A Word from Bob
You’re reading the third of a multi-part blog series on Christ-centered hope and healing for sexual abuse.
I’m developing this series from my P&R Publishing booklet, Sexual Abuse: Beauty for Ashes.
You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
Journey Two: The Damage of Powerlessness—The Attempted Destruction of Hope (2 Samuel 13:2, 11-14)
Satan attempts to destroy faith by the damage of the loss of trust and he attempts to destroy hope by the damage of the loss of power.
The narrator informs us that the male, Amnon, begins powerless—he’s frustrated because it seems impossible that he could get what he wants. The female, Tamar, begins pure, at peace, and protected—she is the beautiful virgin daughter of the king.
And then the shift occurs. Tamar endures the titanic sinking of everything she had ever known and hoped for.
We read in 13:11 that Amnon “grabbed her.” The Hebrew word pictures laying hold of, seizing, clutching. The author is informing us that this was a violent act of rape. This was a ruthless exercise of power by a man playing God with a woman’s life.
Fighting against Amnon, Tamar cries out in 13:12, “Don’t force me!” She attempts to retain her voice and reclaim her power. In the Hebrew, Tamar speaks one powerful vocative word: “No!” She then confronts her attacker. “You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel” (13:13).
Ignoring her and thinking only of his lusts, Amnon leaves Tamar voiceless and powerless.
“But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her” (13:14).
He forces himself upon her. “Force” (13:12) means to oppress, humiliate, violate, and abuse. The Old Testament uses the word several times for forced intercourse, violent intrusion—rape. It pictures the victim so intimidated that she cowers in a corner. This is a cruel act of a powerful person overpowering the weak.
Ashley (you can read Ashley’s story in Part 1) described her sense of powerlessness, helplessness, and hopelessness.
“While people think I’m oh-so-pleasant, kind, sweet, and nice; the truth is, I live by the motto: ‘Why bother?’ Why want? Why care?’ I feel better when I feel numb. I look nice because I never exert myself because it’s just not worth it. It only hurts to hope, hurts to dream.”
Ashley told me about going to see the musical Les Misérables with Nate. The character she identified with the most was Fantine and the death of hope Fantine’s soul endured. Abandoned by the father of her child and now near death, Fantine looks back on life with regret and looks ahead with hopelessness. She is a picture of what happens when we lose sight of God in the midst of life’s losses and abuses.
Ashley had memorized the despairing words to Fantine’s song, I Dreamed a Dream and she shared with me her own paraphrase.
“Like Fantine, I dreamed a dream when hope was high and life worth living. Back then I was young and unafraid and dreams were made and used and wasted. But as with Fantine, the tigers came at night with their voices soft as thunder, and they tore my hope apart, they turned my dream to shame. And like her, I feel that there are dreams that cannot be, and there are storms I cannot weather. Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.”
These are words that Satan loves to hear. They are the words often on the lips of the sexual abuse victim. “Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.” These are the words of a Christian who has lost sight of Christ. The sexual abuse victim who despairs of hope does not cry out with the Psalmist, “I looked unto the hills from whence cometh my help.”
The despairing sexual abuse victim refuses to believe that help will ever come for a powerless and voiceless person like them self. As Ashley put it, “Life is empty today, and it will never change, only get worse…”
The Rest of the Story
Join us in Part 4, where we’ll explore Journey Three: The Damage of Shame—The Attempted Destruction of Peace/Shalom (2 Samuel 13:13-17).
Applying the Gospel to Daily Life
How could these real and raw truths from God’s Word in 2 Samuel assist you in caring for women and men who have been sexually abused?
If you have experienced sexual abuse, how has your ability to dream, hope, long, want, and choose been affected by the abuse you have suffered?
If you have experienced sexual abuse, how does your response to your abuse contrast and compare with Tamar’s response in 2 Samuel 13:2, 11-14? With Ashley’s response?
