My eldest daughter, Charla, recently wrote a paper for her college psychology class about depression and decided to share it with me. The subject of her paper was her younger brother, Brett, and what he suffered as a young boy in an abusive home. (You can read Charla’s account of her class presentation here.)
I feared that reading my daughter’s words about her brother would reach deep and unveil wounds in me that simply refuse to heal – and they did. As I read, I was once again compelled to revisit those dark days, and I began to weep to the point that I could scarcely make out the words on the page. Although her conclusion was positive and encouraging, I had a hard time receiving it. A decade after our escape, the guilt of remaining with that abusive man as long as I did haunts me still.
Seeing me in engulfed in my regret, my husband wrapped a loving arm around my shoulders and said to me, “Don’t do this to yourself. Despise the man.” In a response grounded in unbridled honesty, I lifted my head and half whispered, “And the church that kept me there.”
