Christian Author & Encourager

Hope-Filled Fiction and Faith-Filled Reflections for 
 Weary Hearts

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Corinne, you speak about healing from emotional pain and past wounds. What caused your emotional pain and wounds?

I had a furious father. To give him some grace, he was in World War II. He was in Holland and a Dutchman and had a lot of PTSD. He had autism and anxiety issues, and in those days, it wasn’t a known subject like it is today—people didn’t talk about it. If you had a problem, you just had a problem, and you kept it to yourself. There was no Google or any information. So my dad was a furious man, and he would take out his anger on my sisters, my mother, and me, and there was a lot of abuse and violence. It was horrendous. It was awful living with him because his anger was so unpredictable, triggered by anything from coffee that was too strong or too weak.

Did you feel you had to tread carefully around him?

Yes. So, I’ve been around the world. I’m in Sydney, Australia, now. But this all happened when I was living in South Africa. I was born in New Zealand. My parents met in New Zealand, but they immigrated to South Africa. And this is where I spent most of my childhood and adult life. South Africa was already a very tense country with all its problems and things going on. So this didn’t help my dad because there was so much anxiety and stress already in the country, so it just escalated his temperament. To make matters worse, the many burglaries and personal misfortunes he experienced, coupled with his refusal to seek help, took a toll on him. In those days, people considered going to counseling a sign of weakness, so they avoided psychologists and talking to someone.

Can you share the moment or the time when you first realized God was restoring those broken pieces in your life? Was that when you got married and started ‌a family?

I think predominantly it was. I had kids; they went to school, and there were parents' meetings. My parents never did all that because they were never involved in my life. So now, I was getting involved in my kids' lives, and I started making friends. As I started talking to my new friends, I realized they shared things I had never experienced. However, I felt blessed because I accepted Jesus at age 12, and with Jesus in my life, I could speak to God about these things. And I'd say, I'm different. I didn't enjoy being different because it was a bad sort of difference; a good difference is fine, but mine was a strange one. I would be in a conversation in a room, and suddenly I would feel uncomfortable, run away, and disappear. Today it's totally different, but in those days I used to get petrified in a crowd.

I used to worry that I could never say the right thing and feel like I was putting my foot in my mouth because I had no social skills, and then Jesus started dealing with me and showing me He had the problem. We tend to think it's everybody else, and people are weird; in actuality, it's you that's weird—you just need to look at the fingers pointing back at you. Then I got hold of some books and tapes on how to be a mother, wife, and woman because my upbringing had not taught me these things, and I had to tiptoe around my dad until I left at 17. I started realizing what is right and godly, and God showed me things that I needed to change. When I embarked on my journey of wanting to change, I realized I couldn't go on like I was, and I was sick and tired of being sick and tired—I didn't like myself or how I treated people. I became overly defensive to protect myself. It was all about me because that's all I knew. My existing skills were useful at home, but I was no longer in that environment and required new skills for social integration. I needed to learn how to be a wife and mother and mix with people. The need for personal change became clear to me, and with God's help, I learned how to fix my problems. 

I’m really glad that God showed you, and He really directs our steps when we ask Him for help. He hears every single one of our prayers, and when we ask Him for help, He’s right there. 

That’s right. And that reminds me of that scripture, Ephesians 3:20. God will do exceedingly abundantly above and beyond all that we could ask or think. I needed to trust him more abundantly. I had to believe that there was a better life waiting for me, because unless you lay hold of it and believe God for it, you can’t get it. It’s all there for you. God’s provision is for you, but you have to tap into it. And so the first thing you’ve got to do is realize that you need to change. And who likes change? I mean, we don’t even like an app change or a bank account change. We don’t like change. But God is so great. He just takes you on a journey, and it’s your journey, your pace, your time. He leads and guides you. And He did. He worked within me and changed things. And today, I can honestly say, I’m a totally different person. Thank you, Jesus.

Many people feel overwhelmed in life’s storms. What helped you hold on to hope and trust God when everything around you felt heavy and uncertain?

You know, I was very fortunate. When I got saved at 12, the lady who introduced me to Jesus invited me to Sunday school. We could have Sunday school because the school rented out the hall. The reason I went was that my father was present all day Saturday and Sunday. Thankfully, there was not much interaction with my dad, only in the evening. I was in school Monday to Friday and attended Sunday school each week. I decided that a few hours out of the house on Sunday would provide some much-needed breathing space. 

Then the lady who introduced me to Jesus asked the children, “Does anyone need a friend? And I really needed a friend. She said, “Jesus will be your friend for the rest of your life” after I raised my hand. That’s what I need. I really need a friend. And so I invited Jesus into my life. But the beautiful thing is the way she introduced me to Him was that He was with me every moment of every second of every single day. I believe she sensed my body language. Understanding psychology helps you recognize when someone experiences trauma and unhappiness. She likely perceived that, as a 12-year-old, I appeared stressed, withdrawn, and troubled. She encouraged me to always go to Jesus, so I did. I figured that I would put Jesus in my pocket, in my school uniform, and I would talk to Him all day. Everywhere I went all day, every day, talking to Jesus. And today, when I go shopping, I talk to Him, asking Him to show me where the sales are or find whatever I’m looking for and need. I talk to Jesus all day.

