Folks, this blog is upside down. The first posts in the series, which you need to read in the order that they were written to make them comprehensible, are at the bottom of the stack. I can't seem to find any button or function that will place the oldest posts first, so forgive me for appearing a little mixed up.
In the days after I started posting these blog entries, I encountered a lot of spiritual messages from many different sources which spoke about forgiveness and renewal, even reminding me about what Jesus said, "Blessed are you when you are persecuted for My sake." This is a huge struggle for me, because I have no idea how to be happy about what was done to me by Drew and my parents. Even members of my church were involved in denigrating me; they should have rallied around to protect me from this impostor, but they were so obsessed with trying to get me married off that they didn't seem to care what kind of man Drew was, only that he seemed interested in ending my long stretch of singleness. Once people in that church found out I had ended my relationship with Drew, they were very upset with me. They wouldn't accept my explanation -- most of them wouldn't even listen to me explain -- and they all turned their backs on me.
I thought persecution was supposed to come from OUTSIDE the church, not from other church members! Maybe they were all as lost as I was back then. Maybe Drew's mouthing of all the right words was enough for them, and his lack of depth didn't trouble them because it mirrored their own. I guess they believed that it's not important to be right with God, just to LOOK LIKE you are. Jesus had a few things to say about stuff like that....
So my mission for now is to meditate on being blessed because of this past abuse. Eventually, I hope to regard myself as blessed because of it, and maybe someday I can actually feel happy about it. I know my betrayal is nothing in the face of how Jesus was betrayed, and my rejection is nothing in the face of His rejection...but it still hurts! My puny little betrayal and rejection hurt like hell.
I wish I could get answers. I wish I could ask someone to give me the details, to give me reasons why. Unless Drew shows up and explains himself, I'll have to find closure some other way.
Showing posts with label Jewish Christians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jewish Christians. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Where are you, Drew? And Why? Part 4
Part 4
Over the past 23 years, I have learned Christ's message of forgiveness. It is necessary to release those who "trespass against us" so that we can live. Unfortunately, the ways that I have been harmed are deep, chronic, and multi-layered. I have had to forgive many people over and over again for the same abuses, simply because there was an anger layer and a fear layer, and a layer of rejection, and a layer of sadness, and they all don't always pop up at the same time from the same stimulus. Thank God for that, because the pain of all the many layers of harm all playing themselves out at the same time is so bad that I often feel I am going to die from it. So forgiveness has been in layers and stages. Unlike God's forgiveness, which is once for all time, my flawed human forgiveness takes practice, and it takes courage. It takes a willingness to give up my right to punish the offender and let God work on his or her heart.
It takes honoring the pain that was caused, loving the tender-hearted, vulnerable soul that I am who was injured and devalued, and then turning to God, Who knows exactly who I am and how I feel, and giving my experiences back to Him. This is the only way I know to heal. It is like performing surgery on myself, very painful, but it is very, very effective. In Jesus' name, and by the healing power of the Holy Spirit, I surrender my right to punish those who have harmed me. My sins were covered and paid for by the Messiah's blood; the sins of those who have harmed me were also loved by God and also have that payment available to them. Therefore, I can't put myself above God. If God is ready to forgive, then I have to.
23 years after Drew tried to strand me in a dangerous section of town, I started looking up Messianic Congregations in Miami for a friend who was interested in worshipping Messianic style. While surfing for this information, I stumbled into a Jewish anti-missionary, anti-messianic website, and my relationship with Drew came tumbling back to me. The nagging questions which were never answered came racing back; the nonsensical money insult still nagged at me. Why would anyone associate money at all with that relationship?
And then it dawned on me as horrifyingly clear as a tidal wave shining in the sun. Drew was an anti-missionary, I am certain of that, but who sent him? There was no one left to ask. Drew doesn't seem to have an e-mail address on yahoo or gmail, not one that is linked to his name, so he's unavailable for comment. I'm not going to stalk him by phone, even though he stalked me by automobile. I'm sure he would deny the whole thing, anyway.
So why Drew, and why me?
