Nov 30, 2024
New Study Proves the Bible Helps with Mental Health
Nov 30, 2024
In her book Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up, Abigail Shrier argues that the mental health crisis among today's youth is exacerbated by the very professionals meant to help them. She suggests that modern psychotherapy often does more harm than good for many children, leading to increased anxiety and depression.
There's actually a term to describe this horrific outcome. From the Greek word iatros, iatrogenesis means harm brought forth by a healer or any unintended adverse patient outcome because of a health care intervention.
I believe the girls in your life don’t need to suffer.
Christianity is uniquely poised to set them free from anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges. Sometimes medical and mental health care are required, but we must not divorce them from the power of God’s Truth. We must not employ the tools of the world without the strategies of Scripture.
The Bible Changes Everything
Did you know young adults who read the Bible regularly report far less anxiety and feel more hopeful about life? It’s true. A 2024 study found that Scripture-engaged young adults are flourishing compared to their Bible-disengaged peers.
Here’s what I know: when girls immerse themselves in the truth of God’s Word, their minds and hearts are transformed. They learn to trust God, value themselves rightly, and walk with courage.
We don’t need to build self-esteem. We need to build God-esteem. Here are five recommendations to get into the Word and to get the Word into you.
My #1 Recommendation to Get Tween Girls Into God’s Word in 2025
A few years ago, I learned that 70% of girls in their tweens were not having daily devos. So my team and I developed a subscription program to begin to help them form that habit. We now ship daily devos to girls aged 8-12. Learn more about The True Girl Subscription or our Brave Boxes for boys. These make great Christmas gifts.
#2 A Daily Download of Truth for Adult Women (FREE)
If you’re looking for a daily dose of biblical wisdom to deepen your walk with God, I can’t recommend Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth enough. As her co-host, I’ve seen firsthand how Nancy’s passion for Scripture transforms hearts and lives, guiding women to find joy and purpose in God’s truth. Join us each day for teaching rooted in God’s Word that will equip you to live boldly for Him.
#3 Drive-time Nuggets of Truth for Girls (FREE)
The True Girl Podcast is the perfect drive-time companion for moms and daughters aged 5-13. Packed with fun, relatable nuggets of biblical truth, each episode helps you connect, laugh, and grow together in God’s Word. Tune in for encouragement to plant seeds of faith in your girl’s heart—one car ride at a time!
#4 Take the Holy Girl Walk (FREE with optional study memory guide)
The Holy Girl Walk is your invitation to calm your anxious thoughts (Season 1) and flourish in life (Season 2) while memorizing powerful Scriptures like Psalm 91 and Psalm 92. With free podcasts to guide you and optional memory guides to invest in your spiritual growth, this series is perfect for women who want to deepen their walk with God while walking in His Word. Seasons 3 and 4 are coming in 2025—start your journey today and discover the peace and joy that come from hiding God’s Word in your heart!
#5 Give Yourself Some Weekend Truth. (FREE)
Revive Our Hearts Weekend is your weekly dose of biblical encouragement, hosted by me. Each episode weaves together relatable truth, meaningful conversations, and powerful teaching from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, with special guests like Mary Kassian. Tune in to refresh your heart and realign your life with God’s Word—your weekend encouragement is waiting!
You may have noticed many of those recommendations are FREE. But they require partnership to make them possible.
The next generation is being crushed by a culture that rejects Truth. But I’m on the frontlines—helping parents plant deep roots of faith. My ministry, True Girl, is calling girls (and boys through Born to Be Brave) to know and love God personally. And I love partnering with Revive Our Hearts to make it possible. We're both 501(c)(3) ministries that rely on your help to fulfill our mission.
To continue this work, I’m praying for God to provide $700,000 by December 31st. Every gift—big or small—helps plant DEEP ROOTS into the next generation. Will you help me?
View this episode's page
Jul 1, 2024
My Husband Doesn't Have My Heart (My Phone Does.)
Feb 14, 2024
Flourish Where You're Planted (Even When You Want to Give Up)
Feb 14, 2024
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)
We often treat this verse like a security blanket or a genie-in-a-bottle wish. We take it to mean our suffering will soon end and the flourishing is just around the corner.
That's taking it terribly out of context! I'm about to destroy this verse for you, but then we'll reframe it to discover something really powerful.
Here's what Jeremiah was writing about: the Israelites were in exile. This wasn't just because there were bad people in the world, but due to the fact that God had removed his protection from them as a punishment due to their disobedience.
Enter the false prophet Hananiah, who boldly proclaimed that God was going to free Israel from Babylon in two years. (Not so much!)
Jeremiah calls out Hananiah’s lie, and then writes the promise we read in 29:11. God does have a good plan for the Israelites, and it is a plan that will give them hope and a prospering future. But, there's a kind of catch. It's going to happen right where they are. God's not going to change their bad circumstances, but He's going to give them the grace to flourish within this place they wish they were not living in.
Here were God's instructions for the Israelites right there in Babylon:
"Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare." (Jeremiah 29:5-7)
This is not at all what the Israelites wanted to hear! They wanted to go home. They wanted to be told that their suffering was going to end. Instead, God’s plan was for them to stay right where they were, and . . . to help prosper the nation that enslaved them!
(Oh, then Jeremiah tells them just how wrong Hananiah was. It was, in fact, going to be a long time 'til they were free from exile. How long? “After seventy years are completed in Babylon.”)
So, I guess you could say, "There's good news! There's bad news!"
The Israelites had to decide if they were going to flourish in a nation that did not love and serve God.
I think we're kind of in a similar place, though under somewhat different circumstances.
Our nation is a post-Christian, anti-God climate. Sexual promiscuity abounds. And as U.S. depression rates reach new heights in our post-Christian nation, the number of Christians who are actively involved in discipleship communities is dwindling.
I want to sound an alarm about this. But I need your help.
God did not mean for us to merely survive during times when the headlines are bleak. He wants us to flourish. Right here where He's planted us. In this time and space, God wants you and I to be Christian women who flourish.
Not to merely exist, waiting for our circumstances to change. But to FLOURISH!
A common definition of flourish is to grow and develop in a favorable environment. But God's plan is more magnificent. A biblical understanding of flourish invites us to live on mission and sustain and outward focus of others even in the harshest of circumstances so that we can spread God's glory throughout the earth.
Ready to Flourish? Join me this fall for a life-giving experience for women aged 13 to 99. This one-of-a-kind gathering will feature the teaching of me and my long-time friends Erin Davis and worship leader Stephanie Martinez. I want to invite you to join us!
Over a decade ago, the three of us toured hosting the Pure Freedom event for teen girls and their moms. Something truly special happened at those events. And I want to invite you to be a part of what I think will be something even more special. After all, we've got another decade of experience and wisdom and life to share with you!
Flourish promises women of all ages an unforgettable experience. Teens can enjoy a special pre-event crafted just for them and their moms. (We still have such a special heart for the 13-19 year olds!) During the main event, you will study an entire chapter of the Bible during a prayerfully structured night of worship. You'll be able to experience the fullness of a multi-day women’s conference, but in an affordable, three-hour, one-night event. It’s designed to encounter Christ and discover the power through HIM to flourish in every circumstance!
Jan 30, 2024
Your Character Will Outlive The Lies Told About You
Jan 30, 2024
Have you ever been lied about? Had a friend (who you thought had your back) make a difficult time even worse? Are you the subject of gossip? It’s a terrible feeling. The injustice of it all can eat away at you, leaving you overwhelmed by anger, fear, and uncertainty. Before you know it you could be flailing about in fury.
Or, you can flourish.
As Christian women, we’re promised we can flourish in every circumstance.
“The righteous . . . are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God.” (Psalm 92:12)
If you want to flourish when someone's talking smack about you, lean in. This little nugget-of-a-blog is packed full of FIVE FREEBIES that you can use now to set the stage to flourish in your life. But I feel especially called to nurture your heart if someone is lying about you. Even in that dark place, you can flourish!
While it is true one definition of flourish is “to grow and develop in a favorable environment,” God's plan is much more magnificent. A biblical understanding of flourishing invites us to live on mission and sustain an outward focus for others even in the harshest of circumstances. No doubt, you’ve got some harsh circumstances in some area of your life. It seems we’re either walking into a hardship, or just walking out of one most days.
In the last year or so, God has allowed my name to be the target of atrocious slander. Words that have been used about me were so bad, I won't type them here. They aren't true. And I won't pass them on! It is in this space God has called me to flourish. And I've learned a secret about thriving through the gossip. It's this: where you're planted matters.
Where you are planted now determines how you fare and whether you thrive and flourish over the long haul. If you are planted in His presence among His people, you will flourish in this life and all the way to the end for all eternity.
-Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth
I've had to choose to be planted in the approval of man or the Word of God. It's that simple. Two things have gotten me to approach this with character.
1.) God hates lies and loves the truth. (Exodus 20:16)
The scriptures state this over and over. When you are living righteously before Him, He jealously defends you from lies.
In the Old Testament the lex talionis was applied to those who violated God's prohibition against false witness in ancient Israel. You know, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth!” This process was actually established to ensure that true justice is dealt. It establishes that the punishment must fit the crime: If the victim’s eye is taken, then the perpetrator’s eye is taken — no more and no less.
Thankfully, today's New Testament is full of lavish grace. But God still defends His people. And He often uses others to do it. The process for addressing false witness is still spelled out for us in Matthew 18:15-20. If you know of someone who is spreading gossip or lying, you should confront the offender in love according to these verses. If the perpetrator is righteous, they will repent. And that's a beautiful thing to see in someone and they should be extended a generous waterfall of forgiveness.
If they don't repent, Matthew 18 instructs you to go to the elders in your church. Leaders must be prepared to throughly investigate BOTH SIDES of a conflict, and address the situation should the need arise. Destructive gossip, backbiting, using a lie for your benefit and other sins of the tongue should never be tolerated in the church, the Lord’s holy temple.
But not all people who lie and gossip are willing to be confronted by someone in the Body of Christ. They'll just run to another church or tell another lie to cover up their sin. And, sadly, I find very few leaders are willing to do the confronting.
My own attempts to make lies right with proper authorities met with lethargy and lazy leadership. Sigh. If yours have, too, take comfort in this verse. (And take heed if you're the one spilling the ungodly tea on someone.)
"Though the wicked sprout like grass and all evildoers flourish, they are doomed to destruction forever." (Psalm 92:7)
God takes evil seriously. A liar and gossip who does not repent is doomed to destruction forever. The God of the Universe eventually levels the playing field. Justice is in His nature.
What's in yours? That's the question God's Spirit has been whispering in mine as I learn to flourish in the face of falsehood. He's been teaching me this...
2.) Your character will outlive the lies told about you.
I've seen social media posts with that sort of statement, but it wasn't until I looked at Psalm 92 closely that I saw something that made it a biblical truth for me to stand on. Read this about the righteous.
"They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green,
to declare that the Lord is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him. (Psalm 92:13)
When they are old, they're still fruitful. That same chapter that mentioned the evil doers fast-forwards, if you will, to the old age of a righteous person. And there they are: flourishing? Why? Because they were righteous.
Hold your head high. Stand strong. Keep your eyes on the lives God has assigned you to nurture. Stay on mission and keep an outward focus of serving. And let the fruit of your life outlive the lies.
That's my plan. I'm stickin' to it!
Maybe it'll help you face your falsehoods with a mindset to flourish!
Here's another way to flourish!
I’ve created an event specifically to give you a night to come up for air and get a fresh dose of hope and perspective. I’ll be joined by my dear friend Erin Davis and our favorite worship leader Stephanie Martinez. I can promise you this: you'll laugh hard, worship freely, and study the Word of God actively. Click here to learn more.
Beige Simple Elegant Creative Portfolio Slide Presentation
Jan 30, 2024
The Day My Husband Broke My Heart
Jul 8, 2023
Why Do We Fight Over What We Wear?
Jul 8, 2023
Remember back—maybe waaaay back—to some of the disagreements you had with your own mom about what you wanted to wear.
Why is that?
Well, I think the rumble about wardrobes is a small piece of an ongoing war that was waged in antiquity. Tucked in the midst of Genesis 3 is a Bible verse from which everything else in the Scriptures flows. It’s a battle cry that God issued after Satan lied to Adam and Eve. Here is what God said to the snake:
I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”
(Gen. 3:15 NLT)
This is a verse that theologians refer to as the proto evangelium, which means “the first gospel.” This piece of biblical poetry wields a promise. War has been declared, and there is hostility in the world. But the outcome of the fight between good and evil has already been determined. These words in Genesis are the first promise of redemption that we see in the Bible.
Let’s think about this. Satan sleuths in. Adam and Eve succumb. God declares a victory that is yet to come. There’s a bit about the consequence of the sin. And then: clothing!
Of course, dressing Adam and Eve was not what God dealt with first and foremost. The garments of skin were not of the utmost importance to Him when He entered this catastrophic scene. But they’re not unimportant. God does include covering Adam and Eve’s nakedness in His plan to mitigate the damage of sin.
Let me say this again: the gift of clothing has the potential to declare “the gospel is here.”
You and I have the benefit of looking back on the victory Genesis 3:15 foretold: Jesus’ death and resurrection. And the way we are clothed still matters to God.
Our dress can still declare “the gospel is here.” In fact, we have these instructions to execute:
Clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.
(Rom. 13:14 NLT)
This verse is included in Romans, Paul’s fullest explanation of the good news about Jesus’ death and resurrection. First, we understand our sin and spiritual nakedness and get right with God through what Christ has done on the cross. We experience the life-transforming power of the gospel. Then, we dress like someone whose life has been changed.
Being properly clothed begins for us in the same way it did for Adam and Eve. Shame helps us understand our spiritual nakedness. After we begin to bravely face the destruction sin has caused in our lives, then we can come before the Lord to be clothed in the life-saving presence of Jesus Christ.
Okay, let’s talk about how shame in Scripture often differs from what you’ll hear on popular secular podcasts. Yes, shame feels bad and needs to be dealt with. But, according to the Bible, it serves a useful purpose. When we allow our shame to illuminate our sin and our need for the gospel, it can be helpful. We have experienced the first step in being clothed in Christ. It invites us to bring the rags of our sin to Jesus Christ and exchange it for the covering of the gospel.
