Banquet banner, part 3

This post is rated R for mature material. (At least, to me it's mature.) It ain't gonna be pretty. And I'll do my best to not cuss.

A friend of mine from choir has mentioned a couple of times that "Jesus is your Mama Bear." In other words, Jesus is the Ultimate Protector, the One who bares His sharp claws and charges after any enemy who attacks one of His little ones. I would like to overtly share my version of this assurance.

I'm a woman, but I think there are some woman genes that I lack, such as the shopping gene (I would rather endure surgery without anesthesia than go clothes-shopping), the beautification gene (I hate to wear makeup, color my hair, paint my nails, or wear perfume), and the domestic gene (I haven't cooked anything on my apartment's new stove or oven, and I'd like to keep it that way). However, I think the rest of my woman genes seem to be functioning OK, such as the nurturing gene (Daddy loves you, reader), the poetic gene (the rain fell softly on the moonlit window like the contented purr of a cat after a meal), the protection gene (if Macho tries to hurt Choochie, he'd better have his affairs in order), and the unabashedly emotional gene (that one, actually, is newly refurbished, considering THE LIVING HELL THAT I'VE JUST GONE THROUGH!!!). I also seem to be carrying additional non-womanly genes, such as the fist-bumping gene (I'm not completely sure why people greet me this way, but I'm truly not complaining, 'cause I dig it), the MacGyver home-improvement gene (have I ever told you about the time I successfully installed a driver-side mirror on my car with double-sided tape?) and the bug-killing gene (my favorite!).

That last one came in very handy today at work. While I was alone in the women's restroom, I saw a cockroach on the floor. It crawled away, but I hunted it down, and I found it waiting quietly in the shadows, where I unabashedly released my foot upon it. And so perished the intruder, which I scooped up and deposited into its swirling watery grave. And shall the cockroach stalk the floor? Or soon forsake its watery store? Nevermore.

So, while I was hunting down the roach in the restroom, I was glad I was alone, because I didn't want any of my coworkers to freak out at the sight of a bug. (Just let the roach-stalker do her thang.) I know that bugs can be scary, but I truly don't understand what's so complicated about confronting an extremely fragile, tiny pest and terminating its existence forever. But I did it for myself and for coworkers that I really don't even like much. But that's what we women do -- we protect others. Whether we do it ourselves, or whether we call an exterminator, we women have an instinct to keep our space pest-free.

We women protect our own. I learned at a class at church that we women protect our young, even though I may not have needed a class to tell me so. I think technically, it's common sense that women's bodies are designed to carry and protect their young, even if only for a period of time. At least, it should be common sense that a mama bear will protect her children, whom she loves.

I'm about to share the most disgusting part of my story. If everyone has a "past," this is mine. I've blogged about it here, but I tried to do so tactfully and in code. Tonight, I feel like I need to be more plain and direct about what happened to me. I wrestled with whether or not I should share this in this manner. My desire isn't to shame, punish, or slander anyone. My desire is to unravel things inside me that need to be unraveled. I think maybe some readers have gone through similar things, or maybe they've experienced things that were far worse than my experiences. But I'd like to brag about God and what He's done, and I think I need to be more open about my story to do it. Please understand that when I mention any family relation in this post (e.g., mother, father, sister), it is an ex-relation, because I am no longer part of my immediate family. I will also talk about 2 people whose real names I won't use: Brother A and Brother B.

1993-1994 was my senior year of high school. Although it wasn't a perfect year, my life was shiny and full of potential overall. I was doing well in school academically, and I was very active in church. I felt like I was popular, and I was pretty much on top of the world. Brother A was an usher at church. He was also a custodian at my school, so I saw him often, and I trusted him. Then one day while I was naively alone in one of the classrooms at church, and I was talking to Brother A, he grabbed my chin, pulled it to his face, and kissed me. I was shocked, of course. I did not welcome or want his affection, of course, especially considering that he was a married man with grandchildren. But he repeated his behavior on several occasions, and I think he enjoyed the secrecy. I did not enjoy these episodes at all. Years later, I learned that technically, these episodes were rape, because he forced affection on me, even though we never had sex. I remember being extremely uncomfortable around him after that first episode, and one time I ended up sitting next to him somehow in the church sanctuary, and he put his arm around me and told me, "I wish you was my girlfriend." I knew he meant it, and I thought it was disgusting. Not only was this rape; technically, since he was lusting after me like that, this was also adultery.

