5 a day

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Elea Lee

Last April I made a commitment to write about child abuse every day in remembrance of National Child Abuse Prevention Month. It was spiritually and emotionally painful.

This year I have committed to write about recovery. I don’t think most kids have happy, stress-free childhoods, but some experience more grief and trauma than others.

And then there are the five each day.

In the United States of America 5 children die each day from the fatal effects of child abuse. Beautiful little children like Toryn Buckman.

Imagine if it were 5 celebrities, 5 soccer moms, 5 athletes, 5 politicians. Any other group of people in this country gets killed off in groups of five or more a day and we would have a national crisis. It would be national news. It would be a scandal. Advocates would call for change.

But not children. Children in our country are second-class citizens. They have no voice. We have to be their voices.

When I contacted elected officials and bureaucrats to ask them to assist abused children to a man they said the same thing–this is not my issue.

Is it yours?

Imagine Injustice

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Elea Lee

Imagine human values were marsupial–clinging to each of our heads.

One man would walk from his house to his car with animal lust clinging to his shiny pate. Another would shuffle to the mailbox as pride monkeyed with his ears.

Sure, some people’s resident animals would be symbiotic–well-mannered love, or the singing bird of truth, but far more would stagger about assiduously nursing their prejudices, manipulations, and vice.

Now imagine you are a child–astounded and a little afraid. All these nattering animals clinging to the necks of grownups! You eye them warily. Maybe dare eventually to raise a question or two–who are they? Why do they stay?

When you do. When you do the parents, aunts, uncles, neighbors look at you blankly-what are you talking about? There are no animals here.

Equality! And the wrong sides of history

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Elea Lee

Let’s say, just hypothetically, that you arranged a legal transaction with a person who turned out to be immoral, abusive, felonious. Now suppose after years of attempting to do your best to hang on to the relationship you are forced into the difficult decision of protecting yourself–from abuse.

Now consider two potential wrinkles to this scenario:

You are a child and your “legal partner” is an adult.

Or….

You are a parent and your “legal partner” is a dangerous minor.

In the first scenario children are at the mercy of a legal system that does not want to intervene on their behalf. Why? Money, Oh, and maybe discomfort. But there is a third option–older people get significantly reduced sentences or no punishment at all for serious or deadly crimes against children because children do not have equal protection under the law.

They do not have equivalent civil rights.

And parents of mentally ill or abusive teens? Just try finding legal protection from abuse. It would make sense to simply call the police when a crime occurs, but parents are on their own if their abuser is their own child.

The law should be the arena of protection for a civilized society, but the murders of Thomas More and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were legal. We are not only as good as the laws we enact; we are only as just as the ones we choose to enforce.

Immoral laws, immoral judges, and myopic citizens make for a country where a baby can be shot in the face on the street and a distracted nation thinks it is a brave new world for futzing over the sexual practices of adults.

Oh, yeah…Brave New World.. Thank you, Mr. Huxley, for giving us all a prophetic heads up on how all this will end.

Is it?

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Elea Lee

Imagine.
You have resuscitated the carrier pigeon.

you bred raptors?

Why yes.
Actually I did.
they live far from me now
One is a runner.
Not like track.
Tracks. Lines…
In the spring snow…

The other?
An enigma.
I wish I had a machine…
Like Enigma.
I could put it all down–
My coded message to you
About the hurt and confusion
Injustice was a U-boat
Sinking good men
He says,

life is sweet right now

And I wonder,
What is the unbreakable
Code
I could write you this and know
It will be clear.
It will all be
Made clear
In the end.

Faith.

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Elea Lee

Last night I saw a meme for “love never fails” from first Corinthians.

Love wins
Love endures
Love triumphs
Love is stronger than death

Sounds pretty good, right?
Sounds crazy good.
Ok, sounds ridiculous.

Love triumphed in Nazi Germany? In Hiroshima? In Rwanda? Hardly seems to have…

We have to fess up. The Bible is just a bad Hallmark greeting card if love fails.. And there are times when it seems to be coming dead last in the race.

