Sexual abuse of children by adults has a history that can be traced back to Bible times. No age, race, sex, socioeconomic group, or religion is spared this tragic history.
—Al Miles
As a little girl, Andrea was the picture of beauty and innocence. Secure with her parents and eight brothers on a small farm that was her world, Andrea loved the country.
“My dad was poor, but I loved him and thought he was wonderful,” Andrea says.
“I would run to him, and he’d lift me up to the ceiling. I felt so proud to be his only daughter. He called me his ‘angel,’ his ‘sweetheart,’ his ‘princess.'”
But when she was thirteen, Andrea’s father added one more term of affection—”lover.”
“It was around 6:00 a.m., already light outside. I woke to find my dad lying on top of me, sucking my breasts. Scared to death, I hated him for what he was doing to me. Most thirteen-year-olds were talking about boys, but I had this man—my father—damaging me forever.
“I looked at the ceiling and prayed he would finish without going into my underpants. When he didn’t, I felt lucky. The only words spoken were when he said, ‘Nothing’s wrong with what I did’ and ‘You don’t have to say anything to your mother about this.’
“When he walked out of my bedroom, I thought I would hate him forever. I knew my life would never be the same. My mom continued working nights, so I spent many sleepless nights after that, scared that Dad would come in my room again. He never did, but I wanted someone to protect me.”
For nearly twenty years, Andrea told no one her terrible secret.
“I coped,” she recalls, “by pretending it didn’t happen or by minimizing its effects. I never forgot, but I told myself it wasn’t that bad. It only happened once.
“And, yet,” she continues, “I really hated my dad. When Mom asked me why, I was too ashamed to tell her. Somehow I thought what he did was my fault. I thought Mom wouldn’t believe me, or if she did, she’d hate him. And I didn’t want to break up the family.”
Church had always been important to Andrea. As a young adult, it became her refuge from the past. She focused her energy into her spirituality. In her mind, she recreated her father into the man she wanted him to be. Her faith in God and involvement in the church provided her with a deep sense of peace. But the abuse she thought she’d left behind had never really been dealt with.
Nearly ten years later, married with two young children, Andrea and her husband moved into a new home in a large metropolitan suburb. They became successful in their professions and faithful members of a church. The secret of Andrea’s childhood sexual abuse was twenty years and a hundred miles removed. Her life was at peace.
Or so she thought.
One day while having brunch with a friend, Andrea unexpectedly found herself talking, for the first time, about her abuse.
It is not unusual for victims of childhood sexual abuse or other traumas to minimize or repress these events for years. Then suddenly, in adulthood, they may encounter confusing, often painful memories from the past.
The memories can surface during an unrelated trauma—being in an automobile accident, for instance, watching a violent movie, or hearing about someone else’s abuse. Even happy events can trigger difficult memories—getting married, having a child, or moving into a new home.
Other triggers might be a partner’s request to engage in a new act or position during lovemaking or being touched—even in a gentle way.
Andrea told her friend about her abuse. “I hadn’t planned to tell anyone, but I felt safe enough to talk about it without feeling ashamed. I felt like I was the only one who had a sick dad.”
After her secret spilled out, Andrea realized she had to deal with it so she could be healed and be free from her past, knowing she was not at fault.
Its Prevalence
If Andrea were the only girl to be sexually abused by an adult—even one time—she would still be one too many. But one out of every three females will suffer some form of sexual abuse during their lives.
Sexual abuse of children by adults has a history that can be traced back to Bible times. No age, race, sex, socio-economic group, or religion is spared this tragic history.
The stories told by survivors of sexual abuse have often been discounted, minimized, or ignored. Such responses make victims feel more alone than ever.
When we understand the dynamics of childhood sexual abuse and its ongoing effects on the victims, then we’ll be able to begin providing support and healing.
Lynn Powers, a clinical psychologist who for more than fifteen years has worked with women abused as children, says that perpetrators of childhood sexual abuse are “people who have power over children. It could be any adult, but it tends to be adults closest to them—the people in their own homes. It’s fathers, grandfathers, uncles, brothers, stepfathers, mother’s boyfriends, teachers, babysitters, the next-door neighbor.”