I really believe that when I made Jesus my friend, that was a turning point in my life. Jesus led me on this path of how to fix things. But it’s a relationship. You know, you’ve got to find your relationship with God. I stopped identifying with my dad, the abused girl, and my dad’s abuser. I just stopped identifying with that and identified with Jesus. I’m now in Christ. I am a new creature. I abide with Him. He’s with me. And I started to shift my whole mindset, shift my thoughts, everything, to what God says. Not what my dad said about me—You’re nothing. You’ll never be anything. You’re a waste of time. God said that He knew us right from the moment we were in the womb. And then I thought, “Well, my dad and mother might not have wanted me, but God does because He says in scripture, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” (Jeremiah 1:5) When I read this scripture, I learned He wanted to know me. God knew me, and I was worthy. Whereas with my father, I felt so ashamed and so rejected. But with God, he wanted to know me. And He knew me from the moment of my conception. So that made me feel bigger than. It made me feel worthy of being alive, worthy of being a person. Suddenly, that mentality of “I’m not worth anything, and I’m a worm, and I’m full of shame, and I should never have been born, and why did this happen to me?" God knows me; changed that mentality. And that mind shift was so huge. It totally healed my rejection and my self-confidence. It healed everything and changed my legacy–I’ve been married for forty-nine years. I have two children, both married to beautiful Christian girls. I've got grandchildren who love Jesus, and all this changed because Jesus came into my life.

You went from being a victim to becoming victorious in Christ, replacing the enemy’s lies with God’s truth. 

That's right. You can't go forward with your stinky thinking. If I'm going to go with the mindset of my dad, all I'm going to do is become another version of my father. I'm not saying it's easy because it isn’t, but anything worthwhile is difficult, from making sure you are eating right and taking care of yourself, to working at a job, having a long and successful marriage–everything is hard. Good things are hard to do, but they're worth the reward. Here I am now, years down the road, and it's not as hard anymore. It's become my everyday routine and lifestyle. I have developed my routines around my godly habits. 

In my book, My Journey to Enjoying My Life, I give the 12 life-changing steps of how I went from abuse to being a woman of God. I take 12 steps that God showed me. Each step is a journey, and then I even tell you in the final chapters how to put all these categories together, apply them, and make them a routine. They are definite and reliable. These steps are not just theoretical; they are practical tools designed to help you transform your life. By embracing each step in faith and dedication, you can cultivate a deeper relationship with God and find true fulfillment. If you commit to these 12 steps throughout your life, you will grow into a strong Christian and have success in your life. These are the steps that I did, and they changed my world. I gradually took these actions, and they remain fixed today. I still do all these every day because life is full of routines. Everything is routine. Christian life has to become a routine. Reading your Bible, praying, making your own confessions, and doing the things that we need to do to keep our faith built up is a routine. If we don’t do it for five days, we’re going to go backwards, just as if we don’t eat right for five days, we’re going to put on weight. It’s the same process.

I couldn’t understand why he could be so cruel to a little girl who all she wanted to do was love her daddy. It's upsetting. However, I now understand he lacked what I needed. He was a very troubled man and had a lot of his own problems, and unfortunately, he didn’t seek help. So he just took them out on everybody else. But as I went through the journey of healing, as I let God minister to me and change me over the years, it was very effective. Now, I’m on the other side and can share what I’ve learned and encourage others to take this journey. 

A beautiful testimony from an 86-year-old woman who read Karin's book, My Journey to Enjoying My Life.

If someone watching this is struggling with emotional wounds or feeling hopeless, what would you want them to reflect on about God’s plan for their life?

I want to encourage people that they don’t have to be stuck. You don’t have to live in the history of your abuser. You can’t change your past, but you can change your future. The future is yours. Choose what kind of future you want. Do you want your future to be based on what happened to you and woe is me, and you're the victim? Or are you going to say that’s enough of that? Yes, this happened to me, but I’m done with it. Now I’m going to start living my life. God will heal the hurt. He will help you reframe your mind. He will help you change and take the pain away if you let Him; He will. Then, you will embark on a new life, the one you would live—the life God intended for you. 

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Louise Sedgwick

Author, Teacher, and Podcaster

Your childhood story is both heartbreaking and powerful. How did your experiences shape your faith and your understanding of God? Can you share about your childhood? 

Yes, I can do that. Sharing my childhood story is always painful, even though I’ve told it many times; it never gets easier. My parents raised my siblings and me in the Midwest and took us to church every time the doors were open. My parents were visible church leaders and respected in the community. But what happened at home was very different. My father sexually abused me throughout my entire childhood and sold me to other men—now they call it trafficking. They didn’t call it that when I was young—they just sold me, and we had to participate in child pornography. It was a very severe abuse and evil. And so you can imagine the conflict and confusion for me as a little girl, who was at conservative evangelical churches, where I heard the gospel, and I accepted Jesus as my Savior when I was little. Still, the turmoil of the double life that we lived was very confusing. 

When I went to church camp as a junior high schooler, I gave my life to Christ fully and said, “God, use me big for your kingdom purposes. I will be yours for the rest of my life.” And so here I was, having this desire to honor God with my life, serve Him, and be about His kingdom. And yet I had this literal terror going on at home, every day, every night, and I didn’t know that you could live without terror. Not just fear, but terror for my life. I loved Jesus with all my heart, but I had another thing going on in me–now I know it’s called trauma responses, but that was unknown and unresearched. I had a horrific problem with anger. And not just a little. I mean rage, like with the veins sticking out of your neck rage. Now, I know it was the fight, flight, or freeze response. It was a fight response of mine, trying to feel powerful when I felt absolutely powerless and hopeless. Shame overwhelmed me, and I felt like raw sewage. I believed that only someone worthless would receive such treatment. 

So, I felt like raw sewage, but I was really arrogant because I learned to be a perfectionist to survive. After all, my father would always say that he was going to abuse me because of some infraction I had committed, so I tried really hard to be perfect and never make a mistake. I felt I needed to perform to stop my father from abusing me. Of course, I learned later that no matter how perfectly I performed, it wouldn’t have stopped him, but that was my strategy as a child. 

When I was a really high-performing child and teenager, I thought I was better than other people. So I had both things going on: arrogance and deep, deep shame. And so I was judgmental and critical, and it was really messy, and I was a perfectionist. So here I was, loving Jesus and wanting to serve Him and have my life be all about His kingdom and honoring Him, but I was struggling with so much sin that I couldn’t control, and that made me feel so terrible about myself, and on top of that, I just didn’t believe that God loved me. 

I started teaching even as a teenager in my church because it was one of my gifts and part of the design of my life. I would teach all these things that were true about scripture because I’d studied scripture and gone to doctrine classes and all those things, and so I was doing all these teachings, all this truth. I knew a lot of truth, but I didn’t believe it for me–it was in my head, but there was a 12-inch gap between my head and my heart that was disconnected because I didn’t trust God, because how could I trust a God who allowed me to go through what I was going through. I was on an ongoing journey where I was trying so hard to be perfect and get my sin under control to stop being judgmental and critical, stop raging, and I just couldn’t get it under control because we can’t control our sin. But the teaching that I received was wonderful in so many ways. Still, it was missing the fullness of the gospel of how we live, not just by God’s grace for our salvation, but God’s grace for our ongoing journey as believers. I was unsure how to live. I felt awful about my failures as a Christian and what happened to me. And so when I was in my early 20s in college, I told God, “So far, everything you’ve taught me about the Christian life is a crock because I’m doing everything I was taught to do, and it’s not making any difference.” And I said, “God, if you are real and if your word is true, will you take me to a place where they can teach me a new way?” It was the turning point for me when God brought me to that place to teach me a new way. 

You mentioned a trauma response, and that’s for protection, like when fighters get in the ring, they put their fists up. So, you had a trauma response of anger, and that was a way to protect yourself.

Yeah. Because you think about it, when you see somebody who’s raging, you want to back away from them because it’s powerful. And so if I’m the one who’s raging, I don’t feel small or weak. I feel powerful and big. And it’s an illusion, of course; it’s not the truth, but it’s the feeling that it gave me. I didn’t love what it did, and I didn’t have an understanding for a long time of how my rage affected the people around me. I just knew it helped me feel stronger and safer. 

What was the turning point when you experienced real healing and freedom? 

Well, it was a process. I wouldn’t say it was necessarily a point, but it was a process. The healing began when I started attending 12-step groups for adult children of alcoholics, even though my father never drank, but he had a sexual addiction, so I was with other people whose parents had addiction issues. I began to understand the dynamics of a home where that is true. It took away some of the confusion for me to say, “Oh, this is common. These behaviors are common. The manipulation, the pouting, and the lies are common for someone in a home where there’s addiction present,” and so that was helpful. But then, as I said a little bit earlier, when God took me to a place where I could learn a new way to do the Christian life, He took me to a church here in Phoenix where I learned about God’s grace. Not just grace for my salvation, but God’s grace for my everyday life. And I came to understand, even though I’d been to Bible college and taken theology classes, I never fully understood the reality of what Jesus accomplished for me at the cross and resurrection. And that I was no longer a slave to sin according to Romans 6. I had lived my life as a slave to sin because I had repented and repented and said the words of repentance for years about my anger and my judgmental criticism and my perfectionism. But I couldn’t stop because it was stronger than me. And when I learned that not just by reading it, I learned how to live as though I was no longer a slave to sin—how to repent in a way where God does the work in me. Because even when I was in college, I said, “God, take me to a place where I can learn a new way.” I said to Him, “As far as I’ve been doing in trying to deal with my sin, God, I’ve been the one doing all the work. And if there is victory over sin in a believer’s life, there has to be something supernatural involved. You have to do something about my sin, not just me trying to control my sin.” And so when I learned about this new church through God’s grace, I learned how it is that it’s the Holy Spirit in me, Christ in me by the Holy Spirit, that is stronger than sin. Christ in me, by the Holy Spirit, can forgive. Christ in me by the Holy Spirit doesn’t have to hang on to shame and can trust God. And I had never heard that. I missed it if someone taught it to me. But that’s what began to change my life, to say I didn’t have to make it happen. I could believe that God could make it happen. The Holy Spirit could make it happen in me. And that changed everything for me. He's faithful to hear our prayers and remember them even when we've forgotten them and to answer them in His perfect time. I'm grateful for His mercy and grace toward me. 

