From Abuse to Healing

In all honesty, this is a very difficult topic for me. Part of the difficulty is that I have been very fortunate in my life, in that I have never had an abusive relationship. But this is also very difficult for me because of the nature of the subject. It is hard to imagine living in constant fear of abuse from someone who is supposed to love you.

Unfortunately, we hear stories of abuse in many various forms in all segments of our society. So when I discovered that St. Monica is a patron saint for people who have been abused, I knew I couldn’t shy away from it. As an educator for 23 years, this is certainly something I have to learn about. I have been through so many sessions about watching for the warning signs and what to do if I suspect a child is being abused. It is always a terrifying and heart-breaking topic to contemplate.

I assume I am not alone in my worry that I just won’t see it. What if there is a kid right in front of me, secretly begging me to notice his pain, and I’m missing it. Well that’s the problem, isn’t it? Abusers don’t tend to advertise their actions or do them when others are around. Then they manipulate their victims to be afraid to tell anyone. That’s what is so frustrating! I feel completely helpless to make a difference. And that just makes it that much more infuriating when we do find out about a case of abuse. We want to lash out at anyone who would harm someone and anyone who looked the other way rather than stop it from happening.

So tell me, what is the Christian response? I know we’re supposed to hate the sin and love the sinner, but how is my human heart and soul going to manage that? Actually, this just reminded me of a bit of advice that I heard in a most unexpected place. I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but here goes:

In my last week of summer, before we started back to school, I binge-watched a Netflix series called The Crown. It’s supposed to be about the life of Queen Elizabeth, II. I’m sure they follow the known historical facts pretty closely, but they obviously have to guess about what the personal moments of her life were like. Anyway, one episode was about Billy Graham’s visit to England when Elizabeth was still a young woman. She was fascinated by him and asked someone to arrange for her to meet him. Then she had a crisis of conscience soon after they met, and she asked to meet him again.

Now this might be from some kind of diary entry or something, or this scene might be fictional, but the message seemed rather helpful, either way. She told him that she knows Christians are supposed to forgive one another, but she is having a very hard time doing that for one particular person. She asked what she should do since she can’t find the forgiveness in her heart. He told her that God knows we are human and understands that we do not have perfect forgiveness in our hearts like he has. Then he gave her a great piece of advice. He said that even if she can’t forgive this person, she can still pray for him.

I love the sentiment, but it’s still quite a challenge. I don’t know about you, but when I look at my list of prayer intentions each day, I don’t usually have anyone on the list who has done something terrible to another person, as far as I know. Since the Lord knows my heart, can I really get to a place where I convincingly pray for someone who has been an abuser? Whether the victim is a child or an adult, the idea of abuse is so horrifying to me. I am struggling to find a way to muster that prayer.

Meanwhile, let’s be clear. I don’t believe that the Christian response is to pray for the person and let him or her get away with the abuse. What I do believe is that I need to learn to pray for the abuser while he or she is facing legitimate consequences for that crime. I suppose the prayer could be that the Lord will stop the abuser from ever hurting anyone again. We could probably also pray that he or she learns to feel the appropriate amount of remorse.

See, I told you this would be a difficult topic. If you’re still reading this, thanks for sticking with me through the whole thing. As always, let’s end with a prayer.

Dear God, please protect our families and friends and neighbors and acquaintances from the horrors of abuse. Give victims of abuse the courage to speak up and get help. And guide all of us to be protectors for others, and to know what to do if we discover an incidence of abuse. Please also guide the abusers to realize the error of their ways, accept the consequences for their actions, and turn away from sin. And finally, please help all of us to find at least enough Christian compassion in our hearts to mean it when we pray that way.