Protection-Why Didn't God?

For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock. Psalm 27:5.

Without always knowing we need it, we (abuse survivors) are seeking safety and assurance we are valued. These are 2 of the biggest things taken away from us when we are abused. I imagine most of us go through periods of being so angry at God for "letting" the abuse happen. We think He should have protected us and had the abusers hit by a bus before they got to us (personal favorite wish). The problem with that is free will, which he gave all of us. He does not want us hurting anyone either but yet we have the choice also. It may never be to the extent we were hurt, but still sin nonetheless.

The above verse gives me a sense of value. I know I am valuable to my husband, kids, most of my family, and friends, but that value seems finite and can sometimes depend on our actions. It does not have the feeling of being unconditional. Our value with God is unconditional. His putting us in a valued place (shelter of his tabernacle) almost feels like he is putting his arms around us, keeping us close, when others are hurting us, or when times are really difficult. Our bodies were not protected during the abuse and our hearts are wounded and empty sometimes, but He was there with us. It may take years for us to realize how He did protect us. We survived, we have hope, we have value, and He can heal. We made it through to the other side. As a little girl I lost the safety of my earthly surroundings and I am fighting to gain a little of it back within my husband, family, and friends. The picture of me as a little girl having her safety and sense of value stripped away in a heartless series of acts is awful, but when I see that same little girl sitting with God in a treasured place, protected by his love, I feel overwhelmed with gratitude and hope. It may not have felt like I was being sheltered then, but I was so that I can have a future.

Hands

One Saturday morning my husband and I were lying in bed trying desperately to avoid getting up. We had already taken advantage of the fact the boys did not know we were awake yet and moved to our sides of the bed. After a couple of minutes my husband reached across the bed and put his hand on my shoulder and left it there. It was there for a long time and of course my body became desensitized to its presence. I had to keep thinking about it in order to feel it. I did this several times. After about 30 minutes of lying in bed, the craving for coffee overcame us and we got out of bed. The noise (fighting, clamoring) from our boys downstairs was also a contributing factor.

As I got up I started thinking about my husband’s hand on my shoulder, how desensitized to it I got after just a few seconds, and how I had to keep thinking about it to feel it. It struck me the same can be applied to God’s hands on our life.

As Christians we always know God is there but we slip into thinking we do not feel his presence or become so comfortable with just the thought, we become desensitized and do not see how he is guiding us or touching our lives with his hands. A friend pointed me to Psalm 139:5-12.

Thou hast enclosed me behind and before, and laid Thy hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it. Where can I go from Thy Spirit? Or where can I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend to heaven, Thou art here; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Thy hand will lead me, and Thy hand will lay hold of me.”

In the most hopeful and positive parts of my life I still need to be aware of God’s presence in my life. I need to praise him for what he has done and what he is doing in my life. I have to make the conscious effort to bring it to the surface. I cannot become so complacent I do not feel his hand on my life. The hardest time for me to think about God’s hand in my life is when I am in despair and feel hopeless. I need to realize He is guiding my life even if I do not know the plan. Sometimes I think the plan is for me to realize how much I need Him and that He is here for me. I need to feel His hand on my shoulder, or even over my mouth. I need to seek His comfort, wrap his words around my heart like a my most comfortable quilt. Let His words protect me, fill me so full of hope and possibility that the garbage inside has no where to go but out.

Emotionally Drained

Last week was a bad week. Deep down I knew that I would have more bad days, weeks, and maybe even a month or two. I knew I would fall back into the pit again. A pit that is still in my path, but I believe it is not as deep anymore. I have also been reminded of this on occasion by people who support me.

I am in my second round of support group and wrote my story again this week. The story does not change. As mentioned in an earlier post, after the last time I wrote my story and read it aloud, I was then flooded with way more details about different incidents than I believed I was ready for. The hole I fell into that time seemed impossible to climb out of. With a lot of extra help and prayer from others, I made it. Fortunately nobody spouted “God never gives us more than we can handle.” For the record, this is not in the Bible. This is equivocal to bumper sticker theology or “Sunday school answers” that annoy me. What is in the Bible, for example, is 2 Corinthians 1:8-10 For we do not want to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so we despaired even of life; indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves in order that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us.

