This marks our final week in this series, Removing the Roadblocks to Forgiveness. Last time, we learned about the importance of asking God to forgive us through daily prayer. Today, we focus on the next step along our journey toward forgiving others: accepting God's grace.
Remember grace?
In a previous post, we learned that God's grace is his goodness toward us, even when we deserve punishment. We cannot earn grace, because it is a gift freely given by God to all sinners who believe in Jesus.
Saving grace comes to us when we express our faith in Christ. Sanctifying grace falls on us daily as we pray for forgiveness of our wrongs. When we learn to accept God's grace on a daily basis, we grow by leaps and bounds in our spiritual life.
God gives grace, but we have to accept it.
Imagine a giant merchandise catalog or internet site full of free gifts. In order to receive whatever you wanted, all you had to do was provide your address. Within days, a package would arrive on your doorstep. No costs, no strings attached, just a free gift for the taking. This is how grace works. God is waiting to give it to anyone, just for asking.
If you did have an opportunity to place an order from such a catalog, would you tell the delivery person on your doorstep to take it away? Would you leave the package on your front porch, unopened? Of course, not! You would accept the package and then rip into it to see what kind of wonderful gift awaited you.
Unfortunately, many survivors of abuse and trauma turn down God's gift of grace. Why? There are one of three explanations that I can see. One, they really haven't come to a point of completely admitting their own faults, so they don't see a need for God's grace. Two, they feel so guilty and ashamed, they can't bring themselves to open the door and accept God's gift. Or three, they've been so hurt, their anger toward God prevents them from taking what he has to offer.
I turned down God's gift.
As I was contemplating divorcing my abusive first husband, a minister at my church told me that if I didn't stay and put up with my husband abusing my children and me, we would all go to hell. He quoted Matthew 18:21-22 (NIV) to me:
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times."
This Scripture passage is an important one in the process of forgiving. Unfortunately, this minister confused reconciliation with forgiveness. Living in an abusive situation is never a wise idea. We can forgive people who have abused us, but we should not put ourselves in harm's way in the process. It is better to remove ourselves from the situation so that we can work through forgiving our abusers from a distance. In my own experience, total and lasting forgiveness is difficult to achieve when we live with someone who constantly abuses us.
That minister made me feel so guilty, I could barely function. Like me, many victims of abuse get guilt heaped on them by outsiders as they consider leaving an unsafe situation.
I finally realized that I could not believe in a God who expected me to put up with abuse. In order to break free from my first husband, I had to release myself from the bonds with the angry God who only wanted to see me punished. I stopped going to church, praying, or reading the Bible.
Inevitably, depression set in. Without God, the world becomes a very dark place. As a former Stephen Minister, I knew that I needed support. So, I called a church where I was not a member and requested assistance.
For many months, a Stephen Minister came to my house to listen to me talking about the abuse, the divorce, my inability to connect with God, and all of the other issues that go along with surviving abuse. She was incredibly patient with me and let me talk until there were no more words remaining.
I recall telling her that I felt as if I had jumped off a cliff, and I was about to splat at the bottom of a rocky ravine. She smiled at me and said, "That's one way of looking at it. How about thinking that if you've jumped off a cliff, God has given you wings to fly?"
She rarely said much during our meetings, but that simple statement really got me thinking. I began to see that without God, my life seemed completely hopeless. She opened my eyes to the truth that by accepting God's grace, my life could be incredibly exciting and full of promise.
That night, I asked God to forgive me for the months I had spent burning with anger toward him. I talked to him freely about everything surrounding the divorce, asking him to forgive me for whatever part I had played in causing my marriage to fail. For the first time ever, I waited after praying for God's response. An icredible sense of peace washed over me as I felt God's goodness flowing to me.
God has a gift for you.
God had been waiting all along with his gift of grace. I just needed to accept it to complete my own forgiveness. He's got the same gift waiting for every person who expresses regret over avoiding him. Whether our rejection of God's love and his gift of grace stems from pride, guilt, shame, or anger; it's never too late to say that we're ready to accept it. For both survivors of abuse and trauma, such as the tsunami in Japan, there is hope, because God's goodness is available to all of us.
