I don’t think I’ll ever forget that day.  It is etched deeply in my memory.

I wasn’t prepared for the grueling class periods when I signed up for a three week ladies healing group.  I wasn’t prepared for the incomprehensive amount of emotional pain and heartache that I was about to walk through – both in my own life and in walking through other’s pain.

I cannot be convinced that sexual abuse doesn’t affect a person – because it does.   It is the equivalent of emotional murder.  I wish I could somehow explain how it felt to listen to story after story of deep, excruciating pain.  The loss of innocence.  The horrible betrayal.  The utter powerlessness – to keep it from happening and to make it stop.  The ambivalence.  The shame.  The contempt.

woman-crying

I wanted to run out of the room – away from it all.  Somewhere…anywhere.  I instinctively shielded my growing abdomen with my hands as I tried to protect my unborn child.

At break time, I found myself at the window.  It was a beautiful summer day, but I didn’t see that.  Tears blurred my vision.  I only felt the deep pain.  My whole body hurt.  Through my tears, I managed to talk to my baby: “It’s okay, child.  Mama will be alright.  It doesn’t feel safe right now, but it is.  I’ll protect you, little one.”

Sharing my own story of sexual abuse was harder than I had ever imagined.  Oh, I had talked about it before.  But this time was different – very different.

I cried as I told of the brutality and total powerlessness. I shared details that only a select few people knew. Deep sobs that I had bottled up inside of me spilled out and tears ran down my cheeks.  I found myself surrounded by the dear ladies in my class.  They cried with me.  It wasn’t my pain – it was our pain.

As the tears flowed from our eyes, I felt the presence of Jesus.  In my mind’s eye, I saw Him.  He was weeping with us – weeping for the little girls who’d been hurt so deeply.  Tears ran down His cheeks and fell to the ground.

cross-silhouette

And then it hit me.  Our pain is His pain.  There is no pain or abuse that Jesus hasn’t experienced.  When He carried your pain and mine, our pain became His.  “He was despised, and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief… Surely He hath borne our grief and carried our sorrows…” Isaiah 53:3-4

Dear hurting soul, Jesus understands your pain and He cares.  His tears fall with yours.  Because He makes your pain, His.

3 thoughts on “Not My Pain”

  1. Dear Ann, I read this with tears and with joy. I too know what it is like to be part of a 3-week healing class with other sexual abuse victims. I too was unprepared for the way my whole world would get torn to pieces. I was unprepared for the grief. I was also unprepared for Jesus to step into my story and the healing those 3 weeks would bring.

    How glad I am that it’s not just our pain! It’s His too. Knowing He suffered makes it easier to let Him in and trust Him. Ellen

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  2. Thank you so much for your blog. I found it when I was researching abuse in conservative Mennonite communities. I appreciate your work, and this post is especially beautiful.

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