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.