Out of the Wilderness: Honoring His Abusive Christian Father and Mother

By Rev. Mark William Ennis

Our news media seems to have daily stories of individuals who have been abused by clergy, church leaders, and even church organizations. Countless numbers of formerly faithful people avoid church because they were abused, while others, who are not religious participants, avoid experiencing faith communities because of what they have been hearing in news stories.

How do clergy, church leaders, and congregations help in the healing of these abused people and assist them to move beyond the pain of abuse toward healing and even forgiveness?

Although the names and places have been changed to protect the innocent, this is the true but tragic story of a Christian man who had been abused by both parents, who were elders in the church, but found enough healing to fight to keep his mother from being abused three decades later.

It is a story of a woman who abused her son in response to her own abuse.

It is a story of a Christian man, healed from abuse, who chose to be a rescuer instead of an abuser.

It is a story of a Christian community uniting in prayer and action to support a son as he helped his mother escape from the evils of sexual abuse.

This is a story of a son and his mother who walk out of the wilderness of abuse and into a better, safer, more prosperous place of healing, peace, and forgiveness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9798888328699

Book preview

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Out of the Wilderness

Honoring His Abusive Christian Father and Mother

Rev. Mark William Ennis

ISBN 979-8-88832-868-2 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88832-869-9 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Rev. Mark William Ennis

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

One Woman, Many Prayers

Chapter 2

The Fox

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Columbus Day

Chapter 5

Thanksgiving

Chapter 6

Prayer Partners

Chapter 7

A Minister's Sadness

Chapter 8

Ruth Remembers

Chapter 9

Ruth and William

Chapter 10

Calvin

Chapter 11

Second Thoughts

Chapter 12

War Paint

Chapter 13

Bill Reunion

Chapter 14

Jeanne Remembers

Chapter 15

The Tale of Two Children

Chapter 16

Courthouse Memories

Chapter 17

Correspondence

Chapter 18

Dreams and Oedipus

Chapter 19

Endings and Beginnings

Chapter 20

The Promised Land

About the Author

Chapter 1

May 22, 1995

One Woman, Many Prayers

Anne Mason sat next to her sister in the back of her mother's car on the way to her fourth-grade class, but she was not chatting as she usually did. She was quiet, worried for her grandmother. Her mother was quiet also, but that was not unusual. The woman almost never spoke much on the drives to school. Her thoughts were with her all her appointments. Elizabeth, her little sister, sat next to her, equally quiet.

Anne pouted that she had had to eat cold cereal for breakfast. Dad was not there this morning to cook for the girls. Each morning, since she could remember, her dad greeted them in the kitchen, wearing his white chef's hat and white apron, as he stood between the gas stove and the table. He made lunches and took breakfast orders for the girls or any house guests that were staying over or had been invited. He ran the kitchen, like the diner that he had worked in during his college years, and sometimes dreamed of owning after his retirement from accounting. The girls would tell him what they wanted, and he cooked it for them, assuming he had the ingredients, as usually he did. Dad's kitchen was always well stocked.

This morning he had left early. Grandma needs me, he had told the girls the night before. I am leaving very early to get to her house. She and Grandpa don't want to live together anymore. They are going to a court so that the judge can say that they are no longer married.

Anne was grieving that she would no longer see Grandma and Grandpa together. Some of the kids at school had divorced parents and told her bad stories of living in two different houses. She hoped that having divorced grandparents did not have the same effect.

The girl had always enjoyed visits to Grandma and Grandpa's house and their visits to her house. The trips from Pennsylvania to Grandma's house took two hours, but they had always been worth it. The two were fun to visit, and they took her and Elizabeth on many trips. But that was before things changed. They had changed a few years ago when Charles moved into Grandma's house. Grandma wasn't happy anymore. She was walking with a cane. It took her a long time to walk when they went on trips together. Grandma never seemed to smile anymore.

Daddy had told her and Elizabeth last night to pray for Grandma when they woke up in the morning. As Mommy drove the car into the parking lot of school, she remembered her father's request. She quickly put her hands together and prayed, Keep Grandma safe today.

The car pulled up in front of the school door, and the girls opened their doors and grabbed their backpacks.

God bless you, girls. Have fun, and study hard.

Bye, Mom.

Bye, Mom. Will Dad be home for dinner?

We don't know.

The girls shut their car doors and walked toward the school door. Anne was even more sad. Dad was fun at dinnertime, cooking, teasing, laughing, and sometimes having spitball fights with them. She hoped that he would be back for dinner. She modified her prayer as she walked toward her school. Keep Grandma safe today, and bring Dad home for dinner.

