Still I Rise: Jesus' Power to Heal in the Midst of Sexual Assault

I wrote this poem in 2014 in the midst of serving as a campus minister. It was a time when a lot of my students, mostly women, were coming forward with stories of sexual assault. We were trying to figure out what healing, wholeness, and redemption looked like. This is for them.

Following the poem is the sermon I would preach after sharing the poem on campuses.

First, here is Maya Angelou's testimony about her experience of how rape silenced her and her redemption.

This poem is also named for her work.

Still I Rise

I speed walk down the middle of only streets

where my shadow’s presence can accompany me.

Heart racing.

Finger on the trigger of my body alarm

I often wish it were a gun

Always on the balls of my feet

ready to shift from speed walk to run

Through my firm cotton pillow

The ever firmer afro-fist of my afro pic

6prongs 6 inches each attempts to embed its imprint in the back of my head.

It comforts me.

My pocket knife is its lover

They lay together and keep one another company

I sleep with weaponry and devise escape schemes.

I’m not a violent person

But I’ll become one if need be

Paranoia to you

Protection to me

How many times would an intruder have to ram his body into the door before the little steel bar that attempts to assure me of my safety as I hear the metal click finally gives way?

Midnight moons might make my roommate become sheep turned wolf

He’s 200lbs and twice my height.

He means no harm when his arms encircle me

Hold tight like a straight jacket

Play fight tackling

Unaware I’m using all my might practicing

I can barely break free

I lose every time.

Imagine. I’m too small. Too weak.

For a long time I was held hostage by the fear of sexual assault

Stories on replay of torment at 4am

Not under alcoholic influence

Just a midweek dorm room visitation

From one you thought to be a friend

You’ve spent countless midnight hours exerting energy to solve problem sets

Never suspecting he’d become your biggest problem yet?

Why would this time be any different?

Where’s the test to indicate when the seemingly innocent will become belligerent?

So now you’re left to defend your own cause

From a society saying it’s your own fault

Berated by the finger pointing, the questions, the implicit accusations

Why did you open the door that late at night? Maybe it was something you were drinking? Did you scream? Are you sure you didn’t want it? Did you scream? Maybe your clothes were too suggestive? Why didn’t you scream louder? So now its your own fault you’ve been molested, or raped—sanctuary defiled.

So no, you don’t get to be safe in your own house and you’re forced to relinquish the asylum of your mind. Tongue Bound. Voice Silenced.

Suspicions on high of strangers

But assault doesn’t believe in discrimination

And he’s no respecter of bloodlines

So it may be a brother or an uncle, not just a “friend”

By the age of four I learned masturbation

Because at the age of two when I should have been playing in my playpen

My uncle intentionally mistook my private parts for his fingers playpen

But it wasn’t play then,

I think of 4 month old Izabella who died from penetration

Uncle, how come she and I never got the chance to say when?

So now Satan’s deceiving me

My mind’s eyes are seeing things they shouldn’t see

His lies are terrorizing my mind

I’m blind, believing things I shouldn’t be

Still wondering why God wasn’t looking out for me

And it moments like these that I don the skeptics cloak with greatest ease

And find it hardest to believe

But I know I’d be crazy

to blame a righteous God for man’s evil deeds

Besides, disbelief is the disease

That tried to render me assault’s detainee

Preventing me from knowing healing and breaking free.

There’s a war on the bodies, souls, minds—the spirits of young women

Vaginas are the frontline where bodies are pillaged

Conceived of as territory to be conquered

Genitalia employed as weapons as mass destruction

Inhale the misogynistic tear gas floating in the air

Its in the culture, hail the artist, applaud it,

But don’t just clap to it

Let its beats vibrate in your ears

Don’t think about it

Just nod your head to its dope beats

Consume it

Feed it to your children for breakfast, lunch, and dinner

Have them snack on it

Laugh at its jokes

Why did God give men penises? So we’d always have at least one way to shut a woman up. Why are women like screen doors? Once they get banged a few times they loosen up

