Read Part One Here.
I truly believe, with everything I have in me, that God allowed the conflict with our friend so that I would learn some lessons that cannot be heard, but must be experienced. This conflict started as a seed in our pastor friend's mind. It grew until the final harvest was a bitter battle. He accusing me of being "unbiblical" for even considering dreaming and I presenting this accusation to God asking if it was true.
I was told by a very wise man and good friend that I needed to pay attention. If our pastor friend was right, I needed to change things. I took it all in and it was a very serious matter to me. Never before had I been accused of being "unbiblical." And not just that. The list of accusations made was daunting to my tender soul.
Publically, I was accused by the of:
~Not being a Biblical wife (in other words, I did not submit to my husband and I did not have a "meek and quiet spirit")
~Casting frustration on "babes"
~Being over-zealous without knowledge
~Not having "patient endurance"
~I was told that I needed to spend time studying Biblical leadership in Hebrews 13:17
~that I needed to realize the roll of the husband and the roll of the wife
~that I should be learning in silence (that what was seen was "an awful lot of talking and not much learning")
~that I needed to spend time seeking God's will for my life
~that I needed to "be still"
~that I needed patience
~that I needed endurance
Behind my back, I was accused of:
~Frightening new believers
~Teaching unbiblical doctrine
~Being spiritually immature
~And something about these dreams. I was not ever approached directly by anyone who could fully explain what the problem seemed to be, so to this day I do not know.
Yet, I was not approached by my pastor friend about any of this.
I upset his wife one day, without meaning to. I apologized when I saw she was getting upset and I tried to explain myself. The apology fell on deaf ears. She must have told her husband because the next day he called a total of six other friends and urged them to recall anything I had done to anyone in the past year that seemed questionable because they needed to "take care of this for good." And he invited me over so they could "care over my soul." He told me it was non-adversarial. I told him that it didn't feel that way. He told me that I shouldn't base things on "feelings."
Now I'm not a Biblical scholar, but I am a student. I understood that if I upset someone, they were to come to me privately. Since this didn't happen, I didn't know what to do. Remember, I'd been away from God for twelve years and had just been walking with Him again for the past two-ish. I called on another pastor friend that we'd met on several occasions and also our associational director. I received excellent advice from both of them and I spent a good seven hours a day for a full five days, studying the Bible, praying and studying Biblcal "experts" in the areas of accusation.
Weeks before this avalanche, I was reading my Bible. I was in Exodus. 14:14. I couldn't continue reading until I underlined that verse. It says: "The LORD will fight for you; you must be quiet."
During this time, my husband accused me of being "consumed" with the situation and he was angry that I was spending so much time with my nose in books. He said it looked as if I was a lawyer preparing for trial.
That's what it felt like. He hit it dead-on. I was being accused and I had to defend myself. I was preparing my defense. I would be "on trial" Friday night.
The Exodus verse kept coming back to me and I kept questioning God, "How can I present my defense and remain quiet?"
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