There are so many fractions of life that need support and a voice. Of late a lot of violent stories have been released and it gives others a glimpse into the rampant lives of abuse in our society especially between couples who supposedly love each other.

The honeymoon period ended the day after we were married, six months from when we first met. Dehinde is about six foot and about 225 pounds in weight. I’m five foot four and 100 pounds. He grabbed me by the waist and lifted me up against the wall. He grabbed my hands and bent them backward, breaking one of my fingers. I was in shock. I was stunned. But I didn’t leave. A few hours after the incident, He broke into tears and told me how sorry he was. I loved him so much, so I believed him when he said it wouldn’t happen again. But life became hell after that.

For the next two months the abuse was nonstop. He kept me in a constant state of terror. I’m not a drinker, but he’d toss a bottle of beer in my face and say “drink”. He’d punch me in the stomach or kick me in the thigh if I didn’t. I started walking on tiptoes around him, fearful of everything I’d say and do. But it didn’t matter; the abuse continued.

He dislocated my shoulder several times. He’d lift me up by the ankles and bang my head against the floor in the living room. A part of me wanted to leave, but another part of me hesitated. Somehow I felt I was partially responsible for the abuse. If I hadn’t made a particular comment or if I had just sipped the alcohol everything would have been OK. And for the first few months he was apologetic after the beatings. He’d say he felt very bad and that he didn’t mean to hit me so hard. He’d actually cry sometimes and show such remorse that I’d forget my own pain.

He’d become romantic and sweet, and I’d fall in love with him all over again. I started to isolate myself from friends and family. I didn’t want them to know about the violence. I put on a happy face with my two kids and tried to act like things were fine. They knew about the violence but didn’t know the severity. When my mom wanted to see me, I’d lie, saying I was busy. I didn’t want her to see my bruises. I was embarrassed.

Sadly, the abuse worsened. The rapes began about two months after we were married. I was dressing for work when he came out of the shower and asked me where I was going. He didn’t wait for my answer. He threw me on the bed, sat on my stomach, pinned my arms up beside my head and ripped off my clothes. “If you want sex, wait until I get home tonight,” I said.

“You’ll do it when I want, and how I want,” was his response. It got worse after that. He would tie me up and put foreign objects such as necks of beer bottles into my vagina.

Five months into the marriage I endured beating after beating. While most of the assaults were done when my children weren’t home, I was worried that they might step in and try to protect me. If they did, they might get beaten, too. I began plotting our escape, but it was difficult. He had begun making threatening comments: “You can never get far enough away from me. I will always find you.

If I can’t have you, no one will.” I felt trapped.

How did I leave?

He had disappeared for three days. I didn’t know where he was. I thought he had been in an accident. I called his phone; he would answer but not say anything. He arrived home on the third night at about 1 a.m. and immediately started screaming at me that he didn’t appreciate me trying to track him down.

We were in the sitting room and he grabbed the landline-phone receiver and began to beat me in the face with it. His eyes were red and flashing like I’d never seen before. I ran to the bedroom, and he was right behind me. He picked me up over his head and threw me across the room twice. I broke my tailbone in the second fall. My 6-year-old daughter woke up. She must have heard something and came to see what was happening. She just stood there, stunned.

He looked at her and got scared for some reason. He went into the bathroom to pack his things. I found my phone, fighting the pain from the broken bone, limped to the living room, I then called my father since then I have not set my eyes on Dehinde.

LONG TIME YUH NUH PUT UP PAN DI WALL OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO LOL…KP IS WHAT KINDA LASH DIS ? A DOE LIKE DI SHORTS OO BUT A FI UNNO TING AND IT ALWAYS FIT UNNO

A 45 year old Harare man is in trouble for allegedly r*pe and impragnating his 17 year old daughter ostensibly on instructions from his “ancestral spirits.”
The man reportedly s*xually attacked the teenage girl sometime in Jenuary, and she is now over eight months pregnant. on friday the man pleaded not guilty to a r*pe charge when he appeared before a Harare regional magistrate .
In his defence he told the court that his daughter was promiscuous and was possibly impragnated by someone in Bulawayo. He claimed she could have targeted him for chastising her over the issue.
Prosecutor Alan told the court that sometime in Jenuary, the teenager was left in the custody of her father as the mother traveled to their rural home.
According to the state, the family used to occupy a one roomed house in the high density suburbs and the complainant would sleep in the dinning room together with the landlord’s children.
But, on the day in question, the man is said to have arrived home at around 9pm and asked the complainant to serve him dinner. The court heard that immediately after the teenager entered the room, the man closed the door and told her that traditional spirits in him needed to be exorcised by sleeping with her.
It is alleged he then pulled her onto his bed and r*ped her once wihout protection. Last April 2012 the court heard, the man allegedly tried to s*xually assault her again after buying her beer, but she refused to drink it and escaped from the room after wrestling him.
As if that was not enough, the complainant went to Mhondoro , but the father followed her and allegedly attempted to r*pe her again, which is when his luck ran out.
The court heard that the teenager raised alarm and shouted at him, prompting her grandmother to enquire. She the spilled the beans, leading to the man’s arrest. The man was remandend in custory to friday.

by Cara Hanson

Genesis 6:18-20 (KJV)
(18) But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee.
(19) And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.
(20) Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.