My father was the pastor of this church where this adultery was happening. Since my mother was in charge of my house, and since I'd always count on her for enforcement, I told her about what Brother A had been doing to me. She said, "Don't tell [your father]. He has a big mouth." I suppose she was concerned that my loquacious father would mention what was happening from the pulpit and cause an offensive stir in the church? Meanwhile, I found out that Brother A had been doing the same involuntary rape/adultery with my best friend. I guess the behavior was spreading.

So, God stopped it. Several days before my high-school graduation, Brother A died of a heart attack. His demise was kind of suddenly weird, because he was a healthy, sturdy, hard-working man who didn't appear on the outside to have any cardiac issues. But he kicked the bucket. Honestly, I think God smote him, because I was free from Brother A's abuse. Unfortunately, I don't think any of us learned from it.

Fast-forward to 1996-1997, which I think may have been sometime in my junior or senior year of college. This time frame is vague to me, because I only lived at home during the summers and holidays. The congregation at my parents' church split, and my father was now pastoring a new church at a different building. Brother B was now an usher at church. I think I was the Sunday School secretary. One day while I was naively alone in the church office, and I was talking to trusted Brother B, he grabbed my chin, pulled it to his face, and kissed me. I don't remember if I was shocked or numb at this point. But I do remember not welcoming his affection, of course, as he also was a married man with grandchildren. He repeated his behavior on several occasions, and he told me in Spanish to not tell anybody. He was a bit more aggressive and slimy than Brother A had been, but Brother B was equally undesirable. Again, I found myself being the victim of a non-sexual, adulterous rape.

Again, I told my mother about what was happening. I don't remember her exact reaction, but I think she may have told me to keep quiet about this again, because it didn't stop. In fact, it spread again. I found out that Brother B had been doing the same involuntary rape/adultery with my sister. One time, I saw Brother B shake my mother's hand, and I think he may have stroked it unwelcomingly or something, because she whipped her hand away, as if she had just shaken hands with a serpent.

So, OK, let's take inventory here. I had involuntarily participated in adulterous activity with 2 men -- 2 Hispanic married men who smelled musty and had spiky mustaches. My father did nothing to stop it. My mother did nothing to stop it. I did nothing to stop it. And the abuse spread to other girls. And this all happened under the roof of church buildings.

In this paragraph, I'd like to talk about what I've learned about my role in this abuse, in retrospect. I'm not exactly sure why I allowed it -- perhaps it was confused teenage hormones, or perhaps it was my ultra-obedient doormat personality, or perhaps it was simply a wildly high tolerance for terribleness. But I shouldn't have allowed the abuse to continue for as long as I did. There are quite a few things I could have done to stop it. I could have told Brother A's wife about it. (She is now deceased; if she's in heaven, I'm guessing she might hear all about it.) I could have called the police. I could have called whichever Babbdist association it was that oversaw our church. I could have stormed the pulpit during my father's sermon, taken over the microphone, and exposed Brother A in front of everybody. Or I could have gently cradled his head in my hands and gouged his eyes out. Or I could have grabbed his leathery wrist and shattered it in my strong pianist hands. Or I could have grabbed a hymnbook and impaled his skull with one of the sharp hymnbook-corners. The opportunities to end the abuse were endless.

Unfortunately, the abuse did not stop, and it certainly got God's attention. I already mentioned that I really think He took Brother A out completely. God also removed me from my immediate family completely. In 1998, God told me to leave my parents, and I didn't. In 2011, after I remembered what He had said, I spent pretty much an entire summer praying through leaving my parents. I fasted. I counted the cost. I wrestled. I grieved. I got confirmation, and plenty of it. While I prayed, I felt like God kept highlighting a certain incident that attracted His wrath.

