Sunshine

Content Warning: This post contains descriptions of physical abuse and may be distressing to some readers. Reader discretion is advised. 

"There are moments when God speaks to us in a whisper… and there are other moments when God speaks so plainly and clearly that it marks a before and after in your life."

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At the age of nineteen, I was abused at the hands of a drunk and angry boyfriend. This is the first time I’ve felt comfortable enough to share my story publicly. 

Before we get into the meat and potatoes, I want to explain what moments led up to blogging about this now, and why I haven’t dared to write about it prior.

I’ve never identified with the word “victim.” Over the years, I’ve chosen my words carefully, often saying, “I survived something traumatic.” It felt weak to claim my own story as a woman who had been abused. To say it out loud to anyone, even a therapist, made me feel small and sickly. Sadly, I am only one sand grain in a shoreline of women who have suffered the same trauma, so taking any comfort for myself used to feel selfish. Many women have survived far worse. And… speaking about it out loud usually had the effect of making others grow silent and unaware of how to console me, especially as a young person. I felt isolated in my experience, so I kept my mouth closed. I tucked the fragmented memories of that night away in a file marked “Do Not Open,” where no one, not even me, could find them. 

But…

The nervous system keeps the score. Much to my surprise, my serpent-coiled trauma from that night only just recently found its way out from its dark, shadowy place of dwelling, and was burned up by the light. 

The good news? Now, I am free. My voice can boldly speak about it today without fear of what others might think or say in response.

Two of my favorite people were married in Mexico in February, and months prior, they sat me down at their house and asked me to officiate their ceremony. It was truly the honor of my life to be included in their day in such a special way. As I prepared in the weeks leading up to the wedding (finishing up my pastoral training, watching sermons, etc.) I felt a sense of impending appointment. It felt as if a cosmic storm of purpose and divine timing were waiting for me in Mexico. A quantum leap is coming, I kept hearing from the Holy Spirit. I didn’t feel nervous or afraid when I thought of the day. I did, however, feel the fear of God come over me in a much more confronting way than ever before. I wanted to do right by Him because I felt my purpose was shifting in authority and confidence. Finally, it felt as if the imposter syndrome that I’ve fought off for the majority of my life was lifting.

After arriving in the beautiful Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, we spent time with the bride and groom’s families and connected with old and new friends. On the flight down, I’d prayed for the joy of the Lord to consume our friend group while we were all together in paradise. My friends are unabashed, fun, and always up for a laugh, but we cackled more in those first few days than I think we all have in years. I still felt no fear. My stomach was full of margaritas, and my heart was full on the fat of celebrating with people I love. 

The morning of the wedding, I woke up with a smile and bathed myself in worship music as I threw on a workout set. I walked the beach with Reid, and we giggled about how perfect the weather would be for the ceremony later that day: bright blue sky. Warm sun. A light breeze. Divine. 

Later that afternoon, however, one of the bridesmaids pulled me aside and gently whispered, “There’s a storm coming in.” Together, the two of us left our hair and makeup appointments to find the worst awaiting us outside: it was already drizzling, and the clouds grew darker still to the southwest. The wedding coordinator was consulting with the groom about moving the ceremony and reception indoors. I turned to look into the bride’s freshly made-up eyes— a woman who is as close to me as blood—, and I saw her worst nightmare unfolding behind them.

In that moment, I heard God speak to me in a concise and commanding voice: Time to press in. 

I fled the salon in my heels and gown, my officiant's notes tucked beneath my arm, and I walked out on a wooden platform that extended from the lobby. It overlooked the entire resort. My heart was hammering hard in my chest. I prayed for the chairs to stay dry; that the clouds would hold their rain for another hour. 

Minutes later, I ran to catch the wedding coordinator before she pulled the plug on the outdoor wedding ceremony. 

“Lord,” I spoke through ragged breath as I searched the resort to find her. “I don’t appeal to you as a weather-fixer. Or even as a creator. I come to you as a daughter, asking her Dad for a huge favor. We need these clouds to hold off. We need this storm to burn up. My beautiful friend wants her ceremony outside. My faith is small. But you are not.”

