God gave me moosies...

One of the most distressing challenges I had to face as I began processing through my experience was the uncertainty about where God was when the abuse was happening to me.  I was plagued with confusion of how God could be present, yet allow such perversion and injustice.  I questioned if He was even there at all or if He really cared about me.  In my mind I could recall the many Bible verses that speak of God’s love for His children and how He never leaves or forsakes us, but truly believing this in my heart proved to be more difficult.

As I began to process and talk about the evil things I had experienced with my earthly father, I also began to question my heavenly father.  I wish I could say I had some unique and remarkable faith that caused me to never suffer with doubt or mistrust God, but like the rest of us, I too was born of human flesh with the innate desire to know why.  Why didn't God help me?  Why didn't he stop my father?  Why did God even allow me to be born?  Why me?  The why questions were endless and overwhelming...that is until God reminded me of the moosies.

When I was a little girl I had this blue bedspread with matching curtains above my window decorated with moose.  The theme was "moosle beach," and all the moose were doing different things at the beach.  Some were surfing, some building sand castles, some playing with a beach ball, and some just laying on the beach in sunglasses.  I recognize how odd this sounds.  Most girl rooms are decorated in pink or purple with flowers, polka-dots, or princesses....but my room was decorated in moose!  Oh, how I loved those moose.  You see, when my father would come into my room for me to "help" him I would often escape to moosle beach and play in the sand with the moose....or moosies as I called them when I was a kid.  Little did I know God was using these silly moose as a means of protection.  The more violent the abuse, the quicker I was able to dissociate from what was happening to me physically and go to the beach with my moose friends.  God had given me an escape route from the unimaginable pain, both physical and emotional.

When I think about the moose on my curtains as a little girl, I am reminded of God's faithfulness and ever present help.  God never left my side and I am convinced that nobody was more heartbroken than He was over what was happening to me.  God did not cause this to happen nor was He trying to "teach me a lesson."  My father out of his own free will choose to partake in this evil crime and unfortunately I had to pay the consequences of His actions....but I never suffered alone.  Now I can look back and see that God never abandoned me, but it took me a long time to get to this point.  I want to encourage you to be patient with yourself and give yourself time.  It is okay to ask the tough questions, but I urge you to seek God for the answers instead of running away from Him.

In one of Beth Moore's bible studies I have been reading, she says of her own life, "I don't believe Satan would have gained permission from God to defile my young life had my faithful Heavenly Father not known without a doubt how He could use it.  God is never more glorified than when He brings an oak of righteousness out of a once damaged root."  I still do not have all the answers to the why questions and quite honestly I never will.  The difference is that now in the depths of my heart I am confident that God was with me, that He loves me and cares about me, that He heard every cry and counted every tear.  I am convinced now that God will use what satan meant to destroy me to actually help others heal.  My prayer is that if like me, you find yourself questioning God, that He will begin to show you your moosies.