It

"God, please make it go away!"

     This was my desperate prayer for many years.  That short prayer were the only words I could come up with to ask for help.  Of course the "it" is the abuse from my past.  I didn't have that word though.  I just knew it was really bad stuff, and everyone who knew about "it" told me it was in the past and should not be part of my life anymore.  They even had a Bible verse to prove it to me.  After all, "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17).  I was so young in my faith and just in general that it seemed clear enough.  I thought they had to be right.  They knew more than I did it seemed.  So if it had passed away, I had to make it go away.  That was the only option I had.

     I prayed for years for it to go away.  I didn't know what else to ask God to do with it.  I tried to pretend it wasn't there, that it didn't matter, that I was fine.  But it was there, it did matter, and I wasn't fine.  I pushed it down as deep as I could and spoke of it to no one.  The longer it stayed in the dark recesses of my heart, the bigger it seemed to get and the stronger it seemed to grip me.  So I prayed all the more fervently "God, please make it go away!"  Still it remained.  

     Then God brought some new people into my life.  These people believed me.  They have faithfully walked this really hard road called healing with me for the last couple years.  It's been a rough journey at times, yet they have cared and remained.  

     I was talking with one of them, a very dear, wise woman, last week.  I was telling her that in these last couple years, I have come to understand that making it go away isn't the only option I have.  There is an option where it stays.  I don't have a firm grasp on that.  I don't understand it, but I know it exists.  I also know it is the option I should be choosing, but I still want it to go away.  I know I shouldn't, but I do.  As we were talking, she said something that really hit me hard.  In fact, I almost burst into tears when I heard her say it (and I do not do tears).

     She was talking about what it means when God says in the book of 1 Peter that He has given us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and a sound mind.  As she took some time to talk about this spirit of love He has given she said "I don't have to make it go away because I am loved with that part of me."  I do not have to make it go away.  Why not?  Because I am perfectly, wholly, beautifully loved...ALL of me...even the broken, shattered, messy part that bears the wounds of abuse.  Wow!  That truth...

     I don't have to make it go away because God loves me with it.  Because I don't have to make it go away, because I am loved deeply and fiercely with it, I can pour out my heart to God...all that is broken and bleeding and wounded.  He comes down to meet me in the middle of this painful mess because He loves me with it.  He doesn't want me to make it go away.  He wants me to take it to Him.  He loves me with it.  He redeems me with it.  

     My mind went back to that verse that has haunted me in all the worst ways...the old passed away, the new has come.  The old passing away does not mean the abuse disappears and doesn't matter.  It highlights the the place where the present and the eternal touch.  I am already made new.  Yet, I live in this body affected by sin.  I am called to renewal in the present while having already been made new in the eternal.  The old that passes away...it doesn't disappear.  The old is the pieces God uses to make the new mosaic that reaches completion when my journey on this earth is finished, and I am home with my Abba Father in heaven for eternity.  

     I am already new in Christ, yet He is making me new each day.  He sees the mosaic completed in His eternal view, yet He is making the new mosaic out of the old right now in the present.  He doesn't make the old disappear.  He redeems it all while it is already redeemed.  I don't have to make it go away.  

     For me, "it" is abuse.  I think we all have an "it" though if we're really honest with ourselves.  That one thing we feel we must hide or pretend isn't there.  The thing we have pushed so far down into the darkest parts of us we won't even let God in.  "It" could be something we have done, or something done to us, or a combination of both.  That makes no difference.  Whatever your "it," you do not have to make it go away.  You are perfectly, wholly, beautifully loved with it, whatever "it" may be.  It may be old, but it does not disappear.  God uses it to create in you the newness He already sees.  He will meet you in the middle of the mess "it" has left behind.  He loves you with it.  He redeems you with it.  

Dear one, you are redeemed even while being redeemed.  You are new even while being made new.  You do not have to make it go away.  You are deeply and wholly loved.

On risk and safety and things that cannot be promised

     Not too long ago, I found myself in a place where I knew the next step on this journey.  I knew what I needed to be willing to do, but I wasn't sure if I was, in fact, willing.  All I saw was massive amounts of risk.  I saw every possible way, whether realistic or not, of this step going wrong...the ways I could be hurt...the bottomless pits I could fall into...the undoing of me that might not be un-undone.  I just stopped.  As I stayed there, stuck in the fear, I thought a lot about safety and risk and a very brief conversation I had via email with my pastor a couple years ago was brought to mind.
     This pastor and I had an ongoing conversation at the time, and he was offering me help for the wounds of my past.  It was something I'd never had offered to me before.  In fact, he was the first person to really even acknowledge there were wounds to begin with.  As I considered his offer, I wasn't sure I wanted to accept it.  I wasn't sure I could accept it.  I wanted him to promise me that if I accepted this offer for help I would be completely safe, never to be hurt again.  I wanted a guarantee that he knew he couldn't give me.
     The reason he knew he couldn't offer me the guarantee I wanted was not because he didn't want to help me or to see healing in my life.  It was because he knows his own humanness and the humanness of the person he knew could help me.  He understood that he and the other person are not perfect, that mistakes happen, that hurt can happen even with the best of intentions.  He understood that there was risk in accepting the offer of help he was holding out to me.  He assured me that the hope was the risk would end in healing rather than hurt, but the only promise he could offer me, the only guarantee, was a God who cared more deeply for me than I could imagine and who would always be with me.

     As I considered the step in front of me, I felt all the same fears I felt when my pastor offered me help.  I struggled to see beyond the risks I would have to take, all the ways this step forward could go wrong and send me backwards.  I found myself wanting a promise again...a guarantee that the risk would be worth it, that the worst case scenario's that played in my mind would be avoided, that I would be safe.  I wanted a promise that no one could make me.
     You see, on this side of heaven, God uses real, imperfect, broken people in the lives of other real, imperfect, broken people to bring about His purposes, His plans, His healing.  Yet when I see the real, imperfect, broken people He puts in my life, I see risk.  I see the lack of safety.  I want to start building walls to protect myself from the very people He has sent to be His hands and His feet in my life.  I start asking for promises no human can make and forget every promise He has kept, and is keeping, and will always keep.  I see the real, imperfect, broken people and fail to see the perfect, loving, big, faithful God who sent them.

     So now, as I continue to work through this step I have in front of me, I see the risks.  I don't feel any safer.  However, instead of looking for promises that can't be made, I remember the promises He's already given...promises of redemption and freedom and restoration of years stolen.  I remember the promises He's faithfully kept...promises to love me, care for me, always be with me.  I look again at the real, imperfect, broken people He has placed in my life, and this time I see His hands, His feet, His heart reflected by them.  Though every step of this journey brings with it some level of risk, some feeling of safety missing, I remember the One I am promised and, with arms locked with my real, imperfect, broken people, our arms together locked with our promise keeping God, keep pressing on.

The pieces I hold in my hands

     About a year ago, I was in a really terrible place.  In the middle of the darkest part of that place, a very dear lady used a word that has become a developing image in my mind.  She used the word "mosaic."  This image has been really helpful and powerful.  I'm not just some broken mess that God will put back together the way I used to be, left as a fractured version of what I once was.  God is going to use all the broken pieces to make something completely new.  He will redeem each broken piece, perfectly place it in new fashion, held in place with the glue of His faithfulness and grace and love.  Unlike being put back together the way I once was, this mosaic, glued together with God's redemption, is whole despite being made of a lot of brokenness.  Each piece is there.  Each piece tells it's own story.  But the story of redemption and healing is told by the whole work of art as the mosaic is seen in it's entirety.

