For Blessing or for Destruction: God Lessons of Redemption and Hope from the Pit of an Abusive Marriage

By Abigail Skyz

Abby never dreamed she would not be the one to finish raising her children. After all she was the one who had the encounter with Jesus Christ that changed her life forever. How did this happen, where did she go wrong? The reader will explore the aftermath from Abbys personal experiences as she walked through the floods that ravaged her home and how she survived to tell about it.

Had this book been available in 1977, Abby would have bought it. It would have been a source to help open her eyes on the importance of identifying and healing her own past childhood hurts in order to become healthy emotionally and empowered to stay away from unhealthy abusive men. Abby would have learned how to proactively help her children, guiding them on the road to healthy, happy productive lives from the start. It is a delicate and awkward subject discussing an abusive marriage that entails child sexual abuse and the horrific after effects of such abuse. Could it be that God called Abby into His kingdom for such a time as this?

Former co-host of the 700 Club Sheila Walsh, wrote a book titled Honestly, that book was a key factor in helping Abby to face and process her own past childhood trauma.

All I can say is WOW this is as much a self-help book as it is a Memoir. Donna Vigil R.N.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512745900

Abigail Skyz

Abigail Skyz is the third born in a family of five, four girls and one boy born to Earl Hubert Wilfong and the late Mildred Loraine Crowley. She accepted Christ as her Savior at the age of nineteen and was baptized in the Holy Spirit and Fire at the age of twenty-one committing her life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. She has been serving the Lord in a variety of capacities ever since. Abby holds a Master’s Degree of Theology in Christian Counseling, she is a member of the American Association of Christian Counselors, is ordained, is a Certified In-Prison-Seminar Instructor and has served on a local International Women’s Aglow advisory board as Vice President. For fifteen years she has concentrated her ministry and volunteer counseling on incarcerated youth. Her method is based on teaching Biblical life skills to be applied in everyday life. Prior to writing her memoir she considered herself a tent maker much like the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. Her tent making consisted mostly of working in acute care facilities as a Nurse Assistant and as a Certified Lab Technician to support her volunteer ministry in the juvenile detention centers, jails and prisons. She later worked for an International Christian Radio Ministry. Since the day Abby met Jesus Christ in 1977 her passion has been to help troubled youth. Her burden to seek answers for helping the incarcerated inspired her to write her Master Thesis on The Need for Biblical Regeneration for Youth Sex Offenders. The sexual abuse of young boys in our country has escalated and many of these bruised reeds in turn have molested other children. Abby feels if we can reach them with the truth while they are still young, their future children and others will be spared from suffering the same abuse they received. She dreams of one day owning her own Ranch house for troubled teens, calling it the Sons of Thunder home. Abby is divorced and has two adult sons and three grandchildren, two grandsons and one granddaughter. She currently lives in Northern California with her Lhasa Apso, Elvis.

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© 2016 Abigail Skyz.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-4591-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-4592-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-4590-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016909800

WestBow Press rev. date: 06/29/2016

Contents

Dedication

Gratitude

Introduction

1 What Is Wrong with Me?

2 Getting Married

3 Being Pregnant, My Beautiful Firstborn

4 The Battle for My Child

5 When Love Came Down

6 Leaving Again

7 Chosen

8 Holy Spirit, My Teacher

9 To Heed the Call of God

10 God Speaks

11 Loneliness

12 In The Wilderness

13 History Repeats Itself

14 The Battle Rages

15 Unhealthy Choices

16 Sacrificing My Isaac

17 No Fairy-Tale Ending

Epilogue

Appendix A Christianity Is Having a Relationship with Christ

Appendix B Unresolved Long Term Effects for Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse

Appendix C Warning Signs of Potential Abusers

Appendix D The National Domestic Violence Hotline

Selected Bibliography

Cover design and Photography by Alexandra Lee

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Art on page 143 designed by Isabelle Logie

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Front cover Ring Pillow designed by (www.NatalysWeddingArt.com)

Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, The King James Study Bible, The Annotated Study Bible, King James Version, copyright © 1988 by Liberty University. Concordance copyright © 1981 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Scripture quotations identified NASB are from The Holy Bible, New American Standard Bible, The Ryrie Study Bible, copyright © The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by the Lockman Foundation. (www.Lockman.org).

Scripture quotations identified NIV are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, Bible. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations identified NKJV are from The Holy Bible, The New King James Version, Spiritual Warfare Bible, copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved.

Isaiah 43:2

When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.

Dedication

To my two sons, Trevor and Taylor whom I love dearly.

May the words within this memoir allow us to journey together to our past, not for the purpose of blaming our sorrows and pain on any one person, but for the purpose of letting go; being released from our hurt, allowing us together - the ability to heal.

Facing the Truth will break the power of the past, it will unleash a positive change into the deep places of your life. When a person faces the Truth at first it will cut deeply, but then the Truth will heal those deep places and then it will set you free. Truth always sets free in the end.

I’m asking you in some ways to go backwards with me, and I ask you this – in order that – together we can move forward to a bright and healthy future.

With All My Love,

Mom

Gratitude

I am grateful for my sister Victoria who never gave up on me. Thank you for all the years you encouraged me to write my story.

My gratitude also to Dr. Larry Snyder, my general practitioner, who encouraged me to write my story so that my boys would know the truth.

For You, Heavenly Father, Son Jesus & Holy Spirit, most of all. Without Your help, this book would not have been created.

Introduction

He Restores My Soul

He restoreth my soul; He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

(Psalm 23:3)

From as far back as I can remember, shame defined my life. Toxic shame flooded my soul and kept me from knowing my true value as a human being. Could it be that the enemy of our soul used this indignity to lead me into a bad marriage? Satan, who seeks to kill and destroy, was at work on my marriage and family. Maybe my involvement with this man, who himself was filled with pain and had many problems, was my way of connecting with my own deep anxiety or dread.

This book is written for victims and survivors of domestic violence, which includes incest. For Blessing or for Destruction will encourage victims to face their own past childhood trauma; not for condemning the person through whom the abuse came, but for understanding that unresolved issues from our past can affect our present and our future in a very negative way.

This is a book of hope. Gaining insight into one’s personality can help one to change for the better and make healthy choices. The apostle Paul wrote his New Testament epistles to educate the churches (we are the church) and to help them gain insight into their behavior. If you evaluate it from a scientific standpoint, then you would come to this conclusion: A person cannot change if he does not know the problem.¹¹

Why do women stay with abusive men or why do they go from one bad relationship into another? Why does prison become a revolving door for so many? I believe it is because we do not break down our denial that we were abused as children—or that the abuse damaged us in any way.

There is no excuse for another human being to abuse a child but it happens. Until that child faces and deals with their own abuse they will continue to be victimized. And sad to say some even turn into victimizers. When someone has a history of physical, mental, verbal, spiritual or sexual abuse they will have difficulty in forming and maintaining intimate relationships. Intimacy deficits are the hallmark symptom of a history of child abuse. ² It is a fact: sin wounds our soul whether it is our sin or someone sinning against us.

Dr. Berlin, a Christian psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Washington, D.C., equates the trauma of child sexual abuse to the trauma experienced by combat soldiers, rape victims, and survivors of hurricanes and plane crashes. ³ Repressed trauma is often diagnosed by medical professionals as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Dr. Berlin states that traumatic memories cannot be willed away and contrary to most beliefs time does not heal wounds. They can be resolved only if they are processed. If left alone they are like a geological fault line hidden beneath the surface in a person’s life.

When a parent or another adult is sexually abusing a child, the victim concludes that they are bad and that is why this is happening to them. Children believe adults are always right and they should be obeyed. Therefore, the child being abused by someone close to him concludes, I am as bad as whatever is being done to me.

This is a time to tell my side of the story that addresses what a mother goes through when she discovers her sons have been sexually abused. A time to share all the mistakes and unwise choices that I (as a born-again Christian mother) made as I walked through this very hard time.

THE PROBLEM OF DOMESTIC ABUSE IS VERY REAL:

• Every 9 seconds in the United States, a woman is assaulted or beaten.

• Every day in the United States, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends.

• Women ages twenty to twenty-four are at greatest risk of becoming victims of domestic violence.

• Research indicates that 46 percent of children who are raped are victims of family members.

In a study of male survivors of child sexual abuse, over eighty percent had a history of substance abuse, fifty percent had suicidal thoughts, twenty-three percent attempted suicide, almost seventy percent received psychological treatment, and thirty-one percent had violently victimized others.

This book is designed to help not only victims of domestic violence and incest survivors but also pastors, family therapists, support groups and others who are helping their families and friends break free from the cycle of abuse. Each chapter has Scripture verses that will link survivors to the One who brings deliverance, healing, and wholeness, Jesus Christ!

1

What Is Wrong with Me?

Proud men have hidden a snare for me; they have spread out the cords of their net and have set traps for me along my path.

(Psalm 140:5)

What is it like to be married to Johnny? I said, Like being married to Satan manifested in the flesh. A pastor who counseled me in 1978 asked me that question, and I easily summed it up in the evilest spirit I could think of.

After being married to Johnny, I felt like he hated me; I felt like he hated all women. A friend of Johnny’s family tried to warn me not to marry him by telling me that he had once put his fist in his own mother’s face and had knocked down the girl he dated before me. I did not let her words sway me. As a seventeen-year-old, I believed that would all change when we got married.

I was a senior in high school when I started dating Johnny. He was twenty, out of high school for a few years, and just out of the army having returned from Vietnam. At that time, I was excited about going to my high school prom, but Johnny said he would not take me. Johnny’s cousin, who graduated when I did, took me to the prom. Gregory was a kind, courteous person, and we both fully enjoyed ourselves.

I continued to date Johnny and felt humiliated when he would flirt with other women as I stood by. Sometimes he would slap me in the face and then other times he would stand me up for dates. More than once I got ready to go out with him and he never showed up or called me.

Reflecting back to our courtship days, there were many times as I was leaving for school in the morning when Johnny’s car would be parked in front of our house with him sleeping in it. I felt sorry for him thinking he had no home to go to, and it bothered me that my parents did not feel sorry for him.

DISAPPROVAL OF JOHNNY

My parents did everything they knew to get me away from Johnny. Once they sent me to live a few hundred miles away with my sister Christine and her husband. Johnny drove up there to see me. My sister and her husband let him stay at their home with me. After a few weeks Johnny drove me home and dropped me off at the airport where my mother picked me up. They later sent me to my biological father’s home about twelve hundred miles away. That did not work either. The more my parents tried to get me to break up with Johnny, the more I rebelled against them.

Although I have taken full responsibility for the wrong choices I have made, looking back I really do think a little reverse psychology would have worked wonders with me. If my parents had not made such a big deal of my dating Johnny, I think I would have eventually broken up with him. There was never any real attraction between us.

My stepdad tried to bargain with me and offered to pay my way through college and buy me a new car if I would not marry Johnny. I seriously considered his offer. But when he added that I would also have to stop smoking cigarettes, I said no because I knew that was one habit I could not break.

When I did not accept my stepdad’s offer he threw a hundred-dollar bill at me and told me to go to a court-house to get married. He said there was no- way he would pay for me to have a church wedding the way he did for my sister Christine. He’d spent thousands of dollars on her wedding and reception.

One of the Ten Commandments with a promise, found in Exodus 20:12, instructs children to obey their parents so that they would live long lives and it would go well with them. Nothing went well with me after I married Johnny. Obeying God’s Word is for our safety and protection. God does not say that I am to obey my parents only if they are Christian or if they are perfect; it says to obey them just because they are my parents. The only time I am to disobey authority figures is if they ask me to sin.

JOHNNY’S FAMILY

Johnny’s childhood was different than mine. His dad had hurt his back on a construction job when Johnny was quite young and he brought his family up on a disability check.

His parents became Pentecostal church members when Johnny was five or six years old. From the way Johnny described it, his parents practically lived at the church and required Johnny and his three siblings to be there every night of the week also. Johnny told me of the many miracles that took place in that church during the time they were committed churchgoers.

When Johnny was eight-years-old he became ill with his appendix about to burst. His parents were watching a healing service on TV and when the evangelist began to pray for healings, they had Johnny put his hand on the TV to receive healing in his body. He was healed instantly. His mother taught him that he was saved because of that experience. If I understood Johnny correctly, he was taught that he could do whatever he wanted and when he died he would still go to heaven because of the miracle of healing that took place in his body that day. The sad thing about this false teaching is the fact that receiving a miraculous healing does not mean you are saved from your sin. I do not think his family knew what it really meant to be saved or how to attain it. Maybe they had at one time known the way to God our Father, but by the time I had met them, they had certainly lost their way.

Johnny was thirteen when his mother left the family and this left his father to care for Johnny and his three siblings. Johnny said that before his mother abandoned them she would stay in bed all day and read her Bible, never getting up to clean the house or fix meals for the family.

I have learned a lesson from listening to hearsay like this. The Bible tells us to not judge for we will be judged by the same measure we use to judge others (Matthew 7:1-2). I believe that in those days I had judged my mother-in-law harshly, feeling that my husband treated me badly because she abandoned him and did not treat him right.

I have since repented after losing both my sons to their dad after our divorce. This made me rethink her situation that maybe this woman was driven out of her home. Maybe she had a good reason to leave and maybe she wanted her children with her. There are a lot of maybes here; I have repented for judging her and she has since passed away. I wish I could have heard her side of the story about why she left but I heard only what my husband said about her.

Because of Johnny’s bad childhood I found myself always making excuses for him. When he treated me badly I blamed his parents. As a result, I never made him accountable for the way he treated my two sons and me.

MY FAMILY DYNAMICS

My stepdad was a hard worker and a good provider financially but his workaholic and perfectionist tendencies made him strict. His black curly hair, always clean-cut gave him a rugged look. Black bushy eyebrows framed his dark eyes. He ruled our home with an iron fist. When I tried to joke with him he accused me of being sarcastic and would usually smack me in the face. People often commented on how well-behaved my siblings and I were.

Vacationing one summer, we stopped at a restaurant. After serving us, the waitress confessed that when she saw us coming with five kids ages seven to fifteen she did not want to serve our table, now she was happy she did. She had never seen that many kids together who were so polite and well behaved. We did look like the perfect family.

Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.

(Col. 3:21)

Dinnertime with my stepdad always brought a great deal of stress. He jabbed us with his fork at the table. Maybe we had talked with food in our mouth, spilled some milk, or reached for the butter without first saying, please pass the butter. His perfectionism convinced him that his reasoning was justified. My little brother suffered greatly by this. For some reason he treated my little brother worse than any of us girls. It had gotten so bad that my mother eventually put a small table in the living room for my brother to eat his meals alone. He ran away from home when he was fifteen and moved to another state with his friends and their family.

My Stepdad married my mother when I was two years old. He was twenty-three and my mother was twenty-five. I always thought of my mother as being beautiful when I was a child. Standing five foot three, she never weighed over 125 pounds. She kept her dark brown hair short and often had blond highlights put in. She took good care of not only her outward appearance but also that of all five children. They made sure we bathed and brushed our teeth every night before going to bed. Our stepdad would always check our toothbrush to make sure we did as we were told. We always had new clothes for school and plenty of home cooked meals. Both parents were perfectionists when it came to cleaning the house. Our stepdad would sometimes give it the white-glove test. If my siblings and I were watching television when we heard his truck pull in the driveway we jumped up and pretended to be cleaning the house.

My mother was a good cook and I do miss her home cooking especially on holidays. I always wanted to learn from my mother how to cook but she would not let me in the kitchen while she cooked. I taught myself after I married. I especially loved making pies from scratch. I did have a little help in the beginning. The first year of our marriage my next-door neighbor taught me how to cook a few things. An older woman, she and her husband managed and ran a café on a golf course and chili was their menu specialty. However, she did not teach me how to make mashed potatoes. The first year Johnny and I were married I had worked hard preparing mashed potatoes to go with our dinner. But I was too embarrassed to put them on the dinner table because they looked like paste. Johnny knew I felt bad so he filled his plate with my pasty mashed potatoes and ate every bite. This is one kind moment I remember about him. I wish my mother would have taught me to cook but it was not to be.

My mother birthed two sets of twins. The first set, Mary and Martha were identical twins born four years before me and died a few minutes after birth. She carried them full-term and felt they died because of the doctor’s negligence. The other set of twins is my little brother and sister who were born eighteen months after me. I was the middle child with two younger and two older siblings. I and all six siblings had the same biological father.

Although I grew up with four siblings I recall being by myself a lot. Each sibling had their own friends and I was alone most of the time. As a teenager that changed some because Christine was only one year older and we spent three years of high school together. During those three years we went on double dates and did most things together. It was difficult doing my senior year without her I missed having her around.

When Christine was fourteen and I was thirteen we were babysitting our two-year-old niece Angel. My brother took Angels candy and she would not stop crying. My stepdad was outside working in the yard when he heard Angel crying. He came in the house and beat Christine and I so hard with his belt, telling us we should be watching Angel more closely to keep her from crying. As he was beating me I fell off the bed. While thrashing on the floor to avoid the lashes my foot got caught under the bed twisting and spraining my ankle.

After the beating I thought he must really hate me, my heart hurt worse than the welts. As Christine and I lay on our twin beds crying my stepdad came back and opened our bedroom door. Standing in the doorway he said he was sorry for beating us and that he loved us. He closed the door and went back to the garage. That is the only time I remember my stepdad saying he loved me.

During those childhood years, I learned to cover my wounded heart with anger and hate for my stepdad. Because it is not good to be angry with parents, I learned to bury my resentment deep inside. I suspect that during those tender years I had developed negative beliefs and expectancies that all men would treat me