FGHart

I’ve been preparing a series of posts about Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence. Some of the information is personal. Some of the information is impersonal. The series has been thought-provoking …. for me, anyway. I’ve been thinking about the world today and considering our collective future.

The women who have posted their stories here have consistently demonstrated a tremendous amount of bravery. Not just for posting their stories, but in their stories. Me? I buried my story deep in my blog. But maybe not deep enough. So I buried the details deeper. A lot like we bury stories in our psyche. But the statistics say “the truth will out.” History says “the truth will out.” So…I’m dumping all of this onto the blog-o-sphere at one time, regardless of what the timestamp indicates. Maybe these will be read, maybe not. That’s not why I’m posting these. These are posted as part of my own self-discovery. My truth is out. I have been a victim, but I don’t feel like a victim.

The topic of SA/DV strikes a chord with me. The sound is harmonic and it resonates. I don’t know why. I don’t feel pain when I think about my past. I feel pain when I think about the people who are suffering today. I posted this prayer on behalf of the women and men who are suffering at the hands of someone they love. Someone they once trusted. Someone they let into their lives but who has become their enemy.

If you believe you are not affected by SA/DV, pay no attention. But know this. You’re wrong.

Today’s chat is about insecurities:

Praise God! As long as I am remembering to turn to God in times of trial instead of trying to figure out how to solve problems without Him, I’ll do fine.

This song taught me a new term – “Ebenezer.” Ebenezer is from a Hebrew word meaning “stone of help.” God the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, my stone of help. I’ve started wearing polished stone pendants on a chain as a reminder for myself.

1. Come Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of God’s unchanging love.

2. Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Hither by Thy help I’m come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.

3. O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let that grace now like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

If you want to be brought down over your morning coffee, spend some time perusing the numbers.

~~One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime, and females who are 20-24 years of age are at the greatest risk for intimate partner violence.
~~In 2005, 389,100 women and 78,180 men were victimized by an intimate partner. These crimes accounted for 9 percent of all violent crime.
~~The majority (73%) of family violence victims are females: 84% were spousal abuse victims and 86% were victims at the hands of a boyfriend.
~~A 2004 study found that women living in disadvantaged neighborhoods are more than twice as likely to be the victims of intimate partner violence than women in more affluent neighborhoods.
~~One study found that women who have experienced any type of personal violence (even when the last episode was 14 to 30 years ago) reported a greater number of chronic physical symptoms than those who have not been abused. The risk of suffering from six or more chronic physical symptoms increased with the number of forms of violence experienced.
~~In 2003, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, or transgender people experienced 6,523 incidents of domestic violence; 44% were men, 36% women and 2% transgender.

But what they don’t tell me is the answer to the questions that come to mind when I consider the situation. What percentage of the population are large can be considered abusers. How many abusers are habitual? When I am in a room full of people there are victims, yes. But there are perpetrators as well, right?

I work in a male-dominated environment. Some percentage of the men I work with may have been abused. But…some of them may be abusers. Perpetrators of domestic violence. If statistics are an indicator, that is.

I don’t, in general, trust statistics. I want to know more. The link behind the “if” (above) don’t exactly match “the numbers” link, but they agree that about 1/4 of the women we know have probably been a victim of Domestic Violence. I used to not think about this. Now I do. Do you?

I found myself having a flash of righteous anger last night. Since we can’t really be righteous when we’re angry, I had to internalize this a bit before I pinned down that I was insulted by something that happened at work. Insulted on two fronts, no less.

Am I critical to this operation or no? You tell me “yes” but then schedule a critical week of planning while I am OUT OF THE OFFICE!!! I can anticipate the follow-up and the expectation that I somehow “fix things” that would have been avoided if the meetings could have been postponed one week.

Oh, wait a minute…I don’t even want to be considered critical. I have other things to do…other areas of interest that I am trying to develop. So, if I were to set aside my hurt feelings and my frustration with the way planning has worked out, maybe, just maybe I should be feeling righteous joy. I choose joy.

I’ll let you know how it works out.

Dear Maggie, I respect that you were reluctant to post something about your children but the subject of internet access is so crucial you raised the question for community response.

Even though I created a blog based on parenting angst and my children don’t read my blog I still have a hard time talking about them. Not just because of the emotional pangs I feel but because of respect for them. But you got me to thinking and my thoughts went beyond a reasonable “comment” and the e-mail I was writing began to read like a post…so here we are.

When I was young and the kids were little I was soooo cool. Very laid back. I’d been a rebel (can you believe I traveled with Ringling Brothers for almost a year???), dropping out of college (twice), eloping, etc. When my oldest was 12 I called my Mom to apologize for any pain I caused her. I was beginning to get a glimmer of what my future held.

Situations vary, times change, we went from rags to relative riches after I went back to college and finished getting my degree. But the great job I eventually landed triggered a lot of problems at home (maybe a topic for a different post).

All of this biography is building up to “I don’t really know if any of the next part applies.” I thought I’d given the kids good guidelines and we’d had open discussions about the internet and trust, etc. but the internet is designed to lure people (including kids) and for people to stumble on things, etc. Instead of looking for a stash of skin mags under your father’s side of the bed or in his closet, all a youngster has to do is click a provocative image, then a button that lies about their age for them (“sure I’m 18!”). Once one daughter was doing a study on Harriet Tubman … try doing a study on anything that involves slavery and NOT hit an inappropriate site.

When my oldest (now 23 YO) was in her early/mid-teens I was relying on the “computer is in a public place and I can look over her shoulder at will” method of control and caught her giving her physical dimensions and age to someone in an Instant Message chat. It seems that despite all of the conversations and warnings, a natural teen tendency is to assume they are smarter than their parents and savvy enough to know what is best – and she was quite confident it was okay and I was off-base.