"Your enemies roar in the midst of Your meeting place; they set up their banners for signs. They seem like men who lift up axes among the thick trees. And now they break down its carved work, all at once, with axes and hammers. They have set fire to the sanctuary; they have defiled the dwelling place of Your name to the ground. They said in their hearts, 'Let us destroy them altogether.' They have burned up all the meeting places of God in the land." (Psalm 74:4-8)

While I was wrestling through whether or not I should leave my parents, whom I love, who happen to do ministry-related work, God kept highlighting that His sanctuary had been defiled. Since I'm a believer in Christ, I'm a temple of the Holy Spirit, so in that sense, I'm God's sanctuary. I involuntarily participated in non-sexual adultery, so since my body was defiled, God's sanctuary was defiled. And since the abuse happened literally in church buildings, I guess you could say that God's sanctuaries were defiled. But those weren't the only sanctuaries. The abuse spread to other women. Other sanctuaries were defiled.

I would like to take a moment to say that love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8). Jesus died for everybody's sins -- whether they were committed in the past, are being committed in the present, or will be committed in the future. So, Jesus offers forgiveness for sins. He offers power to walk free from sin. He offers power to change. Anyone who comes to God and lets Him change them will change. Abusers don't have to remain abusers forever. I'm living proof of that. Jesus will restore anyone who will let Him. In my case, however, I believe He insisted that the consequence of my parents' unrepentance was losing me forever.

I would now like to unleash some emotion. After I left the family, and my sister spiritually abused me online by telling me that I should honor my father and mother, lest I be judged, and suggested that my church told me to sin by divorcing my parents, I reminded her about the incidents with Brother A and Brother B. She suggested that perhaps her parents didn't think there was anything they could have done to stop it. Well, I have a suggestion. When some pervert comes against your precious daughter, you bare your mama-bear claws, and you say, "GET YOUR SCUMMY HANDS OFF MY DAUGHTER!" You rip off your whitewashed Pharisee mask and scream, "I DON'T CARE WHO THE BLEEP I OFFEND IN THIS STUFFY CHURCH, BUT IF YOU EVER TOUCH MY DAUGHTER AGAIN, I WILL RIP YOUR BLEEP OFF AND STUFF IT DOWN YOUR BLEEPING THROAT!" You grab him by his icky mustache, drag him to the police station, and say, "WHERE DO I SIGN A RESTRAINING ORDER TO KEEP THIS BLEEPING JERK AWAY FROM MY DAUGHTER FOREVER?"

I mean, for crying out loud. This crap happened in TWO CHURCH BUILDINGS. Do you have any idea what kind of crap I've had to work through? Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to realize that you've believed a lie that it's OK for an innocent person to be taken advantage of in a safe place? I did not sign up to be a lip-concubine! I had zero intention of becoming an involuntary adulteress! Do you have any idea how wide of a door was left open for the enemy to puke his crap all over my soul? Or your soul? Or the souls of any other of the girls who were treated like meat by these two-legged turds? And to BOTH of your daughters, no less? What kind of a mother does that? What kind of a woman does that? If we had lived in ancient pagan times, would you have told me to just walk into a fire and die a heinous death with the rest of the innocent children? And would you have told me to not scream too loud, because daddy has a big mouth? Would you have told me to make sure and smile the entire time I was being burnt to a crisp so that nobody in the ancient-pagan-fire temple would be offended? What kind of message is that supposed to send to people IN A CHURCH BUILDING? Is God some giant wuss who does nothing while innocent people are abused? Does He really care that much about appearances? Is He honestly exactly like you?

"But to the wicked God says: 'What right have you to declare My statutes, or take My covenant in your mouth, seeing you hate instruction and cast My words behind you? When you saw a thief, you consented with him, and have been a partaker with adulterers. You give your mouth to evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother's son. These things you have done, and I kept silent; you thought that I was altogether like you; but I will rebuke you, and set them in order before your eyes.' " (Psalm 50:16-21)

Calming down a bit, I will say that I'm thankful that the abuse, at least in my case, never went as far as it could have. Physically, I'm still a virgin. Brother A is deceased. I think Brother B may still be alive, but he is aging, and, as you've read previously, I have no problem with self-defense now. I can relate to rape victims. And I'm not a victim anymore. I understand that God heals and restores, and I understand that He takes crap and turns it into fertilizer. I understand that my part in the process is to forgive, to allow the Holy Spirit to shine like a flashlight into my soul that exposes any cockroaches that need to be exterminated forever, to tell the truth when the time is right. I understand what it's like to need protection. As a shepherd, I've endeavored to leap into action as quickly as possible to keep any bleeping wolves away from my sheep. As Joseph said in Genesis 50, people meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.

