Two Faces of a Predator

I continue to process the meaning of my meeting with the perpetrator of my abuse. Today I am thinking of the two faces I have seen.

In the early 1970's Bob was a cocky sort of guy, in more than one way, now that I think about it. Sorry for the pun. It just hit me the two meanings of that word. Like the rooster he strutted about the world in his cowboy boots and jeans with a jaunty bounce in his step. His speech was flavored with what I term psycho-ease. You know, the way shrinks talk, reflecting your words back to you and baiting you into revealing more about yourself than you have previously. I clearly remember his, "You seem uneasy and embarrassed about that," comment that first opened my hidden places to his slick handling. And he talked easily of forbidden subjects never hesitating or acting ill at ease. It was as easy for him to talk about a man's penis and acts of sex as it was to talk about fishing or hunting.

He was also quite cruel and manipulative. "Once you have crossed that line, you can't go back. You can't have one without the other" he stated in response to my complaining about his distance after I asked out of the sexual part of our relationship. I recall his "say uncle" or "Say you'll quit" when he repeatedly pushed my face into the dirt every time I angrily charged at him, while camping, after he verbally humiliated me. And there was his talk of tying me to the bed and almost bringing me to an orgasm but never quite letting me get there - I never went for that. His loading the shot gun with buck shot while we shot skeet and laughing when it kicked and left me bruised is just one more of what I can specifically remember.

All of this, sharply contrasts with the Bob of last Tuesday. His once moustached face, that led to my awe at that first kiss, is now more fully hidden by a beard. It is as if he was hiding from the truth that reverberated within the room . The Bob of 2007 was stilted and silent for much of our time. His face was blank and his look dead pan. He sat rigidly and admitted the knot in his stomach. He smiled briefly at my forgiveness, but sat glaring at my offer to come clean with the truth.

None of the verbal acuity remained, not in that setting at least. He was the one that appeared tied down, afraid to move, waiting for the kick of the gun that he must have known at some level was bound to bruise him. On Tuesday it was no longer Bob who had the strength to hold me down, but me who spiritually wielded the power of truth to hold him stiff in that chair.

The tables had turned.

The power was mine.

The power is mine. Only the power I carried on Tuesday is a power not to destroy but to redeem, a power he rejected.

Remember when Jesus sent the 72 out to the cities and towns to prepare the way for Him. He told them that those that listened to them, heard Him, and those that refused the truth they brought, refused Him and He who sent Him.

On Tuesday, I refused to be the victim any longer. Bob refused God.