God Answered and Gave Me Hope!
You published an email I sent recently regarding my stepson’s Adventist baptism and a conversation between my Adventist wife and myself.
For 14 years, I’ve been praying on and off for my wife’s deliverance from the snare of Adventism. I have also prayed in that time that God would bless me with meeting a former Adventist.
Well, on Sunday God answered “Yes” to that prayer. After the church service had finished, I was stopped by a chap whom I’ve never seen before as I was grabbing a coffee. We introduced ourselves, then he mentioned he had never heard John 5:1-17 (the healing by the pool on the Sabbath) explained in the way our pastor taught it. I happened to mention my wife was an Adventist, and he then arranged for me to be introduced to another man who was a former Adventist! We talked for what seemed for hours, and I bombarded him with question after question. Both of my new friends asked me if my wife would be interested in joining a Bible study group some time in the future.
I am so thankful to God for meeting both of these men. The second one is the first and only former I’ve met in the flesh in 14 years!!
This answered prayer has given me a renewed hope that God is listening to my prayers, desires, and requests.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: This is the most wonderful news! Praise God! I believe He did send those men to you to encourage you and to provide you with ongoing help and fellowship. How wonderful that they initiated the idea of Bible study with your wife! God is at work, and I am thankful!
Surprised by Grief
I hope you are well and that you and the FAF team had a great time at the conference last week. I tuned into the most recent podcast episode on compromise—it really blessed me!
Thank you for praying for me. I praise God for His continued faithfulness. I just wanted to share some life updates and seek encouragement from you…
God has been so faithful to me in the past few months of joining a new church. I was baptized in September of 2023. I’ve joined a women’s discipleship group and serve in [some ministry teams]. The sweetest blessing has been pursuing a dating relationship with one of the members of the pastoral staff. After being good friends for several months, the friendship naturally transitioned into a serious dating relationship, and we are beginning talk about marriage. My Adventist parents have been supportive of our relationship and kind to him. The topic of Adventism hasn’t come up in conversations yet…
The church has come alongside us with overwhelming support, from our pastors to members…
In the midst of all these blessings I’ve noticed some grief and depression creep up on me in the past few weeks. I have no desire to go back to the demonic doctrines of Adventism, but all that the Lord has provided in the months of attending this church along with all of this new change of lifestyle while still living with unsaved family and very slowly making new Christian friendships has brought up sadness sometimes.
Lately, I’ve been feeling quite insecure about friendships. My boyfriend has plenty of Christian friends, and I’ve been meeting a lot of them lately. Internally, though, I feel embarrassed and insecure that I don’t have those deep relationships in my life, and I really never had them as an Adventist. I struggle to believe that God will provide the new family He has promised for those who leave all to follow Him.
Thinking about planning a wedding with very few guests on my side but plenty on my boyfriend’s side has made me sad. Having to share my story more often than ever before since joining a new church and dating a pastor makes me happy to be sharing what God has done, but I’m also sad that I’m still dealing with grief even though I left five years ago and am sometimes anxious if people don’t really understand where I’m coming from.
I feel this is normal in leaving a cult, but I’m not sure. I have a myriad of emotions that I feel lately, and I don’t really know what to do with them but to pray and trust God. I strive to daily submit these emotions to God and trust in His sovereign plan and wisdom, but it has all just felt overwhelming lately, and I’ve had difficulty navigating things mentally. I guess this is just the continued process of grieving as a Former Adventist.
I would appreciate any encouragement that you have!
—VIA EMAIL
Response: What you are describing is completely normal. We go through the five stages of grief when we leave Adventism, and it actually DOES take years to stabilize our worldview and to deal with the loss, the new identity, and all the new ways of doing things. As for contemplating a wedding with very few from your past, I totally get that. I can imagine that in some ways it’s harder being in a relationship with someone who has an established network of friends and support that are unfamiliar to you. If you were both at the same time ”stage”, it might feel a bit more “shared”—but the Lord knows how to bring us into spiritual growth with the help and support He knows we need.
Can you share your feelings with him? Does he understand the loss you feel, the identity shift? Are you afraid he might not understand the significance of what you are experiencing? He needs to know the ways that your life is different, not because you’re fragile but because you simply need to “vent” when you have reactions or insights or questions. Even something as simple as potentially bursting into tears during worship at church should be able to have context with the one you hope to marry. Can you talk to him about the sweetness and the sadness of embracing Jesus in your life as you leave what you used to treasure?
Your parents are likely experiencing a new kind of shift as well. If they are not engaging as much with you about your faith since you joined a Christian church, that new “distance” likely feels a bit like a new loss all over again.
The Lord will redeem this. It is disorienting to experience these feelings and these shifts in “reality”, but this is the Lord turning you around and bringing you into truth, making your practice align with your beliefs. †
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