The one who hurt her was someone she should have been able to love, to trust, to rely on. So when he hurt her, he hurt her so badly she thought she could never love or trust or rely on anyone again.
For years she struggled with the sense of shame. She dreaded intimacy - she didn't dare let anyone get close enough to discover the bad person she thought she was. Lonely, depressed, she grew from a child into a woman. But the child's feelings of helplessness and fear never left her.
He had taken away so much. He claimed her innocence. He stole her sense of safety. He destroyed her self esteem, her ability to see good in herself. He almost robbed her of hope.
But there was one thing that he could not take away - the love of One who wept for her in her sorrow, who held her close when she was afraid, who promised that he would never leave her. This One saw her as she was. He saw the good and the bad, the shame and the suffering. He called to her, "I love you. I love you." Over and over again he called, and it seemed that she could not hear, because all she heard were the angry words, the abusive messages that told her of her shame and guilt and badness.
But the voice of the One who loved her continued to call out. And one day, in the depth of her sorrow, she answered. She confided in that One her feelings of guilt, her shame, her depression, her helplessness, her inability to love, her inability to trust. She told him that she felt everything had been taken from her, that she was worthless, unlovable.
But the voice answered her, "I love you." And, hearing it, she dared to believe, conditionally at first, but she believed. She began to trust this One who had never left her, and slowly she learnt that, with Him near, she could trust others, love others, be loved by others. In His love, she found hope, and forgiveness, and the strength to restore what had been taken away from her.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 8:38 & 39)