Category: Getting Free

Book Recommendation: Dare to Fly by Senator Martha McSally

On By Jeff CrippenIn Getting Free5 Comments
One of our longtime blog followers (and my friend) sent me the following book recommendation. The author is now a U.S. Senator (Arizona) who is a retired Air Force officer, having served as a fighter pilot in many combat arenas. Martha McSally is also an abuse survivor and her life story will be a real encouragement to all.  You can find Dare to Fly on Amazon here*.
Here is the synopsis my friend sent me:
This week I received a copy of Senator Martha McSally’s new book, Dare To Fly: Simple Lessons in Never Giving Up. She was appointed to the US Senate from AZ, and is currently running for a full term. She is also a retired USAF Colonel., who led troops in Afghanistan! The first female fighter pilot to fly in combat and to command a fighter squadron in combat. I find her to be an inspiration. But even more, what she overcame!
So far I have only read chapter 10: “Thrive Through the Darkness”.
She tells of being sexually assaulted, abused and raped, first by her high school coach, and then in the USAF. She tells how the military structure, even in the Academy, allowed this to happen to women, and the measures she took to fight for reform, and how she personally “thrived” through this darkness. She is a believer. I will quote a paragraph here:
“It is important not to conflate forgiveness with reconciliation, because they are very different. Forgiveness is letting go of the offense and not letting it have any power over you anymore. Reconciliation is a restoration of the relationship. We are called to forgive, and we are freed when we forgive, but we are not necessarily called to reconcile with the other person.”
And more:
…”With the grace of God leading me, I was able to come to a true place of forgiveness, freed from the rage and sense of betrayal—feelings that were punishing me, not the man who assaulted me.”
My friend continues:
There is probably more inspiration to encourage women to fight through the challenges of life (and abuse) in this book. The military good ol’ boy structure reminds me of some churches.
*Unholy Charade is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for website owners to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking Amazon.com and affiliated sites.  See additional information here.

A Picture Really Does Say 1,000 Words

On By Jeff CrippenIn Getting Free6 Comments

This drawing was made by a young lady who has been growing wise to the evil that was committed against her when she was a little girl. She has realized that the little girl in her was so afraid that she pushed the memory of these things down and out of sight. But now she has grown older and wiser and courageous and is facing up to evil.  I find the picture to be very powerful and she hopes that it will be a help to many of you too:   “It’s ok, we’re safe now.”

America Celebrates Divorce from an Abuser on the 4th of July – Independence Day!

On By Jeff CrippenIn Getting Free7 Comments

Here is the beginning of the Declaration of Independence. It is a divorce decree. It is the recognition of a breach of covenant. We celebrate this divorce in the United States every July 4th. The purpose of this post is to simply put forth this question: If it was right and good for the American Colonies to divorce the King of England for his many and repeated abuses, if most all Americans including pastors and church members celebrate this Independence Day as a glorious win for freedom, how is it that these same pastors and church members insist that an abuse victim in a marriage has no right to divorce their abuser?

There is the question as all Americans wave flags and watch the fireworks and celebrate freedom from tyranny. How is it that so many professing Christians will deny the same freedom to a fellow believer who is suffering a present and evil tyranny right in their midst? It is quite common for churches to wave the flag and celebrate on this day, yet at the very same time they oppress the oppressed by demanding they remain in bondage to a wicked abuser.  The common double standard.

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The Unanimous Declaration of the
Thirteen United States of America
In Congress, July 4, 1776

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.