0:00:03 - (Megan Owen): This is Pretty Psych, the podcast where we discuss and deconstruct the impact of evangelical Christianity and cultural phenomena on the psyche, the deep and sometimes uncharted territory of the mind. We venture into raw, rough and sometimes triggering moments. But we know that through this, what we will find will be pretty fascinating, amazing, and pretty intelligent. My name is Megan Owen. I'm a pastoral trauma counselor and I have spent decades studying the science of human behavior.
0:00:43 - (Megan Owen): I draw parallels between therapy and connection to God, self and others. I love what I do and I will walk hand in hand with you through the fire to help you find healing and rest. Most importantly, I want to bring you home to yourself.
0:01:11 - (Megan Owen): Hi everybody, it's Megan Owen here with Mountain City Christian Counseling on Pretty Psych. I am so excited to have Bonnie here today. Bonnie is a mother and grandmother who suffered severe spiritual abuse at the hands of the adults in her lives. We're going to be talking a lot about spiritual abuse today and what it does to you. Bonnie and I have a common. Bonnie also has decades of experience with the Wilson family, Jim, Bessie, Doug and Nancy. And she was living the trad wife lifestyle before it even had a name.
0:01:47 - (Megan Owen): Because of her experience, she has a deep understanding and empathy for those who have been devastated by this kind of abuse. And I can attest to that because I have seen that firsthand. She has been working hard on her own recovery, sharing what she has learned with other women along the way and companioning them with encouragement and wisd. And I'm so happy to have you here, Bonnie. Thank you for being on Pretty Psych.
0:02:14 - (Bonnie): Oh, thank you Megan for inviting me to join you. You have been such an amazing, wonderful, empathetic part of my healing journey. And my spiritual abuse convinced me that my voice, my ideas, my opinions are not important and that anything I say will just be dismissed. So I should let others who are more important and more wise do all the speaking. And I still struggle with that. So doing you is a big step. Thank you.
0:02:41 - (Megan Owen): It's an honor and it's just mind boggling to me because I know you. In my mind you are such a strong leader with an articulate voice and also quite brilliant. To hear that you had been so pressed down for so long has really helped.
0:02:58 - (Bonnie): Well, I've come from a very well educated family and I homeschooled my kids and so that vocabulary, the articulation, I always thought that I had a mind, but over the years that conditioning just made me stop feeling like I had a right to use it and that's that's part of what that spiritual and emotional abuse does.
0:03:19 - (Megan Owen): Exactly.
0:03:20 - (Bonnie): It.
0:03:20 - (Megan Owen): It really crushes. I mean, it crushes your spirit. That's what it feels like, right?
0:03:24 - (Bonnie): Yeah. Even one of the consequences is I became incapable of making a decision. I'd been so conditioned to believe that my heart was desperately wicked and that as a woman, I am easily deceived. And so I didn't know that I was capable of making a right decision or that it was okay to be wrong sometimes.
0:03:46 - (Megan Owen): That's true. It's not just that we are capable of making decisions. It's that we can be human and sometimes make mistakes, like all humans do, as part of how we learn. But I think what you're saying, Bonnie, is it's our decision to make still.
0:04:06 - (Bonnie): Yes. Yes. And that's one of the things that you have helped me to see, and I appreciate that so much. I was 64 years old before my father ever apologized to me for anything. So just seeing him, never admitting he was wrong, I thought that being wrong was not permissible. Like this weird dichotomy that on one hand, I'm always the one that's wrong, but on the other hand, being wrong is wrong. It's not okay.
0:04:33 - (Bonnie): So that just made me feel like I was never okay.
0:04:35 - (Megan Owen): That's a double bind. So it sounds like you were sort of in the middle of this tension of fear, right? Lots of fear.
0:04:43 - (Bonnie): Yeah, it is. I think that is one of the things about spiritual abuse is that it raises the fear level. Fearful of other people's approval, fearful of God's approval. I knew that my parents loved me. That was never a question. But they also grew up in that Leave it to Beaver era where there were very strict gender roles. The man was, you know, he was the boss. And my mother, I saw her always submitted submitting to my authoritarian father.
