During the process of my coming out of the closet—literally coming out of my bathroom closet to dress and undress—I received a new assignment from my counselor. She encouraged me to go shopping for a new nightgown, one that did not hide who I was as a woman. At that time, I usually wore un-feminine sleepwear that covered me up and made me invisible. Honestly, I was very skeptical about this assignment and doubted that I would even be able to fulfill it.

But I got up my courage, and went to the mall, and found the lingerie department of a well-known chain store. (There was no way I could have visited Victoria’s Secret or a similar store. I was not far enough along my journey yet!) So I shopped around in the department store and found a nightgown that was modest, comfortable, and soft. But when I tried it on, I stayed inside the dressing room a long time, talking to myself. I was trying to convince myself to leave the dressing room, go to the checkout, buy the gown, and go home. Finally, I did just that.

However, once I got home, I stuffed the new nightgown, bag and all, into a dresser drawer. And I left it there. For weeks, I was at a stand-still. For days and days, I thought a lot about that nightgown in that bag in that drawer, and I even thought about opening the drawer, but I didn’t do it. Every day, I tried to rake up the courage to open the drawer but, alas, I always turned around and thought, “Maybe tomorrow.” Then tomorrow arrived, and I actually took the bag out of the drawer and looked at it…and put it right back into the dresser drawer. I had discovered that I really could open the drawer and take out the nightgown-in-the-bag, but it was a few more days until I opened the drawer again. But eventually, I did open the drawer again, I took the bag out of the drawer, and I laid it on the chair next to the bed. Whew! I had finally gotten the nightgown out of the drawer, so now I could start thinking about actually taking the nightgown out of the bag. It would take a couple more days of walking past the bag and thinking about it before I could move on to the next step.  But I took that next step. I took the gown out of the shopping bag and laid it on the chair. Of course, I covered it up so that no one could see it. I alone knew that the nightgown was there on the chair. Finally, I tried it on and then hid it once more on the chair. Then, at last, I put on the gown and wore it to bed. This was not an easy task. There were many steps, and days would elapse in between the steps. The process was exhausting, emotionally exhausting.

Philippians 4:13 assures me, “I can do all things through Him Who strengthens me” (NAS). I was not able to put on that nightgown in my own strength, but God’s strength and encouragement through those weeks are what kept me on track. I CAN do all things. That is the message that God wants me to receive and understand. I had been working so hard for so long to make changes in my life, and I was feeling like such a failure in this area. But what does the book of Philippians tell us? We can accomplish all things, because He gives us the strength to do the hard things. He gave me the strength to go shopping, to buy a new feminine nightgown, and to wear it.

What hard thing is God asking you to do on your road to healing and wholeness? Does this task seem impossible? Let us remember the Truth that God has for us in His Word—that we can do all the things that are needed for our restoration, no matter how large and overwhelming or how small and insignificant they may seem. In verse 19, Paul continues, “And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Do you see that wondrous Truth? God strengthens us and then He supplies our needs richly.

What about you? Is there some difficult assignment that you must fulfill before you can move on to the next step on your road to recovery? Believe that, when you complete that step, He will help you with the next one, and then the next one, and so on until you find yourself basking in the riches that He wants to bestow upon us so freely and lovingly. My message to you is this: Do not give up! Keep on relying on His strength and help. Someday, in glory, we will finally be completely whole. Until that day comes, let us walk our road here on earth in His strength. Grab His hand. Let’s go.

Blessings – Lisa

I survived sharing about my deepest hurt and sharpest pain! My counselor gave me a new assignment, to deal with the truth of my situation. And here is that truth: My husband is not my abuser. Every day I wrote that statement in my journal. Every day I meditated on the fact that my husband is not the person who had inflicted great pain on my mind, body, and soul. Then, the next week, I added another truth to my arsenal against the enemy who wants to defeat me. Like the first one, this new truth was critical to my healing. My husband loves me very much. During the following weeks, these two truths became imbedded into my heart and consciousness.

