Thank you ladies. Your encouragement goes a long way with me.

When I start posting in the controversial forums again, you know some of my anxiety and depression are lifting.....

I wish I weren't such a bull-headed person sometimes. People who don't know what it is like to be such a stickler, find it hard to take. I'm trying to temper my opinions with tack and respect for the other person.

I'm praying for tenderness and compassion without giving up important ground or compromising my beliefs. It is a fragile balance and I know sometimes I hurt and offend...I'm really sorry for that.

I don't know how people can be diplomatic without compromising what they believe and also sometimes I'm not so sure that what I believe is the absolute truth. Sometimes I can be wrong and gratefully accept the correction because it is very important to me to be right.

Thank you for 'listening' and for your thoughtfulness. I'll keep hanging in there and seeing what happens next in life. Hopefully, I'll be able to face life with courage and conviction.

You're already facing life with courage and conviction.

I'd like to share what happened to me. I was raised in a dogmatic religion by equally dogmatic parents. I wasn't allowed to even ask questions about other religions out of curiosity. My creed became:it's my way or the hellbound freeway.

After I left my abusive husband I went into therapy but warned my counselor to never come against my religious beliefs, which he agreed to and told me to tell him if I thought he was.

Through the course of therapy, I learned how to think for myself instead of simply repeating what I had been taught. I started studying what other people believed and why. While I may not have agreed with them, I came to understand why they believed what they did and how it worked for them.

While I might declare being a born again Christian was the only way and worked for me, the Buddhist could say the very same thing. And, when I began my work with battered women, I could never allow religion to play a part in it and tell a woman what I thought she should believe. So many of them had been abused by the church that it could put them over the edge. I tried to help them along their spiritual journey by encouraging them.

My belief is we're all at the spiritual level or place we should be at this given time. It might change, as mine did, but regardless, our Higher Power--God--whatever you choose to call Him/Her is in control, no matter what path we've chosen.

Dianne,
Just another reason you are so good at what you do. Your compassion for your fellow man/woman has no bounds.

I'm so glad we're friends!

JJ

Dianne, I admire you for your work with battered women. There is seems to be something dark and wounded 'thing' that lies within a battered woman. I can't help but think of a dog we found roaming around our neighborhood when I was a girl. When we approached it, it rolled over on its back with its feet in the air and started blinking and whimpering. That's what I'm reminded of when I see a battered woman. It breaks my heart.

I can fully understand why you would need to be careful about trying to promote one religion over another in that venue.

There is a little bit of truth scattered around any man made religion. Just enough to make it palatable.

What do you believe? If you were dying, God forbid!, who, if anyone would you trust your soul with? I'm just curious and hope you won't think I'm being too personal.

Ah, there is the big question: What is man made and what isn't?

You can never ask me anything too personal. I'm an open book and it ain't no mystery novel!

I became a Christian in 1976. Hey, I was even a gospel singer on Trinity Broadcasting. That, and some loose change might get you a phone call.

Who would or do I trust my soul too? God, Jesus, The Holy Spirit. When I pray, it's always ended with, "in Jesus'name."

But, I also see myself as a spiritual woman, if that makes sense. I'm trying to think of a way to explain this. Okay, here's my attempt: I no longer go to church but study the Bible on my own. I don't like reformed religion and I don't like the politics in the church. I don't like women who share something they were told in secret at a prayer group as a form of gossip, mentioned so the others could pray. "I'm only telling you this so you can pray."

I believe that God teaches me in all of His infinite wisdom as I study, on my own and draw my own conclusions/beliefs. I believe I'm being led by Him, at all times.

I try to accept and love other's beliefs. At the risk of seriously bothering someone (I apologize in advance!) I used to detest the Mormon religion. I think it was because I had a friend who was Mormon but not really practicing it and suddenly, became heavily involved. Without fail, each time we got together she would say something derogatory toward my faith, while building hers up. She took me to what was supposed to be a woman's luncheon, only to discover I was the only one there who wasn't Mormon and of course, they all discussed their faith. Truthfully, it ended our friendship.

It wasn't only what they believed but the fact that they felt I was wrong and needed to be converted! Like they were right and I was wrong, no matter what!

Because of this and after I worked through my feelings about that faith, I began to open up to other people's beliefs. I didn't have the right to tell them they were wrong and I was right or vice-versa.

Now, this is probably much more than you ever cared to know, right?

Dianne,
Are you my long lost sister?? Your story sounds exactly like mine.

I used to go to church faithfully, Sunday morning, night, Wednesday night service, GA's, weddings, I sang with my then husband who also played the trumpet...you get the picture, right??

I hate what I see has happened to the "church". I can't stand Trinity Broadcasting and the Crouches. She makes my stomach turn and he needs a nose-ectomy....sorry....I consider most of the people who appear on Trinity charlatains, money grubbers, Pharasees, and I totally reject the whole materialism based, God loves you so much that he will give you anything you want to include a new Mercedes and a million dollar house.

Which, in itself isn't all bad, but God doesn't give everyone all those things. They weren't meant to have them...

I've been called a seer, a claravoiant, a witch, a powerful person in the Edgar Cayce movement, so many things, but I cling to my personal and intimate relationship to Christ like a drowning man clings to a lifering in the middle of the ocean.

