I was surfing sermons online and I suddenly was faced with Lester Roloff's picture for the first time in 30 years.
My story is unpleasant. To be honest, in some ways I despise it. Finally at the age of 48 I have faced the festering wound that was full of infected dirt and pain and rage left within me because of my three months at The Lighthouse for Boys on Padre Island South of Corpus Christi. I think that its by the Grace of God that I have not found this until now. I was 16 then. I believe it was the summer and fall of 1972. I will show this to my wife and say to her "see, it really is true."
I will not speak my story here. At least not yet. It is good to know that there is more than just survival after abuse of this kind. There is actually victory. First Roloff looked at me and said, "we can't help this one." Then after my beatings and my "profession of faith", and my subsequent baptism, I got out of there in just three months, put on a bus and sent back to my home where I finally dropped out of high school, god married, and am finally, hopefully, becoming the man I was created to be.