I realized, suddenly, that there had to be money involved. He had moved from what he had told me was a good life in another state out west, a place he regretted leaving and missed very much. He would never explain why he moved, why it seemed he HAD to move. He didn't have a job waiting for him in Miami, and he didn't have a place to live. He roomed with his mother, and if I remember correctly, he slept on her couch. Who put him up to this? Had he been called into service as an anti-missionary to move across the continent and marry me? I was sure he wouldn't have done this for free.
Oh, no. No, no. But it had to be true. My stepfather still had ties through his extended family to the ultra-orthodox community in New York where he had grown up. He had money which he had squirreled away for many years. My mother and he must have paid someone to arrange that relationship, to make me a target for an anti-missionary. At the point of their desperation to drag me away from the church, they wouldn't have cared less who I got paired up with. Any Jewish man would do as long as he himself wasn't Christian and wasn't too nauseatingly religious himself.
They paid...they paid...they PAID a man to get me to fall in love with him. They PAID a man to try to marry me, to force me to decide between the Messiah and a last chance at marriage. They must have figured that I would leave the Messiah for a man, any man, who would consent to marry me.
How pathetic they must have thought I was, how desperate, how pitiful. In their twisted view of the universe, nothing was more important to a single woman than getting a man. Certainly the damaged goods that I was -- divorced mother of a small child, overweight, depressed -- would jump at the chance to settle for whatever man would have me. It must have been beyond their comprehension that I would put God before the promise of marriage, but I did.
They couldn't speak to me for a month because they had secretly paid out an unnamed amount of money, probably a lot for 1986, to buy me a husband, and I had sweetly turned him down. How much, I wonder? How much to take me out on cheap dates? And how much to marry me once I had been completely roped in?
Was that what my ex-future-mother-in-law was talking about? But at the moment she was screaming, I hadn't broken up with Drew yet. Drew hadn't lost any money on me yet.
Or had he? Had my ultra-stingy stepfather gotten Drew to leave his comfortable life out west and move to Miami, with the promise of a dowry once he married me? Don't laugh, dear reader, and don't scoff. Orthodox Jews still think in terms of dowries and bride prices. It's Jewish tradition which is thousands of years old, but it's not something they could have admitted to me. I would never have agreed to that; I am devastated and disgusted to have been bartered like a piece of baggage. I've spent days weeping over this last degradation from my disowning parents.
Did Drew spend his last dime moving to Miami for me, only to have me refuse him?
Did my mother and stepfather offer him a cozy life in exchange for these services?
Why didn't they simply set up me and my son with a place to go instead of offering this money to a stranger, if they wanted me out of the house? Why spy on me and plot against me when I would have been so happy, so blessed, to be out from under their roof?
I would like to have answers to these questions, but I don't think anyone still alive is willing to tell me the truth. Drew has no e-mail that I know of. Neither does my stepfather, and even if would communicate with me, he would lie about his involvement. My mother passed away in 1995, but even if she still lived, she would deny everything.
Drew, if you can read this, how much did my parents pay you to date me? What was the agreement? How much to marry me? And how were you going to live with yourself in a loveless marriage?
Well, this is my story, and typing all these words has given me some catharsis. I may never get my answers or my closure, but I will continue my healing process and get as close to closing this door completely as I can. Now that I have uncovered the awful truth, I realize that it could have been so much worse. Some victims of Jewish anti-missionaries get kidnapped, beaten and humiliated in an effort to "deprogram" them. Other Jewish Believers are disowned and thrown out on the street; some of them have relatives who put contracts out on their lives. I'm lucky I only got my heart broken instead of my legs, but I still have wounds that need healing.
The world hated Messiah Jesus first. Of course it hates us as well. I would like for others with similar experiences to please share them with me so that we may both get insights into the healing process. I will blog more as I progress.
Faithfully yours,
Sylvia
Over the past 23 years, I have learned Christ's message of forgiveness. It is necessary to release those who "trespass against us" so that we can live. Unfortunately, the ways that I have been harmed are deep, chronic, and multi-layered. I have had to forgive many people over and over again for the same abuses, simply because there was an anger layer and a fear layer, and a layer of rejection, and a layer of sadness, and they all don't always pop up at the same time from the same stimulus. Thank God for that, because the pain of all the many layers of harm all playing themselves out at the same time is so bad that I often feel I am going to die from it. So forgiveness has been in layers and stages. Unlike God's forgiveness, which is once for all time, my flawed human forgiveness takes practice, and it takes courage. It takes a willingness to give up my right to punish the offender and let God work on his or her heart.
