Dedication: I'd like to dedicate my story to the love of my life, my husband, my soul mate, confidence, protector, lover & best friend. Thank you for believing in me, for being willing to understand me in spite of all the pain with our marriage betrayal which God has healed through forgiveness by His amazing grace & His mercy. He has truly brought us out of darkness into His light as we began to understand one another & grow spiritually & emotionally. It awes me where He is taking both of us as we bring those who are still captive & in prison into the light of God.
Trigger warning: Please be cautious when reading this post. It describes childhood sexual abuse.
In October, 1998 watching Oprah’s Family Secrets Show with my mother, I so wanted to tell her what her dad did to me & my female cousins when he singled me out every visit we made to their house & molested me. When I finally told her I learned that as a little girl the same thing had happened to my dear mother! The following Summer I went back to the camp where I had been violated sexually again telling my dad, a pastor about the second sexual assault when I was a preteen. In July, 1999, I reached past the psychologist in a Disciplinary Committee Hearing & handed the sex offender clergy a photo of me at the age he molested me. I hated that photo because it reminded me of all the years of the molestations by grandpa & this pastor. My innocence was taken from me at age 2-8 with incest & age 11-12 by the youth pastor. The courage I scraped up was beyond me how I could do this after living with PTSD creating denial with a frozen scream for 40 years! The elderly youth pastor completely denied what he did to me & 3 other adult women from the Bible camp decades ago but I had a letter impact statement that I wrote to prove what he did as well as my best friends who went through what I did. He was questioned before I went into the room to face him but claimed he could not remember, saying it was incredulous to think anyone would make such statements! Two Summers in a row when he was 27 he sexually traumatized us. I recall every detail how he sat us on his lap touching us & himself while playing the piano as well as in the lake where we swam. He enticed us into his room at the missionary cottage he stayed in with offers of candy & comics acting as a predator for more than 10 years causing irreparable emotional & psychological damage to all of us. He was caught years after he sexually assaulted me & sent to the Bahamas to do youth ministry! Seven weeks after I confronted him, I got a phone call from the head of the committee in the sex abuse hearing telling me that he fell down the stairs & broke his back & died! Shocked with this news, I knew that he will face God someday for all the sins he committed which lay hidden for decades. I did not need to be his judge or jury. I kept a journal with all the details of decades of abuse & began to write my book Listen to the Cry of the Child grieving all my many losses knowing that this would be the beginning of unearthing my past & moving me into restoration & healing. When I began questioning myself & all that happened to me, I asked my husband why did he think I was born? He told me, “You’re a wonderful wife & mother” but I knew there was a much greater purpose on this earth why God created me & how He could use this to bring good, hope & healing to others who have gone through what I did. I have a God given passion & purpose to bring hope & healing to survivors all over the world with broken wings! To order a personally signed copy of the author’s book, contact her at bobbiejoyhansen@juno.com Visit her web site www.listentothecry.org & read her Blog http://www.survivingmypast.net/living-above-my-fears-surviving-sexual-abuse/
https://youtu.be/SDZ4h9WFhl8