From Shame to Peace;
counselling and caring for the
sexually abused

The memory problem

Living with troublesome memories
All four had one common root problem, hidden among other pressing needs: an early sexual trauma. Elizabeth never forgot how she once woke up as a hand played softly over her young developing body. Frozen stiff, she acted as if she were still asleep. She heard her father whisper over and over again ‘You are so beautiful …’ When his hands became more probing, she could stand it no longer. Then she gasped in convulsions, as waves of emotion engulfed her body. The shadow beside her bed looked into her shocked face. He fled. They never talked about it, and it never happened again … except in recurring nightmares. Only much later, as an adult woman, did she dare to open up and speak about it.

Vera is much more extrovert. She still remembers the exciting games she played with the new boy neighbour. He always knew more than she did. He was also eight years older. She realises now how he slowly seduced her, waking her up sexually, stimulating her, creating their own secret world. Vera knew instinctively that her mother would not approve. Her father had left when she was a baby. The neighbour’s son was the only friendly young man this vivacious nine-year-old girl knew, and he was much more fun than some of the girls in the area. Then, one day, her mother discovered what was going on. The boy was taken away by the police. Vera had no friends left at all. She was shunned in the village, until they moved. As she grew up, she could never feel attached enough to anyone to get married.

Alice sat opposite me, shocked. Her mother had finally told her why, twelve years ago, the nice school teacher who lived with them had had to leave so suddenly. Alice had been very close to her and had often crawled into her bed. Then the woman would caress her and say nice things. Until one day her mother came home unexpectedly and found out that the caressing was happening while both were nude and saw how Alice was sexually aroused. Alice had forgotten all about it; it was so long ago and she was only seven at the time. Now, totally out of the blue, her mother had started to talk about it. Alice’s first question was ‘Am I lesbian, Teo? I hardly sleep any more. Waves of feelings and memories just surge through my body. I hate it, but can’t stop it.’

Edgar related how he was slowly seduced by his own, single-parent mother. He could not recall exactly when it all started, nor when it finished. It had just come back to him and that’s when he sought help. He had already recognised that he had homosexual inclinations. Now he had started thinking about that. ‘Perhaps I never had a chance to develop into the person I really am. Perhaps I just can’t stand women that close because of my own mother.’

When Edgar shared his story, I was rather shocked. Do women do this too? It forced me to face a need I had, as a counsellor, to be more realistic about sin. If fathers can do it, why not mothers, sisters, aunts, school teachers, youth workers? Abuse apparently does not acknowledge gender.

Living with flash-backs
Sleep was a problem for Elizabeth. It often took hours before she finally fell into a light sleep. Any sound would wake her up with a shock and she would look for the shadow next to her. She knew people could see how tired she often was. Whenever Vera got close to a man, she would become restless and keep seeing the mischievous grin on the face of her neighbour friend. That would be enough for her to back off. Alice’s work in school suffered dramatically. According to her teachers, she would often just sit and stare into space. Edgar had not had problems with what had happened because he had honestly forgotten about it – until the flash-backs came and he was shattered by their implications.

Will flash-backs stop?
‘Will there ever be an end to all this?’ Many survivors of serious trauma struggle with this question as they are haunted by yet another unexpected flash-back. It is as if an unseen hand turns on an old video, causing a recurring nightmare, even in the daytime.

Memory, that precious gift of creation, can turn into a fierce enemy, chasing us to final destruction. The natural response is to resist these flashes. For many people this works partially, at least for a time. But there are those who lose this battle with the shadows of the past. Once again they are victims. A cruel hand puts back the clock. An eternity passes before they recover. Bystanders hardly notice the seconds of panic and the accompanying paralysis. The sense of dread and helplessness linger on long after the ugly pictures fade away.

