Much more value

     Lately, I've been thinking a lot about worth...my worth.  It's complicated and messy and not easy to settle.  I've been wrestling with it on and off for years.  Through my current wrestling, I've also been asking God to show me lies I've believed to be true and what actual truth replaces them.  It's been rough.

     One lie I've held for as long as I can remember is this: my value is my body...more specifically my value is in what my body can offer men.  It's a lie that was repeatedly thrust into me for years when I was a child.  I never gave my body over to any man, but perpetrators never need your permission.  My coach just took what he wanted of my body which just cemented the lie further into my soul each time.

     I never even knew it was a lie or had a conscious thought that my worth was in what my body could give men, but it was set firm into my very core.  Years and years and it's no surprise I brought that lie into my marriage.  Coupled with horrific counsel before marriage, I was set up to see my husband through that lens as well, and it had nothing to do with how he treated me.  I had no other lens to look through.  My husband is an incredible man who I am so grateful for.

     When a lie roots itself so deep and thrives for decades, it's not so easy to believe the truth.  In fact, it's hard to find the truth at all to even have a starting point.  Yet God is faithful.  I've been praying, seeking, asking Him to help me recognize the lies, see the truth, and learn to believe what's true.  Some are easier than others to fight against, but this one...this one is one of the most insidious, weaving itself into every part of my soul.  Today, though, He showed me.  He showed me truth.

     My church is currently going through the book of Revelation.  I wasn't sure what to expect when we started, but it's been so good. God has used it in ways I never would have expected.  Today, the pastor was working through Revelation 11.  In talking about the suffering of the saints, he went to Matthew 10:28-31.

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.  Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?  And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.  But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.  Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

     The pastor went on to talk about these verses.  Other people can spit on us, insult us, harm us, even kill our physical bodies, but Jesus says we are of more value than just our body.  Yes, our bodies are important.  What happens to us that impacts them matters, but what happens to our bodies can never devalue our souls.  We are more than just a body.  Our bodies have value but much more, our souls.  Bodies are temporary, but our souls are eternal.

     What was done to my body, all the ways my coach violated it, does not have a say in my value before God.  My value doesn't rest in what my body can do for another.  Jesus testified I am of much more value than just a body.  I am a body with a soul inside, and my coach never had the power to take away the value of my soul, of who I am in Christ.

     God intimately cares for the sparrows and knows them fully, yet how much more He cares for me and knows me even to the number of hairs on my head.  I am more than my body.  I am more than what my body can offer.  I am a beloved daughter, a soul of much more value than I can grasp.

     This truth, I know it in my head.  Now it will take time to sink deep into my soul, to uproot the lies so tangled into all the parts of me, and to learn how to live out of what is true rather than the lie I have believed for far too many years.  That is hard and holy work, but He is faithful through it.  You too, beloved sister, are not the sum of your body.  You are of much more value than that.  

A song on repeat

     Recently, my family went on vacation.  We spent a lot of time driving through areas without radio on our way to various places.  When we'd hit a bigger city, we would scan through to see if there was anything we liked.  Often the cities, even the big ones, were pretty small and nothing was of interest.  However, near one city, we had a radio station come in just long enough to play one song in it's entirety.  I've had it on repeat ever since.  Listen before you continue reading.

     It's such an incredibly beautiful song, and it so perfectly puts words to the cry of my heart in my current season of healing.  Can you hear, in the lyrics, the tension where the lies rooted deep collide with radical truth?  That's how it is though.  Lies, somewhere along the way, get so deeply rooted in our hearts that when truth is spoken we think it can't possibly be as is true.  There must be a catch.  We want to believe what is true, what our Creator says about us, but those lies put up a fight, don't they.

     My favorite line is this...

"What if I traded this shame and self-hatred for a chance at believing You?"

     I feel so much shame.  I don't remember what it is like not to.  Self-hatred?  Well, there's too much there to dive into here.  I struggle profoundly with both.  Ellie Holcomb's words are so tender here.  Most women (and I'm sure men too) know shame and self-hatred.  You don't need to experience abuse to experience those feelings.  

     In my case, those feelings stem from what I endured at the hands of another, though.  When abuse quite literally pounds shame into you, and you hate yourself for oh so many reasons that seem to only make sense in the mixed up mind of a person trying to survive, believe God really does feel like taking a chance.  It's a tremendous and scary step of faith.  It's a daily reciting to yourself what God says, sometimes every moment, and deciding to land on the peg of what He says when everything in you is screaming it cannot be true because just look in the mirror.  Look at what you were part of.  

