Survivor/Storyteller
In the age of speaking, let us not forget that doing so must remain a choice – not a compulsory act.
When she took her first baby steps, my brokenness pierced her tiny feet. As she has grown, I have grown. I have spent the sum total of her life picking the invisible and inviscerating splinters out of her heart and mine.
“I am a hunter, the best – a predatory beast.
You are the hunted, the prey and the least.”
– Lori Anne Thompson
TRIGGER WARNING
I share this video clip because – well, it’s me. It is real, it feels like life, and tastes like hope. Hope beyond abuse. Hope beyond loss. Hope beyond shame. Hope beyond hopelessness.
It was taken recently by my oldest child (selfie extraordinaire) when we were walking the streets of her college town after eating a vegan meal (I am not vegan, she is, but everyone should eat more plants) and walking several city blocks to where my car was not. Of note, this city was recently recorded as the worlds coldest city, as luck would have it, I was in a skirt.
“It’s seems impossible to convince people that private behaviour cannot be predicted from public behaviour. Kind, non-violent individuals behave well in public, but so do many people who are brutal behind the scenes. The growing sexual abuse crisis in the church just underlines that fact the offenders can recognize ideal settings for child molestors even if the rest of us can’t.” – Anna Salter
How then, did the wicked man lower his estimation of his God?
By increasing his estimation of himself.
“For nothing is evil in the beginning.” -J.R.R. Tolkien
This is the man who has crawled after he collapsed.
This is the man, who stayed when he could go.
This is the man who daily fights just to stand under the crushing weight of my story – of our story.
“I’m just not that sort of girl, you know?”
“I know honey, of course you’re not.” (Little does she know there is no ‘sort of girl’ that takes her clothes off, no particular ‘sort’ at all…)
I’d gain the sheep’s trust, from the oldest to the youngest. I’d get me a rep-u-tation for being a fine sheep, a faithful sheep, a defender of the Shepherd. Yep… that’s it! (I’m getting so worked up here…) I’d make sure it looked like I was real cosy with the Shepherd. After all, the sheep TRUST the Shepherd, they know His voice. Yep… that’s what I’d do – I’d watch the Shepherd carefully and mimic Him. That would give me credibility that I clearly don’t have on my own – I am a wolf after all.
I am the poor woman, fooled and and ripped apart,
I am the woman bearing savage soul scars.
I am the victim driven from the pew,
I am the survivor clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old game I knew,
Of protect the strong and crush the weak.
“Seduction: The act by which a man entices a woman to have unlawful sexual relations with him by means of persuasions, solicitations, promises without the use of physical force or violence.”
