| My Marriage Abuse and Deliverance (by Diana Sather) I had fallen in love with a man called Jim. I was very young, and he said all the right things, and his eyes were so blue, and he said that he loved me. He said that he would love me forever, and I believed him. There are so many things that we can tell ourselves when we are young and naive. After we were married, however the sweet things that he said began to change. He told me that he was doing certain things to me, in order to teach me something, and if I wasn't a certain way, if I were more of a woman, then he wouldn't have to do these things to me. He was very careful so that all of the bruises that I received were in places that wouldn't be seen, like between my legs, or under my arms or on my breasts. He would just suddenly reach out and pinch me so hard that you couldn't hardly stand it. Or bite me, or something... anything to cause me pain. When our babies were born, he would try to "train" them, too. If they would touch some thing that he didn't want them to, he would snap their fingers until they turned red, and when they would cry, he would hold their mouth and nose shut so that they couldn't breathe, and then when they were so weak that they couldn't struggle any more, then he would let them go. I would try to stop him, but then he would go after me. He would constantly belittle me in front of his friends, and point out to his friends anything that was left undone in the house. He would even get up on a chair, and wipe his finger on the top of the refrigerator, and show them if there was any dust there, to prove to them that I was not a good housekeeper. He even checked the light bulbs to see if I dusted them, because he said that if the light bulbs were dirty, then they were not giving off all of the light that they could, and he was paying for that light. I was wasting his money. He would not let me go anywhere without his approval, and refused to let me get a drivers license. He said that if I got a license to drive, that I was so stupid, that I would probably kill my kids. If I ever tried to talk to a man, he would try to make it appear that I was after him for some sexual thing. My life became one endless round of trying to please him. But there was no pleasing him. The worst part of this, was that I started to really believe everything that he said about me. I started to believe that I was no good, and that he really was trying to do his best towards me, and that I somehow deserved what he was doing to me and our children. Eventually I found out what everyone else in our town already knew, that he had a girlfriend. Then he became very blatant about it, and told me that if I were woman enough for him, he wouldn't have to go outside our marriage. But he said that we didn't have a marriage, and that we should never have been married. Then he started making allusions about our children, that maybe they were not really his. Everything in my nature came under attack during the time that I was married to him, and he devastated my self image, and destroyed my self worth. And somehow he had me believing that I deserved this abuse. I was attacked spiritually, mentally, and physically. We were separated, yet every time that he needed a place to stay, he came back and I let him into my house and my bed. My Baptist upbringing and my knowledge of the Bible were very strong in me, and I knew what the Bible said about divorce. The Bible said that God hates divorce. I tried to do anything that I could to prevent a divorce, so I would give myself to him at every opportunity. In actuality, he had the best of both worlds, he could come home to me any time that he wanted to, and could have me and had access to my home, while still running around with every available woman, at every opportunity. Which he did. Invariably, when I would go somewhere, there was some girl talking about how she had been with him the night before. I have told you all of these things in preparation for the following story. I want you to know that this story is very real, and is an example of God's protection and divine deliverance. I was sitting at home, reading my Bible, and it was very late. I was extremely excited about something that I saw in there, and I didn't want to stop. I looked up, and saw Jim (my husband) standing in front of me. I asked him how he had gotten in, because I had just locked the doors, and hadn't heard him knock, and he did not have a key. He just smiled, and said that he had his ways. I knew that he did. He knew how to unlock locked doors. I thought that it was strange, that he didn't knock on the door, but I had seen a lot of strange things from him. He sat down on the couch next to me, and took out a little plastic baggy with his "stash". He started to roll up a "joint". I started telling him about the things that I had found in the Bible. Calmly he sat there, rolling up his joint, and then he said, "You know, I was down in the bar, the other day, and I was reading in the Bible, too. I read that it is OK for a man to go out and fool around on his wife." I looked at him in disbelief. "No, that's not in there," I replied. I tried to reason with him, but he was determined that it was in the Bible. Finally, after I tried to discuss this, and reminded him that I had read the Bible from cover to cover many times, a new thought entered my mind. There was some thing about him that was different. Maybe it was something about his voice, but there was something out of the ordinary... something strange. I looked at him sitting there, and told him, "If you really believe that, you don't have any part in the kingdom of God. And it is almost like you are possessed or something." I got the oddest response from him. He laid down on the couch, started kicking his feet like a little baby having a temper tantrum, and started screaming that nobody had the right to say that about him. Then he reached under my couch, and pulled out his shotgun. I did not know that it was under there, nor did I know when he could have put it there. He pointed the barrel of the gun right in front to my face, and told me "I could kill you right now, and I would not feel one thing, and then I will go over and blow away your mom and your dad and your grandma." I looked at him, and the first thing that I thought, was wouldn't that be wonderful? Then I could be in heaven. Then the peace of God came down over me like a cloak, and the presence of God was so strong. I opened my mouth, and this is what came out: "You might be able to kill my body, but you will never be able to kill my spirit, because when I die, I am going to heaven, and I am going to be with Jesus." As soon as I said that, and the Name of Jesus came out of my mouth, things started happening very fast. It looked like an unseen hand reached out, and touched his forehead. His head jerked back, his eyes rolled up into his head, and he went over backwards on the couch. I looked at him laying there, and he was completely unconscious. I wondered what I should do then. I took the shotgun out of his hands, and hid it behind some clothes on a closet shelf. Then I went back in the living room and looked at him laying there, and just said, "Boy, God sure took care of you." Then because that peace and the presence of God that was on me was so complete, I went to bed. I had never seen anyone that had gone "out under the power" of God before. We didn't do that in the Baptist Church. If I knew anything about it, I would have known that people sometimes get up after a few seconds, or minutes. I would have probably have called the police if I had known that, but that peace was there, and I was confident that no harm would come to me. When I got up the next day, he was gone. Several days later, he came back and started rummaging through everything in my house, looking for that gun. He kept saying over and over that I didn't have any right to take his gun. His Uncle Lawrence had given that gun to him, and it was his. I went to the closet and gave him that gun. He took it and left. I found out later that he went out trap shooting with it, and when he tried to fire that gun, the barrel of the gun blew up. God took care of him, and his gun, too. Please also click the link below to see the next article "On the run" which is a follow on from the above. http://www.heart-cry.com/running.html Diana also has Testimonies in connection with the ordeals of her own daughters as well. 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