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.