     On good days, you can quiet the scream of shame and self-hatred.  On bad days, you just try to keep breathing.  On most days, you know taking the chance is worth it, but you have to keep reminding yourself of that in the midst of overwhelming fear as you step out in faith despite the lies running through your head still.

     But there is this...

You search me and know me 

You know what I sit when I rise

So You must know the choices I've made

And the pain that I hide 

     He knows.  He really knows.  That never stops Him from declaring me wonderfully made.  So I cry out in prayer...

Help me believe it

Help me to see me 

Just like You see me 

Just like You made me 

Wonderfully made

The weight of worth

The Weight of Worth

I saw you field another question today

It's fine, it doesn't matter you replied

I see through the walls around your heart

I know the lies you've held tight to survive

I also know when you say "it"

You actually mean you don't matter

Since believing them when they say you're worthless

Makes the weight of abuse easier to bear

Beloved child, the danger's now gone

The lies will only keep you bound

Though I know the depths of pain it will bring

The truth is also where freedom is found

I created you in your mother's womb

With My very hands I knit you together

I marked you with My fingerprint

The seal of your worth forever

Every adult who kept secrets hidden

Leading you as a lamb to the slaughter

Though they tried every way they knew how

They could not break My seal on you, daughter

I know the one who depended on lies

The man who stripped you and shredded your soul

I see the wounds left deep under the surface

Those marks take the heaviest toll

With every cut he thought he removed

My fingerprint off of your person

But no one has the power, not even him

To strip you of the worth I have given

Every time he looked past the mark of your Maker

With every single wound that you bear

My holy heart breaks and I weep with grief

Yet remember your worth isn't found there

It is found in Me, the Worthy One

Who hung on a criminal's cross

Naked and clothed in shame for you
I know personally the depths of your loss

Yet I conquered the shame others heaped on Me

When they said I didn't matter

I rose victorious and now sit with you

Telling you truth and making lies scatter

You matter to me and you always have

I made you and guarantee your worth

You never deserved what they did to you

But I will bring redemption forth

Now quiet your heart and let the truth sink deep

I will stay close by your side

I'll hold you with the same hands that knit you together

As the weight of your worth overflows your eyes

On worth

Worth.  Value.  Goodness those are loaded words for an abuse survivor.  I've wrestled with them and all that's attached to them for more years than I can remember...and I still wrestle--hard. 

To someone outside my story, my worth and value must appear cut and dry, and my wrestling with it, unnecessary and hard to understand.  

I'm not alone in my wrestling, though, among others who have experienced similar traumas.  We may all have different reasons behind it, but I don't know of any survivor that hasn't wrestled hard with her worth.  So I want to take some time to explain my wrestling.  

I pray that whoever reading who has a story like mine will know they are not alone and not weird.  I pray that whoever reading who does not have a story like mine but surely knows someone who does will understand their friend better and be better able to support and walk alongside them.

If I were to put anyone else in my place in my exact same story, I would declare their worth, declare they never deserved what they went through, grieve over what was taken from them.  Yet, when I look at my story, I am certain I deserved it.  I'm convinced that there is something less in me that made me not worth protecting.  I hear again and again that we are all image bearers, made in God's image to reflect Him.  I believe that for everyone else, but then I don't see how that makes any difference for me.  

You see, one of the deeply ingrained ways I coped with what was going on was to minimize everything.  If you talk to me long enough, you'll hear it.  I make it smaller.  I can handle it that way.  It hurts less when it isn't that big of a deal.  I can protect those around me when it's small enough for me to handle, at least that's how it seems to me.

How could I make something so horrific so small, you might ask?  I reduce my worth.  I see myself as less valuable than everyone else.  I convince myself I deserved it because somehow I image-bear the wrong way.  I see myself as the problem, the defective one.  I own that I wasn't worthy like all the other kids were.

You see, if I have just as much worth and value simply for being made in the image of God just like the rest of humanity, it makes the reality of how I was treated too big to make small.  

To believe I have worth yet look back and see the adults at USAG with all the power at their disposal hear warnings of the dangers of the man who would later abuse me yet ignore it all, hide the warnings in a secret file, and renew his membership in good standing...

