EVERYTHING IS MADE BEAUTIFUL IN ITS TIME

 

Amy Merritt

Healing from childhood trauma and sexual abuse

Childhood for me was full of uncertainties and an overwhelming absence – void of love, nurturing, compassion, and tenderness. Whether it was not knowing when my mom would come home, or whether she would come home drunk; if a stranger would be coming home with her at night, or if she would call needing help from jail. Would we have food to eat and bills paid? Would we have clothes to wear to school? How long would I be left alone? From the ages of 5 to 10 years old, I had experienced sexual abuse by 3 different people. At a young age, I wasn’t able to understand what was done to me, nor did I tell anyone. One of the abusers was my brother, who was my mom’s favorite out of my two siblings, so early on I told myself what happened to me would never matter to her. Being left alone and unattended with strangers and with my older brother and his friends never made me feel anything except scared, dirty, alone, and forgotten. My mom’s value of her boyfriends over us kids left me feeling abandoned and worthless. No one cared for me. That little girl felt like a used, tossed out rag.

Growing up, I coped with my childhood in many ways that were destructive. My life as a tomboy teenager and young adult were full of stealing, lying, cheating, manipulating, and being promiscuous. I sought unhealthy attention from men – trading my soul for what I thought was love – only ending up broken and abused again by men I dated and their friends. I was living under deep shame, guilt, and rejection. Not feeling love, not feeling safe, and not feeling significant. I felt like no one saw me or cared, but I just kept going through the pain, choosing the same things over and over again, as if I had no choice. These choices were miserable and devastating. I graduated high school a year early to escape my home life, and chose to get married as I started my first semester in college at 18. Somehow, I graduated with my bachelor’s in psychology, but by the time I walked the stage, my marriage had already ended in divorce. I left home, trying to gain freedom at 17, but instead just led myself into another layer of heartache and brokenness – seeking my worth from relationships.

Blaming myself for a broken marriage, my life fell further apart. I began an 8 year battle with bulimia and my divorce propelled me into a more self-destructive lifestyle. I allowed men to further use me and objectify me. Putting myself into situations with strangers where I was paid to be filmed and/or photographed in ways I hate even thinking about now. Within a few years, I had become a shell of a girl. I hid myself so deep, that I didn’t even remember who I was, or maybe I never knew. I walked through life, working really hard in jobs and school, but never having any real friends. The only people in my life were men. Feeling like trust was so far off the table, my boundaries were invisible and so was my self esteem. At one point in college, I was given the opportunity to fly to the beautiful island of Hawaii and make a LOT of money, something like $20,000, but the job required things I just couldn’t agree to, and thankfully there was a whisper that I heard that day that gave me the answer and courage to say “no.” On this day, I felt strength for the first time and decided I had had enough, and I stopped working in the shadows.

“Your own ears will hear him. Right behind you a voice will say, “This is the way you should go,” whether to the right or to the left.” Isaiah 30:21

Over the next 10 years I went back to school, became a Registered Nurse, and began to live a less destructive lifestyle, but I still struggled with codependent relationships. After a brief six months without a relationship, I met my current husband who was nothing like the other guys I had known. Looking back, those 6 months were a time I started to see what I was capable of, rather than what men made me capable of. After almost 4 years of dating, we got married. My life seemed better and my husband wasn’t trying to manipulate or use me, but because of my lack of emotional skills, I didn’t understand how to function in this new setting. The life I lived had produced in me a hard heart shaped by fear, brokenness, and distrust. It continued into my marriage. I still had no idea how to actually trust someone and believe they wouldn’t hurt me, so I was always on edge – “waiting for the other shoe to drop” as my husband used to say.

Within the first 5 years of our marriage, I had 2 affairs and deepy struggled with anger, feeling unloved and unlovable, and still incapable of trusting anyone. Life was exhausting. I didn’t realize any of these things until I was 33 years old. I thought I’d chosen bad relationships because I was bad and felt I didn’t deserve anything good. I thought I was the reason my life was so hard and that I would never be able to change or have a chance at happiness. I didn’t even know what happiness was, and I felt like all the things I did, I didn’t want to do, but I didn’t know how to do anything differently.

“I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate…And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.” Romans 7:15, 18-20

But here’s where the second part of my life begins! Three years into our marriage, while I was was in nurse practitioner school, my daughter was born. She was born perfect (like any mom would say), she was wonderful and lovely, and my heart began to soften a bit. Although I was married to a wonderful guy – kind, caring, sincere, generous, and humble – our relationship was really hard. I had so many struggles with my self-esteem and trusting him; I don’t think I had ever trusted anyone to this point, and I did not know how. I felt like I was a failure and I was dealing with heavy shame from the secret of my affairs and choices I had made as a young adult. After a few years, when our daughter was 20 months old, my husband and I, both frustrated and unhappy in our marriage, finally took some friends up on an offer to go to church with them.