Whenever I sensed the approach of negative feelings about sex, I remembered these truths. Over and over, these two truths had to be written and rewritten in my journal. How strange that something that had happened to me when I was six years old could dictate how my body would react to my husband over fifty years later. Like all my other battles, the battle over my sexual issues has always been about truth. I needed to rewire my emotions. The devil is the father of lies, and his lies had filled my mind long enough. I decided to walk in the truth.

When I was finally able to confront my sexual problems, God gave me scripture from the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah 1:4-5 says, “Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations’” (NAS). God reassured me that He has known me since before time began and that I am special to Him. He has consecrated my life to His Purpose and His Plan. As I write these blogs, I see that He has also appointed me a prophet to the nations, a voice for those who may need these words to find hope and comfort in Him during their journeys to wholeness.

Jeremiah 1:6-7 continues, “Then I said, ‘Alas, LORD GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, because I am a youth.’ But the LORD said to me, ‘Do not say, “I am a youth,” because everywhere I send you, you shall go, and all that I command you, you shall speak.’” Jeremiah was making an excuse. My excuse—my fear—was that facing my sexual issues with my husband was going to hurt more than I could bear. I was afraid that I would never be able to change, that I would never be restored. That fear had followed me for months.

But God responds to my fear in verses 8-10:

“Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you,” declares the LORD. Then         the LORD stretched out His hand and touched my mouth, and the LORD said to me,          “Behold, I have put My word in your mouth. See, I have appointed you this day over           the nation and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to           overthrow, to build and to plant.”

God tells me not to be afraid of the feelings and emotions that I have to work through, for He will deliver me from my bondage and pain. He encourages me and assures me that I will “pluck up and break down, destroy and overthrow, and build and plant.” What an inspiring word of hope! I know I must cling to those words, because all those actions take time. Those actions also take diligence and a plan. But I am ready to move forward and taste the fruit that will one day be ripe for the picking.

What about you? Are there lies in your life that need to be replaced with the truth? Are you willing to believe that all that has happened to you has been consecrated by God so that you can do a work in His Kingdom? Do you believe that one day those wicked things in your life and mine, whatever they may be, will be broken down, destroyed, rebuilt, and planted anew? Oh, let us believe! Let’s get that plan together and move forward to bask in God’s love for us. I can taste that fruit now.

Blessings – Lisa

So far in these posts, I have not yet shared about the deepest hurt and sharpest pain that I have endured due to my being molested as a child. This particular wound has been the hardest one for me to face and discuss. It has to do with the subject of sex. Just writing that last sentence was painful for me. In today’s society, sex is commonplace, but for me it is hard even just to say the word sex.

But it hasn’t always been that way. When my husband and I were newlyweds, we seemed to have a normal marriage, healthy in all aspects. I cannot really tell you when the changes in our intimate life began, except that I remember starting to have problems at about the time that our son reached puberty. The timing makes sense to me now, since my molestation had come at the hands of teenage boys. Back then, though, when those memories were still stuffed away in my subconscious, I did not know why our sex life had suddenly become a problem.

In counseling, I have learned that women who are molested as children generally follow one of two paths as a result. Some victims become sexually promiscuous. Others go in the opposite direction and hate sex. Of course, this is an oversimplification, but you get the picture.

I chose the latter path. When I heard other married women talk about their husbands in glowing terms, I only thought about how much I hated to be touched. Going away on a romantic weekend was not my idea of a good time. These irrational feelings only made me believe even more that I was weird or that something was wrong with me. I hated to watch love scenes in movies, explicit or implied. I especially could not watch a movie that involved rape or the sexual degradation of women. I began to dress inside my closet so that my husband would not see me without clothes. Sex became torture for me. I gritted my teeth and felt actual physical pain. I cried out to God, but continued to spiral into deeper and deeper depression.

When my husband and I tried to talk about this issue I always came away feeling worse about myself than ever before. All the things he shared with me were true. He said I “should” want to be with him. I “ought” to feel the way a wife is supposed to feel. I knew all those things in my mind, but my body just would not cooperate. It really is a miracle that my husband stayed with me through all those years—a miracle, but also a great testimony of his love for me and his commitment to our marriage.

