A Fathers Journey From Being Abused to Healing

If you’re a dad who’s experienced sexual abuse and/or physical abuse as a child and it has wrecked your life into adulthood, this is an episode you aren’t going to want to miss. You might be desperate for real lasting healing.

Dennis Knight Sr. is the founder of King Me Ministries, a ministry that focuses on equipping men to be who God created them to be. Dennis had a dark childhood that included sexual abuse and he will share his story and journey of how he survived the abuse and came to a place of forgiveness and true lasting healing.

You can learn more about King Me Ministries and connect with Dennis Knight Sr. at: https://kingme-ministries.com/

Special thanks to Zencastr for sponsoring The Fatherhood Challenge. Use my special link https://zen.ai/CWHIjopqUnnp9xKhbWqscGp-61ATMClwZ1R8J5rm824WHQIJesasjKDm-vGxYtYJ to save 30% off your first month of any Zencastr paid plan.

Transcript - A Father’s Journey From Being Abused to Healing

---

If you're a dad who's experienced sexual abuse and or physical abuse as a child and it is

wrecked your life into adulthood, this is an episode you are not going to want to miss.

You might be desperate for real lasting healing. And my guest has been through all of this and

he will share his story and his path to healing with us in just a moment so don't go anywhere.

Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire

fathers everywhere to take great pride in their role and a challenge society to understand how

important fathers are to the stability and culture of their family's environment. Now here's your

host, Jonathan Guerrero. Greetings everyone. Thank you so much for joining me. My guest is Dennis

Knight Senior. Dennis is the founder of King Me Ministries, a ministry that focuses on equipping men

to be who God created them to be. Dennis has had a dark childhood that included sexual abuse

and he will share his story and journey to how he survived the abuse and came to a place of

forgiveness and true lasting healing. Dennis, thank you so much for being on the Fatherhood Challenge.

What a pleasure. The pleasure is definitely mine. I look forward to what we can discuss today.

So Dennis, let's start with a dad joke. What is your favorite dad joke?

Let me see. I guess I would go with why do chicken cubes have only two doors?

Why do chicken cubes have two doors? I'm not really sure.

Because if they had four, they would be called chicken sedans.

Thank you for sharing that. Dennis, let's start with your story. What happened to you as a child

and how did it impact you as an adult and as a dad? That's a great question. First, thanks for the

opportunity of being able to share this. I'll start by saying that I never thought I would be able

to. But there's something that has clicked recently and I see that God is asking me to do this

for purposes that I don't fully understand. But I can see that it is it seems to be a life raft

for some people that are drowning in where I was and I see that God is starting to get glory for that.

So I thank you for the opportunity in having me on as your guest.

Even from an early age, I wanted to know Jesus. I discovered Jesus at the age of about seven or eight.

I did that by watching this TV show on a network called USA Network. The TV show or the cartoon

was called Storybook and it was a story of two young kids who would travel back into these

biblical times and what they would see in these biblical stories coincided with something that

they were dealing with in their real life and they would understand how God wanted them to respond

to that. And watching that cartoon just, I just fell in love with Jesus. I can't fully explain it.

I come from a home where Jesus was nothing more than a curse word and I was the first person to

to seek him out and to know him and what I know now is that he was seeking me out the entire time.

I wasn't seeking him. But watching this TV program, I had a neighbor who finally the next phase,

she stepped in and invited a bunch of us kids in the neighborhood to go to this vacation Bible

school program at a local church. I loved it. I was all in and all my buddies went and not one of

them enjoyed it, but I loved it. I was so drawn to Jesus even more because of this vacation Bible

study of vacation Bible school. That same church invited me to go away to a summer camp for a week

that their church was hosting and it was there that they filled in the gaps and told me who it was

that I was so drawn to this person of Jesus. And I just fell deeply in love with him and I put my

trust in him and I wanted to be a saviour. And I knew even at that moment at age eight, I wanted to be

a pastor. And what happened was this church dropped us off at this camp and that person that was in

charge, that pastor retired. And a week later, we were actually picked up by a brand new pastor.

And that pastor was young and hip and he was kind of cool, but we had no idea that was even happening.

