When Hurt Interrupts, Excerpt from Amazon Girl Dare to Dream

Intense emotions create intense memories. Most Americans of a certain age remember where they were and how they felt on September 11, 2001. Very few, I dare say, remember September 10 as vividly. Some days—some moments—make a deeper impression on our hearts than others, as if they grip memory’s pen a little tighter, press down on our souls a little harder, to ensure that we never forget.

I remember a particular Sunday afternoon when I was five. We were at the house of family who was very close to us in Manaus. My brothers and I played with the other kids. The grown-ups were out of sight and out of mind. After we played underneath the porch, we went inside for a nap. How carefree I felt as I slid across the waxed red floors of the living room! We all nestled into one big bed. In his deep voice, the male adult in the room pleaded with us to go to sleep. I was almost asleep when I felt a firm grip on my ankles. He pulled me across the bed to him. My heart pounded in my ears. I couldn’t move. I knew this wasn’t right. I pretended to be asleep, but that didn’t protect me. I finally realized, I need to do something to get out of this. I pretended to wake from sleep, and that’s when he stopped. I turned over and curled up in the fetal position.

I remember I felt helpless and alone. I remember time stopped, each second lasting an eternity. I remember feeling unbearable emptiness after my innocence was cruelly ripped from me. I remember it all. He sexually abused me when I was five years old. That moment interrupted my sweet and carefree life. I would never be the same. I returned home, told no one, and tried to live the same way as before. I was deeply wounded, but I pushed the hurt far beneath the surface.

I tried to keep my distance from him, but seeing him was inevitable. He was, after all, someone we did life with. At least he lived in Manaus at that time, far away from Avila, far from my refuge—my sanctuary. There’s just something about feeling safe and secure in your own home. Yet, in my own room, in my little wooden bed my father custom-built with his own hands for his little princess—where I felt safest—he struck again.

Early one morning, nearly five years after he first molested me, he crept into my room. We’re supposed to wake up to escape nightmares, but that morning I woke up trapped inside a real, wide-awake one. I was paralyzed with fear, able to move only my eyes. All the pain and shame and torment I had pushed down—and all the feelings a little girl can’t even articulate—came flooding back, overwhelming me. My blanket wasn’t enough to cover my body, to protect me from this predator. I wanted to scream, to demand that he leave. Instead, my mouth dried up. His commanding presence controlled and intimidated me. As I lay there, all sense of security and hope drained out of me. I was trapped. I was helpless. I was prey. He got on my little-girl bed, leaned over me, and sexually abused me. With a cynical smirk on his face, he said words that I will never forget: “You have grown up quite a bit, turning into a young lady.” How dare he say such a thing! Again, I wanted to scream for help, but I couldn’t. Finally, he left. I can still see him turning his back and sneaking out so he wouldn’t get caught. I turned over and wept bitterly.

The torment was back. I had tried to suppress the hurts for so many years, but here they all were again, raw and inescapable. I began to hope that one day, as years went by, these painful memories would disappear forever. Yet, as before, I remember it all. Wounds heal, but scars remain. No one goes through life without some kind of hurt. Some wounds are so deep that only God’s healing balm can bring complete restoration. We wonder why God allows these hurts. I don’t understand why, and I don’t have a tidy answer that will magically make everything better. I do know, however, that God takes every bad experience, and He amazingly turns it around and uses it for the best—usually to help others.

As time went by, I found comfort in God alone. He reassured me many times that all things work for the good and His plan. When I was twenty years old—fifteen years after the first abuse—I could not keep this dark secret any longer. The only way to receive total freedom—and stop being a slave to my secret—was to share it with someone. I remember breaking the news to my best friend on my twentieth birthday. At last! The weight of the world fell off my shoulders. I was healing. I then told my parents, who were extremely upset and hurt by the news. I asked my parents to forgive him and move on, as I had already done. They did not dwell long on their own hurt. They saw the peace and freedom that God had given me about the entire traumatic experience. Let me encourage you to examine your past with open eyes and an open heart. Unless you acknowledge and address those painful memories—and allow God to heal your wounds—those hurts will always be in your now rather than your past.

You won’t be able to move into the future in freedom. I meet lots of girls whose secret hurts hold them captive to the past. Their wounds are still open—covered up, but not healed. If only they could share with someone they trust—and ask for prayer—it would make all the difference. Believe me, I know how difficult it is, but I can promise you that the freedom on the other side is worth it. Allow our loving God to transform your hurt from your story to your history. Scars are victory. Scars mean that the hurt is trapped in the past—and we aren’t. We don’t brush our past experiences under the rug or pretend that they don’t affect us. It all matters, and it all counts. Some scars are so conspicuous that we could never hide them, but you get to choose how your story is told. The victim finds identity in past hurts. The victorious lets God redeem and repurpose those hurts to help others. The victim and the victorious look at the same scar; one sees hurt, while the other sees healing. Remember my list of dreams from chapter one? Vitória—victory—is on that list. God-given victories are won in the arena of the heart and the mind by faith—not by willpower or denial. God, through His mercy, has given me vitória over the hurt. If He did it for me, He can do it for you.

For every child of God defeats this evil world,

—1 John 5:4 NLT