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BOOK REVIEW: REFUGE FROM ABUSE
Healing and Hope for Abused Christian Women

By Kriss Erickson

In this comprehensive and helpful book, Nancy Nason-Clark and Catherine Clark Kroeger combine their passions for helping abused women. I found this book to be a practical, complete and sensitive tool that addresses the needs of the abuser as well as the abused.

Each chapter focuses on practical questions that someone who has been abused needs to ask. In answer response to the first chapter's question, "How do I know I need help?" Clark and Kroeger say, "When there is no peace or safety, a relationship is not healthy." They expand on this observation answer by listing several characteristics of unhealthy relationships.

Chapter two asks, "How Much of My Story Should I Tell?" This is an important question because abused women are often silent for years. Sometimes, when an abused woman finally begins disclosing information about the abuse she's experienced, she is so overwhelmed by the need for help and justice that her story spills out to anyone even slightly interested.

Chapter three discusses where to find spiritual support, and what kind of help an abused woman can hope to receive from her church. Chapter four lists public resources and safety plans.

Each chapter closes with a section titled, "Spiritual Reflection." The reflections are poetically written, describing how biblical characters responded to abuse. Chapter five tells the story of Abigail, wife of Nabal (1 Samuel 25). Abigail not only saves her husband's life, but also her own when she recognizes the long-range implications of her husband's defiance of David. Nabal's defiant refusal when David's servants asked for supplies would have caused David to kill not only Nabal but all the men of his family.

This book differs from many others on abuse because it includes discussion about the needs of abusers as well as abused men. For example, chapter seven discusses how wives can gain understanding into the help that abusers need. There is also an appendix, which discusses healing strategies and resources for abused husbands.

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