What I felt is not uncommon among victims of rape or abuse. Rape is such a violation; the feeling of worthlessness is almost universal. It wasn’t my fault. But I was broken. No one would want me anymore.
Catalog
Elizabeth A. Smart
Life is a journey for us all. We all face trials. We all have ups and downs. All of us are human. But we are also the masters of our fate. We are the ones who decide how we are going to react to life.
Those with shattered souls find it very difficult to speak.
I didn’t feel like a whole person anymore. I felt like I was … like not even half, like I was just a portion of a human being. I just felt filthy and disgusting. I felt like, Who could ever want me back? Who could ever want to talk to me? Who would ever be my friend? I don’t know what the exact…
After I had been raped and brutalized, there was something new inside my soul. There was a burning now inside me, a fierce determination that no matter what I had to do, I was going to live!
I also believe in faith. Faith in a loving and kind Heavenly Father who will always care about me. Faith that my worth will never be diminished. Faith that God knows how I feel and that I can depend on him to help me through it all. I believe that God not only suffered for me, but that He will make…
Knowing it can always get worse, I try to be grateful for whatever good I have.
I resolved that whenever I might have any doubts or moments of weakness— and I knew that they would come — I would tell myself: Elizabeth, you have everything back now! But you remember all those hard times, right? And because you remember all those hard times, you can remember the depth of your…
All of these things have helped me. But ultimately, to get better, I simply made a choice.
Music is the unspoken language that can convey feelings more accurately than talking ever could.
This experience reminded me once again that God had not deserted me, that He was aware of my suffering and loneliness. And that assurance gave me hope. It helped me to keep my faith and gave me the strength that I needed to go on.
The realization that my family would still love me proved to be the turning point. In fact, it proved to be the most important moment throughout my entire nine-month ordeal.
I think there are far more miracles in our lives than we may ever realize. Like flickers of light among the darkness, they remind us that God is there and that He cares.
The man who kidnapped and raped me was a manipulative, antisocial, and narcissistic pedophile. He was not clinically psychotic or delusional. He was just an evil man.