Houston, we have a Humanitarian Problem

In 2012, I had the opportunity to watch a movie called Trade of Innocents and was awakened to the ugly truth of child sex trafficking. It started the conversation in our country but did not have as big of an impact as I hoped it would. I am so thankful another movie, The Sound of Freedom, has had a much larger impact and that more people are seeing this film and talking about it. However, I have been frustrated that some news casters have claimed the film is made up conspiracy theories. I suspect that is because they want to politicize the film, so they don't have to take an honest look at the human (both adult and child) trafficking being spawned by open borders and human smugglers. 

Trafficking of humans and sexual abuse is not a conspiracy theory. Both have been around from the beginning of time. The Old Testament makes it clear that it was woven into various pagan religions when children were offered as human sacrifices and virgin daughters were sacrificed to priests who then used them as temple prostitutes. If we read through the Pentateuch and the prophetic books, we can see all sorts of ugly, horrendous actions perpetrated by mankind. The Bible tells stories that reveals that women were little more than property, not viewed as image bearers of the living God. It is clear that there were times wives and daughters were less important than men and not protected. I am going to share some stories from the Bible and encourage survivors to take care of yourself as you read.

The first story I want to talk about is found in Genesis 19. Lot and his wife and daughters had settled in Sodom and Gomorrah. Tso angels in human form came to warn Lot that God was going to destroy the cities because of their moral decline. Lot invited them into his home and soon the house was surrounded by men of all ages clamoring for Lot to deliver the men to them to gang rape. At first Lost seems like a good guy wanting to protect his guest, but things took an ugly turn when he stepped out to offer the crowd two virgin daughters to abuse instead. They tried to press past Lot to get the "men" and the angels reached out and pulled Lot inside and struck the whole group of men with blindness so that they could not get in the door. This is one place where the daughters had no agency over their bodies and lives and were seen more like property and less value than guests who were strangers. 

Now we will skip to Genesis 34 and look at Dinah's life. She was the daughter of Jacob and Leah. A Hivite prince named Shechem thought he loved her and seized her and raped her and then decided he wanted her as his wife. She again had no agency over her body or her life and like some women in our day became a political pawn. Her brothers became angry and acted like the prince could marry her, if all the men in the Hivite community would get circumcised. So, they did. Then the brothers attacked and killed all the Hivite men on the third day of surgical recovery and plundered everything belonging to those they killed, including their wives and children.

Next, we will visit 2 Sammuel 11-12. This is the story of David and Bathsheba. Most of the things I learned about early in my faith was that she seduced him. The more I read this story and the more I learned of the culture of that day, I realized that isn't true. It was a case of power rape. David as the king was supposed to be out of town fighting battles and she was bathing as was customary after her period. He was walking around his roof and saw her and sent men to bring her to him, knowing her husband was at war. I don't believe she had a lot of choice, because in the story of Esther even a ruler's wife was at the mercy of her husband if she approached him uninvited. When Bathsheba got pregnant, David had her husband killed in battle so he could hide his sin and look like he was simply providing for her. The prophet Nathan came and confronted him and him alone, by exposing his predatory choice to take someone that did not belong to him. Nathan warned him that his secret actions that had so dishonored his God would be dealt with publicly. 

The last story we will discuss is the story of Tamar found in 2 Samuel 13 and reveals an example of generational sin. David had a son named Amnon and a beautiful virgin daughter named Tamar. Amon thought he had fallen in love his half-sister and confided in one of his friends who crafted an ugly plan. Amnon followed the plan and pretended to be sick and had his dad send Tamar to bake him cakes. So, David sent her and when Tamar arrived at Amnon's house, he was lying down. She made the cakes in view of his sight and when she emptied the pan before him, he refused to get up to eat. He sent everyone else out of the home and told Tamar to bring the food into his chamber and feed him. She took the cakes to him and when she leaned over with a cake in hand, he told her to come lie with him. She said, "No, my brother, do not violate me, for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do this outrageous thing." She went on to remind him of the shame she would bear and that he would be considered a fool. She suggested he talk to their father to see if they could marry. He took her by force and violated her and immediately Amnon hated her with a hatred way deeper that the "love" he had loved her with. He he told her to go, leaving filled with shame and grief she put ashes on her head, robe that signified her status as a virgin daughter. She wept hard and lived a desolate life in her brother Absalom's house. And even though David got angry when he heard about the rape, he asked Absalom to spare his life, offering Tamar no words of comfort with the lack of justice for her.  