From the many stories I have heard, there is no guarantee that flash-backs will cease. It is possible, though, to learn to face them, neutralise them and even to give them new meaning. For me, the monthly testing of the civil air-raid siren has bothered me for decades. I finally decided to make it my call to prayer for peace. The sound of the siren has gradually acquired a new meaning: my first response is now no longer the reliving of the sounds of the planes and the subsequent change of tone as the bombs were released, but a plea to the God of Peace! Others have also told me how their ‘old story’ changed from a video on the inside to a video on a large screen outside. They could walk away from it, stand at a greater distance and watch as the shocking images shrank and faded out. Then there are those who, in the middle of a flash-back, learn to superimpose another experience: Jesus, who knows what suffering is, becomes the focus. As his presence fades in, ugly memories fade out.

The lonely memories of an abuse survivor
A person who suffered in concentration camp or – more common today – has been the victim of a series of robberies, or a rape, can still expect some sympathy. But a survivor of sexual abuse often has to hide in shame, unable to talk. Some of them even decide to take their secret along with them in a premature death. Incest survivors face not only the burden of one major trauma, but they also carry the effects of living in an environment which has caused them many other kinds of traumas.

People usually don’t suffer only one trauma. There tends to be a kind of ‘roof-tile construction’, where one trauma covers the others. This tile construction of traumas is one reason why the most deeply-felt trauma of all–incest–often remains hidden from those trying to help. Both secular mental health workers and church workers have often missed the signals of sexual abuse, as we either didn’t know about it, or we didn’t know how to ask the right questions. Often we were not ready to hear what was being said and switched topics to other traumas which we could handle better.

Without the help they need, victims find their own ways to survive. I never cease to marvel at the insight and creativity which has gone into some of their escape mechanisms and survival strategies, as they learn to deal with these flash-backs in a variety of ways. Some slip into a fantasy trip, others into prayer and many just slip into a dark, moody silence. A constant alertness to avoid any memories of the past is another survival skill. This steely thought-control also influences the way they respond to other things. This can range from rigid personal habits to clowning around, just as long as they are in control of what happens, wherever they are. For all of them, one thing is sure: whatever happened then still actively influences behaviour today.

But should we remember again?
If dealing with the flash-backs is so tough, shouldn’t those who can’t remember be thankful? Why did Alice’s mother decide to revive those old memories? Edgar told me that the memories started to return only after he had received inner peace, because of a heightened awareness of the presence of God.

In a TV programme on psychotherapeutic approaches in Israel some fundamental questions were asked about the validity of ‘waking-up past horrors’. Is there not a time to let the past sleep? Should we talk so much about the past, especially with older survivors? Would it not be better to keep the door to the skeleton cupboard tightly locked?

That same question is valid as more and more people come forward with their stories of an incestuous past. Some talk because they have known it all along. Others, because of probing by counsellors and therapists, have woken up to hitherto hidden parts of reality. This question is even more pertinent for lay pastoral counsellors, particularly as there are now many books about ‘emotional healing’ as part of the ministry of the church. Are we providing something like the equivalent of a do-it-yourself kit for open heart surgery to lay counsellors? I have met people who have been subjected to unskilled painful probing of their past by such enthusiastic volunteers. They needed healing from emotional healing processes!

The need for memories
Memories are important. More than that: the ability to remember is one of the most precious gifts of creation. There would be no history without it. No legacies of the past would remain; we would all have to make new original moves, unable to use what others had learned. Our motivation is also fuelled by a desire to be remembered. We see this vividly in the beauty of the arts, the architecture of buildings, or the claims of discoveries in research publications. But in order not to drown in all the information, we also have another gift of nature: the ability to forget. One tool in selecting what to remember and what to forget is our set of emotions. The more intense our experiences, the more we remember. The smell of mothballs always makes me smile. It brings back some very fond memories of my grandmother! However, I am sure that this association between grandmother and mothballs would soon be broken if we still used mothballs today. As I only rarely encounter that smell, the signal stands out loud and clear. But when certain experiences happen regularly, they become ‘common’ and we do not retain them so easily. This happens for instance with smokers. Many people who have stopped smoking have concluded after a time that they did not realise how strong the odour of smoke is.

