I am learning day by day all the things that a single parent must do. And it is even more of a challenge when you became a single parent not by choice, but by the abuse of your husband. And yet as the challenges increase it begins to feel like you are living your life under a microscope. Each step, breathe, thought is analyzed by those around you. They see that you are raising a child without a father, and they desire to figure out how you are failing as a mother. And yet they never realize that what they see as paranoid is reality for you. That looking over your shoulder for the bringer of your death, has grounds in a simple sentence that your husband said one day. All it takes is a phone call and you will disappear... and then anything that happens to your daughter is possible.
I am finding that in this battle to find the solid ground that God wants you to stand on, you are faced with people who love to tell you what you are doing wrong. And in trying to move beyond I am trying to find the line between seeking help and guidance... and people thinking I am self-centered and caught in a woe is me mindset. And the places you think you should be safe. Becomes the places that you are facing the biggest battles. And it breaks my heart to feel that in church, where I should feel safe and held close by God is one of the places that being a survivor of domestic violence is not understood. And the stigma of facing a divorce seems to be something that everyone sees, much like Hester Prim... A scarlet mark, not on my clothes, but on my soul. And even though God has sacrificed His own son... I don't fit in or belong.
I may be a mother, but other mothers are married and able to share the job of raising their children. And with the fact that I am never given those breaks creates a gulf between me and those mother's. And that gulf is even bigger when I am trying to figure out a place that I fit in. Honestly, I am a mother... I was a daughter, but that world went away when my parents died. I am a sister, but it only works when the rest of your family desires to see you or even talk to you. And being a friend seems to have become a one way street with those people who a physically close in distance to you. The people that you wish would reach out to help you on this path. And it is these people who in trying to help you... push you away. Push you to do things that you never should be doing. And always wrapped up in the message of moving on and becoming free.
And yet the fact remains that you are never truly free from your abuser. Once you share children... That connection will exist for your whole life. Or at least for your abuser's life... provided he actually dies before you do. And you juggle the actions he shows, with the fears of keeping your children safe. And you cry in the world because in your moving forward process, people do not understand. And can't fathom this world of where a marriage is defined by the attempt on a life. And you begin to realize that sadly... abuse is not something people inside the church want to see as real. They are happy in the bubble of everything working according to God's plan, and abuse doesn't happen within their walls. And yet it does...
Each time you face these challenges you learn that you now live in a world separate from the rest. You are connected to those women who willingly stepped forward to show you a way to safety. And when the world feels again and again like it is falling apart... They are the phone call away. They are the very people who will remind you of how much you have changed and moved forward. They are the ones who listen and help you learn the basics of life that you have lost in the years of abuse. They remind you that God does heal... and it might be you that is asked to reach out to the church you want to belong to... and expose to them all why you are different. And that they can't just stick their head in the sky and focus on God... because sitting right next to them could be a very terrified woman who will walk out of the church and right back into the hands of her abuser. And the terrified woman... can't bring herself to speak out because she knows just how serious the fact is that if she does... Death might only be one small action or reaction away.
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