Content warning: sexual assault.
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From the very beginning of this writing project, I’ve been thinking about Holy Saturday. The day between Good Friday's darkness and Easter's brilliant light. It’s the day people must have been waiting and watching — were there hours where they doubted, even a little bit, that everything would come to pass? Friday was violent and loud... was Saturday surreal and quiet? How would you pass the time while you’re waiting for the resurrection of Christ?
The in-between. The chasm in the middle of pain and healing. I’m sure we’ve all had Holy Saturday seasons in our lives — the longest journey is from trauma to reconciliation. It’s not measured in hours or even days. It can be years. Decades. Resurrection is promised. The difference between our Holy Saturday season and the Holy Saturday is that we don’t know the timeline. No one tells us, “you will be in the in-between for 37 weeks and three days. Just have faith.” Nope. We must sit in the gray space for as long as it takes.
I debated telling this story. I’ve never written it down. It wasn’t even something I initially thought about when making a list of things I wanted to let go of. But, over the last few weeks, memories of this night came to the surface anew. I am grateful for this. I’m grateful that digging in and unearthing root issues exposed even deeper pain. It’s not fun, though. I would have been happy to ascribe my current struggles to something lighter.
My biggest fear is playing into a victim mentality. I don’t want to frame this story as an excuse for every bad thing I’ve done since. I am not here to make a statement on feminism or masculinity. However, I am passionate about ensuring you don’t feel alone. I want you to know that horrible things happen, but resurrection is on the other side. I’m not entirely into my own Easter season yet, but I can see the slightest glimmer of a sunrise on the horizon. It’s the solitude of dawn. The sky is shifting from black to gray to cool blue, and I am confident that the stone is being rolled away as I type this.
When I was in my early 20s, before I had kids, I took a trip with my sister. I had been married for a year. I was way too young to be married. We both were. After only a year, we were on the brink of divorce, just two babies playing at being adults. We decided to take the summer apart, and I planned on spending part of that backpacking in Europe. I met up with my sister in Rome. We eventually made our way to the coast, to a picturesque chain of tiny towns on the Mediterranean.
At first, it was perfect. We spent days on the rocky beaches eating fresh fruit in our bathing suits. We spent nights dancing in open-air pavilions and rushing to get back to our youth hostel before curfew. We saw art and hiked and drank champagne out of the bottle. We bought pizza by weight, not slice.
One night, we met some locals around our age in town. They invited us to a bonfire party on the beach. This being my “eat, pray, love” moment, I said yes. It started great—dancing and long conversations around the fire. I felt alive. I didn’t even want to drink because I was having such a fantastic time. I also wanted to stay alert. I felt responsible for my younger sister, being out here on a dark beach with a bunch of strangers (even if they were friendly). I kept one eye on her while also having a conversation with a handsome young man. He offered me a drink, some sort of concoction of juice and sparkling water, and liquor. After nearly two weeks in Italy, I figured my tolerance was high enough that one or two drinks wouldn’t hurt.
I’ve repeatedly replayed this decision in my head for the last 20 years. Did I drink more than I thought I did? Did I watch him make the drink? Was there some chemical interaction between that one drink and the energy drink I had an hour before?
The last conversation I remember having with this boy was about his boat. He told me where to meet him the next day, at a specific dock two towns over. He made me write the time on the back of my hand so I wouldn’t forget. He wanted to show me how locals live, show me how to catch sardines.
The next thing I remember is water. I am lying on my back in the shallow water of the ocean. The small waves are lapping, and water is getting in my mouth. The rocky bottom is hurting my body. I don’t know where I am, but I am definitely not next to the bonfire. My head is spinning, and everything is fuzzy. What I do know is that this boy is on top of me, and I am naked from the waist down. I tell him to stop, but it feels like there are marbles in my mouth. I don’t speak Italian, but I’m trying to say, “get off of me.” There is no moon in the sky, but there is enough light to see that this is the same boy with the boat.
When he is finished, he leaves me there alone. I fall back into blackness, there in the water. I wake again, who knows how much later. The tide is rising, and there is water going into my nose. I am still half-naked, but I can crawl my way to dry land. I am about 100 yards from the bonfire remnants but hidden behind a giant boulder. It’s almost like a small cave. I find the rest of my clothes, curl up in the sand, and sleep. It’s less like sleep and more like unconsciousness.
I am eventually lucid enough to stand up. I start walking toward the next town, where my hostel is. I don’t know where my sister is. I assume she made it back to the hostel before curfew. I can’t find my shoes, so I trek barefoot, not caring about the gravel that cuts my feet. I am grateful for the pain; it gives me something to focus on.
