Sometimes we can feel a certain way for so long that it starts to feel normal, comfortable even. It becomes so familiar that we stuff down that nagging thought that we should do something about our struggles. The process of healing can seem scarier than what we’re experiencing now. I met a woman at a retreat who began to share with me that her...

Perhaps you’ve been struggling for years with feelings that you can’t understand or explain. Here are some of the ways sexual abuse affects a child, which can follow into adulthood. Maybe you’ll see some of yourself in the list below: Self-blame: When children experience trauma, their inherent egocentrism leads them to believe that they...

Sexual abuse has a broader definition than we may assume. There are four types of sexual abuse: verbal, visual, physical and psychological. Verbal sexual abuse includes sexual threats, sexual comments about your body, lewd or suggestive comments and inappropriate sexual conversations with children. Visual sexual abuse includes exposure to pornographic,...

Rough estimates put one in three girls and one in six boys in the US at risk for being sexually abused. But exact figures are hard to assess because most children delay reporting their abuse until later in adulthood or never report it at all. Many of the women I’ve led through healing were not believed when they did report it, or worse, they were...

They say that “absence makes the heart grow fonder”, but I’m not convinced that’s true. I think that love makes the heart grow fonder, distance just gets in the way.  If you love someone, you’re supposed to want to be with them.   Distance is not an insurmountable obstacle, but I have a hard time believing it actually helps. Distance...

There’s no such thing as a perfect marriage, but how do you know if you’re in a good marriage? There have been a spat of celebrity break ups this week.  It’s easy to look at them at think, “well that’s Hollywood, we have real problems” but sometimes we lose perspective too.  When you’re tired, when change is slow, when you run out...

Arguably the worst piece of romantic advice ever given is the oft quoted, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”  Love is all about saying you’re sorry.  Love, when it’s good, is finding someone that you want to be with, someone you want to share your life with.  Inevitably in all that togetherness there are going to be times...