I'd like to clarify something before proceeding.When a person has been sexually abused, there is damage to her whole being--deep, deep damage. And it doesn't diminish with time. Dr. Dan Allender, therapist, psychhologist, and author, states in his book, entitled The Wounded Heart, that time seems only to intesnsify the pain. Dr. Allender speaks from experience, for he, too, was a victim of sexual abuse.
The reason I wanted to explain that is because, in the Christian community, a person who seeks help for the wounds that time and all of the Bible reading in the world don't help is often viewed as being weak in faith. How many times I've heard the words, "Just forgive and forget." And how I strugggled to do that very thing for many years, only to fail. I knew in my heart that I'd forgiven, but that didn't heal the pain any more than a bandaid will heal a skin cancer. When I told my family that I was going to get help, I heard the words, "A Christian shouldn't have to go for help." Thankfully, that person's opinion changed with time and she became a strong support for me.
To live with denial in our hearts is to live a lie. Living a lie does not honor God for He desires truth in our inner being--our heart and mind. Salvation secures our soul for Him, but we must also allow Him to purify our heart and mind. When we've lived with a dark secret, that is sometimes a long process. But it is a process that is necessary for us to live lives free of guilt, shame, and pain. It is a process well worth the effort, and we are not alone in it. For Jesus has promised to never leave us nor forsake us.
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Most of us have experienced getting lost while driving by being so preoccupied we forget to make a necessary turn. When that happens, we must go back to where the mistake was made. Although it makes us feel foolish to have been so absent-minded, we know we must return there if we are to get to our destination.
1/3 of all girls are sexually abused by age eighteen. Sexual abuse is a perverted act against the very soul of the victim, and, but by the grace of God, it would kill that soul. Although she continues growing mentally and physically, she is often frozen emotionally at the age she is victimized. For her own emotional maturity, and for those she loves, it is necessary to go back to the place where the damage was done if she is to find healing that will break the grip the past holds on her present life.
For 35 years, I had lived in denial that I had been affected in any way by the sexual abuse I'd experienced. In 19988, in order to move on with my life, I had to make a choice. No woman ever wants to revisit the place in her life where she was helpless to prevent the loss of her innocent childhood. But, because I knew I couldn't continue my life as I had, I was desperate for change.
The psychiatrist to whom my medical doctor referred me when I confided in him knew this and asked if I would be willing to go to another state for 2 and1/2 wees and enter a program especially designed for women who had been sexually abused. It was hard to leave my family and it frightened me to face something I knew nothing about. But, I chose to go.
There were five of us in the group with two young facilitators. My first thought, when I saw the youngest one, was, "That little twerp won't be able to help me!" I couldn't have been more wrong. That young girl ended up sitting in the floor and holding and rocking me for some time as I sobbed uncontrollably in relating years of shame, fear, pain, and guilt. She and the rest of the group cried and walked with me each step of the painful story that poured from "the basement of my soul". I did the same for each of them as they told their heartbreaking stories. I learned a lot about the reasons for my behavior. I had lived a life of defense lest I ever be hurt so devastatingly again.
I'm going to lay a short background before getting to the painful part of this story. Also, I have chosen not to identify my abuser. It isn't for him, but for others that I've made the decision to keep all names confidential. And as unbelievable as it may seem at this stage of the story, I know he would be proud that I am sharing it.
On March 22, 1940, in Breckeridge County, Kentucky, my mother delivered an eleven and one-half pound baby girl at home--me. My dad was in the hospital in Louisville because of a hand that he had mashed working on the railroad. It was one of the WPA projects that President Rosevelt had created to provide jobs for people as the country was still suffering from the depression of the late 1920's. I was the second of four children that mom would have in a five-year period. I have a sister thirteen months older than I, a brother fifteen months younger, and our baby brother who was born 21 months after him. Not long after delivering her last child, Mom learned she had uterine cancer and had to have a hysterectomy. Before she reached her 30th birthday, her doctor discovered colon cancer and she underwent another surgery. My mother was an exceptionally strong woman, but those surgeries and four children in such a short span of time left her with lilttle strength. My major caregiver in those early years was my dad. It isn't surprising that my bond with him was stronger than it ever was with my mother.
Dad was a sharecropper, which meant we lived on a farm owned by somene else, raised their crops, and shared the profit with them. We moved to Daviess County when I was three then to McLean County the year I started scool. I have few memories of my own before starting school. We all worked in the filelds alongside Mom and Dad as we grew. I hated housework with a passion but loved being out in the fields, even though the work was hard and tiring.
Our social life consisted of church on Sunday, the grocery store on Saturday night for groceries while visiting with the other farm families in town for the same reason, and playing with the many cousins that often came with their parents for Sunday dinner. Although we could play dominoes and Monopoly, card games were prohbited along with parties, movies, and above all, dancing. It may seem as if that was a restricted way to live, but on a farm there are too many things for a girl to do to ever become bored with her life.
One of the things I loved to do when I didn't have to be in the fields was to escape to my secret place with a favorite book. I would run to the creek, wade in the cool water, then climb throgh the woods to a meadow. A home had once stood there and someone had planted an orchard of various fruit trees. I would fill the lap of my skirt with plumbs, apples, and peaches then go to the middle of the orchard, lie down on my back to watch the white puffy clouds scoot across the sky as I ate the fruit I'd gathered. Most of the time the warm sun would lull me to sleep and the book I'd brought would lay neglected.
I was telling a friend about this one day and she remarked, "Betty, you must have felt safe to lie in an open field and sleep!" I'd never considered it before, but as I did, I realzed that nothing in the first twelve years of my life had ever given me reason to doubt that the worlld was a safe place.
