Broken Heartbeats and Hope

Connie J. French

Description

Religion broke my heart. A sectarian evangelical authority tore me away from my spiritual awareness of God, nurtured in childhood wonder by the Australian bush. It landed me in a war zone with my trusted inner self. Evil intruded into my picture of life. Trusted people became predators. I was ambushed by the Deep Sadness. This book is the story of my desperate search for some unknown relief from the grief of rejection, deception and the bullying that is spiritual abuse. When two words shone like a light from the text of the book I was studying for a Master’s degree, I was amazed. Enlightenment that required abandonment of current goals, gave wings of hope to my heart for the journey ahead.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Spirituality
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris AU
• Date de parution: 14 septembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669831747
• Langue: English

Extrait

Broken Heartbeats and Hope
 
From a Damaging Christianity to a Divine Identity
 
 
 
 
 
 
Connie J. French
 
 
Copyright © 2022 by Connie J. French.
 
ISBN:
Softcover
978-1-6698-3175-4

eBook
978-1-6698-3174-7
 
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
Author’s Note: I would prefer to allow the copying of up to two pages, with acknowledgement of my authorship, and for non-commercial purposes.
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 09/13/2022
 
 
 
Xlibris
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The Inscribed Pledge Within
The ‘I Am With You’ Theme
‘I am with you ’ is the pledge I have discovered I had made with myself before I knew myself. It was like a kind of marriage commitment, ‘In sickness and in health…’ The chapters of this book tell the story of being with myself in the spiritual journey of life, sticking by myself in all the different scenarios included.
‘I am with you’ is one of the warmest comments I hear. It speaks of help and togetherness. ‘I am with you’ is also one of the most reassuring comments I feel free to say. It speaks of understanding, validation and trust.
But the most exciting time I first said, and heard my own voice echo back, ‘I am with you’, was when I said it to myself. It spoke of a reclaimed identity. It spoke of a validation that I am a being of intimate and inestimable worth.
This treasured discovery of myself was found after a long and tortuous journey out of a kind of crucifying Christianity. It started in stumbling, innocent, ignorant and vulnerable integrity. Then it took on a more active initiative, of banging on closed doors or trying to force passageways through a maze of dead ends.
It has been worth it. It was worth it because it has been my own journey. Even when I have been in tears, they have been mine, and I have cried them for myself. At least I could do that! Grieving seems to help escape the groping tentacles of fear and predatory spiritual abuse.
Even through all the arduous exhaustion of futile effort and the emptiness of bottomless grief, I am glad I held to the pledge I felt written in some mysterious inner sanctum of my heart, ‘I am with you in it all’.
So I have written it all down – the story of that inner pilgrimage, its debate and conflict, and the surprising clash of co-incidents that I call ‘miracle events’, that both seared and saved me from betraying myself into the hands of some would-be predators of my heart and mind. It was like a journey back into the home of my True Being, lost as a child, but now as its Chief Executive Officer – its God-in-the-flesh!
The acts I choose to do by my own volition, have become an uncontested validation of my independent being, not divided against myself. With a passionate dismissal of attempts by others to put chains on me, I am enjoying faithfulness to myself. I offer my integrity, and I receive validation of who I am.
I like the satisfaction of integrity; the enlightenment of owning the truth of who I am, in my experience. I love living my life, in a kind of togetherness with myself, with others and the world! I’m hearing ‘I am with you, Beloved’. And I like the freedom to pursue the human good, in some ways that I understand it to be.
Green light ahead.
Table of Contents
In Heartbreak and Hope
Searching for Hope
Our Cradled Spirit
First Discussion: In the Discovery of Good and Evil
In Good and Evil
The Truth Within
Second Discussion: In Vulnerability to Bullying
God who acts to make our spirits free
Third Discussion: In Ambush by the Deep Sadness
The Deep Sadness
Fourth Discussion: In Loss and Love
Fake Love and True Love
Fifth Discussion: In Fake Christian Love
In Hidden Strength
Sixth Discussion: In Church-Sponsored Conflict
Anzac Day
In Emptiness
Seventh Discussion: In Asking the Question
Eighth Discussion: In Poor Counselling and Hidden Strength
True Being
Ninth Discussion: In Hearing Myself in Counselling
Beyond Miracles
What Is a Miracle to me?
Tenth Discussion: In Worthwhile Hearing
Our Experience
Eleventh Discussion: In Real-Life Miracles
Feeling Resurrected
‘Seeing’ Eternal Life
Anointing Gold
Grace
Twelfth Discussion: In Guilt and Human Grace
Apology to a Daughter
Thirteenth Discussion: In Fake Forgiveness and Faithfulness
Who is Jesus?
Christ’s Wilderness Reflection
A Samaritan Woman
Once Blind, I see
Peter
The Thief on the Cross
In Crucifixion’s Abandonment
A Prayer of Disillusioned Thomas
Fourteenth Discussion: In Reclaiming My Spiritual Identity
Feed My Lambs – Jesus
The Lost Godness Within
Fifteenth Discussion: In Finding God
A Psalmist Expresses Pain and Hope
Two Psalms as I Hear Them
Come Grieve With Me
The Homecoming
Love’s Togetherness
The Parting
To Life
A Word of Thanks
In Heartbreak and Hope
‘In heartbreak and hope I’ll be with you’ – the pledge of my whisper, I hear,
For heartaches I feel on the journey, intrude into life I hold dear;
Beyond what I know of tomorrow, before I was born of life’s breath,
The truth of who I would be, mattered, and destined my life and my death.
 
