My writing, my author interview about Refuge, and my life story video tell you who I am. To introduce myself I’m sharing my early introductory blogs. This is an encore blog from summer 2013.
These life experiences are some of God’s most powerful tools in my life and in offering compassion to other women. Get to know me through my tragedy.
Introducing Melinda: Blog #8
When my school photos arrived, my mother insisted they be retaken. With greasy, stringy hair, I stared glumly out of the shot. I wore a dingy shirt and a scruffy poncho. For photo day, I had made no attempt at grooming. Acne had overtaken my face. This was not the norm. For that year’s photo, I was not myself. I had quit bathing. I didn’t understand why. At age thirteen, I couldn’t articulate this alteration.
Now, as a biblically trained counselor and prison ministry teacher, I can explain it in clinical detail. This should have been a warning sign. But in the early 1970s, no one talked about these things. Of course, in hindsight, the adults see. But, this isn’t about them. This is about the goodness of God.
Jesus had tugged at my heart since my earliest memories. I had always loved him. That fall, responding to his call, I had asked him to be my Lord and Savior. I came shooting out of that encounter like a rocket, reading my bible every day, sharing the gospel with my junior high classmates, meeting with other believers at school, and discerning that God had gifted and called me to write. I was on fire!
Then the world cracked and tilted sideways. Human degradation changed the course of my life.
A horrific harm assaulted me, robbing me of my innocence. At thirteen, I couldn’t speak what had happened. I had no words for sexual harm. In my mind, I went from sweet, innocent, and forgiven to worthless, dirty, and used. I now saw myself as a bad girl. I took the crushing blame of someone else’s sin upon myself, and it destroyed me.
Worse yet, it planted a cold kernel of distrust in my heart, a wariness about the God who had allowed it. This response wasn’t intentional. I couldn’t have voiced that it had occurred. Until that point, I had viewed God as the cherisher of children. But, slowly, I faded away. The rest is my history.
Enter the goodness of God.
If I had been allowed to choose my life-shaping events so that I could learn to adore the Savior, I would not have chosen the events of 1972-73. But they have been my shaper. Nothing is wasted.
A child who is harmed sexually loses the ability to trust God, because within that child is a human nature. Can we trust God when the worst—whatever it is—befalls us and crushes us flat? No! However, no matter what happens, it is sin to distrust God. Even if we don’t lose faith intentionally, even if it is the human default, even if we don’t comprehend that we no longer trust him.
In fact, that’s the point. This is why we need a Savior. We cannot save ourselves.
Some of us don’t recognize our need until the worst has happened. Then we see our broken humanity clearly for the first time. Human sin shapes all our responses. We can’t help it.
Confused and broken, I ran screaming away.
All the while, Jesus grasped hold of me and pursued me relentlessly. He knew what it would do to me. He knew I would run hard and fast, harming myself in the process. Hovering near, he waited and shielded, shaping even my bad choices for my ultimate good.
In a deep and personal way, I can relate to a Savior who was crucified naked and degraded before a mob, suffering the indignities of shame, despising it, yet setting his face like flint to die for me. For me, broken girl that I am! My High Priest took on all my sins, even the sins that occurred merely because I am human.
His wounds show us his tender heart. His willing scars reveal his unjust and undeserved abuse. He has become like us. He knows our pain. All of us come to him through our own wounds and scars. This is how we are most useful for healing the wounds of others, just like he does.
Bit by bit, he still puts me back together. Step by step, he peels back the layers of pain and inaccurate self-image. Day by day, he heals, causing me to recognize how he cherishes me. Patiently, he teaches me to trust him. Jesus sees everything. He is the just Judge. He will judge. He doesn’t need my help to do that. He is thorough.
This knowledge allows me to release it to him and to teach others to do the same. Over 80% of the women in prison have experienced the same trauma and worse, at least 25% of women in the general population. Someone needs to be there to demonstrate that God can indeed orchestrate even this harm for good. Yes, even this.
Year after year, he allows me to minister the same healing to other hurt women. I couldn’t help them if I hadn’t been hurt. It was necessary. I yield. God makes it beautiful.
How do Christ’s wounds show you his heart? How do his wounds heal you?
Biblical help for recovery: The Wounded Heart by Dan Allender
Click here for the final post in my introductory series.
Melinda, words fail me, not at the story of what was done to you, but what Christ did for you, scooping you up in His love and letting you flail at Him, while all the while, still nestling you in His care.
He is beautiful! He is glorious! You reveal Him through your sensitive telling of this life-changing event.
I am stained, too, with the blood of others’ sins (as well as my own). He helped me learn to love Him as He taught you.