And back home, I lived to go to church and I wanted more of God. I wanted him more than anything.

And I was invited by this new pastor to stay over, to help. He made me feel special included. He kind

of filled in some of the things that I was lacking in my own relationship with my family. And my hope

was that in spending time with him that he would show me more of who Jesus was. And unfortunately,

he didn't. He started to sexually abuse me and that abuse lasted for several years, progressively.

And as I've come through that healing process, one of the hardest things for me to do

was to see like, where were you in this Jesus? Why didn't you stop this? Why would you lead me

to a man who I thought was going to show me more of you, but you allowed him to hurt me and

ways that are unspeakable? Coming through that healing process, those were the hardest years of my life.

And looking back, I realized that life is lived forward and it's understood backwards. And I say that

to say that I didn't see how that childhood abuse impacted me until I've been removed from that

in healing. And as I look at that, I see that my own self worth was in the tank. I constantly

doubted myself and my ability. I had these big dreams that I thought were of God, but I had zero

confidence that I was the man enough to accomplish those. I felt like I was always posing. And I was

getting really good at hiding the pain and brokenness, especially from other men, hoping that they

never could tell that I was damaged and even dirty. I was always confident that other men knew

that I was less than a man for what I allowed to happen to me. At least that was my thoughts.

I feel like my chance at being a man was stolen from me and I could never get that back. As a

dad, I was completely overprotective. I wouldn't let my kids sleep out anywhere. I trusted nobody. I

always thought that they wanted to hurt my child. And when it came to my walk with Jesus, I knew that

he loved me, but it always felt that he loved me for some selfish reason. He loved me for what he

could gain from me. I saw him through the eyes of my abuser. Jesus loved me, but he had an ulterior motive.

He didn't just love me. He loved me for something that he could get from me. And that was really,

really difficult. If God could have prevented such a horrible abuse from happening, then why didn't He?

My own faith in Jesus has never really wavered. As I look back on this and this is the remarkable

side of it, I have always believed in his ability to have saved me through this. I believe that he can

bring good from what's happened to me, but I question, I just, I feel like that question has to be,

to be, to be answered. If God were ever to be trusted by the men who have been abused or fathers who

have not been able to prevent their own kids from being abused, we need to have an understanding of

this. We need to have an answer for that. And yes, God could have stopped my abuser. And in some

ways, He tried, right? He tried to put those guardrails to prevent evil from coming into this world.

It's complicated and that's hard to understand and it takes some faith. But here's what I understand

and choose to believe about why God allows bad things. I am sure there are greater minds that can speak

to this, but for me, this is what God has allowed me to believe and where He's allowed me to connect

back with Him. I think of a couple things. I think of the book of Job and had God decided to protect me

and let no harm come to me. I feel like Satan could have sent a God. Of course, he's going to follow you.

Of course, Dennis is going to be a good pastor. Of course, he's going to be a good dad. Of course,

because you've protected him and you keep him safe from any harm. God could have challenged God

if God chose to just supernaturally protect me. But God let Satan cause some really bad things to

happen to Job and to me and other people that have been abused. But one thing is interesting. God

trusted, a Job trusted God. Job was frustrated. Job was angry, but that was all directed towards God.

Job's eyes never left God. He questioned. He was frustrated. He was angry, but he was angry

in a relationship with God. And what I've discovered is Satan doesn't want me to worship him.

Satan's plan is so much more simple than that. What Satan seems to want to do is he wants my

eyes to leave God, to look at my situation, to be afraid of the evil that happens. And in doing so,

Satan wins. Satan's goal is simply to get my eyes to not look at my savior through the hardest

times of our lives. The second thing that I look at is the story in John 9, where the disciples come

across this blind man and they say to Jesus, Jesus, who sent him or his parents? In Jesus looked at them,

he said, "Neither. Sometimes some of these bad things happen to people so that the glory of God

can be shown." And I see the story of Job and the story of Jesus in John 9 on the same level.