0:05:11 - (Bonnie): So that was my role model growing up. I think they wanted to do the right thing, but because they also went to very fundamental churches. And so I was raised in those. I was raised in the Southern Baptist Church. And we had these little envelopes where you got to check the box every week that says, I went to Sunday school, I brought my tithe, I prayed every day, I read my Bible every day. And so I just grew up thinking that if I did all these things, God would be pleased with me, and if I didn't do all these things, he would not be pleased with me. So it was very works based, even though verbally they would have said it's not functionally, it really was.
0:05:49 - (Megan Owen): It really was yeah. Can I go back to something that I know all of our listeners caught, and that is you were 64 years old and your father apologized.
0:05:58 - (Bonnie): He actually did, yes. And that was from years and years of my going through counseling and reading books and learning that it was okay to have a voice. And I went back to him after years and years and confronted him and explained to him and it was really, really hard for him to understand at first. Was very defensive. His tendency is to say, I didn't say that or to just pick on a, you know, I used a wrong word in the sentence and therefore my entire argument is invalid.
0:06:31 - (Bonnie): But in the end he did finally do that. And so our relationship is now restored to a point that I never thought could happen. So I know that doesn't happen for everybody. I am very blessed that he was finally able to hear me.
0:06:48 - (Megan Owen): Well, I just have so much admiration that, you know, you didn't shut down when he was kind of picking out words or he was saying, you know, that the arguments were invalid. You just kept on going. You would have him understand. And that's powerful.
0:07:02 - (Bonnie): Yeah. It has been just growing in me over the last year or so, this sense of self, agency, that it's okay to be me.
0:07:12 - (Megan Owen): It's not just okay. You are remarkable. It's fantastic to be you. And that's really important. What you just said about agency and ownership. That's what spiritual abuse takes away from us. Right. It's very painful to be disconnect from yourself.
0:07:29 - (Bonnie): It does. And I know that abuse in the church has gotten a lot of play lately, as it should. It absolutely should. My experience was just as much spiritual abuse from my own family as it was in the church. And part of that is because of the influence of the Wilsons. And I did. Like I said, I grew up in the Southern Baptist Church. I grew up with very fundamentalist parents, but that primed them and me.
0:07:57 - (Bonnie): When we went into Wilson's church, it primed us to believe all of that. And it was just a natural flow, just getting more and more oppressive, more and more not trusting the Holy Spirit inside of me that what I heard from him could be correct, that I wasn't just mistaken. Anytime I thought I was hearing something from the Lord that didn't necessarily come down from my authority figures, which was the church leadership, but mostly from my father, who just assumed this authority over me far beyond. I was married, I had kids, I was a grown up. And yet he still held this authority place in my life.
0:08:37 - (Bonnie): Partly because I was conditioned to allow that and so I did fold into that, but also because he assumed that. And he assumed that we would listen to him.
0:08:47 - (Megan Owen): Why wouldn't you listen to your father? His authoritarian dogma, for lack of a better term, was way overextended and over functioning in your lives. And it really helps me to understand just how deep this went. So you had this in your family already, and then you all found the CREC church in Moscow, Idaho, that we've actually had a couple of podcasts on. We had Peter Bell, and then I did a podcast sharing my own story with the Wilsons with Sons of Patriarchy. And now we get to have you here, Bonnie. You were in this for decades, decades.
0:09:25 - (Megan Owen): And it's really quite miraculous that you have come out of it. I just have to say.
0:09:30 - (Bonnie): Yes. When I listened to your podcast on the Sons of Patriarchy, I was so struck by the similarities in our experiences. Some of the things you said that I really related to you said you were dead on the inside, but nobody cares, and it's my fault. Oh, I felt that so strongly that I couldn't talk to God directly. I just needed to talk to my husband. I was handed so many books so that I could fix my marriage.
0:09:56 - (Bonnie): And again, it's this double bind that I, as the woman, supposedly had the power to control my husband by submitting, by fixing my marriage, by being a better wife, and yet I shouldn't have the power to control somebody else. And yet I also was in the subservient position. So that worked out really well for the man who is now my ex, because I was doing all the work. I was trying harder and harder. I was submitting, submitting, getting lower. And no matter how low he got, I just. It was like this giant game of limbo, trying to get lower and lower.
0:10:29 - (Bonnie): And it worked out great for him because he didn't have to actually do any work. He got to do less and less while I did more and more. And then the blame was still on me for not fixing the marriage.