Even though these are Biblical Stories, the behaviors of the people involved do not reflect the heart of God. God cares about children. Matthew 18:10 says, "See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven." In addition, Jesus crossed the social norms of his day to serve children and women. Matthew 10:24 says, "And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward." Matthew 18:6 says, "But whoever causes one of these little ones who believes in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea."  

Jesus actions crossed the social and cultural mores of his day. He healed two daughters in Mark 5:21-43. The first was a 12-year-old whose dad was Jarius, a leader of the synagogue. The second had been bleeding for the entire 12 years the other had been alive. Her bleeding wasn't an inconvenience, it was a matter of life and death and had left her poverty stricken and exiled from social activities. But for some reason she believed if she could touch His clothing, she would be well. She reached. She touched and she was healed and Jesus' words, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease," sweetly reestablished her socially into the community. Jesus then went to Jairus's home where is little girl lay, having passed away. He raised her from the dead and told them to give her something to eat. This passage of care is a powerful antidote to misogynistic tendencies of men in that day. It proves that women and children are not less valuable than men in God's eyes.

John 8:1-11 is the story of a woman who was caught in adultery. She was thrust at Jesus feet without the partner of the adulterous act. Jesus penned untold words in the sand and challenged those who were without sin to cast the first stones. And one by one the men turned and left, and Jesus tells looked her in the eye and said, "Neither do I condemn you." Jesus made it clear that church is to be a place of compassion and grace, even for women. He also made it clear that women were not to be expected to pay for the sins of the men in their life. 

In John 4:1-30, Jesus crossed the barriers of gender, nationality, tribe, and religion when he conveniently sits by a well so that he can have a lengthy conversation with a Samaritan woman who had had five husbands and was now living with a man to whom she wasn't married. After touching on her life's story, the conversation turned into theological debate that resulted in her believing in Jesus and God used this socially ostracized daughter to bring her community to Himself. 

In Luke 13:10-17 Jesus was confronted for healing a woman who had been suffering physically for 18 years on the Sabbath. He stood up to the religious leaders who condemned the healing on the Sabbath saying, "Ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham who Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?  

And then in Mark 14:3-9 another woman poured costly ointment on Jesus' head, causing those in the vicinity to complain about the waist. Jesus again defended her for showing Him love in the way she did. He said, "Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her." He was defending and celebrating her lavish act of love in the anointing of His body and the fact that women are often the intuitive and compassionate ones to meet important needs. 

With what I have shared I hope you can see that the stories of abuse are nothing new to this world. They are not conspiracy theories. They happen everywhere--both inside and outside the church. It happens in families, friend circles, in communities, in schools, in every people group across the world. When will we wake up as human beings and realize this is not a political issue, not made-up stories of hysterical women, it is a critical humanitarian crisis that needs immediate attention, Our God's heart is weeping for every victim, and the Lion of Judah--He is roaring to get our attention. How are we going to respond? What actions are we going to take. 

Satan's Most Effective Weapons

Whether we want to admit it or not, sexual abuse is occurring in every denomination. It is not just found in the Southern Baptist Convention, the Catholic church, or New Tribes Missions. The stories I hear in our support groups have indicated this. Many of the abusers that are talked about in group were pastors, youth pastors, elders, Sunday School teachers, youth workers, worship leaders, and family relatives who were churchgoing people. All of these people were nice and appeared to be God-fearing people. But, in reality they were people grooming and preying on children, teens, and sometimes adult women.

It is time for us to realize sexual abuse is not just a world problem. Every week their are men and women sitting in our pews who were abused in the past and have never told their stories. They may not even know the abuse that happened long ago is still impacting how they view their world. They may not realize it is impacting how they react and respond to life's events and to people currently in their lives. They may not understand that it also impacts their ability to fully trust God and His plans for their lives.

While it is true that some survivors have sought out the church because they were abused by non-churched people, many have been abused by those in a church setting. Some of those that were abused by people in the church left and others stayed, but have a hard time trusting people within the church. We must understand that when abuse happens within the church or in a "Christian" home, the wounding is great, because we all desire and maybe even expect the church to be one of the safest, most loving places in the world.

We should not be surprised that abuse takes place in churches because Satan is on the prowl, seeking whom he can destroy. Because he is evil, he targets children, believing that if he can destroy their hearts and their ability to trust God, he can silence the testimony of whole generations. One of the strongest and most effective weapons Satan has in his arsenal is sexual abuse. Not only does it destroy children's passion, it silences their voices, causes them not to trust their own intuition, causes them to forget that they were made in the image of God, and convinces them they are too dirty, too defiled, and too defective to be loved and empowered to serve in the church.