To believe I have value yet look back and remember all the horrifying details of what my coach did and how many people he manipulated in order to do it...

To believe I am an image-bearer which comes with inherent dignity and value and worth and see how adults meant to protect and care for me just trampled over it all...

It makes it too big, too heavy, too real.  I can't minimize that.  I can't lessen that pain or grasp that level of violation.  That reality brings tears I can't hold back, and that makes a mess I can't keep from hurting those around me.

When I wrestle with my worth, I'm wrestling with decades of coping the only way I knew how, coping that let me live and blend in so much so that almost no one knew my secret.  I'm wrestling with decades of hurt I have done everything possible not to feel, and I'm desperately trying to not hurt those around me with the wounds inflicted on me.  

When I wrestle with my worth, I'm wrestling with a good God in the face of unspeakable evil.  This good God isn't afraid to wrestle either.  Jacob wrestled with God centuries before I found myself in the same place, and just like Jacob, I'm sure to walk away with a limp.  Abuse has a way of doing that.

So when I or another survivor friend of yours winces at the reminder of her worth, of her image-bearer-ness, of her value, remember she's wrestling something much too large for mere words.  Remind her of her worth, that isn't wrong or bad, but even more than that, wrestle with her in prayer.  You may leave limping too, but it will be tangible evidence you really do believe she's worthy.  

It's been too long

     It's been almost 2 years since I last wrote here.  The work has been deep and hard.  Life has had big events, and a break was necessary.  Yet out of all that has taken place during my hiatus, I find myself wanting to write again.  This time, though, my world has expanded.

     My family grew via adoption last year, and that has me on the other side of trauma.  There is no such thing as adoption without trauma, and while I don't know all that my little one endured during her earliest years, I know she's experienced various forms of trauma.  That's put me on the caretaker side as well as on the healing side.  My daughter has taught me so much about facing hard things.

     So as I pick this up again, there are some changes.  First, along with changing up the look a bit, I have renamed the blog.  It was My Voice My Story Redeemed.  However, all of our stories are intertwined with the stories of others.  Mine is no different.  Sharing my story will touch the stories of those around me.  I am not alone in this, and I never was.  I just couldn't see that before.

     This is still my voice, being redeemed, as God redeems my story and the stories of those around me.  I'm still watching Him make beauty from the ashes of abuse, but I'm watching Him redeem more than just my story.  The title doesn't quite fit.  But one thing I've learned is that He makes mosaics out of our ashes.  He makes them from everyone's stories.  So here, as I write, I'm offering you hope as you watch Him make mosaics.  For a bit more understanding, you can read this post.  I can put those thoughts into better words now, but I want the original words to stand.  I wrote those almost 4 years ago.  Now "mosaic" is tattooed on my wrist.  Making Mosaics is God's redemptive work in all of us.

     Second, the focus will be broadened.  God is teaching me in so many ways that I never anticipated.  I've seen how trauma, no matter what kind, unites those who walk this road.  In my own family, we have multiple people healing from multiple kinds of traumas.  God shows up in all of it, and He is growing me.  The focus will expand to abuse, adoption, trauma in general...all ashes God sees, picks up, cleans, and makes beautiful mosaics out of.  My world has expanded, so the blog will follow.

     Third, and lastly, while I will keep the names of other people (my family included) private and will not share pictures here for the sake of privacy, I am no longer keeping myself private.  When I started this blog, I was ready to be heard.  Now, I am ready to be seen too.  My story isn't private at all anymore, but I have still tried to hide as best I could.  However, I don't want to keep hiding.  My story is known on a national level to some extent.  Though shame sticks and smothers still, I am taking one small step to take away it's control.  So...

Hi.  My name is Kelly.  I survived childhood sexual abuse at the hands of my gymnastics coach.  Now God is redeeming these ashes and making me a new mosaic.  I pray you find hope here in the midst of whatever hard you are walking, because we all have our own hard.

Forgetfulness and the God who remembers

     Many days, I live a relatively normal life.  The work that I'm doing, that God is doing, in facing and healing my past goes on but doesn't dictate my daily activities.  I still wake up and keep up with all that I am responsible for in my house with my family.  It's always there, but life moves along okay.