My love for Christ so completely outweighs all life throws at me and keeps me solid and my feet firmly planted. Its becaue of him that I'm able to breath and put one foot in front of the other.

I knew there was something I liked about you, lady. You have a lot of spunk.

I, too, have leaned away from the church, and into my faith. I was also raised in a strict faith but my parents did not turn it into a bad experience. My bad experiences have come from other directions.

My catholic MIL and FIL did all they could to sabatoge our marriage in the name of 'the church'. Weren't they surprised when their perfect catholic daughter divorced her catholic husband and went on to support two different live-in drunks! DH and I are still in love and still married, and guess who takes care of them?

On the other side of the coin, a couple of years after our daughter died, one of dh's catholic cousins converted to a very conservative pentecostal church. She lives in another state and I hadn't seen her in years but she had the audacity to write me a letter and tell me that I needed to get back to my own faith because my anger at God was keeping my family from healing. She had not so much as called or spoken to us since Missi died. In her view, my participation in the catholic church (I'm the organist, not a convert) was a sign that I no longer "believed". She said other things, too, but that was the gist of it.

I was so shocked and angry, it took me a few weeks to cool down enough to write a reply that reflected faith and wisdom rather than my anger. I have never heard from her again.

We never got this kind of pressure from my family.

My faith was shaken to the core with Missi's death but it did not die. I participate in dh's catholic church and in a neighboring lutheran church but don't feel a need to be in constant attendance at either.

I have to say this about the Crouches. Off screen, they are very quiet, shy people. I can't stand the money-grabbing preachers they have on the show and really, I haven't watched their show for many years.

Why is it they tell "us" that God will provide all of our needs and they beg for money? I guess this means we will provide all of their needs with our donations.

And Flipper, I've received letters telling me how I'm lost, yada. I believe a lot of these church going people are control freaks.

I know there are some who truly care about our souls but then, there are those who consider it a feather in their cap to convert someone.

Number5, I believe in psychics and the like. I feel God gave all of us different talents to help others and I'd be curious to know why some considered you a seer.

In TN, when I did attend church, it was Unity. No judgment of others and beautiful sermons that uplifted, not condemned. I will never allow another person to tell me how to live my life. God is my guide.

Flipper, I'm so sorry for your loss. I'm so terribly sorry. I lost my husband quite suddenly about 2 yrs. ago and it still hurts.

My ultra religious family has abandoned me since I have been married 4 times, have a daughter who may wind up in prison, and drink and go out to bars and don't attend church regularly and no longer sing in the praise group or teach, etc.

Thank God, Jesus isn't like that!!! What would I do? There is still hope for the likes of me. I truly love Christ and don't hold him accountable for John's death, although at first I was terribly angry at God and hurt. I thought he was punishing me or something. I know now he wasn't. It was John's time to go. The song I had played at his funeral that haunts me to this day is My Immortal by Evanescence. I miss him so much. He truly was my soulmate.

I miss my sister and three brothers. I feel like I should shout out ahead of me, "unclean, unclean" like the lepers had to do in ancient times when I am around them. I have forgiven them though but I just miss the good times we used to have so much.

I've had a lot of hurt in my life. But I trust God to turn it all around for my good and the good of others.

Dianne,
When I was a kid I used to amuse my brothers and sister by lifting my cereal spoon off the table using only my index finger above it. I could "feel" a warmth coming off the spoon that sort of stuck to my finger although my finger never touched the spoon.

I used to raise myself off the ground without touching anything. I would "feel" weightless and up I'd go...I found my mom's wedding rings because I could "see" them in the garage.

The other kids made fun of me and my teacher made me bend over and hold my ankles for an hour at a time. I understood adult books and medical books and read all the time.

I "felt" things so intensely that I wouldn't eat for a day or two until the feeling passed. Once I could "see" an elderly man being murdered by two men on his front porch and can still see it today.

People come out of the woodwork and seek me out to join up with me so we can be powerful together, is the only way I know how to describe it. Once I went in the bathroom at a restaurant and just prayed for God's protection from some guy who wanted to meet me because he was with Edgar Cayce and he just "knew" I had moved to this little town and pulled out a crystal and put it on his forehead.

I've had some very strange occurrances in my life and I know things ahead of time and I don't like it. I'm frightened by it. A month before my husband passed away suddenly and with no warning, I dyed my hair raven black and I have always been a blonde. After the funeral, I bleached it back blonde.

I warned my whole family on a calm day to come into the house and gather the one who was babysitting home because we were going to have a tornado. They believed me and 30 minutes later the roof was bouncing around on our house as a huge tornado passed over.

I know when someone is thinking about me, when something bad is about to happen, when the phone rings who it is, when someone other worldly is walking by, when someone's home has an unwanted guest who and what it is and what it wants, I understand concepts ie. health issues, scientific principles, things like that.

I hate it and refuse it and don't want it in my life. I cling to Christ like a drowning person in the middle of the ocean. He is where my strength and knowledge and power come from and only him. Anything else I want no part of ever.

People think I'm weird and scary and I spend a lot of time alone. The only way I have ever found acceptance is to try to be as normal as I can be and keep to myself.

I've rejected horoscopes and astrology and anything that might keep me from a close relationship with God.