Another weapon in Satan's arsenal has been the church and her response to abuse. Many people in the church don't want to believe survivors' hard-to-hear stories. I have had people tell me those kinds of things don't really happen or if those things have happened to someone they would have told someone before now. Yet, we learned from the gymnasts who suffered for years at the hand of Larry Nassar that they repeatedly told and no one did anything. We have learned that children repeatedly reported the abuse they endured to the Catholic Church, to Southern Baptist Churches, and to the New Tribes Mission Board. They were silenced. Those religious bodies never reported the abuse to legal authorities. It was covered up and abusers were simply relocated and left to abuse others.

We can be sure more victims will come forward in the future. Some of them will have remained silent because they were threatened and just now realize it is safe enough to tell. Some have remained silent because they were told the abuse endured was their fault and the resulting shame experienced forced them to keep it a secret. They are just now hearing the truth that abuse is never the victim's fault. Some went through abuse so horrendous at such a young age that their mind has refused to remember it until they were old enough to have words to describe it and until they were in a safe enough environment to face its impact on their lives. And, many did not tell, because they did not believe anyone would believe their story.

Our first response as believers to hearing about abuse is very telling. How often have we gotten defensive, claiming the victims must be lying? How often have we cast doubt on their stories, saying they must have misunderstood their perpetrators' actions? How often have we blamed the victim, implying they were somehow complicit? How often have we implied they did something or wore something that caused their perpetrator to act out? How often have we told victims, just to forgive and move on, denying the horrific impact it has had on them physically, spiritually, emotionally, or psychologically and then act like they are somehow defective for not just getting over it? How often have we gotten upset at the media for exposing the horrendous sin, sin that we, ourselves, should have exposed and dealt with instead of being more concerned about "damage control?"

We need to realize the cover ups, the inaction, and the mishandling of abuse is just as damaging to survivors as the original violations were. When we cover up victimization, we can be sure the Lion of Judah will rise up. He will see that the sin is exposed and He will see that those responsible for covering it up are exposed as well.

When we are indignant, we tend to respond very poorly to abuse. We do this because we believe we are somehow protecting Jesus and His church's reputation. But, the truth is when the church covers up abuse, it ceases to be Jesus' church. The truth is a church's reputation is more damaged by the coverup of abuse and the lack of protection for the vulnerable than it is by an abuser abusing someone..

And, our Jesus--He doesn't  need us to protect His reputation, He needs us to be obedient to speaking up for the abused. He needs us to assertively confront abusive behavior of any kind. He needs us to compassionately care for victims. The Jesus of the gospels was not a passive make everyone feel good kind of guy. He publicly confronted sin in the religious system. He strongly confronted religious leaders who were taking advantage of the flocks entrusted to them. He confronted those who were not protecting the vulnerable in their care. Jesus never worried about the horrible things people said about Him, He simply lived out His integrity for all to see. If He didn't see a need to defend Himself, why do we think He needs us to?

The church needs to realize predators do not wear scarlet "P's" on their chests. They look just like you or me. They appear to be kind and loving. They appear to have high morals. They are often married and have families. They are often very gifted people and they also prey on the vulnerable. We cannot assume a person is the sum total of what we know of them. Each of us is capable of horrific acts.

Survivors in our groups have been told not to say something evil about such that "godly" man. They have been told that by talking about the abuse they could cause the man to be fired or split up his family. Some have been told that the church's reputation would be ruined by their telling. Some have been told it is wrong to ruin the lives of such gifted men. All of these statements were used to manipulate victims into silence. They shifted what should have been adult responsibilities on to the shoulders of children--shoulders that were way too small to bear the weight of what was being put on them.

Come on, Church! Wake up! Abusers can be kind to gain access to their victims. They may act loving to win over their prey. They may act moral so people will not suspect they are capable of the evil they are hiding. They may be married and may have families, but that doesn't mean they aren't capable of abusing children, teens, or vulnerable women. We need to realize the safest church is a church who reports abuse. Don't we believe our God is big enough, gracious enough, and faithful enough to replace a "gifted" abuser with another gifted servant who doesn't abuse?

