"What Victims Want to Say to Clergy"

A collection of feelings expressed by victims
Rev. Dr. Richard Lord

Re-printed from The Spiritual Dimension in Victim Services, A Manual for Clergy and Congregations

Don't Explain.
As deeply as I cry out "Why?", I know there is no rational explanation. My "Why?" is more a longing for God to hold me in his arms and give me some comfort than it is a question I want answered. I don't want you to try to give me answers. What has happened is absurd. It is surely not as God intended life to be. It doesn't make sense. God didn't cause it. The devil didn't cause it. It could not have been God's will.

Therefore, let us together try to explain the cause of the tragedy as factually and honestly as possible. I want God, and you as my pastor, as companions who will stand with me in my longings, not as sources of explanation.


Don't take away my reality.
My pain seems unbearable to me and yet, in light of what has happened, it feels right that I should be in pain. I know it is uncomfortable for you. I know you want to take it away. But you can't, so please don't try. The pain is a sign to me of how much I have loved and how much I have lost. If I have doubts, I am angry , understand that these are normal reactions to a very abnormal situation. I will not always be like this, but I am now. These are my feelings. Please respect them.


Help me deal with forgiveness with integrity.
Understand that if my faith is important to me, I will struggle with the issue of forgiveness. I will remember all the times I've been told that I must forgive. And yet, something deep within me resists forgiving someone who has not even said, "I'm sorry."

I wonder if I am the appropriate one to forgive that person who has harmed or injured someone I love. I don't feel obligated to forgive; I don't even feel that I have the right to forgive in those circumstances. But yet, I feel uncomfortable in my resistance to forgive.

I am also troubled by the difference between forgiving and forgetting. I desperately want my loved ones who has been killed or injured to be remembered. I resist anything that threatens the memory of one who has died. Therefore, even if I do decide at some point that I can honestly and with integrity offer forgiveness, please don't ask me to gorget what happened. It is impossible to forget, and, to me, it is very undesirable as well. Even Jesus said "Remember me" when He was dying on the cross.

Understand that forgiveness is far more than just saying three words, "I forgive you." If I say the words, they must be true. I must speak them from the depths of my very soul with absolute integrity. Don't push me to say the words just to satisfy you. I can only say them if I come to really mean them.


Stay close.
Just as a one-year-old child learns to walk with someone close by to steady him when he stumbles, stay close enough so I can reach out and steady myself on you when I need to. Understand me need to grieve, my need to withdraw, my need to agonize, but remind me that you're there to lean on when I want to share my pain.


Remember me... for a long time.
This loss will always be a part of me. I'll need to talk about it for years to come. Most people will be tired of hearing about it after a period of time. Be the person who will invite me to share my feelings about this after others have moved on to other concerns. If my loved one has died, mention his or her name from time to time and let us remember together.


Don't be frightened of my anger.
Anger isn't nice to be around. But it's part of what I'm feeling now, and I need to be honest about it. I won't hurt myself or anybody else. I know my anger doesn't threaten God. People get angry in the Bible. Even God got angry at certain things. The one to worry about it the one who has experienced violence but hasn't become angry.


Listen to my doubt.
You stand for faith, and I want you to, but listen to my doubt so you can hear the pain it is expressing. Like anger, doubt is not pleasant to be around, so people will want to talk me out of it. But for right now, let me express the questions which are measured by the depth of the loss I feel. If I cannot doubt, my faith will have no meaning. It is only as I move through doubt that a more meaningful faith will develop.


Be patient.
My progress will not be steady. I'll slip back just when everyone thinks I'm doing so well. Be one to whom, on occasion, I can reveal my weakness and regression. Let me be weak around you and not always strong. I'll make it, but it will take much longer than most people think. I'll need your patience.


Remind me this isn't all there is to life.
My pain and my questions consume me. I think and feel nothing else. Remind me there is more to life than my understanding and my feelings. Speak the word "God," not to dull my pain, but to affirm life. I don't want God as an aspirin but as a companion who shares my journey. Stay beside me and remind me of that Eternal Presence which can penetrate even my grief.


Helping Others: Christian Layperson's Help
If someone you know has been the victim of a crime, here are some do's and don'ts for helping them recover and process this event in their life and relationship with God:

Do...
Pray continually for the person, and for your conversations and contacts that you may be a healing agent by the Holy Spirit.