In their book I Never Told Anyone, Ellen Bass and Louise Thornton write that 97 percent of the perpetrators are males. The Minnesota Department of Human Services Child Protective Services reports that approximately 85 percent of the reported cases are committed by persons known to the child and/or her family.
So the places where a girl feels most secure—in her home, church, school, or among the people she trusts—are the places where she faces greater risks of sexual exploitation.
Though one out of every five boys is also sexually abused, we’ll focus here on ministering to adult women survivors.
Susan’s Story
Susan was the second of six children, the older of two daughters.
“We looked like the perfect family,” she says. “Mom was Sunday school superintendent and the president of a church women’s group—a caring, giving person who always said yes. Dad was on the church council and taught Sunday school. He knew all the influential people in town. All of us children were respectful and responsible. We were always being patted on the head and told how good we were.
“We moved a lot when I was growing up,” Susan recalls, “so I never had any long-term friendships. I went to five grade schools and three high schools. My father had a job in sales. Now I see he was insecure. Any time anyone challenged him, he quit because he could get another job.”
She continues: “Our family was the only nucleus of people I was close to as a child. Dad isolated us from Mom’s family, and he had no family of his own. Family became central—even sacred—and he became the center of our family. He was both intelligent and manipulative.”
He was also a child abuser. When Susan was in the fifth grade, he began a sexual relationship with her.
“Dad took us children with him, by turn, on his sales trips—it was supposed to be a special time to be alone with Dad. But during those times, he started touching my private parts and asking probing questions such as ‘Does this feel good?’ and ‘What turns you on?’ This made me feel nervous, nauseous, and confused. He also started showing me pornography.
“By the time I was in seventh or eighth grade, I was almost fully developed. Dad began abusing me even more. I became torn with confusion: part of me wanted to be his little girl, denying the abuse, and part of me didn’t trust him.
“I also felt an immense guilt. When my mother was angry with me, I thought it was because she knew. Or I thought she was jealous because he paid so much attention to me. He would buy more for me than the other kids, which also made me feel guilty. I didn’t understand that I wasn’t responsible for the abuse.
“Sunday morning became a dangerous time. With no senior high group to attend at church, I would be left home with Dad while everyone else went to Sunday school. I would sleep until the last minute. Dad would often pull the covers off me and try to wake me. I felt terrified and pretended to still be sleeping. I think that’s when I developed a habit of always being five minutes late for everything. Then I had to rush around to get ready, and he would leave me alone. Dad would be angry, but his anger was easier to deal with than his ‘affection.’
“The sexual abuse stopped when I was a junior in high school, but the emotional incest never stopped. Dad never developed his own boundaries. Two years ago he sent me a negligee for Christmas, and he still asks me if I’m alone when he calls at night. To him this is not being inappropriate. His actions make me both angry and sad.”
For twelve years, Susan told no one about the sexual abuse.
“My way of dealing with the secret was to forget it—to be part of the façade of the perfect family. I honestly did not remember the abuse.”
At age twenty-two, Susan began seminary and took a human sexuality course. On the first day, the group leader asked the students about their first experience with masturbation.
“I cried the rest of the day. Every time he’d come to me in the discussion group, I’d start to cry. So he’d skip over me. About two days later, I told one of the leaders about my abuse. Crying all the time, I had no control over my emotions and became depressed. Not understanding what was going on, I planted myself on my professor’s doorstep. Finally I went into counseling.”
The following summer, Susan confronted her father about what he’d done to her.
“I told Dad I remembered. He apologized—and to him that simple apology made everything right. ‘I said I’m sorry,’ he protested. ‘No big deal.’
“After that, anytime I brought the topic up he would say, ‘You’re not remembering right’ or ‘You’re blowing it out of proportion.’ It became obvious to me that, in his mind, I had started the incest.
“Dad justified his actions,” Susan continues, “by talking about the incest of African pygmies or animals. Or he’d say it’s society that doesn’t accept incest. He even said the church was making me feel guilty.