     Last week, this imagery developed further in my mind.  I have been really battling between knowing that what happened is not my fault and believing what I know.  As I spoke with the same lady who gave me the image of a mosaic, our conversation moved the imagery forward.  Now I hold all those broken pieces of me in my hands...the very pieces God would use to make the mosaic of me.  I know what those pieces are.  I know what they hold in them.  There are so many, a few overflow pieces have fallen out of my grasp.  God has been working with those shards of brokenness so gently and faithfully, and I have seen the hard work of healing begin in those small fragments.  The bulk of the broken is still in my hands though.  I hold them tightly closed and can feel them hurting me, all those sharp edges digging in as I squeeze them in an effort to protect something though I'm not really sure what.  I found myself realizing I need to be willing to open my hands...to see the broken, to see the hurt, to offer it all up to God and let Him be with me in every broken piece as He redeems each piece in the making of the mosaic.  It's hard to heal something I won't even let be seen or known.

     

     I didn't really know where to go from there though.  I just kept thinking about it all--how far I've come, how God has been faithful up to now, how I have always managed to get through the hard places I never thought I'd emerge from, how keeping these pieces in my hands was hurting me.  Then I went to a ladies gathering at my church that focused on prayer.  There were two ladies who led it.  One of them, in the beginning, described the picture she has in her mind as God's invitation to come to Him in prayer.  She described God sitting on the throne sustaining the universe with His power while at the same time she runs into the throne room, dirty yet fearless, where He pulls her onto His lap.  She is, after all, adopted into His family as His daughter.  He wants to hear what is on her heart that has sent her running to her Father, and seeing His power and knowing His goodness, she can pour out her heart to Him, and He listens and cares and loves her.  

     I could see it.  When it was me in that picture, though, I was entering the throne room dirty and bloody with fists clenched.  I haven't figured out the fearless thing, so I cower, mostly with shame, while He looks at my hands and takes them in His...you know, the hands that bear the scars of the depths of His love for me, the ones that remind me He understands, the ones that were pierced so my broken pieces could be made new.  He asks me to trust Him.  When I remember who He is and His character, I know He is trustworthy.  

     Yet I find myself like my own kids who come to me with scraped up hands sometimes.  When they fear the cleaning of the wound will be too painful, they hesitate while I assure them I can only help them if they show me what's been hurt.  I see in me the same hesitation as I fear the pain to come in opening my hands to the One I know is trustworthy.  I waver between opening my hands and closing them once more.  I remind myself daily of who God is, of His faithfulness and goodness, and I try to open my hands once more and trust that He will meet me in each broken piece as I keep working towards healing, walking this journey with Jesus and the people He has walking this with me here.  Now the battle between what I know and what I believe is a little less fierce as I begin to believe what I know.  So I fight to open my hands...my hands ever so gently cradled in the hands that were broken for my healing.

Hands

I hold all these broken pieces in my hands

I know what they hold but don't want to see them

So I clench my fists tight while the sharp edges cut me

As blood flows from the wounds I pretend that I don't see

Trembling as I grasp these shattered pieces I've never named

I fold in on myself as I wear this crushing shame

Yet You look past my shame and welcome me with steadfast love

You know the brokenness I hold and still call me to come

Tenderly You wrap my hurting hands in Yours

You remind me who You are and ask me to trust You once more

As I close my eyes tears fall to the ground

Safe with You I slowly open my hands as my heart pounds

Willing to give You these jagged shards of abuse

Believing You, my Abba my Healer, will know what to do

And as I crumble under the weight of this grief

You draw me close in Your arms and You weep with me

The battle within

     My last post was about understanding that what happened was not my fault and yet struggling to let go of that guilt.  I know it doesn't make much sense...this wanting it to be my fault.  It seems like a good thing to have that guilt that isn't mine lifted from my shoulders.  I know it's supposed to be a good thing.  I just don't know how to let it be good.  Letting it be good, letting that weight be gone, means accepting what happened for what it is, and I don't know how to do that yet.

      Since I first understood why it wasn't my fault quite a few months ago, this battle started raging between what is true and what I have always believed.  Being able to insert my own "yeah but" and writing my own fault into what happened eased the tension of the battle for a while, making it bearable.  Bearable wasn't easy by any means.  I wrestled and fought and broke, but I wasn't wearing out.  There was something about the "yeah but" blame I put on myself that gave me strength to keep fighting this battle between what was true and what I've always believed.
     Then, in August, a story broke in the news about USA Gymnastics covering up allegations of sexual abuse, protecting their coaches at the expense of their underage gymnasts.  It was a really hard story to read because it was my story.  They featured four coaches.  One of them was mine.  I was not part of the article other than being among the group of "his victims" mentioned.  I poured over the article and the documents linked in it.  I learned things that have been huge in my story.  I learned that a lot of parts of my story that I thought were true were actually lies.  It was crushing.  I had a lot to grapple with.  And in the process of taking in this new information, processing the truth that was now informing all these lies that I never knew were lies, I found myself unable to say "yeah but" to the statement that it wasn't my fault.  I found myself unable to write in my own blame like I used to.  When all my "yeah but" statements couldn't stand up to what I now could see as true, I fell apart.
     In the months since the news broke and I couldn't find a way to blame myself, the battle inside me between knowing it wasn't my fault and wanting to make it my fault has intensified.  I have struggled immensely in every way possible.  I can see the truth.  I know that everyone who says it was not my fault is absolutely right.  I know they are.  I know when they call "it" abuse, they are calling it what it is.  But something in me won't let myself believe what I know is true.  Something won't let me accept the truth for what it is, so the battle rages, and now I am weary.  That strength found in the "yeah but" is gone, and I'm losing the fight.  I'm exhausted.  I know I should surrender, but I can't.  I don't know why.  I don't know what in me won't let me stop fighting this battle.  I know I won't win it.  The truth will win.  It has to win because God is a God of truth, and He fights for what is true.  Truth will win, and I will lose.  It's supposed to be good, bring freedom.  I can't see that from where I am though.
     In light of all that I just shared, I have a poem to share with you that speaks of this battle.  I know this post is not very hopeful, maybe a bit confusing, definitely messy.  In all honesty, though, abuse is confusing and messy, and healing is confusing and messy.  Maybe the hope lies in knowing that you, my fellow survivor sisters, can see you are not alone in the struggle.  Maybe the battle inside you is over a different truth than mine right now, but either way, you are not alone as truth and lies battle within you.  I know truth winning is supposed to be good, but it doesn't feel like a good thing right now.  So when you struggle to be okay with what you know is good, you aren't alone in that either.  One other thing I do know...God is with us even in these battles between truth and lies, and somehow, when truth wins and we feel utterly crushed, God will be with us then too.  I'm banking on Him fulfilling that promise.  I can't lose this battle if He won't.

The Battle Within

 For as long as I can remember I've believed all these lies

I knew they were wrong while they ate me alive

So when I finally heard the truth for the first time

It was too hard to believe it might actually be right

Yet little by little it gently whispered in my ear

Planting seeds so one day I might believe it when I hear

It was not your fault and you are not to blame

You don't have to carry the weight of his shame

But that day, it has not yet arrived

And the lies I've believed continue to strive

They twist all the racing thoughts in my head

And I can't make sense of this struggle I dread

But as the truth now starts to close in

All the wild thoughts are beginning to spin

I find that all of the words that I need

Are the very same words I simply can't speak

And this truth brings no freedom

No it is harsh and oppressive

So I push hard against it

Fight to hold on to the pieces

Of what's left of my numb heart

But here it is still falling apart

And this battle rages beyond just my mind

It wars in every ounce of this body of mine

I am weary and I just want to be done

But something inside won't let me give up

Still I lose a little more of the battle each day

As my strength fades and begins to give way

But there's no rest for my weary soul

For in the safety of these lies is a comfort I can't let go

I can't let myself risk the hurt that will come

When the truth overwhelms and the lies are undone

I fear the broken silence when the strivings finally cease

And I can't imagine a place where abuse can find peace

So beaten down I fight a battle I know I can't win

As truth demands to be known while lies refuse to give in

The pain of a burden lifted

     I'm not really sure how to start saying what it is I want to say.  So here goes...

