#backsliding

Life in a system and in general can often be very challenging. It can be painful or disheartening to see yourself or your system member regress or lose progress after making strides to improve. But regressing happens to everyone from time to time, and should not be an indicator of self-worth in any way! So here’s to all the headmates out there who have gotten worse recently, whatever that looks like for them!

🎶 Shoutout to headmates who have recently lost skills or forgot how to do things that they used to do daily!

🍂 Shoutout to headmates who are no longer able to perform the duties associated with their system role!

🌹 Shoutout to autistic systems with headmates who have recently experienced autistic regression!

🍊 Shoutout to headmates who have backslid in their recovery or relapsed in their struggles with addiction!

🌻 Shoutout to headmates who have regressed due to being traumatized or retraumatized!

☘️ Shoutout to headmates who have recently gotten worse with no real reason or discernible cause!

🦋 Shoutout to headmates who have begun to struggle more with emotional regulation or processing and getting along with the other members of their system!

🍇 Shoutout to headmates who have regressed gradually, and to those whose regression was a sharp and sudden decline!

🌸 Shoutout to headmates whose symptoms of mental or physical illness and/or disabilities have recently gotten more severe!

🕊 Shoutout to headmates whose abilities to communicate and interact with the rest of their system has recently declined!

Friends, even if you’ve recently regressed, backslid, or gotten worse in any way, you are still worthy of love and respect just the way you are. There’s nothing wrong with regressing, and it’s a more common experience for everyone than you may think! Backsliding doesn’t mean you’ll always be going backwards. It doesn’t mean you’re incapable of making positive progress in the future.

If you’re a headmate who has recently gotten worse in any way, please know that we care about you and we truly hope that things get better for you very soon. Your life still has value and you are still an important member of your system and the plural community just the way you are! Know that we’re rooting for you and wishing you the very best in all that you do. Thanks so much for reading, and take care!

With all that said, if we are really free in Christ, does that mean God condones everything we do, and we are free to do whatever we want?

Certainly not!

A common tactic of the enemy is to convince you to abuse the Lord’s grace and forgiveness. God will forgive me no matter what, so I might as well sin and ask for forgiveness later. This behavior is by no means pleasing to God, and will not lead into eternal life.

Imagine if you had a wife/husband who would constantly betray your trust and do you wrong at every turn, knowing that you would forgive them no matter what. This is how we treat the Father when we have this mindset. He is the groom, and we, his church, are his bride.

God compares idolatry to adultery in the Old Testament. When the Israelites worshipped other gods, they were essentially cheating on God in the same way an unfaithful spouse would cheat on you. When we sin, we become slaves to sin instead of slaves to Christ. We put ourselves and our pleasure over him and his will for us. In this way, we are practicing adultery in the same fashion of ancient Israel.

When we sin, we worship ourselves instead of the Lord.

Paul explains that we should use our new found freedom in Christ to live the way that Christ has freed us to (Galatians 5:13). Freedom in Christ means freedom from the old way of life, and now possessing the ability to love God, and others, above ourselves.

Doesn’t using our freedom to love others make the love we show them more real?

Christ has set us free from sin, we must not return to our old way of life. We must not be prisoners returning to our cells when someone else took our sentence.

We love God, why not act like it?

From 1991 movie Backsliding. Tim as Tom 'The Mechanic'.

THE WORD FOR 16/6

For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. Hebrews 2:1

For most of us, the threat of life is not so much that we should plunge into disaster, but that we should drift into sin. There are few people who deliberately and in a moment turn their backs on God; there are many who day by day drift farther and farther away from Him. There are not many who in one moment of time commit some disastrous sin; there are many who almost imperceptibly involve themselves in some situation and suddenly awake to find that they have ruined life for themselves and broken someone else's heart. We must continually be on the alert against the peril of the drifting life.