Next, the negotiations followed with the coordinator and the bride. Thankfully, the coordinator was willing to halt the ceremony for half an hour to wait for the sun to shimmy its way between the clouds. I couldn’t even think about looking over my officiant notes. I was in crisis mode.

But God heard my prayer. In the nick of time, minutes before the coordinator would’ve demanded we all go inside, the weather stilled. The rustling palm trees quieted, and sunlit clouds stabbed rays of light into the ocean beyond the altar. It was go time.

God’s faithfulness showed up, as it ALWAYS does, and we were cleared to have the ceremony outdoors. 

I was floored, but felt under-prepared. I hadn’t had the time to look over my officiant notes even once that day. Yet again, my faith was small, but I trusted anyway. After the bride came down the aisle, I took one long, deep breath. I commanded my nerves to float away with the breeze, and the ceremony began. 

Amazingly, the weather held, and as I blessed two of my best friends on the day of their wedding, it felt as if everything in my life— every trauma, tear, pain, joy, obstacle, overcoming, and victory— had led me to that exact moment. I was completely present, completely on, and completely me. I was fully bare in my purpose, fully exposed and naked in spirit, and I was safe. It was the most embodied and fulfilled moment of my life. And the most beautiful thing? That day had nothing to do with me. Instead, it had everything to do with gathering around two people that I love who were making the deepest commitment in a relationship to one another. God’s power and sovereignty showed up for my loved ones and me so sweetly that evening, and I was overcome. 

The following days were celebratory, hilarious, and, I’ll admit, relieving. It was Valentine’s Day weekend— a holiday that I’ve adored since I was a child. I packed a red bikini and heart earrings for the day, and relished in the sun. As I tanned by the pool, I had engaging conversations with as many people as possible… talking about God, faith, love, marriage, funny memories… I laughed and socialized so much that I started to lose my voice. I was high on friendship. High on the miracle of life.

I slapped on a hot pink party dress and heels for our final dinner with Reid and three of our closest friends, and we set out for a night out. We found an authentic family-owned restaurant and ordered margaritas. We laughed. We ordered and ate a lot of amazing food. And somehow, the conversation of how Reid and I first began dating came up. 

“He reached out to me after he’d heard through a mutual friend that I’d been abused by my college boyfriend,” I said matter-of-factly. 

My three friends stared back at me in shock. It hadn’t occurred to me that they didn’t already know; they’ve known me for well over ten years. We've traveled together. Enjoyed countless nights having deep talks over bonfires. What dawned on me in that moment was that one of the most significant moments in my life— as dark and painful as it was—brought me directly into the arms of my now husband, a man who held my hand and my heart through that time as only someone as amazing as him could. Perhaps it was the tequila. Perhaps it was also my newfound sense of freedom after officiating the ceremony the day prior. I wanted them to see all of me. Know all of me. They deserved to know.

With their permission, I told them everything, baring all in that quiet restaurant. I told them how my drunk boyfriend, who had anger and jealousy problems, followed me inside from an outdoor party and locked himself in a bathroom with me. He had been emotionally and verbally abusing me for months prior, but that night, he took it further. He spat on me. Urinated on me. Pushed my head into a wall so hard that it broke the drywall behind it. Slammed me into a towel rack so violently that it came off its bolts and clattered to the floor. Threw me into a scalding hot shower and pinned me there until his roommate miraculously broke down the locked door and saved my life. 

It wasn’t until I told my friends about the months after the abuse— the restraining order, dealing with police, the night terrors, the doctor’s visits, the court dates—that I felt my body start to shake uncontrollably. It was the first time in probably fifteen years that I told the story in its entirety. Some memories brought up emotions I hadn’t accessed since that night. Terror. Disassociation. Waves of nausea as the most terrifying realization hit me right before his roommate took down the door and separated us: “I might die tonight. I might die in this fluorescent-lit, disgusting bathroom.”

That same year, multiple young women across the country on college campuses just like mine had been killed at the hands of a drunken boyfriend. It was all I could think about as the hot water burned into my skin; that I was soon to become a headline, too.

My friends listened with reverence and with compassion. I told them I never would’ve been able to write scenes in my book where my protagonist was beaten or punched without knowing what that felt like. It all served a purpose, the greatest of which was the catalyst for Reid calling me up for a coffee date to check in on me after he’d heard the news through a friend. 

