Relentless

...the pastor started making sure I knew I should protect him at all cost to myself, which I did. I wanted to please him and prove I was loyal. He sent us to someone inside the church to help us with our marriage because he realized he was too close. My husband told the man everything and, after talking with the lady, I wanted to as well. I called him to feel him [the pastor] out and asked if he had said anything and he began saying his wife would hate me and I should be very afraid to go there.

Then he began to switch—telling me they loved me instead of he loved me. He started saying they were just trying to help our marriage and us. He started making me feel like it was just me and I was the only one doing anything. I knew something bad was fixing to happen. I felt powerless; everything I tried to do to fix things just made them worse. The guilt of the relationship was overwhelming. I would try to talk to him about asking my husband to forgive us so he would come back to church, and the pastor would say, “don’t go there.” Then some ladies from the church asked me to go out with them. They told me the pastor was saying things in staff meetings, when asked why weren’t we the children’s pastors anymore, like, “I had a crush on him, I had issues, and they were trying to help me out.” My heart sank and I told them some things we had done and he had done to my husband. I WAS EMOTIONAL AND HEART BROKEN. I felt deceived and the pain was relentless.

Then, when I went home, I told my husband everything my pastor and I had done. My husband just cried out, “this man calls himself my spiritual father and yet he has deceived me like this?!” He went to church that Sunday and confronted him. The pastor started yelling at me, “what did you tell them?” (talking about the ladies), and my husband asked him nicely twice to not disrespect me like that. The pastor refused and my husband flew at him. The pastor didn’t mind disrespecting me in front of others. One comment on the mission trip was, “Sabrina you’re so submissive if I told you to get on your knees and lick water off the floor you would, because you won’t tell me no.” After they settled down, the pastor blamed us and told us he would let us know if we could come back after he’d told his wife that I’d told.

Later, that day I tried to kill myself, and they were having a staff meeting to let them know what had happened and why. He stated in the meeting, “he felt trapped.” I had a very hard time with that statement, knowing how it all happened and why it stopped. I went—after getting out of the hospital the next week—and got drunk, I had never drunk before in my life but I felt so broken and so much despair from everything.

Then, a friend introduced me to The Hope of Survivors…

The stories on THOS website sounded just like ours. They had very detailed information on Why me? What happened to me? Fact vs. Lies, etc. I was able to feel hope again. It made me realize I am not alone, and it’s not my fault. Also, it taught me about being groomed for this relationship, and I was able to recognize the grooming that took place early on. The part on Consequences of Abuse let me know why I felt I needed to die. THOS helped me deal with my shame, regret, powerlessness, and deceit. It helped me when confessing my sin. The lies I told to cover and protect the improper relationship. The scriptures were awesome in showing me God forgives me, and loves me. This helped when all the relationships I thought I had left to cover the pastor. I have THOS to thank for leading me to recovery.

Rejected: Isaiah 53:3; Mark 8:31; Luke 17:25
Degraded or humiliated: Matt. 7:30-31
Shamed: Matt. 27:28
Suffered for another’s sake: Phil 1:29; Gal.6:2
Will you let God help? Psalms 40:17; 42:5

Please go here to read the full version of this story, from the beginning.

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