1. Pray continually for the person, and for your conversations and contacts that you may be a healing agent by the Holy Spirit.
2. Be present with the person. Make yourself available and let the person know you are there simply because you care.
   
3. Meet practical needs. It's good to offer and provide the person with groceries or items, but be sensitive to what they actually need.
   
4. Accept and validate the feelings that the person expresses. They are their true feelings, even if they are directed at God or seem to be a crisis of faith. Problem attitudes and issues can be dealt with in time.
   
5. Be there long term. Let them know you care and allow the person to set the pace of discussions and relationship.
   
6. Let them question God and spiritual things. It is okay, to say you don't agree with a statement they make in anger, as long as you limit it to your view and don't try to "correct" their view of God theologically at this point.
   
7. Use a comforting touch. A hug or a pat on the shoulder does help.
   
8. Avoid curiosity to know inappropriate details of crime.
   
9. Listen to what they mean, not just what they say.
   
10. Be sensitive to their emotional needs when you speak.
    
11. Use a sense of humor when it is appropriate.
    
12. Give yourself time off, and seek support from other friends.
    
13. Use creative arts to help them express their feelings. (Poetry, songs, etc.)
    
14. Find scriptures to share with them, sensitively, that deal with where they are at.
15. Look at the good Samaritan passage (Luke 10:25-37), to understand your role in the healing process.
    

Don't...

1. Blame the victim. Avoid questions or statements that point to "contributing factors" of the crime. The crime was not their fault. ("Why" questions tend to blame victim indirectly)
   
2. Assume you know how to define forgiveness. It is not forgetting (which places the victim in potential danger), not reconciliation (when there was no prior relationship), not justifying offender's behavior, not absolution of offender's responsibility, not retribution, not seeking compensation, and not trusting the offender. It is releasing the need to control the outcome of the aftermath, recognizing and confronting the evil done, regaining control from the offender, ending any cycles of repetition (mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual) that give the offender power, is primarily for the healing of the victim not the freedom of the offender, is something the victim is owed and can claim, and is normally successful after going through the grief process related to the loss inflicted by the crime.
   
3. Rush forgiveness. Forgiveness is commanded by God, but railroading it seems to vindicate the responsibility for the crime. Forgiveness will come, and most Christians don't need reminding that they are told to by God.
   
4. Use Cliche's. Packaged statements only make the caregiver feel good, and they belittle the survivor. Saying, "It's God's will;" "It'll all work out;" "All things work together for good;" etc. are not only belittling to the survivor's experience, but are insensitive and scripturally inaccurate.
   
5. Place expectations of any kind. Quite often survivors need to have a sense of recovering their own ability to cope with life and even daily things. Putting any expectations on their healing time, conversation, forgiveness, grief, etc. only boxes them into your agenda and you are robbing their power to cope. You also can remove the freedom for the Holy Spirit of God to lead the person, and for them to sense God's work in their life.
   
6. Intellectualize or theologize their situation. Neither will help emotional or spiritual growth. Most of the time theological or intellectual statements are not as objective as they may be intended to be, they normally reflect opinions or biases, or even place blame on the victim. Job's friends are a good example of this.
   
7. Expect grief to be an easy step by step process. Grief works differently for different crimes (e.g. mourn loss of security in robbery vs. loss of a person in homicide) and for different people. There may be characteristics that we should understand (e.g. the ten stages of grief), but no one will go through them exactly the same as another.
   
8. Distance or isolate the survivor. It is our natural tendency to pull away from those whom have gone through something horrific or something we don't understand. Draw near to them as a friend.
   
9. Get too close. It is easy to become over involved in someone's emotional state, or feel like you have to be sharing their pain for yourself in order to heal them. That is an extremely un-healthy thing for you both. Keep appropriate emotional boundaries, by avoiding sharing emotional stresses of victim in yourself.
   
10. Say you understand. No one understands the uniqueness of another's pain or circumstance. Try to understand, but don't pretend that you do.
    
11. Over busy the survivor. It is easy for us to busy ourselves to forget pain, but that doesn't deal with it. Keep them busy enough to feel part of the community, but let them rest and process with you on down days as well.
    