Yet another mechanism which nature has given to us to remember or to forget involves our will. We can choose to remember or to turn a deaf ear. As countless police investigations have shown, we can see things we hoped to see, or hear things we feared would be said. The powers of denial, expectation and imagination shape our lives! But this is also a survival tool for when life is tough. Denial of painful realities can create some sort of inner peace. The choice to live today, rather than fret about the past, is one element of a contented life in tough situations. The importance of memory is most evident in our need to survive. Memory helps us to adjust to new situations: we learn, because we remember; we live, because we remember. Without memory, we only vegetate. One can say, ‘I remember, therefore I am.’ The power of that statement is easily affirmed when one looks into the empty eyes of an Alzheimer patient.

Memory as enemy
The creation gift of life, which is to be found in a cell, can turn into a deadly enemy when life turns against itself and becomes destructive, cancerous. Memory too, as beautiful as it is, can turn from friend to enemy, forcing us to remember constantly for memory’s sake. Not the memory which helps us learn to adjust to new situations, but an endless replay of past horrors, like a never-ending super-video with taste, touch, sound and smell capacities. Such memories bind a person to past actions, and drain them of the energy needed to live today.

Yet the spark of life is incredibly strong. Just think how many refugees survive under the worst circumstances. This spark can also be turned into a survival mechanism in the body to deal with destructive life forms. Thus cancer cells in healthy people are destroyed. In a similar way, we can counter destructive memory-videos in a healthy way. We can deal with them, make choices, and above all learn from them.

Deformed memories
Traumas work like lenses, which deform what we observe. This results in a very private and twisted view of the world around us.
I know about such deforming effects of traumas through first-hand experience. Even now, 50 years later, I and those close to me are still aware of some of the crippling effects of World War II. The events are ingrained, as it were, in black mental marble.
This deformation of memory is also a reason why so many eye-witnesses give conflicting reports. There will be situations in which we will never be able to tell how accurate a story of abuse actually is. However, as I will show later, great accuracy is not of primary importance as we assist and empower a survivor in a healing process.
The accuracy of a child’s memory, in particular, could be questioned. It is often challenged in courtcases involving sexual abuse. I discovered that mine was painfully accurate. After several decades I finally visited the medieval castle of Haamstede, in the south-western part of the Netherlands, which was at one time a children’s home. I had been placed there due to the internment of my parents in different concentration camps. For a long time I had both longed for and dreaded this real encounter with my past. A strange dream prepared me for this visit. In that dream I walked around the place and left laughing. When I walked into the building in reality, I was shaken by the accuracy of my childhood memories. I had hoped that the encounter with this place would bring clarity between fantasy and reality. There I stood in the dining room in the basement where, when my stomach could not take what was served up, they made me eat my own vomit. The children’s playroom with the huge windows gave me another jolt. There it was; nothing but the furniture had changed. In that room I had discovered, among the toys for toddlers, a wooden car sent to me by my father from jail. My name was on it, but they had never given it to me. As I clutched at my discovered treasure, they took it away. It is still not pleasant to recall the floods of violence which arose at that time and how a small boy turned into a vicious tiger.

Now I know that these memories blocked my quest for freedom and the urge to discover my identity. As I could not find that outside, I turned inside, into a world of my own. It took many years before I found a way back out again.