Times indeed. But that is the point. For love to win in the end, win in the world, love has to win in me.. I have to not only believe in love, I have to stake my fate to it. Hard to believe an abstraction can win like that–over the wreck of human history.

What can a single word do? Can it win anything? Can a word truly triumph?

Yes. If the word is Jesus.

I fought for her.

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Elea Lee

I look at my daughter. She is tall and beautiful now and uses words that make her sound older than she is.

She is up late writing. She loves to write. She struggles with things she shouldn’t–when she gets hurt she apologizes.

I am sorry, Mom, I am sorry.

She says even as I try to comfort her and reassure her–getting injured is not your fault. I am so sorry you got hurt.

I blame her abuser. He taught her that she could not trust her instinct. He was wrong.

But others were wrong too. They told her to hide. They told her she was not worth the trouble. They did not defend her.

I did. I did because it was the least I could do.. She is my daughter–more precious to me than my own life.

I knew how to fight for her because of love.

Love fights for the children.

Then he builds a wall around us with his own pain.

And never lets us go.

Dog Stories…

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Elea Lee

Mark 7:26-28 (NIV)
The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter. [27] “First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” [28] “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

I used to see this story differently. I will talk about my used-to-see story separately: the Christian I used to be.

But for now I have to let the woman I am speak.

I have lived in countries where dogs were food. I have seen them wandering emaciated and lost on the street. Some dogs have a tough life.

But not our brothers’ dogs. Not my mother’s dogs.

My mother loves dogs more than me. It is a function of her askew thinking. So now when I see this conversation I see a woman who might plead for her little dog over the life of her daughter.

Hard to face.

Or my mother-in-law…

Who once refused to restrain a dog menacing her grandchild.

Strange choices. Unless you face the truth: in our country we are more comfortable advocating for the rights of dogs than children.

Worldwide the practice of sex-selected abortion is rampant. Our daughters are not safe. We do not plead for them anymore.

And my babies?

My father-in-law once refused his granddaughter a piece of meat from my plate. His anger was palpable and his misogyny extends beyond what is moral.

Small dogs get crumbs indeed.

In my family it is the little girls beneath the table, while the adults let the dogs ravage the meal.

Weddings where the dog is the maid of honor, and the children are not welcome at the table.

I will not go back. Please, God, protect my children from…

The dogs at the table.

All Our Happy Endings

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Elea Lee

Been readin’ some quotes–GK, CS, JC…the usual dudes, and then a couple off the beaten path.

Hitler, for instance, said that it was harder to overcome faith than knowledge.

And Christopher Hitchens recounting an anecdote about a Rwandan survivor who had lost everyone–her whole history and future wiped out.

Faith indeed, to say there is a God to answer that.

But I do believe, not in spite of the Hilters and Rwandas littering the floor of history. No. I believe because of them.

See– if adoption is a mirror of our relationship with God we should face the raw stink of the adoptees–us.

We stink.

We kill
We maim
We steal
We lie about it.
We do it again.

But that is the heart and soul of the story–a perfect and compassionate Parent adopts the worst kids in the universe.

A real mess.

Only His love can change us.
And it does.

But remember–no faking. He can tell when we are lying about the state of our deadly hearts.

And we are all gonna get a bath eventually–one way or the other…

Better the hands of Love

The First Day

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Elea Lee

The first day was awful. Awful because it meant I failed my kids. Awful because we weren’t safe. Awful because I believed a lie about someone I loved. And the truth about him was awful.

The first day you find out your child has been sexually abused is also a very important day for good things–

The first day I knew my adopted son abused my child was the last day of her abuse. She has been safer because she told.

The first day is important because when you tell you save others from abuse. All kids deserve safety.

The first day you just aim to survive. And love your kid, because she needs to know how precious she is.

I asked my kids today what they would tell a kid on the first day. They said:

it is not your fault
It is good you told
This happens to a lot of kids
You are brave
And this won’t ruin your whole life, it won’t be your whole life.

The last one means a lot to me. It means we are surviving. We are living through this together.

And if we can, so can you

Carrying Light

Words for light

Category Archives: abuse survivors