Tuesday, October 18, 2005

It Couldn't Happen to Me!

You are quite sure, it’s
someone else’s story.
Maybe the women you
counsel at church, or the women you visit at the shelters, a co-worker or two, but definitely not you! After all, you are the First Lady,* you commiserate, console, and pray for or with others, and not the other way around, at least not for this! Maybe this is just a bad dream from which you have yet to awaken?

How can the man you see with your very own eyes, heal the sick, give hope to the downtrodden, contradict himself so—by coming home to use those same healing hands to pummel you?

Sister**--Abuse doesn’t care who you are, what you look like, what job you have, what friends you keep, in what neighborhood you live or even which gender you are. Yes, it is obvious that your spouse needs help, but at this point in time, the best way to help him is to help yourself!

Get out--get help!

Then from a safe distance, you can see that he gets help. But the primary concern at this point in time—is you. No it’s not selfish. You need to be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove. In other words, realize that your love alone cannot cure him. God’s love has the ability to cure him, but he has to submit to assistance from one of the many tools God has provided for his assistance. We call them—counselors.

*That’s church talk for the Pastor’s wife
**Not a racially motivated statement. If you have the necessary biological equipment, then you are my sister.

1 comments:

Laura said...

Good post. It was finding out about an abusive situation with some fellow church members that moved me to write a 3 part series on Forgiveness and Acceptance Abused Christian wives have to forgive (and God will provide the strength to do it, too) but biblical forgiveness does NOT mean continuing to take what the abuser is dishing out.