You Deserve To Get Up And Walk Again

 

To the one reading this with a hurting heart,

 

You have been trying to pick up the pieces after the pain,

 

And you can’t seem to figure out why it had to be you.

 

You.

 

You, my friend, have been hurting for far too long.

 

You owe it to yourself to trust again.

 

You deserve to get up and walk again. 

 

I know that your heart is fragile. I know that trusting someone again can just make you vulnerable to more, or even greater, pain. I know that the triggers you experience so often are truly unfair. I get it. 

 

I would love to extend an invitation for you to walk with me for a few moments as I share a very personal journey with you as to why I made the decision to pick myself back up, brush myself off, and, one small step at a time, hand-in-hand with my Father, began to walk again. 

 

To be vulnerable with you, I have attempted to put these words to paper for a few years, but at each attempt, anger and resentment have accompanied me. Although I still grieve and even, from time to time, find myself mad over what happened, anger no longer gets to dominate my heart. 

 

Another truth, if I am being totally honest, is that I do not want to share my story. However, greater than the fear of sharing my experience is a passion I have for those who may have found themselves in a similar state as I and have been deeply wounded by His people.  My deep desire is to see you walk in healing from what has grieved the Father’s heart to see happen to you.

 

I pray this will speak to your heart right where you are. Please know, there is no judgment if this is a difficult concept for you to wrestle through. In fact, you are in good company. The heartache you have experienced deserves to have a safe space for you to begin processing it. Lastly, it is important to me for you to know that my hope in writing this message to you is simply to bring hope and healing to your hurting heart. 

 

You, my friend, deserve to get up and walk again.

 

The unfortunate truth to this story is that it is a shared story amongst people around the world and has left many incredible souls walking away from the Lord and His will for their life. I often find myself wishing that I was a rare case to walk through this, and find myself even more grieved that people I love have been so wounded by someone who should have simply been giving them Jesus.

 

—Can I take a moment to just let you know that I am sincerely so sorry for what you have walked through. I am sorry they mistreated you. I am sorry they used you. I am sorry they abused you. I am sorry that you are living with the consequences of another person’s actions. I am so sorry. I know someone else who is deeply sorry that you are hurting and, if you will allow Him the opportunity, He wants to grieve alongside you; His name is Jesus. —

 

The middle school version of myself had no idea, when she began getting compliments on her physical appearance by her youth pastor, that it would only be the beginning of years of perversion by a man entrusted to lead many young souls’ spiritual journey with the Lord.

 

Having grown up in the church, once I reached the age to join the youth group, I remember feeling a sense of confidence when the “cool, new”  youth pastor–the pastor’s son–took me under his wing, including me in things that only his “chosen few” would be invited to and desiring to get to know me on a more personal level. My genuine thought at that time was simply that he saw potential in me and wanted to pour into me as my spiritual leader. It all seemed innocent in my adolescent mind. 

 

Not long after, I started hearing comments from him, as well as other students, regarding his favoritism towards me. Soon he began making comments regarding my physical appearance in flirtatious manners. I would love to tell you that I instantly knew that consistently being called “hot” and told that my butt looked good in the pants I was wearing by my married youth pastor was highly inappropriate, but unfortunately, the culture of perversion became normalized so quickly that I would be lying to you if I told you that the flood of compliments were immediate red flags to me. 

 

The compliments and flirting advanced to private messaging his feelings to me as well. He would refer to me as his “boo” and express his love for me very often. He would insist on me doing things such as matching the clothing I would wear to church to whatever he was wearing so that we could take a picture as well as insist on me curling my hair because he liked it best that way. 

