"My Abuser Through God's Eyes"

Lie #1: Forgiving my abuser makes everything he did okay.

This is my favorite photo of Wally. When I met him, he was just completing his time at Teen Challenge. My father had called the organization to get a tree removed from the church property and that’s how we all first met him. He started attending our church almost immediately. The single, elderly ladies were relentless at pushing us together. Wally was just two years older than I and he was that guy you know who would literally take his shirt off his back if you needed it. He was always volunteering to help people. He was tall and strong and had the biggest country smile. My daughter loved him because he enjoyed playing with the kids. He had two of his own. He was a true gentleman. He would open doors for me and always said “yes ma’am” and “yes sir” to everyone he came across. That was the real Wally, the one God intended. If he had survived his traumatic life journey, Wally would have been a powerful ally with God.

I was twenty four when we married. My daughter was “free” (three). As kind and gentle as Wally was, God warned me several times not to marry him. I would soon learn that he had never dealt with his trauma from his past, but I hadn’t yet either. A storm was brewing in our relationship just beneath the surface. I knew he drank once a week with his brother, and I was okay with that. Our marriage wasn’t too bad at first, but as we approached that first year anniversary he was drinking more and more and this time at home. I started to hate him for choosing the alcohol over me. And I started to hate myself because I believed I wasn’t good enough to have anyone treat me better. It was hard for him to keep a steady job, so I was paying for everything on my small salary. Arguments were a regular thing in our home and eventually it started to get more and more physical. First he would just throw things at me, like half full beer cans or lit candles, which inevitably I would have to clean up the next day. I could see he was trying desperately not to put his hands on me, but eventually he did. Sometimes I hate even implying that he abused me, but it doesn’t matter whether he had put me in the hospital or not, physical abuse no matter what is wrong. He once told me during one of his rages that I would never leave him alive. I didn’t take him seriously until he started doing drugs. He was a mean drunk, but he was even more dangerous when doing both at the same time. On a usual Friday night when he would be gone all evening and night drinking with his brother, I started to load my Dodge Dynasty with my daughter and I’s belongings. I couldn’t take the stress of this toxic relationship any more and I did not want my daughter to grow up in that environment. The car was about half full when I heard his truck pull into the driveway. I remember exactly where I was standing as I listened to his truck door close. Fear overcame me, but I didn’t have time to panic. I rushed into my daughter's room and closed the door. I told her to stay put no matter what. He came in the backdoor after passing by my car with its back door hanging wide open. There was no missing the pile of things in the back seat. “What the hell is going on? You think you’re going somewhere, Bitch?” He walked towards me as I stepped back. “You’re so disgusting, I can’t believe I am with you.” he smirked. My daughter suddenly appeared. Wally smiled widely as he always did, “Well hello darling?” he said, scooping her up and sitting her on the kitchen counter. They spoke briefly, but my mind was racing on what to do next. Thankfully he had never laid a hand on her. Suddenly, without warning, he turned and grabbed me, dragging me through the back door and pushing me down onto the porch. He slammed the door and locked it with my daughter inside. I ran to my car and grabbed the first thing I could find. I swung my curling iron around and let it break through the large glass window of the door. Everything happened so fast, I don’t know where my daughter was during this and thankfully to this day she does not remember any of it. He grabbed me by my throat pulling me halfway across the kitchen. I yelled as he slammed me down onto the kitchen floor and started choking me. I tried to loosen his fingers, but he was too strong for me. I’ll never forget the anger in his eyes, like I was looking at a demon. This is where the grace of God comes walking into the door. Even though I had not listened to God three years earlier, He still saw me and loved me. He was still willing to save me, even if it was from myself and my bad decisions. A drinking buddy of Wally’s came walking in the back door. He grabbed Wally and forced him to the floor. The friend yelled at me to go quickly as he fought against him to break free. As I was pulling out of the driveway Wally threw a full can of beer towards me. Believe it or not, the can came through the opened passenger window and slammed into the side of my head before exploding Budweiser all over the cloth seats. I can’t even tell you how much I hated him. Wally fell into drugs even deeper after I left. Because I was so angry, I refused to forgive him, but worse, I refused to pray for him. I didn’t care what happened to him. I think I even wished bad things to come his way. Sadly, the hate I harbored allowed me to feel nothing when the decision needed to be made to take him off life support. The drugs had put him in a situation where he was stabbed multiple times in the chest. I felt like if I allowed forgiveness then Wally would win. It was not fair that he could treat me so terribly and get away with it just like everyone before him. I didn’t believe God would take care of it or that forgiving Wally helped me in any way. Thinking about forgiving him after all he had done in those three years was like laying down and offering myself up as a doormat yet again. Where was the justice in that? It made me feel like I had no value once again. In fact, it suggested that maybe I was right and never had any worth to anyone, including God. Forgiving Wally was the weak option. I preferred to just hate him until the day I died. But then many years later as I began processing my own trauma, I started to see what God was trying to show me all along. He showed me Wally through His eyes. He was a son of God, a broken prodigal. But Wally was wanted and loved even in that brokenness just like me. He had done some terrible things and hurt a lot of people, but just like my own sin and imperfections, God wanted to heal his heart and soul too. Today when I think about Wally I have a mixture of hurt and sadness, but also grace. I can remember the Wally I met in the beginning. By choosing not to forgive him all those years, it only hurt me. It did nothing to Wally, but it did create a deep scar on my own soul. Forgiving him does not make me weak. It does not make me a doormat. It makes me a daughter of the king who is finally able to extend grace even to my abuser.

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