“Thanks for the good time, babe.”

“Thanks for the good time, babe.” 

Those were the last words I heard my sexual assaulter speak. Though he wasn’t the last of them, he was the first. In my heart, I believe that this horrible day set the cycle into motion. 

I was only 17 at the time, and a police officer actually interrupted the interaction. “Not in public, guys,” he said to us, somehow thinking it was mutual. I was terrified, and I wanted to scream, 

“Please, help me! Get him away from me!” 

But I was a 5’5 120lb female, and he was a 6’1 180lb+ male. I was so scared, I was shaking. Before he left me, he said those awful words. “Thanks for the good time, babe.” 

I went home and curled up in bed, shaking and crying into my pillow. I didn’t understand what had just happened - in fact, because of those words, I convinced myself it was consensual. I blocked out the parts of the assault when I was hitting him as hard as possible, screaming at him to stop. I blocked out the parts when I felt terrified for my life, thinking, “This is it. This is how I’m going to die.” 

I found out later that he’d told our high school baseball team what “we” did. He bragged, “Guess what I got the pastor’s daughter to do.” I didn’t know how to defend myself, because I was still so confused. I had willingly met up with him. I had willingly been texting him. I had willingly kissed him. All of that, his last words to me, and the rumors were enough to convince me that it was my fault. 

That’s how my story began. 

That horrible day set into motion a series of relationships that only grew worse, relationships that, at times, landed me in a hospital bed. Because I was so young and didn’t understand what was happening to me, I grew very good at covering things up. When my roommate started to suspect what was happening, I shut her down immediately. “She doesn’t understand,” I’d tell myself. 

I share all this because October is “Domestic Violence/Intimate Partner Awareness Month.” My story ended happily; on October 1st of 2017, I met a friend whose impact went much further than he knew until very recently. I was standing in his kitchen at a college get-together, and when we were lined up for food, he said to me and my friend, “You ladies go first.” It made me pause, and the way he treated us the rest of that day continued to stun me. As simple as it was, I’d never been treated this way by a non-relative man. That day, I heard God whisper, 

“This. This is how a man who loves Me is supposed to treat women, Taylor.” 

My friend did not know until a few days ago that I went out on his porch that very night and texted my abuser, “It’s over. We aren’t doing this anymore. We’re done talking, we are done with each other. You will not hear from me again.” It was the same exact conversation I’d had with him 3 times before, but this time, I meant it. I was resolved. That night, it ended. And because of my friend, because of that night, I’m happily married to my Ethan, who has helped heal those past wounds and rewrite my story. 

I was so lucky to get out - most don’t. Right now, there are so many men and women who are trapped. I want to tell all of you, there is hope. You are not alone. There is a man out there for you, a woman out there for you, who will treat you the way God commands. Your story does not need to end where you are. 

Where your abuser says you are worthless, God says, “You were fearfully and wonderfully made, carefully knit by Me in your mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13-16, NIV).  

Where your abuser says you are alone, God says, “Surely I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20, NIV).

Where your abuser says you will never find someone else to love you, God says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with an unfailing kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3, NIV). 

Where your abuser says your life has no purpose, God says, “I will carry out the good work I have begun in you to completion” (Philippians 1:6, NIV). 

Where your abuser says you are incapable of being loved, God says 

“Who shall separate you from My love? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things you are more than conquerors through My love! Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate you from My love” (Romans 8:35, 37-39, NIV). 

If you are experiencing or affected by domestic or intimate partner violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233. You are not alone.