Interviewed by The 700 Club host, Terry Meeuwsen, Angela discusses her book, From Sorrows To Sapphires, which educates adults on preventing child sexual abuse and helping survivors heal.

Video Transcript:

Terry Meeuwsen: When Angela Williams was in the fourth grade, she told her teacher that she was raped. When her parents found out, Angela was punished for using that bad word. Angela swore to silence after that, but now she's grown up and not afraid to speak out.

Narrator: Angela Williams was sexually abused by her stepfather at the age of three. He used fear to trap little Angela, in a world of sickening silence. Her mother looked the other way. At 17, Angela tried to break the cycle of abuse with a suicide attempt and failed. In her book, From Sorrows to Sapphires, Angela tells the courageous story of her journey to freedom from incest.

Angela Williams: This is an issue whose time has come.

Narrator: She shares what others should know to break the silence and stop the cycle of child sexual abuse.

Terry Meeuwsen : Angela Williams is with us now. And Angela, we thank you for being on our show.

Angela Williams: It is an honor to be here.

Terry Meeuwsen : This is a subject whose time has come. I mean, I think there's so much going on in our culture. We can't deny this anymore. People are shocked by it, but it's time for us to do something about it. When you experienced this in your life as a child, you were being molested sometimes more than once a day.

Angela Williams: Yes.

Terry Meeuwsen: But on a daily basis. How did you survive that?

Angela Williams: It's the grace of God, honestly.

Terry Meeuwsen: Did you know the Lord as a child?

Angela Williams: As a child, my grandmother really poured the word into me and gave me hope and gave me an understanding. But I think so many children are so isolated in that pain and so traumatized, and you really feel like there is no one you can tell.

And children almost feel like they're consensual in the act when they absolutely have no power to protect themselves. And our world really does look the other way. It's very difficult because children will not verbally tell, but behaviorally, they'll act out, and there'll be signs that we just don't pay attention to.

Terry Meeuwsen: What are some of the signs we should look for?

Angela Williams: Well, you want to look for a drastic change in behavior, or you want to look for that child that's maybe withdrawn, or maybe is lying, or maybe is wetting the bed. Or maybe just look in their eyes and just see if there's something that looks disturbing. And ask. We’re not asking children. We're not saying, has anyone ever touched you uncomfortably?

Terry Meeuwsen: Well, in fact, in your own case, when you did. I mean, one of the issues with kids is they don't know who's the safe person to go to.

Angela Williams: They really don't.

Terry Meeuwsen: So in your own case, there was more than one time that you tried to tell someone about this and you were shut down. How did you deal with that?

Angela Williams: Well, I think, like every child deals with it. You decide you're not going to tell anybody because you're not going to be believed. And there's so many of your viewers that are even adults that are dealing with it and feel like if I disclose, no one is going to believe me. So that's one of the biggest issues, is we've got to start believing our children.

Terry Meeuwsen: You must have felt so hopeless as a young child and so alone in the midst of that. This went on for years and years and years, and then at 17, you had had it. What was it that made you say, this is it?

Angela Williams: I think everyone has a breaking point, and I think everyone, that was mine. There was a season that I tried to find my biological father and that was met with disappointment.

Terry Meeuwsen: One more smack.

Angela Williams: One more smack. And it was just a time where there was an incident in the home that became escalated violently. And I just couldn't take it anymore. I just thought death and I thought God would forgive me, that death was a better answer.

Terry Meeuwsen: I think one of the questions that people ask when they hear a story like yours and you had to have asked it. Where was your mom in the midst of what was happening in your home? And how did you handle your relationship with her?

Angela Williams: My mother was also abused, so she was going through her own trauma. And my mother didn't have the confidence, and a lot of women out there don't have the confidence to face this and to really take the steps of courage. And it takes great courage. And child sexual abuse doesn't just impact the child, it impacts everyone in that family.

