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BREATHE

Moody Publishers

Contents

Much Love and Thanks .................................9A Place to Breathe....................................11Part I: Exhaling......................................15Chapter 1: Getting Real...............................16Chapter 2: Talking It Out.............................29Chapter 3: Finding the Right Road.....................42Part II: Inhaling.....................................57Chapter 4: Family Matters.............................58Chapter 5: The Next Generation........................74Chapter 6: Wise Counselors............................90Chapter 7: Friends of Faith...........................106Chapter 8: Faithful Friends...........................122Chapter 9: Special Friends............................136Chapter 10: A Loving Spouse...........................150Chapter 11: The Breath of Life........................164Free to Breathe.......................................177

Chapter One

THE RIGHTEOUS HATE WHAT IS FALSE. -Proverbs 13:5 NIV

As a child, I loved to drag a large cardboard box from the garage into the house, climb in, and then cover the opening with a big blanket. The blanket was my protection. It meant that no one could get in and that I was safe. I would surround myself with stuffed animals and dolls to keep me company. We would read books, listen to music, or just hang out together. However, I couldn't hide in that box for long because the blanket cut off my supply of fresh air. I had to pull back the blanket now and then so I could breathe.

SOMEONE WHO NEEDED to Find the Right Road

Matthew 9:20-22, Mark 5:25-29, and Luke 8:43-48 all tell the story of a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. She had spent every cent she had on doctors, but they hadn't been able to heal her. In fact, she had just gotten worse. The constant bleeding meant debilitating weakness. Worse, it meant that she was ritually unclean, an untouchable social outcast. She couldn't maintain normal, healthy relationships, and so she suffered in isolation. She had no one to care about her or support her with compassionate understanding.

One day this suffering woman heard that Jesus was passing through her town. Everyone knew about the miracles He had been doing, and soon a great crowd gathered and followed Him. Most people wouldn't have known about the woman's condition unless she told them, so she was able to act as if everything was normal and mingle with the crowd.

Hiding among the swarm of people, the woman worked her way closer and closer to Jesus, convinced that if she could just get close enough to touch His garment, she would be healed. Finally, she came up behind Him, reached out her hand, and touched the hem of His robe. Then, just as quickly, she melted back into the crowd. For twelve years, she had been faking it. And even though she now knew that her bleeding had stopped, she was afraid of what would happen if everyone knew that she had been unclean. She felt ashamed, embarrassed, and afraid. And so she hid and held her breath.

Jesus, however, wouldn't allow her to continue to hide. Knowing that power had gone out of Him, He immediately turned around and began looking for the woman so He could invite her to come out and breathe.

CAN YOU RELATE?

Before I began my healing journey, I was like that woman, holding my breath and hiding who I really was. Instead of speaking up, I tried to be someone else. I strove to be a superathlete with perfect grades and a big flashy smile. That was my cover, like the blanket over my box when I was a child. But even when I was in a crowd, I found myself alone and afraid. My mask made me feel a little safer, but as long as I wore it, I breathed the same stale notion that I would always be what my stepfather had made me.

I was relying on my false identity to change me from the outside in. I longed to become what others saw on the outside and liked. But becoming authentic can never happen that way. It has to happen from within. I needed to take off the blanket-and not just for a quick breather. I had to take it off for good. Finally I decided that I was going to find me. Little by little, I was going to get real. I was going to breathe.

When I began working on getting real, I can remember asking myself what I was looking for. At first, the only thing I knew for sure was what I wasn't looking for-anything fake. I hate fake. I never again wanted to be someone I wasn't. I wanted to be free to be who I really was when nobody was watching. However, I wasn't sure how being me would affect others. I was afraid that if they saw the real me, they'd no longer like me. Yes, I wanted to be real, but the risk seemed too great.

Millions of people like the bleeding woman and me are alive today-and fighting to stay alive. Inside there's a constant battle raging between our greatest desire and our greatest fear. We want so much to just be real and lay ourselves out there, but we're ashamed and afraid of what others will think, so we shrink back. The pressure is always there to keep quiet and pretend that things are fine, all the while hoping that somehow, someone will see the real person deep inside and invite her to come out and breathe.

WHY WE HIDE What's Inside

Every time my stepfather touched me, I felt as if I was losing a small piece of me. As I got smaller and smaller, our secret seemed to grow bigger and bigger. The silence was cramming all the small, shattered pieces of me into some secret, shameful box that I hoped no one would ever open.

I am not alone. Every day I meet or receive e-mails from people who have been sexually abused and have kept silent about it. When Ryan was six years old, a teenage neighbor boy molested him. Ryan kept this secret for years. Now he says, "One of the reasons I hid the abuse was because I was ashamed of my inner self, the part that no other person sees or knows except for God." Jackie never talked about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her teacher because she felt ashamed and alone and didn't think that talking about it would change that. Many survivors who have lived in silence falsely believe that talking about their abuse will not only do nothing to reduce their shame and isolation, but that it will actually make things worse.

Survivors of childhood sexual abuse long to be accepted for who we are. As children, we never felt accepted because we believed something was wrong with us. We thought that something about us was bad and deserved punishment. Now as adults, it doesn't make sense to us that someone would accept us just because we're not being abused anymore. So we decide to become someone else-someone others will accept, maybe even love. We figure that people will like a fake version of us, as long as it's what they want to see.

But even though our faade helps win us the acceptance of others, we feel exactly the same inside. Contrary to what we believed, we do not feel better. We still can't accept ourselves, for we don't even know the real us. We long to know who we really are. It's an obsessive thought for us. A fantasy. But we find that we fear it just as much as we long for it. It seems easier to just keep faking it.

When I decided to get real, I took small, quick breaths...