Sadly, not everyone wants to clothe themselves in Christ.
Some people have hearts that have become quite hardened to shame. They experience an inability to be aware of their sin and the need to receive Christ’s rescue. They are shameless.
Rather than being drawn to God in humility and need, they press against Him in rebellion. In Romans 1, Paul writes about these kinds of people and describes how they’re dressed in “dark deeds” (Rom. 13:12 NLT). He claims that “they invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents” (Rom. 1:30 NLT). They are shameless.
Shamelessness has become so normal in society, that dignity is odd when we see it. This causes us to feel so strange when we choose to dress differently than our unbelieving friends. I often find myself bummed out when something that looks lovely on my less curvy friends doesn’t work on my body. It would just be so simple if I didn’t have to care about presenting myself with dignity and care!
Of course, our daughters aren’t thinking about shamelessness when we want to wear whatever they want. They’re just trying to express themselves.
And now, we’re back at the beginning because this is the very thing—our desire —that led Eve to take a bite of a piece of fruit God had told her not to eat. And to experience shame.
Satan’s solution to shame is to numb us until we are shameless. This is no solution at all. It draws us further into a life of sin and its consequences.
God’s solution to shame is the gospel—to clothe us in Jesus Christ. “For the Scripture says, ‘Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame’” (Rom. 10:11 ESV).
And now you see why we fight about what we wear.
So how do you talk to your daughter about being clothed? Your number one priority in discipling your daughter is not to conform her outward appearance to standards of modesty, but to bring her heart to the cross of Jesus in truly authentic surrender. Only the Holy Spirit can do this work in her life, but you can support it.
In a survey I conducted when I was writing Lies Girls Believe and the Truth that Sets Them Free, I discovered something alarming. Many of our church-going tween girls believe they are Christians, but cannot verbalize how to become one. They think they are Christians because they were born that way, or they go to church, or their mom is a Christian. But the only way to become a Christian is to confess your own sin to Jesus and declare with your mouth that He is the Lord of your life (Rom. 10:9–10). Again, only God’s Spirit can bring us to such a surrender but we can set the stage through understanding the pathway to a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Take some time to have a conversation with your daughter about that today. Find out where she is in her understanding. Do you see the Holy Spirit at work convicting her of her need for Christ? Teach her to properly respond to her shame by turning to Jesus.
If your daughter has already surrendered her life to Christ, take some time today to celebrate it and remember key points in her spiritual journey. Help her grow in her understanding of the gospel.
•••
Does this article resonate with you? Help us make more intelligent-faith content for girls and moms by making a one-time gift to the Crazy for Jesus campaign. Together, we can make a CRAZY difference in this world.
TRUE GIRL IS A MINISTRY OF PURE FREEDOM, A NON-PROFIT 501C3 THAT RELIES ON DONATIONS FROM FRIENDS LIKE YOU.
CONSIDER MAKING A GIFT TODAY.
View this episode's page
Jul 3, 2023
Whose Idea Was Clothing?
Jul 3, 2023
Have you ever wondered why we wear clothes? I mean, when God made the first man and woman, He made them without clothes: “The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Gen. 2:25 ESV). There was no clothing . . . and there was no shame or guilt. That’s because Adam and Eve were sinless. There were no barriers in their relationship with God or with each other.
But then, the devil shape-shifted as a serpent and convinced them to sin.
After Adam and Eve ate that piece of forbidden fruit, they began to experience shame. “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (Gen. 3:7a ESV). Their awareness of their nudity is a symptom of something more significant. Sin had stripped them of their innocence and right standing before God. Biblically nakedness often symbolizes man’s ongoing agony and battle with shame.
Adam and Eve’s solution to their shame was itty, bitty aprons. They “sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves loincloths” (Gen. 3:7b ESV).
As far as leaves go, fig leaves are big. But they still don’t cover much! And they were insufficient to cover the separation the first couple felt. When they heard God’s voice, they hid. But God sought them out. After an appropriate conversation about their situation, God “clothed them” with the skin of an animal (Gen. 3:21). Much better than those fig leaves!
But I don’t believe the sole purpose of God’s clothing was to cover Adam and Eve. If that were so, why will we be clothed in heaven where there will be no shame? (Rev. 3:4; 6:11). It’s my opinion that the clothing mentioned here is meant to symbolize our status. For example, our robes will be white, which represents our clean standing before God (Rev. 7:9).
Through Christ, we will be worthy, honored, and esteemed. And I think the clothing God gave Adam and Eve was also symbolic
The Hebrew language communicates that the garments God made were tunics that covered them from their shoulders to their knees. (I’d prefer that to the loincloth, personally!) Some theologians suggest the fact that it was a tunic was to restore their dignity as co-regents of the planet since that piece of clothing is used in other places in Scripture to signify worth. (For example, Joseph’s coat of many colors sets him apart from his brothers.) God dressed Adam and Eve in honor befitting their intended position in the world. Perhaps the true comfort for their shame was the restoration of their status to be stewards of the earth.
God exchanged garments of shame to clothe humanity in dignity.
Like most everything else in the physical world, clothing contains a spiritual lesson. When God replaced fig leaves with comforting garments of skin, He was accomplishing something in the spiritual realm. He was reminding mankind to walk in their dignity.
Dignity • the quality or state of being worthy, honored, or esteemed.
God cares about what we wear, but it goes way beyond covering our naked bodies. He desires for us to live out our position in Christ through the way we present ourselves. When it comes to clothes, God seems fairly focused on the spiritual aspect of how we dress.
Are we?
Let’s try to be mothers and leaders who follow the lead of Scripture when we teach the next generation about how to dress. And may it be first and foremost with dignity, not longer hemlines. Yes, the physical matters but not nearly as much as the clothing we wear on our hearts.
•••
Does this article resonate with you? Help us make more intelligent-faith content for girls and moms by making a one-time gift to the Crazy for Jesus campaign. Together, we can make a CRAZY difference in this world.
TRUE GIRL IS A MINISTRY OF PURE FREEDOM, A NON-PROFIT 501C3 THAT RELIES ON DONATIONS FROM FRIENDS LIKE YOU.
CONSIDER MAKING A GIFT TODAY.
View this episode's page
Jun 23, 2023
8 Ways the Holy Spirit Helps When Marriage Is Painful
Jun 23, 2023
Has your marriage ever been in a place where you barely knew how to pray?
Mine has.
At times, the only prayer that formed on my lips was, Lord, help!
And He did. God has written a redemption story in the marriage of Bob and Dannah Gresh that I could never have dreamed of. We worked hard, of course. And we used many tools to help us work through what we were walking through, including clinically informed and biblically grounded therapists, godly friends, support groups, and the slow passage of time. But nothing and no one helped me more than the precious Holy Spirit.
Have you experienced His power?
Jesus said this about the Spirit: “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7).
Jesus had close friends and followers when He walked on this earth. Perhaps no one other than His mother would have felt the acute pain of His departure more than these individuals. But our Savior told them it was to their advantage that He would leave them.
How?
Because after Jesus went away, He sent the Helper — the Holy Spirit.
And think about this: with intention and purpose, God chose when you would be born. (Jeremiah 1:5; Psalm 139:15-16) He placed you — and me — onto the planet during this time, ever so short in the scheme of things, when it is to our “advantage” that Jesus is not here in the flesh. We get to experience the goodness and help of the Holy Spirit!
During my time of pain, I pulled together some scriptures to give me understanding of how the Holy Spirit provides support no matter our need. I then considered how these truths applied to a wife when her marriage was painful. As I kept my eyes open to see Him at work, I experienced eight ways the Spirit helps us through marriage trauma.
- He comes alongside us to advocate for us. (John 14:26, NIV; John 15:26, NIV)
- He intercedes for us when we run out of words to pray for ourselves. (Romans 8:26)
- He opens our minds to understand the Scriptures, something we may need a lot of help with when our brains are hijacked by trauma. (John 14:26; Ephesians 1:17-18)
- He helps us experience freedom from anything that holds us in bondage, including fear, bitterness or hyper-vigilance. (2 Corinthians 3:17)
- He leads us into Truth, helping us bypass all the confusing lies. (John 16:13)
- He works to lead us and make us more like Jesus in everything we do rather than reacting to our husbands out of our emotion and fear. (Romans 8:14-16)
- He sweetly convicts us — and our husbands — of sin so we can confess and find freedom. (John 16:8)
- He helps us, our husbands, and others in the body of Christ to experience unity of heart and mind. (Acts 4:31-32)
The Spirit’s help makes all the difference when your body and soul need some extra care because your heart is in trauma. Call upon Him. The Spirit is able to help you as you seek redemption and healing in your marriage.
Do you need help finding the healing God's Spirit brings? Join me, Bob, and our therapist, Pete Kuiper, for an encouraging weekend of Truth-filled redemption hope. Apply for the Happily Even After Couple's Weekend here.
Need some biblical, clinically informed advice for how to navigate your husband’s battle with lust and pornography? Get a copy of Happily Even After: Let God Redeem Your Marriage by Dannah Gresh. (That's me!)
Read a FREE sample chapter, “This Is His Brain (and Sadly Yours) on Sin.” It contains useful research to help you understand why you need and deserve help when your heart is wounded by your husband’s sexual sin.
View this episode's page
Mar 30, 2023
We Need a Theology of Clothing
Mar 17, 2023
Healing Does Happen: Our Road to Freedom
Mar 17, 2023
We both felt the nudge of God's spirit to slow down and get honest. But we didn't. We kept making a lie our refuge. Eventually, Bob got to the point where he had to tell me the whole truth.
He did. Sitting in our red leather chairs in our living room, he broke my heart.
Thankfully, we did find resources that helped lead us to freedom. From that journey, we have created some additional resources we want to share with you. We pray it helps with your journey.
3 Resources to Begin Finding Freedom:
- Need some biblical, clinically informed advice for how to navigate your husband’s battle with lust and pornography? Get a copy of Happily Even After: Let God Redeem Your Marriage by Dannah Gresh. (That's me!) Read a FREE sample chapter, “This Is His Brain (and Sadly Yours) on Sin.” It contains useful research to help you understand why you need and deserve help when your heart is wounded by your husband’s sexual sin.
- Do you need help getting started? Join me, Bob, and our Christian counselor Pete Kuiper for a weekend in the Dominican Republic.
Every few years, we host the Pure Freedom Master Class for couples, individuals, counselors, and pastors who want to increase their capacity to experience God’s continued healing in their lives and their ability to provide biblical-rooted care when God calls them to minister.
This year, we decided to do something different. Our goal is to hang out with couples we can love on while we share some of the best teaching we’ve ever heard on healing and wholeness. So, we’re heading to the Caribbean for a once-in-a-lifetime experience with Pete Kuiper, our marriage counselor!
You’ll get phenomenal biblical teaching, organic networking with other couples and professionals, and understanding on sexual theology and healing. The only difference is: you’ll be able to hit the beach, spa, or golf course in between sessions!
Because this is part of our Pure Freedom Master Class series, you need to apply to attend. Why? We want to be sure that it’s a good fit for you and that you’re committed to the kind of community experience that awaits!
View this episode's page
Mar 16, 2023
8 Ways the Holy Spirit Helps When Marriage Is Painful
Mar 16, 2023
Has your marriage ever been in a place where you barely knew how to pray?
Mine has.
My husband’s fierce battle with lust and pornography once knocked me to my knees. At times, the only prayer that formed on my lips was, Lord, help!
And He did. God has written a redemption story in the marriage of Bob and Dannah Gresh that I could never have dreamed of. We worked hard, of course. And we used many tools to help us work through what we were walking through, including clinically informed and biblically grounded therapists, godly friends, support groups, and the slow passage of time. But nothing and no one helped me more than the precious Holy Spirit.
Have you experienced His power?
Jesus said this about the Spirit: “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7).
Jesus had close friends and followers when He walked on this earth. Perhaps no one other than His mother would have felt the acute pain of His departure more than these individuals. But our Savior told them it was to their advantage that He would leave them.
How?
Because after Jesus went away, He sent the Helper — the Holy Spirit.
And think about this: With intention and purpose, God chose when you would be born. (Jeremiah 1:5; Psalm 139:15-16) He placed you — and me — onto the planet during this time, ever so short in the scheme of things, when it is to our “advantage” that Jesus is not here in the flesh. We get to experience the goodness and help of the Holy Spirit!
During my time of pain, I pulled together some scriptures to give me understanding of how the Holy Spirit provides support no matter our need. I then considered how these truths applied to a wife when her marriage was painful. As I kept my eyes open to see Him at work, I experienced eight ways the Spirit helps us through marriage trauma.
- He comes alongside us to advocate for us. (John 14:26, NIV; John 15:26, NIV)
- He intercedes for us when we run out of words to pray for ourselves. (Romans 8:26)
- He opens our minds to understand the Scriptures, something we may need a lot of help with when our brains are hijacked by trauma. (John 14:26; Ephesians 1:17-18)
- He helps us experience freedom from anything that holds us in bondage, including fear, bitterness or hypervigilance. (2 Corinthians 3:17)
- He leads us into Truth, helping us bypass all the confusing lies. (John 16:13)
- He works to lead us and make us more like Jesus in everything we do rather than reacting to our husbands out of our emotion and fear. (Romans 8:14-16)
- He sweetly convicts us — and our husbands — of sin so we can confess and find freedom. (John 16:8)
- He helps us, our husbands, and others in the body of Christ to experience unity of heart and mind. (Acts 4:31-32)
The Spirit’s help makes all the difference when your body and soul need some extra care because your heart is in trauma. Call upon Him. The Spirit is able to help you as you seek redemption and healing in your marriage.
Do you need help finding the healing God's Spirit brings? Join me, Bob, and our team of therapists for an encouraging evening of Truth-filled redemption hope. Register for our online workshop for couples here.
Need some biblical, clinically informed advice for how to navigate your husband’s battle with lust and pornography? Get a copy of Happily Even After: Let God Redeem Your Marriage by Dannah Gresh. (That's me!)
Read a FREE sample chapter, “This Is His Brain (and Sadly Yours) on Sin.” It contains useful research to help you understand why you need and deserve help when your heart is wounded by your husband’s sexual sin.