Laugh louder at these hand grenades thrown carelessly in the air

Cackles sprayed at our self-esteem like target practice

Laugh louder or worse

Remain silent

Then come back and ask the question how we got to be like this

Open more tear gas

Watch the fog thicken

Pornographic images of men and women’s bodies

Splayed like filets on display to have us believe that this is what desire and fulfillment is. With 80% of scenes containing violence towards women

and the line where fantasy meets reality become blurred

and you actually begin to believe that they enjoy being used

But hey, it’s okay because they get pain for your entertainment

But how much money can undo psychological trauma

The fog thickens

But we still think that we’re seeing clearly

Socialize young men and women to think that rape is only a woman’s issue having everything to do with the clothes she wears and how she carries herself

Not the fact that for too long too many men have been taught to bury their insecurities and find their worth in the domination of women.

Suck out our lives, until there’s nothing left

Become well adjusted to having us dead on the inside

With our eyes wide open

Create hell on Earth

Through sex-trafficking industries dedicated to the systematic dehumanization of young bodies.

Cross to Cambodia where sex-trafficking is the norm

Young Kahan took ice cream from a stranger

And woke up in a brothel

In a land too far away from anything familiar to be called home

They say virgins are the cure to AIDS

So prepubescent daughters are kidnapped and sold

Meat at a market

13 year old Long Cross

kidnapped, trafficked, sold, and raped before her first period

Returned to have her vagina stitched up

Repackaged and sold to the next man with Aids

Its ill advised to cry and complain

Or you’ll find yourself laying in a dungeon

Where its impossible to run, tied up,

Doused with water, live wire electrocution

Left cold, desolate, alone

Wondering what you could have possibly done

To make god hate you this much

Would He at least be so merciful

As to let you die before you wake

After all, sun rise is only a myth

Whose rays bring false hope for freedom

No light shines here

Perpetual darkness remains

They say yours is a light that shines in the darkness

Which the darkness can’t overcome

But it doesn’t always feel this way

Still, what other hope do I have?

I find myself at the foot of the cross

Where your body was broken and massacred too

Where people looked upon your naked body as entertainment

Your closest friends withdrew,

and you could have broke through

but you, you remained true

to my pain you didn’t turn a blind view

and that with your love

it’d be me you’d pursue

“I see you, come and be made new”

But it’s still hard to trust you

That from you healing power would be imbued

That I’d be made new

I looked at the scars in your wrists

“You were despised and rejected by mankind

A man of suffering, and familiar with pain

Like one from whom people hid their faces

You were despised, and held in low esteem

But surely you took up our pain

And bore our suffering

Yet we considered you punished by God

Stricken by him, and afflicted.

But you were pierced for our transgression,

You were crushed for our iniquities;

The punishment that brought us peace was on you

And by your wounds I’ve been healed

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

Each of us has turned to our own way;

And the Lord laid on you the iniquity of us all.

You were oppressed and afflicted,

Yet you did not open your mouth;

You were led like a lamb to the slaughter,

And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,

So you did not open your mouth.

By oppression and judgment you were taken away.

Yet who of your generation protested?

You were cut off from the land of the living;

For the transgression of His people, you were punished.

You were assigned a grave with the wicked,

And with the rich in your death,

Though you did no violence,

Nor was any deceit in your mouth.

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush you and cause you to suffer,

And though the Lord makes your life an offering for sin,

You will see your offspring and prolong your days

And the will of the Lord will prosper in your hand.

After you suffered, you saw the light of life, and were satisfied. (Isaiah 53 modified).”

And it’s in you that I’ve been justified

You weren’t abandoned and neither am I

You left the tomb

So still

I’ll rise

************************************************************************

Read Mark 5:21 - 43

In this story, Jesus just got a call that the daughter of a synagogue ruler is dying. Jairus, a synagogue ruler, comes to Jesus and begs for him to heal his daughter.

