Children of abuse (physical, emotional, and or sexual) amaze me.
They spend their childhood freely giving unconditional love, often to spend
their adulthood recklessly seeking it.
And so it was with my survivor friend who wrote The Tearless Princess, a
creative exercise used to assist in her healing. Please read the following
paragraph describing her molestation, posted this week, in its entirety.
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| Copyright 2012 RiseAndShineMovement.org |
“Then one day, Princess Marissa was on her way back to the castle
when she was attached by a pack of gypsies. They tore her beautiful purple
dress right off her and ran away, leaving her with nothing to cover herself.
Princess Marissa was so upset, but she did not shed a tear. She was so ashamed
and embarrassed, but she told no one . . . especially her father the king. She
knew if she did, he would have all the gypsies in the kingdom killed.”
Children are protectors. Dr.Wess Stafford, president of and CEO.
of Compassion International, writes in his book, Too Small to Ignore: Why the Least
of These Matters Most, “Child psychologists study this phenomenon with
great amazement, as it has occurred throughout history. They have found that
children can keep awful, awful secrets to protect the ones they love.” (Page
141) Stafford knows this well. A survivor of horrible abuse at the hands of
house parents and teachers at a mission school, he and many other missionary
kids, kept silent of their abuse—for years.
Princess Marissa knew, if she told, her daddy, the king, he would
be upset and the kingdom would be in chaos. And because her abuser was somebody
who her family knew, trusted, and loved, she chose to protect everyone, except
herself.
She concludes her paragraph with this line: “The princess went on
with her life as if nothing had happened, but a piece of her soft heart became
hard like stone.”
She protected others and in the process lost the sweet softness of
her child heart; she spent years, as an adult, trying to find it and make it
soft again.
And that is why it is an adult’s job to protect children from
childhood sexual abuse.
We must teach our children
about childhood sexual abuse. So we can protect. So they can know. So they can
tell.
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