What are some practical ways people can find hope and healing through Jesus, even in the midst of deep pain? 

Well, I think for me, one of the big shifts that helped me was I knew that Jesus had died for my sins, but I didn't comprehend or grasp that Jesus didn't just die for my sins. He died for the sins that were done to me, so I could have healing for the sins that were done to me, because otherwise, there would be all this abuse that I had endured from my childhood that was lying in me, and I didn't know how to give it back to my parents. I was holding on to it, and I was holding on to the shame from it. And so, I didn't have any idea that my way out, my way toward healing, was to come to understand and live out the truth that Jesus died for the sins done against me. That I could forgive my parents because their debt was paid by Jesus. I could have hope that all these things didn't define me because Jesus paid the debt for those sins. He paid for the shame of those sins done against me, and it lifted my face toward heaven to say, "Oh, you love me that much that you would die for what somebody else did for me so that I could be free. Wow! Wow!"

A lot of times when we’re going through things, if we get our focus off ourselves and our issues and we start serving others, it helps our healing process a lot. So, when you first began serving others while still healing yourself, what was it like to see God use your story to bring hope to someone else?

Oh, it was the truth that I had learned as a child that Jesus is our redeemer. It became my reality because He redeemed my soul. He redeemed my life from the pit, as it says in Psalms 40:1-3. He lifted me out of the pit. He redeemed me so that others could experience Christ through me and the healing of Jesus through me because I had experienced it myself, and I knew what it meant, and I knew what it looked like, and I knew how to help other people because I had learned it for myself. Psalm 40:1-3, “I waited patiently for the Lord, and he reached down to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the mud. And he set my feet on a rock, making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and will trust in the Lord.”  I felt that I was in the pit for so many years, and I tried to claw my way out by myself, but He lifted me out of it through Jesus and what Jesus accomplished for me on the cross. And I’m so grateful.How did your perspective on forgiveness, both of yourself and others, change as you walked through your journey of healing?Well, in the beginning, honestly, I did not want to forgive my parents. I wanted them to suffer. If I can be this bold, I wanted them to be in hell. I did not want them to heal. I did not want them to be forgiven. And in the beginning, I knew I needed to forgive my parents, but I didn’t want to. And I had never truly forgiven anyone in my life. I didn’t know how to. I could say the words, but I didn’t mean that I had let it go. There was a debt to be paid, and a debt that was owed. And I didn’t want to forgive my parents until they owned up to what they did. And so it was a journey for me to come to understand forgiveness. I could forgive because Jesus had paid the debt. But I also had an even harder time forgiving myself because my anger and rage were present when my children were growing up. And I raged a lot at my husband, and my children witnessed it, and my judgmental criticism and my perfectionism deeply, deeply injured my family. I had a lot of self-hatred for the sins; they were trauma responses, but they were also sins for what I had done to my family and the damage that I had done. My prayer had always been that I wouldn’t hurt my children, especially the way my parents had hurt me. While I didn’t inflict the same pain on them as my parents did on me, I still caused my family to suffer. And so I had just so much self-contempt for years and regret, deep regret for what I had done. And so, learning to forgive my parents was the first step. But the second step was getting to a place where I could forgive myself and receive God’s grace for me.

My husband and I were going to confront my parents because they were in positions of church leadership, and my pastor at my church was going to go with us to confront them. He told me that I had to forgive my parents before I could confront them, so that was my motivator, not in any Christlike way, but because I wanted my parents exposed. I wanted them out. It wasn’t from a heart desiring reconciliation whatsoever that I was in the forgiveness process. But I just had to ask God to help me forgive because I wasn’t willing to forgive, nor was I willing to be willing to forgive. And so I had to pray three times, willing–God helped me to be willing to be willing to be willing to forgive. I prayed every day for months because it wasn’t in my willingness to forgive my parents—it was not going to come from anything in me—it had to be Christ in me that could forgive them. 

How has Psalm 34:4-5 touch your heart and life?