But all we believe is contingent; and all that we feel has a cause,
And all we can do as an agent, is play with life’s delicate laws.
The ball’s in our court till we answer; the question awaits our reply,
The outcome then hangs on our judgment – with whom will our actions comply?
 
There’s only compliance with someone; a voice from the babble ‘out there’?
Or from our own joy and our laughter, that’s heard just enough for life’s prayer?
For life is a prayer for fulfilment – a heart given wings by our worth,
And though we protest at life’s problems, we live keeping faith with our birth.
 
We’re born to be heirs of a kingdom; we know we were made for a throne,
And though we’re not sure of the journey, its challenge we know we can own.
We’re not left bereft of a spirit; we know it’s worthwhile to survive,
And if the world crumbles around us, we’ll stand up and say, ‘I’m alive!’
Searching for Hope
Broken Heartbeats discover to us what our True Life is not.
They are the rhythm of a breakdown;
They are signs of a fuel shortage;
They signal the need for more of the Spirit of Life.
 
Broken Heartbeats open our eyes to our blindness;
They validate our loss and grief;
They vindicate our sadness, anger and confusion,
They comfort us with their Truth of Being who we are.
 
And Broken Heartbeats nudge us or push us out of the gates of our prison,
To venture, with modest urgency, onto the path of Pilgrimage, alone,
In quest of the Great Unknown, beyond,
With only our trust in Truth, and the staff of integrity in our hand.
 
……………………………………….
 
Hope is an insistent seduction,
Tantalising the eyes of the mind,
Recalling past experience of promise,
And giving birth to confident expectation,
So that we wave a flag of fidelity to the future.
 
We have had a glimpse of True Being somewhere –
Somewhere in the past, we remind ourselves;
Was it the gleam of light we saw because of the dark shadow around us?
Or was it that vision that came to us in imagination,
With the Passion for Truth empowering our firm tread?
Our Cradled Spirit
We might be born in Chaos, but we come to know by sight,
The blindness of our darkness is revealed by brilliant light,
The pain of loss, the blame of guilt, our broken heart’s despair,
Are enemies we see because we know what’s good and fair.
 
We start with hidden memories of a Paradise we’ve known,
A life that’s worthwhile living and from where our heart was sown,
We try to hear the echoes of the truth that’s had to hide,
Because of life’s Tsunami that has swept us with its tide.
 
Our wisdom did not leave us, for it wasn’t just a dream,
We know we’re born from Royalty, and held in high esteem,
The courtiers might disappear and no-one recognise,
Our face now smirched with cinders and the soot that’s in our eyes.
 
But we have danced in palaces and hearts do not forget,
The unity of love empowering truth we hold to yet,
We’ve known life’s beauty, triumph undeterred by frailty,
We know we have some inner wings and they can make us free.
 
We know events that happen sending messages of fear,
Are not the voice with deepest sound of truth that we revere,
There’s still some music that was sung as our first lullaby,
Its music sometimes echoes back when we’ve agreed to cry.
 
Beyond our stress there’s comfort, and new life from death that’s done,
We know Love’s Temple is our home where we can live as One.
First Discussion: In the Discovery of Good and Evil
My discovery of fear
Suddenly I could feel the fear. Someone was screaming. It was getting louder and louder. My palms were sweating. I could feel a chill at the back of my neck. Like ice. Chips of ice. Sharp. They felt as though they were small blades. Prickli