There are a couple of things worth knowing: Synagogue rulers were amongst the class of Pharisees and Teachers of the law. These were a group of people who openly opposed Jesus’ ministry. Jesus got a lot of attention because He spoke with power, and authority, not to mention that part of His authority was made evident in His power to heal the sick, the blind, and the lame, and to cast out demons. On top of this, Jesus was controversial because when He would heal people he would say things like your sins are forgiven you—but who but God alone can forgive sins? So in the eyes of synagogue leaders, teachers of the law, and Pharisees, Jesus was utterly blasphemous for likening himself to God. Not to mention that Jesus took this perceived blasphemy a step further in calling God His Father and saying things like "the Father and I are One", or "I am the way, the truth, and the life", or saying that "before Abraham was, I was." All of these sayings were ways in which Jesus reiterated his claim to be the Son of God in the flesh. Again, to religious leaders at the time, this was completely sacrilegious, but also dangerous because Jesus was gaining a lot of followers and they feared that he would lead people astray.

On top of all of this, synagogue rulers, Pharisees, and Teachers of the law did not like Jesus because Jesus did not follow their lead. These religious leaders thought very highly of themselves, the rightness of their spiritual position, and religious teachings. They were so certain of their righteousness that they expected the coming Messiah to back their lead; hence, their problem with Jesus’ defiance of their power. He was a threat to their leadership and to the establishment. As the religious authorities of the day, they felt that it was their responsibility to police the community and to make sure that heretical rulers and false teachers were not misleading people away from the “Way”. At this time, there were people who rose up as false Messiah’s misleading people. Jesus, with His seemingly blasphemous teachings, was thought to be another false messiah. Furthermore, part of the Pharisees’ problem was that their righteousness was pridefully rooted in their actions and not God. When Jesus came on the scene, not only does He not follow them, but He actively speaks out against them openly challenging them and saying that their lips speak of God, but that their hearts are far from Him. He called them out on their hypocrisy, self-righteousness, and use of religion as a means of propping themselves up instead of truly seeking God. He told them that their hearts were actually hardened towards God or they would recognize the truth of His identity as the Son of God. Jesus was constantly confronting and correcting the teachings of these religious leaders. So if you've ever had a problem with religious hypocrisy, know that you are in good company with Jesus. Although these religious leaders had power and authority in society, they were not always doing or teaching the will of God. This should humble people like me who have decided to pursue ministry. I think that Jesus so adamantly opposed many of the religious leaders of his day because he knew that their problematic teachings had dire consequences not just for themselves, but for the entire Jewish community. Jesus’ denunciation and open opposition of the Pharisees, combined with His authoritative teachings, power to do miracles, and the magnitude of His following is also what threatened the Pharisees and led them to eventually push for Him to be crucified.

Jairus would have been part of this ruling class and according to his status would have wanted nothing to do with Jesus, and yet the reality of his circumstance, the life threatening illness of his daughter brought him to Jesus out of desperation begging for Jesus to come and heal his daughter.

During that time, although the religious authorities opposed Jesus, no one could doubt His power to heal because they had seen Him do it or heard stories about Jesus’ miraculous power. You think that this would have made them recognize that he was actually the real deal. Instead, they tried to rationalize Jesus' miracle working power via faulty accusations like. They contended that it was by the "prince of demons, Beelzebub, or Satan" in other words, the power of darkness, that Jesus was driving demons out. Of course Jesus responded to their faulty logic. He challenged them to question whether their reasoning actually made sense? "Don’t you know that a kingdom divided against itself will fall?" This was Jesus saying, how could the power of darkness be the driving force behind his power to miraculously drive out sickness and disease. So again, there was no one at this time who was able to deny Jesus’ power to heal though they questioned where his miraculous powers came from. Everyone knew that Jesus was mighty and powerful to heal, that Jesus had the power to make the broken whole, so even though they didn’t like Him, they knew that He was a miracle worker.

It is out of Jairus’ desperation he begs Jesus to come and heal his daughter. No matter how shameful it might have been for him to associate with Jesus for the aforementioned reasons, Jairus loved his daughter enough to swallow his pride and seek out Jesus' help.

