Category Archives: God

Bread for stones

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Jesus gives a powerful analogy for the love of God.

He said that human parents are evil but they still give their children good things. Fish instead of snakes. Bread not stones to eat. He then completes the thought–if we are so messed up but we still do right by our kids. How much more does God bless, love, and nurture?

Great, unless your parent doesn’t do those things.

What if your mother gives you a snake? What if your father gives you stones for bread? What then?

God is enough. He allows His precious children to be raised by wolves, but He sends a Lamb to save us.

Stones always remind me of Jesus. I think about the weight of small stones and imagine the size, weight, and impossibility of the stone in front of the tombs.

God gave his own most beloved son a stone. And that Son emerged alive. The Bread of Life.

Stones for bread.
Bread for stones.
Always Jesus.

Daniel and the Ghost

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Church at our house is a makeshift, dramatic affair aimed towards the active under 6 set. Today my young son asked to do the story of Daniel and the Ghost.

At first this seemed extra-biblical until
I remembered that there is a decidedly ghostly hand in the story of the hand writing on the wall.

We told it and then re-enacted it with maximum drama, but it was also a quiet reminder–

God, and God alone will weigh our lives. Don’t be found wanting by the one person in the universe whose scales are always just.

Church for the Broken

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He was a personal friend and mentor. He encouraged me to pursue God. For years I used him as an example of what a sold-out shepherd did.

A shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. A shepherd puts God first.

In my wilderness faith I have listened to Internet sermons. Recently I found my former pastor’s sermon archive. Good stuff. He is a smart guy–soaring passages of scripture combined with warm and honest anecdotes. Good stuff.

I probably should have left it there–my memories of him 20 years ago were foundational.

But I didn’t.

I emailed and told him I was encouraged by his sermons. Eventually I told him why I was in the wilderness.

Have not heard from him since. As soon as I said “sexual abuse” he was dead quiet. Not the first foundational Christian leader to quietly retreat as soon as I tell my story.

There is no room for sexual abuse survivors in the church. There is plenty of room for pedophiles.

Jesus is unequivocal about these things. Our “churches” should mirror heaven–the kingdom of children, entirely free of evil.

Instead we whitewash the citizens of hell, make them deacons, and banish the broken children they have left behind.

Now, I just stick to the gospels. Jesus never leaves me or my brokenhearted children.

Losing people

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A few days ago I received an email from a family member–normal right?

I could tell this person’s email account had been hijacked because s/he and I do not have a family relationship anymore. S/he joined the ranks of friends and family who were so chagrined by me that the relationship could not be repaired.

Close relations of crime victims often inflict terrible secondary wounds.

They are ashamed of me and my story and to preserve their “normal” life they do really wretched things.

Friends can be equally painful. They stop being friends, shrinking quietly into the shadows, not calling, not inviting our family to events. That familiar blanched look of fear…silence…gone….

I had a friend who was a sister to me. Unlike many she stuck with me through the shock, grief, and early period of survival, but she deeply disapproved of my public efforts to draw attention to what happened to us. Too public…to noisy…

She is gone. It hurts.

The list gets longer and more erratic after that–people who make their money from shepherding other people–gone or worse–cruel.

You start to rethink people. The world seems increasingly lonely.

Yesterday the Christian Post asked if it’s readers experienced loneliness. A bunch vehemently denied it–

Never! I have God! Ditto!!! Double that!

But of course I have to be the lone dissenter. I said,

Jesus experienced loneliness, why shouldn’t I?

That is my motto and I am sticking to it. But I won’t lie to you–I wish I had kept my mouth shut for my children.

They had a shot at “normal,” if it weren’t for my big mouth.

The truth will set us free…no one said it would make us look normal.

Normal is the lie.

For all of us…not just mouthy me.

The Practice of Justice

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When I mull over the latest horrendous story of a child being exploited or murdered I think–somewhere in the multiverse there is a version of me who writes a blog on great chili recipes.

I hate this beat.

But I write about it because I know that exploited children are forgotten, marginalized, stigmatized, and dismissed.

How do I know? Because my children are crime victims. It has been a lonely road for all of us. We have lost family and friends. People react with distance at best. I am not going to catalog “at worst.”

But here is the thing–my kids–the crime victims are vibrant, intelligent, compassionate, wise beyond their years.

I write for them in belief that many other children who have been victimized deserve to heal with dignity.

They deserve a voice.

If you say you are “against child abuse” but then sideline, stigmatize, and ignore actual victims you drive home a message of silence, oppression, and injustice that indeed speaks louder than words.

It all comes down to who you actually invite to your party. That is the test of justice. Ironically it is also the measure of love.

OJ Simpson, Trayvon Martin, and Justice in America

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When OJ Simpson was on trial for murder I worked in an elementary school in a poor, urban area. Most of my colleagues were African American.

We huddled around the tv at lunch to see what was going on. I remember the day of the verdict. Most of my fellow teachers cheered as though their football team had won.

I wondered–

where was justice?

I really doubt that many of them actually thought Simpson was not guilty. What they thought was

life is not fair for black men in America.

It isn’t.

And now we see it not being fair again. We see justice again faltering–this time the victim is African American and the team cheering is white.

This is not a football game.

It is not right for any of us to be so blinded by the outside of another person’s life that we rejoice in their pain, their murder, or their injustice.

