Our friend, author and speaker, Leslie Vernick, has developed a helpful tool to determine if you are in a destructive relationship. We’ve adapted it for quick and easy access for you today. This questionnaire will help you identify not only whether you’re in a destructive relationship but also the ways that destruction is happening. Consider…
This original poem by our friend, Janet Blessing, addresses the dilemma of whether to talk with our children, our pastors, our church friends about the abuse, the pain, the hurt, the sin infesting our home. STILL GRIEVING of all I’d put my children through; of all I’d done to me– but worst of all, the…
We continue to recognize February as Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month with this excerpt from our recent publication, Time To Talk. I can’t even count the number of women who have said to me, “I wish I would have told someone what was happening to me. I was afraid back then, but if I could…
February is a month to recognize that teens are getting hurt out there — those times of hanging out and building relationships and trying to find love in all the wrong places — it is real and it is not healthy. Dating abuse is serious! Nearly 1.5 million high school students nationwide experience abuse from…
In February, we “focus” on ways that teens and young adults can avoid abuse in their relationships. Here’s a story about Little Wife and the things that happened to her when she was young…that actually groomed her to become a “little abused wife” later on in life… Little Wife was looking in the old…
Little Wife set her empty wine glass on the kitchen table and gazed sadly out the window at the falling snow. The weak mid-January sunlight filtered through the cold clouds barely reaching the ground before dissolving into another gray afternoon. “Well,” she thought to herself, “If I’ve had one glass of wine and broken my…
Joan woke up in the morning with heaviness on her heart. “Another day, another problem,” she thought. It seemed like every day there was another mountain to climb, hurdles to jump, and barriers to get around. She could not make sense of her relationship with Tom. One minute he appeared sensitive to her feelings and…
Anyone who mentions the words domestic violence automatically thinks of the various forms of physical abuse which are visible to the naked eye. Below the surface of those wounds though is a crushed heart and a remnant of an image bearer of God. Often in the Christian community the devastation of verbal and emotional abuse…
Relationships are supposed to be fun and fulfilling and full of love. That was God’s original plan. First with our family and our friends, then as romantic dating partners and then as married people, we were originally meant to be kind and loving and patient and full of grace and mercy towards the people in…
“Mr. Big Man,” said the judge as she passed him two pieces of paper. Big Man looked up, reached out his big hand and took the papers from the judge with a confused look on his face. “Mr. Big Man, you’ve just been served. Glorie Christos, your request for a two-year plenary order of protection…