The Fall
By: Susan Deborah Schiller
From the series, "Diary of a Battered Preacher's Wife"
Introduction: I was once called "the most abused wife" my counselors had ever met. I was married to not one, but two sociopaths. The first marriage lasted 20 years; the second, nearly 10 years. Both of of my abusers are ministers. Friends have asked me to share the story of how God helped a preacher's wife escape to freedom. The escape route is recorded within 83 diary entries, and I am sharing one diary entry per day.. This is not a step-by-step blue print of how to escape a sociopath. But I will provide links within each diary, if you wish to receive specific information.
Trigger Alert: These diaries are the raw, uncensored heart cry of a woman ravaged by rabid religious beasts who is ministered to by her friends. She finds love, acceptance, and begins to reinvent her life. By the end of the story, she has turned from a timid mouse into a roaring lioness. If God can do this for me, He can definitely do it for YOU!
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I appreciate all this wisdom, spoken in love… and I realize I have been both naive and foolish.
Here's my fall…
It seemed God was miraculously opening doors of mercy and grace for me here in Wyoming. A praying friend guided me to seek refuge in a hotel where she knew some Christian owners. I stayed there for a month and then the owner said he would be willing to trade me a room for a job watching the hotel at night…. night management.
I want to be near my daughter and granddaugther, so a hotel is the cheapest way to go right now. It's cheaper than renting an apartment, until I know where I'm supposed to live. It seemed to have made sense.
Twice my truck broke down on the road and the pastor / hotel owner was right on the spot to help me get it fixed. He was so kind and gracious, always trying to make me laugh when he saw my downcast face.
He had a book he was writing but needed a writer to put it together for publishing… he offered me the 'job' because I am starting a business writing life stories … I began listening to all his sermons and stories, recording them on my voice recorder.
He told me God was telling him to provide me with a "safe harbor" and in addition to a place to work and live he began offering me hugs…. He's much older than I am, so it seemed like a father's gesture, at first. And then it became 'more'… not physically, but emotionally.
We met in April, six weeks ago, for the first time when I was a stranger showing up at their hotel. When it became 'more' God exposed it and we went in different directions.
R told me that he's had spies taking pictures of me, and that he has pictures of this man giving me a hug in the hot springs mineral pool.
The picture he's trying to paint is full of lust and deception…. but it never was that way. Not even hand holding or anything close. He claims he will plaster them all over Facebook if I don't get the divorce papers done today and over-nighted to him. He said a lot more than that, but it was all very judgmental and cold.
I have been wrong and foolish… but I am not ashamed. My heart's intent was not to get involved with anyone else. And it's all been shut down and made public to friends.
This whole incident crushed me for the past few days of dealing with it…. it was a trap, but it was presented as a "safe harbor".
Being alone and in pain is hard to bear. Being homeless makes you vulnerable to predators.
God knows my heart and I'm at peace with that. His voice has been constantly in my ear day and night, not to condemn but to encourage and to shelter me. I have done wrong in allowing the hugs, but they seemed to be coming from a father… I know in my heart I did not want anything more.
Being alone and homeless is like being slowly starved. We need affection to survive, even more than food and shelter. It really felt like God himself was stepping in to provide for me, in every way.
I thought I should share… my own fall, my own failures. I am sorry.
Note from the future: I weep for this woman, as if I am reading someone else's story here. For I know her heart well. She was pure in heart.
The enemy steals, kills, and destroys. The enemy accuses, blames, and shames. The enemy of her soul appeared in the form of a gift from God – a pastor – dressed in shepherd's clothes but underneath was a wolf.
She was not wise in the ways of this world. She was innocent and naive. She has Asperger's, on the autism spectrum. She shares too readily and trusts too easily.
Her bloody trail of tears made her the perfect prey.
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Chrysallis: Ignore him. He doesn't have pictures I would venture to guess.
June: PLEASE be DARK on him — ignore him as Chrysallis has stated….
BE DARK!
NO CONTACT — do not reply to him — zero — nada — zilch — NONE!
you call it a "fall" to unknowingly accept hugs from a fatherly figure that ended up being more than that for him … and then you stopped it? that to me is not a fall, that is a wounded woman feeling secure from others helping her (naively if there was no wife included in this friendship) … and then satan interfering —
DID Randy show you the pictures?
