How can this be happening, here in God’s Church? How can this be happening to me, now that I’m a Christian?

I am sitting across from my discipler. At 21, I have known Jesus for two years, and this woman is the first person who ever explained the Bible to me. I trust her implicitly, strive to be like her, and am confessing something that has terrified and confused me. My boyfriend, a student leader and Christ-follower in my campus Christian organization, has sexually assaulted me.

The experience of assault was not new to me. My own history with sexual abuse began when I was five, and continued to happen on a semi-regular basis up through my teenage years. Because it started when I was so young, it seemed a fact of life to me: this is simply how girls are treated, and I must deal with it the best that I can. As a result of this mistaken belief, I held the secret of almost every instance of personal violation until I was 28. 

A shift happened when I moved away from home to attend college. It was there that I was introduced to Jesus by my roommates, and began attending a Christian organization for college students. I learned about salvation, the Holy Spirit, how to study the Bible, and sin. Looking back, I realize now that I learned about sexual sin, primarily. I learned how destructive sexual sin is, how much God hates it, and how wrong it is to engage in any sexual activity before marriage. As a young Christian, this was completely new information to me. And since I had no way of processing the sexual abuse I had experienced throughout my childhood and teenage years, or the foresight to even define it as abuse, I categorized it all in my mind under the file tab “Bethany’s Sexual Sin.”

Sexual assault can change the perspective of a human painting so completely that we no longer recognize it. But God, the masterpiece creator, does not forget the original He created. Share on X

My categorization was unfortunately confirmed to me after this conversation with my discipler. When I told my mentor what had happened, describing the facts of my encounter, she once again explained the seriousness of sexual sin, and the deep disappointment God had with me. As so often happens with uneducated leaders in the church, she interpreted this instance of sexual assault as consensual sin. Without telling me, nor seeking my consent, she passed everything I had confided in her to her husband, the pastor of this organization. He proceeded to have a meeting with me where it was explained that if this were to happen again, I would lose my place in student leadership. Afraid of these consequences, I kept silent when it did indeed happen again. Again I was sexually assaulted, and once more I kept silent. I kept my leadership role, but lost confidence in my authorities and any hope that my body would ever be safe and protected.

It took years of counseling, removing myself from that toxic community, and meeting Christians who would actually listen to my story and respond with an empathetic, gospel-centered response, before I could sort out the lies I had swallowed from others. Healing and transformation within me slowly began to take root when I finally saw that I had in fact been sexually assaulted. If you aren’t aware, the following definition of sexual assault may be similarly clarifying in initiating your own healing journey:

According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, “Sexual abuse takes place when a person knowingly causes another person to engage in a sex act by threatening or placing the other person in fear, or if someone engages in a sexual act with a person who is incapable of appraising the act, or unable to give consent.”¹https://www.nsvrc.org/about-sexual-assault. Accessed September 6th, 2024.

Internalizing this definition of sexual abuse helped me accept that yes, I had been sexually abused – but I still felt ruined and ashamed. 

Where was God when all this happened to me? Why finally reveal Himself to me, but lead me to a group of Christians who were judgmental and not empathetic?  Yes, I understood that God was my Father, and that He created me in love, but so much destruction had taken place in my life. What could God possibly do with the mess that was left of me? Was restoration even possible?

///

Paul declares in Ephesians 2:10 that “We are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago” (NLT). Here’s the thing about art: It can corrode. It can alter. Time will wear away paint, color, detail, and beauty. Art can even be vandalized, painted over, or stained. But here’s something else about art: An expert, one who knows the painting inside and out, one who is familiar with the creation of the painting, can restore an art piece back to its immaculate beginning.

The same is true for us as human masterpieces. Doubt can cause the vibrancy of faith to fade. Pain can paint over the promises of God we once held to so tightly. Sexual assault can change the perspective of a human painting so completely that we no longer recognize it. But God, the masterpiece creator, does not forget the original He created. As a museum does not discard a priceless work of art just because it needs time and restoration, neither does God discard us when we require the same.

If sexual abuse is a violation of the soul, and that violation takes extreme care and attention to heal, then it makes sense that in God's mercy, this abuse cannot violate that precious inner sanctum where God dwells. (1/2) Share on X

This is your true self: God’s masterpiece, which is God-breathed, knitted within your mother’s womb, and as such cannot be altered. (2/2) Share on X

///

Driving on the highway one evening, I was thinking of my pastor’s children. They were so safe and well-behaved; faithful readers of the Bible and lovers of Jesus at a young age. I knew they were designed and destined to do great works for God. I found myself asking God, “What would I have been if I had been raised in a Christian home, by Christian parents?” I remember feeling deeply sad, grieving my own childhood, and wishing that I could be better than who I was.

“You would be Bethany Becker,” I heard God whisper kindly. “You would be married to Adam. You would be a pastor. You would be a laugher, an includer, and a joy-giver. Above all else, you would be my beloved daughter.” Tears were streaming down my face, and yet I could barely grasp what God was saying. These things God was telling me were already true! How could it be that, exempt from an abusive and traumatic childhood, I would be the exact same person that God had originally intended me to be? But here again is a miracle: There is an inner sanctum to your soul which no one can access but Jesus. 

This might not feel true. I understand this doubt intimately. Paul actually asks a rhetorical question related to this in 1 Corinthians 6:19: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” (NLT) While Paul says this in the context of sexual sin, I had always heard it preached as a Scripture to inspire fear of having sex before marriage. But after healing from and studying the effects of sexual assault, I wonder if Paul also meant to express the seriousness of committing this sin against someone else. If sexual abuse is a violation of the soul, and that violation takes extreme care and attention to heal, then it makes sense that in God’s mercy, this abuse cannot violate that precious inner sanctum where God dwells. This is your true self: God’s masterpiece, which is God-breathed, knitted within your mother’s womb, and as such cannot be altered.

When sexual violence happens to us, we are not changed in irreversible ways. If you’ve experienced this, can you sit with me for a moment and try to hear this? I know it might seem impossible. The wounds are deep, the memories feel inescapable, and the after-effects are far-reaching. But my sister or brother, listen carefully: God can yet erase these.

You were created by His very hands. He has wept over the harm that has been done to you, and His hands ache to undo what has been done. It is His hands which are able to heal – not to simply paint over and ignore the pain, nor erase all and start over. God will restore the details that you may think have been lost. He will resurrect the dreams and plans He created you for. This is not a forgiving work, as you are not in need of forgiveness. This is the work of an expert, reminding a work of art that it remains a masterpiece.

This truth begs a final question: What does the work of restoring a masterpiece and of God’s tender care for victims of sexual assault actually look like? 

Though the particular steps will look different for each individual, it starts with an understanding that God has not changed: not in His character, and not in His love for you. God is not looking at you in anger, or waiting for an apology, or drawing breath for a fire-and-brimstone lecture. He stands, arms wide, paintbrush in hand, to listen and console, to shield and to guide. God is not ashamed, or afraid, or unaware of what has happened. He has always been, and will continue to be, your very present help in every circumstance.

///

God has not changed: not in His character, and not in His love for you. God is not looking at you in anger, or waiting for an apology, or drawing breath for a fire-and-brimstone lecture. God stands, arms wide, paintbrush in hand. Share on X

*Editorial Note: Bethany’s harrowing, vulnerable, courageous wrestling with God and her own soul, as she sought healing from the trauma of her sexual assault, is the eighth article in a summer series that we will publish over the next few weeks, introducing our 2024 Writing Fellows Cohort in their own voices. ~CK