Day of Reflection

 ***may trigger RA***

I am a firm believer in God. I appreciate everything that he has done in my life. I went to Church this morning and enjoyed the cantata. Palm Sunday is an important day in the liturgical calendar of Christian Churches. There was a lot of singing and praising. The Church I am going to really feeds me spiritually. It is a Church that understands good and evil. I have been going to this Church for the past several months. I have told people there what I have survived. Not one person has doubted my story. It surprises me how easy it has been to share my story with them. I have not gotten into very specific details, but I have shared freely that I am a survivor of ritual abuse. That Ruth was involved with a cult when I was a child and this cult was evil and involved the occult. People have hugged me, prayed with me and just listened to me. I have never been part of a Church where I felt so free. At some point I will share my story with my Pastor, but right now I am just enjoying being part of the Church and getting to know the people who attend. To say my soul got fed this morning is an understatement. I felt so moved by the music in Church this morning. If I could have gotten up and danced I would have.

I had my first memories of being ritualistically abused during Holy Week in 1992. It was a scary time. I am very fortunate to have so many good people around me. Not one of them doubted what I was telling them. After I had the first memory I learned that it is common for survivors of ritual abuse to have memories of their abuse during Holy Week. The hardest memories are the ones that my body remembers first. Parts of my body have gotten numb, painful and cold. When I had my first memories my groin area was very painful and then it was cold. I couldn't walk due to this. I was crying because of the pain. I couldn't figure out what was happening. Then I went into a panic attack. Then the flashback started. I was being held down by 4 members of the cult. I must have been around 4 years old. They were inserting an upside down crucifix into me. The pain was horrible and I ended up bleeding bad. These people wouldn't stop holding me down. While I am remembering this I am surrounded by friends. They were so patient and kind. We were in a restaurant and I was crying so hysterically they couldn't understand what I was trying to tell them.


I was unable to walk due to the pain. It took me a long time to be able to get up and get out of the restaurant. Then to try to sit down to get into my car was nearly impossible. My body wouldn't let me. As the flash back continued I am seeing red eyes and blackness then I see this beautiful blue light. It is swirling around and around the blackness with the red eyes. This light is calming and I am watching this swirling and swirling black and blue. Then it dawns on me that the blue is God. He is trying his best to stop the evil that was happening to me. He couldn't, because the one thing God can't control is free will. That made me cry even more. To realize that even in the darkest areas of my life God was there. To have gained the knowledge that God doesn't have control over free will was life changing for me. It took about 2 hours for me to calm down enough to be able to go home. It took approx 6 hours for the cold in my groin to go away. Friends stayed with me and the children didn't know what happened. I vowed to keep this from them for as long as possible. I'm lucky I had the therapist I did and the friends I do because without them that day would have been much harder. It's possible my children would have witnessed this and that wouldn't have been good for them. I appreciate how much nurturing that I received though my process of remembering. I didn't get nurtured from Ruth growing up and I relished it from friends and family as my memories continued to come. This was very important in my healing process.

I felt very compelled to share this tonight. Holy Week is a wonderfully reflective time. Showing gratitude even when faced with these horrible memories is important. Gratitude and grace have been very important in my life. My heart aches for that little girl sometimes. Knowing God was with her makes the achenes more bearable. Knowing she has a voice makes it bearable as well. I hope everyone's Holy Week helps them reflect on what is truly important in life. Things aren't important, people are. Blessings, Rosie