I began to derive my love and acceptance from my children instead of my husband, because my children didn’t demand any physical love from me. I turned the love that I should have had for my husband toward them. I knew that this was wrong and that I should love my husband first, but the sexual issues were too hard to overcome. My sexual problems multiplied ten times over when our daughter first started dating. I felt that I was in a pit of despair and found myself with no hope.

Then I found a counselor who helped me believe that there was hope for me. Oh, how I wanted to believe that I could be “normal” when it comes to sex. And the journey to wholeness began. Little did I know that I would have to confront dumb, stupid, ugly, unforgiveness, bitterness, and all the other pains and heartaches that I encountered along the way before I could actually start dealing with the issue of sex. Each victory over those other problems gave me strength and courage to believe that this struggle, too, would have a good outcome, and gave me hope in my future with my husband. I really could be the woman God created me to be.

Joel 2:12-13 says, ‘Return to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, weeping and mourning; and rend your heart and […] return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness and relenting of evil” (NASB).

I knew that now was the time to give myself wholly to my healing, because it involved more than just me. Only then could I claim the promise found in verses 23-25:

     So rejoice, O sons of Zion, and be glad in the LORD you God for He has given you the              early rain for your vindication. And He has poured down for you the rain, the early and        latter rain as before. The threshing floors will be full of grain, and the vats will overflow      with the new wine and oil. Then I will make up to you for the years that the swarming          locust has eaten, the creeping locust, the stripping locust, and gnawing locust.

But the most cherished promise of all is given in verse 26: “Then My people (including me!) will never be put to shame.” I have hope that all the years that were stripped from me will be made new and I will never again have shame!

I am ready to face this new challenge. Come with me, Friend, and He can do it for you, too.

Blessings – Lisa

When I first started counseling, my counselor warned me that I might experience fits of rage at times during the healing process. For years, I had repressed my anger about what had been done to me as a child, trapping it deep inside me, and it was bound to come out sooner or later. Finally, one day, my anger did come out, all because of one little word: disappointed.

Someone dear to me told me he was disappointed about something, and I felt responsible for that disappointment. But then I subconsciously twisted his words and interpreted them to mean that I was a disappointment to him. Not that I had caused disappointment, but that I was a disappointment. I took that word disappointed to heart: beyond reason, I believed that I was a disappointment to this one whom I loved.

I just went to pieces. My rage surfaced, and I reacted as I had never reacted to anything before. I screamed. I threw pillows and tore the sheets off the bed. I wept and cried loudly. My husband—the one whom I had disappointed—was there in the room with me. I had always done my crying alone, in private, but not this time. It was horrible. The rage had come because I did not want to be a disappointment, especially to my beloved husband.

I did not want to be stuck in the mire of my past. I had worked so hard at my counseling sessions and overcome so many obstacles, but here I was allowing a word like disappointed to defeat me. Oh God, will I ever measure up? Will I ever be someone worthy? My mind kept telling me that, no, I would never be anything but a disappointment. So I just curled up on the couch and tried to disappear. Thankfully, my husband found me and assured me that I was not a disappointment and that everything would be okay.

I went to the dictionary and looked up antonyms for the word disappointment and found the words boost, comfort, happiness, help, miracle, pleasure, relief, success, and wonder. And I remembered what I had learned in counseling, about asking myself, “What is the truth? What is the truth about me?” The Truth in God’s Word tells me that, yes, I will make mistakes and, yes, I will disappoint others but, to my God, I am never a disappointment.

I am not a disappointment! I am the opposite of a disappointment because I can boost other people around me, comfort those who are hurting and sad, bring happiness into the life of my family, help those who are needy, bring pleasure to God, bring relief to one who is distraught, succeed as a person of worth, and of course I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I am a miracle. I may disappoint, but I am not a disappointment.

