Dear Bruce, I don’t know what to do with my pain

19. September 2008 by BruceSmith.

Dear Bruce,

This is a sensitive subject for me and many others, but its one that is very important I think.  I have lived with a deep pain in my life since I was a child and it has affected every relationship I have ever been in.  When I was a child someone took advantage of me.  Not knowing what was proper, acceptable or not, as a child, and not wanting to hurt anyone, I did not know what to do and did not tell anyone.  Now, as an adult, my pain, fear, and sense of loss causes problems in my relational life with others.  Even after many years in the church I am still trying to figure out what God’s plan for romance and sexuality is.  I have made every mistake imaginable, and am not sure how to move forward.  I wish I could really be able to understand what God’s plan looks like and I wish I could escape my pain.  I would appreciate any help you could offer.

Anonymous  

Dear Anonymous,

Sadly, the pain and hurt you express is experienced by far too many in our world today.  Thank you for your courage in writing.  First, you need to understand that God knows your pain very well.  I am sure that you have felt similar feelings to those of Elie Wiesel, who in his book, Night, expressed the darkness of his soul in speaking of the atrocities of the Holocaust.  He wrote, “Never will I forget that night which took my God from me”.  The atrocity of which you speak, similar to that of the Holocaust, is one which is hard to comprehend, but which we must understand comes from a gross breech of humanity and morality.  

In each case it is the loss of the sacred view of life which is at play.  In the Holocaust life itself is deemed secular and profane and definable by humans.  In the case of sexual abuse sexuality is deemed not to be sacred.  Where sex is made secular, merely an act, a biological urge and nothing else, there are no boundaries.  This is why our culture is becoming increasingly overtaken by sex.  In removing it from the arena of the sacred we employ its wares for any whim we may have.  In doing so, we lose the joy and purpose for sex which was intended by God.  We use sex to sell cars, insurance, food, clothes, … you name it.  Further, Hollywood has sexuality at the center of its entertainment industry.  ”Sex sells” as they say. When and where sex is for sale or for the taking it loses its value.  Those who use it for banal ends have lost the pleasure in it and can only lust for its urges.  Ultimately, those people have become prisoners to a polluted pursuit.  In the case of sexual abusers, the pollution takes over the soul and envelopes them is a terrible darkness.

Enough about the broad theological reality at play.  For anyone in your situation you need to know how to move forward and experience healing in your life.  I would encourage you to remember three things.  First, God knows and has experienced your pain.  At the cross the purest human to ever live, Jesus Christ, experienced such betrayal, loss, and violence that we could never fully imagine.  A man, God in the flesh, who had given Himself for all those He walked with, was preyed upon and made a mockery of by the savages who tortured Him.   

Also, I would encourage you to consider Elie Wiesel and his experience again.  While initially, as a teenager, he witnessed a soul defining pain in his life that crushed his idea of God, in the end, he came to see that God had not abandoned him and others in that moment, rather, God was right there with them.  Toward the end of the book Wiesel tells of a day when he and others were forced to watch as a child was tortured and hung before them.  As they watched someone whispered to him, “Where is your God now?”  This is the first question many ask amidst the kind of pain you have experienced.  I would ask you to consider the answer to this question which is the message of Wiesel’s book and the message of our lives amidst all the pain we suffer.  The answer, “God is there, with the child, hanging in the gallows with him”.  God has not forgotten you.  And amidst any and all mistakes you may have made in life along the way as you have sought to deal with or escape that pain which was inflicted upon you, God is ready to be your healing, help, comfort, and hope.  He has been and will be there with you in all your experiences.  

Lastly, I would like to offer you one practical step to deal with your pain and enlarge your future.  Use your experience to meet the needs of others in our world.  There are many who have lived the same nightmare, and they need someone like yourself out on the front lines calling attention to the reality of this suffering and the hope which is available in Christ.  Use your pain as a catalyst for good.  Any clinician will tell you, practically speaking, that one of the best ways to find healing for ourselves is to focus on the needs of others and actively pursue involvement in causes bigger than ourselves.  I offer you and any other readers a link to one such story which highlights the love of a mother for her daughter who was stolen and forced into human trafficking.  It is a story of pain and loss, but also a story of active love and help for a much bigger cause.  The link is below:

 http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/09/17/stolen.lives/index.html

God’s grace and peace to you as you continue to heal, view all of life as sacred, and seek to impact the world as God leads you. 

Bruce Smith

optimuslife.org 

Posted in Dear Bruce | No Comments »