Sunday, January 19, 2020 -
I often think back about 14 years ago when I need to be encouraged that our God is a God of miracles. And I truly believe all of the assurances God has given me, that when this entire ordeal is over, people will shake their heads in amazement over the wonderful ways of our Heavenly Father.
About 14 years ago I was accused of child abuse by social services for spanking my son. That’s not something I did often, but this was for a very egregious infraction. When the child turned on me, using his fists, I sent him out of the house to the barn to sit until he cooled off. It turned out instead that he ran away, after having spent a long time up in a tree where he often went.
After leaving the house, his nose began to bleed for no reason, as it often does, and he eventually walked into a neighborhood business with blood from his nose bleed all over his face, telling the person there he had been beaten. We were then soon visited by the police, and Kathie and I made a statement. That day was the last time we saw our child in over a month.
Eventually, with a good attorney and $10,000, the Lord enabled me to be acquitted of the charge of beating my son, and he was returned. Yet social services determined that in spite of the court’s ruling, they would still place me on the state’s registry of child abusers. We had the opportunity to request an appeal which would be determined after a local hearing, and then ultimately have the ability to appeal to the state.
So off we marched to the hearing, right around Christmas time. After the hearing, prior to us leaving, Kathie stood up, much to the consternation of my lawyer, turned to the head of social services, and gave a very forceful and forthright speech, telling them they will have to answer personally to God Almighty for what they were doing. I still think of this incident every time I read the words of Jesus in Matthew 10:18-19, “And you shall even be brought before governors, and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the courts. But when they deliver you up, do not become anxious about how or what you will speak; for it shall be given you in that hour what you are to speak.”
Now, to put this in perspective, we had been told by our attorney that social services specifically target Christian and homeschooling families. Not only that, but when a child is handicapped, the local social services receive a significant monetary bonus from the federal government for kidnapping those children specifically. And this is exactly what they do in many cases. I know there is a need in some instances to remove children from an abusive home, but spanking is not abuse, and there should never be a financial incentive to those determining whether abuse has taken place, as Congress has currently established in the current law.
We know for a fact that we were targeted not just because our child was handicapped (he has only one eye), but because we were homeschoolers and we are Christians. This is because we overheard it with our own ears from the social worker who was to testify in my court hearing while we waited in adjoining rooms. It was as clear as day as the vitriol spewed from her mouth about homeschooling Christian families. Even James Dobson and Focus on the Family was part of her hate-filled diatribe.
We left the hearing after Kathie gave her Spirit-led speech to the social services and Child Protective services hierarchies, not knowing what their decision would be. But my attorney had repeatedly told me that nobody has ever won one of these hearings with social services in their long history. He gave us virtually no hope of winning – barring a miracle.
Well, fast forward to New Year’s Day, about 1:00 in the afternoon, when the entire family was sitting around the table enjoying a wonderful, special New Year’s meal Kathie had fixed for us. The phone rings. It was my lawyer. I don’t recall his exact words, but they were something like this: “You won’t believe this, but they’ve decided not to place you on the state child abuse registry. You are completely exonerated!”
I think back on this incident often now, knowing I was accused of something that I had not done, was not a crime, and was not wrong, and God did a miracle against all odds and completely vindicated me! What an amazing, all-powerful God we serve! I expect no less from my Lord and Savior this time around, as I broke no laws, nor did Lisa Miller, as we found out last year, even though we were both charged under the same indictment, with kidnapping. Because the law states, if abuse is the motive for removing a child from the country, it is not kidnapping. Nobody should ever have been indicted, let alone tried.
Tomorrow I will tell you the subsequent horrific things I learned after being falsely accused by social services of child abuse.