There is another way the church can be used as one of Satan's weapons that is as insidious as overt abuse is. We have let the world's view of "boys will be boys" and "men will be men" creep into our churches. Men don't hold each other accountable for Godly behaviors, sexual integrity, and Godly actions towards women. Over the years, I and other women have seen men and teenage boys standing in groups, nudging each other as they look over the women and teenage girls coming and going. I recently had someone tell me she was sitting in a coffee shop when she noticed a well known pastor sitting at a table with his computer and Bible open in front of him. At first she thought it was cool, but then noticed every time a female walked in he looked her up and down. She said it was creepy to watch him looking over women with a Bible open in front of him. The truth is that is creepy! Some may laugh at this, but when men who are called by God to be leaders of churches and homes do not hold themselves to Biblical standards of relating to women, they normalize predatorial behaviors, making them seem normal. This is dangerous because those things that should alert us that something is not right become normal and we end up putting ourselves or our children in vulnerable situations where great harm is done.

I pray our churches become safe havens. I pray that we would believe victim's stories. I pray that every church would put in place a committees to handle complaints so that little girls who have been raped by grown men do not have to sit in a room full of men to tell their stories. I pray that we would call legal authorities to report abuse so abusers cannot continue to prey on people. If we just followed God's instructions in how to relate to one another, we could no longer be used by Satan as his most effective weapons for destroying the hearts of people God has placed in our body.

Do You Want to get Well?

February is eating disorder awareness month, so I decided to share a bit of my journey with you. Looking back, I can't remember a time in which food wasn't an issue for me. In my preschool years I developed a mild preoccupation with food and asked at the end of each meal what would be served at the next. By second grade, I had already begun to believe I was fat, ugly, and defective. I believed I needed to lose weight, even though my childhood pictures tell a different story. By junior high, I was trying one fad diet after another and soon developed a legalistic perspective about food, causing me to categorize all foods as either good foods or bad foods. Every new diet had it's own restrictions and when I put them all together, the list of acceptable foods became quite small.

The summer after eight grade, my family was in the process of moving and I stayed behind with my mom to finish my summer job as she finished her graduate classes. I didn't like the feelings of anxiety and grief that I was experiencing over the impending move and found relief by focusing on my weight and whatever diet I was currently on. After all, I didn't want to be rejected in a new school for being too "fat." During that summer I started fasting for weeks at a time and I exercised obsessively late into the night. It was easy to get away with the behaviors because I worked in the evenings and my mom assumed I ate at the restaurant I worked in and didn't know I was exercising after she was asleep. After the move, I spent a year overeating and then as I adjusted I began another cycle of rigid dieting.

As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, I was growing increasingly uncomfortable in my maturing body and, as an introvert, I often felt inadequate navigating relationships. So, I hid behind by disorder. During that time I remember not wanting to grow up, while at the same time I took on many of the adult responsibilities so I was too busy to just hang out. At the end of tenth grade, we were involved in an accident in which a woman died and the trauma of that event threw me into a full-blown eating disorder. The rest of my high school years were plagued by stressful situations--three adults in our family having major surgeries in the same year, dysfunctional unhealthy relationships, having a boyfriend who nearly died after accidently shooting himself, and having a friend's mother die from suicide. I was spinning with emotions I couldn't process and to calm the internal chaos I took even more control over my diet and exercise program. When I was successful at keeping the food rules, I felt powerful and believed I was a good Christian for having such great self control. However, even one bite of something not on the good list would throw me into shame and self-contempt so deep that it was paralyzing at time. I often found myself confessing to God what I had labeled as my sin.

When I first entered counseling I thought all the painful emotions I experienced were only about the food I ate, but as I began to eat healthier, I realized those feelings of shame and self-contempt were also tied to other things not so easy to control. They were tied to the desire to be perfect, which I thought necessary to earn God's love and approval. They were tied to sin that I had confessed, but had had a hard time believing God had forgiven. And, they were tied to the sexual abuse for which I was wrongfully been blaming myself.

At one point in my recovery my counselor gently asked me, "Do you want to get well or am I the only one who wants that for you?" The question felt familiar as I processed it with her. Later that evening, I realized it was familiar because it essentially the same question Jesus had asked the man laying by the Bethesda Pool in Jerusalem. The paralyzed man had been laying there for thirty eight years, waiting to be healed. I knew Jesus healed that man on the Sabbath to draw attention to the ugly legalism of the religious leaders and soon realized the legalism Jesus was confronting was not all that different than the strict legalistic rules about food that I had created for myself. I think anyone who has struggled with any type of besetting sin, eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual addiction, or thought patterns that spiral them into despair can relate to the paralytic's struggle and to mine as well.

We try in our own power to stop doing something and then fail. That failure leads us to eventually give up, believing we are powerless to do anything about it. As believers we may even hide our sin and addictions for a season, but when we do that we live under a shroud of shame that God never meant us to live under. Sometimes, we even excuse our sin, saying boys will be boys, girls will be girls, or everybody does it. At other times we redefine sin as I did with my food rules and end up beating ourselves up for something God never said was wrong.

