My q's

[Unregistered]

Can someone please tell me how god views a victim of rape? Why did the rape happen? Why is there suffering? How come god heals some people(physically and emotionally) and not others? What happens to someone who committs suicide? I've got loadz of questions, these are some, I'll post some more at somepoint, please can someone answer these, i need to know.

[grandpa]

:angel: :wah: My dearest friend: Grandpa Here: Your questions are painful and I just know that many people would shy away from trying to give good answers. The point is that there are not any "good" answers because the questions are about pitiable things happening to innocent people--Mainly women who are unable to fight back. I will try to shed a bit of light.
Q-1: Our Lord feels for rape victims like he feels for all other victims of assault or any other hurt. Jesus hurt badly for us when he was murdered on the cross. He Knows.
Q-2 & 3: My precious child, People have been asking these questions since the beginning of recorded time. "Why do bad things happen to good people". In the beginning of the bible-We see the fall of man and woman. The devil from that time on has had the run of this world. In addition--All people are what we call "Free Moral Agents". All can do pretty much what they want too. This is pointed out by the huge prison population.
This type of world wide behavior will continue until Jesus comes back to get the Church-The Ekklesia-The born again Christians. He will take all of us to himself and there will be total healing for the "saved". This is a total book by itself.
Q-4: Why does God heal some and not some. Books could be written on this also. My Child I just have to say 'I do not know'.

Q. on Suicide: I am "not" one of these Christians that thinks that all who take their own lives, automatically go to hell. I just do not believe it for some reasons. First: Let me say that NO one should even think about ending it all. When Life is gone "baby" it is over forever. Many young people simply do not realize the "Finality" of death. When it is over--It is over forever in this life. No backing up. Now: I believe that if a person is hurting so bad that they have lost all rational thought--Totally deranged and they end it all. God in his Agape Love will look upon this person with his justice--Not ours. Even so there will be loss, concluding loss. My fervent request to all who read this is "DO NOT" end it all. There is total truth to the old saying that "Where there is life, there is hope". No life--No hope.
My Child, Do you have a loving Church family?? I sure hope so. If You do not-Hunt one. I Sure this helps as some of your questions are ones that have been bothering people for centuries. May the Lord bless you with Holy Spirit Wisdom. Agape. Grandpa.:)

P.S. Keep us posted on how you are. We care. Grandpa.:biggrin:

[Ann]

Hello and welcome to ilj.
God sees a victim of rape as as a precious child of His in need of love and healing. He reaches out in compassion and love to them. Almost exactly a year ago a friend of mine was raped. She is not all better yet but she is beginning to be able to function again. At first she and we wondered if she ever would. She said she felt dirty all the time and as though she had somehow done something wrong even though she was the victim. She almost lived in the shower. One night when she was sitting on the shower floor with ice cold water pouring over her because she had long since run out of both hot water and the strength to stand and crying why Lord why she felt God spoke to her heart and said the soap and water won’t do what you need. The scrub brush and scouring pad can’t do it. Will you let me make you clean from this? He understood that she felt totally defiled and couldn’t stand herself because of what was done to her. God met her at the point of her need. He didn’t say you should be able to just walk away from this. He didn’t say if you just hadn’t gone there. He simply loved her and helped her. A few days later she heard about a Christian counselor who specializes in helping rape victims to recover and started to go there. That has really helped her. She still needs a lot of healing but she is much better than she was. What I have seen in this is not just that God cares but that He understands and He provides what’s needed. Exactly what is needed. We (friends and family) could stay with her. We could listen. We could try to persuade her to come out of the shower and eat. We could hide the scrub brush when she got raw and bleeding from trying to scrub his touch away. We could tell her that God loves her and that we cared and hurt for her but we couldn’t make her feel clean enough to want to come out of the shower. We could fix her favorite foods and make pretty little plates with just small portions but we couldn’t make her feel like eating or keep her from throwing it all up. We could stay with her but we couldn’t take the fear away. God could and did.

I can’t tell you why her rape happened except the most basic circumstances of where and how access was gained and I certainly can’t answer that for one I don’t know anything about. Except to tell you what you basically already know. Rape is less about sex than it is about power, about one person using force to hurt another, about cruelty. Rape is sin and all sin comes from the devil. Sin happens when people choose the devil’s way not God’s way. We know that sin entered into the world when Adam chose to listen to the serpent and to disobey God. He thought his idea was better than God’s and did not believe God knew and wanted what was best for him. Even with Adam’s own son’s murder came in. Cain murdered Able and the human race went down hill from there.

Suffering too come from the fallen state of humans. People do bad things to one another. Sickness and injury occur. Why some are healed and other’s aren’t is something I am praying for much more understanding about. We know that Jesus died for our sin and that when we trust in Him and ask Him to be our own Savior he comes into our lives and takes away our sin. We know too that in salvation there is healing and deliverance. The stripes Jesus allowed himself to be beaten with paid the price for healing just as surely as his death on the cross for us did for our salvation. Healing is real and I believe He means for us all to have it. But for some people in some cases the healing does not seem to manifest or takes a long time. I know that sometimes choices we make affect our ability to receive healing. If I choose to eat something that I know upsets my stomach I may make myself sick. If I go through the day and forget to drink much of anything I am abusing my body and may hear a protest from my kidneys and get a nasty headache. If I stress out I lower my resistance to infections, if I allow myself to be bitter and resentful I am inviting pain. Sometimes there are spiritual roots or inheritances that need to be broken. The book Choose Life by Pastor Menzel of Fire Mountain Ministries http://www.forministry.com/USGAINDPTFMMFM has a lot of good information and insight on these areas.

What happens to someone who commits suicide is not 100% known. Many teach that because suicide is murder which is a sin and since there can be no repentance if one is dead anyone who kills themself will go to hell. I personally believe as Grandpa does that there may be times the compassion and understanding of God overrides that if the person is so ill or so troubled they do not know right from wrong or so in the grip of the enemy that they are destroyed. But I would not want to bet my eternal life that I am right about that. Suicide is rebellion against God’s sovereignty in deciding when our life should be over. It can be a very hard fight against the spirits that say destroy yourself. I fought suicide for years so I do understand how hard even though each person’s battle is different. It was by God’s grace and not my strength that I survived and I can tell you that His grace is real and strong enough to get you through.

We talked about rape and feelings about the person who committed the rape a few weeks ago. You might find it helpful to look at those posts too. This link will take you to them. http://www.iljboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4819

There are a lot of hard things we don’t understand in life. Sometimes the best thing we can do is just lean on God, burry our head in His shoulder if we can or make a conscious decision to believe that He is on our side ask His help to handle what is so far beyond what we can deal with.

Please do post again and let us know how you are doing and share your other questions.