0:10:38 - (Megan Owen): That is the ultimate double bind. Oh, my goodness. The way you described it, limbo. This game where you guys get lower and lower. That sounds so Antichrist to me. He wanted us to have a full life and to thrive in relationships, but it is that double bind of all of the responsibility and none of the authority, all of the emotional labor and none of the leadership. It is exhausting. Like I said in the podcast, and I know you understand this, Bonnie. I felt just dead like a shell. Like I didn't have a soul, you know?
0:11:13 - (Bonnie): Yes, yes, and then if I said anything about it, well, now I'm bitter. Jim Wilson's famous book, how to Be Free From Bitterness, you know, that was not. That was not okay.
0:11:25 - (Megan Owen): Right. And I just have to share with our listeners that Bonnie found the bitterness book that Jim Wilson wrote. She found a copy of it, and we were just kind of looking over that before we started. And again, I just keep using this term, double bind. If you say, wait a minute, I feel like God made me to have agency and ideas and give me a voice. And then you're upset about that, then you're bitter. Right. And never moved.
0:11:51 - (Bonnie): Yeah. When I finally separated from my husband, I had always thought that my imagination of how bad things would be in any situation in life was always worse than the reality. Well, my imagination of how bad it was going to be didn't even come close to the horrors of the spiritual abuse that I endured after I separated. Because now, suddenly, I am, in their opinion, outside the will of God. I'm in rebellion.
0:12:19 - (Bonnie): And so the question, of course, was, oh, my. We didn't know anything was wrong. Well, of course you didn't. Because I was taught never to speak ill of my husband or my marriage or to be joyful all the time in all circumstances, no matter what. Marriage isn't to make you happy. It's to make you holy. Have you heard that one?
0:12:39 - (Megan Owen): Oh, yeah, that was the sacred marriage book. Yeah, that's.
0:12:43 - (Bonnie): Yeah, that. Oh, my goodness, that did so much damage, as did this how to Be Free From Bitterness book. And it's amazing how this, I think, is a playbook. I see it in Doug and Nancy's teaching. I saw it in the things I got from my parents during this time. Obviously, I was not a proper Christian. I was in rebellion. I knew that divorce was treated as an unforgivable sin that tarnished your witness forever. That's how it was looked at in my family.
0:13:10 - (Bonnie): So I held onto a marriage in which I was dying because I feared the backlash. It turns out I found out many years later that they had noticed my husband's harmful behavior, but they never acknowledged that to me. And then when they finally did, they called his behavior just ignorant, like he didn't know what he was doing. But mine was willful and disobedient and rebellious against God. Even like the church counselor that I went to first, he said, well, it's not that bad, because, Bonnie, you did not sweat drops of blood like Jesus did.
0:13:43 - (Bonnie): What he didn't realize was I had already died a death of a thousand cuts. I had already bled out. There wasn't any more blood in me by this time, right? So my father took to writing me long emails and letters telling me how wicked and rebellious I was. And some of the things he said. You're running off on a whim without any provocation. You have no justification for this. And of course, then if I did provide the justification, then that's bitterness and keeping record of wrongs, which is sinful.
0:14:11 - (Bonnie): You'll tarnish your reputation forever. You're tearing your family apart. You'll destroy your children, and they'll never forgive you or have a close relationship with you again. You're destroying the generational blessings for your children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation. You're devastating your church. You don't take your vows seriously. You don't take Jesus seriously. You're unworthy to take communion, and it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And you're trifling with his laws. It was all on me.
0:14:41 - (Bonnie): They said, just honor God by submitting to your husband, and you will win him over. And they would quote those Bible verses. And I was told to just keep forgiving, keep forgiving with the expectation that forgiveness meant trust and restoration like nothing ever happened. So all of that just led me to being suicidal. I thought if I just died, that maybe God would let me into heaven on a technicality, because I did pray the sinner's prayer when I was a kid. And so I knew. I knew that I believed in him. I knew I had accepted Jesus as my savior, so he's got to let me in. But I thought he would just be like an exasperated parent going, okay, fine, I will let you in.
0:15:23 - (Bonnie): I'm not happy about it. And I thought, okay, well, I'll just go stand with my nose in a corner of heaven. At least that will be better than the hell I'm in now.
