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Have we no compassion for the innocent family members, when a person they love is exposed as being a vile child abuser?
We most certainly do!
Please, let there be no doubt about that. My heart is broken for the spouses, children and grandchildren, when deep dark family secrets come to light. The anguish they feel must be almost unbearable.
This is the consequence of sin. We were taught in Bible School and all through our sojourn in NTM that sin will have far-reaching results, and I believe that was meant to be a deterrent to those who were feeling the temptation to sin.
Not everyone applied those sermons effectively. Some people finished their training and went out to the field without ever getting control over the sins deeply hidden: their angry temper, their lust, their addictions.
Sin festered and grew and became their master. And still they did not repent. They got away with hiding for years or even decades, what God knew about all along.
Some NTM missionaries died with their secrets locked deep inside them. But those secrets were never theirs alone. Their victims knew what they had done. The high school girls they raped, the children they molested, the students they beat, the dorm kids who heard the screams behind closed doors. Sometimes whole generations pass before a terrorized child finds their voice. But when they are ready, they will tell. They will tell the secrets.
And when the secrets come out, people who love the abuser are shocked. Some cling to denial, swearing they KNOW their father or grandfather could not possibly be capable of such crimes. Maybe after the shock wears off, there will be at least a small amount of acceptance down deep in their heart, where they know there might actually be some truth to what is now being told. Often even when they instinctively know, they will not speak of it. It is far, far too painful to admit a person you love is actually a very, very bad person.
I have known only a few family members of abusers who are able to accept, process, and speak about the truth. People we love have many sides, as do we all. I can have good intentions of losing weight one day, and be gulping down a large milkshake the next. A daddy can be reading his daughter a bedtime story and giving her a loving kiss on the forehead, and hours later he can be in some other little girl's room creating a nightmare that child will suffer from for the rest of her life.
To those who are reeling from the pain of secrets exposed, and now feel marked , scrutinized and even ostracized, may we continue to show compassion. They did nothing to deserve this pain. I pray that they will be able to understand that this pain is not caused by abuse survivors who have found their voice, nor by mission leaders who are scrambling to handle a very disturbing crisis, nor by friends, supporters and co-workers who have withdrawn into awkward silence.
This pain is caused by the person who committed heinous sins and then covered them up. Instead of repenting, confessing, and submitting himself to appropriate consequences at the time, he put on a mask and lived a lie, and got away with it, for many years.
But he is the cause of the pain. The sinner, not the one sinned against. Let us all keep that in mind. If we can.
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