If you are reading this chapter because you know that you were abused in the past, then you are a fortunate person. Fortunate, because you know you were harmed and know you need healing. Many are reading this for someone else and may miss the personal message and the healing God is offering them. Everyone, open your ears. God’s supreme desire is for your life’s foundation to be an intimate, safe and loving home atmosphere much like he created for Adam and Eve. Childhood should be free of “the knowledge of evil” and full of the “knowledge of good.” But, for many of us, that simply was not the case.
Our parents and others in our lives were sinners: in fact, all of us are sinners, too (Romans 3:23). God acknowledges that people will sin—but he does not like it. It does not minimize the harm done, especially when it has an affect on children.
Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.” — Luke 17:1-2 (NIV)
