Be ready to serve domestic violence victims

Some days don’t turn out the way you expected. One Sunday, while most people were waking up slowly, snuggling their kids, drinking coffee, or watching morning TV, one woman was driving around the local area with her child, looking for a safe place, in abject terror for her life.

When she came into church, people knew that she was different to them. She didn’t look the same or sound the same. She was highly agitated and slurring. She was babbling a torrent of facts and thoughts and fears, breaking into sobs.

Our first service of the day was just finishing. People were starting wander towards her, looking for some morning tea.

What would you do?

Sometimes reality breaks into our world in the most jarring way, like the cracking of a mirror. We like to think that we will be ready. We like to think that, as God’s people, we know how to act. But when the mirror cracks, what do we actually do?

What do you do when someone doesn’t want to speak to the authorities because they are terrified their child will be taken away? What do you do when you find out they have already had other children taken away because of domestic violence from partners? What do you do when they don’t want to talk to the police because they have a history of drug addiction and a criminal record, and the police “don’t help people like me”?

In the book of James we are shown that our deeds are the evidence of our faith (Jas 1:22-25). If we really trust in God, our deeds will speak to that. That doesn’t mean that we will take every person into our homes—it might, but not necessarily. What it does mean is that we can’t absolve ourselves of responsibility, or try and pass people on. We couldn’t just take her to a police station and leave her there, or tell her to go to another family member’s house. She’d have left the police station. Her partner would have found her at a relative’s home.

In God’s great sovereignty, our church Glenmore Park Anglican’s Hope+Help ministry has built a relationship with one of the local women’s refuges over the last four years. We have also recently partnered with Anglicare to become a local emergency relief point.¹ This meant we had met this woman some months before, and we knew her caseworker. Someone had graciously donated $150 to Hope+Help, so we were able to use the money to take her to a hotel. The goods from Anglicare meant she had some food and toiletries. We spoke to her caseworker the next day to make sure she went to people she trusted.

And then we prayed. And prayed. And prayed.

Looking back, some things become clear, even in the reflection of a cracked mirror:

1. In God’s great sovereignty, he had brought her to a safe place.
2. In his graciousness, she was created by him and in his image, so she had dignity and value in his eyes, and therefore ours as well.
3. While God is huge and powerful, he is also close and present in all the details. He brought her to a place where she happened to know someone from her interactions with the refuge, and to a place that was recently equipped to support her materially in her moment of need.
4. The story is not over. At the time we felt as though we had risen to God’s challenge and responded as good and faithful servants, but we can never sit back and high-five each other about what great Christians we are. For this woman, the story will never be over. After a life of abuse at the hands of people she had every right to expect care from, the idea of entering the refuge was too much. After seeing her caseworker, she decided to go home. ‘Normal’ people might think that was crazy. But this woman has had years of abuse. It’s her ‘home’. It’s all she’s ever known. The idea of going to the emptiness and loneliness and uncertainty of the refuge felt like entering a new kind of prison—and it was too much.

I sadly feel certain that this will not be the last case like this we encounter—I pray it is not the last we see and hear from this woman. I am also tragically aware, given that one in three women have experienced physical violence in Australia, that there are certainly women (and men) in our churches who are experiencing all kinds of abuse right now.

The principal of Moore College, Mark Thompson, in a seminar recently stated that “Any form of domestic violence needs to be called out for what it is: a grotesque distortion of biblical teaching that dishonors God”.² We are stewards and protectors of God’s word in this world, so this is something we gear up for.

We need to be aware, trained, equipped and ready. The mirror is cracked and creation is groaning. But, if we trust God with all our heart and mind and strength, we need to trust him to guide us in our responses to difficult situations, even when it’s not what we expected, when it’s not what we’re used to, or when it’s not convenient for us.

I pray for all people facing these issues. I pray our churches will be places of safety. I pray people will seek out our buildings and communities and God himself. I pray for all of us to be strong and enduring in our faith, so that our actions clearly glorify God.

Australian National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1800 799 7233

1. Anglicare is the Christian care arm of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney.↩

2. M Thompson, ‘Confusion about the Trinity: How the Father relates to the Son’, Equip Leaders Conference, Thursday 10 November 2016.↩