God’s Love Heals
The following testimonial was given by Gretchen Martin at Church of Christ Congregational UCC in Granby MA on July 1, 2022. Move forward to 29 min to hear her introduction.
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Through the years I have been led by God in so many ways, to bring my very important message to the public. Sparks of God’s love, light, and encouragement here and there throughout my life have brought me to this moment, to speak publicly of how my journey of faith, forgiveness, and healing transformed me. I truly believe that this is my God given purpose.
Today I will briefly share some things that happened, starting when I was very young, that changed my life’s direction. But the good news is that not long after, my faith journey began.
I will start at the beginning.
My name is Gretchen. I was born in January of 1948 and I am the oldest child in my family. In the summer of 1949, we were at a family picnic. I was 1 ½ years old. It was the first time that a pedophile uncle, who’d married into the family, began grooming me. I remember that day and another time not long after very clearly.
Then in the fall of 1950, just a few weeks before my baby brother David was born, the uncle moved his family down the street from my house.
My Mom had a doctor appointment and somehow the uncle was chosen to care for me while my parents were gone. My father drove me to the uncle’s house and dropped me off. No one else was home. On that fateful day, before my father came back to get me, I was traumatized, tortured, and literally broken. I was 2 years and 8 months old the day my right to innocence was stolen.
Even at that very young age, flashbacks and body memories of a second or two of the painful traumas ran rampant through my daytime thoughts and nighttime dreams. I didn’t understand what had happened, but just the thought of it terrified me.
But, here’s the good news!! It wasn’t long after that my loving God began to soothe me in ways that only a little hurt child could understand. This first spark of relief happened at church during my Sunday School class. I still remember the room where I was sitting in those tiny chairs, when I heard the piano notes being played so sweetly to the Hymn, “Jesus Loves Me.” As I sang along with the other children, I started to believe these loving words…
“…Little ones to Him belong, they are weak, but he is strong, Yes, Jesus Loves Me, Yes, Jesus Loves Me, Yes, Jesus Loves Me, the Bible tells me so.”
I remember wondering, who is this Jesus who loves me so much that there is even a song about Him? Just thinking about the amount of love Jesus had for me in those song words was soothing me. That day Jesus clearly became a real person to me, because I needed Him. I needed someone.
One day I had a moment of emotional relief at the Forest Park Zoo. My baby brother was being pushed in the carriage and I was walking alongside. The last place we went was to the big cats’ house. There was a heavy urine smell that made my eyes burn as soon as we walked in the building. On one side I saw a panther, a tiger and way down at the end was a male and a female lion. Those cats were so big to little me. I was looking up at the female lion when she yawned, and I saw her very big and sharp looking yellow teeth. She let out a deep growl that echoed against the building walls, and it made me think. I asked my father if a lion could eat a man. Yes, was his answer. I immediately fell to the floor sobbing uncontrollably. My very young child’s mind must have been working overtime on ways to protect myself. If only there had been a lion at his house on that fateful fall day. Maybe a lion could have saved me. I imagined that big strong female lion eating the mean, evil uncle and I felt some relief. Isn’t the mind of a young child amazing!
When I was around four years old my great grandmother, who lived downstairs from us, had seen me crying outside and asked me why. Crying was a way for me to temporarily rid myself of stress. I did it often, and I did it alone. I told her in the best way I knew a snippet of what had happened to me. Soon after, it was in the evening, that my mother told my father what my great grandmother had learned. I heard my father yell, “That old lady is a liar!” He didn’t believe my great grandmother, which also meant he didn’t believe me. After that night I was not allowed to go downstairs to be with my great grandmother, whom I loved dearly. At that same time my father became extremely mean to me emotionally, and mentally. He was loud, and scary, and many times leered at me with a mean look…adding more to my anxiety. I don’t think it’s surprising to learn that my father was also a pedophile, not only to me, but to others.
I was never asked again what had happened to me.
Insomnia started at a very young age. My mind kept my thoughts moving from one thing to another. The tears continued and I was labeled overly sensitive.
But, good things were coming.
