Friday, 29th November, 2024
Bible Reading: Proverbs 11:5
Memory Verse: He examines the good and the wicked alike; the lawless he hates with all his heart. Proverbs 11:5 (GNT)
My heart bleed as I write. What many in an abusive relationship have gone through, and are still going through could create a burden and a heartache. Abuse means treating someone with violence, disrespect, cruelty, harm, or force. When someone treats their partner in any of these ways, it’s called an abusive relationship.
Abuse in a relationship can be physical, emotional and verbal, sexual, financial, domestic or digital. These include any behaviour that frighten, intimidate, terrorise, manipulate, hurt, humiliate, blame, injure, or wound someone. Abuse can be hard to identify, especially at first. It often starts subtly and escalates over time. Here’s the key: Healthy relationships are built on trust, respect, and open communication.
Abuse, on the other hand, involves a pattern of behaviour used by one partner to gain and maintain power and control over the other. Have you heard stories of people who were abused sexually by a neighbour, abused sexually by their own blood siblings under the same roof, or abused by their boss for not having an affair with such? The list is endless.
How do you reconcile that a person from an abusive parent would end up marrying a man who again would abuse her? Surely that has a spiritual and emotional undertone. Emotionally, her crave for genuine love made her fall cheaply into the hands of another man who feigned sane without diligently observing the red flags.
Spiritually, there is an evil magnet pulling her to continue in the same stead, moving her life from fry pan to fire. Furthermore, there are many in an abusive relationship but are unable to get out. Can you imagine a man who daily locks his wife and children at home all day long for several years thereby disconnecting them from everything and everybody? Should they try to protest and escape, they are beaten and battered.
Can you imagine a woman who has been lured to smoking and partying with her husband? She knows this is not her true self, but she can’t figure out a way forward. Her self-will has been paralysed. She’s been locked up emotionally and perhaps spiritually.
What is the way out of an abusive relationship? Ask for God’s mercies. Bring Jesus to the centre of your life. Forgive the abuser. Cry out (Talk to someone of notable character about what you’re going through). Cling on the support system provided by the church or government or NGO. Prayer of deliverance. Listening to messages on the genuine love of God, hope in Christ Jesus, the power in the Blood of Jesus, and who you are in Christ. Accept the peace of God that passes all understanding.
Quote: Overcoming abuse doesn’t just happen, it takes positive steps every day. Let today be the day you start to move forward.
Prophetic Decree: The grip of any power sponsoring abuse against you is broken, in Jesus name.
Prayer Focus
1. My Father, have mercy upon me today, in Jesus name.
2. I receive my healing from the emotional, verbal and psychological abuse of my yesterday, in Jesus name.
3. My Father, help me out of domestic and marital abuse today, in Jesus name.
4. I receive healing from sexual abuse of time past, in Jesus name.
5. I receive healing from the damage of digital abuse upon my soul, in Jesus name.
BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: 1 Corinthians 1-4