Kentucky ranks second in the nation for domestic abuse.

A madison County nonprofit is doing its part to lower that number, hopes Wings is a domestic violence program offering shelter, self-sustainability, resources and traditional housing to survivors.

I was in a pretty much domestic, violent and abused relationship for over three decades and just finally had had enough.

It was after I had been beaten by my husband.

One night I went around and said, Look where I failed and my granddaughter came around and she immediately was like in a gasp.

And I was like, No, no, no, no, it's okay to fail.

And then on the ride home, it was more or less like I was thinking to myself, You just told your granddaughter how to lie for a man who could take her life.

The next day I got up and got courage and I went back to Hope swings because I didn't know anything other than that.

We opened our doors in 2009 as an emergency shelter and our programs kind of grown beyond emergency shelter since then.

What we were able to do was to become the first and so far only community in the state of Kentucky that is now a blueprint for safety community.

Blueprint for safety is just this innovative way for addressing the crime of domestic violence in the community through evidence collection and evidence based prosecution, rather than putting victims of domestic violence on the stand as witnesses and putting them in some really terrible positions to file those charges and to prosecute because it's very hard for a victim.

Our next grant from the Office of Violence against Women, we will use that grant to form a team that will review cases and try to address those high risk cases before homicide occurs, because we don't want to see any more deaths here in Madison County.

There is a place that you don't have to worry about a soft landing that's what Hope Springs is for.

I don't like it when we're full because that means that domestic violence is, you know, alive and kicking in your community.

It means that somebody has gone through something horrible and no longer can safely live in their own home.

So I don't like that.

But on the other hand, I like it that in the fact that people trust us, they reach out for help.

They are choosing not to stay in that situation in their trusting us to help them find a way out.

When you've had enough, you know it.

And that's when you go into survival mode.

That's when you decide that you've got to change you and everything around you.

You've got to become what you want to be or you won't survive it.

I've been gone since June the ninth, and I've changed.

I've written poetry.

I'm writing a book.

And if I fall to ask myself off and I'll get back up, because that's what they teach you to do.

They don't teach you to lay down and to just wither.

They want you to bloom.

They want to see you blossom at any age.

Lynda Burnett's poetry book will be titled Poetry Pot The Soup That Healed My Soul.

It's inspired by her experiences surviving and overcoming domestic violence.