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Feb 8, 2023
Is It Possible To Enjoy Intimacy Again After Porn?
Feb 8, 2023
Roughly 60-70% of men in the Church are living like addicts when it comes to the way they complacently use pornography and feed a lustful mindset. Scan the brain of a man like that and the functional image reveals that it looks like that of a heroine addict's—full of holes. Like Swiss cheese! What began as a sin problem quickly becomes a physiological brain problem.
The way a man lives when his brain is damaged impacts his wife's brain. She may experience confusion and feel crazy. But she also may have physical symptoms of what is now understood to be betrayal trauma. (You can learn more about that by reading chapter 3 in my newest book Happily Even After: Let God Redeem Your Marriage. To get a free download of that chapter, visit this page and scroll down to where you see the image above!)
Well, recently I have been doing podcast and radio interviews to share what God has taught me in fighting FOR (not WITH) my husband as he overcomes his own battles with lust and pornography. And I've been talking about our broken brains. My! How the letters are flowing in. This morning a particularly difficult one got passed on to me from my team. Here's part of it:
"Here’s a big question for you Dannah. . . . I heard you [on Janet Parshall's podcast talking about your husband's battle with lust and pornography].
My sister and I have discovered in many ways our lives are parallel. We are both in pain at different levels. We grew up with an unhealthy view of ourselves as females. Dad was into porn. Our parents never built relationships with us. And our now-husbands took advantage of us as teenagers and stole from us the gift we had for our marriage night. Then our husbands committed adultery – porn as well as real women.
So here’s the million dollar question: here we are at ages 66 and 68 – is it possible to actually discover and enjoy true intimacy with our husbands when their brains are “Swiss cheese” and full of all the IMAGES from a life time of [sin]?
Neither husband wants a relationship with our Lord Yeshua the Christ. We do practice our faith as best we can being unequally yoked. To be honest, marriage seems false. Oh the mess sin makes. Just thought I would pop that million dollar question. We feel hopeless and wonder if the rest of our years are going to be empty."
Since this question is coming in a lot, I thought I'd share with you what I wrote back to her. Here's that:
Oh, dear sister. My heart aches to tell you what you want to hear. I cannot. It takes two people to pursue a healthy relationship. (This is why Scripture instructs us, as you mentioned, not to be unequally yoked but to take care that our most intimate relationships share a love for Christ.) But, alas, many of us would like the opportunity to go back to our younger lives and make decisions differently! Yet, here you are passionately in love with Jesus but experiencing a bit of loneliness in your marriage. Can you enjoy intimacy with your husband?
As I received your letter this morning, I had just emerged from my quiet time with the Lord. And I immediately sensed that what I'd studied contained an answer for your hurting heart. Only you can know for sure, but let me show you what God taught me.
Here's the passage of Scripture that I read:
And the LORD said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. —Deuteronomy 34:4,5
This is a tough passage. Moses got to see the Promised Land, but did not get to go in. This was a painful consequence for striking the rock at Meribah rather than just speaking to it as God had instructed. But I think there's more here for us to see!
Moses was 120 years old when he climbed a mountain in Moab to see the Promised Land he would never walk into. (Side note: the man was still climbing mountains at that old age!) Knowing Moses pattern of having frank conversations with God, we might expect him to argue with His Maker. "Come on, Lord! Let me just put one sandal on that ground!"
He doesn't do that!
Is it possible that everything Moses had gone through—the loneliness of leadership, the disappointments in the past—had prepared him for this moment in a way we cannot understand until we get to one of our own just like it? Is it possible that he'd been relieved of his ache for an earthly home and had begun to be more eager to live in the presence of God in his heavenly home? Could it be that when we read about this moment we are witness to a man who simply wants nothing to stand between him and the Lover of His Soul?
I think there is a hidden sweetness to what we read in this passage. Moses had become so satisfied in God that it was enough to take a quiet walk with Him up a rocky mountain to see the Promised Land he would never step foot into. And I think there is a hint at an awareness that this was no longer the land He yearned to dwell in. He wanted heaven.
Do you see where I am going? The difficult truth is that sometimes here on earth we do not step into the places we yearn for and pray to live in. But God can give us incredible contentment and heavenly appetites for something more precious.
It takes two people to make a marriage sweet and intimate. I'm sorry that you have not experienced that YET. (See below.) It is so important to keep in mind that the freedom to experience contentment in life is available to you whether or not the outcome for your marriage is what you desire.
But don't stop asking for it! Don't stop praying for your husband's healing!
Treasure and live out these words (which I write about in depth in Happily Even After):
Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle [praus] and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. —1 Peter 3:1–4
I realize this passage can be off-putting, to say the least. But I refuse to use a razor blade to cut pieces of my Bible out when they become particularly difficult to understand or apply. This passage was specifically written for Christian wives whose Christian husbands have not been playing inside the fence of God’s rules. You cannot ignore it!
These verses are actually pretty applicable, if you ask me. For example, “Do not let your adorning be external.” Could it be that God knows our go-to strategy is to make ourselves more attractive to hold our husband’s attention?
He also knows that doesn’t work. Changing you—especially your outside— is never going to be what changes him.
Conduct flooded with meekness—gentle strength—is what will most effectively influence your husband.
I imagine you may be stuck on the words, “be subject to your own husbands.” Some versions translate this as “submit yourselves" (niv), and that really sets some people off. But a Greek lesson might be useful here.
The Greek word used here for “be subject” is a form of the verb hupotasso. And “its primary meaning is to arrange oneself or to order oneself in such a way that you are helpful to the team. It is a word used in military terms to refer to a formation of soldiers. Hupotasso meant to stay in your position in the formation so that everyone can support each other.”
God’s kingdom is just that—a kingdom, not a democracy. There are positions assigned in the hierarchy. And within the marriage relationship, the husband is designated as head of the household (Ephesians 5:22–24). You and I are called by God to affirm male leadership in our homes and to embrace the position he’s assigned to us. To position ourselves so that we are responsive to that leadership and thus helpful to the team.
For a beautiful understanding of what your submission should look like, let’s go back to Genesis, where God describes Eve as Adam’s helper. The original Hebrew Scriptures used the words ezer kenedgo to describe that function of womanhood. The word ezer means “helper,” and the word kenedgo means “to accompany.” The Bible only uses this kind of language twice to point to a woman’s ability to serve and support her husband. The other times these words are used, they point to Someone else in that role: God himself.1
Right now the Holy Spirit is serving you as your Helper. This places submission in the light of incredible power and strength—chosen humility and meekness, not weakness.
How does that operate when you are married to a man whose brain is like Swiss cheese? Unless you have been there, you can hardly understand how impractical the call to hupotasso can seem. But here’s a word picture that has really helped me.
I’ve heard submission in marriage likened to dancing. Both partners utilize their talents and strengths in the dance of marriage, with men leading in sacrificial love and women responding in submission. Well, it’s hard to dance with a man whose leadership legs are crippled by sin. It just doesn’t work.
When your husband doesn’t lead in the dance of life, there’s not much to respond to. The dance falls apart.
Here’s where it’s important to remember that Christian marriage is only a symbol of a greater dance. Let Jesus cut in, my friend. You can safely submit to and respond to Him. Imagine your husband temporarily slinking into a wheelchair between you and Jesus as you continue the dance of headship. Respond to Christ’s leadership in the absence of your husband’s. Stay in your position.
As a side note, hopefully your husband understands that he while he remains crippled by sexual sin, he is not in a condition to lead others spiritually. He may need to resign from any spiritual leadership positions he has, at least for a time.
My husband actually pursued this on his own. He verbalized to me that he was not capable of leading because he’d fallen below the bar of integrity, and he resigned from ministry leadership. The fact that he so willingly submitted to stepping down was a significant gift to me in the middle of a whole lot of pain. It demonstrated to me that he understood the kingdom hierarchy and the fact that because of his sexual sin he was making it messy.
Then one day deep into our marriage work, Bob came to me in humility and asked, “I wonder if you’d begin to let me pray over you every night?”
Tears of joy flooded my eyes, and I imagined Jesus nodding proudly as Bob cut in to dance with me once again.
The man I prayed for became the man I pray with.
Don't for a second think I was not strong during this. I set reasonable expectations for my husband to respect me and our marriage vows in every way shape and form. My own experience is that boundaries presented in meekness helped me remain in position with the hope that Bob’s once-wonderful leadership legs would heal. Setting special boundaries played a significant role in healing my marriage.
Meanwhile, I was able to find other ways to support my husband and give him the respect he needed. For example, while I could not trust my husband to be a spiritual leader when he was struggling with his sexual sin, there were other areas where I could depend on his brain to function well. Business, for example. Bob’s a brilliant businessman and a marketing genius. Consulting him as I made decisions for my ministry was one way I could demonstrate and maintain respect for him. Listening and responding to his opinions when we made decisions about our counseling plans was a simple way to remain respectfully engaged.
And the dance went on. As I kept my eyes focused on Jesus as my dance partner, He gave me a general sense of objectivity about Bob’s condition (again, healthy detachment). And I think the gentler, less emotional approach to our issues had more power than my previously reactive responses.
Bob’s interactions with me became healthier too. Rather than being threatened by my boundaries or feeling rejected, he began to see them for what they were: a form of love.
You may not see this outcome in your own marriage. But never stop praying for it.
And if you do not see the Promised Land you desire in your love life with your husband . . . Remember, you can experience satisfaction in your love with Jesus.
This second half of my response to this dear woman of God is an excerpt from a chapter in Happily Even After: Let God Redeem Your Marriage.
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Feb 6, 2023
Does God Really Care What I Wear?
Feb 6, 2023
Let’s imagine you and I meet for coffee and tea to discuss the highest purpose for our lives. (Yes, a big topic to cover at a coffee shop!) We might eventually arrive at the idea that we exist to glorify and enjoy God.
Glorify • to make glorious by bestowing honor, praise, and admiration.
We exist to make God’s glorious name and character more knowable to a lost world. Hopefully, we do this in such a way that others also want to honor, praise, and admire Him as we do.
Now, as we sip hot drinks and nibble on scones, I picture us having a fairly robust and eager conversation about how we can glorify God and enjoy Him. I tell you how I experience that, including the ritual of having time with the Lord each morning as I watch the woodpeckers visit my bird feeder. I tell you how God teaches me about His power and character through the menagerie of animals on this little farm He’s entrusted to me. And I share about the many mission trips I’ve enjoyed to Zambia, Peru, Ecuador, South Africa, and the Dominican Republic.
Then, I listen as you tell me of your adventures in glorifying and enjoying God with your life. In fact, take a moment and write a few of the things you would share with me in your own notes.
This would all go swimmingly until we begin to consider that every moment of our lives is to glorify and enjoy God. Each decision must point to His ownership of our lives. After all, His blood has purchased us.
At this point, the conversation would become more difficult. One reason for this is that we’d realize how far we have to go in order to fully glorify God! But the other reason is that we’d most likely begin to have some differences. It’s bound to happen. I’ll interpret some Bible verses in a way that you do not. And vice versa.
I hope that the conversation could remain engaged and robust as we learn from one another. But I’m finding that when I share how God has allowed me to glorify Him and enjoy Him in how I dress, I have some critics.
I hope you aren’t one of them. But if you are, I invite you to hear what I have to say and then write to me with your thoughts! After twenty years of writing about beauty and bodies, I’m still learning and willing to grow.
Let me show you how I’ve arrived comfortably at allowing the Lord to direct the way that I shop and dress. We’ll start with the writing of the Apostle Paul.
. . . women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness–with good works. -1 Timothy 2:9–10 ESV)
Modesty. Self-control. Good works. Again, can’t buy those online, right?
But these two verses do mention our physical adornment. Why? It seems there is a specific reason we should dress in respectable apparel—avoiding obsession with our hairstyle, excessive jewelry, and expensive clothing. It is so that we don’t distract people from seeing Christ in us. We are instructed not to dress so extravagantly that our appearance is more noticeable than the good works our Savior produces in our lives.
Think carefully about that. It puts a whole new spin on why immodesty is missing the mark of God’s best for our lives. It has nothing to do with how long our skirt is or how tight our shirt may be.
The great sin of immodesty is that we’re saying, “look at me” instead of “look at God.”
God’s Word instructs us to dress modestly, in part, so that what we’re wearing on our hearts remains visible because it is of greater worth than those awesome new flared jeans!
So, yes. God does care what you wear on your body.
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This is an excerpt from Clothed in Dignity, a magazine-style booklet from Dannah Gresh. We'd love to send you a copy. It's our way of saying thank you for a donation of any amount to support Pure Freedom, the ministries of Dannah Gresh and True Girl.
Get your copy by making a gift of any amount.
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Feb 6, 2023
The Day My Husband Broke My Heart
Feb 6, 2023
You never forget the day that blows out the flame of happy in your heart.
That afternoon I was at home, waiting for my husband, Bob, to come pick me up in his big red truck so we could “eat our way” through the Centre County Grange Fair. It’s a family tradition that sticks better than the fly tape in the pig barns, which are ironically located just next to the Scott’s Roasted Pork stand.
Bob was late, but I wasn’t mad. In fact, I was feeling really good about my husband that day. A week earlier I’d injured my back helping a friend move. I did not like the pain, but the attention and care my man had lavished on me was another story. He’d been so loving as he nursed me through recovery.
I decided to get in another stretch and was hanging upside down over an exercise ball when Bob walked in.
“Yay,” I exclaimed as he sat down in one of our red-leather chairs.
I plopped myself right side up and balanced over the rubber orb like a teenager hanging out with her boyfriend. My heart was carefree and unbraced for what was coming.
Bob studied me with a smile. I felt so seen in that moment.
But wait—that look in his eyes was oddly distant and hollow. Empty.
I had recently confronted Bob about my suspicions that he was not walking in sexual integrity. He had blown me off. Now everything in me suddenly realized that he was about to tell the truth. I stood up, moved to sit in our other red chair, and turned to face him.
My counselor and I had been praying for God to work in Bob’s heart. I still wasn’t prepared for what came out of His mouth.
“I don’t know how to find my way back to you or to God without breaking your heart,” he began.
And then he did.
He broke my heart.