(do NOT reply to him to ask to see them, I was just wondering if he had shown them to you)
something is strangely awry here — either he has someone spying on you (is there a hot tub at the motel? were you there with a man?) OR you have been giving him info about what you are doing and whom you are befriending and where you are living?
Note from the future: The "hot springs" is a pool about half the size of a football field, a public place. I worked and lived there. He was my boss. At that point, we had known each other six weeks and I had been working for him for two weeks.
I am glad you are near your daughter and granddaughter — what a blessing!
You are wise to get away from the man who is seeking more than friendship with a (still legally) married woman… I say that because your husband has emotionally divorced you LONG AGO.
It must be very frustrating and unsettling to not know where to go to live.
Note from the future: It was scary to be homeless. It's like wearing a neon sign that says, "Helpless, Easy Target".
Firewalker: Kingsbride,
Please receive June's post and let it percolate down deep in your spirit. You are not condemned, and your naivete is not in any way sinful. But, YOU are still allowing the sinful, abusive man your husband is choosing to be to influence you.
You speak of the awesome provision of the Father, but at the same time, you are being tempted in the wilderness to succumb to the twisted words of the deceiver.
Do not respond to this current manipulation. We are loving you enough to continue pointing out the deception and the manipulation.
Don't continue to entagle yourself, and thereby encourage the sinful patterns of hurt and injury that inhabits your husbands history and future with you.
Allow God to REALLY show up for you, putting to death any remaining self-deception that is longing for the crumbs of approval and affirmation from your abuser.
Come out of Egypt, and leave behind the wickedness that has kept you enslaved. Even the wizards of Egypt performsed feats of magic, not unlike the deceptive "ministry" your husband is perpetrating in the name of our Lord. God can bring life out the the death that your "minister" husband is embracing, so of course I am not worried about God's work and His purposes. I am concerned with your continuing submission of your heart and spirit to further abuse.
Leave Egypt and your enslavement behind, once and for all. This is me speaking to you, to me, and all our fellow suffering sisters whose hearts are deceived by the entanglements with the unbeliever, the reprobate, the spiritual abusers, the religious deceivers, not to mention the passionless, pathetic passive men and the overtly emotionally and physically abusive cowardly brutes.
Painting pictures of Egypt
The past is so tangible
I know it by heart
Familiar things are never easy to discard
I was dying for some freedom
But now I hesitate to go
Caught between the promise
And the things I know
I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt
Leaving out what it lacked
The future seems so hard
And I want to go back
But the places that used to fit me
Cannot hold the things I"ve learned
And those roads closed off to me
While my back was turned
You may think you have left Egypt because you left the state. Egypt is a state of being we can drag with us, that keeps us from entering the promised land. Lets really allow God's plans, provision, and promise of a future to not become hindered by our arrested development which threatens to keep us powerless and victimized.
PureinHeart: King's Bride,
The greatest part as wives to face is that we are abused. That yes, we have truly been victimized. The next part that takes courage and trust in God is that He does not want us to remain a victim to that very abuse.
He has heard your cries for deliverance but YOU have to walk out Egypt.
There is nothing you can do to change R's heart but only to get out of God's way and let Him work.
Kimberly
Note from the future: I am supplying explanations and observations from the "future me" – who I am today – which will explain what you are hearing in this story. Join me below for an up to date discussion, if you wish!
With all my love,
Sue
Susan Schiller knows how it feels to lose everything: marriage and family, church and reputation, finances and businesses, and more. Susan's upcoming, interactive memoir, "On the Way Home," tells the story of how she came to be known as "the most abused woman" her counselors had yet met and how she learned to navigate her way out of hell to a rich and satisfying life. In her lifetime, Susan has served in duties ranging from home school mom – to pastor – to full-time deliverance minister – and to Midwest regional prayer coordinator for a large international ministry. These days you can usually find Susan soaking in her favorite hot springs pool, reading a book (or several), blogging, baking bread, or hanging out with her family and friends. You can pre-order a free copy of Susan's upcoming book, "On the Way Home" by registering here.
Copyright 2014, Susan Schiller, http://TeamFamilyOnline.com. For reprint permission for any private or commercial use, in any form of media, please contact Susan Schiller.
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