Notice that Jesus doesn’t turn Jairus away because of who he has associated with. Jesus goes with him. Jesus is not petty.

On the way to Jairus’ house, we are told that a woman with an issue of blood who has been bleeding for 12 years has also heard about Jesus’ power to heal. While way may not know exactly what her health condition was, we know that she has been suffering for a very long time and that her health has been deteriorating. And while the text doesn’t say how old the woman is, we know that the past 12 years have been hell on Earth for her—she has carried this sickness in her body for so long. She has been to doctor after doctor after doctor but none of them have been able to do anything for her. Can you imagine the amount of torment she must have been through?

Year one itself may have been hard and long enough, but she may have still had hope that something was going to change in her favor. I imagine that she may have went to see the first doctor, and tried his recommendation. It doesn’t work out. Or maybe he didn't have any recommendations, maybe he just said, "I can't help you." Although she may have been sad and somewhat dejected, she hasn’t given up hope because she’s heard that doctor so-and-so in the next town over may be able to help her so she goes to him and tries out his treatment but that still doesn’t work. Then year two rolls around and year three rolls around and she’s growing more tired, but there are still a few doctors that she has yet to try out so she goes to this doctor and that doctor, and who knows how she may have been feeling by year 6. Who knows which number doctor she’s on or whether she has just given up on the ability of doctors to help her in general.

She’s was trying all of these doctors but was only getting worse. Who knows the thoughts that must have been going through her mind. Thoughts like: Maybe God doesn’t love me? Maybe God doesn’t care about me or my condition? Maybe God is punishing me for something I did? Maybe this life just isn’t worth living and I should end it all—maybe it would be better if I just died? Maybe God doesn’t see me? Who really cares about me? I mean, she’s spent all this time and all of this money trying to get better but she’s only gotten worse, imagine how hopeless she must have felt.

Or maybe somewhere along the way, she has just come to accept her condition. Maybe she has reached the conclusion, like Buddhists, that all life is suffering and has resigned herself to just trying to figure out a way to manage the pain? Maybe doctors in their inability to help her have co-signed this view that there’s nothing that could be done for her and that this is just going to be how her life is?

Imagine how lonely she must have felt in the midst of it all, not to mention how other people must have looked down upon her. I mean, this is a culture that held the popular view that anyone who was sick was sick because of a result of their sin which is why, Jesus’ disciples in John 9 see a blind man and ask Jesus, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?

On top of all of this, it doesn’t help that her blood condition would have marked her as unclean and meant that she would have had to be kept out of the synagogue by people like Jairus—the synagogue ruler. So maybe in her isolation, she had come to believe these lies—that she truly was worthless or being punished by God for something that she did wrong. I mean, this would explain why she is so afraid to face Jesus in the first instance—why she doesn’t want Him to know who she is when she touches Him.

And yet, there is a tension here, because as sick, worthless, and hopeless as this woman may have felt, she has heard about this man named Jesus.

She has heard that He has the power to heal and though she is convinced that He, too, may probably be disgusted by her and not consider her worth His time or effort, she is tired of suffering. She is tired of bleeding. In the same way that Jairus was desperate for the life of his daughter, she was desperate to know healing—tired of living life under the weight of all this hurt and pain and trauma day-in-and-day-out.

She knows that Jesus has the power to heal, she’s heard about Him doing it, she’s maybe even seen Him do it, so she says to herself, I may be a nobody, I may not be worth anything to society, but I need to be free, so she made up in her mind that if she could only touch the hem of his garment, she would be healed.

And what does she have to lose, her condition can’t possibly be worse than what she has already been through? So she comes up behind Him with all of that faith, and touches just the hem of his garment, and suddenly, her body feels different, she realizes that she’s not in pain any more and that she has been made whole. No one knows what has just happened to her except for her and Jesus of course.

Imagine what it must have felt like to have all that pain and suffering come to an end. She must have been celebrating within herself. But she is also now trembling because Jesus stops.

