More than six decades have passed since my birth. More than five decades since the ongoing actions that were, at one time, considered unmentionable, those sexual acts of an adult with a young child, an abomination in the eyes of most, for those are experiences that are as far-reaching as the ships that bring beautiful fabrics from the far east, yet as destructive to the heart of a child as a sword drawn in anger and used in rage. We knew something was very wrong with what we were experiencing, but when the adult is someone who tells us they love us, who sometimes beat us for no reason, and then touched us so intimately at other times, it made no sense, these “knowings” that we were being misused, painfully so, but not understanding why.
If we were to go back, those of us who were drawn into the unnatural lusts of adults when we were mere children, to the time of the first invasion (for it truly was that), I wonder how many of us would say “Why?”, because even now, decades later and fully healed by the grace of my Lord Jesus, I do not understand how it is possible that even the most evil influence on the earth could convince a rational human being to violate the purity of a child and derive pleasure from it. But the “why” is only the beginning, really.
When innocence is not lost, but stolen before the value of innocence is understood, there is never a value placed on what was taken. So when the next predator came, the conquest was made easier by the experience had before. Looking back through time, with clarity and often regret, my life up to a point was a series of bad relationships, bad decisions, and an ongoing myriad of giving everything and expecting nothing, from myself or others. Men did not value me, and I did not disagree with them. I married, had children, divorced, married. Did I truly live four decades in a numbed state of the knowledge that I was valuable based on what happened to me by my father before I was old enough to even know those things should have never happened? Yes, yes I did. Would it surprise you to think that there are so many others like me who sit in our walled worship houses every week, looking like every other woman, and inside, numbness and a shame that is not ours shrouds our joy? And therapy didn’t help. Looking back as an adult merely added shame and resentment, and even fear. A smidgen of hatred and lack of trust for all those in authority, color those relationships we pretend are okay.
And then one day, forty years after being abused and more than twenty years after accepting Christ, I was listening to talk radio and heard a man talk about those dark places in our hearts and I said, “Lord, take me to those dark places in my heart. I want to be free.” Immediately, I wanted to take that statement back. I was flush with the overwhelming fear at the mere thought of mentally living in that experience again. I walked to my place of prayer with feet that had suddenly become concrete blocks. I fell across the bed and said, “Father I am so afraid. Help me.” I was 49 years old.
I’ve never shared what happened next that opened my heart to freedom and a cleansing joy, except in one place. For reasons I haven’t tried to understand, when I sat down to write an inspirational fiction romance, my protagonist had the same experiences and the same testimony. A novel funny in some places, a mystery in others, a love story riddled with secrets and an eventual happy ending after encountering a stalker and a hero, the protagonist got to tell her best friend how the grace of God brought healing and the freedom to be who God made her to be. I self-published that novel and I don’t regret that sales are extremely low, because one of my first readers, without having met me previously, said “No one could have that personal knowledge of grace in that situation if they hadn’t experienced it themselves.” and she was aware of the power in the testimony.
Would I like to see the book become a best seller? Who wouldn’t like to have their first novel go to a million copies? but my prayer is that the testimony of grace and healing from childhood molestation does not go untold. My testimony of Jesus’ reaction to hurting children and women can be found in “Seeds of Strength-Great Grace”, a free 270 page read on Kindle Unlimited.
If Kindle is not your forte, contact me on Facebook or via email. I’ll be honored to tell you what Jesus thinks of you and what you went through. You were never alone, and you did not weep alone. Let’s talk. Be healed. Be truly a woman blessed and free.
For His Glory 