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It
was one of those seminars that she decided to go to... something about healing
the "inner self." While listening to the speaker, she became very upset
and angry. She thought she recognized him from her childhood. During the
speech, she told her friend that she couldn't take it anymore. Her friend
suggested she share her feelings with the speaker.
During
break, she introduced herself to the speaker. He did not know her but she
explained that she was very angry at him though she couldn't explain it.
He asked her if she had ever experienced sexual abuse in the past and if
she did, was it possible that the abuser was someone who looked like him.
Lights started to go on in her mind and he compassionately asked her if
she could forgive him, even though he was a stranger.
During the next six years, it all started to make sense.
The trauma of that dirty word, sexual abuse, continued to haunt her. With
surfaced memories, she felt frightened. Questions filled her mind... "Why
did it have to happen to me? Was it my fault? Could I have stopped it? Why
can't I just forget about it all? Why is my health so poor?"
Despite
her poor health, she had raised a family of eight wonderful children. They
had all worked themselves through college. Some were married and she even
had grandchildren. Her husband had been very patient and good to her.
Then in 1997, she went to another seminar on the same
topic. She needed to get her life back together. She remembered the speaker's
words, "Your life is like a book and right now you may be on page 342. Trauma
in your life may have started on page 14 and I could try to have you go
through all the details and have you read all your many pages of your book.
Indeed, I could make enough money to fill a swimming pool. But as a counselor
and a Christian, I would encourage you to pray that God would show You Himself."
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She
told me these words, "As I prayed silently, in that room, I became a little
girl again, and saw my sexual abuser. I wanted to scream but I saw before
me, Jesus, dying on the cross. Jesus looked at me and asked me to come
forward. I knelt down at the foot of the cross and He asked me to surrender
my problems with the sexual abuse. It was as if His hands came down from
the cross asking me to 'let go.' A weight came off my feeble back and
I felt so much relief that I started to cry, right there in the room.
It was so beautiful!"
She continued... "But the next day, I got to thinking
about why the weight of that acute pain was gone. I began to pray, tears
filling my eyes. Suddenly, the same vision of Jesus dying on the cross
came over me. I looked up and saw His hands nailed to the cross but the
weight of my past was now on His shoulders. HE was bearing the extra load!
He would die and let my load go with Him. He took my pain with Him when
He died but when he arose, He gave me joy in return. God is helping me
deal with the pain in time. But, the extreme pain is gone."
You, my friend, may have been a victim in the past.
Memories may still haunt you. Jesus can take your burdens. Like my friend,
you may need continued counseling but the joy is that you do not have
to do it alone. Surrender yourself to Jesus who wants to lighten your
load and ease that pain in your inner self.
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