Brave Girl, Speak

This past Saturday, I had the privilege and honor of attending Triad Ladder of Hope’s Fundraising gala as the keynote speaker. For nearly two months, I prayed and sought the Lord’s direction for the words that I would speak. When I was ready to back out or change my words to a less vulnerable topic, God would remind me of His plans and purpose. I am so thankful that God has allowed me to reach a place of healing where I can take the deepest places of pain within me and use them to show people how mighty and powerful He is.

I wanted to take the time to share pieces of my speech. I know many family and friends wanted to attend the event and were unable to. The theme of the gala was “A Firm Foundation.”

Childhood sexual abuse fractures the foundation upon which life has been built. Your body no longer belongs to you. It becomes difficult to distinguish whether a person is safe or not. Hope for a future without being hurt, deteriorates rapidly. Your foundation is now built on lies, fear, and survival.

This faulty foundation does not crumble over night in most cases. Many times, the fractures in the foundation occur over time through the grooming process that abusers use to gain control over their victims. My abuser began chipping away at the edges of my foundation not long after he married my mom. He began by blurring the lines between normal and abnormal, safe and unsafe, right and wrong. Because he was a person deemed safe and trustworthy, I held on to the belief that he would not do anything wrong to me. He was supposed to love me, care for me, and protect me.

Therefore, when he began exposing himself to me at various times, I did not feel the need to run in fear to the nearest adult to tell. When he once tried to kiss me on the lips, I just thought it meant that he loved me or maybe it was an accident and he was trying to kiss me on the cheek. I ignored the pulse of fear that jolted through my body, because I thought he loved me.

I shared at the Gala that I experienced an overwhelming and breathtaking moment when I was asked to be the keynote speaker. I was so honored to be asked. What took my breath away was being able to witness how God allowed part of my story to come full circle. I never fathomed that I would be speaking for an organization founded in the exact city where about 18 years ago I was abused for the first time in the back of an 18 wheeler truck. I am so thankful God gifted me with this opportunity to see firsthand His redemptive efforts in my life. The little girl that was terrified and confused in the back of an 18 wheeler truck got to bravely speak.

My foundation began crumbling when the ongoing sexual abuse began when I was 8 years old. In my speech, I shared how this faulty foundation impacted my understanding of my purpose in life. The rules my abuser enforced began to carry into other environments as well. I detailed in a previous blog post about an incident in a hotel pool area where I became so conflicted about whether I was supposed to “service” a man in the sauna when he began exposing himself to me or continue swimming with my siblings. I was 9 year old and believed that my duty/job in life was to sexually satisfy men.

While I was freed from the physical presence of my abuser at the age of 13, my foundation remained in dangerous condition for many years. If you knew me in my teenage years, you likely saw a girl that worked hard in school to keep straight A’s, played hard for any sports team I was a member, and attended church fairly regularly. I did not let people see the foundation rotting away within me. My sister recently reminded me of one of our “mixed/burned” CDs that we would jam out to in my little Chevy Cobalt. These CDs so perfectly represented my life and I did not know it at the time. The first few tracks on the CD consisted of some of the most degrading and objectifying lyrics I have heard in my life. Then the next few tracks would be the top contemporary Christian hits. This pattern would repeat. I so badly wanted to my life to align with the contemporary Christian tracks, but my foundation was still built on the lies that the earlier tracks supported.

It was not an overnight process to rebuild my foundation. It took years of counseling to get a grasp on the ways that abuse was continuing to impact my life. My foundation was not made strong until I was able to reach the point where I was able to see myself, my worth, and my purpose through the eyes of Christ. It involved a complete lifestyle change. Today, Satan still attempts to fracture using the lies that I once believed so strongly. But my foundation is now built on truth that reminds me that I am a Beloved daughter of the King, my worth is priceless, and my purpose is to serve the Lord in all I do.