Month: November 2015

My story is not out of the ordinary. I came into the church with a past. A past filled with partying. Boys and more boys. An alcoholic father. A family maimed by divorce. I came into the church wounded. And more so than I thought.

I first came to Christ Church with a friend, and I was immediately struck by the kindness and friendliness of the congregation. The preaching. And the singing. The church felt alive.

I was not living a Christian life at the time, but within a short time, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, I was on my knees asking the Lord to save my soul. He miraculously did, and I have been been a member of Christ Church since.

Fast-forward a few years…

After marrying my husband and having our first child, I took a trip to see my parents. During my visit, my mother and I went out for dinner with some friends. An unexpected guest joined us, and his name was “John”. He was a co-worker of one of the ladies in our party, and he had heard that I was in town. “John” had been a part of a group of people that I had spent time with in my college days.

That evening, while we were all visiting, a remark was made about the “crazy times” that “John” and I had had. I replied that we had not been that crazy. When “John” pushed the “crazy” claim further, I turned to him privately and protested. He then unrepentantly informed me that he had actually drugged me and had forced himself on me. I was speechless. My mind went numb. Drugged. Raped. I couldn’t believe it.

My husband hopped on the next plane to come and be with me, and lovingly brought our small family back home. After trying to work through this on our own, my husband and I decided to seek help and ended up in Pastor Doug Wilson’s office.

In stories like mine, so many different feelings can flood the mine. For me, it wasn’t anger or resentment. I felt filthy. Dirty. Unlovely. I felt like a whore. One man’s words shot straight through my heart. Sending me back. Forcing me to remember my shameful and ugly past. The past I had just said goodbye to. Now I was a wife and a mother. To have my past come back, and have it hit them was too much. I was broken-hearted for them.  I had let them down. I felt sorrow. Deep sorrow and grief. And I mourned. Mourned for my new husband and for our new growing family. And mourned for the new life that we were building. I had done this. And I was undone.

But from our first meeting, Doug Wilson preached the gospel of forgiveness to me. He spoke to me about the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. He encouraged me in the newness of life that I had found in Jesus. And I believed him. I did not question the goodness of God, and I did not hold on to the filth I felt. Being a recently born-again Christian, I had seen for myself the richness and beauty that life in Christ provides. And so, I turned to the Lord with Doug Wilson’s steady guidance, and laid my burdens at the cross. I laid down the ugliness I felt inside about what had happened to me. I laid down the noise in my head of the past, flickers of an old life. And I laid down my sorrow. With Pastor Wilson’s counsel and my husband’s support, I was then able to extend forgiveness in my heart to “John,” and I even prayed for his salvation. With the help of the Holy Spirit, I was able to confess my sin. “He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm” (Proverbs 13:20). Companion of fools, that was me. I had to face the fact that I had chosen that fast crowd, and I had loved it. Repentance and peace. Cleansed and renewed. I felt freed.

My point in sharing this story is that Christ Church was there for me. For my husband. For my child. The church was a safe harbor where my husband and I and our little one came for help, and we got it. Doug and Nancy Wilson were there for me. It was directly because of their wisdom and  faithfulness that my husband and I were able to work through this horrible experience.

There is a story out there that this church is not a safe place for victims or for women. This is a bald-faced lie. For those of you who have believed that story, please hear our words. Listen to our stories. Reconsider.

Doug Wilson helped me to see that all I needed was Christ, and that I had Him — and He had me. And so, although my wounds were real, so was the healing. Thank you, Pastor Wilson and Nancy. You helped turn my sorrows to joy, and I am forever grateful.

Prologue: I knew I couldn’t be alone. The statistics on sexual abuse being what they are, in a congregation of several hundred I knew there were others. I still don’t know who most of them are, but I’m glad I can now stand with them to express gratitude for the safety we have found at Christ Church under Doug Wilson’s ministry.

*****

men: n., people who treat me like crap.
That’s the definition experience tried to teach me, starting with the father who made my childhood household a place of constant fear and the brother who used my body to experiment with his newfound sexual knowledge. A part of me believed it, but another part of me had read the right books (including the Bible), and knew that men weren’t meant to abuse, abandon, and neglect.

Through years of counseling in my 20s, the gaping wounds were stitched up. Eventually the constant suicidal thoughts, which had persisted daily for over a decade, became less frequent. (They’d eventually disappear.) I don’t remember most of those conversations except for a sharp disagreement about whether I needed to repent of anything. She insisted that the abuse was one hundred percent on his shoulders, which it was, but I knew that my younger self was hungry enough for affection to have been complicit. I could have stopped it. Eventually, I did, and I suffered the rejection I’d feared. Mine was certainly a much lesser sin, but I needed to confess it and be forgiven for it. Of course not every victim has anything to repent of, but some do, and if they refuse to do it, they will never be able to heal.

