One-fourth of American women and a growing number of men have experienced some form of sexual abuse, ranging from inappropriate talk to years of repeated physical violation.
Sexual abuse produces emotional, psychological and spiritual damage that devastates some of its victims. The fallout can last for years, even for a lifetime.
Victims may experience fear of relationships, anxiety, a hatred or distrust of men, an overwhelming sense of shame and guilt, loss of self-worth, difficulty with sex in marriage, a tendency to promiscuity, and inability to relate to God.
Victims often carry the secret of their experiences as a heavy burden, afraid of the effect on family and friends if others knew. Many miss the happiness of a carefree childhood.
Abuse survivors often have trouble with sex in marriage because they associate it with painful memories. After sexual trauma, sex often seems dirty and repulsive.
The victim needs to realize that God does not look at sex that way. Just as we need to get corrective lenses when our eyes are deceiving us, we need to let God's word correct our feelings about sex.
In Christ there is healing for people damaged by sexual abuse. As with every other kind of sin-damage in this fallen world, God's word gives us steps back to wholeness and his truth sets us free.
Abuse victims often need professional counseling (caution: some secular counselors undermine Christian values). But the ultimate answers are spiritual. Here are some steps to health based on principles from the scriptures -
•In the creation, God "made them male and female," says Genesis 1:27. It was the holy and good God who thought up human anatomy and sexual attraction.
•"God saw all that he had made and it was very good," says Genesis 1:31.God commanded Adam and Eve to come together. They did so with his blessing, according to Genesis 1:28; 2:24.
•God gave us sex as a beautiful gift. The scriptures celebrate the joy of sexual love within holy marriage, say Proverbs 5, Song of Solomon, 1Corinthians 5:2-5, and Hebrews 13:4.
If we associate sex with shame and abuse, it is only because of what the sinful world has done to it. God says sex is good. He does not want us to see it as bad.
The abuse victim may see this with the mind; it takes longer to convince his or her emotions. But this has to happen before there can be healing. Learn the difference between true and false guilt, and accept God's forgiveness for any guilt that is real.
Often abuse victims carry a huge burden of guilt and condemn themselves because of what has happened. Though much abuse happens before a child is old enough to know right and wrong, many victims hold themselves unreasonably accountable, as though they should have been thinking like adults when they were small.
God would not expect of them what they demand of themselves.Abusers are devilishly clever at leading children by gradual steps. Bribes or threats are often used, things that an adult can handle, but not a child.
Victims of all ages are raped against their will. People who have suffered abuse often run on an endless treadmill of guilt and never feel clean or forgiven.
They say, "I know God forgives others, but I don't believe God can forgive my sin. Other people could not forgive or accept me if they knew my secret."
We need to get a Biblical view of forgiveness. God has forgiven millions of adulterers and immoral people who were grown up and chose to do what they did; how much more can he accept people who were too young to be responsible, or who were forced into wrong behavior!
•King David committed adultery with Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, and then had Uriah killed to cover things up. Yet when David came to his senses and cried to God for forgiveness, God forgave him, says 2 Kings 11,12, and Psalms 32,51.
•Jesus took a lot of time teaching a woman who had been through five divorces and was now living with a man. He changed her life, says John 4.
•Jesus forgave the woman who had been caught in adultery and set her on a new path, says John 8:1-11.
•He forgave the prostitute who washed his feet with her tears of repentance, says Luke 7:36-50.
The Corinthians had committed all kinds of sexual sin and perversion, yet they had been "washed, made holy, justified" when they came to Christ - 1Corinthians 6:9-11.
When Christ forgives us, we are "born again;" the old person we were is buried with Christ and we begin a new life, clean and free, says John 3:3-5, Romans 6:3-5, and 2 Corinthians 5:17.
And when God forgives, he Really forgives! "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool" - Isaiah1:18."As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us" - Psalm 103:3,8-13.
