Mask of Deception

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If ever there was a story that I did not want to write, it would be this one. In fact, I wrestled with the Lord back and forth trying to convince Him that it should not be told. You see, the topic is rather sordid. It’s domestic abuse and the abuser was my ex-husband, Dean (not his real name).

Here is the dream the Lord gave me on 12/29/2020 that finally convinced me to write this testimony. In the dream, my ex-husband sent me a dirty cake pan, which I dutifully cleaned for him. Then he said he wanted to see me and I agreed. Then he drove up in a car with a pretty woman driver, who I thought was a taxi driver. I hopped in and off we went.

When we got to the destination, he left me alone with the “taxi driver”. After talking with her for a few minutes, I realized that she was actually his new wife. She was very sweet and naïve with a heavy foreign accent. The marriage was only a year old so they were practically newlyweds. End of Dream

Upon waking I realized that the third wife actually reminded me of someone – me. That’s how I was when I met my future husband – very trusting and naïve.

Whenever I would introduce my boyfriend, Dean, to my friends and family, I would hear the same comment over and over – “He’s such a nice man!” But from the beginning there were red flags.

I vividly remember the first time I met his two children. I opened the door to his place and saw the three of them standing there looking picture perfect. Suddenly I had the thought that he just could not be as perfect as he seemed. But then I immediately dismissed that thought, thinking I was just being negative. But now I know that it was the Lord trying to warn me. What is so amazing about this is that I was unsaved at the time and the Lord was trying to help me even then.

After we married, things began to deteriorate quickly. He began to put me down and tell me that whatever I did was wrong. One time I tore off a paper towel, wet it from the faucet, and used it to wipe down the counter. He immediately told me I was doing it wrong. Another time he told me I was folding his t-shirts incorrectly and demonstrated the “right” way. So the first red flag I noticed was criticism, which is the expression of disapproval of someone or something based on perceived faults or mistakes.

Now outwardly I did not appear to be your typical abused woman. I lived in a nice home in a nice subdivision. I was college educated and worked fulltime as a business analyst. At work, people came to me all day long asking for help to solve complex business problems. But at home, I felt totally inept and unworthy.

Finances were a taboo subject in our house. Every week Dean would make huge cash withdrawals from our bank account. When I would question him about the withdrawals, he would blow up, scream at me, and call me names. Then he would storm out of the house. When he would return, he would give me the silent treatment for days on end. Then we would make up and all would be okay for a while until the next blow-up. So the second red flag that I noticed was a quick temper.

One time Dean confided that his best friend, Ted (not his real name), was having an affair behind his wife’s back. When I asked him what he thought about that, he seemed very indifferent, almost like it was no big deal. Now that information bothered me very much and I could not understand why he was not troubled by it. So the third red flag is coming into agreement with evil or with others who do evil.

One incident that I vividly recall is when Dean’s daughter, Jane (not her real name), her husband and five year old son came to visit us. I was in the kitchen when the little boy started screaming and ran through the house calling for his mother.

Then Dean appeared and I asked him what happened. He said that the little boy was standing in the garage doorway refusing to move, so Dean gave him a little ‘encouragement’. Then the daughter confronted Dean and told him that he better never ever touch her son again. Then she and her family left in a huff.

Another time a family member spent some time in Dean’s home office talking with him for a bit. Later she reported to me that he had pelted my precious cat with spitballs and wads of paper. And he had laughed about it. So the fourth red flag is being abusive to animals and children.

Everything came to a head when Dean violently assaulted me in 2012. For the first 10 ½ years of our marriage, the abuse was emotional and verbal. Like most abused women, I became quite adept at sensing his moods and defusing him when he became angry. But one day I stood up to him and that was the day that things turned violent.

Right after the assault, the thought crossed my mind, was I the only person he had ever violently assaulted? So I called up his ex-wife and asked her if he had ever been violent during their marriage. She told me yes and gave me quite the earful. Apparently he had been abusive to her, their son when he was young, and even the family dog. So the fifth red flag is a history of abuse.

