It was 1 pm on a Wednesday afternoon and I was hiding in my bedroom, yet again. Months of sleepless nights had caught up to me. My eyes were always puffy from the exhaustion and the tears, and being in a constant state of nausea was becoming my norm, 

“Mommy needs a minute.” I explained, as my little children knocked on my locked bedroom door.

“When are you coming out?…Can I have a snack?…Will you help me with a math problem?” they would ask in their little, innocent voices.

No explanation would silence their questions, so I picked myself up off the floor, praying that God would grant me the strength to not think about what was happening so I could be present with my children. My four precious little children who really needed their mommy. I didn’t want them to see me cry (again) and to try to comfort me (again). They noticed that my husband and I were not ourselves. They saw us whispering around corners to each other. They knew that we were with them physically, but mentally we were somewhere else. We couldn’t hide from them, even though we desperately tried to.

C.S. Lewis said it best, “Of all bad men, religious bad men are the worst.” And for the first time in our lives, we were witnessing how that could be true. Both my husband and I cannot remember a time in our lives where we didn’t believe in Jesus. We were both raised in Christian homes and were always involved in the church. As a teenager, I was at church anytime the doors were opened. I loved being there and being surrounded by other believers. This love for the church has been something that our marriage has been marked by as well. We have always loved being involved, attending any event offered, taking classes, teaching classes, serving in a multitude of ways.

So we never expected that church abuse would be a part of our story.  We found ourselves in a situation where we needed wise counsel that we had come to depend upon from our shepherds.  Instead of help, we were dismissed, everything we said was twisted to make us the villains, the script was flipped and we were to blame. We never expected that the men that we looked to as our pastors and friends would seek to care more about protecting their own images than speaking what is true, humbling themselves and confessing the wrong they had done to our family, and making right all the damage they had done to our lives. 

Sometimes – or maybe, oftentimes – God leads us down paths we never would have expected or chosen for ourselves.  We spent many months feeling so confused and fighting against believing what was actually happening. We sought to “believe the best” and “give grace.” But the reality was that intimidation tactics, bullying, harsh speech, isolation, authoritative language, heavy handedness, middle of the night texts, and threats were being used against our family. To make it even worse, they began reaching out to friends and family setting up countless meetings to cause confusion and ultimately spread lies about us. All of this left us in genuine fear, crying out to God in a way we never had before to help us.

It was undoubtedly the hardest and most devastating time of our lives. The damage that has been done to our family has felt incalculable at times. Being isolated from our community, experiencing betrayal from the people we called our friends, and being bullied by our pastors left us feeling abandoned, ashamed, lonely, angry, and fearful. Simply put, we have been deeply traumatized. We found ourselves doubting the church, doubting God, but mostly doubting ourselves. All of a sudden I was afraid of going to the grocery store, driving across town to go to Target, even avoiding the zoo and particular parks that I thought there was a likely chance of running into people. When the majority of your community cuts you off overnight, it is completely disorienting. When the people who you trust are telling you to “just take it,” and using scripture out of context as ammunition, it’s hard to even know what is up from what is down. The people who we thought would be there to help us, stand up for us, carry our burdens with us, turned their backs on us completely. To be harmed by something we deeply loved left us feeling completely crushed and disillusioned.  At the heart of it all, we felt homeless.

In our hopelessness, all we have known to do is pray. There are many different Psalms that have been the prayers we have prayed time and time again. We have cried out to God, begging him and asking him these questions ….”Why have you forsaken us?…Why are you not answering our prayers for reconciliation?…Why does it seem like the gossip, slander, and lies are prevailing over the truth?…Why have our friends abandoned us in our time of need and somehow seem to find a way to make this our fault?…Where are you God?…Do you even care about our family?”

Psalm 9:7-10 has been a great comfort to our hurting hearts, “But the Lord sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice, and he judged the world with righteousness; he judges the people with uprightness. The Lord is the stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.”

This is the part in the story where I wish that I could say that all has been restored and made right. Sadly, that is not the case. Despite our desire for restoration and even making attempts for reconciliation with those who have caused our family so much harm, for whatever reason God has not answered our prayers the way we have hoped. To be honest, it makes us really sad. We desire for what’s been broken to be made right because we believe it would be a beautiful picture of the gospel. But the Lord’s answer to us…for now…has been “not yet.” So we wait. We continue to pray and keep trusting in God. When we feel tempted to despair, we look to our Savior who can empathize with all of our pain. He was falsely accused, put on public trial, isolated, and betrayed by his friends. He hasn’t just heard our cries and seen our tear stained pillows. He has been interceding for us on our behalf and has even kept all of our tears in a bottle (Psalm 56:8).

As we reflect on the last couple years, we see so tangibly the way the Lord has cared for us, abundantly provided for us, and preserved our family. In His kindness, the very thing that has caused us harm in the past, the church, has been one of His means to bringing healing to our souls. Though the words from Gandalf in Lord of the Rings has resonated with us, “There are some wounds that cannot be wholly cured.” 

What do we do when our stories don’t have the redemptive ending that we hoped and prayed for? What do we do when we feel in our hearts that we have been abandoned by God, yet we know in our heads that He will never leave or forsake us? We all encounter this in one way or another in our lives. Only we can choose how we will respond when our circumstances scream at us to abandon our faith. For us, we have chosen belief in the One who is good, all-knowing, loving, kind, caring, forgiving, and will one day have the final word on all the brokenness that exists in our world due to our sin. We are choosing each day to view our suffering in light of eternity. That our suffering has been the vehicle (albeit not the one we would have wanted) to open our eyes even more to how desperately broken we are but how beautifully radiant He is. That is our hope. Not in our circumstances changing, being believed, receiving an apology, or having justice. Our hope is fully and completely in the fact that we are safe and secure because of our union with Jesus Christ. 

We praise God for how he has used our suffering to help us parent and shepherd our children.  We can point to all the many ways that God has rescued our family, and our children get to see that.  We are truly free of every plan of darkness and we know that one day, He will make all things new again and even wipe away every tear from our eyes (Revelation 21:4). We are not homeless. Christ is our home. The very wise Elizabeth Elliott once said, “Of one thing I am perfectly sure: God’s story never ends with ashes.” This is true for us, and it is also true for you.

Chelsea Slevin and her husband Jonathan made Sojourn East their home in 2022. Chelsea spends her days homeschooling and finding new adventures for her and their 4 awesome kids to explore together. She enjoys being outside, having coffee with a friend, reading theology books, designing spaces in her home, and listening to music. Her greatest desire is to fully embrace her weaknesses, so she can boast all the more in Christ’s perfection.