Tonights service at 707 moved me more than any service in recent memory. The focus was on prayer and how God is close to us despite any circumstances that may exist in our lives. Lately my circumstances haven’t been perfect but when are they ever perfect? There are so many people in the world who have less than nothing, that die from preventable diseases, that haven’t yet broken free of addictions and that go to sleep every night hungry and wondering if they will have enough to eat the next day.
Most everyone who knows me knows that I was sexually abused when I was younger, I’m fairly open about it. It’s even been used against me before, to take advantage of my weaknesses, but I continue to be open honest and transparent about it because that is my calling. To be a light in the pitch black darkness for people who haven’t yet reached the point that I have, who are still living in despair, who haven’t figured out that healing isn’t just a dream it’s a reality and it exists in Jesus.
When you’re living in that kind of reality, when a crime has been committed against you that is so violent, so dehumanising, so disgusting that it truly makes you consider yourself the filthiest form of unclean you can imagined, you can do some pretty horrible things to yourself and to other people. manipulation, selfishness, pumping yourself full of drugs to ease the pain for just one fleeting moment, cutting, having sex with anyone who will hop into bed with you…the list goes on and on and on.
I’ve lived through that reality, and to an extent I still do, I still deal with the aftermath and the consequences of my actions every single day. There are days I wake up feeling like the filthiest piece of dirt on the planet at the thought of all the meaningless relationships that dulled my reality for a day, a week, maybe a month at most but after every one of them the result was the same. I felt empty again, alone, worthless and I didn’t want to live. Eventually, after I lived this way for years, I started realising that the things that I had started out using to cope were now using me. There came a point where I had to step back and admit I was getting nowhere and that I wouldn’t get anywhere if I kept looking in myself for the solution when the only thing that was inside me was the problem.
I found the solution in Jesus. I’m serious. I’m not the kind of person who is “in your face” with my faith. I think that far tool often people say a lot but don’t really say anything at all and I believe words are a gift best used sparingly and sincerely. I prefer to live by example and let a pattern of consistent actions speak the truth for itself. Sometimes that truth is Jesus and sometimes it’s not. I’m fallen, I’m a sinner and truthfully, I don;’t always live like I should or say what I mean. I do try though, to be the best example I can be.
Some people have asked me why I keep writing about this every so often. There’s a few reasons, some of which are admittedly selfish.
It helps me deal. Some word vomit on a page once in awhile helps me get thoughts out of my head that I’d rather not have and that aren’t in any way honoring to God.
It helps others. Every time I tell my story, I have no idea who is reading, listening or taking notes. If I help just one person out of however many people, then it’s worth it, because they know they’re not alone, they know someone else can identify with their struggle and they know that at the end of the day my efforts to save myself ended in complete and utter disaster and that Jesus made things right, that Jesus did the saving and that He deserves the praise for whatever I’ve done, whoever I’ve impacted of influenced. The ripples that this story makes in the huge and overwhelming sea of life makes no difference, it’s Jesus who gives me the courage to stand up and say I was abused and not care about the negative (and sometimes apathetic, far worse if you ask me) reactions, it’s Jesus who gives me the strength to endure the aftereffects of this that still exist almost 14 years later and it’s God who was with me even while I was destroying myself and spitting in His face trying to destroy myself, someone He loved to the point of sending His Son to die for.
If that isn’t love, then I don’t know what is.
I ramble too much. So, on to my point: Who do you know that needs this solution? Every two and a half minutes, someone in America is sexually assaulted like I was almost 14 years ago. Every two and a half minutes, someone has this same horrible and disgusting crime of violence committed against their soul. Every two and a half minutes, this pattern of destructive behavior might start all over again with someone else and it doesn’t have to.
As Christians we have a responsibility to help these people. But when was the last time you ever heard a pastor mention this in a sermon or anywhere else? If you have heard this mentioned, great, but by and large, this crisis is largely ignored in the church today and I think that is unacceptable and dare I say un-Christlike.
Every two and half minutes. That’s 24 people every hour, and over 210,000 people every year. Jesus loves these people. He died for them. He is the hope that they desperately need, and yet I can’t remember the last time I heard a pastor mention the word “rape” in a sermon.
What are you going to do about it?
What will we do about it?
voices