Several years ago I was in a lot of emotional pain. I had just finished going through an abuse group similar to our Passionate Heart Groups and I couldn’t cry yet. At the time, I was also going through painful circumstances in a ministry that couldn’t be resolved and I was so exhausted that I stepped out of the ministry that I loved just as our church leaders decided to take our church through the Purpose Driven Life. Ironically I felt like I had lost my purpose and that no one there one cared, which I know now was a lie.
Soon after we started the Purpose Driven Life, my husband and I had a freak accident in which I suffered a severely broken ankle. As a result, I was housebound for a year and had no choice but to rest to let my physical wounds heal. I shared my frustrations with the Lord as I had been doing for years, but during this forced time of rest I began to experience intense emotional pain, followed by the Lord’s direct and tender ministry to my heart.
One night I went to bed and dreamed I was walking down a street filled with people. I noticed that none of them had mouths and that each one looked as if they were in pain. I woke up literally crying out to God to give these people a voice. My Jesus, in His grace, gave me the desire to write Growing a Passionate Heart. To write this curriculum, I had to sit in my abuse memories daily, which bubbled the pain buried deep in my heart to the surface. It was a pain so deep that at time there were no words for it, but I found that God was in the midst of that pain just like He is in the mountain top highs we all love. I found the unexpected blessing of seeing that He is bigger than my deepest pain. He then placed me in a new ministry that I would have never chosen for myself. But, it is a ministry in which I, along with my leaders, get the unexpected blessing of watching God give voices to His wounded people!
We just finished another year of Passionate Hearts. When the women enter our groups, they have a variety of emotions etched in their faces—terror, anger, and sadness are some of them. Others are so shut down that their faces are void of expression. Sadly, all of them bear the marks of deep seated shame. Some talk a lot while others can barely speak their names aloud. Some weep hard and others barely cry. But each exhibit tremendous courage by entering the group because her presence, itself, is a testimony of her abuse.
We take the women to some painful places. First, we look at their families of origin. Some were rejected, neglected, hated, or had lived under a blanket of harsh criticism. Some were abandoned emotionally and/or physically, and some suffered horrible physical abuse along with the trauma of sexual abuse. This year it seemed like many of them were in essence sacrificed by the adults in their l8ives, being blamed for their abuse, their existence, or for the poor choices of the adults in their lives. Many were unprotected, their cries for help ignored, or were berated for the sake of a false sense of peace, false reputation, or a false security for their families. They were deeply wounded invisible children. This made me even more aware of the importance of our groups, because without healing from abuse, wounded survivors have the tendency tend to pass on a legacy of wounding rather than leaving a legacy of grace and truth. The unexpected blessing is that is we get to be a part of replacing the lies women have come to believe as a result of their childhood with God’s truth.
Second, we take the ladies to their memories of their abuse and asked them to share their stories. As leaders, we are always unexpectedly blessed to be on this sacred ground and hear stories and witness pain. We have repeatedly been blessed by unexpected trust as victims find it difficult to trust.
Third, we ask women to examine the wounds caused by their abusers. This means we asked them to face the hard reality that rape, incest, and molestation are not just words, but are wounding actions that impacted every part of their lives. We help them find the words to express the painful feelings of helplessness, contempt, ambivalence, anger, and sorrow. We ask them to examine how their abuse impacted their core beliefs that drive their thinking, their thoughts, their decisions-making processes, their behaviors, and their responses to people and to life. We are blessed to watch them realize that they have the power in Christ to change at the very core of their being and they begin to have the hope that they don’t have to live the life of victims any more.
Fourth, we ask group member to look at the calling of God to love Him with all of their hearts, minds, souls, and strength and to love others as He has loved them. This is difficult because many survivors believe that abuse is proof that we are unloved and unloveable and that we were so defective that we were abandoned by the Creator. It is also difficult because many formed self-protecting patterns, making relationships with both God and people difficult.
We remind ladies of the truth. Jesus understands what it is like to be abused. The Scriptures tell us that His appearance was so marred by beatings that He received that He no longer resembled a man. Rejected and despised, others hid their faces from Him. He was a man of sorrows, intimately acquainted with grief. While He was publically bearing our grief, sin, sorrow, and shame, others were considering Him smitten and afflicted by His Heavenly Father. He was innocent, yet wounded, crushed, and chastised for sin. He was oppressed and literally crushed as an offering for us.
Initially, survivors don’t realize Christ went through pain that is similar to ours. That in His innocence He was stripped of His clothing and hung naked and exposed. That He understands the emotional pain of having others blame Him for things for which He was not responsible. That He understands heart-wrenching abandonment as those closest to Him deserted Him in the hours of His traumatic death. That He understands feelings of oppression and the feelings of suffering the pain and consequences of another’s sin. He understands the feeling of emotionally believing we’ve been forsaken by God who could have and whom we often believe should have protected us. We know this because of His cry from the cross, “MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?” The truth is that Christ was abused so that we could be saved and the truth is the cross is the proof that God pours His wrath out on sin.
I’ve come to passionately hate sexual abuse. The unexpected blessing in this is that I know that this hatred is God’s heart being manifested in me. After years of hearing women’s stories, I, who once was so shut down that I couldn’t cry my own tears, can cringe and cry when I hear the stories of others and I find myself having to lay down the rage I feel towards the perpetrators in the stories I hear at the feet of my Jesus. I’m convinced the suffering we’ve experienced gives us a clearer understanding of the love of our traumatized Savior. He died not only to save us, but to heal us! I long for each woman to understand that and allow Him to grow in her the desire to love as passionately as He loves.
Fifth, we ask women if they were ready to forgive their abusers and those who didn’t protect them. Some were and some weren’t. That is okay. We know God will continue His work in each heart and we pray they will continue to put themselves healing communities that foster healing and growth. Some will repeat Passionate Hearts again or participate in Courageous Hearts (our eating disorder support group), Feeling Hearts (our emotions group), or Loving From a Pure Heart, our dysfunctional relationship group. Some will enter couple’s counseling with their spouses, do individual work with a therapist, and some might go through the healing prayer.
The verses that the Lord gave me when He called me to this ministry are Isaiah 61:1-3. “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the openings of the prison doors to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn…to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that He may be glorified.”
God is the one who brings each lady to our group so that He can bind each and every broken heart to His with love. He is a God that sets us free of our pasts, our pain, our sin, and our unhealthy mindsets. He gives us a new heritage with His Saints. We are no longer bound by shame and no longer defined by our abuse. We are no longer invisible, wounded little girls who believe we are defective; we are the ones God calls His mighty oaks of righteousness and our stories, our lives, and our words matter to Him because they glorify Him in the most beautiful and most powerful ways. It is always a blessing to watch women who were just like me turn to Him for healing and strength and watch them continue to take back the ground the enemy stole from them. It is also a blessing to watch them begin to believe that they are fearfully and wonderfully made and that they are radically and unconditionally loved and that we have a God who loves to take broken vessels and use them in mighty and in unexpected ways.
To be the recipient of so many unexpected blessings is awesome and so humbling. And to those who told me when this all began that the loss of ministry I loved was only a redirecting to something great…I thank you for telling me the truth and I apologize for not believing you at the time.