Abusive Anger

This is probably the best article I have read about the use of anger and yelling and is spot on as it applied to my marriage to an abuser. I am now 17 years OUT of this relationship, but still have issues to deal with as my body and brain cope with past ravages that have not corrected themselves because I left. I still experience depression, hyper-response to triggers, and especially cognitive and memory problems. I believe Christian friends, as LittleBird states here, never saw the abuse and so fail to understand or believe the extent of what our family endured – in fact may retain friendship with my abuser because he is such a nice, “fun” guy, as they regard me as unstable or apostate. Please read this in its entirety – so real!

Little Bird Flies

It came out of nowhere; completely unexpected. One minute we were enjoying our lunch and a break from homeschooling, and the next moment he was yelling at the top of his lungs. Storming through the house. Throwing whatever was in his path.

The children and I were stunned. We sat there, eyes wide open, trying to make sense of what he was raving about. Finally, I came to action. I grabbed the children and began moving them out of the kitchen. They knew what was coming. They knew what they were supposed to do. I shepherded them toward their bedrooms. All the while, he was yelling and smashing things.

Once, they were in my daughters room, I knew I had to return to the kitchen. I was scared. I didn’t want to go. I silently tiptoed toward the other part of the house. He was quiet now, probably because nobody…

View original post 1,954 more words

Speech – Light Arizona Purple

Hello, friends…it’s been a while…

The following is a speech I made a year ago, in October 2015, well before this horrible campaign and election. I believe what I said applies even more now. I am less optimistic about changes now as I was when I wrote and presented this speech, but as individuals we have to keep changing our culture of violence. We just do. One on one on one…..

Thank you to all of you for your commitment to Ending Domestic Violence.

I am honored and grateful to be here as we begin Domestic Violence Awareness Month in Arizona.

I am a survivor of a 20-year marriage to a very intelligent psychological abuser. I needed and sought help from many sources, including 6 pastors in 4 states, police in two states, counselors, friends, family, physicians and one advocate.  Their counsel ranged from cluelessly dangerous to somewhat helpful.

In 2012, 12 years after leaving my abuser, I came to the office of the Arizona Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence and told the advocate, “I can’t think, or make decisions, or trust, or relax, or move forward. I’m frozen. Do you think this might have something to do with Domestic Violence?” I was heard, educated, supported and referred to appropriate help. I am so grateful!

But my story is not what is important tonight. You can Google thousands of stories, images and details about Domestic Violence among millions and more millions of stories, told or untold.

It is the millions, and more millions I want to address.

Because they include you.

One out of 4 women are abused by a partner. One out of 7 men. On Indian reservations the statistics are much higher. Consider just 25% of all women whose stories are reported. Add to that all the women who have not reported their abuse. Add families who watch helplessly, or live on after burying murdered daughters or sisters. Add neighbors who watch and worry. Add First Responders who may risk their lives to investigate, and their families who worry, or who may also have buried someone who was protecting a victim. Add medical personnel who see the trauma in emergency rooms, doctor’s offices, and psychiatric settings. Add schools, with too many traumatized kids and missed days. Add employers. Add tireless and dedicated advocates. Add those who see the images on the news and other media. Add yourself. Add everyone else.

We are all victims of Domestic Violence.

We are here tonight to Light Arizona Purple, and say together IT CAN STOP.

But to END Domestic Violence we must address the CAUSE, the machine that continues to produce Abusers and Victims.

This cause is A CULTURE OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN – and it is changing.

Programs are changing the culture: Wonderful programs have begun changing how children and youth understand behavior toward one another, how masculinity is defined, how girls and women are portrayed in advertising and media.

Media is changing the culture: NO MORE and other media blitzes are crucial, a counterpoint to much violence in other areas of media. The visibility of, and response to, violence against women via sports and entertainment has attracted attention and stimulated education and mindset change.

Grass-roots Education is changing the culture: in talks, events, and other avenues.

Victim’s services are changing the culture: providing supports and education for recovery, skills and new expectations for life without abuse – for children and adults.