It wasn’t long before I was captivated by the truth that I had never heard before. I had heard something about God as a child – that He existed somewhere. But I had never heard about Jesus. Can you imagine!? Writing this breaks my heart for all those hurt people who feel lost and unseen like I did. I heard for the first time that I was loved unconditionally, and that I was not identified by my past or my sins, but by the sacrificial death and the resurrection of the Son of God – Jesus. I felt drawn to this truth, I wanted to know more about this freedom and over the course of 6-12 months, God opened my heart to hear from Him. I chose to believe that Jesus died for me and it was enough to cover my sins and give me a new life in Christ. I was free from so much shame and guilt I had lived with from childhood – all the sexual abuse, the promiscuity, the ways I’d devalued myself with men, the things I let others do to me willingly and unwillingly, my divorce, my affairs, my eating disorder. I was blameless and clean, without a single fault in the Lord’s eyes. His unconditional love began to cover me and redeem and renew the broken pieces in my heart.

As a mom and wife, I had always struggled with control and perfectionism. But by the time my second child, a son, was born I was able to walk in the freedom of 2 Corinthians 5:17 – that I am a new creation in Christ Jesus. Being a baby Christian of only 2 years, there were still times when I was pretty angry and controlling, especially toward my husband. I decided to learn more about God by attending a recovery ministry specifically for sexual abuse victims at my church. I didn’t think I was struggling with the shame and guilt from my past abuse and didn’t think I needed any “healing” – I had just been baptized! But I did love the Lord, and I felt like this was a place I could go and learn more about who God is. Ha! God is really good at working all things for His glory and in His timing! The very first night I heard a testimony that mirrored what my life was like, with anger seeping out all over, and I truly believed that I was in the right place and that God had something really amazing for me there and my heart remained hungry for truth.

As the weeks went on over the course of almost a year, I began to really see that I still believed so many lies about myself regarding my past choices and behaviors, and that there was a lot of shame and guilt still lingering. I had always seen myself the way the world saw me in regard to my sexual past – a slut – and I felt that was the price I paid for the choices I made. It was firmly planted in me early from my experiences that I was dirty, worthless, and unlovable. No one had even cared for me as a child, and that was the life I lived out over the next 30 years. But God lovingly reminded me through this ministry that I could know the truth in John 8:32 – to know who God is, know who God calls me, and to know what plans He has for me – and that truth can set me free. God comforted me and showed me that I needed to surrender all of my heart, including my past, and my present over to Him. I began to trust the Lord more and began to learn to trust others as well. I allowed Him to truly give me my identity – a fully new creation, instead of just partly new.

I began to see that my anger was related to my need to control, which came out of the fear I had from the experiences of my childhood and family brokenness. The uncertainties, abuse, and abandonment had shaped me going forward. As a child, the lack of control I had when my “no” was taken away (when others defiled me and took something from me that wasn’t theirs to take) came out as control and fear and looked like anger, along with many layers of heartache and broken relationships. That anger would come out anytime I began to “lose control” of others or situations. I constantly feared that I would not be enough for my husband and that fear often turned into anger. God used my time in this ministry to pull off all my layers that were still hard and hidden and I began to feel a tug on my heart to confess about my affairs from 8 years ago to my husband…but that is a whole other Ebenezer!

“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” James 5:16

Do you want to feel how much God loves you? Try being completely honest and vulnerable with Him and let Him comfort you and strengthen you to do some really hard things. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” The time had come for this to be true in my marriage. My old self was so far gone, I didn’t even recognize her – the freedom I had in being the daughter of the King, Who lavishes me with His love, Who is enthralled with my beauty, Who rescues and protects me, that was the woman standing in the living room on the day I confessed my deepest, darkest secret to my husband. By God’s amazing grace, my husband accepted me with open arms and heart, and embraced me. He had also experienced the same amazing love and grace of being a child of God over the last 3 years, and together we stood – once broken and separated by our sin and flesh, but now coming together as one because of God and by the healing power of the Gospel that had seeped into every area of our life now. Healing was not completed overnight, but my biggest fears in confession were shattered by the love of God. A few months later, my husband and I went through a marriage ministry program that truly gave us a solid foundation in Christ to anchor our marriage.

This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long. Now I am leading others through healing in the recovery of sexual abuse at my church. It is the passion God has given me, He has made it beautiful in its time.

