For the Ones Who Carry Childhood Secrets in Their Bones

2 Corinthians 1:3-5

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ.”

THE NIGHT I LEARNED WHAT BROKEN LOVE LOOKED LIKE

Growing up with an alcoholic father didn’t feel chaotic to me. It felt normal. That’s the part that still messes with my head sometimes, how normal dysfunction feels when it’s the only world you’ve ever known.

I didn’t know what a healthy dad looked like until much later in my lifetime. I didn’t know what honesty looked like. I didn’t know what safety looked like. I just knew him. His beer and Copenhagen breath, his promises, his stories, his lies, and the way I kept trying to love him anyway.

I remember that night at the house before Mom got it in the divorce. The sun was going down, the shadows were stretching across the walls, and dad kept telling my little brother Tyler and I that our stepbrothers were coming over.

“They’ll be here soon, punkin. I promise.”

He said it with that soft voice he used when he wanted to sound like a dad, and I believed him. Because I was a little girl who wanted to believe her father wasn’t lying again.

The phone kept ringing. Over and over. I wanted to answer it, because what kid doesn’t think answering the landline is the coolest thing ever. But he wouldn’t let me. He just let it ring and ring and ring.

I didn’t know it was my mom calling. I didn’t know she was already in that place where a mom’s intuition turns into a siren. I didn’t know she was already done with his lies, done with his drinking, done with wondering if her kids were safe.

I didn’t know Jesus was already moving.

Later that night, dad was telling Tyler and I a story in my bedroom; Goldilocks and the Bears, the one we always begged for. Then suddenly there was this pounding on the door. Heavy footsteps. A storm moving through the kitchen.

It was my mom.

She scooped Tyler up with one arm, me with the other, and carried us out like we weighed nothing. Tyler was crying because he was scared. I was crying because I didn’t understand.

I remember looking back at my dad and saying, “Daddy, I want to see Wyatt and Kyle.”

That’s when he looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, “I’m sorry, honey. They aren’t coming.”

That was the first time I saw shame on a grown man’s face. The first time I realized he knew he was hurting me. The first time I felt the sting of betrayal from someone I loved more than anything.

I didn’t know Jesus was there that night, but He was. He was the one who pushed my mom to get in the car. He was the one who made the phone ring until she couldn’t ignore it. He was the one who said, “Enough.”

I didn’t understand it then. But I do now.

THE LIES THAT TAUGHT ME HOW TO SURVIVE

I didn’t start lying right away. It came later. Little lies at first. “No, I didn’t do that.” “Yes, I did.” Lies to keep the peace. Lies to keep people happy. Lies to keep myself from being yelled at or disappointing someone.

My dad taught me that lying was how you stayed loved.

If you didn’t get something done. Lie.

If you messed up. Lie.

If you were scared. Lie.

If you wanted someone to stay. Lie.

He taught me that perfection was the price of love. I carried that poison into my twenties like it was oxygen.

THE PART I NEVER WANTED TO SAY OUT LOUD

This is the part that will be hard for some people to read. But I’m not hiding anymore. I’m not protecting the image of a man who didn’t protect me. And I’m not carrying shame that never belonged to me in the first place.

There was a night at my dad’s house in Nemo. After he remarried, when something happened that changed the way my body understood safety, comfort, and touch.

I had night terrors back then. The kind that ripped me out of a dead sleep and I would be shaking and screaming. One night, I ran down the hallway toward my dad’s room because that’s what kids do, they run to the person who’s supposed to protect them.

But what happened in that kitchen wasn’t protection.

I won’t go into graphic detail. I won’t describe what he did. But I will say this:

A father crossed a boundary that should never be crossed.

A father touched his child in a way no child should ever be touched.

A father turned a moment of fear into a moment of confusion and violation.

I didn’t understand any of it. I didn’t have the language. I didn’t have the awareness. I didn’t have the ability to name what was happening.

All I knew was that something felt “different.” Something felt “good” in a way I didn’t understand. Something felt wrong and comforting at the same time, and that is the kind of confusion that rewires a child’s brain.

I didn’t know it was abuse.

I didn’t know it was trauma.

I didn’t know it was shaping the way I would see my body, my worth, my relationships, and my identity for years.

I just knew it happened.

And I carried it alone.

