I am currently working toward getting a master's degree in Counseling Ministries. As part of that degree, I have to do a semester interning as a chaplain in a hospital. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I began the semester. I guess I was naive, but I...
Last week I shared insights from the book With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God.* In that blog I talked about the positions most of us take when we relate to God. In living under God, we try to do everything "right" and then hope/expect him to give us a good...
I have been reading a really interesting book for my master's program. It is called With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God. The author, Skye Jethani talks about the four postures people typically take when relating to God. The following describes these four...
We are often told that we should "lay down our lives" for others. The person that says this to us is often (but not always) trying to manipulate us. When they are trying to manipulate us, what they really mean is lay down your life for ME. Using the Bible to...
There is much confusion about what the Bible says about domestic violence, marriage and divorce. The Bible was not meant to be read out of context. Many abused spouses are told that "God hates divorce" and that "the only biblical grounds for divorce are infidelity and...
In last week's blog, I compared a particular woman's experience of domestic violence to that of a man. The week before, I shared "Patrick's" story of abuse. From these two articles, we can clearly see that some men DO experience domestic violence at the hands...
Last week I shared an article about a man being abused by his wife. This week, I share another blog from Crying Out for Justice. In this blog, a female abuse survivor compares her abuse to that of a male abuse survivor. I found this very interesting. Before you begin,...
For six years I have been a domestic violence advocate, helping abuse victims and survivors. The vast majority have been women. Having very little experience with male victims, I have often wondered what their experience might be like. Recently, a blog I follow...
Emotional healing is hard. We are often in the dark about why we do the things we do. For example, why do we leave one abusive relationship, and land in another? Why is our job never good enough? We leave a job because of relational issues, and the next job seems even...
Many of us unconsciously believe lies about ourselves, others, and God. Being abused can mess with your mind. We begin believing the negative (untrue) things our abusers say about us. Then, without realizing it, we act on the lies we believe. An example of this is...
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