Dan Allender - The Wounded Heart Companion Workbook: Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse

NavPress is the publishing ministry of The Navigators, an international Christian organization and leader in personal spiritual development. NavPress is committed to helping people grow spiritually and enjoy lives of meaning and hope through personal and group resources that are biblically rooted, culturally relevant, and highly practical.

For more information, visit NavPress.com.

The Wounded Heart Companion Workbook: Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse

Copyright 1992 by Dan B. Allender. All rights reserved.

Revised edition copyright 1995, 2008

A NavPress resource published in alliance with Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

NAVPRESS and the NAVPRESS logo are registered trademarks of NavPress, The Navigators, Colorado Springs, CO. TYNDALE is a registered trademark of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Absence of in connection with marks of NavPress or other parties does not indicate an absence of registration of those marks.

The Team:

Don Pape, Publisher

David Zimmerman, Acquisitions Editor

Elizabeth Symm, Copy Editor

Jacqueline L. Nuez, Designer

Cover photograph of gold texture copyright kavunchik/Adobe Stock. All rights reserved.

Cover photograph of paper texture copyright stockcam/Getty Images. All rights reserved.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

The previously unpublished poem by Aimee Rae Ellington, Mixed Messages, is used by permission.

All rights reserved. With the exception of .

Some of the anecdotal illustrations in this book are true to life and are included with the permission of the persons involved. All other illustrations are composites of real situations, and any resemblance to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Tyndale House Publishers at , or call 1-800-323-9400.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-60006-308-4

Build: 2021-04-21 22:38:41 EPUB 3.0

To those who have the hunger and courage to seek God

O NE WOMAN DESCRIBED the process of dealing with her abuse as a cure that at times seemed worse than the disease. The process of change is rarely easy; the decisions at important forks in the road are not quickly clear. Why would anyone choose to proceed on such a difficult journey? The truest answerfor the sake of the glory of Godassumes a more godly motivation than most abuse victims are ready to acknowledge.

The most readily offered answer for why someone might purchase this workbook and pursue change is the ache of unhappiness. We all desire a more stable, tranquil inner world and a less abusive, conflictive, and painful world of relationships. We want a better world. Any guide, be it book or person, that seems to offer a path to happiness will sell, but it might not really helpthat is, help the pilgrim gain perspective and strength to journey to a far better end than mere happiness. If the motivation to pursue the difficult path is simply personal unhappiness, then the journey will become trapped in its own self-oriented vicious circle.

Let me try to explain. A woman I counseled put words to this dilemma when it became apparent that her growth was beginning to disrupt her disengaged husband: I am alive in ways I never dreamed possible, but I am finding reality is more of a nightmare than it was when I lived in the deluded, distorted fog of self-hatred. I pursued counseling in order to find healing, and the change Ive experienced has taken me into new regions of joy. But it has also opened more wounds, exposed more sins than I imagined, and propelled me into new struggles with people I used to get along with fine. Whats wrong with me?

What she perceived to be the problem was in fact the fruit of repentant brokenness and the flowering change of new resurrected beauty. Her change, in certain ways, deepened her joy, strength, and passion. The change was lovely, but it was also highly threatening to her husband and friends. And that disruption of the status quo violated the main reason she came for counseling. She never felt as if she fit in any group or was enjoyed in any relationship. She wanted to be happy; and she came to counseling to be healed, free, alive. But the fruit of healing, freedom, and aliveness is not always happiness. Biblical change actually opens a new realm of service and worship that, at times, puts one at odds with relationships that were founded on our willingness to be sick, enslaved, and dead. If personal happiness is the sole reason you are considering this workbook, I believe you will be disappointed.

My client struggled with this question: Why choose change? Her increased aliveness led to new conflicts. She often handled the new struggles by growing detached and hard. She kept her growing joy imprisoned behind strong boundaries of independence and anger, and her beauty wilted in the ultraviolet light of self-centeredness. She seemed trapped. Change brought conflict; conflict intensified the desire to succumb to the old patterns. She was caught on the horns of both desiring deeper change and understanding what change requires.

The vicious cycle can be broken only when a deeper impetus for change joins the legitimate desire for happiness. Let me say it again: The desire to be happy is the reason all of us began our return to the Father. There is something honorable about recognizing our current status in the pigpen as dishonorable and beneath our dignity (see Luke 15:14-20). Changetrue biblical healingoccurs when we are wholly dissatisfied with our condition of heart and soul. But more is required than merely the legitimate desire for happiness: We must comprehend that our deepest happiness will be found only in relationship with our Father. And relationship with Him is found through what appears to be the utter loss of our agenda (happiness) and the pursuit of His agenda (His own glory). At first, it sounds like a soul-destroying return to the experience of the past abuse: Give up your soul for the sake of someone elses pleasure. Therefore, the central issue I hope to help you ponder is your relationship with God. Where was He when you were abused? Is He good? Is He trustworthy? If so, what can you ask of Him?

A core question must be asked: Is God like our abusers? What He seems to requiretrust, brokenness, and love on His termsfeels like the requirements of an abuser. Or is our perception of God so confused by past abuse that it is difficult to know who He is? I believe the evil one cleverly has tried to mirror in the stages of abuse Gods relationship with us, so that intimacy, trust, pleasure, and desire would always seem tainted by the horrendous betrayal of abuse. I believe God is trustworthy and good, but the fact that I believe that will not help you until you have wrestled with God to discover His goodness and mercy.

Ive come to realize that the only valid and lasting reason to change is to know God, to embrace His purposes for my life, and to deepen my loving anticipation of His coming. In Him, and only in Him, is happiness to be found. But dont for a minute read these words as an ascetic denial of or a pious discouragement against human pleasure. A pursuit of Gods glory is the only route for comprehending the deepest possible human pleasure. True hedonism and true humanism are available only to those who know the One who made all pleasure and who chose to become human Himself.