It Happened To Me - Clergy Sexual Abuse

I'm a woman who left the church. More like pushed out of any local bodies that shared the same denomination. 

I grew up Pentecostal in an Assembly of God church. 

When I say 'grew up,' I'm talking about starting in the Baby Bear Inn for infants 0–12 months. 

I went through the children's church, middle and junior high youth groups, young adults, then married, and moms with babies! 

During those impressionable years of childhood, I was molested by a children's pastor. 

He groomed me to get used to his touch. He made me feel special, like I was the only one he could trust. He would tell me so.

I loved this man. I was ten years old and thought he was the coolest guy in the world. He played guitar, had a motorcycle, and paid me a lot of attention. Our conversation would include how unhappy he was in his marriage. 

My ten-year-old self thought I could be his babysitter, and he and his wife could have date nights. I knew my parents had regular date nights and were still married, so it must work. 

You would have thought I came up with electricity for how excited he was that I offered him FREE babysitting services. If only I had known.

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When he would come home, he would talk about how much he thought of me while having dinner with his wife. 

You're such a cool girl. 

Wow, that smile of yours makes me so happy. 

I love how caring you are. 

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I wanted him to like me. I did. I was crushing on him hard. 

Only after years of therapy did I stop shaming myself for loving and wanting him.

I denied anything was happening between us. 

My mom didn't like how close we were, and something in her gut told her to pick me up from the church early one Saturday afternoon.

 We were putting on a puppet show for another kid's church. 

I'm standing behind the puppet curtain. One hand up the puppet, the other propping my elbow up so my puppet's head and torso reach the top. 

He's standing behind me. Close. I can feel his energy. 

By this point, he's become more daring. His hand slides up my leg, under my shorts. 

There I am. My puppet mouth is singing along to the catchy children's songs, and this man is touching me under my shorts. 

The program ends. I walk around the curtain, and I lock eyes with my mother.

She's never come to a show before. What is she doing here?

I'm getting a ride home with the pastor. Oh god, what did I do? 

I'm in trouble.

The only time my mom shows up is to bust me publicly and humiliate me. 

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I didn't know I was shaking. My mother told me I was decades later. (Remember, I denied everything.) 

Something in her gut told her to get her baby girl.

Well, as you can imagine, the pastor was upset. He and my mom got into an argument, and my mom told him to stay away from me. 

I was crushed. What did we do that was wrong? He loved me, and I loved him.

The head pastor said he was being relocated to another church up north. It didn't sound like he got fired - but transferred.

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When I first brought up this relationship with my first therapist, he was the one who convinced me I was groomed and molested. 

I didn't feel that way at first. 

It took looking at a photo of my 10-year-old self to realize how wrong the pastor was. How much he fucked me up in the head. 

These scars are forever with me. Some days the memories knock the wind out of me.

So yes, this happened to me. And it happens to so many other children. 

I can't even find statistics because so many of us victims do not report the abuse. We carry the wounds into our adulthood.

Child sexual abuse is the worst. When it happens in our churches, they won't even call it what it is!

"They like to use those fancy words. They don't like to say "raped,'" he said. "They say "misdeed,' "inappropriate touching,' "mistake.' That's insulting. I'm not a mistake."

― Charles L. Bailey Jr., In the Shadow of the Cross

We are NOT mistakes! We were molested. We were raped. 

If you're a survivor of clergy sexual abuse as a child or adult, you are NOT alone. I know you know this - But I'm right here in the flesh.