Backing up slightly, in October 2010 I attended a retreat and in one of the workshops, the presenter shared her story of abuse. It resonated in my heart and I was affected significantly. However, after the retreat it felt like there was a box deep down in the corner of my heart somewhere, and the lid had been knocked partially off. I didn’t know what was in the box, but I knew it wasn't good. I decided to make an appointment with a counselling pastor at our church, who just happened to be the person who had spoken at the retreat workshop. I met with her on December 1, 2010.
In that meeting, we explored all of the possible areas or events that could be triggering in my heart, related to her topic. Of course, we started with the initial abuse by my brother as that was closely related to her talk. Nothing seemed to be triggering or coming to the front as being an issue. She started asking me about relationships with boyfriends. We went through the first two and prayed over each one, breaking off any soul ties or things that may be lingering. Then I said that I had been in an inappropriate relationship with a man 17 years older than me. She asked me if I had ever asked God to forgive me for being in an inappropriate relationship and I fell apart. I started weeping and weeping and could not stop. So, that appeared to be a potential point of issue and she started to probe further. When I explained the context of this 'relationship', that it was with my Sunday school teacher, and how it came to be and how it progressed and the level of inappropriateness there was - she said, "Don't you see? That was abuse." In that moment it was like I had suddenly changed chairs in a conversation and I saw everything from a completely different perspective. I saw how vulnerable I was... how easy of a target I was... the fact that my mother died in the midst of it was even more significant, and I also saw just how calculating and deliberate it was on his behalf. I was completely undone. I was broken beyond all understanding, and this counselor later told me that in that moment she was concerned that I might never fully recover from this trauma, or that it may take a very VERY long time.
A few months along this
excruciating journey, on a Sunday morning this same counselling pastor
led our congregation in an exercise in ‘listening prayer’. We were
asked to pray and ask God if he loved us, and then we were to write down
anything that we thought or felt, any impression or picture that we
received. I said, “God, do you love me?” IMMEDIATELY I felt these
words in my spirit: “Yes. So much. I want to heal you. You are my
beautiful daughter. Wait. You will see.” However, just as quickly –
even as I was still writing these words down – I thought, “I just made
that up.” It did absolutely nothing for me; it meant nothing, and was
simply a mental exercise that I dismissed out of hand.The very next day I had a meeting with that same pastor, and she asked me what God the Father looked like. Every picture that came to mind was of Jesus. You know – the long brown hair and beard, brown eyes – from Sunday school years ago. Try as I might, there was no picture of the Father in my mind or heart. What WAS there was the sense that God the Father was not really even a person. He was more like an ominous force; kind of a brooding presence over in the corner of the room, and you really didn’t want to tick Him off. We decided that this probably wasn’t very accurate and that I should ask Jesus to introduce me to His Father, so we began to pray. In my spirit I could see myself, sitting on a log by a brook in a rain forest, and Jesus was there with me. I was waiting for him to take me wherever we needed to go to meet his Father. I presumed we were going to go to His office, which must be extremely large, and that He was most likely terribly busy and I was going to interrupt Him. He of course would be polite, but it would be awkward and I wouldn’t know what to say, because after all, He is God and I am just - me. So I’m waiting, but Jesus isn’t going anywhere. Suddenly a man appears behind Jesus. He is the kindest-looking grandfatherly man – who looks just like Jesus, but older. In a flash I realize it is HIM!! God the Father left His big busy office and all that He was doing, and came there, to where I was, to find me, to meet - ME. The God of the Universe looked me full in the face and said, “I love you so much. I want to heal you. You are my beautiful daughter. Wait. You will see.” Then He held me and rocked me while I wept and wept.
This was a whole new level of life changing!! It was one thing to know that Jesus saw the abuse that had happened and it made Him weep; that was huge. But THIS -- this was a whole other level. This spoke to my heart at an 'identity' level. I always knew that God loved us. US. "For God so loved THE WORLD..." Us. All of us. Not ME. However, this experience brought God's love down to a whole new level for me.
A friend recommended a psychologist, and I started seeing him regularly in January. I went into this to deal with having been abused by George, but over a 13-month period my therapist and I ended up working through the issues of my mother's disregard and promotion of the sexual environment in our home, and my father's rage and his emotional distance. We dealt with the incest again, as it was foundational, and THEN we were able to start working on the damage caused by George. I saw the same counselling pastor a few more times, and we dealt with the spiritual aspects of the abuse and also some of my mother and father issues. We have broken off every type of bondage or lies or generational influence that came to mind and each meeting was SO significant. They usually lasted two to three hours, and about 80% of it I spent weeping, with sobs from the depths of my being.
My psychologist remarked a couple of times how resilient I am; he knows many women who have been through half what I have been and who are hookers and addicts on the streets, unable to deal with it. We also both noticed how God protected me from a lot of the worst effects of each situation, and also how He has mitigated a lot of the effects of the abuse. I am grateful that as saturated as my life had been with things of a sexual nature and as twisted as things got in general and in particular with George, I was never abused to the point of rape. This is not to minimize in any way those things that I DID experience, but I feel that I was able to maintain at least a shred of dignity in this area. So many abused women turn to a life of promiscuity, but that is one road I never went down – but for the grace of God. I am SO thankful for my husband. He is the most loving, caring person that I know, and this has been extremely hard for him to see me in so much pain and be powerless to do anything to fix it. But he was there right beside me, loving me, holding me when I cried, and giving me the space to do whatever I need to do to heal from this (and not complaining about the price of therapy!!). I met regularly with a couple of close friends; in the beginning of this, when I first saw the truth of what had happened, I was in deep grieving and was very fragile emotionally. God brought these friends alongside me to carry me, and I would have exploded without those times of release and disclosure, support and prayer. There is an older couple who didn't know the details but they prayed for me EVERY DAY starting in the beginning of December 2010, and continued for about a year. I have also journalled a lot of my feelings... some of them were just too ugly and angry to say out loud. As well, I was on medication for anxiety for a period of four or five months, because I was on the edge of full-blown panic attacks. This was necessary to be able to function.
I don’t really know if this process will ever be totally complete this side of heaven. It is amazing how deep the damage caused by these types of things goes. I have come to recognize the echoes of all this, and how these things play out in everyday life – AND also how much of that has been healed. For example, I have always been somewhat insecure in friendships, and my need for social interaction was quite voracious. If for whatever reason I didn’t end up having a nice chat with a friend in the foyer after church, I would go home close to tears, feeling like I didn’t have ANY friends. That did come up in therapy, and I have noticed a marked improvement in those feelings. I also used to often have a wish for hugs from guys. Not just any guy, but for instance, I could be at the coffee maker at work talking with a co-worker about the weekend, and I’d wish that he would just hug me. Not in a sexual way, just in an ‘I care’ way. As all this stuff from my past was being stirred up in my life, this feeling increased, and the bigger and nicer the fellow, the stronger the wish was. Obviously it was a father approval/love need – which my Daddy God has now filled.
I have forgiven everyone there is to forgive, but it has taken (and will continue to take) time to work through the lies that were attached to the wounding. I have cried buckets of tears... I have never cried so much in my entire life as I have since the beginning of this. At first they were tears of grief and excruciating anguish, but now more likely than not they are tears because of what God is doing or saying. I put my trust in Jeremiah 29:11 - that even in my time of bondage and oppression, His plan for me was for good and not for evil, to give me hope and a future.
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