Finding Hope by
Facing Truth
The Healing Process
We said earlier that following Christ, after accepting Him as Savior, involves a process similar to the renovation of a grand old estate that has been run dow, trashed, and vandalized. The new owner must be allowed to clean out, repair, redecorate, and live in every room--even those we would rather keep Him out of.
Since it is God's desire to do this work in us, it is a comfort to know that we don't have to figure out how to fix all the damage. God will, in time, finish the good work He had begun in us. In the meantime, the work He does in us will be life-changing. But it will be only a taste of what is ahead. Learning to trust our Savior throught the havoc created by sexual abuse is a process that will not end until we get to heaven.
What we need to realize, however, is that because it is God's purpose to have a relationship of trust and love with us, He asks us to be involved with Him in our own restoration. As we will see in the following pages, He asks us to let Him bring about healing in us by facing truth, embracing sorrow, choosing surrender, and pursuing love.
Finding Hope by
Facing Truth
When God counsels His hurting children, He gently leads them out of their denial. As a teacher who was deeply concerned about helping people, Jesus said, "If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free"(John 8:31-32).
Since a disciple is a learner and a follower, Jesus is describing a path to freedom that is much more than merely trusting Him in a moment of salvation. He is describing a process of truth that can rescue us from the bondage of our powerlessness, betrayal, confusion, and rejection.
Abuse victims have an especially difficult time coming to terms with the tructh. Many have learned to live with their past by consciously or unconsciously pushing the abuse and pain from their memory. Denial was likely one of the chief means for sucicing their abuse. Many citims find a crack in the wall to concentrate on during the abuse or learn to "leave thier body" and soar away to a more pleasant place. Some develop multiple personalities in which to hide.
Those patterns of dissociation often carry on today. Many make excuses for the perpetrator or the nonoffending parent(s). "It wasn't his fault. I'm sure I did something to lead him on." Or, "I know my mother would have protected me, if she only knew".
Facing the truth about past abuse begins when a person says, "Yes, I was abused, and the one who hurt me took something away I can never get back." Sometimes the memory of the event is vague because it was repressed. Yet, if there is evidence of present trauma and significant periods of "blocked-out memory," the person could say, "I cannot remember the specifics, but I have good reason to belive that my emotional problems are at least in part the result of sexual abuse." When we are willing to face the truth, I believe God will, im time, begin to bring back to memory all that we need to recall.
It is often a great help to write out what one has remembered in a journal. As new pieces of data return, it is important to recieve them as we would welcome an invited friend and guest into our home. The past, no matter how painful and overwhelming, may seem like an enemy. But in the process of recovery, such memories are being used by God to transform us, not destroy us.
A second part of facing the truth involves admitting that damge has occurred. Minimizing our losses may seem courageous and charitable, but it helps no one. We don't help ourselves by living in the darkness of denial. Neither do we help those who have offended us by acting as if they have not hurt us deeply. Giving living offenders a chance to face the damage they have done is far more merciful and loving than letting them go on in unrepentance until confronted by God himself.
Admit honestly the devasting effects of the abuse. You've already begun by reading this. It is crucial for you to share what you are experienceing with a trained pastor or couselor who can help you further explore the effects of the abuse. It is very important to get more facts and understanding about what abuse does to the heart. Read books and attend seminars and seek couseling. You can also find enormous help in sharing your burden with a trusted friend or spouse. Let them pray for you and encourage you as you consider the wounds of the past.
A third element in facing the truth of sexual abuse requires victims to be honest about the ways they have tried to protect themselves from further harm. To manage their pain, most victims discover ways to protect themselves from the horror of their powerlessness, betrayal, confusion, and rejection.
There are coutless ways by which abuse victims attempt to protect themselves. One abused woman would never let her childern out of her sight. She hoped her power of protection would be enough to keep her kids from ever being hurt. Another abused man never made any decision that might be unpoplular with shi family. His goal was to live without conflict or failure. As understandable as these self-protective efforts are, they usually reflect a decision to rely on our own strength and abilities rather than struggling to understand God's purposes and provisions for our life. Each style of realing to others is really a desire to be God and live without struggle.
