THE VAULT

The Vault

By Pamela Knowlton

Don’t merely listen to hear me…listen to KNOW me

Do not so hastily consider my words fools gold. Nor listen with such little regard, for from the treasury of my heart I open myself. Take your time listening for when I speak; you have been invited to explore a treasure chest. The sharing of my innermost self is sacred, valuable; not everyone is permitted access into my deepest chambers. Listen carefully, for my words are like precious gemstones; should you pass by them in haste, you are only robbing yourself. Linger, pondering what I’ve shared, in doing so you will discover my heart and truly know me. I AM a rare treasure; buried within my words is the riches of who I am. 

08/15/2012

Rescued

Decided to combine my thoughts with the picture from my previous post.  I not only find combining visual art with healing words and/or scripture to be a very good outlet for my creative side, I find it personal and healing.  

Immediately

I absolutely love this picture. In it I see honesty, humility, weakness, strength, trouble, help, compassion, love, truth, distress, comfort, failure, love, security, redemption, safety, trust, humanity, Divinity, companionship, readiness, concern, friendship, loyalty, turmoil, peace, fear, panic, relief and so much more. 

If I'm not careful, my thoughts can produce a raging, seemingly life-threatening storm in me. When my thoughts turn fearful and anxious, they can feel as tumultuous as the stormy seas and I can find myself being quickly drowned by them. I don't even have to leave dry ground or the boat to find myself in a tsunami sized inner storm!

I was reminded by a precious fellow woman on the journey (MAC) of the immediate comfort and peace of God when we cry out to Him in the moments when our thoughts are overwhelming. It made me think of the story of Peter. I had to see if I could find a picture of the moment when Jesus reached down and saved Peter from a life-threatening storm. You can read it for yourself in Matthew 14:22-33.

Just looking at this picture brings so much calm to me. Sometimes it helps me to visualize the nearness and readiness of God to help us. Reminds me of a promise found in Psalm 46:

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, even though the earth be removed,

and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.

Though its waters roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake

with its swelling....Be still and know that I am God"

 Psalm 46:1-3, 10  

I have to say one more thing about the word, immediately. I'm a word person. I love words. I noticed something very interesting about it as I was looking at the word and reflecting on it. I noticed smack dab within the word itself, was the word, mediate.I looked up the word, mediate, in the dictionary and it means, "To intervene between...to resolve, to settle by action...to bring about peace," (American Heritage Dictionary, 2nd College Edition). I don't know about you, but I find it so comforting to know that God acts on our behalf. He stands between us and the storm. He mediates on our behalf to always settle us and even sometimes to settle the storm and bring about peace. When God brings immediate comfort and peace to our inner storms, it's as though He is saying even by His mere presence, "I am your mediator. I AM He who stands between you and this storm! Be still and KNOW that I AM God!" 

Wow!!! I am amazed....all over again!    

Thank you, MAC for reminding me that God's help is always immediate!

Wrestling The Sumo



The Sumo...that's what I've come to call the nasty self-condemning thoughts I wrestle with as a result of my husband's sexual addiction AND the wounds left from my childhood sexual abuse. Some days I have him on the mat and other times, he's got me smashed to the mat and I'm down for the count! I guess this is one of those days. Facing my own triggers when I'm out and about with my husband, is VERY hard. I know in my head that SA is not about me, my size, my looks, or even about sex really...BUT tell THAT to my heart! I need a healthy dose of reality...to give myself a reality check...to remember all the men who've cheated on or have even left slender, beautiful, young, physically fit, talented, smart, healthy, faithful, famous, rich, and even publicly idolized wives due to their sexual addictions (whether visual adultery or physical adultery)...I'm thinking of women like Sandra Bullock, Elizabeth Hurley, Christie Brinkley, Tiger Wood's wife, Shania Twain; as well as the handful of beautiful women I personally know whose husbands left them with wrecked lives due to their sexual addictions and destructive choices. That reality check in mind, I wish my heart would just listen! If I could only push this fat sumo off me for good and leave this wrestling match once and for all with my head held high!     

"...Deliver me from my persecutors, for they are stronger than I....

for the enemy has persecuted my soul; he has crushed

my life to the ground....cause me to hear Your lovingkindness

....deliver me, O Lord, for in You I take shelter....

in Your mercy cut off my enemies and destroy all who afflict my soul"

Psalm 142:6b & Psalm 143:3a & 8a, 9 & 12

To Everything There Is A Season

"To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven:

A time to heal...a time to weep...a time to mourn...a time to speak"

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

"Then I returned and considered all the oppression that is done under the sun:

And look! The tears of the oppressed, but they have no comforter--

on the side of their oppressors there is power, but they have no comforter"

Ecclesiastes 4:1

Jesus said, "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you"

John 14:18 KJV

I am a childhood sexual abuse survivor. As a little girl I was molested by three cousins, a brother, a neighbor hood boy, a stranger in the community (who is a registered sex offender) and as a teen, by a friend's boyfriend. Growing up, I pushed all the pain down. I wondered what was wrong with me. I wanted to feel pretty like all the other little girls, but I could not feel it. I wanted to feel valuable and loved but I could not believe I was. I had no way of processing or coping with the trauma I had experienced. It was much too big of a secret for a little girl to bear alone. I had no way to deal with the pain, confusion, worthlessness, humiliation, anger, rage, guilt, shame, dirtiness, helplessness, fear, and the self-hatred I felt. I pushed the pain so far down that I became numb to my emotions regarding the abuse...I could tell my story without feeling a thing...it was as if it had happened to someone else, not ME. That's how far removed from the emotions I have been all these years. I still can't believe I'm that little girl and that what happened, happened to ME!