0:15:30 - (Megan Owen): Oh, Bonnie. Wow. I feel that deeply. Your pain from that time is palpable. And I'm kind of just imagining you curled up in a ball. And you know that I understand this, too.
0:15:44 - (Bonnie): I do.
0:15:45 - (Megan Owen): When I left, I didn't think I was. I was told all of that. We've talked about the similarities in the letters that we received from the Wilsons and from your dad and how, you know, I thought when I took my kids that I was going to hell, but I might be able to save them. That's what I remember thinking. You know, it's so bad, and it breaks my heart that these things were spoken over You. How dare people curse your children and your children's children and all of that.
0:16:15 - (Megan Owen): They don't get to. They don't have. How arrogant. That's how I feel about all of that. How arrogant. And anybody who knows you knows how loving you are. And kind, intelligent, empathetic, and. Oh, it just. It infuriates me to be honest, that you would be treated that way. And that's not who God is. And that's the whole thing. Not even close. He's not a harsh master.
0:16:40 - (Bonnie): Yeah. And it took me a very long time, Very, very long time, and a lot of people speaking truth and love and light into my life to know that God loves me because he loves me. That's who he is. And that I am. I am worthy because he made me.
0:16:58 - (Megan Owen): Right. You're made in God's image. The kingdom of God is inside of you. You are part Him. And so of course he loves you. He just wants to be with you. Just like we feel about our kids. We just want to be with you because you're fabulous.
0:17:14 - (Bonnie): Yes. Yes, I do. And I love my children and my grandchildren, and I just love being with them. And that's how I now think of God. But back then, it was more of the parent who says, I've got one nerve left and you're standing on it. I didn't feel like he wanted to be with me at all and. Or that I was important enough. Because really, that was what all of that was. It was just this beating me down and saying that I can't trust the Holy Spirit in me.
0:17:50 - (Bonnie): And my dad actually said during this time, we were having a conversation about this. And he said, well, what you're doing is wrong, and anyone who says differently is wrong. Because I told him, I said, I am getting professional counseling that. And this is what they're telling me. And he just said, anybody that tells you different than I am is wrong. And I was like, wow, that just seems so arrogant to negate the ideas or that anybody else could be correct.
0:18:19 - (Megan Owen): Agreed. And that he has a corner on God and God's will, and anybody who disagrees is wrong.
0:18:25 - (Bonnie): Yeah.
0:18:26 - (Megan Owen): And we've talked about this, too, Bonnie. It seems as though your father and Jim and Doug and all of these people, part of this Moscow CR Cult, they separate us from God. We've talked about that isolation piece, right?
0:18:42 - (Bonnie): Yes.
0:18:43 - (Megan Owen): I feel like in the letters that both of us received when we escaped abuse, there was this sort of indication that everybody sees that we're sinners and everybody is being hurt by our Actions. And it's just we're over there in the corner, like you said, by ourselves, with absolutely nobody on our side.
0:19:05 - (Bonnie): Oh, that's so accurate. I was afraid to walk down the street because. Or walk into a grocery store. I just assumed that everyone was looking at me like I had this scarlet letter D for divorced on my forehead, and that they were going, oh, that's you, and I don't want to hang around with you. And so I just walked with my head down. I was afraid to be around anybody.
0:19:27 - (Megan Owen): Right. I know. I was the same way. I remember when I had, like, somebody working on my house when the kids were really little, and he asked about my husband, and I. I kind of put my head down, and I said, well, I'm divorced. And I said something like. And I'm just so embarrassed. And he said, I don't care.
0:19:46 - (Bonnie): Okay.
0:19:46 - (Megan Owen): So obviously these culty churches have made a great big, like, nobody cares, you know?
0:19:52 - (Bonnie): Yeah. Yeah. And I am so happy to say that those predictions were wrong. God has blessed me incredibly with a wonderful husband who did not grow up in that kind of environment at all. In fact, he looks at the see and Christchurch like an animal in a zoo. Like, what even is that? That does not make any sense. So I'm so grateful that he's able to call out those errors. And even in me this morning when I was saying I don't have anything important to say on a podcast, and he said, honey, that's the devil speaking.
0:20:33 - (Bonnie): That's. That's your inner critic again from all those years of abuse, saying that you are not important and that your voice doesn't matter. And I said, wow, you're right.
