Wait for the screeching violins. Okay, now.

It was right before I started college and I had a summer job at Opryland theme park in Nashville. In fact, I still have the Opryland yearbook to prove it.  I was a cashier at the front gate.  This position had a considerable amount of stress that went along with it because we were expected to handle thousands of dollars every day and balance to the penny at the end of our shift.  However, it also came with a really great perk of an air-conditioned booth, which made it the envy of every employee on the other side of the glass who had to battle the Tennessee heat and humidity.

There were two things that really brightened our days.  First, some cashier would invariably stretch her legs a little too much and accidentally set off the silent alarm.  The park rangers would gallop to the gate on horseback only to discover it was yet another false alarm.  Most of the security guys were pretty cute so I suspected some of the mishaps were intentional, especially since one girl in particular seemed to be a repeat offender.  Go ahead.  See if you can figure out which one. 

 

The other treat was when Johnny the Clown came around to flirt with all the cashiers.  Interestingly, now that I think back, there were no male cashiers.  Only young girls.  Hmm... 

All the cashiers had a big crush on Johnny the Clown.  He had an adorable personality with a great sense of humor, which we found quite charming.  As a group, we determined he was more sophisticated than the common clown because he had gone to Ringling Brothers Clown College.  (Was there really such a thing?)  This distinction allowed us to justify having a crush on – of all things, a clown.

Much to my surprise, Johnny the Clown eventually singled me out and asked me for a date.  This immediately made a few of my coworkers jealous, so how could I possibly say no?  

 

I did give some thought to whether I could seriously date a clown and decided if it turned out to be his career choice for life and not just a summer gig, I would have to seriously reconsider our future.  In the meantime, I would keep this a secret from my friends outside of work.  

 

Johnny and I made plans to meet up after our shift.  I suddenly realized I had no idea what Johnny the Clown looked like without all his clown makeup, which was a little unnerving.  Would I even recognize him?  What if he was hideous?

 

Well, he turned out to be pretty good looking and had an adorable smile.  He was noticeably shorter without his massive clown shoes, and was surprisingly quiet, which came across as shyness that I actually found endearing.  He was very polite and quite the gentleman.  Johnny opened my door for me and casually mentioned that he needed to stop by his apartment on the way to the restaurant.  No big deal.

 

I followed him through the door to his basement apartment, which was below a brick ranch style house. (This is where the music would dramatically change if this were a movie.)

 

As I glanced around the impeccably neat apartment, I suddenly heard Johnny lock the deadbolt behind me.  When I turned around, he said in a strange, new voice, “You might as well not scream.  No one will hear you.” (Okay, now. Screeching violins.)  

 

It took a second to realize he wasn’t joking and at that point he began chasing me around the apartment. I even remember running across the bed, thinking how I had only seen that happen on TV.  “My landlady is gone for hours.  No one is going to hear you.”  I screamed anyway.  I'm not sure if I screamed for help - or screamed "what is wrong with you!" - or just screamed involuntarily like one does when riding a roller coaster.    

 

It quickly turned into a cat and mouse game as he lunged for me and I darted back and forth to get away.  I frantically scrambled for the door with every trip around the room but could never get it unlocked before having to take off again.  “Oh, sure!  Everyone LOVES Johnny the Clown, but what about Johnny the Man?  Everyone LOVES to hug and kiss Johnny the Clown – but WHAT ABOUT JOHNNY THE MAN?!”

 

(It’s okay to laugh here. Honestly, I haven’t told this story a single time in all these years, that “What about Johnny the Man” didn’t become the comeback for every possible scenario, at least for a couple of weeks.) 

 

Much to my surprise, there was a sudden knock on the door.  “Is everything okay in there?”

 

Johnny froze and then slowly walked to the door, glaring at me the whole way.  We were both out of breath from the chase and I’m sure I looked like a mess.  When he opened the door, a nice little lady was standing there.  It was his landlady – or an angel, I’m not sure which.  In looking back, that was when I should have asked her to call the police.  But I was in such a state of shock, and so incredibly naïve, I simply said, “We were just leaving.  He is taking me to my car.”  And I quickly ran out the door.

