Letter to Abuse and Domestic Violence Victims

Hi Jim Harnage here. I serve humbly as pastor and minister for SMRO, Inc. First a big sincere thanks to you for reaching out for help. This took courage and a desire to change your life and be the miracle God wants you to be.

Firs of all, I am going to call you a miracle by faith. Though there is much work to be down I am claiming you as a vessel, beautiful, precious, and shining with the love of God. You are our miracle today.

Since there is no way to cover this in a letter most of these thoughts and more are in our book, The Thing About Abuse”, and is available through SMRO or online through Amazon and Wordclay as well as our site at www.silentministries.org.

I would like to see you make a great stride today and order this book as a step of faith, put works with your faith and desire no matter how small you think your faith is right now, and order this book. If you cannot afford the book at $15.95 then I will be more than happy to send to you the book and you can pay me back along and along at any amount you wish from one cent monthly to the whole amount. The step is up to you.

But the point I am trying to make to you is, now that you are thinking of seriously making changes in your life for the better, begin today to sow seeds toward your miracle. Sounds evangelical? Yes, it does and you’ve heard all of the pitches. This is no pitch. We all are a walking testimony to what God, faith, desire, attitude adjustment, and work will do for anyone.

You have a legitimate request and sadly it is one which we deal with answers for every day. Of course, each situation varies; still the bottom line is the silent enemy of abuse and it must be dealt with before making other strides in your life whether marriage, family, love, financial stability, career, a healthy sexual life, making friends, accepting God’s love and all that God has to offer you, and there are so many more wonderful blessings to enjoy. But we got to deal with this first, okay? Long before we get you through this you will understand that we have been there with you.

Our staff and team all have experienced their trials and life-changing events. Each of us has made great changes and we are productive individuals today. But we each went through a great metamorphosis along the way. If you knew us then and now you would not recognize us.

I was a weak, ignorant, and spineless nerd. My wife of 32 years was penniless, possessed two outfits to wear, and had no idea what the world looked like just two counties over. Today, through prayer, undying devotion, radical changes in our attitudes, countless mistakes and starting over again and again, we are professionals, small business owners, and have a vision to assist battered and abused women and children. It would take volumes to tell you what God has done for us but we had to put legs to our prayers, works with our faith, practical measure to our ideas, and after all is said and done we have to trust God and make sure that our focus is on the inner man and not on those temporal things that are here today and gone tomorrow.

I am so sorry to hear that it seems like you are in a pattern. And again, you are not alone because many if not most miracles we work with, once they meet and become involved in one abusive relationship, more follows. I cannot explain that except in simple and plain terms. I am sending you in this email an article I wrote in response to a minister's stand that women should not leave an abusive relationship.

It is a pattern that you can control once you can identify its origins but it takes courage and resolve. It could take months to unlearn thought patterns and behavior but you can do it.

The first thing you must do is begin to identify it.

The roots of abuse grow in many types of soil,

First, there is the spoil of culture. There are cultures in the United States that still condone hitting women as an acceptable form of discipline. This behavior is grounded and founded in generations of training beginning with grandpa, dad, and passed down through the generations. Mothers who were abused handed down this ungodly behavior to their daughters. Once the daughters came to them crying for help the moms told their daughters to go home. They told their daughters it was ok and that their husband was just having a bad day. Many mothers who had many children did not want their daughters back in the home because they were unaffordable and had too many mouths to feed. So, unfortunately, they encouraged their daughters to remain with abusive husbands. Then that little bride, usually less than 16 years old was admonished by “mother” to go back home where her place was in the kitchen, barefoot, and having babies.

Inside these cultures sex was for the man’s gratification and to make babies. Sons learned the behavior from their dads and this generational curse continues in many cultures and areas, especially in the more impoverished areas of this country.

