I am in a children’s museum feeling inadequate because I know that I had one primary goal in life: be a good mom. Even before I had kids I wanted to be a good mom in Sunday school, youth group, to my 50 year old Iranian student–good mom.
I will feel my inadequacy in my bones
It is not our fault we are deceived by predators.
It is our fault if we don’t provide the remedy.
The truth sets us free…
She had been out of radio contact for awhile so I was glad when she called
She was in the hospital for all the usual stuff
I worry about the baby.
Give her my usual (inadequate) pep talks
Pray.
There are so many kinds of prayer–which we must remember, means talking to God.
There is easy prayer
Otherwise known as grace
There is harder prayer
Which involves some level of suspense
Like when will the baby or rain
Come?
And then there is the prayer you pray for a child lost at sea.
This prayer is only possible with miracles and men rising from the dead
It starts with a profession of faith
Something like…no one could do this but You
Or
You are a God of miracles…
Or (I admit)
God I have no idea whatsoever how you could do this but You can, only you can..
This last prayer is always a life and death matter
J is a good story teller. He reads books without always sticking to the script.
Sometimes this means funny voices and sometimes it means meticulously adding extra drawings of a 4 year old’s favorite character.
Tonight he transposed “dizzy” to “benign positional vertigo”
He makes me laugh, but may also help the kid with his MCATs
The connection is not good
His speech is blurry
I ask the usual questions
About job and schedule
what are your plans for the future?
He says he may join the army
since the %#*^#%^
what?
I ask
What?
could you say that again?
Knowing he is standing at a pay
Phone
Miles away from me
When S was little she loved Elmo. We did not get PBS on tv so we watched DVDs. I always associate Elmo with her babyhood.
The first time someone talked about her being “damaged goods” because she was a sexual assault survivor I was knocked back. In a country where women are paid and applauded for nudity, a little girl’s non-consensual abuse would make her “damaged goods?!”
Children are hurt, wounded, violated, and robbed by sexual abuse
But they are not damaged goods. Ever.
What damages us all most is when we hand the abuse of children over to the wolves and refuse to speak out and fight for the dignity and safety of every little girl who once loved Elmo.
Some people are healing listeners. They help me just by reading this, abiding with my quixotic ways..
But there are others who astound me
They hear my story and do not grieve
They only tell me what I should do
And those people?
Always wrong…
Listening skills and empathy–dangerous compassion
My daughter has a winsome smile, a keen wit, a sharp eye for chess and a knack for Shakespeare.
She is also a crime victim.
Grief stalks us all. We lose people we love to death, cancer, accidents…
We need to be honest and admit that grief and pain stalk us all.
We need someone to save us. Someone who will stay with us through the pain and help pick up the pieces.
Some willing to be lonely and misunderstood with us. To stay with us through it.
Jesus cried out His ultimate loneliness on the Cross so we would not have to face this broken world alone.
I think it is safe to say I love Harper Lee. So much so I named a pet “Scout” and have been itching to name a kid Harper for a decade.
Atticus has seen me through some tough times.
But here’s the thing, because of my outspoken telling of our family story (adoption, RAD, abuse) I know a lot of victims of child sexual abuse.
Most are white, stable, well-educated and financially stable.
They are not Mayella Ewing.
And yet I believe the reason why 90% of these people are extremely quiet about their stories is the grim stereotype associated with Mayella.
Think about it. How would our perception of abuse victims be different if it had been Scout, Jem, or Dill who had been abused?
Would you tell your story if you knew people would think of you as a Ewing?
Would you fight any harder if it were Scout?
And, for a diehard TKM fan this is hard; Mayella Ewing deserved better. From her wretched father of course, but how about everyone else in Maycomb? Was there no one who could have helped her?
More than 50 years later I will say it–
No
At least very, very few…
I used to preach. Seems weird to me now because those sermons, talks and exhortations all exist beyond the scrim of discovering that my children (and their friends) had been, were being sexually abused by my adopted son, Charles.
By the time the abuse was revealed I had already quit because Em was having lots of problems. Charles just finished the deal.
All this to say that following Jesus is not about hearing or preaching sermons. It is about living the life of God in His wake and in His love.
Harder than a sermon, as elemental as a preschool lesson–
1. Ask Him to pour out
His love all over you
And
2. Pour it out on others
She found herself gazing at the child.
Dragons are accustomed to solitary places. Her heart was creased and caged by the years she had lived.
In her mind she could see her life stretched out in a long train of high haunts and gleaming fortresses. She was no longer proud of the way she could make men run in fear and trembling when she came to the breaches and swooped down to take their treasure–gold, jewels, bolts of silk and brocade. Before she had brooded over it like a nesting bird, but now her gaze had shifted.
Now she watched the boy. He supplanted all thoughts of other treasure. In times past she would run her scaly claws through the things she owned, anxious to keep things. Now she wish–ached to be able to take all of it to Someone–someone who could with power and promise keep this child safe–from the darkness in the world she knew too well.
