A Voice for the Abused #6: Lundy Bancroft

Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft

This book has been recommended to me numerous times. I have not yet read it, but I have been spending a little time over at the author's blog, Healing and Hope. There is much there to validate what the abused actually experience. There is much there to help initiate opening the victims' eyes to the reality of the abuse she is experiencing. I wish that one person in my sphere had known of Lundy Bancroft's research and conclusions somewhere in the couple of decades of my abusive experience. No one did, or at least no one directed me to these truths.

The helplessness and hopelessness of being in an abusive marriage is that everyone expects the victim to be able to resolve the problems. "Why can't they just work it out?" outsiders ask. "Throw them into a little counseling; it's all about miscommunication; she pushes his buttons; he has deep insecurities and she needs to accept that she took on that baggage when she chose to marry him."

None of those comments recognize the reality of the belief system an abuser is operating from. None of them recognize the deep, deep, deep dishonesty that the abuser will perpetuate to achieve his goals. None of them realize that even those speaking such comments have fallen under the manipulation of the abuser who has charmed them with a false, contrived persona.

But Lundy Bancroft seems to understand, and lights are going off all over the place as I read his blog entries. I highly recommend his blog for anyone who IS abused, who knows someone who is abused, who wants to help the abused and/or the abusers, who sits in a pastor's or counselor's role either professionally or by nature of circumstances.

Do not presume to think you understand the reasons for abusers' actions until you read some of what Lundy Bancroft is saying. Most counselors, pastors, and even friends are getting it wrong. I would venture to say that ALL of the abuse victims who stayed in their relationships long enough to be harmed are also getting it wrong. He is not just angry. He is not just fearful. He is not just insecure. There's something deeper going on and getting to that is not an easy task.

Flee from evil. The best thing you can do for an abusive man whom you love is make him face the consequences of his abuse so that he can be brought to face the reality of his belief system. You cannot love it out of him. You cannot quietly serve it out of him. It will not get better over time without a great deal of highly trained professional involvement and something radical to open his mind to raw honesty about how he thinks of himself and others.

I was so naive. I was so blindly optimistic and hopeful. That cost me deeply. 

Injustice Is Not "After God's Own Heart"

A woman I know was excommunicated from her church this week.

Why? Had she committed adultery and refused to repent? No.
Had she abandoned her maternal responsibilities to pursue some fantasy of mid-life? No.
Had she recanted on her faith in Christ alone for her salvation? Definitely not.

No, but she did what she felt was following God's call in her life and separated from her emotionally abusive, intimidating, manipulative husband. After more than two decades of holding on and enduring, hoping, praying, and even seeking the church's help for change.

She is now being treated as if she were an unbeliever, when her faith is more tested and possibly more strong than that of those who sat in judgment over her.

We call this blog "Shadowing Abigail" because Abigail was a woman in the Old Testament who knew what it was to be married to an abuser. And yet, Abigail somehow did not lose herself. God was with her and he led her to step out of what is commonly considered submission to act contrary to her abusive husband's desires.

Is she called "contentious"? No. Not at all. She is called "my Father's joy."

God saw his daughter Abigail. He knew her suffering. He knew the harm that man Nabal (which means "fool") had done and would continue to do to God's daughter Abigail, his joy. And God did not endure it patiently forever. When the time was right, God said, "No more," and he killed Nabal.

God did not look on Abigail with judgment and contempt and punish her for the "sin" of not obeying her abusive husband. He did not cast her out when she took action outside of her husband's foolish, harmful, and intimidating plans. She did what she needed to do in order to protect herself and others under the care of her household.

But God did not only free Abigail from her abuser. Freedom is a wonderful thing for those of us who have lived long years in oppression. God did one more for Abigail. He made her the wife, not just of another man, but of the very man whom God had called "a man after God's own heart." David. King David would become the husband of Abigail.

David was far from being a perfect man or a good husband. We can read of his failures. But we do know that David loved God and had an understanding of the heart of God. With the power of a king, David could have refused Abigail. He could have seen her as rebellious and cast her out, like our rulers in churches too often do to the damaged and desperate daughters whom God has chosen to liberate from their bondage. But those rulers are showing that, at least in that instance, they are not men "after God's own heart."

A man after God's own heart understands that it was never God's intention for women to be trodden upon by the men who are supposed to love them, cherish them as their own bodies, and image God to them with sacrificial, servant hearts.

A church ruler who does not nurture and envelop a hurting, abused woman when she comes to him for help must realize that he is imaging the fool and the enemy and not the God of love and compassion who delivers his church, his people, his daughters too, and gives them himself.

So What DOES Make a Relationship Work?

Marriages with domestic abuse rarely last until natural death parts the partners. Those that do make it to that point usually sacrifice the personality, spirit, and mental health of the abused. That's hardly a marriage to hold up to the light as an example of "making it," and rightly so. Such is not what marriage is supposed to be, not even in a world tainted in every corner by sin.

So what does it take for a relationship to work, if persevering through abuse isn't ever going to come to the fruition of a stable, loving, mutual partnership?

This article compiles the results of relational research that reveals it is possible to have a good relationship, and it doesn't come from being a better housekeeper, or giving up your career to make your spouse feel like he's more successful than you by worldly standards, or having sex on demand every time, all the time. It doesn't come from being supernaturally, spiritually strong enough to take every slap, curse, lie, manipulation, oppression in silence and submission.

Many of us who have managed to break free of abuse, when asked, will say that the single most important trait a person we would be attracted to again would have is kindness. Over and over again, kindness comes up as the essential characteristic.

The science supports that. Kindness is key.

Two Traits for a Lasting Relationship



"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, KINDNESS, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness. and self-control." -- Galatians 5:22, ESV

Quivering Daughters: A resource for rebuilding the abused

"It is a grave disservice to the heart, soul, body and spirit of a woman when she is given the subtle message that the truth of her own pain is not as important as the reputation of the ones who inflict it." -- Quivering Daughters

Lots of good information for defining and understanding abuse, abuser tactics, and abuse effects on this site, but all of it wrapped up in this truth as well:

"It is important to reach an understanding of words and what is meant when terms are used. But while one could argue definitions all day, please remember that meanwhile, there are some desperately hurting individuals in this world who need healing."

Knowledge comes with responsibility--to speak, to act, to defend those who cannot defend themselves. We are here to help, to break bonds that harm and to bring healing.

Quivering Daughters website: http://www.quiveringdaughters.com/

The Snake in the Grass that No One Else Can See

It's rare to find anyone else who understands narcissism and the abuse and crazy-making that comes from years of it. Unless you live with it, it's unlikely you'll know much at all about it. And even if you do live with it, you may never know what it's called. That was my case. I lived with it for over a decade and a half before finding out it was a real condition with a definition and very consistent set of characteristics. Once I saw the package, though, lightbulbs went off everywhere. What a solid fit.

