Never Forget

We had a most interesting experience in class today. My students observed me doing therapy with a young woman who is recovering from sexual abuse during her teenage years (this was with her permission, of course). This woman is a pastor who has had tremendous struggles coming to terms with what she considers her "part" in making the abuse happen.
Even though she was the child and the adult is responsible for protecting her.
Even though she felt threatened.
Even while everyone looked up to her as the "perfect" student.

This woman is one of the bravest people I can imagine--weekly doing battle with her inner demons. I try very hard to balance my challenges with warm support so she doesn't give up. There is so much work to be done.

And she feels that since she is a pastor, she should be able to transcend all that has happened to her. She should be able to forgive her abuser and then to forgive herself. But she can't bring herself to pray to God about any of this, or even to have a conversation with Him about what has happened. "Because then I'll have to forgive [my abuser] because God will forgive me and I'll be obligated to in turn, forgive. I can't yet."

Five students were seated on the other side of the one way mirror, taking in what we were doing only feet away from them. They were so close that they later said they could almost feel her breathing.
By arrangement, after 40 minutes of our work, we turned off the light on our side of the mirror and turned on the speaker in their room. One by one, the students began to think aloud about what they had been hearing and what issues they thought of, or what they wondered about as they listened. My pastor client took in every word. At one point, she looked at me and mouthed, "This is really interesting!" The students were not addressing her, just having a conversation together, creating hypotheses, and identifying issues and ideas that may have some interest to us for future work. After about 10 minutes of discussion, the lights and microphone came back on at our side of the mirror and we pondered what had been said.

This is called a Reflecting Team. It is a way to stir the pot, so to speak. A way to get input from more than the therapist. It feels odd in the beginning, but most people are intrigued by the insights that others have on them--things that neither they nor their therapist have verbalized. At one point when a student mentioned the Scarlet Letter, and how that identity can be hard to relinquish, my client cringed. She wanted to talk about this later. She wanted to tell me about her scarlet letter--it was a black, half-dead, silver-dollar-sized spot on her heart. She knew what to do with that part of her heart: ignore it, hide it, stay busy and talking about nonessential issues to distract people from seeing that sore spot. But she did not want to give it up. Even though our work had made it smaller--it was her Black Spot and she was not ready to say goodbye to it.

She was startled by this realization. Who would want to hold on to pain and disfigurement?

I have been thinking about this idea tonight, and I think we all have some wound that defines us in some unique way. It is hard to give it up sometimes. After all, our struggle with that wound has made us who we are--we have received secondary gain by talking with others about it. We have battle scars from it. Grappling with it has made us stronger and able to cope with future, smaller battles. As strange as it seems, we don't want to say goodbye to it forever. How will we remember all that the wound represents? For some people, these battle scars become grievance stories. For some of us, the battle scars remind us of how we have gotten where we are now in spite of everything. Perhaps the challenge of recovery work in therapy is changing the meaning of the scars: from grievance story to symbol of victory. That is my wish for my client, and it is what my students later told me, as they thought aloud about this Reflecting Team experience.

I imagine that during the ceaseless ages we shall be able to look at the nail scars in Jesus' hands and feet. It is important that we not forget what salvation has cost heaven. Those hands and feet represent victory of the greatest kind.

We are all scarred and bruised as we go through life--from one thing or another. It is part of the human condition. Our wounds can be safely relinquished to God, with considerable processing and tearfulness. We can give them up without losing the meaning of them--without forgetting who we have had the grace to become in spite of these wounds. Eventually we are left with symbols of being able to survive--of victory and hope. I am truly grateful for this hope that we all can have.