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Experience life without fear

Growing up on her family’s cow farm in the Amish area of Pennsylvania, Kathy Smoker enjoyed playing outside. She seemed happy and carefree, but she kept a secret that she didn’t dare to reveal to anyone. “I was sexually abused as a child. My abuser stalked me. And he was at the farm almost every day. It was a very close neighbor,” she said. Kathy doesn’t remember when the abuse started, but she does remember how she felt.

“I was afraid all the time, I was terrified that they would find me. It got to the point where I didn’t want to go out alone because if he was around, he would find me, and I was looking over my shoulder the whole time and there was a lot of worry, fear and a lot of confusion,” she said. Kathy tried to hide, but he always found her. He assured her that what he was doing was okay.

“And I believed that. “I came to a point in my life where I really fully accepted it and believed it to be true,” she said. But deep down she knew it was wrong. Out of fear, she did not tell anyone and the abuse continued for years. It didn’t stop until she was 14 and her family moved away. By then, her self-worth was already destroyed.

“As a teenager, I had an extreme amount of anger and self-loathing,” she said. “There was really a lot in front of me, but I didn’t see it, I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see anything good in myself.”

She was also overcome with fear. “I was afraid everywhere I went. I was afraid to sleep alone or drive home alone in the dark. I would be afraid that someone would abuse me again. I was afraid that someone would kill me. And I was always afraid that someone was persecuting me,” she said. When she was 18, she left home and moved in with a friend. Despite her Amish upbringing, she never accepted Christ. One Sunday she went to church with her roommate.

“I just wanted to meet something bigger than myself, because I wasn’t functioning at my best,” she said. She surrendered her life to Christ and left the Amish way of life. “As a believer, I discovered that I really need to seek God with my whole heart. I got to the point where I trusted God and that deepened my relationship with Him,” she said.

But something was still missing. She was getting closer to God, but she still struggled with fear and had panic attacks. She was now 22 years old and married to an old friend named Benji. She never told anyone about the abuse, but she felt she had finally found someone she could trust.

“I felt emotionally safe with him. I knew that he would not judge me for this matter and I also knew that he could help me. Somehow I knew it. I knew that he cared, that he would take me seriously and that he would listen to me. That’s how it was,” she said. One evening Kathy had another panic attack.

“I felt like I was suffocating, I felt all this anxiety and great fear and I couldn’t move,” she said. “I was crying and Benji was hugging me and suddenly he felt prompted to ask me, “Darling, have you ever talked to God in a serious way about your hurt and pain, all that stuff, all the junk in your life? Have you ever laid it all before God and said to him: “God, just take it all away from me”? I said I didn’t. He said to me: “Maybe you should.”

“I went to the bathroom, knelt on the floor and then in the next twenty minutes I opened up to God and said: “Just take it all from me” and I explained everything to Him in detail and explained everything that was inside and hurt me, everything that was separating from Him.”

“I threw it all out before God and I could feel His presence so strongly and He took it all from me. And I never had a panic attack again after that night,” she said. Kathy went to a Christian counselor and over time was able to get rid of her feelings of anger and self-hatred.

“God gave everyone a choice, just like he gave my abuser a choice to abuse me, he gave me a choice to do with it,” she said. “I had a good counselor to help me through the process and I had God. I also had people around me who were crucial and important in helping me on my way to healing.” “My thoughts about myself have changed a lot, a lot. And I can honestly say that I no longer hate myself.” Today she and Benji have four daughters. Kathy is a mentor to young women who have survived sexual abuse. She likes to tell them how Jesus freed her from the pain of her past.

“Jesus is the reason I really enjoy life. He is my hope for the future and He has definitely brought me healing from my past. He is the reason I am free from the things that were holding me back, the things that were destroying my life. I am very grateful to Him for that,” she said.