It takes honoring the pain that was caused, loving the tender-hearted, vulnerable soul that I am who was injured and devalued, and then turning to God, Who knows exactly who I am and how I feel, and giving my experiences back to Him. This is the only way I know to heal. It is like performing surgery on myself, very painful, but it is very, very effective. In Jesus' name, and by the healing power of the Holy Spirit, I surrender my right to punish those who have harmed me. My sins were covered and paid for by the Messiah's blood; the sins of those who have harmed me were also loved by God and also have that payment available to them. Therefore, I can't put myself above God. If God is ready to forgive, then I have to.
23 years after Drew tried to strand me in a dangerous section of town, I started looking up Messianic Congregations in Miami for a friend who was interested in worshipping Messianic style. While surfing for this information, I stumbled into a Jewish anti-missionary, anti-messianic website, and my relationship with Drew came tumbling back to me. The nagging questions which were never answered came racing back; the nonsensical money insult still nagged at me. Why would anyone associate money at all with that relationship?
And then it dawned on me as horrifyingly clear as a tidal wave shining in the sun. Drew was an anti-missionary, I am certain of that, but who sent him? There was no one left to ask. Drew doesn't seem to have an e-mail address on yahoo or gmail, not one that is linked to his name, so he's unavailable for comment. I'm not going to stalk him by phone, even though he stalked me by automobile. I'm sure he would deny the whole thing, anyway.
So why Drew, and why me?
I realized, suddenly, that there had to be money involved. He had moved from what he had told me was a good life in another state out west, a place he regretted leaving and missed very much. He would never explain why he moved, why it seemed he HAD to move. He didn't have a job waiting for him in Miami, and he didn't have a place to live. He roomed with his mother, and if I remember correctly, he slept on her couch. Who put him up to this? Had he been called into service as an anti-missionary to move across the continent and marry me? I was sure he wouldn't have done this for free.
Oh, no. No, no. But it had to be true. My stepfather still had ties through his extended family to the ultra-orthodox community in New York where he had grown up. He had money which he had squirreled away for many years. My mother and he must have paid someone to arrange that relationship, to make me a target for an anti-missionary. At the point of their desperation to drag me away from the church, they wouldn't have cared less who I got paired up with. Any Jewish man would do as long as he himself wasn't Christian and wasn't too nauseatingly religious himself.
They paid...they paid...they PAID a man to get me to fall in love with him. They PAID a man to try to marry me, to force me to decide between the Messiah and a last chance at marriage. They must have figured that I would leave the Messiah for a man, any man, who would consent to marry me.
How pathetic they must have thought I was, how desperate, how pitiful. In their twisted view of the universe, nothing was more important to a single woman than getting a man. Certainly the damaged goods that I was -- divorced mother of a small child, overweight, depressed -- would jump at the chance to settle for whatever man would have me. It must have been beyond their comprehension that I would put God before the promise of marriage, but I did.
They couldn't speak to me for a month because they had secretly paid out an unnamed amount of money, probably a lot for 1986, to buy me a husband, and I had sweetly turned him down. How much, I wonder? How much to take me out on cheap dates? And how much to marry me once I had been completely roped in?
Was that what my ex-future-mother-in-law was talking about? But at the moment she was screaming, I hadn't broken up with Drew yet. Drew hadn't lost any money on me yet.
Or had he? Had my ultra-stingy stepfather gotten Drew to leave his comfortable life out west and move to Miami, with the promise of a dowry once he married me? Don't laugh, dear reader, and don't scoff. Orthodox Jews still think in terms of dowries and bride prices. It's Jewish tradition which is thousands of years old, but it's not something they could have admitted to me. I would never have agreed to that; I am devastated and disgusted to have been bartered like a piece of baggage. I've spent days weeping over this last degradation from my disowning parents.
Did Drew spend his last dime moving to Miami for me, only to have me refuse him?
Did my mother and stepfather offer him a cozy life in exchange for these services?
Why didn't they simply set up me and my son with a place to go instead of offering this money to a stranger, if they wanted me out of the house? Why spy on me and plot against me when I would have been so happy, so blessed, to be out from under their roof?
