The Back Story - Part Two

I was minding my own business later that day washing a sink full of dishes alone in my tiny kitchen when all the kids were gone. "Lord," I said outloud. "I promised my friend that I would pray about writing her story. This is my official fulfillment of that promise. I do not plan to think about it again. That is....unless.... you put a strategy and an outline in my mind." 

In the time it took to rinse a plate and stand it in the drying rack, my fully engaged imagination took over. I was right. Just to write my friend's story would not be prudent. It was too controversial, too graphic, too connected to me emotionally....but....

...if I could collect and present the stories of 100 wives of abusive pastors, that would be a powerful accomplishment. I ruefully concluded that God was interested in the project and gulped at the amount of courage that I knew it would require.

Wiping my soapy wet hands on my jeans I headed down the stairs to my office and drafted an outline and a book proposal to pitch to some prospective publishers. These resulted in a series of rejection letters peppered with nice noises about how interesting such a book could be...

Meanwhile....I started researching clergy abuse from the Protestant side...

After all, I had a degree in sociology and I had worked in a battered woman's shelter for several years in the early 1980s. Indeed, my role had included collaborating with staff in each Illinois state-funded woman's shelter to start the process of standardizing services for children who had been displaced due to the domestic violence in their homes. I certainly was personally and professionally qualified to write my friend's story as one of many similar true stories.

That was many months before I considered articulating the stories as fiction....