0:20:46 - (Megan Owen): You have so much experience and there's so much richness, and you've done so much healing work. And look at your family, and look how you approached your father. That is such an example to all of us, and it gives us hope. I think that maybe someday those people might see what they did to us. I don't know.
0:21:06 - (Bonnie): Yeah. And I had to. And he was wrong about my kids. I have a beautiful relationship with all of my children and my grandchildren, and they are just a delight to me. So all of those predictions were wrong.
0:21:19 - (Megan Owen): All of the predictions about the kids didn't come true. I think we can all say that now that all of these years have passed, those same words were spoken over me, that I was ruining my children and that I would place a curse on my children and, oh, this one. Bonnie, you will never have a ministry. Megan.
0:21:39 - (Bonnie): Oh, yes. Oh, my goodness. And look at the ministry you have, Megan. I took your year long give her wings abuse advocacy, training. And that's how I knew when I needed somebody to come and be my counselor. I knew that you were the person. I remember one of the sessions in there was on spiritual abuse and, and that opened my eyes to wait a minute, that's me and I'm not alone. And there are so many other people out there.
0:22:08 - (Bonnie): And I want to share my story of recovery and healing so that other people who are coming behind me can also be encouraged and know that it's possible to come out of this and that there is another side. And this was one of the people years ago having suicidal tendencies and thinking my life was over. And my best friend at the time said, bonnie, you can't see it now. And I know that you don't believe me, but just trust me when I say there will come a time when you look back at this and it's in the past and you're on the other side and there is a light and you do have a life and you do have a ministry. And she said, maybe you are going through this to help other people, use this to help other people who are coming behind you. And so that's what I want to do. I want to.
0:22:58 - (Bonnie): I want to let other people know they're not alone either.
0:23:01 - (Megan Owen): And I see that in you, Bonnie. And as you know, I'm working on projects to include you because you are so caring and loving and compassionate in our groups toward the other women who are surviving what we are surviving or have survived. But you're talking about the transformation of pain, which a lot of people say is kind of the final step of healing is now I'm going to transform this and I'm going to make it important.
0:23:30 - (Megan Owen): I'm not going to forget what happened because I'm going to come alongside other people. And that's just beautiful and that's just very indicative of how far you've come.
0:23:40 - (Bonnie): Thank you. My spiritual journey really is my favorite part of my story. The human relationship that has been a struggle and continues to be in some areas of struggle. I still have family and friends that are involved in the crec and so there's a tension there. But I want to be a safe place. If they choose to come out, if they ever see and recognize that there's a problem and want somebody to talk to, I want to be that person.
0:24:11 - (Bonnie): But even I know that there's a lot of people that are deconstructing and I am one of those And I think that's very valid. I think that's important to deconstruct the voices of oppressive religion and people that say, this is how Jesus. This is how God wants us to be. You know, follow these rules. That's not who God is. You look at Jesus and what he said about the two greatest commandments of loving God and loving others.
0:24:37 - (Bonnie): And I don't see a whole lot of love, really, for others in this kind of spiritually abusive system that says, you are a worm, you are not worth anything. And the only reason you are is because God is not looking at you. He's looking at Jesus because Jesus is covering you. Well, that means God's still not seeing me. All those years, I was wearing this mask of perfection. I will be the good spiritual wife and girl and woman, and then God will approve because I'm behaving right. And that meant that all my relationships, there was this barrier because all they saw was a mask. And I knew that they didn't love the real me. They just knew the mask I was wearing, and that's what they loved. So I still felt isolated even when I was trying to follow all those rules.
0:25:24 - (Megan Owen): Yes. So the dogma that is taught by legalistic cult systems like this one separates you from God because you have some sort of authority between. You have an umbrella, and then there's even, like an umbrella on top of that. You know, it's just. I used to say that in my. My marriage to my kid's father, that I felt like I was in a hole, like a pit and there was 10ft of concrete above it and nobody heard me. And that.
0:25:54 - (Bonnie): That.
0:25:54 - (Megan Owen): That's kind of what, you know, we were talking about with the being dead on the inside because our soul desperately longs to be connected to God. That is how we were made. We were made that way. That is a big part of. It's a mechanism that God put in us. Because that relationship with God is. It's aliveness. And then that relationship to others is aliveness, and relationship to ourselves is aliveness.
