Caring for abuse victims

I look into her eyes… the grief… the shame… the hovering darkness… the accusing voices… the hopeless, empty cries…

…and she asks me…

“How do I know I can trust you? How do I know you won’t betray my fragile, broken heart? How do I know you won’t pull out your Bible, quote a few scriptures, pray in the name of Jesus, and then reach out and touch me, taking from me what I’ve never had to give…

…that innocence that I’ve been robbed of, over and over and over again, since birth…

…Will you too, take it, strip me, violate me, use me, abuse me, and leave my heart bleeding on the floor… leave me, gasping for my next breath…. just to survive….

…And, if you do, will you be the last? Will it finally be all I had left to give? Will the life fade from me…. Are you the one who will be ‘my death’?…

…Or can I dare… do I try, once more… one more desperate time… to trust, in hope that maybe… just maybe… you will not strip me? …

Do I dare risk, and believe that you will cover me, respect me, protect my heart and my dignity… and lead me to the Gentle Healer–the only One who is enough?”

I look into her eyes, and weep…. “Oh God, what have we done? What have we done in your name? Forgive us!”

And in that moment I know, again, it is only Jesus…. only Jesus….

My heart cries out to Him, to use me, to let me be wrecked for love’s sake, but never to get in the way of Love. To let me be a channel, and let Him flow through me, pouring His life into her….

…into you…

…so that He can meet every need in you, and show you what He sees in you… how He loves you… values you.

***

I open my email, having written the above, and I find in my inbox a message from a client. In the last several weeks I have ‘confronted’ her abuser, who denies allegations, even though there was a witness. I read the words, and the tears splash in front of me, as I am reminded why I do what I do: