Confessions of a Woman Who Preaches: On Being a Sacred Listening Partner

**TRIGGER WARNING

I have served in some sort of ordained ministry for the past 9 years. There has not been even one year when I did not find myself having sacred conversations with multiple women who have been sexually, psychologically, physically, or spiritually abused…and sometimes it was all of the above.

I have covenanted as a sacred listening partner (I am not a counselor and I do not use that word for pastoral conversations) far too many women to count who were/are sexually abused and/or raped by strangers, friends, fathers, siblings distant family, neighbors, teachers, pastors, coaches, bosses, landlords, therapist.

I have walked with women who left home, left school, left church, left town…because some sadistic pervert violated their bodies.

I’ve taught bible studies about the silent abuse of women intertwined and ignored in sacred text. I’ve watched women run out of the room, burst into tears, and even experience mental regression because of the land mines in their memories.

I listened to stories of incest and molestation in childhood that is still bringing grown women to their knees. I’ve talked to prostitutes who first trick was someone who should have been the first to teach them their worth.

I’ve sat with women as they got rape tested and women who held their breath hoping they were not pregnant.

I’ve heard so much that I needed therapy to clear my head, heart, and soul.

I never let my daughter sit in men’s laps or call folk uncle or play daddy or any of the crap that can make a demon look affirmed.

I don’t force children to hug or show any type of affection for anyone, because I have seen what that looks like all grown up and traumatized.

I’ve walked with power women, career women, women who seem to have it all together but just cannot forget when someone came for them uninvited.

I’ve walked with women who were hushed in their churches and hushed in their schools and hushed in their homes.

I worked at a domestic abuse shelter whose location could not even be shared with law enforcement because of the high instance of documented abuse by officers.

I’ve ministered to women who are HIV+ because some man didn’t care. Wives who are raped. Girls who are raped. Babies who are raped. And then violated again by a society, both male and female, who refuse to believe them.

Women whose voices are muted by shame…who’ve listened to ill equipped preachers preach about the sin of Eve, and the wickedness of women…without ever seeking to understand the text or the context.

Folk who make David and Bathsheba a love story…and Thomas and Sally an exception.

Women subjected to multiple rapes because they DID tell and no one did anything.

So when I say I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE WOMEN…I mean just that. And I wish just for once…women could be given the benefit of the doubt about their ability to tell their own stories truthfully.

Thank you for listening.

Rev. Traci Blackmon serves as the pastor of Christ the King United Church of Christ in Florissant, Missouri.