Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
And this simply proves my premise at my own departure from the program, "exclusivity is a disease that makes bullies out of beloved brothers." Brothers who stay are forced to change. They often become the same abuser they learn from. Those who refuse to change for the worse, often must depart. They cannot remain and be true to their heart and the Lord.
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I sure hope I never gave any reader the impression that everyone around me was a "bully" and I alone was a testimony of God's perfect love. Nothing could be further from the truth.
When the Lord directed me to post this little caveat, I had the cringing and painful reminder of several of the times where I had personally become the ugliest of bullies, and had to make a number of very painful confessions to others, especially my wife. My earliest days in the recovery were filled with an intolerance for anything that was not absolute for the Recovery, and that had a deleterious effect on those closest to me. How I wish I could undo much of the destruction in my past relationships.
It grieves me to know that the abuses inflicted by LC leaders upon other brothers was too often duplicated outside of the meeting hall, and especially in the homes. Wives and children suffered when brothers received more than they could bear, but the leaders would never admit this, since they experienced the same abuses in the presence of the "apostle of the age." This cycle of abuse is perhaps the worst part of the LC experience.