Recognize the abuse we’ve known.
Reckon with it.
Re-connect to one another and the gently powerful love of God, who is with us in pain and in healing.
Her Words, My Voice
Heidi Ramer’s mother, Karen, was raped for the first time in 1979. She was sexually assaulted at least twelve more times by the same man over the next three years and emotionally tormented by him for the next twenty. After harboring her secret for years, she eventually sought help through counseling and her faith. After Karen’s untimely death in 2001, Heidi’s father handed her a canvas bag full of handwritten journals. In that bag, Karen left a story that needed to be told. Her Words, My Voice merges the journal entries of a victim of sexual assault with her daughter’s journey of self-discovery to share an authentic, inspiring story of survival, hope, faith, and unwavering love.
Building toward Annual Conference
We encourage you to read this book in preparation for our Annual Conference dinner on July 4 when Heidi will be our speaker. (Buy the book at herwordsmyvoice.com) Whether you’ll be at Annual Conference or not, we hope you will consider studying the book with us on zoom, and/or in your own book clubs and Sunday school classes. Heidi has preached and met with Sunday school classes – contact her through the book website.
Discern this timing for you
This book and our zoom sessions together will be challenging for most of us, and may be triggering to those with experiences of sexual trauma. Pray and discern for yourself whether attendance would foster harm or healing in your journey.
In our meetings, we discuss the book itself as well as our own reactions. Due to the sensitive nature of the book and the vulnerability of the conversations that may occur, we ask you to register to the right.
“My dad said that my mother and I are entangled by our stories. Her story becomes my story, and what happens in mine and who I become all lead back to her. She didn’t get the chance to tell her story but made it clear that it was to be told. She was emphatic in her words that seem to be directed only at me. I have a duty. There are many things I could not or chose not to do for my mother while she was alive, but who am I to deny her this request? There are
countless victims out there, and for every victim, there are multiple secondary victims—those of us who stood on the sidelines and helplessly watched the aftermath of trauma
wreak havoc on the lives of our loved ones. We have stories as well. Our lives are never the same.”
– Heidi Ramer
Join us.
The sessions will be held on Wednesday evenings from 8pm-9pm Eastern on April 17, April 24, May 1, May 8. Registration for this event will close on April 15.