| No. 14 Was My Name Her face contorted with the pain of remembering, she sat across from me, fumbling with an imagined thread of fabric as she shared her story. One of many victims of the former residential schools, this beautiful First Nations' woman life has been marked with sexual and physical abuse, depression, thoughts of suicide and the anguish of many of her peers-also former residential school victims-who have, in fact ended their lives. Their pain just got too much. I heard her inner cry as she spoke. A cry for recognition, for hope, for a new identity, for her name. At the residential school the children were never addressed by their names - they were mere numbers. As she said, "My name was No.14." The incidence of sexual abuse in First Nations' communities is frighteningly high. According to one report that was done on a First Nation community, eight out of ten females and six out of ten males will experience sexual abuse in their life time. (Selma Poulin, How to counsel a sexually abused person.) Victims of sexual abuse are everywhere. They are not only found in First Nation communities. They are male and female, people of all races, ethnic and religious backgrounds, from all walks of life-uneducated, highly professional, lawyers, teachers, gas pump attendants, cashiers, bank tellers, doctors. They have one thing in common: the pain and shame of their abuse, and consequently their cries and voices are stifled, silenced, not heard. Too long many have been silenced, afraid to speak up. Too many have been treated like objects, like numbers-as this woman. Their own pain have locked them up in prisons of shame, desperation, fear and depression. Often those who were abused, abuse in return. Their pain increases and their need for help and healing becomes greater. There is hope for the abused...and the abuser. The heart of Father God has been broken every time a young child was marred, their sexual identities destroyed. Every time a parent abuses his or her child, He weeps. Every time an individual is abused by their spouse or a relative, He cries in the dark for and with them. Every time a teenager commits suicide because they could not face their abuse any longer, our Lord weeps for their loss. His heart is to restore, heal, help, embrace the hurting and the wounded. Sometimes the abuse took place by a so-called ‘representative' of God - a priest, a camp counsellor, a youth group leader. Whatever the situation was, and whoever the abuser may be, it is time to break the silence and come out of that closet of pain and sexual brokenness, into the arms of a loving and caring Father God who so desires to restore and heal those wounded hearts. The healing road may be long and hard, but it begins with that first painful, yet brave step of breaking the silence.
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