Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks! Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling block comes!   Matthew 18:7 (NRSV)

Stumbling Blocks The nature of stumbling blocks seems to be unique to the person. Some people have no problem overcoming things like learning the difference between society's expectations and God's will, and others go their whole lives unable to tell the things of man from the things of God. Some people have no difficulty learning to tell the difference between serving God out of love and serving out of a misguided desire to "earn" our salvation. Some people stumble over the most minute of things, such as a single word in the Bible. Some people stumble over more personal issues such as trust, understanding, and what it means to have faith. In other words, a stumbling block is an individual thing, although I've no doubt that there are many who will stumble over the same thing. I rather suspect that some things are such amazingly big stumbling blocks that people never get past them. Not only did they stumble, they stopped short and never continued on the road of spiritual growth (see Romans 9:32-33 for an example of what I mean). My personal stumbling blocks are my own, but I have a great deal in common with others who have survived abuse and other trauma, so I think when I write about my own stumbling blocks, I will likely touch on the same ones that many who share my sort of history have had to battle, and may still be battling. This is quite personal; I hope it will have more universal appeal to those reading. Trust has been a very big stumbling block of mine. I learned at a very early age that it was dangerous to trust. My parents could be loving and helpful one minute and then they were ignoring me or hitting me the next. They often said they'd do one thing, and ended up doing another or just never doing anything at all. I can't tell you how many times I was told, "We'll see," to get me to be quiet when I asked for something, but in fact, they had no intention of doing the thing I asked. They said "We'll see" as a way of blowing me off, or so it seemed and felt to me as a child. My parents were not completely terrible ogres. They were not without redeeming qualities. I believe they loved me in their way. I just learned early on not to trust them. When you are small and helpless and your parents ignore you, lie to you, treat you like you're completely stupid, and even neglect (read: abandon) you, you learn that they are not to be trusted. And you also learn that others are not to be trusted, since your parents form the earliest ideas about what the world is like. Another big stumbling block I have had is hope. Yes, some might thing that this is a universal sort of thing, you know, "Hope springs eternal in the human breast" and all that. However, when you've had your hopes disappointed repeatedly and continually during the most influential years of your life, you learn that to hope is to be hurt. Essentially, I learned, as many, many children of dysfunctional homes learn, how to take care of myself, to be as autonomous and independent as possible. I also "learned" that I was worthless, useless, helpless, that I had to "work" for approval (which I rarely got, and usually it had conditions), and that no matter what I did or how I did it, nothing would make any difference and my life would never improve. It might change, yes, but it never got any better (psychologists call this "learned helplessness"). As an adult, the things I learned as a child have held true, partly because my own interpretaion of events has been so jaded and partly because human nature hasn't changed since the beginning of time and, well, human beings do awful things to each other as a matter of course. Then, in order to walk the road to real spiritual growth, I suddenly find I have to trust God, to hope for God's guidance and the future he's supposed to give me. I have to just suddenly change my entire outlook on life, the universe, and everything? How was I to disregard decades of training which said that to hope is to be disappointed, that to trust is to be betrayed, that to allow someone else to provide for your needs is to have your needs go unmet? Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him! Matt 7:9-11 (NRSV) The child of a dysfunctional home reads this and may well think (as I have), "Actually, when I asked for things, I was told I was a pain in the neck, or that I was a glutton, or that we couldn't afford it, or I was just ignored or blown off entirely." Why should I expect that my Heavenly Father is different when I have never experienced anything else?" Of course I had read the passages of Scripture which promise wonderful things to those who believe in God. I did try to "consider the lilies of the field" (Matt 6:28-29), and have named an entire ministry for that particular verse and that concept (Shoshanna means "lily" in Hebrew). While I did intellectually understand it, the deep, hidden parts of my soul still questioned whether God really would take care of me, fullfull my needs at all. In fact, my life has shown me that God will always give me at least the bare minimum, and I've never gone hungry for long (I have had times that I lived on macaroni and cheese and peanut butter sandwiches, though). I wondered, for a long time, "Is this all I can expect from life, though? God gives the bare minimum (like my parents) and I have to figure out the rest?" And so I ended up chasing my own tail and going round and round about things. Is God trustworthy? Many would say yes. If I hope, how do I know that what I hope for isn't strictly against God's will for my life, and that I'll end up being disappointed? Oh, how much easier it would be if I just had a list of God's Wills and Won'ts, and I could look it up on the chart, and know for sure if God will or won't give me the things I so desperately long for. And what did I long for more than anything? First and foremost, I longed for God. I longed to truly know God, and not just read about God in the translations of millenia-old documents. I wanted complete healing. I knew it might take some time, and I was willing to put in the effort, but sometimes the task seemed so overwhelming that I felt I couldn't possibly go on with it. I wanted, as I have said, to thrive. That doesn't necessarily mean having a lot of money (although if that's God's will, I won't complain). I wanted to be as a tree planted by water (Jer 17:19, Psalm 1:3). I wanted to flourish. I wanted to lose my will and serve God's will, knowing that where I place my feet are where God wants them to be placed. I wanted to know I was always being guided (see Isa 30:21), and that I was not always "on my own" in the world. I could go on with my needs, my deepest desires, but many of them were and are between God and myself and not for public consumption. I suspect that what I've already written will strike a chord in more than one reader. But what to do in order to do to receive these things? Ask, the scriptures say in more than one place. Ask and you shall receive. And to ask means to have to hope and trust. Could I do it? I don't know if I ever managed to trust or hope when I was in pain, to be honest. I don't know if, in the midst of the darkness, I was able to really trust in the light. It seems, though, that I did have a tiny spark of real trust, of real hope, and of real faith, because God came through, even though at times I thought he never would. God has wrought astonishing things in my life. I have a completely new life now, and I am a new creation. Oh, yes, I have scars and lingering hurts, but they are minor and I can handle them well enough. Paul has his "thorn in the flesh" (2 Cor&nbps;12:7), his weaknesses, which he lived with and which kept him dependent on God. I have mine, as well. If that's the price for peace of mind and soul, I pay it gladly, or, as Paul said, I rejoice in it. My stumbling blocks have been terribly difficult to overcome. I didn't do it alone. I asked God for help, I prayed for assistance, and God graciously gave me help (although at the time, I don't think I realized that's what it was). The prayer I prayed was this: Father, please give me to strength and ability to overcome. You don't have to move the stumbling blocks, Lord, just show me a way around them. In the name of Jesus Christ I pray. Amen. Now, some years after I originally wrote this essay, now that my life has completely turned around and I have received many good gifts, tremendous healing, and have harvested faith, love, and hope, my prayer is this: Thank you, Father, for healing me and making it possible for me to be the person you want me to be. Thank you for rescuing me from myself and from my sins, and for opening my eyes to truth and to your true nature, as well as my own. Thank you for my life. Thank you for your blessings. Amen New Main Menu About Contact The Blessing of Job

Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of another.   Romans 14:13 (NRSV)
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