Jeanne Mason pulled out of the school's parking lot and turned right as she drove toward her office, where she had client appointments booked for the entire day. She worried about her daughters, especially Anne, who not only looked like Grandma but had a close emotional bond with her. She began her ten-mile journey to the office where she would see her first clients, a couple that was always fighting with one another but still always stayed together. As a marriage and family therapist for the last ten years, she had seen almost every type of familial dysfunction. Nothing she had seen in the office had ever prepared her for her husband Will's family. That family could take the prize for dysfunction.

She pushed the thoughts of it away, getting ready for her clients. Jeanne waited at a traffic light and said a quick prayer: Protect Rose today as she deals with him.

*****

Rose Mason turned off the alarm clock one hour before it was to buzz her awake. She had not slept, and she knew that she would not sleep. There was simply no point in lying in a bed. This was the last day that she would wake as a married woman.

She threw off her covers, pushed herself up, and slipped her feet into her worn blue fuzzy slippers. Next, she grabbed her robe from the chair next to her bed and wrapped it around her, covering her flannel nightgown.

The sixty-four-year-old woman walked to the kitchen of her house and began heating her tea water. This had been her mother's house until twelve years ago when her mother left it to her, even as her mother had inherited it from her mother.

She next filled the Mr. Coffee pot with grounds and water before turning it on. She knew that her son would be wanting coffee as soon as he arrived. Rose felt gratitude when he had told her that he would be coming to accompany her to court. His schedule was always busy, but he had assured his mother that he would be here for her.

She walked onto the back porch and looked into the yard at the flowers that she and her husband had planted through the years. The tulips had already bloomed and were beyond their peak. Irises were just poking their way through the soil. There were hundreds of blossoms on the rosebushes but no roses yet. For that, she would have to wait another month.

This porch had always been her favorite room. Every warm summer evening, she had sat here behind the screen, sipping tea. Well, it had been her choice of rooms, but no longer. One night, over a year ago, something had happened that had taken her joy away from this place. She never spoke of it and tried not to think of it. Now she was still feeling the aftershocks.

With her tea water heating and his coffee brewing, she walked toward the bathroom to prepare for the day. She stood over the sink and looked into the mirror. Tears came quickly.

Oh, God, am I doing the right thing? Is this the right thing to do?

No answer came.

*****

Helen, the Presbyterian church secretary in Bethlehem, PA, opened her office door, turned on the light, and walked to her computer as she had done every day for the last thirty years. The furniture and equipment had been modernized and upgraded, but the blue paint had not changed in decades. Decorating was always a controversial issue in churches and usually was only done if there was a change in personnel, and rooms were redecorated for the new person arriving. The pastor had come only a few years after her, and so it had been decades since any redecorating had been done.

Helen looked at the Post-it note that stuck to her computer monitor. She had placed it there before leaving work on the previous day. She turned her computer on and walked to the kitchenette to begin brewing her morning coffee as the computer booted up. It was ready to use when she returned. Quickly, she sat down and double-clicked the email icon to access the church email.

She sent out the notice, Your prayers are needed on behalf of Will Mason's mother, Rose Mason. She is having her divorce finalized today and is in deep grief. Pray for Will also as he supports his mother at this time.

In an instant, the message had been delivered to the entire congregation. Soon, dozens of prayers were rising on behalf of Rose, Will, and the family.

*****

William Mason, for the third time in the last five minutes, had to shift his Subaru from second gear back down to first. He hated traffic. Every time he began to miss living in North Jersey, he reminded himself of what the traffic was like. It was very different from the emptiness of the roads around his home in Pennsylvania. He had grown up in the suburbs of Newark but had been thrilled at the chance to leave for the more rural areas of Eastern Pennsylvania. Now he was back into it, coming to support his mother, who was struggling with guilt, loss, and rejection. He felt anger toward his father and Charles, who Will referred to as the predator.

He felt guilt at letting his anger surface. This trip was not about him. It was about, and for, his mother. He needed to put his own feelings aside.

Oh, God, keep my mother from guilt. Protect her from the two of them, who have done her so much harm.

Perhaps it was his imagination or wishful thinking, or maybe it was a divine reward for taking the attention away from himself. But either way, it seemed that the traffic lessened, and he was soon off the Main Street and pulling up in front of his mother's house. He parked in front of his childhood home and looked at the old house.

It had been built in the early 1900s as railroads began rapid expansion in Newark. Whole neighborhoods sprang up with housing for the railroad workers. This was one of them. His great-grandfather had worked on the trains and had purchased the house as a first owner. The house looked very little as it had when it was built. Renovations and improvements had been made over the last one hundred years, including the craze of the 1970s in which every homeowner on the block air-conditioned, enclosed the front porch, and put aluminum siding on the outside of their houses and took out front yards to put in driveways.