0:26:20 - (Megan Owen): That's the shalomic, you know, wholeness there. And this church cut you off from all of that. You couldn't even be yourself in front of people. So that's not real love, because real love is vulnerable. It's being accepted as where you are, who you are. You know, we're messy humans. We love each other in the mess. You know, that's the beauty and the color and the vibrancy of actual love. And when it becomes this pristine, clinical mask that we wear and we're doing all these things.
0:26:56 - (Megan Owen): It's robotic. That feels like death to me. So disconnect from your own self, disconnect from God, and disconnect from people around you. But all of it done in the name of Jesus.
0:27:08 - (Bonnie): Yes. And that's why spiritual abuse is so insidious, because it cuts us off. It cut me off from the God who was my only refuge in this time of trouble. And it said, bonnie, you can't trust God. You can't approach God. He's not a safe person for you. He is angry with you and he doesn't like you right now. I still wanted to cling to him because he was my only hope, but it made it really hard. And what spiritual abuse does is it sounds so reasonable because they're using scripture verses. And so I bought into all of that. And I grieve the fact that I spent. Spent so many years totally believing that. And I taught my kids the same thing.
0:27:48 - (Bonnie): And so now they're having to deconstruct just like I am. Fortunately, they're ahead of me. It's so hard to pull all those tentacles out of my brain. It's a long, long process. And like I said, it made so much sense at the time. And now I look at these things and I think, what was I thinking? Because it seems obvious from this side of it. But I know when you're in it, that's what you see because that's what you're swimming in.
0:28:17 - (Megan Owen): Right. And I know exactly what you're talking about. We did in our spiritual processing groups. I think it was last week. We talked about hell and the fear that I could sense from some of the women who are taking this course. The fear is that, what if hell is real? And I'm kind of teetering on the edge of this, and it's terrifying. It strikes you at your very core. I used to say, I'd rather that he threw me down a flight of stairs than that he abused me spiritually because of the tremendous.
0:28:53 - (Megan Owen): You know, I talked about the pit earlier. Climbing out of spiritual abuse for me felt like I was like scraping up the side of a brick wall with my fingernails. Like it is clawing your way out to get to truth. But when you tast it and you realize that that God that they tout, whose mouthpiece they seem to think they have, is not the God of the universe, it's their own God they've made in their image.
0:29:20 - (Bonnie): Yeah. And when I can't have a conversation with God myself without checking with My spiritual authority. Well, now I'm just back in Old Testament times with a high priest. And when Jesus died, that temple curtain tore from top to bottom saying, you don't need a high priest anymore. You have the Holy Spirit. He gave us himself and he's living. We are his temple. We are his earthly temple and the Holy Spirit lives.
0:29:47 - (Bonnie): We are the holy of holies. And so we don't need that.
0:29:51 - (Megan Owen): Right. And so they borrow things and they take scripture out of context in order to control. That's what they do because it's a default, but it's, it is insidious. That word is perfect. Well, I'd like to compare and contrast because, you know, we can look at the fruit of good theology and say, wow, this is life giving. This falls in line with God's heart of love. What they would say, by the way, what they would say is that they are showing love by putting these rules and regulations because it's like saving you from something, right?
0:30:31 - (Bonnie): Yes. Well, and even that was my father's intent in writing me these horrible emails and letters that he was like, I am. I would not be loving you if I didn't call you out on your sin. And you can back that up with Scripture.
0:30:46 - (Megan Owen): And we hear that all the time right now that, that's real love. That's like that tough love or that strong love. I just, you know, I see Jesus doing that, but I only see him doing that with the religious leaders.
0:31:02 - (Bonnie): Yeah.
0:31:03 - (Megan Owen): Interesting, right?
0:31:05 - (Bonnie): Yes. When he talked to the people who were lost or in sin, his attitude was, oh, sweetie, don't do that. You're hurting yourself when you do that. And I love you so much. And I just want you to come to me so that I can hold you and love you.
0:31:23 - (Megan Owen): And there's always free will involved. It's never forced. And then if somebody doesn't come to Jesus and let Jesus hold them and love them, he does not tell them, them that they're going to fall into the hands of an angry God.
0:31:37 - (Bonnie): Right, right.
