Grief For the Lost Years
I wanted to thank you for emailing Proclamation! magazine to me every week. (Yeah, I know there are a lot of other people involved. Thankful for all of you.)
My wife and I left Adventism officially about five years ago. I was a lifer; she was in for maybe 15 years or so. We met and married later in life, so neither of us is young. (AARP sends us mail on a regular basis.) We did meet in the Adventist circles, which is probably the best part of the Adventist experience.
Having been born and raised in it, and having been there for half a century, it was my whole life experience. I had church from the very beginning. I played piano from about age six or seven, in church, and advanced to some notoriety in local circles through the years to the point of being called for campmeetings and big events to provide music. I had times of being a deacon, an elder, and I even preached a few times. Mostly, though, I was a musician…
The theology really wasn’t all that difficult for me. I did not like numerous things that I would hear that went against Scripture: contradictions, hot potatoes, that’s pretty common. I’m sure you know them all very well. As I was making my exit, I was reading Scripture, a lot. And interestingly, it is pretty clear on a whole lot of topics and not so hard to understand as some make it out to be. I read probably eight or nine versions, I devoured it. And it didn’t take long to realize, I could not remain an Adventist. Remaining would make me an “Adventist atheist” according to my thinking. NO.
So what has been challenging? The fact that there is no “redo button”. I spent 50 years in a world that was just filled with lies, an alternate reality that was, in my mind, a demonic fabrication. Oh, it sounds good on the surface, but underneath, it’s a very dark place. I can’t get those 50 years back. And as I look back at the life I lived and the decisions I made based upon the lies and fabrications, my heart aches. The clock only goes in one direction. It is too late for a new family, a new career, a new mindset based upon real Christianity, and a whole lot more. I can’t get that back.
I try to think through that it is very possible that my parents, and even those who brought them into Adventism, were deceived. Most are long dead, and I have nothing but childhood memories for many. But I do not know; there are some who really were/are not deceived but choose to lead others to that same Adventist religion. The emotions range from grief to anger. And while I’m not angry at individual people, I am indeed angry for the chains that they placed on others. And the grief of years, decades, just lost, haunts me.
I have sometimes wondered how much of that is to be found among formers who spent a long time in Adventism. It can be a rather personal subject, though, and I don’t know if many are terribly open to being that transparent with people they don’t know well. It surprises me just a bit that I’m even willing to write to you, but perhaps feel a sense of familiarity because of all of those letters I’ve seen you reply to in Proclamation!.
Thanks for the listening ear. Any thoughts you’d care to share are welcome, but I know you’ve got a lot on your plate already. Blessings to you as you minister to those who are needing instruction and healing from SDAPTSD. It matters.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: I completely understand your pain and anger and regret. Yes, I hear this same reaction from many formers—and I have personally grappled with it over the years.
I have come to understand that God is sovereign, and none of my life is a surprise to Him. Why the timing, I can’t say, but the Lord knows. Years ago our pastor’s wife, Elizabeth Inrig, said something in Bible study that helped orient me in a worldview where the Lord is sovereign: “God wastes nothing, and He redeems everything we submit to Him.”
That phrase began to help me make sense of my Adventism. Over the years I have come to know how true that statement is. The Lord has been redeeming all of my experience in Adventism by showing me what is real and true and by allowing me to be able to speak to those who are struggling in similar ways to the way I struggled. The beauty of the Lord’s redemption of us is that it’s not just about rescuing us for eternity (which would be BIG enough all on its own), but He literally uses what we know and experienced, when we trust Him, to see and to reveal His truth and love to others.
Why we had to spend so much of our lives in Adventism I will never understand now, but I know that the timing is His, and He doesn’t waste what happened to us.
We go through all the five stages of grief when we leave Adventism, many of them rolling back and forth in our souls over time. As we immerse ourselves in Scripture, He rewrites our brains into a biblical worldview, and the whole process takes time—it can take several years to begin to live with a worldview that is based in reality instead of in a great controversy worldview.
I remember the day I began to understand that our lives here are not the summation of our total experience. It bothered me for most of my life that God restored the animals and doubled their numbers when He restored Job at the end of the book of Job—but He couldn’t gives Job anything that would replace his ten children who died in that terrible storm. He gave Job ten more children, but those first ten were gone. One day as I was studying, I realized that when those first ten children died, they weren’t GONE. They continued on with the Lord, and now, millennia later as Job is now with the Lord, He actually does have 20 children! God doesn’t waste a life, and He doesn’t waste our experiences which are under His sovereign hand of mercy, righteousness, justice, and love.
The fruit of our redeemed Adventist lives is eternal, and we may not have any idea until the kingdom exactly HOW God has redeemed out Adventism. But He does.