So it was surprising and encouraging today when I met someone who knew something about this condition and what it is like to live in it. Her husband had been married before to a narcissistic woman. He too had experienced the shift in his own thinking--the desperate need for stability and security, the questioning of self about everything, the lack of rational foundation for any discussion, the shifting sand, the depression and anxiety--that women under abuse generally experience. Even a man can be so manipulated and destroyed when he loves a narcissistic abuser.

She said he went through much counseling to recover, and one of the affirming illustrations his counselor gave him brought me some affirmation and comfort today as well. He compared life with a narcissist to the following:

Say you are standing in ankle-deep grass. At your feet, your partner is a venomous snake. The snake is writhing and striking your heels, and you are trying to dodge and move and avoid the bites--but you are bound to the snake and so you cannot actually run away from it. You must stay with it and try to evade the harm it wants to do you. Meanwhile, the people around you see only you, dancing and jumping, crying out, flailing. They don't see the snake in the grass at your feet doing this to you. They look at you, point, and turn away, muttering, "Crazy! That one is crazy!" And it is sort of true. You are being driven mad and no one gets close enough to see what's really going on just out of sight. Occasionally the snake will slither out, with its cunning smile, and a perfect demeanor, when in view of others. And they will say, "Oh look, what a lovely snake. It's so well-behaved and interesting." And the narcissist is affirmed. The ploy works. But back into the grass he goes, and when out of sight, the torment begins again.

The only way to regain your sanity, says the counselor, is to get away from the snake. Others will see and they will judge. They won't volunteer to live with a snake at their own heels, but they will judge you for setting yourself free.

My sound mind is returning. The friend I saw today said she could tell. She could see joy in me now--something she had not seen in the three years we've known one another. She says she can tell I was made for joy, and I was.

When speaking of slaves, the Apostle Paul encouraged them to "gain their freedom" if they were able. There was a time when women were not able to gain their freedom from abusive men, though those men were instructed by God to return their wives to the wives' fathers' homes if the man was going to abuse and not protect and provide for her. There are still cultures in our world today in which a woman is not able to gain her freedom. But in my culture, that is not the case. I am able to go free, and one thing I am noticing now: It is easier to face the judgment of those who don't understand when I have my own sanity than it was when I was on the brink of cracking. There is strength in freedom.

It isn't easy, but it is better.

She just told me she's abused at home. What do I do?

After finding out that I was suffering all manner of abuse under my husband, a woman who considered herself in a position of spiritual authority over me asked, under false pretenses, "Oh, how can I pray for you?"

I ventured out to trust her, and shared with her a very intimate "secret" that was causing me much guilt and shame. The abuse had become so bad, and I so broken, that I could no longer be intimate with my abusive husband. I thought I was the one who needed fixing. I told her she could pray for me to be able to give myself to him again, because that is what married people do.

But she wasn't really asking about how to pray for me. She wasn't really concerned about me at all. She had prepared in advance a verbal and emotional attack against me and the inquiry was simply a way to get my attention so that she could launch into a tirade against me, telling me it was my fault, that I was causing it, that I needed the accountability of a mature woman (namely her) to keep me in my marriage, that my refusal to give myself physically to my husband was manipulation to try to make him leave the marriage and exonerate myself by claiming abandonment, even that I should count it joy to die in my abusive marriage as a martyr for her view of righteousness.

Kicked when I was down? You bet. Satan worked through that woman that day to take me out again when I thought I could go no further, when I had tiptoed into trusting someone I thought had good intentions. I can still taste blood in my mouth from it, even though she never actually touched me. She might as well have.

There truly ARE appropriate ways to respond to a person who tells you she is suffering abuse. It is so very difficult and shaming to admit to it, and by the time we are forced to tell it, we are usually so incapacitated by its effects that we are approaching death. (My counselor calls it detachment, preparing to die.) We are hopeless in our hurt and sense of being trapped. Yes, Jesus is the only Savior of my soul, but it IS his will to act through his people to save others in a temporal sense, and abused women may just need such a temporal savior too.

Leslie Vernick has some fine bits of advice for the person who hears a cry from an abused person. Knowledge comes with responsibility. You don't have to cross over to the other side of the road from a sense of helplessness. If apathy, then you have to stand before God and confess that. But helplessness can be solved. Read what Leslie has to say. It's not nearly as difficult as it seems to offer real, life-saving, soul-saving help.

Five Things You Can Do by Leslie Vernick.

A Reason for Praise

The media is finally condemning domestic abuse.

I've never much been in favor personally of making celebrities out of athletes. It seemed like a risky move to me, just as putting any human being on a pedestal for worship and intense adoration is likely to be. But if our culture did not make celebrities out of athletes, it is very possible that our same culture would not be seeing the progress it is finally seeing now. People are beginning to pay attention to the horror and prevalence of domestic violence. Finally.

The attention and outcry are getting louder. People are realizing that just as those Boston citizens could say, "I had no idea he could do something like plant a bomb at a marathon. He seemed like such a normal guy," or those Cleveland citizens could say, "But I lived next to those guys for ten years; I ate barbeque in their backyard. I had no idea they had kidnapped women in the bedroom upstairs," or those Oklahoma City residents could say, "But Tim seemed like an average guy to me," they too can say, "I had no idea that normal looking family man was a brute and a beast and a sociopath with the wife who stuck by him for so long."

Domestic violence is a type of terrorism. It depends on the same things to flourish: secrecy, privacy, outward appearances, threats, intimidation, the element of surprise.

And God hates it. Women are just as much a part of his "treasured possession" as believing men. He uses women as the very symbol of his own Bride, the church, whom he himself died for. He loves women fiercely and jealously and he will not remain patiently silent and merciful forever toward the men who harm his daughter, or the men in authority who will not come to their aid. It is these men in authority to whom Jesus was speaking when he told them that God did indeed allow for divorce, but why? Because their hearts were hard--the leaders', the men's hearts were hard. God allows for divorce in order to protect his daughters because men will not repent, have empathy, use their power for the good of the women they are to cherish and care for as their own bodies and as Christ loved the church.

It is to these abusive men, who have forgotten the bride of their youth, to whom God says he hates--the men who did not love their wives but instead created an unthinkable rift with them, these men who clothe themselves with violence (Malachi 2:16). Yes, God hates the rift in relationship that is divorce, but he gives permission for legalizing that divorce in order to protect the woman who is being destroyed by her faithless husband.

Your maker is your husband! And he will not forsake you. He is coming. He is coming back. And he is not coming as a lamb this time. He is coming as a GROOM and as a WARRIOR.

The trumpets are being sounded. Men of the church, are you listening? John Piper, are YOU listening? Will you use your power, your authority, your influence to defend the widows, where God's heart is, or to keep them in oppression, fear, and turmoil forever?

The evidence is clear. Abuse is wrong. The dividing lines are being drawn. The martyrs crying out, "How long?" are heard, and God is moving in his church. His justice is sure. We who have cried out and had our cries fall on deaf ears are heard. That's reason for praise!

