While God cleansed me of my feelings of defilement, I continued to have flashbacks for several months. And I still could not take a shower. For 30 years, I had been unable to enter a shower stall without anxiety. There was still another work God was going to do. This story, appearing in print for the first time, tells about how I was finally able to take a shower.

The Shower

by Tery Maine 

 

Cindy stepped out of the shower and fumbled to find the towel she left hanging on the towel rack inconveniently placed across the bathroom from the shower. She shivered as she passed the air conditioning vent.

"Fresno," she mumbled, "you’re always burning up or freezing here. Sometimes a the same time."

She located the towel and began patting herself dry when she sat down in a chair left in the bathroom after Tracy gave her a perm two weeks ago. She began to chuckle for a moment, then tears started rolling down her face.

"I wonder how many people worldwide took a shower today," she mused. " Out of all those millions of shower s, though, none is as remarkable as this one."

Cindy did a little mental arithmetic. It had been 15 years since her last shower and over thirty years since she had actually enjoyed a shower.

As Cindy walked out of the bath into her bedroom and pulled on a nightgown and a robe, her mind went back to a Wednesday night just two weeks ago.

She was running late again. Tracy and her had errands to run and they got slowed down somewhere along the line. Revival was on tonight. It started at 7:00. It was 6:45 when Cindy pulled up in front of Tracy’s house. Teresa, Tracy’ s 17-year-old, wanted to go to revival, but she was just coming out of the shower. Cindy looked at the car clock and shook her head. She also looked at the casual slacks and top she was wea ring. Cindy couldn’t bring herself to go to church that casual. A lot of people do nowadays, but Cindy isn’t one of them.

The clock continued to tick. 6:55, 7:00, 7:05. Finally, Teresa emerged from the house make-up bag in hand. Cindy felt the stres s begin to rise. She hated being late. Church had started five minutes ago. It was still a ten-minute drive to church. Then she had to go home, get dressed and come back. It would be 7:30 or 7:45 before she got to church. Certainly, the service would run until 9:30, 10:00 or later but still...... Just as the door opened she gave herself an internal command to "Stop it!" She calmed down a bit but not enough.

Dropping Teresa off at the church, Cindy gave her a quarter and told her to call when she needed a ride home.

"Aren’t you going?"

"No, I don’t have time to go home get dressed and get back here"

"It won’t matter if you come in late."

"It will matter to me."

Cindy was starting to breathe rapidly. Her heart was pounding. She could feel the anx iety attack coming on. It was only a five-minute drive home if she could just hang on. She used every calming trick she knew and turned the car toward home.

Cindy threw herself on her bed at home. The tears started flowing. The pain centered somewher e near the stomach exploded. Then that terrible feeling of a wet hand slamming her onto the tiled floor of a high school shower room followed by a wet penis pushing its way up her rectum. The hemorrhoids she had been suffering with for about a month joined in burning and itching in rhythm with the remembered assault.

Finally, the attack subsided. Cindy uncurled and lay flat on her bed.

"How long, Lord. How long must I suffer for a thirty year old attack." Silent comfort followed but no answer.

As sh e lay on that bed, still weeping silently, her mind drifted once again to the pervasive loneliness which had been overshadowing her life for more than a year. It was just a short time before she recovered the memories of the rape that her singleness began to hurt so badly and that she had lost all hope of ever having the type of relationship she desired.

When the loneliness became too intense.... Strangely enough, how she felt during one of her loneliness attacks was almost the same as the feeling right before a flashback of the rape. Eddie had stolen much more from her than her virginity.

The attack itself lasted but a few minutes. The aftermath kept her laying on her back trying to calm down for more than an hour. Tired and drained, the face of Eddie came before her again and again soaked with water from the shower. She could still feel the water pouring down on her as Eddie slammed her against the back wall of the shower stall in the Eureka High School boy’ s locker room. She felt the pain of the wat er faucet in her back. She felt herself being forced to the floor. She heard the filth coming out of his mouth. She remembered the final insult when he forced her to tell him she "liked it."

It was three decades and two seconds ago. She had been healed of the feelings of filth and defilement months ago. Now, in the last few months the anxiety attacks and the flashbacks started up.

Water was dripping off Cindy’s hair as she remembered where she was just three weeks ago. She rubbed her hair vigorously , then got up and put on her robe. She picked up the iced tea she had left a few moments ago and sipped it. As she sipped, she though about Tim Sumner and that Tuesday night.

Tim was the young evangelist that came every year to Evangel. He and Cindy had an odd relationship. Cindy and he talked only briefly during most revivals, yet Cindy felt a deep connection with him. He told Cindy once that he drew strength from her during the services. Some of the few times Cindy had given a word of knowledge had been to Tim. One time when she was facing some difficult times of ethical self-doubt, Tim had prophesied from the pulpit saying, " Cindy, you have integrity. You are a woman of integrity." It was exactly what she needed when she needed it.

She got to chu rch late that Wednesday night. Not too late, but she did come in on the last song during the song service. She could tell that the service would be important to her. If she tried to explain that feeling she would be at a loss for words. Some things the spirit understands in a language unintelligible to the mind. To use the Pentecostal jargon she had grown up with, "The Spirit was there in a Special Way."

