Listen in as Charlene Quint, a family law attorney with a heart for aiding women through the turmoil of domestic abuse, shares not only her professional insights but also her personal experiences. Our conversation traverses the often misunderstood landscape of abuse, shining a light on the less visible forms such as emotional, verbal, and financial abuse, which can be prevalent even in communities of faith. Charlene opens up about the facade of perfection that can shroud abusive relationships, especially within Christian families, and underscores the urgent need for awareness and recognition of these destructive behaviors.
This episode takes a sobering look at the statistics that reflect the widespread issue of gender-based violence and the patterns of abuse that can span generations. We grapple with the complexities of breaking this cycle and the challenging choices that must be made to halt its perpetuation. Charlene thoughtfully discusses how faith and family values can sometimes be twisted to justify abuse, and she shares powerful testimonies of resilience and transformation. Our discussion serves as a reminder that abuse is not exclusive to any one gender or community and that the empowerment of victims is essential for change.
In our support-focused segment, we discuss the vital role churches can play in providing refuge and guidance for those facing domestic abuse. Charlene and I talk about the practical steps congregations can take to become sanctuaries of healing, from implementing emergency plans to educating leaders on the nuances of spiritual abuse. As we wrap up, I extend a heartfelt thanks to Charlene for her invaluable contributions and remind listeners to seek out her book, "Overcoming the Narcissist, Sociopath, Psychopath, and Other Domestic Abusers," for further enlightenment on this critical subject. Share this episode to help spread the message of hope and healing to those who need it most.
Charlene Quint is a family law attorney in the Chicago area who focuses her practice on helping women overcome domestic abuse. She wrote the multiple award-winning, ground-breaking book Overcoming the Narcissist, Sociopath, Psychopath, and Other Domestic Abusers to help victims of domestic abuse become the fearless victors they were designed to be. She is the founder of AbuseCare (www.abusecare.org), a nondenominational faith-based organization designed to provide hope and healing to women on their journey from victim to victorious and to educate and equip businesses and faith communities in caring for victims of domestic abuse. She is a Certified Domestic Violence Professional, an advocate for victims of abuse, a facilitator of multiple support groups, and a domestic abuse survivor. As an advocate for victims of domestic violence, she has been a speaker in front of thousands of people at TEDx events, conferences, and university settings and has been interviewed on numerous TV shows, radio shows,
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Listen in as Charlene Quint, a family law attorney with a heart for aiding women through the turmoil of domestic abuse, shares not only her professional insights but also her personal experiences. Our conversation traverses the often misunderstood landscape of abuse, shining a light on the less visible forms such as emotional, verbal, and financial abuse, which can be prevalent even in communities of faith. Charlene opens up about the facade of perfection that can shroud abusive relationships, especially within Christian families, and underscores the urgent need for awareness and recognition of these destructive behaviors.
This episode takes a sobering look at the statistics that reflect the widespread issue of gender-based violence and the patterns of abuse that can span generations. We grapple with the complexities of breaking this cycle and the challenging choices that must be made to halt its perpetuation. Charlene thoughtfully discusses how faith and family values can sometimes be twisted to justify abuse, and she shares powerful testimonies of resilience and transformation. Our discussion serves as a reminder that abuse is not exclusive to any one gender or community and that the empowerment of victims is essential for change.
In our support-focused segment, we discuss the vital role churches can play in providing refuge and guidance for those facing domestic abuse. Charlene and I talk about the practical steps congregations can take to become sanctuaries of healing, from implementing emergency plans to educating leaders on the nuances of spiritual abuse. As we wrap up, I extend a heartfelt thanks to Charlene for her invaluable contributions and remind listeners to seek out her book, "Overcoming the Narcissist, Sociopath, Psychopath, and Other Domestic Abusers," for further enlightenment on this critical subject. Share this episode to help spread the message of hope and healing to those who need it most.
