Article Suggestion: Don't Run Away by Jennifer Grace Fallon

"Don't Run Away" by Jennifer Grace Fallon

 
I read this article in the September 2015 copy of the Ensign magazine. In it the author courageously explains the fear of living with a heart disease that almost killed her siblings. She describes feeling the need to be more, to accomplish some incredibly huge task while she has the ability now to live. That dying without this is her greatest fear, in essence she doesn't have value without it. She describes learning eternal truths like Psalm 56:4 "In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me." As well as 2 Timothy 1:7-9:

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God; Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

While being a rape victim is incredibly different than living with heart disease, I believe the pain and fear are remarkably similar. In my case anyway. I fight the daily need to be more, because I have felt so broken and inadequate with what being raped left me with. It has taken a long time for me to see that I have innate worth and purpose. And while I fight the real terror of my memories and the fear of anyone else being raped, I have slowly begun to let it go. I do this by putting my trust in God and letting that push out the "fear of what flesh can do unto me." 

This has not been easy for me, and has required spiritual guidance as well as professional therapy. Because, I fight with the reality of how do I trust a God that let that man violate me that way? But what I now know is that my rapist made the decision to act as he did, it was his choice and his alone. God did not do this to me, my rapist did. In those horrible moments I know I wasn't alone, God was with me, and He has been supporting me ever since.