I was six years old when the older boys next door took me to their secret place. Although the memories are vague, they've always been a part of me, clear enough to imprint in me a picture of someone who was different, damaged goods, not like the other girls.
My clearest memory is when an older guy in my school told me, "I know what you're doing with them". The shame settled over me so totally, completely, and devastatingly, that I'm still, fifty plus years later, trying to get over it.
I recognize that time as a turning point for me, as forming a crack in my soul, as an off-balance sifting of my identity so that I never saw myself the same again.
It has taken a lot of years and a lot of God's love for me to see myself as a child of God, a beloved daughter of the King, a person of worth, and not someone damaged beyond repair. Some days, even now I forget.
On those days I need to remember my testimony: "God reached down from on high and took hold of me; He drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy; from my foes who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place, He rescued me because He delighted in me", Psalm 18:16-19. NIV
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