It wasn't my fault!

     I really get it now.  I see what others have seen for a while now.  But now that I can say that, I crumble into a pile of broken each time those words leave my lips.  As strange as this may sound, I want it to be my fault.  I'll get back to that in a minute.

     When it hit me that it was not my fault in the least, I panicked.  I know it is supposed to be a good thing to understand, freeing even, but it wasn't.  It has taken me months to get to the place I can write about it.  I have wanted to write, but it has taken time to begin to process this truth.  There is more to process, but some of the dust has settled.

     Let me try to explain where I am.  Bearing the guilt for the wrongs done against me, that I am not guilty of, is a heavy burden to carry.  It is a crushing weight to live under.  It leaves me hunched over in an attempt to stand and live with what is not, and never has been, mine.  However, that weight also serves to dull the pain of what was done to me.  The heavy burden of guilt that I have carried all these years hides the pain and reality of how profoundly I have been hurt.  

     So what now...now that the weight has been lifted?  When the burden of his guilt was removed from my shoulders, the pain of how deeply he violated me tore through the very core of my heart and soul and body.  Somehow, maintaining blame for myself, being at fault and part of the cause for the abuse, made it less violating, less painful, less invasive.  Finally being able to see that it really was not my fault, that I really did not cause it to happen, meant all of it happened to me completely against my will.  That reality is brutal and painful and something I have not come to terms with.  It doesn't leave me shaking violently with anxiety anymore...well most of the time.

     This leaves me still desperately clinging to the guilt that isn't mine.  I want it to be mine.  I want it to dull the painful truth it masks.  I want to keep that heavy burden.  It has been lifted, but I still reach out for it.  I still try to put it back on my shoulders and live with the comfortable weight I never could stand under.  Because it's easier to live with that weight than it is to feel that pain which demands to be felt when the weight isn't crushing me anymore.  I've been crushed by the weight of his guilt for so many years, I don't even know how to stand up at all without it.  The painful reality that rips through me in its absence leaves me too weak to stand, so I fall to the ground in agony.

     I don't know yet what comes after the pain that sears every part of me.  There are still wounds I refuse to see, words I attempt to define out of my story because I can't bring myself to accept the truth and implications they bring with them.  For now, the burden of guilt that crushed me for years is getting farther and farther out of reach no matter how hard I try to bring it back to me again.  So I finally say it was not my fault, and I fall shattered to the ground, waiting...trusting...desperate for God to bring healing to this unbearable hurt.

     

Where expectation meets reality

     I have been really quiet lately.  It's not that nothing has happened.  That is so far from the truth.  It's just that so much has happened.  I've been overwhelmed, caught off guard, at a loss for words.  I really hate being at a loss for words.  Much of what has been going on I still don't have words for, but I have words for something else.  So I'm back at my computer using words, and that's a wonderful place to be.

     I guess one might be able to argue that healing begins once abuse stops.  There is something to be said for still living and looking normal enough and functional enough after such awful experiences.  However, I don't consider myself to have began my journey to healing until about 2 years ago.  It's an interesting story really.  I did not know when I hit send on that email that my journey was beginning, but it was.  That email led to phone calls, more emails, questions, fears, curiosity I couldn't ignore, and help, real help, being held out to me for the first time ever.
     I wasn't looking for help, and I didn't think I needed it.  The person I had emailed could see right through it though.  Conversations happened.  Someone cared.  Someone could help.  I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I have this need to check things out, and somewhere deep down, I knew I needed help.  So I agreed to find out what helped look like, but there were some very specific places in my world that were strictly off limits.  I'm not resolute about  much, but that, those places, I was set and adamant were not going to be dealt with.  As far as I was concerned, there was no help for those places because I was not willing to enter them...help or not.

     I had these ideas in my head, expectations I guess you could call them, of what help was supposed to look like.  I thought it would be pretty quick.  I would sit down, tell someone the nitty gritty of what happened, and that person would tell me all the things I was wrong about and how to make the past go away.
     For months and months, I kept waiting to be asked "so what exactly happened?"  But time and time again the question wasn't asked.  I would prepare myself and try to figure out when I was supposed to sit down and grit through it.  That is what everyone had always wanted before telling me it wasn't real or I was to blame.  Surely help meant I had to shut down my insides, so I could endure speaking that again to someone who would turn around and set me straight.  The time never came though, and I started to settle a tiny bit.
   
     My journey was well under way.  It took a long time for me to realize I had gotten anywhere at all.  I always felt like I was in the same place, perpetually stuck.  But I can tell you, I am not in the same place.  I am not the same person now as I was then, 2 years ago when I inadvertently began moving and working towards healing.  I have come a long way to get to where I am now.  There have been some ups, a lot of downs, slips and free falls, getting up and sitting down, getting stuck and moving forward.  There have been too many times of wanting to walk away, yet there has been abundant grace to keep me going.  Praise God for the grace!
     I have learned a bit about what this journey is like, and my initial expectations are now being met with reality.  It isn't quick.  I've certainly come a long way, but there is so much road left to travel.  The expectation of quick has been met with the reality of time, and I am learning to be okay with however long it takes.  I'm not trying to find short cuts anymore or trying to estimate how soon I can be healed and "over it."  It takes time to heal, and I'm getting comfortable with that.
     I expected I would be required to just spill the darkest parts of my life to someone and wait for them to set me straight.  That expectation is being met constantly with compassion and patience and love and care.  That sounds like an easy reality to adjust to, but it's not.  I have lived for decades on guard, fighting to protect myself from others whether they mean harm or threat or not.  I struggle to differentiate between friend and foe.  I have not always been easy to care for and be patient with.  I treat compassion and love with fear and doubt which I'm certain makes it hard for others to continue to show me compassion and love.  I am working on accepting such kindnesses without questions of what they are trying to get from me or assuming ulterior motives must be the driving force.  I'm learning that some people really do care simply because I am a human being, and that somehow makes me worthy of being cared for in their eyes.
     I have always had the expectation that healing would mean my past goes away.  I have held on to that for so so long.  When I used to pray for God to help, the only prayers I could form in my mind were "God please help make it all go away."  I couldn't fathom any other way to be okay.  If the past wasn't gone, I wasn't sure how it could be lived with.  But the expectation of a past disappearing is being met, at times really harshly, with the reality that the past cannot disappear or be undone.  At times, that reality has seemed nothing short of hopeless.  Yet there is hope.  Redemption is real.  The truth of the matter is that I cannot outrun the past.  It will always be my past.  I will never live a life that does not include abuse.  That does not mean I will never live a full, healthy, happy, rich life.  Help is real, but help doesn't mean taking the past away.  Help is facing the past and the wounds it has left, healing so all that is left are scars, and learning to live again.  Help is redemption, and redemption is hope.
     Lastly, I fully expected to be able to walk through healing while walking around a few places.  I have held tightly to the locks on those walls.  There have been times I got too close and would simply shut down.  Once again, expectation meets reality as I stand before the places I have long refused to go knowing the only way to healing is through them rather than around.  It has taken almost 2 years to accept this reality and let go of this expectation.  Here I am though.  I know the road ahead goes straight through the places I expected to avoid at all costs, but reality has informed my expectation that avoiding these places will cost me much more than finding my way through the darkness they hold.
 
     Expectation and reality can meet in a backwards way too.  I always expected to hold this part of me always on my own.  If help was coming, it was going to be something I did alone.  I could not let others know about this part of me.  Here, once again, expectation has met reality as I face these places I was certain I would avoid, and I am not facing them alone.  As I look at the road to come, knowing I am going to walk into some very scary, dark, hard places, I can look and see that I am not alone.  There is someone else with me, and God is with us both, leading us and lighting our way.

   


   

Wings like eagles

"But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;

they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

they shall run and not be weary;

they shall walk and not faint."

