"I was abused as a child and never told anyone. My silence makes me guilty too."
How it sounds in your head: He did things to me from age 6 to 14, and I never screamed, never told. Part of me even... responded physically. That makes me complicit. I'm as guilty as he was. God can't forgive someone who participated.
"But if a man finds a betrothed young woman in the countryside, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. But you shall do nothing to the young woman; there is in the young woman no sin deserving of death, for just as when a man rises against his neighbor and kills him, even so is this matter. For he found her in the countryside, and the betrothed young woman cried out, but there was no one to save her."
-- Deuteronomy 22:25-27Trauma response misinterpreted as consent, shame weaponized by enemy to make victim believe she's perpetrator, religious silence around abuse enabling self-blame.
She's lived 70 years believing her body's trauma responses (freeze, fawn, physical arousal) were evidence of guilt. No one ever told her that children can't consent and biological responses aren't moral choices.
Tamar protested Amnon's advances, begged him to stop, and he raped her anyway. Scripture records her tearing her virgin's robe in mourning and assigns ALL blame to Amnon—never once suggesting Tamar shared guilt for being overpowered.
I REFUSE the lie that my childhood abuse is my sin to confess. IT IS WRITTEN that God assigns NO SIN to the victim who couldn't cry out. I was a child. What was done TO me is not the same as what I chose. Freeze responses, physical reactions, survival instincts—these are NOT consent. IT IS WRITTEN in Psalm 147:3 that He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He doesn't heal perpetrators of their own crimes; He heals VICTIMS. I am Abraham's seed by covenant, covered by the BARAK blessing that protected the violated and vulnerable. I was wounded, not wicked. Jesus came to heal me, not condemn me.
The Father has been grieving with you, not at you, for 70 years—He saw every moment, caught every silent scream, and has been whispering 'This wasn't your fault' while the enemy screamed 'You're guilty.' He's holding out healing with no shame attached, waiting for you to hear His true voice.