its not right for others to take advantage of anothers weakness, be it emotional etc, its their own sickness and NOT your fault! sick people prey on others , espec if they sense a low ego-. is this verbal, mental, physical or sexual abuse-or all of above and by whom? JUST LIKE THE DEVIL, these sickos brow beat you to a point where you start to believe you caused or deserved it. [you DONT deserve any abuse from anyone]. YOU ARE WORTHY OF GODS LOVE. if ya dont believe it, its still true. you have us here! please dont give up! I almost did.

I'm not givin' up. Not now, not ever!! I get knocked down, but I get up again...they're never gonna keep me down.

OOoo, I love your strength!!!

great attitude. thanks.

Spinny, this is the post we discussed in the PM. Until you found it and brought it to the top again the last time there was any activity was in 2000. Nothing wrong with bringing it up and some of us who weren't here at the time seeing it and the wonderful support kaykay was given but as I said in the PM I haven't seen this person nor some ot the peole who replied to her in the time I've been here. Like I said, I do it all the time. A thread comes up, I start reading get involved decide to reply then notice it's a very old thread that no longer is active or my message able to reach it's author. Guess I'm one of those in the moment types. I need to pay attention to there haveing been a past site before I got here. lol

thanks, got yur mail. didnt think about checkn dates on posts, wonder why not removed yet if ancient? UNLESS THAT WAS ARCHIVES? oops, not yelling-caplock sticks.

We don't remove much of anything here. We like to be able to look back at all the great discussions and all the fun times that we've had. We drag old posts up all the time...don't sweat it. At least you were on topic!

I'm bringing this up again now...

We have many new people and many new points of view. We also have some of the same people and I wonder if their beliefs have changed at all. I would love to know what it is you believe about this subject, especially this post of KayKay's:

How could God let someone he loves be abused. My friend said that he didn't let it happen, but I don't understand that. If I'm his why does it happen to me? If I loved someone, I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to them. You don't know me, so how can you say God can love me? Can he stop this hurt?

Any takers?

Those are a lotta questions

I believe most of those can only be answered from a standpoint of free will. We choose our actions, and so do those who do bad things to others. Reminds me of a couple lines from the movie "Bruce Almighty":
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">
Bruce: How do you make someone love you without changing free will?
God: Welcome to my world.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">hhhmmmm...

The Bible also discusses how we limit God due to our lack of faith. I don't want to be harsh and say people suffer because they don't have enough faith, but it is in the Bible - something to consider. There's also scripture that says "you have not because you ask not" - are we so comfortable in our miseries that we don't ask for better?

I know someone who was sexually abused and beaten as a child. It went on for years. Her parents were "Christians". She was raised as a believer. She prayed for it to stop, but it didn't until she ran away from home. She told people close to her family but they didn't do anything about it. Her life after that wasn't a life at all. Living on the streets, drugs, prostitution, abusive men, failed marriages, attempts at suicide. God didn't save her so she "mustn't be worth saving". How do we tell a woman, all these years later, broken and consumed with pain, anger and hurt, that God was there for you, He just couldn't do anything because of someone else's free will? Or, that maybe she was ok with seuxal abuse at 9 years old so it continued? Maybe her faith at 9 wasn't strong enough. (My faith at 40+ isn't strong enough).
How does she pray to God now to heal her pain when God seemed silent then? She was told that God allowed this to happen. The bible does speak of allowed tribulation for the Glory of God, or for the growth of character of the believer. Do we really think that either of these things have been made manifest in this woman's life? I have a real problem believing that my loving and merciful God "allowed" this. I have a bigger problem trying to defend it. I don't know how to be a witness in this...

Who is the ruler of this world(for a time)?
If Satan is ruler of this world, he has influence.
He especially has influence on non-believers.
politics, porno, cable tv, magazines...i can see satans influence in all of it. it is anti-God.
Couple that with our frewill to choose and do as we please, and we got a mess. God does not "allow" us to drive 80 miles per hour and hit somebody and kill them...we do it on our own freee will. God does not "allow" a man to abuse his wife or children...he does it on his own in a world of choices. For God to spernaturally intervene in these situations removes our ability to choose Him on or own without Him making us choose Him.
Christ on the cross went willfuly and God "allowed it"?Why didnt He stop it? Because ultimately GOOD WOULD COME FROM IT. We have the choice to make good from bad and ministry from difficult times.
Remeber ministry and spiritual teaching comes from those who experienced (USUALLY FIRST HAND)the difficult times they try to help others with.
Divorce care classes are run by those who have been through divorce and are trying to live in a world without sex, or trying to find a Godly partner. Many abused wives go into ministry to help others. many children of abuse end up in a ministry later in life....BUT ONLY WITH THE LOVE AND GRACE AND HELP OF ALL MIGHTy GOD.
Parents who lose a child try to help others cope.
As christians we can make good out of bad.. as the scripture says...."all things work together for the good,to those who are called according to his purpose.(maybe a slight misquote)...you guys know of what i quote. When a young boy is fatally killed by his grandparents......somewhere in the tragedy good can come from it.... i do not know where, but God does and we have to trust in Him to show us and help us.
nab

Amen to Nb's post.

It is a hard concept to grasp. But what is here on this earth is temporary, in the BIG picture it will not last and does not matter to an eternal soul! The bigger question is not why did God allow it but "Why didn't God Stop it?" You know as well as I do that God rarely intervenes in human interaction. He will heal and teach and cradle but I can't think of to many instances that He stopped any individual from committing an act. It is not fair, God is not fair. God is JUST and we will not understand that fully until we get to see Him face to face!


I know you have heard Natalie Grant's new song "Held" it speaks of a similar type of situation.