The need to deny reality
One lady, who had spent several years in a psychiatric institution, improved enough to go home for a weekend. It was then that she heard about a seminar I was giving on sexual abuse and she made sure she attended it. Through a personal encounter with God, she felt sufficiently strengthened after the seminar to go back to her therapist, to open up and talk about things she had persistently pushed down until then. Denial of what had happened had been her survival mechanism. As the abuse had touched so many areas of her life, the denial system grew deeper and deeper and affected her normal functioning, until she ended up in the psychiatric institution. The seminar gave her hope; it empowered her to start breaking the denial. There was such a change that pretty soon she was able to return home permanently. As I talked with her it became clear to me that years of careful psychiatric help had taught her some coping skills which had enabled her to attend my seminar and face new layers of trauma. This in turn speeded up the therapy, which made it possible for the professionals to proceed.

Until recently it seemed that girls were usually the victims of sexual abuse, the offenders being male. But there are now more and more reports indicating a different picture. A comparison between the incidental and fast-changing contacts of paedophiles and the number of boys asking for help at a later age warrants the question of whether male sur vivors have a stronger need (and capacity) to suppress these ugly realities and go on with life anyhow. Too often now I have met men like Edgar, who for a long time had no idea what happened earlier. Many onion layers of other traumas had covered the sexual-abuse experiences and relegated them to the dim and distant past.

Variations of denial
Not all people respond in the same way to the violence which engulfed them. For example, many Dutch people have been able to suppress, deny or walk away from their war past. In weaker moments, often at a later age, some start to show cracks in their defence systems. Others stoically take their untold stories with them to the grave. For myself, the traumatic events of the war time described above, plus many others, were emotionally crippling. Even now, as I write this, I know that I am still handicapped. I have learned to cope; I am confident that I can say (in the past tense), ‘I was a victim.’ I am not haunted any longer by the images of the past. Those who have stood with me in the healing process affirm that there have been essential changes. Now I am living in the present. However, those consequences of the past still hinder my way of relating to others and my ability to communicate, or lack of it.

Churches and the denial of abuse
Some time ago, when I visited a small church in southern Portugal, I saw a statue of Mary with six swords piercing her heart. In the past I have felt uneasy with these ‘suffering images’. Now I realise that this suffering look on the face of Mary must have appealed to countless women who also faced suffering in those ‘good old days’ – mothers who lost their children through disease, hunger and war.
For many generations, the church has tried to speak words of compassion and comfort to those whose lives are shattered by grief. This is done by pointing to a suffering Jesus, who knows how life can hurt, through the lives of others who followed in his footsteps and especially through the word of God. Sharing hope, giving new perspectives, becoming a new person, receiving a new identity; these are all themes which the church has used in the past for those who were suffering.
Personal suffering has resulted in some outraged cries hurled in the face of God, like Job, or Bunyan’s eloquent cry of the heart in Pilgrim’s Progress;. Another gem, written by the Icelander Hallgrimur Petursson and first published in 1666, shows how sorrows can be woven into poetry of such powerful beauty that it has even survived translation into English.
While the church has ministered to a suffering world, in one respect it has failed with miserable consistency. The reality of early sexual abuse, among its own and even by its own leaders, was denied. However, it was not alone in this. The secular world also refused to acknowledge this reality, even when the Enlighten ment led to a reappraisal of the value of a child’s life. Humanists can perhaps be forgiven for their optimism, for their naivety or for being too involved in suppressing the pain of their own sexual abuse. The church, however, should have been more aware of the extent of human depravity. After all, the Bible is a very honest history book. Its message can equip us to face the pain of the past.

Dealing with unresolved memories
Understanding trauma processes has helped me to accept myself more readily for who I am. I don’t feel so guilty about some traits. Nor have I resigned myself to the present condition. This, I admit, causes painful tensions at times, both within as well as with others. Yet I know I am more alive and enjoy life so much better than before. I also have found that I can stand with others who are struggling in their own healing process. Helping incest survivors is not just dealing with the sexual abuse, but with many other forms of abuse as well. It includes the need to help them face the long-term results: a wrecked marriage, the inability to form lasting relationships, or trouble holding down a job.

