A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to take a development class in another city in our country. I flew down with some friends a little unsure because anytime you are taking a seminary level class entitled "Sexuality and Sex Counseling" you might be setting yourself up for something major.
Well, the "major" I had in mind really didn't prepare me for what I was going to encounter. I didn't have a lot of expectations, but even the ones I did have were completely annihilated halfway through Day 1's material when the professor said "Everyone has been abused and everyone will be an abuser themselves."
Here's what I processed and wrote on January 8, during the week I was taking the class...
I have learned that, regarding abuse, no one is safe. I was a victim of different kinds, although minor compared to others' stories. I am and have been the abuser. And everyone I know has lived out both those roles as well in some capacity in some form. I hear all these stories of the horrendous things people have gone through: physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, all of the worst kinds. Lives have been destroyed. I have destroyed and I have been destroyed myself. I know that my kids will be the victims of abuse from me and I can already see the effects of being emotionally scarred: shame, fear of failing, pain. Where is the hope? This battle seems lost. There seems to be no hope for my kids, for me as a parent trying to show them love. God is sovereign, but sin seems to have won the day, for now. It's a sick, crazy cycle where the abused becomes the abuser. Sharon, the professor of the class, said, "There is always a sliver of hope." But in my heart that day, I said to God, "There is no hope."
How can there be? Are You Sovereign? Then where were you when my friend was sexually abused by his brother? Are You Sovereign? Then where were you when the college age girl was lured by a man and his wife by gifts of shoes, paying for her college tuition, drugs, alcohol, breast implants all so that they could come back to their home one night where she was baby sitting their kids and the man raped her? Are You Sovereign?! There where were you when the 4 year old girl came running home from the neighbor boy's house crying with her pants around her ankles? Where. Were. You? Where You today when some of our best friends went into the doctor to find out, through an ultrasound, the gender of their 4th child and they found NOTHING. No heartbeat and tomorrow they have the joy and privilege of meeting their 20 week old stillborn baby boy.
In the class we learned about 1 effect of abuse: betrayal. One way a child is betrayed is when their parents or guardians are not the perpetrator themselves, but they do nothing to prevent it and may even know about it. They are complicit. And I thought: this is You, God. You are the complicit Father. In all these cases have you not stood by and done nothing?!?! Are you not guilty of complicity?
After the class, I was hardhearted. I wrestled with this in a disturbing way. I doubted God. I blamed God. I questioned God. I shared all this with a friend of mine and he encouraged me to just "Sit in it. Don't be too quick to move out of this place." So I did. I refused to slap spiritual band-aids on it by accepting things that, though I knew were true, only ministered to my head and not my heart. Because at the end of the day, I don't want to just know about God, I want to experience Him at a heart level.
I'm in the middle of reading the Chronicles of Narnia series. A couple parts have really ministered to me. In the book "The Magician's Nephew" Digory took a piece of fruit from Narnia because it had special healing powers and he wanted to bring it to his mother to heal her. But the best part of Narnia for Digory was witnessing Aslan the Lion (a symbol of Jesus) create Narnia. When Digory returned home from the magical land, "whenever he looked at the things about him, and saw how ordinary and unmagical they were, he hardly dared to hope; but when he remembered the face of Aslan he did hope." That ministered to me because I want to experience Jesus, more than anything. And I've come to learn that arguably the best way to experience Him is through the fire of pain and struggle. But if I can see Him and meet Him in the struggle, if He would reveal Himself to me in that, then hope abounds.
In "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" 4 children stumble into Narnia and hear that Aslan, who has been gone for a long time during which the White Witch has taken over Narnia, has returned. The Beavers are talking to the kids about Aslan and one of the kids is a little worried about the prospect of a great Lion. "Then He isn't safe?" said Lucy. "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver; "Who said anything about safe? 'Course He isn't safe. But He's good. He's the King, I tell you."
Is Jesus safe? Is God safe? Perhaps not in the ways I used to think of Him. He has lead my family and I into what a lot of people would not consider "safe." He called us to East Asia, away from family, away from comfort, away from friends, away from convenience, away from..."safe." He allows pain and struggle and suffering. It wouldn't happen if God didn't want it to, but He allows it. That doesn't sound "safe." Lately it feels like my heart is in a meat grinder, which is not a safe spot. But, as depicted in the book, He's all about redemption and setting things right again. And the sliver of hope... He's Good. He's the King.
