Abuse

Abuse is running rampant in our society today. You wouldn't think that here in America, the land of the free, it would never be tolerated but sadly it is. There is such a lack of education and awareness about this topic. If you really open your eyes to it you will see it everywhere. It is happening in the school, workplace, home, and church. I can give many examples of girlfriends of mine who have been sexually harassed at work. This is abuse. Abuse is a choice. It's a cycle of power and control that one person wants to exhibit over another either physically, emotionally, mentally, sexually, financially, or spiritually. One in four women will be abused in their lifetime. There is a huge spectrum that abuse can fall into all the way from murder/rape/assault to just verbal abuse. There can be so much shame, guilt, and trauma attached to what happened that sadly it's usually hidden. I know many women who were in abusive marriages. They experienced the most horrific treatment sometimes daily and never felt safe in their own homes. I know women who were married to doctors, judges, military men, tattoo artist and all were disrespected and degraded for 20 to 30 years by the one person they thought they could trust most, their husbands. In a lot of these cases it took the women this long to even figured out what was happening and that they did not deserve to be treated that way. All they wanted was to be good Christian submissive wives and keep their family intact. God has seen all of this and knows what happened. That is all that matters! God will work in all of these situations in his timing and for his purpose alone. Praise the Lord that He is a God of justice but also of grace and mercy.

2 Corinthians 4:8-10

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.