Rose of Grace: My Ever After Story Out from the Cinders of Sexual Abuse

By Roseann Loker

What do you do when the reality you've always known lays in shambles at your feet? The foundation you've built your life upon is just shifting sand instead of rock solid?

That's where I found myself at fifty-seven years old...in bondage to the trauma of childhood sexual abuse. And I did the only thing I knew to do: trust the Lord Jesus Christ to walk with me through the death of all I thought was true to life and freedom. Rose of Grace is not only my story but also my process of how God brought me from an emotionally brokenhearted little girl to an emotionally healthy woman.

Why? Why would I go public with such a shocking secret that my parents never even knew? One reason: to tell the TRUTH of how good Jesus Christ really is. If the world knew the TRUTH, we would be running and jumping over each other to get to Him! But instead, we believe the lies darkness tells us, and we run from Him and our true selves to hide in shame.

Come explore with me the wonders of learning to live free in Jesus Christ. He's better than you ever dreamed. And His loving power to heal our ravaged hearts is beyond comprehension. You or someone you know may need to hear the good news!

Jesus Christ is mighty to save!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887518565

Book preview

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Rose of Grace

My Ever After Story Out from the Cinders of Sexual Abuse

Roseann Loker

ISBN 979-8-88751-855-8 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88751-856-5 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Roseann Loker

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

About the Book

Acknowledgment

Pearl

Rose of Grace

Worthy

Sacred Treasure

Pure

Honored with Glory

Well in the Desert

Light in the Darkness—Lighthouse

Heavenly Lights

Blesser of Children

Ishshah

Grace

Desired

My Ever After Story

Playlist

Recommended Reading

About the Author

Endnotes

Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMPC), Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. lockman.org

Scripture quotations are from the ESV Bible (The Holy Bible English Standard Version), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language.

Rights in the Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible are vested in the Crown. Published by permission of the Crown's patentee, Cambridge University Press.

Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from The Message, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org

Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used with permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the Voice™. Copyright © 2012 by Ecclesia Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015, by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (TLB) are taken from The Living Bible, copyright © 1971, by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Foundation, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked TPT are from The Passion Translation®. Copyright © 2017, 2018, 2020 by Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publisher. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® & CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

About the Book

It is my purpose and goal to make known the greatness and wonder of Jesus Christ, God the Father, and Holy Spirit through my story and no one else's. I have done my best to be honest without sensationalizing traumatic events. A very few accounts were tweaked in the protection of others. And while they may be identified by a select few, the predators and abusers exposed here were real people, though I have given them fictitious names. I have done my utmost to protect the living closely associated with them. To my knowledge, most, if not all, are deceased. In my opinion, since they were never confronted nor had the opportunity to give an account, it is the just way to handle the identity issue.

To my knowledge, I've never seen another book that includes music for the reader, but I would be remiss to leave it out. It is one of the marvels of my walk with Papa God through Death Valley. He brought specific albums and artists across my path that spoke to the deep, secret places of my soul. It may have been an old secular song from my past or a brand new one from an unfamiliar Christian voice that brought comfort and healing just when and where I needed it most. Some of the greatest gifts along the way were ballads I wept to at four in the morning and anthems I wielded as weapons while cooking supper at night. Music was a huge part of my path to freedom, and therefore, I desire to pass the blessing on to you.

The final aspect I wish to address is the scripture appendix (Endnotes) in the back. My story is simply a way of showing how God's eternal truth applies to everyday life. It is my firm belief that what God says in His written word—the Bible—is more powerful than any word of mine. And since He is the author of life, His word is the ultimate authority. I considered long and hard whether including it was a necessity. But something returned to my mind again and again, What about the person who may come across my story with no Bible knowledge or access to one? That one needs to know that what I declare as truth is not just something I made up because it sounded good. No. The only reason I gained freedom from my trauma is because I chose to agree with God's eternal truth written in His word. That settled the matter for me. And so I offer each of you the opportunity to conveniently read it for yourself.

