Why

Like many who have survived abuse, I struggle with God.  To compound that, I grew up in a Christian home with well respected parents.  That is both good and bad.

Good because I truly believe that I would have died had I not been able to draw on my beliefs that there was God and He was bigger, stronger, and somehow in the midst of my mess of a home.

Bad because there were elements of abuse that twisted those same beliefs into everything that they were not.  The result left me unable to get past the why of what was happening to me.

My conclusion: that I was bad.  Otherwise, I would have been saved.  And because of my badness, I became so focused on the why. 

Why did God allow this?

Why was I so bad?

Why wouldn't He help me be good?

Why did they hurt me?

It must be because I was bad; why else?

I have struggled in a figure eight pattern for years.  It's entirely predictable.  The circular logic of the why... a possible answer of why... no, that's not the answer and then I'm headed into another pointless loop of questioning.  A vicious cycle.

Somehow I have kept my belief in God intact.  It hasn't been and probably won't ever be pretty.  But it's there.  We attend church weekly; a miracle to explain on a different day.  This past weekend someone spoke about asking what instead of why.  What has many more answers than why.

What happened?  I can answer that if I tell the truth of what they did.

What was wrong with them?  They were mean people.

What could I have done differently?  Not a lot.  I was a kid.

What do I feel about what happened?  I can name the feelings if I think hard enough.

What did God do back then?  He created a way for a child's mind to cope.  He kept me alive.

What is different now?  Everything.

What can I learn about myself?  I'm stronger than they thought.  I'm stronger than I thought. 

What can I learn from my childhood?  This one is harder to answer but I have some theories...

Questions are good.  But answers are almost always better.