Grief.
A gaping hole where memories, despair, anger, blueprints that will never come to fruition, and the pace of an unfamiliar pattern of life collide and then gush out of your heart all at once. The variable speed leaves you unsteady, unsure if today will be a slow leak or an uncontrollable tsunami. The valve never turns completely off, no matter how much time has unfolded. Before you realize it, years have gone by in a blur. The haze lifts and the devastation that ravaged your every breath is unveiled. You are no longer willing to submit to the systematic gag order that has choked life out of you and your soul longs for the promise of Isaiah 61, to be a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor.
Grief is customarily reserved for navigating life after the death of someone your heart is tied to. Those of us who have walked through the perils of coercive control/domestic violence and then have had to pick up what was left of yourself and your kids after being torn limb by limb by agencies, churches and your family/friends whom you trusted to protect you, know a version of grief that has no words to suitably describe it. This bereavement encompasses compounded losses that challenge your entire existence. Every facet of your life quintessentially shifts overnight. Your daily role in your children’s lives, your autonomy, your circle, finances, food security, your health; no crevice is left untouched.
This gut-wrenching grief isn’t one you can simply rebound from. You will hit rock bottom as you find yourself being careened against the jagged edges of the rocky shoreline until the one who took a vow to guard your heart and to honor you as Christ loved the Church decides to completely discard you once and for all. Eight years later, I remain property. I am still waiting to be rendered from the lashings, false allegations, and harassment that could easily tip one over the ledge. I am a mere ragdoll; incessantly mocked, beaten, stomped, and spit on in the public square by my accuser and authorities alike. Round after round, gasping for air, never being afforded the most basic human rights while my fitness as a mother is merely judged on my ability to never react or show emotion in front of my kids or professionals. It is one of the most insane protocols I have ever had to endure.
There will be a day when this all comes to a dead stop though, nine more years until my youngest hits the awaited milestone of eighteen- although I don’t know what will remain among the wreckage come that day. I want nothing more for my kids to have a childhood where they know true joy but pain is all they know. My oldest is less than thirteen months shy of eighteen. He is fighting for his life and is unrecognizable. There is no joy, no jokes, no smiles; just despair, aggression, hopelessness and teetering on eggshells. Instead of the excitement that lies ahead we are painstakingly working on getting to the next sunrise at this point. It is unbearable to watch. The way coercive control strips our kids of their innocence and extinguishes the light inside of them is criminal.
Ephesians 6:12 boldly solidifies a truth we have been conditioned to so easily dismiss; “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rules of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness in high places.” My assignment here has exposed a depth of evil that I can never unsee and will most, likely never be able to comprehend. It is one so dark that children are devoured without an ounce of accountability, sorrow or remorse. Its magnitude is so overwhelming that despair can quickly consume your own soul if you are not rooted in God’s Word. I am without a doubt laying in the trenches, but God is shielding and buffering the blows. HE has undoubtably keep me afloat each time the enemy has intensified his vengeance towards me. It has taken being shipwrecked in isolation and a grueling refinement in the most intense of fires for me to be affirmed with the understanding that I am not responsible for the decimation of the entire entity but that I only need to stand firm against it and shine light on the darkness. Still not a simple task by any means, but God owning the rights to the final screenplay, with the binding of the enemy himself, makes wading through the murky water as a Kingdom Agent an honor and not burden.
