Show your support for NO MORE domestic violence and sexual assault
Long before #Me Too & #Church Too my voice is heard! I'm a pastor's daughter survivor of sexual assault by incest at age 2-8 by a grandpa & at age 11-12 by a clergy. It took me 40 years to tell because of severe PTSD & denial. The decades of abuse shut my body down & at age 16 my mother took me to the doctors for hormone shots to begin my period. When my husband & I tried to conceive because of it all I was unable to so we adopted our first born son. Five months later I found out I was pregnant but after our second son was born I had Post Partum Depression which was like hitting a wall! In 1998, my 83 year old mother & I were watching Oprah's Family Secrets. I desperately wanted to tell her about her dad's incest & finally had courage after I went back to the camp & saw a friend who was sexually assaulted by the same youth pastor. We decided to bring him forward with support from the Christian & Missionary Alliance denomination who set up a Disciplinary Committee for the elderly pastor & 3 other women he violated in the 1950's. He was in compete denial but allowing the shame to finally leave me is when I chose to forgive him. Only seven weeks later he fell down the stairs & broke his back & died! God will be his judge. I don't have to. My mother admitted to me, my dad & my husband that grandpa violated her as well but because of PTSD neither of us could tell the other. Writing my memoir, Listen to the Cry of the Child is when I began grieving my many losses & realized all I went through & how much I can give to others with broken wings. I facilitate a support group for survivors called Beauty Out of Ashes & speak all over the world & am a living testimony of what God has done in bringing restoration, deliverance, hope & healing! CBN Asia The 700 Club in the Philippines made a 4 min. movie of what happened to me on YouTube with Filipino actors portraying my story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToE1Hor0sVw&feature=youtu.be Barbara JOY
