The truth, in love, sometimes hurts

As a Christian, I tend to wonder what is honoring to God?

Would God, for instance, be glorified by a decision for a woman to live in the same house with her young son and a man who has pulled a knife on her? I tend to think not, but hey, maybe I'm crazy here.

This woman, she cheated on her husband, then found out she was pregnant with her husband's baby. Though husband wanted to divorce her, they attempted reconciliation for almost two years, but lately things have fallen apart. While, two years ago, the man was *merely* verbally abusive to her, recently, he pulled a knife and told her that she would be better off if she killed herself.

Rather than get a restraining order or kick him out, she believes that it's the righteous thing to do to continue to live with this man with her young son. No matter how much several of us have pleaded with her to get help, kick him out, at least get SPACE from him, she has her fingers in her ears and LA LA LA LA LA LA.

So for the past two years, this man hasn't treated this woman as his wife at all. He doesn't give her money, doesn't pay for things for their son, and when her car broke down, didn't help her with that, either. Mind you, they've been living together.

I'm not saying that God couldn't perform a great miracle here, and I'm not saying He won't. But I really think God gave us common sense for a reason, and that's not so that we could spit in the face of it and do really stupid things that endanger ourselves and our children.

I'm not saying divorce is right - I don't believe that it is. BUT, I think God would *forgive* divorce, and this might be preferable to a woman or child ending up dead.

Really, whether this woman ends up dead or not, doesn't matter to me in the long run. I'll sleep just fine at night, no matter what she does. But there's a little boy here who at *best* is learning that it's okay for daddy to verbally abuse mommy and threaten her with a knife, and at worst, might end up parent-less...and all of that could be avoided. HE will be affected for the rest of his life by these folks' decisions.

So that, is why I ran my mouth. That's why I laid it all out there in a rude, crude, horrible fashion. That's why I said that this "man" doesn't *deserve* to be called a man, because he doesn't act like one. Because that little boy can't speak for himself, and he deserves to have all the sane people in the world telling his mother that she needs to get space.

Not that *anything* I could have said would make her change her mind. But were situations reversed, if I weren't listening to sugary little murmurs of encouragement and pleas to get help, I would *want* the people that cared about me to break out the big guns. Be rude to me, if it means saving my life.

I don't know what's honoring to God, but I DO know that God sometimes had to yell and resort to not-so-sweet things to get peoples' attention. I don't believe that the God I believe in would want a woman to intentionally endanger herself like this. I just ... don't.

I've removed myself from the situation, because it's just too heartbreaking to watch. I hope that at some point, news trickles out to me that some miracle has happened and things are hunky dory for her. But at least, if - heaven forbid - something terrible does happen, I know that I did everything I knew how to intervene. There won't be a "what if I'd just said..." because I said it all. I tried being nice. Being understanding. Being encouraging. Didn't work.

It's just awfully frustrating, but I'm done now.