Are you feeling lost? Afraid? Overwhelmed? Heartbroken?
Betrayal, emotional abuse, and sexual coercion are crushing, life-altering, experiences that may feel impossible to resolve. But you can find healing. You can find peace. You can find yourself again – and prayer can help you.
Sarah McDugal from Wilderness to Wild joins Anne on the free BTR Podcast to share her own heartfelt testimony of the power of prayer. Listen to the free BTR podcast and read the full transcript below for more.
Prayer Can Remind You That You’re Not Alone
Betrayed and abused women often feel devastatingly lonely and isolated. Their problems feel so overwhelming and impossible to solve that even explaining them to another person feels like too much.
Praying to your Higher Power can help you remember that you are not alone. You don’t have to explain your entire story to your Higher Power, you don’t have to justify your feelings, you don’t have to defend your abuser.
The freedom of speaking openly to your Higher Power about your fears, worries, sorrows, grief, and terror without fear of judgment or the overwhelming exhaustion of having to explain everything in great detail can be immensely healing.
Prayer Can Help You Experience A “Quiet Mind”
I experienced the power of releasing the stress and choosing to trust, and of allowing God the space to interact and intervene, and one of the craziest things for me was realizing that my mind had gone quiet.
Sarah McDugal, Wilderness to Wild
Traumatized women often forget what it feels like to have a “quiet mind”. Trauma makes women go into emotional and mental overdrive so that anxiety, depression, fear, and anger can take over the mind. Peace, contentment, and silence are rare and elusive.
By expressing your feelings, hopes, fears, and worship to your Higher Power, you may find that your mind is clearer. You may begin to live in a space of a “quiet mind”
What is a Quiet Mind?
A mind that:
- Is free of fear
- Is not trying to “figure out” what the abuser did, meant, implied, is currently doing, is thinking, etc.
- Is not replaying traumatic events over and over again
- Is not plagued by fears of the future
- Is not filled with guilt, shame, self-loathing, or self-hatred for the abuse and betrayal
- Is content, peaceful, and present
Prayer Brings Victims Together
At BTR, we believe in the power of prayer. And we pray for you. We pray for your safety, for your comfort, for your happiness. We pray that abusers will be held accountable, that children will be cherished and protected, and that women will be honored and believed.
We also believe that prayer brings people together.
The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group is available to you every day in every single time zone. Meet other victims who want to support you as you begin your journey to healing.
You can find the peace you deserve, but you don’t have to do it alone.
And don’t forget to download Sarah’s free giveaway for you. Check it out here.
Full Transcript:
Anne: Welcome to Betrayal Trauma Recovery, this is Anne.
Well, Sarah and I are back on today’s episode. We’ve done three previous ones, so if you haven’t heard the ones with Sarah before go back and listen to those first and then join us here.
Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group
Before we get to that, many of you know about Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group, but the reason I put it at the beginning of each episode is that for some people this is the only episode they’ll ever listen to. They need to know that there is live unlimited support for them in a situation where they’re wondering if they’re being emotionally abused or psychologically abused or they’re experiencing sexual coercion in the form of their husband or ex-husband’s or boyfriend’s pornography use.
They need to know that this is an abuse issue, but they also need to know where to get help. Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group gives women unlimited live support online. You don’t have to make an appointment, you don’t have to go anywhere, you don’t have to get transportation. You can join under your bed, in the closet. You can join in your garage. We are here for you. Our coaches get it immediately.
How Does Prayer Help Abuse Victims?
Sarah and I have been talking a lot about the devaluing of women and how that has harmed women throughout all of time and continues to harm women now. Sarah has given lots of examples from modern books and concepts and spiritual culture that’s not necessarily Christ culture but that is inner woven into the scripting that we’ve listened to.