It is natural to want to protect ourselves. It is natural to try to make sure that we will never again be hurt so badly by someone who has betrayed our trust. The problem is that self-directed efforts always end up making things worse.
The prophet Isaiah saw where self-protection leads. He said that if, instead of relying on God for our protection, we attempt to protect ourselves in the darkness by lighting and surrounding ourselves with small fires, we will end up in torment (50:10-11).
The most natural thing to do when we are lost and afraid in the dark is to light a fire. The most natural thing to do when we are hurt, afraid, ashamed, and angry is to think of safety in terms of what has worked for us in the past. It is natural to deaden our hearts to the pain, to become compliant, to use intimidation, or to work harder to please those who scare us. These fire-lighting efforts to find our own life apart from dependency on God, however, are merely futile means of self-protection that will fail us in the end. They should remind us of the proverb that says, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death" (Prov. 14:12).
Self-protection makes a great deal of sense at the moment, but it is the opposite of faith in God. It leads to torment and death. It is imperative for abuse victims to face the truth of waht is going on inside their hearts. They need to see that by killing their own feelings, playing tough, or running from the Lord, they have turned their fear and anger against themselves, others, and God.
The only way for sexual-abuse victims to move out of the anger, distance, and self-protection is for them to be willing to look honestly at the abuse that has been done to them. It means prayerfully admitting to God and before others their own inability to protect themselves from further harm. It means admitting to themselves that they are not who they deeply long to be. These are painful admissions. But waking the painful desires of truth brings hope and will be far less painful than the eventual torments of denial.
Finding
Comfort by Embracing Sorrow
Sexual-abuse victims often run from comfortthe way a cruelly treated dog responds to anyone who tries to befriend it. Fearful of more abuse, the do gnashes angrily or runs from anyone who gets too close. It is not really running from people as much as it is running from its pain and its past.
In a similar way, confused and fearful victims often are more inclined to impulsively "run or bite"than to face their pain long enough to see where it is coming from. By running from the pain of further betrayal, they run from comfort as well.
Jesus described a better way to deal with pain when He said, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Matt. 5:4). He wasn't talking about just any kind of mourning. He meaning that once we have admitted our need of God--"Blessed are the poor in spirit"(v.3)--we must learn to put the pain of sin to work for us. We must grieve sin and its reults until our heart is one with the heart of God.
Facing pain and embracing sorrow with the expectation of finding comfort feels wrong. But it is the right way to deal with our problems. Learning how and what to grieve is necessary to the healing process. Victims need to grieve what has been taken away from them. They need to let themselves feel their lost innocence. They need to mourn their lost childhood and their loss of trust. Just as important, victims need to mourn the self-proctective sinful actions by which they have tried to protect themselves from further harm.
It is difficult for victims to stay with sorrow long enough to be changed by it. Most would rather be enraged at themselves or furious at the abuser or God. They would rather kill thier own emotions than grieve the irretrievable loss of their childhood and innocence. They would rather run from God, or even go to war with Him, than give up a sinful, self-protective stlye of relating.
What many abuse victims do not realize, however, is that sorrow over the past is not like crying over spilt milk. It is embracing the sadness of losses that have angered the heart of God. victims often fail to realize that God's own sorrow for what has happened is deep and profound. The fact that He didn't stop the abuse doesn't reflect a lack of His interest or love. When He restrains His wrath and final judgment, He is actually hurting, as in the anguish of childbirth, waiting in pain for the right moment to carry out judgment and justice (Is. 42:14).
The victims of sexual abuse needs to realize that if God quickly judged all perpetrators of abuse, His wrath would fall on all of us. No one would escape, because in many different ways, through all of our lives, all of us have sinned agains ourselves, others, and God.
