Not Marked an interview with Mary DeMuth

Before we get started, I want to warn you this post is going to be about the sexual abuse (but laced with tremendous hope!).  If this is a subject you can’t read about at this point and need to leave, I understand. Blessing on you and see you next post.

Mary DeMuth is spearheading an exciting project called Not Marked for survivors of sexual abuse and those who love them.  Color me surprised, but as a well published author, publishing houses were scared off by the subject, wished her well but wouldn’t touch it. In this day and age, doesn’t that surprise you?!

Without further ado, here’s Mary.

Some reading this won’t know part of your back story. Could you share a bit of it?

Forty one years ago, two neighborhood boys, brothers, offered my babysitter some free time. They’d take me out in the neighborhood and play with me. I imagined the swing set at my elementary school, or maybe a walk on the beach. But what they wanted was something I didn’t want to give. For months during my kindergarten year, they stole bits and pieces of me. I eventually told my babysitter, but she chose not to protect me. I learned how to sleep in order to protect myself. We moved away from that neighborhood and those awful boys at the end of that year, but the scarring remained.

You’ve written about the sexual abuse you experienced in other places. Share the impetus for Not Marked.

I shared my story in Thin Places, but have never shared in book length form HOW I moved from marked to not marked. This is part story, part healing journey. It’s a book about moving from surviving to thriving by someone who has been in the trenches.

We all know people who have been sexually abused, and therefore, each of us has been touched by it. Part of your dream for Not Marked is to be a resource for those, like your husband Patrick, who have not experienced sexual abuse themselves. Could Patrick share one of the ways he has been influenced by your abuse?

This is an excerpt from the book:
I am thankful that as Mary grew up God did protect her from the effects of her abuse. She did not get into alcohol or drugs as a kid. She was not promiscuous or rebellious. But that doesn’t mean she was whole when I met her. She had deep wounds, deeper than even I was aware. She was on the path to healing, which, if we had met sooner in life probably would have scared me off. The path to healing is one of endurance and peeling back layer by layer. I am thankful that God saw fit to allow me to walk that path with her, because it has caused me to be a conduit of that healing.

You and I are people who believe deeply and fiercely in redemption. Awful things will happen, but no place is unattainable to Jesus. What hope will this book offer to those who have experienced sexual abuse.

Mainly that you don’t have to live as a victim, seeing everything in life through the lenses of sexual abuse. It is possible to have an amazing life. My hope is that we’ll see an army of healed sexual abuse victims daring to help the myriads of people who are victimized this way.

Print on demand (POD) and self-publishing seem to be the rage these days. Why go the route of raising money for this project?

My traditional publishers didn’t want to publish the book. It’s pretty risky when you write about sex and sexual abuse with a Christian worldview. But I knew this book needed to be in the hands of those who have suffered twice—once for the abuse, then twice for how that abuse affects you the rest of your life. So I decided to self-publish it with the help of Indiegogo. Indiegogo is a crowd funding site that helps creatives fund their projects. It’s like having a patron of the arts, except that the patron is not one rich person, but many average folks who are passionate about your project. I wrote about that on this blog post: http://www.marydemuth.com/dont-just-go-create-space/

Mary, thanks for sharing yourself, your story, and your project!

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If you would like to learn more (there is a very cool website) and/or financially support this project, check it out at  indegogo.com. This project has reached the first goal, so the book is a definite go! There are now additional goals like an audio book. Isn’t it encouraging to know {and be reminded} about these kind of projects and the hope that is offered through Jesus that we don’t have to be marked by sin done to us?