Remember the Beauty
By: Susan Deborah Schiller
From the series, "Diary of a Battered Preacher's Wife"
A journal entry from 4 years ago…
July 27, 2011
I'm glad to have been with my family for the 1st 3 days following the divorce… but they are gone now. I feel torn in half, literally… like the divorce physically sliced through me.
I can't seem to stop crying. At first, separation felt like a relief… there were even joyful days. But I still love R… maybe just the fantasy or illusion… the dream, what I thought it could be.
The 'honeymoon' following the marriage intensive… I had so much hope!
Ministry is his only focus right now… he sees me as an enemy. Oh God, please heal our hearts and remove the pain as we rise up to sing, dance, and worship despite the grief… rain on us your blessings.
"Eventually you will come to understand that love heals everything, and love is all there is." – Gary Zukav
Beauty helps to heal the soul. I took these pictures along the Big Horn River, the place I lived at this time, in my Road Runner camper.
C___ writes to me: R's machinations will come to naught…………he will have to come face to face with God sooner or later and it won't be fun.
I know how you feel, so like your heart has been ripped out of your body. I pray at night, sometimes all night because I can't sleep for God to take the pain away, the pain is physical sometimes, in my legs, in my chest. I ask Him to take it. To guide me, to help me. I ask for God's will to work in my marriage. And I stay dark. And some days I only get one thing done a day.
Part of the healing process is sharing with other people who care. — Jerry Cantrell
The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing… not healing, not curing… that is a friend who cares. – Henri Nouwen
Today, I have actually been wishing to see R… still that HOPE to find a soft spot. I have envisioned myself writing an email and asking him if he also feels the ripping and tearing. But I didn't and won't.
Note from the future: I didn' yet understand the neuroscience behind pathological relationships. I didnt' discover until years later the chemical involved in binding a victim to her abuser, chemicals every bit as powerful as a heroine addiction.
In "The Neuroscience of Pathological Love" I wrote:
Survivors of pathological relationships have impaired brains. It makes it very hard to make good decisions and it cause you to feel like you've lost yourself. Pathological relationships create a stress that is far beyond the human brain's capacity to cope. It's not anything like normal stress, even the normal stress of divorce and death, as tramatic as those events are.
You are stronger than you think, and your brain is designed to handle stress… but not pathological stress.
The executive function of the brain is designed to handle a lot of stress and to maintain a comfortable balance with your thoughts and emotions. The brain is an organ and it is not built to accept mistreatment. Just like other organs in the body it will have reduced functionality or even malfunction when exposed to toxic relationships. We are designed to detect abnormal people and to protect ourselves, but exposure to toxic people damages the brain.
The brain is not designed for chronic, intimate exposure to pathological relationships.
Abused spouses don't always recognize that staying in an abusive relationship is a continual series of traumas that changes the brain and prevents one from feeling happiness. Their ability to make healthy decisions deteriorates the longer they remain with the pathological person.
Remaining in a pathological relationship is a guarantee of permanent unhappiness.
Happiness is not situational. It's a neuro reaction. PTSD is one result of cummulative pathological stress. It's automatic to deplete your brain and not have the ablity to be happy… it's not your fault!
I have a question: Why are we as a Body so content to live in the shallow end, content to listen to gossip, content to see only one side… content to accept charisma instead of character… so content that there are so few places to go that operate in agape love and truth.
I think it's because too few of us have walked in the wilderness, utterly dependent on the mercy and grace of God.
The dashboard of the Winnebago I rented for a month, alongside the Big Horn River.
The reality is, God has drawn me into this Wilderness because He knew I needed a revelation of God's true nature. God knew I would never truly know him, except in this position of utter desolation and ruin, where I could see His true Light. All the lesser lights have paled in comparison with this Light of the World.
J___ writes to me: Your friends may be gone now – but you still have the river, the springs, the flowers, the sunshine – and God is with you today. We believe that had you and R stayed together, that you would have been a murder victim. We are so relieved that it is over. We pray that you will be able to beat those urges to go back toward him.
Note from the future: I am a murder victim. My body walked out of the tragedy alive, but my spirit… oh no, something died inside of me – a part of me was taken – and in the writing of my story, I am getting ME back.
Remember the beauty, soak in the Truth, and walk in the Light. Don't let anyone bury your heart alive… write to freedom!
Philippians 4:8The Message (MSG)
8-9 Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.
Background: I was once called "the most abused wife" my counselors had ever met. I had been married to a sociopath, twice.. The first marriage lasted 20 years; the second, nearly 10 years. Both of of my abusers are ministers. Friends have asked me to share the story of how God helped a preacher's wife escape to freedom. The escape route is recorded within 83 diary entries, and this is number 26.
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With all my love,
Sue
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