Update on my Sexual Assault

Many, many thanks to all of you who have been so kind to pray for me, reach out with notes and gifts, and just generally remember me as I have spent the past year walking through all of the criminal, civil, and personal (body/soul) issues associated with the sexual assault I experienced returning from one of my women’s events last fall. The criminal investigation has ended and the civil case has settled, so those things are done. And now the real work begins—the heart stuff. Oh, the heart stuff. It is so hard to come back from an assault, but I am trying. And I am getting a lot of help along the way.

Like notes from you all! I’ve been wanting to say for months now how much it has meant to me every time one of you remembers me. I really do understand how hard it is to reach out to someone who is suffering—what do you say that doesn’t sound trite? Do you bring “it” up? Or do you just talk about something good in your own life—or does that make you seem shallow and uncaring when you know that the other person is hurting so deeply?

Wow! It’s just so easy to freeze and say and do nothing. But to every single one of you who has sent a card or email or left a flower on my porch … even those of you who sound a lot like MY fumbling, mumbling efforts to share love (“I’m really praying for you and I think about you all the time and I’m weeping for your pain and I don’t know what to say …”)? You have blessed me. So much. So very, very much.

And I thank you.

Perhaps as I grow closer to the Lord, more conformed to his likeness, more wise with the “wisdom that comes from Heaven” (James 3), I will have more to say on this topic this side of Heaven. Or maybe the burning pain of the acid-dipped nails that keep scouring my inmost heart will, well, keep me pretty silent as I try every day to just keep breathing in and out, entrusting myself to my Faithful Creator while continuing to do good (1 Peter 4).

Whatever the case, I have hope. Not hope as the world gives (1 Thess. 4). But biblical hope: hope based on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ … hope from an eternal perspective (to use one of Cap’n Dave’s favorite terms over on our Redeeming Church Conflicts website):

“We are called to live from an eternal perspective—interpreting all of life in this world through the lens of one fact: the longest part of our most “real” lives will be lived for eons to come in the perfection of Heaven where Christ rules in glory. Right now we live in the in-between; the “already but not yet.” But one day we will go home to our Heavenly Father’s mansion.The way we live intentionally and consistently with our profession of faith now is to live with the hope and confidence of this eternal perspective. Otherwise, when suffering and trials come, when we don’t get our way, when we are called to bear up under the pain associated with church conflicts, we will not persevere in loving God and loving our neighbor.

This eternal perspective enables us to forgive one another because we remember how great and glorious God is to wretched sinners like us. We marvel at how great a debt we owe and how great a price Christ paid for our salvation. Rather than “biting and devouring” one another (Galatians 5:15), we will remember that the other person involved needs Christ at this time just as much as we do. We are utterly dependent on his grace. And daily we can repent, believe, and rejoice because he has saved us and adopted us as his own. His kingdom will come. He will return in glory to judge the living and the dead. This is guaranteed! So we can have great hope, even in devastating conflict, as we begin to interpret everything that is happening from the perspective of eternity.”

And so we have hope. One Good Day, the wrong will fail and the right will prevail.  C’est un fait accompli.

(And it’s pretty much the only reason I can breathe in and out or even get out of bed these days.)

If you are hurting today? If your pain is so great that you have gone past hurting into not feeling anything at all? I urge you to reach out to someone who is wise and spiritually mature and GET HELP—we all need help from time to time!—and remember:

“I make known the end from the beginning,
from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose
will stand, and I will do all that I please.’” Isaiah 46:10

“How do you overcome? You get a breathtaking glimpse of God and the Lamb. You take your eyes off your earthly situation and gaze into heaven and see what true reality looks like. No matter the church’s problem, what is most needful is to see God in his glory.” Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck

Sending you my thanks and my love—

Your needy (but hopeful) friend,
Tara B.