GRACE IN HEALING by Theresa Harvard Johnson Guest Blogger

Theresa Harvard Johnson

By my dear friend Theresa Harvard Johnson

Grace In Healing

Copyright 2012 Theresa Harvard Johnson

 

I am an invisible girl, sitting in an invisible chair;

People walk by me, never noticing that I am there.

They can't hear my invisible screams as I rise or see me my invisible stand;

and when I reach for an embrace, they slip through my invisible hands.

Can someone tell me what's wrong with me?

Why are these people just passing by?

Does my invisible tears upset them,

when they hear my silent cry?

 

I am tortured in my existence,

I'd be better off if I wasn't here at all.

Because I know that if I was chopped down as a tree,

no one would hear or see my invisible fall.

 

I wrote, “Theresa the Invisible,” when I was around 15-years-old.

In my youth and most of my adulthood, I struggled to express any heart-felt emotion outside of an intense, unquenchable rage – which nearly destroyed me. I didn’t know it then, but I came to realize that whatever I couldn’t speak I could somehow write.

 

My writing consisted primarily of poetry (perceptive, depressive and very, very dark) and short stories (fantasy, romanticism & fiction). Most of my early writings painted pictures of the deep depth of emotion buried inside me from a lifetime of severe abuse and neglect.

 

I remember sitting in my ninth grade art class at the close of the school day one evening when my favorite teacher, Sherry Jamison, sat down beside me, placed her hand upon mine and tenderly asked, “Theresa, are you okay?”

 I can remember looking up at her with such emptiness inside me and answering, “I don’t know Ms. J but can I read you this poem I wrote.” You see, this is how I answered my friends when I was too afraid or to ashamed to speak. It was always a “let me share this poem” or “why don’t you read this story I wrote.” Beyond my trusted notebook, I rarely shared my heart.

 

I took a huge step reading that poem to Ms. Jamison that day. I took a leap of faith in trusting her, and as a result, she became a powerful exhorter in my life – someone who “could see” me. The seeds planted during that time have strong roots in who I am today.

That poem marked the beginning of a deep mentoring relationship – in art and in life. Now, as I look back on that time, I realize that Ms. Jamison learned a lot about who I really was that school year. She was the first adult to hear or read my private poetry and short stories – some of which revealed the effects of the physical, sexual and emotional abuse that shaped my mind and numbed my emotions. She was the first person to say to me, “Theresa, you have a brilliant mind and unlimited potential. You need to know that you can have a good life.”

 

I’ll never forget what she said to me that day. I’d never thought that my life would be any different than that of the people around me, after all I was hanging out a shot houses (where you could buy liquor for a dollar a glass) and juke joints at night (back yard dance clubs in people’s homes or apartments) when it wasn’t safe for me to go home. She put her hand firmly on my shoulder and looked me squarely in the eyes: “Theresa, look at me,” she insisted. I remember lifting my head from such a deep, deep place of shame. “Look at me! None of this is your fault! You didn’t do anything wrong. What is wrong is what has been done to you.”

 

I’ll never forget the overwhelming emotions that coursed through me in that moment. I wasn’t thinking about what had happened in the past or even where I would go from this point. I simply remembered thinking, “I’m not invisible anymore.” People could see me. I remember feeling so happy that someone cared about me. I had a mentor, who over the months that followed, would walk with me as I transitioned from my home, the physical and emotional abuse I was facing daily at the hands of my mother, and into the foster care system.

Somebody cared. I had value.

You see, there are times in the midst of our healing process in which “we question” where Jesus was in the midst of the suffering. We wonder why He didn’t stop the pain, why he didn’t interrupt the rape, the molestation, the harsh words… the terror. Even though I was a believer, I spent YEARS not fully trusting God, understanding him as Father or believing that the fullness of His love really extended to me.

As a result, when things seemed to go haywire I would find myself asking, “JESUS, WHY DIDN’T YOU SAVE ME? WHY DIDN’T YOU INTERVENE IN THIS SITUATION?” I don’t know about you, but I walked through this valley more than once in the midst of maturing in my faith. While the situation might have been different, the root was the same: There was a place in me in which I believed God had abandoned me all those years ago. Therefore, anytime something major happened in my life…. my soul (on automatic pilot) would revert to those painful times.

