The Ugly Side of Life

One of my favorite Christian authors is Frank Peretti. In two of his novels “This Present Darkness” and “Piercing the Darkness”. Peretti portrays battles between good and evil – angels are not the white feathery characters often pictured but rather fierce warriors going to battle.

I can not tell you how many times in my life I could have used some powerful warrior angels on my side. Maybe they were there and I didn’t know it but during long periods of my life I find it difficult to believe they were there. Or maybe the bad guys just made their presence more known.

There certainly did not seem to be any muscular angels around when a small frill child was not being feed properly, or taken to the dentist, or even owning a tooth brush. Those angels in Peretti’s books weren’t there fighting the child’s mother or guiding her in getting help to raise children properly.

Eventually those horrid things were taken care of, the mother was left to care for younger siblings but she escaped to find a whole new world of food she had never heard of, visit after visit to the dentist, and eventually growing into a physically healthy child: at least for a time.

Those early ‘demons’ were replaced by new ones. The alcoholic father who was mentally and physically abusive replaced the neglectful mother. Beatings with the belt that left welts so bad the child could not set on the toilet for weeks, living in constant fear that he was going to turn on her at any second.

She ate well, had nice cloths, vacations, and other material things. What she did not have was the love of a father. A man she could go to for protection. There did not seem to be any angels in armor going to battle for her during those years.

Escape finally came without the help of dynamic angels. The night of high school graduation the now young woman left the home and family she had known two-thirds of her life and went back to the mother who had neglected her as a young child. That lasted only a few months.

The years that followed brought more demons including marriages to two abusive husbands. A third husband in between those two was the nicest man in the world but she had no idea how to handle ‘nice’. After all, that small frill child grew up with abuse and neglect from the two people in the world who should have ‘loved her most’.

If you have not figured it out, yes, that was my life in fewer than 500 words. I’ve been through a lot:

Neglect (physical & emotional)

Child Abuse (several kinds)

Domestic Violence (witnessed & endured)

Three Divorces

Three attempted Suicides

I may not have had Peretti’s fierce warrior angels there with me or at least did not see them but I survived. I am alive and feel for those experiences am a stronger person.

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