{"id":35512,"date":"2018-01-11T00:00:57","date_gmt":"2018-01-11T06:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/?p=35512"},"modified":"2023-05-16T13:04:54","modified_gmt":"2023-05-16T18:04:54","slug":"opening-eyes-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/opening-eyes-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening Eyes"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"bsf_rt_marker\"><\/div><p><img alt=\"Eyes\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-34795 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/607\/2017\/06\/iStock-530447323-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"Eyes\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><strong>From our staff:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Once, Josh and I were in Vancouver, B.C. for a \u00a0conference. Almost 2,500 Canadians came from all over the area (some drove 24 hours) to attend this conference titled \u201cHidden in Plain Sight.\u201d Josh spoke at the opening and closing sessions, presented at a workshop, and spoke at a local church on Sunday. He also shared his life story at a lunch for 450 businessmen and women.<\/p>\n<p>At the business lunch he shared how he had held onto the bitterness, hurt, and anger about being sexually abused for years. Keeping that inside him had influenced how he treated people and responded to situations.<\/p>\n<p>He told the audience, \u201cThirty-five percent of you know exactly what I\u2019m talking about, because you have been sexually abused in your past.\u201d He shared how he was freed from that anger and bitterness after coming to Christ when he was able to forgive the man who had abused him.<\/p>\n<p>Afterwards, the man who hosted the luncheon and ministers to many of the people in attendance asked Josh, \u201cIs that really true? Thirty-four percent have been sexually abused? That\u2019s hard to believe.\u201d Josh replied, \u201cJust stand next to me for the next few minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>In 15 minutes six people got close to Josh and confided, \u201cI know exactly what you\u2019re talking about. It happened to me.\u201d One sharp-dressed businessman shared, \u201cI was abused as a child. You are the first person I have ever told.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Our host was dumbstruck. He told Josh several times, \u201cI never would have believed this. I never would have known these people have been wounded by this for years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This eye-opening experience will enable him to minister more deeply to the people he works with and provide them with hope found in Christ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From our staff: Once, Josh and I were in Vancouver, B.C. for a \u00a0conference. Almost 2,500 Canadians came from all over the area (some drove 24 hours) to attend this conference titled \u201cHidden in Plain Sight.\u201d Josh spoke at the opening and closing sessions, presented at a workshop, and spoke at a local church on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23327,"featured_media":34795,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"1189","_seopress_titles_title":"Opening Eyes - on the Stories Blog | josh.org","_seopress_titles_desc":"Josh shares his own heartbreaking story of childhood sexual abuse, and the terrible statistics of how many suffer as he did--and opens a minister's eyes.","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1189],"tags":[558,339,593,594],"translator":[],"blog-author":[78],"class_list":["post-35512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-god-on-the-move","tag-changed-life-stories","tag-josh","tag-sexual-abuse","tag-statistics","blog-author-josh-mcdowell-ministry-team"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/607\/2017\/06\/iStock-530447323-scaled.jpg","meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23327"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35512"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/translator?post=35512"},{"taxonomy":"blog-author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog-author?post=35512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}