It was in this place of questioning the Lord in prayer one evening that I received an answer. While I didn’t know what the Lord was going to do, I knew it was a time in which this question, for me, would be buried forever. I laid my head back in my office chair – quietly, yet uncontrollably weeping, repentant, grateful and in need of breakthrough all at once. After some time passed and I’d calmed down, I heard this in my Spirit:

“Theresa, I was with you in every violation, struggle and place of pain. I eagerly read your journal entries, poems and short stories as you wrote them. I listened to your words with the force and gentleness of every pen stroke. I laughed with you in the midst of your joy, and wept with you in the midst of sorrow. I grieved with you at the center of all that was lost and stolen. Beloved, nothing concerning you has EVER been hidden from me! I was YOUR PEN. I was the one capturing your tears in a bottle! I was with you when you didn’t know my name; and stood patiently, waiting to come into your heart. I was leading your high school teacher, and others who have come your way. When YOU realized you needed me and granted me entrance into your heart, I embraced you without hesitation and I rushed in. YOU have always been mine. I am holding you, even now, in my arms and releasing wholeness in every incomplete place in your soul. Receive it. Today, I have your trust.”

With my head lying back in that chair, the tears fell – not of sorrow, but of release, peace and joy. Countless medications, in-hospital treatment and therapy sessions could not do what God did in that moment. It was over.

These were tears of healing, closure, peace, understanding, VICTORY and… rest in my Father. These were tears of true forgiveness. I was able to finally let go of this debilitating part of my past.

From that moment forward, I was able to see Jesus as my advocate through my pen all those years ago. I was able to see him through Ms. Jamison’s hand and all those like her whom God had sent throughout my life. Sitting back in that office chair, I was SO VERY THANKFUL, GRATEFUL! I was able to see and RECEIVE the grace in which His love has truly consumed me.

I came to know this truth from pursuing His presence: 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 CJB, “Three times I begged the Lord to take this thing away from me; but he told me, “My grace is enough for you, for my power is brought to perfection in weakness.”

 

 

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30 Years Ago Tonight

Thirty years ago tonight I tried to take my life.  I was at the lowest point of desperation and had no where to turn, no one to care, and felt I had no other options.  To those of you reading this blog, and have experienced thoughts of suicide, perhaps even planned it out in your head or gone as far as I did and actually attempt, I implore you to stop and get help.  I planned to kill myself a thousand different ways with my first attempt as young as 8 years old.  On this night 30 years ago, at age 17, I made a more deliberate  attempt and I executed the plan.  I ingested 64 sleeping pills and drank a bottle of vodka in the deep of the woods, where my body would not be found for days.  

I was one of the lucky ones who attempt suicide.  I received a miracle, a divine intervention that saved my life.   At the time I didn't understand why, I just felt like a failure and made two other futile attempts on this night 30 years ago.  

I know what it feels like to feel worthless, hopeless and helpless.  This side of 30 years, I also see the value of my life and how many lives would not exist nor be on their path to healing, without the interception with my life.  I see two special lives that God allowed me to birth, and they will leave a huge fingerprint on humanity.  I have a precious soulmate in my husband, that would never have known the closeness and intimacy we share.  I founded an organization, VOICE TODAY (www.voicetoday.org) that is working diligently to break the silence & cycle of child sexual abuse through awareness, prevention and healing programs and resources.  In my broken desperation 30 years ago  I could not see into the future, and I see now had I succeeded what a selfish act that would have been.

God has a purpose and plan for my life that only I can accomplish.   Many can take up the torch of child sexual abuse awareness, prevention and healing but only I can do it like Angela Williams, with my specially created gifts, talents and fingerprint.  God has a purpose and a plan for your life.  God had a purpose for my life for nothing else to reach you today to say there is a better way.  There is ALWAYS hope even if we are blinded to it, and it may be just crying out to God to show you the direction of the light of hope.  

My pain was rooted in 14 years of verbal, physical, emotional and sexual abuse iced with abandonment and neglect.  I don't know the root of your pain but I do know that we serve a powerful and mighty God that loves you deeply and has created you for greatness  I know that my life was spared for a reason, to stand in the gap with all those that are hurting so deeply and tell them that they deserve to live.  Not just live but to live the life God created them for; full of love, passion, purpose and peace.  My prayer for you today is that you find hope and healing on a path to freedom.  I pray that you will be freed from any self destructive thoughts or behaviors.  