We're one step closer.
We are almost at the end of our journey, Removing the Roadblocks to Forgiveness. When we admit our own mistakes, ask God to forgive us, and accept his grace; we are one step closer to forgiving that person who deeply hurt us. Tomorrow, we'll learn about where the road takes us after we finally accept God's grace for ourselves.
Today's Challenge
Have you expressed your faith in Jesus Christ yet? If so, have you been asking God daily to forgive you? Have you felt the peace that comes with accepting his free gift of grace? Write in your journal how that feels. If you haven't arrived at this point yet, write down why you are rejecting God. Ask him to help you remove that roadblock.
Showing posts with label shame. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shame. Show all posts
Monday, March 21, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Overcoming Guilt is Prerequisite to Forgiveness
We learned yesterday that the guilt experienced by sexual abuse survivors stems from the shame we feel about our victimization. Today, we figure out how to give the guilt back to our perpetrators, overcome our embarrassment, and move forward in forgiving the person who hurt us.
There's a difference between guilt and shame.
Guilt is defined as the fact of being responsible for an offense or wrongdoing. Shame, on the other hand, is defined as a painful emotion that is caused by a strong sense of guilt, embarrassment, unworthiness, or disgrace.
If we assign full responsibility to our perpetrators for the guilt, then we can see that the shame we feel stems from our embarrassment, our feelings of unworthiness, and the disgrace caused by the sexual abuse.
Telling people about our sexual abuse makes everyone uncomfortable.
I can tell you from personal experience that talking about sexual abuse does cause tremendous discomfort...for ourselves and for others. However, I believe that shedding light on our shame is a lot like the treatment that doctors use on babies with jaundice (yellowing of the skin). If left in the dark, our shame leaves us with permanent emotional damage, just as a jaundiced baby is at risk of permanent brain damage without sunlight.
When Joe and I told our friends about what had happened to me and others within our family, many of our acquaintances responded with uncomfortable silence. But others, who had experienced similar problems, came alongside us to share their stories of survival.
Yes, some people will see us as broken, weird, or overly open about our pain. I can't tell you how to predict which way people will respond. But I can say that talking about childhood sexual abuse gets easier with each telling.
And the more we tell our story, the more we empower ourselves to move on with our lives. Remember, every time we hide our shame, we give away our power to our perpetrator. He is the one who should be carrying this burden of guilt. So, give it back to him, and the shame will resolve over time.
We fear that reporting family members who abused us will cause rifts.
Many sexual abuse victims do not report their perpetrators to the police, because they do not want to create inner-family turmoil. If you think about it, the family is already in turmoil if an adult is using children for his own sexual gratification. So why not report it?
Reporting creates many positive outcomes. First, it sheds light on the truth about the situation: our perpetrators are guilty of committing crimes, and we need to allow our criminal justice system to deal with the people who wronged us.
It is our job to learn how to feel like a whole person again, and we can't do that if we're carrying a big burden of guilt on our backs. We must give it back to the person who should be hauling it around.
Proverbs 18:5 (NIV) reminds us, It is not good to be partial to the wicked or to deprive the innocent of justice. By remaining silent, we are essentially providing a not-guilty verdict to our perpetrator. We take away the court system's ability to punish him, and we risk depriving other innocent victims of the justice that they deserve.
When I began telling my family members what had happened between my father and me, you can believe that there was plenty of turmoil. My siblings rushed to my parents' aid, offering swift opportunities for repentance and forgiveness. This, of course, blew up in their faces, as I predicted it would.
In time, my siblings came to understand my father's true nature and my mother's desperate attempts to conceal the truth. Today, my siblings stand behind me and every other family victim, determined to see justice carried out.
