Abuse brings its own sense of grief and loss as a result of repeatedly dashed expectations, pain, betrayal, and manipulation (“How did that happen…again?!). Accepting the truth of one’s abuse results in a whole different type of loss.

To come to the realization that the person who says, “I love you,”–who excuses behavior because of “love”–doesn’t…. Well, it’s impossible, isn’t it? If I have endured months or years of broken promises, lost expenses, children and experiences for nothing, that is a huge loss. To think I have given up my best years, my family, friends, future, education, and career for someone who doesn’t truly love me but has taken advantage of and used me, that is wicked beyond wicked. And then to consider the loss of a promised future–dreams, vacations, grandchildren, life together…. Everything–every thing, every one–I lived for feels like a loss.

There are no words.

Loss has been, and is, an everyday reality. Past. Present. Future. To put it in so many words, is excruciating.

This is where we begin. Whether you’re reflecting on your own deteriorating relationship, watching from a distance, or sitting across the table, we begin by facing loss. Name it. Get real. Be honest. Make a list. Say it. Acknowledge the truth. Give reality a voice.

Churches, leaders, elders–stop, look, and listen. Naming one’s suffering is not slander or gossip. It’s reality. If a tornado hits your house and you experience loss, you see it, examine and relive the trauma, talk about it, grieve over it, and look for help. A tornado has hit her life. Look at it. Examine it. Ask questions. Talk. Grieve. Provide emergency shelter, clothing, food, and loving care. It’s what Jesus would do.

Here is an example of biblical truth, loss, affliction–from Jeremiah. God says “It’s okay to name your worst fear, your living nightmare. Jeremiah did. Job did. I’m still here. I’m listening.”

Let’s be Jesus’ hands, feet, ears, His body, to the suffering and oppressed, weak, abused, lonely.

I am the man who has seen affliction
Because of the rod of His wrath.
He has driven me and made me walk
In darkness and not in light.
Surely against me He has turned His hand
Repeatedly all the day.
He has caused my flesh and my skin to waste away,
He has broken my bones.
He has besieged and encompassed me with bitterness and hardship.
In dark places He has made me dwell,
Like those who have long been dead.
He has walled me in so that I cannot go out;
He has made my chain heavy.
Even when I cry out and call for help,
He shuts out my prayer.
He has blocked my ways with hewn stone;
He has made my paths crooked.
He is to me like a bear lying in wait,
Like a lion in secret places.
He has turned aside my ways and torn me to pieces;
He has made me desolate.
He bent His bow
And set me as a target for the arrow.
He made the arrows of His quiver
To enter into my inward parts.
I have become a laughingstock to all my people,
Their mocking song all the day.
He has filled me with bitterness,
He has made me drunk with wormwood.
He has broken my teeth with gravel;
He has made me cower in the dust.
My soul has been rejected from peace;
I have forgotten happiness.
So I say, “My strength has perished,
And so has my hope from the Lord.”

Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness.
Surely my soul remembers
And is bowed down within me. (Jeremiah 3:1-20)