0:31:38 - (Megan Owen): That's childish. I shared this with a client recently. I have this vision that Jesus brings me coffee. And there's this daybed in my office and I have this vision that we're just both sitting there side by side, parallel playing, you know, like people with autism, like, just to sit, just to be with somebody. We both sip coffee, we sit there with our knees kind of up, and we just don't really even need to say anything because he's just happy to be with me. And I'm just happy to Be with him.
0:32:13 - (Megan Owen): And that's. I really want anybody who's been spiritually abused to allow God to work within your imagination because that is a gift from God. God does work in our imaginations and see, you know, what he brings there as far as revealing who he really is to you. I had a moment years ago where I cried before God and said, I don't think I really knew you. I don't know who I've been following, but it wasn't you. And that was a big deal for me. That started a very extensive journey and it changed everything for me at the same time.
0:32:48 - (Bonnie): Wow, that's so powerful. I like that thought that the God I was following was a false God and the one I know now is real and living and alive in me and likes to hang out with me. I picture sitting beside a stream and Jesus comes up and just sits down beside me. And like you, we don't have to talk a lot. We just have that beautiful companionship and sitting there in nature, watching the beautiful world and enjoying it together and just having a conversation.
0:33:21 - (Bonnie): It doesn't have to be a whole lot of fancy religious talk. He's just being with me.
0:33:26 - (Megan Owen): Yeah. And that is what he did when he walked this earth and he does it now. I talk a lot about belonging. We want to belong because we have a longing to just be able to be. And that is a totally different world than doing all the right things. And it's so life giving. It's like river of life quality, you know?
0:33:49 - (Bonnie): Yes, it is. Rest. And Jesus says, come to me and I will give you rest. And I feel like for decades I had no rest. It was all performance based and I was striving. I remember thinking that when I sin it's like I'm climbing up the top of this mountain to get to God. And when I sin, I tumble all the way back down the mountain and then I've got to claw my way back up to get back in his good graces again. I thought that's what I had to do. That's so performance based.
0:34:21 - (Bonnie): It's like treating God like a vending machine. You know, put the correct change in and you get the right thing out. And so the idea of just sitting there, there beside Jesus and just being at rest, just being.
0:34:33 - (Megan Owen): Knowing you are loved unconditionally and because the condition was paid, you know, it's done. And that, that feeling that you get when you know you're loved by somebody and you don't have to be anybody different. Oh, that's freedom. Right there, that's. Those are the chains I think Jesus came to break. Where the climbing up the mountain chains and falling down and doing it over and over again. That's like a description of hell to me.
0:35:00 - (Bonnie): And I will say that the marriage that I am in now is that restful. When people say marriage is hard, well, no, it isn't. It doesn't have to be with the right person. Where you're working as a team and you know how to have healthy conflict and get to the other side and be stronger for it. And you're supporting each other and loving each other and building each other up. That's what it's supposed to be like.
0:35:23 - (Bonnie): And I didn't know that until I experienced it.
0:35:26 - (Megan Owen): And you guys are just the cutest couple ever in the past. So cute. I've had a few exchanges with your husband. He is amazing. And he is your biggest cheerleader.
0:35:42 - (Bonnie): He is. And I am his. We are each other's safe person and it's a wonderful place to be.
0:35:49 - (Megan Owen): What a contrast. You once had a marriage where you were treated like an enemy or a servant or a slave and you had to do all the labor emotionally, spiritually, probably physically lowering yourself deeper into that warm theology. That's what Karen calls it. And. And now you have this beautiful relationship where you both honor each other and it's not imbalanced, balanced. It's a partnership. And it sounds amazing.
0:36:18 - (Bonnie): It is. My mother told me back when I separated, she wanted me to get back together with my then husband. And she quoted the verse, I think it's in Joel, where it says that the Lord will restore the years. The locusts have eaten. Well, he did, just not in the way I was told.
0:36:38 - (Megan Owen): That's right. I understand and I feel the same way. Isn't it painful to look back and think of the people who told you to go back into abuse? It's so painful to me because it feels like that's how much they think you're worth. That's how it felt to me. I'm not worth being able to be free and to be loved. And it's awful.
0:37:01 - (Bonnie): Yes. Feeling invisible.
0:37:03 - (Megan Owen): Yes.
0:37:03 - (Bonnie): I spent a lot of years being invisible and trying to be less. Less, make myself less.
0:37:09 - (Megan Owen): Oh, me too. Me too.
