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Zephaniah 3:17

Trigger Warning!!

This post talks about sexual assault. There is no explicit content but sexual assault is discussed. Reader discretion advised.

This story isn’t about the person that wronged me. This story isn’t being told to enact revenge against that person. This story isn’t about who’s right and who’s guilty. The who, what, and why isn’t the story. He, the all mighty He, is the the main purpose of this story and why I’m telling it. I’m telling how an all loving God was with me during one of the darkest moments in my life so far.

On October 31, it will be my one year anniversary of when I was sexually assaulted. Due to certain circumstances that I will not be sharing, I was forced to remain quiet about the whole situation after it happened. My entire senior year was ripped apart before it even started. My parents and therapist knew, but all my friends, classmates, mentors, were completely in the dark as to my mood shift and heart change. They would see me and notice something was off but I couldn’t say what when asked. I was alone.

Loneliness feels like a pit made of glass, able to see that others around you but the glass seems to be tinted. You see all but don’t feel seen. It makes you want to cave into yourself and become as small as you can while wishing to be noticed.

When it comes to hard situations or trauma, I tend to shut down or shut it off. In other words, I sweep the hurt under the rug.  In therapy, we talked a lot about processing and analyzing emotions. After a few weeks of self work, I came up with analogy for dealing with trauma. My traumatic memories and negative feelings about myself are like a museum. I can look at the painting or fossils, view them and respect them for what they are. But I don’t stay there forever or take the museum pieces home. I didn’t stay there in the pain.  So the pain, the shame, the assault didn’t fully consume me. (Praise be to God!)

There wasn’t a golden revelation where I came to senses and became “normal”. No movie moment where I instantly said, “I am healed and ok!”

Instead, healing happened slowly. God started putting little seeds of light in my life. At first it was my parents, who listened to my assault story and didn’t shame me. They stuck to me and held me up when I was crumbling. It was four best friends that became my family. They made me open up to people again and live normal teen girl life. It was my therapist who showed me how to understand my loss and shame related to the assault.

It was Gods quiet presence in the midst of suffering. One of the leaders here at AIM says, “This is the only piece of heaven where we can worship God through our suffering.”

I found little pieces of light in my life that started to bloom into flowers. My assault and my healing was able to be a part of my story I wasn’t ashamed to tell.

There are still things that will never go away that still remain awful. That’s why there are called scars. But they aren’t open wounds anymore. I can show my scars and pray over those with open wounds.

My assault didn’t feel like it belonged to me, like it was a thing I had no control over. Through the storm and after a year, I can firmly say otherwise. My assault became His victory. My assault became my strength. My story isn’t about what physically happened. It’s about the Who happened to be sitting next to me the whole time, holding my hand