Ignoring the Mountain? Perhaps You Need a Tool for the Climb

You can choose to ignore mountains. You can try to bypass them. You can stand at the bottom and shout at the top of your lungs, “Move you Stupid Mountain!” and kick it with all your might. Ouch! Or you can pray for the mountain to move.

And I believe that sometimes God moves mountains. Miraculously. Gone. Out of here.

But in cases of sexual abuse, I think he chooses differently. I think he wants you to climb. He wants you to uncover the hidden secrets, expose the festering lies. No secrets and silence in his kingdom. He is the sum total opposite of all that sexual abuse creates. For God to move this mountain would be for him to ignore what happened to you. I think he loves you just too darn much to do that.

You see, God hates sexual abuse. He even included it in his Holy Book. In 2 Samuel 13, the story of Tamar, King David’s daughter, he shows the results of sexual abuse glossed over, ignored, hidden by man. I think it’s his warning to us of mountains ignored. It’s a tragic story. No happy endings here. A young woman ends up desolate and a brother dead.

It saddens me to think of survivors’ marriages suffering in isolation and often ending up dead. So here are two tools for the climb.

Order here

Order here

Sexual abuse never just stops with one victim. It ripples. As these books' back covers so aptly say, “BECAUSE WHEN SHE HURTS, YOU HURT" and "BECAUSE WHEN HE HURTS, YOU HURT."

Please, don't ignore the mountains, there's too much at risk. But choose to climb—together.

The Mountain of Fairytales (Spouses Caught in the Ripple, Part 5)

She thought one day her prince would come. He did. But he didn’t.

Copyright 2012 Rise and Shine Movement

A survivor wife shares:

One thing I have known for a long time.  I wanted him [my husband] to be my hero and savior.  I wished he would compensate for my areas of fear and insecurity.  I wanted the guy from the movies who is never afraid of anything, and was always there to make sure I was okay.  Or that's what I thought I wanted, anyway.  I know now that sometimes what you need is not what you want.  I still struggle at times with that feeling of wanting to be rescued, and not have to do the hard work.

There is a reason little girls dream of a prince. Disney knows that; they’ve made billions selling it. But do we?

A prince will give us value, turn our mountain of unworthiness into gold. He will turn our rags into ball gowns, our nightmares into a fairy tales. He will know what we need before we ever ask. Because the prince always “gets” the princess. He understands the healing words she longs to hear. He gives her story a happily-ever-after ending.

I’ve wished that for all of my survivor friends. They, of all people, deserve the prince—someone who turns hellish nightmares to heavenly realities. But wish I may, wish I might, may I have the wish I wish tonight? No. Because that’s Disney, not reality.

So what’s a survivor princess to do?

As my survivor friend admits so freely, “I still struggle at times with that feeling of wanting to be rescued, and not have to do the hard work.”

Hard work or rescue? Given a choice we would all choose rescue, not hard work. But rescue is not a choice. It never will be. Because as Dorothy says, “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

I’m so thankful my survivor friend has chosen the hard work. I know her. I know her husband. There is so much beauty in watching them climb the mountains sexual abuse has created. And although the view for them is sometimes ugly, if you asked them, they would say that it’s been worth the climb. And every now and then, they get a glimpse of beauty that can only be described as miraculous.

And that’s why they’re sharing their story. To help you climb. Because far too many survivor princesses leave one prince to find another. And in searching for the fairy tale, they’re missing the view of a lifetime.

Please join us next week. We’ll take a rest from our climb. We’ll stop, take a breath, and learn practical things husbands can do to help their survivor wives thrive. 


Spouses Caught in the Ripple (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)

The Mountain of Unworthiness (Spouses Caught in the Ripple, Part 4)

When she told her finance about her abuse, she thought he was thinking, Damaged Goods, but that was her thought, not his.

But what did she want to hear? If they could go back in time, what does she wish he would have said?

She writes: “Reassurances that I was still loved and valued by him and an acknowledgement that it was difficult for me to share my abuse with him.  Also, I wanted him to recognize that I must trust in him, in order, for me to share my past. 

I feel conflicted when I imagine him telling me these things. Still there is a deep part of me that wants to hear them, but an outer shell that feels shame when I am told how much I am loved and valued.  That seems so weird to write, because it is honestly what I desire most to hear.  But, maybe there is a part of me that feels undeserving of it?”

All children are born deserving of love and worthy of being valued. Enter sexual abuse and shame's echoes fill the soul, “Unworthy, unworthy, unworthy.”

Image courtesy of Dan, FreeDigitalPhotos.net

And the mountain of unworthiness rises high above the newly married couple, daring them to climb.

Visit us next week  and join them in the climb.

To read Spouse Caught in the Ripple, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, please click on highlighted areas.

The Mountain of Cluelessness (Spouses Caught in the Ripple, Part 3)

Damaged goods.

When my survivor friends told their boyfriends, who later became their husbands, about their abuse, the title Damaged Goods screamed in their heads. He’s thinking that I’m damaged goods. They waited for a response. They braced for rejection.

Couple One

The husband remembers. "I wanted to be her rock.  But, I really didn't know what to do with the information.  Inside I felt like I had a pit in my stomach.  I felt angry that it happened to her.  I struggled with what her abuse meant for us.  I wanted more details, but I was afraid to ask.  Abuse was something that happened to other people, not to people who were close to me, let alone the girl I thought I was going to marry.  In the end I was determined to love her no matter what.  But, I didn't have a clue what that actually meant."

What to do? What does this mean? Details? Do I ask? Should I ask? Fear. Where did this come from? How did it enter my neat little world? Determined to love. Clueless as to how.

But Damaged Goods? No. Not his thought. Hers.

He had no clue what to do. And no idea what she needed to hear. What young person does?

Two young college students in love, wanting to spend the rest of their lives together.

http://www.freeimages.co.uk/bitmaps/freeimagesuksmall.gif

And the wedding march played.  And the mountains remained.

Most of us come into marriage with our backpacks filled with traditions, expectations, and hurts. This baggage can create obstacles as we move through life together.  We weave around some, trudge by others as we climb through the years. But sexual abuse can’t be bypassed or ignored. It will show up again and again on the climb. Sometimes as a gnarled barren tree in our peripheral vision, we glimpse and move on, and sometimes as a rock that makes us stumble, slamming our knees to the ground, demanding attention. We have a choice. Look at the tree; examine the rock together, or journey on alone. I've chosen the couples I’m interviewing for this series because they journey together. The views aren't always beautiful; there are rocks that remain in their path. But they’re together in the climb.


To view Spouses Caught in the Ripple (Part 1), (Part 2), please click on highlighted area.

The Mountain of Damaged Goods (Spouses Caught in the Ripple – Part 2)

“When did you first tell your spouse that you had been sexually abused?” I had emailed two different women through two private emails and asked them the same question.

They responded. Privately.

One had told within the first year of dating her spouse, the other had told when she knew marriage was looming in their future.

“My biggest fear was that he would view me as used or damaged goods.  That I would somehow not be new or special to him because of my abuse,” replied the one.

“At the time,” said the other, “I had no expectations about his response. Perhaps I wanted him to know I was damaged goods? It would ‘let him off the hook’ so to speak.”

Image courtesty of Michal Marcol/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net"

Two different women.  Two different abuse stories.

One description.

Damaged goods.

But that wasn't what the men were thinking when they heard. It wasn't what they were thinking—at all.

  

Please join us next Tuesday. The husbands respond.

To read Spouses Caught in the Ripple click here.