Where does sin fit in the life of
the one who has been abused or neglected, regarding the very abuse and neglect
they have suffered? Clearly there is no sin regarding the matters of
transgression against them, but is it possible, that, in holding these secrets
deep within they haven’t trusted God enough to share these burdens, and
therefore they have not yet been released.
They may remain seemingly irreparably
and irredeemably broken.
Such was the case of an older man
I knew who had suffered three separate incidents of sexual abuse at the hands
of three separate men as an early teenager. Having filled a counselling role
all his adult life he had struggled with an inner demon – unreasoned anger –
without ever knowing why. Then it occurred to him when he was 50, in the
process of facilitating training on the subject of brokenness, God brought
before him the matters of his own brokenness – which he had not been able to
share for three decades.
In an instant he was shattered. He
drove home and his wife called him on it.
She knew something was wrong.
Still reticent to trust God enough to share these matters of abuse – to surrender
the guilt, the embarrassment, and the shame – to trust his wife with these deeply
private matters – she gave him no choice. “I won’t sleep with you tonight,”
she said.
He broke down. He wept the tears
of a boy who had been so vulnerably contravened. His anguish was palpable, as
he uttered words he thought would never be spoken. “They took advantage of me and
did things to me that I didn’t even know the meaning of, how they would affect
me. I trusted these men, and for so long I have thought at least part of it was
my fault. I was angry with Mum and Dad for not protecting me, but I knew deep
down it wasn’t their fault. I’ve held this for years and it’s destroying me. I
can’t help think that I’m partly to blame – like, why did three separate men
want to do these horrible things to me… did I bring it on?”
“It was not your fault,” his wife said to him.
It could not have been his fault.
Suddenly he could see it.
The solitary tear became a stream
from both eyes, as he knelt in her arms and just simply sobbed his heart out.
No more words were required. That embrace was the healing of God.
That single embrace – this wife’s abiding
to the truth that it couldn’t possibly be her husband’s fault – to affirm him in it – was the single
transition from a seemingly irreparable and irredeemable brokenness into the
acknowledgement of brokenness that thrust him into a serene field of trust in
God that would release his anger overnight.
Overnight this man, this big burly
and beautiful man of 50, found his anger dissipated. From the constancy of an
8/10 on an anger register it went to 3/10, overnight. Freedom abounded within
his heart. He had at long last experienced the very healing that he had
facilitated in hundreds of other men for decades beforehand.
***
The reconciliation of brokenness
is found in the simple matter of trusting God with any details of guilt,
embarrassment, and shame. Sharing with one other person, these very things,
opens the pathway of release instantly. Abuse and neglect were not your fault.
Trust God by sharing with someone trustworthy, the truth of matters, and
healing will be yours!
The reconciliation of brokenness:
to come in one instant to accept and to love the state of healed brokenness; to
be happily content as a broken person who has been healed enough to know that
brokenness is beautiful.
© 2013 S. J. Wickham.
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