*I want to note in advance, that some of the women we serve have good, healthy fathers who love them and want the very best for them. Sadly, that is not always the case.
*****
We were sitting around the kitchen table eating lunch and somehow, the topic of broken noses came up. I was surrounded by six women in our program, and it came as a shock to me that I was the only one at the table who had not suffered a broken nose at the hands of an abuser. What? I had no idea this was so common. I was impressed they didn't all look like Sylvester Stallone.
One of the women began telling a very graphic story of how her boyfriend beat her up and oddly enough, the broken nose was not the worst of the story.
As if I was talking to a girlfriend about her husband leaving up the toilet seat, I casually said, “Well, I hope you got him back.”
“I got him back alright! I shot him!” Okay, I didn’t see that coming.
“Seriously? Did you kill him?”
“Well, I meant to! I was aiming for his heart but at the last second, he bent over backwards just like Gumby and the bullet went through his shoulder instead.”
“And then what?”
“I called the po-lice and told them I shot a man and was trying to kill him. He rolled around in the street and squealed like a pig until they got there." Apparently, her boyfriend didn’t press charges, said it was an accident and even though she insisted it was not, they did not arrest her. Guess he figured the next time might be worse.
Later, as I reflected on this woman’s family tree, I realized this was practically a tradition in her family. Her mother shot her abusive husband in the neck and somehow didn’t kill him or serve time. And rumors are, her grandmother shot and killed her husband, shoved his body off the bluff, and burned the sofa he was sitting on. The way it was told to me, the law looked the other way because the grandfather was a monster, and everyone knew it. The women in this family set the bar pretty low for finding a good man.
One has to wonder, why did three generations of women choose men they would someday want to kill? Did the men start out charming and then change after they were together? Or did their partners remind them of their fathers who were just as bad? Is it true little girls grow up to marry someone just like their fathers?
I am reminded of a day when I chatted with the women at Blue Monarch about relationships and discovered not one of them had ever been on a real date - despite the fact each one had multiple children. Sadly, not one of the mothers seemed to find this unacceptable or even unusual. In other words, they did not believe they deserved better. Changing this perspective is not easy.
Recovery is so much more than just sobriety. True recovery is a wheel with many spokes. Thankfully, Blue Monarch is a long-term program, so we have an opportunity to address the entire wheel and our goal is to make sure there are no broken spokes by the time they walk out our door.
Choosing healthier relationships is just one of those spokes, but it is a challenging one that can seriously impact the next generation. Never was this more clear than it was last week. I received a heartbreaking call from a former resident, one that has played over and over in my head ever since.
“I have finally hit rock bottom, Miss Susan.” This woman was crying so hard she was practically hiccupping the words and it was difficult to understand her. But this part I got loud and clear. “My husband raped our little girl. Twice.”
My heart sank and I thought I might throw up as she shared the gruesome details. My mind immediately went back to the precious baby that was born into such a safe, nurturing bubble while at Blue Monarch years ago. This man had taken a perfect little flower and assaulted her in the most hideous, vile way possible. And now her father was gone, which was also going to be hard for a child to understand. I remembered a picture her mother had sent me years later of this innocent little girl wearing a pink and purple outfit, standing so proud and happy - totally unaware of what she would endure in the months to come.
“They are offering him twenty years.”
In my opinion, twenty years was not nearly enough for what this little girl will carry for a lifetime. I reflected on all the women we had served who experienced the same violation by their own biological fathers. It was only through the tremendous grace of God and his supernatural healing that some were able to overcome the trauma and heartbreak - and even forgive. It was no wonder they turned to drugs to numb the pain and I prayed this little girl would not do the same.
“I just never thought my daughter would get hurt.”
I thought back on all the many times we warned the mom to get away from this man. There were many red flags she chose to ignore. I wanted to turn back the clock and try again in some other way that might have gotten her attention and changed the outcome. Please, Lord, can we go back to before this happened and try again?
This mother is a perfect example of someone walking out the door without all the spokes intact. She is a fierce survivor, extremely bright, funny, resourceful, and full of promise for a great future. But she can also be very hardheaded and stubborn. Despite the fact she was clean and sober when she left Blue Monarch, and had accomplished some amazing things, she was not willing to let go of her perspective on relationships. In other words, she still wanted to do recovery her way and hang onto pieces of her old life at the same time. She insisted on pursuing a relationship with a man she already knew was not healthy, and she will suffer the “what-if’s” the rest of her life. Turns out that one broken spoke was a big one.
The next day, as I looked around the room at the women we have today, I didn’t want to ask, “Who’s next?” I wanted to shout, “NEVER AGAIN!” I wanted to do whatever we could to ensure no one else experienced this same trauma. We talked about the importance of completely surrendering our lives to Jesus and submitting to the process and how destructive it can be to have one foot in recovery - and the other in old behavior. It simply does not work.
So many times, as we talk about our loving, Heavenly Father, we get blank or even angry looks from the women we serve. How does that make any sense when their earthly fathers have been harmful or abusive? No doubt, this concept will be very difficult for the little girl who was just raped by her own father.
We pray this precious child will one day understand that her Heavenly Father loves her and she will always be his perfect little flower. He is the Father who will always be there, no matter what, and he is the Father who will never change. No matter what. Our prayer is that one day, this little girl will set the bar really, really high and seek a man with a heart like God's. May she aim for His heart and find it.
