How Hating Men Turned Me Away from Jesus as God
From a young age she was taught that any man in her life could hurt her, no matter the relationship she and the man had. Over the course of time she learned that this was the best lesson anyone could teach a little girl.
She sat in one of the front rows in the church before the service started. A deaf man sat next to her, and in her innocence she felt no foreboding. She didn’t realize anything was wrong until his hand had crept between her legs. In shame, she told her mother what had happened and her mother told the pastor of the church. Without a translator, the pastor told him what he did was wrong. A slap on the wrist with words he could not even hear. The matter was settled and the little girl was never spoken to about it again. It was as if the world moved on and left her behind as she tried to suppress the memories. Later she would realize that this pastor could not help her as the only time his focus on her was to discuss her looks but never once asked about her spiritual life.
Around 7 years old, the boy that would come over held her down and threatened her until she started to yell. One day when he came over again, she was taking a shower and he silently came into the bathroom. She does not know what all he saw because she was too ashamed to look back at him.
In primary school she developed early and learned to hate her body because of the comments she would get about her breasts. In high school it continued, but this time she was told she should wear leggings to school during t-shirt day because it showed her camel toe. Since then she has been self-conscious in every pair of pants she has tried on or worn.
Her sister came back home from university one year and on their drive to the movies, they were almost hit by a car. After seeing what happened, knowing they hadn’t been hit, the girls drove off. At a red light behind another vehicle, the same car that had almost hit them pulled up beside them in the other lane. Men got out of the back seat and began trying to open their car doors. Luckily, the light changed and they were able to drive away.
Her first time going to a party in university, she didn’t know anybody and she was uncomfortable so she used this excuse to drink. She wasn’t drunk enough to make anymore bad decisions, but not sober enough to get out of bad situations. A guy she thought was a friend, who was completely sober, said he would teach her to dance salsa. Instead he asked her repeatedly to have sex and when she refused he began to kiss and lick her face. Her body would not move but in her head she was screaming. Thankfully, her friend intervened and took her away.
One winter break, during her first year of college, she came home and went to a club with friends. She drank too much and blacked out. When she came to, she realized she was dancing with and making out with a guy she knew but never met in person. She blacked out again and when she came to this time she realized he had taken her away from the crowd and was trying to put his hand up her skirt. She stopped him and blacked out again. He tried a few more times and each time she was able to stop him but she was not sober enough to get out of the situation. Luckily he gave up and took her back to her friends. She realized that he wasn’t intoxicated like she was. She didn’t want to party or go clubbing anymore after that and at least if she did she would never let herself get that drunk again.
Fast forward a few years, and a christian figure in her life who she thought she could trust put a camera in the room where he knew she would be changing. The camera was found before any serious damage could be done. But she was sworn to secrecy as not to ruin his life and damage relationships. She was told that Christians forgive and move on and that if she did not, then how could God forgive her of sins she had committed? Knowing this was a form of manipulation she battled with anger about those involved, but she kept the secret.
During all these years, she heard countless other stories from friends and women in her life who had been mistreated. She heard of a girl who had trusted a family friend. The friend and two other men drugged her, abducted her and raped her. When she was found, the justice she needed she didn’t receive and she had to learn to readjust to her new reality. She heard a story about a young girl who went to the bathroom in a restaurant and a man had followed her in and raped her in the stall. When confronted, as he held onto his and the girl’s clothes, covered in the girl’s blood, he lied and said he was innocent. She heard of a girl who had been sleeping when her cousin came in and touched her. She kept silent and he went on with his life, smiling at her at family reunions. She had a friend who went out with a guy and had a bit too much to drink. She came home not knowing if she had been raped or not and fearing the reality never went to be checked because she’d rather not know. I’ve had friends who have been led on and used emotionally then treated like nothing when they had asked for any level of commitment. I’ve heard women’s values been judged based on their looks and watched how women were talked about in the media. I see a president who approves of what that man did to me in a sanctified place and feel fear knowing that it is being encouraged. I feel hatred when I see men saying how a girl deserved whatever was done to her.
I feel shame knowing that I keep the secrets of the men who hurt me because I am not strong enough to go back into that situation and confront the pain. I have told myself that my version of #metoo is not important because I am not an innocent person. I was not raped, it could’ve been worse, I cannot tell my truth because of what people might think. I suppress my pain, replace it with a strong feeling of hatred and fear for men. I did not realize how this habit of suppression was ruining my spiritual life.
I sat and I did devotions the other day. I watched a sermon that talked about sin and our need for Jesus. I thought about how for the last few years I had run away from God. Now that I’ve found my way back to him, I think of God as Jesus and I stop. I cannot pray in Jesus’ name. I cannot find love for this man Jesus. I cannot have faith that he would die for me, that he would live without sin, that he could understand what I went and go through as a woman, and seek peace or even justice for me. How could this MAN be good? I did not know before this moment that holding onto my pain and fear had removed me from the one that could heal me from all of it. When the light-bulb went off and I realized for the first time why there was a wall up, the tears started flowing and they could not stop.
I wanted to share this because I know there are women out there experiencing the same things as I am. I have not found healing from my pain and hatred. I have not made it to a resolution. I have not climbed that mountain to reach the other side. I’m right where I was before, hating men. But I am looking forward to finding healing and learning how to reconcile Jesus with a broken world.