Of course it's been difficult to wrestle through. If God really exists, why would He allow such a heinous thing to happen, even in His own house? Doesn't He care?

"In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, and my cry came before Him, even to His ears. Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of the hills also quaked and were shaken, because He was angry. Smoke went up from His nostrils, and devouring fire from His mouth; coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, and came down with darkness under His feet." (Psalm 18:6-9)

"So they came to Jerusalem. Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. Then He taught, saying to them, 'Is it not written, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations"? But you have made it a "den of thieves." ' " (Mark 11:15-17)

"But thus says the Lord: 'Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible be delivered; for I will contend with him who contends with you, and I will save your children. I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine. All flesh shall know that I, the Lord, am your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.' " (Isaiah 49:25-26)

Cool. So, God is real, and He does care about what happens in His house. He does care about the crap that happens to me. I'm glad, because I need Somebody to help me pick up the pieces.

God has helped me plenty so far, but I suspect that He might have plenty more work to do in the years ahead. I probably still have some fear and self-protection issues to work through. I'm not suspicious of all gray-haired men anymore, but I do avoid "the appearance of evil" like the plague. If I say something weird like, "I haven't kissed a man voluntarily in 19 years," it's because of my past. If I cringe anytime a married man sits too close and/or hugs me for too long, it's because of my past. If I stand 5 feet away from a married man anytime I talk to him, it's because of my past. If I ever have a crazed look in my eye that says, "I am about to karate-chop your head off," I'm probably considering it, and it's because of my past.

But my past has been redeemed, as I've mentioned previously, and it can continuously be redeemed. Surely not everybody is as heinously selfish as the people from my past. Surely safe, trustworthy people exist in this world. Seriously, I don't understand why married people freak out about us single people. We honestly, truly do not want to do it with your spouses. I mean, ew! Honestly, they're yours forever, and we honestly respect that. We honestly don't want to attract married people or make them stumble. We honestly want to find spouses of our own, and if we don't ever find them, we'll do our darndest to stay content in our singlehood. (I say, "We," but I mean, "Me." I guess I can't speak for everybody.)

God's banqueting table/hall/house, which has a banner that says "LOVE" over us, is supposed to be a safe place. It isn't supposed to be a whitewashed, unsafe place which has a banner that says "PARTY WHILE YOUR WIFE ISN'T LOOKING" over innocent people.

"Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (1 Corinthians 13:6-7, NIV)

I hope nobody got some kind of cheap thrill knowing that otherwise innocent women were treated like meat. I hope everybody understands that God is a God of justice, and He delights in administering that justice. I hope, frankly, that all parties involved in my past were and are saved through faith in Jesus Christ -- not in a prayer that they prayed, not in a water baptism that they received, not in a cracker and tiny bottle of grape juice that they consumed once a month -- in Jesus, who wants to be Lord of their lives and show them how to live life His way.

Jesus is the Lion of Judah. He has claws. He roars and rushes to the rescue of all His children. I don't understand why He doesn't always do so right away, and I don't understand why He allows crap to happen. But I do understand that He's real, I understand that He helps me to unravel crap, and I understand that He uses crap to make things grow. I understand now that He is an expert banquet Host, and He never fails.

If evil haunts you in the night, my Savior puts nightmares to flight. With matchless power and muscles strong, He vindicates and rights your wrong. His gentle tears flow freely down and seek to wrap themselves around your aching soul and quiet groans. He never has forgotten you. He shines His light upon the truth. His heart breaks hard along with you. Do you feel hopeless in your daze? Compassion cracks, breaks through your maze. His name is Jesus, King of Kings. He makes the weary victim sing. The night succumbs to the coming day. He washes pain far, far away. Please don't give up. He'll lift your head. He'll help you to your feet again. And then you'll walk until you run. Your inner smile shall scare the sun, for what does it have that you don't? Nay, nothing, for you shall not want. Our Savior nurses you with care, and in the night, you'll learn to dare. You'll dare to hope, to dream again. You'll dare to think that you could win. Our Savior rights the wrongest wrong; in His embrace, you can be strong.