I thought this was something that only happened to women who were poor, uneducated or a minority. I was none of those things. But it happened to me. The onset was so subtle and gradual I didn’t recognize it. In the end it almost killed me, if not physically, spiritually. God does not want His daughters to be abused! The Bible tells us that as Christians we are coheirs with Christ (Ro 8:16) and that makes us royal princesses, ladies!

Many women think that since their partner doesn’t hit them that they are not abused or that even if they do think they are abused that nobody will take them seriously. WRONG! WRONG! There is also verbal, emotional, sexual and economic abuse to name a few. These forms of abuse are all just as damaging as physical abuse. Many experts agree that the verbal abuse is more harmful than the actual physical abuse because the physical scars eventually heal, but emotional scars are deep and may linger long after the relationship itself has ended.

For me, memories of the physical abuse I was able to remember from my previous marriage eventually faded. But the damage from the verbal and emotional abuse was present for a long time and almost killed me-perhaps not so much in the physical sense as in the spiritual. I thought I was worthless, ugly, disgusting, stupid and even worse things I cannot remember at this time. My beloved Husband has worked so long and hard to gently and lovingly ‘correct’ that image of myself I have even forgotten what some of the words were!

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If you feel you are in an abusive relationship, get help now!
You can take the first step by calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) (TDD 1-800-787-3224) or go to http://www.ndvh.org .