DEALING WITH DOMESTIC ABUSE

Wisdom Nugget: "Husbands love your wives, and do not be harsh with them."

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Domestic abuse is a pattern of behavior which involves the abuse by one partner against another in an intimate relationship such as marriage, cohabitation, dating or within the family. Domestic violence can take many forms, including physical aggression or assault (hitting, kicking, biting, shoving, restraining, slapping, throwing objects, battery), or threats thereof; sexual abuse; emotional abuse; controlling or domineering; intimidation; stalking; passive/covert abuse (e.g., neglect); and economic deprivation. Domestic violence occurs across the world in various cultures and affects people across societies, irrespective of their economic status, race, age, sexual orientation, religion or gender. It has profound consequences on the lives of children, adults and families because it's the kind of abuse committed by someone that's supposed to love you.

Domestic violence could encompass both physical and emotional abuse. These includes sexual abuse, rape, incest, sexual assault, starvation, verbal and physiological abuse, economic abuse and exploitation, denial of basic education, intimidation and harassment, stalking, hazardous attack such as acid bath with offensive or poisonous substance, damage of property.

Wives and children are the most commonly abused. Men are abused too, but mostly verbally and psychologically. Our text admonishes husbands to love their wives and not be harsh, if you can apply this to your wives, so can you to your children. You'd find it naturally flowing down to them. This also applies to wives towards their husbands. Expressing love goes a long way to curb abuse.

Angela told her story; my real father was very abusive to my mom, my four siblings and me. When I was 11 years old, my younger sister, my three brothers and I were placed in foster care homes, as my mom could not handle this life of abuse and had no other supports to keep her life together. It was my further misfortune that the foster father where my sister and I were placed was emotionally, physically and mentally abusive to all of the children in the home. At one point we had as many as ten children living in this home. I was the cook and the bottle washer, and was just one of many who would work very hard with much scolding and degradation. On one occasion I watched my foster brother get beaten. It was very traumatizing. I thought that I was witnessing a murder! This young man was 9 years old and the reason that he was getting this severe treatment was because he did not know how to eat with a spoon or fork. He had never been taught, and somehow that warranted punishment - as if it were his fault. I watched his under-nourished body as he was thrown violently down a full flight of stairs. Once he landed on the concrete basement floor and just laid there. I thought that he had died. My foster father followed him down the stairs then proceeded to kick him from one end of the basement to the other. He punched this poor lifeless body, then spoke such negative words over this young man and then continued to kick him repeatedly. I was so terrified at what I had witnessed that I ran away to my room so that he would not know how much I had seen that day. Thank God that this young boy managed to survive this terrible beating. The next day, every part of his body was swollen and black and blue. He still had to do all of his chores. This young man later grew up and was abusive to his first wife until she left him. He then remarried another woman and beat her as well. The cycle perpetuated, which is often seen, unless counsel, therapy, education or some other kind of intervention, changes the course of the cycle.

Domestic violence is common and occurs in more homes than you can imagine. Women take in girls as 'house maids' and treat them like slaves. While their children are treated like kings and the 'maids' serve them and is at their service. I find such scenarios amusing because those parents think they're doing their children well, while the fact is that most of these kids end up spoilt and are unable to live independently even after they grow up. Yes, the bible said "train up a child the way he should go." but it didn't say "kill a child before he grows."  Besides, it's beyond the marks and bruises; you could be damaging your victim emotionally for life. You could be creating the worlds' next monster, because abuse does one of two things; it either turns the abused into an abuser or it turns the abused into their shells for the rest of their lives.

Salma Hayek said "There is a subconscious way of taking violence as a way of expression, as normality, and it has a lot of effects in the youth in the way they absorb education and what they hope to get out of life."

Your Mama

Wisdom Nugget: "Her children arise and call her blessed many women do noble things, but you surpass them all."

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As the wise saying goes, "you never know what you have until it's gone."

Naturally, most of the time we become so used to certain people, especially family around us that we trivialize their importance and value, to the extent that most times we don't even remember they exist, even while they are close-by. I have had the opportunity of attending burial ceremonies and have almost, all the time, heard family members or acquaintances eulogise the dead, or attempting to do so amidst teary eyes. Usually, I realize there's always something nice to say about the departed. But it crossed my mind to ask myself once, "How many times do we make these people know how important they are to us, or how often do we give such praises or pour such accolades on them while they are alive? Very unlikely that they never even knew they were so loved and cherished.

