As I got ready to unlock the church for a brother and sister, the two began to fight, leading the brother to accuse her of all kinds of things. “Do you know what she uses all your money for? Why don’t you tell him! Tell him what you do with the money!”
Confused by the sudden arguing, I eventually told them both to stay in the car while I went inside the church to get the food. The woman was so angry that she started hitting the man in the face. He got out of the car immediately as I yelled at her to stop. She then threw the car into drive and sped away loudly.
I was now left with a stranger sitting on my church steps, holding his face. He didn’t appear to be bleeding—just timid and confused. I made sure he was okay and then asked what I could do for him. He asked for a ride to his parents’ house, where he could stay the night on their porch. I agreed to the request and walked inside to grab something when my phone started buzzing. It was the woman. I answered and suddenly found myself in a very different story from the one I thought I was living.
“Why would you just leave your brother here like that?” I asked.
“What? That’s not my brother! That’s my abusive ex I’ve been telling you about! He turns everyone against me, just like he turned you against me just now! I kicked him out of the house, and he’s been living inside my car ever since, and I can’t get him out!”
My heart sank. The timid man on my front steps was not who I thought he was, and I was not about to drive an abusive manipulator home who was now only in my care because he was sleeping in a car he should have never been in. I couldn’t trust him, nor did I want to be in a car alone with him.
I came out and told him that I had just talked to his girlfriend and that I didn’t know that he had forced himself into her car without permission. I told him I couldn’t help him, but based on where he said his parents were, it wouldn’t be too far a walk. The man appeared confused and sad in response to the shift in dynamics.
“You’re not going to help me?” he said sadly. “I just got beat up. You’re going to make me walk?”
“Sorry, man,” I said as I pointed. “You’ll want to head in that direction based on what you told me. It’s not that far.”
At that point, he dropped the charade and his voice shifted entirely. “Oh, I see how it is. Well, guess what? I will remember your name, Jameson. And as soon as I find the police, I’ll tell them about what you did!”
As I went back inside the church, I couldn’t help but want to laugh at the idea of him reporting someone named Jameson to the police for not giving him a ride home. I stuck around the church for a while to ensure he left the property and didn’t mess with the building. Strangely enough, I saw him try to flag down a cop who drove past, so I called the police and informed them of the situation.
I wish I could say the story got better after that, but the woman was stuck in a multitude of situations that made life incredibly difficult. Over the next few years, I had to figure out when I could help, when I couldn’t, and when helping hurt. The abusive boyfriend continued to play a part in the background throughout much of her story, which continued to exacerbate the difficulties already there.
We do our best to pastor faithfully in complicated situations, which can be quite messy sometimes. If the topic of abuse is new to you, here are a few heartbreaking, but important books to check out:
No Place for Abuse: Biblical & Practical Resources to Counteract Domestic Violence by Catherine Clark Kroeger and Nancy Nason-Clark
Children Who See Too Much: Lessons from the Child Witness to Violence Project by Betsy McAlister Groves
The Cross and Gendercide: A Theological Response to Global Violence Against Women and Girls by Elizabeth Gerhardt
The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help by Jackson Katz
Jamin Bradley 
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