The Beginning of the End

For eleven years, I carried around a burden of guilt, shame, and fear. When I was 18, I finally met the truth. Believing that I was the one to blame for my molestation, I constantly sought to be forgiven by God for my sin. Then, one day, I was reading the words to an old hymn, "When Peace Like a River," or, "It is Well with My Soul." The second verse of the hymn says this:

My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part, but the whole,
is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more.
Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, oh my soul!

I had sung that hymn many times before, but the truth of what I was singing now hit me like a wall of water, and tears began to stream down my face as I accepted the fact that God had forgiven me long ago, the first time I asked Him to, and if He had forgiven me, I could forgive myself. Suddenly, the weight of guilt and shame was removed, and I felt freer than I could remember ever feeling before. God opened my eyes and my heart to receive His truth of forgiveness, and the beginning of my journey of healing began.

But I still had many wounds to take care of. I remember describing them as bits of shrapnel buried deep in my flesh. I knew they needed to come out, but some were buried so deep, I didn't know how to get them out, or even find them to remove them. I was still very afraid. I had been scarred, and I feared that which had been perverted and forced on me when I was molested. I feared the God-given gift of sex, and anything that had to do with sex made me feel sick. I still feared what other people would think of me if they knew about my molestation.

I cannot recall the exact order of things, of when they happened, but each held its own significance in my healing. The one I shall mention first has to do with me surrendering my fears of others' opinions to God. I was still in high school at this point, and a part of the youth group. I went to an all-night youth lock-in. We would play games, watch a movie, talk, have a time of worship and teaching, and stay up all night (or try to anyways). At this particular lock-in, the person speaking was the brother of one of our youth leaders. He was speaking about fear, and he challenged each of us to give our fears to God. He handed out little stones, the kind used for decorating, usually in vases or centerpieces, and told us that when we were ready, he wanted us to come forward and put our stone in a basket. This would represent our heart's decision to surrender our fears (symbolized by the rock) to God. I was the first to come forward, and I told God, "Here are my fears of what others might think of me and my past sins." I knelt as I prayed, then put the stone in the basket. Once again, I felt like a weight had been lifted off of me. I knew that I had done what God wanted me to. Once again, I took a step towards healing.

One day, home alone but for my dad, I learned the truth about my molestation. Over lunch, my dad explained to me that I had been wronged, that the molestation hadn't been my fault, and that I was technically still a virgin, though scarred emotionally. I don't know why he decided to tell me that then. Maybe God prompted him to. But it was then that I began to stop blaming myself for what had happened. I had never blamed the person who wronged me. Blaming myself took the entirety of my attention on the matter. After learning this, I felt immensely relieved, first of all over the fact that I was still a virgin, for I had agonized over this question. I knew that virginity had something to do with sex, but no one had explained that virginity ended with intercourse. Yes, I was 18 years of age when I learned what it meant to be a virgin. Can you see how much I avoided the topic? I was still afraid of and sickened by the thought of intercourse, though. Knowing a little more about it hadn't cured me of my fears. I needed God's touch for that. I didn't know how it would ever be something I could enjoy!

And yet, I was on the path towards healing. I graduated high school in 2005, and continued my education at Valencia Community College. I had been duel-enrolled my senior year of high school, and I had grown so much in that first year of college. I learned so much about God and His marvelous beauty and faithfulness, His everlasting love and goodness. When the fall 2005 semester started, I met a man who would be very influential in my life. Carl Creasman is a professor at Valencia CC. He teaches history. My sister-in-law recommended him as a teacher, and so I took my first college US history class with him. I was instantly intrigued by him. I felt a very great desire to get to know him. The semester went along normally for the first month or so. But I was growing frustrated and confused over my church. I didn't like what I saw, and I was wondering what the church was supposed to look like and how it was supposed to function according to God's Word. Looking for counsel outside of my church, I wrote an email to Carl asking for his advice. I knew he was a Christian, as my sister-in-law had informed me of that. I trusted him, though I only knew him as a professor. He welcomed my questions, and did his best to answer them, and that opened the door for a friendship that would impact my life in more ways than one.

In my journey of healing, Carl was influential in that in the fall 2006 semester, he strongly urged me to seek counseling when I confided in him the fact of my molestation. The weight of the memories had been crushing me, and at school one day, I couldn't bear the weight of it alone any longer. He was the only person I knew there that I could fully trust, and so I went to his office and poured out my heart's burden. When he suggested counseling, I accepted his suggestion with an open mind. Before, I had disregarded the notion of counseling. But at this time of my life, I felt God was telling me I needed it. I spoke with my parents, and they arranged for me to meet with a counselor.

I only met with the counselor for a few months, but those few months helped me tremendously. I opened up and stopped trying to bury the memories and the hauntings, the resulting hurts and effects upon my life and relationships. I talked it all through, and finally came to a point where my counselor didn't see what more she could do for me, and I knew that, at least for now, my time with her was done. I began to see things with a new perspective. I began to hope for the day when I would see God's healing completed, when I would no longer fear the beautiful gift of sex that He created. I felt that the next big step in my healing would come when I met the man I was to spend the rest of my life with. I was only partially right. God had much to do in between then and the day of meeting the one.

God thus brought me to the beginning of the end of the tragic part of my story, and started the new chapter that was all about His faithfulness and healing.

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