a complex situation

The situation is complicated, to say the least. Last night the decisions of a certain someone put my sister in physical danger, and now she's terrified to even go to the apartment due to threats against her life. I thank God again and again that the douschbag involved was prevented from causing her harm as he went at her. The moment is over, but the danger remains: people like him are a menace to society, as the saying goes. This man doesn't have any quibbles about abusing women, and his own self-centered rage makes him a lethal weapon. The situation is complicated because the person who did this is dating my sister's roommate, a person who has repeatedly shown that she will make stupid decisions at the expense of the interests of others. I have, for the most part, overlooked this about her; but when my sister is put in danger, that changes things. My care for her roommate runs deep through my veins, and I am torn between what to do. There are no simple answers. Regarding Amanda, I know where I stand. Regarding her roommate, I don't know where I stand. The command to love in the Bible is put to the test when it comes to things like this--"How can I love someone who makes choices that endanger the life of the person closest to me?" Sure, she'll say this was a fluke, that it'll never happen again; but if she doesn't change the course of her actions, then that saying will become just as empty and hollow as all the others. These things escalate, they don't simmer down. I've been of the disposition that it's her life, not mine, she can do what she want, and I'll be there for her when she comes crawling back out of the abyss she's dug, even offering her a hand if she can't get out herself. But, again, when it gets to the point to where my little sister is in danger, there's a line that's drawn. The same man who threatened her threatened my life a while back; I remember being in that spot, seeing his rage and anger--a foolish, self-centered wrath--and knowing that if this man became anymore unhinged, I'd be a dead man. I prayed and prayed and thank God he backed away, saying something like I wasn't worth it or shit like that. I know this man, I've seen him in flying colors face-to-face, and I know from his history--a better word would be his literal rap-sheet--that he would have no qualms about hurting Amanda. He's not all talk, and that's a scary thing. Some people are so dehumanized that they will injure others for the slightest "offense"; he's one of those types.

Regarding Amanda, I know what to do. Regarding her roommate, what am I to do? The situation is complicated even more by the fact that she is in an abusive relationship, everyone knows it, but she won't face the facts. She makes excuses for every abusive thing he does. When it was just verbal abuse, she said, "Well, he would never hurt me." After two years of tearing her down emotionally and bringing her to tears every night, he started breaking her things and going into fits of rage. "He just has a bad temper, it's not his fault." Then he started abusing her, and we get more excuses: "It's not really him who's doing it, it's his anger. I still see the good in him." What good in him? Stories abound about women like her in relationships like this, the escalation with time, finally culminating in murder or at least something close to it. Just as she said he would never hurt her, so now she says he'll never hurt her "that bad." I want to scream in her ear, I want to open her eyes, but she's clamped her hands over her eyes and clenched her eyes shut. She refuses to acknowledge what's going on, refuses to see that he's just using, abusing, and manipulating her (despite his own confession that "I control you, you stupid bitch."). What am I to do regarding someone who is so blind, who keeps running into the arms of someone who is abusive? Oh, call the cops, you say. Yeah, we've done that. It's not so simple. Unless she ends up in the E.R., she pretty much has to ask the cops to help. They can't intervene otherwise (or at least that's what we've been told after multiple police incidents). What am I to do when I care about her deeply, when I love her like a sister? I want to talk to her about this, but so many thoughts are running through my head--and she's ignoring me, rightly-so, because she knows what will happen--that I can't just pick up the phone and call her (though if I did, she wouldn't answer). I love her like a sister, and that makes this whole thing hard as hell.

But she's not my sister. Amanda is my sister. I'll do good by her. She trumps her roommate any and every day. If I have to choose, as it were, loyalty to one of the other, then I would choose Amanda, despite the pain that would cause me. If she's putting my sister in danger, the line has been drawn. If she wants to keep screwing up her life, despite having the ability to change it within her means and the shrieking of friends and family in her ears about it, so be it. But when she starts screwing up other peoples' lives, and my sister's life at that? I won't stand for that.

And what am I to do about the douchebag who threatened my little sister? Charges may be filed, but I know the guy. The criminal justice system doesn't operate that fast, and if he finds out between the period of the filing of the charges and the actual arrest or whatever, I fear--legitimately--that he'll seek his own perverted sense of "justice" (which would really be serving his own self-centered ego). And if the charges don't stick, then what? Yes, knowingly threatening someone can land you in prison for ten years; but that doesn't always happen. Sometimes the charged goes free. And this guy is a guy who doesn't let grudges die. If he buries the hatchet, it would be in my sister's head. All of this is quite frightening. What, as a Christian, am I to do? How am I to pray? Am I to pray that God will judge this man? I've found that most often when we pray for God to judge someone, it's because we (a) are actually jealous of that person, (b) want revenge, or (c) we want an escape from the fear and oppression. It's quite self-centered. Last night, when we got the call from Amanda around 3:30 in the morning, as she was sobbing about what had just happened, I quietly did what a wise old man once told me to do in this situation: pray that God will deal with him as he sees fit. I know what I--in my selfishness--want God to do. But I pray that God will do what he sees fit to do.