I am not going to share the details of what Bob told me that day. Suffice it to say that before we were married, my husband had humbly confessed a fierce battle with sexual temptation that we thought would just go away after the wedding. It hadn’t. And we’d fought hard against it. Together. For many years my husband had experienced freedom. But one day, sitting in our red chairs, Bob confessed again. He’d lost ground.
It’s my decision not to tell more. But Bob wants you to know that what he did is worse than you may think, but not as bad as you might imagine. In his opinion, this ambiguity is another consequence of sin. We both believe that the pain of betrayal in marriage is similar whether a man has looked at pornography, had an affair, or acted out sexually in any of a number of ways.
And yet despite the pain of that betrayal, I am here to tell you that the story of Bob and Dannah Gresh is not over.
That sentence is an admission. My husband and I have so far to go—and we know it. Our story is not over. Period. Sobering fact.
That sentence is also a battle cry because Bob and Dannah Gresh have won over and over again. Our story is not over! Exclamation point. Sublime expectation.
Everything started so beautifully. On our wedding day we made a covenant before God to be united in marriage. We believed then—and believe now—that for Christian couples this is a sacred act with a special purpose. Marriage helps tell the story of a much greater love. It invites the world to see the sacrificial, unconditional love Jesus Christ has for His bride, the church (Ephesians 5:31–32).
It is sacred for you too.
That’s why you hurt so deeply if your husband has struggled with lust or pornography!
At our wedding, Bob and I wanted all our friends and family to know that we wanted to help tell the story of God’s love with our marriage. So we decided to speak at our own wedding.
I chickened out, terrified of speaking in public!
Bob did not. The words he shared that day were my favorite part of our covenant ceremony. I delighted to hear them, and I believed we would portray God’s love beautifully together.
But we did not ride off into the sunset.
In fact, we weren’t even successful at riding off in Bob’s new Nissan Sentra. We could not find his car, which the groomsmen had parked for us, in the parking garage after the wedding reception. What a pair we were, walking through each level of that concrete maze—I in my wedding gown and Bob in his tux! But nothing could have stolen the joy of that enthralling beginning.
Of course, our story contains a day that was as sad as that first one was joyful. A day when I had to absorb words I did not want to hear—that my husband’s hard-fought battle against lust had become unmanageable. And both our hearts would be bloodied in the aftermath.
Were we still telling the story of God’s love?
It sure didn’t feel like it then.
It felt like our story as we knew it was over. Or at least the ability to live happily had ended.
But God in His rich grace was not lifting His providential pen from the page, ending our story abruptly. Instead, He was preparing to write a chapter that mercifully revealed something Bob and I could not even see. Its title? Redemption!
Join me, Bob, and our team of therapists for an encouraging evening of Truth-filled redemption hope. Register for our online workshop for couples here.
We know it can be intimidating to join groups or attend events where you can get the help and community you need, so we’ve created an experience that will be 100% anonymous. You can join from the comfort of your home! In two hours, you’ll be empowered by learning:
- Why he’s actually using porn! (And how to stop.)
- How her emotions are an essential ingredient of victory. (Don’t shut them off!)
- Where to get help that will actually work.
- The one thing the Bible says about sex & marriage that will change the way you think about it forever.
- Next steps for your marriage redemption story.
We’ll be joined by our Christian therapist, Pete Kuiper of Crossroads Counseling of the Rockies and our marriage coach, Mike Bivens. (You are gonna LOVE them!)
Hope you can join us for this private, intimate evening of encouragement.
This is an excerpt from Happily Even After: Let God Redeem Your Marriage. Your marriage does not need recovery. It needs redemption. Whether your marriage is suffering from pornography, addiction, an affair, or just years of unhappiness, Jesus Christ can help you redeem the broken places of your marriage. Dannah's newest book show you how to experience healing, live with joy, and hold your head high so you can participate in God’s redemption story for your husband. You may feel like your story is over, but no one writes better—or happier—endings than Jesus.
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Feb 6, 2023
The Naked Truth About Clothing
Feb 6, 2023
Nakedness is not always bad. Some Christian circles or legalistic groups make it seem as if it is, but I disagree.
Nudity is to be mutually explored and celebrated within the marriage bed. A husband should be satisfied by his wife’s breasts. (Prov. 5:18–19). And a woman has ample right to ask for her husband’s body to fulfill her desires. She can and should invite him to “kiss me” (Song of Songs 1:2 ESV) and to lay together enjoying one another’s bodies (Song of Songs 1). The Scriptures speak of faithfully meeting one another’s sexual desires within marriage, except for a short time by mutual consent (1 Cor. 7:1–5). A healthy message of dignity can allow—and in fact, encourage—us to celebrate our naked bodies in the proper setting.
Infants, too, are not to be ashamed of their nakedness. As they mature, we have to gently point out that though their bodies are beautiful, some parts of it are private. They do not learn it all at once, but they slowly begin to treat the magnificent reproductive organs God has created with honor (1 Cor. 12:23).
Dressing appropriately is a sign of maturity.
But I have discovered that some whose hearts are eager to obey the Lord don’t always have an understanding of what is and is not appropriate. I have no intention of pulling out my yardstick to measure skirts and find the practice reprehensible and legalistic. But we do need something by which to direct our intentions, so let’s lay down three guidelines to help us dress with dignity in a practical way.
Clothe your heart well. We’ve already covered this, but dress yourself daily in the presence of Christ. The immutable Proverbs 31 woman shows us the outcome of that discipline. Now, don’t forget: she wasn’t a real woman but a picture of what a godly woman can be.
She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future. (Prov. 31:25 NLT)
Imagine laughing at the future rather than having anxiety about it. That’s the outcome of clothing yourself in Christ. Here’s what Matthew Henry writes in his commentary about that verse:
‘Strength and honour are her clothing, in which she wraps herself . . . and in which she appears to the world. . . . She enjoys a firmness and constancy of mind, has spirit to bear up under the many crosses and disappointments which even the wise and virtuous must expect to meet with in this world; and this is her clothing.
No matter what is going on around you, you can walk through life strong—if you are properly clothed in Christ.
Fashion clothes or assemble styles for your body that accurately represent your inner worth. You won’t see Kate Middleton wearing her swimwear and a cover-up to make a Starbucks run. She’s the Duchess of Cambridge! As such, she takes care to dress in a way that communicates her status. You can read about this same mindset in Proverbs 31.
She makes her own bedspreads. She dresses in fine linen and purple gowns.
(Prov. 31:22 NLT)
The Hebrew word for “makes” in that verse is “fashion.” Do you know what that means? It’s okay to love the idea of adorning yourself in a way that expresses your style and taste. But keep in mind that it should be a reflection of your inner worth. The Proverbs 31 woman wore linen, the garment God’s children will be clothed in at the wedding supper of the lamb, and purple, the color of royalty. These were intentionally chosen to display what was already going on inside of her heart.
I’m all about jeans and a t-shirt. And a matching set comes in handy at times, but when I want to present myself consistently, orderly, and with intention. I am a daughter of the God of the Universe. A princess, to be precise. So, I dress differently.
As a curvy girl, this often means I shop differently, too. I can’t wear some of the things other women with different body types can. No strapless formal gowns for me. It just doesn’t work for my body type. And I’m okay with that. I’d rather err on the side of caution and show up with the worth God has died to restore!
Are the clothes in your closet capable of representing you as a daughter of the King?
Clothe others. A princess isn’t all about ball gowns and tiaras. A good one knows her work is to care for the King’s people. To that end, don’t just be concerned with your own clothing but the wardrobe of others. The Proverbs 31 woman was providing garments for the needy and her own home.
Her hands are busy spinning thread,
Her fingers twisting fiber. She extends a helping hand to the poor
And opens her arms to the needy.
She has no fear of winter for her household,
for everyone has warm clothes. (Prov. 31:19–21 NLT)
This care and concern for others can be figurative as you collect clothing for at-risk children or assemble a wardrobe for your children. Perhaps it’s helping your color-blind husband organize his closet, so he doesn’t clash needlessly.
I have two Barbies in my office. The American Barbie wears a mini-skirt and a low-cut tight bodice that pushes her breasts upward.
The other, a Muslim Barbie named Fulla, is dressed in a burqa. The only flesh you can see surrounds her eyes.
These dolls create the same end result: a hyper-focused obsession with female sexuality. Both raise awareness of a woman's sexual nature and reduce her to being a mere body.
In some Christian settings, women might as well wear burqas. In those settings, the female body is hidden in shame. Since the very purpose of clothing was to rectify shame and restore dignity, you can be confident that either of these extremes is not God’s best for us. Even so, proverbial stones are thrown at those who fall below the standard in our own minds.
What if we responded to the problem the way that God responded to Adam and Eve? What if our conversations were flavored with humility, compassion, and kindness? Well, I think the lost world would begin to see an army of women clothed in dignity and strength.
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This is an excerpt from Clothed in Dignity, a magazine-style booklet from Dannah Gresh. We'd love to send you a copy. It's our way of saying thank you for a donation of any amount to support Pure Freedom, the ministries of Dannah Gresh and True Girl.
Get your copy by making a gift of any amount.
View this episode's page
Aug 19, 2021
Why I Wished I Hadn't Cussed At My Husband
Aug 19, 2021
By Dannah Gresh
“A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness breaks the spirit!”
(Proverbs 15:4)
Sadly, I have learned this first hand.
Many years ago, Bob and I attended a week-long marriage retreat where we got some one-on-one time with a counselor. He claimed to be a Christian and I think he probably was, but I’m not sure he knew his Bible very well.
When I shared some frustration in my marriage in our counseling session, he suggested that I had repressed anger and that I needed to find some healthy ways to communicate better with my husband. Something Bob Gresh has always welcomed whether I have good things or bad things to say!
Then the counselor asked me how often I cussed at Bob. The answer was never! Then, he wanted to know if I ever just “let it rip” to express my anger. The answer wasn’t never, but it was seldom. This, the man assured me, was the problem!
That was NOT true… and it was not good biblical advice.
Well, this man said he could help me tap into my true feelings. He said we could start with just one word. It was not only profane—here’s the bigger problem—it was not TRUTH.
I’m sorry to have to say this, but I gave it a try. “It’s just a word,” I reasoned on my way home. “And it’s not the worst of all the bad words! Maybe I am repressed! What if I’m repressed!”
Behind closed doors where no one but my husband heard the ugly, harsh, spew, I did what the counselor suggested. I let it rip!
How I regret it! My heart breaks to think what lies and wounds I planted in my sweet, good, image-bearing husband in those few short weeks of my unbridled, ugly, harsh, words!
A week or so later, I was driving down the road, and a driver cut me off. And in that instant, I blurted out that word at the other driver. That’s when I knew I had a problem.
Get your copy by making a donation here.
On the drive home, I asked the Lord to forgive me and to help me. I knew I’d lost control of my mouth. It had become harsh, ugly, and vicious! While it is true that God will use your words if you let Him. It seems it is also true that Satan will use them . . . if you let him.
Today we’re going to examine God’s Word in an effort to see if our own style of communication lines up with the Truth of the Scripture. We’re getting to the fun part of Proverbs 15:1-4. Let’s review what we’ve done so far. In the first blog post of our series on Proverbs 15, we explored the power of a gentle word.
“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”
(Proverbs 15:1)
When we choose to have a self-controlled response in the face of conflict and frustration, it quiets the rage and angst in both our own hearts and the person we’re communicating with.
In the last blog post in this series, we learned about the wisdom of a gentle answer.
“The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouths of fools pour out folly.”
(Proverbs 15:2)
Well, those two things may have stepped on your toes and convicted you, but can be difficult to apply. I’m so glad you’re still with me because now we get to explore what I’m calling the reward of a gentle answer. There are actually two of them in Proverbs 15:3-4! let’s read verse three to see the first reward…
REWARD #1—God sees!
“The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.”
(Proverbs 15:3)
He sees what we’re doing. That includes observing our interactions with others.
This is either really good news for you—a reward in the best sense of the word! Or really bad news—which could mean punishment or some discipline is in order. Either way, you’ll reap what you sow.
If the style of your communication is largely unkind, reactive, and hurtful, then the idea that God hears every word you speak should bring a sense of conviction. Whether in public or private, He sees and hears it all! And he will judge accordingly.
I want to just take a moment to say: God will also judge those who speak unkindly to you, including your husband. God will judge a man who does not speak to his wife with kind, gentle, soft, life-giving language. If your husband is verbally abusive to you, please don’t give in to the temptation to retaliate with ugly, hateful language.
If you do, it will only make you—and him—angrier. If you keep giving into anger and it becomes a pattern, it could result in you becoming foolish like him.
But friend, let me also tell you this: you do not have to be abused and treated badly. Tell someone. Get help. It’s OK to remove yourself from a situation that’s abusive. God does not want that for you. And He will eventually have something to say to a man who has treated his wife harshly or abusively.
THE GOOD NEWS
This brings me to the good news in this verse!
When the style and tone of your communication are generally gentle and soft and wise….there is a good reward!
Listen to what Scripture says in 2 Chronicles chapter 16:
“For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him.”
God sees and he’s looking not only to judge those who use their tongue unwisely but to give STRONG SUPPORT—Not just any support, the STRONG kind!—to those who use their mouths with wisdom and gentleness!
God sees! The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. He sees how you are reacting and speaking. That should fill your heart with great comfort.
Reward #1---God is watching...and he will be your constant support if he finds a blameless heart out of which springs soft, gentle words marked with wisdom.
REWARD #2—God will use your words
“A gentle tongue is a tree of life, perverse words break the spirit.”
(Proverbs 15:4)
When you speak gentle, healing words, it’s like offering someone fruit from a tree that’s full of life! But PERVERSE language does nothing but crush, break and destroy hearts.
Every person is an image-bearer and a masterpiece created by Him. To speak otherwise is a terrible lie! It is a perversion of truth to use language like that. Let me remind you: your words have power!
When you use perverse words…
You’re planting pain whether you realize it or not.
Into your friends.
Into your family.
Into your world.
Just as Proverbs 15 promises—perverse words break the spirit. And there are a lot of broken spirits in this messed up world today.
But there’s good news here too. A good reward: a gentle tongue is a tree of life!
THE GOOD REWARD: We get to see God use our tongues to bring life!