     Other days, trauma takes over.  I don't always know what triggers it, but the past comes too close to the present.  Memories mingle with reality.  It takes all the effort I can expend to breathe and stay as much in the present as I can.

     On those days, the ones where what's been done looms over me like a threat, I struggle to remember anything.  I try so hard, but my mind is so busy trying to keep the past in the past and my lungs remembering to breathe that it just doesn't have the capacity to remember much else.

     I can't keep up a conversation.  I will be focusing as hard as I can, but when it's my turn to speak, my mind goes blank.  The words spoken just moments ago escape me, and I must ask the other person to repeat themselves.  I'll be asked if I can get something nearby for someone, but as soon as I walk across the room, I no longer can remember what I was getting.

     On trauma days, it takes so much work just to breathe, just to stay in today, that my mind cannot keep up with anything else.  The daily to do list goes undone, and by bed time, I've accomplished nothing more than being alive.  In fact, I can't even remember what I did that day at all.  It's frustrating and disheartening.  When I forget everything, I feel forgotten myself.

     Yet Psalm 56:8 says

"You have taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in Your bottle.  Are they not in Your book?" (NASB)

     I came across that verse while studying something else, completely unrelated actually.  However, when I read C. H. Spurgeon's notes on this verse, it brought to mind trauma days, and yet it brought comfort too.  When speaking of this verse, of God taking account of David's wanderings, Spurgeon noted this,

"We perhaps are so confused after a long course of trouble, that we hardly know where we have or where we have not been; but the omniscient and considerate Father of our spirits remembers all in detail."

     Yes, those trauma days leave me hardly knowing where I have or have not been, yet my Abba Father remembers in detail everything I forget.  Though in days of forgetfulness I feel forgotten, I am anything but.  I am still known, deeply, and I am loved all the more.  What great comfort to know that when I forget, God remembers.

     Dear one, you well acquainted with trauma days and forgetfulness, you are not forgotten.  Every step trauma steals, every moment trauma misplaces, every conversation trauma conceals, He remembers them all.  His care and compassion see everything trauma takes.  He remembers, and He loves.

Glimpses of redemption

     As a culture, I think we tend to romanticize redemption.  It's painted for us as laughter and smiles, sunshine and rainbows.  It's a happy ending that eclipses any hint of hard during the journey.  I find this view of redemption to be quite shallow and short sighted though.  I am not saying redemption doesn't have a happy ending or laughter and smiles or sunshine and rainbows.  Those beautiful expressions have a place in redemption for sure, but if that is all you look for to spot redemption, you are going to miss most of it.

     You see, redemption is surrounded by what's broken and painful and dark.  In fact, redemption is born out of what is broken and painful and dark.  Before the laughter and smiles, there are tears and downcast faces.  Before the sunshine and rainbows, there is darkness and rain.  And if I'm being really honest, redemption doesn't always have a happy ending regardless.  

     So if redemption is more than the happy ending, where do you look to see it?  There is hope in redemption after all, even when redemption is happening in the hard places.  

--in the rain that falls as tears from my eyes that at one time forgot how to cry

--in the shelter of a hug that doesn't leave my skin screaming in pain while the storm rages on around me

--in the brief flash of eye contact with someone who knows too much yet still cares for me deeply

--in speaking, for the first time, a word that exposes cuts so deep it sucks the breath out of my lungs

--in emotions I once only read about but find myself feeling and experiencing, often times confused and scared by the unfamiliarity of them but making the hard choice to keep feeling anyways

     Sometimes, redemption can only be seen in the rear view mirror.  I caught a glimpse of redemption this way recently.  As I looked back on my disclosure three years ago to a pastor who put together a conference for churches dealing with child sexual abuse, something I could not wrap my mind around.  I had so many questions for him, mainly looking for ulterior motives.  I disclosed, and he responded in a way I never even considered an option.  He believed me.  He repeatedly assured me it wasn't my fault, and I would not get in trouble for what happened and how it impacted me.  At the time, I struggled to believe anything he said.  I kept asking him the same questions over and over, and he patiently continued to assure me the answers had not changed.  It was a hard season.  It was messy and full of doubt, hesitation, push back.  

