Chapter One

Questions and Answers

Why Is This Happening to Me?

Your experience of abuse may be very new and unexpected, or you may have lived with it for many years. You may have heard many things from other people about why this is happening, or you may have heard nothing, since people don't often talk about this problem. You probably have questions about why you are being abused.

Maybe all those things he says about me are true. l probably don't deserve any better than 1 get. He's probably right.

Paul challenges us with this question:

Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If any one destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and that temple you are. (1 COR. 3:16-17)

You are valued in God's eyes; your whole self is regarded by God as a temple, a sacred place. Just as God does not want a temple defiled by violence, neither does God want you to be harmed. God's spirit dwells in you and makes you holy. You do deserve to live without fear and without abuse.

The one who destroys God's temple stands in judgment before God. God is displeased when anyone destroys what God regards as sacred. "That temple you are."

But my life has always been like this, hard from the very beginning. 1 watched my mother get beaten by my father. And my boyfriend has beaten me from the time I began to date him. This must be God's will for me. Shouldn't 1 just accept it and live with it?

No. Just because much of your family experience has included abuse does not mean that God wants this for you. Jesus said:

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. (JOHN 10:10)

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