A Voice for the Abused #5: Boz Tchividjian

Another prominent voice in the church speaks out against spiritual abuse of church authorities who deny, rename, and compel women to stay in abusive situations.

John Piper, are you listening yet?


http://boz.religionnews.com/2014/09/12/whyistayed-churches-support-spousal-abuse/

#WhyIStayed #WhyILeft Follow on Twitter

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After the Monster: Struggles of an Abuse Survivor

Why is controlling, manipulating, threatening, intimidating, and sometimes even physically destructive abuse so damaging to the personhood of the victim? Why don't we just bounce back when it ends? What is it like to be the survivor of an abusive relationship--both emotionally and practically?



This writer sometimes thinks that no one else can possibly understand the internal turmoil that was caused by years and years of abuse. Every day is a battle to hold onto truth and to chase away the lies that robbed me of my identity, dignity, stability, joy, and worth.

I'm told it gets better with time, lots of time. I'm also told that it is normal to be standing where I am now and not be able to see the end result of healing that I'm hoping for. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression, unexplained anxiety, self-doubt, fear of disapproval, fear of personal expression... these things are conditioned in and reach into the whole person, but I am told they will be chiseled away a little at a time and that one day, life won't be so unmanageable.

I'm not there yet. I want someone to understand what it is like to be me. Pastor Dave Orrison does a good job of explaining what this place in life is like for me and other survivors like me.

You can read the entire piece here: The Monster's Legacy. The "monster" he refers to is not an individual but the condition of narcissism and sociopathy (anti-social personality disorder) that is the seed of much abuse in intimate relationships.

"Inability to make decisions, fear in personal relationships, nagging false guilt and shame, broken connections with others, depression, anxiety, and loneliness. These are some of the normal internal struggles. Then there are the external struggles. Financial stresses, custody and visitation issues, the need to find a job or the loss of a job, the physical consequences of stress, and so much more. When you look back at the end of a narcissistic relationship, you usually see a wide path of destruction."

Sociopaths in the Church

Most of us go through our lives unaware that we are living and functioning alongside sociopaths in our communities on a regular basis. Until we finally identify that we are living with one, that is, and then, it is as if our eyes are finally opened and we can see how others are able to appear so normal to the outer world while deeply harming the people closest to them in secret.

Sociopaths are in your church too. Church is an easy place for them to hide and thrive. This article helps explain how that comes about and gives some valuable input into how to separate and then reunite in our thinking the appropriate ways to show grace and hold accountable those with this disorder who are harming others.

This is a "must read" for anyone. Victims of sociopaths will find encouragement here. Those who have escaped victimhood can find light to shine into the darkness for the victims in their midst. God put us in churches to help one another. Those under the control of a sociopath need love, fellowship, support, and ears to hear the horror they have experience and the emotional void they have a starvation to fill.

Be the church. Educate yourself about Anti-Social Personality Disorder and how it harms others. Start here: Anti-Social Personality Disorder in the Church.

Discipline or Abuse: Adrian Peterson in the news

So, is anyone else feeling anxious about the children in the life of Minnesota Viking Adrian Peterson?

The man has not been tried for a crime of child abuse, and so judgment must be withheld until a verdict or confession is made. However, this writer is anxious and unsettled by what the news is reporting.

A man with two four-year-old sons by different mothers spends time with those children unsupervised. While in his care, both children receive bodily injuries that are evidenced by breaking of the skin. One is supported by photographs--a minimum of 16 switch marks on the child's skin. The other claims a scar on the face above the child's eye, which occurred when the four-year-old tried to resist the original punishment.

In both cases, text messages from Peterson affirm that he did cause the wounds while disciplining the children. In one case, he admitted via text that he struck the child in the testicles. In both cases, he claimed to feel bad about the injuries--and called the testicular injury an accident (presumably from loss of control), but he continued to stand by the firmness of his disciplinary choices.

Can we at least agree that the purpose of disciplining a child is to lovingly redirect or restore the child, and not to punish or inflict a wound or scar? Can we agree that before administering discipline, a parent must examine himself or herself to be careful not to overreact out of anger? These little ones are being shaped under our own hands. If we lash out in rage--and 16 or more lashes with an object can hardly be imagined as controlled action--what are we really teaching? How does one restore trust and love after something like that?

Withholding judgment is turning out to be hard. Pray the little ones get the support of knowledgeable adults who will speak for them. Pray for truth to be told.

One of Those Nights

It's one of those nights.

One of those "will I make it through tonight" nights.

The Internet is presently flooded with commentary about depression, suicide, mental illness, personal choices, seeds of faith and faithlessness, courage and weakness. Robin Williams, beloved comedian and actor, took his life a few days ago. After 63 years of fighting it. A few people think they have the answers. Many others want to share what those few have to say. I feel like they are trying to analyze me at the same time, and each article I read is a reflection of myself.

I don't know his story. I only know my own, and tonight's a night I don't want to own my story. Tonight's one of those nights.

Ten months ago, I sat in my car in my driveway, engine running, alone. I sat for a long time. The garden hose was just outside, sprawled languidly across the front landscaping bed as if no one cared to tidy it up. That's because no one truly did. I saw myself over and over again, with the hose, the exhaust pipe, a cracked window, and me. I know I sat there for most of an hour. I don't remember how I got out, or even why. I just know somehow, after a time, I didn't do what I saw, and I was inside again.

All the TED Talks in the world are not enough to shake it when depression wraps you in its Ring-Wraith embrace. That kind word someone offered three days ago? Gone by now. What do I need to snap out of it?

I know it is different for everyone. Again, my story, not yours. But I need time and purpose, and time is always there, ticking on so very slowly. The awareness of how slowly it moves does nothing to help, but time itself does function to move me through the stage to another side. Just hang on. But purpose. That's a big one. My marriage failed. It was doomed from the start, but nothing I could do could fix it, not even giving myself up completely into it. It never got better. In my head, I cognitively, intellectually know that the problem is a deep pyschological one that is not my own. But the message of all those years is that it was me--not good enough, not lovable, worthless, a disappointment at best and a disgust at worst. A vessel of wrath--wrath poured into me until I cracked and crumbled. Did I make it out alive? I'm still not sure.

And this is one of those nights.

Just the tiniest thing sparked it in me: a suggestion of a way to participate, be useful, be in camaraderie with others, dangled, then taken away again. It was not by ill will that it was taken again, but practicality, but the stool was kicked from beneath my always-so-precarious foothold and the doom descended like an executioner's hood. Why'd that have to happen? You know the answer: useless; worthless; not lovable; not a part of the camaraderie; not a part of the team. Tolerated at best, but never loved.

The whispers are insidious, and persistent, and what my head knows my heart cannot believe. It became too ingrained.

And this is one of those nights.

Personal Testimony: The Man She Loved Held a Gun to Her Head

Why do we stay?