Elizabeth, whom we met at the beginning of this chapter, was obviously deeply hurt. Could that be the result of a once-only abusive experience with her father? I meet this frequently in persons who, like Elizabeth, are raised in a strict moral environ ment. The inconsistency of her father’s behaviour, the icy silence that followed, the power of the words ‘You are so beautiful,’ coupled with a feeling of guilt: ‘I made him do this’ – all effected a deep emotional trauma. It was kept alive by the revulsion she developed for that one sentence. When anyone said it with the right intentions, it still backfired, as it recalled the old bad memory. But she was never able to tell anyone about it, not even when probed by a counsellor. Only through a new encounter with God did she find the strength to open up.

Vera became dissatisfied with her inability to maintain deep relationships. Through pastoral counselling she dis covered a need for an emotional ‘fast’, to stop being a butterfly, restlessly moving from person to person. She needed to find an inner peace, peace with creation and the Creator. After that, she could cope emotionally with what she had previously known intellectually about the devastating impact of the gradual and cunningly-planned seduction by that grinning neighbour boy. The memory of his grin started to change as she began to recall the aggressive eyes and the ugly names he ‘jokingly’ called her. She evaluated the long-term consequences and went through a time of intense anger and hatred. The Spirit of God enabled her to get in touch with the darker side of her own life, the living imprint of her seducer. It took her a considerable time to work through these dark memories until she found peace.

Alice entered into a period of grieving about her loss of innocence. She was also upset with her mother for not seeking professional help after the event, for staying silent, for covering it up. She also wondered about the power of God. Why did he let this happen? Where was he at that time? She wasn’t satisfied with standard answers. She wanted to find an answer herself. The counselling process helped her face her doubts and questions without a sense of condemnation. Edgar had come for counselling because of an addiction to food. Soon it became clear that this addiction also masked a religious addiction: a pathological involvement with his church, which only saw him as a very willing and available member. He was always ready to do anything, even at the expense of his own private life and finally his job. When he understood that his image of God was that of a slave driver, he was ready for a new encounter with Jesus as the Servant-King, and he learned about God’s unconditional love. When he found peace with God, through Jesus, his initial reaction was one of amazement at his new-found inner tranquillity. Then one night he called me. Incoherently he stumbled over his words, mingling them with tears as he blurted out the story of the abusive relationship with his mother. Somehow, his memory-bank had decided it was now safe to release the locked-up information.

When memories should stay away
The above stories make clear that not everyone is ready to face the question of sexual abuse. It often takes time; a right platform must be created and the survivor empowered to deal with their prob lems, rather than be helplessly dependent on a trauma specialist.

The only person who has the final say in this question about the search for hidden abuse memories is the survivor. Counselling should help them to make that decision. In fact, I prefer a natural approach: to create a healing atmosphere and teach a person to deal with anything from the past that comes up of its own accord.

If a helper suspects an abusive past the following question should be uppermost: ‘If this is true, should I say it now, or just wait, and start working on some of the long-term consequences without sharing the impression I received’.

When Elizabeth sought help, it was not initially about the abuse, but about her inability to forgive. Vera longed for long-term deeper relationships. Alice was shattered by what her mother had told her and confused about her own questions regarding her sexual identity.

In time, they all had to face the past, as the long-term consequences of the abuse became evident. I did not have to wait until the ‘Abuse Question’ had been asked, in order to help them. I could start to work with some of the problems they manifested, even though I suspected that there was more than they remembered when they first sought help.

Learning as pastoral counsellors to respond to incest memories
Become a learner:
How does one, as a pastoral counsellor, deal with incest memories? In the first place, there is a steady stream of new informative books, both secular and Christian. It also helps to discuss these writings with other counsellors. Even better is to find survivors who are willing to give comments and who can share how they learned to apply the gospel to their personal lives. It means facing the pervasive inability of a person like Elizabeth to forgive her father and to study again the issue of forgiveness as a gift of God, rather than a perverse law. People like Vera, Alice and Edgar also have their own story and need a tailor-made approach in their private twisted world. No standard solutions suffice. Counselling abuse survivors will challenge your own experience of the reality of God. It will create your own questioning, perhaps even like Jesus, with tears and loud prayers.

