Child Abuse Story of Healing and Recovery From Jeanne

by Jeannne
(Location Undisclosed)

I was molested when I was a child, but fortunately I found a way to healing and wholeness. I have read some of the stories here, and my healing is a little different, but I think it is legitimate.

My brother was the one who did it to me, the first incidents happening when I was about four or five, and the later ones when I was eleven. My brother is three years older than me. The first time I was too young to know how to deal with what had happened, so it got filed in an 'ignore' box in my brain. When I was older I remembered those times with shame and guilt, and I swore no one would ever know what had happened. I was one of those painfully shy kids, I hated myself, and I would get depressed for months and months at a time. There were times when the sadness and despair where overwhelming, but I didn't know why I felt that way, and I struggled with the temptation to cut myself. I never crossed that line, for which I am glad; somehow I knew it was something I shouldn't do even though I desperately wanted to. I also thought about suicide, especially when I was in the deepest depression, although it never got to the point where I actually had a plan to do it.

I'm not sure where my brother got the ideas, but I know that he deeply regrets what he did, and he struggled with depression, even more than I did, and I think he still does today, although not as much. When I was a freshman in high school he finally confessed what he had done to our parents. They didn't do anything, I don't think they knew what to do, but that's when I realized why I was messed up inside. It was a couple of weeks before my brother approached me and asked for forgiveness, fortunately by that point I had truly forgiven him, but I still had a long ways to go.

I grew up in the church, so I inevitably thought these things had happened to me because God didn't like me much, He was disappointed in me, and was punishing me. In high school I began to hear whispers that this wasn't so, but I didn't dare to believe them. Then in college I began to take my faith seriously, and as I focused on God, He showed me that He was not the distant, hard-to-please God I had always pictured, but He was one that experienced everything with me, that chose to feel emotion for me. Finally I got to the place where I trusted Him, and I thought things were going pretty well.

Then one day I was driving home from school and I suddenly remembered what had happened to me as a child, and I started sobbing. I remember wondering why I hadn't gotten over what had happened, since it had been years and years. But I realized it wasn't going to be so easy to 'get over' it, so I just prayed, "God I want to be healed, but I don't feel strong enough to face this now, so I'll just trust you with the timing."

It was two weeks later that my younger brother and I went to my pastor's house to ask him to pray for us (it was for something completely unrelated). What he prayed for didn't happen, so I was a little discouraged. The next day I realized I was feeling really down, and pretty soon I figured out it wasn't about what my pastor had been praying for, that was actually a minor issue.

I realized I was in pain, and it was so intense that I was actually checking my body to see where I was injured. But it wasn't anywhere on my body, if it was on my soul or my spirit I don't know, but it was the worst pain I ever remember feeling. I didn't take the pain to my parents, my friends; I didn't think that would cut it, so I just cried out to God for help.

Here's where it gets weird:
As I was praying, I started to get vivid pictures in my brain that I couldn't see with my eyes and that weren't memories in my mind. I saw myself lying in a field, and I had armor on, like I was some medieval knight or something. I couldn't really move, and I knew I was wounded.

Then Jesus walked up. It's hard to describe what He's like in a way that really tells you how He is, but let me say this: He had this huge aura of love around Him that would fill up a whole room; there was not an ounce of condemnation in Him. He was so strong, I knew He wasn't afraid of anything, and at the same time He was perfectly gentle. He was so concerned for me, and I remember He knelt next to me and put my head in his lap.

Then He started to speak to me, and I heard His voice clearer in my mind than I've ever heard it before or since. He said, "I love you." Before I had read verses like "for God so loved the world," but I had never thought it applied to me, or that maybe God would love me someday when I was a better person. But when He said it, it was like the words burned onto my heart, and I knew they were true. He told me how much He loved me, and then He started to tell me how I had value in myself, how I was precious and had precious things to offer.

After a while I had a sense that God the Father was going to show up. At first I was nervous, because I knew Jesus, I had seen Him, He loved me, and He was awesome, but I wasn't sure about God the Father yet. But as I thought about it, I remembered that while they are distinct persons, but they are also the same person, so I said okay, and God the Father showed up, and He was just as loving and compassionate as Jesus. And He spoke to me of how He had created me, and how He loved me and how I had been lovingly made.

It was crazy, but after the vision or whatever it was had stopped, I felt different. Before it had felt like there was something inside me that was destroyed. Afterward it felt like I was whole again, like I was alive. All of a sudden I could remember what had happened to me as a child and there was no pain or shame associated with those memories, they were just things that had happened. I remember it like I remember going to the grocery store: it's painless now. Today my friends will tell me that I'm one of the most peaceful people they have ever known.

So that's my story. I'm not sure what to tell you to take away from it. Maybe that however badly you are hurt, healing does exist, and it is possible to be whole again. God does still heal today.

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