I'm so grateful to have had those twelve years of security, for at the age of thirteen I was about to learn that the world is not always safe, that evil existed in it. Worse, I was about to experience that evil as it existed in the hearts of people I trusted.
But, God, in His great mercy drew me to Himself one Sunday morning at the end of our white-haired pastor's sermon and sealed my soul for Himself. I went to the altar and gave my life to Jesus Christ. Mom had not come to church with us that Sunday, so as soon as Dad stopped the car, I jumped out and ran into the house shouting. "Mom, I've been saved, I've been saved!"
Some time later that year, I began to be sexually abused. Shame permeated my life and I would be nearly sixty years old before I would experience the peace and joy of that moment.
1/3 of all girls are sexually abused by age eighteen. Sexual abuse is a perverted act against the very soul of the victim, and, but by the grace of God, it would kill that soul. Although she continues growing mentally and physically, she is often frozen emotionally at the age she is victimized. For her own emotional maturity, and for those she loves, it is necessary to go back to the place where the damage was done if she is to find healing that will break the grip the past holds on her present life.
For 35 years, I had lived in denial that I had been affected in any way by the sexual abuse I'd experienced. In 19988, in order to move on with my life, I had to make a choice. No woman ever wants to revisit the place in her life where she was helpless to prevent the loss of her innocent childhood. But, because I knew I couldn't continue my life as I had, I was desperate for change.
The psychiatrist to whom my medical doctor referred me when I confided in him knew this and asked if I would be willing to go to another state for 2 and1/2 wees and enter a program especially designed for women who had been sexually abused. It was hard to leave my family and it frightened me to face something I knew nothing about. But, I chose to go.
There were five of us in the group with two young facilitators. My first thought, when I saw the youngest one, was, "That little twerp won't be able to help me!" I couldn't have been more wrong. That young girl ended up sitting in the floor and holding and rocking me for some time as I sobbed uncontrollably in relating years of shame, fear, pain, and guilt. She and the rest of the group cried and walked with me each step of the painful story that poured from "the basement of my soul". I did the same for each of them as they told their heartbreaking stories. I learned a lot about the reasons for my behavior. I had lived a life of defense lest I ever be hurt so devastatingly again.
I'm going to lay a short background before getting to the painful part of this story. Also, I have chosen not to identify my abuser. It isn't for him, but for others that I've made the decision to keep all names confidential. And as unbelievable as it may seem at this stage of the story, I know he would be proud that I am sharing it.
On March 22, 1940, in Breckeridge County, Kentucky, my mother delivered an eleven and one-half pound baby girl at home--me. My dad was in the hospital in Louisville because of a hand that he had mashed working on the railroad. It was one of the WPA projects that President Rosevelt had created to provide jobs for people as the country was still suffering from the depression of the late 1920's. I was the second of four children that mom would have in a five-year period. I have a sister thirteen months older than I, a brother fifteen months younger, and our baby brother who was born 21 months after him. Not long after delivering her last child, Mom learned she had uterine cancer and had to have a hysterectomy. Before she reached her 30th birthday, her doctor discovered colon cancer and she underwent another surgery. My mother was an exceptionally strong woman, but those surgeries and four children in such a short span of time left her with lilttle strength. My major caregiver in those early years was my dad. It isn't surprising that my bond with him was stronger than it ever was with my mother.
Dad was a sharecropper, which meant we lived on a farm owned by somene else, raised their crops, and shared the profit with them. We moved to Daviess County when I was three then to McLean County the year I started scool. I have few memories of my own before starting school. We all worked in the filelds alongside Mom and Dad as we grew. I hated housework with a passion but loved being out in the fields, even though the work was hard and tiring.
Our social life consisted of church on Sunday, the grocery store on Saturday night for groceries while visiting with the other farm families in town for the same reason, and playing with the many cousins that often came with their parents for Sunday dinner. Although we could play dominoes and Monopoly, card games were prohbited along with parties, movies, and above all, dancing. It may seem as if that was a restricted way to live, but on a farm there are too many things for a girl to do to ever become bored with her life.
One of the things I loved to do when I didn't have to be in the fields was to escape to my secret place with a favorite book. I would run to the creek, wade in the cool water, then climb throgh the woods to a meadow. A home had once stood there and someone had planted an orchard of various fruit trees. I would fill the lap of my skirt with plumbs, apples, and peaches then go to the middle of the orchard, lie down on my back to watch the white puffy clouds scoot across the sky as I ate the fruit I'd gathered. Most of the time the warm sun would lull me to sleep and the book I'd brought would lay neglected.
I was telling a friend about this one day and she remarked, "Betty, you must have felt safe to lie in an open field and sleep!" I'd never considered it before, but as I did, I realzed that nothing in the first twelve years of my life had ever given me reason to doubt that the worlld was a safe place.
I'm so grateful to have had those twelve years of security, for at the age of thirteen I was about to learn that the world is not always safe, that evil existed in it. Worse, I was about to experience that evil as it existed in the hearts of people I trusted.
But, God, in His great mercy drew me to Himself one Sunday morning at the end of our white-haired pastor's sermon and sealed my soul for Himself. I went to the altar and gave my life to Jesus Christ. Mom had not come to church with us that Sunday, so as soon as Dad stopped the car, I jumped out and ran into the house shouting. "Mom, I've been saved, I've been saved!"
Some time later that year, I began to be sexually abused. Shame permeated my life and I would be nearly sixty years old before I would experience the peace and joy of that moment.
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