This is another woman's story who I have met through sharing stories. She the woman my pastor hooked me up with when I told him I wanted to do something to help the church help women in situations like mine. I have grown to love this sweet woman. She has said she will write more for me on how her story has lead her to start a charity here in NWA helping women who have been abused. Which is what I want to focus on in this blog. Not only the word out about the what's happening here in NWA for women who have been abused. But more importantly for all women to share painful private hurts that women have. (We all have them in some way or another.) What matters is how we react to them, and how we let God heal us and make something beautiful from our pasts.

Guest Blogger-

I was the only girl in a family of five with four very protective brothers.  As the baby of the family, I was left life an only child when my brothers grew up and moved away. I knew love from family was the most important value you could have for your life

When I entered high School,  I had several friends and I made new ones.  I was not really looking for a boyfriend, but in my Junior year I met an older boy in his senior year.  We dated, I believed, we would marry.  He joined the Marines during my senior year.  He had asked me to marry him, and I was engaged in my senior year.    We were married,  January. 17, 1968.  Little did I know until many years later my dear friends from high School did not want me to marry this boy, but they maintained their silence .

We lived in Oceanside, CA. while he was in the Marines, he was very possessive and very controlling .  I didn't leave home much.

After, we left California and moved back to Kansas, I become withdrawn.  The next seven years, I was reshaped to become his female robot. I dressed he wanted me to dress. I cooked what he wanted me to cook.  If I was on the phone, when he came home, I knew I had better get off before he walked through the door.He had power over all aspects of my life.

Control was how he demonstrated he was above me, over me I later came to realize this was not love. denial that . 

When I became pregnant with our first child, I was thrilled.  Yet, I can remember the fear I had of being a mother.  His controlling ways continued, and he clearly possessed all of the power in our home. Her name was his choice. He was emotionally abusive, and I trusted him in everything.  If he told me that east was west, I would believe him. The same controlling continued when our boy was born.  I lost a child by miscarriage, right before he asked for a divorce.

 He asked for a divorce, taking the kids in his custody. Even in divorce, he still wanted control over me.  I did not attend the divorce hearing because he said we only needed one lawyer, and I believed him.  His brother attended the hearing; they lied and said I was not well enough emotionally to attend the hearing. He was controlling even then. 

I had to get an insurance paper changed to my name, and he had to sign a waiver to take his name from the document.  He had moved into another woman's home.  I tried my best to show him I was OK without him.  He met me at the door, and conned me into entering the basement. He threw me on the floor, and with his hands around my neck, he said, " If you scream, I will kill you."  I blacked out.  When I woke up, he was gone.  I went home and when my mother saw handprints on my neck, she called the police. He had raped me. 

Twenty -something years later, I had to face all this abuse.  Thank goodness for friends who saw my state of mind.  Yet, it took a over powering manager to push me into seeking help in 1999.  At home that year, I was struggled in a state of depressionand I called a friend who was a counselor. He talked to me for over an hour and gave me a number for help.. 

Counseling was a lifeline for me. It was only through the process of counseling that I came to realize that I was not at fault for this abuse.  The counselor opened my eyes, and helped me to see who this man was really was.  I was able to come to terms with all the pain brought on by years of abuse and my husband's absolute domination of my life.  The counseling also enabled me to deal with the physical abuse that occurred after the divorce and finally move forward with my life. 

During my counseling, I wrote about the butterfly and how the butterfly's metamorphosis represented my own journey and the journey of other survivors of domestic violence. 

The person becomes like a cocoon so hardened with the painand sorrow and so loaded with low self-esteem that they cannot see beyond this shell around them.  The release comes when the person faces the pain and start to crying: these tears loosen the shell embodied around her. The survivors start to change with the knowledge they are not victims any longer. They become butterflies- colorful, soaring forward with hope and encouragement, and knowing they are healed.  A butterfly does not look back, but soars ever forward. 

My heart  wants to see others become butterflies that soar  ahead as they too are healed form the pain of domestic violence and abuse.