I would like to have answers to these questions, but I don't think anyone still alive is willing to tell me the truth. Drew has no e-mail that I know of. Neither does my stepfather, and even if would communicate with me, he would lie about his involvement. My mother passed away in 1995, but even if she still lived, she would deny everything.
Drew, if you can read this, how much did my parents pay you to date me? What was the agreement? How much to marry me? And how were you going to live with yourself in a loveless marriage?
Well, this is my story, and typing all these words has given me some catharsis. I may never get my answers or my closure, but I will continue my healing process and get as close to closing this door completely as I can. Now that I have uncovered the awful truth, I realize that it could have been so much worse. Some victims of Jewish anti-missionaries get kidnapped, beaten and humiliated in an effort to "deprogram" them. Other Jewish Believers are disowned and thrown out on the street; some of them have relatives who put contracts out on their lives. I'm lucky I only got my heart broken instead of my legs, but I still have wounds that need healing.
The world hated Messiah Jesus first. Of course it hates us as well. I would like for others with similar experiences to please share them with me so that we may both get insights into the healing process. I will blog more as I progress.
Faithfully yours,
Sylvia
Where are you, Drew? And Why? Part 3
As I pulled out of the parking lot, I notice the car made some funny noises. The parking lot attendant gave me some strange looks, but he didn't speak any English, so he remained silent. As I got out onto the main street, I noticed the car was lopsided as well as funny-sounding, so I pulled over into a parking space. I got out and saw that my back tire on the driver's side was flat. I managed to call AAA from a pay phone -- those were the days before affordable cell phones -- and prepared myself to wait for assistance.
The help never came. I called AAA repeatedly, and finally realized they weren't going to come. I pulled my tire-changing paraphernalia out of the trunk and tried to do the work myself. Two hugely-muscled body builders from the gym across the street were watching me from a distance, making sure that I would be OK, as I had sweetly refused their help. Any half-wit could change a tire; surely I could do it myself, right?
Meanwhile, from my vantage point on the ground, I thought I kept seeing the same car passing by me over and over again. I guessed that there was some unfortunate soul driving around this sad part of town, hopelessly lost, but I was in no position to help him or her. Finally, I realized that I just could not break the seal on the lug nuts to get the tire off the car, nor could I manage the jack properly. I turned toward my guardian body builders and mouthed the words, "Please help me." They immediately got out of their car and ran over to help me.
I sat in between them and handed them the tools as they made short work of my tire change. It was kind of nice to be on the receiving end of such chivalry, especially by such good-looking young men. It was such a contrast to the last dregs of my relationship with Drew, and it boosted my morale. Just as the two men finished helping me and got the flat tire into the trunk along with the tools, that same car that had repeatedly passed by me did so once again. The driver honked the horn loudly; poised between the two muscle-men, I looked up and saw that it was Drew at the wheel. I started to say "Hi, what are you doing here?" but as he cruised by, he gave me an angry sort of salute and sped away.
At first, I was too happy and grateful about being rescued from the impending darkness to think about what Drew's gesture could have meant. However, the next day, when the auto repair shop told me that the tire must have had a rim leak because they could find no punctures, I realized Drew must have followed me to work, waited until no one was looking, then let the air out of my tire. It's a pretty childish thing to do under normal circumstances, but in a bad area of town, this kind of vandalism could have gotten me attacked, raped, robbed, or even murdered. He had cruised by repeatedly, enjoying watching me struggle as the sun began to set. I have learned that a stalker will sometimes disable a victim's car, then show up like a white knight unexpectedly and save the day. This manufactured crisis, however, didn't seem like an attempt to redeem himself. He was enjoying watching me suffer, and he made no effort to help me out of the predicament he had caused.
He still owes me for that tire.
I told my mother about this incident, too, and she told me I was nuts. It couldn't have been Drew who let the air out of my tire. He was too nice a man to do that. She said that I was imagining things.
But my mother was a great believer in misdirection, especially when it came to me. Deception, subterfuge, plotting, scheming, and misdirection. She managed to hide the worst of the awful truth about the situation for 23 years, until I finally understood what she and this man had done behind my back.
The story continues in Part 4, in the next blog post.....
