“You are not the darkness you endured. You are the light that refused to surrender.” –
John Mark Green
I grew up in a “perfect,” middle-class South African home, one that was richer than most. My mother was a housewife, and my father was a businessman. Both of my parents came from deeply dysfunctional homes, each carrying their own childhood trauma and pain. Things were made worse when my father was sent to fight in the Angolan war. When he returned, he had to battle not only the demons of his past but also the new ones he brought home from the front lines. My parents married young. We didn’t realize it at the time, but my father struggled with narcissistic tendencies—likely a result of his tumultuous upbringing and post- war PTSD. He was often on edge, angry, harsh, and critical. His expectations were impossibly high, leaving us feeling like we could never meet his standards.
He was also very abusive. As toddlers, my siblings and I were punished for even the smallest offenses, and the punishments were often severe. I remember one incident when I was four years old: I accidentally bumped my father’s car. My mother had left the car keys in the vehicle, and my toddler brother wanted to play with it, so I tried to stop him. When my father found out, he locked me in the bathroom from late morning until the afternoon, then proceeded to beat me. My mother ran out of the house, crying out to God, begging Him to make him stop. Eventually, he did.
My father also enjoyed playing mind games with us, creating a constant atmosphere of fear and power struggles. The verbal abuse was just as unbearable. He would scream, swear, criticize, belittle, ridicule, and shame us, often leaving us feeling like we had been crushed
under the weight of an elephant.
I got my first spanking when I was just two weeks old. People often ask how I can remember such a thing, but I don’t—my mother does. She remembers every blow that was struck against her children. The physical abuse continued until I was about ten. After that, it mostly became emotional and verbal. What made it worse was that whenever my mother tried to protect us or intervene, my father would escalate his anger, often repeating or intensifying his actions. As a result, my mother learned to withdraw emotionally. While she wasn’t physically abused, the harsh words from my father wounded her deeply. To cope with her own trauma, she often became like a tortoise, retreating into her shell, leaving her
emotionally unavailable.
No one knew what was happening in our home. It was a secret we kept hidden, a family secret we guarded with our lives. As a result, I grew up broken and fragmented, filled with fears and insecurities. I couldn’t let God into my heart because I saw Him as I saw my earthly father—cruel, distant, and unpredictable. He was a tyrant, there for you one day and missing the next.
At university, I tried to numb the pain and trauma through anything I could find. I’d heard the saying, “Pain seeks pleasure,” and my pursuit of pleasure led me down a dark path. I became addicted to almost everything you could imagine. But when I was 22, I walked into a church, and during worship, I felt God’s voice speak to me: “I love you so much. When are you coming back to me?” It was as though the light of truth illuminated my soul, and for the first time, I became aware of my spiritual state. I saw myself like the prodigal son, sitting in a pigsty, surrounded by mud and filth. And then, Jesus appeared, standing right in front of me, barefoot in the mess, reaching out His hands. His loving eyes beckoned me to come home, to give Him a chance.
I did.
I underwent a deep process of forgiveness, deliverance, and healing. Jesus began to restore the broken pieces of my life. Over the years, many people helped me on my healing journey, one of whom was my spiritual mother. She took me under her wing and loved me back to life. For eight years, she discipled me, teaching me about the loving heart of God the Father, the power of the Cross, and how valuable I was to Him. Today, I walk in open heavens. I hear God’s voice clearly, and I’ve had many profound encounters with Him. I’ve witnessed countless miracles of His goodness. A few years after I was saved, God spoke to me and said, “I want you to come to Me and intercede for your father.” Three days later, my parents called me to share a dream my father had. In the dream, he was in heaven, and God rolled out the red carpet for him. I told my father I wanted to pray with him, believing that God wanted to give his heart a home. He agreed. A few days later, a friend and I prayed with my father. He shared the dream with us, and my friend confirmed that it was an invitation from God for my father to surrender his life to Him.
And so, I led my father to Christ. I took the hands that had once beaten me, and I asked him to repeat the prayer I was about to say. He did, tears flowing down his face. For the first time in my life, I looked at my father through the eyes of Jesus, and I saw him—not as a tyrant or an abuser—but as a beloved child of God, just as in need of His love and grace as I was. It was a beautiful moment. God began to transform my father’s heart, turning it from stone to flesh. It remains one of the most beautiful testimonies I’ve ever witnessed. A few years later, I gave my father some anointing oil and asked him to bless me, as fathers used to do in biblical times. With a trembling voice, my father said, “God, if it wasn’t for this child, I would have never known You.”
Those words were the most beautiful I’ve ever heard.
One day, I asked God, “Why did You put me in such a broken home?” And He replied, “If it wasn’t for the love I built into you, your father (and your grandfather, who also gave his life to Me) would never have known Me.”
Love wins, I guess.
John Mark Green says, “You are not the darkness you endured. You are the light that refused to surrender.”
We all have a choice. We can let our pain and trauma hold dominion over us, or we can be healed, move forward, and become a light to those who once kept us in darkness.
May your light continue to shine.
— Adelia