photography studios and offices for financial planners, psychologists and ministries. Some of the homes still had their pride intact with their well-tended lawns, fresh paint and gilt signs. Some were showing their age, all wrinkles and creaky joints, peeling paint and sagging shutters.
Freedom House was in the latter category, a dull gray with white-and-rose trim. It desperately needed painting before the rose became grayer than the gray. The wooden steps were soft underfoot, and the wraparound porch rippled like a lake under a strong breeze. Two spindles were missing from the porch railing, and the shutters looked like they had a bad case of psoriasis.
No financial resources to speak of, I guessed. The perennial problem of ministries.
Stephanie Bauer met me in the front hall. “Welcome!”
Her smile was so warm I smiled back automatically. “Hi. I think I saw you last night at Ferretti’s.”
Stephanie nodded. “I was there with my son and daughter.”
“I was there with the mother of the tall kid who crashed your family party.”
“Randy.” Stephanie laughed. “What a delightful, funny guy.” Randy? Delightful? Funny? Wow! Wouldn’t Edie love to hear that.
“I’m also in the bell choir, and I heard Sherrie sing this morning. She’s wonderful.”
Stephanie beamed, a proud mama. “She is, but I’m proudest of her for her commitment to the Lord.”
What a refreshing thing to hear a mother say about her child. “It’s probably from watching you and Freedom House.”
Stephanie grimaced. “I haven’t always been the best example of a healthy Christian woman.” She turned toward the back of the house. “My office is in the old dining room. Follow me.”
On the way we had to step around considerable clutter in the entry hall.
“We’re getting ready to open a secondhand clothing shop,” Stephanie explained. “We’re collecting both clothes and supplies in preparation.” She waved her hand at a couple of clothing racks, a slightly dirty, well-used store counter and several bags of clothing shoved into a corner. “We want to use the store as a training facility so that the women we counsel can become financially independent if they need to. Too many women stay in abusive situations because of lack of money.”
“When will the store open?”
“In a couple of months. We’re going to call it Like New. That’s what the women are when they find Christ and learn that with His help, they can control their lives.” She grinned. “We just signed the lease for a store in the center of town, and I have no idea where the monthly rent is going to come from. As you undoubtedly noticed, we can’t even afford to paint this place. If the store succeeds, it’ll be all because of God.”
She spoke as if trusting God this way were commonplace, and I thought that for her, it probably was.
I peered into the living room as we walked past. It was filled with chairs of all sizes, colors and fabrics.
“A motley mess, isn’t it?” Stephanie said cheerfully. “But we don’t have the luxury of being choosy. If someone offers us a chair, we take it. As long as it’ll hold a woman up safely, we don’t complain about the looks.”
We settled on a dirty, well-used sofa and chair in a corner of Stephanie’s office. I checked my little tape recorder to make certain it was working properly. Satisfied, I leaned back.
Stephanie patted her chair, and thousands of dust motes burst free, sailing through the air like seeds from an exploding pod. “A mission in Allentown was going out of business and they offered us first dibs on their furniture. Isn’t it comfortable?” She was clearly delighted.
“It is,” I agreed, though I had just been thinking that I wouldn’t give the ratty stuff house room. I swallowed, feeling shallow and materialistic.
“How did you get involved in Freedom House?” I asked. I knew the short answer to this question from my research, but it was still a good place to begin.
Stephanie looked away from me for a minute, staring out the window.
“It always amazes me when I have to admit that I was an abused wife. Not that I’m ashamed or feel guilty. I’m just amazed. How did I let myself get trapped like that?”
“How did you?” I marveled that someone as strong and assured as the Stephanie sitting in front of me had once been a victim.
“I got trapped for two reasons. I wanted to please. And no one had ever taught me the power of choice. And I was only eighteen when I married.”
“Is marrying at a young age typical of abusive situations?”
She nodded. “Often, though not always. In our case it was too many stresses before we had the ability to handle them. When I married Wes, I was in a romantic fantasy. I saw him as strong and knowing, my knight to protect me from the world. I would be the best wife a man could ever have, and he wouldn’t lose his temper at me anymore because I’d make him so happy.”
She looked into space, I suspected seeing herself at eighteen, twenty, twenty-five. “I bent over backwards to please him. When he got angry, I knew it was my fault because I hadn’t tried hard enough. When he hit me, I knew I deserved it. When he heaped verbal abuse on me, I knew I was all those terrible things he called me. After all, he’d never say them if they weren’t true.”
“But you’re an intelligent woman,” I protested.
She nodded. “But he was incredibly clever, a master manipulator. And he always begged for forgiveness with tears in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you. You just made me so mad. Let’s agree that you’ll never do that again. Then I won’t have to hurt you again.’”
“That’s no apology at all.”
Stephanie nodded. “I know that now, but then I only heard the I’m-sorry part, not the it-was-Stephanie’s-fault part.”
“How long were you married?”
“Nine years. Nine long years.”
“Why did you finally leave?”
“Deep inside I knew it was wrong to hit people, even stupid wives. I just couldn’t admit it out loud. But I started reading things about abuse after a nurse talked to me the time Wes gave me a concussion and broke my arm.”
“How did he break your arm?” I cut in.
“He threw me down the stairs for not making the bed with the sheets he wanted.”
I blinked. “You’re kidding.”
She shrugged. “At least that’s what he said.
In reality he was about to lose another job and was taking it out on me. You see, if it was my fault he hit me, then he was still the good guy. I was the evil woman.”
She smiled grimly. “When you’re in an abusive marriage, it’s like you’re addicted. There’s this intimacy and these soul ties from the sex, often
