A hard post

      I'm having to deal with a person who was sexually abused as a teenager, and I'm reaching the end of my patience. This person uses the abuse as a justification for endless mistakes, including the inability to keep a job, to be truthful and to do any things expected of a decent human being.
      Here's some news: Abuse is not an excuse. ABUSE IS NOT AN EXCUSE. Does that seem hard? Does that seem unjustified? Does it seem cruel?
      Oh, I understand what abuse does to a person. I understand how it steals your self-worth, I understand how it steals your faith in God and yourself, and I understand how it stays with you forever. I understand these things too well.
      I understand them because I was sexually abused when I was a child.
      It's not a pretty story, and it's one that I no longer have to tell. Does this mean that I'm healed? Yes. Does this mean I'm scarred? Yes. Does it mean that I think the world owes me anything? No.
      Maybe once I did, but in college, I volunteered at an abused children's shelter. (My therapist, a wise man, suggested and arranged it.) And in that shelter, I met children who made my abuse look like a walk in the park. I met brave, strong children who keep on going, who had their world shattered and their lives and their bones broken, and they played and laughed and my God you should have seen them. And I met older people, people who had stories worse than mine, and they were going on, making their way in the world, who decided to not let the bastards steal their joy and found the strength to make a happy life.
      Don't think that I discount their pain or mine. I'd give anything if it hadn't happened to me, but it did. Don't think that I haven't raged against God and my parents and all the people who didn't rescue me. I have. But I can't go back and undo the past. I can only go on.
      I tried to share this with that person. I tried to explain that you can't give up because then the bastards win, that faith is still a real thing, that happiness is still possible, that sorrow is not the only path. I got nowhere and got there fast. The excuse is too good and has been too good for years. Nothing is ever this person's fault. I suggested therapy. Got told no, never, no. This person has decided to wallow in it.
      So tonight I posting this to ask you to pray for this nameless person. Pray that God will kick this person's door in. Pray that somehow the realization will dawn that this life is all we've got down here and this is our time to be happy and to be more than our past.
      See, here's the rub. I love this person. I want this person to be happy. It's breaking my heart. Because life is moving on, leaving this person behind. Life is like that. And eventually, soon I think, I will move on, too. I cannot live on a diet of sorrow. I won't. I deserve better. I owe it to all those other survivors, all those kids, all those adults who are bravely making their way through the world. I won't let them down. I won't let me down.
      This was a hard post. I wrote it, deleted it, rewrote it, changed it, let it sit on my computer for two days. Read while you can. Tomorrow I may feel different about posting it. Life is a strange, hard thing, but I believe -- more than that, I know -- there is yet light and joy and happiness in this world. And all the people say amen.