Today we’re going to talk about prayer and prayer groups and how prayer can help women heal but also how we can harness God’s power in our lives. I have had an experience praying with Sarah and it was life-changing for me and so incredible, so I asked her to come on the podcast actually talk about prayer in general and then pray for us as a group. All as the victim going through this, all survivors, all women who are experiencing betrayal who need God in their lives and who need to be able to just rest in God’s grace and in His love because we all know we’ve been battling this for so long. Really our battle, it’s exhausting. God loves us and He wants to fight this for us and so I’ve invited Sarah to pray for us as a group and for victims throughout the world. So, Sarah, can you talk about how prayer and prayer groups have helped you and have helped heal victims of abuse.
What Is “Quality Time In Prayer”?
Sarah: Absolutely. My parents were missionaries, and I grew up watching my parents pray, and being familiar with prayer, which I recognize not everybody grew up in that kind of environment. So, some people don’t have an innate childhood familiarity with prayer, but even growing up and becoming a clergy spouse, doing a lot of ministry work and stuff there were entire decades of my life where I did not have much of a thriving prayer life. I’ll just be honest, I mean, I prayed like everyone does I prayed over my food. I prayed, daily, probably, but a lot of it was kind of our standard approach to prayer. Like, oh, whoops, here’s a crisis, God help me out with this. Or you know a lot of times our prayers are kind of just like gimme, gimme, gimme, oh thanks, and punctuated now and then with a whale of whiny or anger at God, which is totally okay; God can handle that.
But my life began to drastically change when I realized that I was going to make it a priority to spend significant quality time in prayer.
40 Days Of Prayer
So a few years ago, I had been a single mom for a while and I had kind of been going to date somebody and it didn’t work out, and I was really glad that it didn’t work out, but at the same time, I was really bummed. I decided that instead of letting myself spiral into frustration and disappointment, and that discouragement that comes with realizing, hey, that wasn’t going work out. I wanted to get out in front of it. So, I contacted a couple of girlfriends that I knew had also expressed a desire to pray more, and I said, hey, I have this crazy radical idea. What if we did 40 days of prayer together, and we’re like in three different time zones right. What if we committed to a phone call first thing in the morning? So that means, one of them was like six o’clock in the morning and when was seven o’clock in the morning in the morning, and I was nine o’clock in the morning or something like that, and what if we did it every single day for 40 days and we commit to not miss a single day, and they were down with it. I said, well, okay. I didn’t know that they were going to take me up on it, but I knew that I needed accountability, and I didn’t want to just have this experience alone. I wanted to share this experience with other people who were willing to be vulnerable in prayer and who were willing to really take things deeper than we ever had before.
Start Out Small, And See What Happens
So we decided to do this, and we started with 10 maybe 12 or 15 minutes of prayer, and we would kind of check-in and we would say, hey, is there something we need to pray about today, and we’d each share something and then we would write it down and we each kept a journal where we wrote down every day of the 40 days of prayer, prayer requests, and then we would each take a quick turn praying. As the time went on, by the time the 40 days were over, we were regularly spending two, two and a half hours in that block of prayer time. I still can’t tell you how the rest of our stuff got done every day, because it just didn’t make any sense.
“I Saw God Provide In Huge, Incredible Ways”
We were spending significant amounts of time because the more comfortable we got with it, the more natural it came and the more free-flowing our prayers were, and then we began to open the Word of God, and we began praying through Psalms, and we began praying in different passages from the Bible where we saw and read other prayers that had had powerful impacts at their time. So we said, if those prayers were powerful then why wouldn’t they be powerful now. And at the end of that 40 days, none of us could imagine moving on without that prayer time so we did another 40 days, and then we did another 40 days, and then we kind of backed off to two or three times a week, but none of us were the same after that. So, for me, I took an entire year, not a date, no time focused on other people like men, even though I was single, or any of those other things. Even though I had been facing incredible obstacles in various aspects of being a single parent, finances, and other things, I saw God provide in huge, incredible ways to make sure our needs were met over and over and over again, and I don’t believe that that’s because I’m better than anyone else. I don’t believe that that’s because I’m more deserving than anyone else. I just experienced the power of releasing the stress and choosing to trust, and of allowing God the space to interact and intervene, and one of the craziest things for me was realizing that my mind had gone quiet. No, I don’t mean that in a bad way,
Prayer Helps Abuse Victims Experience A “Quiet Mind”
Anne: I think I know where you’re going with this and I’m very excited. Well, before you go on, I don’t know if everybody else is thinking this when you said that but there are so many concerns and worries and your mind is just racing. How can I do this, what do I need to do, how can I improve? Or just the constant arguments with your abuser, even if you don’t even talk to them anymore just rehashing that argument in your head over and over and I’m like crazy and all the other things we go through. So, I’m thinking just having a quiet mind and trusting that things are okay would be such a blessing.
