More of this Feature • Parenting Practices Associated with Child Abuse • Understanding and Preventing the Cycle of Abuse in Your Family • Heroes of Abused and Neglected Children • To My Young Friend

Related Resources • Child Discipline Series • How to Build Your Child's Self-Esteem • "My Child Has a Problem"

He was six when his parents divorced. His mother moved with her three sons to another state. They moved into a housing project in a medium-sized city. His mother began to drink and smoke crack cocaine to escape from her sorrow and despair. A year later, she left the house, and she didn't come back. Relatives came and took the brothers to the child protection office. They all went into foster care, each brother to a different house. In two years, he had lost his father, his mother, and his brothers.

He was a bad kid - aggressive, mean, defiant, hurting. So, he moved from home to home, never finding stability and healing. When he was twelve he joined a gang, then spent the next four years incarcerated in treatment and juvenile detention facilities. At sixteen, the doctors said he deserved a chance to try to make it in the community.

He loved the group home. "It's a real home" he would say, "with pictures on the walls, not posters". He was loved in the home and in the small community where he lived. His sweet smile and tentative happiness were fragile treasures that we all cherished. He had wisdom and clarity of thought. He was polite and compassionate.

But, within his mind was fear of this world, the feelings of rejection and abandonment still as real as when he was seven. He drew a picture of a broken heart that was held apart by prison bars. On Good Friday, he went into a violent rage and assaulted several people in the home. He spent Easter Sunday in the juvenile detention facility where he had lived for four years. Our pastor's message of God's ultimate victory comforted us, and many prayers went up for a miracle for this child.

"For now we see in a glass darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love." I Corinthians 13:12-13

Parents, if you need help with substance abuse, financial problems, divorce, grief, depression, please don't give up until you find it. These shake the foundation of a family, but recovery and healing are possible, for the sake of the children.

Help is Available - Please Reach Out

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