We think we are the ones chosen to help our very troubled mates. We don't want to give up on the people we love. We think we are alone and will be unsupported.

If you are being abused by your husband or boyfriend, please hear this: You are not alone. One in three U.S. women will experience domestic violence or stalking. But you must get away. You cannot heal your abuser. You must protect yourself.

Leslie Morgan Steiner speaks in this TED Talk about her own domestic violence experience. She, like many, does not look like a "typical abuse victim." Most of us don't. As she says, it happens to everyone, regardless of race, religion, income, or educational levels. It often happens to the women who seem confident, capable, intelligent.

Pay attention to these important pieces of information:
Over 500 women between the ages of 16 and 24 die each year at the hands of boyfriends and husbands. (Do not be one of them! Let's change this number radically!)
There is a pattern: 1) Seduction; 2) Isolation; 3) Threat  

Does he seem too good to be true? Does he act as though you are the ONLY thing he needs? Does he conform himself to all your expectations? This is the seduction phase.

Does he try to draw you away from your community, move you to a strange place, or keep you from going out with others or have others in your life? Isolation is critical for the abuser.

Once he has charmed you and isolated you, the threats and violence can get worse.

Sometimes the three phases occur very quickly or simultaneously, but almost always, all are present.

Finally, keep in mind that separation may not be enough. Once an abuser loses control of his victim, he may feel he has nothing to lose in destroying her completely. At the first instance of abuse, call the police. Enlist others who will support you so that he knows there are witnesses. In this writer's case, enlisting a prominent person in the community who would firmly say to my abuser deserved that he should be in jail and WILL go to jail if any type of threat, intimidation, or contact occurs again has helped to give some additional security. Don't try to go it alone. Police, pastors (the ones who will listen), adult male friends and family members to back you up (though you will probably be called an adultress for having adult male friends), co-workers. Let people know. It is an intensely private issue, but we are not meant to live in isolation. There truly is safety in numbers.

Leslie Morgan Steiner on Why Abuse Victims Don't Leave: A TED Talk

A Voice for the Abused #4: The Gospel Coalition Reviews Justin & Lindsey Holcomb's book

Is It My Fault? Hope and Healing for Those Suffering Domestic Violence by Justin and Lindsey Holcomb
Moody Press. 2014. $14.99 retail.

Voices are gathering in God's church to speak out and recognize how offensive domestic violence is in God's eyes. Scales are beginning to come off. There is hope.

I admit. I have a dream. I have a dream that one day homes will be safe places, as they were intended to be. That one day, men will lead with hearts of service and love instead of power and fists and handguns and threats. I have a dream that one day, if violence and abuse does still occur, churches will feel like safe places for women to run, to tell the truth, to be heard. I have a dream that one day, pastors and church leaders will stand in protection and covering over the abused women in their congregations, rather than putting on their coats and hats and leaving the building to go back to their own lives after telling her just to do better. I have a dream that one day, horrors will end.

These are the steps it takes to get there. Little by little, exposure is happening. God is moving his creation forward. This is progress. Praise him!

The Gospel Coalition's review of the book above can be found by clicking here.

Please read and share. And if necessary, buy the book for your pastor or deacon board, women's ministry group, etc. 

How Should the Church Respond to Reports of Marital Abuse?

Marital abuse is possibly the most difficult form of abuse to expose and receive help for. That is largely because it occurs in very private settings between two adults. Of course we all know that any two people bring their own sin and shortcomings to any relationship, but what must be recognized is that abuse goes FAR and AWAY beyond the normal parameters of regular relational missteps, and it is almost never a response to anything the abused could have done differently to prevent it. Abuse originates within the abuser.

It is NOT simply out of control anger. It is a deep-seated need to overpower and harm another person, and in most cases, the other person is the person most intimately related to the abuser. Most psychologists believe that the reason for this is related to the abuser's own subconscious self-loathing, and so his malicious behavior is enacted upon the individual most intimate to himself--usually his spouse.

Churches simply are not equipped, in most cases, to help abused women. The reasons for this are many. Most Christians have been graciously spared from a personal knowledge of abuse. Many conservative churches lean toward patriarchalism--in which a man can rule over his family any way he sees fit, and women are strongly discouraged from ever speaking out against their husbands in any way, no matter the circumstances. In many of those settings, it is expected that the man speaks for his family, and the woman or children are not even considered to be voices for their own stories. To be so would be to deny the ritualistic external applications of "male headship." Women in these settings fear to speak out. No one wants to be the contentious woman, and every one of us who ventures to ask for help will be labeled as such before any help will ever be offered, no matter the actual facts. It is a knee-jerk reaction to abuse, "If he attacked you, you must have deserved it," and it is a lie. But it is a lie that a woman, already in a broken and weakened, usually paralyzed and debilitated state, must somehow find the strength to face and add to all the other accusations against her if she is ever to have hope to live free of her torment.

If the church is going to be Christ's Body on Earth, then the church simply must wake up to the reality of marital abuse and the slander against God that it carries. God reveals his relationship to his church as one of marriage. If marital abuse is accepted or swept under the rug, what are we saying about God? Would any pastor or church leader, or women's ministry leader, or young woman's mentor ever think of standing before God and calling him an abuser? To justify male abuse in a Christian home as a form of headship authority is to blaspheme the God who instituted marriage and called himself the Groom.

Elisabeth Klein has some valuable thoughts on the matter of what too often does happen in churches and what ought not to happen in churches. Her first-hand experience parallels far too many, including the experience of at least one here in our group. Please read and share this with your church leaders, male and female, even if you are not aware of marital abuse in your congregation. Prepare. Be ready, so that you can recognize the crime and help the wounded. This is the heart of God, to bind up the brokenhearted and to visit the widows (and their children) in their time of need. Do not turn your back on these women as they are being slowly murdered at the hands of the ones who stood before witnesses and God himself and took a vow to "cherish and nourish" her as his own body. Do not support the vow-breaking violation of abuse by undermining the victim.

God stands for justice. He despises the rift in relationship that is divorce when men cover their garments in violence, but he most certainly can still use the legality of divorce for the good of his beloved women when their husbands have sought their harm. Churches must be willing and able to run to the rescue of their women--heirs to the promise of God's grace right alongside men--if they wish to continue to stand in God's favor.


Churches: Wake up to Abuse by Elisabeth Klein
http://www.elisabethklein.com/church-wake-up-to-abuse/

Follow the link above to reach Elisabeth's article and begin to prepare your church to be instruments of mercy and change.

For Better or for Worse: A Flashback

We woke that morning to a surprise snow. Everything was covered. Not a blade of dry grass poked through the dense new blanket. And it was still falling.

By 10:00am, there was at least eight inches everywhere, more in the drifts. Our suburban street wouldn't see a car that day.

Not a car, no. But moments before dawn he had risen, somehow sensing the night before that the snow might come.