Sarah: That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I don’t know if I’d ever had a quiet brain before. I am such an overthinker, and I will lie in bed and just torture myself, naturally, with, oh, I think I said that wrong or, oh, I should go fix this, or you know, there are the 47 million things you’ve got to do before you go to bed at night and you’re always behind and you’re never getting everything done and feeling like you just can’t accomplish all the things. Especially if you’re going through trauma fog on any level if you’re going through the confusion and the gaslighting and the manipulation and all of those kinds of things. Which at that point, for me, I was single and I’ve been single for several years, but I just still had so many pressures and worries and how am I going to provide and how are we going to protect and how am I going to parent and how am I going to do all the things and do them well enough. For the first time in ever, I had a quiet brain, and I didn’t even realize it.
Prayer Helps Victims Find A “Sense Of Calm”
One day I was driving back from a bank, both my kids were in the backseat, and I guess I was muttering something to myself like I was having a conversation with myself and my lips were moving and my daughter pipes up from the backseat. She’s like, Mama, why are you talking to yourself? I stopped and I realized I hadn’t done that in forever. That was the first time I had done it in weeks. I hadn’t been playing conversations over in my head in the mirror. I haven’t been turning over every possible scenario with sub-scenarios for every possible plan Z in the shower. It had stopped, and what had replaced it was this incredible sense of calm, and one of the things that my girlfriend group began praying for was not that God would give us all the information, but just, God, when there’s something I need to know, reveal it to me. Make it known, and if you are not revealing anything to me, help me to sleep great. If you’re not telling me anything, there’s nothing for me to know, so I’m not going to stress about it because I trust that when there is something that I need to know, regardless of what it is, if it’s for the protection of my kids or whether it’s for my financial situation or whether it’s for work.
“It Worked, And It Still Works”
Whatever it is, if there’s something I need to know you will make it known to me at the right time and I trust that you will make sure that I have the information I need, to make the decisions I need to make, when the decisions need to be made. Otherwise, I am going to sleep; and it worked. It worked, and it still works. It worked through cancer. It worked through remarriage. It worked through all these different things. Just crazy curveballs that life keeps throwing. It works!
Prayer Can Help Victims Deal With Trauma Symptoms
Anne: Well, all of our listeners could use that because they’re all struggling with trauma symptoms, and not being able to sleep is definitely one of those symptoms. Well, I have experienced one of these meetings with Sarah, and it was amazing and incredible and brought me a lot of peace. So, I’ve invited her here to pray. We’re going to have a prayer over a podcast. If you can, if you’re not driving, or if you’re able to just stop and kneel, or sit, or whatever you want to do and just kind of make a little space for yourself to be a part of this prayer that would be great. If all of us can pray together at this moment, even though it’s on a podcast, even though it’s maybe asynchronous, so you might not listen to this podcast all the same time that there can be power in this prayer to help all victims of abuse get to safety and to protect their children.
The Psalms: A Good Starting Point For Prayer
Sara: That’s right. Well, I do want to say one little thing, the type of prayer that I’m going to do may be different from different people’s faith traditions and I completely respect that. So, I’m going to pray the way that I have found to be really meaningful to me, and I don’t expect it to be the way everyone prays or to be the way everyone chooses to pray after listening to this podcast. My recommendation is to take the word of God and ask Him to lead you to a passage that applies to your situation. There’s some great stuff in the Psalms and ask Him to connect with to let you enter His presence as you pray through that.