VICTIMS FIND SAFETY AND ARE BELIEVED.  PERPETRATORS ARE INCREASINGLY BEING HELD ACCOUNTABLE.

BUT WE NEED TO DO MORE…AND DO IT NOW!  WHAT IS MISSING?

BYSTANDERS

Jackson Katz has posed the question that if 3% of men do violence against men, women, and children, violence that women have not been able to stop, what are the 97% of good men, the bystanders, doing?

What I want to point out is that WE ARE ALL BYSTANDERS, as WE ARE ALL VICTIMS.

We are all in this, like it or not.

Let me illustrate. In the past few weeks, I have experienced 3 incidents of males insulting females in social settings.

A man approached my female friend and me at a restaurant. He said the guests sitting near us must be teachers “Because they are women and talk a lot.” Then he made a joke that boy birds have beaks that are closed, but girl birds have beaks that are wide open.  We calmly told him he had the wrong audience and we didn’t like his joke. He simply moved away. If enough people don’t like his jokes about women, he might move on to healthier jokes. Our response was easy and private.

A second situation was a hosted dinner-seminar with 10 people who had not met before. During conversation, one man made a remark about compulsive shopping, “you know how women are.” I didn’t laugh, but others chuckled with amusement…or maybe politeness. Later, another man declared, “I’m straight up, honest, you know who I am and what I stand for…not like a woman.” Again laughter…from at least some of the women as well.

This time I didn’t want to risk being rude or creating awkwardness out of respect for the host. We know, consciously or unconsciously, that if I had responded “I don’t like that” to those statements, the group may have seen not the rude men, but me as the source of the ensuing social awkwardness.  The silent bystanders were likely “taking the high road” “not making a fuss” or maybe they just agreed with the statements.  I might have been thought to be “too politically correct” “no fun,” or “an emotional female.”

I felt much like I did when I considered the backlash for me and to my daughters if I didn’t accept and participate in the abuse in our home. I felt like any victim who has seen anyone turn their gaze away from her abuser to her, and ask what she did to make him mad.

Just as victims of abuse are silenced, either by words and the power behind them – as by the threat of physical pain, or harm to innocent persons, so also – those who reject the culture of gender insult and violence have been silenced, either by words and the power behind them, as by the threat of retaliation in jobs, family or infinitely varied social sanctions.

We are all victims and all bystanders.

These examples seem too mild to address. But this is where Domestic Violence and its supporting social systems start. These statements show a mindset that stereotypes women as foolish, untrustworthy or other negative attributes. Which is low-level social violence. These stereotypes evolve to subconscious truth, then to excuses for disrespect, and finally to justification for abuse.

Domestic Violence is so much easier to combat at this stage, because long before his hand is around her throat, the abuser has already absorbed years of input from his culture about what is acceptable and what is not. He has learned what will be sanctioned or punished, what will be ignored and for what he will be made accountable. Others have taught him who is likely to make him accountable and who will pass it over. He may also have been abused, and internalized that this is the way life is, with no one telling him otherwise.

As a people we are aware of some of the cultural forces within which we operate; most we just accept, or navigate with little effort because we have become desensitized to the harsher tactics as we function within them. As I study word use, cultural bias, and why people believe what they do, I am in awe of how our words define our culture, as they define the way we ourselves think. Our words are tremendously powerful.

So it is up to us to become aware that the little things are not so little. Are we willing to take an honest look at our own bystander awareness and kick it up a notch by defining what we will and will not do to change our Culture of Violence against Women? Are we willing to accept that EVERYONE is affected on all levels by Domestic Violence, and to see all of us as victims and as survivors?

We don’t have to start a fight to challenge this Culture of Violence against Women. We just have to become RE-sensitized to what we are really saying and hearing, choose what we are willing to face up to in order to change our culture, and DO IT.

NOW is the time to stop just talking ABOUT Domestic Violence, and ACT.

Actively learn more. Be aware. Challenge your own stereotypes. Challenge others.

Financially support the agencies and programs that are saving lives and changing minds

We are all victims of Domestic Violence.

We are all bystanders of Domestic Violence.