Isaiah 40:21

     I love the eagle imagery in the Bible.  My family and I greatly enjoy birds and particularly bald eagles.  We watch a few different cameras set up to watch real nests in the wild.  We have watched eagles incubate, hatch, and grow.  It has been wonderful to watch and experience in a small way.  We have learned so much as well.  In the last couple of weeks, a lot has happened...more than I would share here.  It's been hard, but along the way, I have found a metaphor in the journey of an eagle from egg to flight as I fight for healing and freedom.  This might be a bit choppy and long, but I hope you'll be willing to bear with me.

     Let me begin with what I have come to know...really, truly, deeply know.  This is big yet terrifying.  It was not my fault.  I bolded that because it is so important, but, truth be told, I can barely utter those words in a whisper that is audible right now.  I know it's true now.  I really do.  It's been a very hard truth to stomach but more on that in a minute.  I want to briefly explain how I came to really understand this even though I've had people telling me for years it wasn't my fault.  Before now, I always had a "but..." to every reason they gave me.  I fought against it with everything in me...until it hit me full force.

     It started with questions.  I was studying in Psalm 18, and I saw God's just treatment of David.  God is a just God.  I believe that.  What God would not be just?  Anyways, as I considered God's just character, I started asking questions.  Did He see me as responsible?  Was it my fault?  Did everyone who was telling me it wasn't my fault know something or see something I couldn't?  Did it mean something that he went to prison, but I didn't?  I didn't know where to start, but I was pointed in a direction to start by a friend who has not wavered in her commitment to walk this road with me.  So, I started looking for answers, unsure of what I would find and where.  I spent weeks pondering these things, praying, searching the Scriptures and the laws of this country.  I was getting pieces, but I wasn't seeing the whole picture yet.
     Then one night, I came across a video of a lady speaking at a college class, telling her story.  I watched the whole video in a few sittings.  I was mostly drawn to it because she was 13 and her abuser was 23 when it started for her.  It struck me because I was 13 and my coach 23 when things started.  It also  caught my attention because I feel like when people think of "child abuse" they imagine little children...5, 6, 7, 8, 9 years old.  They don't think teenager.  Many people over the years told me I was old enough to know better, old enough to stop him, old enough...  My age meant I was responsible.  She was the same age as me though, and she had come to know it wasn't her fault.  I listened.
     She told her story and what happened after.  She told her parents some time after it stopped, and they went to the police.  She talked about the legal process.  I won't explain all that happened in her case, but one thing did not happen.  Her abuser was not required to register as a sex offender despite her being adamant he do so.  She wanted that label to follow him around in the hopes that it would be a warning and protect someone else in the future.  He was charged with something that made no reference to the sexual nature of the crime and was not required to register.  He went on to marry and have kids.  Then she said it was later discovered he was abusing his wife and children.  She knew what would happen.  She saw what kind of person he was.  She tried to attach a warning to him but the legal system failed her.  There were other victims after her.  Then the wall came crashing down on my head...there were other victims after me.
     That means something significant.  There were others after me.  I had always thought it was my fault.  I was the reason things happened.  I was the problem.  BUT if I was the reason things happened, if I was the problem, if it was my fault, when I was taken out of the picture, things would have stopped.  BUT THEY DIDN'T.  There were others after me.  If I was to blame for what happened, then he would not have kept doing the same things to others when I got too old and wasn't what he wanted anymore.  It was cause-effect.  If I was the cause, the one at fault, then take away the cause and the effect stops.  When I was out of the picture, the effect kept on because HE WAS THE PROBLEM ALL ALONG!
     I know, that sounds like such a good thing to understand.  It sounds like it would bring freedom and relief, but it didn't.  I went into a panic for hours.  The effects of understanding this truth and a couple of other smaller but still important truths completely disrupted my fragile world and flipped it upside down.  It has taken almost two weeks to find solid ground again, and I'm still not back where I was before.  There is still progress I had made in some areas that I lost and haven't gotten back yet.  But here is where the eagle metaphor comes in.

     Bald eagles incubate their eggs for approximately 35 days before they hatch.  When an eaglet is finally free of its egg, it is small, weak, and completely dependent on mom and dad eagle for protection and nourishment.  The tiniest of eaglets has wings though.  They hatch having all the body parts necessary for flying, but they can't fly.  Their little, downy wings are weak, awkward, clumsy.  They don't know how to use them just yet.  As they grow, they stretch their wings to gain strength.  Their downy feathers they are born with are replaced with mature feathers.  They gain better control of their muscles and wings.  They slowly venture out onto nearby branches, hopping and flapping their wings while they go.  The once awkward, weak, and clumsy wings become strong, coordinated, and powerful.  Then one day, they take flight, and those weak, clumsy wings they could hardly control give them a freedom they have dreamed of since they first saw mom and dad fly to and from the nest.

     I know that this truth is meant to bring me freedom, but it hasn't.  It has brought me face to face with realities I have long since denied or minimized.  They are hard realities, painful realities.  Like the brand new eaglet, I have wings, but they are awkward, weak, and clumsy.  They have not brought freedom though one day they will.  First, I must stretch them, grow, mature into them as I face these hard, painful realities, learn how to feel the feelings I have pushed aside as I see, for the first time, the whole truth of what happened.  As I face what happened, learn to call it what it is, learn to grieve what was lost, learn to own and accept all of it, my wings will stretch and strengthen.  They will become more coordinated and powerful.  And as healing and redemption are worked out in my body, my soul, my heart, my story, my voice, as I wait for the Lord in all these things, He will strengthen these weak, clumsy, awkward wings until I mount up with the grace and power of the eagle and fly with the freedom He has promised.

     One thing I hope anyone who is walking with a survivor would take from this is that when your friend unlocks a huge truth that you see as freeing, be patient with them.  The wings that you see as a means of freedom may be very weak and clumsy to the one who just realized she had them.  It may be painful and hard from where she is.  Stay with her where she is trusting that her wings will strengthen as she matures into them, and the freedom you can see from where you stand will one day be hers.  Wait with her as she wrestles through the hard things.  It is only when you stay with her where she is that you will see those awkward wings one day take graceful and powerful flight in freedom.

     My dear survivor sisters, take heart.  I know those wings you can't seem to control feel awkward and clumsy.  I know you feel like you'll never fly free.  You may not even realize you have wings yet.  I only realized I had mine within the last few days.  It's been a painful and challenging realization.  But if we take it one day at a time, one step at a time, our wings will gain strength.  Coordination will come.  Healing and redemption will give us wings that are graceful and powerful and set us free.  We just have to hold on while we grow.  It's hard and uncomfortable and just plain painful.  But there is safety in the nest, in the protection of His wings.  As we grow, He gives more and more freedom until we fly on our own with the very wings we can't yet control.  I'm with you.  We will fly together one day with the grace and power of the eagles.  He has promised, and He is faithful.

Breaking chains

     This week has been very difficult for me.  Lies are losing their grip as truth becomes easier to see.  That sounds like a wonderful thing, and certainly it is good and necessary.  But it is hard and painful.  It has thrown my world out of balance, and I have struggled to breathe.  I have also learned some stuff that I want to share.

     I have come to see that abuse leaves the one who was hurt in chains.  These chains have been bound around my heart for many, many years.  I always assumed when the physical restraints were gone, I was free, but that hasn't happened.  When I was no longer physically bound but was given freedom, the chains that bound my heart remained...and in some circumstances, tightened.

I broke my silence, but then I was told...

--It wasn't that bad...and the chains tightened
--You are a danger to be around...and the chains tightened
--What you are saying, what you remember, it's not true...and the chains tightened
--Have you repented of what you did to cause it to happen...and the chains tightened
--It's in the past, it doesn't matter anymore...and the chains tightened

So back into silence I slipped for many more years than my silence lasted originally.

