Sarah and I met tennish years ago, when we attended church together. We were working on a volunteer-basis together, heading the women's society, and we had so many of those "great minds think alike" moments that we soon started to hang out even more than we had to!
I loved hearing her talk because she has that Australian accent. As we chatted -- that easy flow of conversation between friends -- we found out that we have the same anniversary: we got married -- to our respective husbands -- on the same day, one year apart.
As of now, though, only one of us celebrates that anniversary.
Sarah's husband, who also attended church with us and happened to be at the head of the men's society, had the outward appearance of any respectable man. As she put it, he looked good in a suit, had a friendly smile and a firm handshake. So when Sarah and I were walking together one day, soon after establishing our friendship, I was absolutely shocked when our conversation went something like this:
ME: "I'm so pleasantly surprised at how marriage has turned out to be so fun! Society sure gives it a bad rap -- all that ball-and-chain stuff -- but I've thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it!"
SARAH: "Ohhh, quite the opposite for me. I always thought it would be a dream, but it's turned out to be a nightmare."
She went on to describe the verbal and physical abuse that she was enduring. There were no real red flags during their courtship, but within days of their wedding she had to ask herself if she had made a mistake.
My heart was getting weighed down with sorrow for this beautiful woman. The weight seemed even heavier when she swore me to secrecy for fear of the backlash if he ever found out that she had tarnished his image.
So I prayed for her. And she prayed for herself! And she prayed for her husband... how sad that the "pray for your enemies" thing applied to her in such an intimate way.
Within a year and a half, we had each moved away to different parts of the same state. We sometimes sent emails to each other, but visited far too sparsely to really keep up. One way I know she's a treasure of a friend is that when we would get together, conversation just picked right up and we fell easily back into that comfort zone of friendship.
Well, eight years and four children later, she had a God-given epiphany, releasing her of her resolve to stay married in spite of the circumstances. Her baby wasn't even a month old! She left the material things, took the children and their clothing, and found a safe, albeit small, place in a basement apartment.
She willingly allowed him to see the children -- after all, he hadn't ever victimized them. After awhile, however, it became clear that perhaps he was starting to verbally assault their self-images and their relationship with their mother. They would return home after the weekends with him with visibly depressed countenances... before too long, however, he quit coming to get them and even stopped answering the phone when he saw their number on caller-ID.
She signed up for paralegal training, only to discover during her internship that she didn't really want to work in a law office. But God had led her to do that training so that she would feel more capable as she dealt with all of the divorce proceedings -- and other legal paraphenalia she would be afflicted with as she tried to sever ties with this man who had dug deep holes of debt and even had the FBI knocking at her door looking for him.
It just so happened that he hadn't sweet-talked anyone into paying his bail yet, so the papers got served to him in jail -- the ones that indicated she would be taking the children to Australia (where she's from) to live with her extended family. He has sixty days to show up and argue -- but he probably won't bother to do that considering the warrants out for his arrest.
What's beautiful about Sarah and her situation is that she has really been blessed to feel a sense of love for this man who is seems only to have earned hate! This love is not the romantic love that sadly withered so quickly once the abuse began. It's a Godly love that allows her to hope he changes -- not for her sake, but for his own sake.
I want to make her the poster girl for charity -- the pure love of Christ. Despite the abuse she suffered at the hands of this man who was supposed to cherish her, she has no bitterness. Not that she would ever accept a proposal from him again! Forgiveness and trust are two different, separate things that are given or earned independent of each other, and under their own conditions.
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