Preventing Abuse: Not Your Fault
“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” Matthew 18:6.
Do you ever wonder, “Could God even love me?” Someone sexually abused you as a child. That person told you to keep quiet, or you would be in trouble for doing something terrible. You believed you were dirty and damaged. You felt like it was all your fault. If only you had been a better child, maybe none of this would have happened. Even if you tried harder to be good, it still happened. Eventually, you gave up hope that it would stop and just tried as best you could to endure it. You pushed the pain deep inside you and tried to cover it up by blocking it out. But the pain always came crashing back along with the guilt.
The abuse you endured was not your fault. Adults should protect children from harm, not cause it. In Matthew 18, Jesus is clear about the seriousness of causing a little one to stumble. Adults are supposed to be a safe place to run to for comfort when troubles come into the child’s life. In your case, at least one adult was the trouble in your life. You felt there was no one to turn to. Who would want you if you truly are as bad as you have been told? You may even believe God couldn’t want anything to do with you.
That may be what your abuser wanted you to believe, but that is far from the truth. God loves you very much. So much he sent Jesus to die on the cross to take your sins away. Because of your sins, you deserve to have only God’s complete anger against you. But Jesus loved you more than any human could; enough to suffer hell for you. You are worth very much to him. Nothing your abuser ever said or will say will make Jesus change his mind about you. He loves you and wants to help you. “For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help…. He will rescue them from oppression and violence, for precious is their blood in his sight” Psalm 72:12, 14. Know that God is standing beside you, ready to fight for you.
Could God love even me? Yes! He is a just God and will have justice for what happened to you. He is a loving God, and he loves you dearly.
Michelle Markgraf, Freedom for the Captives
