How Much?

By Ann Detweiler

January 1, 2019

*This poem was written for all the little children and women who were not believed when they disclosed their abuse experience to someone who could have taken the steps to stop it from happening again.  My heart bleeds for you.  I am so sorry.  I pray that God would bring someone into your life to walk beside you and show you who Jesus really is.

 

How much is a little girl worth?

The question hangs in the air.

I cannot help but wonder

How Christians can’t more care –

 

About the stories of abuse

We hear many a time.

I cannot stay in silence,

For doing so is a crime.

 

She tried to tell adults

But no one did believe,

That the man she said had hurt her

Could such evilness conceive.

 

The evil kept on happening,

And each time it got worse.

Till she didn’t know the difference

Between good and perverse.

 

She did her best to protect herself,

Though her efforts were in vain.

Because no adults choose to see

And protect her from more pain.

 

But one day, she found Jesus.

It was hard to comprehend

What Jesus thinks about abuse

When abusers they did defend.

 

“How much am I worth?”

She sobbed into His shoulder.

He gently lifted her face to Him,

And this is what He told her:

“I am not like the people,

Who turned away their face

From the open wound in your soul –

Your innocence erased.”

 

“I do not blame or shame you,

It was not your fault.

There was nothing you could have done,

To stop the evil assault.”

 

“Rest here, my child, on My lap,

And let me fight for you.

I promise to bring healing,

And in my time, justice too.”

 

And so I ask, again, my friend:

How much is a little girl worth?

Will you be like my Jesus,

Or will more evil birth?

— Ann Detweiler Peachey

 

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