Reunion Online

The Sanctity of marriage. Divorce as sin. Male headship, forgiveness and more. Today, Rev. Al Miles discusses five of the most frequently cited justifications offered to Christian women as to why they need to stay with an abusive husband.

In this series, Rev. Al Miles will be answering some common, albeit very complex, questions about spiritual abuse: how exactly is it perpetrated? Where did the myth of male entitlement and female subjugation come from? What about the sanctity of marriage? The notion of forgiveness?

Why? We ask it all the time: Why is the sky blue? Why didn’t she call me back? Why do I have such a hard time being disciplined? Why did that man kill all those innocent children? Why did I get abused? It is the ultimate question resulting in what we hope to be the ultimate answer to bring us some form of closure and comfort. Sometimes it does, but most of the time we are left many years later asking the same questions and still wondering why. Today, Aaron explores this question.

Back in September, Aaron shared the first part of his story of hope on the Joyful Heart Blog. In it, he said, "Hope is essential to life, especially for those who are forced (or choose) to deal with painful experiences from our past," Taking inspiration and encouragement from his faith, Aaron made it through. Today, he continues with the second part of his story.

For several days, one sentence has continued to trouble me: "I'll never forgive you." Those words were spoken by the man identified only as Victim 4 at the Jerry Sandusky sentencing on October 9, 2012. His words say several things to me.