​During the school year, most of my requests to my abuser for extra financial support due to the ebb and flow of kids in school, were met with a huge nope; I don’t have any money. Yet, summer after summer my abuser always had time and money to take the children on a week-long vacation to the beach. Honestly, going to the beach probably isn’t a fair statement; he had time, pretend patience, and money to take them to amusement parks, water parks, and all sorts of tourist activities while going to the beach. 

I had the pleasure of joining Virginia Knowles on the Growing into the Ministry Podcast this week. 

Though primarily a resource for people who want to grow spiritually as they help others, one of the main themes within Growing into the Ministry is effectively caring for women who have experienced any form of domestic abuse. Please join  Virginia and I as we discuss some powerful lessons I've learned during my journey to survivor.

In 2014, seven years after leaving my abuser, I still believed my abuser’s lie that I was a terrible mom. This lie was so ingrained in my thought process that it influenced almost everything that I did and made me feel extremely guilty for the things that I didn’t do. My sense of guilt greatly increased when my oldest son didn’t have the high school grades to get into a four-year college, and he had no particular direction. “I told you so,” the voice in my head would say, “terrible mom.”
 

This week has been extremely hard for me. It was only Tuesday night and I had to close my eyes for 20 minutes prior to talking with my Bible study friends on the phone. Even though it was only 6:00pm, my body felt like it was 10:30pm and I was late for bed.
 
Asking my daughter to set the stove timer and wake me up reminded me of when I used to do nap during my depression phase after I left my abuser. But, that was 14 years ago.