Hear more of Amy’s story here: Mom Struggling Well Podcast: Episode 51

or on iTunes: Mom Struggling Well Podcast: Episode 51 on itunes

VULNERABILITY

Last week, Jenni gave insight into the effects of shame, and the freedom that comes from bringing these dark corners of our lives into the light. The key that unlocks the dark prison of shame is vulnerability.

We naturally like to put the past behind us, make sure “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” and “put our best foot forward.” But that’s a dance that will leave us completely exhausted! Sadly, this self-preserving dance can be especially prevalent in the church. We fear we might lose spiritual credibility if we give too many details about our broken past, and even more so if we’re honest about our current struggles. But where did we get this idea? I don’t see any scripture that gives credence to that kind of secrecy and avoidance. On the contrary, I see countless examples of broken people being used mightily by God, and endless instructions to “walk in the light” (1 John 1:7), “confess” (James 5:16), and “go…tell” (Mark 5:19). Holding back from being fully known is not based on truth, but on shame and fear. We fear what people might think of us if we let them see our imperfections, so we keep our polite distance. But “it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1)

This self-protecting façade in the American church is one of the biggest triggers I see for the mass exit by Millennials. They’re not fooled. They (we) want to be surrounded by genuine, authentic, relatable people. So if we Christians believe that God’s Word is true, and if we want to reach this generation, vulnerability has got to become a more normal part of the Christian life, as it was always meant to be. “The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him.” (1 John 2:10) It’s confusing for the world to look at Christians and see people who seem to have it all together, with no real struggles or problems to speak of. It becomes a stumbling block, giving the appearance that only “good” people belong in church, so they must not be welcome since they certainly have struggles. My pastor uses the phrase “terminally unique” to describe this phenomenon. Until we hear others opening up about difficult situations, habits that are getting out of hand, and rough patches in relationships, it’s easy to feel terminally unique in our struggles.

So what does vulnerability look like? It’s being willing to say “I’m sorry.” Keeping short accounts. Admitting we got something wrong, or we don’t know it all. Reaching out in a broken relationship. Sharing doubts and fears. Being honest with someone who has hurt you. Listening openly to an opposing opinion or belief. Asking for help. Asking forgiveness. Extending forgiveness. Allowing others in when we’re not at our best. Admitting this part of life is harder than we thought. Identifying specific sin struggles we keep going back to. Asking for accountability to guard against that specific sin in the future. Being willing to go first.

Picture yourself starting these conversations in some relationships in your life. It feels uncomfortable and risky, like the other person could take advantage of you and cause more harm than good. It feels weak. But now, reread the list from the opposite perspective, as if someone was reaching out to you in this vulnerable way. Now, it feels more like compassion, authenticity, and initiation. That’s not what I would call weak. In fact, Brené Brown says that “vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage.”

These practices are not only beneficial for living out our faith in a more relatable way, but for our own spiritual, mental, and even physical health. Brown shared some recent research in her book, Daring Greatly: “In a pioneering study, psychologist and University of Texas professor James Pennebaker and his colleagues studied what happened when trauma survivors— specifically rape and incest survivors— kept their experiences secret. The research team found that the act of not discussing a traumatic event or confiding it to another person could be more damaging than the actual event. Conversely, when people shared their stories and experiences, their physical health improved, their doctor’s visits decreased, and they showed significant decreases in their stress hormones.” (p.82) Jesus’ brother James said “confess your sins to each other, and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” (James 5:16) So there’s a revolutionary healing that takes place when we’re bold enough to admit our broken places to God, and to others.

That truth is not just limited to extreme cases, but can be applied in our everyday life. One area that I have found healing through vulnerability is in my thought life. I used to replay events from my day, having imaginary conversations with people where I said what I wish I could say in real life. These thoughts I call “spirals” would keep me up at night, distract me from being present with my kids, invade my prayer life, and would sometimes even have physical effects, making my heart race as I got fired up internally. But God’s Word says to “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5) So I asked a friend if I could text her each time my mind went into spiral mode. She agreed, and I was scared. It was mortifying to admit to someone I love and respect that I was such a mess. I dreaded sending those texts. I was full of shame. But I found freedom and acceptance in her responses. She would thank me, encourage me, and remind me who I am in Christ. I cried every time. My heart needed that truth, and my sin needed that exposure. It didn’t take long for those spiraling thoughts to redirect. At first, it was mostly just to avoid sending that awkward text! But then it became a habit to recite a verse instead of replay a conversation. I found peace, I can sleep, I’m more present in the moment, and most excitingly, I can PRAY without interruption. My mind has been trained to abide instead of spiral, and it all started with a vulnerable text.