“He offered to pay for my counseling, but now when I ask him about it, he denies his promise. He lives in his own reality, but it’s different than everyone else’s.”
Perpetrators rarely take responsibility for the abuse they inflict. They are seldom remorseful for their actions. Many feel it is their right to do what they want to any member of the family. Often they justify their actions or construct an elaborate system of blame to trap or threaten their victims.
Susan’s father had told her, “People wouldn’t understand if they knew about our relationship. People look at this differently, but I’m not doing anything wrong—I’m teaching you. Your mother is a cold person. Nobody ever taught her. I’m trying to teach you to become more comfortable with your body so you’ll have more to offer and can be a happier person.”
“Everything was for my sake,” says Susan. “He diverted any guilt away from himself. He still believes he didn’t do anything wrong.”
Lynn Powers says, “Some children are told they dreamed everything that happened. We hear stories of sophisticated brainwashing techniques. For example, an abuser might say, ‘Do you know what happens to bad little girls who tell on their daddies? I once knew one who was put in a closet’ or ‘Her mother decided she was a bad little girl and disowned her.’ They use language the child can understand so the child accepts the adult version of events. The messages are extremely powerful, so in many cases, they take a long time to get turned around.”
Ongoing Effects
Childhood sexual abuse can plague a victim for the rest of her life. It influences the way she feels about and reacts to situations, the way she selects friends or partners, the way she raises her children, and the way she views her relationship with God.
Andrea realizes the long-term effect of her abuse.
“The abuse I endured still affects my self-esteem,” she says. “I think I’m ugly. If I do anything wrong, I immediately feel dirty or bad. I want to be perfect at everything. But since I’m not, I become angry and mean to myself and others.”
“The abuse,” she continues, “affects my relationships, my family dynamics, my choice of a husband, and the way I parent. I have a lot of hatred for men. This is painful because it affects men in my life whom I love—my son, my brothers, my friends, and my husband. I have a lot of rage—sometimes it comes out jokingly, sometimes pointedly. For a long time, I never understood why some women hated men. Now I could be the leader of the pack. I’m much more sensitive to others’ abuse or rape.”
Help to Escape
Pastors have a unique opportunity to help victims of childhood sexual abuse in their lifelong process of healing. Here are some things we can do:
Listen to her story. A survivor must be believed if she is to be healed.
“When people reveal these tragic events in their lives, the most important thing they need is to be believed,” says Powers. “They need someone who can imagine what it was like without reacting strongly. Being too sympathetic or too repulsed probably will not help. Strong emotional reactions generally don’t help.”
If I, as a minister, think the perpetrator might be innocent, I still will not invalidate the genuine feelings of the woman. If I think she might be exaggerating, I never imply that she is. Raising questions about excessive grief and pain undermines the healing process. If she picks up signals from me that suggest she is out of control or making unfair accusations, she will retreat and suppress her feelings even deeper. Treating the symptoms will not take care of the deeper problem.
Reassure the survivor. Let her know she is not to blame for her abuse. Remind her that she was the victim of someone older and more powerful than she.
Watch your words. Some phrases meant to help the victim gain perspective may actually be harmful to her recovery. I try to avoid the following:
“It only happened once.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“It’s time for you to move beyond this.”
“He said he was sorry. Forgive him and get on with your life.”
“God wouldn’t want you to harbor any resentment toward your perpetrator.”
“If you were a mature Christian, you’d forgive him.”
“He just made a mistake; we all do.”
Such phrases discount or minimize the victim’s story and make her a victim again.
“When you’ve been abused, you don’t have a lot of self-esteem or trust,” says Andrea. “To hear these kind of responses knocks you one step lower into the ground.”
Keep the process open-ended. It’s my nature when solving problems to want closure. However, imposing my own timeline or expectations on the survivor can be counter-productive.
Make referrals. Help the victim get to a therapist who specializes in sexual abuse. When we’re in over our heads, we can hinder the healing process. However, even after making this referral, we still have a responsibility as ministers to continue our love and support.