The help never came. I called AAA repeatedly, and finally realized they weren't going to come. I pulled my tire-changing paraphernalia out of the trunk and tried to do the work myself. Two hugely-muscled body builders from the gym across the street were watching me from a distance, making sure that I would be OK, as I had sweetly refused their help. Any half-wit could change a tire; surely I could do it myself, right?
Meanwhile, from my vantage point on the ground, I thought I kept seeing the same car passing by me over and over again. I guessed that there was some unfortunate soul driving around this sad part of town, hopelessly lost, but I was in no position to help him or her. Finally, I realized that I just could not break the seal on the lug nuts to get the tire off the car, nor could I manage the jack properly. I turned toward my guardian body builders and mouthed the words, "Please help me." They immediately got out of their car and ran over to help me.
I sat in between them and handed them the tools as they made short work of my tire change. It was kind of nice to be on the receiving end of such chivalry, especially by such good-looking young men. It was such a contrast to the last dregs of my relationship with Drew, and it boosted my morale. Just as the two men finished helping me and got the flat tire into the trunk along with the tools, that same car that had repeatedly passed by me did so once again. The driver honked the horn loudly; poised between the two muscle-men, I looked up and saw that it was Drew at the wheel. I started to say "Hi, what are you doing here?" but as he cruised by, he gave me an angry sort of salute and sped away.
At first, I was too happy and grateful about being rescued from the impending darkness to think about what Drew's gesture could have meant. However, the next day, when the auto repair shop told me that the tire must have had a rim leak because they could find no punctures, I realized Drew must have followed me to work, waited until no one was looking, then let the air out of my tire. It's a pretty childish thing to do under normal circumstances, but in a bad area of town, this kind of vandalism could have gotten me attacked, raped, robbed, or even murdered. He had cruised by repeatedly, enjoying watching me struggle as the sun began to set. I have learned that a stalker will sometimes disable a victim's car, then show up like a white knight unexpectedly and save the day. This manufactured crisis, however, didn't seem like an attempt to redeem himself. He was enjoying watching me suffer, and he made no effort to help me out of the predicament he had caused.
He still owes me for that tire.
I told my mother about this incident, too, and she told me I was nuts. It couldn't have been Drew who let the air out of my tire. He was too nice a man to do that. She said that I was imagining things.
But my mother was a great believer in misdirection, especially when it came to me. Deception, subterfuge, plotting, scheming, and misdirection. She managed to hide the worst of the awful truth about the situation for 23 years, until I finally understood what she and this man had done behind my back.
The story continues in Part 4, in the next blog post.....
Monday, May 18, 2009
Where are you now, Drew? And why did you do what you did? PART 1
Part 1: On the First Part of the Journey....
My name is Sylvia. I am now, and have always been, a Jewish Believer in Jesus, a.k.a. Yeshua the Messiah. You may have heard of the Jews for Jesus organization; I am very, very fond of them. Unfortunately, around 1986, I was the victim of an anti-missionary effort aimed at getting Jewish women, particularly young women of child-bearing age, to leave Christianity and turn back to unbelieving Judaism with promises of marriage, or at least relationships, with unbelieving Jewish men. I know that happened to me a long time ago, but the echoes of that experience are still with me, and I am still healing from a profound betrayal. I was 28 back then; I'm 50 going on 51 now.
Maybe if I tell my story to whatever part of the world is interested in hearing it, I can finish the healing process and forgive the pain once and for all. Maybe if others who have had similar experiences share them with me and with whatever part of the world will listen, they, too, may nudge themselves further along in the healing process. Maybe Drew, the anti-missionary who caused the damage, will understand what he did and will apologize. One way or the other, whether I write this out of my system the way I have done for so many other wounds, or whether I get closure some other way, I am bound and determined to be healed and to take others with me in healing if at all possible.
I will have to tell my story in at least a couple of parts because it is long. Here I go.
Sometime in 1985 or '86, I had heard about anti-missionary efforts by an orthodox Jewish organization which targeted Jewish Christians. This organization sent anti-missionaries, posing as Jewish Believers themselves, supposedly seeking to fellowship with other Jewish Believers, into churches that were known to have Jewish members. There aren't as many Jews in most churches as Gentiles, obviously, and Jewish Believers often get ostracized or even disowned by their families and friends, so Jewish Believers can be somewhat vulnerable to someone posing as a kindred spirit. Sometimes Gentile Christians have a hard time understanding Jewishness, which makes the Jewish Believer's life even a little more lonely.
