Nightmare From the Past

[jjpreborn]

It was just a few years ago and I was driving my wife back to her home to once again visit her relatives and to revisit the scenes of her youth. Many miles down the road we stopped to revisit a nice little restaurant where we planned to stop for lunch, but I could not get over in the correct lane in time to make the left turn I needed to pull into it. So instead, I made a right turn into a complex of buildings and I turned around in the parking lot there so that I could drive out again and get to the eating place.

As I turned around I heard my wife say "Oh no, this is that awful place that I have had those nightmares about for as long as I can remember." She continued talking and I looked to see if she was joking, but she was very agitated and worried. The complex appeared to be abandoned and so I waited and she told me the short version of the story:

She had been brought there when she was 3 or 4 years old, and had waited with one grown up while the others went inside to visit her great-aunt C. who was housed at the place and in the 1950s it had been a home for the insane. It was before todays more understanding view of the mentally ill, and she had heard the people inside wailing and screaming. It caused her to dream the awful nightmares for decades.

I wondered what the real story was behind it all, and that night I had a dream about it all. I was told simply
that C. had not been insane at all, but had been railroaded into the house of horrors by her husband, and that she had died much later there. And that C. would be seen one day in Heaven and her vindication before all would be complete. Also it would be seen by all just who had been responsible for all of this. That was about all.

The next day I told my wife about the dream and she could not remember the details but she talked to her older Aunt about it. I did not know what had happened other than what was in the dream, but the Aunt told her that their side of the family had always doubted that C. had been insane at all.

My wife now says she feels better about Aunt C. and what she heard at that location so many years ago.
I do not feel that it had been any accident that we stopped in there.

With the blessed Lord, the truth will always come out, and His elect will be vindicated, even if after death.
Blessed be the name of the Lord and of our Christ.

[Meg]

With the blessed Lord, the truth will always come out, and His elect will be vindicated, even if after death.
Blessed be the name of the Lord and of our Christ.

Amen and Amen and Amen again. Thank you for sharing this testimony. Back in the days you are referring to, it was common for a husband to dump an unwanted wife by having her committed to an insane asylum. That was only one of the horrific abuses they perpetuated in those things. Jesus Christ is Holier than any of us really comprehends, I do know that. I sincerely hope your wife is finally at peace...

[jjpreborn]

Thanks to Meg for that very, very helpful reply!!!

My wife does seem to feel better about that experience now. How could someone send
their long time mate to such a place worse than death? Would we do that to our worst ememy?
May God forbid it!

When I had my illness eight years ago, the doctor told my family that I would die or be brain dead, but my
wife would not have me "unplugged" to die. Instead she prayed for me and asked whole churches to pray for me, and in time I completely recovered. I would not trade her for the richest most beautiful movie starlet in Hollywood or anywhere. Anyone who sent their spouse to such a place, might find themselves in a similar situation sometime and there would be no loving spouse to help them.

[Meg]

Thanks to Meg for that very, very helpful reply!!!

My wife does seem to feel better about that experience now. How could someone send
their long time mate to such a place worse than death? Would we do that to our worst ememy?
May God forbid it!

When I had my illness eight years ago, the doctor told my family that I would die or be brain dead, but my
wife would not have me "unplugged" to die. Instead she prayed for me and asked whole churches to pray for me, and in time I completely recovered. I would not trade her for the richest most beautiful movie starlet in Hollywood or anywhere. Anyone who sent their spouse to such a place, might find themselves in a similar situation sometime and there would be no loving spouse to help them.

For one thing, JJ, I seriously doubt that ordinary people had the slightest idea how appalling conditions were in those places. The people in charge who are responsible, and handling their responsibilities so poorly never take responsibility for their actions. Far from it, they go to great lengths to justify themselves. It was exactly because of the crude abuses, particularly in the field of mental health on all levels, that we have the determined quality of care we do know. The "learning curve", if you will, was crude and brutal.

I was born in 1961. I'm severely nearsighted, and as I was 4 when my Mom figured that out, it would have been 1965 when I saw the eye doctor for the first time. I actually have the report the doctor gave my parents. Here' I'll type out the exact words:

(This was addressed to my Dad), I am sorry to have to report that "Meg" has a more than small amount of nearsightedness, and will have to wear glasses pretty much [all] of the time. She should be re-refracted every six months until her visual acuity comes up nearer to normal. Right now, even with my present prescription,she has only 20/70. This should improve with time to a full normal because there seems to be no ocular pathology.

The first time I read that, I was just appalled! What a horrible and negative way to tell someone their kid needs glasses!! And where this doctor got the idea that severe nearsightedness "improves with time to a full normal" is a real mystery to me! At this time, I'm -9 in one eye and -7 in the other, so I'm 9/7 when normal is 20/20. To me, especially when i first saw that letter, I felt like the tone of that report was more like telling a father his kid had leukemia or something. But thats how they were in those days. They completely destroyed a lot of people's lives before they were willing to admit that they were wrong. Most medicine went through a really crude phase, and it was only after they saw the full extent of the damage, that they were willing to see what they were actually causing genuine harm.

