Father, Son, and
Broken Spirit
Stephen McWhirter
from church camps to revivals, I watched him preach hundreds of times and lead many to Jesus. I associated everything I knew about Jesus, the Bible, and God with my dad.
The abuse I watched him inflict on my mother seared into me the instinct to always run in the opposite direction. If he followed Jesus, I would have nothing to do with Jesus. Since my dad wasn’ t good, I assumed God was the same kind of father. I saw both of them through the broken lens of my pain. My fear and anger boiled in my dad’ s presence and at the very thought of God. My dad was all the evidence I needed that God couldn’ t be truly good.
Unresolved trauma became my prison. I didn’ t know how to be set free.
Keeping the secret of Dad’ s abuse was our number-one rule as a family. No one could ever know.
On many occasions, my father beat my mother so badly she had bruises down her spine, arms, and neck. Although she did her best to conceal them, sometimes she ended up with a bruise that couldn’ t be easily hidden. I remember a time when someone at a camp meeting asked my mom about her black eye. I was young, barely tall enough to come up to her elbow, and I was overcome by dread. Would our family secret be exposed?
Before my mom could reply, my dad jumped in:“ She fell in the shower.”
As I heard those words, my whole body
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