Charlene Quint is a family law attorney in the Chicago area who focuses her practice on helping women overcome domestic abuse. She wrote the multiple award-winning, ground-breaking book Overcoming the Narcissist, Sociopath, Psychopath, and Other Domestic Abusers to help victims of domestic abuse become the fearless victors they were designed to be. She is the founder of AbuseCare (www.abusecare.org), a nondenominational faith-based organization designed to provide hope and healing to women on their journey from victim to victorious and to educate and equip businesses and faith communities in caring for victims of domestic abuse. She is a Certified Domestic Violence Professional, an advocate for victims of abuse, a facilitator of multiple support groups, and a domestic abuse survivor. As an advocate for victims of domestic violence, she has been a speaker in front of thousands of people at TEDx events, conferences, and university settings and has been interviewed on numerous TV shows, radio shows,
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✔Speaking - https://www.ruthhovsepian.com/speaking
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00:17 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Welcome back to Out of the Darkness, and today's guest is Charlene Quint, a family law attorney in the Chicago area. Her practice focuses on helping women overcome domestic abuse. She wrote the multi-award winning, groundbreaking book overcoming the narcissist, sociopath, psychopath and other domestic abusers to help victims of domestic abuse become the fearless victors they were designed to be. She is the founder of Abuse Care, a non-denominational faith-based organization. She is a certified domestic violence professional, an advocate for victims of abuse, a facilitator of multiple support groups and a domestic abuse survivor.
01:07
Welcome, Charlene, to Out of the Darkness. welcome. Thank, welcome you for having me today. It is my pleasure Now, this is a subject that is, I believe, a difficult one to speak to talk about, whether it's because we have gone through abuse ourselves and will cover the different types of abuse, or whether we have a family member that is going through it or has come through it. So this is a subject that I know this time that we have together will not do it full justice, but we will try to at least give the listeners some information to take away today, to help themselves or help someone else, if need be. So let's dive in. There's a lot to talk about.
01:58 - Charlene Quint (Guest)
There sure is.
01:59 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Yeah, there definitely is. So, first of all, can you tell us how you even got into this area of ministry and work, because this is a difficult one to work with on a day-to-day basis.
02:16 - Charlene Quint (Guest)
Yes, it is difficult. This is not something I had ever anticipated getting into actually, but when I went through my own abusive marriage and divorce and getting out, I realized that this was the most difficult thing I had ever gone through. It was really atrocious. It was hard to difficult to stay in, but even more difficult to go through a divorce with someone who is abusive on the other side. And I had a law degree.
02:53
So I realized that I'm blessed that I had that degree to help me get through and I felt called by the Lord to help other women in this area, to not only represent them in court but also to help them heal from this.
03:13
I mean, I can, as an attorney, I can help the legal process, but we need to become the woman God designed us to be. We need to heal from this and be all that God designed us to be. So I did a lot of research to see, wow, what happened and how can I heal and get better. And through that process I realized that I wasn't the only person that this had happened to, that there were so many people that happened to. And God led me to open up abuse care and start facilitate Bible studies and support groups and write the book. I mean that's really a totally a God calling. I was an accounting major in college so I tried to not choose classes where I had to write a paper. And you know God has a sense of humor when he says, okay, now write this 600 page book to give women everything they need to know about how to, how to recognize, remove yourself and recover.
04:18 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Well, I'm glad you're, you're, you know, you are sharing with us your experience as well, because you know, I think, that we are under the impression that abuse does not happen, you know, in a Christian family or in the church, and I think that this is a false perception that we have. We're assuming, you know, that because they're, they are believers, they have this perfect relationship, whether it's between a parent and a child or, you know, two spouses, and this, this is a this is a difficult one, right, because we want to have this idea of this, this perfect church family of you know that there is no such thing as physical abuse, emotional, verbal, verbal, spiritual. There's so many different types of abuse. And how, how do we? Let's take it from, maybe, the beginning and let's figure out how do we, as an outsider, or even if we are in that situation, how do we recognize that someone is in an abusive situation? Is it even possible to recognize the signs?
