Survivor stories

Josie’s story

Posted by Jenni James on 16 June 2025

Before I found Restored, I was in desperate need of a community of Christians who understood domestic abuse. When I fled my marriage, my church didn’t respond well, and I ended up having to leave the community there and move somewhere new. I lost everything: my home, my friends and my church.

I was able to access support from specialist services, which I’m so grateful for. But as I processed what had happened to me, I realised that there was a part of me that they couldn’t understand. I needed to be able to talk about my faith, and the complexity that comes with leaving a marriage when you’re in a Christian environment. 

My relationship with God was intact, but my fear was that he was angry with me, or was rejecting me, or quite simply didn’t care. I began to ask questions – where can I go, who can I talk to? The abuse I’d faced, compounded by the misunderstanding from my church, meant that my relationship with God was on the line. In fact, my life was on the line.

I think it takes a very special community to understand the complexities of domestic abuse, and the experience of women trying to wrestle with their faith in the midst of it. I needed to unlearn, as much as I needed to learn, how God saw me. My finding Restored was the difference between me making it and not. 

It gave me a safe place to process, where I was believed. Recovery courses, blogs, resources, activism – everything that Restored offers to journey with survivors became my community, my sisterhood. Although I think me and God would have made it, I don’t think I’d have made it the way that I have without Restored. They have a very rare, unique handle on domestic abuse in faith contexts. I’m eternally grateful for what the Survivors Network offered to me – I consider it my community. 

*Name changed to protect anonymity