Because Job chose to trust God through unspeakable things, unspeakable loss. God was honored. God was

able to look at the enemy and say, "See? I can allow the worst things to happen to them, but when they

keep their eyes on me, everything's okay. Everything works out. Everything makes sense." And so,

why does God allow some of that stuff to happen? I don't fully know. But I do know in His promises

and where I get my hope is through the Prophet Joel, where God says through Him. He says, "I will

restore the years that the Locus have eaten." And so, while I can't understand why God allowed it,

why He didn't prevent it, I know that He has poised to get glory for Himself. I know He's poised to get

to make good things come out of this in my own life, even if it's just to make me more like His Son.

I know this promise that He says, "What was stolen from you, Dennis? All the things that you've had

to go through, because you've trusted in me, because your eyes remain on me. One day soon, I'm going to

restore all that stuff that was stolen from you." And so, that's kind of where I am. And that's how

God has allowed me to answer why He has allowed this to happen in my life.

I think it's important to note as well that God doesn't cause these bad things to happen. He

allows them. And I think the other part of this to understand about God is that it says repeatedly

in Scripture that God really loves justice. Justice is a very, very big deal to Him. And when we go

to the story of Job, and we look at how it resolves that God restores Job, in part of that is all of

His friends who were mocking Him, who were ridiculing Him, criticizing Him, who were really of no help.

And they had a very holier-than-thou attitude, like, "What did you do to bring this on yourself?"

You need the piety that they were trying to brag about and demonstrate to Job.

In the end, that comes back to bite them because when God makes it very clear to them that they were

wrong, and that they had actually sinned, God made it clear, "I'm not going to listen to your prayers,

I'm not going to accept your sacrifices or anything until you have made first made things right

with Job." When you have repaired things with Job and repaired that relationship,

yeah, then go make sacrifices to mean, "Then I'll listen to your prayers and forgive you."

Yeah, I think it was Tim Keller who said that. He made such a good point. He says,

"Jobe was permitted to share his frustration, to share his anger, the share, the regret that he was

ever born." He was allowed by God to do that, and God didn't call that sin because what Job did,

which was different than his friends, is Job directed all of that to God. Job stayed in relationship. Job

kept his eyes on God through it all. At the beginning of that, it says, "Even amongst

this Job chose not to sin." He never dishonored God. Even when his wife said, "Curse God and die."

He was like, "No. Even if God takes everything away from me, or if He blesses me,

my eyes are going to remain on him." For me, that's the deeper theological reason of why God

allows bad things to happen is because I do believe that God's eyes are going back and forth in the

world like He tells us. He's looking for that one man or that one woman who sold out to Him,

that they can be exposed to some of the darkest and deepest evil, and yet they're not wavered.

Their eyes don't leave Him and say before Satan, say, "Look at my child. I allowed you," as you say,

God never causes that, but I allowed this. I allowed you access. I allowed you to do this to my child,

and look what they chose to do. They continually looked at me. They continually found their strength.

And even when I refuse to answer the why, they still said, "I'm holding on to you." And that's

really been the difference in my life. As I look at some of the men that I have counseled who've been

kind of hurt or hurt through the same man, it's kind of that same thing. I see their life. I see

such brokenness and so different. And what I see are men that refuse to trust God in this. And I think

oftentimes, I'm like, "Why am I so different?" I came from the same type of family. I was abused the

same way. Why am I different? What's the different component in my life, in my story, than theirs? And I

think, and it has nothing to do with me. It's a gift, or at least I think God has allowed me. My

eyes have just been able to look at Him and say, "God, it doesn't make sense. That was hard. That was

scary, but my eyes are still looking to you. Looking to you to help me make sense of this. Looking for

you to keep your promise that you're going to make something good out of this one day. I really think

that's the difference for me." The next question is going to seem really strange. But I know that there

are a lot of people, a lot of dads who have suffered abuse. And this question is lurks somewhere

in the back of their mind. But as an adult, did you ever feel in your mind that you were making a big

deal out of your childhood abuse than it really was? Did you ever feel maybe a sort of guilt or feel

like in some way it was your fault or that maybe you might have been making some part of it up or you

have a detail fuzzy here or there? Did that ever cross your mind? I'm glad you asked this question,

because as I was confronted with these memories and what do I do with them? I always felt like I had

to prove to other people. And I felt like maybe I am making a big deal about this. Maybe I didn't

