When he thinks he defines you...

This is an article I wrote for Woman Cry Out, a fantastic ministry that I am blessed to be a part of. It is written under the Sister to Sister column and so naturally is addressed to the ladies. Even if you are not a lady, please read on, maybe you know someone who needs to hear this...

Dealing with emotional abuse.

Domestic violence has become an issue in church now, shocking but true. Many women are suffering all manner of abuse within their marriages.  

Emotional (or verbal) abuse is said to be the most common form partly because there are no visible signs of the abuse. It manifests in many forms. Name-calling - continually calling a wife ‘stupid’ because a husband believes she is not as intelligent as he is, ‘clumsy’ because she is not coordinated, ‘dirty’, because she has challenges maintaining a spotless house, ‘ugly’ or ‘fat’ because she has gained weight, or even ‘worthless’. Ordering is another form of emotional abuse where a husband gives orders instead of making requests, thereby treating his wife like a slave or subordinate. A husband could also be accusing and blaming, constantly accusing his wife of some wrongdoing or breach of some agreement or finding her responsible for every misfortune to come his way. Threatening occurs when a husband manipulates his wife by bringing up her biggest fears, perhaps threatening to get a divorce.

Other more subtle forms of emotional abuse include withholding where a husband refuses to listen to his wife, withholds information and feelings; countering, where a wife is not allowed to have her own thoughts and her husband is constantly countering and correcting everything she says and does. Alternatively, he could allow her have her own thoughts, but judges and criticizes everything thereby expressing a lack of acceptance of her individuality. He could also block and divert, refusing to communicate, or insisting on solely establishing what can be discussed. He could also trivialise all her hopes, dreams, desires or achievements, making them appear insignificant. Emotional abuse may also involve consistently forgetting promises made.

Perhaps what makes emotional abuse so dangerous is denial. Sometimes abuse is disguised as jokes, but these ‘jokes’ are really designed to hurt and diminish self-worth. A typical emotionally abusive husband will insist that he is not abusive, after all, he is a good father, faithful husband, does not take alcohol or drugs, provides for his family, has never harmed his wife physically and is a firm believer in Jesus – possibly active in church, a worker, a minister, a pastor.

I have heard someone ask "Why would a husband treat his wife like that? She must be doing something to provoke it."

This is indicative of what many wives face. The society and even the church are quick to justify the abusive behavior you may be receiving. But I have to ask, my sister, are you doing anything to provoke your husband’s abusive behaviour? If you are, while it does not justify the abuse, by all means work on it. Perhaps you need to learn to speak more respectfully, or perhaps find the right time to bring up issues. Maybe you do not listen to his views so he feels compelled to shut you down when you attempt to express yours; maybe you need to lose a bit of weight...Ask God to show you what part you need to play in the recovery process.

Secondly, be assured of God’s love, His presence, and His willingness to sort you out. Psalm 34:18 tells us the LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Your self esteem and confidence may have suffered, but God is right there to pick you up.

Thirdly, realise that although part of your identity is being a wife, that is not all you are, it is not even your primary identification – even before you were your husband’s, you were (and still are, by His grace) God’s.

Fourth, you need to latch unto a biblical view of marriage. Marriage is a couple’s covenant with God to love and honour one another. Both men and women are called to submit to God first and then to each other (Eph. 5:21-33) - wives are to submit to their husbands and husbands are to submit to Christ. Submitting to Christ means that husbands do not have the authority to rule as they desire, no matter what the society expects or you have been taught! Submitting to Christ means that the ultimate authority in your household is Jesus. Yes you are to submit to your husband as the head of the home, but know that you are equal to him in dignity and deserve to be treated with love and respect. Do not let him define you by calling you names. Jesus has done that already. You are His Pearl of Great Price (Matthew 13:44-46). Do not let him cage you, belittle you or diminish your worth. Jesus is interested in you flourishing, standing graceful and tall and attaining your full potential (Psalm 92:12). Do not buy into a distorted view of marriage. Jesus places a high value on you - you are not worth any less than your husband.

Lastly, please note that you have to confront your abuser. Too many wives shy away from confrontation, forgetting that it is a biblical principle. Jesus taught this in Matthew 18:15-20. Where an abusive man is not held accountable, those around him become enablers, indirectly supporting him. Can you get your husband to read this article with you? Respectfully let him know the areas you have suffered emotionally all the while prayerfully asking God for wisdom and for words to speak. Depending on the outcome of your discussion, you may need to escalate by seeking help from a pastor or counsellor and perhaps other godly men and women who can lovingly confront him in an attempt to break through his denial and restore him with a spirit of gentleness (Galatians 6:1).

