Elizabeth

These Hands These hands are the hands of a child, Wonderful, innocent, beautiful child, Hands meant to clap and hands meant to pray, Hands meant to hold and hands meant to play. But these hands have done things they should never have done, Forced by someone much bigger, And it wasn't for fun. Bigger hands made these little ones do Things shameful, and dirty and secretive too. These are the hands of an innocent child.

“These Hands” is a very personal and important part of healing for myself, husband and son. As survivors of sexual abuse, my husband and I were devastated when we discovered that our son had been sexually abused by someone we trusted. Though we had done all we knew to prevent this from occurring, it happened, and our hearts broke. We thought of all the pain and shame this type of abuse causes. From experience we knew how difficult it can be to heal from this. I really cannot explain the devastation my husband and I felt knowing our son would have to take that journey too.

One of the most important things my husband and I knew he needed was to make sure he understood was that he was innocent and the shame feeling did not mean he was guilty. We explained that shame is a feeling to let children know that sexual abuse is wrong, but they are not the shameful ones. Shame belongs to the violating act and to the person who committed the act against him, but that his hands are the hands of a child, an innocent child. I created this work as a gift to him (the photo is of his hands) and to all other children, some who are now adults, who need to be reminded that they are not somehow “dirty” but innocent and beautiful and they still hold the promise of a wonderful future life.