And, to the extent that we passively condone a culture of Violence against Women, we are also perpetrators of Domestic Violence.

It is for everyone to transform a Culture of Violence.

The time is NOW.

It Can Stop.

End Domestic Violence.

Peace to you.

            

 

Peace.

I wish you peace, not just for the holidays. Not the peace of religion, but the peace of faith.

What I wish for you is awareness of the PROCESS that is the life and faith of you and others. I wish you both comfort and growth, knowing that they are not often simultaneous, but can be.

May we all hear past the memes, ads, and rants to the heartbeat of every other – which is essentially one life shared here and now.  May we speak words that enlighten and connect so that understanding will make our dwelling together easier as we share our time on this global patch.  May we listen beyond anger and hard words to the underlying fear expressed there, then answer that fear with compassion. May we guard our own hearts, without guilt, but with increasing wisdom, from those who don’t understand and so believe they prevent fear by creating fear.

May we see past the glitter and lights to see people as individual treasures, not stereotypes or cultural caricatures. May we see that this world does not define us…we are already part of Someone much greater and already nestled in eternity, and we define ourselves within that greater belonging.

May we begin to end violence by ending it toward and within ourselves. Then in all thoughts and words. In all responses to others. In all of our wishes and prayers.

I love you. I just do.

Happy Holidays.

Peace.

 

#Why I Stayed

A domestic violence advocate told me that the entire month of October, which is dedicated not only to Breast Cancer awareness, but also Domestic Violence awareness, should be spent explaining the answer to THE MOST COMMON QUESTION: “Why does she stay?”

The answers to that are as varied as snowflakes or grains of sand, and as plentiful, because there are so many reasons and so MUCH abuse, on all levels, that is either ignored or fully sanctioned by our society. The answers are important. Please look into #WhyIStayed and #WhyILeft. There is also a #WhyIAbuse, but I have seen no comments from abusers there.

I know many women who left, and a few who stayed. Hindsight is not 20/20 even though we hear the phrase. We have no idea what trajectory a life would take given alternate choices. So my question to myself: “Did I do the right thing, to stay….then to leave?”

My youngest daughter tells me that she remembers the anger in the air, but didn’t know what it was from. It has cost them. But would it have been better if it was out in the open, with open fighting (there was plenty of that, too). Would it have been better if I left, and they lived a dual life? Would it have been better if they had to cope with him alone? No way to know.

This is why I stayed:

#fear – of losing my kids, hurting my kids, creating greater instability for my kids, being financially unable to care for them, leaving them alone with their dad when he was “weird,” disappointing God, doing the wrong thing and regretting it

#hope #love  #faithfulness #long-suffering #denial #naiveté

Ephesians 5:21-33 (and many others)

This is why I left:

#fear – of losing my mind, taking my own life, wasting my life, failing my kids, not being there for my kids, God’s silence, suffering, desertion, ruin, being a fool.

#hope #love #faithfulness #wisdom #courage

Ephesians 5:1-7 (and many others)

For some who left, it was fairly clean and decisive, however traumatic. Many others have been re-abused and further abused by ex-spouse, court system, families, and faith communities. They are enduring things I think may have crushed me. I had it good, very good! When I hear their stories I recognize my greatest fears in staying AND leaving. For very few who stayed, there has been improvement and a decent to good relationship.

I think the word is out for those who care to listen: it is hard to stay – it is hard to leave – it is hard to be abused.

I think the word is out also that a hugely neglected issue is #WhyIAbuse.  Abusers don’t respond because they don’t believe they are abusive, are ashamed they are abusive, want to be secretly abusive, or don’t care because it doesn’t apply to them. True, but incomplete.

