How to Rise Above Abuse (Counseling Through the Bible Series) (34 page)

Jonadab counseled Amnon, “Go to bed and pretend to be ill…When your father comes to see you, say to him, ‘I would like my sister Tamar to come and give me something to eat. Let her prepare the food in my sight so I may watch her and then eat it from her hand’ ” (2 Samuel 13:5). Amnon had no trouble figuring out the rest of the plan.

When King David attended to his “sickly” son Amnon, he dutifully honored his son’s request to beckon Tamar to his bedside. Tamar prepared cakes and brought them to Amnon, but instead of grabbing hold of the cakes, he grabbed hold of Tamar. “ ‘Don’t, my brother!’ she said to him. ‘Don’t force me. Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don’t do this wicked thing. What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you’ ” (2 Samuel 13:12-13).

Tamar’s voice of reason went unheeded, and Amnon, determined to satisfy his fleshly appetite, proceeded to forcibly rape his half sister. “He refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her” (2 Samuel 13:14). In so doing, Amnon proved himself to be “one of the wicked fools in Israel.”

“In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak,
who are caught in the schemes he devises”

(P
SALM
10:2).

A
victim
¹
is a person who experiences adversity, who is powerless to change the situation. For example, a person can be a victim of an unwanted divorce,
infidelity, spiritual abuse, suicide, elder abuse, stalking, sexual harassment, or of alcoholic parents.

Tamar was clearly the victim of Amnon. And as his victim, she experienced all three of the following definitions of a victim:

1.
A victim is a person who
is tricked or duped.

Examples include someone who is a victim of robbery, identity theft, fraud, kidnapping, cult entrapment, and other dishonest schemes.

2.
A victim is a person who
is injured, destroyed, or sacrificed.

Examples include someone who is a victim of incest, domestic violence, rape, satanic ritual abuse, a drunk driver, homicide, a natural disaster.

3.
A victim is a person who
is subjected to oppression, hardship, or mistreatment.

Examples include someone who is a victim of any verbal, emotional, sexual, physical, racial, or economic abuse.

“Men cry out under a load of oppression;
they plead for relief from the arm of the powerful”

(J
OB
35:9).

God Sees Your Grief

Q
UESTION
:
“Does God even see the grief I carry in my heart as a result of being victimized?”

A
NSWER
:
Yes, He sees your grief, He takes it seriously, and He acts on it.

“You, O God, do see trouble and grief;
you consider it to take it in hand.
The victim commits himself to you;
you are the helper of the fatherless”

(P
SALM
10:14).

Tamar’s tragic loss of innocence was but the first in a string of abuses
committed by Amnon, who, after maliciously victimizing Tamar, “hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her” (2 Samuel 13:15).

Amnon commanded Tamar to get out of his presence and had a servant put her out when she refused to leave. He repudiated the notion of taking her as his bride, which the law required, and told the servant to bolt the door behind her. Lust had been camouflaged as love, and Amnon would one day discover that Tamar was not the only victim of his sexual sin. The Bible asks the following rhetorical questions:

“Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned?
Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched?”

(P
ROVERBS
6:27-28).

One Hebrew word in the Old Testament that is used to speak of a victim is
chelekah
, which means “hapless, unfortunate, the unlucky.”
²
We find it used in Psalm 10:8, which says, “He [the wicked man] lies in wait near the villages; from ambush he murders the innocent, watching in secret for his victims.” Other Old Testament translations of the word
victim
are…

According to these translations, Jesus was a willing victim of our sins—He, the innocent One, laid down His life for the guilty.

“He was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed”

(I
SAIAH
53:5).

The Gift that Keeps on Giving: The Nicholas Green Story

They could have been
bitter
, but instead they became
bolder.

Reginald and Maggie Green decided to vacation in the beautiful Italy countryside in early fall of 1994. They brought along their two
small children so they could enjoy family time together. Home for the Greens was Bodega Bay, California, a coastal town 70 miles north of San Francisco.

A tragic encounter on an Italian highway forever changed the course of the Greens’ lives. Two men, Francesco Mesiano and Michele Iannello, both in their twenties, pulled alongside the Greens’ rented vehicle and attempted to rob them. Shots were fired, and one bullet lodged in the head of seven-year-old Nicholas, who was sitting in the back seat beside his four-year-old sister.
³

Shortly afterward, Nicholas died. The Greens’ tragedy could have been like so many other stories that make headlines for a day and then fade into the background. Public interest usually wanes while private grief wells within the hearts of hurting families trying to pick up the pieces of their lives.

