The memory popped up amid Epstein file disclosures. And I couldn’t look away from it. Because something deeply puzzled me. Why did no one protect little me?
I am four years old, far as I can tell. I sit on an unclothed man’s bare lap, looking down at a children’s book. Apparently, he is reading me a story.
I, too, have no clothing on. I do not know the man’s name, but he is a friend of my father’s.
I have no real look in my eyes, no shock, no horror, no lick of uncomfortableness. That’s what happens when you’re groomed to believe all is normal by people who truly don’t love you.
My father’s house swam with nude people. Often. And I was thrown into the mix, clothesless.
Not one person thought this horrific. Not one person swept me away, rescuing me from all of them. No one stood up to my father, said, “You should protect your child from this.”
They all played their sick, depraved game. They were a cabal. A mafia. An evil, cultic club whose only moral was their own self-satisfaction.
As a victim, I was collateral damage, too young to stand up for myself. What would I say? Do? I was stuck there.
I needed one brave adult to do the right thing. None did. Certainly not my father.
So when I watch hundreds (thousands?) of p*dophiles revel in their cabal, their insulated, protected sphere of debauchery, I remember that picture of little me sitting on an unclothed man’s lap.
I ache for every single victim who tried-tried-tried to bring down this evil cult, only to be gaslit, shunned, maligned, broken down, and ridiculed.
I rage at the abusers, yes, but I also rage at the sophisticated systems they created to protect themselves. Theirs is an arsenal of coercive silence, and that tact has preserved folks like that for millennia.
I didn’t experience rescue. I still bear the scars of that. But today we have an opportunity to collectively rise up, tell the heinous criminals their time of anonymity is up. And finally do the right thing.
Children (like me, like you once were, like our children, like our grandchildren) deserve protection. They deserve justice. I’m tired of having to say the obvious, but I’ll keep at it. Because I can’t bear the thought of yet another little child, sitting on a bare man’s lap, thinking that’s normal.
…
…
My heart is heavy. Does no one care?
Why do the powerful get away with this? My friend David once said, “R*pe is murder that leaves the victim alive.” And he’s not wrong.
And still? We pay far more attention to the soul killers than we do to the ones they kill.
This is wrong.
Jesus would expose. Grieve. Judge the murderers. Gather the children, heal them.
Eschatologically I know those who did such horrific deeds will get their comeuppance. But why do we settle for waiting? Our nation should simply enforce its existing laws. Do the right thing. Protect the innocent. Prosecute the guilty. Come what may.
So it topples those in power. So what. Do we really want those who harm children to be decision makers? Policy creators?
When I was a little girl, all I wanted was just one person who cared enough to rescue me. I grieve that no person came to my aid. But now that I’m older, I cannot abide a system that protects the predators and ignores the cries of their victims.
This is wrong.
Mary, I am so deeply sorry. What a painful image to carry—and for all that you have endured. I don’t have pictures of my abuser; I don’t even know his name. He was a stranger welcomed into our home but not watched, and he stole my innocence when I was four. I remember cleaning myself up after the attempted rape of my small frame and walking out to find my mother reading a magazine. She never looked up. It was never acknowledged until years later, when I began the hard work of untangling it with a gifted counselor. Years of counseling and EMDR therapy have not erased the harm, and I will never see him face justice here on earth. For a long time I struggled to trust God because I didn’t feel protected. But as I faced the truth of my story, I began to see ways God had been near to me that I couldn’t recognize before. What was taken cannot be undone, yet I have entrusted justice to Him—and I am healing.
I don’t have answers for anyone else’s suffering, but I have found a place to set mine: in God’s hands. I still get angry, especially when I see others being harmed. And now I speak up. I report abuse. I help others find support and safety. If I see someone who feels unsafe—in church, in a store, anywhere—I make sure someone is aware. Silence once protected the wrong people; I refuse to let it do so again. In protecting others, I am reclaiming, piece by piece, what no one once did for me.
And I share this so you know you are not alone. Your pain matters. Your story matters. And healing, though slow and uneven, is possible.
I remember… the nudity that no one ever said was wrong. The perversion that was made acceptable. But somehow I knew not to bring this into the world… not one person stopped it, not a single one. But we have Mary, we have.