I too was abused by my dad. Welcome.
If the Lord intervened now and took care of everything, we would have the perfect world and there would be no problems. But, unfortunately, the world has plenty of evil and we have to believe and trust in him. The perfect world will be in the after-life.
Keep talking to people here, it helps alot and trust in Jesus.
Pray for strength.

In my case, one of my primary perpetrators was my mother. A lot of her stuff was very covert and hidden under the guise of normal child care, but the abuse was definitely there. I never had any doubt that God existed, that was never a question I asked, even while I was being sexually abused by two different parish priests. My problem was the nature of God.

Being raised Roman Catholic in the mid-1950's through the late-1960's, in the pre-Vatican II days, I was taught by the nuns that priests were almost like God and should be honored and respected just as God Himself would be. That was difficult to do when the priests were busy molesting you. So when I got into recovery, that was the dilemma I faced. I believed in God, but didn't believe in a loving, caring God.

In my case, I worked a Twelve Step recovery program, Survivors of Incest Anonymous. The First Step involves admitting that you were powerless to prevent the abuse, and that as a result of it, your life has become unmanageable. And the Second Step involves coming to believe that a power greater than yourself (God) could restore you to sanity. I had no problems with either of these Steps. My problem was with the Third Step, making a decision to turn my life and will over to the care of God. I just couldn't do that, not with the understand I then had of God. It took me almost three years to get to the point where I could take that Third Step.

During that time, God had guided and directed my life, sometimes in ways the totally blew me away, and other times in very gentle and subtle ways. But I could look back on my life and see His hand on me every day, with every step I took. I could see that He really did love me and care about me. THAT kind of a God I could surrender to. So I guess what I'm saying is that all you can do is start off where you are, with God as you now understand Him, as you've experienced Him in your life. And realize that it's okay to be disappointed and/or angry with God for allowing everything that happened. But somewhere down the road, you'll come to understand that God allowed it all for a reason, to make you into who and what He wanted you to be, into who He needed you to be. He has a mission of some sort for you, something He wants you to do with your life, and you wouldn't have been able to do it unless the abuse happened, so that's why He allowed it.

Several years after I took my Third Step, I was at a workshop that a friend of mine and his wife were conducting. This guy made the point that for many of us, there are problems with our "God concept". This concept is one of the "character defects" that the Twelve Step programs talk about. He said that sometimes we need to skip over the Third Step in the program and go ahead and do a Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Step around out "God concept". (Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves -- Four. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs -- Five. Were entirely ready to have God remove all of these defects of character -- Six. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcoming -- Seven). Maybe that's a way for you to approach your situation. Just a thought. I hope something here is of some help. Take care, and know that you'll be in my thoughts and prayers in the days and weeks to come. Peace!

I opted out of any group religion many years ago. I do not Identify with the very word God. For me to feel loved, accepted, blessed, and belonging in life I went solo into humble meditation and waited for acceptance from what I did not know. It did come to me, a warm and beautiful energy of love and acceptance. I learned many things about life and universal energy. It is all inclusive. A tapestry. It just is as it is, an evolution with imperfections. Spiritual growth is one gift of suffering, there are many others. I am humble and grateful. I am loved, accepted, and valuable. My mission is to give birth to my inner child and allow the love, acceptance, joy, and beauty of her cosmic energy to shine. Part of the solution instead of part of the problem of mankind. It is sometimes difficult work but so very rewarding.

Survivors are very special human beings. Together we can bring change to a dark shadow of humanity. :)

You have to learn how to separate God from tha' church. You must be able to separate the holy spirit from religion.

FYI; these people who preach that recovery can only come once you forgive your perps is a load of crap that places the full responsibility on the victims shoulders instead of even one of them expressing the love of Jesus by sharing the load of trauma suffered when you had your soul violated.
Jesus has been dead over 2000 years. They are as far removed from His true gospel as you are.