As we paid the bill, my friends thanked me for sharing, not believing that someone as happy as me— as free-spirited and child-like—could’ve gone through something so horrific. 

“It’s not me,” I told them. “My faith has restored my joy.”

I didn’t realize it until we were leaving the restaurant that my body was still convulsing. I  didn’t want to say it out loud to anyone that I was having a serious trauma response; something a therapist told me that I might experience anytime I rehashed the events of that night. Buried memories —of my abuser’s sweaty face, of his strained hands, of his booming voice filling that small bathroom—came flooding back to me as if the event had only happened the night before. 

Reid grasped my hand as we hopped out of the Uber to meet up with more friends at a bar. “You ok?”

I could only nod with a weak smile. Every ten minutes after, I felt a tremor of fear work its way up my spine. 

The night progressed, and before Reid or I had even realized it, we got separated from our group on a street corner. We had no cell service in that area of Puerto Vallarta, and we couldn’t contact anyone. I reached into my purse to check the time on my phone when I felt a tug on the hem of my dress. 

A beautiful young Mexican girl, no older than four, looked up at me with the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen. Blue eyes. I was startled by her sweet face. I looked around on that busy street corner. She was alone. Tentatively, she held up a handful of necklaces in her small hand, speaking in Spanish. She was selling them. I didn’t have any cash on me to buy one, but that was the least of my concerns. 

“Eres muy bonita,” I told her as I bent to her level. She avoided my eyes, and I recognized a shame behind her crystal-clear blues; the kind that only abuse leaves behind.

“Ask her where her mother is,” I demanded that Reid translate. He did, and the girl wavered before she pointed across the street. Five men watched our interaction from the opposite corner. 

My stomach churned hot with rage. I wanted to do something, anything, to protect her from whatever horrible situation she was in. I didn’t know whether she was trafficked or passed around by these men. But I knew she was being used to manipulate kind women like me into buying something from them. 

The memory of this child’s face still brings tears to my eyes. 

“There’s nothing you can do about it, Mary,” Reid calmly spoke to me. I knew he was right. I don’t know what I thought I could do to salvage the situation; smuggle the child into my suitcase and take her home with me? All the while, my body was still shaking like a leaf.

As I told her good night, and we left her alone, I locked eyes with her one last time. In them, I saw an endless queue of broken young women who had ever been abandoned, neglected, abused, and used. 

It disturbed me. Terribly so.  

We went back to the hotel. I’m not underselling this when I say that I had the worst panic attack of my life. I was unable to sleep, think, or do anything but cry out in agony over this child. Over the relived events of my own abuse. Over the crime of young women all over the world who had suffered just like me, who had suffered like her. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I was overwhelmed with anger, sadness, and a Pacific Ocean-sized sense of injustice. 

Hilariously enough, I had accidentally given Reid two Tylenol PMs instead of regular ibuprofen to combat his nasty sunburn from the pool. I tried shaking him awake to comfort me, but each time, he rolled back to sleep in a loopy state.

For one reason or another, it was just me and God that night, working through the memories of my own trauma; resetting and recalibrating. 

In my struggle, I asked myself how my mom would’ve taken care of me in my state. Another memory, long forgotten, came to me: of how she’d driven across Michigan the following morning after the incident to take care of me. The first thing she did was take me to a nice hotel, and draw me a bath ( I could write an entire book about how my relationship with my Mom and Dad shifted after that incident… I have the best parents in the world).

I turned on the water in the shower, and I sat in the fetal position for about an hour. I could only say one word through the shakes and the tears. “Jesus,” I said His name over and over, rocking myself as if I were an infant in His arms. 

There are moments when God speaks to us in a whisper… and there are other moments when God speaks so plainly and clearly that it marks a before and after in your life. 

 I heard the voice of the Lord cut through my pain like a hot knife through butter. “Mary, I know what it’s like to be broken. To be mocked. To be bruised and whipped. To be battered and abandoned. To be betrayed by someone I love. You share in my suffering, and I died for you. Died for that child. I died for the abusers of the world who know not what they do. I died for it all.”