He parked the car across the driveway, exited the car, and climbed the steps that he had spent so many hours playing on as a child. The accountant could not even count the number of hours playing porch ball and Chinese school on those steps.

Now, on top of the steps, outside the front door, he prayed once more for his mother's welfare. Even though he had a key, he did not like to use it when she was home. He rang the bell and waited.

May Cooper poured coffee into her husband Frank's cup before setting his plate of scrambled eggs, bacon and toast before him. This had been her ritual for over forty years. She had been a dutiful housewife, supporting him as a Christian minister for forty years. Now they were retired in their home in the suburbs outside Syracuse, but her ritual had not changed. She took care of Frank each and every day.

*****

Today was different than most days. Instead of the good humor that usually abounded, there was gloom over the couple and the whole family. Their son-in-law's parents were divorcing today.

May had never liked her first son-in-law. He was from Newark, crude, and prone to a bad temper. At times, he even used foul language that she and Frank did not tolerate in their home. Indeed, she had constantly advised her older daughter to call off her wedding plans. Jeanne, however, always willful, had not listened. May's final plea was on her daughter's wedding night. She sat her daughter down after the reception and before the honeymoon.

Don't consummate this marriage, Jeanne. You are going to regret it. His temper is bad. He will beat you. If you have children, he will abuse them also.

The young girl sat, trying to be polite but also tired of her mother's tirades. They had been in conflict most of their lives. Her mother had never liked any of her past boyfriends, especially the one that she had been engaged to for two years before Jeanne had ended it and two years later started her second engagement to the man that she would eventually marry. Some friends had wondered if she intentionally chose boyfriends that the mother would disapprove of as acts of childhood rebellion.

Mother, I'm married, and I'm going to stay married. There is nothing you can do to stop it. You will just have to deal with it, she had told her mother on her wedding night.

Jeanne, think about this. Don't throw your life away. He is not a good man.

I'm tired of hearing this. Keep it to yourself. I'm a married woman now.

The older woman sighed but left the room. She felt like her daughter was committing suicide walking into this hell of a marriage.

Now, fourteen years later, she had been requested to pray for Rose, her son-in-law's mother. Rose and Calvin were getting divorced, and May didn't pretend that she wasn't happy. Watching the two interact had given her heartburn over the years. It even gave her an insight into why her son-in-law, Will, was like he was. It wasn't an excuse in her mind, but she could, at least, understood some of it.

Soon, she and Frank would settle down to pray for Rose, as they had been requested to do so. The whole family, and several congregations that she and her other two children were affiliated with, would be joining together in prayers this morning to bless Rose, who received all of the sympathy from those who knew this couple.

May leaned back against the counter and waited for Frank to finish his breakfast. Soon he pushed his empty plate away, stood up, and packed his satchel before turning to May. Even though he was retired from parish ministry, he volunteered as many hours as he had worked. It was as if he had never retired, just stopped receiving a paycheck.

I'll be in around five.

Okay. I'll have dinner ready. She paused. We need to pray for Rose today, she reminded him.

For a moment, he looked confused, not remembering, then his face brightened as the day's events came to mind.

Yes, we need to.

The two faced each other and held hands. Frank, forever the pastor, led the prayer.

Oh, Lord, we are in pain today, worrying about Rose, mourning the end of a marriage. Keep Rose and Will in your gracious hands. May they know your love and grace this day. In Jesus's name, we pray. Amen.

Amen, May repeated.

Following a quick goodbye kiss, Frank picked up his case and headed toward the door. May picked up the dishes, scraped and rinsed them before placing them in the dishwasher. Next, she poured herself a cup of coffee and walked to her back deck. Today was a warm day, and she sat on the wooden deck chair, watching the birds on the feeder and the squirrels digging into her lawn.

She hoped that Rose's divorce would restore her health. In the past few years, Rose seemed to age before their eyes. May knew that the divorce was coming several years ago. Her mind recalled all that she saw in Niagara Falls, the day she began to worry about Rose and Calvin. As she held her coffee, her memory rose in her mind, and she could recall it almost as vividly, as if she were living it again.

Chapter 2

The Fox

Rose finished her shower, climbed out, dried herself, put on her robe, and opened the bathroom door. As it opened, she heard the doorbell ring as her son stood outside, waiting for her. It was the ringing bell that brought back a memory.

August 31, 1991

She sat on her back porch, protected from the insects by the screens that were now thirty years old and which needed a good cleaning, if not replacing. She knew that her days enjoying the porch were now limited. Labor Day weekend was here, and soon the nights would be getting colder. Her garden would go dormant until spring.

The woman sat at her small desk, paying bills. Usually, almost as a ritual, she paid bills on the first Monday of each month. This week, the holiday had forced her to move her up her payment day. It would be a busy weekend. She