Freedom Ministries Blog

Words! Words we say. Words we think. Words that oth­ers use to describe us! Words, if inter­nal­ized, define us, gov­ern us, con­trol us and even destroy us. They influ­ence and affect us emo­tion­ally, spir­i­tu­ally and phys­i­cally. It is amaz­ing how impor­tance words are! The way we believe these words, leads directly to the way we behave.

Words to describe the pain caused by sex­ual abuse

• I can’t trust any man
• All men are inter­ested in is sex or lust
• Sex is dis­gust­ing and gross, I can’t believe God designed and cre­ated it.
• I feel dirty every time I become aroused by my husband
• No way out – trapped

Imag­ine an abused woman think­ing these neg­a­tive thoughts and how she feels: I was a sub­mis­sive and naïve girl. I couldn’t say no to my husband’s advances before mar­riage. I was trapped; I had no way out. I feel unsafe any time I’m close to a man.

What about the issue of Dis­so­ci­a­tion? Many abused women dis­so­ci­ate when they are phys­i­cally involved with their hus­bands. They are unable to stay involved men­tally and emo­tion­ally, so they go away in their mind to a safe place, while their hus­band is unaware what his wife is going through.

Words to resolve the pain of sex­ual abuse

Let’s say that your wife was sex­u­ally abused at age 14 by young men that took advan­tage of her sex­u­ally. Here are some sen­si­tive emo­tional ques­tions you can ask your wife to care for her heart:

• Would you help me under­stand the pain you car­ried as a result of your abuse?
• Can I, as your hus­band, make you feel secure; that I will never lust or pres­sure you like your uncle did?
• I don’t want you to feel dirty and vio­lated. Can I care for your heart, so that when we are phys­i­cally involved, you will feel cher­ished and respected as God cre­ated you to feel?
• I want to cleanse your heart as Christ cleansed the pain from the abuse.
• Can I have the pain you received through the abuse?

Affir­ma­tion Words

• Hon­ored – Can I honor and respect you through the pain you expe­ri­enced through the abuse?
• Pro­tected – What if I pro­tected you from oth­ers who may be focused to lust after you?
• Respected
• Safe
• Secure

What words have been defin­ing your life?

Has any­one ever used words to care about your pain?

What words would make your heart feel safe?

Sex is a beau­ti­ful thing that God cre­ated pri­mar­ily for the mar­riage rela­tion­ship. The prob­lem is when a per­son is sex­u­ally abused, every­thing goes in reverse. They are now repulsed by the very expe­ri­ence they were cre­ated to enjoy. Our min­istry helps restore them to God’s orig­i­nal design, before the abuse occurred.

1.  The first way a per­son is dam­aged is when their thoughts change about them­selves, their self-perception is altered. “I’m ugly, dirty, no one will ever want me, I’m dam­aged goods”, or, “all I’m good for is sex.”
2.  Sec­ondly, their thoughts about sex­u­al­ity become warped. Like, “all men want is sex”. That is not true, but a lady who has five men take advan­tage of her, pres­sure her for sex or leave her, causes deep rejec­tion pain. That lady will strug­gle because she believes, if she is going to get accep­tance, she has to give her­self phys­i­cally. Then real­ity sets in when she finds out that, as she gives her­self phys­i­cally, that man will never love her above a 3 % level.
3.  The third way a per­son is dam­aged is that they become emo­tion­ally charged with anger and rage and either hate sex or become promis­cu­ous. It is shock­ing how many women hate men and hate sex. 90% of sex­u­ally abused girls become 90% hos­tile and that anger is directed toward the men that have dam­aged them. 95% of these girls will get divorced. 95% of pros­ti­tutes have been sex­u­ally abused and hate men. Men are their tar­gets to bring down immorally. One young woman was date-raped by a boyfriend. She began to believe the lie that all she was good for was sex, so to prove her worth­less­ness, she became promis­cu­ous and allowed sev­eral young men to take advan­tage of her. They used her for their plea­sure, not car­ing for her heart, not respect­ing her value as a per­son, then, dis­card­ing her, affirm­ing her dis­torted view of herself.
4.  Many sex­u­ally abused women become dom­i­nant to pro­tect them­selves from fur­ther abuse. They dom­i­nate because they have to become stronger than the men who have dam­aged them, so they can pro­tect them­selves from fur­ther abuse.

There are many books writ­ten on sex­ual abuse for women. Women are emo­tion­ally dam­aged severely. But, men are dam­aged just as severely as women by sex­ual abuse, but very few books are writ­ten for them. In fact, an Asso­ci­ated Press arti­cle in the United States noted in 1998 that “as many as one in five boys is sex­u­ally abused and that this abuse is under­re­ported and under­treated.” Men will emo­tion­ally shut down and will many times dis­so­ci­ate or emo­tion­ally detach any time you get close to their pain of being sex­u­ally abused. Men are equally dam­aged and need some­one to care about them.

How have you been dam­aged by Sex­ual Abuse?

Have you ever shared your pain with anyone?

What would your life be like with­out the pain?

