For the last year or so, I have watched Emily*. After a short time, a pattern revealed itself:

• Her husband beats her up.
• Her husband leaves home.
• She announces that this time it is over – she is leaving him for good.
• He comes back.
• They are together again, and she tells me this time he has changed.

I have watched this happen at least five times. At least five times, I have held her gently as she cries, so as not to hurt her bruises. Five times I have told her I would put her on a bus to anywhere in the country or get her to a safe house, where her husband could never find her. Five times she has told me she would think about it and let me know. Five times she has told me this time, it was different and five times, she took him back.

When I saw her a few days ago, she told me he was much better this time. “I think he has really changed this time”, she says, just like she said the four times before that.

I have no idea what to do for her, other than to be there and to continue to pray for her (and to ask you to pray for her). She is so desperate to be loved, she will take what passes for it at the cost of broken ribs and black eyes. One of my biggest fears right now is that he is going to kill her. When she is most lucid, she admits this is possible as well. Yet she takes him back.

I used to think my being out here was about fixing things. Sometimes it is. But most of the time, it is just being someone who will still love you when you make a fool of yourself for the fifth time.

*Names changed for privacy