In the 1980s, I was a divorced mother of a young son, lonely and depressed, struggling to love an often anti-semitic church and love my parents at the same time. The quiet desire of my heart was to find a man to be my spiritual partner and forever lover, but I didn't think this was likely to happen to me. I had heard of anti-missionaries before, and even warned members of my church about them, but I really couldn't conceive of someone coming after me -- a divorced mom who was overweight and rushing toward the end of her reproductive years. Who would do something like that to me? Who could even find me in this obscure, out-of-the-way little congregation at the southern end of Miami?
The church I was a member of at that time had a strange obsession with marrying people off. They were extremely uncomfortable with single people, especially divorcees. Although I truly desired to fall in love and remarry, I wasn't going to let myself fall into desperation about it. I didn't want to repeat the awful marriage I had found myself in with my son's father, so I prayed about it and left it in God's hands. If God re-married me with the right man, that would be wonderful. If I was meant to be single for the rest of my life, I would be OK.
Meanwhile, I was living at my parents' house, paying rent as best I could and trying to provide for my son. My parents hated my religion and refused to talk about God at all. They had never had any love for God or anyone's faith before I openly professed my faith, but after I started going to church, their attitudes became even more hostile. They didn't want to be practicing Jews themselves, but they sure didn't want me to be a practicing Christian. Never did I dream of the actual depth of their hatred for this aspect of my life until much, much later.
One day, one of the adult singles in the small, obscure church I attended came to me and excitedly told me about a man he'd invited to his home Bible study. The man's name was Drew, short for Andrew, and this man had just come to profess faith in Christ. Best of all, he was Jewish! I couldn't attend the Bible studies at that member's house on a regular basis because it was too far for me to travel every week, but Halloween was coming up, and there was going to be a costume party in lieu of the usual Bible study. I was invited with the express purpose of meeting Drew. No one made it a secret that they hoped I would hook up with this man.
I was a little bit excited, but cautiously optimistic as the first Mr. Bush would say a decade or so later. I went in the costume of a dental insurance saleswoman with blacked-out teeth and a big smile. I Drew showed up lat; I think he was wearing a Star Trek costume, complete with Vulcan ears. He saw me across the room, chubby and apparently lacking teeth; he seemed afraid of me and kept his distance. I finally realized that he must've thought I didn't have any teeth, so I took off the black tooth wax and introduced myself. He seemed rather relieved, but not entirely overjoyed to see me. He admitted that he was afraid that that was really what I looked like, and I reminded him that this was a costume party, and he certainly wasn't born with those ears, was he? He was very nervous and could not seem to relax at all, in spite of my friendly chit-chat. I wondered if this could be the man God Himself had picked out for me; if he was, then I should accept him as the human being he was and not judge him for being shy.
That's what I told myself that night, and that's what I told myself repeatedly over the course of our relationship. We dated for several months and seemed to be getting closer and more serious, but the man could never seem to relax. No matter where we were, he acted as though he thought people were watching us. I thought the answer to quelling his anxiety was to distract him with pleasant conversation and jokes; however, this didn't work the majority of the time. Looking back on the situation from the vantage point of 23 years' distance, it is entirely possible that someone WAS monitoring us, making sure that he did and said all the right things. He certainly tried very hard to be Mr. Right. He tried talking about spiritual things a couple of times, but this made him desperately uncomfortable, and he always stuttered when God, Jesus or the Bible came up in conversation. Whenever we would eat together, I would ask him to bless the food, and he would say the kind of rote prayer that most everyone says, but then he would make a wisecrack at the end of the prayer, which I eventually came to understand meant that he hadn't believed anything he'd said up to that point. He tried very hard to be romantic with me, bringing me flowers every time he came to see me, but he never seemed to be natural about it. He even told me that he just couldn't show up without flowers because bringing flowers was the proper thing to do. I liked the sound of that: a man concerned with doing the right thing.