If you’re not sure exactly where you’re struggling, or how to put it into words, there’s a tool for that! “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12) Studying the Bible exposes our darkness, and points us to the Healer. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet he did not sin.” (Hebrews 4:15) We can trust the Healer, Jesus, because He went first. He is the ultimate image of vulnerability, hanging naked on a cross. He reached out to us in our broken relationship with the Father. He asked others for help. He asked tons of questions. He listened. He cried. He begged the Father for a way out of His hard situation, admitting it was excruciatingly painful.
Vulnerability is vital to our faith. We are fulfilling our role as Christ-followers when we have the courage to admit our insufficiencies. “Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17) May we never think we are too healthy to need a Healer. It’s one of the many paradoxical theologies of scripture that we are only made strong when we finally admit our weakness. “He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)
Amanda Buccola

LEARNING TO LOVE AFTER BETRAYAL

Amanda Buccola

“As much as I love God, you, Graham, and our unborn child, I loved myself more…I know that revealing this blackness inside of me is necessary…but I understand that in confessing this, the blackness and burden is now also felt by you.”

Those words and many more were read to me one Tuesday afternoon as my husband confessed to a lifelong addiction to pornography which eventually led him to commit adultery. With shaky hands and voice, he knelt at my feet with tears streaming down his face, begging for forgiveness. I’ve never felt as feared by another person in my life. Nick was fearful of my response because I had always made it clear to him through my attitude and actions that I am not a doormat. I had a habit of standing up for myself, even if I wasn’t remotely being threatened. So he was right to assume that in this situation, something was probably going to hit the fan. I had yelled, cussed, slammed doors and drawers in anger in the past, so it would be reasonable to expect all that and more when I found out he had been with another woman the night before.

But something had happened in the year leading up to this day that changed everything about my response.

When I had my first child, I realized I had a responsibility to raise him in a home that not only taught truth, but lived love. I had grown up with amazing parents who taught us from the Bible, and showed us by example how to love others because of God’s love for us. I knew my selfish way of life was not headed in that direction, so I signed up for a class that taught me how to read my Bible daily, and incorporate it into my everyday life. That led me to a deep, personal friendship with Jesus Christ. We talked each morning as I read His Word, and throughout the day in prayer, and I began to see changes in the way I was thinking, speaking, and acting. I was losing that selfish desire to stand up for myself, because I learned that’s His job, not mine.

So when I saw my husband crying at my feet, begging for forgiveness, my response was not at all what it would have been a year prior. I hugged him, and uttered the words “I forgive you” before I walked out the back door to get alone with my thoughts. Looking back, there’s no way I fully forgave him in that moment. Forgiveness takes a lot more than those three words. But I did have the intent to treat him with the same grace and forgiveness I had recently found in Jesus. So the first thing I did was to google “what’s the Christian’s response to adultery?” I hadn’t spent much time thinking about this topic, as I never dreamed it would happen to me. I read articles about infidelity, separation and divorce, to help me choose what would be the “right” response. I was in shock, and my emotions hadn’t caught up with me yet, so I was robotically trying to find the formula to fix it.

It didn’t take long for the gravity of this news to sink in and severely weigh me down. I didn’t want to tell anyone about this embarrassing secret. I started to internalize the pain, and took his adultery as confirmation that I wasn’t enough. I knew I hadn’t been a great wife, so I believed he was forced to find affirmation and affection somewhere else. I believed that I had been such a hard person to live with that he had no choice but to find a way out. I was 6 weeks pregnant with our second child, so I believed that the thought of my soon-to-be growing pregnant belly was repulsive to him, so he had to get away from me physically. I let those lies sink in until I believed them to be true. And on the flip side, I started to hate Nick. I hated what he did to our family. I resented him for the brand new life growing inside me, and the morning sickness on top of this emotional pain. I didn’t know it at the time, but there were still many more confessions to come.

I asked him to attend the 12-step-recovery program at our church, re:generation, and to find a counselor for us to see individually and together. He said that he had lost his appetite for pornography, so this wasn’t necessary, but that he was willing to do whatever I asked. Recovery from his addiction proved to be much harder than he thought. Even the strongest desire to change is not enough to kick a lifelong addiction. I’m so thankful he was willing to join a group of men and find accountability there. He also installed Covenant Eyes, a porn-blocking software, on all of his devices. In an effort to be honest and open, he added me as an accountability partner on the account, so I could see every site he visited. Sadly, this was one of the biggest mistakes in our recovery process. Having access to his Internet activity brought me to an unhealthy place, where I became an anxious, vindictive detective. He gave me passwords to all of his email and social media accounts, so I spent hours tracking down old conversations with other women, and finding rabbit holes that led to doubt and fear. My heart would race as I searched for things he was hiding from me. I would question him in the evenings, which sometimes turned into yelling fights in front of our one-year-old. I thank God now that this happened when our kids were so young. I was not handling this well.

