A Savior That Understands

During this time of year, our Passionate Heart groups have begun to take a look at our own lives and how we have responded to our abuse. Many of us have struggled in our relationship with God and find it difficult to trust God because we know that God is fully capable of either preventing or stopping their abuse. This is especially true for those whose abusers claimed to be believers and/or were leaders in their churches. Many of us have also wanted God to expose the abusers for what they are and cause each one to own his actions and apologize without us ever having to confront or tell. Many of the women in the group say that if they could ask God questions they mostly would ask, “Why?” Some want to know why they were abused, but others really just want to know why God doesn’t stop childhood sexual abuse.


This week we have looked at how our abuse has impacted our relationship with God and how we have viewed Him. We try to provide a safe place for all of us to share honestly what is on our hearts and on our minds so that we can begin to let go of our tendency to mistrust God and withhold our heart from Him. We desire the women in the group to become able to fully trust God and become passionate about Him and the life that He has called them to live. We’re honest in telling them that we don’t have an answer to the “why’s,” but we do encourage them to take their questions and their emotions and share them honestly with God.


This week we discussed Chapter 16 of our curriculum, Growing a Passionate Heart. The Chapter essentially is a call to recognize that Christ truly understands what it is like to have been abused. The Scriptures make it clear that Christ’s appearance was so marred by his beating that He no longer resembled a human. The Word also makes it clear that He was despised and rejected by others and was even a man from whom others hid their faces. He was a man of sorrows and was intimately acquainted with grief. He bore our grief and our sorrow and yet the people around Him considered Him smitten and afflicted by God. He was wounded, crushed and chastised for our sins. He was oppressed and He died a violent death, literally crushed as an offering for our sin. Christ went through pain that was very similar to our pain. He was stripped of His clothes and hung naked and exposed on the cross. Not only does He understand the pain of being physically wounded, He understands the emotional pain of having others blame Him for things for which He was not responsible. The Lord understands the heart-wrenching grief and sorrow of rejection. He understands what it feels like to have those closest to Him turn their backs on Him when He was facing His worst emotional pain and His greatest fears. He understands the feelings associated with being oppressed and what it’s like to suffer the pain and the consequences of someone else’s sin. Jesus even understands the feelings that we have when we say that we feel forsaken by the God who could have protected us, and chose not to, for on the cross He cried out, “My God, why have your forsaken me?” The truth is Christ was abused so that you and I could be saved as well as healed. The cross, itself, is proof that God pours out His wrath on sin.


I hate childhood sexual abuse. I believe that that is the Father’s heart being manifested in me. I still cringe when I hear women’s stories and still find myself having to lay my anger at the abusers at the foot of the cross. Yet, I am also vey aware that the Bible talks about the fellowship of suffering. We can begin to understand another’s pain by experiencing something similar. Because of what we have been through, we have been given a much clearer glimpse of the suffering Christ endured on our behalf. I know as I have come to grasp that truth, I have been more curious about God and the way He chooses to operate in our lives. I have grown to trust Him more and hunger and thirst after Him with a desire to be able to love as passionately as He does. I have also come to understand that the story He began in the Garden of Eden is still being written and it is a story of redemption and healing. His love and His grace and His power are enough to fully redeem our lives and restore numb and dissociated hearts to the passion He created us to feel. I encourage you to pour out your pain and your anger and questions to Him. Don’t let those things you refuse to acknowledge keep you from the intimacy with God that can heal your heart.