Note from May 2012:
Looking inward to find the source of my pain I once again miss the forest for the trees. If I had once thought about my husband as I looked at the list of what God hates, maybe I could have realized he abused me sooner.
It’s true that we should remove the log from our own eye before pointing out the splinter in another’s, but gosh darn it, abusers have big logs in their eyes and I just can’t ignore them.
Proverbs 6:16-19
There are seven things that the Lord hates and cannot tolerate.
- A proud look
Does pride make abusers feel they are always right? I think it certainly plays into the demand that we be a “happy family” in public. Will once verbally and emotionally abused our son for “embarrassing me in front of another man”.
- A lying tongue
Abusive people have no trouble lying about anything, even if the lies destroy the ones they profess to love.
- Hands that kill innocent people
My husband never physically killed anyone (war doesn’t count). But the damage he’s caused practically killed me and definitely made me wish for death at different times. Abuse kills the victim’s individuality, and if we can’t be ourselves, we can’t carry through God’s plan for us.
- A mind that thinks up wicked plans
Will showed his manipulative side when he spoke of other people – friends, family, strangers – but I didn’t think he’d try to manipulate me. I thought we were a team.
- Feet that hurry off to do evil
Countless times Will played “wing-man” to his friends after we married. He came home after losing his wedding ring twice. He ran out the door to drink and party every chance he got early on, and I fear he hurried off to deployments later to live a separate, deceitful life.
- A witness who tells one lie after another
He lied to me about me. He “observed” bad things in me that were not there. He told friends and family a different version of our story. He probably told me lies about his family to keep me away from them too.
- And a man who stirs up trouble among friends
He called me a drama queen, but he was the dramatic one! There was intrigue, deception, and manipulation everywhere he went.
Basically, Proverbs says that if we do these things, we’ll eventually “get ours”. I am sure that I can find examples of all these things (except killing) somewhere – if not many places – in my life. Maybe easier to read and aspire to would be a list of what God loves in our actions:
- Humble attitudes (for we know all we have comes from God)
- Truthful speech
- Hands that help innocents LIVE
- A pure mind open to God’s plans
- Feet that hurry to do GOOD
- Witnesses to truthfully relate a story
- And a person who promotes peace and harmony among friends
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