see it the way it really happened. Maybe I've manufactured some of these feelings. So I think it's a

super important question for those guys because as God, if there are other men that have been abused,

they have to wrestle with this question. So it's I think it's a paramount question in the process

of healing. But for me, it's a strong yes and a no. I never thought I was making a big deal of the

abuse. I never really had to deal with that. I always instead I avoided it. I felt that somehow I

must have misunderstood my abusers intentions. I must have invited this somehow and here's where it

gets really until you understand the psychology of being groomed and abused. I must have invited

this because I loved this man and I kept going back when I could have said no. And that's a really

hard thing to explain to people. He wasn't my dad. He wasn't my caretaker. I could have just said,

I don't want to go to church anymore. I wasn't a part of a family where church was part of our life.

That was just me. That was my thing. And I feel like I gave him access to me. I allowed him to spend

time with me. I have so many times said, I actually loved this man who hurt me. And that's a hard

thing to wrestle with. How do you love somebody that's abused you? What he did for me in so many

areas of my life, he enriched my life. He expanded my understanding of how the world works.

He took me places as a poor kid that my parents never could have taken me. He I was important to him.

I went on trips. We hunted, we fished, we hiked, we traveled to places that my parents never could

have taken us. And what I realized is those daytime hours spent with him shaped many good parts of my

life. But the nighttime hours is where the abuse happened. And I suppressed and refused to believe

that he hurt me. And that was a hard thing to really wrestle with. How do you love your abuser? And

there's some psychological reasons for that. And there's an explanation for that. But that's really what

I worked through. And I say yes, too, because I hate seeing the damage that this is causing even his

family and his children. And on so many people that he ministered to, I see lives being just crushed

because of his sin. And so I wear that weight of, what is it necessary for me to say something?

Was it necessary for me to let this come into the light? Why didn't I just continue to just let it be?

And what changed everything for me was two things. And they were very important for me. The first

one was hearing that this man had groomed several other boys at the same age that he groomed me.

And these men's lives have been destroyed. And when that was shared with me,

that's when all the memories were triggered. That's when the sleepless nights came. That's when

the nightmares came. That's when that's when I was sort of having to go back into what happened to

me as a child, all those feelings that I have ignored and suppressed. And the second thing that was

so helpful is my wife, she said to me one day, she said, Dennis, this didn't happen to you, the strong,

loving, and more than capable man who can protect himself in those he loves. This happened to an

eight-year-old boy. And you have to stand up and you have to protect and have give a voice to that eight-year-old

boy for the sake of the other eight-year-old boy, so that this is happening to those things help me

to put in perspective what happened. Who did it and whose fault this was? It wasn't that little eight-year-old

boy's fault. It was the abuser who knew exactly what he was doing. So that's definitely something I've

had to wrestle with and other people coming out of that that trauma. They're going to have to because

I think the enemy and the world may not understand it and they're going to sort of push that question

to you and you're going to feel that that question whether they ask it or not, you're going to feel

like it's right there on the surface. They want to know, how did you allow this to happen? And that's

a tough thing to answer, but it's important. You started King Me Ministries. Tell us about it.

Talk a little bit about God's purpose for dads. Yeah, so I remember sitting in bed one night and

having just finished ministry and thinking maybe God's finished with me and I woke up in the middle

of the night and it literally just felt like God said, King Me Ministries and trying to process,

well, what do you mean by that? What is where is that? And quickly realize that if you've ever

played checkers, the whole point of playing checkers is you take your little pieces and you march

them down to the end of the board, your opponent side of the board and you hope to get to that one spot

where you look at them and you say, King Me and they have to put that second piece on top and that

second piece symbolizes your ability to move in any direction. You can do what you couldn't do before

you arrived at that point and King Me Ministries is just that. It's dads who look at their sons

and they say, "Ah, I have intentionally raised you to be a man and you have arrived and let me

let me king you. Let me now enable you to move in any direction that you need to. Let me make you

a force on this field that you're playing in this life." And so King Me aims to celebrate men and

dads who get it right. They know how to intentionally raise their kids in a fear and then the love of God

and we know that there are some men who want to do it right. They just don't have the tools. They

don't have the know how. And so we want to come alongside them and equip them with what it takes