In closing, I need to sound a note of warning. Emotional abuse usually escalates, increasing in intensity, frequency, and variety, ultimately into physical abuse. You have to start the recovery process NOW...do not wait for things to get worse.

And always remember...the Lord is your strength.

Life-life Balance

Work rarely features on 

my weekends – it’s just me, family, friends and ministry. Every Friday evening, I go to sleep with a smile on my face because I know I am not going to work the next day…

This past Friday, however, I did not have that smile on my face because my perfectly laid plans for the weekend had already unraveled.

I had planned a huge chunk of “me time” for my Saturday. I was going hear the word, fellowship with sisters, and pray. It had been determined well in advance and I was looking forward to it! But sometime during the week, the girls had reminded me that Saturday was fun fair at school. Panic! Not Saturday! I have plans for Saturday! And then the deluge began…I received a notification for the PTA meeting for my eldest daughter’s school, same Saturday. Then I remembered that we had received an invitation to a friend's son's birthday party, same Saturday. What! All in one day! And let’s not forget that the girls usually have a home tutor come over for two hours on Saturday as well. Something had to give, so, leading up to Friday, I had already figured out that we could only do so much in one day. I cancelled the home tutor and made plans for the girls to be at their fun fair with adult supervision. We would have to miss the birthday party and the PTA meeting, but the girls were happy and I was happy. That is, until a family emergency scuttled my plans to get the girls to school!

On Friday evening, I realized that the only way the girls were going to get to school was if I took them myself. It was a choice to either do something for me or something for them. So began the discussion within me…

My first responsibility is to myself. I need to be healthy, put together,connected to my Saviour. I need to invest in myself because I cannot give what I do not have. I need time to relax, reload, refire. God “rested” on the 7th day of creation, so also, I need rest from my labours. God has designed for us to “get away” from time to time, so that we can be refreshed either by others or just by being alone. That is why Jesus regularly took time away from people, including his disciples. Me-time is essential time! So perhaps the girls need to sit this fun fair out. Perhaps they have to stay at home…But I have to consider their interests as well…

The truth of the matter is that I was seriously conflicted. If I had someone else to take them to school, I probably would not have given it a second thought, but the fact that the plans had fallen through made me think deeply about balance.

While trying to maintain a work-life balance, there is a balancing act to be done in the life segment as well. Depending on how much of a social butterfly one is, one will typically have a lot to fit into a weekend, and some days, it appears like everyone wants a piece of our time. Sometimes, to be able to meet up with all these obligations, it is our time with the people that really matter that suffers. We definitely need to do other things, meet with other people, have a life, but we need to purposefully evaluate our choices and always ensure we have made enough room for the really important things.

In the end, I had to consider the fact that the week before, I had cancelled some “us-time” because weekend plans had changed (as they seem to be doing a lot of lately). The week before,  I had chosen to preserve my “me-time”. I decided it was not advisable to do it a second consecutive time.

So, I changed my plans and took them to their fun fair. I also took time to explain to them that although Mummy had made plans to go out, she had changed the plans because she needed to balance important aspects of her life.

I’m happy I went with the “us-time”. Spending the time with them allowed us to interact and also afforded us opportunities to laugh together and to talk. The girls had a fantastic day. It ended up being a win-win because I had fun too. The icing on the cake - we won second and third prizes at the raffle draw, so, yes, it was a good day!

Excess Baggage

Recently, a friend had reason to vent to me concerning treatment she had received from a mutual acquaintance, Lady X. Lady X was known to be particularly badly behaved. She tended not to respect people who she felt she was better than and would not even respond to greetings from a particular class of people. My friend routinely provided a service to her and was routinely snubbed, disrespected, spoken to rudely and put in her place by Lady X. My friend had tried to get some of her other clients who were also friends of Lady X to talk to her but had been asked to excuse the behaviour because Lady X was “going through stuff.”

That comment got me thinking, does going through stuff excuse bad behavior?

