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Chapter One

My son came quietly into the room. This son is quite handsome, with great athletic ability. He is quiet, spirited, well-mannered and yet somewhat lazy when it comes to chores. It was too early for him to be home from school, which made my “mom ears” perk up. I remembered fussing about him missing practice, noting his eyes were red as if strained. He sat down in the chair like an elderly gentleman – weary of life. He looked pitiful as I began to rag on him about missing practice. His voice was very quiet and solemn as he said to me,

“Mom, I came home early because I need to talk to you about something important.” I asked,

“What is it?” a bit impatiently.

“Mom,” he said, “it is about someone you are close to.”

Fearing this could be serious I sat down on the couch across from him and explained,

“When it comes to you and your brothers and sister, I am not close to anyone.” my voice becoming solemn and quiet, matching his.

He breathed slowly with down cast eyes. Sitting for what seemed like an eternity, he just stared at me. Finally, he spoke,

“Well, I want you to know that our church youth worker has been molesting me.”

I thought I was hearing wrong, or that I misunderstood what he said. I knew it couldn’t be a joke because this would not be a topic for joking in our house. I needed him to repeat it, to say it again, and he did. I was still having difficulty hearing. It was then I wished for a nightmare and hoped someone would soon come and wake me. I really needed to wake up soon. You see, all truth doesn’t come with great rejoicing – sometimes it is sad and solemn. This was truth and it was no dream. I then asked my son how long this had been going on – he responded for the past five years.

I am uncertain where I went at that moment. It was mind travel, a place outside reality where fear and rage live together. Somewhere on the slippery edge of the mainstream that borders insanity. It was a place void of stop signs or red or yellow caution lights, a place where collisions are eminent. I remember asking him if he was sure, that it was the church youth worker, as if hearing it again would somehow pull me back off the edge into a calmer place called yesterday. You see, my innocence, like his, was being shattered and the protective wall that I had built over the years was being breached without my permission.

As I looked into the eyes of my son, filled with fear and betrayal, I knew this was truth. Not the lovely, revealing and pure truth, but the now and nasty reality of actions taken against his will. He was drowning right there in my sight, and no matter what I felt, I had to give him a life jacket to prevent him from going further down into the nastiness that had engulfed his life. There was no time for me and my thoughts. He stood there in the shadows, limp and shaken, as if telling me had exhausted every bit of strength he had. I knew then that he needed the comfort and reinforcement of my love and understanding. Yet, how could I give understanding to what I could not even give definition? I thank God for Robo-Mom! Somewhere in me was his mother, pushing aside shock and fear, who began to walk over to my son and held on to him as tight as I could, telling him that I was so sorry that I didn’t know any sooner. Regardless of what some people think, we live in an evil world and if you don’t believe it just watch the news! Yet, this is the news that happens to other people. This happens to people who don’t watch over their children, who entrust them to strangers. This happens to women who are weak, with even weaker morals – it certainly doesn’t happen to good people. What a discovery, to find I could be awake and asleep at the same time. None of us are exempt from happenstance, and evil is always present while the devourer is always hungry. Bad things really do happen to good people. This is one of the hard lessons of life – it rains upon the just as well as the unjust, and when it rains we all need an umbrella because everyone can get soaked in an unexpected downpour.

My thoughts were a contradiction to the facts my son was presenting. No, he wasn’t in some brutal, physical pain. That would actually have been easier. No, he wasn’t physically injured in some way – cut or beaten by some stranger with even stranger intentions. That evil I could have understood. His abuser was a Christian husband and father who had been entrusted with the spiritual guidance of so many young people. I think this is when the word “betrayal” first began to form in my mind. The taste of it began to fill my mouth with a nauseating thickness and coating my tongue to pollute everything I said. Betrayal is being delivered into the hands of an enemy in violation of your trust. It is deception at its highest level: to be led astray and deceived.