My heart is to walk with people so that they would know the healing of Jesus from the shame that they feel for what they’ve done or the sin done to them. I always say that if God can heal me, He can heal anyone because it’s about Him and His power. The scripture from Psalm 34:4-5 is precious to me because it’s the calling of my life to share with others how we can be lifted from shame through Jesus and His grace. 

Psalm 34:4-5

I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.

This scripture says, I sought the Lord, and He answered me and delivered or rescued me from all my fears. I went from being a woman who felt worthless and unlovable. I didn’t have what it takes. I couldn’t measure up. I believed I was unwanted, but now, because of all that God and Jesus have done in me, I feel loved, known, cherished, and beloved—all of it. I can look to God and not feel shame. I can feel His delight in me. I know I’m treasured by Him and that through Him I have what it takes. That is a complete transformation. Not that I don’t or can’t feel shame now and again because I live in a sinful world, but it does not own me like it used to. He’s not only a redeemer for me, but He’s a redeemer for everyone who chooses Him. 

Looking back on your journey of redemption, what advice would you give to somebody who feels trapped by their past or ashamed of their story? 

First, I would say I understand. I’ve been there. I lived it. And this is why Jesus came. He came to set the captives free. He came to seek and to save those who were lost. And I remember crying out to God and saying, “That’s me. I’m lost. I don’t know how to do life. I am lost. You came for me. Show up for me, Jesus. Show up for me. I’m lost.” And He did. He did show up for me. More than just show up for me. He healed my soul. He transformed my life. He redeemed my life from the pit. Jesus wants to do that for you. You are not ineligible. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He doesn’t expect us to have it all together because nobody does. 

My pastor at the church where I served for all those years, my favorite line that he said was, “There are no together people, just people who dress better.” And I believe that. No, nobody’s got it all together, but we can live in confidence of our worth and value because of Jesus. And that frees our hearts and allows us to stand in who He designed us to be. And when we live out who He designed us to be, we have a confidence and a joy and a peace that comes from Him. We don’t have to compete with anyone. We can trust that He’s going to open the doors for us, and we just have to walk through them. And that’s been my life. I dreamed I always wanted to be in full-time Christian ministry, and I felt completely ineligible because of how broken I was and how I overreacted to things. I was socially awkward sometimes. I raged. I was so judgmental and critical. And I thought, “Nope, God could never use me,” but He qualifies the called, as that old saying goes, that when we allow Him to do His work in us with open hands of surrender, saying, “You do it in me, God,” and we believe that He can do it—He will absolutely move in our lives, and it’s a miracle; my life is a miracle 100%. 

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Tabitha Yates

Bestselling author of Jesus and Therapy: Bridging the Gap Between Faith and Mental Health 

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Tabitha, you speak openly about surviving physical and spiritual abuse. How did you find the courage to break the silence and share your story, and how did your own journey with faith and mental health shape its message?

First, unfortunately, there are a lot of systems in place to protect people in power who are abusive. So when you’re talking about church and spiritual abuse and those things that I went through, that was very scary to talk about, and then when you’re talking about family abuse, nobody wants you to bring that into the light, of course. 

And so I had to walk so closely with Jesus through this process because I needed to know that I knew that He was in it, that He was commanding me to do this, that He was giving me the words because there was so much fear interjected into the whole process, and what if someone sues you, and what if your ex-pastor comes after you, and what if your father comes after you, and all these things where I was like, “Okay, like those are some legitimate fears,” and to be able to open up, that was one of the most significant parts of my healing. I realized that my silence was not protecting me; it was protecting them, and the people who have wounded and hurt me have been avoiding accountability for decades. Therefore, it was a type of reckoning, like I wasn’t going to cover for them anymore, I wasn’t going to hide, and I wasn’t trying to drag them through the middle or bash, and I made sure to change their real names. I was very respectful, but I am going to tell the truth and talk about what I experienced because it doesn’t matter—it did happen. 

And so it was a raw, you know, third, fourth, and fifth healing process for me because I had to get to a place on my own healing journey where it wasn’t triggering to talk about. I wanted to be speaking from a place of healing, not from a place of wounding, because I didn’t want that to be filtered through which I was, you know, saying things to people, and that was really important to me. So, throughout the blessing before the Lord, there were a lot of bathroom floors and sob sessions as I continually surrendered to God, letting Him wash over me and heal me, and letting Him use my story to hopefully go out and heal others. 

I think the book is very much a companion guide because I’m never coming at it from the angle that I’m healed, mainly because of how complex my trauma was—my healing is going to be a lifelong process. So the book is very much like, “Let me come alongside of you and show you what I’ve learned in the last 20 years of healing,” so maybe it will give you a little of a roadmap in areas where it’s still really foggy for you, and that was my hope because I didn’t have the church or parental leadership—I didn’t have anyone walking me through healing, just Jesus, myself and my counselor, so I feel like I was going through this jungle with a machete and clearing a path that did not exist. I’m like, “My goodness, if I can go to someone a few miles back and be like, ‘Here, you know, I cleared a little of the way. Like, here are a few ideas.” Here are a few tips. Here are a few things that got me through and made their healing journey a little easier. That was my heart. There was so much to do, and that was to illuminate a path that had been so hard to carve out, and for other survivors to do it with just a little bit more of a roadmap than I had.