I didn’t quite get past the temptation to people-pleasing, though, and it occasionally got me into situations where I let myself become an emotional punching bag to a teacher or an employer or a church leader in exchange for a few scraps of what I thought was kindness. At the same time, it was still hard to be confident in Christ’s love for me. I went through dark periods of doubting my salvation altogether. I was a crazy mix of distrust and too much trust.

The worst of this happened with a church leader who seemed to be confused about what a shepherd’s staff was for. Things there went OK for me until he figured out what kind of sinner I was, and then he implemented his “The beatings will continue until morale improves” leadership style. I wasn’t the only one who felt those harsh, graceless blows, but I put up with it the longest, reasoning (not unlike a battered wife) that I must deserve it. I was pulled back under into shame, darkness, and despair. The old wounds were open and bleeding again. This man had the gospel right in theory, but the practice didn’t line up. The walk didn’t match the talk, but I believed for too long that the talk was the reality.

Finally, God delivered me from that situation, and, somewhat to my surprise, I found myself joining Christ Church not long after. Was this going to be an out of the frying pan, into the fire situation? The guy at the last church had, after all, supposedly agreed with Doug Wilson. (Of course he’d also supposedly agreed with Jesus…) But what if Doug’s critics were right about him? What if he were the worst sort of hypocrite, or what if his teaching was all just rotten at the core? I trusted Doug a lot, but would it be one more incidence of badly misplaced trust?

Things went well until, once again, my flaws and foibles began to show. Now, I worried, would I be in for it? I cringed, waiting for the blows, but they never fell. Doug and his wife, Nancy, and others in the congregation have shown me incredible patience, kindness, gentleness, and generosity. They’ve believed the best about me and for me rather than the worst. Like one of the ladies who shared here a couple of days ago, I’ve never had one-on-one counseling with Doug about my past abuse. But I have had many conversations with Nancy about many issues, and I know that Doug is standing right behind her, that her counsel is his counsel, too. I have received many blessings from both of them. They are in no way quick to crush a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick. Rather, they’ve come alongside to support that reed with gospel strength and breathe gospel oxygen onto that wick.

Doug doesn’t fit that definition I’ve long resisted. And, substantially because of God’s grace working through Doug, there are many other men in this community who don’t fit that definition—fathers who show me how our heavenly Father leads and provides, brothers who show me how our Brother Jesus cares and protects. I thank God for their faithfulness and for His. I have never felt so safe.

*****

Epilogue: This quote showed up in my Facebook feed yesterday, and it struck me how applicable it was to the stories we’re telling here:

“Some people are given more on this earth and some are given less. Some people spend their days in pain with bodies that keep the yearning front and center, that keep loss always in the mind’s eye. Widows. Orphans. The sick. The damaged (by birth or man). Know this: God has special promises for you, and He loves bringing triumphant resolutions to those who have tasted the deepest sorrows. And this: Gratitude is liberation….See the gifts. And if they seem sparse, start counting.” (N. D. Wilson, Death by Living)

This is a blog by women freed. I found that freedom, that liberation, when I learned to thank God for every part of my story. Even for the really ugly parts—for the pain, the damage, the deepest sorrows. Even for the abuse. Even for that.

I’m grateful for the beautiful parts, too—for the escape, the healing, the forgiveness received and extended, the cleansing from shame, the restoration to wholeness and beauty, the special promises, and the triumphant resolutions. And for the church where I keep being reminded of these things.

What can wash away my sin?Nothing but the blood of Jesus;What can make me whole again?Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

This hymn by Robert Lowry is brilliant. It addresses those who have committed grievous sin and those who have had grievous sin committed against them. Both are true of me. And the solution to both is the same: Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

That is the teaching I get at Christ Church. Jesus forgives. Jesus heals.

I was sexually abused as a kid. I’ve never had one-on-one counseling with Doug Wilson (for that issue). I came to Moscow years later. What I have had is solid, unapologetic gospel for 15+ years.

It was from Pastor Wilson that I first heard that the Bible emphatically does not teach that women are to be submissive to men in general. (I was actually surprised. That’s what I thought it taught for many years). But rather to one man (her father or husband). And for the first time I learned that no earthly authority is absolute. So if those men are abusive, get help!

Sexual abuse leaves an indelible mark. But it does not define me. It breaks mind and soul. But I am whole. I’ve been given a blessed life through Christ Jesus and His cleansing blood.