Prayer Is Not One-Size-Fits-All: Find What Works For You
There’s something really beautiful about taking the words that were penned by ancient Bible authors and letting those words speak for your situation too. I want to be sensitive to everyone’s different faith traditions because I know we have listeners on the podcast from everywhere. So, what I am going to do is go to the book of 2 Chronicles, in the Bible, Chapter 20. This is one of my favorite stories, and I’m going to show you how I kind of played through passages in the Bible. You can do this with Psalms, you can do this with the prayers that Jesus prayed, you can do it with other players in the Old Testament. Find things that really apply to you.
“This Story Can Apply To You”
This one, 2 Chronicles chapter 20 is a story; I’m going to set the stage just a little bit. It’s a story of the Israelites under the time of King Jehoshaphat, and he was terrified because three other tribal groups, tribal armies (the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Meunites) had declared war. All three of these guys had allied together with all of their armies to attack Israel. So, Jehoshaphat, in verse 3, was terrified by this news and he begged God for guidance, and also ordered everyone in Judah to begin fasting. So, people from all the towns of Judah came to Jerusalem to seek the Lord’s help. Have you ever been terrified? Have you ever been in a situation where you’re just scared to death? You’re scared to death for whatever it is: for how you’re going to pay for things and providing keep a roof over your kid’s head, you’re scared to death of the future, and what is unknown. You’re scared to death of finding out the truth after betrayal, you’re scared to death of safety, maybe. Whatever it is if you’ve ever been scared this story can apply to you.
2 Chronicles 20: A Prayer For The Afraid & Overwhelmed
So, Jehoshaphat stood, I’m in verse 5, before the community of Judah and Jerusalem in front of the new courtyard at the temple of the Lord and he prayed. This is where there’s a crucial element of this type of prayer. Jehoshaphat started by praising God, He started by acknowledging God’s power and God’s character, His capability to change the situation, and His heart of love for His people. So, he prayed, and now I’m going to pray with this prayer.
Oh, Lord. God of our ancestors, you alone are the God who is in heaven. You are the ruler of all the kingdoms of the earth. You are powerful and mighty, and no one can stand against you. Oh, our God, did you not drive out those who lived in his land when your people of Israel arrived, and did you not give this land forever to the descendants of your friend Abraham. Your people settled here and built this temple to honor your name. They said, whenever we are faced with any calamity such as war or plague or famine, and I would add, such as the breaking down of a family or the destruction of the marriage or the safety of our children, whenever we are faced with any calamity. We can come to stand in Your presence, before this temple, where your name is honored. We can cry out to You to save us, and You will hear us and rescue us.
“Oh, Our God, Won’t You Stop Them?”
Now, see what the armies of Ammon and Moab and Mount Steer are doing. You would not let our ancestors invade those nations when Israel left Egypt, so we went around them and didn’t destroy them. And now, see how they reward us, but they have come to throw us out of your land which you gave us as an inheritance. Lord, we have obeyed you in the past, and look at what we are feeling now. Look at this tragedy that is facing our family or our marriages and now. Oh, our God won’t you stop them? We are powerless against this mighty army that is about to attack us. God, as women we feel so small and helpless and inadequate. We don’t know what to do but we are looking to you for help. We are asking You, Father in Heaven, to be following through on the promises that you have given us. That you will follow through the way that you have followed through with our ancestors with those who have come before. We are asking You to honor Your name, for Your glory in our stories, in the traditions that we face, in the dilemmas that we face, in the decisions that seem so completely overwhelming.
“The Battle Is Not Yours, But God’s”
Just a little further down. It talks about how the Spirit of the Lord came upon, that was Jehoshaphat prayer and mine mixed in, but in verse 14 The Spirit of the Lord came upon one of the men standing there and He began to pray as well. He said, listen, all you people of Judah and Jerusalem, listen, King Jehoshaphat, this is what the Lord says. Women who are listening to the betrayal trauma podcast right now, this is what the Lord says, do not be afraid. Don’t be discouraged by this mighty army for the battle is not yours, but God’s. Tomorrow march out against them. You will find them coming up through the ascent of Ziz at the end of the valley that opens into the wilderness of Jeruel, but you will not even need to fight. Take your positions, and then stand still and watch the Lord’s victory.