My abuse was spiritual, verbal, emotional, and narcissistic. Every safe adult in my life subjected me to every type of abuse imaginable, so I was incredibly confused and believed, “I guess this is just how grown-ups are, and there’s no safe place.” It led me to become severely suicidal because I’m like, “There’s no way out,” and I couldn’t escape the abuse anywhere I went. 

How did you start your healing process? Can you share a couple of steps you took? Was there anyone in your family or at your church you could go to, or a friend who came along with you, who could share what you were going through?

I unfortunately needed to break before I rebuilt—part of my journey was that my church did not believe mental illness was a legitimate thing at all, so everything was overspiritualized. I was not allowed to go to counseling. Even in the beginning, from having childhood abuse and parents who divorced dramatically, and all the things I’d gone through, where counseling would have been beneficial, I was not allowed to do that. Then it got to the point that it literally led to me overdosing and attempting suicide before I could see a counselor, so it took getting that bad because again, that was the only escape from the abuse and the hell I was in that I could see, and that was the only way out. After that act, I got locked down in a psych ward on suicide watch by the time I was 16 years old.

I was able to start seeing a Christian psychologist, and it took a lot of healing and years to unravel myself from toxic systems and relationships. It also took me growing older and finally being able to make choices for myself—saying, “Okay, I’m not going to do this anymore. I’m not going to listen to this person anymore. I’m not going to go to this church anymore.”It took a complete shattering of my faith, because for so long my faith had been placed more in people than in God. I had lived in such a spiritually abusive environment where the message was always, “We speak for God; you don’t hear from Him yourself.” Everything spoken to me in that system was damaging and wounding. I had to completely separate people from God and realize that everything I had been told about Him was not true and not biblical. I had to burn it all down to the ground and start over—rebuild my faith and find the truth for myself. There were two women in my church who would still say hurtful things, though not intentionally—they meant well, but they didn’t understand depression or suicidality. Still, a few people tried to show up for me and love me during that period. But they weren’t the ones who should have been protecting me, sheltering me, or helping me at that point. 

It took a long time to unravel everything I thought I knew about Jesus—what He felt like, what He felt about me—and to rebuild my understanding of His love. I wrestled with believing that He could still love me after all I’d been through. I wondered if I was some disgrace to Christianity because I was depressed and traumatized. I remember pastors and elders telling me things like, “God’s done with you. You’re beyond saving. You’re not even worth saving.” They said God had washed His hands of me—and that permitted them to do the same. I truly believed I was worthless, beyond saving, and that even if God could save me, He didn’t want to. The level of damage that was done to my faith, my psyche, and my sense of self was enormous. It’s taken a lifetime to undo all of that and to rebuild a foundation that actually comes from the truth of Scripture.

My earthly father’s abuse deeply distorted my view of God. On top of that, many of the church leaders I grew up around also abused me, and I ended up projecting all of that brokenness onto Jesus. It took time—and a lot of healing—to finally develop a healthy, personal relationship with Him that wasn’t shaped by my past pain.I reached a point where I had to step away from those people and toxic environments. Everything they poured into me was rooted in lies, not truth. Setting healthy boundaries became necessary for my healing. And I’ve learned that boundaries are not unkind—they’re actually a loving and wise way to protect the heart God gave you.

Many Christians struggle with the idea of seeking therapy and think that it shows a lack of faith. In your book, Jesus and Therapy, you share six false beliefs to help Christians know and understand that faith and therapy work together. Please share about these beliefs.

What encouragement would you give to someone watching who loves Jesus but is quietly battling anxiety, depression, or burnout—and doesn’t know where to start? 

I think there’s no reason for churches not to be trauma-informed, not to have a care team, and not to have people who understand mental health. I think this even extends to awareness training for people with special needs, to make sure we don’t further wound them. Because again, there’s another level of harm when we wound people in God’s name. 

We need to be the safest place. We need to be a place where people can go to heal. And we need to stop being uncomfortable or put off by pain. We also need to stop rushing people through the healing process. So much of what happens is spiritual bypassing—just slapping a verse on someone’s pain and pushing them past actually sitting with what they’ve been through. There is a difference between ruminating for years and actually walking through your trauma. Real healing requires sitting with it. It requires feeling it. And we can’t heal what we won’t name. 

As Christians, we need to become okay with discomfort. We need to be willing to hold space for people—their journeys, their grief, their pain—without feeling like we have the right to tell them how to grieve or how to heal. Of course, we can always point them to the arms of a loving Savior who is walking with them. But we need to be careful and guard our hearts so we don’t inflict more damage on someone who is already at their weakest and most vulnerable. I don’t think there’s any excuse anymore for pastors not to be trauma-informed or to avoid training. There’s so much excellent training available.

