Sexual Abuse & Violence

Sherry Showalter’s story of sexual, emotional and spiritual trauma and healing

Splsh4Ripls3 Comments

Introduction:
The following story was sent to me via Messenger, from the author, whom I had never heard of before. She asked if I might share her story, so I asked if she wanted me to share it on my blog. That’s how this post came to be.

As you read her story, parts that bring her comfort may be triggering for you. .

Over the years, victims have shared with me how hard it is to sit in church — sometimes the very building in which they were sexually abused — and listen to ‘the right words’ when they were treated so harshly. Their suffering shamed and disregarded, while their abuser was forgiven and coddled, accepted as godly, and embraced where they were rejected. Some find comfort in church again. Some never do. Both are ok. There are other ways to find fellowship without a designated building.

Many have also shared how triggering it is to hear that God will use our trauma for good. This is particularly traumatic if you are taught that the horrible things that happen to you are somehow ‘God’s will.’ What kind of god ‘wills’ for children to be raped and abused … and then ‘uses it for good’? And what kind of ‘church’ promotes this warped theology?

Children being raped is not the will of any God I would trust. These horrific acts are not his will, nor is the harm survivors suffer. They never were His will. They never will be. It is called ‘spiritual bypassing’ to avoid contending with hard reality and try to explain away harm by spiritualizing trauma and tragedy.

God’s will was that we run around naked in a garden, oblivious to all but relationship and beauty. That was God’s will. He didn’t make evil, death and trauma ‘his will’, just because that’s where we find ourselves. He redeems. He restores. But He doesn’t bring sexual abuse and violence into our lives and call it His will.

His will, to be true to His nature as shown in the bible, must always be redemption, restoration, healing and wholeness. Not the hell of life. That suffering is the tragic aftermath of human sin. And human sin never is God’s will, therefore nor is the aftermath of it. That, or He is not God at all. He cannot be both the Redeemer *and* the one whose will is that we suffer at the hands of sin..

As you read Sherry’s story, remember that ‘bringing good from evil’ doesn’t mean, ever, that the evil was designed by God or ‘God’s will.’ And if you can’t step foot in church because of the trauma and abuse you have suffered, I reckon Jesus will sit with you outside of that building. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

It wasn’t.

~ Trudy ~

*****

⚠️ TRIGGER WARNING ⚠️ sexual and spiritual abuse.

I feel like it is time to share a little piece of my story and testimony.

First, I want to say the following:

1) I want to state, that not all plain conservative churches respond to sexual abuse in the way mine was handled. I have since been a part of a conservative group that were NOTHING like how I grew up.

2) This is NOT a poor me, pity me post. This is, however, a post of how God can take the most awful things done to us by those who call themselves Christians, and use it for good. It is about God taking the ugly, the darkness and the lies I’ve been told and replacing it with His Wholeness, His Righteousness and His Truth.

I believe it was the year of 2008.

I was living in the basement of a couple from church. Over time, I came to trust them and open up to them. They gave me a lot of sound biblical advice. They cared. One night I decided it was time I tell them that I had been sexually assaulted. They had promised that they wouldn’t tell anyone. “Well, at least not right now,” he said. I went to bed that night feeling lighter in heart and spirit than I had in a long time. I no longer carried my shame and pain alone. I thought I would finally be able to heal from the trauma. Maybe the future would be okay to face after all. Little did I know the pain, the betrayal and the heart crushing trauma that lay ahead.

The next morning, I was informed, at the breakfast table, that one of the ministers and his wife were coming over any minute to talk to me. I asked him, “you didn’t tell them what I shared did you?” Yes, he said, I did. I felt my heart leave my chest and drop to my stomach with a gut wrenching nausea. I wasn’t ready to talk to anyone else about it yet! I used up all the courage I had the night before! They arrived and I had to talk about something I wasn’t ready to share with anyone else at that point. As we talked, I was informed that I would need to make a confession in church because it had happened even after I was a member of the church! I was horrified and tried to tell them it wasn’t my fault, I didn’t want it! I plead with them while tears streamed down my face and my whole body shook from the inside out. It didn’t change their minds. They said, by confessing it to the whole church I would find healing and forgiveness.