May the insights I've given here make your reading experience more enjoyable. And with that, I offer you Rose of Grace.

Acknowledgment

O my soul, come praise the Eternal with all that is in me—body, emotions, mind, and will—every part of who I am—praise His holy name (Psalm 103:1 VOICE). Lord, without Your love, there would literally be no Rose of Grace, no ever after story, no out from the cinders. It took Death Valley for me to know Your truth regarding mine. I wouldn't change that experience for anything. Thank You for new identities that enable me the privilege of finally living free in Christ. You rightfully deserve whatever is required to live out the psalm's declaration and so it is my grateful offering.

Rod, love of my life, thank you for the grace and love you faithfully extended to me throughout the horrendous Death Valley and the process of putting it in print. I could not have asked you to do anything more than you did and continue to do. Even my counselor commented on the caliber of man you are and how fortunate I am. (You are like the energizer bunny; you keep going and going and going.) It's rough when someone changes the rules of engagement after forty years. Thank you that we can still chuckle at the best advice we were given on our wedding day—Always keep your sense of humor. The gentleman had no idea how much we would need that in our future. You are a great man to run the river with, and I would ask you to do it all over again, wink, wink.

My children, oh goodness, how God has blessed me. Thank you for the love each one of you demonstrated during those difficult years; you had no way of knowing the depth of my pain. I'm sure it was a challenge to grasp what I needed when, yet each of you allowed some semblance of normalcy by not withdrawing. The hugs, tears, phone calls, encouragement, spouses, and grandchildren meant so much to me as my world imploded. Death Valley brought out the truth regarding God's intervention that enabled Him to give me each of you—my four sacred treasures. I won't ever get over the awesome privilege of being your mother.

God protected me, the walking, talking Rose of Grace. But Vanessa Chandler, had He not led me to your writing class at Red Arrow Media, and later to your content-editing skills, there would be no written Rose of Grace. We both know the truth: I was a passionate woman of raw creativity on a mission to make Jesus Christ known through my story, without the skillset to make it happen. You made me look really good. I'm very grateful that you allowed God to give you the grace required to work on my traumatic story. Thank you for your patience and tutelage. Your intuitive hard questions, surprisingly often, required additional trauma-processing to get truth from my head, unscrambled, and clearly laid out in an understandable format a reader might actually enjoy. You, my friend, share in any freedom work of God accomplished through this book. I'm forever grateful and praying your dearest dreams come true as you have been a part of mine.

Pearl

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure, buried in a field, that a man found and reburied. Then in his joy he goes and sells everything he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. When he found one priceless pearl, he went and sold everything he had and bought it.

—Matthew 13:45–46 (CSB)

Hello. Thank you for choosing to pick up my book. You are important, and I wish you could tell me your name. Mine is Roseann Loker. Throughout my life, I've called myself many things, but none were very nice. Yet I believed they were deserved. You have, most likely, done the same.

What is in a name? One's name is their identity. It's how they see themselves in relation to the world they live in and determines their destiny. Therefore, the names one chooses to identify with are of utmost importance. Their life depends on it.

May I start out our time together by sharing the story of when God gave me the first beautiful name other than the one I received at birth? Please come with me.

It was a very warm, still harvest evening, the kind that makes you remember the soft caress of a cuddly blanket over your skin and the hush that overtakes you as you are about to blissfully drift off to sleep. The sun, very low in the sky, had almost disappeared behind the horizon, and it gave an opal-like aura to the landscape. I was returning home down a quiet country road after eating supper with my husband, Rod, in the field where he was combining his parents' soybeans. (Since he had retired from thirty-five years in sheet metal, he had time to help them out.) The autumn aroma was intoxicating. There was an expectancy in the atmosphere without and within.

God the Father and I were carrying on a two-way conversation of prayer. He was listening to my audible voice and my spirit was listening to His inaudible one. Peace poured through my soul.

Out of the blue, a question popped into my head. Father, do You have a name for me? That surprised me. I'm not sure that topic had ever come up in our prayer times. I sensed He did. Well, what is it?