When it snowed, he always left us. I remember once when the oldest child was just a toddler, she proudly shared with another child how she loved to play in the snow with him. I wonder if she remembers at all. It was so long ago, then.

On this day, he was gone before anyone else awoke. Gone in that truck that could handle the mess. Gone to the business park miles away. He would affix a plow blade to the front of the truck and spend hours upon hours driving in circles, pushing the accumulating fluff to the tarmac's edges, clearing the asphalt field for the businesses that would not open that day, for the customers that would not come.

At mid-morning, I helped them all into puffy, down-insulated suits, hats, scarves, tights, socks, boots, and whatever mismatched gloves and mittens I could find, and out into the wonderland they went. It was just our own backyard, but together, they could play until the cold crept through the layers and they needed me, cocoa-provider, to rescue them, peel from them the ice-chip-coated, sopping garments and thrust steaming, creamy mugs into their red hands.

But this morning was different. I was there, at the kitchen window, watching. I turned away for . . . what? Moments? Seconds? Long enough. The adventurous five-year-old had hatched a plan, climbed that quickly to the top of the monkey bars, and found how difficult it was to hold on with the slick mitten surface encumbering her grip. She fell. From the wail, I could tell the injury was not inconsequential. My tough girl didn't cry like that for no reason.

Removing the glove brought even more shrieks and screams, and I knew, but didn't want to know. Her arm was broken just above the wrist. I was as frozen as the terrain outside for a moment as I looked at our road. There was no way I could get out in that.

Fully nine inches of snow covered everything. Even the tracks he had left this morning were completely gone. City streetcleaners wouldn't think of us for two days at least.

I grabbed my cell and called him on his. No answer. Voicemail. I left the message. "Please come home. I need to get her to emergency care." I waited. It was swelling. We packed ice. I gave her pain reliever. I called her doctor.

The after-hours nurse answered. They couldn't make it to work that day either. She was firm and direct with me: "That arm needs to be looked at now. I can't tell you anything else."

Again, the road. The snow. The phone. Another message. No reply. I kept calling. Finally, I reached him. "When can you come?"

"No need," he said. "Everything's closed."

"Hospital isn't, but I can't get there."

"I'll be there when I can," he said.

We waited. Hours. He didn't come. His tiny daughter was becoming sick with pain and nausea from it. The snow kept falling, gently now. Barely adding to the depth, just reminding me of its presence. That morning, so lovely. But now, late afternoon, a menace. A gentle, delicate, persistent menace.

I called again. "I'm still working," he said. Working. That's what he called it. Futile circling and passing by abandoned structures, while her little arm throbbed and ached, and Daddy wouldn't come, even just to give the comfort of his presence.

The father of some of the kids in the youth group I helped with was a doctor. A country-town doctor. Maybe he could help, understand my dilemma, give me advice I could use rather than just chastising me for not being able to get to professional services. I called. He didn't judge me. Over the phone, he told me what to find around the house to make a splint. I measured, cut, secured the tiny arm as best I could, wrapped, praying all the time that my makeshift device would hold well enough to relieve some of her pain. Ice. Ibuprofen. Alternate acetaminophen. All night long.

He came home long after dark. She had finally cried herself to sleep. Hours later, I would do the same.

"Why couldn't you come?" I begged, incredulous.

I didn't appreciate how hard he worked, he said. Everything he did was for us, never him, he said. Nothing was open anyway, he repeated, forgetting, it seems, the standard E.R. I rolled his angry words around in my mind while I took his sodden coveralls to the bathtub, shook and picked the ice from them, and cleaned up the puddles. I gathered his other clothes from the entryway while he showered, filling the room around himself with thick, comforting steam.

Later he would tell about the stories he and a friend shared in a fast food joint that had managed to open due to one employee coming in that day. That employee had given him and the other friend, also a "worker" with a truck with a plow, hot coffee and food all day long. They had sat inside the restaurant, sharing tales, eating and drinking, whenever they wanted a break from their big-boy play. While her arm swelled and bruised and I paced and prayed. The one person who could help her, wouldn't.

She still loves him. Craves him. She always has. It's been more than three years now since that happened. Even that, on top of the brutality he regularly unleashed on me when his inner turmoil had to spew from that churning molten core of fury that he lives with--even that wasn't enough to make me say, "Go." It took years still.

Last night I got a letter from a woman I used to worship with. A long letter. She felt she had to call me to account for abandoning my vow "for better or for worse."

This wasn't what I meant. I am not breaking my vow. I've been through every one of those vows, asking, "What did I say? And what did I mean? What did he hear? What did our witnesses hear? What did God hear?"

I did mean the part about sickness and health--his sickness or health. I did not mean when he caused mine or the children's sickness or loss of health in order to feel powerful. I did mean for better or worse--as terms describing all the unexpected that life throws at us. I did not mean when he was making sure that what could be better was absolutely worse. That wasn't the vow I made. I did mean till death do us part--but a natural death, or an accidental death, or even foul play at the hands of someone else. I did not ever mean that I would stay until the time he determined my death, with brute force instantly, or over long years of wasting and crushing and depriving.

Tonight, that event in the snow came up at the dinner table. The children were remembering. They did not remember that he would not come. But I can remember almost nothing else. He would not come to her. I remember holding her and trying to be a comfort. I remember my helplessness. Her pain. Her sadness then that he wasn't there. "Where is he? Is it any minute yet?" she asked again and again.

I can't answer them. I can't tell them why he can't be better. And I can't fix him. But neither can I depend on him.

I'm all they've got.

Of course, that isn't entirely true. They have a heavenly Father who cares for us, the widow and the orphans, for that is essentially who we are. They have a God who didn't stay away, who came. And he has led me here. It was time. The suffering was long. The hurts reached too far, into their lives. I should have stopped it sooner.

Should have.

There's no use in those words. It is what it is, now. It won't be that way again.

You Aren't Crazy. You've Been "Gaslighted"

Gaslighting is a very effective but often subtle form of emotional and psychological abuse. It is almost always present where other forms of abuse (physical, sexual, financial) also exist.

Gaslighting undermines a person's own sense of credibility. It erodes, so slowly that often one does not notice what is happening. Then, one day, the object of the abuser's gaslighting tactics begins to think she must really be crazy. She no longer trusts herself. She has lost her firm foundation that comes from a sound mind.

Gaslighting is wrong. It is destructive. The National Domestic Violence Hotline describes gaslighting and its effects at this link:

What Is Gaslighting?

Have you been gaslighted? If so, you may need help unraveling the mess it has made of your thoughts and perceptions, but you can become discerning and rational again. Begin with the truth and reject the lies. Trust the good judgment you've been given. Make yourself remember what you once knew with certainty to be true. And know that you truly are a reliable narrator for your own life's story.

These are not new tricks and you are not the first or only person to fall prey to them. Well-meaning women who want to be better partners and spouses, daughters, friends are often the easiest targets for the madness and manipulation of an abuser who uses gaslighting tactics.