One day soon after the confession, I was having a pity party alone on the couch watching Parenthood, when my friend Eleanor texted out of the blue. She asked if she and her son could come over to play. My first thought was to find an excuse to say “no,” but I knew this wasn’t a coincidence. Eleanor is the one friend I had at the time who had experienced adultery in her own marriage. I wept, knowing that God was sending that specific friend to me on purpose. That was the first moment I knew I was being pursued by God. He wanted to fill this void I had from the lack of pursuit from my husband. He heard my cries, even though they were rarely aimed at Him. I had been avoiding my Bible, drowning out any signs of love from Him. I felt betrayed by God, wondering how He could love me if He let me marry this man who would hurt me so badly. When Eleanor got to my house, she said I had come to her mind as she was reading her Bible that morning, and that’s why she had reached out to me. How sweet of our God to send me just the right friend in that pitiful moment. I told her everything, and we cried together, both in shock that this was happening. She gave me the best piece of advice that she had learned from her own experience. She said that holding infidelity against our husbands does not get us anywhere. It makes our husbands relive their shame, and it makes our resentment for them grow. Using their sin as a weapon is not worth it.

With God’s help, I took that advice to heart, and decided not to dwell on Nick’s sin when he was trying to overcome it. I decided to become his partner instead of his enemy. I visited my counselor weekly, and listened to every message on the topic of forgiveness that I could find. I knew that I could no longer spend my days checking up on his Internet activity, so I handed that job off to some trustworthy men in Nick’s life. They were to keep an eye his Covenant Eyes account, and he was to confess any slip-ups to me. As Nick worked through the 12 steps, he was convicted to confess another relationship he had while we were engaged, along with some inappropriate conversations with other women throughout our marriage. These confessions felt so much worse than the first. I lost all trust in him and his word, wondering what else he might still be holding back. It felt like we fell even further back than square one. But by this time, I was fully embracing God, allowing Him to pursue me and carry me when I was too weak to move. Most days, I couldn’t tell if I was so physically sick from my pregnancy or my crumbling marriage. My parents were gracious to let me come over and rest while they played with my son almost every day. They babysat while I went to the counselor each week. We had decided not to tell them the details until after Nick was finished with his recovery, but they took care of me as if they knew. The choice to keep the infidelity from my parents was to allow healing of my own heart before hurting theirs with the news. However, we had two couples who knew every detail. When we would have a rough night at home, I’d text the girls, and he’d call the guys in order to own our parts in the argument, and to be held accountable to reconciliation.

During this time, the Lord showed me through the story of Hosea, that He knew exactly how I felt in the midst of this betrayal, and I’m the one who made Him feel it. I realized that I had betrayed my vows to God during my early twenties. I had given my life to Him at a young age, but pursued other “lovers” in material possessions, status, my home, and worldly desires. “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1 John 2:15) I thought I could have a foot in each door, but this verse makes it clear that it’s one or the other. When this truth hit me, I was overwhelmed that God’s response to my betrayal was to keep pursuing me with relentless love. “Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life” (Psalm 23:6a, MSG) I was so thankful for God’s forgiveness and love, I knew I wanted to do the same for Nick. I ended up finding the answer to my Google search from Day 1, but it didn’t come from an article, but from the pages of my Bible.

By the time we reached our 5th wedding anniversary, about 5 months after the first confession, we decided to renew our wedding vows. I was still struggling to trust him, and we were still awkwardly distant, but we both knew we trusted the Lord with our future. I had learned that even in the midst of brokenness and pain, I have the relentless love of my Heavenly Father. Nick found that bringing his sin into the light brought intimacy and freedom he had never experienced before. So together, we looked to HIM and found what we had been wanting from each other all along.

Today, we are three years out from that confession, and neither one of us would say that we’re nailing marriage. We still have miscommunications, hurt feelings, and disappointments. But we’ve learned that our spouses were never meant to satisfy our desires for love and acceptance. Those desires are only fully satisfied in God, and He will never fail. Now we get to experience a level of mutual love and intimacy that would never have been possible if Nick had stayed silent, or tried to handle his addiction on his own. I’m so proud of the courage he displayed when he knelt broken before me. He says that power was something he was seeking when he used to turn to porn, and I’d say he’s found it now as he points others to God’s powerful work in his life. “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me. That is why, for the sake of Christ, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10)

You can read Nick’s story here.