Whose fault is it that you're suffering?

[Innocent Lamb]

According to my fundy ex-MIL, my suffering is my own fault. Something about not being a "good enough" wife, and deserving the horrific way her son treated me...

It's not just me. She blames other people's suffering on them, too. Except for her son- he's somehow exempt.

MY opinion is, we really can't know who or what is responsible for much of our suffering. What we can know is that God can work through it to bring about good, and to draw us closer to him. My most recent example is this: as painful as it was, my husband's affair and abandonment of me actually prevented me from having to make an impossible choice regarding my marriage. It likely prevented me from having children with that awful man. It was horribly painful, and I don't know WHO (God or Satan, or neither) caused it, but I know that God has been with me every second, and he has already used it to bring about some good in my life.

[GraceThruFaith]

It may not always be said as a 'broken relationship' but also 'loss of fellowship' and other similar phrases. Nevertheless, it's unscriptural. Of course, a Fundy might ask, "So a person who smokes and gets drunk all the time can be right with God?" or "So I can sin, not confess them, and still be right with God?" But they ask in a condescending manner as if you're a heretic.

[pastor's wife]

Beautifully said, Innocent Lamb.

[exIFB]

(05-16-2011 04:38 PM)GraceThruFaith Wrote:  It may not always be said as a 'broken relationship' but also 'loss of fellowship' and other similar phrases. Nevertheless, it's unscriptural. Of course, a Fundy might ask, "So a person who smokes and gets drunk all the time can be right with God?" or "So I can sin, not confess them, and still be right with God?" But they ask in a condescending manner as if you're a heretic.

Yeah, I know.. they ask as though I just want to sin it up, because they can't possibly imagine that the Grace of God is bigger than my sin, and that the Grace of God teaches us to deny ungodliness. I really think that they believe that if they don't have some kind of threat, then they will go and sin. It seems the greater power in their life is sin (actually, it is, because the strength of sin is the law, and they have a lot of law).