05:46 - Charlene Quint (Guest)
Well, yes, certainly there is, and you're right. A lot of times, people in Christian marriages or that are Christians in a marriage, let's put it that way don't look at themselves as being abused, because we, many people, think, well, abuse is being hit or being shot and we think, well, I'm not being hit, so I can't, I guess it's not abuse. And so we, that's something we tell ourselves or maybe something we've heard from the media, so we don't think that we're in that situation. And many women are, you know, think that, well, I guess it's not, I can't put my finger on it. It's really difficult, you know, I feel horrible. He's doing horrible things, but he's not hitting me, so, you know, I guess it's not abuse.
06:34
But, yes, one of the things that we start with when someone comes to me is let's start recognizing what abuse is. And so when we and there's many different forms of abuse, like you mentioned. So the easiest form of abuse to inflict, which means it happens in every relationship, is emotional, verbal abuse, name calling, gaslighting, projection, things like that are easy to inflict and easy to deny right. So, yeah, and to hide, because you can turn it on and turn it off when you're in front of other people and your church group. Yeah, you act, you know, like Mr Wonderful and the high and closed doors. It's something very different, dr Jekyll, mr Hyde. So emotional and verbal abuse happens in 100% of abusive relationships, but we often don't recognize that Another one, another type of abuse that's difficult to recognize is financial abuse, and that happens in 99% of abusive relationships, which is, you know, which is crazy.
07:53
Oftentimes a husband will say well, I make enough money, you don't have to work. Why don't you stay home and raise the kids? You don't need to go to school, you don't need to have your career. And to a wife maybe she thinks well, that'll be nice, because I'd love to stay home with the children, and they think this is a good thing, but it's really him trying to get her dependent on him.
08:13
And so now she has, she doesn't have her own money and we all know money is power and she has. She has to ask him for money and now he uses that position of power to of having the money in his name to have power over her. Or it can be the other, and maybe she's the one that's the breadwinner and he's being a parasite and not working and just living off of her. So it tends to be on two opposite type of things.
08:43 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Yeah, that that that one is. I had never thought of it before, that there is that financial part of it out. Also, you know the controlling portion of it. Before we we started, you were sharing some statistics with me, you know, because I would love to address the fact that what percentage, or you know, what do we see with women being abused, and then turn that around and say what number of men are actually being abused? Because there there is that group of men who are abused by women, and I think those are almost the, the ones that, the way I've seen it and you please, if it, if I'm wrong, tell me is that men tend to not talk about it, even less than women will, because it's such a shame factor for them.
09:41 - Charlene Quint (Guest)
Yeah, that's, that's true. Well, the statistics, that are actually pretty outs. They're just shocking. According to the CDC, the Center for Disease Control, 35% of women at some point in their life will experience rape, stalking or severe physical abuse and in addition to that, 48% of women will experience coercive control or emotional or verbal abuse. So that's half the population of women that experience this.
10:22
We also know that over 90% of abusers are men. So that's, you know it's very, it's very lopsided. But we also know that you know there are some men that are victims of abuse, either from other men or from women, and you're right, those tend to be. If it's the woman being abused, tend to be less physical but more on the emotional and verbal manipulation and financial and other types of abuse. So it's really a it's quite shocking when you actually realize the number of people who have been through this at some point in their lives. The other shocking statistic we talked about was over 70% of people who abuse an intimate partner also abuse children, and that number goes up as the severity of the abuse goes up. So it's, we have a problem in this country, it's an epidemic, and it's not just in this country, it's around the world, because it's the number one killer of women in the world.
