Great Doddington - Abuse

Rachael has been studying recently (which is why we're meeting on Mondays now - she is not free on Tuesday evenings). She's been reading a book about helping people who suffered abuse as children, and this evening she read a letter from the book.

The person had written to his mother, laying out very clearly and unemotionally the damage that her abuse had caused. The letter was quite stark, but perhaps the most impressive thing about it was its matter-of-fact-ness. This is what you have done to me, to me you were two different people - my Mum, and 'scary lady'. At one point she had slashed him with a knife and left him alone for hours afterwards. He bled profusely, he might have died.

The book might have been called 'Seeds of forgiveness', I'll have to check. We all need to forgive and we all need to be forgiven, our meeting focused on these issues.