In the future, my relatives hope that my father will express his regrets for his actions, repent (completely turn around his life), provide restitution to his victims, and do whatever it takes to restore broken relationships. Time will tell whether or not my father is interested in making such monumental changes.
Child molesters are rarely the type of contrite people who buckle under pressure. Few of them ever admit to sexually abusing anyone. If they do, it generally doesn't happen until several victims step forward. When my father began to see that more than one victim was telling the truth, he confessed.
By speaking out, we empower the courts to bring about justice, and we empower other victims to find their voices. A woman told me recently that someone in her family reported their father's sexual abuse. By the time the criminal justice system was finished with their investigation of the case, 70 other victims had come forward.
We are frequently not alone as sole victims when it comes to childhood sexual abuse. We can empower ourselves and others by reporting the crime and letting go of the guilt that doesn't belong to us.
In summary, give back the guilt to your perpetrator. Then find someone trustworthy to talk to about your childhood sexual abuse. Doing so will ease your shame and remove the guilt--the fourth roadblock to your journey toward forgiveness. Tomorrow, we will continue with our series, Removing the Roadblocks to Forgiveness.
Today's Challenge
Look up the definitions of the words guilt and shame in a dictionary. Try to sort out the difference between the two in relationship to the abuse you have experienced. Can you now see that you were not guilty?
In your journal, write down how you feel about the abuse you experienced. If you were too embarrassed to speak up, put that onto paper. If you were afraid that telling the truth would cause divisions in your family, write it down. Then, write down everything positive that could happen if you told the truth to someone that you trust. Write down the names of three people that you can tell. If you feel completely alone in this, write down my name and send me your anonymous comments.
There's a difference between guilt and shame.
Guilt is defined as the fact of being responsible for an offense or wrongdoing. Shame, on the other hand, is defined as a painful emotion that is caused by a strong sense of guilt, embarrassment, unworthiness, or disgrace.
If we assign full responsibility to our perpetrators for the guilt, then we can see that the shame we feel stems from our embarrassment, our feelings of unworthiness, and the disgrace caused by the sexual abuse.
Telling people about our sexual abuse makes everyone uncomfortable.
I can tell you from personal experience that talking about sexual abuse does cause tremendous discomfort...for ourselves and for others. However, I believe that shedding light on our shame is a lot like the treatment that doctors use on babies with jaundice (yellowing of the skin). If left in the dark, our shame leaves us with permanent emotional damage, just as a jaundiced baby is at risk of permanent brain damage without sunlight.
When Joe and I told our friends about what had happened to me and others within our family, many of our acquaintances responded with uncomfortable silence. But others, who had experienced similar problems, came alongside us to share their stories of survival.
Yes, some people will see us as broken, weird, or overly open about our pain. I can't tell you how to predict which way people will respond. But I can say that talking about childhood sexual abuse gets easier with each telling.
And the more we tell our story, the more we empower ourselves to move on with our lives. Remember, every time we hide our shame, we give away our power to our perpetrator. He is the one who should be carrying this burden of guilt. So, give it back to him, and the shame will resolve over time.
We fear that reporting family members who abused us will cause rifts.
Many sexual abuse victims do not report their perpetrators to the police, because they do not want to create inner-family turmoil. If you think about it, the family is already in turmoil if an adult is using children for his own sexual gratification. So why not report it?
Reporting creates many positive outcomes. First, it sheds light on the truth about the situation: our perpetrators are guilty of committing crimes, and we need to allow our criminal justice system to deal with the people who wronged us.
It is our job to learn how to feel like a whole person again, and we can't do that if we're carrying a big burden of guilt on our backs. We must give it back to the person who should be hauling it around.
Proverbs 18:5 (NIV) reminds us, It is not good to be partial to the wicked or to deprive the innocent of justice. By remaining silent, we are essentially providing a not-guilty verdict to our perpetrator. We take away the court system's ability to punish him, and we risk depriving other innocent victims of the justice that they deserve.
When I began telling my family members what had happened between my father and me, you can believe that there was plenty of turmoil. My siblings rushed to my parents' aid, offering swift opportunities for repentance and forgiveness. This, of course, blew up in their faces, as I predicted it would.
