by Eric Peacock as told on the Story Partners Podcast
There were times my father would come home, and he’d wake me up out of my sleep and beat me. And I felt like I just needed to survive.
The Hypocrite In The Pulpit
My name is Eric Peacock. My mother left when I was two months old. My father became a single father, so my grandmother stepped in. She came from Tennessee to Chicago and stayed there just to help be that nurturer, to help me grow up. She was the epitome of the expression of love. She used to always tell me a hug makes things better. I referred to her as “Mom” until one day, when I was old enough to understand, she told me she was my grandmother and that my mother had left me.
I felt a sense of rejection, but I also felt like maybe I didn’t miss out on much because my grandmother didn’t miss a beat with regard to expressing love for me. She was my living epistle. She would always talk about God and her faith, and I held onto her words. I knew there was a God because of her.
Chicago was a violent environment. You wanted bars on the door, top locks, bottom locks, and an alarm. In that environment, I would go to church and hear my father preach. In the limelight, everyone thought he was a hero and a saint—the father who stepped in and saved the day when the mother left. People clung to every word he said, but they didn’t know that behind the scenes, there was a different story. The person you saw in the pulpit was not the person at home.
No Safe Place To Lay My Head
At home, there was verbal and physical abuse. He would tell me, “You’re stupid. You’re dumber than a dog. You’re not worth two dead flies.” Then he would use the Bible to say, “The Bible says you’re a fool.” I never knew what mood he would be in. There was no safe place for me to lay my head. He would wake me up out of my sleep just to beat me.
One day, he beat me so badly that I was lying on the floor in a pool of my bodily fluids. I asked him, “Why do you do these things to me?” His response was, “Because God told me to.” I knew the difference between a punishment of love and a punishment of disdain, resentment, and hatred.
I would cry out, “Pray God, please make him stop.” But he wouldn’t stop. He would beat me harder. I would say, “God, do you ever talk to him and say, ‘Hey, you’re doing too much’?” He once beat me so long that when he got tired, he took a 15-minute break and came back for “Part Two.”
When I was nine, my father’s second wife had a teenage daughter. One day, when it was just the two of us in the house, she took a knife and put it to my throat and molested me. She told me, “If you say anything, I’m going to get you.” I just took it. I carried the shame of that as though I had disappointed my grandmother, even though I didn’t initiate it.
I prayed multiple times, “God, if I’m this bad of a person that you have to have my father abuse me this way, why did you allow me to be born?” I felt like God clearly didn’t like me. I told my father, “I’d rather go to hell. If God thinks I’m a fool and you think less of me, why would I want to be somewhere where people don’t love me? At least in hell I know where I stand.”
I’ll Give You A Reason To Hate Me
By the age of 13, my grandmother passed away. I had such a hatred for God in that moment. I felt He took away the only thing I knew to be love. I told Him, “I don’t know what I did to make you hate me, but I’m going to give you a reason.”
I joined a gang—not for camaraderie, but as an avenue to pay God back. I became a drug dealer. My mentor was the guy I sold drugs for because he actually had time for me. He taught me that manhood was about how many women you slept with and how much money you had. By high school, my heart was numb. I was detached from life.
One day, a guy I knew—a fellow drug dealer—was murdered in the alley across from my house. I had an overwhelming sense that I was next. Whether it was a rival gang or an addict I had roughed up, I felt a sentence of death over my head.
Right after they took his body away in a bag, the phone rang. It was a Navy recruiter. He asked, “Son, what are you doing with your life?” My father always said he didn’t want me in the military because if I died, there would be no one to carry on the family name. I signed up for two reasons: to get back at my father and because I knew the Navy was my only way out of Chicago alive.
The Bridge And The Black Ice
In the military, I welcomed the training. I wanted to be in a place where nobody could dominate me. I served during the Persian Gulf War, and my secret hope was that I would die in combat so I could die with dignity rather than as a stereotype on the streets of Chicago.
