Sharing my story with the world wasn't the hardest part of writing this book. The hardest part was sharing it with my family.  Most of my siblings have been encouraging.  They didn't know everything that was happening to me, but they knew my life was hard.  No one will ever know the depth of my pain, for even I can't measure it entirely.  Little bits and pieces of my history have surfaced over the years and filled in many peices of the puzzle that was my life, but even today as I finished the Companion Workbook for women and men who read Redeeming Our Treasures and need some help processing and applying the insights gained by it, I remembered something that hovered just beneath the surface of my conscious mind during the process of writing the workbook.  It made itself know to me and I stopped working long enough to let the truth--the whole painful reality--of that incident sink in.  I shared it with my husband and we mused over how Great is our God that He could keep me from breaking apart during the making of my history.

Writing my book, Redeeming Our Treasures, has reminded me in powerful ways that the Redeemer God who walked through the Garden of Eden in the cool of the evening, searching for fellowship with the man he had made, searches also for me. 

He found me hiding in the shadows of my painful past and brought me out into the light.  He taught me, through his Word, by moving on the hearts of men and women of wisdom to write books such as The Wounded Heart by Dan Allendar and Finding God by Larry Crabb.  He helped me heal through the Christian Counseling courses I took in the Seminary where I earned my Masters in Christian Counseling.  And He took me deeper into the heart of a Redeemer God through ministry to others who had suffered the agony of abuse, abandonment, and betrayal.

Nothing is more satisfying than knowing that the pain I experienced through twenty-eight years of violence and abuse in my father's house, has taught me lessons that help others heal.

And now, at last, the Redeeming Our Treasutres/Companion Workbook for Men and Women is off for a much needed edit.  Dr. James Coggins, scholar, writer, historian, and theologian, will add his magic to it and soon thereafter it will be off to press.  Many twelve and fourteen hour days went into the making of the Companion Workbook--many hours of research and deep spiritual searching are woven into the pages of this book. 

The good news is that the workbook has been written.  The next notice will be when I announce that it is ready for distribution.  You--my friends on Authors Den--will be the first to know.