In time, my siblings came to understand my father's true nature and my mother's desperate attempts to conceal the truth. Today, my siblings stand behind me and every other family victim, determined to see justice carried out.
In the future, my relatives hope that my father will express his regrets for his actions, repent (completely turn around his life), provide restitution to his victims, and do whatever it takes to restore broken relationships. Time will tell whether or not my father is interested in making such monumental changes.
Child molesters are rarely the type of contrite people who buckle under pressure. Few of them ever admit to sexually abusing anyone. If they do, it generally doesn't happen until several victims step forward. When my father began to see that more than one victim was telling the truth, he confessed.
By speaking out, we empower the courts to bring about justice, and we empower other victims to find their voices. A woman told me recently that someone in her family reported their father's sexual abuse. By the time the criminal justice system was finished with their investigation of the case, 70 other victims had come forward.
We are frequently not alone as sole victims when it comes to childhood sexual abuse. We can empower ourselves and others by reporting the crime and letting go of the guilt that doesn't belong to us.
In summary, give back the guilt to your perpetrator. Then find someone trustworthy to talk to about your childhood sexual abuse. Doing so will ease your shame and remove the guilt--the fourth roadblock to your journey toward forgiveness. Tomorrow, we will continue with our series, Removing the Roadblocks to Forgiveness.
Today's Challenge
Look up the definitions of the words guilt and shame in a dictionary. Try to sort out the difference between the two in relationship to the abuse you have experienced. Can you now see that you were not guilty?
In your journal, write down how you feel about the abuse you experienced. If you were too embarrassed to speak up, put that onto paper. If you were afraid that telling the truth would cause divisions in your family, write it down. Then, write down everything positive that could happen if you told the truth to someone that you trust. Write down the names of three people that you can tell. If you feel completely alone in this, write down my name and send me your anonymous comments.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Why Do I Feel So Guilty?
As survivors of incest or any other type of sexual abuse, we often feel guilty. There are generally four reasons for this:
1) We experienced pleasure during the abuse.
Most people who molest children do not terrorize their victims. On the contrary, they typically groom them for weeks or months to prepare them to be sexualized. They may give gifts or simply lavish them with affection. Children who are starved for attention often fall prey to the advances of pedophiles, because neglected little ones are so desperate for love.
After the abuse has occurred, most survivors feel extreme guilt, particularly if they felt a mixture of pain and pleasure. If they happened to experience pleasure during the act, the guilt becomes far worse than for children who may not have experienced orgasm.
One writer compared a child's sexual response to bleeding in response to injury. There is nothing anyone can do to stop either one from happening; yet many victims feel that they should have been able to prevent their bodies from experiencing the pleasure associated with sexual stimulation.
Whether our childhood sexual abuse was painful, pleasurable or both; we were not responsbile for it. Our perpetrators were completely to blame for their perverse acts. They are the ones who should be feeling guilty; not us.
2) We didn't tell anyone.
When children are molested by family members--particularly their fathers--they often do not tell anyone about what has happened. They don't want to hurt their family member's feelings or risk creating a family feud.
Unfortunately, when children keep childhood sexual abuse to themselves, their initial guilt eventually turns into shame. Their embarrassment over the event(s) keeps them in silence, often for the rest of their lives.
3) We feel responsible in some way.
We often carry around guilt, because we believe that we caused the sexual abuse. Perhaps we believe that we looked too enticing or allowed ourselves to be alone with someone who hurt us. We may also think that we allowed another victim after us to get hurt by our abuser as a result of our inability to speak up.
Many victims dissociate themselves from the event. In other words, they go someplace else mentally while their bodies and souls are experiencing devastation. In cases where this has occurred frequently, the survivor may have few, if any, memories of the abuse. If we couldn't remember the abuse (which is what happened in my case), then we couldn't prevent others from getting hurt by the same person. Not until we finally remember, can we speak out.
