As it normally is when I do my best thinking, it was morning, the dew was wet on the grass, each blade shimmering as the rising sun washed across it. The trees looked sleepy, as if morning was untimely, arriving too soon.

My ocean is deep and blue, I open my Bible app, I select 1 Peter 3. I read to the end.

Sarah

This courageous woman whose daughter I am if I do good and am not afraid of anything that is frightening.

I put my iPad down and walked to the sliding glass door and stepped outside. There is a cacophony of frogs from the pond. I marvel at the sheer noise, not one bit of it man-made. God is so good, as he made the world. It is pure, the trees, the grass, the sunshine, the rain, the dew, the joy of it all.

I am created for life. I am created to serve and nurture and be loved and protected. I know this because I have a husband. He is a good husband. In fact, he is such a good husband that it is hard for me to imagine that he could be any gooder.

He’s been accused of being abusive, even just recently he was accused of being abusive because he doesn’t let me talk about politics in public, and squeezes my knee.

I laughed when I heard it.

It's the classic plight of the feminist. A man can have no control. He cannot be commanding, in charge, confident or authoritative. Gentleness, softness, and emotional are acceptable, but you best not have too big ballah or you will get thrown out of the fold.

It’s the most disgusting example of natural selection you will find. They neuter men, and then they hate them. They use sex as a tool to give or withhold approval, essentially whoring out their body to manipulate their neutered male.

They can have those men with my blessing. It leaves the real men to the women who are emotionally mature enough to walk by their side.

I want a man who is unafraid. I want a man I cannot push around. I want a man who is able to stand for his convictions and leads his home with firm intent and purpose. I want a man who comes home battle-scarred to my arms. I want a man who puts his hand on my knee and squeezes it when my tongue is about to make a fool out of me.

Fifty Shades of Grey’s clear success was an amazing indicator of how sexually unfulfilled many are. Even in Christian circles, I heard giggles and whispers at how it spiced up their sex life. I felt completely mystified. We find a book/movie about an abusive man who beats his woman, and is manipulative and controlling to be sexy and inspiring?

Yet, a man who puts his hand on his wife's thigh to gently signal she is going too far is abusive. Dear God, we have fallen far and hard.

When you invest in a lie, you have to defend that lie at all costs. Truth doesn’t have to be defended. It stands all alone, even after years and years of standing alone, still it remains strong and true.

A lie crumbles quickly unless it is defended.

If you are investing in a lie, abandon it quickly. The more you invest, the more you will lose. And you will lose. Lies always crumble and lose. Being on God’s side makes you a winner immediately. Because he has already won.

Feminism is a power that does not come from God which makes it demonic. It is not a fluffy “women helping women” modern concept that is unharmful. The women who land in my inbox after being “helped” by feminism have wrecked their marriages and relationships almost beyond repair. The road back is grueling and bitterly hard.

God already has a way of women helping women, and it works beautifully without needing to stomp on men to get there. The older women are to teach the younger to love their husband and children. There are no disclaimers.

The messages I have received from these self-proclaimed warriors of truth are always full of vitriol, hatred, jealousy, and most of all manipulation and passive-aggressiveness. The need to control is almost frightening. A simple sharing of my life story means I am “silencing victims, and demonizing the women who have tried it Gods way and Gods way didn’t work”.

None of those are signs of a healthy soul. Triggers are a sign of unhealed trauma.

They gas-light freely and make strawmen out of every single paragraph I write. If you are being helped by people like this, the best thing you could do for yourself is cut them out of your life completely. You are drinking poison, and it will not go without consequences.

Any power used by a Christian outside the power of God is evil. We fight not against flesh and blood. We aren’t fighting people. We are fighting against the principalities and powers of darkness. A child of God does not live for themselves. We live for the kingdom we belong to, and I am happy to report the one here ain’t it.

If you are a child of God who is being abused by a wicked husband, know this. God is for you. The more broken and needy you are, the more he is for you. I have found him to be a faithful father who truly does what he says he will do. It is the sneakiest form of victimizing women to tell them that some of God’s principles for Christian women are not applicable to an abused woman.

If its possible to be extra applicable, for the abused woman it is extra applicable.

There is a time for a woman to stand up and say “enough”. You may have to leave. You may have to flee for your life and hide. You need to have wisdom when that time is. For that, you need God as much as you need oxygen. Sure, some would say it is right now before the abuse escalates. But we can’t tell you that. An abused woman is an adult and must make that decision. But do it right. Get actual help. Strangers on Facebook are rarely much help. For your sake and if you have children, for their sake, get hardcore help to recover emotionally and physically.

Be very very careful where you get your help. Joining a league of women that sets out to convince you that you are abused because they were abused is not the place true power and freedom lie.

If your message of victory in Jesus is actively suppressed, be so careful who you trust.

The blind cannot lead the blind anywhere good.

Test every spirit, especially when you are in a vulnerable place in your marriage. Know this. God is for you. If you love truth, Jesus is your savior, and you want to heal, you have the whole fleet of God’s tools at your disposal.

Even among Christians, the divorce rate is over fifty percent. These are heartbreaking stats. For every Christian that divorces, you have two people who have to go through tremendous trauma to rebuild. Still, God is not limited. He is a good father who is all-knowing beyond what our meager perspective could ever give us. He binds the wounds and brings beauty out of ashes. If you are divorced, don’t think God is not for you. He IS!

I am a proud wife to a wonderful man. Our marriage is our own. It’s sweet, a bit of heaven on earth. Our love is 18 years old and continues to get deeper and more precious as the years go by. I know where my bread is buttered, and it is not out there in the highways and byways where Satan is roaming about seeking someone to destroy.

A friend told me yesterday, “You have sweated blood, sweat, and tears for the marriage you have, and they want it for free.”

What a profound statement! A marriage made in heaven is not free. When we walked through the doorposts, we left flesh. We lost flesh. We abandoned our flesh to attain the glory of God.

Sister, if you find yourself trash-talking your husband or other husbands, for your own sake, stop. You are tearing your house down around your ears. Every time you disrespect the man God gave you, you disrespect your own self.

What you tell yourself about him also matters. Maybe it matters the most.

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.

Don’t choose to look at his quality points because you are not perfect either. Look at what is true and honorable and right and pure and admirable because that is what God is telling you to do.

God’s word isn’t always spelled out, but in this instance, it is really this simple.

Simple is restful when you believe God’s word is to be believed, not interpreted.

Ps. This post was mostly written in Ky before we moved to the cold North where people boil their water instead of bolling it, and where they open their windows instead of their winders. They eat potatoes instead of taters, and their chicken and waffles are chicken gravy on a flat waffle. But Northern pedestrians, we love you guys too. We love your trees, your mountains, and the stunning vistas God has laid out for our viewing pleasure.

This daughter of Sarah gotta bounce. I have a date to go on, and man to romance.