When we come to the end of ourselves, God is just beginning. Healing involves both Jesus and therapy. Some healing only Jesus can do. But some healing requires the tools available to us—counseling, support, boundaries, and sometimes medication. God doesn’t require you to suffer alone. He doesn’t call it “more spiritual” to stay silent or avoid help. He wants you to step into the light and seek resources. If Christians have made you feel like you have to silently carry your anxiety or depression as your cross to bear, you don’t. You’re allowed to heal. You’re allowed to address the real trauma in your life. It doesn’t have to be that heavy forever. I didn’t want to carry it for the rest of my life—and for my children’s sake, I wouldn’t. So I chased healing. And now it has become my life’s mission.

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Dawnita Fogleman

Award-Winning Journalist, Homestead and Preparedness Coach, Published Author, and Founder & Creator of Prairie Dust Trail

These are Dawnita's favorite scriptures...

Dawnita, you grew up in a house that practiced New Age and were actually raised to become a Native American medicine woman. How did that all come about? 

I have Native American on both sides of my family. Unfortunately, I did not inherit the lovely extra melanin. I’ve got very little, so I’m white as paper, but I was a teen pregnancy, and my mother left when I was around 18 months old. She was a hippie, and she went and hitchhiked across the country. It was a typical hippie thing. My dad was in the Navy. After that, he went back home to the farm and ranch, where he was a cowboy. He remarried when I was four. Nobody really attended church in my family. One of my great-grandmothers attended church, and that was about it. My stepmother would read the Bible, but my grandmother, with whom I lived a lot, took me to her medium. And then when I was about five or six years old, I was allowed to go to a vacation Bible school. We had a little country church on a hill out here in the middle of nowhere. It’s a good 30 minutes from any town. I was about five or six years old when I asked Jesus into my heart because I didn’t think I was going to survive to grow up.

How come you felt that you wouldn't survive to grow up?  

Because my father was abusing me in every way, but I didn’t know any different, because that was just life for me. Still, I really didn’t know if I would survive to grow up, so I wanted Jesus to help me be a good person while I was here, and I wanted to know that I was going to be with Him whenever I passed away. 

So anyway, when I was eight years old, I met my mother. And when I was ten, I moved in with her. She was a drug user, and she taught me tarot cards and other New Age things in addition to what my grandmother taught me. And I would have manifestations of evil spirits and the familiar spirits. 

I married a preacher’s son, and after we married, I realized the houses we lived in were haunted, so I needed deliverance. After we had our second child, an opportunity came up in the church we were attending to go to a ladies’ retreat. And up to that point, whenever people would come to visit our house, they would hear and see things. So it wasn’t just me who was noticing weird things going on. It would sound like bells tinkling, or things scurrying, or children playing, and you could even hear them on the nursery monitor. Thus, it was a physical thing that was audible. I was encouraged by the church ladies to join their retreat. When I asked my husband, he initially thought it was pricey, but the following day, he arrived home with a check covering the retreat’s cost. And he said, “I guess the Lord wants you to go.” And so I went. And it was a holy roller retreat, which, I love my full gospel friends, but I am so not. I had one preacher’s wife who said it’s kind of like the difference in flavors of ice cream. Some of us are chocolate, some of us are vanilla. And she said, “And I’m Rocky Road.” I decided that I’m chocolate almond; I’m a little nutty. While at the retreat, they didn’t do deliverance, but they did several things that were like object lessons. And one of them was that they gave us all little wooden crosses and nails, and we would talk about things and burdens that we needed to give to the Lord. We were encouraged to talk about what that burden was and then nail it on the cross. And there were several little things like that, and just being able to speak openly with other women about things that I had gone through that I had never been able to talk about before. My husband would tell you to this day that when I came home from the retreat, there was a considerable change.