11:39 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
You know, you would think that in the 21st century, with all the, with everything that we have, that the numbers would have gone down. But we're and it could be, because you know we're seeing the numbers go up because people have the ability to report it or are talking about it more. But it just is unbelievable to me that in the 21st century we still have this kind of statistic. And you know, when we talk about abuse, where it is financial or emotional, I, you know it makes me feel like, you know I'm not going to be able to say that. You know it makes me stop and think. Here we are talking about empowering women, giving women the same opportunities as men, and yet there is this digression behind closed doors of women being treated in this way or being abused in this way. It's just, it's mind boggling about. You know what is happening.
12:46 - Charlene Quint (Guest)
Well, it just goes to show you that human nature has not really changed that much in the last, you know, 5000 years. So we're the same creatures that we were before.
12:57 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
So let me take this to a little different place. As a believer, I really believe in a parent home. I do believe in roles of men and women, biblically, the way we see it, where there's, you know, the man who God has given certain roles to and a woman with certain roles, and neither one is greater than the other. They're both equal in what God has given us and ordained us to do. Do you think that when we step away from two parent homes, when we step away from faith homes and not to say that there is no abuse in, you know, a Christian home? But I'm just talking about, you know, children who are raised in a certain way? Do you think they are more, they are empowered and do not feel the desire to belittle someone else or to abuse someone else? Or am I just like not seeing the issue here?
14:11 - Charlene Quint (Guest)
No, that's a good question, but here's the issue. We know that abuse is a learned behavior, because healthy people don't abuse other people. Healthy people, you know, view others as gifts in their life. Whether you're a faith-based person or not, you treasure your family, right? Even most mammals in the world protect their family.
14:37
So if someone is being abusive, that is way off the norm. That is really unhealthy. So we know from research that children raised in abusive homes are much more likely to be abusers themselves or to find an abuser. So if a boy is raised in an abusive home or the father is abusive, he is 10 times more likely to be an abuser himself and choose abuse against his intimate partner as an adult. And girls are six times more likely to be a victim and choose an abusive partner. So it's not because one person is raised in an abusive home or a two-person home and the other person is raised in the one-person home. It's because of what they see modeled before them. Now, having said that, not everybody obviously chooses that, but it's a choice. Would they choose to abuse? So?
15:46 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
that's a difficult cycle to break right.
15:48 - Charlene Quint (Guest)
It is a very difficult cycle to break. And so the person that says and it will continue until somebody stands up and says it stops with me and no more, and that's gonna be the most difficult thing she's ever going to do in her life, because Once you leave an abuser, it's it's game on. It's very difficult, but, yeah, you know, to stop that cycle someone has to stand up and do it.
16:15 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
It's interesting because, you know, children do emulate what they see. As you know, they become adults and you know, I I'm I'm a single parent have been for 26 years, more than 26 years now and I see it in my children, the effects of it now it the way that they carry themselves. They were sort of like I do not want to Experience this in in my life and I don't want this to happen in my life. I'm going to change it. And yet now, sometimes I see them go to the other extreme, you know not, you know not wanting to emulate a certain behavior. So they, they go to the other end. So it is tough. It is so, so tough for, for kids who are brought up in these situations.
17:12
I, you know, I was very Fortunate in, in many ways, to grow up in a, in a very loving environment, not to say it was perfect there. There were many things that we can talk about. That's a whole other episode. But to say that at least my, that kind of behavior I did not experience and I it breaks my heart when I read about, you know, stories about what is, you know, families and women and children, the, the, the abuse out there. So let's take it a little bit to a different part now, and and that is you know, we, we? How do we help them? How can we? How do you approach someone that you see being abused? They may or may not realize that they're being abused, or they do and they don't know what to do. Is there something that I can do To help them?
18:20 - Charlene Quint (Guest)
Oh yeah, of course there is. Of course there is. Well, the first thing we can do if someone approaches you, it is to start with, believe them. Women, particularly women of faith who have been in long-term relationships, marriages, don't just come up and lie after 20 years and say you know, this is what's happening. So I think that's the first thing is to believe her, and Even statistics show that you know Somewhere. Well over 90% of allegations are Are truthful. So so we I think that's the first step is is believe her. The second step, I think, is we can educate ourselves about abuse. One of the reasons why people don't believe her is because they're not educated about abuse and they the default is oh no, I know Joe. Oh, he's. He's such a nice guy at church. Look at he's. He's happy and good garrison, so friendly he's. Yeah, she's. She's just lying or are Are exaggerating or whatever, because they only see the jail that Joe wants the world to see. So so believe her that this is happening behind close doors. Educate ourselves.
