Joy for the Broken and Abused

Posted on by joyindestructible

Most Christian teaching focuses on dealing with the sins, the abuses that each of us commits against God, others, and ourselves. No spiritual, emotional, or relational healing can take place when a person denies the truth about their behavior and the only behavior we have any control over is our own. However it is also, important to heal from the abuses committed against us because often, our abusive behavior is rooted in them.  The forgiveness we receive from Jesus is immediate but complete cleansing from sin is a process. To truly, be free from sin, it isn’t enough to change outward behaviors; the cause of harmful behavior must be dug out by the roots. For those of us who were victimized by abuse as children, it requires facing the truth about what happened to us along with the wrong messages about ourselves and how we relate to others that abuse taught us.

I was an abused child and I started out in life as a very broken woman. Jesus met me at the lowest point in my life and by putting my hand in His, through faith, I was lifted from the deep pit where He found me. I’m not talking about a six-foot ditch but a near bottomless pit that I had no hope of emerging from on my own. Though, I was immediately rescued, the ride to the top is a long one and I’m not quite there yet. I was shattered by the crimes committed against me in childhood and my thinking so damaged that I couldn’t even recognize them as crimes. I thought I was bad and deserved the things that happened to me. I thought it was my fault and I spent many decades of my life as a Christian trying to find forgiveness for things I hadn’t done. Outwardly, I changed sinful habits but the wounds that caused me to develop those habits in the first place, remained unhealed and denied.

I’ve never heard very much Christian teaching aimed at healing victims of child abuse and when I suddenly, came to the realization that I was such a victim, I was at loss in knowing what I should do about it. The Bible doesn’t specifically, addresses “child abuse” and as I looked for a character in the Bible to reference I suddenly, realized that Jesus is the fellow-abuse-victim of the Bible. He much more than I suffered for no other reason than He was innocent and an easy target for abuse. He was good and that made Him the target of evil. He was abused to death and people still verbally abuse Him today. It is in the person of Jesus that I find what I need to heal from abuses committed against me, as well as those I’ve committed. In Him I find hope, validation, and guidance in a pattern to follow of how I should be in the world. No matter how broken and defeated I became after a childhood of abuse, no matter the abuses committed against me as an adult or the abuses I’ve committed in return, in Jesus I have resurrection power. I have the strength to rise and live again. By my faith in Jesus, I continue to overcome and I look forward to the day when I will be completely free from abuse; and sin won’t be remembered anymore. I was shattered but my faith in Jesus is making me whole. My joy increases as I become more complete and realize more fully, the woman I am intended to be. No one is beyond the saving grace of Jesus.

12 thoughts on “Joy for the Broken and Abused”

      1. Yes, Jesus loves us all.

        I am feeling a bit sad and confused. I am sure that yesterday I received a notice that you had followed my blog. But now I see that you are not, and I wonder if the reason is because I told you that I am the Lady Quixote who used to read and comment on D.O’s blog. I was trashed really badly on that blog by a couple of people about 4 years ago, when I had just lost a precious loved one to a tragic drowning. It was a horrible time for me and it almost destroyed me. If that is the reason why you unfollowed me so fast … what can I say. It is sad. We seem to have so much in common. We are nearly the same age, our trauma history is very similar, we are both Christians, and we even live in the same state. I was so happy to see you commenting on my friend Lucky’s blog, and then finding your lovely new blog. Now I just feel sad and like something horrible that I can’t see must be wrong with me. Anyway, I will leave you alone now. God bless.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. You are right, I have “unfollowed” blogs by no action of my own and no action of the blog owner, and I have known of this happening to others. Plus nobody owes it to me to follow my obscure little blog, anyway. Especially considering that, like I told you in one of my comments, I am currently not following any blogs because I have a big project I urgently need to finish and I was spending way too many hours every day reading blogs. (Although I am tempted to make an exception and follow your blog.!)

        But anyway, because of all these reasons, I don’t normally get upset or even notice when any particular person stops following my blog.

        So…. why did I take it personally when I saw that you were no longer following my blog? Why did I even look to see if you were still following, when I have never looked to see who was following me before? Because…. I was holding my breath, waiting to see how you would react when I told you who I am. The emotional beating I took on that other blog four years ago really hurt. It truly felt at the time like an attack from Satan, kicking me when I was at one of my lowest points. So… now I am gunshy. I apologize for jumping to the wrong conclusion. And please, feel free to unfollow my blog if for any reason you don’t want to follow anymore. I think I have learned my lesson about not checking to see if anyone in particular is following, and not taking it personally if I lose followers!! I am truly sorry and wish I didn’t say anything.

        Liked by 1 person

      4. I don’t know all that happened. I don’t participate in things like that. I’m sorry it happened to you. Too much time online is unhealthy for all of us. It’s easy to get sucked into but I think something happens to our brains when we don’t spend enough time in the real world. We need fresh air, sunshine, and real human interaction. You aren’t obligated to me in any way. I’m happy if the words I write touch you and encourage you in some way.
        Love,
        Pam

        Liked by 1 person

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s