That path may include professional help, a spiritual experience, a friend or family member to encourage and support your healing journey.  Our journeys are all different.   I pray that you reach out from your isolation and find your VOICE to tell whoever is in your world, that you need help and share any thoughts or plans of suicide.  I promise you that those thoughts are not the answer.  The answer is to believe that the pain you feel can and will heal.

Today, thirty years later from the moment I attempted to end my life, I celebrate my life.  I see this day as an anniversary of a new birth of freedom and I celebrate every life I have been honored to touch!

Bless you and my prayers are with you.  

A MESSAGE FROM ANGELA WILLIAMS

STANDING IN THE GAP IN 2013

This is the year that our voices will be heard!  Our volume will get louder and louder until the masses hear and understand that child sexual abuse is a heinous crime cocooned in silence that needs our urgent attention.  We must stand in the gap for those wounded, the children that need to be protected and the millions that need understanding.  Please join THE VOICE MOVEMENT Today by reaching out to offer whatever resource you can give;  time, talent or financial resources.  The next generation of children are depending on us to rise up and take a stand against the sexual abuse of children.  Now is the time to STAND IN THE GAP!  www.voicetoday.org 

Where Was My Mother?

 Where Was My Mother?

On a recent interview and many before the question is always asked, “Where was your mother?”  As hard as I try to avoid the question, it never fails to be asked.  On The 700 Club, Terry Meeuwsen even went as far to say that you must have also wondered, “Where was your mother when this was taking place.”

How do I say she was in the next room?   How do I say she was there with eyes that wouldn’t see?  How do I explain she was there with arms that would not defend?  She was there with a cold heart to the bruises I wore.  She was there blind to the hurt in my eyes.  She was there insensitive to the burdens I carried.  She was there consumed with her own survival.  How I do I say she was hunkered down behind a great wall of denial.  I absolutely wondered, not wanting to face the fact that she was there all along.

Because the truth is my mother has asked for me to “leave her out of this.”  I guess I could say, “I was hatched from an egg and there was not a mother responsible for my well being.”  But that would be a lie.  I learned to lie as a child to protect my mother.  Even to answer a stranger who asked, “How are you?” and you answer, “Fine.”  That was a lie the size of Mount Rushmore when every fiber of your being is screaming,  “I am rotting away inside from the filth and constant attacks.”  I would love to leave her out of this but the fact of the matter is I had a mother, like millions of survivors that may read this one day, that played a role in my abuse.   

I cannot leave my mother out of this but I can leave all the bitterness and resentfulness, and honor her as God requires, forgiving her every day, even for the request to, “Leave her out of this.”

Sometimes, if we speak truth, we are accused of not forgiving.  I don’t see how the two are connected.  I can forgive me mother but yet answer the question, “Where was she?”  I know where she was physically, but mentally I don’t know where she was.  All I know is that she did not protect me.  The little girl never had a voice, but today I have a voice and a voice that no one will ever take away.  I am a mother and I will protect my children and all the children that God gives me strength for my life to touch.  I will even protect the little girl inside of me that did not have a mother that protected her. 

To learn more about the subject of child sexual abuse and how you can be better prepared to protect the children in your life, please visit VOICE Today at www.voicetoday.org. 

                                   View The 700 Club Interview

The Other Shoe

As survivors of child sexual abuse we spend our childhood expecting, almost waiting for the next horrible thing to happen and I must confess that is hard programming to break.  We suffer in silence, we manage and manipulate our world so as to try to outsmart our perpetrator, we take the long way, we try to stay within eyeshot and earshot of someone who just may be willing to protect us, but ultimately the evil wins and we are trapped to face the unthinkable-again and again.

So how do we shake this feeling of doom and gloom?  How do we reprogram our minds and our bodies to expect great things today?   Personally it is a moment-by-moment challenge where we have to take captive those negative thoughts and put the opposite spin, a positive spin, on that moment.  Today, I am still conquering this residue of abuse in my life.  We were conditioned to spend so much time worrying about the next attack that we tended to live in the next moment, the future, instead of the here and now. We create the scenarios that will bring disaster and focus on them like they are real.