A Voice for the Abused #3: Christianity Today

When a major publication such as Christianity Today is willing to claim the Bible makes an "Unequivocal 'No'" statement regarding domestic violence and abuse, we can see that God is working. God who loves his daughters, who refers to his people in feminine terms, will bring justice. Awareness is a first step. Condemnation is a close second, and far superior to the silence that communicates consent.

You must subscribe to CT in order to read the entire article, but if you do, read, share, promote this in your churches. Church leaders are being called to address and no longer avoid the issue. God will rise up and act on behalf of his beloved.

The Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? . . . "For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her," says the Lord, the God of Israel, "covers his garment with violence." -- Malachi 2, excerpt

The Bible's Unequivocal No to Domestic Violence: Christianity Today

It Wasn't for Nothing

We struggle to find meaning in our suffering. We wonder how a good God could let it happen. We grapple with holding two realities at once: He loves me. He allowed (dare we even say ordained) me to suffer.

It seems, sometimes, impossible to see how anything so devastating could ever be used for good.

We see as through a glass darkly. We see only a little at a time. It is hard to trust that he will do something good, but that is God's kind of business.

Here are two blogs that deal with the possibilities of good coming from suffering.

**NOTE: In no case do the operators of this blog encourage or condone STAYING in a dangerous situation. If you are actively being abused, our recommendation is to get out. Call the police. Call a shelter. Take shelter with a friend or a church member. We strongly believe that God's purpose is to remove the abused from the abuser until or unless the abuser is repentant and completely under control, and even then, forgiveness does not automatically mean a return to joint habitation. That is a decision that must be made on an individual, case-by-case basis with much prayer and counsel. But if physical or mental health is urgently at stake, we do encourage separation from the source of abuse until physical danger is no longer a factor and until a sound mind--which is a gift from God and a sign of his presence--can be restored for the abused.

One Thing All Domestic Abuse Survivors Need To Know

What Was Meant for Evil

You matter. Your experience matters. You are more instrumental than you know. And God will use all things for the good of those who love him. Your pain won't last forever. One day, you will speak of it in the past tense. Take heart.

Satan Is a One-Trick Pony

Sometimes the parallels between the stories of abuse, domestic violence, molestation are shockingly obvious.

SheLoves Magazine is working to break the silence about abuse, so that the cycles too may be broken. This woman's story could have been mine. It sounds so similar to so many others I've heard as well.

Satan is a one-trick pony. He's not a creator; he's a liar and an accuser. He finds something that works and uses the same pattern over and over again. Let's bring it into the light. Let's expose his tactics. Let's take his power away.

Break the silence. Learn from the repetitious tricks. This is not my story. It is someone else's. But I could have written it, it is so similar.

Stuck: Waiting for the Light

A Voice for the Abused #2: A Cry For Justice

This website offers a deeper clarity into the mindset of the abuser-personality, and a realistic view of the damage (sometimes longterm) caused to victims of abuse.

Victims can find encouragement here. Pastors, counselors, friends, family members, and anyone concerned for the abused can also find information of great value for understanding just how sinister abuse is. A must-read!

http://cryingoutforjustice.com/

Sanctuary or Living Hell

I woke up this morning with the word "threshold" in my mind. Threshold, threshold, threshold. Why?

A quick scan down the listing in my concordance landed me on Judges 19, and I remembered the story there. Rancid stuff. Horror. But I read it again, and this time, one line I don't remember noticing before stood out to me. Verse 3: "Then her husband arose and went after her, to speak kindly to her and bring her back."

To speak kindly to her.

This is the story of the slave-wife, the concubine of a Levite, who after some circumstance that left her labelled unfaithful (we are not told what she did, nor what the conditions of her life preceding her action may have been like), fled from her master-husband to take refuge "in her father's house at Bethlehem in Judah." After four months, her master-husband comes after her, finally, and the text notes that he intend to "speak kindly to her and bring her back."

Just a few verses later, this silver-tongued bastard is handing his slave-wife into the most treacherous scene ever. In order to defend himself, he gives the woman he has taken from the safety of her father's house into the hands of men who will rape and assault her until nearly dawn. When the master opens the door the next day, he finds his concubine outside the door with her fingers on the threshold. She has crawled back from her horror to the one who sent her into it, and found the door closed to her.

This is not her father's house.

Is she already dead? Or comatose from trauma? We don't know, but the master-husband has no regard for her. When his order to her to get up and get on their way gets no response, he picks her up and lays her on his beast. In the next scene, he hacks her body into a dozen pieces and sends it out throughout all the land. The depth of evil in his heart is exposed, and nothing like it had ever before been seen or heard of.

How many of us have reached safety or almost reached it, only to lose our footing when kind words convince us to return once more, to put ourselves back into precariousness or outright danger? How many have been told it is our obligation to do so, because Christ suffered at the hands of the enemies he would make his friends at his own death? I know I have.

I have been the concubine with my fingers on the threshold, frozen, traumatized, all but dead.

Today, I am in my father's house. And I am not leaving it. I can't go back there. Kind words are not enough.

When God Says, "No," He Is Saying, "I Love You"

For years, I thought God had abandoned me. I thought he was not answering my prayers. I thought he had turned his ear away from me.

How? That wasn't consistent with the God I had known, who had wooed me to love him with his grace and full affection and delight in me. The God who said he does incline his ear to listen and who gently leads the sheep of his fold. How could that God make promises to be near to the broken hearted and not hear my daily cries, for a decade on end?

A week ago, I got a new understanding. I think it is the voice of the Lord.

You see, for at least 10 years, and maybe more, I had been asking him to change me, to give me greater endurance and strength and stability within myself so that I could continue to endure an abusive situation. I thought continuing in it was the only way to stay righteous. You see, "what God has joined together, let no man separate" was something I took seriously, even if the "no man" was this woman, to save herself. What I didn't realize then is that I wouldn't be the one doing the separating. I didn't cause the separation. The abuser did that. Yet I still would not consider even calling it what it truly was and formalizing that which was reality, because I felt so certain that it would be wrong. I simply needed to endure it.

And I couldn't. This bruised reed is so very bruised. These bones were dried out. The soul became crushed. And I thought that meant God had abandoned me. How could he let me break so completely? Why didn't he give me strength to keep going?

Why? Because he loves me. I finally heard it last week. All this time, he hasn't been turning a deaf ear. He has actually been answering me. But his answer wasn't what I expected. His answer was, "No."

"No, my precious daughter. I will not give you more strength to endure this abuse. No, I will not be the cause of you staying in it. No, I do not want this for you. Come out, my daughter. If desperation is what it takes to bring you out, crawl away, and come out into the light."

He had to say no to me for me to finally begin to break free. He had to refuse to strengthen me, so that in my weakness I would have no other choice than to leave it or die in it. And he loved me too much to watch me stay.

