LDS Quotes on Abuse
“Understand that healing can take considerable time. Recovery generally comes in steps. It is accelerated when gratitude is expressed to the Lord for every degree of improvement noted.”
| “Healing the Tragic Scars of Abuse,” Ensign, May 1992, p. 32
“Unless healed by the Lord, mental, physical, or sexual abuse can cause you serious, enduring consequences. As a victim you have experienced some of them. They include fear, depression, guilt, self-hatred, destruction of self-esteem, and alienation from normal human relationships. When aggravated by continued abuse, powerful emotions of rebellion, anger, and hatred are generated. These feelings often are focused against oneself, others, life itself, and even Heavenly Father. Frustrated efforts to fight back can degenerate into drug abuse, immorality, abandonment of home, and, tragically in extreme cases, suicide. Unless corrected, these feelings lead to despondent lives, discordant marriages, and even the transition from victim to abuser. One awful result is a deepening lack of trust in others which becomes a barrier to healing. . . .I solemnly testify that when another’s acts of violence, perversion, or incest hurt you terribly, against your will, you are not responsible and you must not feel guilty. . . .”
| “Healing Tragic Scars of Abuse,” Ensign, May 1992, p. 31
“As of this writing, I am twenty-five years old. I have been alive for 307 months. Nine of those months were pretty terrible. But 298 of those months have been very good. I have been happy. I have been very blessed. Who knows how many more months I have to live? But even if I died tomorrow, nine out of 307 seems like pretty good odds.”
| My Story: Elizabeth Smart
“The bodies and minds and morals of increasing numbers of little children are brutalized and abused by those who should protect them.
In it all, mankind has sown a bitter wind and reaps heartbreak, guilt, abandonment, divorce, addiction, disease, and death; and little children suffer.
If these sins remain unchecked, civilization will be led unfailingly to destruction.”
“Among the strongest warnings and the severest penalties in the revelations are those relating to little children.”
| Ensign, May 2002, p. 8
“Later, there were times when I was angry with myself for succumbing to that fear. But those with shattered souls find it very difficult to speak.”
| My Story: Elizabeth Smart
“We should not lose our tempers and abuse one another. … Nobody ever abused anybody else when he had the spirit of the Lord. It is always when we have some other spirit”
| Conference Report, Oct. 1950, p. 8
“You be happy, Elizabeth. Just be happy. If you go and feel sorry for yourself, or if you dwell on what has happened, if you hold on to your pain, that is allowing him to steal more of your life away. So don’t you do that! Don’t you let him! There is no way he deserves that. Not one more second of your life. You keep every second for yourself. You keep them and be happy. God will take care of the rest.”
| My Story: Elizabeth Smart
No man who has been ordained to the priesthood of God can with impunity abuse his wife or child. Sexual abuse of children has long been a cause for excommunication from the Church.
| Being a Righteous Husband and Father
“The home is the seedbed of Saints. There are not enough good homes. Children still come to some homes where they will be abused, not loved, and not taught the truth.
We are greatly concerned with the fact that the press continues to report many cases of child abuse. We are much concerned that there would be a single parent that would inflict damages on a child. The Lord loved little children, and he said:
‘Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.’ (Matt. 19:14.)
Let no Latter-day Saint parent ever be guilty of the heinous crime of abusing one of Christ’s little ones!”
| The True Way of Life and Salvation