Psalms 147:3-5, 10-11 says,

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Great is our LORD and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit. His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of a man; the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love (NIV).

That’s me! He heals my broken heart. He knows each star by name, so surely He cares deeply about me. He is mighty in power. I put my hope in His unfailing love, so He delights in me. Oh, how I needed to hear that, to claim the comfort of His Word as I rejected the idea that I was a disappointment.

What about you? Do you feel like a disappointment? If you are a child of God, and put your trust in Him, then the truth is just the opposite. You are not a disappointment to God. He delights in you, and He wants to heal your broken heart and bind up your wounds. So put your trust in His unfailing love today. Remember, we may disappoint, but we are never disappointments. We are precious and loved. Dwell on that truth today. Believe it and walk in victory!

Blessings – Lisa

In times of stress, I used to run away from reality, to a place in my mind where a certain imaginary person lived. This imaginary person was smart and pretty and talented, the kind of woman I wanted to be. She had exciting adventures and the freedom and self-confidence to come and go as she pleased. She was a version of “me” that I had created as an escape from my fears and troubles.

The problem with this woman, though, was that she was never the hero but always a victim. Whenever I visited her in my mind, she suffered some terrible physical trauma, a different pain-filled scenario each time. How strange that this person would get hurt over and over again, never finding peace and rest. She was my creation, but I had made her vulnerable and victimized rather than strong and victorious. Why would I continually run to this person and dwell on hurtful things? Was this “me” the embodiment of how I pictured myself, as a woman who deserved evil instead of good?

Before I started counseling, during my most depressing days, I often longed to go to bed early or to stretch out on the couch just so that I could go to the place in my mind where I could find this woman, this woman who was so real to me. With counseling, though, I retreated to this place in my mind less and less, almost to the point of forgetfulness. I no longer needed this place, so it was no longer real to me.

Then one day something happened to upset me, and in reaction I fled to this place and this person in my mind. And it was almost as if I were seeing them for the first time. I had forgotten about them, but here I was returning to them in my time of despair. What a shock! I knew that this was not what I wanted in my life. I was alarmed to think that what I had been experiencing might not even be normal. I was so confused.

Then God in His awesomeness gave me a clear picture of my predicament. He used one of my favorite movies, The Two Towers from The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the character Sméagol/Gollum to illustrate what had been going on in my life. As Sméagol/Gollum waged war with himself, battling to determine whether the good personality or the evil personality would prevail, I recognized that the same sort of battle had been going on inside of me for years. It was a vivid image. In one scene, “good” Sméagol triumphed over his bitter nemesis, and his freedom was joyous. But in a later scene, when Sméagol/Gollum perceived that he had been hurt by a friend, the “evil” Gollum supplanted tender Sméagol. According to Gollum, he—and not Sméagol—had been right all along.

That had happened to me! I had been doing so well with counseling, having victories left and right until—Bam!—a bump in the road. I had experienced an emotional trauma, and I had gone running back to that other “me” in my mind. I had gone running back to bondage and hurt, where there was no peace and no rest. Why would I do that? Perhaps I did it because it was what I had always done. But finally, I saw that this was not good and not right for my life. But what was I to do? Oh, God, help me!

Once again God came to my rescue. He spoke to me through the words of a song on the radio. The song talked about how the very air I breathe is what it feels like to have God’s presence living inside of me, and how desperate and lost I would be without this presence. I realized that the other “me” was not who really lived inside of me.

Now, the other, very real person living in my life is the Holy Spirit, and He wants only good things for me. And I am lost without Him. Now, when bad things happen, I can run to Him.

How about you? People have hurt us and violated our lives, but we can run to the One Who loves us so much. Let’s do that today. Come with me. Let us find rest and peace in Him alone.

2 Corinthians 3:17 says it best: “Now the LORD is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the LORD is, there is liberty (emancipation from bondage, freedom)” (Amplified). Only after we realize and believe that the Spirit is within us will we be truly free. Then, our freedom will be joyous!

Blessings – Lisa