He doesn’t keep walking.

Jesus feels that someone has touched Him and that power has left His body. And He refuses to keep going until He has found the person who has touched Him.

So now Jesus is looking for her, but his disciples are skeptical saying, do you see all of these people? How can you possibly ask who has touched me? As if to say, come on, let’s keep going, but Jesus refuses because he knows what has just happened to him. He will not continue on until He is able to lay eyes on the person to whom His healing power has gone out. So Jesus is still scanning the crowds for her.

The text says that the woman is full of fear and trembling. She is afraid. She is probably wondering what is going to happen to her? What is Jesus going to do when He finds out that she was the unclean person who has touched Him? What is He going to say? Is He going to be angry? I mean, this is a man full of authority used to going into synagogues to preach. Someone like him probably reminds her of synagogue rulers like Jairus who would have kept her out of the synagogue for being unclean. So what is Jesus going to do when He finds out that she dared to put a hand on Him—is He going to condemn her?

However, she knew what happened to her. She couldn’t deny it. So finally, she comes forward trembling not knowing what her fate is going to be. She confesses the full story.

I imagine Jesus looking at her with so much tenderness, His response is, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” This is remarkable y’all. One because Jesus actually sees her. She has been overlooked or looked down upon for so long because her sickness has left her virtually unseen, rendered her invisible by society, so people either don’t see her or when they do, they pity her or look down upon her, but Jesus actually sees her for all that she is. But He doesn’t just see her, He calls her daughter.

I imagine Him looking at her with so much compassion, so much love, so much tenderness when he calls her daughter.

Can you imagine the last time anyone spoke to her so sweetly? All this time, she came to believe that because of what has happened to her she is dirty or worthless, she has believed lies upon lies about her self-esteem to the point that she is convinced that someone of Jesus’ stature wouldn’t want anything to do with her but the exact opposite is true, he seeks her out and again looks at her with so much warmth.

In giving her the title Daughter, He confers worth and restores her dignity to her. This is who she truly is—a daughter. I imagine that Jesus is not only looking at her, but because He is God, He is also seeing all of the hurt and pain that has defined her for so long. In pausing and seeking her out, He is communicating that Her suffering all of these years mattered to Him. And then He tells her that her faith, that her faith in His power to heal her has finally made her whole. After 12 years of suffering, it is her faith that has freed her, Then Jesus speaks his peace upon her and tells her to be free from her suffering.

Now its important that Jairus is seeing all of this because Jairus, as the synagogue leader, would have put someone like her out of the synagogue. Jairus would have believed that the life of his dying daughter was more valuable than the life of this woman who was internally dying for so long, but Jesus overturns that with his actions in taking the time to listen to her, to speak to her, to call her daughter. Jesus then goes on to Jairus’ house where he raises his daughter, who has since died, to life.

So Why am I telling you all of this and what does all of this have to do with sexual assault?

Well, I believe that this same Jesus who healed this woman after 12 years of suffering, this same Jesus who raised Jairus’ 12 year old daughter from the dead, that gave both of these women life is also able to heal those in this room and beyond who have been bleeding internally from the pain of sexual assault.

The statics say that 1 in 3 women have or will experience sexual assault. That means 1/3rd of the women reading this are carrying stories of assault. 1/3rd of women, and some of the men, are just like this woman. Something terrible has happened to you to cause you an immense amount of pain and suffering and has shaped the way that you view yourself, your dignity, and your worth. Someone or some people have taken something from you that they had no right to take when they assaulted or raped you. This woman’s bleeding was both physical and psychological just like the physical trauma of someone’s body being inappropriate touches and the psychological trauma of assault are very real.

