Just one day can completely change a person. I might have something yesterday and have it taken away from me today, believe one thing only to be completely changed next time. I've really struggled a lot in trying to make sense of this huge mess that comes with years of sexual abuse. I have run away from God, sat on a kitchen counter chugging a bottle of wine so I could fall asleep night after night, had meaningless sex to fill some void, smoked enough weed to knock out a gorilla, and so much more. No matter what I tried to do to further mess up my life while "trying to find help", I can look back and see now that God totally had his hand over me. It feels like he had a little protective bubble over me. Those nights when I was out on the town looking for just about anything to harm myself, I felt invisible and people left me alone. Even though I wanted to find harm, it stayed away from me and I know that God was the one who kept it away from me.
I know that all survivors of sexual abuse try to find some sort of meaning for what has happened to them. Most of us lash out at one point or maybe even forever, saying that there was no possible reason why something that horrible should happen. As I continue to look back and learn how to analyze more, I am finding even more reasons why this was allowed to happen to me for so long. I am by no means saying that any form of sexual abuse is good, so please do not read that into what I'm saying. What I am saying is that God can take the ugly and turn it into something used for His glory, but it starts with the gospel.
In a nutshell, the gospel, to me, started when man became helpless back in Genesis and then because God still loved such disobedient, awful children, he took on tremendous amounts of torment and did what we could never do, which was save us. This love takes away any pride we could have in ourselves because we weren't able to be good enough to be spared, and the fact that our salvation was a gift removes any rights we have to boast about our abilities... or lack thereof. Now in applying the gospel to my situation, it was hard for me to think that God really cared about sexual abuse victims, most likely because my father was the head of our home and a "godly" figurehead and he was the one who told me it was my fault. I started reading the book Rid of My Disgrace and it pointed out the fact that Christ knows what trauma is. Think closely about the death he suffered which we usually overlook. He was severely beaten, so there is the physical abuse. He was berated by the most vile, ungodly people, so there's the verbal abuse. He had nails driven through his flesh and he was hung up to be apart of a death that usually included water-filled lungs and an exploding heart from all the pressure. That's excruciating, isn't it? But the worst part is that he had to bear all of our sins and sufferings on his back, and that is by far a much heavier load. To top it all off, to make it infinitely worse, his very own father in heaven turned his back on Christ when Christ was bearing that load of sin. I know what it's like to have a father who blames you instead of being a father, and Christ knew what it was like for his Father to turn away from him during his greatest hour of need. So, he knows what abuse is, and he LOVED ME enough to take that abuse for my sake. I can look up to heaven and find my real Abba. The gospel has worked to soften my heart. It showed me I was incapable, but one who was greater than I am said it would be alright, because he would do it for me.
Looking back, and looking forward, there are things I can be thankful for. Looking back, I am thankful that even though no matter how many times I begged for it to stop, that my parents never found out. If my father had told me as a child that it was my fault for being assaulted, I would have been SO damaged and confused. Hearing that as an adult who knew she was better off sleeping in her car than living around her father made it easier because I knew now that he is not an invincible authority figure that I must blindly follow. Currently, I am thankful for the fact that this brokenness has made me lean on God after he brought me back because I have strength and a true, discerning, unconditional love in my Abba. In the future, I look forward to the possibility of this horrendous situation possibly breaking my father of his stubborn pride while I present the gospel message of saving love to him (through an email, of course). I also look forward to helping other sexual abuse victims on their road to recovery. While many circumstances in my life were quite evil, God still held out many other darker forces that could have utterly wiped me out.... "It could have been worse", or as I believe, knowing that God will use it for his purposes, allows me to look forward to a future that's not quite so dim.
I feel like that's enough.... 'nuff said. These are the ramblings of a scrambled brain being pieced together and learning to think again. Praise God for His goodness! I love Him as He continues to shower blessings on me, and I love him when I'm in the depths of despair because God is good no matter what.
