I was sexually abused by my father for 14 years. Then sexually abused in my first marriage among emotional, and physical abuse. It has been a long road to recovery that I am still on to renew my mind with the word of God and the help of my therapist and EMDR therapy. I wrote this journal entry a while ago, but I wanted to share it with you to see the struggle that we who have had this kind of abuse go through. I also wanted to share my friend Mary Demuth’s book releasing August 13th. You can preorder it now and get five ebooks for free until August 12th on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Christian Book Distributors, and other book retailers. It is a book about the need for the church to know how to address the need of those who have been sexually abused and or assaulted. Please tell your pastor, your ministry, your loved ones who have been abused about this resource. Also the loved ones who live with the ones who have tragically been victims of abuse. The church desperately needs healing. 1 in 4 have been sexually abused in their lifetime. This valuable resource is for such a time as this. Thank you.
Here is my journal entry:
Here I am tapping out the words that so want to leap onto the page yet stuck in a place that I shove everything into. How I really feel, what I really think, who I really want to be, who I don’t want to be, the shame, the guilt, the tears, the pain, the little girl who desperately needs to scream out to the world that you may reject me, and you may threaten me, but I am tired of listening to you. I’m crying out in this desert whether you like it or not. I will not go one more day without acknowledging that I don’t agree with what you say about me, or what I say about me. I’m choosing instead to believe what God says about me. I don’t care if anyone buys the book, share it, or it sits on a shelf for sale long past my lifetime. I care that I tell the truth. I care enough about myself not to be afraid to tell it. I don’t care what or who doesn’t like it. I care that before I leave this earth that I will be able to look in God’s eye and say. I told the truth. I love myself. Thank you for creating me.
I have been threatened by my mother, I have been rejected by family I thought would never leave me. I have been told not to remember and that I need to move on. On the journey friends have walked completely away, but God is not a God who stands by and looks at the broken me and ignores the fact that I need healing. How does the healer not treat the wounds? How do the compassionate stand by and watch the suffering without action. How does one who is love not love into wholeness? For so long I have wanted to hide. Hide here in this prison cell where I know the door is open, but afraid of the abuse that would happen if I walk out of the prison by the hands of others, and even I have held myself in. My hope and expectation is in God alone to walk me out of this cell, this life sentence I have given myself, this hopelessness. I refuse to believe I am condemned to die here alone.
You can shout out me prison walls, you can laugh at me bars, you can whisper your dirty shameful insults at me, but I am not staying here. Someone else needs my voice. Someone else needs to know they don’t have to stay either. Someone else needs to know the One who knows everything about them. The good the bad and the ugly and yet says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.”
I need to know it. I need to escape this place that takes the breath from me, the strength from me, the flesh from my bones, and the sound thoughts from my mind. I need the joy that was stolen in infancy. I need the love that I have been deprived of. I need the barriers between myself and those I love the most to be broken down so that they can feel my love.
God I trust you to break open the gates of bronze and cut asunder the bars of iron around my heart and mind and to lift me into your countenance and arms where I am safe, where I am healed, and I am made whole. Guard my shalom, shalom, shalom, shalom for when my mind is stayed on Thee there is perfect peace.
My Prayer:
Destroy the enemy with your truth. Reach down and snatch me out of the muck and the mire and the confusion and the storm and take my little faith and expand it to include the reality of you. You are the reason I live. Only You by your grace. In Jesus name, Amen
Can I Pray For You?
If you are suffering from the aftermath of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Rape, or Sexual Assault please know I will pray for you. Just leave a comment below and I will be honored to pray to our loving God on your behalf, with you.
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