     I didn't know these chains were there until they started to break.  They held the pieces of my heart together in one place though.  That makes them feel safe and secure because it makes my heart feel safe and secure.  However, they were bound with lies, and with lies, they remain.  There is no security and safety in the chains around my heart despite what those same chains tell me.

But they have started to break...

--I believe you...the first chain shattered
--It wasn't your fault...another chain broken
--You did not deserve that...another chain gone
--God cares about you...another chain
--God cares about what happened...and another
--I am for you...a chain gone
--I am not leaving, I am here...a chain completely obliterated

     This week, more chains have broken away.  It happened really unexpectedly.  I was not prepared.  I saw more of the truth where his lies and the lies of others had reigned for far too long.  But as I have tried to find my footing in the aftermath, I have struggled.  I feel more broken than ever...and it hurts.
     As each chain breaks, the pieces of my heart that have been held in bondage fall piece by piece to the ground.  The chains gave me a sense of being held together because all the pieces were in one place.  Now, they are falling down as the chains are breaking.  I am seeing, for the first time, just how broken I've been as I see all the shattered parts of me falling out of the chains that once kept them captive long after I was physically free.

     The weight of that brokenness feels like too much.  I am terrified of the rest of the chains breaking, but too many have broken now to put them back together.  The rest will break.  The pieces will fall.  Still He says He will heal what has been broken.

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. --Psalm 147:3

     The chains that bound my wounds are being broken by those around me now who are showing me people really can care and be kind.  Those chains are being broken as truth shines into the darkness of lies I have believed and exposes them for what they are.  When the chains that bind my wounds as a prisoner are gone, He will bind my wounds with His tenderness and bring healing and restoration of all that was lost.  

     My wounds, once bound by chains, He promises to bind up for the purpose of healing.  That is a promise I have to cling to with the feeble strength I have right now, for the chains breaking and my wounds being exposed as each piece of my heart falls freely to the ground is painful beyond words.  As I see, for the first time, what has been broken, I begin to feel, for the first time, the ache of what was lost, and that is simply terrifying.  Still I am here, though some days I don't want to be.  Be patient with me as these chains break and my heart falls apart.  I can't do this alone.

On the God who sees

     This post is my follow up to being invisible.  I have felt invisible for so long, I'm not sure what it is like not to be that way.  As I have thought about it recently, I am reminded of the story of Hagar and the God who sees.

     For those of you not familiar with this story, before Abraham and Sarah were Abraham and Sarah, they were Abram and Sarai.  They had been promised a child yet remained childless well past the normal childbearing years.  Being human, their faith was shaken as to how this promised child would be granted.  Sarai then told her husband that he should have her Egyptian servant, Hagar, as his second wife in order to have a child through Hagar.  Abram agreed.  Hagar had no choice in the matter.
     Hagar was given to Abram in marriage, and she got pregnant.  She looked down on her mistress after she knew she was with child.  Sarai, of course, did not like the contempt her servant was treating her with and spoke to Abram.  He told her to do with her servant as she wished.  She treated Hagar harshly until Hagar ran away.  So in the middle of the woods, invisible, alone, and pregnant, God met her.
     The story in Genesis 16 says an "Angel of the Lord" appeared to her.  This kind of language often is a reference to preincarnate appearance of Christ.  The very God of the universe came personally to her.  They had a dialogue, and she was given big promises and instructions on what to do from there.  After He departed, verse 13 says "so she called the Lord who spoke to her: the God who sees, for she said 'In this place, have I actually seen the One who sees me?'"
     God is called the God who sees.  She was in awe that she saw with her own eyes the One who sees her in all her plight.  She was nothing more than a means to an end to Sarai.  She did not ask to have Abram as a husband.  She was given no consideration in the plan.  She was used.  But God saw it ALL and met her when she was invisible!
     In many ways, I can relate to Hagar.  I was used for the desire of someone else.  I got what I never asked for.  No consideration was given to me and my well being.  As a result, I became invisible to everyone around me.  I was less than human.  But just as God saw Hagar, He sees me too.  He always has.

     He saw me when everything was happening.  He saw me in the aftermath.  He sees me now.  He will see me forever.  That truth does bring some questions for which I do not have any answers, but it also brings a sense of comfort.  Someone sees.  Someone knows.  Someones cares.  Someone notices.  I am seen.  I am known.  When no one here wants to see me, when they look away from me or through me so they don't have to face what makes them uncomfortable, there is One who sees me and meets me alone in the wilderness just like He met Hagar.  I may be invisible to most people here, but I am not invisible to the One who loves me most of all.

Do You See Me

God I know they don't see me but what about You

Do you see all of me that is dirty and used

Am  I more than everything he did to me

Am I more than all that they choose not to see

So much they overlook but do You take notice

You're so big, I'm so small, do You say I'm worth it

They have never seen me but tell me if it's true

Am I, have I always been, invisible to  You too

My child I love you much more than you know

What they look past only draws Me in close

You are so much more than the pain of your past

I saw all he stole but your worth he's never had

My dear child you've never been invisible to Me

You're invisible to your own eyes, you don't see what I see

A precious daughter who is known and loved and whole

Not dirty or used but redeemed, new, and beautiful

We are not ruined

     My family moved just a couple of years ago to another state.  I still am connected with a lot of people from where we came from.  Recently, a few people posted a news article from that city about a recent crime and a sketch of the suspect.  The basics of what happened is a woman was sexually assaulted at a local grocery store, in what is considered a good part of town, in front of her child, and the suspect got away.  I have not actually read the article.  Those kinds of articles are rather triggering for me.  I know to avoid them, but I have seen the commentary of some people I know and am acquainted with on my personal facebook page.
     As I have watched the comments on the article shared by people I know, there have been calls for justice and hope that this guy will be caught and punished to the fullest extent of the law.  There has been lament at how poorly sex crimes are handled by the justice system in general.  There has been pity for the lady and her child.  I read these reactions just on an acquaintance's page..."I don't know how anyone could recover from something like that"...and "the woman's life is ruined and tarnished."

     I read those comments, and I have something to say about what is a common reaction to stories of sexual crimes committed against both children and adults.

     We are not ruined!  No, we cannot ever undo what has been done to us.  Yes, it is a terrible tragedy that will remain with us for the rest of our lives, but when you say our lives are forever ruined, you strip of us any hope we had to recover and move forward and have a fulfilling and rich life after such trauma.  Sometimes that hope is really hard to find in the first place.  Some days the hope that other people hold for me is the only hope I can hold on to.  When the pity and fear (because these comments stem from the fear of becoming one of us) of other people say over and over that life is over after trauma such as sexual abuse or assault, you are saying that there is no hope for me or the other survivors that are out there.  You are saying we are damaged goods, trashed forever, broken with no hope of being beautiful again.  You are wrong!
     What you don't realize is we are living seemingly normal, every day lives right alongside you, and you don't even know we are here!  We have to fight and work and struggle to face hard things in life that haunt you in your worst nightmare.  We lived your nightmare, and we fight to get out of it.  Our lives are not ruined.  We look just like you.  We have families, just like you.  We go to school, just like you.  We have jobs, just like you.  We live, just like you...only we work really hard to press on through the trauma we have experienced.  We have to learn how to trust again, learn how to feel, learn how to heal, but we can and we do heal.
     We learn to enjoy the little moments in life that we once missed because of the effects of what we experienced.  We learn to laugh again.  We learn to love again.  We learn to live again.  There will be parts we will deal with the rest of our lives, but that does not mean our lives are less than yours.  It means we are brave, and we are strong even when we feel like we are falling apart.  But even when we feel like we are falling apart, we are still living and fighting to enjoy the life we have.  We work for healing, and we recover what was broken and become more beautiful than before.  While the trauma is ugly, the redemption and the healing are beautiful, and if we let you in to see it, you should know it's an honor.  Will you put aside your pity and look past your fear to see it?

