Promises and Comfort from Scripture
God's Word is rich with words and promises of comfort, strength, peace, and justice. You are encouraged to pray and claim the promises of God in these Scripture texts regularly. Find those that speak to you and keep them with you whenever you need to be reminded of God's presence and power. Scripture is one of the most important tools to strengthen you during this battle.
Praying the Psalms
Many of the Psalms capture, often in stunning detail, the feelings, fears, needs, prayers, and plights of mothers facing the oppression of post-separation and legal abuse. Read and pray these Psalms below and know that God hears you and is your deliverer and protector.
Psalm 3: Trust God in Adversity
Psalm 5: God's Deliverance from Lying Enemies
Psalm 7: God's Help from Persecutors
Psalm 9: God's Justice and Protection
Psalm 10: God's Deliverance for the Oppressed
Psalm 12: God's Protection from Evil
Psalm 31: God's Safety and Refuge
Psalm 34: God Rescues and Saves
Psalm 35: God Fights and Vindicates
Psalm 54: Prayer of Vindication and Deliverance
Psalm 56: God's Deliverance from Oppression
Psalm 57: God is our Safety in Persecution
Psalm 62: God is Your Rock and Refuge
Psalm 64: God Protects from Enemies
Psalm 86: Put Enemies to Shame
Psalm 120: Deliverance from Slanderers
Psalm 121: The Lords Keeps You from Evil
Persevere in Prayer: The Unjust Judge
Luke 18:1-8 is of particular comfort and encouragement to persevere in prayer and in your requests for justice, even in a sometimes unjust judicial system:
"Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my accuser.’ For a while he refused, but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’ ”And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them."
God Cares for You and Your Children
Jesus spoke of God's love and concern for children throughout the Gospels. Spiritually speaking, many of today's "widows" include not only those whose husbands have died, but those whose husbands abandoned them emotionally or physically through abuse and/or divorce. The "fatherless" include children whose fathers have abandoned then emotionally or through abuse or neglect. In either case, God cares about the plight of mothers and children of divorce and of all victims/survivors of abuse in all its forms.
Matthew 19:14
Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."
Isaiah 1:17
Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.
Deuteronomy 10:18
God defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.
Psalm 68:5
A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.
James 1:27
Religion that is pure and stainless according to God the Father is this: to take care of orphans and widows who are suffering...
Isaiah 66:13
As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.
Matthew 18:1-6
The disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like a little child, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven...whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
Psalm 10:18
You have heard, O LORD, the desire of the humble; you will encourage them and will listen to their cry, to give justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that humankind may be terrified no longer.
Psalm 146:7, 9a
The LORD upholds the cause of the oppressed and... lifts up those who are bowed down, the LORD.... sustains the fatherless and the widow....