Beauty for ashes: receiving emotional healing (2 page)

What kind of a question is that to ask someone who has been hurting for that long? It is a proper question because not everyone wants to get well badly enough to do what is required. Wounded emotions can become a prison that locks self in and others out. But Jesus came to open prison doors and to set the captives free (see Luke 4:18-19).

This man at Bethesda, like so many people today, had a

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deep-seated and lingering disorder for a long, long time. I am sure that after thirty-eight years he had learned how to function with his disorder. People who are in prison function, but they are not free. However, sometimes prisoners, whether physical or emotional, become so accustomed to being in bondage that they settle in with their condition and learn to live with it.Are you an "emotional prisoner"? If so, how long have you been in that condition? Is it a deep-seated and lingering disorder? Do you want to be free of it? Do you really want to be well? Jesus wants to heal you. He is willing, are you?

Do You Want to Be Free and Well?

Gaining freedom from emotional bondage is not easy. I will be honest from the beginning and say, point blank, that for many, many people, getting free from the pain of the past will not be easy. This discussion may provoke feelings and emotions they have been trying to hide rather than facing them. You may be one of those people.

Perhaps you have experienced feelings and emotions in the past that have been too painful to deal with, so each time they have surfaced to your memory, you have said to God, "I am not ready yet, Lord! I will face that problem later!" This book will deal with the emotional pain caused by what others may have done to you, and also with your responsibility to God for overcoming those traumas in order to get well.

Some people (actually a great number of people) have a hard time accepting responsibility for their own emotional health. In these pages, we will deal in a practical way with forgiveness, repressed anger, self-pity, the chip-on-the-shoulder syndrome, the you-owe-me attitude, and many, many other

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poisonous attitudes that need cleansing if you are ever to be fully well.You may think,But who will deal with the person who hurt me?We will get around to that issue too. You may also be wondering, What makes thiswoman think thatshe is suchan authority on the subject of emotions-especially mine?You may have questions you would like to ask me, such as: "Do you have a degree in psychology? Where did you do your study? Have you been through any of the things I am going through? How do you know what it is like to be caught in an emotional prison?"

I have answers to all those questions, and if you are brave enough to face your situation and have determined that you really want to get well, then read on.

I Was Abused

My schooling, degrees, experience, and qualifications to teachon this subject come from personal experience. I always say, graduated from the school of life." I claim the words of I prophet Isaiah as my diploma:

the spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointedandqualified me to preach the Gospelofgood tidings to the meek, the poor,andafflicted; He has sent me to bind upandheal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the [physical and spiritual] captives and the opening of the prisonandof the eyes to those who are bound,

To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord [the year of His favor] and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,

To grant [consolation and joy] to those who mourn in Zion-to give them an ornament {a garland or diadem) oj

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beauty instead of ashes,the oil of joy instead of mourning, the garment [expressive] of praise instead of a heavy, burdened,andfailing spirit-that they may be called oaks of righteousness [lofty, strong, and magnificent, distinguished for uprightness, justice, and right standing with God], the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified. (Isaiah 61:13 emphasis mine)God has exchanged my ashes for beauty and has called me to help others to learn to allow Him to do the same for them.

I was sexually, physically, verbally, mentally, and emotionally abused from the time I can remember until I finally left home at the age of eighteen. Actually, several men abused me in my childhood. I have been rejected, abandoned, betrayed, and divorced. I know what it is to be an "emotional prisoner."

My purpose in writing this book is not to give my full testimony in detail, but to give you enough of my own experience so that you will believe that I know what it means to hurt. I can show you how to recover from the pain and trauma of abuse. I want to help you, and I can do that better if you truly believe that I understand what you are going through.4

Before I begin discussing the details of my childhood and sharing some of the things I experienced, I wish to say that in no way do I mean any of these things to be degrading to my parents. Since the first release of this book, God has been faithful to restore my relationship with them.

But I have learned that hurting people hurt people; that most people who hurt others have been hurt themselves by someone else. God has enabled me by His grace to say, "Father, forgive them, for they really did not know what they were doing."

I tell this story only for the purpose of helping others who, like me, were abused.

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The Fellowship of FearBecause of the sexual and emotional abuse I received at home, my entire childhood was filled with fear. My father controlled me with his anger and intimidation. He never physically forced me to submit to him, but I was so afraid of his anger that I did whatever he told me to do. He did force me to pretend that I liked what he was doing to me, and that I wanted him to do it.

The few times I timidly attempted to speak out in honesty about my situation were devastating. My father's violent reaction-his ranting and raving-was so frightening to me that I soon learned just to do whatever he said without objection. I believe that my inability to express my true feelings about what was happening to me, and my being forced to act as though I enjoyed the perverse things he did to me, left me with many deep-seated emotional wounds.

My father worked evenings and would come home around eleven or twelve at night. I can remember how my entire body would fill with fear as soon as I heard his key turning the lock. I would get stiff all over, because I never knew if he was going

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to come in my room and try to put his hands on me, or if he would come in mad about something he did not like.One of the hardest things for me was the lack of stability of ever knowing what to expect; I lived with the fear of never knowing what I could and could not do. I could do one thing one day, and my father would be fine with it, but I could do the exact same thing a few days later and get slapped across the room for it.

