Article June 30, 1997 Issue

Healing and forgiveness—after abuse

Sue E. Shields

The acceptance of violence as a normal way of control runs in a circle, family counselors say. Those who abuse their children were often themselves victims of lack of love or abuse. Some teens even "consider control and/or abuse as an appropriate, even expected, expression of love," says a counselor for a shelter for battered women, in a recent news article.^{The Record, Matthews, North Carolina, October 11, 1995.}

If you have been abused, what can you do to prevent the mental anguish from growing, culminating in the repetition of evil or in an attitude of futility? The solution is spiritual.

It lies in establishing in our thought who our true Parent is—acknowledging that God, Spirit, is the only Father of the whole family of man, that actually both parent and child are His offspring. "Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven" (Matt. 23:9). When our actual relation to God is established in our thought, we have established a sound basis for prayer and have taken the first step in healing hurt. Understanding that there is but one Father of us all, we glimpse something of our true nature as the image of God—a God who is Love itself.

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Healing and forgiveness—after abuse

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