How do you ever come to terms with betrayal and violation at the hands of an evildoer? There are no easy answers or quick solutions. Other people—who genuinely care, who want to be helpful—often don’t really understand. Pain and woe bring a loneliness—“The heart knows its own bitterness” (Prov. 14:10). Even people who do understand the experience often offer explanations and advice that fall well short of wisdom.

Dear friend,

How do you rebuild after sexual victimization? To experience such evil devastates so many aspects of who you are. Your expectations about life are forever darkened. Primal fears of danger awaken. In time they will ebb; they may even go dormant; but they will not go extinct until the day when you have no more reasons to fear.

How do you ever come to terms with betrayal and violation at the hands of an evildoer? There are no easy answers or quick solutions. Other people—who genuinely care, who want to be helpful—often don’t really understand. Pain and woe bring a loneliness—“The heart knows its own bitterness” (Prov. 14:10). Even people who do understand the experience often offer explanations and advice that fall well short of wisdom.

There are no easy answers, but there are fruitful ways to go forward. Where do you begin? Let me say a few things that I hope will serve as landmarks to orient you.

First, know you are not alone.

The person who most matters truly understands your experience. God himself knows. Your true Father knows your vulnerability (Ps. 103:13–14). His love is wise and does you great good. Jesus sheltered within his Father’s care—ponder his experience of grave evil as captured in Psalm 31. You are also invited to shelter within God’s care when you’ve been savaged by human evil. The LORD walks beside his beloved children. He speaks tender, persistent, life-nourishing words. He is full of goodness and wisdom. The life-giving Spirit speaks to the heart deeper than the most awful experience.

Second, other people can help.

No one can know and love you with the depth, immediacy, and constancy of God. But in his steady light, we can help each other. A trustworthy person makes a big difference. Let me put myself in your place as the sufferer, and imagine that you seek to be a sympathetic and wise friend to me. If we could take a long walk side by side, and if our conversation would emerge and develop slowly, and if we could allow silences to absorb the weight of unspeakable words, and if we would consider well before we speak, and if we can leave a weighty matter and revisit it later, then there is much that we might say to each other that is life-giving. To find the right kind of person is to receive a gift from God. To be the right kind of person to someone else is to become a gift from God.

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