Freedom is coming. I am like the concubine upon the threshold, only in my own case, I pray and believe that he has called me out moments before that fatal one. He is saving me. I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

A Voice for the Abused #1: Gary Thomas speaks against making victims stay

Conservative churches, who should recognize the heart of God and God's love and compassion for the victims of injustice, often are the hardest ones on the victims of domestic violence. It ought not be this way. But not every church leader takes the rigid line that a woman should suffer continually under the abusive hands of the man who swore before God and human witnesses to love and cherish her. Gary Thomas speaks out against requiring a woman to stay in an abusive marriage:

God Hates Domestic Violence

The church leaderships that say "No divorce," even in cases of abuse, are often looking at the Bible as a handbook, with step-by-step rules for life. Using the handbook approach, they often miss the big picture of who God is and what overarching themes he has revealed to us.

It is true that God never intended divorce when he designed marriage. He may ordain it, now that we are after the Fall, but it was not a part of the original design. It is true that as marriage reflects God's relationship with his church, it reflects the permanence of that relationship. But all symbols break down in this broken and fallen and corrupted world. Man is sinful. God is not. God alone, in his perfect goodness and perfect love and perfect humility, is able to unilaterally hold together a union such as his with his imperfect bride, the church. In a human marriage on this side of the Fall, however, marriage is not a unilateral relationship. It is bilateral--both parties have a role. Both parties make vows and are expected to keep them. Even if not kept perfectly, the essence of the vows must be kept.

There is no way the essence of the vow to "love, honor, and cherish" or to "nourish her as his own body" (paraphrased from Ephesians 5) is being kept when a man abuses his wife--when he lives out a pattern that does her harm out of some ungodly need within himself. 

When the church leaders of the day tried to trap Jesus about the certificate of divorce Moses allowed men to give, Jesus referred them back "to the beginning." In the beginning, before the Fall, it was not this way. God instituted marriage before the hardness of heart that would destroy it existed. Is it possible that the issue of marital abuse is never specifically stated as a means for divorce in the Bible because of that redirection Jesus gives us to "the beginning"? Is it possible that abuse is so far from the purpose of the institution of marriage, from the relationship between God and his church that is being reflected, that it doesn't even belong on the table for discussion? 

Paul too refers us back to Genesis, before the Fall, but does so more subtly. Ephesians 5:29, the very model of marriage, refers to how a man is to care for his wife: For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.

No Bible reader can miss the connection Paul is making here to Adam's first words upon seeing the woman who was taken from a rib in his own side and formed to be his in one-flesh union. Genesis 2: 22-24: And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man." Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

In the beginning, there was no abuse in marriage. Even after the Fall, God predicts that the relationship is strained, but still, abuse does not come into the discussion. The woman will crave deep, meaningful relationship with her husband and the two will struggle to find it (Genesis 3:16). (Such is the basis for the need of marriage counseling and the myriad books we have to address communication issues in marriage today.) Man will protect himself from that deep relationship, as pride has entered in now and he is no longer "not ashamed." He will be tempted to use his strength and position to "lord over her" instead of keep her by his side as his equal partner in dignity, purpose, worth--but even so, that "lording over" does not open the door for the kind of activity and intent to destroy that abuse has in it. (Jesus reiterates the error in this attitude when reminds his disciples in Matthew 20: 25 that "lording over" others is a trait of the pagans, and that "it shall not be so among you" who believe. But nothing in either statement, Old Testament or New, suggests that the "lording over' included ongoing abuse.) No, even "lording over" did not encompass destructive abuse. The first such destruction we see in the Bible comes not from a husband to a wife but from brother to brother when Cain kills Abel. We are to be shocked and horrified that it is possible for such hatred and self-promotion to exist between brothers, but it is not suggested that it even can exist between husband and wife. Adam and Eve's marriage after the Fall remains, and continues to produce life rather than death.

From a biblical perspective on abuse in marriage: It ought not to be so. 

Abuse is such a distortion of God's plan for marriage that it does not even earn a place at the table of discussion when anomalies in marriage are being discussed. As both Jesus and Paul refer back to the beginning to define marriage, we can be confident that they were speaking of marriage as God intended it, and not an anti-Christian relationship that has destruction of the most beloved at its heart instead of loving union, even in this ongoing imperfect world.

What Is Abuse?

Abuse is widely misunderstood, and when we don't understand a thing, we have a very difficult time addressing it and dealing with it appropriately.

Abuse can take many forms, but the underlying connection that is so often not grasped is that abuse is not a REACTION to another person. Abuse originates within the abuser.

Take this in, please: Abuse originates in the abuser.

Victim-blaming is always in error. It comes in many forms: You must have provoked him somehow or he wouldn't have hit you. You were raped because you were wearing a short skirt and high heels. She may have been only 14, but she clearly knew what she was doing when she attracted her rapist. You should have known better. You must have caused it somehow.

And the answer to all those lies is "NO!"

There is a chasm of difference between provocation and abuse. An abuser seeks a victim because something in him (or her, but for the sake of ease of communication and with statistical support, we are using "him" most regularly) is so broken that it needs to do harm to another in order to satisfy itself. Abuse very often comes up out of nowhere, without provocation. It is NOT normal behavior. It is normal for a person to get angry in response to some wrong being done to him, and it is true that some people get too angry. They may become hurtful as they respond to their own injuries. There can be a fine line between out-of-control anger and actual abuse, and discerning it may be a challenge. But as a rule, abuse is over the top, originating within the abuser not as a reaction to something the victim has initiated, but it is an effort to destroy or excessively control with intent to harm the victim.

Here is a list that may be helpful to some readers. It is the "continuums of abuse." Abuse does occur on a "continuum." It may begin with mild, even trivial-seeming actions. But left unchecked, it will escalate, continue, to more serious actions. Abusers do not "check" themselves. They must be confronted and held accountable before there will be any hope of controlling the behavior. Please also note: Child molesters also work on a continuum, and even children who have been molested and become molesters while still minors will replicate the same continuum to draw in their even younger victims.

