What about the victims? The judge gave them a voice, and they spoke through their letters to the court. I could not read them without tears. Two gave impact statements aloud during the trial. What about them? After years of silence, I pray that telling their stories, and speaking at the trial, releases some of the hurt and built-up anger. I pray for the third St. Louis victim who chose to remain anonymous. I pray for all of Milburn’s victims. Why would these young souls be brushed aside by the senior minister? Why would their pain be less important than the image of the church and its leaders? I’m just asking, “What about the victims?”
Here’s a smash together of some of what they wrote:
“I suddenly wasn’t good enough for anyone and everything I had ever done didn’t matter because no one know the real me. They didn’t know that I laid awake in my dorm room haunted by my past and desperate for help and someone to talk to crying myself to sleep frequently and persistently yelling out to God. I grew up watching the rest of the world praise him for being a ‘man of god,’ when I was the only one who knew the real monster he actually was . . . Again, no words can describe the hurt and anger that I still deal with on a daily basis. But the main thing that I want to get across in this letter is how Brandon Milburn robbed me of my childhood and has made my life a living hell.” (Taylor, Joy S., A View from the Pews — The Inside Story of a Broken Church, 2022, Lily of the Valley Publishing, Santa Claus IN, pp. 154-155.)
#aviewfromthepews #forthevictims
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