Wednesday, February 6, 2013



The Silent Child
by Ann-Mike Alexander on Sunday, October 31, 2010 at 12:49pm
 Once there was a day that I liked to laugh and play but suddenly You had to take it all away.  You  robbed me of my entire childhood.  You even took my voice.  I became the "Silent Child."  You used a police officer, a peace officer,  in an attempt to destroy me.  Someone who  should have protected me but you chose other plans.  It took many years and tears to try to fathom what was wrong with me and  understand why this had to happen.  But today, I can say that  I am healing!  What You meant for evil, God used to make me into something beautiful.  I traded my ashes for beauty.  I was broken.  My  life shattered into a million pieces.   I was  victimized from age 6 years old until about 11 years old.  I remained a victim well into my adulthood.  I was robbed  and  my innocence was taken.  My will to be a little girl was destroyed.   I had every right  to laugh and play.  A bright little girl who would have loved nothing more, You had to take it away.  I didn't have time to do things little girls love to do.  I was too busy building a fortress around my heart.  Brick by brick, day by day for the duration of my youthful years.  You see if no one was going to protect me, I had to protect myself.  I was an adult but a little girl was still trapped inside.  That's when I became the "Silent child."  What  You don't know is you didn't  kill me.  You did make my life overwhelming and sometimes hard to deal with.  Complications led me to certain tendencies to sin dramatically.  I often blamed my sin on my victimization.  but today I don't believe  confessing sin is primarily about fault, it's about peace and freedom.  Confessing to "The True Peace Maker."  My sins were my own fault, but more important to God, I believe my willingness to confess how badly I hated those sins and how I wanted to be free from the power of abuse held over my own decisions.  I brought those sins to the altar of God.   He cleansed and forgave me.  He is teaching me day by day how to change my responses and  how to tear the wall around my heart down.   Yes, God did permit these things to happen to me but God was not the author of my victimization.  You were the  accuser and the abuser!   God knew that I would have to seek Him diligently for healing and by that I would come to know my Healer.  God knew that glory would come through His name through the miracle of restoration and subsequent ministry.  He knew I would be compassionate to children and victims childhood hurt.  I  believe that God knew that the crime of childhood victimization would come "out of the closet" in my generation and He is calling all victims to be the voice for thy silent children.  God also wanted to teach me how to make freedom in Christ of my life from the passion of my personal experience.  Until  I meet God one day and He fills in the blanks of the things that I don't understand, this is enough for me.  From blindness to vision I became  more present.   I started to see and  notice things.   People's voices, their expressions, and their body language around me.  I became aware of how they react in response to me.  I learned for the first time what boundaries are.    I felt strange as I became aware of who I was because that was when the thought "normal" began to make sense.   The "Silent Child"  trapped inside and my emotion's were split in time. But now the "Silent Child"  and my emotion's are combined . I've  been told so many times, "you're  crazy, you're  insane";  If only they knew the pain.   I became present more and more each day.   I got to know how that  "Silent Child"   and how my emotion's behaved.  How could   I understand any different than my own reality that I always  assumed  was normal.  So many years of consecutive pain and abundant tears, and of patterns and people and the fact that you don't quite fit in  I realized the entrapment I  was in.  After many  years of  searching for myself, I can say with confidence that today I have a clearer glimpse of awareness and with God I am healing.  In order to heal and be to present each day, I must understand how I behave.  I have a feeling if  the silent child and my emotions are frozen away, the more they are out, I can feel today.  Some days I  feel as if the "Silent Child"  is still trapped inside, it brings to my awareness that I'm living in survival mode still.  That is why it is easier to cope.  It's not that I am so much better, I'm just not feeling at all.  When I am feeling more often each day, no wonder it is a bright and beautiful  light.  As I began to learn, feeling is living, and that creates life.  Now I know why the  loved ones in my life would place the many sticky notes on my mirror, my computer, or wherever they thought I would be.  They were a reminder to keep me feeling no matter the fear that may have overtaken me.  So to my God-sent husband  Mike, and my beautiful daughter's Blaze and Sarah, I realize now that you wanted me to experience life.  So I still  have all of those sticky notes tucked away so that when I'm feeling like a victim, I can read them and they show me the way.  Sometimes  knowing somehow that feeling was impossible yet you did not give up even when life seemed to be more than we all could handle.  The more that I become aware of that "Silent Child"  lost inside of me, I understand one transition to another and how my life is supposed to be.  A life long since gone for an eternity, survival was my main concern and the "Silent Child"  trapped inside of me is what helped me to stay alive.  Split lives protected the "Silent Child" ,  but when she grew up, it seemed like an endless cycle of insanity.  I am continuing to get to know the" Silent child" .  My emotion's are regaining  cooperation with their lives.  The more the transition begins to blend, I will become more whole again.  Each day we start fresh, letting go of the past.   We know God's love for us and we now love ourselves.  We can spread that love everywhere we go without reacting to someone else's pain as a result of some of our own unresolved pain.  Instead, let them be, with love, understanding their wounds and their journey process is their own.  Our love for them in the midst of their journey may be a catalyst to their own internal truth that even with all human sin and unresolved pain, they are still loved just the same.  So today I have forgiven the man who took from me the innocence of a little girl that once was trapped inside of me.  As I read God's Word and believe that we are to forgive others because  Christ first forgave me,  I must do the same in return to others that hurt me.   I finally decided  to hand it over to God and let Him be the Judge.  God already saw me and He can far better represent my cause.  It frees me from the bitterness of burden and blame.  Yes the memories are still painful but  I love and I forgive you.  I understand that "you knew not what you were doing."   You helped to build my testimony and you did not even know it.  What Satan used you to do to me as an attempt to destroy me, only gave me a clearer vision of my God, my Abba.  I will continue to spread the good news to those who have been broken and shattered . No matter what pit your in, you can climb out.  Open your eyes and look up.  See, God is already standing there at the top with His arm's stretched so far, waiting for you to grab hold to and take you in His arm's.  If my testimony helps only one person, then it was worth it all to me.  The shoes and the mask that you may be wearing, you can take them off and throw them away.  I used to wear the same mask and  shoes you see.  There are still some scars that I carry today but they are for others to see, so they may reach out and touch to say ,"You have been there, and you made it through!"  Our scars tell our story, you do not have to hide them anymore.  God says we are beautiful and that we are enough.  And that is what I believe.