• Physical Abuse (in order of increasing danger)
  Holding down, blocking, pinning
  Pushing or shoving
  Shaking or jerking
  Slapping and bruising
  Throwing objects
  Punching
  Kicking
  Black eyes, cuts, chipped teeth
  Burning with hot drinks, cigarettes, etc.
  Causing serious falls
  Choking
  "Stoning" victim with objects
  Severe beatings
  Broken bones
  Hitting with objects
  Back injuries, paralysis
  Internal injuries
  Use of weapons
  Death

• Psychological Abuse
  Jokes or put-downs that demean the victim, public or private
  Acting like the victim's feelings, needs, and ideas don't matter
  Enforcing rigid roles and rules for women
  Controlling through jealousy
  Lying to control and manipulate
  Making victim think she is always misunderstanding (gaslighting--making her think she is crazy)
  Isolating the victim from friends, family, community, social events
  Insults and name-calling
  Holding distant past events against victim
  Slandering victim to others who might otherwise be supportive of her
  Yelling and raging
  Humiliation, throwing food
  Fists through wall
  Threats and intimidation
  Destruction of her property; stealing her property
  Hurting or killing pets
  Displaying guns, sleeping with guns
  Depriving the victim of sleep
  Abuser threatens suicide
  Tries to get the victim to commit suicide
  Threatens to kill her and/or the children
  Death

• Sexual Abuse
  Anger at women
  Excessively narrow definitions of gender roles
  Sexual jokes and put-downs
  Overly controlling segregation of genders
  Demeaning comments
  Public complaints about the sexual relationship with the victim
  Treat woman as a sexual object; sex expected as a duty
  Verbalizing dissatisfaction with victim's body; pressuring victim to make outrageous changes (plastic surgery; post-childbirth surgery)
  Withholding sex to punish
  Touching victim in ways that feel uncomfortable, in public or private
  Requiring victim to pay for anything with sex acts
  Promiscuity and sexual affairs
  Offering victim to others for sex
  Sex after or with violence or abuse
  Forced by violence or threats into sexual acts the victim doesn't want to do
  Marital rape
  Incest with children
  Sadism
  Death of victim

It was helpful to this writer. Some years ago, I stumbled across this list. I had symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and in searching for the syndrome that my collected symptoms fit, I kept coming to lists of abuse characteristics. I finally began to connect the dots. What I had experienced truly was abuse, and what I was dealing with truly was PTSD. I didn't know. I printed the list and highlighted everything I had survived. My list showed about half the physical abuse points, almost all the psychological, and about half the sexual. And I was falling apart. But knowledge is power, eventually. It may not be the case immediately. It got worse before it began to get better.

This writer had a difficult time at first accepting the "label": I have been abused. I am currently in an abusive relationship. I am an abuse victim.

That's not at all who I ever thought I would be. Taking on the "label" at first sent me into a very low place emotionally. But the truth had to come out. If you've read the Introduction to this Blog (the first entry: you can find it here), then you have read that we have a commitment to the truth here. And the truth will set us free. I had to face the truth that my situation really was abuse.

Is yours? Consider the list. Consider the initiating circumstances. Accept the actual definition, if it applies, and begin the process of being freed. If you are or have been abused, it is not your fault, but you are probably carrying a great deal of false guilt because it happened to you. We must shake off this false guilt! It is toxic and deadly and will not help you escape or heal.

God does not want you to be abused. It is an injustice and a horror that is a part of being alive in this decaying world, but there is hope. Let's walk into the light of truth together.

Why "Shadowing Abigail"?

The title of this blog is related to our following in the footsteps of a biblical person who had no doubt experienced abuse by someone who should have loved her dearly. This woman found herself bound to an abusive husband. Abigail's story can be found in 1 Samuel chapter 25.

The name Abigail can mean "my Father's joy" or "my Father is rejoicing."  Given her marriage to a dangerously selfish brute of a man who would put himself, his wife, and all his hired young men into a life-or-death situation simply to stroke his own ego, we can imagine that Abigail knew the despair of being unloved, used, and trodden upon. But unlike many, including some of ourselves, she chose to act in wisdom to save herself and others. Her actions averted great tragedy, and upon the death of her abusive husband, Abigail was given by God to the care of King David, as his own wife.

She suffered, but she was not forgotten.

We who have known abuse walk in the shadow of this woman, in the knowledge that we too have suffered, but we are not forgotten. All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Introduction to This Blog

If somehow you've found this blog site, let us welcome you. Welcome, and come, be safe here.

We are broken people. We admit that we are not sinless. And yet, we are people who have been broken even further by the sins of others, in particular, individuals or groups of individuals whom we loved and trusted.

We are the abused and molested children. We are the wives of destructive marriages. We are the devoted and used up friends of narcissists. We are the overpowered in the legalistic and patriarchal church movement--those who desperately needed grace but got further victimization, strong-arming, and law instead of mercy. We are orphans and widows by circumstance.

And we are seeking healing and wholeness and love in an all-too-often loveless world.

If you have a story to tell, you may send it to shadowingabigail@gmail.com. All submissions will be read. If your story seems to be one that others may benefit from, we may choose to publish it here.

Guidelines for submission:

1) Above all else, we are committed to truth telling. The truth will set us free.
The truth is not always beautiful in and of itself, but it is the path to freedom. Not all stories are lovely and emotionally positive. Not all stories have yet reached a conclusion. We believe that God is at work in all things, and that he does indeed work even our worst nightmares for good in the end. But at present, we may not be at all aware of how our story will end. We are in the dark, but we are still committed to telling the truth in the darkness. All submissions to this blog should be earnestly considered in every detail: Is it the truth? If there is any doubt, please do not submit your story for consideration.

2) The purpose of this blog is healing, not damaging others.
Though we have been wounded by others, it is not our intention to seek revenge or to inflict return harm on those who have harmed us. Therefore, even as we tell our stories, it is important that we must be careful to never slander or expose another person's wrongdoing specifically so as to harm that other person. Yes, if that person was in sin, he or she should be confronted and held accountable for it, but this is not the place to do that. That should be done in private, possibly face to face if it is safe to do so, and with the support of other appropriate members of your community, not excluding law enforcement if necessary. Therefore, those submitting stories may wish to use only their first names, nicknames, or Internet user id names. No full names will be published with submissions. Additionally, full names of individuals in story submissions will not be published. Use careful discretion please, and remember to do to others as you would have them to do to you, and to love your enemies as you love yourselves.

3) Write with respect and dignity.
Language matters. Many of us have been hurt by words. Please be careful to use only respectful and dignified word choices in your writing. Language that profanes the Deity will not be printed or allowed in the comments. Other language that can be considered obscene or derogatory may be censored for the sake of limiting its trigger effect on others.

4) Remember grace.
The God of grace did not turn his back on his rebellious creation. Instead, he humbled himself, set aside his own glory by choice, and entered in to suffer alongside his beloved people. By living a perfect life and giving that life freely at the hands of sinners he came to buy back from their own self-destruction, he gave perfect evidence of his choice to love eternally all who call on his name to be saved. He now looks upon his people with complete favor, and nothing can separate his beloved from him, now or ever. It is in the context of the knowledge of that saving, unmerited grace, that we offer up our wounds for healing, and that we offer our stories to one another. Therefore, we commit here on this site to offer gentleness, optimism, kindness, respect, and dignity to one another, even at times when we find ourselves in disagreement. Though we encourage discussion, we are not here to chastise one another, to offer easy platitudes, to downplay one another's pain or try to fix or dismiss it, and most certainly not to judge or place blame on the victims, regardless of the life choices that may have contributed (or may not have contributed) to the injury experienced. We are here to build up, to strengthen one another, and to encourage toward an eternal healing in keeping with the grace bestowed on the world by God through Jesus Christ. 

5) Guidelines for participating in this blog may change over time. Recurring issues will inevitably have to be addressed, and we will do so as needed.