Differentiate between objective and subjective truth:
The snapshots in this chapter only tell us what the people remembered or what they were told by others. Our ability to remember selectively, to rationalise, to block out facts, to see things which have not actually happened, force many a pastoral counsellor to question the truth of what is told. I find that most pastoral mistakes start here, even before an abuse victim has an opportunity to share their side of the story. The information is too threatening: ‘My youth worker can’t have done this …’

For therapeutic purposes, it is not so important to know exactly what has happened, when, or by whom, but to know that the victim is obviously hurting from something. When factual statements are made which might point to abuse, we should note them down, avoiding any impression of not believing, and let them rest for a while. Often the first memories are still shrouded in confusion and it takes time for a picture to emerge as the fog of denial slowly lifts. Then, when they are able to back up their statements with inner self-assurance, they can face the turmoil which emerging realities create, with adequate strength.

There are at least three reasons why the facts remain lost in the vague contours of a distant past:
1. If abuse happened many decades before. The survivor often does not realise that many of the incidents might be distorted through partial denial, fantasies, etc.
2. If a survivor was very young when the abuse happened. In this case, since the memories had no words, there are only feelings which float around like information without an address in the memory bank of a computer. Often a survivor will shake their head in unbelief and say, ‘This can’t be true. People just don’t do these things to children.’
3. If the consequences of admitting early sexual abuse is so devastating that the whole social fabric of a survivor will fall apart. Eager counsellors, who want to see retribution take place or who fear that the abuse is still going on, might force a survivor to speak up before they are ready to face the devastating consequences. This can result in a recantation of the abuse facts at a later date, leaving the counsellor and the judicial system with a very red face.

Even if the objective truth is not yet clear, we can look for the subjective truth and the signals of long-term effects. Often survivors will want to doubt their own stories, the fleeting memories. They are too ugly anyhow. They will ask if you believe them. It is then that an understanding of sexual abuse problems can help you point out the long-term effects which you factually observe: that obviously something bad must have happened. Then work can start on the effects, even if one does not know exactly why they are there. It is necessary to deal with the subjective experiences first, and counsellors do well to develop the discipline of not jumping to objective conclusions too soon.

It is here that the role of pastoral counsellors and police officials differs. Our task is first and foremost to bring healing to the survivor, including to enable them to arrive at an awareness of objective truth.
The distinction between subjective and objective truth might also be a help for those counsellors who are obliged to inform authorities of sexual abuse. Such a conclusion could be postponed until they have more assurance that the seeker of help has some reasonable grasp on reality. To postpone action until they can relate their story coherently will also strengthen the counsellor in the ordeal which often follows public disclosure.

A false-memory syndrome?
Conflicting reports for and against the possibility of a False-Memory Syndrome have recently been published. This syndrome is supposedly an ‘induced memory’ because of suggestive questioning or through some hidden inner workings in a seeker of help who keeps wondering why the symptoms of abuse exist and keeps trying to discover the person or people respon sible for it. The vague feelings keep begging for a concrete answer, a picture, a face.

On the one hand professionals agree that they wish that much of what they heard was not true, but the denial of painful realities which have been suppressed for centuries would not be helpful for anyone and could be disastrous for the victims. On the other hand we need to face the fact that in a culture where proof of guilt is needed before one can be condemned, a hasty judgement could be seen as a kind of social capital punishment. When rape and incest is equal to emotional murder, false accusations likewise are hanging the innocent.

When professionals battle about the reality of what they hear, what can pastoral volunteers do? Through being called to train hundreds of pastoral counsellors I have found at least two important safeguards: apply common sense and stay close to the gospel.

