Prayer Request - By Buddy's Marraige

Little Old Me ^ | 12/13/02 | Your old 50'sDad

[50sDad]

Hey, praying folks.

In college and thereafter, I had a good friend named Kevin, a heck of a guy. In the early part of our marriage, my wife and I went through a 12-stepprogram (one of the faithful ones, where everybody calls Christ their "higher power"), dealt with a lot of junk from our pasts, and are today close as peas in a pod, praise God. However, in the thick of our battling, my now out-of-town buddy Kevin stopped calling. I later found out that he was frustrated with the relationship between my wife and I, and chose to withdraw. Kev and I have reconnected, but now, years later, and he and his wife are in the midst of almost exactly what my wife and I had battled.

Kevin is a faithful man, a gentile who joined the Jewish Messianic church (Christ-believing Jews) and rose as high as a non-Jew can get. He was blessed to take Christ to the Jews that would receive Him. But in the years that have passed, he and his wife have started all the same fights that my wife and I had. To hear him tell it, he is flexible and wants the marriage to survive, but his dear wife has basically changed "all she intends to." She carries hurts from an abusive childhood, and has a lot of issues that she won't get anywhere near. (I call it being a "Magic Christian"...where you are sure Christ has healed you totally and completely, and so you don't have to even talk about the hurts you still carry because they are "gone.") They have tried counseling, but she doesn't want to change. She claims to have "visions" of Christ telling her how important she will be in the End Times. This isn't mine to know the hand of God, but she also claimed that their first child would be a boy, and she got that one wrong...I have to recall that God counsels against any seer who gets even one fact wrong.I worry that she may be under spiritual attack, or at the very least, bi-polar.

My friend is at the point of viewing love as a "sham", and is not leading a congregation...indeed if he is even going. I sense he is growing more and more isolated. I can hear this dear fellow, whom I have heard preach on Christ's love, growing more and more bitter. Surely the devil is attacking his ministry.

Anyway, Freepers, please pray for Rabbi Kevin, his possibly confused wife Linda, and their three kids. This is just eating me up, as I find myself being the witness to a man who is struggling with his faith, years after he helped lead me to mine. Lift them up, that God may smash the blinders that are on one and all. And pray for the wisdom to know what to pray. I don't know the full story, but I believe this post covers most all the facts. Pray that she will have the scales dropped from her eyes and see what she needs to do.

[50sDad]

Please help me support this man of God in prayer.

[RLK]

(I call it being a "Magic Christian"...where you are sure Christ has healed you totally and completely, and so you don't have to even talk about the hurts you still carry because they are "gone.")

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That's one of the best statements regarding the phenomenon that I haver ever heard.

[Jhoffa_]

I certainly will.

There's few things more tragic than a situation where one spouse is trying and the other is indifferent.

You know, given the odds, the pop-culture driven shift in priorities that's so prevalent now and the bias in our courts, I sometimes wonder if there's any point to marrying.

[50sDad]

For a friend bump

[50sDad]

For a friend bump

[i_dont_chat]

I will pray for your friend --

He needs the prayers and I need the practice.

[luckymom]

Boy, i agree. That is powerful. I plan to use it when needed....

[Quix]

WHAT A TRAINLOAD OF ANGST!!!

Certainly have prayed and will.

Is there ANY woman who is remotely close to the wife? Any women's group? Any grandmotherly soul she looks up to or respects above average?

That might be the only route humanly that anyone could speak any sense to her. Religious blinders tend to be some of the worst kind. Religious buttressed denial is also one of the worst varieties of denial.

My suspicion is that trying to pull her in the right direction will be resisted wholesale unless the WOMAN talking to her is greatly respected; exceedingly wise and very step-by-step in small steps in leading her to greater sanity.

It is worthwhile--perhaps essential--especially if there are kids involved--for the husband to keep a nightly journal outlining the craziest behaviors of the day on the part of the wife. He would do well to avoid his opinions about them or labeling them with emotional terms--just describe what her body did. What words did she say. What were the tones and expressions.

If she's REALLY off the wall, he could set up a video camera on a tripod in the room she's most often in--leaving it off for several days to a week. Then he could tape the kids doing something in the room. Then he could tape the kids another day. And a 3rd day tape the kids. then he could leave it on long play type record only stopping it to change tapes when she wasn't around. Otherwise letting it run out.

A journal and a tape could be greatly used by a shrink to help assess her regarding bi-polar. Also, if there are kids and she's not the most fit parent, they may be essential to keeping and protecting the kids from her craziness.

CERTAINLY SOMEONE WITH SUCH EXPERIENCE ought to discern if there's any obsessive demonic stuff from her family of origin etc. and enlist church folk to fast and pray accordingly.

If it really does simply seem to be clinical--probably medication would be important but not easy to enlist her support for. Some spouses have been driven to hiding it in food that they prepared.