 

The landlady watched as we drove away and thankfully, he did take me to my car while neither of us said a word the whole way back to Opryland.  In looking back, it’s crazy I got back into a confined space with him, which is the kind of thing we never understand about victims of abuse.  

 

The next day, however, I made sure every girl at Opryland knew that Johnny the Man was a maniac.  I rarely saw him after that day and I looked over my shoulder the rest of the summer.  He only came back to the cashier booths one time after that, dressed like a "sad clown".  Guess that was his version of an apology, which no one accepted.  

 

This ridiculous story has been on my mind a lot lately, which is crazy since it happened so long ago. But the other night I realized why I couldn’t shake this incident from my head.

 

Let me challenge you to walk back through this event in a whole different light.  Close your eyes and imagine with me:  

 

What if, instead of a careless eighteen-year-old teenager, this story happened to an innocent five-year-old girl?

 

Just like I trusted Johnny, what if the man who locked the door was also someone she trusted, like her uncle?  Or perhaps her mother’s boyfriend, or even worse, her new husband?  

 

What if the woman at the door was not the landlady, but her mother, who ignored her daughter’s cries because she couldn’t bear the truth?  

What if the little girl dreaded getting off the bus when she got home because this happened every day after kindergarten?

“You might as well not scream.  No one will hear you.”  How many children have heard those words?  How many will hear them later today?

This may sound completely outrageous, but the other day, when I listened to yet another one of our residents describe her sexual abuse as a little girl, I suddenly felt her terror and helplessness in a whole new way.  Honestly, I think I’d heard stories like this for so long, they had eventually lost their impact on me and no longer felt real.  But as I listened to this courageous young woman, my eyes and ears opened in a way I had completely forgotten.  Her story was something no child should ever endure.  I felt her child sized pain - and fear.  

 

I’ll never know what could have happened that night if the landlady had not shown up when she did. Honestly, I think it was years before I really grasped the gravity of how that incident could have ended.  For me, it was a near miss that only left a dark, crazy story with a happy ending.  It’s embarrassing and makes me feel pretty foolish, but that experience did not leave me scarred for life.

 

However, for many of the women and children we serve, these are not just one-time incidents and they do not have happy endings.  The painful, secret burdens become a way of life that sometimes go on for years and create a lot of shame.  The trauma influences every relationship after that, causing a tremendous lack of trust for anyone and everyone - and those experiences lay the distorted foundation of self-worth that take a wrecking ball to destroy.  In the meantime, these hideous events cause them to reach for anything that numbs the pain, which makes perfect sense.

 

I often refer to the women we serve as the most courageous women I have ever known.  They have the courage to walk into a strange place and trust people they do not even know, live in community with other women and their children (and all the chaos that comes with that), and make the commitment to change every single thing about their lives.  Only because they hope and pray, to a God they may have just met, that it will give them something better – not just for themselves, but for their children, as well.  

 

It’s easy to have empathy for the children we serve, isn’t it?  After all, they are so innocent and helpless and had no control over their circumstances.  But you know what?  We sometimes forget that the women we serve – are those same children grown up. 

 

In our line of work, it’s easy to become callous to the stories we hear.  Sadly, the tales of abuse become so commonplace, they even become predictable.  However, we become part of the problem when we allow something as hideous as child sexual abuse to become a non-event.  Just because we have heard the story before, doesn’t make it any less painful for the one telling it in that moment.

 

To do our jobs well, I believe we need to stop every once in a while, and really put ourselves in the shoes of the women and children we serve.  I came close to trying them on one crazy summer – and it was no picnic.  But for many, those painful shoes were shoved on their feet when they were children, and they didn't come off for a very long time – sometimes just days before they crossed our threshold.  Those tired, worn-out shoes have got to hurt – really bad.  And may we never, ever forget that.

Lord, thank you for a beautiful sanctuary where women and children can truly heal from trauma and brokenness.  May we never minimize their pain, always respect their journeys, and strive to serve them well.  Amen