In my first blog about fear I mentioned the story of Mephilbosheth which can be found in the book of 2 Samuel 4:4; 9:1-13. When Mephilbosheth was five his nurse took him and fled, fearing for his life but as she ran she fell and dropped him. The fall left Mephilbosheth lame in both his legs. The reason I love the story of Mephilbosheth so much, I too was dropped as a child. My wounds were emotional not physical and luckily didn’t leave me lame but did leave me wounded. When I was very young, possibly around three, I was taking advantage of by a pre-teen boy. I was not the only girl that this happened to, in fact there were many. I now remember bits and pieces of what happened. The boy would say we were playing Doctor and would take me into the bathroom and ask me to close my eyes. I also remember talking to a woman about what happened, I don’t know if she was a policeman or social worker. I remember my Dad cursing at the boy’s father on the phone one night. This is what I remember now but growing up I didn’t remember any of this.
The first time I was faced with what had happened to me was when I was a teenager, the boy’s younger brother mentioned something to my sister about the interview he had with the police/social worker. It was like he was talking about a dream I had had once, there was something familiar about what he was saying but I didn’t understand why. There would be two or three more times that something like that would happen. I would over hear people mentioning what had happened and know somehow I was involved but not really remember. I pieced everything together my sophomore year of high school. I still didn’t know all the details; I hadn’t talked to anyone about it. All I had were glimpses of my own memories. These memories started to haunt me, jumping into my mind at inconvinent times. Even when I was at church or reading my bible. I started to struggle with the way I saw myself and my own purity. Google defines shame as a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior. The wrong and foolish behavior was not my own, I was a victim. But somehow I was ashamed. I didn’t want anyone to know, I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it. It was a wound I thought that needed to be hidden from the world. But my wound couldn't be healed if it was hidden.
Healing did come and still comes, with wounds like these healing is a process. My first "round of healing" happened my sophomore year of high school. I was facied with the truth of what happened to me. I was extremely overwhelmed, confused and discouraged. I went on a run to clear my head and talk(yell) at God. I was crying and remember telling God this situation feels like a giant brick wall that I'm never going to get over. That same night I attended a prayer meeting, there was an alter call and I went up. 2 Samuel 22:29-30 was prayed over me, "For you are my lamp, O Lord, and my God lightens my darkness. For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall." When I went home I painted those words on my wall. God had lifted my out and over my confusion and discouragement.
My "second round of healing" was from my husband. When we were dating and started talking about marriage I knew I had to tell him what happened to me as a child. I was a virgin at the time and the idea of sex was scary. I wasn't sure if this past hurt would taint healthy married sex, I didn't know if telling him would some how taint me in his eyes. I started to allow fear and shame back in. I remember crying and shacking as I told him. He held me and told me, "I wish I could of been there to protect you." At that moment sitting on a beach park bench with the man I knew I was going to marry, I felt loved, accepted, and safe. There is so much power in someone seeing your broken parts and loving you. Just like King David saw Mephilbosheth's broken legs and still blessed and loved him, God knows our brokenness, our faults and yet wants to bless us and loves us.
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