Mary E. DeMuth

I have the distinct pleasure of posting a guest blogger today. Unfortunately, I am technologically inept and cannot post photos, but if you want to know what Mary DeMuth looks like(she is beautiful), link over to her page. Shoot, link over anyway, and then link forward to her blog. She has good stuff to say.

Mary E. DeMuth has been crafting prose since 1992, first as a newsletter editor, then as a freelance writer, followed by a fiction and nonfiction author. Mary’s articles have appeared in Marriage Partnership, In Touch, HomeLife, Discipleship Journal, Pray!, Bon Appetit, Kindred Spirit, P31 Woman, and Hearts at Home. For two years she penned a lifestyle column for Star Community Newspapers in Dallas (circulation 100,000). Mary’s books include Ordinary Mom, Extraordinary God (Harvest House, 2005), Sister Freaks (Time Warner, 2005, one of four contributing authors, Editor Rebecca St. James), Building the Christian Family You Never Had (WaterBrook, 2006), Watching the Tree Limbs, and Wishing on Dandelions (NavPress, both novels releasing in 2006). In 2003, she won the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference’s Pacesetter Award. Mary loves to speak about the art and craft of writing as well as the redemptive hand of God in impossible situations. She’s spoken in Munich, Vienna, Amsterdam, Portland, Dallas, Seattle, and San Jose. A thirty-nine-year-old mother of three, Mary lives with her husband Patrick in the South of France. Together with two other families, they are planting a church.


Today I read about a Homeland Security honcho getting arrested for trying to seduce what he thought was a 14 year old over the Internet. The terrible story is here. And congress is now (finally!!!) investigating this.

Every time I speak to a group of people and bring up childhood sexual abuse, I get knowing glances from many, many folks. My guess, though, is that the incidents of this abuse is much higher today because of the Internet and the further breakdown of communities and families. It makes me sick. Angry.

Livid.

Children are our future, but they are systematically victimized on the altar of sick pleasure. I've had to endure years of pain because of my own issues dealing with childhood sexual abuse from neighbors. I ache for every single person who has had to live through that hell.

I wrote Watching the Tree Limbs as a response. I wanted to offer hope to people who had been violated as children. I wanted to portray an honest wrestling with a God who seemed far away. I wanted a character to grapple with, "Where was God when I was being abused?" I wanted, through the vehicle of a page-turning story, reveal God's tender mercy toward the abuse victim.
I hoped to put the reader in a victimized girl's flip-flops, in a similar way Harper Lee walked us around in Boo Radley's shoes.

So, yes, I'm sickened by these recent reports. It makes me mad. The Bible says Satan comes like a thief to steal, kill and destroy. I have a sinking feeling childhood sexual abuse is one of his most powerful tools to destroying humankind.

There's a song, "Make a Joyful Noise to the Lord," I love to sing. In the bridge it repeats, "I will not be silent, no. I will not be silent anymore."

That's how I feel about this issue. Silence is deadening our children. It's time to speak up.