Needless to say, I was quite traumatized by the assault. Whenever I tried to talk to others about it, I could not even get through the story without bursting into tears. It was like I was reliving all that emotional pain and trauma over again.

One day in late 2016, the Lord led me to read the book of Matthew. That testimony is documented in “The Miracle of the Birds”, located here: The Miracle of the Birds.

Not only did I read the book of Matthew but I was determined to do what it said to do. It said that I needed to forgive all those people in my life who had hurt me. So I wrote down the names of every single person who had hurt me in my life and I started trying to forgive them. I started praying for them and asked the Lord to bless them.

The problem was that some of them had hurt me so badly and the scars were so deep that I wasn’t even sure I could forgive. When I told my counselor how I was struggling with forgiveness, she suggested that I write letters to the people who hurt me describing how they hurt me. So I did that but, of course, I did not send the letters. Those letters were not about them but me. Instead I prayed over the letters and asked God to help me forgive them and to heal my heart. Slowly over time, that is exactly what He did.

Then in 2018 I met a new friend while walking around my neighborhood. One day she asked me what happened in my marriage. So I told her everything, leaving nothing out including how my husband had violently assaulted me.

But this time, talking about the event felt completely different. I felt no pain or sorrow at all. It was almost like it had happened to someone else. That was how emotionally detached I was from the pain.

After she left, I marveled at how perfectly fine I felt. For the first time, all my trauma and grief was healed! Jesus had done the impossible – He had healed my traumatized heart!

Scriptures

PSALM 50:18 When you saw a thief, then you consented with him, and have been partaker with adulterers.
ECCLESIASTES 7:9 Do not hasten in your spirit to be angry, For anger rests in the bosom of fools.

PSALM 37:8 Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; Do not fret—it only causes harm.

PROVERBS 15:18 A wrathful man stirs up strife, But he who is slow to anger allays contention.

PROVERBS 16:32 He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

PROVERBS 19:11 The discretion of a man makes him slow to anger, And his glory is to overlook a transgression.

PROVERBS12:10 A righteous man regards the life of his animal, But the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.

EPHESIANS 4:31 Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. 32And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

COLOSSIANS 3:8 But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth.

JAMES 1:19 So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; 20for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

PROVERBS 3:34 Surely He scorns the scornful, But gives grace to the humble.

PROVERBS 29:8 Scoffers set a city aflame, But wise men turn away wrath.

2 CORINTHIANS 6:14 Be you not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion has light with darkness?

JAMES 4:11 Don’t speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God’s law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you.

ROMANS 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

1 CORINTHIANS 13:5 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

LUKE 6:37 Judge not, and you shall not be judged: condemn not, and you shall not be condemned: forgive, and you shall be forgiven:

MATTHEW 6:12 And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.

MATTHEW 18:21 Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” 22Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.

MATTHEW 18:32 Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. 33Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’ 34And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. 35“So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”

LUKE 18:28 But He said, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”

Author: Dana R

The Lord began drawing Dana to Him about six months before she was saved. By January of 2015, the urgency to make a decision about God was so strong, that it was all she could think about, but she was clueless how to even get saved. One day in her bedroom, she cried out to God telling him she really wanted to be saved, but she didn’t know how. Then she had the thought, maybe she could Google it. And that’s what she did. She found instructions on the Internet and said the Salvation prayer out loud.

In 2017 the Lord led her 600 miles away from her family, friends and home to a place she had never been and did not want to go – Missouri. Then in April of 2019 the Lord gave her a vision of a woman sitting at a desk, writing on paper. That’s when she knew He wanted her to write, but what on earth could she possibly write about? Then in July of 2020 the Lord gave her a vision of an eyebrow pencil outlining a woman’s eye. She interpreted that to mean “I OUTLINE”. And that is exactly what He did. And that’s how the Lord got her to pick up her pen.

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