0:37:11 - (Bonnie): So, disappeared. Yes.
0:37:14 - (Megan Owen): Until you almost disappear. I totally get that. And we all have been there. And I cannot imagine how sad that makes God to watch his girls try to shrink themselves. I just can't imagine how painful that is for him to watch. I can just hear him saying, that's not me. What they're doing, it's not me.
0:37:36 - (Bonnie): Right. And I see now, when I read the Bible, I see the places where God specifically picked a woman and gave her an important job to do. And Jesus loved the women in his life.
0:37:49 - (Megan Owen): He really did. He. I. I still think Mary was his best disciple. And he was always defending them, upholding them, protecting them. You know, it was. It was really be. That was scandalous, Very scandalous back then. Right?
0:38:04 - (Bonnie): Yes. Well. And the woman at the well in Samaria, when he went, first of all, going to Samaria and then talking to somebody, a Samaritan and much less a Samaritan woman. And she. She had whatever her past was, and there are different interpretations of that, but she was the first person he declared his mission to, that he actually admitted that he was the Messiah, that his kingdom was coming.
0:38:29 - (Megan Owen): And it didn't sound like she was quiet and submissive when she ran back to Samaria to tell everybody about him.
0:38:35 - (Bonnie): That's right. So basically, she preached to everybody in her town, and then they all came out to listen to him. They believed her. So she had an important role.
0:38:43 - (Megan Owen): She did. And that Jesus is still the Jesus of today. Women have important roles that he has chosen for them to have. I also have to bring Mary, Mary Marian, who poured the oil on Jesus. Back then, only. Only priests anointed a king, and only men could be priests. So I think about that all the time. And then he defended her when the disciples got all up in arms about it and said she would be remembered.
0:39:13 - (Bonnie): Oh, yeah.
0:39:14 - (Megan Owen): Beautiful. I am so grateful, Bonnie, that you were able to come and talk with me today. I want to make sure that you have been able to share everything that you want to share. Is there anything else that you would like for our listeners to hear?
0:39:30 - (Bonnie): Well, I just want to say that even in the darkest times, I still reached for God because without Him, I would have had no tether at all. And I would have felt like I was falling down an endless dark hole with no bottom. But knowing that he was there, even though I didn't really understand who he was or his love for me, I still wanted that so badly. And I'm glad that I kept pursuing him. I believe he's sovereign and that he's always at work behind the scenes moving puzzle pieces around.
0:40:00 - (Bonnie): And when I watch for them, I'm delighted when I get to see one drop into place. And I feel like I'm seeing that on a regular basis now. And now, now I know that he, all that time, was reaching for me, too, with kindness and pure love. I like to say that I'm deconstructing my relationship and I'm finding my faith. I love the God I know now, the God who is so much bigger than that little fundamental box I had him stuck in.
0:40:28 - (Bonnie): I now get to embrace the mystery of God and oh my goodness, how much more I love him now that I know that he is bigger than I can ever understand. And part of that is knowing that he created me in his image because he. He wanted to. He specifically wanted there to be a Bonnie in the world. He wanted me to be in the world. And he made me knowing up front all the ways I was going to screw up. And he still wanted to create me and wanted to be in relationship with me. Isn't that the coolest thing?
0:41:04 - (Megan Owen): It's the coolest thing. Oh, those words just. They were a cool drink of water to my soul. Bonnie, thank you so much for sharing about your journey and being willing to come here. You are powerful and amazing. You are a gift to all who know you. You know I love you dearly and we really all do look forward to more of your companioning within this ministry. So thank you so much for being here.
0:41:31 - (Bonnie): Oh, thank you, Megan.
0:41:40 - (Megan Owen): I hope this conversation has encouraged deep thought as well as helped you draw parallels between therapy and your connection to God's self and others. If you'd like some one on one time with me unpacking some of your most precious life stories to find healing and rest, Contact me on mountaincitychristiancounseling.com to help this podcast reach more people. Do subscribe and review this podcast and share it with someone who would benefit from healing and rest.
0:42:16 - (Megan Owen): My name is Megan Owen and thank you for listening to this episode of Pretty Psych.
0:42:22 - (Megan Owen): Catch you next episode and in the.
0:42:24 - (Megan Owen): Meantime, do find healing and do find rest.
