Words to a Friend

Quoted from the epilogue section of Dr. Dan B. Allender's book, "The Wounded Heart: Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse" (parentheses are mine)



Words to a Friend



You are the friend of someone who has been abused, and you are untrained, inexperienced, and scared. If I am accurate so far, then you have seriously thought about backing out of the relationship with your abused friend. Not that you are going to treat her (or him) like a leper or avoid all contact, but the issue of abuse, the current struggles and fears, are off-limits.

My counsel to you is simple: Don't back off from the frightening terrain of a wounded heart. You may say the wrong things and even cause more harm, but the worst harm is to turn your back. Accept your limitations, but also acknowledge the fact that you are on the front lines of the battle. You may not like to hear it but the fact is, you are a foot soilder, an infantryman who is often the first to take the fire of the enemy.

As a therapist, I see your friend once, or maybe twice a week. You see her (or him) everyday. I deal with significant issues in her (or his) soul, but you talk about the same issues, and even more. I may be necessary to the process, but you are even more so. Let me say it again: You are very important as a friend who will pray, talk, laugh, cry, read, embrace, shout, bake cookies, drive to little league, and live life in intimate proximity. Don't allow your inexperience or your own personal past to keep you from loving well.



Dr. Allender, Dan B., The Wounded Heart: Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse, (Colorado Springs, Colorado: NAVPRESS, 1995), 260.

"You're the colour of my world"

This morning I was woken up at about 2:30am. However, it was for a good reason. I'm glad the person woke me up instead of letting me sleep in my oblivion. Anyway, since I was awake when the sun was rising I figured I would take advantage of the situation, hop into my car and find a spectacular place to watch the morning burst into colour!

Let's take a little detour here. This week I bought a new CD, I had never listened to it before and didn't know anything about it but it was $9.99 so really, how can you go wrong. It's called "experiment" and it's by Rend Collective. Which is basically a bunch of different people all getting together, calling themselves a family instead of a band, worshiping God in a house and recording it, if I understand the fine print right. It's pretty spectacular I would say. However, I hadn't really connected with the album yet if you know what I mean. You can enjoy an album but something deeper takes place when you really connect with it.

Return to my car at 5:45am, the sun was just starting to make an appearance, causing the horizon to turn hues of orange, red and dusty rose. I was watching it and marveling at the Creator of colours and sunshine and morning and beauty when I became aware of the words playing in the background. "I exalt You, I exalt You, I exalt You and enjoy You. I exalt You, I exalt You, I exalt You You're the colour of my world!" It was in that instant that I made a connection with my new album.



Ok I just watched that video for the first time and it made me fall in love with this group even more!

Oh one last thing, if you read this could you be so kind as to let me know you were able to? Apparently blogspot has been failing to publish new posts recently or something? Thanks ever so much!

In the event of...

There was nothing I could do, no time to react. It all happened so fast that I couldn't even think through one of those split second logical reactions that everyone talks about after they've been in a harrowing experience. My car slammed into the moose directly and all I heard was the shattering of glass, the squeal of my breaks and the breathtaking thud of a 2 ton mammal landing on the hood of my Toyota. Then, silence. I soon became aware of the sound of my breathing, heavy and ragged. Then the sound of my heart beating faster then normal. I looked at my immediate surroundings without the aid of moving my neck; you never move your neck in the seconds after being in a collision. I saw glass, I saw brown fur, I saw hooves, I saw a moose that was not breathing and then I saw the blood. I glanced down and my head began to swim...there it was, the leg of a moose penetrating my abdomen. I concentrated all my efforts on remaining completely still. "Please God, let the moose be dead. Please let it not move!" There was blood, yes, but it wasn't moving out of the wound. Somehow the foreign object perforating my body was also controlling the bleeding and probably dancing a delicate balance between snuffing out my life and saving it. Keeping the wounded area still was of the utmost importance. There was no time to check myself over for other injuries (I wasn't feeling any pain elsewhere as it was) this problem, the one staring me in the face, was the one that needed to be dealt with. Now. I reached for my phone, which somehow was still on my passenger seat and dialed 911 with shaky hands. "911, what's your emergency?" Deep breath. "Hello, my name is Joni and I've been in a one car accident on highway 26. I've received a puncture wound in the upper right quadrant of my abdomen, the foreign object is still in the wound. An ambulance would be good." After I gave details and was assured the EMT's were En route I reached over the offending moose appendage to take my pulse. Sporadic, but strong. I took great efforts to steady my breathing as I heard the faint sounds of sirens in the distance...

Isn't it amazing what you can imagine as you're driving home on a dark road at midnight?