Another poisonous root that stabs and destroys the innocence of young girl’s lives is in the soils of religion. Even some ministers, in their ultra-conservative haste to preserve the bonds of holy matrimony, teach that abused women should return to abusive husbands. They focus on scriptures that teach that a woman is committing adultery if she leaves her husband for any reason than adultery. If a man does not love his wife so much as to hit and beat her and destroy her emotionally then that man is already dead and that relationship is already walking dead and she is free to remarry. The next questions you must answer are where to go, fall in love again with a man who will love me, how do I know he will love me, and so many other questions.

These ministers and even some ultra-conservative religionists wrest the scriptures into such a pretzel of ideas that it seems that they wring out the entire meaning of God’s admonishments that we are to love one another. They make it appear that the entire court of marriage rests solely upon the woman or spouse to reconcile relations and preserve the sanctity of marriage. If it was just their idea it would be fractionally tolerable, for each of us are entitle to our opinion. However, when they drag God into the fracas and twist the Word of God and use the Scriptures out of context to make a point and thus destroy lives by using religion and scriptures as a threatening thus endangering the woman’s life it is ungodly and a stink in God’s nostrils. I have to take on the entire subject from pastors and theologians to entire organizations when I teach this because, unfortunately, entire congregations faithful to these ultra-conservative ministers share his or her views. What child bride or marriage veteran can escape that hell when their parents and family are party to what I call occult religion?

This is wrong and it is slap in God’s face who teaches us that a man is supposed to love a woman as much as he loves himself for what man would hurt himself or not provide for himself?

I was raised in this environment. But even then I knew in my heart that this religion was wrong. But I was captive geographically, financially, sociologically, and in many ways I, too, was convinced of these ignorant ways myself from my own raising. You see, my pastor was also my father whom I lived with and worked around every day twenty-four seven.

I allowed my mother to dominate our lives and marriage. My mother handled our finances. My mother, revered as the maternal kahuna, made our decisions. She took our tithe out of our finances and we would go without buying groceries or paying light bills and suffer the lights turned off. Having no other counselor but family we took our problems and cares to the pastor, our father and my spouse’s in-laws and the only counsel we got was more of what we heard the rest of the time.

Once I accepted that these ideas and teachings were wrong and were destroying my marriage I made some changes that would later prove to be difficult but rewarding.

I literally packed my things into a small Datsun car and moved my child bride and me to another state. We were bound and determined to start over. The advantage I had was that Carolyn loved me and I love her and that I would die for her if necessary so strong was our love.

She waited tables and I worked wherever I could. It was not easy but we reminded ourselves that we would not be destroyed by religion and past brain washing.

There are drawbacks to making these decisions and you must have a plan. I encourage you to read a book by Susan-Murphy-Milano called Moving Out Moving ON. It will provide inspiration as well as instruction for those whose only chance at survival is to move away from the abuse and even then you must have a plan called “What if?” in case your abuser or even your mom or dad follows you with the purposes of returning you to that deadly environment.

We were ultimately ostracized from family. We received letters telling us we were dogs and that we were no longer a part of the family. This from Christians who sing on Sunday, “Jesus Loves Me.” We had to disconnect from that church environment and start a new one. At that time there were not many charismatics and we had to find comfort with one another and just know in our hearts that we were right even if a million people lined up against us. Today we are among millions of people who have become part of a loving bond of families who fight abuse and domestic violence in marriage and the work place. We endured threats. We made mistakes and we paid for them but today victory is ultimately ours and those people will stand before God and give account for their actions.

There are other deadly roots that are part of this silent killer of abuse such as financial dependence. Children are involved and that compounds the problem not that the children are the problem but do you keep exposing them to the beatings and abuse or do you take them with you and if so what do you need to complete that plan? If a spouse allows alcohol abuse, drug abuse, work stress, financial stress, loyalty to his mom and dad, or other factors turn him into a ranting, raging monster of fists, ball bats, broken windows and busted faces, why would he not destroy the kids, too? So you must take them with you.

Well, so much for part one of this encouraging letter.

You have friends and you have people who love you. We love you and we need you to stay string and resolve to change your life. Begin making plans now and follow through.

Today is a new day for you.

From Jim and Carolyn, Jason, Matt and Christy, Taylor, Aubrey, and Miranda SMRO, Inc. We love you.