In an attempt to protect themselves from further pain, many abuse victims have made others as helpless as they were once powerless. Many have set up friends and spouses to experience the bitter taste of betrayal that they have experienced. Many have either chosen to withhold their sexuality from a spouse and /or handled thier ambivalence by promiscuous and unfaithful sexual avtivity. In any case, most abuse civtims have kept their hearts hidden and aloof from deep, loving involvement with others. By refusing to be richly involved with others, victims commit a form of robbery that denies to others the heart that God has built within them.
The result is that in order to be comforted by God victims need to embrace sorrow not only for the sins committed against them but for the sins they have committed against others. They need to admit that they have been damaged and then take responsibility for how they responded to that damage in their relationship with others and with God.
The tragedy is that many victims become confused in trying to seek forgiveness. Abuse victims should never repent for what was done to them. They should not accept responsibility fo the actions of their abuser. Neither should they feel a need to ask God's fogiveness for the damage or the emotions that might have been felt during or after the abuse. As they face the sorrow of the damage done to them and what they have done to others, they can find comfort from God.
Finding
Peace by Choosing Surrender
The right kind of sorrow teaches us that real danger does not lie in letting others into our heart. Danger is found in being like the abused dog that impulsively bites or runs from anyone who gets too close. the same is true of our relationship with God. It's dangerous to fearfully resist Him. But safery is found by drawing near to Him.
Immediately after dayin, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted," Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" (Matt. 5:5). In other words, they are to be envied who do not resist and rebel against God. To be congratulated are those who surrender themselves to His care and protection.
This is the meek spirit of the prodigal who having "seen the light" in the mess of his own choices and broken relationships chooses to turn his heart toward the Father's house (Luke 15:11-32). It is the rebellious child who returns with no greater request than to be a servant in His Father's house. This is the submissive attitude that gives a loving Father reason to celebrate!
Even though victims of sexual abuse may have accepted Christ as Savior many years ago, they must continually surrender to Him in the circumstances and damage of their emotional turmoil.
If you find such surrender difficult, think again of the One who is asking you for your trust. He understands your pain, because He too was a victim. He suffered unimaginable crims against nature. He knew what it meant to bear the shame of others. He knew what it meant to be alone, naked, bleeding in the darkness as He pathetically cried. "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Mark 15:34). No one better understands what it means to suffer under the weight of someone else's sin. No one better understands what it means to bear someone else's shame. No one better understands what it meant to suffer in the darkness while God and all of the angels of heaven remainded silent. It is just as true that no one better understands God's ability to help us. Three days later, this victim of our sin rose from the dead to live His life through all who in surrender would trust Him.
Infinite good came out of that terrible abuse and darkness. Christ used His suffering to bring millions of people into an eternal relationship with His Father. He used His suffering to show that as the Father comforted Him so the Father can comfort us. He can comfort all who will choose to give up their struggle of self-protection and join their Savior in saying, "Nevertheless not My wil, but Yours, be done" (Luke 22:42).
Victims who submissively surrender themselves to Christ, not only for their salvation but for daily cares, protection, and change, will find themselves on a path of peace with God. They will see the darkness of victimization change to the first dawning light of freedom and hope.
It must be remembered that biblical change through the right kind of sorrow and surrender will seem very dangerous to someone who has already felt so much pain. But the risk is an illusion. The process avtually awakens in victims a passion for life. By bringing an end to wasted struggles, it increases their energy level. By bringing them to a place of strength and personal safety, it frees them to become concerned about others. Those who allow their hearts to be broken by thier own pain will find themselves sensitized to the pain of others. It will stir up a desire to see wrongs righted and even evoke a healthy sense of anger. Those who have mourned to a point of being fomforted by God will find that comfort recieved turns into comfort given.
Through sorrow and surrender, God will birng about changes that will begin to bring peace to the heart and restore the identity, purpose, and passion lost in the feelings of powerlessness, betrayal, confusion, and rejection.
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