You know, I had a moment of thankfulness today that was so affirming of the journey that God has placed before me…. The journey that I finally decided to take with this “The Cherry Vine” thing. He continues to whisper to me in a soft voice, “I got you”, and I receive His words and His purpose for my life.
When I was “in my feelings” about Father’s Day, missing my dad, and didn’t feel in my spirit to express my thoughts, I retreated to quietness and solitude. A couple of people (you know who you are) somewhat convicted me about not blogging. I felt strongly that everything about this blog is a result of God’s spirit moving within me, therefore if it doesn’t “hit me”, so-to-speak, I don’t write. Feeling somewhat convicted, as I am so grateful for the delivery of this forum, I said to myself, “Wow…you gotta write something.” Wasn’t long after that thought, that two people, who I had asked to guest blog, reached out and was ready!!! To God be the glory!!! Even in my lack, God stepped in!!!
So, as many of you thoroughly enjoyed and was blessed by my niece, Jaquita Cherry Richardson’s “Happiness Is Homemade-Marriage Survival Kit” and Carolyn “Cookey” Johnson’s powerful testimony, “Effectual Calling..Even Me”, blogged earlier this week, you will also be amazed and blessed by my niece, VB Moody’s guest blog on domestic violence. It will give you chills, as you absorb the power of her words, the astounding statistics, the urgency for change and the profound perspective from the seat of a district court judge.
Sit back and enjoy this piece, “DV” Generation, by The Cherry Vine’s third guest blogger. Share it with family and friends. Remember God’s assignment for this forum is: Energizing, Educating and Empowering the “fruit” of The Vine…Through Expression!
Peace & Blessings,
Lisa B
“DV” GENERATION Guest Blogger ~ VB Moody
As a first time guest blogger on this site, I’m not sure who my audience will be. I don’t know if you are the abuser or the abused, the batterer or the battered, the perpetrator or the victim, the male or the female (& that could go either way), the manipulator or the enabler. Or you could be the worried mother or sister, father or brother, hoping your loved one will wake up one day and leave before her husband/boyfriend/lover kills her.
Did you know that 1 in 4 US women have experienced violence by a spouse or boyfriend at some point in her life?
Did you know that on average, 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the US?
On a typical day, there are more than 20,000 phone calls placed to domestic violence hotlines nationwide.
The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500%.
Domestic victimization is correlated with a higher rate of depression and suicidal behavior.
Almost half of female (46.7%) and male (44.9%) victims of rape in the United States were raped by an acquaintance. Of these, 45.4% of female rape victims and 29% of male rape victims were raped by an intimate partner.
3 million women and 5.1 million men in the United States have been stalked in their lifetime. 60.8% of female stalking victims and 43.5% men reported being stalked by a current or former intimate partner.
72% of all murder-suicides involve an intimate partner; 94% of the victims of these murder- suicides are female.
1 in 15 children are exposed to intimate partner violence each year, and 90% of these children are eyewitnesses to this violence.
Victims of intimate partner violence lose a total of 8.0 million days of paid work each year.
Between 21-60% of victims of intimate partner violence lose their jobs due to reasons stemming from the abuse.
Between 2003 and 2008, 142 women were murdered in their workplace by their abuser, 78% of women killed in the workplace during this timeframe.
**ALL OF THE ABOVE STATISTICS ARE FROM THE NATIONAL COALITION AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
In the world of domestic violence (what we call in the legal world DV), I hear the following more times that I can recount.
“I had been drinking too much & I provoked him.
I take medicine and it causes me to lose my memory so I don’t remember how I fell through the window.
I hit him first and ALL HE DID WAS push me out of the way.
His elbow accidently hit me in my jaw as I was walking by.
I fell against the doorway and it caused this black eye.
He didn’t really mean to do it.”
EXCUSES, EXCUSES, EXCUSES for the most atrocious behavior.
I really don’t know who you are reading this…If you’re the abused, the battered, the victim, the female or the enabler, what makes you think that he will ever stop? What makes you believe him time & time again that he’s sorry and that he CAN stop? What makes you continue to put your children in danger day in and day out? What makes you think that he will not KILL you? He is supposed to be your protector, your provider and your lover.
Although Ephesians 5:24 says, “… Wives should submit to their husbands in everything,” one cannot ignore the first portion of that verse which provides that wives are to submit, “…as the church submits to Christ.” Christ didn’t go around beating into submission everyone who wasn’t obedient to God’s word.
If you’re the abuser, the batterer, the perpetrator, the male or the manipulator, what makes you think you are supposed to control her? What makes you think you have the right to put your hands on her? What makes you think you can stop on your own? Why do you subject your children to your tirades and violent behavior? What makes you think you will stop short of killing her?
Proverbs 18:22 says, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord.”
Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her.”
Nowhere in the good book does it say, “Husbands, pummel your wives into submission at your pleasure, or beat her black and blue.”
I feel like most of this should be common sense but for some reason, it’s apparently not. I keep seeing you…..the abuser and the abused, almost on a daily basis. Don’t you know that you both deserve better? Don’t you know that you are destroying an entire generation of children by exposing them to this madness? Don’t you know that you are perpetuating a cycle of future abusers and abused, maladjusted adolescents who know only the way that you have shown them? What about these children? Who do they have to turn to? At 8 years old when he watches you pound on his mom, and when she watches you kick her mother in the face, who will explain to them that this is NOT how a man and woman live who love each other. At 8 years old, when they are the most impressionable and soak up information and behaviors like dry sponges, when they witness the most violent behavior, who will demonstrate to them the gentleness with which a man should love a woman? At 8 years old, no one will…..But 10 years later, he and/or she will be my audience to this blog.
I don’t know who you are reading this…the abuser, the batterer, the battered or the abused….Or are you the former child who witnessed the maltreatment? Chances are, you are one in the same.
STOP THE MADNESS!
END DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.
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