This is a tribute speech I wrote in honor of the brave souls who have been severely abused. If this is you and you have made, are making, or are considering making the journey to wholeness and healing, I salute you and admire you more than I can express. It is with admittedly limited understanding that I attempt this tribute but my intentions are to honor you and to share with any and all who will hear that God is a God of healing. Only God can turn what Satan meant for evil into a beautiful work of goodness -- a trophy, if you will. This is for you...
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Imagine you discover your most precious possession has been stolen and taken to a distant place.
Imagine you desire to regain what is rightfully yours but learn the journey will be fraught with danger.
Imagine fear greater than any you have ever experienced versus desire beyond your ability to articulate. A battle ensues. Desire wins.
You procure an experienced partner to help guide you on the journey ahead. She prepares you as best she can, warning you it will not be easy but encouraging you that others have successfully made this trip. And so, with tempered reluctance, you begin your journey.
At the outset, you are surprised to learn your precious possession has been traumatically fractured into multiple pieces and fragments have been scattered all along the road to your destination. You decide you must find every piece and carefully reassemble them. But when you attempt to retrieve a part, you discover it is heavily guarded by a host of enemies. Fear freezes you briefly but desire drives you forward. You soon learn that with some effort, the enemies will become allies and join your endeavor to gather and guard the pieces. You find each retrieval more challenging than the previous, each enemy requiring more and more effort to win over. Fear frequently tempts you to turn back, but desire drives you forward. Days turn into weeks and weeks into months. And then one day you arrive. You have only one piece to place before your precious possession is once again complete.
But what if it isn’t what you remember it being? The journey has changed you. What if your desire is disappointed? Fear freezes you again - briefly. Then you breathe deeply and prepare to place the final piece.
It has been said that “courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” (Ambrose Redmoon)
You are about to meet the courageous traveler in this story. Her journey represents restoration to wholeness from dissociated identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder). It resulted from countless episodes of ritualistic abuse from infancy through adolescence by her own father and other family members. Thus, her journey. Her journey, however, did not end at restoration. In fact, in many ways it was just beginning. She then bravely forged ahead with a vision to turn her fearful experiences into a fortress for others traveling a similar road, especially children in crisis. This new direction has also been marked by many obstacles and the all-too-familiar battles between fear and desire. Desire won again! When asked where she found the courage to successfully complete these portions of her life’s journey, this traveler answered that it is her relationship with her Heavenly Father, affectionately called Abba, which has enabled her to conquer the roadblocks in her life and turn her pain into a passion to help others. Today we are gathered to celebrate the realization of her vision with the opening of Abba’s Refuge. Ladies and gentleman, it is my great pleasure to introduce to you the founder of Abba’s Refuge....
If you want to learn more about this subject, I highly recommend the book, "Multiple Identities: Understanding and Supporting the Severely Abused" by Diane Hawkins.
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Imagine you discover your most precious possession has been stolen and taken to a distant place.
Imagine you desire to regain what is rightfully yours but learn the journey will be fraught with danger.
Imagine fear greater than any you have ever experienced versus desire beyond your ability to articulate. A battle ensues. Desire wins.
You procure an experienced partner to help guide you on the journey ahead. She prepares you as best she can, warning you it will not be easy but encouraging you that others have successfully made this trip. And so, with tempered reluctance, you begin your journey.
At the outset, you are surprised to learn your precious possession has been traumatically fractured into multiple pieces and fragments have been scattered all along the road to your destination. You decide you must find every piece and carefully reassemble them. But when you attempt to retrieve a part, you discover it is heavily guarded by a host of enemies. Fear freezes you briefly but desire drives you forward. You soon learn that with some effort, the enemies will become allies and join your endeavor to gather and guard the pieces. You find each retrieval more challenging than the previous, each enemy requiring more and more effort to win over. Fear frequently tempts you to turn back, but desire drives you forward. Days turn into weeks and weeks into months. And then one day you arrive. You have only one piece to place before your precious possession is once again complete.
But what if it isn’t what you remember it being? The journey has changed you. What if your desire is disappointed? Fear freezes you again - briefly. Then you breathe deeply and prepare to place the final piece.
It has been said that “courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” (Ambrose Redmoon)
You are about to meet the courageous traveler in this story. Her journey represents restoration to wholeness from dissociated identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder). It resulted from countless episodes of ritualistic abuse from infancy through adolescence by her own father and other family members. Thus, her journey. Her journey, however, did not end at restoration. In fact, in many ways it was just beginning. She then bravely forged ahead with a vision to turn her fearful experiences into a fortress for others traveling a similar road, especially children in crisis. This new direction has also been marked by many obstacles and the all-too-familiar battles between fear and desire. Desire won again! When asked where she found the courage to successfully complete these portions of her life’s journey, this traveler answered that it is her relationship with her Heavenly Father, affectionately called Abba, which has enabled her to conquer the roadblocks in her life and turn her pain into a passion to help others. Today we are gathered to celebrate the realization of her vision with the opening of Abba’s Refuge. Ladies and gentleman, it is my great pleasure to introduce to you the founder of Abba’s Refuge....
If you want to learn more about this subject, I highly recommend the book, "Multiple Identities: Understanding and Supporting the Severely Abused" by Diane Hawkins.
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