Hurting Child Within

By Mary Crawford

Hurting Child Within is about a little girl who experienced molestation, multiple rapes, and so much more, but she never stopped believing in God. She knew deep down inside that God was keeping her in the midst of it all. She held on to the belief that things woul

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mary Crawford
• Release date: Jan 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9780578353074

Book preview

Introduction 

When I was a child, we lived in upstate New York. I had a loving family. My father loved me. He just didn’t get the help he needed to keep me from going through what he had gone through as a child, when his mother passed away. Because of what happened to him and what he was told, he thought that the behaviors he observed were the way to show and give love. I was told later in life that his brothers had all done it because family members who were raising them had done it to them. (2 Samuel 13:1-5, 11-16)

My mother loved me too. She just didn’t want to believe that a man she loved and had a child with could do the things he did. She had four other children to raise as well. So, to protect herself and her mind, she chose not to focus on it. That did not make her a bad person, and it definitely did not threaten her status as a Christian. I say this because I have observed that many people have a bad habit of saying I thought you were a Christian, when they just want to make you feel bad, or perhaps just don’t want to face their own shortcomings. (John 8:7b)

My mother raised me in church. Before I knew anything else, I knew church. Before I went to school or anywhere else, I was in church. Momma gave me a foundation that could not be moved, no matter what storm came. When I started experiencing all the frightening things that occurred, I was shocked and in disbelief. My world was turned upside down in a matter of minutes after the first time. That’s why I’ve always said, and continue to say, my life drastically changed at the age of four, but my foundation did not change or waver.

Of course, the things that were done to me would have been normal for mature people in a consensual relationship, but it should not have happened to me or any other child. It certainly should not have happened to me until I was old enough to make that decision for myself. Unfortunately, it didn’t occur that way for me. I didn’t fully understand it all until I got older when I was going through counseling.

The thing I did remember was that I would go without eating until I passed out. I was only four, and they said it was just a phase I was going through, or I was doing it to get attention. They didn’t understand that I was getting attention, but it was not the attention I wanted or needed. The things that were happening didn’t stop. They took place late at night whenever I was staying at the house of someone who I thought was a friend of the family.

To all the people who feel as if you can’t make it, I am here to tell you that if you just hold on, everything will be all right after while. If you have been molested, raped, put down, talked about, etc. you can overcome it all, just hold on to God’s unchanging hand. I pray that everyone who reads this book will come to know that no matter how dark it seems, things can, will, and does get better.

This is the story of a hurting child within…

Chapter 1

He would say he loved me. He would say it is what people do when they love each other. He would say it’s what people would do to show their love. Of course, he meant that they