Let’s be women who choose gentle words tempered by wisdom, so that God can be the one to make use of them.
Words have power and we must use them with wisdom! The reward of using them well is that we cooperate with Christ and bring life as He did.
Now if this is all feeling a little too difficult, read John 6:63!
It is the Spirit who gives life!
Not me.
Not you.
The Spirit!
Rest easy, friend, if this seems hard it’s because it should be! We need God’s Spirit to help us!
When you look at your life, what do you see?
Do you see the destruction of harsh language in your family and friends? Or do you have a front-row seat to watch soft, wholesome speech bring forth life?
God sees what you’re seeing. And he probably sees it more clearly. This is why he warns us that a tongue that is perverse does not reflect the truth of a person or situation. That kind of tongue breaks spirits!
But, here’s what I hope you’ll press into:
A gentle tongue is a tree of life.
Our True Girl theme verse:
"So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31,32
Mom, the best way to teach your daughter to live like an authentic True Girl is to live like an authentic True Woman. And to do that, you've got to get your life lined up with the Truth of the Bible. Listen to Dannah Gresh every weekday on Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth's Revive Our Hearts podcast. The program features biblical teaching, interviews that offer godly advice, and other opportunities to abide in God's Word.
TRUE GIRL IS A MINISTRY OF PURE FREEDOM, A NON-PROFIT 501C3 THAT RELIES ON DONATIONS FROM FRIENDS LIKE YOU.
CONSIDER MAKING A GIFT TODAY.
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Jul 6, 2021
What You Must Know If Someone You Love Loud-Talks During Zoom Calls
Jul 6, 2021
Does anyone in your house LOUD-TALK during a Zoom call? Before the swell of Zoom use in 2020, women had no forewarning of the reality that many men have an inability to talk at a normal tone when on a Zoom call, including my husband Bob!
Confession: this made us talk loud to each other after Zoom calls.
Translation: I did not respond well.
But Bob did. He calmly de-escalated the situation by gently saying, “Let’s take it down a notch.”
I did not like my strong, loud reaction to such a small, insignificant problem. When I prayed about this, the verse God brought to mind was:
“ a gentle answer turns away wrath…”
Proverbs 15:1 NIV
I felt the Spirit’s gentle tug to learn how to express my frustrations with gentleness. I tried to just say the verse under my breath every time the conversation between Bob and I got complicated. But guess what!?
It didn’t help.
My heart wasn’t changing.
Nor was my tone.
WHY?
I believed the lie that my harsh answer was useful for me. It could “protect” me, “advocate” for me, “defend” me.
My belief---not just my behavior--- needed to be changed concerning the way I responded to Bob when life didn’t go my way. My mind required an inward transformation of the Holy Spirit...a total reformation of how I thought...about how I approached bothersome interactions and conflict.
We all experience conflict in our lives. Often, we end up on both the receiving end and sending end of verbal blows. But we shouldn’t be on either end. God’s Word teaches us that the power of “a gentle answer” can change the trajectory of a conflict and maybe even a relationship.
Do you need some help with a high-conflict relationship? Do you struggle to control your tongue when you respond to others?
Dive into the first four verses of Proverbs 15 with me where we’ll discover what God’s Word says about the power of a gentle answer!
In fact, let me encourage you to even grab your Bible if it’s nearby and you’re able. You’ll learn so much more from God’s Spirit that way.
“A soft answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger.
The tongue of the wise commends knowledge,
but the mouths of fools pour out folly.
The eyes of the Lord are in every place,
keeping watch on the evil and the good.
A gentle tongue is a tree of life,
but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.”
Proverbs 15:1-4 ESV
Solomon wrote Proverbs 15 as a sort of tactical guide to quelling anger/repairing the peace when conflict arose in relationships. Now, as a king—in that political position—with lots of other kings who were in opposition to the nation of Israel, this leads me to believe he probably knew something about solving conflict!
Where does this man begin to guide his readers through conflict? He starts with the power of a gentle word, or in the version I'm reading from, “ a soft answer.”
“A soft answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger.”
Proverbs 15:1
In other words: If you respond to your frustrations with a gentle answer, you’ll defuse rage. BUT if you respond to your conflicts with sharp-cutting words, you’ll make things worse!
Think of that! The power of words—gentle words have the power to turn off wrath -- OR harsh words have the power to stir up greater anger! That’s no small thing!
Anger stimulates more involuntary reactions in our bodies than any other emotion. That is, the sympathetic nervous system takes over! The brain shuts down blood flow to the gut and pushes it towards muscles for reactivity. (This is part of the fight or flight response.) Heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration increase. Body temperature rises; perspiration increases (Maybe that’s why we refer to an angry person as “hot-headed!) An angry individual, in many ways, is not a controlled individual. But God says a gentle word can change all of that!
I’m not suggesting you lie or make up hollow compliments. Instead, I encourage you to dig down deep under your own ruffled feathers to find your heart. See that person as someone God values and loves and find a truthful way to compliment them. CHOOSE the gentle word.
The power of a gentle WORD changes me (and you)!
Take, for example, my sweet husband Bob...and his loud Zoom talking. I began to apply this verse over and over. Each time I felt my emotions flaring...I breathed! In that breath, I asked for God’s Spirit to control me.
And here’s the thing: MY anger was quelled.
Then words that came out were...gentle. Because what was inside of me was de-escalated! As I search for a softer response...my own anger is quieted. Think about that---the search for a gentle answer.
It changes me. It changes you.
Next time someone gets under your skin and you feel the anger rising inside of you… pause, take a deep breath, and respond with a gentle answer!
Feb 23, 2021
Future Hope
Feb 23, 2021
All of us are going to die.
Will you be content with how you’ve lived?
I’ve got to be honest. This COVID-19 pandemic got me thinking a whole lot more about how incredibly finite I am. (Translation: I’m more aware that I’m going to die than I have ever been.)
I don’t think that’s bad.
In fact, I think it’s very good.
It all started back in March of 2020. I kicked off my first week of sheltering at home with a walk in the meadows by my farm. I walked through dried stalks of chest-high winter wheat that had survived the deer and snow. My mind was heavy with questions. None of us knew really what was coming, only that some were dying. My lips uttered fervent prayers as I reached a ridge and looked down on what once was a bustling four lane highway. One lone mini van drove through the eerie emptiness. I know exactly where I was when I decided two important things:
- I’m OK if I die soon.
- I want to live better until I do.
I also know who I was thinking of when I thought these two things: my children. And my two precious grandbaby girls.
While I care (to some degree) what anyone thinks about me, I want my children to have peaceful and grateful hearts when they attend my memorial service. More than anything, my heart beats for the way I live to prove to them that I believe in eternity with Jesus Christ. And that I shared His love as long as I was able, not just with my readers and followers but with them.
This question echoed through me as I looked over the empty valley that day:
What will people remember about how I lived during this hardship?
Times of crisis define who we truly are and what we truly believe. And if those two things are worth anything, seasons of pain transform us more deeply into women and men of great character. They don’t just transfix by what’s on the television screens and news feeds.
That brings me back to my final life lesson from the Old Testament book of Ruth.
Life Lesson #4 from Ruth: Be transformed. Not transfixed.
Lots of people are transfixed by the headlines. Dictionary.com defines transfixed like this:
To cause (someone) to become motionless with horror, wonder, or astonishment.
Some have been frozen by fear of death, sickness, and the aftermath of rioting and indifference. Others cannot turn away from the astonishment that all the disagreement has caused. It’s like a demonic game of dominoes as one after another, good people get sucked into the vacuum of rhetoric that leaves hearts bleeding proverbially.
I don’t want to be transfixed by the news.
I want to let God use it to transform me into a woman worth remembering.
I believe that’s what we see Ruth experiencing through the pages of the book named after her. Life was hard. The book opens with famine, death, and unexpected life changes. How do we see Ruth responding when months or years down the road things haven’t fully “gotten back to normal?” Well, if you’ve been following this little series, you know she’s been making good choices and has been busily trying to do what she can to get her mother-in-law Naomi through the grief and disappointment. That includes humbling herself to pick up scraps of grain in a field owned by a man named Boaz. We find Ruth thanking him and trying to explain how she got to such a desperate place. And then this:
“Yes, I know,” Boaz replied. “But I also know about everything you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband. I have heard how you left your father and mother and your own land to live here among complete strangers. May the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge, reward you fully for what you have done.”
Ruth 2:11,12
Yes, I know!
I have heard!
Boaz tells her the word is out. People are talking about you, Ruth. She doesn’t seem to be aware of that. She was just doing “the next right thing.” And somehow that not only had Boaz, a man of some wealth and influence, aware of who she was and how she was live, but it also caused him to think about God. “May the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge, reward you fully for what you have done.”
Ruth had a reputation.
So do you.
So do I.
Is it the kind that has people talking about God? (And maybe I should add “in a good way,” since the behavior of some believers could make them distrust or question God.)
I suppose I should confess that I’m wondering: when we consider the overall reputation of Christians as a result of how we’re living through this pandemic, is it good? Does it point people to Jesus with our simple acts of love as we do the next right thing?
Church history tells a good tale of believers who endured a terrible fourth century epidemic that swept through the Roman Empire. Christians did not run from the cities or shut off their homes from others. One historian records:
“All day long [Christians] tended to the dying and to the burial, countless numbers with no one to care for them. Others gather together from all parts of the city a multitude of those withered from famine and distributed bread to them all.”
You know what happened? People started talking about them!
“[the Christians’] deeds were on everyone's lips, and they glorified the god of the Christians.”
Terrible times either transfix us. Or they transform us. Those believers in Rome— and Ruth back in Bethlehem—discovered that deep within them was the faith and peace to live like they believed in eternity with Christ when they looked death and despair in the eyes.
When our good deeds—not our opinions or theology or position of influence—are on everyone’s lips, we bring our God to their mind.
This kind of living outlasts us.
Because when they’ve carried the right character, your ancestors become more than a name on a genealogy report. They become #familygoals.
And that brings me back to your children. And mine.
I’ve spent a whole lot of time and energy trying to raise children to be good and godly. You probably have, too. So much of it depends on what is caught from us rather than what is taught by us. And right now, the way we are living is especially contagious.
Are you walking by fear or faith? Are you being transfixed or transformed?
Let’s talk about transformed living for just a sec.
The New Testament starts with the feel of an ancestry.com generated family tree. Jesus didn’t sign up for it, but someone named Matthew thought it ought to be recorded. (He’d apparently gotten over his tax-collecting and decided to collected far greater treasures!) He wrote down Christ’s family background, and included all the people who preceded Him in his human bloodline. And in this genealogy, we find a precious, hard-working, grain-gathering, widowed woman named Ruth who—spoiler alert—was married to Boaz!
I think Ruth was a woman who was transformed into further greatness by her trials. I kind of wonder: was God allowing the circumstances of her time, in part, so that she could be further transformed into the kind of great, great, great+ grandmother who would nurture the line of woman needed to raise the mother of Jesus to be a woman of character and faith?
I want my children to see the great pandemic of 2020 and 2021 as a time when I was transformed into something God needed me to be, not just transfixed by the happenings.
Tools to Go Deeper into the Book of Ruth!
For Women and Teens!
Do you want to dive deeper into the book of Ruth? Revive Our Hearts has some great tools for you and the teenager in your life!
Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth recently broadcast an in-depth podcast series on Ruth to coincide with the release of an ALL-NEW Women of the Bible study on Ruth featuring a familiar True Girl teacher: Erin Davis.
Here’s a sneak peak of that conversational and contemporary six-week study.
This six-week study with Scripture memory, daily study, and group discussion questions is ideal for both individual and group study.
For Tweens!
Do you have a daughter who might like to go deeper in the story of Ruth? True Girl, the ministry I lead for tween girls and their moms, has a study on the book of Ruth for girls ages 8–12. Ruth: Becoming a Girl of Loyalty. Together, you’ll explore topics like true friendship, finding joy in hard times, dealing with mean people, and seeing God in painful circumstances.
True Girl Bible Studies feature important women in the Bible so girls can learn from their example. We created them to help moms—and grandmoms—teach their daughters and granddaughters how to study God’s Word.
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Feb 17, 2021
Be Still
Feb 11, 2021
Do The Next Right Thing.
Feb 5, 2021
I Cried Today.
Jun 19, 2020
A Great Depression Recipe to Bring Hope In Hard Times
Jun 19, 2020
Hello, my friend!
And welcome to my kitchen.
Well, it’s my mom’s kitchen in this photo and the attached mouth-watering video.
At least, it’s mouth-watering to me, because I grew up knowing that Nana’s Beef Pot Pie had one important ingredient: love.
Keep scrolling if you like to watch the art of food because my mom and I whipped up a batch and had a friend film it. (You know you need to see it if you’re addicted to The Great British Baking Show or Chopped!)
My Nana learned to cook during the Great Depression. Her Pot Pie was made of a beef bone with maybe a little bit of meat, a potato, a couple of eggs, and a few cups of flour.
And we loved it. I’m the third-generation grandma to pass the family recipe along. It wasn’t just the flat noodles on the plate, but the love and laughter that made it a family favorite long past the economic crisis was over.
I never knew until I was older that the recipe was born out of a season of fear flavored generously with faith. I just knew that when Nana made Pot Pie, everyone gathered around the table for love and laughter.
Nana used to remind me that she fed her extended family—cousins and uncles and aunts included—on mere dollars. Today it costs me about $20 to do the same.
I wonder what new foods, special traditions, and love and laughter we will carry out hard times if we flavor it with faith?
Maybe this video will whet your appetite! I hope it makes you as hungry to study God’s Word as it does to whip up a batch of Beef Pot Pie.
Nana’s Pot Pie Recipe
Nana handed me a hand-written recipe card at my bridal shower over three decades ago. It contained no instructions because she’d shown me how to do it so many times. She just wanted me to have this treasure. I’m so glad!
5-6 lb chuck roast w/ beef bone (or roast and a stew bone)
Minced onion
Garlic salt
2 potatoes
10-12 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of salt
8-9 eggs
2 large cans of beef broth
Preheat oven to 400.
