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...

Sexual issues can be overwhelming.  Many people think sex is supposed to “be natural and just be wonderful, always”.  In reality it is complex and takes two people to work together to love, accept and enjoy each other.  In response, FamilyLife has put together answers for the many questions we hear. The following collection will be helpful...

Whether our sexuality was stolen from us or we gave it away, we experience a loss. But unfortunately many of us don’t allow ourselves to grieve those losses. Psychologists tell us that there are five stages of grieving; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Writing out our life map begins to move us beyond denial to truth....

When we’ve been used or abused with sex, it damages our view of sex, ourselves, others and God. Part of the healing process will be seeing ourselves and sex from God’s perspective. God made sex. And He made it good, pure and pleasurable. But when sex has been a source of pain and wounding, it’s impossible for us to view it from God’s perspective;...

When we let God show us how our past has hurt us, He’s able to heal our brokenness. But the first step and often the hardest is acknowledging what’s happened to us. One way to help see your own story is to write your life map.  Divide your life into four segments based on years: 0-12 yrs, 13-19 yrs, 20-30 yrs, and 30-present. As you focus...

Because many of us feel responsible for the loss, we often don’t feel we deserve to grieve. But the truth is, we do deserve to grieve, even more, we need to grieve. In fact God grieves right along with us.  For many years I believed that God was the one who was heaping shame on me. I was certain He was disappointed with me, and no matter...