But instead, Reginald and Maggie’s young boy found a special place in the hearts of millions all around the world. Nicholas Green is a household name in Italy, where parks, hospitals, and schools are named after him. That’s because his parents, while immersed in heartrending grief, chose to move
beyond their pain
. After Nicholas’ death, Reginald and Maggie donated their son’s organs and corneas to seven Italians, saving lives and restoring eyesight to those desperate to receive true help in their lives,
desperate to see God’s hope for their lives
.
⁴

This selfless, lifesaving act stunned the Italian nation. Up to that time, organ donations had been rare. This incident unleashed an out-pouring of compassion and admiration for the Green family, as well as a national soul-searching about how the Italian populace ought to respond when facing a similar situation. The response proved to be more than thought-provoking—
it produced powerful results
.

Organ donations in Italy soon quadrupled, placing that nation near the top for organ donations in Europe. And the tragic yet tenderhearted story of Nicholas’ death inspired a movement called the Nicholas Effect, prompting people around the globe to become organ donors and, in turn, garner the great joys of giving to others.
⁵

In addition, Reginald began the Nicholas Green Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to furthering the cause of organ and tissue donation worldwide and raising public awareness about the shortage of donors. As a noted journalist himself, Reginald inspired
others through his two books,
The Nicholas Effect: A Boy’s Gift to the World
and
The Gift that Heals: 42 Transplant Stories
.

This young boy’s story even made its way onto film with the 1998 made-for-TV movie
Nicholas’ Gift
. It had such a great impact that it received an Emmy nomination.

Despite all the positive efforts and noble work that have resulted from his son’s death, Reginald is first to admit that it doesn’t take away the pain of his loss. “The sense that life is missing a vital ingredient is there all the time”—but giving to others and donating “does put something on the other side of the balance.”
⁶

The citizens of Bodega Bay were also inspired to do something special to observe the loss of one of their own. An 18-foot bell tower was constructed in their coastal community, from which 140 bells have been hung—almost all sent by Italians. The centerpiece bell, which stands 30 inches high, has Nicholas’ name on it, along with the names of the seven recipients of Nicholas’ organs. It came from a foundry that has been making bells for the papacy in Rome for 1000 years.
⁷
Coastal winds almost continually move the bells to chime, reminiscent of children at play.

The Green family found victory over the victim mentality by giving tangibly to others—by giving inspiration, by giving hope, and by discovering that when you give, you truly receive much more. Jesus said it best: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

Tamar was devastated by Amnon’s heartless disregard for her feelings and wishes, her plans and dreams. And the deep disdain he felt toward her after forcing himself on her was more than she could bear.

How could he disgrace her as though she had no worth and then discard her as though she had no value? How could she ever hold her head high again and take pride in her position in life?

Amnon had not only taken Tamar’s purity, he had taken her future as well.

To express her deep sorrow and shame, Tamar tore her richly ornamented robe, which symbolized her status as a virgin daughter of the king, and placed ashes on her head. And “she put her hand on her head and went away, weeping aloud as she went” (2 Samuel 13:19).

•
The victim mentality
is a mind-set in which a person who was once a victim continues to hold on to old thought patterns and feelings of powerlessness even when the victimization has ended.

•
The victim mentality
causes individuals to see others as powerful and themselves as weak and powerless.

•
The victim mentality
leads those who were genuinely powerless to stop abuse in the past to assume the same powerless state in the present. Before they can fully embrace the future that the Lord has planned for them, they must replace this faulty assumption with God’s truth.

•
The victim mentality
can cause a person to consciously or subconsciously deny responsibility for his or her actions. The individual continues to manifest self-destructive attitudes and actions while blaming others for the undesirable results. Victory requires a new mind-set:

“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up
against the knowledge of God, and we take captive
every thought to make it obedient to Christ”

(2 C
ORINTHIANS
10:5).

Victim Mentality

Q
UESTION
:
“What will help me overcome a victim mentality?”

A
NSWER
:
You can overcome a victim mentality by changing the way you see God and the way you see yourself in relationship to Him, thus changing the way you see yourself in relationship to others and to events in your life. As a past victim, you may have been defenseless, but now you are no longer without power:

“In all these things we are more than
conquerors through him who loved us”

(R
OMANS
8:37).

Once revered as royalty and now ravaged by rape, Tamar moved into the
house of her compassionate brother, Absalom. Abandoned by Amnon, the one who should have taken her into his home, she held no hope that marriage and family could ever be a part of her future. She was further wounded when her father, though furious with Amnon, did not hold him accountable for his sin against her. Thus, no one executed justice on her behalf. “Tamar lived in her brother Absalom’s house, a desolate woman” (2 Samuel 13:20).

However, there was one who did not turn a deaf ear or blind eye to Tamar’s suffering. And Absalom found the opportune moment to avenge his sister’s rape two years later. At a festive time of shearing sheep, Absalom instructed his servants to wait until Amnon was “in high spirits from drinking wine” (2 Samuel 13:28) and then, at his command, kill him. The servants obeyed Absalom’s instructions, and Amnon was violently murdered for his violation of Tamar. Scripture warns us…