Ugly Families. Ugly Secrets.

Passionate is not a word that describes me.  I'll get lost in a moment and have fun arguing a point, but there are few things that I am true-blue passionate about.  However, being at Gateway has brought to light a passion that I don't think will soon fade.  At risk children, and their mothers. 


I'm going to share a couple of true stories that have lit this passion.  These stories are not necessarily GW related, but these combined with working with teen moms have shown me how much I care about this subject.  I'm going to change a few things (names, etc.) to protect involved parties, but the essential facts are accurate.  This is fairly gritty stuff...just warning you.


I've known Cassie since we were in middle school.  We've been friends off and on, but since I got married life has taken us in different directions.  Cassie is kind of a poor thing; she had a hard family life growing up, and has little to no contact with them now.  She has some physical and psychological problems that prevent her from developing meaningful relationships, and she is always desperate for love and attention.  She has often turned to crime, perverted relationships, and drugs as a way to escape reality.  Cassie's story is too long to put down here, but it does seem to point to some sexual trauma in her family early in her life.  Now Cassie has a life growing inside of her.  Instead of helping, her family has refused to have anything to do with this baby, or face what happened to her when she was young.  Cassie has absolutely no idea what to do, and it seems like a hopeless situation unless Cassie drastically decides to turn her life around with counseling and accountability.  My heart broke and my mouth exploded with angry and frustrated words when I first found out about the baby.  How could she be so thoughtless?


Lacy and I have been friends for years.  We're pretty close, and I figured that I knew most things about her.  One thing that really frustrated me about her was that she seemed to be really fake in public and always had to have the right answer for everything.  It was annoying, but she was fun to talk with and always lifted my spirits, so we were good friends.  Last year, I found out that a man in her own family was a child predator.  And he perpetrated against her.  She kept that a secret, because it happened when she was a little girl.  She didn't know what to do, so for a decade he wasn't held accountable.  It affected everything, her social development, her emotional development, her need to be 'right' all the time, and her relationships with other men in her life and with boys at school.  It STILL effects everything in her life.  Her mask has started to come off a little, but it's going to be a long, long journey.  The kicker?  Her family knew this man was dangerous, but they didn't tell her.  They aren't neglectful parents or anything, but they simply didn't understand that child predators don't stop easily.  Turns out she wasn't the first little girl in her family that he successfully targeted.   Most of the family knew, and they tried to protect her, but they never warned her to be careful around him, and he got to her. He had said, when he was caught the first time, that he would stop, and the family believed him.  But child predators don't stop with a handshake and a promise.  


I don't remember when I first met Courtney, but she is a dear, dear friend.  I keep her in my heart and prayers always.  Courtney was also the victim of a child predator from within the family.  She was in elementary school.  That was long ago, and Courtney has been through good counseling since.  Yet today it still haunts her.  She struggles in relationships with males, and is very sexually active.  She is physically and emotionally abused by many of her partners.  Her mom was in and out of abusive relationships while Courtney was growing up.  Courtney has had intimate relationships with multiple females, also.  Courtney knows that it is sinful to be sexually active outside of marriage and has shared with me many times how she wants so badly to stay pure until then, but continually she gets swept up back into this sin. (Sometimes mere hours after we talk. <sigh>) At one point Courtney made a profession of faith; I don't know where she stands right now, but I do know that though her knowledge of Jesus is limited, she loves what she understands of Him.  Courtney is not a product of what happened to her; she makes her own choices every day.  Still, what happened to her changed the course of her life, and it makes understanding who Jesus is that much harder.  Not only that, but she feels like damaged goods- what's the point of waiting till marriage now that she's already been sexually active so long?


Most people are ignorant when it comes to the above issues (Myself being among them, though I am muddling through.).  No one wants to spend time together as a family discussing how to deal with things like this that happen within their family circles.  From what I've seen, family sexual predators tend to just turn into rarely-discussed secrets.  Family secrets NEVER stay secrets.  Family secrets propagate more family secrets; and the sin becomes generational, and Satan sinks his teeth deeper.


I am passionate about at risk children and their mothers.


You cannot help at risk children without helping their mothers.  You cannot stop the cycle of abuse and sexual deviancy by only pulling out one factor.  Healing families and stopping generational sin is a long, involved, messy, heart-wrenching process.  You HAVE to involve more than one generation in the process.  Sometimes the risk comes from the mother herself, borne from her own ignorance and tangled web of sin.  Sometimes the risk comes from somewhere else in the family, or in a family friend.  In any case, once sexual predators are involved, it takes a LOT of work to root out the secrets from the family.  Once Satan has driven a wedge into the family through sexual deviancy, it is extremely hard to get out.


I want to help this population, and I want others that I know to be as educated as possible about at risk children and their moms.  You know someone that has dealt with one or more of these issues, I guarantee it.  You don't need to shy away if someone reaches out to you; you don't have to be a professional to help.  You just need to take them seriously and let them know that's it's okay that everything is not 'okay' with them, then take their hand and help them get to a professional that can help them heal and escape further damage.

Britni