     Yet here I am now, three years later, and I see the redemption in that mess.  His response, believing me and assuring me again and again it wasn't my fault and I wasn't in trouble, was God's redeeming grace poured out on all my failed disclosures of the past.  The disclosures met with disbelief and blaming me stole from me what little voice I had and took my disclosure from me.  Then three years ago, I disclosed once more and was met with a radically different response.  I could hardly whisper from the safety of my keyboard over email, but he heard me and listened.  His response gave me back my disclosure and a small part of my voice.  I couldn't see it then.  I didn't make it easy for him, but he was patient.  It took me years to believe what he said was true, but in the struggles of that summer, the doubt, the mess, redemption was being brought about...now clearly visible in the rear view mirror.

     I invite you now to expand your view of redemption, to look into the storm and see redemption happening in the dark places.  The sunshine and rainbows only illuminate the redemption that came to life in the rain and tears and hard road already traveled.  So in the middle of the broken, the hard, the storms, the mess, know that redemption is happening if you'll only take the time to look.  Redemption is messy, because the broken things that need redemption are messy.  Please look beyond the happy ending and the smiles.  You might be surprised how much redemption you find in the tears.

When trauma has no words

     It's likely obvious to you that words are very important to me.  I wouldn't be writing a blog if they weren't.  However, on this journey of healing, words have also been a particularly challenging hang up for me...well certain words at least.  The thoughts I have about words is going to take a few posts to get out, so please bear with me if this feels incomplete.  As a fair warning, these posts will be rather heavy as well.  Please take care of yourself, and decide if it is best to save these posts for later reading or to even skip them altogether.

     When we experience various events in life, we view them through the framework and background we have available to us.  For example, when an adult is in a car accident, the driver uses their knowledge of driving and injuries to assess the wreck.  Then when talking with others later, they have a way to explain their experience such as "oh it was just a fender bender" or "the accident was very serious and I am so grateful to have walked away from it."  The person involved can understand what happened and talk about what happened because they have a prior framework of knowledge to build off of.
     So what happens when a person experiences events but has no framework of prior knowledge to build off of?  To put it simply, the person has no words to put to their experiences, and it is terrifying to be in that position.
     When I was just 13, I was young and oh so naive.  I had no framework to build upon when events began to happen with my coach.  Everything felt wrong, but I had no way to express why.  With the ever present threat of bodily harm or even death looming over me and no words to use to explain why I thought this shouldn't be happening, I tried to find ways around it all in my head.  I shut down in every sense of the word.
     When it was all over and I finally told someone years later, I still had no words to put to those experiences.  I tried to put the experiences in the frameworks I did have and thought I was confessing my own sin.  I had no other way to think of what happened.  I didn't have words for what happened.  I did not even have the word "trauma."  My "confession" was not believed and was dismissed all while I was threatened with getting kicked out of church (my first disclosure took place in the context of church) because of PTSD symptoms.  Of course, I didn't have words for the experience of those symptoms either until a decade later.  As it turns out, all the experiences of coping that I couldn't explain without sounding like I had lost my mind have words too...flashbacks, dissociation, body memories.  It was genuinely healing to even get those words and know there was a reasonable explanation for those experience in light of the trauma that preceded them.
     So for years, I just called my experiences "it" since I had no words.  "God, please make it go away," I would pray.  I could describe "it" in gut wrenching detail (though I didn't).  Describing the details of what happened were the only words I had, but I could not label or categorize my experiences.  "It" was the only word I had, and "it" was a terrible word.  You see, the word "it" is a pronoun.  Every pronoun is used in place of a noun, but I had no noun for my "it."  Having memories that terrorized me and haunted me without having a way to give them voice was like being in a prison.  Words were the key, but I did not have them.

     I want to share two poems that I wrote that were my attempts at describing experiences I had no words for.  The first one I could not even bring myself to write about the experience as being my own.

Nightmare

Her world is empty

Nobody is there

Protecting his secrets

She lives a nightmare

She keeps to herself

She hides in the crowd

Invisibly breaking

With no way out

Then her fingers dance across the keys

The music singing what she cannot speak

A soft melody cries the tears that she hides

A lonely harmony pleads for a hope she can't find

But she's all alone there's no one to hear

No one to listen as she plays all her fears

The music goes quiet her brief respite gone

Now back to real life where she's somebody's pawn

She hangs her head low

To keep hiding her eyes

Afraid someone will see

That she's dead inside

She's just a child

But she's already broken

While the world sleeps in peace

Her nightmare won't end

     Vague and haunting and lacking definition, yet these general ideas were all I had.  Later, I was able to write the experiences without words in reference to me though in order to try and describe experiences for which I had no framework, she still had to be part of it.  I could let the experiences closer, but I still had no way of giving the experiences any kind of defining word.  So, I wrote this.

