Trading shame for share.

Why, after 24 years, I’m sharing my story of abuse.

This past Sunday, I gave what was the most difficult teaching I’ve ever given in the thirteen years I’ve been a pastor. The teaching I had in my heart revolved around this central idea: That Jesus meets us in our suffering and weeps with us. Below is a 2-minute clip of the teaching and you can watch the full teaching here.

I planned on ending the talk and inviting people to allow their whole selves to be seen by God. To invite God into their origin of pain and suffering and allow Jesus to weep with us and begin the process of healing in their lives.

One conviction I have as a pastor is that I will not preach a message that hasn’t preached to me first. So as I allowed this teaching to sink into my heart and preach to me, I sensed that God was asking me to do the very thing that I was going to ask a few hundred people to do.

To allow myself to be seen.

Wholly seen.

What only a few people have known is that since October, I have been unearthing, getting counseling, and confronting a deep wound I have carried alone for 24 years. It has been a heavy six months full of tears, anger, forgiveness, and healing, and now I felt that God was asking if I would take what has been the greatest source of shame and begin to share it with others.

So I did.

On Sunday, as my heart pounded and my voice trembled, I shared my story of sexual abuse.

What started as sobs alone on my couch in October turned into tears of healing with a church family that seems to just get what it means to be a family. I have realized more than ever that vulnerability is how we turn the tables on suffering. When we step out of our tomb, wreaking of death, and like Lazarus, allow our friends to unravel us from our burial clothes, that it is in this space of vulnerability that God begins to take you from dead to alive.

I think there is something poetic about how Lazarus, after being raised back to life by Jesus, didn’t walk out of that tomb with minty-fresh breath. He had to be unraveled and chances are he really needed to take a shower because the smell of the tomb was still on his skin.

That’s how I think healing works most of the time. We roll away the stone that we’ve been hiding behind and God breathes new life into us, and through the vulnerability of allowing yourself to be seen and the commitment of others around you, you begin to live, and breathe and walk again.

So that is sort of where I am right now. Still being unraveled from my burial clothes. Sometimes I still smell that old familiar scent of death. But each day that smell fades a little more and I feel a little more alive. I’m not where I want to be, but I’m not where I was. Pretending to be healed and being healed are two different things and I am thankful that I am now in progress of being fully healed. No more pretending.

So if you are reading this and you have experienced abuse, here’s what I would want to say to you:

1. You are not your wounds - You were wounded. You were abused. Learning how to say this out loud has been difficult. But it has been a part of the healing process for me. Denying it happened doesn’t change anything. In fact, it made it worse. I needed to own it or it was going to continue to own me. So I now accept that I was abused, but that is not going to be who I am and it will not be my story. Because before I was abused, I am a child of God. Loved by God. Created by God. This is my true essence. That is my identity.
2. You can’t carry this burden alone - Because of my abuse, I had become very, very, good at taking control of situations. The irony is that my ability to take control of a situation and “power through” has been seen as leadership by others. But little did they know that my “leadership” was keeping me from leaving the tomb. It took God wrecking me to realize that I needed others if I was going to find freedom. So finally I told the first person of my abuse – my wife of 12 years. On top of the shame I felt from my abuse, I felt like a fraud for not telling my wife for 12 years. But Jena embodied Jesus and wept with me and loved me and has walked with me every step of the way. She is my hero. You don’t need to tell everyone, but you need to find someone who will weep with you and walk with you and help unravel you from your burial clothes. You can’t do it alone.
3. Your hurt can become someone else’s healing - I don’t believe it is tragedy that destroys people, as much as it’s tragedy without meaning that destroys people. When you decide to take your hurt and your wounds and use them for good, you are assigning meaning to your tragedy. When we decide to stop hiding our scars and instead use our scars as stories of hope, then you become the catalyst in somebody else’s breakthrough. If God could bring life from the murder of Jesus, what could God bring from your story of suffering? When you choose share over shame you are simultaneously declaring war on the things that are trying to destroy you. Is it time to wage war on your suffering by being vulnerable?
4. Your future is worth fighting for - I hope you hear that. Your future is worth fighting for. Jesus did not come to earth and explain our pain, instead, when he came to earth he met us in our pain and giving us a new future. Why would God do this? Because God thinks your future is worth fighting for. God, the Creator of the universe, thinks your future is worth fighting for. Let that sink in. The question is do you believe it? I sure hope you do.

I’m sure there is more I could say and I’m sure this won’t be the last time I share about this. But if you are reading and you have wounds of abuse, let me remind you one last time:

You are not your wounds.

You cannot carry this alone.

Your hurt can become someone else’s healing.

Your future is worth fighting for.

Trade shame for share and see what God can do with your scars.

Peace and blessings, friends.