A New Beginning...

Each day we have a chance for a brand new start, but most of us look at the change of year as the point in which we have that new start.  And yet, for me that seeking of the brand new start began on November 30, 2014, with the start of Advent.  I wanted to seek not just the changes in this world, but also to better know the God I worship.

In this past year... I have come to start a process that I never expected.  And maybe the chance of moving forward, finally three years after I walked out the door.  I can remember that night, as clearly as anyone can look out their window and see the night sky.  It was a chilly night, but it also was the night just before the world started to ring in the New Year.  And here I am three years later, in many ways counting down the days until the simple piece of paper that we rely on to keep us separate from my husband... to expire.  And I have come to a very different understanding of what that piece of paper really has meant.

Three years ago, I lived in a level of fear.  I tired to view the order of protection from abuse (PFA) as a kind of shield.  A covering that would keep me alive and hide me from the very man I loved and was married to.  It is far from the shield that I could imagine it to be.  You see, a piece of paper is nothing against a bullet.  And that was what I was dealing with.  A man who thought he was above the law and nothing could keep him from owning a weapon, not even the PFA.  The court system, and law enforcement are left with the legal record of what weapons my husband owned.  And in this world of friends, and people thinking that they are above the law...  It is all too easy to provide someone who has proven that they are not in a position to own a weapon a weapon.

The legal system which protects our rights, also protects the rights of those who want to harm us.  And I am not saying that it necessarily bad or good... It is just a fact.  And yet, what wife in seeking a PFA doesn't want to know that with the order the person who seeks us harm is isolated from all weapons?  And yet, legally we are required to trust the word of the person who desires to harm us.  There is no legal recourse for us when we know they have firearms, and they choose to say that they don't.  It is a double edged sword that I have no answer with which we can solve the issue... just more questions than answers.  
 

And yet, now three years later...  I do know one small thing.  That we as women and men need to have the constant discussion on how can we begin to protect those who are being hurt by the very people who claim to love them and desire to protect them.  And maybe, with discussion we can find a way to provide a level of protection that is much more like the shield that I dreamed the PFA to be, instead of the simple pieces of paper that will never stop a bullet.  Then we can create a PFA, and a system for dealing with both sides that will provide a higher level of protection that we can even imagine now... A way to make victims of abuse feel safe enough to start to see themselves as survivors.