I thought it was a good bargain: a physical beating in exchange for hearing someone say to me, “I love you!” I was 17 and had never heard those words spoken by anyone, not even my parents. I think that a part of me understood, as someone who believed in God’s love, that violence was not really a part of real love, but I so craved those three little words that can make one feel unique and valuable. Even after God answered my prayers and gave me the courage I requested to leave that relationship, I was still obsessed with finding love.
I married at 19 to the second man who I thought loved me. But that ended on a downtown street five years later when he physically assaulted me in front of a crowd who would not help me. I had left him and found work in another city to afford to take care of my adopted children and had returned just the day before. I fell into a deep, dark abyss as he squeezed my life out. I knew I was about to die, so I prayed, silently or out loud, I don’t remember. I said, “Lord, don’t let me die like a dog in the street!?”
Suddenly, I came out of the darkness and into the light with my eyes open, and I told him I would rather die than live with him. He said he would beat me daily until I learned to respect him. I thought, “I’ve been there, done that, and have the T-shirt that reads “Battered woman,” and I am not going backward. I started praying for God’s help, not knowing in what form it would come.
But when my former husband went to sleep, I felt to reach into his pockets and take his last $20. I called a taxi, not bothering to bathe and clean the blood off my body or clothes. I went to the Greyhound bus station and asked for the first bus leaving for Atlanta, where I had worked and had a friend.
When I arrived in Atlanta, I went to my friend’s apartment, and she let me stay. I returned to the job I had just resigned from that Friday to be a “good wife” and return to my husband. My supervisor looked at my nearly-closed eyes and the scars around my neck, and she told me to go back to work because she had not submitted my resignation papers. She saved my life, for I didn’t have to return to the abuse. It was only the grace of God, whose plan for my life didn’t include violent men. Psalm 140: 4 states, “Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from violent men, who have purposed to make my steps stumble.”
Twice I should have died at the hands of violent men, and I prayed to God to help me, someone who hadn’t attended church in years but had been baptized at 9. I have learned over the years that there is nothing too hard for God, that He will open doors of protection and provision, for His promises are true. I am a LIVING witness (pun intended!).
Help from Heaven 
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