12. Pass it on. The grapevine is huge in our church communities. Ask permission for what you can share with others, and what attention the survivor desires. Don't share anything else, in the name of "prayer requests."
    
    

Christian Clergy Help
If someone in your congregation has been the victim of a crime, here are some important care guidelines and principles for pastors and clergy.

1. Bathe the person and your meeting with them in prayer– It is critical that no clergy person would ever try to effect the healing of another without the power of God. Clergy are people, and as humans we have no more power to cause healing in an individual, than we do to cause a plant to grow. These are works of God, and as such we must be filled with the Spirit of God in order to be vessels for His work. (Exodus 15:26; Psalm 147:3; Matthew 12:22; Acts 9:34)
   
2. Be accepting and available–As with anyone in crisis, it is imperative to track with them long term and give them as much or as little care as they indicate they need at a given time. It is important to affirm their worth in God's eyes through your own actions and words.
   
3. Validate their feelings and let God be big enough – The natural tendency of clergy is to be "argumentative" or to debate when someone expresses a view of God or a theological statement that doesn't square with our "objective" theology. Be careful not to be like Job's friends and try to correct a survivor's theological questions or angry expressions. Accept their true feelings, understanding that God is big enough to take their anger, and let them wrestle with the questions they have so that when they begin to discover answers they will own them for themselves and not because the "pastor said so." It is okay to say you don't share a particular understanding of God they may share, but very very gently guide them toward scriptures that they can wrestle through for answers themselves. Understand, that scripture reading may be on the bottom of the list for a while so be extremely patient.
   
4. Listen to what they mean, not just what they say– If you can hear the pain and the perspective beneath the semantics, you will be less likely to be content critical and more likely to be a discerning healer.
   
5. Never pretend you can figure out the "why" of the crime – It is easy to look at actions and decisions that may have been "contributing factors" to a crime. But it is not appropriate at any time for a clergy person to decide what could or should have been done differently, in order to prevent the crime. It is wrong to place the guilt and shame for another person's sin on the shoulders of the victim. It is wrong to indicate to others that the victim contributed by decision or naivete_ to their own victimization. Again, don't be like Job's friends and search for sin where mercy is needed.
   
6. Do not apply "normal" pastoral counseling practices – pastoral counseling often suggests strong directive homework assignments in scriptures and seeks to get the counselee praying to God regularly. With survivors of crime there is often a period where your efforts will be more effective in praying for them, and not with them or insisting that they pray. Gentle/humble guidance is critical because the strongest loss in crime is a loss of control. Any directive statements or actions feel like a robbing of control again, and could re-traumatize the victim. It is good to always ask where a victim is and what they feel comfortable with. Let them be in control and make the choices toward healing as they are ready.
   
7. Give room for God to work – It is easy to presume how long a person should struggle with an issue and overcome it, but do not place expectations of healing or forgiveness upon survivors. Let God work in them in His timing, and you be the facilitator of that process. Each person will struggle uniquely with the trauma of victimization, and will progress according to their own perspective and faith. Let them be grown by God as He works good out of the evil done to them.
   
8. In time, deal with reality – After the initial shock period passes, survivors will need to deal with reality. Again, do not force or control this re-orientation, but don't be afraid to deal with the issues. For example, a rape victim may need to work through fears about their marital sexual relationship. Don't be afraid to talk to the survivor and their spouse about the fears and concerns they are facing, and give them support in the process of learning to trust and "take control" of their lives again.
   
9. Be connected to Christian Counseling systems and have the avenue of referral – Be aware of what emotional issues you are not equipped to handle in counseling and be ready to refer any congregant who needs counseling beyond your abilities. However, continue to be there for them and accepting. Facilitate their continued feeling-a-part-of the community and not cast-aways from the perfect elite.
   
10. Avail yourself of materials regarding care for survivors – Three sources you may want to consult for your own ability and for the training of lay people for caring for survivors are:

Clergy and Victims of Violent Crime. Dr. Wayne Leaver. C.S.S Publishing
Lima, OH; 1990.

A Manual for Clergy and Congregations. David & Anne Delaplane. U.S. Dept of Justice
Spiritual Dimension in Victim Services (Scott Beard 843-577-2687)

Helping a Neighbor in Crisis. ed. Lisa Barnes. Tyndale Pub.
Neighbors Who Care, 1997.