There is no real way of explaining what transpired next. There wasn’t a manual to advise me of the steps to take or what to do in case of sexual abuse of my son and, if there was, I wasn’t aware of it. It is the silent taboo that no one wants to talk about. Men don’t want to speak about it, teachers don’t teach it, preachers don’t preach it. There isn’t a paragraph in the weekly woman’s journal between recipes and the gardening aids to explain how to handle this occurrence. One is left on their own, fumbling to figure out what to do next and who to call first. How was I to put words to what I couldn’t even speak about without fear and pain?

I let go of him and found myself continuing to ask, “Are you sure?” as if he would not know what had happened to him. I didn’t want to know the details, because that meant it was true and action was necessary. My eyes were searching his eyes and, with every look, reality was staring back at me. His eyes were searching mine to see if he was devalued in my eyes. He had been living in a danger zone – in a state of constant panic and fear. For years he existed in a place shrouded with secrets that he didn’t know how to disclose. Someone violated him for their own pleasure without any thought of him. He was waking from a nightmare, and I was beginning to live in one. We were there together, standing like survivors and only our love was holding us together. My son had no words for what had happened to him, he was trying to make sense of it for my understanding, trying hard not to offend me.

Chapter Two

At first I really didn’t understand how this could happen, or why my child did not tell me sooner. I was just as innocent as he was and I thought this was random and not intentional. It was probably some kind of misplaced touching that made my child uncomfortable. Surely it was something that I could deal with and control – it couldn’t be molestation, and certainly not for five years. That would mean it began just before he began middle school. I was in a daze, and would be for a long time to come. Days went by before I realized I had not showered – the children reminded me that I needed to cook dinner. I drove past my route at work and did not even realize it for miles and miles. Before I knew it, I was on the phone calling the elder at my church and words that were disjointed began to come out of me. I was beyond tears and beyond sanity. It wasn’t just confusion. I was, like my son, in shock and severe pain and needed help.

“Elder, I need to tell you something that’s important. My son has told me that the church youth worker has been molesting him.”

We all need someone in our turmoil. In the absence of reasoning we need the guy with the zappers – the true devil-busters to come in and eradicate the bad and bring in the good. That is what I was hoping for – someone to come in wearing a white hat who would take charge of the mess. You see, no one is really prepared for the Big Nasty because it really doesn’t happen to good people, and it certainly doesn’t happen to children. Yet, a brother, or even a sister, is born for adversity – to be there with you, even when they don’t know what to do, either. They are more than hand-holders, they are people who will walk in the madness with you, unashamedly standing with you even when the world misunderstands and condemns you.

“A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” Proverbs 17:17

The elder on the other end of the line seemed to take forever to understand what I was talking about. I was frustrated with her, not knowing that I wasn’t connecting my thoughts, and my words were garbled and disjointed.

“Darla, I will be right there,” she said.

She came with another sister, who was also a friend. They knew one thing for sure – that this situation sounded like either a woman in labor or a crime in action. Either way, the warning bell had gone off. The night seemed to go on forever when, in reality, it wasn’t very long at all before my sisters in Christ appeared at the door. They came in silent and strong, joining me in tears yet supporting me and anchoring my son.

I began thinking about the passage of scripture in the Bible about David and the city of Ziklag – how they kidnapped David’s wife and children. He came home to his city to find it had been invaded and burnt to the ground. How does this happen to a king? Where were the people who were close to him, and weren’t they watching? Why would he allow his wives and children to be in jeopardy? What a comparison it was for me to look around my home and see what I had been building being destroyed, and that my children had been taken prisoner by someone who was an enemy dressed in sheep’s clothes. How evil is evil; what do you do; and how do you handle this type of betrayal? Even David’s men wanted to turn against him and desired to kill him. Who did I get to kill? Could I have this type of retribution also? Was it only for the King, or was it for the King’s kids, also?