Generously cover chuck roast with minced onion to taste and a generous layer of garlic salt. Fill the roasting pan with water up to almost the top of the meat, but don’t fill over the top. Roast at 400 for about 30 minutes until the roast is crisp to seal juices. Turn over down to 250 and roast about 2-3 hours until the meat is tender and you’ve got dark brown juices. (Add water if needed to keep the liquid plentiful.)
Pour the broth you’ve made into a large soup or stew pot. Add one can of beef broth. Turn it on high to boil it.
Peel and ever-so-thinly slice the potatoes and add to the boiling broth.
Mix 10 cups of flour with salt and eggs. Mix by hand until everything is moist. Add a bit of cold water if you don’t think your dough is wet enough. You’re looking for dough the consistency of pie crust. Pat it into a ball. Cut off a bit at a time and roll out into a thin layer. Cut into squares using a pizza cutter. Drop square by square into the boiling broth. Add the second can of broth as needed, just a bit at a time. Repeat until the dough has all been added to the boiling broth. Stirring each time you add another batch of pot pie squares. Then, turn the pot down to medium-low heat and let it thicken and cook for about 30 minutes. Moisten with more broth or water as needed. Salt and pepper to taste.
During the depression, I imagine there were times Nana served only the noodles. But we served the pot pie noodles the way she did in our family’s “good” years.
Pot pie
Slow-cooked chuck roast
Buttered corn
Homemade coleslaw
Sweet tea
Don’t forget the side of laughter and love!
Slow-cooked chuck roast
Buttered corn
Homemade coleslaw
Sweet tea
Don’t forget the side of laughter and love!
Jun 8, 2020
Four Things I Learned About Racism in One Book of the Bible
Jun 8, 2020
Let's talk about a sin that’s been around for a very long time.
I have always had a sensitivity to the unity of the human race. When I wrote my first book cover for True Girl, I wanted diversity reflected on the cover and have always sought to have a team of women on stage that reflect all different types of girls. And then when I adopted my Asian daughter, I became even more concerned about how we interact with honor and respect. (I guess you need a front row seat to see the sad emotional impact of prejudice to know just how much it hurts.)
But something new began to happen in my heart in late 2019. As I studied the book of Habakkuk to write my first Bible study, the Lord flooded me with a love for the “nations” and a desire to repent of my own sense that my nation or people group is superior.
Huh?
That’s how most people reacted when I shared my thoughts. Racial and national unity is not the thesis of Habakkuk by any means. And though it was not my primary takeaway from the pages of this oft-overlooked book, it was—for me—a significant one. When people asked me what I was learning in my studies, it was difficult to verbalize that one thing I was learning about was God’s distaste for division in the human race.
So, I would just say, “I’m learning to love the nations.”
May I share with you the four things Habakkuk has taught me?
First: a disclaimer!
These thoughts are coming from a woman who is no expert on the topic, but I’m trying to hear both from God and from those wounded in this battle. What I’m about to share may be old ideas to you if you’ve been more in touch with the pain of racism, but I’m hoping they might be useful thoughts for those who—like me—admit they are still learning and recognize a need to grow.
Be kind to me, but feel free to let me know where I have blinders on.
Here we go—the four things I’ve learned about racism from studying just one book of the Bible.
The Bible references the sin of racism quite often, and it’s uglier than we think.
One thing I could not help but notice is how very often the Bible confronts the issue of ethnic superiority. This is an important observation to fully understand the book of Habakkuk. The tentacles of the prophet’s writing took me to view the racism of the Egyptians, which led to Israel’s enslavement. And eventually to the banks of the Chebar River, where Daniel would write his book under the captivity of the Babylonians who also embraced the sin of ethnic pride.
We tend to make mental cartoons of these stories. That’s unfortunate. They were horrific oppressions. I discovered this in, of all things, the poetry of Habakkuk which references just how gory it could get. At one point, the prophet writes about men being “like fish of the sea” and being brought up “with a hook.” (Habakkuk 1:14,15) What did that mean? Well, let me show you what I discovered in documents and art that were created parallel to the writing of Habakkuk.
First, ancient documents taught me that victorious kings of the ancient world would march captives off in long lines. They were strung together with hooks in their lips tethering them to one another. Just like fish!
Now, check out this archeological discovery found in the ruins of Ancient Assyria.[i]
It’s a sketch of a king blinding a captive while holding his head still by using a hook in his lips. The others await the same fate. Is it possible that Daniel and the other captives were carted off in this manner which was as common as handcuffs are today? It would seem so based on the poetry of Habakkuk.
This kind of treatment not only confronts the white-washed view we sometimes embrace of Daniel and his lion’s den, but it also sounds completely barbaric to us. As I considered this, I lost my flannel graph vision and became mindful that every time I was reading about slavery in the Bible, I was witness to the sin of racism.
Racism—which is prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed at an individual or group of people of different ethnicity based on the belief that your own ethnicity is superior—is sin in light of God’s image being planted in each human being.
It’s not that I did not see this sin before, I just did not realize the extent to which God communicates to us about ethnic division and racism.
But my sisters of color have been aware of it. One of them, Kim Cash Tate,—who helped me examine my own heart and writing as I was putting this blog together—wrote these words that both built me up . . . and gently tore down what needed to be dismantled in my mind:
"I was smiling at the fact that you were seeing so much about the “nations” that hadn’t struck you before. When you’re a person of color, things like that tend to jump out at you. I was so encouraged by the fact that you were not only seeing these things but allowing them to shape how you see our current world. God is truly working—that was evident in your post!"
Her gentle confrontation—along with others like it—have been fruitful in my heart. We need more kind but direct communication like this. Because God is issuing us an invitation! That's another thing I recognized in the book of Habakkuk.
God invites us to see the sin of racism and speak up.
The book of Habakkuk opens up early with an invitation to “look and see the nations.”[ii]
I decided to do just that. So began my journey to study the people groups that would have been considered significant political forces during that time, including the Neo-Assyrian Empire (912-612 B.C.). According to many historians, it was the first true domain of the world. Nineveh, the great capital of the empire, had a massive defensive wall with fifteen gates, aqueducts and irrigation ditches and public places, a palace with eighty rooms, and a lot of parks and gardens. There is even sufficient argument that one of the seven wonders of the ancient world—The Hanging Gardens of Babylon—was actually The Hanging Gardens of Nineveh.[iii]
That made me wonder why Jonah was so loath to give the people in that city a message of warning.
So, I kept digging.
It turns out that the Assyrian Empire may have been a site for ancient tourists to see, but the polytheistic people were ruthlessly driven by selfish ambition and greed. The warriors were cruel and reveled in the art that displayed their handiwork. (Such as the one above.) Ancient scenes of soldiers ripping the tongues from captives, flaying their enemies alive, beheading opposing leaders, and forcing prisoners of war to grind up the bones of their fallen comrades adorn the British Museum’s recreation of Assyrian art.[iv] They were the bullies on the proverbial ancient block of the Near East.
One historian, Simon Anglim wrote that “though the Assyrian armies were respected and feared . . . they were most of all hated.”[v]
In short, the Assyrians were fueled by racism and hatred[vi]. They’d hurt enough people, so God invited a prophet to go speak up on behalf of the oppressed and to warn the Queen Bee of Nineveh that God would not tolerate their assault on His image-bearers any longer.
Jonah cannot imagine why God would want to warn these barbarians. If judgment were actually coming, it would be well-deserved!
But God’s message of judgment was a second chance for people who were entrenched in sin!
It goes without saying that Jonah lost no love on the people of Nineveh. He jumps in a boat with some soft-hearted sailors and heads the other way.
The prophet was just like some of us. We want to bury our head in the sand when it comes to the complicated, messy conversations God is inviting us to be a part of when it comes to racial division. I believe we are at a time in history where many of us are unwilling to enter into the work God wants us to do in order to bring many people—ourselves included— the second chance at life He wants to give them. Many people are jumping in a boat to set sail in the opposite direction of this critical discourse.
Don’t do it. Don’t run from God if He’s giving you an opportunity to speak up for the oppressed.
And make no mistake—the work He wants to do involves our own hearts!
Let me explain.
God loves all people…and gives each of us “second chances” to love like He does.
Running from God never works. And it did not for Jonah. God chased him with the wind. The prophet tells the sailors that his God is mad at him and promises that if they throw him overboard the storm will stop. They do it and a big fish swallows him and three days later spits him out.
God tells the soggy prophet the same thing He’d told him before: Go to Nineveh!
In spite of having disdain for the people of Nineveh, Jonah cries “uncle.” He gets himself to the capital of the Assyrian Empire, but his attitude smells about as bad as the inside of that big fish he’d been in. He delivers an epic five-word Hebrew sermon.
Five words!
In English it comes out as six words and basically means, “In forty days, you’ll be destroyed!”
He certainly does not wax eloquent. No mention of what Nineveh has done wrong or how to make it right. Not even a mention of God. He delivers a minimal amount of information. Even so, the presence of God is so thick on this reluctant minister that the whole city—including its cows—repents! So, God does not destroy them.
All’s well that ends well, right? Not exactly. Jonah is ticked.
What a bummer! Poor Jonah actually serves a merciful God full of compassion. (He wasn’t complaining about that when the fish spat him out, was he?) In fact, Yahweh is so compassionate that He grows a leafy plant to shelter the worn-out prophet while he recovers from his ordeal. Jonah turns into a plant lover, but he has no green thumb. His vine dies. And he is sad. And, maybe, a bit embarrassed. After all, the way the story panned out sort of discredited him.
That’s about the time I got overwhelmed by God’s love for all people groups. He was forgiving toward both the Assyrians whose sin, in part, included racism and the prophet who was demonstrating the same sin but in a “nicer” way.
Let’s review the definition of racism. It is prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed at an individual or group of people of a different ethnicity based on the belief that your own ethnicity is superior.
Can you see that God was giving both the people of Nineveh and Jonah a second chance to love as He does?
My heart was doing jumping jacks at the realization that way back in the day my God “was patient” towards all of us “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (II Peter 3:9) And it was simply “flooded” with a love of the “nations.” I’m not sure those words make sense without a deeper dive into Habakkuk, but it’s what my heart has been experiencing.
I wonder: as we enter into this critical conversation, are we making room for our hearts to see our own sin? And are we making room to forgive those who’ve hurt us? And those who’ve stood by and watched it happen?
Do we want to learn to see like He does and to love?
Righteous people who live by faith do not accept, embrace, or embody racism which is rooted in pride.
Habakkuk invited me to take a deep dive into the racial, national, and political unrest found in the books of Exodus, Jonah, and Daniel; but I was surprised to discover that this Old Testament writer provided Paul with the backbone of the New Testament. I think this will sound familiar.
Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him,
but the righteous shall live by his faith.Habakkuk 2:4
Several times in the New Testament, Habakkuk is quoted. He is there each time we’re called to live by faith, walk by faith, be saved by faith as a result of being made righteous by faith. There’s not a good work you or I can to do make this epidemic of hate roll on any faster or be any easier.
But we can walk through it righteously as we live by faith.
And we must.
If the second part of Habakkuk 2:4 is still relevant, shouldn’t we understand the first part of it?
Let me personalize and paraphrase it for you since Habakkuk is a fancy poet:
If your soul is full of pride like Nineveh, it’s not right,
but if you are righteous you will live by faith.
The strong contrast is this: walking in faith is the anti-thesis of walking in pride. And pride is the root sin of racism.
Perhaps it is not a mistake that God allows it to explode in our nation so we are forced to respond to it.
Maybe He wants us cleansed.
Maybe He wants me cleansed.
I’m coming to understand that I have much prejudice in my heart when someone is different from me. When someone is different, my pride rises up to defend “self” and I’m prone to selfish thoughts if not actions. At times, I’ve played nice like Jonah, but God is giving you and me a chance to look and see with His eyes and to walk with His love.
Let’s not go for comfortable. (Right now I’m seeing Jonah under that big leaf taking a snooze and resting off the aftermath of the stormy season in his life.) Let’s press into prayers that examine our hearts, conversations that take the scales from our eyes, and humility that projects and projects the unity of a God who loves us all.
I leaned heavily on the wisdom of several of my friends as I wrote this blog. Many of them were women of color who have been so gentle in helping me take the scales from my own eyes. I personally challenged when one of them, Danet Fuller, wrote this to me, bringing Nineveh close to home. I leave you with this:
Some of our “Nineveh's” are close by, like someone who owes you rent but is flaunting the life on Facebook. It would be hard to bring the message of Jesus to them but that just may be the assignment.
Some may be far away like the people who blew up the world trade center. Does that “Nineveh” deserve to hear the message of salvation?
“Nineveh” may be a white police officer, who killed a black man, and who needs to hear about the love of Jesus and be offered salvation. Who will carry the message? Who will go to this “Nineveh”?
God's will is that ALL . . . ALL should come to repentance. All may not, but our assignment is to deliver the message and let God worry about the outcome.
May the first “Nineveh” to hear the message of repentance be the one residing in my own heart. So that I may be entrusted to bring the message of God’s Truth . . . and His love . . . because I live by faith --- free from being “puffed up.”
Lord, make my soul right within me.
The book of Habakkuk was an invitation for me to courageously look at my own heart regarding the way that I look at “the nations.” But it is by far not the main theme or takeaway from the book. It’s mostly about learning to believe that God is good and maintains control even when there is so much evil and tragedy in the world around us. Though this book is often overlooked during times of peace and prosperity, it has tended to be studied when believers needed to learn how to talk to God during epic events.
If you’re having trouble remembering that God is good and that He is in control, I invite you to study the book of Habakkuk. I've created videos and a podcast to make it easy for your to do it with a friend or a group.
Sources:
[i] https://www.bible-history.com/sketches/ancient/assyrian-king-lips-eyes.html
[ii] God is literally inviting Habakkuk to stop whining about his person pain and that of his own people group, and to look to see how God was at work to use another people group to bring a much-needed message of correction.
[iii] https://www.thedailybeast.com/hey-babylon-nineveh-wants-its-hanging-gardens-back-the-truth-of-an-ancient-wonder
[iv] https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/nov/06/i-am-ashurbanipal-review-british-museum
[v] Ancient History Encyclopedia
[vi] Racism—that is prejudice against all the people in other nations surrounding them—was not the only sin of the Assyrians. They were guilty of gluttony, sexual perversion, greed, pride, idolatry, and so much more. But I cannot help but see their superiority as I studied this book.