1. Use common sense
This can help us to take the seeker of help seriously about what they consider to be their reality and their need. True or not, if someone even thinks that abuse has happened, then they do have a serious problem which needs our careful attention. One can start to look for the results of what the reported abuse has caused, and aid seekers to begin to face those consequences, which seem to result from that (suspected) abuse. The change of focus from vague facts in the past to the healing of twisted life patterns in their daily lives now will, in any case, strengthen a person.

2. Stay close to the heart of the gospel
Pastoral counsellors have a different function and different equipment from psychologists or other therapists. The power of the gospel of Jesus is that he comes to meet us where we are. The task of an abuse counsellor is to develop skills which enable him to be sensitive to the specific spiritual, emotional, behavioural and physical needs of survivors. Objective Christian truth will not be enough. We have to go one step further and speak about a personal experience of the presence of God.

To speak in western mainline churches about experiencing God has always been somewhat suspect, because church history shows us how subjective experiences have caused deep divisions and strife. In the western secular world we are now seeing an increased stress on ‘experience’. I believe this is also a major reason why the New Age movement is gaining attention. As churches, we will need to give more attention to formulating a biblical theology of experiencing God. In this book I try to chart my commitment to basic evangelical faith as well as my understanding that this faith will need a variety of cultural expressions in the language and the mood of today. As I looked for new approaches, I encountered new experiences, new ways of helping coun sellees to face reality. I didn’t just ask myself or the counsellees if it worked but also, ‘Is it biblical?’ The answer to that question is not just for me to give. Biblical evaluation also calls for interaction with other believers. For that reason I initially presented these understandings to the College of Counselling and Health Care of the University of the Nations (Youth With A Mission) during a congress in Manila in 1988. Since then, I have used them in teaching many different seminars in Scandinavia, Iceland, Switzerland, Austria, Asia and my own country, the Netherlands. The comments I receive help me to add, subtract and multiply. Because of the effect of the peace of God in abuse ministry, we started to talk about ‘powerful peace’. Powerful Peace: one approach to introduce an abuse survivor to a God who cares The essence of my approach can be summarised as an understanding of the biblical concept of the Hiding Place (Psalm 91). It centres on the possibility of becoming so enveloped in the peace of Jesus that ugly realities fade out as his presence filters in. This means that a revelation takes place: ‘I am not alone, he is here.’ This allows a person to face painful realities. It becomes like a stereo experience: on the one hand is the reality of inner peace, and the memory of the shadows of the past is on the other. The secret here is to focus more on the present reality of the presence of Jesus, with its effects of peace and security, than on the past. If the pain becomes too much, a refocusing away from painful realities gives rest, as the focus is once again turned to Jesus alone. Newly strengthened in this peace, another attempt can be made to deal with unresolved issues: ‘From peace alone, to peace with pain, and back again to peace alone if necessary! This becomes a self-healing process which allows the survivor to proceed at her or his own speed.

The experience of the presence of Jesus is in itself a very powerful concept. Often the New Testament calls this an ‘infilling’ with the Spirit of Jesus, or an infilling with the Holy Spirit. Past powerlessness to stop traumatic events from happening is – according to Finkelhor – one of the major reasons for a sense of powerlessness of abuse survivors in later life. This experience of the presence of Jesus becomes an empowering element, through which the weak become strong. It helps victims to become survivors, and more than that. As missionaries, they enter into the unknown parts of their own secret, deformed world. There they share the good news of the gospel of peace: the internal warring sides of one’s personality can find peace at the foot of the cross. Restoration starts to take place as Christ is allowed to rule every part of the inner country of our personality.

Serious traumas have a combined effect on spirit, soul and body. The healing process involves all these areas. I have come to understand that the physical body functions as a recorder, with an ability to register sound, sight, touch, taste and smell. Deep traumas are often linked to specific parts of the body. This is especially the case with sexual traumas.