And as we can see now, it has a ripple effect throughout our community. There are those that had nothing to do with sexual abuse that will suffer because of people's decisions to look the other way. So, I think it's just a difficult situation and trauma in a family for anyone and everyone to deal with.

Terry Meeuwsen: Well. And Angela, a lot of people who've gone through what you've gone through, I think, then have a lot of bitterness toward the parent, whether it's the mom or the dad who didn't step up to the plate. Have you been able to resolve that with your mom?

Angela Williams: That is only the power of Jesus Christ that allows us to forgive. And I think that if your viewers are survivors and they're listening, you have to realize that God did not cause this. It was man's free will to sin and that it was really the enemy overpowering them and taking charge of their actions.

So, you have to separate, and you have to understand there is evil in this world and there was evil perpetrated against me. But if I wallow in that resentment and I stay there, then I rob myself and my life and my family of the joy that I deserve.

Terry Meeuwsen: And then it's got you.

Angela Williams: Yes.

Terry Meeuwsen: Let's talk a little bit about the answer. Finding somebody who can help you walk your way out of the maze, of all of that hurt and woundedness, because not every counselor is equipped to do that.

Angela Williams: Well, our society really wants survivors to go behind closed doors and heal in isolation. The abuse happened in isolation. So, what Voice Today, our organization, wants to do is help survivors heal in community. And we really don't find resources right now in our society to help survivors heal.

You can go down the street and there are churches who have support groups for depression and eating disorders and drug addictions, but you don't find support for adult survivors of child sexual abuse. So, we want to bring those resources into the community. And I think that the first step in healing is breaking your silence. That victory comes with your voice.

Terry Meeuwsen: And does that break the shame factor involved in that as well?

Angela Williams: It's a process. I don't think you can say immediately by disclosing that you don't feel that shame. And survivors of child sexual abuse are exposed to a tremendous amount of perversion. There's often pornography involved. You're forced to do things that in your wildest imagination you would never ever want to do. So, I think it's a process, and I think our society needs to understand how to nurture and have great compassion for survivors and understand that they had no power in this, and they had no strength to stand up against their abuser.

Terry Meeuwsen: The stats are staggering. What can parents do to protect their children?

Angela Williams: There is so much a parent can do. And we have many programs at Voice Today to learn how to predict and prevent child sexual abuse. And one of them is Tough Talk to Tender Hearts. And what we try to do is explain and coach parents that these are conversations that have to start very early.

Our society wants to have one conversation at puberty when our media is educating our children on sex, and it's not in God's divine plan. So, what we really want to do is start very young, explaining to children the anatomical names of their body parts. Explaining that wear your bathing suit covers, no one has a right to touch your body parts. That you can come and tell me.

Parents need to realize that they are inadvertently putting their children in dangerous situations, maybe behind closed doors in music lessons. You wouldn't normally think that's a dangerous situation. But we need to become vigilant as a society and where are the threats in our child's life? And not be paranoid of everyone, but certainly be educated and be trained and be vigilant and understand that we can prevent this. We can begin to talk to our children about the issue.

Not every person that they meet is going to be safe, and not every person in their family is safe.

Terry Meeuwsen: In fact, we need to talk to our children about it repeatedly. With so much pornography available to people on the internet and in so many other ways.

Angela Williams: And that's anonymous and it's very accessible to our children, and it is abusing our children. And we see more youth acting out on youth, and we have classes on how to protect our children from predators and pornography.

So, this is just education that we need to get into the community, and at voicetoday.org they can just hear a five-minute video. That's a beginning of an education on what they can do very practically in their home.

Terry Meeuwsen: Let's do something to make a difference, folks. If you want more information on healing sexual abuse, I want you to know Angela's book is called From Sorrows to Sapphires. You can find out how to get a copy by going to Cbn.com and as she said, lots of wonderful information at her organization's site. You can find a link to that on our site. Thank you. It's wonderful to have you with us.

Angela Williams: Thank you so much.­­­­­­­­­­­