The Wounded Heart

 

“What occurred is not your fault!”  A sexual abuse victim will hear these words but will not believe them.  The words sound good at first, but their wounded heart is quick to quench them.  “For some reason the blanket amnesty of forgiveness offered to the sexual abuse victim fades after the initial relief.  This fading does not invalidate the good news.  It simply implies that more must be done than affirm abused people and implore them to forgive themselves.”

And the book proceeds to do just that, and does so in a very powerful way.  Dr. Allender takes the victim on a profound journey of discovery about their abuse.  He brings the victim to the awareness of the battle that must be fought.  A battle the victim must wage against their own self, delving into the painful areas of their heart, mind, and soul that they would rather leave untouched…but left untouched only results in pain and turmoil when inevitable triggers stir up the undealt-with trauma.  But Allender reminds us that there is a sure hope and reward in entering into this battle against self when one sets their eyes on Jesus.  “The fabric of life will need to be unraveled piece by piece as the Master reweaves the cloth to His design.”

Dr. Allender leads the victim through the battle identifying the enemies of sin and shame.  He skillfully and meticulously leads the victim through an examination of all the dynamics of sexual abuse: contempt, powerlessness, betrayal, ambivalence, and other secondary symptoms.  Having properly identified the true enemies the victim must face and the proper way of dealing with them, Dr. Allender then reveals the Biblical path to recovered joy.  “The process of turning from our self-sufficient, self-protective modes of existence will be humbling and painful, but successful.”

The book was life-changing for me.  When I read it for the first time some twenty years ago I felt that sections of it were like reading my own diary because they so accurately portrayed what I was experiencing and fighting against.  Dr. Allender led me to bold love and a proper, Biblical confrontation with my abuser which had life-changing results for me, even to this day. 

Back when he wrote the book his then eight-year-old daughter asked Dr. Allender, “Daddy, do abused people have walls in their hearts that keep them from being happy, and will they have less bricks in their walls after reading your book?”  If she could hear me now I would tell her, “Yes dear, your daddy’s book does exactly that.  You can be very proud of your daddy.”  Because I certainly have less bricks in my wall.

A victim, survivor, and (thanks to Dr. Allender) 
an overcomer of childhood sexual abuse.