I Was A Victim.

Flash back to spring of 2013. I am 20 years old and I'm in my sophomore year of college. One spring day, I get invited over to one of the star basketball players dorm rooms to watch a basketball game on TV. What starts out as a time of fun and laughter ends up in pain and suffering. I didn't ask for it. I didn't want it. I didn't consent to it. I was raped. 

Despite the fact that I had spent the ages of 14-20 willingly giving away pieces of myself and handing over my innocence, I never thought I would experience something like that. The worst part of it all was that someone I trusted told me it was my fault. From that moment on I decided that I would never open up about it again. So there I was, going through each day trying to convince myself that it never happened and trying to pretend that I was okay. I spent the next year torturing myself and stuffing it down further and further in the hopes that it would one day disappear. 

Fast forward to January 2014. I have just turned 21 and my life is about to be radically changed because I've made the decision to move to Kansas City to attend World Revival Church. (It's a pretty great story as to how I ended up making that decision, but I'll save that for another time). 

I moved to Kansas City on February 14, 2014 and my life has never been the same. Within my first year living in KC, my sister-in-law, Sabrina, hosted a book study group at our house (I was living with her and my brother, Derek), so I was automatically one of the group members. The book we were going to be studying was Innocence Restored by Pastor Kathy Gray. Initially, I didn't want to have to be in the group because up until I moved I had been living a less-than innocent lifestyle and I knew I would have to expose things and talk about what I really didn't want to talk about. Looking back, I am SO glad I couldn't object to being part of the book study. 

It was the very first meeting and I was the lucky one picked to share at the beginning. For the first time, I opened up about the night I was raped. It was in that moment that I realized the only way to really get freedom from anything is to bring it out into the light. I had been trying to stuff it down, bottle it up, and throw it away, but that only caused me more suffering and grief. As soon as I said the words "I was raped" I felt the shackles start to fall off of me. 

Throughout the next weeks of the bible study, the women surrounding me fought for me, prayed with and for me, and helped me learn how to give up control of the situation and hand it over to God so he could restore that part of my life. 

I thought that being raped was something that I'd have to deal with and try to suppress for the rest of my life. Rape is one of those things that usually gets swept under the rug and the victims are left to deal with it in a silent struggle. Or, they are stuck spending their whole lives being bitter and angry at the person or people who abused them. If it wasn't for such a loving God, I would probably be in that boat. I am so thankful that I've been restored and that I don't have to live the rest of my life being a victim. Something that caused me emotional and physical pain has been turned into a story of redemption and hope coming alive again. 

The revelation I received that night during the book study has been a constant guide in my life since then. No matter what I've gone through or what I've dealt with, I know that if I want God to step in, I've got to expose the darkness so that the light can overtake it. I no longer have to be a victim in any area of my life and I don't have to fight by myself or bottle anything up any more. The God we serve is only good, only faithful, and only full of light.

1 John 1:5 MSG

"This, in essence, is the message we heard from Christ and are passing on to you: God is light, pure light, there's not a trace of darkness in him."