On the night that the church gathered, I sat there and made a decision. I would wall off another piece of my heart. I would bury it where not even God could find it. Anger boiled inside me as my trauma, shame and ugliness was told to the whole church. I was re-traumatized that night. I felt assaulted all over again in front of the whole church. I felt even dirtier and more shame than before. I walked to the back of the church where I stood as each member came and shook my hand. Most of the members said, “we forgive you.” A few said nothing at all. 5 ladies whispered in my ear, as they pulled me in to embrace me, “I am so sorry this happened to you, or you didn’t deserve this.” (Those 5 ladies will forever have a place in my heart ❤️) But to each person who said “we forgive you” I wanted to punch them and scream at them, “THIS WASNT MY FAULT!” By them saying, we forgive you, they were telling me that it was my fault, that I had some dirty sin that needed to be forgiven! (Or, that is what it felt to me they were saying)

Something happened to me that night that changed me in ways they will never know. Only after much counseling have I been able to heal and forgive them for the pain, trauma, and the spiritual abuse they caused me. After many years I am finally at a place of wholeness enough to share.

A few people who have heard my story have asked, “how are you even still a Christian and go to chruch?” I answer them with a question, “How can I not?” How can I not be a Christian and worship God in a church house? It wasn’t Jesus who failed me or hurt me, it was people.”

Jesus found that piece of my heart that I buried away. He nurtured it, He held it and when I finally let Him, He healed it. He put it back in place. My heart is whole, but it has many scars on it and that is okay, because you want to know something? Jesus has scars too and He bears those scars for me and for you.

To anyone who has experienced this trauma and pain, or any other, you are not alone. I care about your pain. I understand if and why you may not have the courage to set foot in a church right now. And that is okay. Your heart needs time and space to process and heal. I know God will bring to you healing from the darkest of darkness in your heart. One day you will be able to go back to church and realize that it’s okay to be there, it doesn’t hurt anymore because of what Jesus will do in your life.

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭1:6‬ ‭TPT‬‬

I pray with great faith for you, because I’m fully convinced that the One who began this gracious work in you will faithfully continue the process of maturing you until the unveiling of our Lord Jesus Christ.

– Sherry Showarlter –
Bio: Sherry is married with a son who is a miracle. She loves singing, animals, being a mom, gardening, and making food for other people.

****

If you find yourself in a state of trauma and suffering as a result of sexual, spiritual or other abuse, there is support available. Finding a trauma informed counsellor who understands the harm abuse does, and helps you move beyond the harm to healing, is a powerful gift. I’ve heard horror stories of ‘counsellors’ — some licensed, some not — who have escalated the harm through ignorance, or who have no clue how to invite survivors to healing. If you have a counsellor and you are still stuck in the same place 6 months, 1 year, 2 years or — as in one case — almost 20 years later, I might suggest finding a different counsellor. If they urge you not to report or speak of the abuse, run for the hills. If they do not support you in what *you* need for healing, run for the hills. There are sincere and effective counsellors. Don’t give up until you find one, if that is what you need.

Above all, I wish you healing and hope. Life is hard enough with hope, to walk through this suffering with no hope is harder.

As always….

Love,
~ T ~

© Trudy Metzger 2024

One Abuse Survivor’s Story of Harm at Hands of Advocates

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The following is one abuse survivor’s story of harm at the hands of advocates. A few years ago, I agreed to share her story here on my blog if she would write it out, in her own words. She has done just that. Now I am keeping my end of the bargain.

Hearing the stories of victims who have been blatantly harmed by advocates, they have told me that often the damage done in the name of ‘help’ leaves survivors more deeply harmed than the initial sexual abuse. The more deeply they trust, the deeper that harm. The more deliberate and selfish that harm, the more devastating to the survivor. Those who try to help and get it wrong, but own it and apologize, survivors say they are able to forgive and move on more easily. But where that harm involves further silencing, shaming, blaming and oppressing the survivor, the betrayal runs deep.

The following is one such story, told in the survivor’s words, not mine. She was the first trauma-survivor to share her advocacy trauma with me, and alert me to the abusive practices of some advocates.

****

I have been asked how I can turn against Joanna Yoder (Founder of Never Stand Alone), the person who gave me a place to stay and helped me leave my abusive childhood home. Well, I’m here to answer that. I moved in with Jonas and Joanna at the Age 18.

