Thin Places Testimony Month: Lucy shares her story

Hi Mary,

I finished This Places. Wow! The two chapters that hit me the hardest are Snapshot and Marked. I too was sexually abused -- molested by an older brother.

God has healed me. . .mostly. I still get hung up in enjoying sex fully with my husband.

If you get criticism -- and chances are you will, not because your book is bad (it's excellent. . .and so raw, so real)  but because it'll threaten some folks -- remember you wrote Thin Places to give comfort to others as God has comforted you. And, as you say, to work out your healing through the Holy Spirit.

By the way, Patrick and your kids come off great. Caring, loving.

You come off well, too, but with a limp. Kinda like Jacob. (You also got those boys in the tree house real good!)

My favorite poem: pages 211-212.

How God will continue to bless you! Blessings and hugs, Lucy 

Lucy later wrote this:

While reading Thin Places, I marveled at Mary's willingness to share deep. Her deep sharing ministered to me. It helped me see some of my own thin places where I glimpsed God:
 

Among them, as an eight-year-old girl rummaging the grass in my front yard for a four-leaf clover to wish that my parents would remarry and, I FOUND ONE! Honest. I knew God gave it to me. He gave me hope.
 

And another, after my older brother molested me a number of times and I SAID NOTHING because I thought I was at fault. I wasn't, I remember saying to God, 'I can't handle this right now. I have no one safe to tell.' About fifteen years later, married and the mom of a preschooler, God said, "This is the time, Lucy." Another thin place. I first told a priest in third person, though we both know I was talking about me, then my husband. My husband was and is my safe person. Soon I sought counseling. God healed me. Completely.
 

And still another. Flying from Krasnodar, Russia, to Moscow, with my new baby boy on my lap, water from outside the plane dripped on my arm. Warning, Warning! God reminded me of a prayer I pray over my children, "Lord, my kids each have a major loss of abandonment by their birthparents. Do not let me die until they are old enough to live without me." Calm overcame me. I met God in the thin place of a leaky Russian airplane where passengers in the back smoked cigarettes and drank vodka.
  

Mary's book helped remind me that our God is faithful. And near."

  

Blessings,

Lucy