Obvi­ously, there are as many ways to abuse some­one as there are abusers, but let’s look at  seven ways peo­ple are sex­u­ally abused. And then, would you answer some per­sonal questions?

• Lust. If a man is in pornog­ra­phy and is lust­ing after women, that woman will feel vio­lated, even though she doesn’t know what’s hap­pen­ing. This, of course, can hap­pen any­where; at work, pub­lic enter­tain­ment, sports events, while shop­ping, and even in
  church, where women feel vio­lated when they are around cer­tain individuals.
• Touch­ing another per­son inap­pro­pri­ately in per­sonal areas that should not be touched by another individual.
• Sex­ual relationships/rape. A girl longs for love and in most of the world’s cul­tures;  she will not be loved unless she gives her­self sex­u­ally. In our world we don’t know how to demon­strate gen­uine love. Young men and women have never learned how to love each other in an appro­pri­ate way, car­ing about and pro­tect­ing each other’s hearts. When two peo­ple are attracted to each other, many times, it’s merely a phys­i­cal attrac­tion, so the rela­tion­ship is shal­low, not mature. And often, the man who is lust­ing, pres­sures the girl into a sex­ual rela­tion­ship. If a man is dom­i­nant, dates a sub­mis­sive girl and pres­sures her sex­u­ally, she feels she can’t say no. She agrees to what he is ask­ing and he assumes she likes what he is doing, but she doesn’t want to move into that sex­ual activ­ity. A dom­i­nant woman may also pres­sure a guy sex­u­ally when the guy doesn’t want sex prior to marriage.
• The fourth way is when a child is shown pornog­ra­phy. Their thoughts begin to turn neg­a­tive toward sex­ual activ­ity and the pornog­ra­phy begins to warp their think­ing about sex­u­al­ity. What if a lit­tle girl dis­cov­ers her father’s pornog­ra­phy and it con­fuses her iden­tity. She begins to think she has to be sex­ual in her behav­ior and dress, if she is going to be accepted by her father. This leads to act­ing out sex­u­ally with her broth­ers and their friends, and later into a promis­cu­ous lifestyle to gain acceptance.
• The fifth is when par­ents expose them­selves to their chil­dren. This is a vio­la­tion of a child’s inno­cence. I have known teenagers whose mother’s expose them­selves to their kids, the teen asks mother to stop doing that and the mother refuses. When this young man gets mar­ried, he may shut down when his wife approaches him sexually.
• The sixth way a per­son is sex­u­ally abused is when another per­son exposes them­selves  to you. Many times in child­hood, one child will expose them­selves to another child  and they emo­tion­ally dam­age the other child so they can’t respond.
• The sev­enth way we may sex­u­ally abuse some­one is by prac­tic­ing homo­sex­ual acts before or dur­ing mar­riage using oral sex.

• Have you been sex­u­ally abused?
• How did it make you feel?
• What does your heart look like now, damaged?

This new series will focus on Sex­ual Abuse and how Sex­ual Abuse dam­ages relationships.

What is Sex­ual Abuse? Def­i­n­i­tion: When a per­son is taken advan­tage of by another through lust, inap­pro­pri­ate touch­ing, fondling or sex­ual activity.

Did you know the June 2011 issue of Jakarta Globe reported that the Indone­sian Soci­ety is in Cri­sis? The National Com­mis­sion for Children’s Pro­tec­tion reported that in 2010, 1,826
cases of vio­lence and sex­ual assault and incest against chil­dren were reported in the first five months! 68 per­cent of cases involved close rel­a­tives! The arti­cle stated that it is the fail­ure of fam­i­lies to pro­tect their children.

One study in New Zealand found that although non-paternal rel­a­tives were the most fre­quently reported per­pe­tra­tors, fathers or step­fa­thers were most likely to per­pe­trate intru­sive and fre­quent child sex­ual abuse. In the same study, only a small num­ber of
per­pe­tra­tors were reported as strangers.¹¹

A recent report by the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion stated that between 8 and 26 per­cent of women and girls in three South Amer­i­can coun­tries report hav­ing expe­ri­enced some type
of sex­ual vio­lence either as chil­dren or adults.²

In 1997, there were 96,122 reported forcible rapes in the United States. (Fed­eral Bureau of
Inves­ti­ga­tion. (released Novem­ber 22, 1998). Crime in the United States,
Uni­form Crime Reports, 1997, p.26. Wash­ing­ton, DC: U.S. Depart­ment of Justice.)

Obvi­ously, we have a world-wide prob­lem with sex­ual abuse!

Over the next sev­eral weeks, we will cover spe­cific areas related to Sex­ual Abuse, like:

• Ways a per­son is Sex­u­ally Abused?
• How is a per­son dam­aged by Sex­ual Abuse?
• Words describ­ing the emo­tional pain of Sex­ual Abuse

and pro­vide clear direc­tion and help­ful tools to expe­ri­ence emo­tional and spir­i­tual free­dom from its affects.