I have too many questions to list them all in one post. But here are my top three:

If so many men, women and children are victimized, predominantly by men, as a worldwide proven phenomena, why are we still so essentially impotent in addressing men who do violence – instead accepting male violence as normal, normative…you know, just the way it is? #WhyViolence

Best estimates of multiple studies indicate that around 25% of women are assaulted or abused, and that children privy to that violence are also affected, and that abuse by males is the single most significant health concern of women as a whole, worldwide, and that it is…you know, just the way it is. If that is the way it is, and has been, the misplaced responsibility a reality – why don’t all women take self-defense classes, promote one another financially, carry protective weapons, remove the status-builder of feminine companionship from men who are not respectful, teach each other the signs of abuse, and talk and act to strengthen and protect one another? Yes, I know this is almost like blaming the victim. I still want to know this, because I want to know how women can make each other stronger until abuse stops and we don’t need to anymore, how MEN and WOMEN can make each other stronger, period. #GotYourBack

I look at e-mails, Facebook and Twitter posts, “news” articles, memes and advertisements. What I see is a lot of persuasion without honesty, investigation or conscience. From people I otherwise respect very much I see promotion of dramatic half-truths or untruths that are hard to verify, but meanwhile polarize not clarify. POLARIZE NOT CLARIFY. (Men abuse…well, women abuse too…my statistics…your statistics…and it’s all the president’s fault…ya know?). Why are we so eager to choose sides at the expense of honesty that could yield solutions? That is grass-roots, bottom of the barrel, sneaky, subtle terrorism.  #GetReal

We share this world at this time. We are in this together. There is a lot of violence here. Does it now seem appropriate to ask, “Why do we stay?”

*****

I invite you to also visit:

This Year’s Topic:
After decades of “awareness”, why is violence against women still so common?
We’re discussing what’s at the core of
A Culture of Contempt

 

 

Cloud-gaze with Me in the Grass?

The earth is warm against my back. I pause with minor annoyance as the tender-looking blanket of grass beneath me pricks not-so-tender shoots into the backs of my arms. The flies and gnats are dining elsewhere I guess, because they are nowhere to be seen, and I know that I am a favorite lunch venue. I rest my head on my palms, arms now above my head, and gaze at the sky through a kaleidoscope of shimmering leaves to watch the clouds moving and changing across the sky. The day is filled with peace and promise.

Join me?

I see a smiling face. Forgiveness of myself, for choosing and staying with an abusive husband, for not better protecting my children, for not knowing what I needed to know. For not being able to…whatever. For being gullible enough to believe in the god others showed me, who demands suffering and calls it love, who advise with arrogance from ignorance. Forgiveness of imperfect or cruel people, who unpredictably hurt and cannot be controlled. I forgive myself for not being able to stop them or repair them, or my own flaws, or the damage my choices have made. The past, the losses, the whining about nonsense, and the minimizing of tragedy. God didn’t demand my forgiveness – for Him. He helped me find it – for me. It is so good!

I see a backbone that allows me to disagree with the crowd, however imperfectly. To say no to control or abuse for myself; to not watch silently if I am a bystander. To say yes to friends who laugh and keep confidences, are kind and honest and not easily offended – or live peacefully friendless if need be. To live un-ashamed (usually) for having been unglued or weak, knowing I could be again. To not be polite when politeness is passive agreement with a wrong. To know that my faith is between me and God and needs to pass muster with NO ONE. To reject drama, by avoidance or transcendence. I am.

I see a question mark that reminds me how much I don’t know, which relieves me of judgment. Of how much I want to know, which keeps me seeking, excited about better understanding to come. Of how much I need to know, which allows me to accept, to love and be loved. A lot.

I see the hands of a clock. Reminding me that time isn’t really linear, measured in equal increments – it is more…elastic. Decisions I think must be made NOW, can’t always be made now, don’t need to be…and in waiting through the agony of indecision, options may appear that weren’t there before. That some decisions do have to be made NOW, and just are what they are, whatever and however they are. And this moment is only this ordinary and extraordinary moment. My past, present and future are folded together like hands in prayer, fingers intertwined. It’s all good.

I see a face filled with fear. It is the face of everyone being hurt. AND the face of most doing the hurting. The face of everyone who struggles, who is part of any human community, who is subject to uncertainty, who is told he/she is not adequate, or who tells him/herself the same. The face of those who are separated from God, and those who pretend to be bosom buddies. It is the face of those who CONTROL, in any way or any place at any time. Of those who are controlled in any way or any place or any time.

