Experience...

The final countdown...years of wisdom and experience coming into play, into speech, into everyday life. Words with a young rookie member of the construction crew on doing grunt work, clean-up...taking the moment to encourage, to speak pride and confidence in replacement of shame. Excellence in all you do...to the best of your ability no matter what that may be.

Dishwashers, pushing a mop for a living, taking away garbage, chambermaid...whatever the bottom of the rung job you may be doing, there is absolutely NO shame involved. I have met the best people; the kindest, the most genuine in these spaces and learned of their education, their degrees, however being in a strange country they have been demoted from surgeon to taxi driver, from nurse to chambermaid. And they've been smiling doing it, knowing, I believe, that one day soon they will be finishing out their dreams, whatever those may be.

Life is built upon experience...built upon understanding what those experiences mean in the grand scheme of things. It doesn't mean we believe the platitude that 'what doesn't kill us makes us stronger'...it means we learn to live another day better, freer, and ready for what comes next. It doesn't mean that you 'had' to go through that hell storm the monster in your life brought to your door, not for one second.

It truly brings a measure of righteous anger when someone speaks over you those words of shame, as though somehow who you are brought about circumstances meant to teach you what you already knew. Violence against another person is wrong...that abuse is wrong...

Placing another weight upon the shoulders of a survivor just trying to find their way in a world gone mad is wrong.

In the words of a former friend and fellow paramedic, after sharing my heart and my struggle with going back to a man who did not have my best interests at heart, only his own;

'Maybe you had something more to learn.'

What aboslute garbage and demeaning drivel. Victims of abuse have been manipulated, coerced, threatened, beaten within an inch of their lives...think they have something to learn?

No...what they need is understanding, compassion and wisdom to help them walk out of a mind f*ck situation.

What they need is the understanding that they are worthy of more, speaking it over them again and again until it is enough to combat the lies, the poison that has infiltrated every single part of their being.

Experience...until you have lived a moment, a moment only, in a victims shoes, do NOT judge.

Learn...learn by listening to understand, instead of listening only to cast condemnation and judgement, as if somehow they are guilty of bringing it upon themselves. Something must be wrong with them, right??

Wrong...a massive resounding WRONG.

Victims of abuse, whatever kind they may be experiencing, have been broken down in incremental stages. A slow boiling process that eventually leaches anything approaching the 'self' image they began with.

Experience says...put your ego aside, your inflated sense of right and wrong, and listen to learn. Plain and simple.

Over the years I have experienced any number of religious and non-religious 'helpful' people speaking into my situation with not a wick of knowledge of what I was going through at home.

Quotes from the bible, statements that my partner was not my enemy...

Really? Cause it sure feels like each abuser is the enemy. In truth, in reality, they ARE the enemy. The enemy of your sanity, your physical and mental health, your very life at stake.

Its time to stop standing on the sidelines and stepping forward to truly be involved in helping those who can no longer help themselves. This is biblical...for all those church-goers out there.

Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Psalm 82:3

Psalm 82:3:

"Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute".

This verse calls for believers to actively seek justice for those in need. 

I have seen it, heard it all too often within the church.

'love your husband, forgive him, be long-suffering.'

And my favourite....'SUBMIT!'

Submit to rape? Submit to betrayals and cheating? Submit to psychological torment?

Submit to rage and the resulting physical attacks?

Please...people, wake up.

This is NOT God's way my friends.

We have not been asked by God to take abuse, on either side of the coin.

We have not been asked to stay within a marriage or partnership that hurts, torments, abuses.

We may forgive, that is our personal choice, but forgiveness does not mean a continuation in the very situation requiring forgiveness.

For too long the church has 'supported' those who abuse, denying the wife or husband an out in a relationship full of hell and bloodshed.

Supported church leaders who abuse, preying upon the weak or the young and still standing at the pulpit every Sunday.

Gross negligence and one for which I believe hell is particularly built for.

“Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless.

If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry.

My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless." Exodus 22:22

It is far, far, far past time for predators to fear retribution, within this world or the one after.

Most especially those in a place of leadership.

I truly believe there is a very special place in hell waiting just for them.

Experience...let us use it, and wisdom, to move forward past the patriarchal system, and not just within the church. The police force, the Crown counsel, the Victim Services; every single entity being rewritten to place value upon women and children and placing those monsters behind bars where they belong.

It's time for Justice.