What happens when faith is the source of both your deepest pain and your profound healing? Our latest episode features Elaine Menges, who courageously recounts her journey through the harrowing landscape of religious trauma. Elaine’s battle with heroin addiction and bulimia, triggered by betrayal from a trusted youth pastor, highlights the critical need for professional intervention and community support. As we navigate her story, we uncover the transformative power of spiritual healing and the pivotal role it played in her recovery. Elaine’s return to faith is a beacon of hope for anyone grappling with the shadows of religious trauma, underscoring the importance of taking steps towards healing while rediscovering personal beliefs.
Faith doesn’t just guide us through serene moments; it steers us through life’s fiercest storms. Through Elaine’s experiences and my own struggles with divorce and financial uncertainty, we explore how maintaining a connection with the divine can illuminate our darkest paths. This episode is a testament to the mysterious ways in which divine guidance manifests, often leading us to unexpected places of understanding and growth. We hope to inspire listeners to remain open to divine wisdom and timing, even when life’s trajectory seems uncertain, reminding everyone that support and guidance are ever-present, ready to light the way through life’s most challenging moments.
Transcript:
Speaker 1:
If you’ve ever struggled with fear, doubt or worry and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, sylvia Worsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, sylvia Worsham.
Speaker 2:
Hey, lightbringers, it’s Sylvia Worsham. Welcome to Released Out Revealed Purpose. In this episode we’re going to be talking about the baby steps we take to start having a better relationship with Christ, especially after major religion trauma, as was talked about by Elaine Menges, my guest this week on Released Out Reveal Purpose, whose interview aired on Tuesday of this week, and in it Elaine talks about how she was groomed by her youth pastor and just having that immense betrayal. And even though she went to her parents and her parents went to the church and talked to the pastor, the pastor didn’t believe her because the youth pastor had basically said that she seduced him. We know how that story goes. The good news was that her parents didn’t believe her. They wanted to go to the police. She said no, and the problem with that was Elaine then pushed her feelings down.
Speaker 2:
What happens when this occurs and you’re very young and you don’t want to talk about it is that in those years your mind’s still not fully developed and your conscious ability hasn’t been fully developed to know how to handle these situations. So your subconscious mind is truly in control and your feelings are in control and without, without that filter to stop all of this programming from coming in. It does filter in and it does create belief systems that unfortunately become your truths, and it’s the programming that follows you throughout life until you work through it and work through your fear, pain, to get to the side of joy. So the very first thing that is the recommendation here is to get the help that you need. Get the help through a therapist, because this is major religion trauma. This is not something that you’re going to get over quite quickly and it can cause some later effects, which is what happened with Elaine. She ended up with an addiction to heroin. She also ended up with bulimia, and all of these things are the mind’s way of avoiding the pain. We tend to numb our pain by sometimes hurting ourselves more, and that’s what ended up happening with Elaine. So get the help that you need and, more importantly, parents. If you’re listening to this and you have a child who has been groomed by a youth pastor, that person needs to be thrown in jail. They don’t need to be out there in front of our children with the potential of devastating effects. We’ve known how suicide can also be an effect of this. Kids feel so ashamed and they blame themselves for something that was not their fault. So therapy and going to the local authorities is really the next steps In terms of our faith, steps In terms of our faith.
Speaker 2:
What I loved about Elaine’s interview was that, even though she went through those many years of pain and by the grace of God she’s still here she did feel a pull to step into a church early on in her life. That stopped that addiction dead in its tracks. Now it didn’t go from one day to the next. She didn’t stop taking heroin, but it did start to move her through that pain spiritually, and God was one that wanted to show her who she was, who she was created to be. So how to start moving and taking those baby steps is really one. Get the help that you need to move through that pain, especially then through major religion trauma.
Speaker 2:
Second is to still turn to God in the darkest of chapters. He’s someone that has never abandoned us. We’re the ones that, unfortunately, when things like these happen, we tend to blame him for the imperfections of humanity. Now think about what I just said there. We’re blaming him for a person’s mistake. We’re not divine. He is. He never leaves us. We leave him, like Elaine left him, him right and she was pulled back into a church. So he was always searching for her. He was always searching for her and he came back for her and said your story doesn’t end there. I have more for you. And we discussed a lot about God’s abundance and his idea of abundance. Versus our idea of abundance, his idea is immense.
Speaker 2:
I shared my story of how he really came through for me and it was in the baby steps of just seeking him first, just like I’m talking to you right now, like with a good friends and listeners have released out your purpose. That’s the same way you can start talking to him. You don’t need to go to church, you don’t need to go through a pastor, you don’t need to go to a priest. In the comfort of your home, you can start talking to him. You can start asking him the questions. God, please give me the wisdom. Please remove these feelings from me. Please let me see my next steps.