After the war, I was driving back through Maryland on leave. The police report says I hit black ice on a bridge. My car dove off a 100-foot drop. I was projected out of the vehicle. A helicopter medevaced me to the National Naval Medical Center.
When I woke up, doctors were bombarding me with questions. One said, “The reason we’re asking is because we declared you dead.” A police officer told me, “I’m surprised you’re alive. Your clothes were soaked in blood. We found your ID and told your ship you were dead.” My best friend came to visit me and cried. He said, “The captain told us over the intercom that you were dead. We had a moment of silence for you.”
An Honest Prayer
I had scars on both sides of my head where they had to pull my face down to save my right eye. My pelvis was dislocated, held together by three plates and 21 screws. Before one of my major surgeries, a nurse told me I might not survive the operation.I prayed the most honest prayer of my life: “God, I don’t know if I’ll make it. Thank you for sparing my life. I know if I had died, I’d be in hell. I owe you my life, but I’m not ready to serve you. I don’t trust you. But because I owe you, I ask you to come into my heart. If you let me live, surround me with young people who can help me walk with you.”
When I came out of anesthesia, I smelled something sweet. I saw a young nurse and started flirting with her. She looked at my chart and said, “Mr. Peacock, you are a miracle. Instead of flirting, I should ask if you know Jesus.” She became the answer to my prayer, introducing me to the friends who would help me grow.
I had lost so much weight that I was down to 100 pounds. One day, I tried to push myself up out of a wheelchair, and I fell back. I broke down and started crying. The nurse asked why, and I said, “I can’t even lift myself up. I’m not even a man.”
That was the beginning of God getting through the arrogance of my heart. I had lost the battle in my own mind. I didn’t even have the will to fight anymore.
The Head And The Heart
My thoughts of God began to change. I started to see glimpses of Him in the present and the past. The young friends I met at the base in Bethesda took me to Bible study in D.C. The last thing I wanted to be was a pastor because of my father, but I had this sense that God had a call for my life. I went from praying that God would take my life to believing there was something more.
I signed up for Bible college. I didn’t have the money, but by the first day of class, it miraculously appeared. I was gaining head knowledge, but I prayed, “God, help me see you in a practical way.” God began dropping intentional seeds along the way so that I could see a bigger picture—not who I thought He was based on my trauma, but who He truly is.
The process was slow and messy. I had to learn to see God differently. I had to see myself differently. I had to realize I wasn’t “dumber than a dog” or “worth less than two dead flies.” God sent His Son to die for me, so clearly, I was worth something.
I used to run from the scripture that says, “Those whom He loves, He chastises.” To me, my father’s “chastisement” was hate. But God spoke to my heart: “Son, I am not your father.” I knew what He meant. He wasn’t the father who abused me.
It’s like an abused dog at a shelter. When a new person reaches out to pet them, they either brace themselves or try to bite the hand off. God has had both encounters with me—the sheepish pulling away and the aggressive lashing out. In every situation, He has been patient. He isn’t condescending or brutal. His discipline isn’t from anger; it’s Him saying, “Don’t let what happened pull you down.”
Overcoming Shame
There are no overnight successes. As ministers, we try to put a nice bow on everything, but sometimes there is no bow until you get to heaven. We overcome the enemy by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. I used to be so ashamed to share my story. As a “man’s man,” you don’t want people to know another man beat you while you didn’t defend yourself. It made me feel weak.
But I realized if this helps someone else, so be it. God gave me my identity in my name. Eric means “strength, ruler, mighty warrior.” Daron means “God’s son.” Whenever I feel like pulling away, I remember who I am.
The Bible says Jesus took our shame on the whipping post. He was beaten and ripped apart so we could be safe. I personalized that. David said, “When my mother and father forsook me, the Lord took me in.” Abandoned by my mother, abused by my father—the Lord took me in. And He will never leave me nor forsake me.
