A not so happy topic: Sexual assault in the US and Uganda

Warning: this post deals with sexual assault. If you may be triggered by it, don't read it!

For various reasons, this was not what I wanted to spend my week thinking about. However, it has been brought up time and time again, in every situation imaginable:

Sexual assault.

For some, this may not cause any emotional reaction--it is merely a fact of life that some people live with. For others, any mention of this causes horrendous pain and indignation. 

Sexual assault happens everyday, everywhere, to anyone... of ANY gender. It happens by those you least expect, by those you think are just a little unstable, and by anyone... of ANY gender. As a broad-sweeping phrase--sexual assault involves unwanted sexual contact, and can be as severe as rape. Let me assure you though, any form of sexual assault is devastating.

The effects are painful and crushing. Imagine waking up every day knowing that while on the surface nothing has changed, your life feels forever marked (though I would argue that this "mark" fades).

Tonight is Take Back the Night on campus--where supporters of victims of sexual violence will parade around the Parkland/PLU area, campaigning for awareness of sexual violence: to break down the stigma, and to encourage people to speak out and speak up. It is common on this night for girls to wear basically their underwear and not much else, and carry signs saying "I'm still not asking for it".

Men's reasons for standing up against sexual
violence. Photo credit Jonathan Grove

Today on campus, men stood outside a tent on the main square of the university, holding signs about why they stood there--to encourage men to engage in the fight against sexual violence (let me give a big shout out to my friend Joe, who was part of organizing this!)

For victims of sexual assault, my university provides an entire Women's Center with Victims Advocates to counsel you in the initial stages of the healing process, and then be there as supporters as you go through counseling in various other ways. 

Zip around the world for a second to East Africa. We all have heard of child prostitution in South-East Asia, but did you know that in Uganda 60% of girls--just those under 18--have been sexually abused? (http://www.abusedchildrensfund.org/statistics.html)

And this only includes those that are known about.

Please take a moment and read the article found here, about a 16 year old girl in Kenya who was gang-raped, and then further tormented by the police. 

I'm honestly at a loss for what to say, and it is not writer's block. How does one even begin to represent 60% of girls under the age of 18 in a few words?

How does such a crime become so accepted? And why do we consider it ok? All kinds of answers spring to mind: complacency, ignorance, and pure and utter evil.

It is not right that sexual violence should happen anywhere, to anyone. And yet it happens with alarming regularity. 

This is not okay, and it is not a problem that will go away on it's own. I know this is kind of a "no duh" statement. But I really want to see the people of Uganda, and Kenya, and all of the world, rise up and 

Stop assaulting girls/women.

Stop victim blaming.

Start taking responsibility.

Start protecting your girls!

I have seen the devastating effects of sexual assault in friends and family. I implore you, no matter where you are: Do not let this go by in your community. Find an organization to get involved with. 

For victims of sexual violence: never be ashamed--it is never your fault. Always pursue healing, because it is possible. And ALWAYS know that you deserve better. Life may never return to "normal", but it will return to "okay", and then it may even switch back into being "great". Your smile will come back again. Stay strong.

ROTC and supportive men stand out in the cold wetness to
bring awareness of sexual assault. Let's end it.

Some thoughts on healing and God's plan.

“It ain’t over ‘til it’s over”.

I don’t know what God’s perfect plan looks like. I don’t know why some prayers get answered and not others. I don’t know why people suffer and hurt.

But I do know this: God has a plan. And it is perfect.

I had a lengthy conversation with someone today. Our stories were similar, and yet oh so different. While he battled depression from a young age and did not have a deeply personal connection to God, I battled depression from a young age yet have always had a personal relationship. Yet he was healed from his depression, totally and completely.

And I take medication every day to keep mine at bay.

I have been asked questions over the years like “Do you not think that God can heal you?” “Have you prayed and surrendered?” “Do you BELIEVE that God can take this away?”

And the answer to all of those questions is “Yes. Yes, and yes again. But…”

But I believe that God has different plans for every person. I believe that God uses each of us, our talents, our gifts, and our cracks and flaws, to paint a beautiful picture of life and glory.

I believe that God heals me every morning that I take my medication, and every night when I fall asleep trusting that He will guard me for another night. I believe that God’s healing for me is ongoing. It is not that I do not believe that God will work a miracle; I believe that God is working a miracle through the health care that I have.

This led to a fundamental question today: Why does God let me walk with my disorders and take them away from other people?

Well, why does God do anything?

We can speculate, and we can wonder. We can think that we know the answers, yet at the end of the day find ourselves empty-handed.

I realized today that praying desperately for healing, for God to show up in the way that I want him to, is not the prayer that God asks me to pray.

God asks me to pray a prayer of relationship. To grow deeper and deeper into Him every day, and to find Him in the broken places. I do want to be healed fully, yet what I really want is to see God every day.

Here’s the image I came up with: my disorders are kind of my binoculars on God. Here’s why: when I pray the prayer every morning that my medication will work, that I will not have a panic attack, and that my day will go smoothly, I see God at work with a can of WD-40 in the cogs of my mind making everything go.

I see holiness in the way that flowers show themselves
through the thick weeds that threaten to strangle them.

I see Him in the mountain that lurks behind the clouds and then bursts out into the glorious sunshine. I see Him in the flowers that dot the campus. And I thank God that I can see Him in all of these seemingly inconsequential things, because there are days when even those things look depressing.

Do I want to never have to take an anti-depressant again? Yes. Do I want to never have a panic attack again? YES. Do I want to experience God on a deeper and deeper level each day? YES YES and YES.

Maybe learning to live with these things is God’s plan for my search to see His faithfulness.

Maybe, one day, he really will completely heal me. I am open to that, and I would embrace that.

But in the meantime, maybe God just wants me to seek Him every day. And maybe living a healthy life where I take my medication is the way that that will happen.

And one day, when I am finally free from it all, I do believe that I will never feel pain again.

Maybe my doorway out will come through searching through abandoned
wreckage, and seeing the mystery that lies behind the other door.