Invasion is the forced entry of someone into your personal place – it is trespassing to the highest degree. My treasures, like David’s, were stolen away. The innocence of my child, his virtue and future, was in jeopardy. How was I to respond to this type of attack? As we sat at my dining room table the important questions began to be asked and the details began to come forth. Details that I didn’t want to hear – the when and how and how long. It is more than my mind could hold.

As I listened to my sister’s calm voice ask questions, a reassuring quietness of spirit moved in. We wept, all of us, with my son. We cried for losses that we could not even measure. Yet, we cried in hope. We held each other because we needed someone to hold on to so that we would not get carried away by this storm. We had to ask direct personal questions about what and when, and we staggered at the responses.

Chapter Three

Tears don’t stop just because you run out of internal water and I have not stopped crying since the day this began. I cry for my children and for your children, who are not safe in a world of terrorists that are not on foreign soil or unfamiliar grounds. I cry for those who have not resolved what they endured, and I cry for their future. Tears are not a sign of weakness – they are how you maintain sanity in an insane world. You learn how to cry out unto The Restorer and to release the pain threatening to swallow your mind. Tears are a response to life, and pain is a reality of life. Tears give you empathy for those enduring hardships, now and in the future. We mourn with those who mourn and we cry because violence is in the land. The spirit of mourning has been released. The door has been left unlocked and evil has rushed in upon our children who are suffering great violations from those entrusted with their care.

It was at my table that my son arose to begin his journey to freedom and manhood. The final question the elder asked was,” What do you want us to do?” After all, didn’t he have the right to make the decision since it happened to him, even though it was happening to me also as I relived the details with him? We went over the options as best as we knew them, not really knowing where to begin. My man-son responded in quiet firmness, “I want him to go to jail.”

There are no Purple Hearts or Silver Stars given for children who make a stand against an enemy more powerful than they – the thief who comes and forcibly steals their innocence. Yet, he should have received a medal that night. Why? He refused to allow his assailant, a pedophile, victory over him any longer. We often think we have faced or seen real evil, but until that day, I had only seen the prelude and not the show.

You probably think that it was very easy to know where to start with something like this, but believe me; it wasn’t easy at all because I was actually involved. Nothing is easy when your issue is so distasteful to many. The road map was not easy to read, and I was constantly questioning myself. I questioned myself because there might have been other people involved and the predator hadn’t been apprehended yet. So I couldn’t blast him, I couldn’t have a public reaction and give him the opportunity to flee. He could have moved on like the transient spirit he was – to find new victims and a new operational base. Like David in the Scriptures, I couldn’t shake what kept following me – I had to seek the right course of action. David called for the ephod to inquire of God; I also called for the wisdom of God, The Restorer.

How do you tell other family members that your son (their grandson or nephew) has been violated? What is it you can ever say to them to give them understanding of what has happened? How do you comfort them in the loss of their innocence and violation? How do you understand their anger when you are so filled with rage yourself? Who do you trust to tell, and who can put words and voice to this insanity? How do you keep all this silent so you can proceed to capture and incarcerate the real villain and help others understand you are not the villain? I had so many questions, so many explanations to everyone who, said under their breath, “somehow, through negligence, this must be your fault.” How was I to protect my mind from the cloak of silence surrounding pedophilia? How was I to protect myself from accusations that would further push me past the brink of my own sanity?

There was someone always with me – a shadow of strength. Yet, I didn’t know whether they were physical or spiritual. I was being upheld, but I just couldn’t make out the images. I heard directions being given and followed them, hoping they were the voice of the ONE behind the ephod that David sought. I was preparing to shatter the silence surrounding the code and mask of pedophilia. I realize now that to do nothing only gives consent to evil. This code of silence would prove to be more extensive than I could have ever imagined. What my son and I wanted to believe was that this was an isolated incident. Reality was that this was just the beginning of a saga that would expand to other victims and bring out a history of continued and repeated acts of pedophilia.