Oh look! I will put my arm around your shoulder, and my face next to yours, and point to what I see! The smiling face again! Do you see it? Edging toward the fearful face, blowing into it, blending and thinning as the wind carries them away? Leaving the sun shining on our heads, like a blessing?

Do you see it?

 

 

 

Update and Quote-Share

(One of my favorite cartoons ever).

 

This is my update on NaNoWriMo: I did write 50,000 words! I started the month of November on schedule with the around 1700 words per day necessary to keep the pace. Then issues with my parents and a mild bout of depressions slowed me way up. To pick up the pace, I had to write a LOT….and did. It is really rough, but it is there.

It WAS worthwhile. I learned so much about my parents’ marriage and history. In my ethnic group, respect for older people is present, but not as it should be. My parents, whose bodies and minds are changing how they operate, think qualitatively differently than a middle-aged whipper snapper who wants to move too fast without understanding the depth of meaning behind their ways. Even if changes MUST be made. Being a basically insecure, very feeling, analyzer and second-guesser, it has been painful and frustrating navigating with my parents their process of reviewing their lives and grappling with the limitations that snuck up on them too fast. It has also been and is a great honor. So writing about how their lives (plural) become their life (singular, together) has opened an opportunity sometimes missed in my culture – to sit at their knees and learn from the wisdom of the aged. And to be reminded, with GLEE, that they are the same “swell kids” they once were. I learned so much from them that I have had all of my life to learn, but never put together quite this way before.

And it took me out of the problems and issues and challenging logic, into the souls of two people who have been blessed to live life with trust, success, and harmony overall, throughout their lives. A couple who, as very poor newlyweds, would make decisions like forgoing stouter fare and opting for oatmeal or pancakes for a while so they could afford to go out to a movie, yet would find something in the cupboard for happy siblings and spouses who would stop by with their own paltry offerings, and eat until it was gone – laughing and enjoying the company. Who had some of the funniest marital fights I have ever heard! Who forgive each other everything, always. Whose eyes dance with warmth and love whenever the other is reflected there.

It is 50,000 words of facts and thoughts and ramblings. There is work to do to organize it and even out the styles of writing (personal vs factual narrative), and make it complete. I will do it, and soon, so it will be a legacy available for them to share as they wish in their lifetime.

Now for the request. I received a chain letter in my personal e-mail suggesting that each person send one positive and encouraging Bible verse to the e-mail address of #1 person, then move #2 up, then send on. I am really curious what verses people would choose, and in a rare state where I actually want to hear people quote Bible verses. I mean, this is almost weird. I’m not going to bombard anyone with a chain letter, but I did send a query to see if they want to get it. Weird again.

Truly, I have called you my blogger church. Still true, really. I wonder if you will do me the honor of sharing one particularly encouraging, positive verse or quote, scriptural or not, just for the joy of sharing a bit of your spiritual legacy and wisdom with me?

I would be so honored to sit for a moment at your knee and learn as I did with my parents.

Thanks, dear friends.

Blessings,

Diane

NaNoWriMo – A Variegated Life

OK, I don’t want to admit my current word count toward 50,000 – a procrastinator’s embarrassment. I will say I wrote 6,900 reasonably clear words today, and plan to do almost as much tomorrow.

This is how it started when I didn’t know how to start, but did. Yes, this spelling is still there, because the paper effigy of my inner editor is literally locked in a pretend jail in the possession of the local NaNoWriMo group leader, and rough-draft rules supreme. Below is my inspirational image of Diane the writer – caffeinated, colorful, mighty and free (much less up-tight than the editor image!).

A Variegated Life

It’s time to write a book. I have been pondering it all day. No sense of direction is my common position but isn’t going to be any more.

I’m thinking through all the images of things to describe my parents and movie images float through my mind. Like a woman’s or child’s fingers trailing across tall grass. Pans of mountains magesties. Clouds moving across the sun. All languid or majestic but peaceful images. Renderings like paintings of cultural ideas tht drive my thinking. So simple to ingest and regurgitate.