Fear was my constant companion: fear of my father, fear of his anger, fear of being exposed, fear of my mother finding out what was happening, and fear of having friends.

My fear of having friends stemmed from two factors: If they were female, I was afraid that my father would attempt to draw them into his trap also. If they were male, I was afraid that my father would harm them, or me. He violently accused me of being sexually active with male acquaintances from school. He would not permit anyone to come near me because I "belonged" to him.

While in high school, I was never allowed to go to a football game, a baseball game, a basketball game. I tried to develop acquaintances at school, but I never allowed the relationships to ripen to the extent that I would be expected to invite my new friends to my house. I did not let anyone feel free to contact me at home. If the phone rang, and the call was for me, I would panic thinking, Whatif it is someone from school?

All the time I was dealing with a fear of having friends and of being lonely, I was still unwilling to involve anyone else in what was potentially a disaster for them, and one that would certainly cause me more embarrassment and shame.

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Fear! Fear! Fear!My father drank heavily every weekend, often taking me with him on his drinking bouts and physically using me at his will. Many times, he would come home angry and beat up my mother. One time he beat her because he said her nose was big. He did not hit me very often, but I believe that watching him senselessly beating my mother was just as damaging as if he had been hitting me.

My father controlled everything that went on around him. He decided what time we got up and when we went to bed; what we ate, wore, and spent; with whom we associated; what we watched on television-in short, everything in our lives. He was verbally abusive both to my mother and to me, and eventually to my only brother, who was born when I was nine years old. I remember wanting so desperately for the new baby to be a girl. I thought that maybe if there was another female child in the family I might be left alone, at least part of the time.

My father cursed almost constantly, using extremely vulgar and filthy language. He was critical of everything and everybody. It was his opinion that none of us ever did anything right, or that we would ever amount to anything worthwhile. Most of the time, we were reminded that we were "just no good."

At times my father would be just the opposite. He would give us money and tell us to go shopping; sometimes he even bought us presents. He was manipulative and coercive. He did whatever he needed to do in order to get what he wanted. Other people had no value to him at all except to use for his own selfish purposes.

There was no peace in our home. I actually did not know what real peace was until I was grown and had been immersed in the Word of God for many years.

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I was born-again at the age of nine while visiting relatives out of town. One night I went with them to attend a church service, intent on finding salvation. I do not even know how I knew I needed to be saved, except that God must have placed that desire within my heart. I did receive Jesus Christ as my Savior that evening and experienced a glorious cleansing. Before that moment I had always felt dirty because of the incest. Now, for the first time, I felt clean, as though I had received an inner bath. However, since the problem did not go away, once I returned home my old feelings returned. I thought that I had lost Jesus, so I never knew any real inner peace and joy.The Betrayal

What about my mother? Where did she fit into all this? Why didn't she help me? I was about eight or nine years old when I told my mother what was going on between my father and me. She examined me and confronted my dad, but he claimed that I was lying-and she chose to believe him rather than me. What woman would not want to believe her husband in such a situation? I think that way down deep inside, my mother knew the truth. She just hoped against hope that she was wrong.

When I was fourteen years old, she walked into the house one day, having returned earlier than expected from grocery shopping, and actually caught my father in the act of sexually abusing me. She looked, walked out, and came back two hours later, acting as if she had never been there.

Mymother betrayed me.

She did not help me, and she should have.

Many, many years later (actually thirty years later), she confessed to me that she just could not bring herself to face the scandal. She had never mentioned it for thirty years! During

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that time period she had suffered a nervous breakdown. Everyone who knew her blamed it on "the change of life."For two years she underwent shock treatments, which temporarily erased portions of her memory. None of the doctors knew what they were helping her forget, but they all agreed that she needed to forget something. It was obvious there was something on her mind that was eating away at her mental health.

My mother claimed that her problem was caused by her physical condition. She had an exceptionally hard time during that period of her life due to severe female problems at an earlier age. Following a complete hysterectomy at age thirty-six, she was thrown into premature menopause. At the time, most doctors did not believe in giving hormones to women, so this was a very difficult time for her. It seems that everything in her life was more than she was able to handle.

Personally, I will always believe that my mother's emotional collapse was the result of the years of abuse she had endured, and the truth that she refused to face and deal with. Remember, in John 8:32 our Lord told us: "You will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free."

God's Word is truth, and, if applied, has inherent power to set a captive free. God's Word also brings us face to face with the issues of our lives. If we choose to turn and run away when the Lord says to stand and confront, we will stay in bondage.

Leaving Home

At age eighteen, I moved away from home while my father was at work. Shortly thereafter, I married the first young man who showed an interest in me.

Like me, my new husband had lots of problems. He was a

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manipulator, a thief, and a con man. Most of the time, he did not even work. We moved around a lot, and once he abandoned me in California with nothing but one dime and a carton of soda pop bottles. I was afraid, but since I was accustomed to fear and trauma, I was probably not as affected as someone with less "experience" would have been.My husband also abandoned me several times simply by leaving during the day while I was at work. Each time he left, he would be gone anywhere from a few weeks to several months. Then he would suddenly reappear, and I would listen to his sweet talk and apologies and take him back-only to have the same thing happen all over again. When he was with me, he drank constantly and had relationships with other women regularly.