Down the road I was using PCTattleTale – a snooping software that reports everything going on by capturing screen shots every 30 seconds and storing those images on your hard drive. The problem became “now what?” I soon realized that each of the 3 children still at home needed a conversation. One was addicted to hentai (Japanese cartoon porn). She was sneaking onto the computer in the middle of the night to satisfy her addiction. After the first chat she started deleting evidence in the History, but the TattleTale app was not outsmarted and conversations continued. Porn addiction is real and pervasive but this was long before I understood that.

When one suffered from “stumble on” we had the “what to do when you stumble onto something inappropriate” conversation. When one suffered from what appeared to be natural curiosity gone wild we had the “internet makes everything seem normal but some things are definitely NOT normal” conversation. (Seriously, all kinds of sex, sex with animals, little girls, everything is out there and equally available, with no indicators marking the slide from “acceptable” to “perverse.” It is very disturbing. I envy the days when curiosity was satisfied with Playboy magazine.) Later we had a “why are you lying about your age on MySpace” conversation.

Now, I’m back to “trust but verify” with the youngest (almost 15 YO). The computer is in a public place (NOT his bedroom). I have “audit” control, meaning I can look at history, etc. Ditto the cell phone. There are usage rules and we can log onto ATT.com and at least confirm time of call/text and what numbers he’s contacting. I keep an eye on things like that. Also, when he deleted phone records that showed he was communicating with one of his rebellious siblings, we had a chat about that. Trust is betrayed by deleting history. And, when Mom says “I’m concerned about your relationship with someone who might be a negative influence” and teen’s response is to hide evidence of the relationship, a chat is warranted.

In hindsight, the toughest part of parenting is the transition from the age when we must protect them to the age when they must protect themselves. How do we transition trust? How do we let them make mistakes and learn from those mistakes while guarding them against harm? Some harm may be required for them to learn. I struggle with this.

I do something every day now that I never did then. Despite being a regular church-goer I didn’t really put my trust in God when it came to child-rearing. Now I do. I must.

We have them for a time and we do our best, but ultimately they are God’s.

God, Thank you for the gift of my children. I pray for their well-being in a world that seems frightening and dangerous. Keep them safe. Help them to become effective, loving adults. I know that may require painful lessons. Help me to be effective in guiding them through all of the challenges they face – allowing them to learn and grow, as needed. Let me be protecting, but not overprotecting. May they always protected by Your grace.

Amen.

NOTE: I neglected to mention a key point – shower them with love. Never let your concern overshadow your message to them: “YOU ARE LOVED!!!”

Recognize God for all that He is, all that He has done, all that He can do, all that He will do. Be grateful to God for all that He has given us. Be obedient to God’s will. Keep your word in all of the promises you make to God. Turn to God in times of need, accept His help and give Him glory.

God said, “I am God, your God! …. Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the Most High. Then call on me when you are in trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give me glory.” (Psalm 50:7b,14-15 NLT)

It seems simple enough, but how often we forget! It is so easy to forget to say “Thank you!” It is so easy to make “foxhole promises” that evaporate when our well-being no longer seems threatened. Ultimately, God is looking for a relationship with us. A loving and respectful relationship where we say what we mean and we mean what we say. Where we honor Him with our words and our actions. Where we acknowledge His greatness and His grace and His mercy.

The best part is, God knows that life is hard. God knows that we may be tested beyond our endurance. But we are never tested beyond His endurance! He is always there for us. He wants to help us, to ease us through difficult times. But…we must let Him. Sometimes, and I know this from personal experience, we are our own worst enemy – fighting His influence in our willful desire to be “independent.” If we let Him, He will be there for us. He wants to rescue us. But, He also wants to be recognized and given credit for His work.

I love that God is desiring this level of intimacy in our lives. I was so moved when I read this Psalm that I spent the day thinking about how personal it feels to know that God is looking for such a close relationship with me. And to know that He wants to “be there for me” in times of need.

God, I thank you for all that you do for me on a daily basis. I thank you for all that you do for me that I am not even aware of! I thank you for responding to my prayer requests. Today I cry out for Deborah, Julia, Sarah, Eva, Ashley, Maggie (and her girls), Sue, Randall (and family), and all those in trouble, sorrow or any kind of adversity. Praise you, Lord, for hearing my prayers, and answering them in your way, in your time. You are awesome!

Amen.

We are all shaped by our first sexual encounter. Whether it is pleasant or not, I would argue it is a memory that sticks with us. At the forefront of our memories or buried deep within. My first sexual encounters were not ideal. An incident shaped me and affected the next series of encounters. I can see that in hindsight although I might not have appreciated it then. The incident qualified as statutory rape and so maybe I’m a statistic – one out of four women is a victim of sexual assault or domestic violence.

About a year and a half later I was dating someone else. Living somewhere else. My past far behind me already. During a fight, a dispute, an argument about something I can’t even remember….he punched me in the stomach. Enough to wind me, leaving me gasping for air. As soon as I could stand up and breathe, I walked him to the door and ended the relationship. Since we worked at the same place, I can’t say that I never saw him again. He actually was so low that he spread ugly rumors about me. But I counted my blessings because I knew that I’d escaped a fate worse than ugly rumors. I was a victim of domestic violence – even though it only occurred once. Maybe I’m a statistic. One out of four women is a victim of sexual assault or domestic violence.

I can’t explain it. I know I am blessed. I know that I have escaped to a better life. I have been married 23+ years and I do not count myself as a victim of SA/DV. I don’t know if the statistics are valid. I suspect they are conservative. The next time you are with a group of women, it is likely that at least one of them has been assaulted.