You admit you were sexually abused.
In other words, you open your own personal Pandora’s Box and watch as a blur of ragged-winged creatures blow past and whiz round the room.
While the worst of your memories and crazy-desperate thoughts race round and bounce off the walls, Fear cowers in the corner, Shame burrows its way to the back of your closet, and Rage smashes all your white cups and saucers.
What next?
Unless you have a working wand and Hermione’s knack for knowing just the right spell, you’re not going to get all those little black pixies back under lock and key. Not right away anyway.
As chaos swirls, you realize…you’re gonna need backup.
God’s got you. As a believer, that’s a given. He loves you, is for you, and is with you no matter what. But with Self-Blame in the kitchen, pulling open the sharps drawer, and Hopelessness bottoming up that bottle of vodka, you’re also going to need help of the fleshy kind. Someone to put their hand on yours and have you drop the killing thing. Someone to protect you from you as you process the pain. Someone willing to be Jesus with skin on.
This is why God made good friends, loving family members, and trained professionals.
“The LORD is for me among those who help me” Psalm 118:7
He was with David among the hundreds who were willing to do battle beside him. He will be with you among those willing to come alongside of you. Let them. God knows you’re going to need them.
Deciding to open that box of chaos is not easy. Dealing with the consequences is even harder. Hell stays in so long as you keep the lid on it. When you finally lift that lid and all hell breaks loose, well…the results are as advertised.
What’s next are difficult days. I know. I’ve lived it. Not gonna sugar-coat it.
I can tell you this though. Looking back over the devastation, losses, and heartache left in the wake, the sweet I will always remember are the fleshy hands and hearts of those who reached out to help and stayed. Even in the pain of abuse and rejection, the pit of shame and despair, and the ache of loneliness and regret, The LORD showed He was for me through them.
He can do it for you too.
And that’s more than a tattered-winged Hope, left clinging to the underside of the open lid, or lying pitifully at the bottom. That’s a promise.
Besides. What good was that hell ever doing you anyways?
Photo Credit: “The last box in the attic” by John Twohig
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/
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Wow Laura. Just, wow. For years I have wondered how to describe the pain that comes out once the box, or in my case, boxes, are opened. You have done a beautiful job explaining the “killing thing” as I believe the enemy is “searching to devour” when one of us, though Christ’s, decides to do the hard, painful, transforming work of healing from sexual abuse. I think he knows, that through the strength and power of the Holy Spirit, we will soar and be transformed through the truth of God’s Word and the love and kindness of others. I treasure those who were willing to just listen as I processed memory after memory. For awhile, it seemed they would never stop. And during all of it, the pull is there to resist the pain and stop the process. But, perservering and pushing forward causes that deep-seated, cutting hurt and shame to finally release, no longer able to even sting. It is a beautiful work the Lord does in turning what Satan meant for evil into what God uses for good! You are living proof that’s possible. So thankful too for the outspoken women like Mary Demuth, Beth Moore, Joyce Meyer, Sheila Walsh who have all been willing to rise up and tell their stories of sexual abuse allowing us to see first-hand what a Mighty God can do!
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“I treasure those who were willing to just listen…” I do too. Took me a long time to be able to open my mouth that wide. But when I did, the ones who held their breath and listened were the life-savers and hope-givers. You don’t think you can live with those words on the outside of you. They showed me that I could.
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Your words on opening that box and the devasation that unfolds so clearly describes it.
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Wow. Thank you, Monica. I tried to capture it.