Do not tell me God is in charge in the world today if He is not in charge of your heart.

When we bay for blood, hate, and bottled feces in a world shot through with agony and loss we prove we know nothing about love.

And make no mistake. God is not our little Santa Claus, He is not the captain of the white folk football team.

He is love and He is coming soon, with justice in His strong right arm.

That should make us all pray hard. Because not not one of us is holy.
Not one.

God is listening (even if Wendy Davis isn’t)

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A friend of mine told me last night that he doesn’t talk to God because God doesn’t talk back.

Well…

He does actually.

In fact if you cultivate ears to hear He can be quite specific. The problem is we tend not to listen (sort of like Wendy Davis, apparently…where is that woman?!)

I know. You think I am a nut. But whether you believe it or not I blame some of that on God listening.

Let’s take the pink sneakers for instance. I was pretty disgusted by the way the media co-opted the story of five month old unborn babies getting torn from life itself and made it a cozy-cute story about footwear.

I kept thinking about all the dead children who will never wear their pink sneakers. So I prayed–God, if you want me to do something about this help me find a pair of tiny pink sneakers.

I think I kinda upped the ante because I went to a single resale store and prayed again–ok, God, I need the perfect slippers. I had to hunt a bit to find the kid’s shoe section. There were only a handful of shoes there, but the ones I had prayed for were sitting on the shelf. God listening.

Every story changes if you believe in an interventionist God. It changes again if He is a God of love. Again if justice is in His strong right arm. And finally if you acknowledge He expects something from you.

He does. Are you going to listen?

Don’t know how? Not that hard. Try this–

Read something from the Gospel every day.

Turn stuff off. Candy Crush may be great, but God takes focus.

Look for signs of His presence, power, and love–you know, sunsets, kittens, Leonardo da Vinci. Stuff random and senseless can’t do.

Ask Him.

I have known God personally for years, some of them tough and effacing. In all that time there has not been one question He hasn’t answered.

He is worth the trouble, the quiet, and the separation from the herd. Let’s face it sometimes the herd can get a little noisy, pink sneakers and all.

Just: a book review

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No one in their right mind writes a book review of their own book so people don’t have to read it.

So here goes:

I wrote Just because books had helped me through some tough times.

It is not a work of literature. It is a cry for help. I wanted to add to the voices of men and women who had helped me–mostly celebrity survivors who had been courageous and told their stories. Oprah, and Ellen, Sugar Ray, Ashley Judd, and Todd Bridges…

What would have I done without them?

So this the story: we fostered and adopted children damaged by neglect and abuse.

Life with them was so hard. It became even harder when we found out my adopted son had molested some of my children and others.

We pushed for legal consequences.
We dealt with the damage.

I was surprised by how little protection the justice system gave us. The book was a cry for help and a warning.

What I would add to that as an epilogue of sorts is that there is another book too painful and personal to write about what I call the shunning syndrome.

If you are brave or foolish enough to speak openly about being victimized by sexual abuse, you lose almost everyone you love.

Tough book to write. Even tougher to live. Par for the course for humans–we let our wolves drive our flocks.

But beyond the lonely places, we are fine (thank you).

Prayers for my reactive attachment disorder children

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I face this story every day, every moment of every day:

Once upon a time there were two teens. They both came from stories of neglect and abuse. Someone had hurt them by not giving them safety. Others by transgressing the most basic law of love–don’t hurt a child.

They hooked up. Had kids. Wandered into ways to dull the pain and longing in their hearts.

The children were so young but they still remember hunger, watching their parents leave them locked alone with a single cupcake to share among them all.

Longing. We all long for something–love, truth, justice. But what if that longing is never heard? A child cries but no one holds him? A little girl lives with a gnawing ache for food.

What happens when the search for love and safety comes up empty before they are one or two or three?

I watch her face in each picture. She never smiles. I want to say to her mother–pick her up, snuggle with her, talk baby talk to her and feed her. That is why you get wic, so she can be full.

Break the cycle, girl, for God’s sake, break the cycle.

What is it like to be raised by wolves?

Better than this. Wolves are social animals, willing to hunt for their young.

I search for answers, but there are few that satisfy. I cringe at memory–my own exasperation, impatience, and exhaustion. So many things I would do better.

I say that ruefully knowing that the maxim I had at 27 was true and mattered–regardless of the raggedy look of things. You must hold on. They need years of you just being there.

I am here. I won’t ever leave you.

He asks if we can meet. I say yes, but only me. The others are not ready.

Ready is a placeholder for heartbroken. Reactive attachment disorder can seep into the lives of everything it meets. It takes no prisoners.

I pray. I pray all the time. I pray they do not hurt or kill or disfigure. I pray for safety. I cast about for anyone or anything I could enlist to save them…from themselves. The longing for mother’s love turns to drugs, alcohol and reckless touch. Wires in a machine all shorted or circuited wrong.

Nothing will work but love, and by love I mean compassion. And by compassion I mean Jesus. I do the only thing that makes sense when the disease at the heart of your child is terminal–I cling to the feet of God and say, Save these babies, resurrecting God.

Welcome to the Post Christian Era

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I once lived in a country without religion.

Yes. There were churches. With cameras and careful supervision.

They knew who came and who went, they controlled each dry scrap of bread.

But were these churches christian? Was this Christianity?

Bells can ring and bells can toll.
We should recognize the difference–a matter of life or death…