As for your parents—God knows. He gives every person that lives a revelation of Himself, as He indicates in Romans 1:18–21, and all people are without excuse. As people respond to Him, He gives us more and more knowledge of Him and reveals how we are saved in Jesus by trusting His death for our sins. That revelation is up to Him. He reveals Himself to people.
He knows how to communicate with people even when they are unable to speak any longer. He can reveal Himself to people in their spirits when they are in comas, unconscious from our perspective and unable to communicate. We do not know how He dealt with our Adventist forebears. But we can trust Him. He is completely just and merciful.
I am going to attach an article here that may help with perspective regarding this whole question, and I’ll share some links to resources. I highly suggest that if you haven’t, you begin listening to the Former Adventist Podcast which I think will begin addressing a lot of these feelings and questions that we ALL share:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/former-adventist/id1482887969
Jesus the Last Prophet?
Am I wrong to believe that Jesus is the only true prophet, and that all others claiming or being viewed as prophets after Him are false prophets?
I just listened to your last podcast on the book of Revelation, and that question got me thinking because a friend of mine who is a believer was taken aback by my comment that Jesus is the only prophet and there are no others after Him.
Am I wrong to believe this?
—VIA EMAIL
Response: You are right: the Lord Jesus is God’s final word. Hebrews 1:1–4 says this:
God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they.—Hebrews 1:1–4
The New Testament contains the teaching and prophecies of the apostles: Revelation, for example, is the last book written, and Jesus gave the Revelation to His apostle John. There are no books or prophetic writings since then that have arisen, and even during the first century when the New Testament was being written, those writers were the apostles of the Lord Jesus or, in the case of Mark, for example, they were disciples of the apostles and bore the apostolic authority. Jesus prayed for His disciples and said He also prayed for all who would believe in Him through their word:
“As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. “For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word”—John 17:18–20
In other words, Jesus is God’s final word, and He appointed His apostles to explain the new covenant and the gospel to the post-cross world and plant the church after its birth at Pentecost. There are no later prophets who came with new information, and Jesus’s own apostles did not have NEW information but explained the gospel which Jesus had come to reveal. When the Holy Spirit came upon the believers on the Day of Pentecost, He brought understanding to the apostles so that all that Jesus had said to them was clear and accessible for them to share.
There are no new prophets! Jesus is God’s final word!
Divorce Threats for Wearing a Wedding Ring
Thank you for your ministry; it has helped and is helping me through a very difficult time.
My husband grew up Roman Catholic but converted to Adventism 21 years ago. This was five years after we got married. He is what I call ultra-conservative and quite fanatical. He threatened to divorce me for wearing my wedding ring.
He sees any idea that goes against his beliefs as an attack on God. He has told me he cannot pray with me as I worship a different Jesus.
If you could give a staunch, stubborn Adventist one study, what would that be? He is very knowledgeable in Adventist beliefs, but I have hope as even pastors have seen the light.
Thank you for your support, and could you please pray for me. I desperately need strength as this is all taking its toll on me physically, too.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: I am so sorry for the incredible suffering I know you are experiencing. Your husband’s threatening to divorce you for wearing your wedding ring feels like a betrayal. Has this situation changed at all?
You know, your husband is right: he worships a different Jesus. The Adventist Jesus is fallible; he could have failed in his mission; he could have sinned; he did not complete the atonement at the cross; he gave up his “god power” when he took a body, and so on. Adventism believes in a godhead that is three separate beings, although they say they believe in one God.
I can imagine how desperate and exhausted you are.
If I were trying to study with a staunch Adventist, I would read through Galatians with him, one chapter at a time, asking the Lord to teach him what He wants him to know. Galatians addresses the Adventist heresy of Sabbath and the law. Although Paul speaks of “circumcision”, the point was that the Judaizers were trying to bring the gentile believers under the law after believing in the gospel. Circumcision was the entrance into Judaism and into living under the law.
Meanwhile, although we are not currently publishing a printed version of Proclamation! magazine, all our back issues are online here: ProclamationMagazine.com.
We have also added your name to our weekly Proclamation! email updates. You may need to add the email address mail@LifeAssuranceMinistries.org to your contacts in order for the email not to be directed toward your Spam folder. These emails will arrive every Friday. Archived articles are available at https://blog.lifeassuranceministries.org/magazine-archive/.
You might also enjoy our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/FormerAdventist/featured
Also, you might like to subscribe to our Former Adventist Podcast here; many say these help them unpack the Adventism hidden in the recesses of their minds: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/former-adventist/id1482887969
In addition, we have another podcast called Former Adventist Fact Check in which we talk through the misinformation contained in the weekly Sabbath School lessons. You can find them here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/adventist-fact-check-with-colleen-tinker/id1721662293
Both podcasts are also on our YouTube channel above.
I am praying now for you and for your husband. I am so, so sorry for what you are experiencing.
Thank you!
Thank you sooo much for the “Safe With Our Shepherd” story. We have a wonderful Shepherd!
—VIA EMAIL
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