19:43
Churches can hold abusers accountable, and so can we. When, when a church Chooses to look the other way, that's basically siding with the abuser. When we hold abusers accountable and say that's not gonna happen in this church. This is a safe place. This is a place where People can come and worship in in safety without having to see their abuser. So we're gonna let first come here, but we're not good, you're gonna have to find another place so that we can let our, our congregation be in safety. And the the other thing is when, when churches don't hold abusers accountable, when they do nothing, abusers get emboldened. They think, well, you know, the he's, the church is on my side, the pastors on my side, they're not doing anything and they believe me, so the abuse escalates against her. So holding them, you know, holding them accountable. We can refer them to places that actually Deal with domestic abuse and can help heal them.
20:51
Many times Pastors want to get involved in marriage counseling. This is not a marriage issue. This is an individual abuse issue, and we care At least. Jesus cares more about the individual person than he cares about the marriage, and in fact, a marriage to an abuser is not a marriage at all. It's not the marriage that God designed, and so we don't necessarily want to put all our efforts into saving the marriage at all costs. No, we want to support the victims.
21:26
Would love the abuser if he could heal as well. But that's gonna be his choice and it, rick, very, very rarely happens. So referring them to professionals that that can do this. And the last thing I would just say a support. Support her Emotionally, validate her. You know she may need a place to live, because that's a huge Financial commitment. Maybe there's somebody in your church that has an extra bedroom. She can just find a place of, of respite there. My house is known in my church as a safe house, so we have people coming and going and and they just they become part of our family, extended family. So I live in the Chicago area. So if you put those all together, it's bears Ears, so that's, that's the acronym.
22:21 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
So you know, I'm so glad that you you made that statement about it. It's not about keeping the marriage together, that is. That is a fallacy that we see in our in our churches now, where, yeah, it's more important to keep a marriage together than to resolve the situation that is happening, and we see that over and over and over again, and right and and here's, here's the, here's the misunderstanding about, about divorces from in abusive situations.
23:01 - Charlene Quint (Guest)
First of all, god tells us to run from evil and when we look at second Timothy 3, there's a great description about what abusers are like, you know. And at the end of this description of these abusers it says have nothing to do with them. And it doesn't say and Impulse says that because they are so destructive I mean, they're so destructive they will destroy anything that they come in contact with, including their family and their spouse. So he says have nothing to do with them. He doesn't make any exceptions for the spouse. It's like well, everybody else God loves and says has nothing but you, you poor spouse, you're stuck with that person and you're supposed to be abused for the rest of your life. Too bad for you. God doesn't love you, he just loves everybody else. There's no exceptions.
23:52
And we look throughout scripture what God tells us to have nothing to do with with these abusive individuals, titus 310,. You know, you give a person, a device, a person, once a warning and then twice a warning and then have nothing to do with them. We were told to run from evil and divorce was allowed in the Old Testament as a remedy for sin. Just like so many other remedies that God had for other sins, divorce was a remedy for sin. No, we shouldn't do it willy-nilly when there's no sin, but that's really the most gracious way that God allowed for us to get out of those relationships where there is sin and it is not changing.
24:39 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
It's a difficult one. It's, you know, like we are very legalistic in the church family and we don't, you know, we don't look at really what is happening because we just want to make sure that all the teas are crossed and all the you know eyes are dotted and we brush aside the uncomfortable subjects. But I I'd love for you to talk about what you define as the three Rs of abuse and the three Rs of truth, because I looked at these and I thought, wow, I love what you have put together here.