I should've known something was very wrong when he didn't really seem to be physically attracted to me. His kisses and hugs seemed passionless, but I told myself he was practicing self-control. I liked the fact that he wasn't all over me all the time the way other men I had dated in years past had been, but when he did put his arms around me, most of the time it was the kind of hug that a person gives a distant relative. It was hardly ever warm or relaxed. Unfortunately, I told myself that if God had sent Drew to me to be my husband, I had to give us time to adapt to each other. Things would work out just fine if I only gave him time.
Truthfully, I was charmed at first by what I thought was his shyness and vulnerable awkwardness, but then the awkwardness never really faded away as it should have once we got to know each other. He had claimed at first to be a brand-new Believer in Jesus, but he resisted everyone's attempt to teach him any depth of spirituality. He could never say the name "Jesus" without choking on it, and he finally admitted to me a couple of months into the relationship that although he read the Old Testament sometimes, he never read the New Testament. He just wasn't comfortable with it. He changed the subject when I told him he would never know the character of Jesus unless he read the rest of the Bible.
I began to see that something was wrong. This man was not now, and was not likely to become, my spiritual partner. He couldn't be the man God wanted me to marry, at least not yet. I prayed that God would show me what to do because I knew I could not allow myself to be partnered with an unbeliever, but it would also be wrong to turn my back on a lost soul. I was disappointed in the relationship and beginning to be rather heartbroken. I didn't know just how heartbroken I would become. And when I finally realized the entire truth about the situation, I would be devastated.
Part 2 is in the next blog entry....
My name is Sylvia. I am now, and have always been, a Jewish Believer in Jesus, a.k.a. Yeshua the Messiah. You may have heard of the Jews for Jesus organization; I am very, very fond of them. Unfortunately, around 1986, I was the victim of an anti-missionary effort aimed at getting Jewish women, particularly young women of child-bearing age, to leave Christianity and turn back to unbelieving Judaism with promises of marriage, or at least relationships, with unbelieving Jewish men. I know that happened to me a long time ago, but the echoes of that experience are still with me, and I am still healing from a profound betrayal. I was 28 back then; I'm 50 going on 51 now.
Maybe if I tell my story to whatever part of the world is interested in hearing it, I can finish the healing process and forgive the pain once and for all. Maybe if others who have had similar experiences share them with me and with whatever part of the world will listen, they, too, may nudge themselves further along in the healing process. Maybe Drew, the anti-missionary who caused the damage, will understand what he did and will apologize. One way or the other, whether I write this out of my system the way I have done for so many other wounds, or whether I get closure some other way, I am bound and determined to be healed and to take others with me in healing if at all possible.
I will have to tell my story in at least a couple of parts because it is long. Here I go.
Sometime in 1985 or '86, I had heard about anti-missionary efforts by an orthodox Jewish organization which targeted Jewish Christians. This organization sent anti-missionaries, posing as Jewish Believers themselves, supposedly seeking to fellowship with other Jewish Believers, into churches that were known to have Jewish members. There aren't as many Jews in most churches as Gentiles, obviously, and Jewish Believers often get ostracized or even disowned by their families and friends, so Jewish Believers can be somewhat vulnerable to someone posing as a kindred spirit. Sometimes Gentile Christians have a hard time understanding Jewishness, which makes the Jewish Believer's life even a little more lonely.
In the 1980s, I was a divorced mother of a young son, lonely and depressed, struggling to love an often anti-semitic church and love my parents at the same time. The quiet desire of my heart was to find a man to be my spiritual partner and forever lover, but I didn't think this was likely to happen to me. I had heard of anti-missionaries before, and even warned members of my church about them, but I really couldn't conceive of someone coming after me -- a divorced mom who was overweight and rushing toward the end of her reproductive years. Who would do something like that to me? Who could even find me in this obscure, out-of-the-way little congregation at the southern end of Miami?
The church I was a member of at that time had a strange obsession with marrying people off. They were extremely uncomfortable with single people, especially divorcees. Although I truly desired to fall in love and remarry, I wasn't going to let myself fall into desperation about it. I didn't want to repeat the awful marriage I had found myself in with my son's father, so I prayed about it and left it in God's hands. If God re-married me with the right man, that would be wonderful. If I was meant to be single for the rest of my life, I would be OK.