Sometime ago, my family moved house. I put off packing till the absolute last minute because I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of “stuff” we had accumulated over the 10 years we had lived there. It was a five-bedroom house, and we had acquired things to fill it up. There was even one room that started out as a study but ended up as a storage room for unused items. It took two people, one full day to empty that one room out! Ahghh! It was no fun at all! The impending move meant that we had to take stock of our “stuff.” We were moving into a smaller house so there was no luxury of an entire room dedicated to things we had nowhere else to shove! As we took stock, we found many things that we had held on to and yet not used in many years. Some items had never even been opened. Some other items had been lying there, unused and yet I had gone out and bought similar items when the need arose, completely oblivious to the fact that I had, in my own house, something that could have done the job!

Although the fact that we had excess baggage was revealed and possibly magnified by the pressure of moving, moving was not the cause of the excess baggage.

So, to come back to the issue at hand, going through stuff does not excuse bad behaviour. I think Lady X’s character just leaves a lot to be desired, period. If she was ‘nicer’ when things were going well, then she had been living behind a façade. A person’s true character doesn’t show until something comes along that causes him or her to forget about maintaining the façade. It has been said that crises do not develop character, but crises reveal character. When the pressure is on, who you are, who you really are, along with all your excess baggage, is revealed.

I suspect that over time, Lady X had acquired airs. Perhaps she had always felt certain people were not her class and actually would have liked to put them in their place. But since “things” were going well, she could afford to be magnanimous in her dealings with them. Now, “things” were not going well, so magnanimity had been thrown out the window…

I am not belittling whatever stuff she is going through but I think we 

all owe people simple courtesies. And anyway, everyone is going through something…just ask people, you’ll be shocked the load the man or woman next to you is carrying! Abi, you, are you not going through something?

In Phillipians 2:3, the Bible says:  Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves.

If we esteem others better than ourselves, we will be courteous. If we are striving to live in accordance with God’s will, we will be courteous. A God-fearing person will naturally be courteous.

So please, regardless of what you are going through, simple courtesies will not kill you. Be kind. Be respectful. Greet. Respond to greetings. Say please. Say thank you. Smile. They cost nothing but they do make the world a better place.

And by all means, take stock of your houses. Perhaps you have acquired things you don't need (whether by purchasing them or by receiving them as gifts). Please give out anything that is currently not adding value to your life - it could be stuff you have not used in six months, it could be a year, but instead of having it lie useless in your house, give it out so someone else can benefit from it.

Still on finances!

After I posted my first blog on finances, When Tables are Turned, I got a number of comments sent to me directly. A friend said “I feel that many women in the situation you mentioned may feel encouraged by the verses but also judged after reading the piece. Staying in the US and knowing how challenging it can be here and then putting myself in the woman’s shoes (I know many people in her situation too) I will like someone to encourage me but first, I will like to feel like the writer knows how I feel; empathize with me… It’s a very serious topic. A lot of our ladies are caught up in the dilemma and they need encouragement and guidance.”

To this, I responded that it was never my intention to judge anyone. I was just trying to let ladies out there know that we have to do our bit to help our men out. I know a lot of ladies are carrying the weight of providing for their households and I pray their husbands realize that they still have a responsibility, even if they have wives who are “happy” to hold the fort until they find their feet.

A big sister summarized in an email she sent: “Yes, she should not stop mid way, but there is an order that God had ordained for the home from the foundations of the earth.  While no wife should abandon her hubby in trying times, she also has the responsibility to submissively lead him out of that hole. It is unacceptable even for God for a man not to be alive to charting the course for his household and that includes providing for them.  This in my opinion is divine order.  However, I have also seen situations where the woman took over the responsibilities because what the man could afford was not good enough for her.  In the end, this is about ensuring that our men remain MEN in God's sight.  No, Lazyboy should get off his *tush* and get a job. Even if it is the most meager, God honours the effort.” Thank you, Sister B.

And then this week, I came across a teaching Pastor Taiwo Odukoya of the Fountain of Life did called The Thorny Issue of Finances. Indeed finances in marriage are a very thorny issue. I can only hope that as more is shared and taught on the subject, things will get better.

Still on this issue of finances, I have a little something to say on the joint account or no joint account debate which continues to rage, particularly in Christian settings.

Do my husband and I have a joint account? Yes we do. But the account is quite inactive. It is almost always empty. In reality, my husband has his accounts and I have mine.

