Life is funny...or not...

I think about this blog all the time but so rarely get to visit what with all my other responsibilities....but here I am, FINALLY!! I also think about 'The House' all the time and the women out there somewhere waiting for it to open. They are just living their lives right now, some getting married to Mr. Wonderful and dreaming of their fairy tale future complete with 3 great kids and white picket fence. Or maybe she's more interested in pursuing education and the arts...or maybe she's already homeless and fear is her daily bread. Whoever all these women are, they are waiting. I know what they are waiting for because I've been there and done that. I've had to spend nights in various women's shelters because of domestic abuse. It's no fun, no fun at all! It's scary truth be known..it's scarier when you have little to no support system. The stories are endless but they all have one thing in common. He hits her. He might hit the kids too. But when he hits he always leaves bruises on the body and the heart hurts a little more. Sometimes she fights back to protect herself and hurts him too. But she always ends up worse than him unless a knife or gun is involved. Many women in prison are there because they were tired of being hit. Tired of being called names. Tired of watching him abuse the kids and threaten their lives. When a weapon enters the home, the dynamics totally change. It means someone is going to get seriously hurt or dead. I think back to my last marriage and cringe. I had a christian marriage or so I thought in the beginning. After he brutalized me the first time just six months after our beautiful wedding, I couldn't believe it! He looked like a man possessed, not my sweet loving hubby. He threw me around like a ragdoll and then pushed me so hard and fast I had no time to break the fall with my hands and landed on my jawline. It cracked and I sipped all my meals through a straw for a long time afterward. What hurt most about it was that he did all that to me in front of my sweet innocent five year old son who had never seen violence in his life because I made sure he wouldn't. I will forget his saucer big eyes as he stared at me as I stumbled out of the house to get help. I knew no one in town. He insisted we leave beautiful Naples Florida and drive hundreds of miles away to Dallas Texas because he said GOD told him that's where we belonged. I didn't feel it one bit and told him so. He won and we packed up everything we owned in a old clunker and set forth in obedience to "God". When my neighbors saw me for the first time, I was a wreck. They were a old couple who had lived on that street forever. They were kind to me and convinced me to call the police. My heart was so broken I could hardly breathe. How could my loving husband do something like that to me. I didn't deserve it. Not at all. I knew I should've left him right then and there. To allow someone to get away with abuse, only enables them. But I didn't leave him because three days after he beat me he was arrested for breaking his probation on a old bank robbery he had committed a year before we met. I know, I know...how stupid was I right? I know...and you are right. Suddenly he was gone leaving my sweet little boy fatherless again but at least we were safer. Looking back I now realize he was a narcissist. I seem to attract them as it turns out which is a long story and not for here. Incredibly he convinced me to stay in Dallas in a hubble of a house with vagrants who walked up and down the street high on something or other. It didn't take much to convince me back then because I was in love with him. He had sobbed uncontrollably after beating me the first time and he promised to never do it again. I wanted so badly to believe him but deep inside something had broken, I felt shattered. Yet I have faith that things would work out for him and I. I desperately needed to believe that it really would work out. He was shipped back to Ft. Myers Florida to face charges for breaking probation (he said GOD told him to do it)and ended up serving nine months. My son and I were on our own. I supported my son and I by drumming up some housecleaning accounts around the neighborhood. I cannot even tell you how awful some of those houses were. I worked hard for so pitifully little. But I persisted and time went by. It was all kisses and hugs for a few weeks but he lost his temper and I found myself being slapped and thrown up against the wall. It felt like he gave me a concussion and my vision was off. I noticed drool coming out of my mouth. He left me to take care of myself and didn't return till the next day claiming he slept in his truck. Domestic violence became a way of life for me. He had no accountability to anyone including GOD who he claimed talked to him. As an abused woman who had her brains scrambled too many times I felt confused and scared and alone. This went on the entire awful 10 years of marriage. Abused women need help. They need resources and somewhere to go to be safe. Naomi-Ruth House will take in these women and give them time to heal and see things more clearly. I wished there had been a Naomi-Ruth House in my neighborhood when my husband got heavy handed. There was not and I stayed and dealt with things the best I knew how. Hindsight being 20/20, I wish I could get in the time machine and if I could, I would NEVER have married that monster! NEVER EVER!! But in the process of going through that terrible ordeal for so very long of a time has reaped a good amount of wisdom for other women. I want to be there for others now. To give them an listening ear and a kind heart and a place to call Home for awhile to get her head on right. If you would like to know more about Naomi-Ruth House you can email me at sarongit@yahoo.com. Thank you for taking the time to read this. God Bless!