Healing from Sexual Abuse

Female Living Waters Participant                    

The author of this testimony participated in Living Waters in 2004 and continues to walk in sexual and relational wholeness.  She is now married.  This article was used with permission.

I came to Living Waters shattered from childhood sexual abuse; overwhelmed in my own victim mentality and consumed with suicidal thoughts. I was bitter, sarcastic and argumentative – and I loved it.

My abuse began when I was seven and ended when I was about eleven.  There were a couple people involved and it convinced me that I made people do this. That this horrible, nameless thing was…Me.  The secret and shame ate at me for years. I finally wound up in Living Waters at Reconciliation Ministries. I had resigned that this program would fail too; I simply couldn’t fathom another way to live.

God bless my small group leader, Lori.  She was so patient through my denial and on to my confessions of wrongs I had to be responsible for. I’ll never forget the worship…here I finally let my false self disappear and found myself closer to God as my Father than ever before. I always saw Him as my Punisher and not my provider.

It broke my heart however, to know Christ was there when I was abused. I always thought he was there doing nothing. When I envisioned it, I always turned away seeing Him as angry at me. I would always get the picture of me crying after the abuse, waiting for my mom to come pick me up – lost and hurt and alone. I could never seem to get past this stronghold. Every time I was close to healing, these images would appear of me being hurt; and later crying while I waited for my parents to get me.  I was praying with another leader, Dan, when he encouraged me to really look at the scene I was avoiding. I felt a pain like never before seeing Christ there in that room. He seemed so angry! I cried and kept saying sorry and I just got angrier as I saw Him with an expression of rage. Dan asked me, “Who is Christ angry at?” I almost immediately answered, “Me,“ but caught myself. Then I realized He was angry at the person hurting me. Angry at what was happening to two members of His creation. I’ll never forget that. I started to cry and feel comforted. Then I kept thinking of me alone on the stairs, crying through the abuse. I asked through this seemingly blinding hurt, “Where were YOU?!?”  Instantly I could envision the image of a man in jeans and a t-shirt holding me and sitting there with me, crying on those steps. That was my answer. The memories became more about grief and less about bitterness and anger. I don’t know how or why but I know in that moment I finally felt clean.

As a little girl, my Dad used to tease me when he’d use the shower after me and the soap wasn’t wet. He thought I just didn’t want to get cleaned up. I never used soap because I still never felt clean, even after scrubbing.

At this moment though, after that prayer I finally felt – washed.

There is hope and healing through the love of Jesus Christ for those who have been wounded by childhood sexual abuse.  Call 586.739.5114 to find out more about our next session of Living Waters which will be starting in soon.

If you would like more information about Reconciliation Ministries, or any of the ministries we offer, visit us on the Web at www.recmin.org, or call (586) 739-5114.  You may also e-mail us at info@recmin.org.  All correspondence will be kept strictly confidential.

Our office is located at 25410 Kelly Road, in Roseville, Michigan 48066.

Reconciliation Ministries is an affiliate ministry of Exodus International, and uses many of the programs written by Desert Stream Ministries.

© Reconciliation Ministries 2009