Perceptions

The world disappears until it is just me and him

Rage burning in his eyes I hesitantly enter in

My inside and outside disconnect as I lose hold of time

Then comes the invasion of the body that is no longer mine

Without thought he steals her while lifelessly she lays there

And even though she is breathing she cannot find air

Again and again he takes what she would not give

Now I bear the weight of deep shame that should be his

Ruthlessly violating in her what was treasured and pure

He shamefully strips me of all dignity and worth

Fearing his threats I must leave her desecrated there

In order to keep up perceptions as the world reappears

     For a long time, that poem, "Perceptions," was the best way I could describe what happened, but it doesn't fully make sense unless someone shares the experience for which I am attempting to describe.  There were words missing and having those memories trapped in my head with no words I could use to call them by nearly cost me my life during my absolute darkest days.

When it's time to stop surviving

     Survive.  Survival.  Survivor.  That family of words, and any additional you may be able to think of, makes me very uncomfortable.  They have connotations I'd rather not associate with.  There is nothing wrong with surviving something, but by using those words, it means I experienced something that required survival in the first place.  That is where those words begin to make me squirm.  So I do what I'm good at.  I scoff, dismiss the idea, make the words meaningless and unimportant.  When I hear those words, my mind instantly switches into survival mode.  Ironic, isn't it?

     I did a number of things to survive.  I never knew I was doing them.  I just did.  Then when it all stopped, I kept surviving.  I continued to cope in all the ways that kept me alive during those times I wasn't sure I would make it.  I didn't know I was employing survival strategies.  I just did.  One of them is not feeling anything.
     Somewhere along the way, I stopped feeling things.  It happened pretty early on when the abuse started.  It wasn't a conscious decision.  My mind did it for me.  It allowed me to survive circumstances that were well beyond the point of overwhelming.
     As I grew up, I observed people a lot.  I took notice of how people interacted with the world and with each other.  So while I felt nothing, I used all the feeling words in all the ways I had noticed were socially acceptable.  I felt nothing, but I looked normal because I talked like everyone else.  My ability to live hinged on that coping mechanism for a lot of years.  And it worked.

     As I continued to survive by feeling nothing, I wound up putting the whole of my relationship with emotions into the phrase "I don't do feelings."  For many years, that was absolutely a true statement, but in recent months, that has changed.  I started feeling feelings last summer when life exploded too many times in rapid succession.  Still I clung to "I don't do feelings."  After all, that is how I survived so many years.
     Then a couple months ago, I was talking with someone very dear to me.  She spoke words that brought instant tears to my eyes.  It took everything in me to contain those tears.  In that moment, I realized I do do feelings.  I don't want to, but somehow they are happening in me.
     Recently a day approached that is hard because of the memories associated with it, and I found myself fighting with myself to not push down the heavy feelings that were flooding my body and mind.  My instinct is to make myself numb, but I had learned enough recently to know that wasn't right.  Then it hit me that not feeling is how I survived, but I don't have to survive anymore.  The danger is over.  I already survived.  That part is over.  Now, it's time to stop surviving.  Now it's time to learn how to live.
     Numb survives.  Feelings live.  Learning this whole feelings thing is a big task.  It's going to take time.  It's hard.  The process is going to be work.  In fact, it already is, and I just started.  I fight daily to remember that feelings are normal and part of how God made me.  I fight to stop surviving.  I fight to feel, and sometimes I fight to want to fight to feel.  But I'm still fighting, and I have a God who fights for me and with me.

     To my fellow survivors, we don't have to survive anymore.  We did that part, and we succeeded.  Now this whole not surviving anymore is not easy.  I don't say it lightly, but little by little, day by day, we can stop surviving and learn how to live.  We will have to fight for it, and it will be hard, exhausting work sometimes.  Let us remember together that we have a God who is fight with us and for us.  He has not left us to fight this battle alone.  He sees and knows the struggle it is to let go of what kept us alive for so long.  He is with us in the struggle to learn to live.  So you and me and God together, we will fight, and we, who already survived, will live again.

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