25:22 - Charlene Quint (Guest)
Right.
25:24
So, having spent the last decade now working with women who are coming out of abusive relations and and coming through my own journey, I've recognized, you know, a universal truth that when we, when we recognize, remove and reject lies with truth, we will recognize, remove and recover from abuse.
25:55
So I call these the three Rs of truth and the three the three Rs of abuse, because when we actually recognize those lies and replace them with God's truth, we see things for what they are and we, we can therefore recognize these, these patterns of abuse in our lives, we can safely remove ourselves and because we know what God wants us to do in these situations, what he wants for his daughters and those that are in abuse, and we can, we can recover and heal, because so many of the things that that we, we do, that get ourselves into these abuses situations and keep us from healing, is it's this, these mistaken beliefs that that are just not true, and we, when we can get those and replace them with truth, that's when it happens and, as Jesus said, the truth will set you free.
26:57 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Yes, you know amen to that, it will.
27:00
And you know, I think the church has to first of all have in place a way to support this, not when it comes up, but, prior to it, be ready for it.
27:13
Because when, when something like this opens up in the church, it's very difficult in the heat of the moment to say, okay, how, as a church, how as a pastor, how as an elder, am I going to deal with this and you know how am I going to bring this to the church family. I think every church needs to know prior how to you know, how are they going to address this? How will they support, you know, the person who is being abused? How are they going to support, you know, the children of that family? What kind of love are they going to show? What kind of, as you said, hospitality are we going to show? Unless we have these in place, All good intentions, you know, are not going to work because we'll be scrambling and trying to figure it out. So, you know, I think this is something that's very important in our churches to implement and, to, you know, to talk about.
28:18 - Charlene Quint (Guest)
It is good to have a plan. We have plans in churches and other organizations. We call it the emergency plan. What happens if XYZ happens and who's? You know who's on the call list and so we have these contingency matters in place in case something happens. This should be one of them. We should have policies and procedures. I mean some of the simplest things that don't cost much is just putting you know in the ladies bathroom, putting phone numbers for the local domestic violence shelter, putting phone numbers for the state's attorneys, putting phone numbers for the local police asking are you in a difficult relationship? And giving some examples of what that would be. That doesn't cost anything. It's in the ladies bathroom. She can tuck it in her purse or her pocket and know that, oh, this church supports me, because they understand it's going on.
29:16
Another thing we can do is speak from the pulpit every once in a while. You know the vast majority of churches don't have a sermon on this and we already know because of surveys done for pastors that they don't feel equipped. They don't know how to handle this. So that's actually my next book coming out is to churches how just elders and leaders handle this. I mean, I have the big book which, you know. If they wanted to read all 600 pages, there's information in there for them on how to handle it but maybe a smaller one, just you know, geared towards churches.
29:59 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
I think it's true. I think we need to be proactive instead of reactive in these situations. And you know, the same goes for divorce. You know, I saw it in my own life when I went through it there. It was a reactive kind of reaction to, you know, to the news or whatever, and in my case it was a very messy situation within the church. And you know they, you know it's been 26 years, but it's I still shake my head about the way that the church reacted to it, because in the church, in their minds, this was not possible. On the surface, they saw a perfect marriage and this is what was told to us. How can it be possible? How can this be? You're going against God's word. Oh, you're not a believer if this is what you are doing. And at the end of it I said, short of wearing a scarlet letter on my clothing, I, that's how I felt, you know, I felt like I was being hunted down and being abused by the church leadership because of this decision that was made. And, yeah, it doesn't help.
31:33 - Charlene Quint (Guest)
You've just identified another type of abuse that we haven't touched on yet, and that's spiritual abuse. So we talked about emotional and verbal and financial. Spiritual abuse is when someone twists the scriptures and to to convince you you should stay in an abusive relationship, and many churches do that.
