The Battle of Peer Dependency: Chapters One and Two - Part One

Proof we have a merciful God - I've misplaced my copy of "The Battle of Peer Dependency" by Marina Sears!   Fortunately (or unfortunately), I had already transcribed the next few posts and had notes on what I thought. 

The first chapter is a drawn-out, melodramatic slog up to Jeff's death near the end of the chapter.  For the curious, Jeff died in a freak single-car accident on his way to work.  The second chapter is about how Marina coped with that tragedy. 

In between loving family anecdotes ending with hammy reminders that tragedy or peer dependence happened in spite of being happy, we learn a few things about Marina Sears' view of God:

At the end of that morning's devotional, I got up off my knees, stamped my foot, and confronted the Lord. " Lord, I didn't get mad at you when you took Jeff home to be with you, and I've tried to be a good testimony of how you were taking care of us. The only thing I've asked you to do this to sell this house. Why aren't you bringing a buyer?" I was really mad at the Lord! Intellectually, I knew that being angry with the Creator of the Universe was very unwise, but I couldn't help how I was feeling. I thought that if God really loved and cared for me, and understood my circumstances, he would bring a buyer. In fact, it wouldn't have surprised me to find one standing on the porch when we pulled up from the funeral, saving me from all the details and expense involved in using a realtor. I wasn't trying to presume on God; I just believed him to be that big. (pg. 20)

Mrs. Sears' God is petty, cruel, and profligate in turn.

Mrs. Sears is doing her best to be a shining example of how God takes care of widows and orphans.  When God fails to provide as she had hoped, she's understandably pissed.  Rather than explaining that young widows are allowed to be angry at God, Mrs. Sears implies that God punishes people who are mad at him.   That's a strangely non-Biblical idea since Jesus - following the path of the prophets before him - spent much of his life angry at God.    Instead, we're left with a God who can do anything - even let a very needed father and husband die in a freak accident - and who will punish us if we ever object.

On the flip side, Mrs. Sears' God also holds vast wealth and power that he parcels out to his followers.    No wonder Mrs. Sears was so angry; she was only asking that God sell her house located in the middle of nowhere without the effort of a relator! 

Look, I have no idea why God doesn't end all suffering and pain right now.  That's so outside my pay grade that I've got nothing.  What I do believe is that we can be angry at God without having to worry about being hit by a lightning bolt and that support in hard times comes from other caring people.

Next example of a scary God:

The house did finally so, but only after 1 year and 3 months from the time we first put it on the market. Looking back, I can see why God had me stay in that house. Even though I had lived in New Mexico for eight years, I still had a great fear of many creatures that lived on and in the land. I have never heard of a scorpion or tarantula except when I was a little girl, on the late night, scary movie channel; to see one and then to find it in the bedroom or among one's belongings is more than I can bear. (pg. 21)

Fear of arthropods - even pathological fear of arthropods - is not a sin. 

There are no Bible verses about how God expects us to subdue scorpions in sock drawers as a sign of faith. 

If God leaves a pregnant widow and three children in a rural house thousands of miles away from family and tens of miles away from help in an emergency for 15 months so that the widow can get over a fear of scorpions, the rest of us are screwed. 

Marina Sears lives in fear of her life's consequences.  Selling a house is hard.  Selling a house that was recently sold without improvements is even harder.   Selling a recently purchased house located in the middle-of-freaking-nowhere while dealing with a traumatic grieving situation is insanely difficult.   Depending on the local market, moving the house in 15 months may well have been a miracle!  But instead of being honest with how choices that Jeff and Marina made before his death affected her after his death, Marina focuses on how any flaw in her perception of God's Plan is really due to a personal sin of hers.

She spends a lot of time discussing her fear of scorpions.  She buried the lede, though.  She casually mentions that someone was trying to break into the house.  That's genuinely scary - and she ignores it because it can't easily be blamed on her life choices......

The answer to these questions would revolutionize my walk with God. Did he care about a young widow was four small children, two dogs, a house to sell, and the circumstances and events which are trying to break her? What I didn't see at the time was that the difficult circumstances were sent and allowed by God in order to break my will, self-reliance, and my very small definition and picture of God. (pg. 23)

The Bible is full of verses that talk about how God is a jealous God.   Traditionally, those verses are taken in the understanding of God is a jealous God because followers are expected to be monotheistic in a society where most other groups were polytheistic. 

Marina Sears' God is also jealous - but in a very self-centered and personal way.  Marina Sears' God reacts with jealous temper tantrums whenever Marina gets any kind of support from any humans rather than directly from God himself.   In this case, Marina and her kids are literally kept trapped in the middle of nowhere until she's reliant enough on God.

That's a pretty common method for abusers to control their victims, fyi.

Is Marina's God jealous - or is Marina?  That's a decision that each reader needs to think about as we explore how Marina's discussions from God give her the rationale to control her children excessively.