Hard Soil in Jesus' Parable will be lost because of Persecution (Revelation 14:12).
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Seoulsearch, when I was replying to the original message, I had two people in mind: my colleague and my grandfather.
The wounded souls you guide are not the same. At some point, because of the characteristics and psychological damage that's inflicted on them, they come to the conclusion that they are monsters. And at that point, they no longer try to be good but actively seek evil. being like whoever raised them and wanting to know things like "what was the murderer thinking when they committed a crime?" These people you don't want yoked to you. I think many of them are too far gone at this point, for they've spent 30-50 years rejecting Our Father, but Yes, anything's possible with Christ Jesus.
God, I think guides these women to you before this point, even though some of them have dabbled in the occult. Lots of these women have no one on their side and likely never have. You being there changes their life, you water the seeds, and God has them grow, leading them to Our Father. And every time I think of it, I'm thankful our Lord has someone like you showing compassion to these women.
And it's true- many churches seem to have forgotten that Christ Jesus came for the sinners, not the pristine, perfect, and righteous.
May we remember His example and open our doors and hearts to all, embracing the broken and the lost, just as He did.
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I believe Jesus will return at the point in time when no more souls would be saved under the current world system-and-situation.
I believe this verse shows the last-of-the-last that will come to Christ before He comes:
Revelation 11:
13 And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.
I believe this verse shows the last-of-the-last that will come to Christ before He comes:
Revelation 11:
13 And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.
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Excellent point, Daisy, and I 200% agree with you that some people are beyond ever changing. Thank you for pointing this out, as a lot of us as Christians don't want to give up on certain people, especially if we were close to them, wanting to believe the best, but harming only ourselves and others by hanging on. I am certainly guilty of this.
Your post reminded me of someone I once knew who had one of the most terrible backstories I'd ever heard, all started in early childhood.
I'm not one who's bothered much by tattoos -- I know there's a lot of debate about them, but for me, personally, it all depends on what they are of, when, and why the person got them.
This guy had gotten a tattoo while claiming he was trying to turn his life around and come back to Christianity. It was of two faces, one that was somewhat normal, but with wild eyes, and the other looked like a demonic version of the Joker from Batman. The faces were conjoined, connected together by the tops of their heads.
I can't really explain it, but I believe God was telling me that this guy was literally wearing his heart on his sleeve (arm.) I'd known a few people who had really tried to help this guy, but that tattoo really was a representation of everything he'd shown them -- the constant switching back and forth of the lost, rejected little boy that drew everyone in, along with something within him that thrived on chaos as a result.
I don't ever want to misjudge people, but I was pretty sure God was pointing out that he wasn't going to change, at least not in the time I knew him, and fortunately, He provided a way for me to cut any ties.
Thank you very much for your kind words. I've made a lot of wrong turns myself in these situations, but I can only hope God will help me do better with each future opportunity.
And I see it as a bonus if I can spare anyone else the same grief.
Your post reminded me of someone I once knew who had one of the most terrible backstories I'd ever heard, all started in early childhood.
I'm not one who's bothered much by tattoos -- I know there's a lot of debate about them, but for me, personally, it all depends on what they are of, when, and why the person got them.
This guy had gotten a tattoo while claiming he was trying to turn his life around and come back to Christianity. It was of two faces, one that was somewhat normal, but with wild eyes, and the other looked like a demonic version of the Joker from Batman. The faces were conjoined, connected together by the tops of their heads.
I can't really explain it, but I believe God was telling me that this guy was literally wearing his heart on his sleeve (arm.) I'd known a few people who had really tried to help this guy, but that tattoo really was a representation of everything he'd shown them -- the constant switching back and forth of the lost, rejected little boy that drew everyone in, along with something within him that thrived on chaos as a result.
I don't ever want to misjudge people, but I was pretty sure God was pointing out that he wasn't going to change, at least not in the time I knew him, and fortunately, He provided a way for me to cut any ties.
Thank you very much for your kind words. I've made a lot of wrong turns myself in these situations, but I can only hope God will help me do better with each future opportunity.
And I see it as a bonus if I can spare anyone else the same grief.
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