Copyright © 2005 All rights reserved. [Churches Child Protection Advisory Service]
The nightmare began almost two years ago now. My husband received a phone call to say that two young women, whom he and his first wife has fostered, had accused him of abusing them when they were between the ages to ten and fourteen.
We had been married 12 years. He was a pillar of the community, a man who lived by the rulebook and expected others to do the same. It all seemed so ludicrous, so impossible. Month after month we, the "christian family" among the world-weary families of a council housing estate, fought against the atrocity of accusation and allegation. Charges were made six months down the line, and time dragged its sluggish feet toward the Trial set in December – the week before Christmas. In our pain and anguish we kept the horror from our young children until the Child Protection Investigation forced us to tell them. Parted by that same Child Protection Investigation while we awaited my husband's risk assessment to assess the likelihood of his being abusive. We found victory in small things, clean uniforms, well-cooked meals, life following a "normal" pattern, in circumstances far from normal.
Then came the final blow, which brought us to our knees, to the end of ourselves, to new levels of dependence on this baffling God, who allowed this torment yet walked with us and upheld us in its terror.
My daughter from my first marriage disclosed her abuse at 11, 12 and 13, two weeks before the trial … Words which have always flowed from my mouth, mind and pen fled into a numbing mental and emotional brick settling in the back of my head and the pit of my stomach. As I took my 17 year old in my arms and comforted and assured her, I stood on the brink of madness as her words reached my shocked intellect. Unknowingly she was mouthing words I had heard before – words I had read in the transcripts of the statements made by my husband's older foster daughter.
Looking back I was so polite it is laughable. Numb with pain, white with shock, I went down stairs. My husband asked me what was the matter. The words that came were bald and meaningless conveying none of the heartbreak I would later feel. My emotions had shut down into a coping mode. The mother of seven children, five of whom were still under 16, I was their protector. If I had learnt nothing else from the Child Protection Agencies, it was that it was my place to protect and be seen to protect. There would be time later for me and my feelings. "Jodie says you abused her too. Would you leave now and give me some space to consider this". Tears, blame, accusations flowed from him – this man I had loved. He left.
I next saw him in the ambulance when I accompanied him to hospital, incoherent and frail following an Aspirin overdose. A week later I faced this man across a court room and heard his fumbling attempts to answer the accusations against him.
Five long days led to a prison sentence. And I was glad – glad that the truth and justice for which I had been praying had come to pass. But not glad that I had to tell my four year old, "Daddy is in prison because of the bad things he did to your sisters"; not glad as I held my seven year old and told her "Daddy can't come home ever"; not glad as my 11 year old wept and then proceeded to never mention his father again over the following months.
I didn't feel angry then. It was later, after Christmas. After the school term began, after Jodie showed signs of real depression. After I stopped rushing around being the strong one, the coper, the protector. After I sat down with my big girl and became mummy. Mummy who not only listened, but heard. Heard what my beloved had done to my beloved, and how he had quoted words from our most intimate moments, words she could have only heard from him or myself. It is not just listening that counts – it is hearing.
As I heard, the anger came in waves and crescendos I did not know existed. I have known anger, slammed a few doors in my time, been reduced to tears of frustration. But nothing in my 40 years had prepared me for this depth and these heights of feeling. The worst road rage ever documented paled into insignificance as I replayed her words in my mind. And where do you go when you're 40, a Christian, a "preacher dude" as the kids call me? Where do you go with this weight of emotion? You want to punch and kick. You want to take hold and shake and maim, but not kill because you want the betrayer to suffer as you have suffered. As your child has suffered. And LIVE with it. Live every day with the truth and the knowledge of it humming in your mind like tinnitus, touching your actions, distorting your trust, making you doubt. Doubt the parents of your kids' friends. Doubt the teachers in the Sunday School. Doubt the youth group leaders. He – this perpetrator, this husband, lover, friend – He was all these things, Can they be trusted? Can the children go safely to Pantomime with a new group of people you hardly know? Can they sleep over at friends"?
The weeks lengthened, we kept the faith. God didn't wait at the end of the tunnel of pain, he held our hands and walked through it. He's still there, we're still walking, together. I don't know if there is an end. Our lives will be touched and affected by my husband's abuse and his continued denial, for the foreseeable future. I know now where to go with my anger. I go to Him. He accepts me in my silent raging, my pillow-punching, sheet-twisting agony, without condemnation. For Romans 8 is true in this too. "There is therefore now NO condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus, who walk according to His purpose". God our Father did not desert Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He cried out, "Father, take this cup from me". He does not desert us now, when our Christian politeness deserts us, and words we never realised we knew, feelings we thought ourselves immune to, come flooding through our humanity. Underneath are the everlasting arms. He loves, upholds, strengthens, comforts and forgives - not a begrudging trickle but in a generous, unstoppable flood of love. He is a God big enough to cope with our anger, and help us to cope with it. After all He knows what it is to have His Son abused and taken from Him.
Where's your church's child protection policy?
What would you do, if I were a member of your Church? My children in your Sunday School? I have learnt a lot over the past 20 months. I have learnt that many steps are being taken to ensure the safety of children and young people in various environments. I have learnt that abusers actively seek work, paid or voluntary, where they have access to children. Council-run and other voluntary bodies are coming under the guidance and protection of legislation which requires staff to be police-checked.
My main worry is that the church will become the loop-hole. I was told recently that the church's policy regarding child protection issues "is in a drawer in the filing cabinet, we haven't reviewed it for three years".
From the darkness of the nightmare, we ask you to get out your Policy document. Review it, make its contents clear to ALL children's workers, make sure everyone who works with children in your church has undergone training which includes acknowledging and understanding the issues of child abuse. Ensure that the policy is on view and reviewed regularly. New workers should be trained before taking on responsibilities within Sunday School or Youth Work. Select a helpline number such as CHILDLINE and display it clearly wherever children meet on your premises. Remember children are much shorter than you are, don't pin it at the top of a notice board! By such a simple act, you place help within reach of an abused child.
Children are treasured members of our church community, they are also smaller and weaker than the rest of us. Please, for the sake of all those who have been harmed, help make their voice heard.
Prayer Pointers
The author is a woman of forty, who has chosen to share her story, wanting her experiences to be used to bring "some good out of this cauldron of pain and heartache". We have changed names in order to protect her family. .
