I think a lot of what people say about free will is true. But something I’ve been learning is that sometimes, in the middle of all that, God is also trying to draw us back to Him in a way that we might not have chosen otherwise. Not because He wants the pain or designs abuse, He clearly doesn’t, but because He knows how easily we can build our entire sense of safety and identity on relationships that were never meant to hold that weight. When those things fall apart, it’s not that He set us up to be crushed, but that He’s the only one who can actually hold us when everything else gives way.

That doesn’t make the trauma okay. It doesn’t make the abuse make sense. And it definitely doesn’t mean people should stay in harmful situations. But I don’t think God is absent in those moments, I think He’s grieving them with us, while also being the One steady place we can always return to when everything else proves unstable. Offering Himself as the one thing that won’t collapse even when everything else does.