Yes, Joanna helped me leave my abusive home. I will never deny that, but in a short while that all changed and she became a whole different person. She would attend counselling sessions that were supposed to be for me, and turn them into all about her. She would have panic attacks and yell “I can’t handle this, I can’t handle this!” Afterwards, she would scream and be angry, and then take me back to their home. Then, on occasion, she would leave me (and other girls) at home with her husband Jonas while she went to a hotel for the night.

I was forced to do loads and loads of laundry all alone and it had to be done by the time she got back from work or she would start yelling at me. She also would tell us to not wear certain clothes because of Jonas. At one point I, and other girls who were living with them, were called to the garage for a meeting concerning our clothing. She made us stand in front of her husband Jonas and demonstrate how short our shorts were, and do a twirl in front of him. Using her finger, she showed us how long she wanted our shorts to be.

Why was she worried about Jonas? That is a big red flag.

If tasks were not completed as Joanna expected, when she returned home, she would get livid, and pack her bags and fly out the lane in a mad rush only to come back the same day. (This was all a tactic to manipulate us). She pressured me to share details about my sexual abuse that weren’t her business. She also called the parents of the person who raped me to ask if it’s true. When hearing sexual abuse stories from victims who lived in her home, she turned it into being all about her.

Joanna always wanted her way and if she didn’t get it, she would scream and cry until she got it. She thought that trying to hook us up with guys was fun. If I hung out with a guy, she had to know if we had sex or not and, if I refused to say, she would get mad and be like, “no one loves me” and run to Jonas saying, “I can’t do this! I can’t do this! The girls don’t tell me anything after all I did for them.” 

Joanna would trash talk us to her friends, but then to our face the would tell us she loved us like we were her own kids. This felt like rejection, and was confusing. She had to know where we were all the time. After I moved out and was living in a rental house they provided, I was two days late with paying rent. I came back home to find my room totally trashed. Later she admitted she had done this. It was a punishment for not paying rent on time.

We survivors who lived with them, were offered Marijuina, as well as alcohol, by Jonas on multiple occasions. For me, this started soon after I moved in. They gave me alcohol at my 19th Birthday Party. 

Soon after I moved in with them, Jonas asked me to call him ‘dad’ instead of Jonas. He would hold survivors living with them on his lap.

After bringing to light that I had been raped by her nephew, Joanna told me that I need to apologize to my abuser’s father. The abuser’s father is Joanna’s brother. 

Jonas and Joanna claimed they did not charge us girls rent, but then would make us give them $300 cash with every pay check, twice a month.  

All of this is why I chose to step away and speak out. because this is abuse. Joanna needs to find healing before helping victims because all she is doing is creating bigger problems for victims that come to her help!

~ Anonymous ~

****

Abuse of any kind does great harm. In the name of advocacy and ‘helping’ survivors more harm is done to individuals already suffering, when advocates are not healed and make victims of trauma their projects, or use their ‘service’ to victims for personal agendas. Whatever those agendas may be. These trauma survivors make themselves exceptionally vulnerable when they trust an advocate with their story and their pain. When that becomes a source of fresh trauma, the betrayal and harm runs deep.

It has been said by survivors of both sexual and emotional abuse, and it is documented in academic papers, that emotional abuse in some cases does more harm than sexual abuse (Dye, 2020). The same is true for spiritual abuse. Advocacy has the potential to support and heal, and it has the potential to do incredible harm when advocates are not first healed, and when they use victims for their own purposes. Doing the hard work of healing first, and being formally educated in trauma are the best gifts an advocate can give themselves. Having done so, they are able to offer support to victims without making it about themselves.

As always…
Love, 
~ T ~

© Trudy Metzger

Dye, H.L. Is Emotional Abuse As Harmful as Physical and/or Sexual Abuse?. Journ Child Adol Trauma 13, 399–407 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40653-019-00292-y

https://uihc.org/childrens/news/emotional-abuse-neglect-may-be-more-harmful-long-term-physical-sexual-abuse

https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/10/psychological-abuse

4 yr old Anabaptist girl beaten to death; parents James Mast (28) & Mary Mast (29), Ethan Mast (35), and Kourtney Aumen (21), arrested for murder

Splsh4Ripls

Disclaimer: I have tried to verify any information written here. There are many rumours floating around that I have left out as they are not (yet) fully verifiable.