Being in the Christ Church community full of joyful, gracious believers with my wonderful husband and children has been a blessing that I cannot be thankful enough for! I am witness to the result of generational faithfulness to Christ through the whole Wilson family and many other families at Christ Church as well. And if my story doesn’t center on my sexual abuse, well, there’s a reason for that. That’s not who I am now. The reason for that? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

I don’t often share my story. 
From the time I could toddle till around the age of seven I was sexually abused by two men. One of my more vivid childhood memories is being locked in a room as a little girl, wanting to go to the bathroom to pee, and not being allowed out until I had performed sexual acts for them. I didn’t want to wet my big girl undies. I just wanted to use the bathroom. I was so scared. The fear, the guilt, the shame from those years was heavy and clinging like tar. It made a 3-year-old feel it was her fault, even 15 years later. I failed to see any further damage that could be done to someone as broken as I was. 
I was wholly unsurprised when I was raped by a classmate in college.
Rape seemed the price of living with female parts; it seemed that this was what men did if you, as a woman, made a mistake. Porn, sex, rape, violence — this was sexuality. Ugly, dirty, frightened, painful, shameful. Diseased.
I learned that broken things can be, well, broken worse. What followed strikes me as so stereotypical — sex, drugs, and alcohol — that I hope my testimony doesn’t sound trite. It’s certainly not a fresh take on failed coping mechanisms. Some months later I reached peak unrecognizability. I was not the sort of person I wanted to be, and even convinced as I was that I didn’t deserve better, I didn’t care anymore — I wanted better. So, weeping on the floor of my apartment, I begged God to make me well. Actually, that night I just begged him for sleep without fear. And I slept. To sleep without anxiety, without terror, without nightmares pulled from reality, was life changing. And so I was saved. 
Shortly after that, I met my husband, and after we were married we moved to Moscow, Idaho. I was pretty sure everyone could see my gross past on me, like visible scars. In hindsight, I think that the wiser folks could see I was functionally a new Christian, and that’s probably why we got so many kind words and dinner invites. How funny and narcissistic I was, thinking that my sins were so novel and precious. What would 22-year-old me think of me now? I’m a happily exhausted mom, so I don’t really qualify for having a salty past, right? Unless I’m wearing my “Raped in ’03” shirt, I assume I’m safe from speculation, but I hope that other young women have more wisdom than I did. Wisdom enough to know that they are not alone, not when the statistics have us at such high numbers, not when Jesus Christ washes it all away.
It’s hard for me to write the ways my church has helped us. It is all given to us so freely, so abundantly, it has been easy to take it for granted. Unless the help someone wants is constant back rubs and perpetual victimhood. To say that there aren’t consequences — that would be facile. Sin has consequences — my sins and the sins of my abusers and rapist. Yes, there are consequences. So God gave me my husband, a man of incredible compassion, patience, and discernment. Not just any man can be part of the forgiveness and healing that comes after abuse. Someone that can hold me and comfort me, be my protection, my safe place. More precious, someone unafraid to tell me the wonderful truth: that it’s done, it’s over, and it can’t get me now. The lights are on, the bogey man is not under the bed.
When you, Ppl of The Internets, claiming authority on the topics of abuse and recovery, tell the world and me how I should feel, what I should be afraid of; when you turn a gaze of pity, mark the words and things that must necessarily traumatize me, demanding that I see the bogeymen where God shines only light, you are highlighting pages of my history. You are looking at me and seeing a moment of my life and insisting that I live in it. You are putting me back in that locked room. How dare you. 
When you put limitations on God’s grace and forgiveness, when you point out sins as though they are simply too much for our Lord and Savior, you are calling into question all the grace and forgiveness poured out on me. Think, think what the proposition of limited grace and forgiveness means for people saddled with the guilt and shame of abuse. How dare you. 
It is God’s grace that I am in Moscow and a member of Christ Church. God gave me a church community of faithful men and women — full of men that love and cherish their wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers. The type of men that, a decade ago, I thought were as real as the tooth fairy, here becoming husbands and fathers, looking after their wives and daughters with so much love it makes my heart burst. Women with so much joy, compassion, and ferocious will…I am so happy to be bringing up my daughters here. God gave me Pastor Wilson and his family, who have been a blessing at every turn through wise teachings, faithful examples, and kind friendships. It’s a community where I am a sister in Christ, not the heap of shame and pain that sin made of me. A church where I can share my experience in safety and comfort, but it’s not demanded of me, because they know I’m more than that. A pastor that doesn’t tiptoe around me as a victim, but treats me as one stronger for having survived the fire.
All I wanted was to sleep, and God woke me to a life so full of blessings I can’t think of it without tears of gratitude and joy. 
So no, I don’t often share my story, but it’s not because I am ashamed. It’s because that shame is a world apart from the woman I am now. I have a story of years peppered with vile things that happened, foolish things I did, but by God’s grace I am not bound to those foul moments. I get to be so much more. I get to be a friend, a sister, a wife, a mother. Through God’s grace my identity is in Christ alone.