The Truth They Wouldn’t Hold

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I grew up in an upstanding Christian home—or so it appeared. Pentecostal walls held us, Sundays and Wednesdays filled with hymns and sermons, revivals lighting up every corner of the calendar. To neighbors and church friends, our family was strong, full of faith, and led by love.

I used to wish that was true.

The truth is harder to speak. Some memories have dissolved, and in that absence, I find a strange gratitude. But the ones that remain, the ones that never leave, still carry weight. The hardest part is not even the memories themselves—it is knowing that my family still denies them, leaving me to hold them alone. To carry truth without anyone else willing to bear it with you is a kind of loneliness that cannot be prayed away.

When I was eight, just after my birthday, we threw a party for Jesus. My mother invited friends from church. They brought along a stranger, a man everyone called the “snake doctor.” He was a storyteller, and I stayed in the living room to hear his words while the others went into the dining room to start the celebration. His hand moved across my thigh and clamped down where no hand should ever go. Pain shot through me, and I screamed.

But when I burst into the other room, red-faced and shaking, I told them I had fallen. At eight years old, I already knew the cost of telling the truth. I already knew I would be accused of some great sin if I spoke. So I carried the shame in silence.

That was my first introduction to abuse. It would not be my last.

On my grandfather’s farm, my sister and cousins built forts in the woods. When a renter family moved in, their children—one a boy a little younger than me, the other his tiny sister—wanted to join. What should have been innocent play became an initiation of cruelty. Under my sister’s direction, that boy was forced into acts his small body and mind could not have understood. She had me and my male cousin exposed as well. Secrets piled up like rotting boards in the walls of that fort.

It was my introduction not just to abuse, but to a whole twisted vocabulary of incest, molestation, and betrayal—things children should never have words for. I tried to justify silence. I tried to fold it all away.

But silence is never empty. It grows roots.

When I reached puberty, those roots pushed through me. I repeated what I had seen, what had been planted in me. I carried it into my actions with my stepsister. I won’t give detail—I won’t turn sickness into spectacle. But I will tell the truth: I became the thing I hated. The cycle lived in me.

Later, as a teenager, I wanted desperately to break free. Between fifteen and eighteen, I dove deep into faith, chasing healing, chasing forgiveness. I confessed. I confronted. I even tried to tell my older sister how much her choices had scarred me. I asked for forgiveness from my younger sister.

But truth is dangerous when others are determined to bury it.

My older sister, by then in her twenties, could not face it. Instead, she ran to our parents, telling them I was delusional. My family held a meeting about me without me—deciding, in a circle I was excluded from, that none of what I carried was true. They even called my wife to convince her. That was how I found out about the meeting in the first place.

From that moment on, I was outside the circle. My parents never truly held me again. They never held my children, their grandchildren, in the way I hoped they would. My family chose denial, and in that choice, they abandoned me.

And yet, here is the testimony of my life: the cycle stopped with me.

People say that the abused always become abusers. They say the scars never heal, that the story is set in stone. I am proof they are wrong. I found my compass—not the one handed to me in church pews, but my own. I built an honest marriage. I raised children who know their father is a safe place, who know their truth will be held no matter how heavy it is.

The past did not erase me. I carried the weight, and I walked through it. I carry scars, but they are not open wounds anymore. They are reminders that silence does not win, and cycles can be broken.

This is my story. Not of what destroyed me.

But of what I overcame.

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Author’s Note

If you are reading this and carry your own unspoken truth, know this: you are not alone, and you are not beyond healing. Abuse does not define you. Silence is heavy, but it does not have to win. Cycles can end. Scars can close. A new compass can be found.

Your story deserves to be heard. Your truth is yours to hold, and when you are ready, yours to release.

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Resources

If you or someone you know is experiencing or has experienced abuse, here are some places you can turn for support:

RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network): Call 1-800-656-4673 or visit rainn.org for confidential 24/7 support.

Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline: 1-800-422-4453 – available 24/7 for children and adults needing help.

National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 or text “START” to 88788.

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741 for free, confidential support via text in the U.S.

If you’re outside the U.S., look for local hotlines or survivor networks in your country—support is out there, and you deserve it.