     I'm also pretty sure we are not tarnished.  I struggle with this a little more because I still feel tarnished.  I still feel tremendous amounts of shame that are woven all throughout me.  And shame is what tarnishes.  The tarnish you think we have is the same shame you say isn't ours.  Aren't we supposed to be more than what was done to us?  Aren't we supposed to be more than our trauma?  Isn't that what well meaning people say?  Do you believe the trite platitudes you speak in the face of what makes you uncomfortable...namely our experiences, our pasts?  Do not heap more shame on us by viewing us as damaged, tarnished, marked forever by what was done to us.  We carry enough shame that isn't ours.  We do not need yours too.  What someone else did to us in the past is not the sum of who we are now even for those of us walking through the depths of recovery.
     Yes, I will always carry scars when these wounds stop gushing, but my scars do not make me less of a person than you because your scars are more palatable than mine.  You are not tarnished by the hurts you have experienced, so do not tell me I am tarnished because of mine.  I see over and over people pointing to victim-blamers as the reason so many of us live in silence, and that is certainly a big part of it.  But you who pour out your pity and see us as defined by our one experience and think we will never be able to move forward keep us silent too.  We do not want your pity.  When we expect pity, that "she'll never be normal again" attitude, as the response to sharing our story, we just won't share.  Will you look past the crime committed against us and see us as people?

     I know someone who walked through recovery and came out on the other side.  Sure, sometimes things pop up, but she knows how to handle them now.  She is one of my biggest cheerleaders as I walk the road to recovery myself.  She said someone told her of God's promise to restore the years the locust had taken.  She wanted that, and it sometimes kept her going when it got really hard.  She has told me she has seen Him keep that promise.  She tells me of the things she savors and enjoys that she would have missed before the hard work of healing.  She says it was worth it!  She is glad she kept going and encourages me to keep pressing on when it feels like too much to take the next step.  Her life is not ruined!  She is not tarnished!  My life is not ruined.  I am not tarnished.  Our lives are not ruined!  Our lives are not tarnished!
     If you want to look at us through the lens of pity and through the fear you have of becoming one of us, please keep your comments to yourself.  We are working hard to get our lives back, and we do not need you fueling the myth that we often times fall prey to that we will never be good enough again because of what was done to us.  If you are brave enough, set aside the pity and face your fear.  Look at us as people just like you.  See us for more than what was done to us.  Look for the beauty that rises from the ashes you struggle to see past.  The beauty is there.  Sometimes you will have to look hard to find it, but will you see us as worth the effort?

On being invisible

     I think this post is likely going to come across sad and hopeless, but please stick with me.  There will be another post coming in the next few days or so that will bring hope to this post.  So please read but also remember...hope is coming!

     Something happens when a child is abused.  It happens from the very first instance of abuse regardless of whether that abuse is brought about through words or hands.  I'm not sure how it happens, but I am certain it does.  So what happens?  The child becomes invisible.  They are desperate for help, for rescue, for safety, for hope, but it almost never comes because suddenly no one can see them.  I know.  I remember when I became invisible.

     I was 13.  I'm sure my coach had been setting the stage for a while, but I remember vividly when it started and got serious.  It started with words.  I don't remember them exactly, though I do remember the conversation and what he was talking about.  I also remember changing that very instant.  I couldn't put my finger on it then, but I can now.  I became invisible, and I could feel it.  I now had a secret.  I was now touched with shame.  I needed help, but I could not ask for it.  I didn't have words for what was happening.  I'm not sure how it all happened specifically.  I felt the difference, but no one around me could see it.  Somehow I disappeared, and no one came looking for me.  

Invisible

A world full of people but no one can see

The girl living among them with dark secrets deep

She needs someone's help but on her own she can't say so

And her help will never come because she's become invisible

At school her teachers say their doors are always open

But she's afraid of what it will cost her if she were to walk in

With good grades they don't see her, that she's slipping away

So when school's over, they send her home as she dies more each day

At home she has parents but life is not okay

Their marriage breaking, her silence a huge price to pay

Because they are too busy with the hurts that they bear

To see that their daughter, though present, is no longer there

She kept growing up but she never outgrew

Whatever kept her invisible and always out of view

But the sting of loneliness never went away

Instead it became her companion day by day

A world full of people but still no one can see

The one standing in the midst of them waiting to be seen

She is out in plain sight but they can't see...me

     While the cloak of invisibility is forced on a child when abuse begins, it doesn't automatically come off when it stops.  I never stopped being invisible.  Even now, many years later, no one looks for me when I hide or disappear or don't show up.  I'm forgettable which keeps me invisible.  There is one or two people who look for me, but that's not the norm.  I'm still invisible.  

     But invisibility pulls me in two different directions.  Part of me wants to stay invisible.  There is a strange comfort there.  It feels safe when nothing else does.  It's lonely though, so at times I wish I could be seen.  I've been invisible for so long, though, that I'm not sure how to change that.  I do know it would be risky.  If people could see me, they would see my secret.  That thought is enough to push me back into the safety of invisible.  But then I get lonely and wish I could be seen, and that scares me.  Do you see the struggle?  

     Being invisible doesn't mean I don't know anyone or have no friends or never leave my house.  I do, but sometimes the loneliest place to be is in a room full of people...quiet because I'm not sure how to fit in and never spoken to because I'm invisible to those who are there.  

Look Through Me

When they look through me they look past a wife

Nothing to notice, no need to look twice

Just a woman standing by the one who loves her

Overlooked and invisible, never someone to remember

When they look through me they look past a mom

Trying to gather my noisy kids, they want me gone

Exhausted and worn by the daily tasks

Of pouring into my children and caring for me last

When they look through me they look past a friend

Someone to listen when their world's crashing in

Someone to care for them when life hits roughest

Even though when I'm not there they never notice

When they look through me they look past a woman

Small, scared, and broken, convinced I am less than

Longing for a friend who sees past all they look through

But going it alone because that's how I've made due

When they look through me they don't see what they miss

A chance to be the hands and feet of Jesus

To reach out to the forgotten, to the very least of these

And bearing my burden with me, a chance to see the broken redeemed

     It hurts to be invisible, to always be forgotten.  My sweet survivor sisters, I want you to know that I see you.  I pray for you.  I hold you in my heart even when I don't know your name.  I have not forgotten you even when I don't actually know you.  But as hopeless as it seems being invisible, hold on my dear ones.  There is One who sees us when no one else can and when no one else wants to.  

     

Perception is not reality

    This post talks about a lie my coach worked very hard to get me and everyone around me to believe.  There is a bit of redemption in this post though.  This is my twenty-seventh post.  Twenty-seven was my coach's favorite number.  He gave me a necklace once with that number on it.  It had personal significance to him.  Now it has personal repulsiveness to me.  I literally hate the number twenty-seven.  I was thankful that when I was twenty-seven years of age, God blessed me with a child to ease the dread I felt as that year approached.  Now, I reach my twenty-seventh post...a post about breaking free from a lie my coach served up on a silver platter, that I spent too many years believing.  No more.  Post number twenty-seven...one more chain broken.

     My coach used to frequently say "perception is reality."  He said it to all of us on the team, but he particularly said it to the older girls, namely those of us in middle school.  He would explain that what people perceived to be true is what they believed to be true, so what they perceived was reality.  To us kids, it sounded really cool and made sense enough.  We bought into it.  We believed it.  I believed it.  And I didn't know how much I believed it until over 15 years later.
     My coach fully believed this when he said it.  He wanted those around him to believe it too.  He created a perception of himself that he needed others around him to buy into in order for him to get what he wanted...me.  This saying of his really played off of people's natural tendency to bring their own perceptions and preconceived notions to any given situation or circumstance.  I couldn't see the manipulation in it until almost a year ago, and even now I struggle to understand it all and how someone could so carefully construct an environment where that kind of thing went unnoticed for years.
   
     But here's the thing...

Perception is NOT reality!