In our household, I’m the Finance Director (FD) and my husband is the Managing Director (MD). I’m responsible for the accounting, financial planning, modelling and budgeting in accordance with policy determined by our three-man Board. The MD implements policy formulated by our board and Board meetings are held as often as the need arises. Although I have voting rights, the MD has veto power and so when deliberations with the MD leave me feeling aggrieved,  I approach our Chairman directly.

How does this work in practice? We can both authorise transactions as long as the transactions are within approved budget. Budgets are jointly approved; no budget, no spend. It’s really that simple.

It would be great if I could say that we sat down in the beginning and planned that we would manage our finances this way, but I cannot. It just evolved over the years. One reason we find this model works for us is because it plays to our strengths. I’m the planner, the one who needs to put things in place well in advance of the need; the risk avoider, the one who will search for and remove all uncertainties along the path; the doubter, who looks for the catch in every “opportunity.” My husband is the risk taker, always eager to jump to the next project; the visionary, seeing the way the finished product will look; the dreamer, the one with his head stuck in the clouds. We complement each other. Over time, we have been able to identify our strengths and we use them to our advantage, submitting ourselves one to another in the fear of God. (Ephesians 5:21).  

So, in my opinion, the argument of joint account or no joint account completely misses the point. The point is trust. Where there is trust, a husband and a wife can figure out what works for them. Where there is no trust, suspicion will drive a wedge between husband and wife and that wedge, no joint account can fix.

Do you keep a Gratitude Journal?

In case you have never heard the term before, Wikipedia says “a gratitude journal is a diary of things for which one is grateful. Gratitude journals are used by individuals who wish to focus their attention on the positive things in their lives.”

Wikipedia continues, “gratitude, the feeling of appreciation or thanks, has gained a lot of attention in the field of positive psychology.” I am no expert in ‘positive psychology’ but if you are new to the concept of a Gratitude Journal, let me be the first to share with you how much of a good thing it is to keep a record of all the things you are grateful for.

My experience with a gratitude journal started many years ago. In church, our Pastor would ask us to write our prayers and requests down so that when the answers came, we would be able to see how God had answered them. He would emphasise that we were to honour God by writing them in a notebook, and not on a scrap piece of paper. So, my Prayer Journal started in that notebook, with long letters that I wrote to God. Once in a while, I would review my prayers and I began to see how God was answering them. Then I began to write prayers of thanksgiving as well, and that is when, for me, my Prayer Journal actually became a Gratitude Journal. Each time I had cause to write down a prayer, I had faith that I would soon be back to write its complementary prayer of thanksgiving.

Over the years, I have seen how God has answered prayer upon specific prayer. There have been many things that I asked for and then moved on. I would come one day, review my journal, and then realise that my answer had come a long time ago and I had taken it for granted and never bothered to thank God. I have also experienced God surpassing expectations many times, upgrading the specifications when He delivered the answer, usually giving me a version 5.0 for the version 1.0 that I had asked for.

Now, I wish I could say categorically that all my prayers have been answered. But I can’t and honestly, I don’t know anyone who can make that claim. In my gratitude journal, there were lines I would just skip; letters I would actually begin to cry when I reviewed; pages that would make me ask God, “What happened to ask and you shall receive?” Those lines, those letters, those pages, they represent the prayers that are yet to be answered, struggles I am still having, things I wish were in or in some cases, out, of my life.

And then one day, it hit me. I was missing the point! Wallowing in self pity because of unanswered prayers was exactly where the enemy of my soul wanted me to be; he wanted me to dwell on what had not gone my way so I would be bitter and I would begin to wonder if indeed God is interested in the details of my life.

And so I switched my attitude. I stopped skipping those lines, or ignoring pages I did not like, and I stopped questioning God. I decided that when I review my journal, I will not only thank Him for the prayers He has answered, I will thank Him, period! Those requests, they are His to answer. It was an entitlement mentality that made me feel He owed me! A person has an entitlement mentality when he believes that privileges are rights, and that the privileges are expected as a matter of course. Even if God does not do another thing for me, there is more than enough to be grateful for!

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. (Phillipians 4:6, NIV)

Once I changed my attitude, I discovered that the gratitude journal is a fantastic tool for building up faith for new things – if He did it before, He will do it again! Delay is not denial!

And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. (Habakkuk 2:2-3, KJV)

I started out keeping my gratitude journal with paper and pen, and then as phones got smart, I moved to an app. Get a gratitude journal (app) today. One day, you will come back to thank me. I guaranty it!