The need for love and understanding is universal. Particularly the need to be loved by our parents, and supported by them. But so often at a time when children who have been molested reach for parental support and compassion, they find themselves neglected, abandoned, overlooked or even told they are making things up. At a time when they need love and affirmation most, these victims are forsaken and left to navigate through the fears and trauma alone.

They pack up their fears, pain and grief and set out on the ‘life journey’ in search for a place to be loved, a place to have their pain validated, a place to be believed… and ultimately a place where it is safe to unpack the whole bit, and heal. Too many search their whole lives, and the ‘whole world over’, only to never really find that place.

King David understood the one thing we all need so desperately… that God–whom we are given permission to call ‘Abba Father’, meaning ‘Daddy’ or ‘Papa’–stays where even parents turn away. He takes care of the abandoned and brokenhearted, and is near to them.

Those of us who have experienced this, have a gift to share with those around us, to live out the love of God in a practical way. A listening ear, a heart that does not judge the victim’s pain, a safe place to speak and grieve, and a place to be reminded that they are valuable, loved and accepted, a place where they rediscover hope, freedom and purposeful life…

That is one of the ways that the Father ‘stays near’ and loves the wounded, as His love flows through us into hurting hearts. So often we are the only way the wounded know His hands as loving, His feet as running to us not away, and His voice as one that offers hope.

Today I will tell at least one person that they matter, their pain matters, and show them the love of God in a practical way.

Love,
~ T ~