In an instant, I saw what the future of ministry could be for me; it was my quantum leap. I’d once thought it would be difficult to see myself as a pastor. Whatever my ministry is, it’s unconventional. My purpose and assignment, I realized, had been born out of my darkest day, a day that could’ve taken my life had things gone differently. 

I didn't sleep the entire night, and I didn't fight it. Instead, I bided by time and watched the sunrise that morning from my balcony, taking in sweeping views of the Pacific. Little by little, I watched and listened in wonder as the world woke up to a new day. Birds were chirping. The hotel staff greeted each other with pleasant 'good mornings.' Dozens of fishing boats pulled out of their harbor to venture out into the deep sea. I thought about all of the brokenness of thousands of generations that had ultimately led to healing. To justice. My tears of pain soon became tears of joy.

Later that morning, I skipped down to the lobby of the hotel with bloodshot eyes and a renewed sense of hope. I swiped some aloe from the gift shop for Reid's sunburn, and the cashier took immediate notice of my swollen eyes from crying all night. She came up to me compassionately, and handed me a necklace... but not just any necklace. She'd plucked a monarch butterfly pendant off the shelf (my favorite symbol of inner-transformation) and said in her sweet accent, "For you?"

I thought of the bright-eyed child from the night before, holding up a necklace to me in almost the same way. My lower lip fought a quiver. I felt more seen and known by God in that moment as a daughter than at any time prior.

"No, no, no!" the cashier tried to calm me as I broke down in front of her again in that gift shop. She grabbed my hands and squeezed them.

"Thank you," I said through my tears. "This means more to me than I could ever begin to explain."

I proceeded to buy as many things from her store as I could reasonably fit in my already full suitcase to take home. Then, I bounced back up to our room, cackling like a maniac. I wore the butterfly necklace proudly on my neck, feeling as if an unseen and unacknowledged chain of slavery over my life had finally broken. All that was left was a newfound freedom to live my life as fully as possible.

"How did you sleep?" Reid asked me dreamily when the door to our room closed with a thud behind me; the Tylenol PM's effects were still wearing off. I could only respond with the loudest laugh he's probably ever heard leave me.

Officiating this wedding woke something up in me, something that had been dormant for far too long. Even as a child, I spoke up for injustices. Having come from a background of being bullied myself, I was the first person to stand up for the little guy. But after that night in college, my inclination to stand up for what’s right became less important to me. Instead, I focused on what would keep me liked; what would keep me safe. I once used to cower at the idea of speaking publicly about my faith; how it has transformed me, and changed me. It hadn’t occurred to me that my life had almost been taken for once speaking so openly about it. This boyfriend, whom I’ve worked on over the years in therapy and on my own time to forgive, mocked me endlessly for my belief. He used to openly taunt me about my faith in crowded rooms to get a philosophical upper hand. He hated Jesus, and therefore, he hated me. 

There are too many forces at play that keep our voices small, that keep them quiet for fear of rocking the boat. For me, it was always about survival. I’ll stay alive if I don’t speak boldly. I won’t be a target. 

I’ve always known that my purpose was to wrap my arms around the women of this world: to tell them how special, unique, and wonderful they are. It’s at the forefront of why I create. It’s why I write. It’s why I post silly videos to my Instagram feed. But I never felt confident in my “why.” Operating freely didn’t come naturally to me until I saw myself through the lens of Christ, the ultimate justifier and redeemer, the one who draws near to the broken-hearted. Over and over, He turns my weeping into joy (my biggest superpower), and I wish every woman who has ever experienced something similar to me could rest easy in the same truth after a devastating blow. 

Just as God showed up on that wedding day to hold back the rain, He’s also parted the clouds over my life, bringing me from darkness to light. He creates rainbows of justice over mankind, transmuting all of our despair into joy. Rain into sunshine.

Take heart, dear reader. I’m not sharing this for shock value, but so that you know me fully. See me. Resonate with any of this that you can. Glean from it what it took me fifteen years to uncover. 

It turns out that your purpose may actually stem from your deepest pain. Your darkest fears. Your most traumatic event. The complexity of it… the mystery. It’s the driving force of my life. To experience. To transform. To speak. To move authentically and boldly to address the injustices of this world, and to use my gifts to help heal the hearts of others. 

Until next time,

Mary