Anyone who has ever planned a huge party understands the importance of keeping the guest list to a minimum. Yet when God was planning his biggest catering event to date–the cruise aboard the ark–He did not seem to be concerned about the capacity of the ship. He invited every kind of creature indiscriminately. No offense to creepy crawlers, but I think I would have crossed them off the list.

While watching an uninvited insect bathing in our butter dish, I decided that “ladybug” is a misnomer. I was raised to be a lady, and one thing a lady never does is show up uninvited. A science experiment at our local university went awry, and our town was the unfortunate recipient of thousands of these little pests. Adding insult to injury, I later discovered that a ladybug is not even technically a “bug,” but rather a beetle. Admittedly, this beetle has an amazing marketing director, but it’s rather misleading to go around representing itself as a ladybug, when in reality it is a rudebeetle. Other lesser-used names include ladybird, ladycow, and ladyfly, but despite its ongoing identiy crisis, this bug was not fooling me.

Before you think that I am overreacting, let me explain the extent to which these pesky houseguests overstayed their welcome. I am convinced that Pharoah would have let the Israelites go sooner if only he had been staying at our house during our Spring Plague of Ladybugs. Our house was swarming with black and red polka dots, which not only clashed with our blue/green ocean décor, but also had the added effect of driving me insane. They would show up in our beds, in our food, on our clothes, and we may as well have set some extra places at the dinner table.

As you can imagine, our children were positively delighted with our new visitors. They would chase them around, hold them, and even talk to them. In their minds, ladybugs were particularly friendly, and therefore even better than a pet. “Hi, Ladybug! Have a nice day,” our little ones would cry out joyfully. These cheerful salutations made me cringe with guilt as I was scraping the “pets” from the bottom of my shoe into the trashcan. Some people consider seeing ladybugs as a sign of good luck and that killing them heralds bad luck, which would make me about even.

I was feeling slightly guilty about my feelings of animosity toward Lady B, so I decided to find out more about her. Apparently, these insects are beneficial to most gardens, as they feed on aphids, mites, and other pests. It dawned on me that God probably knew what He was doing when He created them. What really captured my attention was that there are over 5,000 ladybug species. This amazing fact made me realize that we haven’t even scratched the surface of God’s incredible wisdom and knowledge.

1 Corinthians 1:25a
For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom…

Obviously, God doesn’t have any “foolishness,” but this verse tells us that even if He did, no man on the planet could ever compare to His level of genius.

Just reading about insect facts in general made me further realize what an awesome and mighty God we have. According to Wikipedia.org,

“There are approximately 2,200 species of praying mantis, 5,000 dragonfly, 20,000 grasshopper, 82,000 true bug, 120,000 fly, 110,000 bee, wasp, ant and sawfly, 170,000 butterfly and moth, and 360,000 beetle species described to date. Estimates of the total number of current species, including those not yet known to science, range from two million to fifty million, with newer studies favouring a lower figure of about six to ten million. With over a million described species—more than half of all known living organisms—insects potentially represent over 90% of the differing life forms on the planet.”

I am so glad that there are entomologists who actually study bugs for a living. (Thankfully, this possibility did not even show up on my Vocation Apptitude Test in high school.) While it must have been exhausting to count and study millions of insects, every species found was another notch in the belt of God’s infinite accomplishments.

Girls are stereotypically supposed to despise insects, but our daughter, Grace (5), didn’t get the memo on that one. After a recent dentist visit, she picked a plastic bug from the reward bin. The dentist and the hygenist–both women–were mortified and tried to talk her out of her decision, but to no avail. Grace finds insects fascinating, and I must admit that her enthusiasm is infectious. After many wasted years of bug aversion, I am now a fan of learning more about God through these incredible creatures.

God even uses the ant as an example of diligence:

Proverbs 6:6-11
(6) Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!
(7) It has no commander, no overseer or ruler,
(8) yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.
(9) How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep?
(10) A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest–
(11) and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.

How humiliating to have to be reproved by an ant, but the example lives when you actually watch ants working. They are constantly on the run, gathering food and building shelter. Have you ever seen one watching TV or playing video games? I’ve often thought that the ant serves no other purpose but to provide us with this workplace example. The fact that God even used this illustration in His Word is significant. I wonder how many more of these millions of species serve purposes that we haven’t even discovered yet.

Is it possible that by observation I just might learn something from these infinitesimal insects? I have decided that from now on I will reconsider before I squash a bug. Just as long as they don’t show up uninvited in my butter dish…