Like this woman, survivor’s of assault also are mentally tormented, sometimes you reach out for help only to feel like things have gotten worse, sometimes survivors are given various treatments which seem to numb the pain for a while but it often feels like things have only gotten worse. And just like this woman’s suffering may have caused her to question whether what has happened to her is her own fault, or whether her trauma is a sign of the reality that God doesn’t love her or that God is punishing her for something, if you are a survivor of sexual assault, you, too, may have felt abandoned by God. And just like this woman’s suffering defined her for so long, for survivors of sexual assault, you may often feel that your trauma will forever define you and that’s just life. Or maybe your trauma has come to eat at your self-esteem and to convince you that you and your body are dirty.

There are a host of ways that women and men respond to assault. I know that some often believe lies that having sex will make you feel empowered because at least in these times you are choosing for yourself instead of having something taken from you. Others self medicate with alcohol or drugs with the hope that these substances can numb away the pain, all of these are not uncommon among victims of survivors of assault, and maybe you’ve tried these things only to have gotten worse and maybe you’ve come again to believe that this is just how it’s going to be.

But I’m telling you that these are all lies and that Jesus doesn’t just have the power to heal you, He actually wants to heal you, to know that He is not blind to your hurt and your pain, Jesus wants to call you beloved daughter or precious son and give you peace, and call you to freedom from your suffering. This same Jesus, who healed this woman wants, and has the power to heal you, but will you believe. Will your heart take hold of the faith to know that this is possible?

But still, some of you don’t believe. You wonder, why should I believe this? Or maybe some of you are angry and deeply unsatisfied with everything that I’ve said because you are wondering why God let this woman suffer in the first instance, why did she have to suffer for 12 years or suffer at all? Why would God let me be hurt in the first instance, why did I have to go through this? Some of us refuse to believe or trust God because we feel like it is His fault.

And for those who feel this way, I want to say that I’m sincerely sorry about what happened to you. From the bottom of my heart to yours, I am so sorry about whatever tragedy you’ve experienced. I’m sorry that someone that you love and trusted or maybe a complete stranger wronged you and betrayed your trust. I’m sorry that some of these people who did it were supposed to be representatives of God. I’m sorry about what was taken from you. And I know that it’s hard but I want to challenge you to know that that there is still very good reason to believe by thinking through what Christianity has to say about assault and trauma versus the implications of accepting an atheistic worldview that God isn't real.

Many atheist may ascribe to naturalism. Naturalism teaches us that the Earth was formed out of nothing. Some say that a Big Bang happened and that the Earth accidentally formed not from the will of a Creator, but by happenstance. (And don't get me wrong, I do not seek to be reductionist or to give the impression that Christianity requires believers to denounce all scientific theories. There are Christians who are scientists who believe in an occurrence like the Big Bang, or scientists like Francis Collins who makes a case for belief in both Christianity and evolution, they just attribute its start to a Creator. This is a much longer and different conversation) Besides having to ignore the precision with which these things would have had to accidentally happen, for instance how if Earth was exactly 1 degree closer to the Sun we would all explode or exactly 1 degree further from the sun the Earth would be thrown off of the course of its orbit and we would ceases to exist, besides having to ignore all of that, there are a couple of realities embedded in naturalism that we have to face:

To say that the formation of life is completely happenstance from its inception when carried out to its full conclusion is to say that life is utterly meaningless because it is completely accidental so this life is all we get, and the only meaning that this life has is that which you are able to make up but in the grand scheme of things that is utterly meaningless because it either dies with you or if your famous it dies off when the world ends. But if this life is completely accidental, we also need to be willing and ready to recognize that human evil in the world is just the by-product of our accidental existence and that’s just the way it is—this life is all you get.

But there’s also a contradiction there, because how do we label evil to be evil if there isn’t a higher standard of good and evil? Rape, murder, and other atrocities—are they truly evil because something inside of us deep down knows that these things are wrong, or are they evil only because we feel them to be? And if something in us is telling us that they are truly evil out of deferring to a higher standard of good and evil, well then where does that standard come from of not from a Higher standard Himself? And if there is a higher standard of goodness or justice, where does that come from if not from a good God?