I really like the following quote by Patti Feuereisen, the author of Invisible Girls:
"If you are the victim of incest, please understand that your father didn't start molesting you because of anything you said or did. He did it because he is a sick person with a totally warped idea of right and wrong. He tried to pull you into his demented reality. He undoubtedly planned how to get into a sexual situation with you. It was not your fault. You had no choice. This goes for other types of sexual abuse, too."
4) We are angry.
Many of us ask why God didn't prevent the abuse. We feel rage when we think about our perpetrator. Our anger toward both him and God may make us feel guilty, because we know that it is wrong to remain so enraged.
Deuteronomy 16:9 (NIV) tells us, For the eys of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him...
God was there at the time of the abuse, and he sees the truth: our perpetrators are the only ones who are guilty of wrong-doing. At the same time, God's heart breaks for the shame that we feel.
Today's Challenge
If you believe that you are guilty in some way for causing your sexual abuse, please find a professional counselor who can help you talk about your feelings. No survivor deserves to live with this kind of guilt.
1) We experienced pleasure during the abuse.
Most people who molest children do not terrorize their victims. On the contrary, they typically groom them for weeks or months to prepare them to be sexualized. They may give gifts or simply lavish them with affection. Children who are starved for attention often fall prey to the advances of pedophiles, because neglected little ones are so desperate for love.
After the abuse has occurred, most survivors feel extreme guilt, particularly if they felt a mixture of pain and pleasure. If they happened to experience pleasure during the act, the guilt becomes far worse than for children who may not have experienced orgasm.
One writer compared a child's sexual response to bleeding in response to injury. There is nothing anyone can do to stop either one from happening; yet many victims feel that they should have been able to prevent their bodies from experiencing the pleasure associated with sexual stimulation.
Whether our childhood sexual abuse was painful, pleasurable or both; we were not responsbile for it. Our perpetrators were completely to blame for their perverse acts. They are the ones who should be feeling guilty; not us.
2) We didn't tell anyone.
When children are molested by family members--particularly their fathers--they often do not tell anyone about what has happened. They don't want to hurt their family member's feelings or risk creating a family feud.
Unfortunately, when children keep childhood sexual abuse to themselves, their initial guilt eventually turns into shame. Their embarrassment over the event(s) keeps them in silence, often for the rest of their lives.
3) We feel responsible in some way.
We often carry around guilt, because we believe that we caused the sexual abuse. Perhaps we believe that we looked too enticing or allowed ourselves to be alone with someone who hurt us. We may also think that we allowed another victim after us to get hurt by our abuser as a result of our inability to speak up.
Many victims dissociate themselves from the event. In other words, they go someplace else mentally while their bodies and souls are experiencing devastation. In cases where this has occurred frequently, the survivor may have few, if any, memories of the abuse. If we couldn't remember the abuse (which is what happened in my case), then we couldn't prevent others from getting hurt by the same person. Not until we finally remember, can we speak out.
I really like the following quote by Patti Feuereisen, the author of Invisible Girls:
"If you are the victim of incest, please understand that your father didn't start molesting you because of anything you said or did. He did it because he is a sick person with a totally warped idea of right and wrong. He tried to pull you into his demented reality. He undoubtedly planned how to get into a sexual situation with you. It was not your fault. You had no choice. This goes for other types of sexual abuse, too."
4) We are angry.
Many of us ask why God didn't prevent the abuse. We feel rage when we think about our perpetrator. Our anger toward both him and God may make us feel guilty, because we know that it is wrong to remain so enraged.
Deuteronomy 16:9 (NIV) tells us, For the eys of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him...
God was there at the time of the abuse, and he sees the truth: our perpetrators are the only ones who are guilty of wrong-doing. At the same time, God's heart breaks for the shame that we feel.
Today's Challenge
If you believe that you are guilty in some way for causing your sexual abuse, please find a professional counselor who can help you talk about your feelings. No survivor deserves to live with this kind of guilt.
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