When I was a little girl, I learned that silence could become a second skin.
It wrapped itself around what had been done to me. It taught me to smile while my spirit folded itself into smaller and smaller corners. It whispered that survival was the same thing as peace.
It wasn’t.
Silence did not protect me. It only protected what harmed me.
For years, I thought the deepest wound was the abuse itself. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve realized something more devastating. The silence carved out places inside me that should have belonged to God. It hollowed my trust, distorted my instincts, and made me question what my own eyes had seen. It upended my idea of what family meant .. who I could keep in my life and why or why not.
That is what evil does. It rarely asks for applause. It only asks that no one speak.
When I came to Christ, I discovered that God is never anxious about the truth. He has no interest in polishing darkness until it looks respectable. He does not ask us to preserve the image of the wolf while the lamb bleeds beneath it.
I think we often misunderstand what mercy looks like.
Mercy is never purchased with a child’s suffering.
Forgiveness is never built on denial.
And love never requires us to pretend that evil did not happen.
The God I know does not recoil from what has been hidden. He walks directly into it, carrying light like a blade. He uncovers not because He delights in shame, but because He delights in freedom.
I have spent much of my life recovering the voice that silence stole from me.
Not because I enjoy speaking about these things.
Not because I want to live in the past.
But because I know what silence costs.
I’ve paid for it.
And I refuse to let another child inherit the bill while the adults congratulate themselves for keeping the peace.
God never asked us to protect darkness.
He asked us to walk in the light
B🤍
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