One of the possibly unique parts of this approach is the fact that Powerful Peace can give a new physical experience to the video-tape in the body. The good memory of a physical touch by the power of God can overrule the ugly memories. This physical touch by the power of God is very much like what we hope will happen when we pray for a sick person. Thus what I am proposing is not very different from what pastoral workers already do when people are sick. It seems to me that this is the essence of what the apostle Paul shared with converts who had been used to a perverted sexual life. They were people who could say, because of the name of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, ‘I was like that.’

To apply the word of God in that special world of the abused or – as one could call it – the culture of the abused, still needs much more work than I can present at this time. What I write here is one of the many different ways in which people try to help. It is also a progress report.

Abuse traumas: a call for the church to be involved
With a new awareness of the shockingly high incidence of traumas and serious abuse all around the world, we need many more vulunteers who are able to minister wisely, as part of the healing hand of the church, each depending on their limited natural and spiritual abilities. Because I see myself basically as a practical trainer, I look more for a variety of pastoral workers and church members who know what it means to ‘love with wisdom’ than just specialists. Young people, for instance, can be very effective, because they are so close to young survivors. Also, older people, weathered by the storms of life, need to be encouraged that they can have a very meaningful contribution. The ability both to enter into the other culture and stand firm on one’s own cultural values, is needed to survive long-term abuse counselling. The God who calls also equips. I hope to show in this book how this can be experienced. I have found that ‘grace-gifts’, the special expressions of the Holy Spirit through ordinary believers, can be very helpful as volunteers are involved in abuse counselling. Grace and peace are also two key words in the ministry of the apostle Paul.

The grace of God is not only expressed through those who consciously serve him. There are basic values, which mankind has received through creation and to which one can find a way back, in any culture. In addition, more specific Christian values, embedded in western culture, still have an effect on the values of secular mental-health workers. That gives an opening for co-operation. Any meaningful church-based counselling programme must decide how to relate to mental-health professionals. I co-operate with both Christian and secular professionals, provided they can work within the value-framework of the persons I refer to them. The ‘Hiding Place’ approach has been quite helpful in preparing counsellees for such pro fessional help. The counsellee is then empowered to give directions to secular helpers regarding their value system.

Such enabling is very necessary, as both pastoral coun selling and secular help can become very manipulative if the helper is not careful enough with the fragile individuality which grows stronger in the course of the healing process.

In the Netherlands and Scandinavia there are already signals from mental-health workers who groan under the huge load of abuse cases which threaten to clog the health system. Also the slow recovery rate and the barrage of painful stories could create an ‘incest tiredness’. The answer lies, I believe, not in more mental-health professionals, but in lay counsellors, who are supported effectively by pro fessionals. Throughout the centuries the church has inspired and guided volunteers to share a message of hope for both individuals and society.

This message of hope and of how lives can be changed, can help us not to look away or even deny the reality of sexual abuse, even by members of our churches as well as church leaders. It is still hard to accept that these things happen. Biblical realists should not be amazed. The Bible spells out in detail how perverse mankind can be. This should also prepare us to hear some more grim stories in the next chapter, as we walk with others into the shadows of the past.

The text of this article is taken from From Shame to Peace - Counseling and caring for the sexually abused


Content

Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1 - The memory problem.
Chapter 2 - Walking in the shadows
Chapter 3 - Starting Points and Definition of Concept
Chapter 4 - The Culture of Child Sexual Abuse
Chapter 5 - Missionaries in the Culture of Abuse
Chapter 6 - Why God?
Chapter 7 - Captives of a Culture
Chapter 8 - The Church and the Culture of Abuse
Chapter 9 - From Victims to Skilled Survivors
Chapter 10 - Powerful Peace
Chapter 11 - From Shame to Peace
Chapter 12 - Powerful Peace through the Church
Chapter 13 - 'Please God, not in the Church...'
Chapter 14 - 'Please God, not my Child...'
Epilogue: Biblical Realism
Bibliography