Monday, January 7, 2013


     My name is Had.  You may know me, but you may not know my knew name.   You may have no idea what I have been through because I do look my best to look the same.  I am scared to death of you.  I used to be just like you.  I once held my head up high without propping in on my hymnal.
    I was well respected back then, and I even respected myself.  I was wholeheartedly devoted to God, and if the truth be known, somewhere deep inside I was sometimes the slightest bit proud of my devotion.  Then I'd repent...because I knew pride was wrong.  I didn't want to be wrong.  Not ever.
    People looked up to me.  And life looked good from up there.  I felt good about who I was.  That was before I was Had.  Strangely, I no longer remember my old name.  I just remember I liked it.  I liked who I was.  I wish I could go back.  I wish I'd just wake up.  But I fear I am wide awake.  I have had a nightmare.  And the nightmare was me.  Had.
    If I could really talk to you and you could really listen, I'd tell you I had no idea how this all happened.  Honestly, I was just like you.  I didn't plan to be Had.  One day I hadn't, then the next day I had.
    Oh, I know now where I went wrong.  I have rewound the nightmare a thousand times, stopping it right at the point where I departed the trail of good sense.  The way ahead didn't look wrong.  It just looked different.  Strange, he didn't look like the devil in the original scene.  But every time I replayed it, he dropped another piece of his masquerade.  When he finally took off his mask, he was laughing at me.  Nothing seems funny anymore.  I will never laugh again as long as he is laughing.
    If only I could go back.  I would see it this time!  I would walk around the trap camouflaged by the brush, and I would not be Had.  I would be Proud.  Was that my old name?  Proud?  I can't even remember who I was anymore.  I though I was Good.  Not Proud.  But I don't know anymore
    Would you believe I never heard the trap shut?  Too many voices were shouting in my head.  I just knew I got stuck somewhere unfamiliar.  And soon I didn't like the scenery anymore.  I wanted to go home.  my ankle didn't even hurt anymore.  Not until the infection set in.  Then I thought I would die.
    I lay like a whimpering doe while the wolf howled in the darkness.  I got scared.  I pulled the brush over me and hid.  Then I felt like I couldn't breathe.  I had to get out of there or I was sure it would kill me.  I didn't belong there.  I refused to die there.
    I pulled and pulled at the trap, but the foothold wouldn't budge.  The blood gushed.  I had no way out.  I screamed for God.  I told him where I was and the shape I was in.  He came for me.
    The infection is gone.  He put something on it and cleaned it up instantly.  As He inspected my shattered ankle, I kept waiting for Him to say, "You deserved this, you know.  You've been Had."  Because I did and I know and I have.  He hasn't said it yet.  I've never known Him from this side.  My leg still hurts.  God says it will heal with time.  But I fear I will always walk with a limp.
    You see, I wrestled with the devil and he gave me a new name.  Had.

Poem by:  Beth Moore