Pearl echoed through my heart along with a recent memory.

Earlier in the week, I had shopped at a store where I got lost in the jewelry department. There were ivory, peach, and taupe pearls in some pieces and white, pink, and gray ones in others. They uniquely mesmerized me, as if I were being drawn, pulled to them. It was unusually enjoyable to hold the earrings up to my ears and try on the necklaces. They seemed to speak to something deep in my heart with words just beyond the hearing of my natural ears. As I walked out of the store, I remember wondering what that was all about, since jewelry had not been on my radar before I entered.

So, on this tranquil drive home, I asked, Is that the name? Pearl? I waited…and there came a deep knowing.

Next, I remembered the verses above. They replayed in my thoughts. But I had always been taught the pearl was a picture of Jesus and I, the man who purchased the field. Hmmm. The more I meditated on the passage, the greater my understanding became.

Jesus Christ left heaven and His privileges of deity behind to purchase the priceless pearl.¹ To those who choose to welcome Him and His payment, He gave authority to "become the children of God, that is, to those who believe in [adhere to, trust in, and rely on] His name—" (John 1:12 AMPC). Each child of God is a rare pearl.

I continued our conversation. Yeah, but I've never seen myself as a pearl such as the one worth a great price, buried in the field.

Once again, my heart absolutely knew that this glorious evening God had just christened me with a beautiful name, Pearl. I was stunned by the beauty of its implications.

You see, I had recently learned that instead of the normal childhood I believed was mine, the reality was ugly and very dark. The truth staggered me and left me shaken with shame. This is the story I'm about to tell.

Why? Because in the worst of my life, God proved to be better than I ever imagined! For the first time, I began to see Him in truth and not through lying filters created by my soul wounds. With that also came the realization: Most of the world has the same wounded view of triune God.

You and I need God's refreshment when life's path gets tough. His name is not Powerless, nor Distant, though, sad to say, I made Him prove it. He never turns away in selfishness and leaves me unprotected. That also, I challenged. Most often, the exceptionally hard events of life leave us feeling disoriented, desolate, and abandoned. I call these events death valleys due to the fact that, generally speaking, something has died, been laid to rest, or been put to death inside of us. It may have been a necessary death. Like when you made an important decision to change your mind about a behavior or belief, pivoted, and went in a different direction. Perhaps it included an actual death of a person, career, or relationship, something over which you had no control. Whatever the case, a death valley is life-altering. Nothing is ever the same again.

Each life encounters some sort of trauma, for the majority multiple times over. It is the natural way of things in a fallen world. Trauma wounds regardless of the variety. It always makes an impact and leaves scars. No one gets special points for the kind of distress endured. A gash is a gash regardless of how it was acquired. And chances are it damaged the core of your identity.

Why, when so many others before me have written their stories, would I offer mine?

There are several reasons I'd like to share. First, the closer I get to my Father God, the better He looks and the more I want others to know His goodness and power to heal. He is qualified, willing, and able to take us from victims to thriving overcomers. It is miraculous! And that includes all trauma from what you and I are tempted to classify as trivial to the horrendous. I experienced both.

Second, by witnessing my process and what it entailed, you will see how my life changed from being tolerable to flourishing. To me, living a tolerable life means becoming skillful in applying coping skills while still self-protecting and receiving identity from painful wounds. Translated: To live is to cope or survive. That should not be acceptable to anyone, especially those who know God personally.

Flourishing, on the other hand, is living in the truth of who God says I am. Wounds aren't ignored. God is invited into them and they are dealt with together. I take responsibility for any part I had in the wounding such as lies with which I chose to agree regarding God, myself, and others, and unforgiveness toward the offender and God.

But flourishing does not mean that your path will be easy because He requires unconditional surrender to Himself and His truth. But this is what it does mean: You will be protected because you know the truth of who He is and who you are. Now that is flourishing or living fully alive.²

I am not claiming that my specific method is the only way to a victorious conclusion. God doesn't do "cookie