It was HARD! Yet I so appreciate His pursuit! The enemy tried to use sin as a weapon against me; Christ used that same sin as an invitation to draw closer to Him.
He is a good God.
Amen, Patricia! He is good, and we cannot live without him!
Melinda, I had a similar experience, after which I finally saw my need for a Savior and called out to God to save me, later realizing it was only because of Jesus’ death on the cross that my prayer could be answered! Until that point, I honestly thought I could earn my own salvation! How could that be? Yet, I did feel that way, unconsciously, perhaps.
As I read what you wrote about Jesus, I thought of this scripture:
“We must focus on Jesus, the source and goal of our faith. He saw the joy ahead of him, so he endured death on the cross and ignored the disgrace it brought him. Then he received the highest position in heaven, the one next to the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2, GOD’S WORD Translation, 1995)
Thanks again, Melinda!
Love,
Aunt Jackie
That passage in Hebrews is one of my favorites! Thank you for sharing!
Melinda-
These terrible injustices drive many people away from God. We want to blame him because he is omnipotent and yet bad -horrific – things happen to innocent people.
The very thing that makes us human – our free will – is the thing we rail on God about when things go wrong. Humanity fell from perfection and we just get buried deeper in the mire as time goes on.
God is good even when life is bad. Thanks for the poignant reminder of how far Jesus has brought me – and the responsibility I have to share his grace with others.
–Sharon
Sharon, thank you for responding. Great thoughts!
This is a very powerful blog! It shows the power of God whose plan from the beginning was to reach down in love to meet us at our point of need! He reaches down to me when I am the very least deserving and “restores my soul.” How proud I am when I see how transparent you are and how God has used you in so many ways! He has redeemed the situation and used it for good! He is the Potter; we are the clay. When we yield to His work, he makes of us a vessel useful for His purpose. Thank you, Jesus, for the beautiful gift of Melinda! You never cease to amaze me! Blessings and hugs!
Thank you, Mom. God makes a damaging and heartbreaking situation into beauty and a way to see his compassion and sacrifice even more clearly. He uses it for good in our lives in spite of our pain and our wrong responses.
Melinda, this is so beautifully written and illustrated. Who can do this, write of horrific events with blood for ink—and yet with the same pen, stitch healing over the same wounds?? Only Christ’s blood and words can do this. Thank you for using your great talents, and the life He has given, to expose the worst then the best news, and the most beautiful truths!
Leslie, you do the same with your glorious book. When Forgiving our Fathers and Mothers is released in January 2014, lives will be touched, eyes will be opened, and hearts will be healed. God bless you for writing it!
My testimony in prison today that I shared with the women is this very story. They were encouraged by it and challenged by it. God is so good to let us be wounded so we could be more like him, driving out ego and idols and sin of all kinds, learning to run to our Abba and walk with him. I am blessed but I am forever changed by the hurt, but with my hurt and healing, he heals others.
Kripsy Anne, neither one of us would have ever chosen this, if we’d been able to pick our life experiences. But from this wound God has produced our great attachment to him for healing and our most powerful tools for ministry. The decades of anger and pain yielded to God’s mercy. We grew in the knowledge of God. The Holy Spirit’s balm soothed the wound, and we now move forward resting in his grace and mercy. God is good! The more we know him, the more we love him and the more he heals. He is patient. Healing wounded humans takes time. The final healing will come when we see him face to face. Thank you for sharing about how God is using your wound for his glory!
O Melinda…these blogs are so inspiring…they bless me with each one I read….
O Terri! Isn’t Jesus so good to heal us and put us back together! We’ll be whole when we see his face!
I’m sorry you went through this. Reading your piece sent chills down my back. I think I went through something similar only before I had language, I think. Do you think you’ll ever tell this story in memoir, and how how you found your way through to Jesus love?
We just read Lived Through This at our book club meeting. It’s about survivors of sexual violence and part of the The Voices and Faces Project. They conduct free workshops for people who are ready to testify and “write to bring change.” (I was quite taken with their mission and wondered if this is my next work, or something like it.) At any rate if they have a workshop by you, it might be worthwhile. I hope to attend one myself.
At any rate thank you for your friendship. The Lord be very with you as you launch Fallen.
Thank you, Katie! That’s a great connection to share. I’ll look into The Voices and Faces Project. Many people have suggested I write a memoir, but all the pieces that would allow me to begin aren’t present. I might be able to focus in on this crucial piece, though. Pray I’ll sense the Lord’s leading when it’s the time. Thank you for your writerly friendship and camaraderie!