Write Out of My Heart

Clara Ruffin can rightfully boast of having been married for more than 50 years to a wonderful man and of being the proud mother of not one, but two doctors. She is also a national award-winning educator, a minister who smuggled Bibles into China, and the co-founder of the Ministry of the Open Door and the Hartford Friendship Kids' Camp, two nonprofit organizations.

But come closer and read her real story, the story of one whose life has been touched with loss, neglect, grief, confusion, violence, and shame. These were stops along Clara's journey, but her destination was redemption.

Having lost her beautiful young mother to a violent death when she was only eleven, Clara endured rejection from her biological father, as well as confusion and shame from experiences of molestation by a neighbor and later, by female peers. If there was beauty in her early circumstances, Clara didn't see it. Despite her grandmother's strong faith instilled in her at an early age, she questioned God's existence and His love for her, especially since pain and misery were what she personally experienced in her early years. Clara also painfully chronicles the time she was sexually assaulted while in college, the resulting loss of her virginity, and her introduction to marijuana as a coping mechanism.

Hers is a familiar story, not unlike the narrative of many Black women since the beginning of time-stories shared and stories quieted well before #MeToo.Though each has different nuanced particulars of experiences, the same feelings of unworthiness, shame, and hopelessness are ever present. As you read Clara's journey you may feel like she has peeked inside your diary-knowing your guilt, confusion, and most notably, your secrecy-but she tells it in melodic, poetic rhythm, peppered with quiet wisdom that only one's personal experience can offer.

Clara's testimony illuminates the pathway to hope and freedom. Although many may share similar experiences, hope is often not their remedy. Victims of neglect and abuse often spiral into the vast abyss of destruction. Some do it with intention. Others blindly fall due to foolish ignorance-believing that alcohol, sex, and drugs may be the perfect elixir to dull the pain, only to learn there is One true salve that can heal the soul-the blood of Jesus. Clara's story will leave you hopeful that dragons can be slayed, and that holding onto God can get you through, no matter how deep the despair.

In Write Out of My Heart, Clara unflinchingly unpacks her family dysfunction and her questions about sexual identity and her purpose in life, exposing layers of guilt and the profound impact these traumas had on her psyche. She limped around for years with unforgiveness in her heart toward all who had hurt or abandoned her. Most especially did she feel this way about the man who had fathered her.

It is wonderful, though, that God, in His own timing and way when our hearts are ready for the experience, scoops us up, opens our blinded eyes and tenderly whispers to us, "I love you; I have a purpose for your life; I will use your pain and you as My instrument in the lives of others." After she received the gift of writing, God told Clara, "Write out of your heart." And this she has done, that He might be glorified. Clara's story, written in her own words with warmth and truth, resonates with what many of us have experienced, yet it also intersects with the joy, passion, and hope of a life redeemed, renewed, and empowered by God! You may not enjoy this read, but you can thrive on it, and like Clara, fall in love with the Savior who gives quintessential definition to the name Redeemer. Write Out of My Heart should fall in the category of "Required Reading" for all.