From a girl who stayed in the Refuge:

For a long time I struggled to forgive my mother. She had abandoned me at birth and left me to her customer, who became an abusive father. In the Refuge, I learned a lot about forgiveness. One evening at an outing to the beach, I was thinking and praying about forgiveness and what I had been learning. I told God it was too hard to forgive, but then he reminded me that he had forgiven me. He then reached out to take my hand and said you too can forgive. After that time with him, I was able to forgive my mom.