Pete's Blog

I counseled a thirty-year-old Christian woman named Lisa who had been sexually molested by her father as a pre-teen and as a teenager. She became convinced that she needed to go back and try to build a relationship with her father even though she didn't trust him.

 

So she called him and said, "I don't trust you. You've never acknowledged what you did or acknowledged it was wrong. But in my heart I have forgiven you and I would like to rebuild a relationship. So we're going to meet in a public place."  They got together at a coffee shop, and she laid out the ground rules. She said, "If there are any inappropriate words or actions, I will leave. But I do want to love you."

 

She started a very low key love offensive. Every month or so she would do something to reach out to him, either drop him a card or call him. And then every three or four months they got together, but always in a public place. And he obeyed the rules. He didn't admit the abuse, he still tried to deny it and cover it up. But she kept on being very candid about the past and continued to share her faith in Christ with him.

 

She wrote me about five years after we had interacted and said her dad had come down with cancer and died. But, in God's wonderful providence, about a month before he died, he confessed everything, sought her forgiveness, and gave his life to Christ. So at the end of that story there was redemption.