     About a year ago, I first realized how incredibly manipulative and calculated he was in his use of that phrase and setting up the reality he wanted others to perceive in order to get his way.  As time has gone on though, I have come to understand how deeply I have held on to that lie of his and how not true it really is.  

     

     In every situation and circumstance I encounter, I bring my own perspective, ideas, and beliefs.  I let those perceptions color how I view the situation or circumstance.  I may, for example, get cut off in traffic.  I bring my own beliefs about how one should drive and who drives the way the other person did, that I make judgments about what is real in the situation.  I perceive the driver to be a jerk and careless and inconsiderate.  But I don't have the whole truth.  I may not be aware that the person is rushing through traffic to make it to the hospital where a loved one has been taken following a life threatening accident.  The person is not a jerk or careless or inconsiderate.  They are scared out of their mind and preoccupied with awful thoughts and questions.  They are in a situation that deserves compassion not judgement and anger.  My perceptions were not reality.  They were a version of reality, but they were not the full reality.

     My feelings can also alter my perception of what is real in a situation.  For example, a friend could say something in a conversation that I found hurtful though she did not intend to hurt me and did not know I may react like that.  Given the past I have, I assume I have done something wrong to make my friend mad at me.  My feelings color my perception of the conversation, and I believe I have angered my friend somehow.  What I perceive to be true, is not actually reality.  My friend just made a comment without realizing it would cause me pain.  I never made her mad.  My perceptions were not reality.

     This also comes into play with God.  It is so easy on this journey to feel like God is far away, that He has left me all alone, that He doesn't care.  Those feelings, those perceptions, are not reality.  No matter what I feel or think, God has promised to be with me.  How I feel on any given day does not change this.  Anything I perceive that is the opposite of Him being with me is not reality, no matter how real it feels.  No matter what I think or feel, God says He cares about me, and He loves me.  I cannot lose that.  It is mine not by my own merit but because He loved me from the beginning of time.  My perceived feelings about His love and care do not tell the reality of His love for me on those dark days when I feel abandoned.  When I feel He couldn't possibly love me and doesn't care one bit, my perceptions are not reality.  

     In day to day life, in situations and circumstances that involve other people, it is so hard to keep my perceptions from coloring my view of things.  I don't always have the other side to the situation.  I can't always find out the side of reality I can't see from my vantage point.  Sometimes, my perceptions are all I have.  Other time, what is real is so different from how I have perceived things to be that it is hard to accept what is reality when I find it out.  It just isn't easy to remember that my perceptions are not always right when other people are involved.  I try to remember, though, and to hold my perceptions loosely.

     God gives me a weapon against my perceptions of Him.  He gives me His promises, His truth, that will always fight the lies my perceptions try to tell me.  When I feel He is far from me, that He has walked away and left me in my darkness and hurt, I have His word and the promises that He will always be with me to fight what I perceive to be reality with what really is reality.  This is one of the best gifts He has given me on this journey...His truth to fight the lie that perception is reality.

My perceptions of God cannot nullify His promises to me.  

He is faithful to His promises whether I perceive Him to be or not.

Perception is NOT reality!

     Let us all remember, in any circumstance we are in, there are other perspectives, other truths, other sides to each story that must be mixed with our own perspective and perceptions in order to see the full reality. Hold your perceptions loosely. Remember what you perceive to be true may not be reality at all.

     My precious sisters, there is tremendous hope and comfort in this! What we perceive to be true, is not always so. Cling to His promises, especially when they scratch and chafe against the perceptions you hold in the moment. Take comfort in knowing that what you perceive to be reality really isn't. He is still with you, even when you feel alone. He still loves you more deeply than you can imagine, even when you feel discarded. It won't change your feelings. I won't pretend that it makes it easier. Sometimes, though, it brings a peace and comfort in the harsh darkness that helps you press on. His promises push through your perceptions, dear one. They always will.

Denial, noise, truth...ramblings

     A fair warning...this is a lot of rambling.  It goes down a few rabbit trails and seemingly different paths, but if you'll be patient and stick it out, I think I can tie it all back together the way it is in my head.  The all over the place nature of this post is just where my head is.  I'm sorry for that.  I hope you'll be willing to keep reading to see how it all comes together and hopefully makes sense.    

     It's a new year.  People like to make new year's resolutions to make each year better than the one before.  It's more a formality than anything realistic though.  Resolutions are made knowing they will be broken, yet we still like the hope we feel in formulating a plan to make changes and live life on our terms.
     Life doesn't live on our terms though.  We wind up facing circumstances that are messy and hard and ugly and broken.  We end up torn between what we had planned and what is unfolding before us.  We find ourselves at the mercy of truth, and sometimes what is true is what we never wanted or asked for.  So we try to escape the truth we didn't want because that somehow feels more comfortable and more in control (even though we aren't).

     I have spent more years than I care to count trying to escape a truth I never asked for, never wanted, never had a say in.  I grew up with heavy secrets to keep.  I had to leave a room where the unspeakable took place and enter a world where I was "normal" and "fine" and just like every other kid I was around.  So I learned very quickly and rather young how to deny the truth of my life even while knowing what the truth was.  Denial became my truth without my ever knowing it.  Denial meant I survived.  It was good and necessary in those years that the truth tried to kill me.
     Life is different now all these years later.  I'm not living in the nightmare I once was trapped in.  In fact, the tides have turned.  The truth that would have killed me then is what now can bring me freedom.  The denial that was necessary for me to keep living, now keeps me from healing.  But moving past denial is proving to be a terribly difficult fight...denial is a vicious and ruthless opponent.

     I'm sure you must think it strange to talk about being in denial.  After all, when we think of denial, we think of holding fast to a lie that something did not happen when in fact it did.  That is denial, but that just scratches the surface of it.  I don't have the ability right now to explain it all, but I will try to briefly explain the denial I am battling at the moment.
     I do not deny that the abuse I endured happened.  If asked if I was abused as a child, I would shake my head yes.  I keep my distance from it though.  I minimize it.  I do it without thinking.  I've been doing it so long I don't know I'm doing it.  I hold my past at a distance, refusing to let it be real.  I will shake my head in agreement that it happened, but I cannot let the words escape my mouth.  That makes it real.  There are words I have in my head that I know are part of my story, but they are so awful and repulsive that I actively look for definitions anywhere that will define them out of what happened to me.  I know what applies as truth to my story, but I won't accept the truth.
     Not accepting what is true as true and minimizing the parts I will admit to is another level of denial that I am losing my fight with.  It's a fight I can't afford to lose though.  I have to win this fight if I am going to find healing.  But I am stuck, going in circles with denial while feeling truth pull at me, quietly requesting I sit and rest from the dizzying circles I dance with denial.  My feet keep moving though, and I feel the tension rise between denial and truth.  I know I have to be honest with my truth to myself in order to take my truth honestly to the One who can redeem it.

     As I dizzy myself with denial, truth keeps finding ways to make her presence known.  The last few months as I have struggled greatly feeling stuck and falling into some rather deep, dark pits that I wasn't sure I could get back out of, I have had this noise in my head grow louder and louder.  The more I see the denial I am stuck in and realize even more how badly I need out, the louder the noise gets.  It is particularly loud in the evenings when the house is quiet and my family is settled in for the night...deafening, frightening, always there.  It isn't audible noise, but the word noise is the best description I have for this stuff inside my head.  
     I'm not completely sure of what is in the noise.  There is a mix of a lot of things.

• there are words...inexpressible, and sometimes incomprehensible, words
• there are feelings...but I don't do feelings, I just DON'T
• there are tears...liquid terror, instant anxiety attack
• there is truth...all the truth I have not yet accepted
• there is _________...more that I don't have words for or can't understand yet

     And the noise is relentless!  It leaves me restless every evening, moving about my house on edge.  I know I should listen to it little bits at a time.  I know it has a purpose.  There is something or lots of somethings in my head, making all this noise, that need to be heard, spoken, felt, grieved, walked through, but I want nothing more than to drown it out.  It screams at me, so I scream louder with meaningless, mindless activity every night to ignore what is begging for my attention.