Well, the "major" I had in mind really didn't prepare me for what I was going to encounter. I didn't have a lot of expectations, but even the ones I did have were completely annihilated halfway through Day 1's material when the professor said "Everyone has been abused and everyone will be an abuser themselves."
Here's what I processed and wrote on January 8, during the week I was taking the class...
I have learned that, regarding abuse, no one is safe. I was a victim of different kinds, although minor compared to others' stories. I am and have been the abuser. And everyone I know has lived out both those roles as well in some capacity in some form. I hear all these stories of the horrendous things people have gone through: physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, all of the worst kinds. Lives have been destroyed. I have destroyed and I have been destroyed myself. I know that my kids will be the victims of abuse from me and I can already see the effects of being emotionally scarred: shame, fear of failing, pain. Where is the hope? This battle seems lost. There seems to be no hope for my kids, for me as a parent trying to show them love. God is sovereign, but sin seems to have won the day, for now. It's a sick, crazy cycle where the abused becomes the abuser. Sharon, the professor of the class, said, "There is always a sliver of hope." But in my heart that day, I said to God, "There is no hope."
How can there be? Are You Sovereign? Then where were you when my friend was sexually abused by his brother? Are You Sovereign? Then where were you when the college age girl was lured by a man and his wife by gifts of shoes, paying for her college tuition, drugs, alcohol, breast implants all so that they could come back to their home one night where she was baby sitting their kids and the man raped her? Are You Sovereign?! There where were you when the 4 year old girl came running home from the neighbor boy's house crying with her pants around her ankles? Where. Were. You? Where You today when some of our best friends went into the doctor to find out, through an ultrasound, the gender of their 4th child and they found NOTHING. No heartbeat and tomorrow they have the joy and privilege of meeting their 20 week old stillborn baby boy.
In the class we learned about 1 effect of abuse: betrayal. One way a child is betrayed is when their parents or guardians are not the perpetrator themselves, but they do nothing to prevent it and may even know about it. They are complicit. And I thought: this is You, God. You are the complicit Father. In all these cases have you not stood by and done nothing?!?! Are you not guilty of complicity?
After the class, I was hardhearted. I wrestled with this in a disturbing way. I doubted God. I blamed God. I questioned God. I shared all this with a friend of mine and he encouraged me to just "Sit in it. Don't be too quick to move out of this place." So I did. I refused to slap spiritual band-aids on it by accepting things that, though I knew were true, only ministered to my head and not my heart. Because at the end of the day, I don't want to just know about God, I want to experience Him at a heart level.
I'm in the middle of reading the Chronicles of Narnia series. A couple parts have really ministered to me. In the book "The Magician's Nephew" Digory took a piece of fruit from Narnia because it had special healing powers and he wanted to bring it to his mother to heal her. But the best part of Narnia for Digory was witnessing Aslan the Lion (a symbol of Jesus) create Narnia. When Digory returned home from the magical land, "whenever he looked at the things about him, and saw how ordinary and unmagical they were, he hardly dared to hope; but when he remembered the face of Aslan he did hope." That ministered to me because I want to experience Jesus, more than anything. And I've come to learn that arguably the best way to experience Him is through the fire of pain and struggle. But if I can see Him and meet Him in the struggle, if He would reveal Himself to me in that, then hope abounds.
In "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" 4 children stumble into Narnia and hear that Aslan, who has been gone for a long time during which the White Witch has taken over Narnia, has returned. The Beavers are talking to the kids about Aslan and one of the kids is a little worried about the prospect of a great Lion. "Then He isn't safe?" said Lucy. "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver; "Who said anything about safe? 'Course He isn't safe. But He's good. He's the King, I tell you."
Is Jesus safe? Is God safe? Perhaps not in the ways I used to think of Him. He has lead my family and I into what a lot of people would not consider "safe." He called us to East Asia, away from family, away from comfort, away from friends, away from convenience, away from..."safe." He allows pain and struggle and suffering. It wouldn't happen if God didn't want it to, but He allows it. That doesn't sound "safe." Lately it feels like my heart is in a meat grinder, which is not a safe spot. But, as depicted in the book, He's all about redemption and setting things right again. And the sliver of hope... He's Good. He's the King.
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