We have to speak truth over the lies that the evil planted in our minds.  We have to take charge of our lives; living on purpose, determined to experience joy, enjoy our relationships and just be.  We have to plan our days to function with maximum health that includes nutrition, rest, and exercise.  This discipline is so contrary to the conditioning of the abuse, because we learned to hate our bodies and what they have suffered, so we tend, at least I did, to almost punish our bodies.  So many eating disorders are birthed from child sexual abuse.  We either put on a layer of insulation to protect ourselves or we starve ourselves, both exercising control over our bodies we did not posses as vulnerable children.   Many of us also engage in self defeating and self destructive behaviors that limit our mind and bodies ability to heal. 

So today I challenge you to reprogram your thoughts.  Instead of waiting for the other shoe to drop, take off both shoes and run barefoot in the grass. Expect great things out of this day.  Expect to be surprised, to be excited, to enjoy the life you deserve, free from pain and torment, free from abuse and free from those dreadful thoughts.

Know that God loves you and never wanted you to suffer.  He desires you to live a life full of peace and joy.  Jeremiah 29:11 says, "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

For resources for survivors of child sexual abuse please visit VOICE Today, www.voicetoday.org.

Snapshots of Joy

Do you remember as a little one throwing your arms out for momentum and spinning around and around, faster and faster until you fell flat looking up to see swirling clouds.  Then you would jump up the minute you regained your balance to do it all again.  When we were little we wanted the world to go faster, we stretched our necks to meet the height requirement, we stretched our legs to reach the gas pedal, we wanted to ride the fastest roller coaster, always anxious to get one year older, and on and on. 

Now, I just want the world to slow down. Time is our most precious resource and it is fleeting.  I will graduate my baby boy from High School tomorrow and I can’t believe that 18 years have flashed before my eyes.  Certainly our goal as parents is to give them wings to fly, by I long for that simple summer day where I waded through the brightly colored balls at Chucky Cheese, or played hide and go seek, counting slow enough to get the wet clothes in the dryer; when toys were strung from corner to corner and we looked for hours for the lost hot wheels car; when we had to turn the car around because we left his favorite spider man action figure and he of course couldn’t miss the outing.   Cheering on the sidelines for our little league team was a weekend pastime.  I cherished those little arms wrapped around my neck that gave me a moment to rub noses or butterfly kisses.  I miss he long bubble baths with dozens of toys in the tub and the nightly story time and snuggles.

Fanning through boxes and boxes of pictures this week to choose the most memorable moments I found myself pulling out more than I left in the box.  They were ALL memorable moments.  Every photo was a snapshot of joy, a memory captured on photo paper and seared in my heart.  I thank my son Jacob for all those precious memories and for the overwhelming joy that he has brought into my life.  I can truly say that I have been able to live vicariously through his marvelous childhood and being a mommy has been my favorite job of all time.

Though my own childhood was riddled with abuse I am proud the cycle stopped with me, and though there are always scars that may open from time to time, the joy of being a mother spoke volumes of healing into that pain.  My father walked out of my life at my birth never to look back.  I have been able to witness a precious loving relationship between a Jacob and his dad.   I find it challenging to trust my mother because of the ways she let me down.  But I know Jacob trusts that I will always be here for him.  The cycle ended because Jacob has a legacy of healthy, honest relationships and he has been filled to overflowing with love every day of his life.

I am a proud Mom with prayers of blessings for Jacob and encouragement for others to slow down and treasure each moment with your children, because those moments spin away fast.   I want to share one of my favorite quotes with you, “It is not the breaths you take in this life but the moments that take your breath away.”  So today, share a simple moment that takes your breath away and take a snapshot to hide in your heart.

Grief

When we grieve as adults we somehow touch that wound we spend every day trying to heal.  Maybe it triggers that sadness and pain that was a constant emotion as a confused and lonely child.  Maybe it triggers the grief of innocence lost.  Whatever the reason I want to share my journey through my Granny’s death in hopes it will help you process your own feelings when you struggle with grief.

My Granny passed away last Sunday.  I am so grateful to her and for her because she was the one person that gave me Godly life lessons.  She gave me hope and encouragement.  I believe, had I possessed the courage to tell her of my abuse as a child, she would have been the one person that would have protected me.  Years later when I finally told her what I had suffered through my childhood, her gentle words were comforting, “If I had only known, I would have taken you away from him, she painfully and regretfully whispered as she held me in a puddle of tears.”  She gave me the little cups of joy as a child, the affirmation I so longed for, the moments to be a child in her arms and elbow to elbow on the banks of her pond with a fishing pole.  She listened to my dreams on her front porch rockers and she told me often, “One day you will soar on wings of angels.  There ain’t nothin you can’t do if you put your mind to it,” she would bellow in her southern drawl.

