*this post may be a little sensitive to read, so please understand that the details of this post are personal, reflective, and not meant to cause discomfort, but rather a closer love for HIM. 

When I was maybe 7 or 8, my mom, brother, her boyfriend, and I lived in a trailer that was parked at the San Jose Fairgrounds. My mom was, as many of you know, an alcoholic. She also was what we call a “carnie” which is just one of those people who run the rides, games, or food booths when the fair comes to town.

When we lived in this trailer, more traumatizing things had happened to me in that short amount of time than most of the years of my life. I remember, very specifically, a time where my mom was so mad at me she made me stand with my nose to the wall with my arms held high in the air… and if my elbows buckled, she’d add time. Minutes at a time… and I’d stand there scared that if I didn’t listen to her I’d get hit.

I don’t think I ever really understood why I got in trouble. Times, when I tried to do the right thing, it would just backfire on me… and she’d get scared. She’d be so scared that she’d beat the crap out of me just because she’d thought I was kidnapped. But when you’re a child, you don’t think about whether or not she’s making mistakes because of fear… You just get scared to do anything for fear of getting in trouble.

My mom also had a friend, a man. We called him the Zookeeper. I don’t really know where he got this nickname, but I always thought it was because of this small dog he had named Tinkerbell who would stand on her hind legs and dance for you to give her a treat or ball. Overall, it sounds kid friendly, right? And he was someone my mom trusted.

He would babysit us. I don’t remember where my mom was exactly… but I do remember laying in the bed with him. It almost feels unreal. I almost don’t trust myself. I almost want to say I imagined it all. But laying there with this man, was probably the most pivotal moment of my internal understanding of the world.

I was sleeping… and I wake up to him laying beside me and his hand on my hip. His hand moved down and started to touch and play with a part of me I didn’t even understand yet. I was frozen. There’s this… weird question that comes up at a time like this… “is this okay?” and you know deep down that it’s not. But how are you to know for factual purposes? I wasn’t taught to trust my intuition. I was taught that every time I trusted my intuition I’d mess up and get in trouble.

Life moved on. That wasn’t the only time something like this occurred in my life. In fact, 3 men later with multiple occurrences, I think I started to believe it was okay. On top of that, my mom in her alcoholism would have sex all the time, loudly, and I’d hear it and think that this is just what adults do. And it is… but adults, not children.

In my angst to never hurt or upset anyone, I kept this secret to myself. I kept every time someone hurt me, to myself. He was my mom’s best friend for years. As I got older, I went through a phase where I really hated my mom. I started to realize that not even half the crap she put me through was normal. I started to realize how wronged I’d been and how much the one person I was supposed to rely on, the one person who was supposed to keep me safe… never did.

Sexual abuse is more common than the general public likes to believe. We stick to ourselves. We keep our pains silent because we’re scared. But the silence is what keeps that evil alive. Every time Zookeeper was in our lives, I couldn’t look him in the eye. I couldn’t love him. My mom would tell me to hug him… she’d tell me he loves me… and I’d just be scared. But she didn’t know what he’d done because I never told her.

When I was about 28, I told my aunt about him and how hard it was to know he was my mom’s best friend and she didn’t have a clue how he’d hurt me. My aunt almost immediately picked up the phone and called my mom. I don’t think I ever cried so hard… I sobbed. I was so scared. I was scared that I hurt my mom by not telling her. I was scared that she’d be mad at me. I was scared that I’d be condemning someone who might have changed by now. I was so concerned about everyone but myself that I didn’t realize that in that moment, something broke.

It’d been nearly 20 years and the weight of this pain was starting to lift. It might have just been one of the hundred’s of weights… but it was a moment in which I realized that facing your pains is more healing than it is damaging. I don’t know what Zookeeper thinks. I don’t know if he’s done this more times than just with me. I don’t know if he even cares. I don’t even know if he’d admit it. I do know… that even in my pain, Jesus would forgive him.

The thing about Jesus is… He didn’t just come to save the innocent and righteous… He very specifically came to save the broken and damaged and sinful. You don’t send a healthy person to the doctor, right? He’s the great physician. Maybe Zookeeper had his own share of abuse. Maybe his pains taught him that was okay. Maybe his sin was heavy and maybe he’s in pain. Or, maybe he’s just a messed up human being. I’ll never really know, so I can’t be the judge.

We spend so much time trying to have this perfect image. We try to play off our pains, struggles, and mistakes as if they’re few and far between. But we seriously make mistakes every single day. Small ones… big ones… they’re all issues. I read the following scripture and something sort of clicked:

You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?
John 5:39‭-‬40‭, ‬43‭-‬44

The law is a set of rules. Guidelines. But we care so much about what another human being thinks of us as if they have the right to judge us in the first place. We allow ourselves to make choices and believe that it’s for a good reason, but sometimes we’re just blinded by human flaw. You see, Jesus made something so clear.

This world is a mess. It is broken. We will never know the true severity of our sins. We will never know the truth behind when someone hurts us. We will never understand where another person came from that caused them to be the way they are. We can, however, know one truth… He knows. He knows the true severity of our sins. He knows the truth about where we come from and what causes us to make decisions. He knows everything. He gets to judge. And sometimes His judgment won’t fit into the black and white category we’ve built from trying to turn His Word into a rule book.

As a result of molestation, I, along with millions if not billions of victims, have made a ton of mistakes simply because I was confused about sex. Because it became ingrained in me that sex is so important and so necessary that I’d have to do whatever a man wanted just to be loved. I’ve hurt people… never intentionally… but I have. So, what do the people I’ve wronged see in me? Do they forgive me like Jesus does?