The Forgiveness Question
Forgiveness is a complex issue, both psychologically and spiritually, for survivors of childhood sexual abuse.
“Some find themselves differing on the issue of the need for forgiveness,” says Powers. “While many have found that forgiving perpetrators is essential for spiritual growth and union with God, psychologists often tell victims that forgiveness is on one end of a healing continuum. Many of them feel it is not necessary for recovery and consequently do not push for it.”
Since, however, many survivors have been raised in a religious environment, they will often struggle with the issue of forgiving their abusers. They’ve been taught that forgiveness is a Christian virtue—necessary to bring them into harmony with God and others.
As director of a transitional housing program for women, Nelda Rhoades Clarke has ministered to hundreds of women recovering from alcohol, chemical, and sexual abuse.
“Women who have been sexually abused struggle with what they have endured,” she says. “Being unable to forgive will keep eating away at them, especially if—as is so often the case—they are women of faith. When someone tells them they need to forgive their abuser, they often think that means they have to pretend it wasn’t so bad, that they should get on with their lives and forget the abuse ever happened.
“What happened to them is not okay,” Clarke insists. “Forgiveness does not necessarily mean they have to return to a trusting relationship with the perpetrator. He may not be trustworthy.”
Forgiveness may take different forms. For some it means finding personal peace. Others discover that the perpetrator, though disturbed, is a human being as well. Some survivors experience forgiveness only when they can forgive themselves and complete the healing. According to Powers, “Sometimes a victim must accept the fact that as a child, she was powerless to prevent the abuse that occurred.”
Anger is a natural part of this often lifelong process. “Women say,” concludes Clarke, “‘I’m still angry because he continues to victimize me.’
“I tell these women, ‘Your anger is legitimate,’ and they find this helpful. They’re often told, ‘If you’ve forgiven, you shouldn’t keep thinking about it,’ but they will continue to think about it and to have feelings. As a minister my concern is that their anger does not rule their lives.”
Survivors of sexual abuse need the freedom to set the agenda, the tone, and the pacing for forgiveness to take place. Andrea eventually confronted her father, but she still struggles with the question of forgiveness.
“He acknowledged he did it. He cried and said he was sorry,” Andrea recounts. “Then he asked if there was anything he could do to help me. I said, ‘You can’t help me because you hurt me.’ There was a lot of pain in that.”
Andrea remains confused about her relationship with him, unsure of what she wants.
“I still love him,” she says. “I still want to take care of him. I’d like to go to his deathbed and say, ‘Dad, I forgive you,’ and have him die in peace and go to heaven. And yet, I think he was so terrible to do that and everything else he did to me. I know he’s sorry, but we will never really have a relationship. Still, I try to be kind to him and include him in family activities, even if only so that my mom can find peace. He looks so sad and lonely in the corner when no one talks to him. But if it were only me and my dad and no one else, I don’t know if I’d ever talk to him or see him.”
My role as a minister is to remain with Andrea as she continues to struggle.
Susan also struggles with the question of forgiveness: “I can understand my father—his insecurities, pain, and his own abuse. I love him, and in a sense I forgive him for what happened because the memories are mine to deal with. But he continues to be a problem.
“I don’t excuse his actions; I hold him accountable. He hasn’t corrected what he did. Our relationship is still strained because he can’t be trusted. I end up getting sabotaged and hurt every time I go into it naïvely. I keep doing that.
“There is a sense of a child’s love being unconditional; that’s gospel to me. I still love this man and probably always will. He did good things for me, and I needed to love him. But I wish the love was two-sided. Until he recognizes the pain he caused, the love can’t be completely restored.”
Adult women survivors of childhood sexual abuse are all around us. They sit in the pews of our churches; teach catechism, Sunday school, and confirmation classes; serve on our boards; sing in our choirs; and speak from our pulpits. So do their perpetrators. As pastors, the most effective support we can offer survivors is to open our eyes, ears, and hearts to the pain they endure daily.
Copyright © 1997
