Restoring The Soul: Overcoming Sexual Abuse through Christ

By LCSW Minister Janet Lerner PhD

Restoring the Soul: Overcoming Sexual Abuse through Christ is a workbook that offers a faith-based structured counseling program for those who have experienced childhood or adult sexual abuse. The introduction describes the skills needed and the most important responsibilities of those who are facilitating the counseling process. Through the thirteen sessions provided, a participant is able to develop coping skills, process repressed, and wounded emotions and better understand the issues related to sexual abuse, while feeling safe, comfortable, and able to heal from an experience that was extremely traumatizing for them. Facilitators are able to understand the process required to help people, perhaps including themselves, overcome the barriers to healing and feel the relief that comes when repressed emotions are released appropriately and safely and wounded emotions receive the respect, healing, and restoration that brings about a sense of clarity and understanding that comes from offering a safe, healthy healing environment. Counselors learn how to keep things safe while bringing about the freedom to move forward into healing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781643507811

Book preview

Session One

How Do We Put the Past Behind Us?

Introduction

Opening Prayer

No longer will violence be heard in your land, nor ruin or destruction within your borders, but you will call your walls Salvation and your gates Praise. (Isaiah 60:18)

Blessed heavenly Father, we praise you for your grace to heal and for bringing together those in need of healing from sexual abuse. Be our strength as we face the pain of the past. Anoint each person here for healing, Lord, and help the group leader(s) to set ourselves aside so that you can work through us. As we begin this journey toward a deeper relationship with you and with others, we confess our fears and the desire to turn and run the other way. We ask you to help us trust you as we have never trusted you before and to allow you to bring us out of the darkness of the past and into your glorious light in freedom. Forgive us for the things we have done in the past that have fallen short of your will for our lives. Help us, Lord, one day at a time, to walk in the center of your will. In Jesus name, I pray.

Sharing Question

Facilitator’s Notes: The purpose of this question is to help people identify that they belong in this group.

As we begin to look at the topic of sexual abuse, we can use the following questions to help us decide if we need to address this problem. Are there any of the symptoms at the end of this chapter that you identify as problems for you? Do you feel ashamed a lot of the time, but not know exactly why? Do you get angry, but aren’t sure what it is that is making you so angry? Have you ever had a flashback to something that happened in the past that scared you?

Self-Awareness

The goal of this course is to help participants develop a greater ability to enter into a deeper, more intimate relationship with Christ and with others close to us. To be able to accomplish that goal, the course will help us to identify the distorted perceptions, emotional barriers, and destructive behaviors that have developed as a result of traumatic experience(s) related to past sexual abuse experiences. In these sessions, we will discuss aspects of the trauma of (usually childhood) sexual abuse that we have experienced and the healing power of our Lord Jesus Christ as he works in our lives to bring about wholeness.

As we discuss sexual abuse, let us look at several definitions so that we all agree about what we are discussing. Kubetin (1992, p.3) broadly defines it as any sexual activity, verbal, visual, or physical, engaged in without consent, which may be emotionally or physically harmful and which exploits a person in order to meet another person’s sexual or emotional needs. The person does not consent if he or she cannot reasonably choose to consent or refuse because of age, circumstances, level of understanding, and dependency or relationship to the offender.

Dan Allender (1990, p.30) says that sexual abuse is any contact or interaction (visual, verbal, or psychological) between a child/adolescent and an adult when the child/adolescent is being used for the sexual stimulation of the perpetrator or any other person.

All inappropriate sexual contact is damaging and soul distorting. There are many levels of sexual abuse that range on a continuum from sexualized interactions to intercourse. Those events that most closely resemble intercourse are the most severe, but all forms of abuse affect the innocent child upon whom they are forced.

This continuum ranges from verbal sexual abuse to visual sexual abuse to innuendo to physical sexual abuse. Another aspect that contributes to severity is the relationship between the child victim and the perpetrator. This might range from a complete stranger to beloved parent. The closer the relationship and the more the abuser is someone that the victim depends on for their protection, the greater the degree of damage to the victim’s ability to trust and integrity of personal boundaries.

With all other factors being equal, damage will be in direct proportion to the degree that it disrupts the protection and nurturing of the parental bond (Allender, 1990).

Facilitator’s Notes: Allow only brief sharing at this point.

Now that we have defined sexual abuse, let us look at restoration. What is our definition of restoration?

Restoration involves an honest look at the past, a recognition of how the past is holding us back from the fullness of relationship with Christ Jesus and with the Father, and the freedom that comes with turning to God fully and completely for healing in specific areas of our life which have been brought to our attention by the Holy Spirit.

We all know some of what happened to us. We are all too aware of the pain we experience and the memories that haunt us. We feel the shame, fear, guilt, anger, and grief brought about by the painful events of the past. What we often do not know is how these experiences are holding us captive today.

How do these past abuse experiences impact our lives today? First, these experiences make us unable to sustain the risk of being vulnerable and transparent with God and with each other. Secondly, we have perceptions (distorted by our past trauma) of what others are thinking, what they mean when they speak with us, and what their motives are. These perceptions cause us to respond to others inappropriately in ways that damage those relationships, hurt others, and hurt ourselves.

Finally, we are likely to have several of the symptoms listed at the end of this chapter. These symptoms or behaviors are damaging to us and to others. Addiction, suicidal thoughts, ungodly sexual activity, depression, and anxiety are only a few that come to mind. These symptoms will not just go away. They require our involvement and the power of the Holy Spirit working in our lives to heal our wounded and broken hearts.

To be set free from the past, we will begin by discussing what our experiences have been. In our small group(s) we carefully bring out into the open, often for the first time ever, the events that refuse to go away, refuse to be forgiven and