Four Week Series on Incest by MaryJean Sweede

Incest Issue #2
The Martyr
by MaryJean Sweede

As a five-year-old child, I had learned that Jesus loved me. Now, at eight, I feared God's judgment and His anger toward me. Our family moved to the city and I lost my virginity that same year.

"Where is Dad?" I asked Mom after he had been gone a couple of days.

"He is in the hospital," was all she said. It wasn't until several years later that I realized he had an operation to keep me from getting pregnant. The word pregnant was seldom spoken in our home. It seemed like such a naughty word, and we kids were taught not to say naughty words. We even turned down the volume when beer or cigarette commercials came on TV. One of our favorite programs was "Father Knows Best."

Did my father know best?

My father told me he loved me and that I was special. We had a secret game. That's what he called it, at first anyway. I was curious about the ways Dad touched me. I suppose some would say I consented to his touches. In a way, I did, but his touches aroused feelings I shouldn't have experienced as a child. My willingness to participate resulted from obedience and submission to him as my father, not a commitment to be his wife. The touches were physical, but they affected me emotionally and spiritually, a whirlwind of emotions that battled within my heart and brain.

I lost my childhood and virginity because of my own father.

I remember being confused because I enjoyed the attention Dad gave me. I couldn't understand why my body found pleasure in temporary feelings when my conscience told me Dad's attention was wrong. He was my father; his position in our home demanded that I obey.

Dad was also my minister.

He served in a well-established denomination. As he preached, I listened. When he read the Bible, I didn't hear his words, but the Word of God. I don't think Dad anticipated me learning how to read or the fact that, at some point in my life, I would question his authority in favor of the authority of God and his Word.

I felt even more confusion when I realized no one would believe me if I ever did tell. I understood the power of my father's position of spiritual authority in both our home and in our community. No one would believe me and I knew it, so I told no one.

Maybe I could tell God and he would understand.

For a time, we attended a small country church. My child-sized faith in God was based on a simple song that I learned there about the love of Jesus. Now, after our move and the sexual activity, I could not trust the father I could see. I wondered if I could trust in a god I couldn't see. How could I be sure that God loved me if He let this happen?

I was taught to obey, but why did obedience hurt so much? If I obeyed my earthly father, I would at the same time be disobeying my heavenly Father. "Honor your father and mother. Do not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:12, 14). God commanded the one, condemned the other, and somehow, I got trapped in the middle!

I found the words "adultery" and "fornication" in the Bible and worried that I might be involved in either or both of them. Those words frightened me. I could tell that God didn't like them. As I studied the Bible, my sense of right and wrong developed.

I asked questions that seemed to have no answer. The more I studied the Bible, though, the more I realized that God had the answers to my questions. Ultimately, God had greater authority over me than my dad. In the end, I would answer to God for my thoughts and actions.

Many verses puzzled my young mind. Romans 8:28 reads, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." This verse was tough. "All things" must include the incestuous activity, but how could this work for my good? I loved God, but began to wonder if God could still love me? Maybe I was not "one who was called according to his purpose." What was God's purpose in all of this?

I read some of the passages so often that the words stuck in my head. And I prayed. And God became my constant companion. And I lived a life filled with inner emotional pain.

Job understood that kind of pain. We're told in chapter 14, verse 22, that his flesh would have pain and his soul within would mourn. I understood the cry of Job's heart. Job worried about his children. I worried about my younger sisters and became a martyr in my own home. In effect, I died to self, allowing Dad to come to me, hoping that he would not bother my sisters.

Innocence and purity, once lost, can never be regained. Today, I believe God grieves over the abuse of children. I chose to allow Dad to continue the sexual abuse until I graduated from college. I saw no other way to freedom from the abuse. Once away from home, I struggled with freedom from the emotional pain. God is faithful and, though it has taken many years, God has brought me to the rainbow side of the storms that once raged within.

Questions to think about:

• How might inconsistencies in discipline and standards within the home affect a child?
• If abuse was part of your family secret, how did birth order affect the abuse?
• Why might work schedules be an issue of concern?
• What makes abuse so confusing for a child?
• Where does conscience come from?
• What questions have you asked that seem to have no immediate answer?