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Peacemakers Project: Proposal Assignment
This paper serves as a personal account of an ongoing conflict that I have with my birth
mother. My birth mother was amazing when I was a small child however from the time, I
reached the concrete operational (7-11 years) stage of Piaget’s cognitive development things
changed drastically for me and my baby brother (Mcleod, 2024). Now my brother and I are two
years apart and grew up sharing a room and doing practically everything together. The secret
kept and the source of the conflict is that I watched my baby brother be physically, emotionally,
and psychologically abused from the age of three until he left her home at the age of 15.
Growing up was difficult for him as he was born three months premature, his growth and
development for him was stunted initially. Where the real difficulty comes in was his relationship
with my birth mother. I remember her calling him the spawn of Satan because he should have
died in her womb. I watched her starve him, beat him, banish him from human contact. When he
was banished to the basement and starved, I would stay inside and play with him, I would sneak
him food. I remember being caught and watching him get hung up by the shirt he was wearing
on a nail. I was eight years old, I struggled to get him down after she left. One incident that stick
out vividly in my mind is the day we were visited by social services. My brother was allowed to
play outside with me. It was a warm summer day, I seriously can still smell the dirt, the grass in
the yard. We were playing a game of lawn darts, not the new “user friendly” ones, the old school,
“death defying” ones. As smaller children, we didn’t quite understand all the dangers that went
along with this game, so we each stayed on our own sides as the other threw these darts,
attempting to land them in the hoop at our feet. I missed the hoop but did manage to perfectly
pierce my brother’s nose with that lawn dart. He ran inside crying; I hid outside under the pine
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tree hoping that my mother wasn’t going to come out and find me. She did not. Many Years later
my brother and I were reminiscing, and I brought up this event. To my surprise he said it was the
best day of his life. Amazed I asked him how that was possible. He replied that he was able to
play outside with me, he felt the warmth of the sun on his skin (he was amazingly pale white),
and that after the dart incident, he went inside and our mother held him, comforted him, cleaned
him up, and gave him ice cream. Remember, the social worker was there. Many years later when
I read the Child Called It by Dave Pelzer written about his horrific childhood of torture and
abuse at the hands of his mother (Pelzer, 1995), all I could think was, that was my brother.
I tried to maintain a relationship with my birth mother and did so until I had returned
from Army basic training in 1996. Upon returning home after five months away, I received a
message from my grandmother stating that I needed to contact the sheriff’s department because
they stopped by looking for me. Perplexed I called the sheriff’s office immediately to determine
the cause for their visit. To my surprise, I was told that I was being accused of inappropriate
behavior with my youngest brother. I advised them that was impossible as I just returned from
basic training and had been gone for the previous five months. They insisted I come down to the
office and I did. I was then subjected to three plus hours of questioning before asked if I would
take a lie detector test, I did, and I passed. Shortly after returning home after the lie detector test
and interrogation, I received a phone call from my birth mother, I had said I didn’t feel like
talking at the moment, but that after I had time to process I would call her. She became
belligerent and started calling me names, so I hung up. All I could think was that she knew me
better than anyone on the planet, she should have known that I could never do anything like that.
I also was flooded with the memories of how I grew up and the insane abuse I witnessed towards
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my brother, the hypocrisy, the gall, the nerve of this woman to have done that to us, and then
accuse me of something so heinous. I didn’t speak to her directly for the last 28 years.
I obviously utilized the escape response to conflict. I sincerely believe that the reasons for
my response to this conflict were justified. I have six children and was thinking of them when it
came to having her presence in their lives. I have become much closer to Christ through my life
and have learned to forgive but not to forget. I did tell my birth mother in a written message that
I forgave her but that my decision to remain the distance created still stood. I did this after
realizing that the conflict and feelings of hatred and distrust I had for her was damaging my
relationship with God. Beginning with Matthew 6:12, the Lord’s Prayer telling us to forgive our
sins, as we forgive others to Matthew 6:14-15 which clearly and definitively says “For if you
forgive other people’s sins against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do
not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (New International Bible,
1973/2024). The truest verse in the Bible for forgiveness, in my opinion, is 1 Peter 4:8 “Above
all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins” (NIV Bible,
1973/2024). Serving Christ through this conflict has been difficult. I want to share my testimony
with others to promote forgiveness and healing, but have anxiety about it all. I know that I need
to give it to God and dive in, so my wife and I are starting a married couples community group
through hour church to promote fellowship and learn the word of God together. I am anticipating
that I will, in some way, be able to use this experience to promote the health and healing needed
for someone else, allowing it to become as positive as it can be.
I am not feeling internal peace. The issue with this conflict, the only substantial one I
have honestly had, is that my birth mother passed away in December of 2023. I was informed of
her death through my sister, I was also informed that of her seven children, only one went to her
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funeral. I have regrets in that I don’t feel as if I shared the fullness of her forgiveness from me. I
have regrets for not attending her funeral. I have regrets in that my children do not have stories
of their grandmother that I feel I can share with them. But the biggest regret I have is that I did
not do everything that God had told me to do before she passed away. In reading Psalms 37 and
73, I was immediately driven to a sermon at my church where pastor spoke on forgiveness. He
mentioned Psalms 73 by telling us that by not forgiving we leave behind a “foothold”. Relating it
to rock climbing, pastor went on to say that in rock climbing, it is impossible to get to the top
without a foothold. He brought it together by saying that the footholds we leave behind Satan
uses to attack us, through self-doubt, guilt, and shame.
References:
Mcleod, S., PhD (2024, January 24). Piaget's theory and stages of cognitive development.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html#Stages-of-Development
New International Bible. (2024). The NIV Bible. https://www.bible.com/niv/ (Original work
published 1973)
Pelzer, D. (1995).JA child called it: One child’s courage to survive. Health Communications, Inc.
(originally published in 1995)
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