reality.

last year i had the opportunity to spend a whole week of my summer vacation with my best friend.

and a bunch of junior highers. 

i was asked to tag along that week because her church was short a camp counselor.

knowing, selfishly that i would get some quality time with my best friend and with Lord, i said YES.

i dont think it hit me till a couple days before that i was not only going to get quality time with my best friend and with the Lord BUT also with a bunch of crazy, energetic...junior highers. 

enough said right??

but i figured the quality time out-weighed everything.

i was kinda excited to see what it would be like to share a cabin for a whole week for six junior high girls.

i was also very excited for the time they allowed the camp counselors to have their time with the Lord.

i took advantage of every free second i had to do the two things that i LOVE to do and usually don't get a lot of time to do....

i spent time with the Lord AND with my best friend! 

it was great.

at this season in my life...i knew i needed to talk about my story and learn to accept it but i wasnt ready too. 

my best friend knew my story...well she knew part of my story. for the same reason why i didn't tell anyone else.

i didn't want pity.

i think the second night of chapel our guest speaker (who was AMAZING!) was telling us about his family. who he was. etc.

he told us this amazing story about this beautiful little girl.

he told us her story.

i cried.

he showed us a picture of her before and after.

before him and his wife adopted her and after they adopted her.

again. i cried.

later that night as me and my girls were walking back to our cabin.

all my girls were laughing. 

talking.

planning what they were going to wear when the cabin time was over.

i walked in complete silence.

completely heart-broken for that little girl.

i looked over and saw another group of girls walking back to their cabin.

they from the same church as us and were right next store to our cabin.

i could hear one of the girls crying and all the girls talking about what just happened in chapel.

i went back with my girls. 

tried to connect with them about what happened in chapel and make the most of our cabin time but my girls were not in the mood to have cabin time.

so i told the girls i would be back and i went next store.

not knowing what i would say.

but knowing that i needed to check on the girls.

(their counselor wasn't in the cabin)

i knocked and walked in.

the girls were still upset.

i asked how everyone was doing and they began to open up about how hard it was to listen to that beautiful little girl's story.

i remember in that moment of trying to comfort these girls. that i don't know.

i told the girls this...

"you just have to remember that even though something SO ugly happened to this little girl our Savior is going to make something SO beautiful out of it!"

not knowing where that came from i wasn't sure that would do anything but the girls tears went away and they thanked me for checking on them.

to this day i remember that exact conversation with them and they trusted me when i reassured them that our Savior will not leave that ugly mark on that sweet little girl.

and yet on a bad day i struggle to trust that the Lord will do just that.

He will take that ugly mark off of me and make my story beautiful.

a continuous prayer is that i be reminded to put my hope in God.

to understand that even though something SO ugly happened to me,  the  Lord will make me new and make my story into something so beautiful. 

He will use it for his glory.

i wanted to leave this post with a few statistics.

-a report of child abuse is reported every TEN seconds.

-more than five children EVERY day die from child abuse.

-more than 90% of juvenile sexual abuse victims know their perpetuator in some way.

-child sexual abuse is report more than 80,000 times EVERY YEAR.

-its estimated that two out of every ten girls and one out of every ten boys are sexually abused by the end of their 13th year.

lastly.

Sexual abuse is unwanted sexual activity, with perpetrators using force, making threats or taking advantage of victims not able to give consent. Most victims and perpetrators know each other. Immediate reactions to sexual abuse include shock, fear or disbelief. Long-term symptoms include anxiety, fear or post-traumatic stress disorder. While efforts to treat sex offenders remain unpromising, psychological interventions for survivors — especially group therapy — appears effective.

provided by: American Psychological Association 

every time i read sexual abuse statistics my heart breaks. 

 the truth is hard to understand sometimes. its hard to believe that their are people who live in the same world we do and could do such a thing.