The first step to breaking free from the bondage of sexual abuse is to tell your story. For me, this came just weeks before I turned 26 years old. Quite honestly, I had no intentions of sharing my secret. I wish I could tell you that through careful prayer and consideration I felt the urging of the Lord to confront my father. I wish I could tell you that I sought out the help of a professional counselor to guide me to the point that I was ready to bring the truth to light. But that would be far from the truth. It wasn't something I planned out and rehearsed in front of my mirror trying to figure out the right words to say. It was more like a spontaneous eruption...it just happened. Thankfully, God's grace and protection were with me all the same.
In the month prior to revealing my secret, I was forced to go back to my home with my parents as I recovered from a major shoulder surgery. I had struggled for years with a debilitating right shoulder injury, and even though I knew my only option was to have to go home for my mom to help me as I recovered, I jumped on the chance for some physical relief from pain. Little did I know that the focus would rapidly transform from physical pain to an even more agonizing emotional pain.
Going home for this amount of time really did a number on me. I began thinking back to what it was like when I use to live at home growing up. I was forced to revisit the emotions I so desperately tried to hide for so long. I was scared, sad, lonely, confused...I was drowning emotionally, and that is putting it kindly. One day while my mother was working and I was home alone, my father came home, walked into my room and closed the door behind him. In that moment I became a frightened, helpless little girl again. I was trapped alone with the same man who had hurt me for years, and there was nobody there to help me. It was in that moment that my secret could no longer stay hidden. It was consuming me and I could hold onto it no longer. The demons had to come out. This secret was killing me...
It was in the next few days that I finally divulged this deep, dirty secret to my mother. The response from my mother was quite shocking, but we will revisit that in a later post. For now, I had done it...I had exposed the secret. Please don't get the mental picture that I casually approached my mom and told her we needed to chat, sat her down and just began to tell her all of the things that had happened. Oh no, that is not at all how it went down. While in the car with my mother driving down the road one day, I just completely lost it. I have no idea if my mother even heard all of what I said through my uncontrollable sobs. I was doing that blubbering cry that kids do when they get so worked up that they can hardly breath. I was an absolute disaster.
As ungraceful as the scene was it was the first step in my healing journey. The firm grip that satan had on me by keeping this all locked up inside had loosened. I was about to ruin his scheme to steal, kill, and destroy me. He wasn't about to win this one. The truth was coming out...and it is the truth that sets us free.
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