Familiar Stranger

This book started out as a journal of my thoughts during a very difficult time in my life. I had started having intrusive memories about a rape I experienced 12 years earlier. I was overwhelmed with thoughts and feelings that I didn’t know what to do with. I could not process all these thoughts, and they seemed to be taking over my entire existence. When I started writing, I did it to have a release, to free my mind. The more I wrote, the lighter I felt. I wrote through my darkest days, and when I emerged at daylight I was still writing. Exposing all of my deepest thoughts and raw feelings was not an easy thing to do, and although I had no idea where all of this was going, I did know within myself that what I was writing was very important and there was a purpose for it. I thought I was going crazy! I felt so alone. I thought that no one could ever know, much less understand, what I was going through. I know now that is not true. Luring us into thinking we are alone is one of Satan’s oldest tricks. If he can lead us to believe that no one else could understand, then we become open to believe other lies, like that if God really loved us, He wouldn’t let bad things happen to us! There was a time when I thought that God had allowed me to endure this attack to teach me something or to punish me. I have grown so much over the years following my attack. I have gotten closer and gotten to know, REALLY KNOW, who God is, and He is a kind, loving Father. To believe that He chose me to be raped just so I could grow up and help other women who have been raped goes against everything He is! The enemy is the one who comes to kill, steal, and destroy. God comes to give us life – and not just life, but abundant life! Satan was the one who set out to destroy me that day, and used my attacker to carry out his plan. The man who raped me opened himself to be so influenced by the enemy that he was capable of doing what he did. Satan is real, and he will use whomever he can to accomplish his plan. God was with me that day, and I believe He is the reason I survived. There is such a desire in my heart to reach out to others who have survived rape. I want for them to know that they are not alone. I want them to not be afraid to talk about it and begin to heal. I am not the first person to think that I can keep all my feelings inside – that if I just don’t talk about it, then it will go away. That if I just keep quiet, everything will somehow be OK. This is the only way to remove the feeling of blame that rape survivors tend to put on themselves. If you have been raped, it doesn’t matter who raped you; it was NOT your fault. It doesn’t matter if you stand before a man completely naked – he has no right to your body! If you have been assaulted and you feel overwhelmed or that you are all alone, I urge you to call your local Sexual Assault Hotline. Talk to a friend or family member. Just reach out to someone. Don’t try to handle things yourself.