“Peo­ple who strug­gle with drugs, alco­hol and sex­ual addic­tion are always cov­er­ing their pain. I’ve never seen an excep­tion to that. Although many of the prayers we have men­tioned so far are part of the solu­tion to a per­son strug­gling with alcohol/drugs/lust, etc., prayer con­cern­ing rejec­tion is prob­a­bly the root issue. There are so many wounds that cause this per­son to hide behind the wall of addic­tive behav­ior, yet it is Jesus alone who can help them take down that wall of self-protection; that defen­sive wall of rejec­tion. He alone can truly pro­tect and defend them, heal their pain, and love them like they have never been before. Like dis­so­ci­a­tion above, there is a lit­tle boy/girl inside who des­per­ately needs some­one to love them, some­one to look beyond their behav­ior and care about their wounded heart. You and I can be like Jesus to them and lead them to the Won­der­ful Coun­selor.” When they con­fess their moral fail­ure and emo­tion­ally con­nect to Jesus and allow Him to heal their pain, they will lose their desire for lust. If a child is rejected, ridiculed, crit­i­cized and put down and then exposed to pornog­ra­phy, what-ever he is exposed to first, becomes what he is con­stantly attracted to. When he is sex­u­ally aroused, he loses his rejec­tion pain. 70 – 80 % of guys have that prob­lem. You have to go to their emo­tional pain, under­stand it and resolve it for them to lose desire.

How do you resolve rejec­tion?
“Jesus, I was rejected by my mother; she was jeal­ous of the atten­tion oth­ers gave me when I was a child. My mother/father was too busy for me and never said “I love you”. He/She was never affec­tion­ate or ten­der with me. He/She always treated me as if I was a dis­ap­point­ment.. Jesus, what did that do to my heart? Do you care about boys/girls whose mother rejected them? Jesus, how would you heal the pain within my heart? Jesus, every time a per­son rejects me I lock up emo­tion­ally inside. Can you heal that so I can stay open with oth­ers even when they are emo­tion­ally reject­ing me?”

What are some words to resolve rejec­tion?
• I don’t want you to feel rejected by me.
• I want you to feel accepted and under­stood.
• How can I care and meet your emo­tional need for accep­tance?
• How can I care about the pain you’ve received from each indi­vid­ual who has rejected you?
• Will you for­give me for remind­ing you of the way your father/mother rejected you

When some­one stops talk­ing to you or just walks away from you when you’re try­ing to con­nect or com­mu­ni­cate, how do you respond? Many peo­ple who have expe­ri­enced  this all their lives feel aban­doned, neglected and ignored. How do you resolve the pain peo­ple cause? You might try all kinds of behav­ioral meth­ods, but ulti­mately, this is an issue of the heart. Only Jesus, the gen­tle shep­herd, truly under­stands how you have been hurt. Share your pain with him. Here are some examples:

• Jesus, I felt so aban­doned when my mother walked away from the fam­ily when I was four. I really needed a mother.
• Jesus, can You draw me a pic­ture of how my heart was dam­aged by my mother’s absence? What did that do to my heart?
• Have I for­given her? (At each of these ques­tions, wait for the Spirit of God to prompt an answer.)
• Jesus, would you heal my heart from the pain I felt?
• Can you bring peace to my heart, so I can open it to my mom, my spouse, and others?
• What do you want me to do when I feel hurt in this way?

What about the boy whose par­ents emo­tion­ally neglected him? Never asked him what he was eat­ing, never talked with him or played with him. Here’s a sam­ple prayer:

• Jesus, I was neglected as a young child by… I felt so alone, uncared for and excluded. Jesus, what did that do to my heart?
• Would You draw me a pic­ture of my dam­aged heart?
• Could You heal my heart?How would You do that?
• Jesus, how are You dif­fer­ent from those who neglected me?
• Could You bring peace to my heart?

How do you resolve the pain of being ignored?

• Jesus, my father ignored me by…
• He never responded when I wanted to talk to him. He seemed focused else­where. Jesus do You care?
• Jesus, how was I dam­aged emo­tion­ally by his ignor­ing me?
• Jesus, can You heal my heart? How would You do that?
• Jesus, can You make a safe place where I can go to feel secure when I am ignored?
• Can You bring peace to my heart?

Here are some words of love and encour­age­ment you can say to the per­son who is hurting:

•  I don’t want you to ever feel aban­doned, neglected or ignored again.
•  I want you to feel safe that I will never pull away from you or dam­age you like …
• I would like you to feel secure with me.
• Can I care about the pain you feel when oth­ers aban­don, neglect or ignore you?
• I want to under­stand the pain you feel when oth­ers stop talk­ing or walk away from you.
• I’ll never leave you.

When you con­nect to care, you’re going to see the heart of the per­son open and  respond. When I started con­nect­ing to under­stand and care about my wife’s pain,  the expres­sion on her face changed. I saw the lit­tle girl inside; a girl that was needy; a girl that was not like the self-sufficient girl I mar­ried in 1973. I saw an excited look on her face. Her heart began to open up to me. Some­one was car­ing about her heart and she felt loved, cared for, under­stood, safe to be vul­ner­a­ble. When a per­son feels accepted, feels safe to trust, safe to let down their walls of pro­tec­tion, then you have two peo­ple who con­nect emo­tion­ally in a rela­tion­ship. And, you have a heart that begins to heal!