Several years ago I was sitting in a sound proof radio broadcasting booth with a nurse who specialized in treating adults and young people who had been sexually and physically assaulted by an older person while in childhood. It was my task to interview this lady and I was asking a series of questions we had written before we went on the air live.
The nurse, we can call her Mrs. Nightingale, was a bright, capable and energetic woman who really knew her business. She had worked as a hospital nurse for several years before returning to grad school for a Masters in Psychiatric Nursing. She explained that as a nurse she was well trained to heal the physical wounds of patients but far too often deeper emotional and spiritual wounds lay hidden beneath he bandages and she was not able to touch them.
As a mother and a Christian Mrs. N. soon found that many people in the church had been assaulted as children and no one had ever taken the extra time that is required to bring healing to their souls as well as their bodies. Somehow she knew that the church was in the best place to "Care and Cure the Soul" but her church was strangely silent about it. Mrs. N was not one to sit silently by and let the wounds fester and explode so she went back to college in her fifties to prepare herself to minister "The balm of Gilead" to those carrying the pain, guilt and shame of past trauma.
As we sat in that hot little room surrounded by egg cartons of sound proofing glued to the walls, I heard Mrs. N mention that boys handle sexual assaults differently than girls. Our culture and churches teach that sexual assault against a woman is a sin and a crime. And, it is. However, a sexual assault against a boy is seen almost as a good thing. Some would say that boys need to be "initiated" into sexual knowledge by an older person so it is not traumatic but a positive learning experience. Churches that teach that sex outside of marriage is a "sin" are old fashioned, fuddy duddy kill joys!
Then Mrs. N said that when a boy has been assaulted he may keep it deep within himself and the hurt festers and grows because he has no one to help him deal with it. At that time I began to shake, sweat and cry. It was a live radio broadcast so I had to remain under control but it was all I could do to keep from sobbing. Thankfully, Mrs. N was reading some symptoms from her notes and did not notice my behavior. She continued sharing and teaching while I reacted until our time was up. I thanked her and said I would be in touch to have her on the radio again and then I hurried into my office to calm down.
I knew that the sexual assaults I had suffered as a boy had to be confronted and healed. But, what was I going to do to accomplish that?
