We need to start getting people educated. If you’ve got one in three girls out there that are being molested, that’s an epidemic proportion that you can’t ignore. You can’t sweep it under the rug and hope it will go away because it’s not.

That’s the sad thing. I heard somebody comment, well, but that’s just the Catholic Church and I wanted to say, “No, this isn’t just the Catholic Church; this is a fallible fallen man. Statistics show it’s prevalent in Protestant churches as well.”

And again, you have to stress the fact that it’s far more common for girls to be molested but boys are molested also. You cannot ignore that either. I’ve even heard women say that they don’t even have little girls, and think this issue doesn’t apply to them. This is a major issue that so many perpetrators do not care about the sex of their victims. We need to push past our discomfort and deal with the issues.

I think a lot of readers will pick up a fiction book that deals with that topic rather than a non-fiction because they’re embarrassed. They think that if they show up at the counter with a topic nonfiction book, everyone is going to think this is something they’re dealing with. Whereas if they just pick up the next Tracie Peterson book or the next Brandilyn Collins book it’s not as intimidating.

A good example is that; I have a friend who had problems with drug addiction; in particular, she had a problem with meth. I gave her the book “Not a Sparrow Falls.” She came back to me and said that the book was so powerful, so fantastic. It helped her understand things that she was going through because she was really trying hard to kick the addiction.

CB:  How much research did “What She Left for Me” take?

Tracie:  I wanted it to be informative without being too graphic. Like I said, I’d just known a lot of women as friends and family who have been in situations of infidelity or molestation. I interviewed and talked with these women to get a better feel for their hearts and what their reactions might be versus how I think I would react. I looked up some of the different counseling methods and psychology thoughts on some of these issues and unfortunately, as I said, there’s a sad fact of life said in worldly counseling that you don’t need to forgive to heal. I don’t believe that’s true. The world just sees that as long as you take charge of your destiny, as long as you deal with this in your way, you’ll be fine. It’s just a sad situation when you hear that. I actually did hear a counselor say that. I wanted to make sure in this story that forgiveness was an important part. In talking with women who did forgive those who’d wronged them, I found productive, happy women with a more positive life. Women who hadn’t forgiven or who saw forgiveness as telling their abuser that what they did was all right, were still battling the prison they’d created for themselves. They were often bitter or afraid. To me it showed that forgiveness is key to healing. It’s just as important for the person giving it, if not more so, than the person receiving it.