Friday,
March 20th:
Anonymously
submitted
SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 121:1-2
1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from? 2 My help
comes from the Lord, the Maker of
heaven and earth.
QUOTE:
“The harder the conflict, the more
glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is
dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in
trouble that can gather strength from distress and grow.”
Thomas Paine
REFLECTION:
It was late, or maybe early morning. She wasn’t sure. It
was dark, and silent in the house. She could not sleep and she was desperate
for clarity. Through sobbing and pounding fists that early morning she came to
the realization every relationship would be like this. Her expectations of a
shared life with someone who valued her was just a dream, a silly dream. It was a deeply sad thought that this would
be as good as it would get. That she could not disagree, express her own
opinion or seek her own path separate from the one he had prescribed for
her. That when she did an assault, not
physical but mental and emotional, would rain down on her. At first it was so
slight and hardly noticeable. Then it became ever more frequent, but she
dismissed it. It was the stress of his job, and she would just love him through
it. Then it broke out into the open, he distorted her thoughts, her words, her
feelings and emotions. He isolated her from family and friends. He enlisted
coworkers and his friends to help in his endeavor to keep her close and tied to
him. He needed her to be needy not
self-reliant.
When did it all begin, how far into the relationship did
it begin to turn. She couldn’t pin point it and she desperately wanted to. She
needed to know what she had done wrong, how she had arrived here. She knew the
breaking point, that night in the car when she was screaming, pounding the
steering wheel and ready to hit someone. That someone was her best friend who
at that moment had told her she had helped him. She knew what was happening and
had helped him. Why? She screamed at her, the answer, “Because I knew you loved
him.” He had managed to assault and tear
apart every aspect of her and her life and she had let him. She had played
along and let him. Her anger at herself was only matched by her anger at him.
How could someone you love and who says they love you do this. How could the strong independent woman she
had become disappeared so fast.
Yet she kept trying to make it work, up until the
breaking point. The point in which she questioned her own sanity and desire to
live. In desperation she reached out and that person took hold and pulled her
out. In that simple act the story began to change. They helped her place distance between them
and that allowed her to regain strength. They helped her stand, then to walk
and then to run.
Years would roll by and the healing would continue, and
she would use what she had walked through to reach out to others, to empower
women, to speak her mind and fight for justice. She would learn that God was
enough, and always had been. She would never forget that again. He would be her strength, her comfort and her
shade.
This is the face of domestic violence. Sometimes the
enemy is closer than you think. –
PRAYER:
Lord, we are created in your likeness. We are designed by
you but defined by the world. In our weakness we allow the world to rush in and
tell us who we are. How sacred we are yet we believe the lies the world tells
us. With each story told of injustice and violence we weaken the power of evil.
Let it hide in the darkness no more. Let us took to the hills, God in you we
are enough. AMEN.
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