Anyway….

I was caught off guard by the effect of writing my story again. I threw up. I suspect it was a combination of a couple of things. One was the fact I relived it yet again. My first version this time around was a pretty vague summary. I ended up writing it again with more details about how I felt and other sensory details, as recommended by the group leader. It was difficult to “feel” all that again. Second, is I have to read it aloud. There is something about saying it out loud that really makes it real. Once you speak it aloud, it can no longer be denied. This is an overwhelming reality.

Two days after group I saw my therapist. Seeing my therapist after group is a good thing but it is still difficult at times. I have made progress but we talked about a couple of hurdles I still need to work on with my personal relationships that are painful. They hurt because getting to the other side of them requires a level of trust and vulnerability I struggle to achieve. Not only do I have to trust them, I have to trust myself. Both are tough for me to do.

Later that evening, still processing my next steps, I got a call from the office of the new psychiatrist I was scheduled to see in a month. They were calling to tell me they had a cancellation for the following morning and asked if I wanted to move my appointment up. I took a deep breath and accepted. Panic set in. I sent a message to my therapist, finished the “New Patient” paperwork, took my medication, and went to sleep. The appointment overall went well but again I had to repeat my history out loud, tell her my diagnoses, and hope for acceptance. She did accept me but all together it tested the limits of my medicated nerves.

The rest of my week was tough due to issues with my kids, but I had reached my limit by that point. I went into autopilot, a phase that very easily could have lead to a crash. Sure there were things that went right with the week, but emotionally I was exhausted.

Through all of this I let go of God. Part of me kept trying to seek him in either by making sure the worship/inspirational music was playing in the car or a verse or line from this music would make  it to the front of my brain during the day. Just about each time this happened another part of me said, “Oh, just shut up!”

Late Saturday night it all partially came around. While I had essentially let go of God, He never let go of me. He remained constant, never changing, and was just waiting for me to come around. He gently reminded me of a verse I had seen on another blog.

For I, the Lord, do not change...Malachi 3:6.

I am still uneasy about the upcoming reading of my story in the next week or so. There is no guarantee that next week is going to be any easier. Maybe, just maybe, I can seek help and comfort from the people who care for me and support me, and also seek God, who is always there for comfort and ready to hold me up. I just have to reach out.

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28.

Free Speech

At the second group meeting I attended we were instructed to “write our story.” We were told to write it again if we had already written it. It could be a specific incident or a summary. The idea of this terrified me to my core for a couple of reasons. I had written down the bits and pieces I had remembered and had emailed these to my therapist. Other than when I was being questioned by the police at the age of 16, I could not recall ever saying the words out loud. I may have said some things out loud to my therapist but I certainly had never written my complete story or read it out loud. Besides the terror the suggestion caused, my thought was “when hell freezes over.”

I saw my therapist the next morning. I mentioned the group “homework” and he encouraged me to write it also but to take it slow and not force it. It took me 2 days to start. I had stared at blank paper several times with a pen in my hand during those 2 days. I made the decision to just write about one specific incident, the first one.

As I started to write what I remembered about the first time more details started to pour out. Way more detail than I wanted. Halfway through writing it I started to feel it happening all over again. I felt panicked, sick to my stomach, and could hardly breathe. As I looked at the 3 pages I had written I felt sad and guilty. I closed the notebook and started to watch something goofy on TV to distract myself and hopefully make it possible to sleep. The next day I typed it up and sent it in an email to my therapist. I was still dazed and overwhelmed but also relieved I had gotten it out of the way. In a sense, I felt free from that memory. It was out on paper, partially out of my system. I was giving myself the voice I never had as a child.

Eph 5:11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them

My abuser may never hear my words or even realize I never forgot. He may not even care. I have to learn to live with that. Writing the small part of my story released it. It exposed what I had gone through and I came out victorious. I survived.