When I started going to kindergarten doors opened for me. It was fun to learn, and I was free to be myself there. I felt so different there than at my house.
I’m sure that some of you may have been asked this question, “Who is the one person who had the biggest influence on you growing up. My answer will always be 100% my best friend Mary Ann. We met in kindergarten. I was drawn to her. Growing up we spent a lot of time together at her house. She was so much fun. We would laugh so hard our stomachs hurt, as we wiped away tears of joy. It was at her house where I learned how happy families can feel safe. Our friendship and her sense of humor got me through a lot of my childhood. I’m so thankful for her. 70 years later we are still best friends, and we both are Christians. What a blessing we are to each other!!!
In many ways I was lucky growing up. I loved school. I got good grades. I became popular. I had many fun adventures with my great friends. But life got hard whenever I made a mistake. I tried so hard to be perfect. The big and little things that I did wrong made me feel nervous, scared, and bad about myself, and very small. Some days were filled with my own personal battle of trying to keep up with my will power that kept me in life’s daily routines and realities, versus the evil going on in the back of my mind, because flashback memories had a hold on me, and I was caught.
My parents divorced when I was 14. Thankfully, with my father out of the house I was no longer walking on eggshells at home. The trauma and fears I’d experienced up to then became blocked from my mind as I began to enjoy my teenage years. But at home is where I became angry, controlling, and abusive. All symptoms of a victim. Guilt, Shame and Embarrassment lived in me.
By the time I was 30 I’d been divorced from an early age get-out-of-the-house marriage, lost both parents, remarried, had two children and was questioning divorce number two.
At the suggestion of my insightful lawyer, I got into therapy. It was 1979 when I first spoke in whispers of what had happened to me. I began to dig into the repetitive scary dreams and flashbacks that had never really gone away. Some memories that had been blocked by my amazing mind began to surface. But once I started journaling, I found my voice on paper.
At one point we moved 7 times in 10 years. With every move I felt like it would be the answer to a change I was searching for, what I thought I needed to do to feel better. But in reality, I was only running from the inevitable, because nothing changed except my location. Though I had been working hard in therapy for a few years with good results, I felt like there was something major missing from my life. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I knew I needed something more.
It was 1982 when the children and I moved into an apartment back in the town where I grew up. The town where all my childhood memories were tucked into places I knew and where people I grew up with still lived. I was feeling brave and ready to stare my past in the face. Then something wonderful started to happen. I noticed Godly signs that caused an urgent prodding in me to get back to church. For years I had lost track of God, but “Jesus Loves Me” was sitting solidly in the background, thankfully still there. It took some searching to find the right church, but I knew in my heart that it was the right thing to do. I could feel it. I started reading the Bible and praying and really talking to God. It was fulfilling.
Therapy had brought tears of years of memories and pent-up emotions, but the Bible brought thoughts of hope and faith in God. In the mid 1980’s, there was a stretch of time when the media was paying extra special attention to the painful knowledge of child sexual abuse. I read every article I could get my hands on, and every book suggested to me. I joined support groups and thankfully was no longer alone dealing with my past. I was still on my healing path journey, but I was finally speaking out loud, and I meant business.
Something that happened around that time made me a true believer! It was about 2 am. I was still awake…again. It was cold in the apartment so I got up, turned the oven on low, and sat in front of the open oven door to warm up. I brought my Gram’s Living Bible with me for something to read. Before I opened the book, I prayed for the right words to come to me. I opened to Matthew 18 and read… “About that time the disciples came to Jesus to ask which of them would be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven! Jesus called a small child over to him and set the little fellow down among them, and said, unless you turn to God from your sins and become as little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, anyone who humbles himself as this little child, is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. And any of you who welcomes a little child like this because you are mine, is welcoming me and caring for me. But if any of you causes one of these little ones who trusts in me to lose his faith, it would be better for you to have a rock tied to your neck and be thrown into the sea.”