Avoid a shrink who just throws a whole collection of pills all the time. 1, 2 or 3 modern meds should do plenty and the cracker jack shrinks should know that. True bi-polar would most likely need lithium but each case is different and requires a proper evaluation by a proper medical shrink. Just avoid a chronic pill pusher who sees someone for 10 minutes and claims it's all figured out etc. The shrink should also ask about family relationships etc.

It may be that all the perceived chronic stress has depleted her seretonin and she would need meds only long enough to give her system and coping strategies to be built-up, learned so she could overcome in similar future situations without the meds.

IT MAY BE that the "sins of the fathers" etc. have collected down on her head spiritually and she's never risen above them with balance and proper authentic spirituality. It may take some serious skilled/gifted discernment on the part of several very experienced people to assess that.

IT IS HIGHLY PROBABLE that the abuse of her childhood has left her insecure; brittle, fearful, anxious etc. . . . and with a collection of coping skills and strategies that are at least as disfunctional as functional. That will likely take a caring group process to help her overcome. An alternative might be extensive successful family counseling including a woman therapist who she would see as her ally.

I'd be careful to find a Spirit-filled one with a reputation of good skills, discernment and experience in such problems--preferably someone also trained and experienced in FAMILY SYSTEMS strategies. It might not hurt if she was skilled in paradoxical instructions and methodologies. The wife is likely to be very wily and resistent to lots of conventional efforts and strategies.

It's also probable that the kids--especially any teens or near teens or 0-6 would need church MEN to rise up and fill in some for the probably over stressed father--taking them weekly to outings and games at home etc. with their own children.

I doubt arguing spiritual/theological/vision/dream/word from God stuff with the wife would be productive at all.

IF PUSH COMES TO SHOVE AND ALL THE ABOVE seems to fall flat, it may be a LAST RESORT to find a paradoxical therapist who would be skilled and willing to help push her off balance enough; push her into enough of a collaps; enough chaos that she herself would begin to see she really needed help. A video with impactful material on it in terms of her behavior could also be useful.

A SHORT TERM INSTRUCTION TO THE HUSBAND MIGHT BE TO:

WHATEVER YOU NORMALLY DO--THAT SEEMS TO PRECEDE OR TRIGGER ACTING OUT BEHAVIOR ON HER PART--OR WHATEVER YOU DO AFTER SHE ACTS OUT THAT ONLY SEEMS TO WORSEN IT--WHATEVER YOU DO

DO ****SOMETHING**** VERY DIFFERENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Humans tend to do more of the same harder when things don't work.

IT'S BETTER IF THE DIFFERENT ACTIONS ETC. ON THE HUBBY'S PART WOULD REALLY STARTLE, SURPRISE THE WIFE IN A WARM FEELING SORT OF WAY. But sometimes, just getting her out of the rut so she doesn't know now what to expect so routinely can make her more available for altering her own construction on reality. Of course, such startlingly different behavior/words etc. on hubby's part must be healthy, constructive, safe etc.

Anyway--there's a plug nickel's worth of input to share or not as you prayerfully see fit from your discernment and knowledge.

Blessings,

[Mortimer Snavely]

'She claims to have "visions" of Christ telling her how important she will be in the End Times.'

This woman is definitely sick. When she gets to the point where she poses a danger to herself and/or others, and/or is unable to take care of herself, call the magistrate and have a temporary detention order served on her. This will get her into a mental hospital. I doubt seriously she would voluntarily seek any professional psychiatric help otherwise.

[Quix]

That one item--visions of Christ telling her whatever--even how important she's to be in end times MAY IN FACT BE some evidence of mental--at least fraying around the edges--but IN AND OF ITSELF--it is just one item. It could be here nor there in terms of a serious diagnosis.

Plenty of healthy people have such dreams/visions. . . probably thousands of them.

But a journal kept daily would show a pattern of mental abberations; disordered behavior if it's there. A string of journal entries WITH the assertions about Jesus telling her stuff could be impactful--at least with child care people if he has to try and retain custody etc.

[Mortimer Snavely]

The trick is to get the poor soul into a hospital volunatrily, which is very unlikely. If she gets committed, the journal would probably be of great help to her doctor.

[Quix]

Yes, quite true.

1) Normally, such flavors of Christians normally have a somewhat well earned hostility and fear of psychology/psychiatric types. They often tend to resist even going to a counselor unless the counselor is a resident member of THEIR church AND there's tons of pastoral pressure to do so. And, of course, many such churches are somewhat loathe to have counselors in any formal, traditional sense--though many of the pastors do a commendable job.

2) Her craziness would likely prevent submitting to such as well, as you perceptively imply.

3) True, the journal would be of help to many sorts of Docs, though I've known some who would disdain it since they construe themselves to have all sufficient knowledge etc. She'd do well to avoid them anyway.

[50sDad]

Hope for a few more prayers bump.