My healing event was not linear, quick or easy. It was messy, overwhelming, strange and difficult. And….. I’m beginning to think that this is how it is for everyone else. We don’t just wake up one morning and think right, I know how to fix my heartache.

For me, I was taken from a place of fear to a place of less fear, the type that no longer guides my decisions. As a Christian, I decided to put more trust and faith in God. It was decisions like that, that eventually took me to a place of peace.

My peace is real, not imagined, but I still feel upset and easily cry over my heartache. This is not wrong; this is from a place of love, a love for my daughter and I’m devastated that she was hurt.

People who have read my book or engaged with me over social media are beginning to use the word ‘BRAVE’. It’s a very nice sentiment, but I don’t feel brave, I feel BOUND. Bound as in wrapped up snuggly in the warm balm of God’s love. It was my decision to trust Him more as well as others, that brought the biggest change.

I wrote 54,000 words, (‘The Locusts Coup: A mother’s spiritual journey to peace from incest’) and yet, I’m still unable to translate what that trust looked like to non-Christians. In part, it means that I gave up a lot of worry and autonomy over the things I could not control. The worry and fear that held me back was the fear of being found by my first husband. This was a reasonable fear to a point, but he never laid a hand on me and I know now, that all his words were from a place of hate and control. His poisonous speech is put out by the snuggly warm balm of God’s love.

The fears I allowed to guide me, control me, silence me, were all lies. The lie that I was somehow responsible for the vile actions of my first husband. The lie that the abuse was my fault because I trusted the man I married, to care for his daughter. And then there was the lie that I wasn’t enough to hold the pain and confusion of my child.

Throughout the healing event, I started to finally see these lies for what they were. I talked to God about them, desperate conversations to find peace or at least a strategy to get through the next thirty years. It was this willingness that God could use. I had come to the end of my strength and after almost three decades, I still was no closer to finding peace through my own measures.

The lies were illuminated for what they were when I saw them in the light of the love of God. He showed me how He felt about the abuse. For the first time ever, I realised, I might be her mother, but He was her Heavenly Father. The One Person who knew the number of hairs on her head and decided what colour those hairs would be, (from the beginning of time!).

This comforted me, changed my perspective and brought a lighter step in my heart. I was beginning to stop fighting against God and to work with Him, to trust Him, to listen to Him.

And it had been a very long time since I had truly listened to Him. I had kept Him at arm’s length, ignoring His whispers and offers of help.

The help was three-fold, firstly, the defeating of lies and holding onto God’s truth instead, secondly, it was realising I had misunderstood biblical principles, morphing them into something I needed rather than what they were and thirdly, taking the plunge to offer up the guilt that had been eating at me for so long.

The guilt was the biggest lie, never once letting me forget that I had trusted a man who I should not have trusted. Somehow, within the inner workings of the lie, I had come to believe that I should have known that he could hurt his daughter. Such a stupid idea, but that’s the power of lies.

The route to healing was through a series of decisions. The decision to trust God, to listen to Him, to allow Him to work. I said no for so long, I am still surprised that in His grace, He kept the ‘faith’ in me, who else would have waited for so long?

The final decision was to forgive, not only the perpetrator but also myself. I carried my pain like a badge of honour. I lived under a suffering that very few people knew about and it felt powerful in some strange kind of way.

Within all these decisions was the untangling of a lot of confusion. The whole process took about six months and most of that time was spent crying or lying awake thinking, muddled and afraid I was finally going mad.

The swirling thoughts focused on memories I did not want to relive and emotions I could not begin to fathom. It was all too much at times and all I could do was cry bitter tears, allowing the rage I’d kept hidden for so long to finally spill out it’s putrid mix of toxicity and blinding smoke.

The anger was scary. I was supposed to be this mild-mannered Christian, who promoted love and kindness, but that was not the truth. I burned with hatred for the man who stole so much from me and my family. He stole my daughter’s innocence and made her into someone she was never meant to be. The abuse defined her, overshadowed her childhood and robbed me of the relationship with her that I should have had. The relationship I deserved, needed and desperately wanted.

The loss was akin to grief. I grieved for almost 30 years at the pain inflicted on my child, on me and our future. The long shadow of abuse scared people away or made them leave because it was too hard to stay.

Alone in my grief, my faith in God was all that was left. The simple daily prayer, ‘restore what you promised, make her right!’ was never far from my lips.

The healing was unexpected. (yep!! I decided God was too small). The daily cry for peace and change was never that coherent as I simply stumbled throughout the day, battling the lies, grief and loss.

The grief remains because I love my daughter. I still cry at the horror of the abuse she experienced but can finally smile at the victory God brought this ordinary mother.

God sees our pain, God hears our cries and most of all, God brings healing.

See full testimony ‘The Locusts’ Coup’