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May 21, 2020
Why Does God Seem Silent Sometimes?
Apr 8, 2019
What is Your Mission?
Apr 8, 2019
This blog can also be downloaded as a free e-book that includes worksheets and space to write your mission and goals. You can download the e-book here.
It’s easy to take a look around at our world and feel overwhelmed by the pain and brokenness. The voices surrounding sexuality and gender are almost deafening. Everyone has an opinion and many people are getting hurt. Sometimes it feels easier to just stay quiet.
But what about the sexually broken person who approaches you for help? Are you ready for that conversation?
You...yes, you!...can have a voice of compassion and conviction for those who have been broken by sexual sin. But first, you need to know where to start. But before you can determine your goals and what resources you need, you must understand clearly what God is calling you to do.
When I was walking through the streets of Chicago in 1998, God’s spirit spoke to me.
“Your mission is to encourage men and women of all ages to live lives of purity
,equip them to heal from past impurity if it exists in their lives, and to experience a vibrant, passionate marriage that portrays the love of Christ for His Bride, the Church.”
It came clearly, word for word and with great urgency. I ran into an office center to write it down so I would not forget it, but I have never forgotten. It is imbedded into my spirit.
Perhaps yours has come as clearly. Or perhaps it has come clumsily. Perhaps it came in a moment. Or over the course of years.
What is your mission?
Once you have established your mission, you’ll have specific demographics or projects assigned to you. The Lord has called me to follow this specific mission as I minister to tweens, teens, college-aged women, single adults
In each situation, my goals are different even though my mission remains the same. One of my new assignments is partnering with leaders in Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic. According to the United Nations, it has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy on the globe with 13-15-year-olds commonly becoming mothers.¹ The rate of teen pregnancy in the country—105 out of every 1,000— is double the world average. The rate of teen pregnancy in Jarabacoa itself is again double that of the rest of the nation. After two years of research, our goals in Jarabacoa are:
- to decrease out-of-wedlock pregnancy.
- to increase marriage.
- to increase father involvement.
Given the specific assignments God is asking of you recently, what are some of your goals?
Once you have determined your mission and goals, it’s time to start determining what assets you have to accomplish your goals. This is called asset mapping.
ASSET MAPPING is a process of identifying your resources and presenting a plan of how to engage them into communal change.
Using an Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) approach to achieve your goals is a method that builds in the strengths of a community. It is a method developed by Jodi
While it begins with getting people to identify the needs and problems in their communities, it moves quickly to the task of mapping the assets and strengths. The method provides a completely different emotional experience for the community. After focusing on needs, people tend to look to others for solutions. But after focusing on assets, people begin to think of all the things they could do with what they have at hand to improve their community. The glass is no longer half empty. It is half full.
“Many Christian community development experts have discovered the benefits of using “asset-based community development” (ABCD) as they seek to foster reconciliation of people’s relationships with God, self, others, and creation. ABCD is consistent with the perspective that God has blessed every individual and community with a host of gifts, including such diverse things as land, social networks, knowledge, animals, savings, intelligence, schools, creativity, production equipment, etc. ABCD puts the emphasis on what materially poor people already have and asks them to consider from the outset, “What is right with you? What gifts has God given you that you can use to improve your life and that of your neighbors? How can the individuals and organizations in your community work together to improve your community?”
-Steve Corbett, When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor...and Yourself, page 119,120
Making your own asset map
THE ASSETS of your community include:
- Individuals with strengths and interest in your problem including you.
- Ministries and organizations that reach your target demographic.
AN ASSET will contribute any specific need that helps you achieve goals such
For example, some of the assets I found I had for my mission in the Dominican Republic included local churches, my friend Marlene Luna who has a passion for her country, and the years of learning I’ve done on sexual theology. Now it’s your turn to create an asset map! Where are you already equipped to begin fulfilling your mission? Start there.
Sometimes it is more helpful to write your mission, goals, and asset map out on paper, so we’ve created a downloadable PDF for you that includes these instructions, a sample asset map, and room for you to brainstorm. You can download it HERE.
This blog is a small piece of my Pure Freedom Master Class. I would love for you to join me and my husband Bob in State College, PA this June for three days of accelerated sexual theology training, coaching, and healing capabilities of leaders through collaboration and education. We’ll mentor you through the tough topics that you’re facing in your churches, classrooms, and ministries. Apply today or find more information HERE.
1 Teen Pregnancy Rate Doubles U.N. Averages, July 2013 http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/poverty/2013/7/12/48276/Teen-pregnancy-rate-doubles-the-world-average-UN
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Jan 31, 2019
Why I Changed the Name of Secret Keeper Girl
Jan 25, 2019
How To Overcome Self-Loathing
Jan 25, 2019
I often looked in the mirror and loathed what I saw. This was particularly true when I was a teenager, though the emotional pain has surfaced at other times in my life.
You too?
How bad did it get?
For me, I made a ridiculous vow to never look in the mirror. This was, of course, during my early years of make-up exploration and so I have to wonder what a clown I must have looked like on some days. (The one useful skill I got from that period was the ability to put my make-up on in the dark. To this day, it comes in handy now and then.) But my pain was no laughing matter. I cried. A lot. And kept my vow to not look in the mirror for many years.
I have a solution for you if you’ve known that pain. Or, for your tween or teen daughter, if you’re enduring the horrible searing pain of watching her fight the beauty battle. But I’ll need a little bit of your time…and hers. There’s no single piece of advice or logic that fixes this one. A pair of jeans or another order from Sephora will not stop the pain. (Stop putting band-aids on a gushing wound!)
Let me show you what really can fix it.
To do so, I want to start by asking you this: why is it that nature is so moving to so many?
The view of an amazing ocean tend to lighten our spirits and inspire us, asfew other things can.
Statistics prove that encounters with nature—or lack thereof— impact our mood. Those who spent NO time outdoors in the past year seemed to be most likely to struggle with depression, while those who spent time outside four or more times a week were most likely to feel happy.¹ Spending just 20 minutes outside significantly decreases stress.²
It’s not just our emotions that are impacted. Exploring our world seems to have a healing impact on our bodies, too. In 1984, a classic study found that hospital patients recovered more quickly from surgery if their room offered a view of nature compared to those who looked at a brick wall.³ God’s world is a healing aid when our bodies are not well.
I could never observe God’s creation and deny, “it is good.” God Himself said, “It is Good!” What was he saying? Well, when I eat a delicious flan, which I do at any opportunity I say: “It is good.” By that, I mean that I enjoyed it.
Chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis, create a picture of man and woman living in “very good” fellowship with each other and with God the Father. We see a picture of oneness and harmony, peace and order. They enjoy each other. While God is saying to his creation “It is good…” “I enjoy you….”, His creation is singing praise back to him. Psalm 19:1 reads, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” Creation says “you are good, God. We enjoy you.”
I connect to the beauty of God’s creation through animals. And though I love them all, I have a few of my very own. Twenty-two to be exact (and this number is usually fluctuating).
I worship God when I watch my horses run in the pasture. It is a miracle that horses can run on those thin legs. Even more unbelievable is the fact that those legs can maintain circulation into that 1,500-pound body. God created their hoof to be extremely complex. When a horse puts pressure on it, the blood is squeezed up the leg into the veins, acting likea pump. It is good!⁴
I marvel at God’s creation when I’m celebrating the first few moments of life with a mama llama. It is a miracle WHEN llamas give birth. They generally live in very cool Andes Mountains of South America. God created them with an amazing ability to give birth between 8amand noon. The warmer daylight hours for the longest possible part of the day help the babies to dry out and warm up. It is good!
I find great joy in watching my peacock, Alexander The Gresh, strut …even when it’s for Cassie, the mini-donkey. It is a miracle how God created peacocks with the ability to appear to change color. He did this by literally weaving together microscopic crystal-like structures. Depending on what angle I look at my peacock, I will see blue, green, or bronze. And the amazing eye feathers that appear when a peacock fans are no small feat of mathematics because there is an exact color spacing required at each intersection of the weave to produce each “eye”. EACH intersection requires four equations for the colors to change and each eye pattern beginning with “x squared divided by a squared plus y squared divided by b squared equals 1.”
And that’s the easy one. Each eye feather has about 50 intersections, so each time you see a peacock’s eye feather at least 200 complex equations have
been completed for it to actually work out into the eye shape. It is good!
I will never cease to be fascinated by watching and learning about God through his animals.
Not everyone who observes nature finds the peace that I do.
Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, is quoted as saying, “The sight of a feather in a peacock’s tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me feel sick!” He was half joking when he wrote that, but he did have a problem. The peacock’s tail didn’t fit with his evolutionary “survival of the fittest” theory. Those fancy feathers don’t make the bird more fit for survival. They don’t make flying easier, but harder. Even running becomes harder. And those feathers require time to “take down” if a bird needs to make a fast escape when he’s strutting. When Darwin looked at the creation of the peacock, he felt the sickness of the lie he believed that it had evolved. He felt the distance his lie had created between him and the God of Creation. I wonder if you have believed any lies.
And now, we’re back to beauty.
All those years I was struggling with not being able to look in the mirror, I was completely moved by God’s beautiful world. I looked at it and agreed, “God, it is good!” But then, I looked in the mirror —at one of God’s creations— and declared deep in my being, “It is not good. I’m not good.”
I hid for a very long time, tellingno one of my lonely isolation. I tried make-up, clothes, facials, hairstyles, and all the stuff we’re told by retail giants will fix what’s “wrong” with us. Nothing worked.
Until.
I was walking past a mirror one day in college and I WAS LOOKING INTO IT. I don’t know when I’d begun looking, but I realized that I had. It wasn’t the first time. I searched my mental Rolodex to see when it began, and I noticed something. My fear of looking in the mirror began to fade when I started spending time with God every day. I began to seek HIM! And soak in the Truth of His written word. And it made all the difference.
What we meditate on is what we believe. What we put in our hearts becomes our reality. If you’re putting Instagram photos, Internet spending sprees, and make-up lessons into your heart daily, you’ll fixate on the comparison, Photoshopped perfection, and need for stuff to fix you. But … I have discovered … when I soak my heart in the words God says about me every day, I fixate on Truth. And the Truth is that I am perfectly and wonderfully made (and so are you), and He knit me together (as He did you), and I am His masterpiece (just like you).
I actually look in the mirror and believe what God says about me, “It is good.” This coming from a woman who did not look at herself for years out of fear of going into the fetal position is no small testimony of praise!
You may be tuning out about now asking me where the fix is? Well, I told you I needed a bit of your time. Start to give God one hour of your heart, mind, andattention. Soak in the words written in the Bible, in worship songs written for His praise, and journal your pain and pleadings to Him. Maybe even take a few nature hikes while you’re at it and soak in all the things you can honestly say are “good.” If you do, He will heal you.
1 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/04419057.2012.759143
2 http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/10/4/1250
3 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/224/4647/420
4 http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/02/horses-understand-human-facial-expressions
Jan 14, 2019
So . . . About Your Daughter’s Emotions
Jan 14, 2019
In recent years, I traveled across the country to eleven cities, made coffee, and invited mothers of tween daughters to tell me how I could encourage them as they seek to raise girls. One thing really has moms freaked out: emotions.
Words mothers used to describe their daughters included insecure, embarrassed, confused, stressed out, angry, depressed, ashamed, and lonely.
They kept asking me if the reactions their daughters were having to life were developmentally normal, or something to be concerned about. That’s a critical question with no simple answer. Each mother has to answer it for herself. But I’ve developed a tool to help you.
I coined the term sticky feelings to give you and your daughter something to identify unhealthy emotions. It’s actually a word all of us can use to decide if our emotional reactions are healthy or if they are a warning sign that something is wrong.
STICKY FEELINGS
Your daughter’s sweet little body is going to be or already has begun
experiencing an onslaught of hormonal complications that make discerning healthy and unhealthy emotions difficult. But it can be done.
In the introduction to Lies Girls Believe, I wrote this for your daughter:
“God created both good and bad feelings, and they can both be useful if you use God’s Truth to respond to them. But when you have a bad feeling and you don’t know why, or it just never goes away and you feel it all the time, every day, that’s a ‘sticky’ feeling."
It’s entirely possible that your daughter is struggling with a particular emotion because God needs her—with your help—to respond in Truth. Maybe she is stressed out because there is too much on her schedule, and you need to help her make room for rest. Perhaps she is depressed because she doesn’t feel safe talking about things that make her angry, and she needs to learn how to communicate her frustrations in a mature way. God created our emotions to send us messages, and we’re supposed to respond to those signals. When we do, the feeling often departs because it has done its work.
But sometimes, emotions stick to a girl. They show up for no apparent reason and/or they never leave!
That’s when you might have a problem.
Here’s what every mother needs to know about her daughter ’s emotions:
Chronic, recurrent, sticky feelings could be evidence that lies are growing in the roots of your daughter’s belief system. She could be in spiritual bondage.
The termspiritual bondage, which Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth used in Lies Women Believe to describe what Christian adult women experience, also explains the crisis tween girls are facing. Seventy-two percent of the moms who attended my focus groups said they believe their daughter’s emotions are a manifestation of a much deeper, darker battle. One mother put it this way:
“Satan does not discriminate based on age.”
I agree.
But where do we begin to help our precious girls?
Through Nancy’s book, Lies Women Believe: And the Truth that Set Them Free, over one million women have experienced victory over all manner of sin, depression, anxiety, fear, loneliness, addiction, hopelessness, and so much more. She’s helped readers trace their spiritual bondage to deeply-rooted lies. Then, she’s helped them rip up the lies and replace them with God’s Truth.
OUR DAUGHTERS HAVE BEEN LIED TO.
THEY NEED TRUTH TO SET THEM FREE.
