Silas
Beloved of All
What you have written is heard, and the depth of pain, exhaustion and confusion in it is taken seriously. Living for weeks with headache, constant dizziness, nightmares and the feeling that your heart is dying is overwhelming, especially when you also carry thoughts of death and feel weakened and frightened by what is happening in your mind and body. It is a good and wise step that you have found a psychologist who can walk with you, and I encourage you to stay with that help and also to let a medical doctor evaluate the physical symptoms you describe, so that both body and mind receive care. If thoughts of death become urgent, please reach out right away to a trusted person, a counselor, a doctor or a crisis helpline in your area. You do not have to carry this alone.
A decade of being hurt in churches, being betrayed and pressured, can leave deep wounds, and it makes sense that you feel sabotaged, silenced and worn down. The history of churches is often a history of failure to be what God intended, and the failures of people who claim to speak for God do not show the heart of God Himself. Scripture teaches that God does not show favoritism. He does not have favorites. Every person is of equal value in His eyes and He loves each one equally. When people who should have protected you instead pressured you, dismissed your consent, dug up the past to justify their actions, and then presented themselves as victims when you reacted, they were not representing Him faithfully. Your right to be seen and heard, to have your choices and your no respected, is real. God Himself respects human will and does not coerce love or obedience, and people are wrong when they constantly contest your free will, pursue you when you ask to be left alone, or try to force you toward a relationship you do not want while demeaning a relationship you did want.
You have been honest about no longer loving Jesus and even feeling hatred toward Him, and about begging for protection that seemed not to come. That honesty matters, and God is not surprised by it. Jesus did not remain distant from human pain. Though He was equal with God, He emptied Himself, took the form of a servant, became human, and humbled Himself to the point of death on a cross, despised and rejected, surrounded by mockery. He knows what it is to be misunderstood, pressured and hurt by people. The Bible also says that sometimes living in a body that suffers can feel worse than death itself, when the body becomes like a prison of pain, and it speaks of two kinds of death, the separation of consciousness from the body and the separation of consciousness from God. To be separated from God is to be spiritually without life, and that is why the invitation of the gospel is so urgent. Righteousness before God does not come by our own efforts or by earning favor through suffering or good works. It is accounted to us as a gift because of faith in Jesus Christ, who was crucified by wicked hands and raised because death could not hold Him. The word of God is alive and powerful to speak into that place of spiritual numbness and pain, not as a set of empty religious forms, but as truth that can bring life.
The pressure you have described around marriage, sexuality and consent, especially while still carrying the wound of sexual abuse, is not how God deals with His children. In Scripture, marriage is presented as a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and sexual intimacy belongs within that covenant. It is never to be forced, bargained or used to wear someone down. A false kind of love that is really about control and impurity is not love at all, and it is one of the things Scripture warns against. Your anxiety, your fear of your own desires, and the episodes where you felt you were losing your mind are understandable responses to trauma and to relentless pressure, not signs that you are less than human. Wanting to be human, to be normal, to have one day to make your own choice without being punished for it, is a deeply human and legitimate desire. God created you with dignity and with the capacity to choose, and He provides for your needs, spiritual and physical, not through coercion but through His care.
There are no simple answers for why healing has not yet come or why protection has felt absent. God's ways are not our ways, and we should be wary of anyone who offers quick explanations for suffering. What is true is that God warns and invites while grace is available, calling each person to turn from sin and to trust Jesus as Lord, because everyone serves someone or something, and only Jesus brings forgiveness and reconciliation with God. Those who trust Him are written in the book of life and have the hope of being with Him, while those who remain separated from Him face the second death. That hope includes the promise that those who overcome will eat from the tree of life in the paradise of God, a future where God dwells with His people and wipes away the conditions that now cause so much grief.
You said you hope evidence will emerge and truth will be revealed so you will no longer be a slave to fear, and that you will not be silent again. God sees what has been done in secret and He is a God of truth. Holding to the word of God and speaking truthfully about what you have endured can be part of healing, especially when it is done with safe, trustworthy people who respect your boundaries. You also said you do not want anyone to feel compelled to pray for you, and that you release people from that pressure. That choice is respected here. No one should pray for you out of pressure. If you do want prayer, there are those who would be honored to pray quietly for your health, for clarity of mind, for protection, for freedom from fear and nightmares, and for the truth to be made known in God's way and time. If you do not, that wish is honored as well.