Prayer Helps Betrayal Victims Find Peace In Chaos
Sisters, if you are listening to this right now, whatever overwhelming battle you are facing. And for some of you, you may be listening to it right now and you have something going on huge in your life tomorrow and this is just the perfect timing for that and if this is happening for you right now, listen to what God says, Don’t be afraid. Don’t be discouraged. This isn’t your battle. It is God’s battle. Do your preparation, put on your armor, pick up your position, and then stand firm and let God fight for you. Exodus 14:14 says, Be still and let God fight this battle. He is with you, daughters of Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid or discouraged, go out against them tomorrow for the Lord is with you. When this man stood up and prayed, King Jehoshaphat bowed low with his face to the ground, and I’m in verse 18 of 2 Chronicles chapter 20, and all the people did the same, and the Levites stood to praise the Lord, the God of Israel with a very loud shout. Now here’s a question, taking a break from the prayer for a second. Had God fought the battle yet? Could they see evidence of the conquered battlefield yet? Did it feel overwhelming, absolutely overwhelming?
“The Battle Was Not Yet Won, But They Were Calm”
Verse 20, The next morning, the army went out into the wilderness, and on the way, Jehoshaphat stopped, and he said, Listen to me all you people of Judah and Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God and you will be able to stand firm. This is where that trust comes in. This is where that sense of firmness and identity comes in because we believe that God is working even when we cannot see, and it gives you a backbone to not be pushed around. Believe in his profits and you will succeed. So after consulting the people, the king appointed singers to walk ahead of the army singing to the Lord and praising Him for His Holy splendor and this is what they say, Give thanks to the Lord for His faithful love endures forever. Again, the battle was not yet won but they were calm, and they were praising God for what he would do.
Prayer Can Help Victims Feel Less Alone
Verse 22 At the very moment they began to sing and give praise, the Lord caused the armies of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir to start fighting among themselves. The armies of Moab and Ammon turned against their allies from Mount Seir and killed every one of them and after they had destroyed the army of Seir, they begin attacking each other. So, when the army of Judah arrived at the lookout point in the wilderness, all they saw were dead bodies lying on the ground as far as they could see. Not a single one of the enemy had escaped. King Jehoshaphat and his men went out to gather the plunder. They found vast amounts of equipment and clothing and other valuables more than they could carry. There was so much that it took them three days just to collect it all, and on the fourth day, they gathered in the Valley of Blessing, which got its name that day because the people praised and thanked the Lord there. Then they marched into Jerusalem with the music of harps and lyres and trumpets and they proceeded to the temple of the Lord. When all the surrounding kingdoms heard that the Lord Himself had fought against the enemies of Israel the fear of God came over them. And so, Jehoshaphat’s kingdom was at peace. For his God had given him rest on every side.
Prayer Helps Victims Surrender What They Can’t Control
Now does this mean that we just pray this magic prayer and then suddenly we get wealth, and everything vanishes? No, it means that when we trust, when we focus on praise to God for what He has done, and for what He will do, that we give him space to work in ways that may just include having everyone else turn on each other when there is no spirit of God among them.
There’s a passage, talking about Joshua, that says that God came, and he said I have given you the victory before they even went out to fight. Joshua praised God for having given him the victory before it even happened. There’s a passage, a section in Numbers chapter 22 and 23 where Balaam, the children’s Bible story of Balaam and the donkey. Well, Balaam was riding that donkey to go to a rival king who wanted him as a prophet to curse Israel, and the donkey kept trying to turn around and go home because Balaam was not supposed to go. And Balaam wanted the money, and he went anyway. And when he got there. God said fine, you’re getting here. You decided to do this on your own. So, every time you open your mouth, and the other king wants you to deliver curses over God’s people, you’re going to utter blessings instead. So, every time Balaam opened his mouth to curse Israel, blessings came out. And the other king kept getting madder and madder and madder, and finally, he’s like, I brought you to curse my enemies instead you’ve blessed them. Balaam replied, I can only speak the message that the Lord puts in my mouth.
Prayer Helps Victims Face The Future With Courage
Maybe there are people in your life if you’re listening to this, who are trying to wreak havoc, trying to destroy you, and all you’re doing is seeking to live in truth and peace. You can pray like Balaam that every word that comes out of their mouth, that God turns their curses into blessings because he’s capable of doing that. Now is this some kind of prosperity gospel? No, it’s acknowledging the power of God to work in our circumstances when we trust Him enough to give Him the glory and to ask Him to keep His promises to us. So, if you are listening to this and you are worried sick about what is going to happen in your unknown future. You can go and you can pray like this. You can pray for God to take action as He has done before.
Helpful Prayers For Victims of Abuse
Psalm 27 is a great one. Psalm 16:9 is a fantastic one. Psalm 31 is another really good one. In fact, I want to end Anne, can we end on praying some out of Psalm 31?
Anne: Yes.
Sara: All right.
Oh Lord, we have come to You for protection. Don’t let us be disgraced. Save us, for what you do is right. Turn your ear, listen to me, rescue me quickly. Be my rock of protection, Lord, a fortress where I will be safe. You are my rock and my fortress, for the honor of Your Name lead me out of this danger. Pull me from the trap my enemy set for me, for I find protection in you alone. I entrust my spirit into your hand. Rescue me, Lord, For You are a faithful God. I hate those who worship worthless idols. I trust in the Lord. I will be glad and rejoice in your unfailing love for you have seen my troubles, and you care about the anguish of my soul. You have not handed me over to my enemies, but you have set me in a safe place. Thank you, Lord, for keeping these promises to us as your daughters. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Prayer Helps Abuse Victims See Miracles In Their Lives
Anne: I’m so grateful for your faith, Sarah, and I want those of you who believe in God; if you don’t believe in God, thank you for listening and thank you for just being here with us and spending this time with us, and if you do believe you know you need God. One of the things that Sarah and I talked about when we prayed in our meeting was that we would like to bear testimony of God’s existence and His love for us and His love for you. We would love to be able to hold our experiences up as an example of God’s love and as an example of him fulfilling His promises.
I think both Sarah and I can testify that we have seen miracles in our lives, and although we won’t share some of those here, publicly, that we have witnessed God’s love for us. We have witnessed miracles, we have witnessed his care, and one of the ways we have witnessed that is through our association with all of you, all of you listeners, all of the women who are struggling who genuinely want peace and safety and love in their homes, who genuinely want to do God’s will and do the right thing, and are struggling to know what that is. God loves you. He loves me, He loves Sarah, He loves all of us and wants to be a part of this. He wants to fight this battle for us. We were not meant to fight evil. I mean, I guess maybe we were, maybe that is the whole purpose of Earth life.
Prayer Can Help Victims Depend On Their Higher Power
Sarah: I feel like our place on earth has become this role of being warriors against evil. Not by desire, though, not by being like, here’s what I want to do when I grow up, just by default.
Anne: Yeah and here all of us are battling evil in our own homes. Battling evil to protect our own children and it really does feel hopeless at times. As she explained in those stories from the Bible, it feels impossible, but with God nothing is impossible, and we can with His help; not even with His help, He can do it for us. He can protect us. He can provide these miracles. I don’t know what it will look like and I don’t know what it will sound like, but I know that He is with us and that we are an army, right now, seeking to provide peace not only to our own homes but throughout the world.
Prayer Helps Victims Feel Hope
Sarah, thank you so much for praying for us and praying with us. I want to encourage everyone listening to begin to pray in any way that you feel comfortable, but if you do feel comfortable thinking of these stories from the Bible and how God saved his people, how He open up the Red Sea and help them walk to dry ground, how he immersed the enemies in water and was able to free them. Those stories, that perhaps we can see these types of miracles in our lives, and then hopefully share them here and with each other as a witness of God’s love for us and of His power.
Sarah: I love that. I love that idea. I think that we desperately need the sense that the situations that we face are not hopeless and hearing how God has led others through our types of similar journeys, is one of the most powerful ways to gain hope again. I mean, if we let our scars be our talking points for how God can take action in hopeless situations, then there’s nothing better than that I don’t think.
Prayer Helps Victims Identify Abuse
Anne: As I’ve been thinking about, I want to share the tips and the ways or the things I’ve learned along the way, right. I mean the miracles that have happened and the insight that I’ve learned, but I’ve just realized recently that it’s all due to God. I didn’t know that pornography use was abuse, and there are so many things I didn’t know and as I prayed for truth, and as I prayed for safety, God led me to know the things I know now and I still don’t know what I don’t know, but I need to acknowledge on this podcast publicly that none of the things that we do at Betrayal Trauma Recovery would have happened without God.
Every single thing that has happened, the team that has come like knowing Sarah, knowing the other sisters that I know are only because of God and I need to acknowledge that in this podcast and subsequent podcasts. That He is in this work, and that He loves us and cares about us and wants us to be peaceful, and my individual story and Sarah’s individual story is just one story in the sea of stories that God would like to see. He wants to see all of us safe and peaceful.
Prayer Brings Abuse Victims Together
Sarah: That’s his dream for us. I agree.
Anne: Sarah, thank you for spending so much time with us. It’s always good to connect with you and spend time with you in this sisterhood of the grace of God, and I’m so thankful that God brought you as a friend into my life, and that we can have the sisterhood together.
Sarah: Me too. Hang in there, and we will keep praying for each other and for every woman who is listening.
Anne: Sarah produces such amazing content to help women really process what is happening. I’m just so happy to have a partner in Sarah, that we’re both producing things like this to help victims get out of the fog.
“My Survivor Packing Checklist”
Sarah: That’s why we’re here. I mean, really, what else is there to do right? So. with today’s podcast episode, I want to make something really special and super useful available to you, it’s totally free, and it is called My Survivor Packing Checklist. Now, I know that seeking safety can feel really, really scary and it is absolutely important to have a safety plan. Now, I highly recommend that if you are in a difficult situation call the National Domestic Violence Hotline and have them help you make a safety plan. Don’t just rely on this, but in addition to doing something like that, it can be really scary to worry that you might forget something you really need, especially if you have kids. So, my team at Wild, knows that trauma fog is a super real thing, and we’ve done our best to take out the guesswork of what you might need to pack if you need to leave safely. So, the Survivor Packing Checklist is yours to download. The one thing that I ask is to save it in a safe place that doesn’t compromise your safety plan. So, you might want to ask a friend to download it or download it on a new email address or something. Just be super super wise and careful, if this applies to you, but if you need it it’s there.
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Anne: Sarah, thank you so much for creating this information for victims of abuse. It’s so important for women in trauma, who have a hard time processing information to have these really clear steps to take, and it’s so nice that you’ve done this for them to help them to get to safety. Thank you.
If this podcast has been helpful to you, please rate it on iTunes or your other podcasting apps. Every single one of your ratings helps isolated women find us. Here’s a five-star rating we just received. She says, “Such a gift. I just found this podcast yesterday and I am amazed at the truth spoken here. I have spent over five years trying to understand my situation and I’m so encouraged by what I have heard here. I am gaining such clarity through the information you’ve provided in these podcasts. Thank you.”
Support the BTR Podcast
So, if you want to help women get out of the chaos and the pain and the fog of abuse. One way to do that is to rate this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Another way to do that is to purchase the book Trauma Mama Husband Drama, and rate that book on Amazon, or share this podcast on social media. Even just little things, maybe two people who need to find this podcast, we’ll find it because of the action that you took. So, please make a difference and another woman’s life today by sharing this.
Similarly, please support this podcast to continue to help women throughout the world; and until next week, stay safe out there.