 

—While reflecting during my college years, the guilt consumed me that I had simply complied with everything he had said and that I never questioned the motives behind what was being wished of me. I felt completely senseless and naive to not have been more aware of the wrongdoing. I was a young girl who wanted to be considered beautiful, so when I was told how I looked best, I began to internally believe that if I did not do things such as curl my hair or wear what he wanted me to wear, I was no longer beautiful.—

 

Little did I know that complimenting body parts would turn into casually touching/smacking body parts, and that other young students would also desire to be “favored” and “treated special” as well. Now, his gestures towards me were open and seen amongst my peers, who also at the time, saw the actions as normal behavior.  

 

—Unfortunately, since then, several past students have opened up regarding the amount of insecurity they had felt because their youth pastor was not openly attracted to them. A few went on to share how their insecurity as a young teenager translated into eating disorders, addictions, and the desire for affirmations from men.—

 

We would often go on lengthy youth trips, at times spending a couple of days traveling, and it became known that the bus seat next to him had my name on it. While my friends in the youth group were all sitting together towards the back of the bus, making memories and excited for the trip ahead, I would be at the very front of the bus with our youth pastor who would attempt to hold my hand and would want to talk about a fantasy world where he could be with me.

 

During these bus rides, he would often let me know that he wished that he were my age so that he could be with me in a romantic way and would question whether I would date him if this were the case. I vividly recall just how uncomfortable these questions would make me. I would do everything in my power to avoid directly answering any question. It was a known and common topic brought up by him that if anything were to ever happen to his wife, that he would want to marry me and that he would step down from youth ministry in order to do so.  His wife even began to refer to me as her “sister wife”.

 

He would say things such as, “We are in love. Aren’t we in love? Do you feel the same way about me as I feel about you?” My mind would panic as to how I should respond as I would nonchalantly roll my eyes as if it were all just a joke. As a young girl, I thought that my only option was to keep my mouth shut, smile back, and let him say whatever he wanted to me. After all, he was my leader. If the one leading me is talking this way, it must be okay for him to do, right? He knew far more than I did at that age, right? Who was I to know right and wrong better than the one who was preaching to me what right and wrong looked like on a weekly basis?

 

What I did NOT want to do was let him or any of the other students know just how uncomfortable I was feeling. I was fearful that if I did or said the wrong thing, I would instantly be cast out, unimportant, and even, potentially, one of the youth students he would make fun of.

 

He began posting pictures of the two of us, one specific caption being, “If a picture speaks a thousand words, then I’m stupid because I can only think of one: perfect.” This no longer felt like a hidden and subtle pursuit. It felt open and unashamed. In the processing, I couldn’t seem to get myself to understand why no one had questioned him regarding these very public remarks. I guess we all just trusted him too much, and the alternative was unthinkable.

 

By the time I was 15 years old, we had been so engulfed in this environment that it became normalized for him to initiate playing games like “FMK” with us as students (which, if you are unaware, is when one person is given 3 names–youth students’ names, students’ parents’ names, men/women in the church names, each other, etc.— and you choose one to sleep with, one to marry, and one to kill). Very often, my youth pastor would let me and other students know that he would want to “do it all” to me, specifically sharing with us that he would want to sleep with me and marry me.

 

As a young girl, although many boundaries had been crossed, I never truly considered to what extent he would actually want to go–the line between joking around and reality got really blurred. Today, my heart can’t help but hurt for the fifteen-year-old version of me that was not able to prepare herself for what her youth pastor would desire from her. 

 

At the end of each summer, our youth group would head out of state for a national competition where we competed with other youth groups from across the country. This particular year, we were heading to Orlando, which called for another long bus ride. Due to his wife staying back for pregnancy purposes, the seat beside my youth pastor was, once again, granted to me for the longevity of the trip.

 

This trip consisted of several dark, late night bus rides. One particular night on this trip, I found myself dozing off due to an exhausting, full day at Disney World. As I began to drift asleep, I felt the hand of my youth pastor begin to slowly scratch my back. I remember not thinking too much of it as this would have been a “normal” gesture by him. I had not fully fallen asleep when I quickly shifted from a state of drifting to sleep to fully aware of what was going on as I felt the hand of my youth pastor begin to slide into the waistband of my shorts. Panic filled my body as his hand started to move further down past my waistband. The only action step that I could conjure up was to fidget to let him know that I was “waking up” from being asleep. I truly have no idea, nor do I want to think about, how far he would have gone had I not done this. 