*****

On Sunday December 20, I was contacted regarding the horrific murder of 4-yr-old Jessica Mast in Missouri. (READ THE NEWS UPDATE HERE: 4-year-old girl ‘beaten, submerged in a pond, then left to freeze on the bank’). The accused (Kourtney Aumen and Ethan Mast) allegedly claimed the mother, Mary S. Mast who was also beaten, had a demon and the children would turn out just like her if they did not remove the demons. Arrested for her murder at the time were Kourtney Aumen (21), and Ethan Mast, (35). As of December 24, 2020, the child’s parents, James Mast (28) and Mary S. Mast (29) have also been arrested. (READ THE NEWS UPDATE HERE: Benton County Sheriff: Parents arrested in connection to child’s death).

People noticed I am friends on Facebook with Kourtney Aumen, one of the two individuals charged with the murder. Truth is, I did not get to know Kourtney. Beyond a friend request over the time of the CAM and Jeriah Mast fiasco, we had no exchanges of any kind. In spite of not knowing her, it hit pretty hard knowing that sometimes we just don’t know what depravity hides behind a religious facade. Looking at her FB profile — the pic and what she writes — would never have indicated a young woman sexually entangled with two married men, capable of murder and sexual assault. Her one accomplice, Ethan Mast, I had never heard of before. James Mast, the father of the murdered child, I vaguely recall hearing of his disappearance.

What is to be said about the present murders is in the links I posted. Rather than retell it, I encourage you to read the news updates. The backstory, however, is not covered there.

Aumen allegedly got ‘counseling’ support from James Mast a few years back. At some point, James allegedly said he was driving her to a counselor, but instead he disappeared for two weeks to a cabin with her. This, over the time that his wife Mary was very pregnant and gave birth. The story starts somewhere back there, or maybe before. Aumen is not one iota innocent, nor is she the victim in this case. However, whenever grown men (or women) take advantage of the vulnerability of someone coming for help, they are responsible for violating that trust. No matter how messed up the person is who is looking for help or counseling,. If anything, the more messed up someone is mentally, who is looking for help, the more you are responsible for how your actions will further harm them. Whatever the story is here — if it didn’t start before that ‘counseling’ — it was the prelude to the present situation. What she did in this present crime is on her. But what went down back there is part of the story that led here. And it sounds like she was reaching out for support, and allegedly did get counseling from another well-known unlicensed Mennonite counselor.

SHE HAD A DEMON, SOME SAY (GOD FORBID THEY MENTION THE MEN INVOLVED)
No matter the backstory, Aumen is responsible for her part in the crimes against Jessica Mast. Even so, it reeks to high heaven when people start declaring “Kourtney had a demon”, or “She was demon possessed” or “She had a spirit not of God,” and totally overlook the men — “leaders” as we call them in our Anabaptist settings — as though they were her victims.

‘Thank you, Captain Obvious. I’d have not known quite to which power to attribute this heinous act without that insight.” It seems some people get a religious ego boost labeling women as demon-possessed. And they use it to distract from their entanglements with this situation.

No Christian will look at this horror and say, “What Aumen did was of God!” Obviously, then, if not of God, it is of the devil. But to put the focus all on Aumen having a spirit not of God and say nothing of two grown men, considerably older than Aumen — who was barely 18 when she became entangled with them in her search for help — and who were part of the crimes does not speak well to the characters speaking this way. This habit of demonizing women (even when their actions are demonic), while neglecting to hold men accountable, is the voice of religiously emasculated men crying out. And those who hold some culpability in what went wrong, in some cases.

Real men of God — those who take their leadership seriously — hold other men accountable, first and foremost. No, they wouldn’t let Aumen off the hook. She did very wicked things in the name of God. But, as men who preach leadership, they would first call out the men for not stopping this horrific act. These men could have overpowered Aumen if they wanted. And I can’t imagine it would have taken two of them. Instead, they slept with her and then participated in a murder; whatever their respective roles were. These men should be called out, if not first, at least equally.

