Hello everyone! It has indeed been a busy week before Christmas! I wanted to sit on this topic before I put keys to screen so to speak. I know this topic may sound morbid, especially for this time of year but bear with me. Many of us are dying on symbolic alters we had no business lying down upon so someone else could sacrifice us for their own selfish purposes and then call it “godly” or call it “loyalty”. I’ll get to the marriage altar building in a minute. Yes, I got to the heart of matter quickly today. What brought this topic to the forefront you ask?
I recently joined the Red Table Talk’s private group on social media. I like how the members of Red Table Talk are transparent, ask hard questions, and get real without hurting others. This family really wants to help others and they don’t shy away from sensitive or hard topics. I really want to help others, so I joined the conversation, not as an author but as a real person who has experienced some of these real problems. I noticed a theme on several posts (not all). I noticed there were many women appeasing various kinds of men who don't love them to keep the peace. I have done this myself in the abusive marriage I came out of a few years back. Ladies don't die on that altar, those who expect it of you will sacrifice you there. Also, I implore you! Please do not die on the marriage altar if you are in an abusive situation trying to hold it together. Your abuser has no problem sacrificing you there either. Get up from that altar and get out!
If he's not healthy emotionally, and he's not interested in fixing that, it's time to go. You are worthy of more. You are worthy of love AND respect! Get up from that altar! It is not yours to die on! Jesus neither condones abuse nor does He expect us to live with it in any of its forms. If anyone is telling you to sacrifice yourself on the altar of marriage to tolerate abuse for the “sake of the marriage”, they are lying to you and are deceived themselves. They have built a marriage altar and they will have no problem sacrificing you and your family on it. They have elevated marriage to a place of worship above the King Himself! They are indeed deceived because they are worshipping the institution over the One who created the institution. We were not created as men and women to worship the institution of marriage at a makeshift altar of our own. We were created to worship the King who teaches us how to love and how to live sacrificially without hurting others. He died so we could be free of the all other altars and the chains that come with them!
Let me put it another way. Jesus is the person of God in love, grace and covenant – meaning He keeps his promises. Abusers are the opposite of love, grace and covenant. They don’t keep promises and they don’t know what love is at all – they don’t even love themselves. They break covenant when they use abuse in the marriage. Partners in marriage are to make sacrifices for the good of one another that don’t hurt each other. When all the sacrifice is on one person, then the other partner (usually the abusive partner) has built an altar to themselves and they will demand a sacrifice. Do you see what I’m getting at here?
Don’t die on that altar! You don’t have to! And gentlemen, I know there are women who abuse too. You don’t have to die on the altar of a woman who is abusing you either. We don’t have to be sacrificed on the alter of abuse to save face, save a marriage, be a Christian, a non-Christian, or anything else for that matter. We were simply not made for this! We were made for life and freedom! I say to you get up from that altar! You were made for freedom and you were made for more! Jesus died to set us free from such things, not to bind us to them! Anyone using His name to bind you to anything evil is a liar! I got up from the altar made to destroy me. I had to choose to get up! You can too! Get up, unbind yourself from evil, and be free! Get up men and women! Get up! Love, Elizabeth