I suppose I loved him once upon a time, in the fairy tale of youth that I never had. I yearned to have that love returned, to be accepted, to belong. I longed for a father's love. But it was not to be.

Instead, like a nightmare from a Brother's Grimm tale, this "stepfather" turned slowly into an ogre, driven by insatiable appetites for euphoria and the soft flesh of young women. That shell that was once a man was filled only by his own lusts and hatred, and a heart as cold and hard as an iceberg. He was unpredictable, a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, drinking the horrid potion, that elixir of magical horror, that twister of minds and destroyer of lives, alcohol.

I'm not sure when I realized that this life of pain and terror was not normal. The broken ribs, the blood, my blood, gushing forth to splatter in myriads of designs became a way of life, an accepted and daily routine. Within me grew the same hatred and anger that drove my tormentor. A black and dangerous anger, a tempestuous sea of hatred on which the tiny boat of my life was tossed to and fro. I wanted to die, but I felt God lift me up and sustain me in my suffering, giving me hope in my despair.

My mom, sisters, and I waited, we planned. When the time seemed right, we ran from him, the shattered remnant of a family, ran for imagined shelter from the storm of hatred. We hid in fear of our lives. I lovingly caressed the cold hard steel of a Smith and Wesson, that equalizer of persons. We fancied ourselves safe.

We ran, but could not hide. He found us.

"I will kill you," the ogre said. He hit my mom.

I cast off anchor, and steered for the tempest of hatred, raging in the sea of anger. I ran to fill my hands with death, that familiar death of many a dream, the black steel of death for an ogre. At fourteen, I was familiar with guns, how to load them, how to shoot them.

I had killed him many times in my dreams. He warned me many times that if I so much as pointed a gun at him, I had better kill him, or he would kill me. I did not doubt him.

I burst out the door, to see his car receding in the distance, leaving only brokenness and bitterness in it's wake. My chance was gone. The gun weighed heavy in my hand, the fear heavy on my heart. We would always doubt, always wonder if he would come back, find us again. I wanted a closure, an end; I wanted his death.

Many a year I was lost on the dark sea of hatred, marooned in the mire of my angry mind, and I too was becoming a monster of hate. Then, I heard a voice of love, saw a beacon of light, calling me home to a peaceful harbor. There I shed the darkness and hatred, the heavy weights of guilt and sin under which I labored. I found a Father's love, that which I had so long desired. In Jesus Christ, I found true love, the love of my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation. I found new life in Christ, and freedom from the death of hate.