When I recently wrote an article on Boundless about healing from the trauma of sexual abuse, I expected a reaction on social media. What surprised me were the private messages from adults who, for years, had dark memories of sexual abuse locked inside.
Reality star Josh Duggar is at the center of a scandal this week after a tabloid uncovered the fact that he sexually assaulted five girls when he was 14 (some of the girls were his sisters). No doubt, this has been the hardest week of Josh Duggar’s life, but I can’t imagine how much harder it has been for his victims.
The other day, I let my three-year-old daughter ride her scooter on the sidewalk in front of our house, despite my irrational fear of her suddenly being kidnapped by a random psychopath. I wasn’t especially worried about it because I was landscaping just a few feet away. Occasionally, I looked down the slope from our house to make sure she wasn’t going too far down the sidewalk.
It’s official. I’m the father of two children under five who can ride their bikes without training wheels. It is wonderful – sort of.
She did it. She actually did it. My daughter rode a bike for the first time last weekend. I figured it would take a while before she figured it out; but it was more like three minutes, and then she was off. I kept my hand on her back as she peddled, but then she started saying, “Daddy let me go! Daddy let me go!” She had no idea how hard that was for me to do.
The other night, I thought I heard something break upstairs in the girls’ bathroom, but I decided to keep a low profile until there were further developments. I figured that one of the girls would let me know if I was needed for a cleanup. Then I heard something at the top of the stairs. It sounded two little steps.
When I started going to my church in May of 2005, we had about 75 people regularly attending, and almost all of them were single. These days, our church is much larger, thanks in part to the folks who are now married and have kids – lots of them.
As my little kids get older, I’m reflecting more on what my mother did right in raising me. And you know something I appreciate about her parenting style? She did not corner me. There were times when I wasn’t being my best self, or I was hiding something, or I was struggling with something that I didn’t want to talk to her about – and I knew that she knew it.
Joshua Rogers 