In the first four chapters of his remarkable book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis speaks extensively about the moral law in a way that I cannot fully do justice here so it's worth reading for yourself, but he says:

"But the most remarkable thing is this. whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking on to him he will be complaining ' It's not fair' before you can say Jack Robinson. A nation may say treaties do not matter, but then, next minute, they spoil their case by saying that the particular treaty they want to break was an unfair one. But if treaties do not matter, and if there iis no such ting as Right and Wrong--in other words, if there is no Law of Nature--what is the difference between a fair treaty and an unfair one? Have they not let the cat out of the bag and shown that, whatever they say, they really know the Law of Nature just like anyone else?

It seems, then, we are forced to believe in a real Right and Wrong. People may be sometimes mistaken about them, just as people sometimes get their sums wrong; but they are not a matter of mere taste and opinion any more than the multiplication table. (Lewis, Mere Christianity, 1st Chapter)."

In these chapters, C.S. Lewis is trying to convince his readers that all human beings believe in right or wrong or the concept of fairness to some extent. He argues that this consciousness of right and wrong, or the moral law as he calls it, points to the reality of the Divine.

A couple of years ago, I went to a training on sexual assault for tutors. At this first meeting, we were told that people who are victimized by and survive sexual assault will always be defined by their assault, that every day will be about finding a new method of coping, and that this assault would always be a defining feature of their narrative. In this training, there was not one mention of the word healing besides when I brought it up. And the only meaning that you can make out of what has happened to you lies within the limit of yourself and maybe other people—its about you figuring out how to deal with your assault. I felt saddened deep down. This teaching seemed devoid of genuine hope. I wondered if this lack of true hope was the ultimate result of secularism.

But there is another narrative.

Christianity tells us that in the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth, that God was the one who brought order out of disarray, and that God even created human being in His image and said that we were very good. Christianity teaches that God gave humanity free will to obey or disobey Him because love is more genuine when there is a choice and God doesn’t force Himself on us, instead He gives us the freedom to choose to love Him, but God also made very clear in the beginning that sin has consequences so when humanity disobeyed God by sinning, evil entered the earth to the point that the very Earth began to groan and that the soil of the Earth is polluted by human sin. Although God created a good world, when sin entered into the world, so did a host of evil and brokenness. Unfortunately sexual assault is the reality of sin and brokenness in the world and the sin and brokenness of someone hurting another human being. There is a lot of evil perpetuated in our world because of human sin.

And you may say, well, why doesn’t God intervene? I would said that He does and He doesn’t. Unfortunately, the only way that we fully understand the weight and reality of human sin is when we see its consequences. Also, there are many times that we desire for God to intervene on our terms according to our conception of what should and shouldn't be permissible, but if we asked God to intervene to stop wickedness in the world according to His conception of holiness and righteousness, what would this mean for every single human being on the planet? If God is completely Holy, as the Bible claims, then wouldn't God need to address even our sin that we believe to be innocent or not that big of a deal or the things that we don't even realize are sins? What would it look like in action for God to intervene every time that we practiced idolatry, told a lie, chose to walk in pride, pursued greed, or so many things that we do on a daily basis and don't even think about that are sins? It would either mean that God would have to completely strip us of our free will to choose so that we could only make good decisions or that we would all have to cease to exist because all of us in some form or fashion sin. And to a Holy God, sin is sin. And as hard and frustrating as all of this is, God gives us the freedom to choose sin, even when it's contrary to His holiness and goodness or even when the results our heinous. None of this is easy to wrap one's head around. I still struggle with all of this so I'm not asking anyone to stop asking questions.

At the same time, I would also say that God does intervene in the most major way by sending Jesus to enter in to give us the opportunity to know forgiveness, redemption, and wholeness-to help us to choose good over evil. Jesus enters in to live the blameless life that we should have lived and to die the death that we should have died as a result of our sin. Jesus enters the world and takes on human sin, depravity, but also our brokenness and shame. Jesus Himself is affected, to the worst extent, by the reality of human sin in being crucified and yet the evil of crucifixion and death do not get the end of the story. And in the resurrection, Jesus overcomes the evil of death showing God to be greater than the worst human atrocity, showing that there is nothing that God cannot redeem.