I had eating disorders (over eating, anorexia, and eventually, bulimia) as well as had suicidal thoughts and actually attempted suicide when I was 19 by overdosing on sleeping pills. From the time I was a little girl, I would check doors and windows at night because I never felt safe. My sense of safety was taken from me. Rather than embrace the coming of age, I felt terrified of it and had no one to talk to about what was going on inside me. I struggled with perfectionism, low self-esteem, and the fear of rejection.

I didn't tell my parents about what happened to me until I was a senior in high school (didn't tell them about my brother or some of the other abuses I experienced. However, when I finally shared I had been sexually abused, they cried because they knew something was always wrong, they just didn't know what. Sadly, in 1998 my dad passed away with Mesothieloma and in 2000 my mother passed away from a massive brain stem stroke). 

Last year, at the age of  40 I finally talked to a counselor for the first time about the sexual abuse in my past. I was NOT prepared for the Pandora's box I feel it opened inside of me. However, I am moving towards healing and wholeness with God's healing love.

It's still very hard for me to admit to myself...that I am THAT girl and that all that horror happened to me and that all the horror I felt inside was a result of being violated. It feels strange to allow myself to acknowledge that what happened to that little girl is really MY story and a part of what happened to me. It feels strange and new to give myself permission to acknowledge it, accept it, to grieve it, to feel it, to deal with it, and to heal from it.

 Little by little...I am braver. Little by little I can say it out loud:

"I was sexually abused. I didn't ask for it!

Nor did I somehow deserve it!

Nor was it MY fault!!"

For far too long, I have taken responsibility for something that wasn’t mine to take! For far too long, I've been angry and have punished myself for something I was not guilty of! For far too long, I haven't been able look that little girl in the face with love in my heart. For far too long, I haven't been able look on that little girl with compassion because I didn’t think she deserved it. For far too long, I've wanted nothing to do with that little girl! All I wanted was to disassociate from her! I ignored her pain! I ignored her cry! I ignored the injustice she suffered! I ignored she was real! I ignored her value! I silenced her! I caused her further harm!

But no more! It’s TIME for her cry to be loosed! It's TIME for her voice to be heard! It’s TIME to tell her secret! It’s TIME to declare the injustice! It’s TIME to stop blaming her! It's TIME to acknowledge the abuse! It's TIME to let go of the shame! It's TIME to confront and to forgive her abusers! TIME to forgive what’s been done to her! It’s TIME heal! It's TIME for me to love that little girl!

I am THAT girl!

"He has made everything beautiful in it's time..."
Ecclesiastes 3:11



"The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart....
He heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds"
Psalm 34:1 & Psalm 147:3

"I will restore health to you and heal you of your wounds"
Jeremiah 30:17

A Song For The Broken

Broken Girl

by Matthew West

For any girl, like me, who has been through the trauma of sexual abuse. Know there is hope and healing.

It's Okay To Cry

I have recently been doing some journaling homework in my, "Journey To Healing and Joy," workbook written by Marsha Means. This past week the chapter I worked on was on, "Losses."

In taking an inventory of the things I feel I've lost in the wake of my husband's sexual addiction, I realized I've lost some things I may have overlooked had I not been working through the workbook. Emotional connection; warmth; authenticity; tenderness to name a handful, are some of the things I might have otherwise passed over as losses in comparison to the obvious things I feel I've lost. 

I also realized I've stuffed A LOT of pain from other losses in my life, such as the deaths of my parents in 1998 and 2000 as well as stuffing the pain of childhood sexual abuse...a secret I had kept from my parents until my senior year of highschool. Telling my parents was a huge relief (they cried) but I still didn't deal with it...I remained closed off to the idea that it had even negatively impacted me (BOY WAS I BLIND)! Thankfully, during a counseling session at the place we'd been sent to for my husband's sexual addiction, in which I talked for the first time with a complete stranger about the sexual abuse in my past, I finally connected the dots between the sexual abuse and the things I've struggled with growing up that were a direct result of the sexual trauma I had experienced as a child.  

As I worked through the chapter on losses, I realized how much I had allowed other people's (un-healthy) philosophy of broken-ness, grief, and pain to influence me and at a time when tears, sadness, pain, grief and broken-ness were TOTALLY appropriate! At that time, I felt the enormous pressure to just put a smile on my face, to be quiet and trust God, rather than to grieve and feel my pain and process my losses...what a MISTAKE! It's NEVER healthy (nor is it Biblical) to stuff our emotions...it's damaging to our bodies and to our emotional, mental, and spiritual health and growth.

It is okay to cry and to grieve and to feel our pain. It's even okay to acknowledge we're sometimes broken. God created our tear ducts for a reason. Yes, He created us to smile and to laugh and to enjoy life BUT He also created us to feel deeply, to grieve, to cry and eventually...to heal...but the tears are okay...they ARE called for and they ARE appropriate and they ARE vital to our healing. 

Broken hearts, tears, questions, doubts, and pain DO NOT make God uncomfortable. On the contrary, He comes near to the broken in heart and He heals our wounds. He even collects our tears in a bottle. So our tears must have incredible value to God. I wonder what He does with all those tears? I like to imagine He does something very special with them. People sometimes grow weary with our weakness and woundedness, but God doesn't. Each tear is significant to God.  

I have a LONG list of losses and I'm going to take the time to feel each loss, to cry (if need be), to process my feelings, and allow healing to come so I can move forward inside, that way I can embrace my life with hope and joy.