But I want more. A freeing and liberation of my sould through the words. Unleashing what a crappy word ffor what I am trying to say. No analogies. Opening a cage door. Jumping from a cliff. My life is ot a cliché. My mind and its workings are not a cliché! My parents lives are not a cliché.

They are 91 and 92, still living at home. Their love has endured and changed over more than six and a half decades. They are who they are now because of and in spite of each other. They hold hands and love, even as cell by cell they are losing each other. Mom looks at that reality…it is more evident to her, and she has more words that flow that direction… to explain what she feels. She feels much, and urgently. Passionate toward love and also flashes of anger, wounded easily, forgiving quickly. She wants peace. She wants harmony and family. She wants rest and simplicity. She says she is ready for the end of her days, but she fights on. She fights. Easily tired, but ready to enjoy the humor, card games, caresses, jelly making, dining out, funny costumes, discussions, beauty and experience that are the essence of her well lived life. Photographs that must be taken with film, and developed with double prints. Peace with loved ones, every single one, that is one of her many beautiful legacies.

I love her dearly. She raises my ire. I am so much like her, and refuse to be. And want to be.

Dad. He shares. When she divides leftovers or even first time fare between them…takes her portion and passes it to him, he takes half and passes it back. She tells him to take it all, but he never really hears her and defaults to his foundational core. He shares. Shares words, ideas, articles, food, experiences, affection, memories, life. Rich words spill from his mouth like coins from a slot machine. But with much greater regularity. It is amusing, because it is so Art. Even he laughs at times. One time many years ago he said to me that he can see a listener’s eyes glaze over, but just can’t stop himself! For those who can listen and take in so much slowly and deliberately spoken word, there is a wonderland. A wonderland of facts, abundance of experiences well remembered and well spoken, yearnings of his heart. Words the average person has never heard or imagined. A wonderland of insights into a complex and loving man, and the world he observes and embraces with eyes and arms open wide.

I introduce you to my parents, and my attempt at their love story.

Eight days to go…miles of words to go. Later!

Blessings,

Diane

Cloud Gazing and Being Worthwhile

Do you ever lay on the grass with a friend (of any age or species) to share what you see in the clouds? You may point and say, “See, over there, third cloud from the top of that tree, kind of up on the left side, there is a nose…and over there you can see the guy’s necktie?”  Silence.  “Right there?”  “I don’t see it…” “No…right THERE, where that little knobby thing sticks out…right THERE.  “Oh yeah, cool, I see the dude…uh, oh, well, um…he really looks kind of like a duck.”

That’s kind of what it’s like reading blogs and news reports sometimes! And finding a bottom line to anything. Or formulating my own thoughts.

Since I began blogging last year, it has been more natural for me to desperately explain psychological abuse via personal stories, and express anger and indignation about the support of abuse via Christian views and counsel as I “Ran the Gauntlet” than to speak with passion about how it SHOULD have been. Or, the main goal, how it CAN be! This is because I didn’t live it as it should have been. What I want most to convey really lies outside my experience.

I was also desperately disappointed by unrealized expectations of version of God I believed COULD help, comfort, speak, and empower with faith, but didn’t. I still don’t understand, and it is beyond crazy that I should hang it all out there again, this time having no expectations of God, but rather the assumption that His help, comfort, empowerment were completed 2000 years ago. This is joyful, but also very tender and private. So bold and yet so tentative that I feel like a liar to say anything at all. I can’t explain it; I can only rest, trust, wait. Not very interesting to read about. I don’t know how I want to say it any more. I don’t feel clever. I’m starting to feel real.

My stats are way down, which is fine, but indicates my words aren’t resonating as well. No cliffhangers any more like, “Will she jump? Will she believe?”  I’m sure some liked the intensity and drama. But the thing is, I don’t! Or words like abuse, and abused, and victim. Past tense, intensity and negativity aren’t where I want to live. Or Christian bashing, even when warranted! Even just within myself, when it never finds a page or ear. It hurts. I think that when one hurts, somewhere all hurt. I can do better.