 

Thank you, Father, for your protection from what could have been. 

 

I wish that from this moment on I could tell you that things changed and gradually got better after this incident; however, his behavior just became more and more normalized. Something that still aches my heart during this time is I had brought some friends from school to the youth group. In their pursuit of God, they, unfortunately, got heavily involved in the culture of our youth group and were greatly affected by his actions as well. 

 

One Sunday during a church service, my youth pastor messaged me that he needed to speak with me in his office after the service. Thinking the purpose was innocent, I went to his office, where he would share with me about a dream he had the night before regarding him being intimate with me. My stomach felt sick. In hearing the emotion and passion behind his voice while sharing this dream with me, the realization of his desires became real. He would go on to share this dream that he had with a few other youth students who immediately voiced their sense of concern with me.

 

Once I turned seventeen years of age, he turned the  conversation to how he wanted to sleep with me when I turned eighteen. This became a terrifying subject to me because it seemed that the more I would decline and avoid it by changing the subject, the more he would be adamant about it happening. One time before youth services, in front of my peers, I remember him trying to shake my hand, as in agreement to his plan, and then, his telling them, “She knows what this means.”  In fact, I did understand what it meant, and it made me sick.

 

 “Abby, just shake his hand, what’s the big deal?” At this point, I was in a constant mind battle of whether I was overreacting or if it really was just that....a big deal.

 

Once it became very apparent to me that my youth pastor was serious about this desire, I made the decision to open up to a close friend about the uncomfortability that I was feeling. I shared how my thoughts were constantly in a state of anxiety as I tried to prepare myself for the next alone time or private conversation.

 

—Something to note, but is a story for a different time, is that around this same time, my youth pastor and his family bought my parents’ house from them (due to my dad getting a job in a different state), and he would offer for me to live with them while I finished out high school (due to my involvement in extracurriculars and desire to not move right before my senior year). I would end up living with them from the summer before my senior year until I would leave for college at the end of the following summer. So, not only was he my youth pastor at this time, but he was also the one who my parents’ had entrusted to be my guardian. Weird, I know, but that’s how much we trusted him and his family.—

 

Soon after confiding in a friend regarding these feelings, my youth pastor became aware that I was speaking out about the way that he was making me feel. Immediately, he made me feel so small for feeling this way. “Are you trying to ruin my family?” Truthfully, ruining his family had never entered my mind nor was it my desire to do so, and this is why from that moment forward, I would never mention to anyone just how he would make me feel until I finally got away.

 

Once it came time for me to move off to college, I made the difficult decision to walk away from everything I had ever known in hopes of a fresh start. I remember getting a ton of push back and comments from him that I would hate it and come back after my first semester. He would text me regularly, “Don’t leave me,” in hopes that I would choose to stay close. I am so grateful to let you know that I did follow-through with my plan to leave, had the best first semester in college, and never thought twice about going back.

 

During my first year of college, I got involved in a campus ministry and began being discipled by a truly godly leader, who has become one of the most precious souls that I have ever known. During our time together, she slowly began to reveal to me, as I shared pieces of my past with her, just how wrong everything had been. “Abby, you do know that this is not normal, right?” I began to process alongside her the many stories that I had walked through during this time, and as each moment was re-lived, I became overwhelmed with the reality of just how wrong each situation was. This was much deeper than anything my preteen to teenage self could have understood at the time. 

