***Not My Typical Blog Post***

I don’t even know where to begin. This may be messy. I have wrestled for months on whether I should write anything at all about this but the more I hold it in the more it burns. I will say now that this blog post will contain the hard topic of child sexual abuse. This will also likely be a series at some point on how the journey has looked for us but for now I will leave you with this:

It was a Friday afternoon in October of 2015 my then 3-year-old made an outcry of being sexually abused by a youth in our church. The odd thing was our 2-year-old had made a similar claim a few weeks before but we didn’t know what to do with such a statement. Our church was tiny more like a family than a congregation and the boy he shared this news about was even more intimately tied to us. We had weekly family dinners with them and I saw their children as my own siblings (bonus aunts and uncles for my boys). We were stunned and in complete shock. We chose to call our pastors and allow them to take the lead. That was probably the biggest mistake we made in this whole ordeal.

The pastors decided that they would confront youth the next night at church (church was on Saturday nights because we did not have a building of our own) and get back to us. We heard from the Sunday afternoon and we were told that the youth was tearful and admitted what our child had said was true. Even as I am writing this I am getting sick to my stomach. They decided that he was remorseful (because he cried) and wanted to guide us towards reconciliation. After the fog cleared that thought process has become more and more infuriating. Tears do NOT equal remorse. He was caught red-handed. He was overwhelmed. He was losing access to 2 kids he liked taking advantage of. Reconciliation was not an option, my boys could not be anywhere near this youth or his family ever again. Their safety was paramount. 

We went into hiding in utter shock of what had happened. Things like, “we don’t want to ruin the kids life” and “we don’t see the redemptive value in reporting.” were told to us. We watched this boy be taken to the movies (thanks Facebook) by our pastors to which they said was about making sure “connection” wasn’t broken as they walked through the healing process. We saw him go out with the youth group and living life as normal. All of this while we were holed up at home with a 3 and 2-year-old who no longer were the same boys we had once known. My snuggly 2-year-old now would hide under tables and scream at me. My 3-year-old had extreme outbursts of anger.

To this day I am flabbergasted by the lack of initiative the church showed in handling such a case through proper channels. The sad thing is now that I am more aware of situations like this in the church the more I see cover ups instead of protection. My boys were not protected. My husband and I were not truly supported, as nice as the coffee/flower drop off the day we had our Police physical was *insert eye roll here*. We dealt with CPS, detective interviews and a hospital visit without anyone with us. They did send someone for a “Freedom Session” with our boys where they were told, “their “friend” was in “timeout” and they could be friends with him again one day.” I am sorry, WHAT?! No my children will not be hanging out with the near teenager who had taken advantage of them ever again and how dare you tell them they will!!!! 

We were also told that we should be “thankful they were young because they were likely to forget.” This seriously makes me laugh out loud. My boys are now 6 and 5 and to this day we have open conversations that they initiate about their abuse. They ask questions like: Why didn’t the church make it where we could stay? Why hasn’t *insert kid who abused name here* apologized to us? Has the church told parent’s of *insert old friends their age* about *abuser* so they can keep them safe? These conversations happen OFTEN, as often as this morning. They have NOT forgotten and to be honest I am not sure I want them to.

For right now I say all of this to encourage you to not only go to the church if anything ever happens to you or your child. From the first outcry PLEASE go to police. PLEASE listen to your kids. Do not dismiss when they say something that sounds unbelievable because sadly they can be right on point.