From Dawn
Difficult things are hard to go through, hard to share and hard to explain. Each victim is at different stages. There’s fear, we’re fragile, we hurt, we’re angry at times, we want hope. My name is Dawn Magsam from Wisconsin.
I’ve waited to write this. I’ve waited to share with many. Some do know my story. Others I’ve wanted to share for a long time but have waited for God’s timing. I feel my story, my healing through much pain and sorrow can and could help another. My hope is to give hope and show grace to others. That has been my wish everyday for myself and for all.
Statistics are high. There are many more victims that are not ready to share. Be gentle and kind. Possibly some are showing unkindness, looking the other way. Maybe they too are ones not yet ready to deal with their own pain.
My mother passed away 6 years ago. A few months later my box broke in my mind and my heart broke too. Things I had greatly suppressed I relived again. My loving immediate family and a few close ones have been so supportive, along with healing time and professional help that I still need to continue with today.
My mother married Bob Muller when I was 7. The abuse by Bob started before they were married and continued until I was 16. In a family setting with sexual abuse there is also emotional and narcissism abuse. I am from a lineage of 6 generations of sexual abuse. But it stops with me. I did not abuse my children, thankfully I have a loving supportive husband that is not an abuser. I knew enough to protect my children but still such confusion, twisted emotionally when keeping that relationship with the abuser until these last few years. So difficult to comprehend let alone explain.
Recently I have requested that Bob no longer attend any meetings. My request was listened to. Thank you from myself and others. It is very very traumatizing to be in meetings with an abuser or know they are there.
This was brought to his meeting and the workers 4 1/2 years ago. I do not bring this attention to them at this time. Today, we all need to do better and have grace together. We have so much to gain if we can do this. Yes we need to hurt, but when ready we need to choose to heal. I know everyone has a right to how they feel in their experience. Please know this is just how I feel in mine.
Because of where I’m at in my healing I feel strong. But also fragile and weak at times. Others’ experiences I can so relate to. As hard as they are to read we cry, we hurt and are angry, and we hopefully heal a little more. There is more I can share of my experience when it can be helpful. We can heal and we are worth it, but again it takes time. God is real and helps us too.
Hold space for each other. You don’t have to have words. Just hold space and let them know it when you can. I myself have not reached out to so many I think of during my healing time. But I think of you. I’m there for you in my heart.
When you are ready, reach out to a professional. When I was ready, the right ones were available for me. We each might heal in a different way, different format. Believe in that, you are worth it and I am too.
I now have grandchildren that are the future. Our children and their spouses are also a part of the future, so are we. I hope to be one of the strong, gracious examples they and others need. And I hope for many more around them. And all precious children. God can help us be that.
I believe you, I hold space for you. I hurt with you, and I hope for you.
All have my permission to share this post. I do not reply on Facebook at this time. I am starting to send this out to some. Please know if you did not get this from me directly you have been thought of.
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♥️♥️♥️ There is so much of value here. Much more than the words that are written. Thank you.
Thank you Dawn! This is BEAUTIFUL!
Dawn, I didn’t know. I am so sorry. Your strength, the gift of love you have given your children and spouse, your strength of spirit and developing fruits of the spirit in desert places, that you haven’t let the Devil win, and all you have been through…you are an inspiration to me and to many. We love you and will be praying for you.
Dawn, it hurts my heart to hear of the way you have been so heinously violated by someone who is supposed to love and protect you. Your resiliency and your ability to grow in grace from this lengthy and tragic experience is remarkable and inspirational. Thank you for having the courage to explain in this forum how deeply you’ve been wounded and your journey forward. You are a remarkable woman.
Dawn, I’m so sorry! I want to thank you for your courage and strength and even for helping and encouraging me. Glad for your loving and supportive immediate family. Thanks for your texts! love you
Dawn, the reason people just don’t get it or believe it is because they haven’t lived with him!! Glad we have each other! 💞
I am so sorry Dawn. I know those words don’t even do anything. I know first hand that no matter how much love and support you can give to victims, that it’s never enough to fill the gaping hole that someone stole from you. Yet here the ministers are, trying to keep these monsters in our fellowship. Because getting them to heaven is the most important.
Can we please shut this church down now? I’m not even saying that metaphorically. It’s a disgrace to keep calling it the truth and to keep believing it is the truth. I fully believed it was the truth when I was a kid up until I was a teen. Nobody was more faithful than I was. I was fully bought in. When I was a teen I would have not believed the victims. Mainly because it would interrupt MY thinking and MY beliefs. It would contradict my whole being. It was inconvenient. It would mess up MY life. It would mean this wasn’t the TRUTH.