I will miss my Granny so much.  I know she is walking on streets of gold, praising God arm in arm with the angels and learning all about the mysteries of life from the lips of Jesus.

Her life was a miracle and also her death.  In her 97 years my Granny miraculously lived through pancreatic cancer in the ‘70’s; to follow would be battles with diabetes, high blood pressure, breast cancer and congestive heart failure.

She had a massive stroke 8 days before she passed.  She lived 8 days paralyzed, unable to speak or eat but could respond with a nod.  I believe she stayed in that critical state for 8 days to give anyone in her life an opportunity to come to her side and say goodbye.  To rid there hearts of any words left unspoken.

I was by her side all night and day after her stroke and peacefully left knowing it would be the last time I would see her alive.  So funny how we think for a second that we know what happens next in this life.  I returned home, three hours away.  The week passed and Granny held on and I would continue to ask God, should I go back to be by her side?   It was one of the most hectic weeks at VOICE Today, and each time I would get a great peace that God was in control and when I needed to be there I would.  On Saturday I received a call around 1pm that hospice estimated Granny had less than 8 hours to live.  I had a commitment for a TV Interview at 6pm in Atlanta.  I again asked God, should I cancel and go on to be by my Granny’s side and again I felt great peace to continue to do what God had called me to do and He had my Granny.    My long and arduous week finally ended at 8:30pm on Saturday, 8 days after Granny’s stroke and I prayed as I traveled the 3 hours to my Granny’s side, “God please call her home when you are ready but if you could spare her for me to hold her hand one more time it would be a miracle.”  Exhausted from my week I just decided to pray in the spirit during the long drive south.

When I arrived at 11pm I had a renewed strength that I know only comes from the power of the Holy Spirit.  I rushed to her side where she was struggling for each breath.  I could feel the angels in the room and I said “God thank you for this moment.“ I held her hand, sang to her and told her that I could feel the angels and reassured her that Jesus was coming soon. 

I worked all week on a slide show of her life that I put to her favorite songs.  I turned it on softly in the background.  Family members who had been by her side all week had gone to bed, totally exhausted, or left for a shower.   I laid my head on her chest and squeezed her hand. Hours passed and her breathing became more and more erratic.  At 1:25am my Granny opened her eyes, pinched her lips twice and took her last breath in a peaceful departure to heaven.  God was in control of every minute of her life and it was His will for me to be by her side.  It is a blessing I shall never forget and a testimony to answered prayer.  God honored my obedience in doing all that He had called me to do that week.

I finally cried, that cry that you think will never end, that leaves your head pounding and your eyes burning like fire.  I am still grieving but not with tears, just with a hole in my heart that I know will never be filled this side of heaven.  I will miss my Granny, but I gave her my word that I would live as she lived generously and love as she loved with great intention and action.

What I have learned that I want to share is that I am allowed to hurt, to feel pain, and through this visit to the greatest wound in my life, I can learn how to grieve in healthy ways.  I grieved through making a beautiful memorial of my Granny in her slideshow, I grieved through making sure her funeral was a great tribute and honor to her life and I grieved yesterday giving myself permission to rest.  My advice is to heal loving yourself through the pain.  Don’t push it down, don’t default to self destructive behavior, don’t ignore the pain, just invite Jesus into that pain and pray for an abundance of great mercy and grace.  Open the Word of God and let His Words be ointment to the wound.

My Granny was an amazing cook but her recipe for life is the best recipe she left me.  I would like to share the recipe I found in my Granny’s bible, faintly remember her reading it to me as a child and I read at her funeral that I think has great value:

     RECIPE FOR LIFE

     Mix Thoroughly

     I cup good thoughts

     1 cup of kind deeds

     1 cup of consideration of others

     3 cups of forgiveness

     2 cups of well beaten faults and add  

        tears of joy, sorrow, and sympathy  for others

     Fold In

     4 cups of prayers and faith to lighten other ingredients and to raise the    

     texture to heights of Christian     

     living.

     After pouring all this into your family, bake well with the heart of human 

     kindness, Serve with a smile.                                                                                             

                                                             By Mrs. Lynda Roberts

We must just remember after our grief, joy comes in the morning.  We are not little children anymore left to figure out the pain alone but adults with an arsenal of tools to heal and to grow.  The greatest tool of all is the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ.