+++++ religious triggers +++++
I don’t remember my first 24 Christmases. One reason is because I sat around the Christmas tree w/my abuser each year. Another reason is because I was viciously abused on Christmas Eve when I was 7.
I have always been somewhere between indifferent to Christmas to downright hostile towards it. However, the one Christmas song that I really like is O Holy Night.
I wanted to share some of the inspirations I get from this song so that you, too, can find some solace in this wonderful song.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
Till He appeared and the Spirit felt its worth.
For my entire life, I have laid buried under the aftermath of my abusers’ sin, and I have been pining for relief from the shame. It was through God that my spirit finally felt its worth. Before this, my spirit had felt completely worthless. What a great feeling — to finally feel that my soul has some worth!!
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
I had grown so weary under the burden of my past and shame — shame that wasn’t mine to bear but nevertheless burdened my shoulders. But I now feel a thrill of hope because a new and glorious morning is breaking. There is light at the end of this tunnel of healing. The darkness will yield to the glorious light of freedom from my lifetime of bondage. I am already seeing the first signs of the approaching dawn.
The King of kings lay thus lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friend.
Jesus was born to be our friend in the midst of our trials. He was there when I was being hurt, grieving mightily that such evil could be inflicted upon an innocent child. And as my heart and spirit fragmented into a thousand pieces and bled in places that nobody could see, He was the one binding it up, trying so hard to stop the bleeding.
He knows our need, our weakness is no stranger,
God knows what we need. He knows exactly how we were broken, so He knows exactly what needs fixing. He knows where our weak spots are, and he knows how to reinforce them. Only He truly knows the gravity of what we endured because He endured it alongside of us. Only He truly knows how badly our souls bleed.
And he doesn’t hold our weaknesses against us. He doesn’t judge us for them. He wants to deliver us from our weaknesses and stop the internal bleeding.
Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.
And in his name all oppression shall cease.
God has the power to break the chains that bind us. He will stop the oppression in our lives — the oppression of the past that never seems to go away. Through God, we can truly break free from the chains that bind us and no longer live an oppressed life.
This hymn is very personal to me. It is my proclamation that I will survive this Christmas and I will thrive. A new day is dawning, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!!
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Blooming Lotus 
I am also a child abuse survivor. I have struggled for many years with anger as to why I was abused. I could never understand how God, who sees everything, could allow me to be abused right in front of Him. I have felt very angry with God, and very confused.
My life has been full of abuse. I have gone from one abusive situation to another. I know now that this is what happens to many child abuse survivors – the abuse does not end with the end of childhood at all – it is ongoing. Abuse survivors tend to blame themselves for the abuse – there is a real need to blame someone, and many abused people can’t openly blame the person who abused them, if they are close family members, because of the loyalty code which is at the heart of family life. To do otherwise means cutting yourself out of your own family and becoming a lone wolf. So abused people play a game which I call “Happy Families”. It’s pretending things are ok, when they most certainly are not.
My family were nominal christians. We did not go to church as a family, and we were not taught to speak with God as a family. I don’t think we even had a family Bible. But if anyone would have asked my parents about their faith, they would have said that they were christians. I do not recall ever praying together as a family.
I do not know why God allowed me to be abused as a child. I do know that He is with me and that He always has been with me, and that He always will be with me, beyond this life. I do know that He is not only wiping away all my tears, He is helping me use my own dreadful experiences to empathise with other people, who are hurting so bad. I can understand the hurt, because I have been there too.
I understand how helpless I am, and how much I need God. I understand how God can strengthen a person, who really should, one would expect, to have no chance at recovering from some terrible life experience blows, and to give that person the ability to hold up their head in dignity and even be able to laugh with joy. God does indeed have the power to break any chain which binds us, and He only wants good things for His children. But we have to talk and walk with Him!
[…] reader left a comment with these kinds of questions on my post, Christmas After Child Abuse: O Holy Night. Her comment prompted me to write about this […]