Little Wife set her empty wine glass on the kitchen table and gazed sadly out the window at the falling snow. The weak mid-January sunlight filtered through the cold clouds barely reaching the ground before dissolving into another gray afternoon. “Well,” she thought to herself, “If I’ve had one glass and broke my new year…
According to the CDC, Pregnancy can be an especially dangerous time for people in abusive relationships, and abuse can often begin or escalate during the pregnancy. It’s common that an abusive partner will become resentful and jealous that the attention is shifting from them to the pregnancy. They may be stressed at the thought of…
“Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” 1st Timothy 4:12 For the third year in a row, FOCUS Ministries was blest to have an exhibit booth at the recent IGNITE Youth Leadership Conference in Oswego, IL. What…
Just thinking about life as I made some turkey vegetable soup. Funny that soup would remind me of the years I’ve been blessed with. My life has had a delicious flavor; there have been so many components or ingredients that have been added as with all of our lives and so each pot is unique. …
What does a holocaust survivor and a person experiencing domestic violence have in common? Trauma Bonding. “Trauma bonding is evidenced in any relationship in which the connection defies logic and is very hard to break. The components necessary for a trauma bond to form are a power differential, intermittent good/bad treatment, and high arousal and…
One thing domestic abuse does very well is destroy our sense of value. We live day after day with an abuser who lies to us and tells us that we are worthless, we are at fault, we are to blame, we are no good to anyone, we are undesirable, we are unlovable, and even God…