Episode Summary: 

In this episode, Karen DeArmond Gardner opens up about the deep shame she experienced as a victim of domestic abuse in her thirty-year marriage. She shares the painful journey of living through abuse and the healing after abuse that transformed her life. Karen explains the key factors in her healing process, including how God replaced her pain and shame with sacred scars, giving her a powerful testimony of restoration and hope.

Quotables from the episode:

• Some of our greatest areas of ministry comes out of our greatest areas of pain.
• I survived a thirty-year abusive marriage. I’ve been out 19 years, and it’s easier for me to talk about now becomes there comes a time when there’s been enough healing that it’s more about remembering than reliving the experience that happened.
• I experienced force of control, the threat of violence to control, to manipulate, and to gaslight so I would do what he wanted, how and when he wanted.
• Often, domestic abuse doesn’t involve hitting.
• I believed as a Christian that God hates divorce, so I thought this was my cross to bear and that I was called to suffer through it for Jesus.
• I didn’t know I could leave. People often asked, “Why did you stay?” Because I didn’t know I could leave and I was terrified of my husband who was in law enforcement, and I knew his capabilities.
•  Instead of asking someone “why did you stay?” The better question is, “Why would he abuse his wife whom he supposedly loves?” Put it back on the one who caused the harm rather than the one who endured the harm.
• I didn’t want this to be my story. The shame was so powerful. I was a good Christian girl, so rather than share the shame of my story, I buried it. It was like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound and being unable to stop the bleeding.
• When I chose to leave, the aftermath was just as hard. Back then we didn’t have the resources that we have today. So there was the trauma of an abusive marriage, but then there was the aftermath in the healing.
• None of us would say “Oh I want to marry an abuser.” Being a Christ follower did not prevent me from experiencing abuse.
• When I left, shame covered me like a scratchy wool blanket and people could see it. I couldn’t look anyone in the eye and I didn’t want to be seen. When I realized no one wanted to know my story of pain, I internalized the shame and I put on a mask. You would see the absolute ugliness if I let you in, so I didn’t show you my real self.
• Shame has a look and a sound and how we behave. Shame affects how we talk and behave.
• Shame comes from the enemy and from the abuser. So, a lot of the shame we carry isn’t even ours.
• With His death, Jesus shamed the enemy with the cross. So, we can put the shame back on the enemy where it belongs.
• I changed churches over time and started attending a church where I was taught that I could heal from this experience.  For me, it started with reading “Mending the Soul.”
• About a decade later, I went through a period of grieving over something else and I realized I had never grieved my pain or losses before. That propelled my healing. So I always recommend grieving while you heal.
• God doesn’t have a cookie-cutter way of healing. If you can go to therapy, do that. Nothing gets wasted in your healing journey.
• In my healing journey, I realized who God really is, and who I really am.
• God says to call unto Him and He will come to us.
• Trauma is a liar. It distorts who God is. He is so much kinder, so much more loving, so much more gentle, but yet, God is a lion, He is my protector, He is my body guard.
• It is encountering God in those dark, painful places that we learn who God really is to us and for us.
• Frequently, the sacred scar that comes out of these painful wounds is greater intimacy with God, knowing Him deeper, it’s understanding the fullness of His character.
• Anger is part of the healing process. God can handle that anger! Anger is not the primary emotion—it’s the secondary. There is something else that is going on.

Scripture References:

• Romans 2:4 “It is the kindness of God that leads to repentance.”
• Isaiah 45:3 NIV “I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name.”
• Ezekiel 34

Recommended Resources: 

• Hope for Healing from Domestic Abuse: Reaching for God’s Promise of Real Freedom by Karen DeArmond Gardner 
• When Healing After Domestic Abuse, God Will Meet You – Your Hope Filled Perspective, episode 120
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