That, I honestly believe, is why the Lord not only permits His servants to suffer, I think He sees suffering as necessary. People who aren't exposed to suffering have no compassion, because they have no comprehension of what helpless is. I really see that in the people I have known around my community for several years. The people I know who have had serious problems are a lot more caring than the people I know who've enjoyed comfortable successful careers and marriages.

How does someone just dump a spouse like that? Honestly, I never understood that. I am adopted; my birth mother dumped me when I was five months old. How she could give birth to a child, keep her for five months, dump her with strangers (even if they were a responsible adoption agency), and manage to forget somehow, is completely beyond me. all I have left is the fact that it was one huge relief to finally be certain that God is totally not like that. Thats the best I can do... That is why your testimony about how the Lord has promised to make everything right, that your wife's Aunt would be vindicated in Heaven means so much to me.

Let us seek then to be more like the Lord and less like those crude and brutal people who destroyed so many innocent lives back in those days...

[jjpreborn]

Yes, I think that pain does make us more understanding of others in pain. Especially large doses of pain.
Otherwise, how would we know?

Those of us who follow truly the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ do find complete forgiveness, and complete vindication and complete triumph in Him. Amen. But you already know this.

[mattfivefour]

But the beauty of our suffering is that through it Christ can touch others. (2 Corinthians 1:4) It also builds character in us (James 1:2-4) and patience (Romans 5:3-5). Through it God indeed shapes us and brings us to perfection (maturity) as He did Jesus Christ. (Hebrews 5:7-10

[jjpreborn]

Amen. Suffering makes us what He wants us to be.

When I had my illness, and I collapsed to the floor...I thought I was dying and I was close to being right, but there was no pain. There was no time to cry or pray or hurt. Others prayed for me, and the pain came later and did not consist of horrific hurting, but it was a different kind of pain. The pain of not being able to do the things I once did, and at first this included walking and almost everything else! The pain of not knowing if you would ever be allowed to leave the hospital and return home. The pain of not being able to talk and interact with people as I once had.

But thanks be to Jesus Christ for healing me, in time fully restoring my life to me! An impossible dream!
I wanted to pray for others who were very ill and dying and I prayed and asked for that ability and for some years I prayed for others of Christian faith, and many were healed by the Lord.

Thank you Lord for all you did for them and for me, unworthy though we are. Amen.

[mattfivefour]

As you say "many" were healed. But not all. We need to be careful in claiming healings or anything else that while it may be in God's economy for His children, what is more important in His mind is that He accomplish His purposes in our lives. And suffering—be it physical, emotional, or spiritual—is the means by which His will is often accomplished. Therefore we cannot—as do the prosperity and hyper-faith people do—teach and claim that healing and financial comfort WILL take place in everybody's life and that if it does not then there is something wrong with their faith. That is just another form of Satanic bondage.

The ONE assurance—beyond salvation and eternal life—that a Christian has is that God is in control, that He is good, that He loves us, and that He purposes only eternal good for us. If we believe that—in other words if we merely have faith in God—then that faith carries us through the afflictions of this earth.

Why God allows certain people to experience so much pain, I do not know. but clearly He believes them to be strong enough to do so ... and He must have a very special purpose in mind. And once we realize that we no longer live for our own purposes and pleasures but only for those of God, then we can indeed walk in joy in the midst of the trials.

[jjpreborn]

Yes, not everyone was healed, and when we follow Jesus Christ it does not mean that we will become wealthy and that we will be healed of our every illness. If Christ had to be crucified on a cross for God's will to be done, then it follows that we, his humble servants, may have to go through persecution sometimes as bad as that, or worse. And we may be called to be as poor as church mice!

What I learned is that God is stronger than the enemy and one day He will be totally victorious. Jesus Christ is our Heavenly King, and if we badly need help then we can ask for it, and if we have a small amount of faith and it is in God's will then we will be helped. The forces of the enemy can't stop it.

[Meg]

Why God allows certain people to experience so much pain, I do not know. but clearly He believes them to be strong enough to do so ... and He must have a very special purpose in mind. And once we realize that we no longer live for our own purposes and pleasures but only for those of God, then we can indeed walk in joy in the midst of the trials.

AMEN Adrian!!

[WakeUp]

It's true that in order to have true, heartfelt compassion you first must understand pain. Unfortunately, the pain sometimes creates an opposite reaction in people. Rather than helping them to understand suffering of others, they use it to justify revenge on the world as a whole.

[Elijah's Mantle]

tremendous truth posted here you all
Ive seen nightmares while fully awake
some thing's are to graphic to speak of
and the horror of silence can sometimes be the
bigger dark night
Just have to have Faith a higher power stays with me
through the dark night