The co-pastor of a ministry for women suffering from domestic abuse saw firsthand what happens in abusive relationships.

When Rachel Wilson was 8, she saw her mother's boyfriend abuse her. It was that experience that inspired her to launch Girl Talk International, a ministry from Kingdom Vision Life Center in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Wilson leads the ministry with her husband, Ronald Wilson. Both co-lead Kingdom Life Center.

"My mother was heavily abused through domestic violence. I witnessed her being beat up and being body slammed. And as a young girl, with my other girl siblings in the house, we actually saw my mother being abused and beat up in front of our very eyes. So, that was like an indirect hit that was very terrorizing and traumatizing," Wilson said, according to The Christian Post.

"When you see something firsthand, it's different. I know what that abuse did to us as children," she added. "Because it's really disrespectful, but it also messes you up. It broke my security. I thought I was OK until my mother was getting abused. I thought I had a good life until I found out through her screams and getting hit that there was no security here. Anything can happen. It broke my security."

She said her mother stayed in the relationship until she was 10, and when Wilson was 16, she was in a car accident that forced her to evaluate her life.

"My mother was going down one of the hills, and she had a front wheel blowout, doing 65 miles an hour. And so we have this car with seven of us; my mother and then five siblings along with myself in it going full speed, uncontrollably down a hill.

"In that terror, I will never forget that moment, at 16, for the first time in my life, I saw my entire life flash before my eyes," she said.

She said she prayed to God that same day and became a Christian.

Wilson said the ministry hopes to lead the women to Christ too, but it also hopes to equip them to understand their value in God's eyes.

"In a lot of cases, women who are being abused by men will be told all these evil things about themselves by their abusers. So we try to work on the mind of the women we care for and help them to understand the Word of God. And then from there, we encourage them to do self-care and to have love and hope for themselves and others around them."

If you or someone you know is facing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline for support at (800) 799-7233.

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