I can’t tell you much about the conference itself, but I know the Lord worked on me, and that’s what we need to remember. Paul’s dad was a preacher and an evangelist, and he always would say, “God’s Word doesn’t return to Him void,” so it doesn’t matter who’s preaching God’s Word or who’s sharing God’s Word and where people are in their walk, but if they’re sharing it, then His Word can still touch, and it’s still powerful. After the retreat, I prayed for a spiritual mentor, because I wasn’t raised in the church and didn’t know a whole lot, but I wanted to raise our family in the Lord's ways. So I prayed for a mentor, and He sent me a holy roller homeschool mom who was very confident and got out there and got things done. She challenged me in so many ways. And she saw my crystal ball and my tarot cards that I still had, and she said, “Why do you still have these things in your house? I told her, “Well, they’re keepsakes.” And she said, “Well, are those really why you have them? Or is that what the spirits are trying to tell you?” And then she left. She didn’t push the issue or be judgmental or anything; she just asked a question to challenge me lovingly. And you know what? The second she walked out that door and went out of the driveway, I threw them all away. I got rid of it because I didn’t want to take a chance. I not only threw those away, but I also went through the house and got rid of anything mystical or magical that I had. I got rid of them, even the Disney princess movie with magic in it. The whole kit and caboodle—I just cleaned house and got rid of anything mystical, magical, or anything that could be in the least bit, and started focusing on God’s Word. This was huge and exactly what we needed to get grounded in my faith and solid in His Word, and once I did this, He started bringing things back into my life and showing me His creation and what He made, like the constellations, and then I wrote a book about the constellations and prophecy. I did it as a homeschool project for our family because I wanted to look into this. And I did coloring pages to go with it, and because so many of the pictures of the constellations are not modest, I made a coloring book so that we could have modest constellation images. So I did this with my children, and it’s based on a book written in the 1800s, giving the prophecy that’s in the stars—and God put the complete story of Jesus in the constellations for us. And it’s fascinating. I did this scrapbook project with my children for homeschooling and other moms. They encouraged me to put it in a curriculum for them because they wanted to do this with their children. The stars are being redeemed for their original purpose, biblically. It was because of the stars that everybody knew, or had the chance to know, that Jesus was coming, because all they had to do was look at the stars. It’s amazing! And then, the Lord started bringing me more, and on my YouTube channel, I wear this fabulous tinfoil hat.

Yes. Can you explain why you wear a tinfoil hat? 

Christians, who were raised in the church, have an attitude about some things, and they think, “Oh, this is New Age. We can’t touch that because it’s New Age. God created the heavens and the earth. He created crystals, herbs, and essential oils. And in the Bible, God explains to us ways to use some of these things. So you have Christians who will be afraid of crystals. In scripture, people used crystals and gemstones primarily for adornment and ritual purposes, most notably in the High Priest Aaron’s God-designed breastplate, which bore twelve gems representing the twelve tribes of Israel. And yet, we have Christians doing yoga in their churches, which is actually preparation for death. So my New Age background gives me a background that people who have been raised in the church don’t have, and it gives me a perception of some of the ancient things, along with an understanding of some of the cultural stuff in the Bible that other people may not understand. And I’m able to pull those together. So through Prairie Dust Trail, we’re able to explore historical topics and talk about Bigfoot, UFOs, and other topics on my channel. I talk to other believers about these things and how they fit into the Bible, what they really are, and how we stand against the evils that are in this world and protect our family and teach our family about these things so that they can have discernment.

A lot of people counterfeit what Christ has done, right? 

Right. That’s what the devil does. He camouflages things. A good example is the sage that witches will burn and have the smoke of sage around their house, but people don’t realize that hyssop in the Bible and sage are basically very closely related plants. The witches, pagans, and those in the New Age take things from the Bible because that’s the original source, and they take those things and twist them and do other things with them, so it’s not the sage that’s bad. It’s how they’re doing it. Hyssop was used for cleansing in the Bible. So if you go back to the Bible and see how it was used, you can realize that it’s okay to use hyssop, but we’re going to do it differently than the way the witches do it, with sage. There are a lot of fun things to think about, and God created the heavens and the earth with frequency. He spoke everything into existence.

You teach people things like preparedness and homesteading, but you also provide something equally important—a community. A place where people don’t feel isolated and can safely share the things they’re noticing in the world that just don’t make sense.

Right. And it’s this kind of uncertainty that often makes people fearful about the future. But the Bible repeatedly tells us to be prepared. Proverbs 31 is a perfect example: the virtuous woman wasn’t afraid of the winter because she had her household ready. Many passages show that if we are prepared—spiritually with God in our hearts and physically in our lives—we’re far less likely to panic. We live in a broken world. Catastrophes, both big and small, will happen, and traumatic experiences are inevitable. But panic comes from fear of the unknown—and God has not given us a spirit of fear. When we look at the strange, confusing events in the world through a biblical lens, we can prepare for the worst while still hoping for the best. I don’t teach self-sufficiency because I don’t believe in it. I believe in God-sufficiency. He is enough. Wherever He places us, it is sufficient. We are called to be Him-reliant, not self-reliant.

I also teach the importance of rest. Many churches today teach that the Old Testament doesn’t matter or that Jesus did away with the law—but He didn’t. He came to fulfill it—something as simple as Sabbath was designed for our benefit: our rest. Yet so many people are constantly overwhelmed and stressed because they’ve forgotten how to pause. I tell people, “I don’t care what day you take it—just take that one day of rest.” When you do, your life begins to change. We were never meant to work 24/7. Jeremiah 6:16 talks about “the ancient paths,” and then laments, “But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’” It’s sad because God told us to follow His ways, but we often ignore them. Rest isn’t just a break—it’s a way to refill our cups. We don’t fill the cup ourselves; God does. And when our cup overflows, that blessing naturally spreads to others. Too often, especially as women, we try to pour from empty cups. But God designed it so that first He fills us, and then we overflow into the lives of others.

Watch how being prepared saved Dawnita's children's lives during a catastrophic Oklahoma wildfire.  

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