THE AFTERMATH NO ONE TALKS ABOUT

Kids who experience sexual boundary violations often develop behaviors they don’t understand. Curiosity. Shame. Self-soothing habits. Confusion about their own bodies. A sense of “wrongness” they can’t explain.

I was one of those kids.

And I want to say this clearly:

What happened to me did not make me disgusting. What I did as a confused child did not make me disgusting. The coping mechanisms I developed did not make me disgusting.

I was a child trying to make sense of something that should have never happened.

If you’re reading this and you’ve been there, you are not disgusting either.

THE QUESTION I ASKED GOD FOR YEARS

When I first got saved, I wrestled with this:

Why would God allow this to happen to a child? Why would He allow me to carry this? Why would He let this shape me?

The answer I came to, the one that finally gave me peace, was this:

We live in a world where people have free will. And sometimes people use that free will to harm others.

But God never wastes pain.

He never lets trauma be the final word.

He never lets darkness win.

He knew that one day I would be strong enough. Healed enough. Loved enough, to tell this story without shame. He knew that one day my voice would reach women who think they’re too broken, too filthy, too far gone.

He knew that one day I would say:

You are not alone. You are not ruined. You are not unlovable. You are not too much for Jesus.

If anything, you are exactly the kind of woman He runs toward.

MY TRUTH, UNHINGED AND HOLY

I’m not telling this story to shock anyone. I’m telling it because silence is where shame grows, and I refuse to let shame grow in me anymore.

If you’ve lived through something like this.

If your childhood was confusing.

If your body learned things too early.

If you’ve carried guilt that was never yours.

I want you to hear me:

Jesus is not afraid of your story. Jesus is not disgusted by your past. Jesus is not ashamed of you.

He sits with you in the memories. He holds the parts of you that still shake. He heals the parts of you that still ache. He restores what was stolen. He rebuilds what was broken. He redeems what was twisted.

Jesus uses your story; your raw, unhinged, painful story, to set other women free.

This is my truth. This is my testimony. This is my healing. This is my offering.

To the Woman Still Healing From What Happened in the Dark

If you’ve made it this far, I want you to hear me with your whole heart:

You are not crazy for the things you learned too young. You are not dirty for the ways your body reacted. You are not guilty for the things you didn’t understand. You are not ruined because someone else crossed a line you didn’t even know existed.

You were a child.

Children don’t consent. Children don’t “invite” it. Children don’t “cause” it. Children don’t “deserve” it. Children don’t “ask for” it.

Children trust, and someone broke that trust.

But Jesus never did.

He was there in the hallway. He was there in the confusion. He was there in the shame you didn’t have words for. He was there in the years you carried it alone. He was there when you blamed yourself. He was there when you wondered if you were too filthy to be loved. He was there when you thought you were the only one.

He is here now, pulling you out of the silence the same way He pulled me out.

I’m telling this story because I refuse to let the enemy use my childhood as a weapon against me anymore. I refuse to let shame sit on my chest like it owns me. I refuse to let the lies I learned become the truth I live by.

I refuse to let you sit in your darkness thinking you’re the only one who’s ever felt this way.

You’re not alone. You’re not too far gone. You’re not too broken. You’re not too much. You’re not beyond healing.

If God can take a little girl who learned lies instead of love. Who learned shame instead of safety. Who learned confusion instead of comfort and turn her into a woman who can speak this truth out loud.

Then He can do the same for you.

This is not the end of your story. This is the part where the light finally hits the places you’ve been hiding. This is the part where Jesus steps into the memory and says, “I was there. I’m here now. And I’m not leaving.”

Your story matters. Your healing matters. Your voice matters. Your past does not disqualify you from the love of God. It positions you for it.

This is my truth. This is my freedom. And if you’re ready, it can be yours too.

A Prayer for the Silent Survivors

Jesus,

for the woman reading this who still carries the echoes of her childhood, meet her right here. In the memory she avoids, in the shame she never asked for, in the places she still feels small.

Remind her she is not what happened to her. She is not the lies she learned. She is not the guilt she carries. She is Yours.

Cover the little girl she used to be and strengthen the woman she is now. Break every lie that tells her she’s too broken, too dirty, or too far gone. Fill her with the truth that she is seen, loved, and safe in You.

Hold her tonight, Jesus. Hold her until she knows she’s not alone and never has been.

In Your Holy Name,

Amen