Reading my story to the group turned out to be agonizing. Saying the words out loud, realizing people were listening to them and opening myself up was so difficult to say the least. The story was out there and I could not bring it back in. I was exposed and raw. What is the most aggravating thing about all of it is that my abusers needed to be exposed and raw, not me. They should be feeling the shame and guilt, the panic of being discovered, and the insomnia from reliving the incidents.

I still have so much of the story to tell. I have written down every incident that came out in a flood during group. I have typed them and sent them to my therapist. Now I am facing reading my story out loud again. I have yet to determine what I am going to share. I want to face it this time without the shame, embarrassment, and panic. I want my abusers to be exposed, may be not publically but certainly for what they did.

The best part of sharing my story with others is that I am also sharing it with God. He already knows what happened, but when I write it down and say it out loud I am admitting it really happened and that I need help to deal with it. He is with me always. Just like I have to confess my sins out loud to him, I have to tell him what is troubling me, to seek His help. I need Him to take care of those who need to be held responsible. It is out of my hands. The Psalm below speaks of this. He can vindicate me from the shame and guilt I have carried for years that never belonged to me. He is a breath away. He is my champion.

Psalm 35:22-26 Oh Lord, you have seen this; be not silent. Do not be far from me, O Lord. Awake, and rise to my defense! Contend for me , my God and Lord. Vindicate me in your righteousness, O Lord my God. Do not let them think, “Aha, just what we wanted!” or say “We have swallowed him up” May all who gloat over my distress be put to shame and confusion; may all who exalt themselves over me be clothed with shame and disgrace.

God Understands

I never realized how much God really does understand the effects of sexual abuse. I had always tossed Him aside saying to myself “He really does not understand what I am going through.” Most of this time I was also blaming Him, so that contributed to my rebellion.

In reading On the Threshold of Hope by Diane Langberg about recovering from abuse the author mentioned the story of Tamar in the Old Testament, 2 Samuel 13:1-22. Tamar’s half-brother (Amnon) and his cousin tricked her into being alone with him and then raped her. When he was finished he took his anger at himself out on her. He disgraced her in front of the house staff and destroyed her spirit. She sought consolation from her brother (Absalom) and he told her “not to take it to heart.” When her father, David, heard what happened he was angry but never said a word. Tamar was alone in her shame with no one to help her. Those she trusted either violated her or failed to care about her pain. Sound familiar?

This story in the Bible was almost earth shattering for me. It definitely became a turning point for me. I realized that God does understand what abuse and rape does to us emotionally. Verse 20 states ...Tamar lived in her brother’s home, bitter and desolate (The Message). A couple of years later her brother killed her attacker but I am not sure that provided any relief for Tamar. Sure, she would no longer have to face him should the occasion arise, but her self-worth had already been destroyed when no one came to her rescue immediately. Her sense of value was already gone and she had a bitter heart. I would like to think Absalom finally decided to kill Amnon after seeing the effect the rape had on his sister on a daily basis. Maybe by then his anger of what was done to sister finally reached the point Tamar had needed from the beginning. Setting Amnon up to be killed was wrong, but certainly understandable.

Tamar did not have knowledge of the healing power of God that we have now. There does not seem to be anything written that indicates anyone showed her His love or implied that He understood. I have that. I can read through His word and now feel His understanding of my wounded heart, bitterness, and the shame. I can feel the words reaching my heart, pushing out the bitterness and reassuring me that I am not the one who should feel shame. It is my abusers’ sin and shame, not mine.

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Matthew 19:14. Our abusers hindered us but the kingdom still belongs to us. We just need to keep seeking God’s wisdom, recognize how valuable we are to Him, and accept His son Jesus. God can heal us because He understands our pain. Just simply knowing that He “gets it” is enough for me. I have someone in my corner who will always be there to rescue me and provide comfort. I do not even need to ask necessarily; I just need to accept it.