 

The more that we processed together, the heavier of a burden I would feel toward those who had potentially felt or been through anything similar. During this time, I would feel crippled with anxiety anytime I would have a one-on-one conversation with a man. Unfortunately, this feeling was mostly prevalent for me inside of a church building. Can I just be bluntly honest with you? This was HARD for me. I could not understand why God would even want me to trust a man in church leadership again. I thought I was justified in my distrust of men and felt confident that God would understand why and even be okay with my decision not to trust. I would eventually learn that He actually does desire for me to trust again, not for the benefit of another man, but for me to experience the healing and the freedom He had for me once I did. 

 

Today, I can confidently say that He has restored my relationship with men in church leadership. Am I still cautious and more alert than your average person? 100%. Nonetheless, I have come to realize, through experience, that there are men in church leadership who can genuinely care for you without having evil intentions. My heart still aches at the reality that not all church leaders around the globe are safe people with the best intentions; however, allowing the lie that they are all unsafe and cannot be trusted become what you believe, can rob you from experiencing a leader who the Lord wants to use to bring hope and healing to any misconceptions.

 

Although we are called to walk in forgiveness, I think we often mistake that forgiveness looks like forgetting what happened, moving on, and not doing anything about it because you forgave them, right? However, I believe there is a time when bringing things to light in order to protect other people and walking in forgiveness can coexist. As I grieved through the things that had happened to me and as I began to walk in healing, I knew that the Lord was leading me to share my story to potentially protect other young teenagers who may currently be walking through similar things. 

 

In the book, The Church That Jesus Built, Natalie Runion wrote, “We lose more sheep by tiptoeing around the disguised wolves than we would by taking the risk to bring them into the light.”

 

Once I felt secure in what I needed to do, I reached out to a trusted man in leadership that I knew I would feel comfortable sharing my story with and who was in leadership over this youth pastor. My family and I would then make the trip to meet with the leader and his wife to share the things that we had experienced. I was fairly taken aback when their response was that they were saddened, but not shocked by my story.

 

Little did I know that this meeting would be the first of many and would be the beginning of a long journey ahead. 

 

Shortly after our meeting, I would go on to have meetings with several high-level leaders, who would go on to have meetings with my old youth pastor, who would go on to admit to everything that had been in my report. His rationale was that nothing was intended and that he was just being stupid. They would ultimately decide to revoke his ministry credentials, meaning he would no longer be able to pastor within this denomination and would be forced to step down from his position as youth pastor. 

 

I would love to tell you that all was handled as it should have been, the truth was told, and the people of the church were able to heal and move forward. Unfortunately, things got very ugly and lying and covering up would force devoted families to completely walk away from the church. Several wonderful families from the church stood with us as most of them either had kids who confirmed the truth to them or had witnessed behaviors for themselves. However, we also would eventually end up grieving the loss of friendships with a few long-term church members that would end up siding with the pastor’s story.  The lead pastor, who was the youth pastor’s father and had also been a friend of my parents, began to threaten my dad, calling him at home and at his workplace, and threatening to sue our family if we did not keep quiet.

 

When it came time for the youth pastor to step down from his position and let the church congregation know, his father would tell the church that his son would be leaving to become the lead pastor of a different church in another state. He told the church that “the Holy Spirit does not promote gossip” and apologized “if anyone heard beforehand with many of the facts misinterpreted.” He let the church know that “there was no sin involved, their marriage has never been better, or their family more secure. They are leaving simply because God has spoken, and they have learned to obey and trust Him all the way. After my board meeting this week, I speak firmly on behalf of the board that the door is always open if they want to come back here.”  *(This is quoted directly from a recording of this church service.)

 

Ouch. This was extremely painful to hear. God, why would you call me to share my story only for it to get covered up, lied about, and for him to get promoted to a lead pastor position, where he could potentially affect more people?  As followers of Jesus, shouldn’t people matter to us? Or is it okay since he is no longer pastoring in our denomination or in our district? People matter to God in a way that crosses over every denomination, every state, and every single church body. 

 

God, what is your purpose in this difficult journey for me? Where are you?