Speaker 2:
When you ask him for help, he does come through for you, like he did with Elaine. There were so many instances of when she discussed in the interview, of how she said just make it very clear for me. And then he does, and sometimes it’s in the form of like payments. So she asked him for help financial help and that very same day for the exact amount that she asked for. He gave her and then some. And I discussed the times when I was facing divorce and, having just been promoted with my company and to raise my four-year-old son through it all, I didn’t know how I was going to do it and I prayed to him and I said I need your help, financial help. I want to be able to stay in the house that we’re in so that there’s less change for my boy.
Speaker 2:
Everything is happening in God’s timing and it doesn’t get revealed till later, but in some cases it gets revealed the very day you pray for it. So just ask him for help and keep asking him for help and realize that sometimes it’s in his timing and you got to wait. I love how my pastor talks about it he’s the 1159 God. He’s at the last minute. You get your answer sometimes because he has to set everything in motion for you to get and receive what he wants you to get and receive what he wants you to receive, and that’s his abundance and it goes above and beyond what we have in store for ourselves and he is the source of all that.
Speaker 2:
So, baby steps, get the help that you need. Start talking to him and, more importantly, don’t just listen to the prompting but actually act on it. The action steps are what are going to lead you out of that fear and into your joy, where he is waiting patiently for you. You know he’s waiting to show you what he has in store for you. Show you what he has in store for you, and that is something that’s truly magical to go through and to experience with him. Because the more experiences you have with him, the more you start moving from that belief space into the trust space, because the action piece like when he comes through for you, you know you can trust him. He has been there for you every time you prayed and things went in your favor, and not just in your favor, but significantly in your favor. He’s earning that trust little by little.
Speaker 2:
Your role is just to ask him for help, listen for the promptings, and we know that promptings come in the form of messengers. We know it comes in the form of direct prayers, come like the money shows up. Suddenly you get a sale for the exact amount, like happened with Elaine she was going for the pageant stuff now because she is the reigning Mrs Austin, 2024, united States of America, and she was talking about these instances and I was talking about promotions and just how am I going to stay in this house and how am I going to support the people that work for me? And it was later revealed to me right. So when you hear the promptings, it’s an act on it and keep acting on them and keep seeking him in the darkest of chapters, because he’s the one that can see what’s coming down your path. He’s the only one that can see that.
Speaker 2:
And the more important thing is, he is equipping you in those years for what’s coming later. So right now, even in your darkest of chapters, realize this. He has already equipped you. The things that you’ve gone through in your life haven’t been in vain. He has used every single aspect of it to equip you for what you are now facing. So remember that piece, remember the lessons learned and now get those lessons and think of the ways you’re going to apply those lessons today that you wish you had learned back then, because you know that’s why we go through those rough times and why God allows bad things to happen to good people it’s because he knows what’s coming. He knows how we’re designed, he knows our purpose, he knows the decisions because he’s in our thoughts and our heart and he’s always prompting us.
Speaker 2:
But sometimes we don’t hear him. And we don’t hear him because our feelings are telling us to avoid pain at all costs. Our feelings are telling us to doubt ourselves. Our feelings are guiding us in a very bad way because it’s guiding us based on belief systems that were created long ago that we don’t know about because they are so stuffed down there in our subconscious mind we don’t. We’re not aware of them. And until you become aware like where you have those aha moments and those light bulb moments, then your conscious mind can then come and make different choices for you, because that’s its ability. But when you’re a 13-year-old kid who’s just been groomed by a youth pastor, you’re going to rely on people that have come before you, like your parents. Reflect today on what you think God has equipped you for. Think of the challenges you’re facing today, your circumstances today, and think of what you’ve already learned through your experiences and your circumstances in past times, and remember he is the light. He will lead you to your light.
Speaker 2:
At elaine’s life now, my gosh. She went from being groomed to heroin addiction, bulimia, you know. And now she’s the reigning united states of america, mrs austin 2024. She has a thriving six-figure vintage furniture business. I mean seven kids, mom to seven kids, I mean she’s thriving. And she’s thriving because she had Jesus in her life. She had someone that was guiding her out of that darkness into her light, and he guided me out as well, out of the darkest chapters of my life, and he has fully equipped me for what I’m facing right now.
Speaker 2:
I’ve learned what I needed to learn. Now I need to apply those lessons. So I need you to think what I learned and how do I plan to apply those lessons with action, because that’s the way we get to where we’re going, and to step fully into either seasonal purposes in our life or our divine purpose, as Elaine and I have fully stepped into. I’m Sylvia Warsh and thank you so much for tuning in to. You know those baby steps we need to take out of our religion, trauma and into our life. Have a wonderful week, stay safe, love y’all. Bye now.
Speaker 1:
So that’s it for today’s episode of Release Doubt Reveal Purpose. Head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on iTunes will win a chance in a grand prize drawing to win a $25,000 private VIP day with Sylvia Worsham herself. Be sure to head on over to ReleasedOutRevealPurposePodcastcom and pick up a free copy of Sylvia’s gift and join us on the next episode.