WEDNESDAY'S WORD - GASLIGHTING- Sadell Bradley -8/26/2020

WEDNESDAY'S WORD GASLIGHTING Sadell Bradley 08/26/2020 "Gaslighting is the systematic attempt by one person to erode another person's reality by telling them that what they are experiencing isn't so - and, the gradual giving up on the part of the other person." - Dr. Robin Stern - 'The Gaslight Effect' WAREHOUSE T-SHIRT FUN-RAISER We're excited about our new T-Shirts! and our partnership with Home State Threads. For every T-Shirt sold, $10 will go to the Warehouse for Missions. Click here to purchase one of the many styles available. Our goal is to sell 500 T-Shirts to raise $5,000 for AV/Sound renovations in the lower level of our church, and to assist parents of CPS students. Thank you for your continued prayers and support! - Sherman & Sadell GASLIGHTING means to manipulate someone by psychological means into questioning their own sanity. A person or group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a target individual or group making them question their own memory, perception, or judgment. Using denial, misdirection, contradiction, and misinformation - gaslighting attempts to destabilize the victim and delegitimize the victim's beliefs. Instances can range from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents occurred, to belittling the victims emotions and feelings, to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienteing the victim The term derives from the 1944 movie Gaslight in which a man manipulates his wife into believing she is going insane by changing small things in her environment and insisting that she is mistaken, remembering things incorrectly or delusional when she points out these changes. The title alludes to how the abusive husband slowly dims the gas lights in the home, pretending nothing has changed, in an effort to make his wife doubt her own perceptions. (Wikipedia) GASLIGHTING IS REAL. The most notorious example of gaslighting in Scripture happened in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3:1-6. God had given clear instructions to Adam which had been relayed to his wife. The crafty serpent manipulated what was said to his advantage. "Did God really say you must not eat fruit from any of the trees in the garden?" Eve responds,“Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. 3“It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’” 4“You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. 5“God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.” The serpent gets her to question her hearing and recall of the instruction she was given, and the LORD's motive in requiring the boundary in the first place. This manipulation and deception led to The Fall. The enemy made them think they didn't have what they already possessed. Entire groups can experience gaslighting. People tell us systemic racism, economic injustice, and police brutality are just figments of our imagination. Some have tried to convince us that the Holocaust never occurred. Politicians and news outlets make full use of The Illusory Truth Effect, a phenomenon in which a listener comes to believe something primarily because it's been repeated so often. Have you been gaslit? IS GASLIGHTING HAPPENING TO YOU? Someone gaslights you by trying to convince you that: What you saw, you didn't see What you didn't see, you saw What you said, you didn't say What you didn't say, you said What they said, they didn't say What they didn't say, they said What they did, they didn't do What they didn't do, they did What you heard, you didn't hear What you didn't hear, was there for the hearing -Ann Silvers