12 Steps for the Abused

Whether Sexual, Physical, or Emotional Abuse

1. We admit we are powerless over the past, and as a result, our lives have become unmanageable.

2. Believe God can restore us to wholeness, and realize this power can always be trusted to bring healing and wholeness in our lives.

3. Make a decision to turn our lives and our wills to the care of God, realizing we have not always understood His unconditional love. Choose to believe He does love us, is worthy of trust, and will help us to understand Him as we seek His truth.

4. Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, realizing all wrongs can be forgiven. Renounce the lie that the abuse was our fault.

5. Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of the wrongs in our lives. This will include those acts perpetrated against us, as well as those wrongs we perpetrated against others.

6. By accepting God's cleansing, we can renounce our shame. Now we are ready to have God remove all these character distortions and defects.

7. Humbly ask Him to remove our shortcomings, including our guilt. We release our fear and submit to Him.

8. Make a list of all persons who have harmed us and become willing to seek God's help in forgiving our perpetrators, as well as forgiving ourselves. Realize we've also harmed others and become willing to make amends to them.

9. Extend forgiveness to ourselves and to others who have perpetrated against us, realizing this is an attitude of the heart, not always confrontation. Make direct amends, asking forgiveness from those people we have harmed, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continue to take personal inventory as new memories and issues surface. We continue to renounce our shame and guilt, but when we are wrong, promptly admit it.

11. Continue to seek God through prayer and meditation to improve our understanding of His character, praying for knowledge of His truth in our lives, His will for us, and for the power to carry that out.

12. Having a spiritual awakening as we accept God's love and healing through these steps, we try to carry His message of hope to others, and practice these principles as new memories and issues surface — claiming God's promise of restoration and wholeness.