That was answered prayer. Talk about perfect timing, those words were totally meant for me. My loving God took care of me that night when I read those sweet words from Jesus. Through therapy and my readings, I’d realized that forgiveness was something I needed to do. The shame, guilt and embarrassment didn’t belong to me, it belonged to the perpetrators. And it was God Himself who would take care of those evil men in God’s own way. That passage in the Bible and my act of forgiveness removed the weight of retaliation from me. God showed me that I could forgive the evil men because of who they were and what they were, but I say today loud and clear that I will never, ever be able to forgive the things that happened that changed my life’s path. I don’t have to do that!
Even though that act of forgiveness lifted me, there was still more relief to come. Something I never would even have imagined possible.
It was another late night in that same apartment, again around 2 am. I was in my bedroom surrounded by big cat pictures and posters that I’d collected over the years. I didn’t realize it then, but they had always been my signs of protection and strength. This night I was lying on my bed in a fetal position, sobbing my heart out. I’d been wondering for years, why is this healing path taking so long? Through deep sobs I asked out loud, “Why me, Lord? God, please, help me!” In that moment I felt a presence in the room. Then I realized I was being held…by Jesus. It was Him!! He picked me up and held me against His chest…a moment later He laid me down on my other side. What had just happened?! I knew I didn’t do that!! I couldn’t believe it, but I had to believe it. Not only had Jesus come to hold me and comfort me, but my tears had noticeably changed, from the deep sadness I’d felt for decades, into tears of release of that pain. In that fleeting moment the pent-up debilitating feelings and emotions were significantly less. This was a major giant step out of the abyss of my grief over my lost childhood.
For over 40 years I’ve worked hard putting together the pieces of this puzzle. Trying to understand myself, my actions, my reactions, my thoughts, and my life takes time, but therapy continues to open doors for me. Reliving and repeating my story relieves stress. I have made great strides of healing when I am with the right therapist. Since 1979 and up to just recently I have had three wonderful women therapists who were the perfect fit for me. Amazingly their first names all begin with the letter “A” Anne, Anna & Andrea. When I realized that “A” connection, I took it as another sign that I have been on the right track. My hope is that you may come to believe as I do that there are no coincidences with signs of God’s love in the mix.
Where my life could have taken me, I will never know, but what I do know is that I have been fortunate enough to have a personal relationship with the Lord, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in me. God is in my everyday life. And as I continue to this day receiving encouragement from counseling in one form or another it’s obvious to me that my healing path was set a long time ago. But as I have also learned, there is always more work to do. And I am driven to keep going, to not give up because when I keep moving forward my life just keeps getting better. After all I’ve gone from whispers to now speaking out loud, healed and feeling restored.
Over the years I’ve learned a lot about myself because I’m on this healing path journey wholeheartedly. I’m extremely proud of how far I’ve come. I’ve learned many survival skills that work, and I feel victorious. I will be ever grateful for the compassion, care and love I have for people. I gladly share my story of continuous healing and faith with anyone who will listen. There’s so much to tell.
So, as Jesus told the disciples in Matthew 18, “…anyone who humbles himself as this little child, is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.” I do believe like a little child. When God stepped in, I leaned on Him like a small child would who trusts their loving father.
I choose to surround myself with positive energy. I keep magnets on my fridge that have great meaning to my healing. From Norman Vincent Peale “The secret of life isn’t what happens to you, but what you do with what happens to you.” And of course, many Bible verses, from Isaiah 27:10 “Fear not for I am with thee”; from Philippians 2:13 “There’s no limit to what God will do in your life.”; from 1st Peter 5:7 “Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you.”; from Joshua 1:9 …Be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”; from Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”; and my go to favorite verse in the Bible is found in Romans 12:12. “Let your hope make you glad, Be patient in times of trouble, And never stop praying.”
So, now I call myself a survivor. God’s greatness is present even in the worse situation. I truly love and trust in God for what he has done and continues to do in my life every day!! He loves me. He loves all of us more than we can even imagine!! God is real. God is for us. Call on Him. God will take care of you. I know this to be true for me and I know that it can be true for you, too. God’s love heals!!! I am living proof!!! I am a child of God!!!
In Jesus Holy name,
Amen