Ilonka Deaton's inspiring message of hope in Keeping Secrets is one of victorious life for any wounded heart.

She didn't think she mattered to anyone, much less to God. Life was little more than a nightmare, a dark narrative that included seduction and child rape, emotional brutality, and all the countless injustices that flow in its wake. It began when Ilonka was twelve and didn't end until she was seventeen. And though the horror was repeated over and over again, she could tell no one what was happening to her. However dark our secrets might be, they are never truly idle. They lie to us. They tell us awful things about ourselves. They shape our thought life and make us afraid.



It wasn't until Ilonka told the person who would later become her husband the whole story did liberation come. And it is still coming. In the hands of a loving God, a God who not only sees but cares and responds, our nightmares become redemptive tales. Our darkest secrets show themselves for what they are (and what they are not). Keeping Secrets is a true story about survival and recovery from the madness of childhood sexual abuse. And, happily, it is about redemption.

Foreword by: Scotty Smith