I Am an Artichoke

(By Cecil Murphey)

People often speak of the onion and peeling away a layer at a time. The problem is that when they finish, nothing is left.

I prefer to think of the artichoke. That vegetable has tiny thorns at the tip of each leaf. That's a danger signal—a warning of pain if we proceed. The best way to handle the problem is to snip the thorns and start pulling off the leaves. When they're all gone, we're left with only the heart—the most delicious part.

This helps me explain our coping with sexual molestation. We face the thorny, painful issues first. We chew on a leaf and then bite into the next one.

The problem with abuse is that we rarely know or understand the effects. We struggle with the obvious issues in the beginning. As we heal, we face the less obvious effects. We sometimes ask ourselves if we're getting anywhere or if it's worth the struggle.

But we know it's worth the anguish and the heartache. We may never be fully healed, but each time we bite into a new leaf, we're closer to the heart.

I'm an artichoke. 

Each leaf I chew takes me closer to the pure heart.

(This post was adapted from Not Quite Healed, written by Cecil Murphey and Gary Roe.)