My voice is different, and I haven’t quite found it.

I’m going to spend November diving deep into the space between words, and relax. I am going to write a 50,000 word novel during the inspiring and challenging National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). It’s going to be a novel that has nothing to do with domestic violence, my past, or problems to be solved. November 1 is an hour away where I live. I have no outline, no sure plan.

I’m going to be cloud-gazing!

I can see whatever I want to see!

It will be worthwhile!

I will stop in to see you at your blogs, and maybe post here, if I like what I have to say. I will answer if you check in on me.

When I’m finished, I’m going to call out to you, invite you to join me in the grass, stretch out my arm right next to your line of sight, and say with glee, “Oh, LOOK, do you SEE it??!”

(Even if you don’t, it will be fun trying!).

Blessings,

Diane

P.S.  If you will, please pass on your favorite writing (or other) music! Inspire me! Get me moving! Say, “Oh LISTEN to this?” And I will!

Lighten Up! How Simply Christian Is That?!

Every day, a woman stood on her porch and shouted, “Praise the Lord!”

And every day the atheist next door yelled, “There is no Lord!”

One day she prayed, “Lord, I’m hungry. Please send me groceries.”

The next morning she found a big bag of food on the stairs. “Praise the Lord,” she shouted.

“Ha! I told you there was no Lord,” her neighbor said, jumping from behind a bush. “I bought those groceries.”

“Praise the Lord!” the woman said. “He not only sent me groceries, but he made the devil pay for them.”  Found in Reader’s Digest

******

“And so,” the speaker concluded, “God will always provide for your needs, explain His will for you, and give you peace.” At our divorced/widowed recovery group, she had just related her glowing story of divorce and God’s care for her…money in the mailbox, direction and divine peace, in spite of her dire financial situation while raising children. I spoke to her, and expressed gladness that it had worked that way for her, but noted that it wasn’t always that smooth and clear for some others, including me. She squinted at me past her halo’s glow and stated, “Then you have a LOT to learn, honey!”

Her ex tells good-humoredly that he paid her $1000 a month alimony — the best money he ever spent!

******

Original reference unknown. Found in Google Images, multiple sources.

Funny:

WE CAN SEE “IT” ANY WAY WE WANT.

But what about quoting the Word accurately and not misrepresenting God?

If we aren’t sure what is the exactly, specifically, technically, perfectly, doctrinally, theologically, formally, denominationally right, letter of LAW….

…why not err toward love, peace, patience, gentleness, wisdom, common sense, compassion, intelligence, safety…….LIFE!

Really, what will be lost if you quote deliverance verses to an abused person rather than admonition verses, and don’t take a hard enough line with the Word of God????

Nothing, because he/she may live and believe long enough for you to discuss it again later.

Even better, he/she will live and believe long enough to discuss it with her Savior in a place of safety.

How simply Christian is that?

Blessings!!

Diane 

Oh, Lord I Need Thee…Your Answer, Christian?

A Christian…drawn back to God by an enormous sacrifice and gift, through no action of their own, dead to law, with the mind of Christ, seeking discernment, filled with love and gratitude, who prays like this:

  Sam Robson

Answer this: Can such a Christian answer the woman (your daughter, sister, mother, neighbor) below with lectures, law, and theory? IS IT POSSIBLE?

Below are a few of HUNDREDS of videos addressing wives behavior toward husbands, quickly selected during a full afternoon of viewing. There were a number addressing husbands behavior to wives, too (not as many, none by women). I claim no responsibility for context within each speaker’s total perspective because a victim listening will most likely hear each talk on it’s own, as I did. Nor do I convey support for any ministry – take these videos as they are. If these speakers wish to include the 25% of their congregations/listeners who are abuse victims, they will have to explain how their assertions differ in the context of various types of  abuse.

 

 (The following were hard to find – if you know of any Christian videos talking safety and God’s love, please let me know – I want to start a collection).

These are better:

Christian? What did Jesus rescue the Christian from?

Got Grace? Please pay it forward.

Blessings,

Diane

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