 

As several past and present youth students of the church began to hear that I had come forward with what I had walked through, it was heart-wrenching to hear stories upon stories of what others had experienced as well. I remember laying in my bed and crying out to God as I read each story that was sent to me of the pain that these young souls were carrying. The stories I would hear were ranging over the course of over seven years. Many students had reached out to me and thanked me for coming forward as they had been victims of this abuse and were finally processing the reality of what they had experienced, not just from our youth pastor, but other men in leadership there as well. More often than not, each victim would share that they either had not stepped foot into another church building since leaving our church, or that they attempted a new church and the extreme anxiety they felt kept them from ever returning.

 

To bring this part of my story to a conclusion, as you can imagine, the process has been long and is still ongoing, but the Lord has been faithful to guide me with each step that I have taken. Not only that, but He has gifted me with an incredible husband who continues to walk alongside me and is being used to bring restoration to the beliefs that I once had about men. We now have a beautiful baby boy who will be raised by a mom who is continuously seeking wholeness and healing from what could have been used to destroy her.

 

Whew! This is a very messy story that would make anyone want to walk away from the Church and never trust its people again. It is natural to be self-protective and it makes total, logical sense to do everything in your power to not get hurt, especially in the same way, ever again. The problem with having a mindset of being self-protective and not allowing yourself to trust again is that they get to win. They get the ability to limit you. They get the power over your emotions and decisions moving forward.

 

The enemy of your soul is confident that he has gotten exactly what he wanted from you.

 

He loves that you are convinced you can’t recover from this. He loves that this has destroyed your faith and made you question everything that you have ever believed about the Lord. He loves the fact that you are consumed by how relationships might hurt you rather than allowing yourself to enjoy the people around you who care so deeply for you. He loves that you never want to get married because “all men are the same” or “what if he turns out just like him?” He loves that you stay guarded and never let yourself get too close because  “what if they are not loyal to me just like the last one?” 

 

Believe me, I am still on this journey with you, friend; however, I just can’t help but get fired up when I think of all that I have let the enemy take away from me. Satan, over my dead body will I continue to give power to whom it doesn’t belong.

 

What if the very things that you have walked through, that the enemy had planned on using to completely and totally take you out, are the very things that God is going to use to bring hope and healing to someone else? Through your healing, another precious soul might choose to walk in wholeness and healing too. Through you choosing the hard path of forgiveness, another soul chooses to be relieved from the weight of unforgiveness as well. Through you choosing to lean into a healthy relationship, even though you may have your fears, you end up in a beautiful marriage that inspires other young couples with similar fears because yours gave them hope that maybe, just maybe, not every man is the same. 

 

He can and will turn it all around and use it for good if you would give Him the honor to do so. He will not waste even an inch of what you have had to walk through. He was devastated to see it happen to you and wants more than anything to restore you to even better than you were before it happened. The Lord just so happens to have a pretty good track record for using broken, hurting people to create something beautiful and you are no exception for Him. 

 

I truly believe that pain and suffering is not as much of an issue for us as thinking that the pain and suffering have no purpose. If you would be willing, I know that He would love more than anything to bring purpose out of your pain. This can only happen if you begin to unclench the fist full of hurt that you are scared to let go of and place it in the hands of your Father.

 

My friend, I thank you for journeying with me through my story, but now, this is about your story. 

 

I know it will be hard for you, but it is time for you to finally get back up again. 

 

You have suffered for long enough. They have taken too much from you. You have carried too much for far too long. It is time for you to take back the power that you have unwillingly given them.

 

Your heart, mind, and soul are much too valuable to be a place where unhealed hurt is able to continue to reside. The beautifully intricate way that the Lord has formed you and given you a purpose should not be given the access to be polluted by someone who completely lost their way. 

 

You are so much more deserving than what you have experienced. You are so much more deserving than what you have put yourself through because they did not love and respect you appropriately.

 

You deserve to get up and walk again.

 

And my prayer for you, friend, is that once you start walking, you will begin to run and dance in freedom as well.