Can You Heal ?
Can you heal…..
Yes I do believe that you can heal, but I also believe that you will never be able to forget the things that were done to you, no matter how hard you try all those memories are still there.
Several years ago, I forgave the two men who hurt me, or if you want the mean version of it, the two men who stole my childhood, who made me believe that i deserved what they did to me.
When I was little and the abuse was going on I was attending church, and believing that God loved me even if i was the bad little girl i was told that i was, I did not know why he loved me just that he did, that he loved everyone.
After my rape, that Sunday the guest speaker spoke about how God allowed everything that happened to you that it was his choice for everything in your life, it had only been 4 days since the rape, i was hurting angry and just basically feeling like crap i went to the only place that i felt truly loved and this man was telling me that God allowed my abuse and rape, now i really felt worthless and felt there was no hope for me ever, this sunday was the last day that regular pastor Rev. Leo McDaniel was to be at church he was leaving and the man that was preaching the message on that day was to be the new pastor well not for me he wasn’t he had just told that God who was suppose to love me allowed my abuse and rape well i couldn’t deal with that sermon, when i left that day it would be a long time before I would walk into any church again, at this point my 13 year old mind was not capable of understand that even GOD thought i deserved this was i really that bad.
Over the next few years, i truly hated myself, and would even would say why ? was i so bad that not one single person in the world loved me, I felt that my parents hated me and now i was told that God allowed me to be hurt so he hated me too. but why?
I was in my 20′s before i went back to church just to try and make sense of everything that had happened, on that first day back the sermon was preached about God allowing bad things to happen because of your sin, WHAT ? i was even more confused now i was very young when my abuse started so young in fact that i don’t remember any time that it was not a part of my life, and at 13 did i even really understand what sin was I don’t think so…..
So again, it was my fault all of it was my fault i asked for these things to happen to me because I sined what on earth could a child do that was that bad that God himself had punished me so much, i did not understand so i left that church that day saying i would never go back, but yet i still felt him pulling me to him but i wound’t listen i couldn’t listen i could not allowed myself to be hurt anymore not even by God
25 years old and still so confused about the past i found myself wanting to end it all, I had a favorite spot..Lopez Canyon up in the hills of Sylmar, California there were 2 cemeteries near the spot i had chosen to end it all, at the huge drop off, I couldn’t drive the truck off the ledge because if i lived my dad would surely kill me, it was his truck, so i would have to jump off, humm, wonder how bad it would hurt before death came, i sat down on the side of that hill and really thought about some things if i did manage to kill myself my mother would blame herself and it was never her that i blamed for anything that would be a terrible thing to do to someone, my pain would be over but what would i do to her, My head was hurting so bad at this point i just wanted to stop the pain not make everyone else hurt.
I did look up to the sky at the point and say God, I really need your help, i have never truly beleived that you hated me, but i don’t know what to think about the preaching that says you allowed the hurt in the first place i don’t understand please please help me to understand, it is hard to say what happened next becasue most people won’t beleive me, but lets say i got to see some things that were not really there, did i understand why no but with what i seen it did not matter anymore. after a while i got back into the truck and went back home.
Several more years would pass before i went back to church, the church i attended as a little girl was still standing and i just felt i needed to go back and visit like the church itself was calling to me, it was to be my last visit with this church it was changing from the first presbyterian to the AME church, it was sad the big beautiful old church had been sold. It was to be my last church visit in California
I moved from California in 1999, still not dealing very much with my past i really thought i was just all alone in dealing with it, after all i was the bad one i asked for it, i thought no one else would ever understand what i had been though, the few times i had tried to talk to people i only heard the words that was in the past let it go, or i would hear get over it, Oh please tell me how, how do you get over losing everthing that they did to you, you can’t trust anyone.
When i found out that my father was losing his battle with life, I thought it was my fault at first because of all the hate although it wasn’t really hate i don’t have a better word for it, i was working but having issues with work, on that day in March of 2000 my supervisor (No i don’t hate her, but i do hope she got better at being a supervisor) called me into her office and told me that she thought i was the worst person to ever be placed on the earth and that she felt i was never going to be anything that i should get married and let a husband take care of me, because i was stupid then she said your fired, I was in such shock that i just left and on the drive home i got so sick thta i had to stop on the side of the road to throw up and since i was already on my knees, i again talked to God, he never left me, although i am still unsure as to why he stayed by my side i made a promise to him that day that if he could help me to deal with everything in my life i would be there to care for my father and i would get back to church.
Mom and I took care of dad’s every need, dad was in the hospital one night, even the doctors thought it was his last night, he started talking my guess he was talking to God why because he was saying he had to do one more thing before being taken, after he said those words it seemed he got well enough to go home so we brought him home, Dad loved gospel music well all music really but, gospel the most. There was some gospel singing to be at church one night but it was a night that he had dialysis and since he was usually very tired and sometimes ill after treatment we did not think he would be able to go, after we got him in the car and got the wheelchair in the car (he was not able to walk a long time at a time) he said he really wanted to go and hear the singing so we went
The singing was wonderful, but what happened next i would have never believed if i had not been there to see it myself, there was an alter call, who wanted to give there life to christ was the question, my dad went to the alter in his wheelchair he got saved that night he walked away from the alter no assistants needed dad was on his last few weeks of life when he gave his life to christ could this be what he was talking about a couple of weeks eariler in the hospital, I beleive it was, dad had been saying for several weeks he wanted to go home, well we live in the town he grew up in so we did not really understand that it was heaven he was talking about until after he went to the hospital for the last time he would be in and out and was talking to but not to anyone one of us in the room, he kept saying he was going to go fishing with Jesus, dad passed on March 18, 2003
Up to this point i had not gone back to church yet but i knew that i needed to keep the promise i had made, I talked to several freinds and then met a very special lady that helped me to understand that i really needed to get back to church, she told me that it really did not matter what church i went to i just needed to get there, so at first i went to ones that were out of the way i did not feel very welcomed at any of them.
The pastor that had spoken at my dad’s funeral and had been the pastor that was there praying over him when he gave his life to christ had a church, should i try there, well i did and for the next several years Family Worship Center was my Church Home, THis church is no longer there, well the building is there but another church is in its place, I am very happy to say that I am still attending Church just a different one.
It still bothers me when someone who knows about my past says get over it, that statement to me just means they don’t understand the loss of childhood, or when someone says that it is not true non of that really happened, yes it did happened i was there, and felt and lived it all.
I hold no anger towards my father or the teacher.
Sometimes, i do still have issues with my past abuse, and how it effects me to this day, but i no longer call myself a victum, i am a suvivor, do i still have trouble i don’t know anyone who has been abused who doesn’t at times struggle but, we do overcome rather quickly it is just part of the life long healing process
It still to this day bother me when i hear the sermon about God allowing things to be done to you, i just don’t beleive that God could have allowed children to be abused and raped
Thank You for reading and yes i do believe you can heal but, i do think it takes the rest of you life to do it.