In my junior high years, my mother became increasingly cruel. One night she was upset with me about something. I possibly deserved some sort of punishment, God knows I wasn’t perfect, but my mother rarely handled anything correctly, and by no means was she always provoked by bad behavior on my part. I remember being chased around the house and crying uncontrollably. She always resulted in calling my father, who I loved. I worked hard to make him proud, and when she’d call him it hurt me to upset him. This particular occurrence, I was handed the phone with my father on the line. I was crying. He asked me to go into a closet where no one could hear me. He repeated that he couldn’t understand what I was saying, and then said, “Are you in a closet? Can anyone hear you?” To which I responded confused, “Yes, I’m in a closet. No they can’t hear.” “Mandy, I am not upset with you. I know your Aunty. I know she is mean.” She’d put phrases in my head about how awful I was-bitch, ass whole, inconsiderate, worthless-the list goes on. My dad hurt knowing I was stuck there, and the abuse was not going to stop. He cried with me. He knew how painful it was for me, and he knew that words hurt, but he begged me to let them go. I heard him saying, “What to do, what to do?” Then he told me he was going to read to me. My dad took out his Bible and he started reading until I stopped crying. Afterward he prayed.

It was in those moments my father planted a seed. Not everyone that is abused has moments like these with someone there to point them in the right direction and comfort them, but God did the comforting in these precious moments.

Lord we lift up abused children to you. We ask you to free them from the  psychological chains that hold them captive. We pray that they would feel the love of God and come to believe that they are worthy of it. Also we lift up the abuser. That their eyes would be open and their hearts would be healed. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.

The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. -Psalm 18:2