Bitter Roots and Bitter Herbs  — by Ruth Barron

7 thoughts on “Bitter Roots and Bitter Herbs  — by Ruth Barron”

1. typically try to weed out the bitterness by attacking and shaming the leaves —

   Can attest to this. I even tried to show evidence (a recording of how I was treated) to prove (“substantiate”) the hidden abuse. The Elders said it’s a privacy infringement and they wouldn’t listen or help me.

   The man who I was married to claimed to be a believer.

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2. Barb,

   You wrote (in your post):

   Churches typically try to weed out the bitterness by attacking and shaming the leaves — the emotional responses of the victims. But churches should be pulling out the roots — the evil abusers who hide in the church.

   And Ruth Barron wrote (in her post:

   Unfortunately, that first semester of my 7th-grade year, I was one of a few girls who was assigned first-period PE, which had only a boys’ class. There was one significant difference between the girls’ and boys’ PE classes. The girls’ class included gymnastics, with the rope climb; the boys’ class included wrestling, without the rope climb….Being assigned a boys’ PE class may seem like a small issue, but….

   The people who thought it was a good idea to put a girl — or any number of girls, for that matter — into a PE class with boys that included wrestling ought to be fired. If one has signed up specifically for a wrestling class, such as those that might be found in intramurals or some other extra-curricular class, that’s one thing….and even those would need to be monitored closely. But for a girl of that age….and to have no choice?

   Sarcasm on:

   What wold the “Purity Culture” people (and I’m not just meaning the church) say? That the girl “tempted the boys”?

   Sarcasm off.

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   1. Adding on to my comment (27th September 2024)….

      After I’d read the linked post — Bitter Roots and Bitter Herbs, by Ruth Barron — on the CBE International website, I followed a link at the end of that post. That link was broken….it led to a post that was (and likely still is 😊) on the Christianity Today website. I found a copy of the Christianity Today article — titled A Time for Lament: Grieving, lamenting, feeling in the Internet Archive. The article — a post, really — is by Beth Barrett, dated June 29, 2021. You can find a link here [Internet Archive link].

      From the post A Time for Lament: Grieving, lamenting, feeling:

      This led me to a crisis. I had been taught and my friends had reinforced the belief that it was worse to feel “negative” emotions than it was to abuse another person. Abuse could be forgiven. We can and should extend grace to the abuser. God can be and still is near the abuser. However, being discouraged, angry, bitter, etc. in response to abuse could not be forgiven because that means the abuse victim is unforgiving. We cannot and should not extend grace to the abuse victim who does not demonstrate forgiveness in the form of joy and peace and silence about the abuse, and because the victim is not “drawing near to God” by exhibiting “godly emotions,’ we must assure her that God cannot be near to her. We do not need to warn abusers of the danger to their eternal souls, but we do need to warn the victim of that threat. In other words, it is a greater sin to bleed when someone knifes you than it is to knife someone. That seemed to me to be incredibly unfair. Surely that could not be what God teaches!

      Beth Barrett’s post is well worth reading….

      One of the things I appreciated was Beth Barrett mentioning that other people can be considered a redeemer (note the lowercase letter “r” at the beginning of the word “redeemer”)….and it’s even biblical. One example she mentions (when writing about Naomi), is the term “kinsmen-redeemer”.

      I’ve been criticized for calling people a (note the lowercase letter “s”) saviour. Yet how many other people could — and do — say the same thing? How many people say “so-and-so person saved the day”?

      No offence to anyone intended 😊 ….I’m Christian….I was baptized and saved at 6 months old (omitting details for my safety and protection)….and yet I STILL get expletive-deleted angry when Christians think they have a corner on the market on the words: “redeem”, “redeemed”, “saviour”, “saved”, etc.

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      1. Off topic….and pardon me, Barb, for hijacking your post — I didn’t know where else to write my comment. And piggy-backing on my comment of 29th September 2024….

         I wrote (quoted):

         A Time for Lament: Grieving, lamenting, feeling

         My abusive mother died about 4 days ago. I feel no grief….no need for lamenting. I only feel indifference.

         I’ve felt indifferent to my mother since I was child, ever since I finally realized there was no one to support me — something my mother did was “the final straw” (omitting details for my safety and protection).

         No matter that my father was a paedophile, a “man” who violated me the day I was born….my mother’s emotional and spiritual abuse was far more damaging.

         Finally….finally….now that my mother is dead, I can heal a part of me that I couldn’t heal until now. And this part of me that needed (still needs some) healing is NOT a result of dissociation. 😊 And all I need is a bit more time to allow this part of me that needs healing to heal on it’s own….all I need to do is practice self-care….something I’ve been doing for years. 😊

         I’ve called whatever this is that’s been healing for the last little while “weirdness”….sadness, “fatigue”, and “depression”. The sadness has been actual sadness. The “fatigue” (in quotes) is a mostly-non-physical fatigue, and includes occasional bouts of mental fatigue (not burnout). The “depression” really isn’t depression, and is often accompanied by a “spiritual chill”….

         With any depression or dysthymia I’ve had in the past, I’ve known it’s best (self-care) — for me — to push through it. With this “depression”, the best thing for me to do (self-care) is NOT to push though it. 😊 The sadness….well….like the “fatigue” and the “depression”….I just let them flow through….they don’t last very long.

         So now both of my parents are dead. And I’m glad. 😊 I didn’t wish them ill….I’m just glad that they’re absolutely “No Contact”. 😊

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      2. Thank you for sharing this, Finding Answers. I often don’t know what to write in response to your comments, and this is one such time. But I’m really glad that, finally, now your mother is dead, you can heal a part of you that you couldn’t heal until now.

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      3. Thanks, Finding Answers, for sharing Beth Barrett’s article A Time for Lament: Grieving, lamenting, feeling¹.

         The part that I identified most with in the article was:

         I saw myself in that moment as a lamb trapped in brambles who had to find away to rip myself out of the thorns my abuser had pushed me into.

         ¹ [Archive link]

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      4. Hi Barb,

         You wrote (17th October 2024) that the point you identified most with in Beth Barrett’s post, A Time for Lament: Grieving, lamenting, feeling, is:

         I saw myself in that moment as a lamb trapped in brambles who had to find away to rip myself out of the thorns my abuser had pushed me into.

         Although I’ve read (and thought about) your comment many times, Barb, I still don’t have the words to reply. 😊 The sentence you quoted is so expressive….

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