Thank you for letting your voice be heard this far. You are not forgotten. Your suffering has meaning to God even when it feels meaningless to you, and your life has equal value before Him. Please continue with the psychological and medical support you have begun, stay connected to safe people, and allow the living word of God to speak to you at a pace you can bear. May you find rest, truth and gentle healing, and may you be free to be yourself, as you so kindly wish for others.
A decade of being hurt in churches, being betrayed and pressured, can leave deep wounds, and it makes sense that you feel sabotaged, silenced and worn down. The history of churches is often a history of failure to be what God intended, and the failures of people who claim to speak for God do not show the heart of God Himself. Scripture teaches that God does not show favoritism. He does not have favorites. Every person is of equal value in His eyes and He loves each one equally. When people who should have protected you instead pressured you, dismissed your consent, dug up the past to justify their actions, and then presented themselves as victims when you reacted, they were not representing Him faithfully. Your right to be seen and heard, to have your choices and your no respected, is real. God Himself respects human will and does not coerce love or obedience, and people are wrong when they constantly contest your free will, pursue you when you ask to be left alone, or try to force you toward a relationship you do not want while demeaning a relationship you did want.
You have been honest about no longer loving Jesus and even feeling hatred toward Him, and about begging for protection that seemed not to come. That honesty matters, and God is not surprised by it. Jesus did not remain distant from human pain. Though He was equal with God, He emptied Himself, took the form of a servant, became human, and humbled Himself to the point of death on a cross, despised and rejected, surrounded by mockery. He knows what it is to be misunderstood, pressured and hurt by people. The Bible also says that sometimes living in a body that suffers can feel worse than death itself, when the body becomes like a prison of pain, and it speaks of two kinds of death, the separation of consciousness from the body and the separation of consciousness from God. To be separated from God is to be spiritually without life, and that is why the invitation of the gospel is so urgent. Righteousness before God does not come by our own efforts or by earning favor through suffering or good works. It is accounted to us as a gift because of faith in Jesus Christ, who was crucified by wicked hands and raised because death could not hold Him. The word of God is alive and powerful to speak into that place of spiritual numbness and pain, not as a set of empty religious forms, but as truth that can bring life.
The pressure you have described around marriage, sexuality and consent, especially while still carrying the wound of sexual abuse, is not how God deals with His children. In Scripture, marriage is presented as a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and sexual intimacy belongs within that covenant. It is never to be forced, bargained or used to wear someone down. A false kind of love that is really about control and impurity is not love at all, and it is one of the things Scripture warns against. Your anxiety, your fear of your own desires, and the episodes where you felt you were losing your mind are understandable responses to trauma and to relentless pressure, not signs that you are less than human. Wanting to be human, to be normal, to have one day to make your own choice without being punished for it, is a deeply human and legitimate desire. God created you with dignity and with the capacity to choose, and He provides for your needs, spiritual and physical, not through coercion but through His care.
There are no simple answers for why healing has not yet come or why protection has felt absent. God's ways are not our ways, and we should be wary of anyone who offers quick explanations for suffering. What is true is that God warns and invites while grace is available, calling each person to turn from sin and to trust Jesus as Lord, because everyone serves someone or something, and only Jesus brings forgiveness and reconciliation with God. Those who trust Him are written in the book of life and have the hope of being with Him, while those who remain separated from Him face the second death. That hope includes the promise that those who overcome will eat from the tree of life in the paradise of God, a future where God dwells with His people and wipes away the conditions that now cause so much grief.
You said you hope evidence will emerge and truth will be revealed so you will no longer be a slave to fear, and that you will not be silent again. God sees what has been done in secret and He is a God of truth. Holding to the word of God and speaking truthfully about what you have endured can be part of healing, especially when it is done with safe, trustworthy people who respect your boundaries. You also said you do not want anyone to feel compelled to pray for you, and that you release people from that pressure. That choice is respected here. No one should pray for you out of pressure. If you do want prayer, there are those who would be honored to pray quietly for your health, for clarity of mind, for protection, for freedom from fear and nightmares, and for the truth to be made known in God's way and time. If you do not, that wish is honored as well.
Thank you for letting your voice be heard this far. You are not forgotten. Your suffering has meaning to God even when it feels meaningless to you, and your life has equal value before Him. Please continue with the psychological and medical support you have begun, stay connected to safe people, and allow the living word of God to speak to you at a pace you can bear. May you find rest, truth and gentle healing, and may you be free to be yourself, as you so kindly wish for others.