Right before I reach the hostel, I find my sister crouched and crying. She had a trauma of her own that night. Assuming that I headed back to the hostel, she left the party alone, where a stranger followed her and chased her. She was able to hide and escape and had spent the whole night terrified this man would find her. I immediately shifted gears into protective sister mode, burying my experience and ensuring she was okay. I tended to her and decided that what happened to me could stay with me. I did not need to share this burden.
As the sun climbed in the sky, I looked at the time written on my hand. The boat. I decided to go and meet the boy. Why? I’ve asked myself that so many times since it happened. What I’ve settled on is that I wanted so badly to believe that I was not raped. I wanted to think that this boy liked me, I had too much to drink, or I gave mixed signals for some reason, and it was my fault I don’t remember consenting. I wanted to believe that the likely explanation—I was drugged intentionally and taken advantage of—could not be true. This type of evil can’t exist in real life. This is above and beyond.
I go to the dock at the time we agreed on. I put on the face of a cool girl. I am fine, I am normal, and I was not assaulted. I’m just sowing my oats. I asked for this. I shield my eyes from the sun and see a boat approaching. My stomach turns as he approaches in the boat. He’s not alone. About four or five other young guys are in the boat with him. I am clammy and cold, even under the full strength of the mid-day summer sun. The boat gets closer, close enough to see all their faces.
The boat is about 20 yards away from the dock. Suddenly, it veers to the left, away from the dock. The men stare at me, and they all laugh and point. They make crude hand gestures and sail away.
They only came close enough to laugh at me. That was the plan all along. As they speed away, their backs to me, I lean over the dock and vomit into the ocean.
Shame has entered the chat.
After that trip (a trip on which I was also mugged later, but the mugging seemed cute in comparison), life went on. I desperately clawed my way back into a failing marriage because I just wanted to be safe. I had a baby and then two more. I just wanted to be loved unconditionally. I hyper-focused on my work and education, racking up more degrees than my entire family combined. If I stayed busy, I could avoid facing what had happened to me. I AM TOTALLY FINE AND FUNCTIONING, THANKS.
Except I wasn’t okay. I acted out. I figured it couldn’t get much worse since I was already broken. I lied, and I cheated. I stayed in a relationship that was unhealthy. I felt like I deserved every bad thing that happened to me since Italy because I had let my guard down. I must have, even subconsciously, wanted this. I got what was coming to me.
Shame smothered me. Even if every one else looked at my life and saw nothing but success, I knew I was a failure.
Until one night, I was held by Jesus.
In the middle of the coldest night of the year, I lay in bed alone in a small town in North Dakota (long story for another day.) I was tossing and turning, plagued with restlessness. I was crying into my pillow. Some small moment that day had triggered a memory of that night in Italy, even though it had been almost ten years. Suddenly, I felt hands on my back. But I wasn’t scared. I should have been — it was just my three sleeping kids in the house and me. I knew these hands were not child’s hands. I was enveloped in warmth. It felt like I was both floating and rooted at the same time. I felt arms around me and heard a voice say, “this is not your shame to carry. You did nothing wrong.”
I fell into the deepest sleep I’d had in the past decade.
I did not wake up to an Easter immediately. I was still in my Holy Saturday season. But that one minor miracle was the beginning of the end of my captivity. A part of myself—the part that values my body as a temple and believes in the possibility of sex as a beautiful and sacred thing—had died on that rocky beach. Resurrection was coming. I just had to be patient.
I am the closest I’ve ever been to healing. I know now that I was not to blame. I still have work to do, but the chains are gradually loosening. I am a loyal wife. I don’t distrust every stranger, but I am still cautious. In hindsight, I am awed by how God used something so painful and devastating to give me an intimate, personal interaction with Jesus. The cynical part of me can try and explain away that winter night I felt held and forgiven. Maybe I was lucid dreaming or just had a vivid imagination. But I choose to believe that I was in the presence of God that night. That’s part of active faith—it’s a choice. I can choose to believe, or I can choose to doubt. I can choose to remain a victim, my spiraling fueled by shame. Or I can choose compassion for the girl I was and choose to persist.
I don’t think trauma is necessary for growth, but it does offer an opportunity for transformation. And sometimes, even when we don’t want to heal, when we resist, Jesus chases us anyway. He finds us in the darkest part of the night. He relentlessly pursues us, even from the cross. He will not give up on us, so who are we to give up on ourselves?
I choose life.