Survivors are terrified of a reality they already innately know to be true: even if people did know, they wouldn’t do anything to help.
– Kaeyley Trillis Haver, childhood rapper survivor
When we are under siege at a very young age, we can pick up partial truths and run with them:
It’s my fault my parents divorced.
I must have done something to deserve this.
I am unlovable.
No one will help me.
As my childhood molester told me, “No one will believe you, so you might as well keep it a secret anyways.”
So I did, until I came to know God.
Shortly after, in a counseling session which ended in being Sozo in style before I even knew what that was, God showed me where He had been in that scenario, then told me to tell my mother.
And I did, and she believed me.
Because molesters and rapists like to get you alone, we all believe that there is nothing any one would have done had they known what was going on, as the above quote from a survivor states.
I don’t fully accept that statement.
In the moment we may feel that is true. However, I believe there would be more of these incidents happening if Holy Spirit led people were not listening to His prompts to leave a situation, stay in pairs, step up and speak up, or not go when we sense we should stay home.
I also believe His angels protect and cover us from way more than we realize.
Although I didn’t know God at the time I was molested, the fact that He later showed me He had been there crying over me, and had prompted my brother to enter the room when he did proves to me God cares for me. And He moved to stop it from progressing further.
Soon after I became one of the Beloved, I was waiting for the subway train late one night on my way home from working an evening shift. I was listening to my Walkman, and wearing a backpack.
Just as the doors opened and I stepped on to the subway car, someone not on the train tried to pull me back onto the now empty platform by grabbing my backpack.
Within a split second of my face registering fear, a man within arms length inside the train grabbed me by the shoulders and yanked me forward so the doors could close.
He saved a perfect stranger from who knows what, and he didn’t have to but he stepped up and rescued me anyway.
Some times the truth is found somewhere between the lies we believe based on our experience and the vastly bigger reality God sees and moves in.
God in all His wisdom knows what we have come out of and what is coming ahead for us.
He doesn’t leave us how He found us to just survive our past any longer. God takes us gently by the hand, helps us to face our pain stored there, shows us the truth in a loving way, and guides us on into the wide open future ahead He has for us.
We are not left as just survivors in His Kingdom. God not only rebuilds and restores us, He bestows us with the ability to overcome through His Presence, power and strength.
When we are able to leave our pasts in the past as just part of the story which helps shape us but doesn’t dictate our storyline, we will no longer see ourselves as survivors.
.
We will know and be able to walk out the truth: we are overcomers in and through Him.
And we will know that for every person who won’t get involved to help when there is a need, there is One who always will.
He can’t help Himself, His very nature of love cannot help coming to our rescue. Every time we cry of to Him, and even those times He sees our need before we do.
May we leave our outdated pasts and mindsets fully in the past, and move with confidence into the freedom God has for us as He walks beside us into the wonders up ahead, Beloved!
PS. If you are in need of healing from something in your past, I have found God led counseling sessions very effective to help me step into the freedom I have in Him. Sozo is one such tool I have both experienced and learned about. If you would like to learn more, please visit http://bethelsozo.com/
KARLA LEES 