     Then I struggle desperately to fall asleep.  My mind refuses to unwind, to settle, to quiet.  My body, tense with the fight between the noise screaming at me and me screaming over it, refuses to relax.  Sleep is a fight which drains me instead of refreshing me.  My body begs for sleep, but my mind won't let up until my body empties itself of all it has, and my mind is forced to shut down.  Then sleep comes but never rest.
     The noise fights to be heard.  It knows it holds the truth.  But I'm terrified of what it has to say.  I don't know how to listen to it.  I can't understand the screams.  I cannot sit still.  I fear the noise will break me if I knew what it wanted.  What if it wants more than I have to give?  My stores are already so depleted.  So I pray and read Scripture and seek to be filled, but the noise just wants more and more and more.

God I am empty!  I know You can see!  Can You see I am empty?

     Now it's a new year.  I see more clearly than I ever have how entrenched in the mire of denial I am.  I know now more than ever how desperately I need to face the truth.  It's a battle.  It's raging fiercely within me every.single.day.  

     Denial spins me around while the noise screams at me that truth must be heard and walked through.  I know that I will not have to walk through it alone.  I know somehow God will meet me in it.  I know He is there waiting for me, for He is the God of truth.  Yet still each day, I drown out the noise as I dance with denial and truth tugs at my heart to just sit and be still.

     So this year, I have a goal (for lack of a better word).  I want to learn to listen to the noise.  I want to sit down with my truth and begin to accept it, piece by piece.  It will mean learning how to hear what is true, feel what is true, speak what is true, grieve what is true, walk through what is true, all while clinging to the God of truth who promises to be with me in the pain of what is true.  I know it will not be easy.  I know it will be a process and involve a lot of hard work.  This year, I want to find God with me in the terror of truth and learn, in the midst of all the hurt, to rest in His arms of love and comfort.  I know the only way to healing is through the hurt of truth.  As much as this terrifies me, I press on.

If you want to walk with me

     This post is meant for those who are not survivors themselves but have survivor friends walking out the journey towards healing.  I don't know much about relationships or friendships.  I haven't really had much practice to be honest.  I have been walking this journey though.  As I have walked this road, I have started to learn what is helpful for me.  As I have begun to learn what is helpful as I press on, I have also thought a lot about those who start to walk with me only to walk away.
     I have said before that many have walked away over the years.  Some have walked away from me completely while others are still friendly but steer clear of anything of substance in order to avoid what they know is deep in my heart.  Both types of walking away are painful.  I struggle with it every time it happens which is more often than not.  It seems to me that there is one overarching factor in why people who seem so genuine in their care and desire to walk this road with me soon walk away or pull back sharply.
     This post puts those thoughts out of my head and into words, written words for others to see.  It scares me though.  It feels so out of character for me.  I don't stand up for what is helpful for me, for what I need.  I have gone back and forth for days and days about whether or not to post this at all.  It feels wrong to say what I will say in this post, but I believe that this is part of learning how to use the voice that was taken from me, MY voice.  I also think it is information that should be considered by all who are not survivors but want to walk with a survivor.

     Here is how it seems to happen.  I throw out a few hints of my past and the journey I'm on.  When someone hears my story, even just parts of it, they feel a tug at their heartstrings.  Abuse is an awful thing of course.  This pull on the heartstrings leads many, I think, to want to do something.  Not knowing exactly what to do, they offer their support, their friendship, their willingness to "be there" for me as I pursue healing.  It looks like compassion, but I fear it is often times more along the lines of thinly veiled pity.  I, however, put up the deposit and let them in.  I know it will cost me, but I hope the cost is worth it.  A friend is such a treasure on a journey that is often quite lonely.
     At first, they are there.  They start off strong, and their friendship is a comfort on a hard and difficult road.  But as time goes on, they are there less often.  They seem irritated or distant.  I never seem to heal fast enough, and they get burnt out, usually rather quickly.  They tell me they've done all they can or that I know what I need to do and we no longer need to bring this up, I can do it on my own.  The look of what initially appeared to be compassion turns to a look of emptiness since the compassion was pity, and pity runs out.  I didn't heal like they thought I would.  More than that, they didn't know walking with me would cost them too, and now that they do, they realize they weren't willing to pay the price.  They forget how big God is when they see how big hurt can be.

     I want you to know this.  It certainly costs me to let others near enough to be a friend on this journey, but there is a price you pay for walking with me too.  It will cost you time.  The journey is not a fast one.  It will cost you a comfort you didn't know you had as you come face to face with statistics that now belong to someone you care about.  You will see me, hear of evil you knew existed but never thought much about, and those numbers you hear about will seem a lot closer than they ever have before.  You will see that there are far more of me much closer to you than you realized.  It is an uncomfortable reality to face to say the least.  It will cost you ease as you realize you must fight with me and for me on your knees, helping me carry a burden I simply cannot carry on my own though I have tried and tried again.  It will cost you pain.  If you stick with me, you will get weary and tired, and your heart will hurt as you see me struggle with my past as I press on to my future.  You will find hurts in your own heart you have not taken the time to find healing for (since you likely didn't know you needed healing) and that will cause you pain of your own also.  It will cost you the box you try to fit God into.  It's so easy to put God in a box.  I do it too.  But as you walk with someone whose wounds are so deep, your box will be too small for the God who can bringing healing to such depths.  It is challenging to have that box shattered.  I know.  He's been shattering my box this entire journey.  This is a good cost, but it is not pain free and is so vital to count.  If you aren't willing to give up your box to keep God small, you won't be able to walk with me.
     I can try to explain the cost to you in words, but the price is much higher than I can adequately describe.  While the price is high, the reward is great too, but you must be willing to see your investment to the end.  I am not sure if you can get your cost back should you choose to walk away.  I know I can never get back the price I pay to let you walk with me.  That is what makes it so frightening to let you near me.  I can't make you stay.  I can tell you that if you keep pressing on with me, the return for your investment will be worth far more than you can dream.  If you see this through, you and I both will have a reward well worth the price we both pay.
   

If You Want to Walk With Me

You say you want to journey with me as I go

But first there are realities that you must know

Don't be shocked when your willingness I fail to believe

Because there's a price that I pay which you cannot see

If you want to walk with me

The price that I pay is costly and steep

And once it is paid can never come back to me

But I'm not the only one with a high price to pay

For there's a cost to you also to journey this way

If you want to walk with me

Your eyes will be opened to a harsh reality

Well known to all though most choose not to see

Where darkness and evil reign without limitation

And you'll wish you could believe my truth is mere fiction

If you want to walk with me

The lifeless statistics that you've always known

Will begin to take on a life completely their own

While the endless numbers turn into the faces

Of those who you love in your deepest heart places

If you want to walk with me

At times the path will leave you beaten and bruised

You'll wonder how much longer you have to push through

For this journey is long and each step is a fight

And the road presses straight through the darkest of nights

If you want to walk with me

My burden is heavy and can leave you quite weary

Time spent on your knees will leave you hurting and bloody

But your company is a treasure I won't take for granted

And there is great hope the return for your cost will be worth it

If you want to walk with me

     When you feel the tug on your heartstrings as you hear the story of a survivor, you just have to step back and decide whether or not you really want to invest.  Take time to consider whether you feel compassion or pity because your pity won't last, but compassion is good fuel for the journey.  I do not know a single survivor who takes lightly the friendship of those who choose to walk with them.  I also do not know a single survivor who does not know the pain of being walked away from.  We know it isn't easy to walk this road with us.  That is why we treasure those who stick with us even when it's dark and difficult and slow going.  We really do believe this journey is worth it or we wouldn't be working so hard at it.  If, after you have considered the cost, you're willing to invest, we trust it will be worth it for you too in the end.