We don't need a list of rules to follow to defeat whatever it is that cripples us. We need Jesus. I know that sounds like a platitude, but hang with me for a few moments and let me explain what I mean. I needed Jesus with skin on in the form of other believers. I needed someone to hear my story and sit with me as I experienced the pain from my past that I buried deep for fear that if I felt it I would crumble into pieces that no one could put back together. These people were people who were willing to weep with me and rejoice with me. I needed them to enter the dark places of my mind to help me see that I had wrongfully defined eating food as sin and help me see that God intended it for both nourishment and pleasure. I needed them to help me realize that the traumatic events I had experienced weren't proof of God's displeasure with me. I needed them to help me recognize the lies I believed so that I could learn to replace them with God's truth. I needed people who could help me learn how to starve the monster called "Shame" by teaching me that I could worship God as I ate the food He provided with a thankful heart and that I had the power, as an adult, to give the shame of my abuse back to my abusers.

I needed Jesus in the form of His truth. That truth sometimes came in the form of the written Word that I digester during quiet times--truth that helped me to learn to walk with God through the recovery process. Sometimes His truth came in the form of sermons I heard in church, on the radio, or watched on the internet. Sometimes it came in the form of form of encouragement notes others graciously wrote to me. Sometimes it came in the form of music that other struggling saints had penned--music of people like Michael Card, Dennis Jernigan, Amy Grant, Natalie Grant, and many others. Sometimes it came in the form of processing verses through conversations I had with friends, allowing me to slow down and contemplate how Gods' truth impacts me daily.  

I needed Jesus in the form of accountability partners who were willing to take calls from me when I was struggling with eating-disorder behaviors. These were nonjudgmental people, who understood the process of overcoming strongholds is a battle that begins in the mind. One night I called one partner because I had struggled with the desire to binge and over-exercise all day and I was exhausted. I called her and listed the things I was tempted to do and told her I was choosing not to do them. I asked her, "If I don't do those things, what can I do?" She laughed, which made me laugh and the laughing broke the miserable feeling of angst with which I had been experiencing all day. She reminded me of a couple of healthy behaviors I could do to process my emotions and then we just visited a few minuets about our lives often dissolving in laughter. I realized later that the healthiest thing I did that day was to choose to connect with someone who loved Jesus and was willing to simply be there. She didn't shame me. She didn't have to hear all of my garbage. She didn't throw verses or platitudes at me. She didn't even try to fix me or scold me for being weak. She just simply reminded me she cared.

There were also times that accountability partners were unavailable and I simply needed to sit at the feet of Jesus, confessing to Him the struggle I was experiencing so that I would come to know that He would meet me there. During these times, I chose to be like Jacob wrestling with God by crying out to Him in radical transparency. As I cried out to Him, I also reminded myself of His truth and chose to meditate on verses that reminded me of His love and His power, and His faithfulness. I committed to staying in a constant state of prayer, holding on to Him for all that I was worth until He provided the relief I needed. It was in those times I came to understand that intimacy with God doesn't come out of denying myself of food, out of being a perfect Christian, or out of having a perfect recovery. It came out of minute by minute decisions to fully trust and obey God in the face of powerful urges that are a part of eating disorders. Intimacy with God became a reality in my struggles, not something I hoped might attain in the future. How cool is that? It came from hanging on to Him as hard as I had to, for as long as it took. God faithfully rode those waves of temptation and empowered me to stand firm when everything in me wanted to cave. It was freeing to come to grips with the truth that God never expected perfection, He simply desired me to trust Him enough to invite Him into the struggle.

I know from God's word that I am not alone in the struggle for there is no temptation that is not common to man. That means every reader reading this is struggling with temptation of some sort. Some may have even made a list of their own rules they think will help them overcome sin, only to be filled with shame again and again because they fail. Let me ask you the question Jesus asked the man and that my counselor friend asked me, "Do you want to get well?" I wonder what might happen if you give up the rules you have devised and let Jesus join you in your struggle. I wonder how your life might be different if in the middle of the struggle you reached out to a safe person who can help you get out of your own head and help you remember that your Jesus is near. I wonder what might happen if the next time temptation hits, you were to hold on to the Savior for dear life and let His love, His grace, and His strength wash over you. I believe that you, too, will find that Jesus will provide all you need to have the victory you desire. Starve the shame monster that tries to tells you different for the cross, itself, points to the faithfulness of our God in the face of our sin. Do you want to get well?