to be a good dad. And of course the third component of that is there are some boys that will never have a

dad and we want to step in the gap there and provide what those fathers have not. The absence of those

fathers have not. And what we're working to do even as we speak today is we're trying to build a

three phase program working with dads and their sons. And the idea of phase one is to take boys at

a ten year old and you take them and their dad and you give them a weekend away, four days away

and it's just filled with adventure. In that first phase it's an invitation from a dad to a son

to enter into this journey from this day until you're eighteen where hopefully at the culmination

of this program we are going to just celebrate your arrival into manhood. And phase two is just kind

of a checkup four day adventure where 15 year olds and their dad the same dads hopefully

and boys they come back a few years later and it's just a check in another weekend of adventure where

they're kind of spoken into and equipped to strengthen their own relationship and ultimately

phase three is where the father is going to stand before their son in this third time away. And

they're just going to just sort of commemorate their arrival for a for a father to look over into

his son's eyes and say son you have intentionally entered into this journey of becoming a man.

You and I have worked through these these things that we think are important and and and

identify you as a man and I want you to know that you've done everything needed to arrive at this

point and I just want to celebrate your arrival into manhood. How can dads connect with you for

help or questions or find out more about what you're doing? Yeah the best way is to go on our website

kingmeanministries.com they can email me my email is going to be on that website you can reach out to me

we could I'd love to share our story see how we can partner see how we can come alongside these

men and really equip them to be one God meant when he decided to make man. And just to make it easier if

you go to the fatherhoodchallenge.com that's the fatherhoodchallenge.com if you go to this episode look

right below the episode description and I will have all of the links posted there for your convenience.

And Dennis as we close talk to that dad who's gone through a similar experience how do they heal?

First let me say this if this has happened to you or if this has happened to one of your children

it's not your fault I think God wants you to hear that I think that's the starting block of healing.

You didn't deserve this you didn't cause this what happened to you was pure evil and though you

may not see it God is a just God and he will one day put an end to all this evil and there will be

justice trust him he's not a reflection of your views. He is God and he will have the last word

and I share a quick story and I shared this with you prior to being on air when I was 10 years old

I was playing hide and seek and sat behind this this this lie like bush and this property marker

just the metal rod went right into my leg about two inches go to the doctor the doctor so's it up

a couple weeks later it's infected and my mom takes me back to the doctor the doctor says this is a

pretty big deal and he decides that he was going to lance it and he would require that my mom would

stick these long you know q tips into my leg the wound in my leg and it would allow it to heal

from the inside out and what happened as it healed and healed and healed the last bit my mom found

some fabric that was part of the pants that I was wearing and that was trapped inside me

and my leg couldn't function the way it was supposed to be because of this thing that was this

foreign object that was there and I look at that story of what happened and it's the exact same

thing that I feel God has done with me God brought me back into this wound not to leave me there

not to make fun of me not to make me feel less than he took me back into this so that he by his grace

and because he loves me because he's for me he wanted to heal this wound from the inside out

and and God wants to do the exact same thing with you he's looking for men that are going to trust him

to take us back into those those deep dark wounds and allow God even though it's a tough process

in a hard process he wants to heal us to the point where I've often said do you have a scam or do

you have a scar if you have a scab in your life things will poke at it and things it'll catch on

things and it'll rip back open or you have a scar that's just a reminder at one time you got hurt

and God wants to take that scab that wound that keeps opening and you keep bumping into it he wants

to heal it in such a way that all you're going to see for the rest of your life is the scar

the reminder that it happened but it's healed and it's a story and God has been good through that

and so that's really what I want other men to know this has happened to you there's help out there

and more importantly than that God is the one that's going to hold us straight healing and he wants

to do that because he loves you Dennis thanks again for being on the father of your challenge

that's been a pleasure thank you man God continue to bless all you're doing in his name

thank you for listening to this episode of the fatherhood challenge if you would like to contact us

listen to other episodes find any resource mentioned in this program or find out more information

about the fatherhood challenge please visit the fatherhoodchallenge.com that's the fatherhoodchallenge.com

[ Rest ]

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/thefatherhoodchallengepodcast/donations