This is the problem today. So many people just want to bury all of this again. Because to bury it would make it not visible and would force responsibility on us to think for ourselves. I would be heartbroken if this church stopped when I was a kid or a teenager. But I’m grown now. I see many adults far older than me that still haven’t grown up. They’re still trapped in the mindset that “you got to get to the next meeting…”
I always saw people who stopped coming to meetings and who left our fellowship as “bitter souls” who “lost out”. I can’t stand the weaponizing language and name calling against those who woke up and saw the corruption, lies and endless, bottomless pits of brownie points and meeting worshipping. These meetings have become SO WEIRD. Many of the fellowship meetings now are just talking about the meetings themselves, instead of Jesus. Or they talk about the fellowship. I’m so tired of it anymore. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. I loved “this way” for so long. Loved all of the people for so long. But when you see what our fellowship does in this time of child abuse and mental abuse, worker abuse…it says it all. This way isn’t of God. It’s of man. It always has been. It doesn’t stem from the days of Christ. We’re an offshoot of the Catholic Church. All we do anymore is “lick the cup” and not “drink from the cup”. We worship the church and not Jesus. We never talk about Jesus outside of meetings. We just talk about meetings outside of meetings. Life has become a little slippery for me since waking up. I feel like I don’t have a solid grip on life anymore. It’s not because I don’t have meetings. It’s because I’m struggling with the reality of being bred in captive and being released into the wild. If you wonder why people who are “bitter” are in fact bitter it’s because they haven’t been listened to. They’ve been treated as outcasts. Except they are the right ones.
Thank you, @Puritan. Rest assured, there are hundreds of ‘formers’ out there who would sign this post – and not change a word. Well done.
Puritan: You have put Into words so vividly; the brutal abuse we and so many have faced. AND YES; it is a brutal deep black hole. IT was NOT just our religion!: IT was our our complete life and that of our family!
BUT what really tears-us-up; after your recognizing “this is NOT the Way of God: is your recognizing that LIFE has become a little slippery for me since waking up. That sends deep chills down our spine. We have been in that hole. It has taken years; BUT God in his mercy drove us to HIS WORD – The Holy Bible; OUR Holy Bible! AS we fought to desperately know God’s mind and will; slowly we began to understand. We were so weary, it was hard to focus. But God in his mercy sent us again and again to Paul’s Epistle to the saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: And this is what Paul told them: EPH.1:2 Grace be to you, and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. WOW! it says THE Lord Jesus Christ. Whose doctrine is that? We had no answer, BUT we latched onto :3 who hath blessed us with ALL “spiritual blessings in heavenly places” AND :4 that we should be holy and without blame before him in love11
Then :7 Answered HOW CAN THIS BE? In whom we have “redemption” through HIS BLOOD: = the forgiveness of sins,
according to the “riches of His grace!”??!!
How is this possible??
Then you read Ephesians 1:12-:13. AND 2:4 – :9
We began to feel all was not LOST “AS this is written in the VERY Book that is supposed to be our God’s very word to us”. BUT IT WAS Foreign to us.
It took us a good while to venture out of this letter of Paul to Ephesus.
You read Ephesians 2:4-:9. WAS it really possible our failure to be GOOD-ENOUGH was NOT what it was all about??
:8 For by “grace are ye saved through faith; AND that NOT of yourself”
:it is the “gift of God””.
Puritan: can you imagine?; Yes, I think You can. THIS IS God’s WORD!
AND you know what was happening? That gapping hole was still there, but it was not controlling our every thought and action.
Chapter 3: was beyond our comprehension at that time; but now we can joy THAT the very “Risen Christ Jesus” sitting on the right hand of God :1- :4 gave this very HOPE to Paul to dispense. You just have to read all of this letter to those saints at Ephesus.
It took us along time to go back to the 4 Gospels — with so many memories.
Now we have learned as we read those that Jesus was trying to bring Israel back to God. Please, Puritan bathe your heart, mind and soul with the hope and grace of God as he NOW reaches out to us and all Men with the finished WORK of “redemption of His Son” – the “Risen Lord Jesus Christ”.
Even Peter the lead apostle of the 12: points to Paul and the wisdom given unto him in 2 Peter 3:15 and :16. Puritan, God bless your weary soul and help you to rejoice in His promise of the Dispensation of the grace of God. Eph 3:2. Wings gives us Puritans E-mail if they would want.
Wings: What is wrong with my Comment? Wings could you give to me Puritan’s E-mail. This soul is hurting and God has given such hope and comfort. Thank you.
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