Thots on Rape and Forgiveness: Part 1

I initially sent this out to just my family and a few close friends. But it is an honest portrayal of a big part of these past few months for me, so i thought I'd share it here for those of you who have faithfully visited my blog over the past three months of silence.... And I have so appreciated the responses and faith-building that it has generated. Part 2, the quasi resolution part, will follow next week sometime.

PART 1

Because I love her and think of her as “one of my kids,” I seem to only find rage and despair when I think of the kind of future that awaits her now.

Lets call her Rose. She’s ten years old, a beautiful shy smile, dimples, still carrying her “baby fat”, and tender, unassuming eyes. Rose has been coming to our orphan support group for several months now. She has no mother and her otherwise absentee father is in the late stages of AIDS. Her 6yr old brother is an unruly handful and usually draws all the attention when he enters the room.

An aunt noticed recently that Rose was suddenly and uncharacteristically very timid and discreet when bathing. Rose covered herself up and wouldn’t let her aunt look at her. When Aunty questioned her about this Rose said it was “nothing”—the type of an obviously loaded nothing.
--What happened? Who touched you!?
I envision Rose breaking down and sobbing in panic and guilt. She had been threatened with death on more than one occasion should she ever say a word about what happened to her. How could she have been so foolish to assume her aunty wouldn’t notice she had changed—that her little fragile life was breaking up? After aggressive probing from Aunty, Rose proceeded, haltingly through heaving chest and stuttering breath, to detail three separate instances when her adult male next door neighbor coerced her into his house and raped her—concluding each devastating, surreal, violating moment with, “Don’t tell anyone or I will find you and kill you!”

I don’t know how to pray for Rose…but I have a strong sense that I should, that it’s the proper Christian thing to do. Honestly I don’t really want to talk to God about it because he was there! He knows it all because he was standing by—looking on. The most honest prayer I can muster is that God would cause her to walk out into the street directly into the path of a speeding bus. At least that would end her suffering! God, you allowed this to happen. The most decent thing you can do now is take her quickly so she doesn’t have to die the rest of her life continually reliving this shattered childhood!

And now what about the perpetrator!? I know that I can pray for justice. But even in justice, I know that God is gracious. He went so far as to extend forgiveness and eternal life in paradise to a condemned and dying man who moments earlier had been hurling insults at him! No. Justice is too easy. And there’s too much room for God to break in and offer forgiveness. Like Jonah I don’t want to go there because I know that God is gracious and may yet forgive! Torture and damnation are the only answers that offer me some sense of just reciprocity. I’ve spent many minutes, maybe hours, contemplating how I could inflict the most intense pain on this man without killing him or rendering him unconscious. I need him to be awake so that I can scream at him, revile him, damn him, and hear him beg me for mercy that I will savor withholding.

Anger, rage, fear, helplessness, bitterness, hopelessness, deep sadness roil inside me. Like a tempest just below the radar, no meteorologist can predict the time or measure of its release. And so the silent storm drives me into sullen isolation.

Not long after my initial devastation subsides enough for me to function socially again does my conscience eventually tune in…you need to forgive Rose’s perpetrator. What!? God is that you? That’s so bogus, so twisted. That sounds like some pharisaical, christianese mantra—totally outside the galaxy of reality. It’s not my business or even my place to forgive for others anyways.

But it’s not long until I realize there’s something festering deep within my heart. Something awful and fearfully powerful. My anger and unforgiveness are turning putrid gangrenous in me—to the point that I begin to revile and even fear my own thoughts.

So I open my Bible to see what God has to say about Rose.

“Beware that you don’t look down on any of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels are always in the presence of my heavenly Father.”—Matthew 18:10

O Lord, the God of vengeance, O god of vengeance, let your glorious justice shine forth! How long, O Lord? How long will the wicked be allowed to gloat? They crush your people, Lord, hurting those you claim as your own. They kill widows and foreigners and murder orphans. “The Lord isn’t looking,” they say, “and besides, the God of Israel doesn’t care.” --Psalm 94

‘Arise, O Lord! Punish the wicked, O God! Do not ignore the helpless! Why do the wicked get away with despising God? They think, “God will never call us to account.” But you see the trouble and grief they cause. You take note of it and punish them. The helpless put their trust in you. You defend the orphans.’ –Psalm 10:12

YOU DEFEND THE ORPHANS!!?? It’s in your book! Did I read it wrong? Where were you? What went wrong?

I take my Bible and angrily shove it in God’s face.

What can you do for her now God? She’s screwed for life. She has no hope for sexual health or a mature psyche. For crying out loud, she’s ten! She’ll remember every detail, every pain, every sickening moment for the rest of her life. Can anyone ever be healed fully from this kind of trauma? Do you have that kind of power God?

This is when I habitually turn to my journal/sketch book overwhelmed. I begin to juxtapose the hopelessness inside me and the absolute pain I see around me against God’s promises that seem to echo with hollow, sterile impotence. I flip back through the pages of intense collage art representing various crises or themes of Satan’s devastating defilement of humanity. Superimposed over many of these ugly, hard to look at pieces I have copied promises of God as if challenging Him—almost threatening Him. So where were you here? I’m still waiting for justice in this situation. I don’t see you true to your word in that tragedy? It strikes me suddenly that this type of coping has been a pattern of mine for quite some time. I have “dealt” with pain and questioning through surreptitious accusations followed by an obstinate refusal to listen to God. And so it gets stuffed. The storm brews and gathers venom.