Getting rid of the dirt...

In the process of healing, one trap that I repeatedly found myself drowning in was the sea of guilt and shame.  It's like I would finally get my head above the water for air when I would forcefully be pulled back under the raging waters again.  In time I had come to the place where I could acknowledge that the things my father had done to me were his fault and not mine.  I knew it was his sin and I was not responsible, but I still felt guilty.  You see, there was more to the story.  I was holding on to a disturbing secret that I knew in my heart made me guilty, and I was too ashamed to talk about it.  If anybody found out I just knew they would want nothing to do with me anymore.  They would look at me like I looked at myself...with absolute disgust.

I want to share with you something that for the longest time I swore to myself I would never tell....something I thought separated me from the rest of victims....something I thought handed me a guilty verdict.  One day when my father had me alone he brought with him a visitor, one of our basset-hounds named Scooter.  He told me he wanted to teach me a game that I could play with Scooter any time I wanted to when we were alone, just our little secret.  My dad assured me I would like this game, and all I had to do was lay real still.  My father put something sticky between my legs and the game with Scooter officially began.  In the next few minutes something strange happened to me.  At the time I had no idea what that something was, but it didn't hurt like it did with my father's games.  My dad told me I should keep "practicing" this game with Scooter...and that's exactly what I did.  Each time we played I got that same strange feeling, and I knew my dad would be so proud. 

I have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach typing these words.  I wish I could erase this part of my story and pretend it never happened...but it did.  It is a sick reality that I have had to learn to live with.  For the longest time I thought God was so disappointed in me and I lost count of the number of times I have repented for such a vulgar act.  Freedom from the constant attacks of guilt and shame did not come until finally I mustered up the courage to tell my counselor, and eventually my support group.  The truth is, like all the rest of the sexual abuse, this was not my sin to repent for.  I was a child doing exactly what I was taught to do.  I didn't know it was wrong, I was simply following parental orders.  My father is the sick one in this situation, not me.

For a long time I struggled with feeling dirty over this experience and the memories of it haunt me even still.  As disgusting as I might feel sometimes, the truth is that I have been made clean.  There is an analogy I have heard related to God's forgiveness that I think applies here as well.  Picture your life like a bucket of white paint, fresh and without a speck of dirt.  With each sin committed, drops of black begin to fall in our bucket, turning our once white paint a little darker.  Before we know it our paint color turns to a dark shade of gray or even black.  We are dirty.  When we invite Jesus into our lives He comes to our paint bucket, puts on the lid and labels it white.  Though inside our bucket is this ugly dark color, Jesus says we are pure white, without a speck of dirt.  The sexual abuse and the game I learned to play with Scooter as a kid tainted my once white paint.  Even though I still battle the shame and the pain of these memories at times, the truth is that Jesus looks at me and calls me pure white.  Oh the freedom that comes when the dirt loses it's power.  Whatever your dirt is and no matter how much of it has fallen in your bucket, it's never too late to let Jesus seal the lid and label you white.