The Power to Overcome

One day he just could not wait to bring me to his house so that he could show me something. Not able to imagine what it could be, I rode along wondering about the upcoming surprise. We headed down to the room in his basement to which he referred as “ours” and he pulled down his pants to reveal the top corner of his rear end that was bandaged with a big piece of sterile gauze. His hands were shaking and his voice trembling with excitement as he peeled away the medical tape to reveal a freshly done, red, swollen but clearly readable tattoo in the shape of a heart, in which were my initials. He told me that he had wanted to get it for a long time, and that it had been a painful procedure, but well worth it. Not wanting to upset or disappoint him, I tried to mirror back pleasure, but conveyed something closer to shock and confusion. What felt like an unwelcome, concrete reminder of a reality I tried to forget, as well as hard evidence of our sin indelibly printed on the rear end of a married minister was, to him, thrilling and energizing. He seemed to love living on the edge of discovery, and seemed to be living out the adolescent rebellion he had never had, as a married, ordained adult. Prior to the tattoo, it had been an ear piercing. He always wore an earring when we were together which he would quickly take out and stuff in his pocket if approached by someone he knew. What was most unsettling to me in all of it was that he didn’t seemed to play by the same rules as most adults, and that he didn’t seem to have a fear of discovery or feel a need for caution. The earring and tattoo seemed odd but somewhat within normal range, but when, months later, sporting a creepier than normal smile, he showed me his stash of blue eye shadow and women’s underwear, both of which he told me he wore often and with great delight, I knew that he was sick and getting sicker. At some point during those years, he also showed me his growing stash of gold bars that he was accruing in the interest of amassing a secret stash of money, as well as the handgun that he had acquired and kept hidden.

When, in college, I finally had the space and courage to tell him to stay away, he did not take it well. Immediately began the harrassing calls in which my dorm room phone would ring and ring until I would set it off the hook. Often I would look out my dorm window and see his car sitting out in front, waiting for me to appear. When I walked to class I would hear his car creeping slowly beside or behind me as I walked, looking straight ahead. Every once in a while, I risked answering my phone, thinking that it was a friend or teammate, and it would be him begging me to see him just once, telling me that he was having heart problems because of all the stress, or that he was depressed and likely to kill himself unless I agreed to see him. There were a few moments of weakness in which I would relent and meet him somewhere, but after a few months, we were officially estranged and his deranged anger and my terror began to build. My rejection of him was exacerbated by trouble in his marriage that left him alone and with large blocks of time on his hands. I would receive letters in which the depth of his rage and his departure from even the edges of normalcy instilled terror, knowing that I was an object of his scorn, and that he was operating outside of fear and any kind of moral or cultural compass. He told me of a time in which he spent an hour parking his wife’s car in their garage sideways to punish her. The gloves came off as he spewed hatred for God, and for my self-righteous act of sending him away, and for what a slut and a tease I was. The scripture and spiritual “truths” that were once distorted and used to manipulate me, were now being gathered, the edges sharpened and thrown back in my face, coated in mockery, hatred and spite.

I would lie on the bed in my freshman dorm, wondering what his next move might be. I could see his soft doughy eyes and creepy smile, as he with trembling hands, showed me his pierced ear, his fresh tattoo, his stash of gold bars, and his secret handgun, or picture him inching his wife's car into the garage stall sideways, and to me, he was capable of just about anything. In the darkest times, night or day, I would think about him kidnapping me and holding me against my will, using his stash of money to keep me as his pet indefinitely.

The power of stalking is in, not only the fear of the moment, but the terror of what might happen next, and a victim’s entire reality begins to be shaped by that terror. After a few months of his angry, lurking presence, I was fully conditioned to live as if he was either right there or on his way. When I walked around campus, I was in a constant state of alert, startled by any sound, or sudden movement, my eyes automatically panning the scene for his vehicle. When in a class or restaurant, I would head for the corner from which I could fully view the room. I would offer to call my friends instead of their calling me so that I didn’t have to answer my phone. I arranged to spend my summer out of state, instead of going back to my hometown for three months of heightened vulnerability. I always parked my car under a streetlight, and never got in it without first checking the trunk and back seat.

After the initial conditioning of his victim, a stalker needs only come often enough to keep the terror of the possible alive, because given the terror of the possible, the victim stalks themselves. Years after college, once I was married with two kids, we lived in a 1950’s rambler that experienced frequent power outages. Every time the power went out, my first thought was that my abuser had cut the lines and was coming to get me. Decades later, if I am alone and hear a noise in the basement, my first thought is of him. Even this year on the day my abuser was to be deposed, as I walked out to my car and stopped to check the trunk and back seat as I passed by, I caught myself relieved at the thought that he wouldn’t come for me today because I knew he had to be in a legal proceeding. Terror is a powerful and pervasive force!

1 John 4 says that perfect love drives out fear, and I find that to be particularly pertinent to my stalking. To allow myself to be ruled by fear is to give my stalker more power than the truth that God is my protector and my provider. To allow fear to rule my life is to worship something other than God as my overcomer. To walk through my day with God on the throne is to let the truth of who he is rule my heart, body, soul, and mind. If my body is pumped full of adrenaline, on constant alert, and my mind is engaged in scanning my surroundings for my predator, than part of me worships something other than the Lord. God certainly knows where I have been, what I have experienced, and just how deeply terror has penetrated my being. My job is not to beat myself up when I realize that I am living out of fear rather than freedom, but rather, to ask God to help me notice those places of ingrained terror and simply stop, and choose to worship him instead as the one to which all things are subject, and the one who is the Overcomer of all things, no matter how big they seem. Healing and freedom and spiritual growth is not linear, and so often it feels that we are regressing rather than making progress. When abuse has penetrated deeply, receiving our healing and freedom can take a lifetime as we circle back to wounded places, realizing and receiving truth and healing one layer at a time.

This week, as I have felt called to speak my truth in another venue, I have experienced some symptoms of fear and trauma that have taken the form of nausea and trembling, which are familiar body responses to me. The trembling comes first, normally when I get a phone call or an email pertaining to my case, and, I think as a result of the adrenaline, nausea settles in soon after. Even as I am writing about it, I can feel my heart beating and I feel suddenly nervous and hot. I hate feeling like these sensations come and I can’t seem to stop them, but sooner and sooner, I am noticing them instead of just living through them, and am able to ask myself the question of whom I choose to worship in this moment. Even though I hate the symptoms, as I continue my quest for healing, I am thankful for the physical reminders that these symptoms are, of the places within me that have yet to yield fully to God’s sovereignty and power and healing instead of the terror planted there by a mere, twisted man.

It is of particular comfort to me that God is a gentleman and waits to be invited and allowed. It is these places of fear and trembling into which God longs to come and penetrate the darkness with the light of his truth, as he takes his rightful place on the throne of my heart and soul upon my invitation. Where are the places in which you worship something as having more power than Jesus has to overcome it? Ask God to help you notice, and then choose instead to worship Him, the Overcomer.