Alone

I have had my next story in my mind and have been praying for over a week that the Lord would give me the words to write. Jason asked recently why I haven't written anything yet and I told him that God had not given me the words yet. This morning the good Lord gave me words to a different story. This one takes me back a ways.

At just seventeen years old, young and scared, I enter the room that I had been living in for a week. Tables and chairs are in the middle of the room as they always are but now several men sit before me. All but one are elders of the congregation. The one that sits at the head of the table is the man who spends his time as both a minister and youth minister of this church. The one that was to take me on the mission trip that summer. I stood with my dear friend who rescued me. She and I both took a seat and the conversation began. First there was my account of how scriptures had been used to justify evil. Twisted and turned into perversion. The excuse he used to make it okay for him to plan a camping trip for just the two of us later that week. Then the most difficult memory that is burned into my mind. It's uncomfortably dark and cold. I sit on the couch where he wraps us both in a blanket and puts his arm around me. I try to control my terror. His wife gets home from work and I am thrilled to have someone come to my rescue but instead with wide eyes she says she is going to bed early. I find my opportunity and jump from the couch saying I too need to go to bed. I then walked back to the church building next door. I go down into the dark basement, past the tables and chairs and into a small room that has nothing but a bed. I lay down on my face and begin to cry and pray. I stayed that way until the early hours of the morning when I couldn't cry anymore and I fell asleep. I awoke a few hours later to the phone ringing. It was my rescue. What I know was my only way out.

I sit in front of these men embarrassed to tell my story of how I didn't scream for help. I wait for their response. They ask the minister for his explanation. He simply explains that I must have taken things the wrong way and that I am confused. The men sit quiet for a few minutes then reply that indeed there must have been a miscommunication. My last statement was not planned. To this day I believe the Holy Spirit guided my words. I said, "If you believe nothing else, believe this. He was swerving when he drove and before the summer is over he will wreck the van." We end the meeting in prayer and I walk out of  that room for the very last time. As I walked to my friends car one of the men asked to talk to me. Wrapping one arm around my shoulder in love he said he really hoped that I could forgive. Then he walked away. I went to church that night. I had done nothing wrong and had nothing to hide. I knew these people, they were my brothers and sisters in Christ. I sat in the front row where the missionaries always sat. I sat alone. Not one person came to sit with me. Not one person came to talk to me. I was thousands of miles from home and I sat completely alone.

I traveled home later that week. It's expected in the church that I speak nothing of what happened. It was never really said, I just knew and I didn't want anything to be construed as gossip or to speak badly about people that I should respect. Not one person from that congregation called to see how I was doing. Not one reached out. I suffered alone in silence. At the end of summer I got a call from a very good friend that had been on the mission trip the year before and had gone again that summer. I never had a chance to tell her what happened or why I wasn't there. She had called to tell me that on their way home he had rolled the van down a ravine. Everyone was okay but the elders have decided not to allow him to work with the teens anymore. He worked there as the pulpit minister for another three years.

PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder. This is what I learned I had nearly fifteen years later. It explained why I was terrified every time I went to church. I shivered and broke out into a cold sweat. Over the years I learned how to control it. No one ever suspected. I have weird triggers, sometimes I don't even know when to expect them. After I set my monster free I was able to bring more of Christ into my heart and get rid of what held my heart captive. I finally began to heal. I know that most won't experience anything to this degree but I can say that many will have hurts. All I can do is hope that there will never be such expected secrecy. I know we don't want gossip but there has to be a way to encourage one another in the name of the Lord. Don't spend one minute allowing a brother or sister in Christ to hurt alone for any reason. Reach out and love each other.

Philippians 2:1-5 Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose. Don't be selfish; don't try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.