God was in the Car, Too: Surviving Sexual Assault with my Faith in Tact

For the first two nights, I slept in my car. I parked in the empty rows of my apartment complex and no one noticed me. I laid in the reclined middle row of my Toyota Highlander and the security officer never saw me when he made his rounds.

As I laid there unable to envision a day I would feel safe in my own home again, I wondered why God hated me so much.

My mother had died a year and a half before and, here I was, sleeping in my car because, somehow, I managed to experience the one thing she spent her entire life protecting me from.

It was my fault and I knew it. I had no business inviting him into my home; I didn’t even really know him that well. I didn’t know him at all, actually. He was a fine, chocolate brother who answered the AAA call to jump my car battery. He flirted and, though a little apprehensive, I responded in kind. I thought that would be it. I didn’t even give him my number; he took it from the service call. When he texted me and told me he was interested in getting to know me better, I didn’t know what to do.

I was only a few weeks removed from the official end of the relationship I thought would last forever. I wasn’t ready to be serious with anyone let alone allow them to get to know me better. But my friends insisted it was time. My ex had moved on rather hastily and, according to my girls, I shouldn’t sit at home crying over him when he was already in someone else’s face. Reluctantly, I conceded. After a few calls, texts, and FaceTime conversations, I agreed to a date.

It was never my intention to invite him to my place. Honestly, that was the furthest thing from my mind. We began discussing my dog, Langston, and he told me he grew up with mastiffs. He hadn’t been around one in years and would love to meet him. Looking back, he pressed in ways I noticed but dismissed. Maybe he’s overeager. Maybe he really likes me. Maybe I’m too jaded right now to know what genuine interest looks like. What could be the harm? Plus, I thought about those curtain rods. The curtain rods my ex promised to hang for me, but never did. While it may sound crazy to some, allowing someone else to install those curtain rods meant I was finally ready to let go of the hopes I had for our future. When he agreed to hang them while meeting Langston, I didn’t see some happily ever after for us. I did, however, see myself taking the first steps toward healing my heart. When it was over, I laid on the floor beside those still unopened curtain rods wondering where I put the receipt.

Those days in the car were among the hardest of my life. I racked my brain, racing through every mistake I could remember, wondering which one I forgot to ask forgiveness for. There I was coming to terms with being raped and blaming myself.

Everything I’d heard in church about the wrath of God in our lives being our fault came back and I believed it all.

God was punishing me for refusing to be contrite about something I’d done in my past; that was the only plausible explanation.

Looking back, I can’t fault myself for believing I was to blame. When something terrible happens, we want answers. And though answers never make anything better, we believe we need them so we make some up. But believing that I’d brought this unspeakable horror into my life did very little to stop the pain. I was sleeping in a car, applying medicated ointment to the burn he left on my right breast, and to the wounds I’d created from a scalding hot shower and my attempts to scratch his touch from my skin. If I was the reason this happened to me, why didn’t God give me a chance to make things right before this happened? Why did God hate me? It was the question I would ask over and over again.

It would take time to realize God was crying with me in the car. As I laid there with tears in my eyes and rage in my heart, God endured my accusations of hatred. The maker of Heaven and Earth had very little in the way of defense. Some things are indefensible. Rape is one of them. As I pressed, God had no words. Only tears. Somehow, those tears would be enough for me. In time, I would come to understand the presence of God in my darkest hour as both apology and assurance.

There is evil in this world and someone I’d shown kindness to leaned into that evil and caused me great pain. For that–for endowing humanity with the beauty of free will which had destroyed me, God was deeply sorry. And God wasn’t going anywhere.

No matter how long it took to trust God again, trust myself again and believe safe space could be mine, God would be there. And God was. And God is.

This didn’t happen overnight. It was the product of steady, consistent steps. Weekly appointments with my therapist. Weekly survivors’ group counseling meetings. Daily doses of antidepressants. I met with and read the accounts of other women who went through this and drew strength from them. Each tool was an opportunity to encounter God in new and healing ways. I refused to allow the experience to break me anymore than I’d already been broken and I was committed to doing the work to be whole and well.

Necessary to my survival was the rejection of dangerous theologies suggesting one can’t pray and worry. I did both. All the time. As a victim of sexual assault, my safety had been compromised and I was fearful of everyone and everything around me. It was nonsensical to believe I could just pray away that fear. Worry was a natural response to this trauma and the God who was with me in the car made room for my anxiety over my current circumstances and for my expectations of divine protection. I believed and God helped my unbelief.

I made the decision not to press charges against my rapist. Admittedly, I was ashamed and afraid. I couldn’t see myself enduring the questions of why I’d allowed him in my house. I didn’t want a defense attorney to subpoena my text messages and contort flirtatious banter into invitation and permission. I didn’t want my identity as a sex-positive Christian, which was well documented in public essays and posts, to be held against me. I know what happens to women when we come forward and I couldn’t endure that. There was no way I would survive the harsh scrutiny, especially without my mother.

When I told a friend what happened, he insisted that if I didn’t go to the police, I was saying it was okay for my rapist to do this to another woman and, as a Black feminist, I was contradicting every principle I proclaimed. Though it was the ugliest thing anyone ever said to me, deep down, I believed it. How could I say I would do everything to ensure the safety of girls and women if I wouldn’t hold the man who shattered my own sense of safety and peace accountable? It was in a group meeting where a fellow survivor told me no friend would ever say anything like that.

They also told me that, though I may have not pursued legal accountability, I was doing what I needed to heal and that mattered more than anything.

After asking permission, they hugged me and wiped my tears. They reminded me that putting myself first was no reason to feel ashamed.

They helped me see prioritizing my healing journey, allowing it to take shape however it needed, was a holy act.

This year makes three from that experience and those nights spent in my car. Healing is a process. There are days when I’m fine and feel like my old self. Then, there are days when the weight of what I experienced is still crippling. Though I have experienced beautiful physical intimacy that has been healing in itself, I can also look to instances where the impact of sexual assault has shaped my interactions and created relationship strain. I am still learning myself in light of this. I am still grieving who I once was, honoring who I am and shaping who I can become.

This is a painful page in the chapters-long story of my life. And while this one page shaped parts of the story, I refuse to let it craft the ending. There is so much possibility, joy and wonder to be found in this life. I feel them now and will abound in them even more as my life unfolds. On the darkest days, when the memories try to defeat me, I am able to overcome–not because I am hated, but because I am loved. I am loved by God and God’s love is consistent, whole, and is present with me through it all.