A woman had begun attending worship services with us, and she was pretty unhappy in her marriage (her fifth, I believe) and with how her children were turning out (duh). She needed a lot of affirmation throughout her life, but she had learned to fake having seizures as a means to get that attention. She blamed them on an accident that had happened years earlier, and all I could do was take that statement at face value.
The way it played out was like this: EVERY service, she would pretend to be disoriented and acted as though she did not know who she was. Several women would run to her and comfort her, take her off to the side, pat her hands, wipe her face with a damp cloth, etc.
While I had originally take her explanation at face value, I had always been suspicious because 1) She was driving and had a license, 2) I had watched her eyes - she always knew which women to look for before having a "seizure", and 3) Another woman at the church had said to me, "I was in grade school with her, and she's always done stuff like this for attention".
One Sunday, I had decided to wait for the event to happen and kept an eye on her eyes as I waited. Then I saw it her began to set up the event, and I said to one of my friends, "Here it goes: She's gonna find herself a high traffic area near (so-and-so) and then she's gonna drop to the floor and do her thing, but watch her face. She'll 'wake-up' looking for someone specific." (She even followed the key woman around until the woman was free - and then down she went.)
After a few minutes, I went over and asked all the women to leave us alone so we could talk. I spoke to her like her Dutch Uncle for about three minutes and essentially told her that if she ever had a "seizure" again at church, I would call an ambulance, send her to the hospital, make sure that the ER reported her seizure to the Iowa DOT (which would then ban her from driving until she was seizure free for 180 consecutive days), and I would expose her to everyone for her insulting behavior against those who actually endured real seizures.
I saw in her face that she knew she was unequivocally busted. With that, I I told her, "Here's how this goes down: We're gonna get up and walk out of here smiling and happy. You are gonna be miraculously healed (or whatever you need to say to make this work) and you are never going to have seizures here again. Got it?" She nodded yes, got up, smiled, and that was that.
She was at services for about another two years or so and never had another seizure again at any church event. (Then we had to ask her to leave as a matter of discipline in another matter.)
The eyes are the window to the soul, and sometimes you have to address the soul to alter the physical behavior.
1 comments:
The church attracts all sorts of people with major insecurities. Some of them are looking for real solutions and they end up discovering life in Christ.
But many, like your "actress" seek something else. I just had a "come to Jesus" talk with a senior aged married man who simply attends church and has been hitting on women there. He comes alone.
He was told it ended right there or else he was banned from attending. And I would call his wife and tell her why he could no longer attend our church. He, too, had the look of being busted and freely admitted, "I've made a big mistake".
We're keeping an eye on him!
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