We are usually either very busy trying to make all the money in the world while  forgetting that we wouldn't have any loved ones to spend the money on if they died. Someone said "What's the most important thing in life? To me, it's FAMILY, because if you take away the fame & fortune they're the ones that will always be there."

A man stopped at a flower shop to order some flowers to be wired to his mother who lived two hundred miles away. As he got out of his car he noticed a young girl sitting on the curb sobbing. He asked her what was wrong and she replied, "I wanted to buy a red rose for my mother. But I only have seventy-five cents, and a rose costs two dollars."
The man smiled and said, "Come on in with me. I'll buy you a rose." He bought the little girl her rose and ordered his own mother's flowers. As they were leaving he offered the girl a ride home. She said, "Yes, please! You can take me to my mother." She directed him to a cemetery, where she placed the rose on a freshly dug grave. The man returned to the flower shop, cancelled the wire order, picked up a bouquet and drove the two hundred miles to his mother's house.

As we celebrate women all around the world, do something special for your mother, or that mother figure in your life. Make that call, send those flowers, wire some money, above all the gifts, tell her how important - let her know how much of a wonderful mother she has been to you. It was Abraham Lincoln who quipped, "All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother."

Remember this: your mother will not be around forever. Appreciate her while she's still alive. Life is short. Spend as much time as you can loving and caring for her. Enjoy each moment with loved ones, before it's too late.

Nothing compares to family.

Love Never Gives Up

Wisdom Nugget : Love never gives up on people. It never stops trusting, never loses hope, and never quits. 

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One of the reasons life brings people into our lives is because everybody has something special to offer the other person to make their lives better, and since no man is an island life will always use iron to sharpen iron.

Paul puts it thus :  "He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love".

This truth applies to all relationships :"As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow". So our growth is partly a function of the special part or role played in our lives by others. This implies straight away that none of us is perfect but that one of the essence of great relationships is the ability to leave people better than you met them.

Baltasar Gracian said "True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its evils". If we all understand that friends are in our lives not only for what we can get from them but for the special way in whcih he can affect their lives, then the world would be a better place. So as we relate with people get ready to see their faults, mistakes, dysfunctions, skewed lifestyle and failures.

Don't give up on people because we all need friends to be patient with us. Before you give up on your friend, according to our text, ask yourself "have I done my own special work or fulfilled my divine assignment in this life ?" And if the answer is a "No" then you have no right to give up on them.
During a terrible storm at sea that threatened every moment to carry the ship to the bottom, one of the ship’s crew was doing something on the deck when a great sea struck the ship and went fairly over the deck, striking this man with great force, disabling him and carrying him into the mad waters.
Although he was a good swimmer, he was so disabled that he could only keep his head above water. They saw him lifting up his imploring hands through the white foam, signifying his desire for help. But the Captain said, "Don’t lower a boat, for no small boat can live in this sea, in this terrific storm. We cannot save the man. The most we can do is to save the ship."

The vessel was bearing farther and farther from the helpless man. Once more they saw his imploring hands come up among the white caps further off, which moved all hearts that witnessed it. Still the Captain said a small boat must not be lowered, as it could not live a moment among these wild billows. But one man who was an expert swimmer, was so moved by the imploring signals of the drowning man, that he threw off his loose garments, saying: "I will save that man, or die with him."
So plunging into the surging deep, he struggled so bravely with the mad waters, that he reached the poor man just as his strength had gone; he had given up and was filling with water, and sinking down unconscious. He grasped him, and strange to tell, he brought him so near the ship that a small boat was lowered, and both men were taken up and laid down upon the deck. The one that had been swept overboard, entirely unconscious and his deliverer nearly so. Appliances were used and both were brought to consciousness.
As soon as the rescued man opened his eyes and found he was not in the ocean, his first words were: "Who saved me?"

He was pointed to his deliverer still lying on the deck in his wet clothes. He crept to his deliverer, and putting his arms around his feet, and in the most tender and heart moving tone of voice cried out: "I’m your servant, I’m your servant." He felt that he could never do enough for him.

 Love never gives up on people.