Meanwhile, I was living at my parents' house, paying rent as best I could and trying to provide for my son. My parents hated my religion and refused to talk about God at all. They had never had any love for God or anyone's faith before I openly professed my faith, but after I started going to church, their attitudes became even more hostile. They didn't want to be practicing Jews themselves, but they sure didn't want me to be a practicing Christian. Never did I dream of the actual depth of their hatred for this aspect of my life until much, much later.
One day, one of the adult singles in the small, obscure church I attended came to me and excitedly told me about a man he'd invited to his home Bible study. The man's name was Drew, short for Andrew, and this man had just come to profess faith in Christ. Best of all, he was Jewish! I couldn't attend the Bible studies at that member's house on a regular basis because it was too far for me to travel every week, but Halloween was coming up, and there was going to be a costume party in lieu of the usual Bible study. I was invited with the express purpose of meeting Drew. No one made it a secret that they hoped I would hook up with this man.
I was a little bit excited, but cautiously optimistic as the first Mr. Bush would say a decade or so later. I went in the costume of a dental insurance saleswoman with blacked-out teeth and a big smile. I Drew showed up lat; I think he was wearing a Star Trek costume, complete with Vulcan ears. He saw me across the room, chubby and apparently lacking teeth; he seemed afraid of me and kept his distance. I finally realized that he must've thought I didn't have any teeth, so I took off the black tooth wax and introduced myself. He seemed rather relieved, but not entirely overjoyed to see me. He admitted that he was afraid that that was really what I looked like, and I reminded him that this was a costume party, and he certainly wasn't born with those ears, was he? He was very nervous and could not seem to relax at all, in spite of my friendly chit-chat. I wondered if this could be the man God Himself had picked out for me; if he was, then I should accept him as the human being he was and not judge him for being shy.
That's what I told myself that night, and that's what I told myself repeatedly over the course of our relationship. We dated for several months and seemed to be getting closer and more serious, but the man could never seem to relax. No matter where we were, he acted as though he thought people were watching us. I thought the answer to quelling his anxiety was to distract him with pleasant conversation and jokes; however, this didn't work the majority of the time. Looking back on the situation from the vantage point of 23 years' distance, it is entirely possible that someone WAS monitoring us, making sure that he did and said all the right things. He certainly tried very hard to be Mr. Right. He tried talking about spiritual things a couple of times, but this made him desperately uncomfortable, and he always stuttered when God, Jesus or the Bible came up in conversation. Whenever we would eat together, I would ask him to bless the food, and he would say the kind of rote prayer that most everyone says, but then he would make a wisecrack at the end of the prayer, which I eventually came to understand meant that he hadn't believed anything he'd said up to that point. He tried very hard to be romantic with me, bringing me flowers every time he came to see me, but he never seemed to be natural about it. He even told me that he just couldn't show up without flowers because bringing flowers was the proper thing to do. I liked the sound of that: a man concerned with doing the right thing.
I should've known something was very wrong when he didn't really seem to be physically attracted to me. His kisses and hugs seemed passionless, but I told myself he was practicing self-control. I liked the fact that he wasn't all over me all the time the way other men I had dated in years past had been, but when he did put his arms around me, most of the time it was the kind of hug that a person gives a distant relative. It was hardly ever warm or relaxed. Unfortunately, I told myself that if God had sent Drew to me to be my husband, I had to give us time to adapt to each other. Things would work out just fine if I only gave him time.
Truthfully, I was charmed at first by what I thought was his shyness and vulnerable awkwardness, but then the awkwardness never really faded away as it should have once we got to know each other. He had claimed at first to be a brand-new Believer in Jesus, but he resisted everyone's attempt to teach him any depth of spirituality. He could never say the name "Jesus" without choking on it, and he finally admitted to me a couple of months into the relationship that although he read the Old Testament sometimes, he never read the New Testament. He just wasn't comfortable with it. He changed the subject when I told him he would never know the character of Jesus unless he read the rest of the Bible.
I began to see that something was wrong. This man was not now, and was not likely to become, my spiritual partner. He couldn't be the man God wanted me to marry, at least not yet. I prayed that God would show me what to do because I knew I could not allow myself to be partnered with an unbeliever, but it would also be wrong to turn my back on a lost soul. I was disappointed in the relationship and beginning to be rather heartbroken. I didn't know just how heartbroken I would become. And when I finally realized the entire truth about the situation, I would be devastated.
Part 2 is in the next blog entry....
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