31:52 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
You know abusive people do that as well, so that's yeah, that, that that's a whole other subject about spiritual abuse. You know, we I touched upon it a little bit in season one, but it's such a it's such a big one and it is so subtle in so many ways, you know, and then and then of course there's a very obvious signs of spiritual abuse. But definitely, you know, we really need to be proactive. That that is how I see it and really support people and, as you said when we first started was believing the person who comes to you and not telling what you believe and what you see. You haven't been in that person's shoes, right, right.
32:42 - Charlene Quint (Guest)
And I think you've just hit on another thing that that focuses on when you know the truth. Spiritual abuse takes a lie and tries to set it forth as the truth. And if you don't know the truth, if you don't know the scriptures, well you can be. You can believe that lie. You know the common, the common lie that that you get in spiritual abuse from from a pastor who has, I will just say, lazy theology.
33:12
I'm just going to put it out. There is, oh, you need to go back and submit some more, you need to go back and pray some more. Oh well, you know, maybe you just need to put on a cute little French maids outfit and be a little bit more sexy and and or, you know, you need to make better dinners. It's always something that she should do, as opposed to looking at his bad behavior and say, no, that's abusive behavior and he needs to change his behavior. They, they almost if you're going to be. I've heard this from so many women as they come to me and and just talking with other people who are have ministries in this area, that that is such a common reaction that I think where is where does the church get these lies from? And they're twisting the scriptures and we have to know what the truth is.
34:10 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Yeah, and and if you have my personality, that turns into you spiraling into a very, very dark place, because I, I spiraled out of control, my, my, I became, you know, I, I became an addict to alcohol and to sex and pornography for a good 10 years, more than that. And it, it was, it was just it was. You know, it was a life that I don't wish on anyone and I understand it. Now, you know, I'm on the other side.
34:46
I'm nine years sober from all of those addictions and I look back and I can almost pinpoint the moment that something snapped, you know, when I was being harassed by these men in from the church, and it was that, that moment, that I just wanted to, to just go in the opposite direction of what I had been raised in and what I believed in and what I had seen.
35:19
And and yeah, we really, you know, I, I, you know, just to say I really agree with you that we need to believe the person, know how and where to direct the person and to support the person through it all and pray on them and pray on their family and be there. Maybe the only way we can be there for them personally is hugging them and loving on them and giving them what they need and directing them to the people who can help them. You know who are, who are specialists, who deal with this, but I think this is so important and you know, at the end of it all, we need to be prepared as a church, as a church family, to deal, to deal with this.
36:14 - Charlene Quint (Guest)
Not everybody is a specialist and can give the right, but we can all give them a hug and support them emotionally and not be judgmental and and you know, just you know do that support. You know it's interesting to to when you, when these castors talk about how horrible divorce is, they forget that whole passage in Ezra where God commanded the people who had gone back to Israel to separate from their wives, their pagan wives, because God knew how. I mean, let's just be honest about the pagan rituals of sacrificing your children and just being. You know horrible things. God said I don't want you to have anything to do with that. You violated my rules. You need to separate yourself from this. So God commanded that for people who had had gotten themselves involved in those people, and he even says that he divorced Israel. You know, and I say I enter my. So we, we need to look at this one, the proper perspective.
37:24 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
So yeah, with the, with the, with the, with the heart filled with Christ, like a Christ, like heart.
37:33 - Charlene Quint (Guest)
Yes of course. Of course. He loves his children so much that he wants to keep them from evil, not make them stay in evil situations.
37:43 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Exactly, charlene. I really want to thank you for your time and for your knowledge and your wisdom that you have shared with us. I know this is just the tip of the iceberg and there is so much more. But to my friends who are listening, please, you know, get Charlene's book overcoming the narcissist, sociopath, psychopath and other domestic abusers and look into the show notes for more information and if this is something that you learn from and you know, share it and leave a review and let us know what you think about the subject and you know what you may have experienced on your own. Charlene, thank you for being with us today. Thank you for having me, ruth.
38:34 - Charlene Quint (Guest)
I really appreciate it, god bless.