The Lies Girls Believe and Mom’s Guide to Lies Girls Believe set of books is the answer to the groundswell of mothers requesting a similar book for their eight-to-twelve-year-old daughters. What if I told you that instead of being jealous, mean, moody, greedy, and in bondage, your daughter could grow up to be:
- Gentle
- Joyful
- Content
- Loving
- Confident
- Kind
- Giving
- Gracious
- Peaceful
- Stable
This is how God intended her—and you—to live: free. Of course, Jesus told us it would not be easy. He said:
[Satan]’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give you a rich and satisfying life. (John 10:10 ESV)
There are going to be tough battles in your daughter’s life as Satan seeks to lie to her, and God wants her to know and believe Truth. I want to help you and your daughter win the war, so you can experience the abundant life that Jesus came to give both of you. You cannot choose whether your daughter will embrace God’s Word, but you can plant seeds in her so she is rooted in Truth.
This blog is an excerpt from A Mom’s Guide to Lies Girls Believe by Dannah Gresh, a companion book to the newest book in the series edited by Nancy
DeMoss Wolgemuth. Get a copy today and start helping your daughter learn to control her emotions, rather than having them control her.
Jun 20, 2018
A Modern Understanding of Ancient Truths
Jun 14, 2018
Your Brain on Sex
Mar 6, 2018
Lies Young Women Believe: What I Do Now Doesn't Affect the Future.
Mar 6, 2018
Recently, a young female celebrity who was once a sweet-faced child star was in trouble (again) for being drunk. Magazines displayed photos of her passed out in a car after a night of hard partying. Her fans quickly came to her defense. One wrote:
People really need to ease up on the girl. If every twenty-year-old were thrown into rehab for drinking and partying, the colleges would be empty. It’s a rite of passage for many people. [She] will be just fine.
That mentality pervades our culture. It says, “What you do now doesn’t affect the future.” Here’s how we see it impacting young women. They said things to us like:
- “I’ll settle down when I get older / graduate / get a job.”
- “I won’t have this freedom forever, so I might as well enjoy it now.”
- “I’m only seventeen. I don’t need to worry about _____ yet.”
Believing this lie feeds so many others. A great example of this is how so many we spoke to say they intended to marry a Christian, but since they weren’t looking for a marriage partner yet, they could go out with non-Christians. This thinking is so dangerous.
What you choose to do now will either form habits you have to break in the future or habits that are helpful to you. Galatians 6:7 says, “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.” If you plant corn, you’re not going to soon have turnips tumbling out of your garden. In the same way, every action has results. If you plant to please your own desires, you’ll reap a crop of consequences. If you plant to please God, you’ll reap joy, peace, and everlasting life.
Habits are a result of seemingly insignificant individual choices and acts that you sow when you’re twelve, fifteen, or twenty. They can be good or bad. You’ll reap what you sow. You’re sowing seeds now. What you do with your time, your eating habits, your exercise habits, the way you talk, the way you talk to your parents, the way you treat your friends, the way you spend your money, the way you work, your sleep habits… These are habits you are developing today.
I (Nancy) made a lot of unwise choices about what to eat when I was a teenager and in my twenties. I ate more meals than you can imagine at a fast-food chain that shall remain unnamed—actually I would order a hamburger (make that a double burger with cheese, ketchup, and pickles) and fries at the drive-through and inhale them in my car on my way to wherever I was headed next. To this day, it has been a major challenge in my life to develop healthy eating habits.
Choices matter:
- the books you read
- the magazines you read
- the television programs you watch
- the music you listen to
- the conversations you have
- the friends you choose
- what time you go to bed
- what time you get up in the morning
Little things matter a lot.
There’s one habit that was emphasized more than any other in my (Nancy’s) home as I was growing up. I don’t think there is any more important habit you could possibly develop as a teen. It is the practice of spending consistent time getting to know God through His Word. Every aspect of your life, short term and long term, will be affected by this one habit.
I am so grateful that my parents modeled this practice and encouraged me to develop a consistent devotional life as a young girl. I cannot adequately express what a huge difference this habit has made in my life.
I’m not saying it’s easy—as much as I value my time with the Lord, there have been plenty of mornings when I’ve allowed the pillow, my laptop, or other distractions to win out and ended up spending only a few hurried moments with Him. But I know that I can’t be the woman God made me to be apart from having an intimate relationship with Him. And that requires spending time on a regular basis listening to Him speak through His Word and responding to Him in worship and prayer.
Over the years, I have challenged women to get started in this area by making a commitment to spend at least some time with the Lord in His Word every day for the next thirty days. Thousands of women have taken that challenge, and many have written back and told me what a difference it has made in their lives. Would you be willing to take that same “thirty-day challenge”? I can’t think of a single habit that will have a greater impact on your life over the long haul.
Once you start to experience the blessings of meditating on God’s Word and spending time alone in His presence, we believe this is a habit you will want to maintain for the rest of your life!
Feb 27, 2018
Lies Young Women Believe: I Can't Handle the Loneliness of Staying Pure
Feb 27, 2018
A young girl enrolled in a Christian middle school gave voice to the great loneliness many of us feel in our quest for purity. She said:
I think that at my school, having sex is normal. Everybody has either had sex or they are really close to it. That is something I struggle with a lot. I wonder if I am going to wait. It is all about the moment for me. I struggle with waiting.
An overwhelming number of young women admitted they felt lonely in their quest to live a pure life. It’s easy to dwell on the loneliness when you are trying to honor the gift of sex and wait until marriage. But, I (Dannah) know that the worst loneliness lies in the aftermath of compromise. When I was fifteen, I was attending a Christian high school. I was active in my youth group and was even earmarked as a leader and invited to teach the three-to-four-year-old Sunday school class at my church. I was in a dating relationship in which there was great pressure to be sexual. Oh, not to have “sex.” But to be sexual. And with each secret act of sin I convinced myself that it “wasn’t really sex.” I just knew that could never happen to me. After all, I was a Christian girl who believed in purity.
The pressure increased, and things escalated. I knew I needed to break up with this guy, but I couldn’t get myself to do it. In crept the lie that “I could not endure the loneliness of purity.” So, I gave away the gift that God meant me to give to my husband on my wedding night.
I can’t even begin to tell you how lonely my life became. Eventually, I broke up with that guy, but I didn’t think there was a single person I could talk to about what had happened—what I had done. Everyone in church seemed so picture perfect. Certainly they never knew the depths of sin that I had. I didn’t tell anyone for ten years.
I know what loneliness is.
Maybe you do too.
I’m happy to say that by God’s grace I fully confessed my sin, and in time the Lord graciously healed up my heart. He gave me a great Christian husband who was a virgin on our wedding night and has extended much forgiveness to me. No, he’s lavished forgiveness on me. Just like my Savior. And today God is using me to encourage young women like you to choose the pathway of purity. (Our God is so merciful and creative in His restoration of our broken hearts.) If you have known this loneliness, I want you to see the healing in my life and know that God wants this for you too.
Yes, a commitment to purity challenges you to safeguard your heart it until it is the right time to “awaken” love. Yes, this often feels painful and even lonely, but the pain of self-denial is far better than the pain of self-destruction.
Trust God! Trust him with this difficult task of self-control and self-denial and waiting. We are told in the Proverbs 3:5-6 to trust Him with our whole heart. One of the hardest things to trust Him with is our love lives, but even this belongs to Him.
I (Nancy) want to add a word for those who struggle with the thought, What if God doesn’t ever give me a husband? Having lived as a single woman until my late fifties (when God totally surprised me by bringing an amazing husband into my life), I can assure you that if God’s plan is for you to remain single longer than you expected—or even for a lifetime—your life can be as meaningful and blessed as that of any married woman. Yes, there will be challenges (as every married woman faces), but He really will give you daily grace for whatever you may encounter.
The fact is, loneliness is an inescapable reality in a fallen, broken world—whether you’re single or married! But if you will set your heart to seek God and His will above anything and anyone else, we can promise that you will never be truly alone, and you will never lack true joy.
Can we encourage you to press into trusting God with your purity and future marriage?
Feb 20, 2018
Lies Young Women Believe: God is Not Enough
Feb 20, 2018
Have you ever believed this lie: “God is not enough?”
You might not think that you believe God is not enough. We talked to over 1,000 teen girls about the lies that were making them feel depressed, lonely, angry, stressed, hopeless and a lot of other terrible emotions. Most of them knew that God should be enough, but they found themselves holding out for something more:
- If I just had a friend I could count on, that would be enough.
- If my parents let me stay out late, that would be enough.
- If I got into my dream college, that would be enough.
- If I had a boyfriend, that would be enough.
In the end, 88% of them agreed that they believed the lie: “God is not enough.” In fact, it was the most commonly believed lie young women were struggling to overcome.
We have struggled with this lie, too! I, Nancy, went through a hard time when a close friend and mentor died; another moved away, and a third friend was removed from my life through a tragic circumstance. I was devastated. For the next several months, I struggled with feelings of disappointment with God and battled some intense doubts about my faith.
Finally, as I began to cry out to the Lord, He showed me that I had been looking to my friends to meet my needs and to fill the deepest places of my heart. I discovered that by putting people in the place of God, they had become idols in my life. I began to realize that there was no human (or anything else) on the planet that could truly satisfy my unfulfilled longings. I discovered that I was insecure because I was placing my trust in people, who could be taken away from me, rather than in the One who never changes and who will never leave me.
That desperate season proved to be a huge turning point in my life. I repented of my idolatry and asked God to show me when I was expecting others to meet needs that only He could meet. He brought me to the place where I could honestly say:
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire
besides you. (Psalm 73:25)
God is enough; He will meet your needs and wants to be your closest confidant. His Word promises: “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).
- He is the One who can heal your heart when it is broken (Psalm 147:3).
- He is the One who can encourage, guide, and protect you. (Psalm 121:7)
- He is the One who can make you feel safe when others fail you. (Psalm 27:10)
- He is the One who can make you feel valued no matter what you can or cannot do. (Matthew 10:29–21)
We get to know our friends better as we spend time with them. The same is true about having a friendship with God. As we spend time reading and thinking about what He’s saying to us in His Word, or as we pray or meet with others to worship Him or study the Bible together, our relationship with Him grows deeper. The more you get to know God, the more you see that He is the only one who can meet your deepest needs.
Feb 13, 2018
Lies Young Women Believe: How we are Deceived by Satan’s Lies
Feb 13, 2018
The Bible tells us that Satan poses as an “angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14). Ezekiel 28 tells the story of how he asserted his claim to be like God. He is the Impostor. And his motives are malicious through and through, as Jesus Himself pointed out:
“The devil . . . was a murderer from the beginning,
and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no
truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character,
for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44)
Satan’s native language is lying. He speaks through different mouthpieces, sometimes using evil rulers, false religions, social media, Netflix, popular songs, or even friends to deceive us. But all lies originate with him.
Why does he lie to us? John 10:10, which refers to Satan as the thief, suggests that his ultimate goal is our destruction. The ultimate fruit of his lies is death. We begin to experience the results of this “death” before our hearts stop beating. Look at God’s words to the first man:
“Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it
you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:17)
What did God mean when He said they would die on the day they ate of the forbidden fruit? Eve clearly didn’t die physically the day she first sinned. However, the moment she took a bite of that fruit, she did die spiritually—she was separated from God, who is Life.
The Tree of Life was now off-limits, and she was banished from paradise. She would now be a slave to her own sinful, selfish desires and choices. She would bear the consequences of living in a fallen, broken world, rather than enjoying the eternal pleasure of life in Paradise. She and her husband would have to endure pain and hardship as they fulfilled their basic responsibilities related to family and work. With each passing year this hardship would take its toll on their bodies, and they would eventually experience physical death.
What a vivid picture this is for us.
The moment we believe and act on a lie, as Eve did, we begin to experience consequences. We become increasingly enslaved to false, destructive ways of thinking and living. This may show up with symptoms like on-going depression, unreasonable stress, or an overwhelming sense that you don’t have any friends. Satan’s ultimate goal is our destruction and death. Not just physical death some day in the future. He’d like to make you a part of his walking dead on this earth, not free to enjoy God and life as He created you to live it. You see, zombies are more than the bad guys in scary movies or on Netflix. Walking around enslaved to fear and death is a very real lifestyle for many.
There is good news. Jesus came to give you life, and He wants you to have it to the full. Let us help you experience joy, contentment, passion, energy, and life the way God designed.
Feb 5, 2018
Lies Young Women Believe: And The Truth That Sets Them Free
Feb 5, 2018
From the time she was in junior high when her parents divorced, Erin Davis struggled with panic attacks. They came mostly at night and were spurred on by horrific nightmares. When she awoke, sometimes she could barely breathe. She dreaded going to sleep because she never knew when she’d wake up in the middle of the night and feel suffocated by fear. She went to college and married her high school sweetheart. Together, they ministered to the youth of their church, but Erin hid the fact that she was still plagued by panic and fear.
Worn down and completely exhausted, she finally asked some friends to pray with her about what might be causing these recurring, sudden bouts of paralyzing fear. The friends asked what kinds of thoughts ran through her mind during her panic attacks. As Erin shared what she felt during those times, it became obvious that her panic attacks were reactions to thoughts and underlying beliefs that simply weren’t true. Her feelings were very real, but they were based on some pretty serious—and destructive—lies. Lies like:
Lie #1: Everyone leaves.
Lie #2: I have to take care of myself.
Lie #3: I can’t wear my heart on my sleeve or it’ll be crushed.
It was easy for Erin’s friends to see that these statements were contrary to God’s Truth, but she needed to see it. As they prayed together, her friends asked her to consider what God would say to her about those things. Here’s what she concluded.
Lie #1: Everyone leaves.
Truth #1: “I will never leave you or forsake you.”
Lie #2: I have to take care of myself.
Truth #2: “Be still and know that I am God.”
(Erin realized she was trying to play the role of God in her own life.)
Lie #3: I can’t wear my heart on my sleeve or it’ll be crushed.
Truth #3: “They will know we are Christians by our love.”
In case you didn’t catch it, the truths Erin concentrated on in that prayer time are powerful Scriptures right out of the Bible. These verses became the focus of her prayer team that day. Over the next few days, she continued to meditate on those verses as she began to “reprogram” her thinking.
The results were amazing! When Erin drove home a few days later, staying in a hotel alone along the way, she slept peacefully without nightmares or panic for the first time in a long time. Her parents are still divorced. She still struggles with fear at times, but it rarely rises up as powerfully as it did night after night for almost ten years.
The lies she believed at one time put her in bondage. It was God’s Truth that set her free.
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