This person was my first introduction to "religious evil," the kind that
didn't recognize the Beloved Son of the God they claimed to serve.
These ones tortured and mocked Him with a many-faceted murder.

I was bewildered and shocked in the beginning and could only sort it out through my pain and by listening to God.

In time, I met a number of others in this "religious evil" and I came to know its name: Jezebel. And I was to discover that the characteristics and the "fruit" were boringly the same in every person who invited this evil within, by the door of irresponsibility.

The Tyrant

You are a sugary tyrant.
You require of me what you disallow yourself.
I must toe the mark. You are exempt.

You are never wrong, have never failed.
Your remisses are so speedily forgotten, or renamed "good."
You turn your tyranny into a favor you are doing me!

You keep photos and records of my failings and we
look through the album often.

You are severe with others, gentle with yourself.
Shouldn't it be the other way around? 

When you describe yourself I don't recognize you.
You declare your innocence so loudly, you almost convince me.
And I marvel at how many you have convinced.

You spout the grandness of your love for me and my mind goes dizzy
by your obvious belief that you do. Can this be love?
Can love shred your being and hate your blessing?
Can "love" kiss and betray at the same time?

You look fragile, a delicate hurtable thing. Your heart is cold steel.
Your wear beauty, a "holy" smile.
Your soul is some black twisted monster.

You twist meanings. Exaggerate. You bribe and threaten.
Your punishment is a silence that shouts guilty lies at my soul.
The club of your superiority beats my brain.

Your rare and only reward: a fleeting second of your good favor.
Immediately, your requirement goes up.

You murder identity with disapproval.
You strip of all defenses, demand all secrets
and then betray them.

There's always in your mind a Villain around . . . and a Saint.
You play one against the other. Sometimes they change places.
I have been both. I never know what title I will wear.
You name everyone and there they are imprisoned.
Always a label . . . beneath-you, but never, never . . . just "me."

Your tongue is not merely sharp. It kills.
Your words hide unsaid words of cruel poison.
I "feel" that secret intent I can't prove
(that none would believe)
and my heart goes slowly sick.

None may speak to you apart from
a script that you have written and handed out.
None may deviate from their assigned role.

There may be no personality, no difference.
Only you. It is only . . . you.
The world is made for . . . only you. 

You may speak. I must be silent.
You are right. I am wrong.
You are good. I am bad.

You lay us in an arrogant contrast of opposites that kills
any hope of healing kinship. 

Your need, the only existing reality. My need? 

Once I get through the battle and lick my wounds . . .
When the play ends and I find my God again, who loves me,
when I call hatred hatred,
I wonder . . . . 

What is it like to live inside you?
What can the world of your mind be like?
What monster of fear tortures you?
How did you bury your conscience?

How can you read the Bible in such blindness?
How can you claim to know the Flawless Son?

What enormous need is being expressed?
And since you rob me of myself
you leave me nothing I may use to help you.

Prayer, yes, of course, but
no honest talking, no give and take.
No understanding, no confession.

Weary, beaten . . . I ask advice of
one who could be trusted and didn't know you.

The wise one said,
"Ask the Lord Jesus what you may expect Him to do for this one." 

Okay, I sighed,
knowing firsthand that hideous strength to resist Him -
in the same breath, to claim Him.

I'll try. I'll ask.

The Whisper was immediate . . . "Total healing."

WOW! 

Copyright © 1983 Martha Kilpatrick