God allowed me to play a role in his plan to save a life. That sentence still is unbelievable to me.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised? I am going to retell the story of how this all happened from my point of view. This is a sensitive story and I had to get permission to share. My friend already read the story and asked me to include her name in it. She says it’s a part of who she is. She is brave and I am proud to be her friend.

I met Kristen at work about 2 years ago. We were in training together. Kristen and I didn’t speak for the first half of training. At the midpoint of training we took a personality test. This was an intense test that gathered all sorts of personality traits. Of course, when you read the results you agree with everything, they say about you. As an introvert, I knew my results would be A typical. What I didn’t know, was Kristen would get almost the exact same results as me. Our personality charts were identical. I was told this rarely happens. This obviously sparked a conversation. We were the odd ones in class that would rather not be in group projects or forced to present anything in a group setting. These conversations turned into lunches together. Those conversations turned into Kristen starting to share some of her personal stories. I remember her ending ever break by running to a quiet place to make a call. I knew she was married and figured it was for her husband. One afternoon she had to leave class abruptly. She gave the excuse that her husband fell at work and got a concussion. At the time I didn’t think anything of it. Her routine seemed set. She would come to work, go on break and make a phone call. Go to lunch, make a phone call. Go home and repeat.

After training had ended, we remained friends at work. Kristen began to share more of her story with me. She started by stating she had to make these phone calls during her breaks. She had no other choice. I understand wanting to call a loved one, but on every break every day. It seemed odd. She would seem frustrated after the call, like they would usually involve a fight. I began to wonder what was going on. She would share more stories of her husbands’ control. She wasn’t allowed to have any friends. She was told that she had to keep the specific distance of 18’ away from any men at work. When she shared that story, I remember thinking, that is a very strange/impossible request. The stories in of themselves were very worrisome. I began to wonder who she was married to.

Kristen would continue to share the bizarre stories and eventually told me that her husband broke her hand recently. Now I am worried. A few weeks later I saw Kristen come in with her hair down in front and a lot of makeup hiding a black eye. She did a good job hiding it. Like she had done this before. Had I not heard the story about the broken hand, I may have missed her black eye. Kristen confirmed that her husband did hit her. She began to tell me that he drinks to the point of passing out. Often before he passes out, he gets violent. He is violent even when not drinking.

I started encouraging her to leave. I would ask if she had other housing options. I even offered a room at my house. She kept declining, so I would not push the issue. Instead I would pray. (I have learned that when I interject myself in a situation, it never ends well. It has always been better for me to back off and let God work.) Kristen would agree that she needed to leave but never had a safe way to leave. Her husband, (who I will leave nameless) threatened her with extreme violence against her and her family if she ever left him. She showed me text messages. He states specifics of how he would kill her family. One of these texts spoke about putting a rope around her mother and father to drag them behind the van he drove. It was revolting. At this point I made some calls to a few support lines. These turned out to be not so supportive. I even spoke with the human resources at my work. They couldn’t do a whole lot. I also informed both Kristen’s boss and my boss to let them know she is in danger. We all had a plan if she didn’t show up to work. We would make sure that a woman would call her back on her cell phone. Her boss happened to be a man. If her husband heard a man’s voice on her phone it would not end well. We had to put this in practice a few times. Kristen missed a few days of work here and there. Mostly at the demand of her husband. If she ever did a no call no show, we put our plan into play.

Kristen told me more stories of abuse and control. They were all similar. Her husband wanted full control of her life. Frankly, he had it. I kept encouraging her to leave. She was getting closer to making the move. It all started with a weekend of abuse. She went home on a Friday night and was basically tortured over the weekend. Her husband picked her up, choked her, sat on her head, and made her pass out. She woke up in the bathroom not sure what or how she got there. Her head was hurting and felt like she was beat up. I didn’t get many details of what happened after she came to in the bathroom. But she described being abused and tormented all weekend long.

She told me this story and I stated again that she couldn’t ever go back. She didn’t have a way out. As easy as it was for me to say to leave. It wasn’t easy for her. She wasn’t ready yet. She didn’t have hope in her marriage but didn’t want to risk her or her family’s life. Things got better for a time. No stories of abuse physically. Mentally she was in constant abuse. I began to lose hope for her. I had never been in this situation. Kristen appeared to have no way out.

In the meantime, Kristen used her job at Progressive as her outlet. She did anything and everything asked at her job. She shined above the rest of us. She had nothing else going well in her life, so she excelled at work. She quickly became a star and was recognized for all her hard work. This led to a promotion. After she was promoted, you could see a sense of self-worth she didn’t have before. Her husband kept telling her she was a nobody. The outside world and her employees felt otherwise. Her confidence was growing, and this is the start of her path out of domestic violence.

One early morning I noticed that Kristen wasn’t in the office again. I said a quick prayer as I always did if she missed work. After that prayer I received a text from a friend. She told me that Kristen had called the police on her husband and is with her family at their home. I got a rush of relief as I read that message. That message followed some follow up message from Kristen to me. I never gave Kristen my phone number for her own safety. A mutual friend gave her my number. She wanted to let me know she was ok. She didn’t say much but did let me know she got hit again and snapped. Her snapping was leaving and calling the police.

Her husband was arrested for abuse. He spent a few days in jail. In this time Kristen moved her stuff out and began to live at home with her parents. She still had constant fear of what her husband threatened. But her confidence had grown so much that she was willing to make the leap of faith required. The police told her that most victims of abuse don’t leave until about the 8th episode. That is a frightening stat. Kristen barely lived through her 8. How many more abused don’t make it out? The process of leaving her husband had only just started as she still had feelings about the good times. He would remind her of those and seemed to have some sort of manipulation over her. He would convince her to meet with him for dinner. She would accept. I always frowned upon these encounters. She would agree but didn’t seem to have that same will power when alone. She would always go home to her parent’s house but would leave him with a little bit of hope. As more and more times went on those little bits of hope would die. She got to the point with her success at work and newly found confidence, he didn’t hold anything on her. His manipulation didn’t work. She could see through him like she never could before.

Today, Kristen is still excelling at work. She has moved on into a new loving relationship and her marriage is nearing final divorce. This is Kristen’s story. I am just glad that God allowed me a role in helping his saving her life. I don’t believe she would be here today if she hadn’t been promoted at work. I don’t ever think anything is a coincidence. We were put in the same training class together for a reason. I was here to help. I always ask God to use me for his purpose. I am glad he chose me to help.

Ryan