After the congregational singing, came the choir and other special music. It was upbeat, spirited. It even got Cindy’s feet to moving. Cindy thought it was God ’s little joke that he took someone as naturally reserved as she was and placed her in an enthusiastically Pentecostal church.

Tim approached the platform. The church fell silent.

"Let’s just wait on the Lord," he said. A moment of silence then softly from the other side of the sanctuary came words in a seemingly incomprehensible language. As the woman spoke this unknown (and possibly unknowable) language, words - no not words exactly - meaning took shape in Cindy’ s mind. Silence. No one else was presenting the interpretation. With the feeling of awesome responsibility she always felt when daring to present a message from God, she began to speak out the words, "Why do you draw away from me when I have everything you need. Come to me, and I will provide what you need tonight says the Lord God."

Cindy could give a lecture on Glossalia and the theological significance of ecstatic utterances. She could speak at length about pneumatology. But she still felt insignificant and unworthy when she gave an interpretation. This time she felt guilty as well. There was more. She just couldn’t continue.

As she sat down, she shuddered as she saw Eddie standing again in that shower room door. She felt like running out. "Not this time," she whispered quietly to that ancient menace. "I can handle this. It’s painful. But I’m used to the pain. I can cope with the pain. I have the resources."

Again, a message in tongues came forth. This time a little behind her. She was still reeling from the flashback. It was the part she couldn’ t give. This time Tim himself interpreted. It was as if she was hearing an echo of what she knew but failed to say: "You have lived with pain for a long time. And yo u have said in your heart, I can cope. I can withstand the pain. I have resources to cope with the pain. But you do not need to cope any longer. I can heal the pain if you but give it to me. Don’ t draw away from me, for I alone have what you need."

Th en Tim began to make the altar call. Cindy usually began to pray for him and the others who went forward during these times. This time she was praying for herself. The words of her heart were publicly proclaimed. Could she ignore them any longer?

"Some of you have carried a pain for a few months, some for years," Tim was saying as he reached behind the pulpit to take out a bottle of anointing oil. "Tonight you need to give it to him. Come forward and be healed of that pain you’ve carried for so long."

Cindy didn’ t even remember going up front. She simply found herself there. Tim was praying for others. He prayed for them, as he felt led to do so. He spoke prophetically over many telling them what their pain was before they told him. Strangely enough, two pains danced in Cindy’ s heart: fear and loneliness. Fear from the past and loneliness in the present. Somehow they seemed linked to each other. She could see the one proceeding from the other. The despair she carried concerning her future bereft of human companionship was sent forth from the memories that were more than memories.

Tim prayed for the woman standing next to Cindy. She entered that state of God-Consciousness which took her temporarily out of this level of consciousness in such a way that her legs could no longer hold her up. Cindy could label this as "going down under the power" of the Holy Spirit. She had experienced it herself on occasion. Work was being done here. Cindy knew something of this woman’s pain. She went down on her knees next to the woman and began to pray. As others went down, she prayed for them as well. She hadn’t forgotten her own need. It’s just—well— this is what she always did and their problems were much worse than hers and—God had already done so much for her --

The crowd at the altar was thinning out. Cindy had sat down in a chair near another woman lying on the floor beside her. She didn’t really see Tim approaching. She kind of figured that he didn’t notice her and that he would go right on by her and close the service. He didn’t.

He looked at her with eyes filled with compassion and feeling the pain to which he was ministering.

"For six years I carried a pain inside of me, Cindy. I was a Christian. I said ‘I can serve the Lord, anyway. I can praise him, anyway. I can minister to him anyway. And I did. You don’t have to carry that pain anymore." With this he turned on the traveling microphone he had clipped to his tie. "The Lord would say to you, Daughter I have seen your heart. Your heart has always been right before me. Other people’s hearts haven’ t always been right toward you, but your heart has always been right before me. I brought you to this church where people love you. Extend your roots here. I will cause relationships to blossom in your life including that special relationship you desire. And the pain you are carrying can cease now. No more fear. Tonight you will be able to lay your head down and sleep. For I have taken away your pain." Cindy was in tears. She tr ied to call up a picture of Eddie. She succeeded, but there was no shudder, no anxiety, no flashback. She remembered but she did not relive. She knew the burden was gone. The chains had fallen. She was no longer tied up by a thirty-year-old attack.

Cindy took a last sip of her tea. She picked up the bath towel and carefully put a new one on the rack next to the shower. She had to share this with someone.

Cindy picked up the phone, dialed the familiar number, "Tracy, I just took a shower, and I enjoyed it." Tracy knew what that meant. She had heard about the healing service three weeks before. She knew what it was like to deal with flashbacks. She, of all people, could rejoice with her about this event. Finally, she said, "Okay, I ’ll play therapist for a moment. How did you feel when you stepped out of the shower?"

Cindy thought a moment, "Free, Tracy, I felt Free." And she was. Around the world tonight millions of people would take millions of showers. Of all those millions of showers, though, none is as remarkable as this one.

  

  

  

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© 1995 by Tery Maine. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.