To Heal the Shattering Consequences of Abuse

Some matters are so sensitive
That they are seldom mentioned
To further the distress it gives
Is not at all the intention

There is light we all can feel
Through dark clouds to see much clearer
Tenderly, may you see and heal
As to you I hold a mirror

Unrighteous acts unto the weak
Have done what's beyond belief
It's of sexual abuse that I speak
And of the path towards relief

As moral agency's missused
The tides rise with vicious sin
The one who causes the abuse
Violates all that is within

To rectify all that's unjust
Our Savior felt all our pain
And, so, the perpetrator thus
Can repent, and resolve from blame
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I testify that the victim
Can radiate happiness
As the atonement works within
T'wards a pure love that can be sensed

There's a journey to recovery
And an end to trepidation
As there's a blessed discovery
The atonement's an invitation

He alone can share the burden
As one exercises faith
And all that once had been hurled in
Is seen and the heart does not faint

But see's the true source of abuse
The reviler of God's laws
Has been the author to accuse
And get inside with his claws

Then, to blind alleys he leads
Where like him, one thinks life's unfair
And then his strategy he breds-
With tragedy comes despair

And in his manipulation
The victim loses faith and trust
And falls to alienation
Comfortless, the heart forms a crust

But, this is not the way to live
Alone with pain too hard to bear
It's so important to forgive
For a broken heart to repair
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It will take a prayerful journey
For understanding of strife
And, oh how the abuser needs
To not be pious in this life...

Oh, how the abuser needs to stop
And seek to be rescued now
As sins make its way to the top
And before God we all we bow

For the healing of harm you've caused
Show the abused how you languish
For them show you've changed- not just paused
Recognize their mental anguish

Through the study of the atonement
And possibly also counseling
All can see why Christ alone was sent
And, oh the joy for this we should sing

Richard G. Scott
To Heal the Shattering Consequences of Abuse
Ensign, May 2008, 41