Today's blog post addresses the topic of child abuse. It is a powerful account of both human evil and the forgiveness available through Christ. Please read with care.
Image from @mxsh on Unsplash
The world is different now. Before reading this, you would not have known it. Most who know my story might say it is better. Some may say it’s worse. It is, however, different. Do not feel bad for not knowing. I didn’t either. Not for three days. The world had changed, and I had no idea…
I am a survivor. I experienced horrific abuse at the hands of close family members and their closest friends. The ones who were meant to keep me safe and make precious memories with me abused me, trafficked me, and made my life a nightmare. But I am not a victim. Through Christ, and only through Him, I have overcome so very much. I have forgiven much. I have healed much.
We all know this day will come eventually. I knew that chances were no one would tell me. I just didn’t think this day would come so soon.
He is dead. My abuser is dead. I found out from a Facebook post. Not from a phone call, not from a text message, not from a private Facebook message. I learned this news from a public post on my abuser’s Facebook page after casually chatting with my friends and seeking to show them a picture of my sisters. I knew this day would come; I just didn’t know it would be today. I learned the news alongside sixty-seven people who had never met him, that my abuser was dead.
Why do I care? Because I loved him despite how much he hurt me.
Often, I have mused about how I would feel right now. Most of the time I assumed I would feel nothing significant. Sometimes I thought I would feel safer. Occasionally, I felt I would be a little sad. Never did I think that I would cry. Never did I think I would blast the worship music in my car to drown out the sound of my sorrow.
But that is what I have done. Cried. Cried for the relationships that should have been. Not just mine and his, but his and God's. I have often prayed I would see him in Heaven. I know how “high and mighty” that sounds but hear me out. Yes, he was a wretch – like for real. Still, my soul knows Jesus came to save him. Jesus came to love him. Jesus wanted a relationship with him. He was God’s beloved. When God healed me, He gave me supernatural forgiveness. He granted me grace that makes no sense in human terms, so you know it is from God. He gave me a deeper love for the people whom so many of my fellow survivors hate. It’s not me, it is God.
In one-on-one settings, I have shared my testimony with complete transparency, but when I shared my testimony publicly, I intentionally left out the identity of my abuser. I have afforded him anonymity because I believe, as a person created in the image of God, he deserves that. I believed with everything in me one day he would walk into my church and just listen. Just give God a chance. That it would be hard but worth it because the testimony would be incredible, and a soul would be saved. His soul would be saved. This soul I loved. I believed in that with all of me. That day will never come, so I cling to the days I have, but there are few good ones.
So many of the memories still make me sick.
· The first day he ‘shared me’ with his friends.
· The day I sang, “Here I am send, me send me, I’ll follow you so faithfully, no greater honor could there be Lord, here I am send me, send me,” then looked at him and said, “I am going to tell people about God one day,” and received a beating for it.
· The day he overdosed me on sleeping pills because the voices told him to.
· The day he came after me with a knife.
That was the man I knew. Those days swirl in my head as I search my mind for good memories. Bawling because no one is completely evil. There must have been good in him. He was an image bearer. Bawling, begging God to show me something. Anything.
I was afforded by God three good memories.
· Watching Star Trek on a sick day, telling him I wanted to marry Spock.
· The time he paid the extra nineteen cents when I didn’t have enough money to buy a treat.
· The night he carried me to bed as I pretended to be asleep.
It is not enough, but it is what I have. There was good in my abuser.
I can say with absolute certainty that I would not be the woman I am if he were not the broken man he was. This extraordinary compassion God placed in me comes from the lack of compassion I was shown. I am outspoken because I was silenced. I am driven because I was broken. I see the invisible because I was unseen. Victims come to me to hear my story of healing. Joy is my default because it was my source. My faith is strengthened in memories of God coming to me during the abuse and sitting with me.
I am who I am today both in spite of and because of him. But I love him. I will always love him.
Abuse is a funny thing. He was so mentally sick and tortured. I know the enemy of our souls attacked him. It doesn’t excuse his behavior, nothing would, but it explains it.
As a person who cannot carry a tune in a bucket, but for whom music has always been a healing balm, I have had a tune playing in my head since finding out about his death. It is from the musical Wicked. You may know it.
“Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better, but, because I knew you, I have been changed for good.”
With no more need for anonymity, I name my abuser for the first time publicly, not to call him out, but to say what I wish I could have said to him face to face in the moments before his death.
I love you, Dad, and I wish you had met my sweet Jesus before you died.
