When I reflect on my life now, I understand something I didn’t fully have language for back then: rape is not defined by violence alone. It is defined by a lack of consent.

And that truth changes everything.

My experience wasn’t part of God’s plan for me—but what I can see now is that God still carried me through it. He allowed me to heal, to be restored, and to gain something I didn’t have before: clear revelation about what consent actually means.

Not the watered-down version. Not the religious assumptions. But the real thing.

Because I realize now that if my experience in 2013 had never happened, I could have easily gone into adulthood with a very different understanding. I might have gotten married at 25 or 30, and if something similar had happened inside a relationship I “loved,” I may not have even had the language to recognize it.

That’s what scares me the most when I think about it now.

So many people believe rape only looks like force, violence, or strangers. But the truth is much more complicated—and much more hidden. Most people are never taught that consent must be freely given, ongoing, and clear. They are taught that marriage automatically means access, or that love removes the need for questioning. And because of that, many people stay in denial about what they’ve experienced.

Even in the church, this conversation is often incomplete. There is often emphasis on marriage as the “right place” for sex, but not enough deep teaching about autonomy, pressure, coercion, or what it means when consent is missing within relationships that are supposed to be safe.

And that silence leaves people vulnerable.

It can make someone question their own reality instead of questioning what was done to them.

What I know now is this: love does not cancel consent. Marriage does not cancel consent. Trust does not cancel consent. And silence does not mean agreement.

Consent is not assumed—it is chosen.

And I think part of my healing has been learning that I am allowed to name what I now understand, even if I didn’t have the words back then. Even if other people don’t understand it yet. Even if culture or religion doesn’t always talk about it clearly.

Because truth has a way of becoming clearer over time.

And when it does, it doesn’t erase the past—but it does give it meaning, language, and clarity that was missing before.

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