In the poem that I began with, I quoted Isaiah 53. I need us to understand that Jesus wasn’t just a nice idea that God thought about, God had been planning to redeem humanity all along. Isaiah 53 was written 700 years before Jesus came to Earth, This prophecy and countless other prophecies that Jesus comes and fulfills and ultimately Jesus in the flesh is God building a case for Himself. We need to understand that the cross is not some vain hope, but that the only reason that we are in 2017 AD is because over 2000 years ago a man came and literally split time in half BC and AD. Jesus actually existed you all and these gospels were not written as mythology, they were written to be historical accounts of Jesus’ existence that we may believe.

Hebrews 11:6 says that Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. The historical reality of the cross helps us to know and gives us the assurance that our faith is not in vain but that we have a very real and enduring hope in Jesus, that when we choose to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that we are saved by grace through faith, that there is no amount of evil, there is no trauma that you experience that Christ is not able to redeem because He overcame death in the grave.

Jesus told his disciples that in this life you will have trouble, but to take heart because He has already overcome the world. And in the resurrection He did, in the resurrection Jesus proved that no evil or trauma would get the final say of his story and in Him there is no evil that will get the final say of your story.

If God had the power to resurrect Jesus from the dead and literally bring life where there was death, then you need to know that just like He healed the woman with the issue of blood, and just like He raised Jairus’ daughter, He will and is faithful to heal you. You do not have to believe any lies that God doesn’t care about you—suffering is not a sign that God doesn’t care because the Father Loved the Son with everything in Him and Jesus still suffered, but because Jesus suffered and entered into suffering then you should know He is not blind to your suffering, you are not alone, you are not unworthy or less than, He sees your hurt and pain, and is faithful to redeem it.

So will you be like this woman, will your desperation bring you to a place where you understand that there is a healing that this world can’t offer but that Jesus wants and is faithful to give you?

I come from a tradition that believes that the Holy Spirit is alive and active. And that God can speak to us through His Holy Spirit. And that God is able to redeem experiences that we’ve been through, that Jesus can re-write our narratives where we’ve felt abandoned and show Himself to us in the midst of them. And I know from experience because I have very vivid memories of being sexually assaulted by an uncle when I was younger but as an adult, I didn’t feel like I had a right to mourn for something that happened to me that young. I went to something called the School of Empowerment where we spent 3 weeks in the presence of God and God just spent a lot of this time undoing lies that I had believed about my worth, I felt rejected and abandoned for so long, but God showed me that from the beginning He has been my Father. We did an inner healing session, where a minister intentionally asked God to bring up my memories of sexual assault, and He did. I saw my uncle vividly doing horrendous things to me, then the minister asked where is Jesus, and I saw Jesus in the corner weeping uncontrollably, and when it was over, I imagined Jesus coming to hold me and console me. Then I saw Jesus showing me the scars from the nails in His wrists. He was reminding me that He suffered too, but that He overcame, and that because He overcame, I too, in Him, will overcome—be healed and set free. Then, my inner healing ministers and I just cried. We wept for the little girl who was violated and powerless to stop her perpetrator. It was not easy to reenter that space of trauma, but I knew that Jesus was with me, even in the midst of the pain. Even with all of this reasoning, I understand that it’s still tremendously hard to see God in the midst of the hurt—to trust Him. I understand that the doubts and questions can still be very real, but I also know for certain that Christ has been healing and redeeming me and that He has given me victory and purpose in the midst of the pain. He has transformed my mourning to dancing. He can do the same for you. And that is very good news.

Also, Please know that the path to healing looks different for different people, but it should definitely be intentional. If you are carry trauma as a result of assault or rape, I highly recommend talking to a good therapist or counselor. This can be part of your spiritual healing process. Healing is just that--a process, but it's not impossible.

Thank you for sitting with me in my story. I pray for all of God’s very best for you.

In Christ’s redemption,

Bola