The father’s belt was used to do the beating. Somewhere in there, as a parent, you would say, “Over my dead body!” You would let them shoot you first, before you let them kill or beat your child. And for days on end? No one in that position gets to step back and be the victim. How it shakes out with the law is not of greatest interest to me. (Though I fully support putting them behind bars. If a defenceless innocent child is not safe with them — if they stoop that low — then they should not be on the loose. Same as sex offenders). But that is not mine to orchestrate. As a believer, I know my God will be their judge and it is before Him they are guilty of their various roles, including James and Mary Mast, whatever those roles may be. (And save the ‘maybe James was being nonresistant’ speech. No one living in adultery with the murderess and engaged in sexual immorality gets to lay claims on that as a religious excuse).

Both James Mast and Ethan Mast were having sex with Kourtney Aumen. For these adults to actively beat the life out of a child for two weeks, or stand by while the other(s) did the beating with the father’s belt, does not leave any of them innocent. Children were being assaulted. Jessica ran around the table crying for her parents to intervene. Adults did nothing to intervene. That makes the latter guilty. It is our duty as adults to protect children.

NOT ONE OF US
As I watch some in the Anabaptist community scramble to disassociate themselves from these people, I shake my head. It is true, most would not in a million years do these things. I hope. I trust. But when you raise someone — whether in your home or in a church (such as Charity, in this case, which by all rights is Mennonite with a different name) — you cannot simply wash your hands of people when they do wicked things. Especially when those wicked things were inevitably rooted in some of the horrible beliefs taught in your home or church.

In 2018 and 2019 I publicly called out the Charity (Ephrata Center) church for their ‘spanking rooms’ in which they kept a paddle (or paddles) with holes in it to make it more aerodynamic. This was to allow for a good sting without leaving bruises or marks so they would not get caught as they did not want Child Protective Services of Pennsylvania or Pennsylvania Law Enforcement involved. Parents were encouraged to spank their children until they went limp and broke (or gave in), I was told by numerous individuals who attended there then. This violence was encouraged for babies under age one. (Read some of the conversations here, especially the comments: July 17, 2019, October 20, 2018, October 20, 2018B). It is not possible to practice this kind of perverted discipline and then stand back at Pilates washing bowl and declare yourself innocent. Those who endorse this kind of violence, and the teaching of it, have no right to gasp at what Aumen and the two Mast men did. No right at all.

While I respect what Benton County Sheriff Eric Knox stated in the article shared above, that this is not the work of a cult, I do not believe the Charity church in Ephrata as innocent. When a church system — and in this case it was Charity who raised and/or influenced at least some of these men and women — teaches the kind of violence that was taught in PA, and when someone practices it to the extreme and it goes so badly wrong, the church does not get to stand back and say, “Well they left a few months ago and started a home church. They are not one of us.”

They left a few months ago? In the grand scheme of a their lifetime, the influence in their experience did not happen in the last few months. This went badly wrong long before a few months ago. The entire mind gets twisted up when you buy into the kind of violence taught there (not by all, and not endorsed by all) and the church sets up a spanking room (which at some point was soundproofed, I am told by former attendees, they are not innocent.

To every father, mother or other person who sat in that ‘spanking room’ or outside it and heard the screams (before it was soundproofed) and did nothing, you are not innocent. What happened in Missouri, the perversion of believing you can beat the demons out of someone, a child, no less, started on a pew in church, back in PA.

At least take responsibility for that much. Let Aumen, Ethan Mast and James and Mary Mast take responsibility for their crimes. But take responsibility for that perverted teachings gone wrong, and repent before God.

And all those ‘leaders’ who demonize women (calling them Jezebels, naming them Matriarchal witches, calling them demon possessed), they are not helping. What if we stopped preaching demons and focusing on demons, and started offering the hope of Jesus instead?

Even in this horrific case, what is the benefit of declaring demons? What does it prove? That I am spiritual enough to observe the obvious? And why has the doctrines of demons taken such deep root in the body of Christ, that we associate ‘demon theology’ more powerfully with some ministries than we associate the ministry with Jesus Christ?

What if His name escaped our lips more often than the declaration that there is a demon here or there? What if His love was the power that overcame the darkness in lives rather than pointing out demons whenever a woman does not measure up to your image of who a woman should be.

Somehow, that seems more like something Jesus would do.

As always…

Love,
~ T ~

© Trudy Metzger 2020