Jackie Hill Perry: How God Is Healing Me of Shame From Sexual Abuse
In a compelling yet heartbreaking narrative, Jackie Hill Perry spoke at the 2019 Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission National Conference about her childhood sexual abuse experience. A 16-year-old boy attacked her at only 7 years old. She carried with her fear and shame after that incident, but God showed her how to find healing.
“As a child, I didn’t have the capacity to even consider that his evil was not also my own. … I always thought that healing was an immediate act of God dependent upon the measure of my faith. … But what I’ve come to learn of God is that His healing is gradual and unassuming, and it usually begins with the hard work and sometimes unintentional revelation that the trauma actually exists. Everything related to my molestation that needed to be healed had to be recognized first. …
“Heaven is my ultimate hope of healing. It isn’t that God is not healing me now, because He is. He’s using my husband’s patient love, my community’s constant ear and my therapist’s insight to mend me, but I am not satisfied with that, and I don’t believe that I have to be. This incomplete healing is what propels my hope for a more sufficient one.”
To watch the entire video for Perry’s story and how God has helped her begin to heal, click here.