I hope these magical thinking 'chosen ones' know how to feed themselves in the coming days. I'd sure hate one of them expecting mine to should be charity after they worked so hard trying to discover and expose sin in my life that never existed and shut me out.
Tom S. in Tn.

I think Tom nailed it. You have to separate God from the church.

One way I did this was to think of God as love. I do believe that love was manipulated into something other than what it is by many religions. It's a pretty powerful thing.

I am not sure I should start here, but I have been a Christian for 40 years since i was 15 years old. I am now a pastor. I have no doubt that I have been saved and redeemed through the shed blood of Jesus Christ His Son. Still I am now reaching out for help to deal with what I am now experiencing as a result of learning about my abuse by my own father.. My faith has not been shaken , but my ability to relate positively to God has been severely affected. So I know I have to deal with this issue until resolved. It was God that showed me that this issue was there and will eventually heal me. So I want to encourage you to stay here and we'll grow and heal together.

Thanks for all of your thoughtful responses on this. I do believe there is a reason for suffering; that we are being shaped by it and that in the end the hard times are an essential element in the creation of a masterpiece. Our suffering brings compassion which is a bond of love, perhaps a love we would never experience without having suffered ourselves; its not superficial Still, its difficult to understand; though I cannot, Ive been touched by love which is greater than my pain and I suppose that is what keeps me faithful. I have posted a journal about one of these experiences; anyone is welcome to read it as I hope it will be inspirational to others.

I like the comment of thinking about God as love Religion has certainly twisted the message of Christ; so much its hard to set aside feelings about the church and experience spiritually. So many people confuse the church with Christ and I think there is a huge difference. I have often wondered, if I went about sharing the teachings of Christ and replaced the word God with the word love would the same people who shut off at the mention of the G word, then hear the message and feel differently about it? Its just a thought; I think they would.

I also like the comment about the tapestry; I have been thinking about this lately. In my journal story I tell about glimmering colorful threads floating in the air . Right afterwards I heard a song on the radio that talked about Gods love being a tapestry and then I was talking to someone who was trying to encourage me to join a church, she said that in the bible it tells that on our own we are each just like little threads and in difficult times, we may fall/bend, but that the church is like a weave of all of those threads and together we are strong. I still, however, cant seem to find a church that suits my belief.

As far as forgiveness goes, yes I agree, our souls were violated and that must be acknowledged, but I have read another perspective on this subject which I thought was interesting: http://net-burst.net/sex_abuse/free_therapy.htm . I tend to enjoy reading Grantleys perspective on things; he has an interesting site.

Metres, welcome, I hope that you do find healing and can share the process from a Christian perspective; I tend to hold to the belief that the healing we need is going to have to come from God in my heart of hearts Im a Christian, because Christ touched my soul and that sort of thing cannot be mistaken. I hope that by sharing your insight as a pastor we may be able to learn better how to receive the healing we desperately need. At least, I want that for myself and hope others can embrace it; Im looking

Blessings

How many 'believers' could exhibit the power of the love of Jesus and spread the gospel if they had their bible burned up like they did Muslim korans in recently ?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/world/10react.html

http://guerillawomentn.blogspot.com/2010/09/crazed-koran-burning-pastor-wants-god.html

It's not bible science and quoting scripture in multiple versions 7 ways to Sunday.
Remember this the next time some one wants to say you're the sinner and they have what it takes to redeem you.

I think Jim Jones had this same type platform at the peoples temple.

I stated this earlier in a related post somewhere. It's all about what people see from your heart, not how well you recite scripture.

** It's quite possible for any one to be a believer and spread truth with love, even if you don't have eyes to read a bible or the mental capacity to understand religion. **

Tom S. in Tn.

asilvercloud, have you ever heard of Universalist Unitarian?

Unitarian Universalism draw on many different theological sources and have a wide range of beliefs and practices. I believe it uses christianity as the backdrop.

Also, I've heard Ba'hai emphasizes the spiritual unity of all humankind.