Here's the Joy

Last week I took a writing retreat to work on my third Untwisting Scriptures book,  tentatively subtitled “Your Words, Your Emotions.” It will address  good stuff like gossip and slander, and anger and fear and shame. My hope is for it to be out before the end of 2021!

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One of the “Untwisting Scriptures” topics I’m known for tackling is the topic of giving up or yielding your rights. That’s the discussion in the first few chapters of the first Untwisting Scriptures book, and it was the topic the first time I was invited to speak at an abuse conference.

One of the apparently audacious assertions I make about rights—besides the assertion that it’s basically impossible for us to give up our rights—is that Jesus never gave up His rights. Continue reading “What Did Jesus Mean When He Said “Turn the Other Cheek”?”

Colossians 4:6 says,

“Let your speech always be gracious [or in some versions, ‘with grace’ or ‘full of grace’], seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

This is one of the many Scriptures used to teach us to “speak sweet.” When I researched it, I found article after article telling us that having “gracious” speech, or speech that is “full of grace” means speaking in a kind and inoffensive way to and about everyone.

And to those writers, “seasoned with salt” means “pleasant tasting.” Again, inoffensive, causing no waves, just pleasant and smiling and plastic no matter what.

And for my non-American readers, here’s the rest of that old adage:

“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” Continue reading ““If you can’t say something nice” . . . in Colossians 4:6”

In May I recorded the audiobook for the second Untwisting Scriptures book, focusing on Patriarchy and Authority.

I’m happy to say that the producer is a professional sound engineer who has done audio work for Julie Roys, Dr. Diane Langberg, and other advocates.

It should be available within a few days, I hope!

I’ve mentioned before that most of the chapters of this book were blog posts before they were edited into chapters, going all the way back to 2013. But a few of them were written brand new for the book.

One of those new ones was chapter 18, “The Authority We Have in Jesus Christ.” A day or two ago as I was listening to the optimized version of this chapter, I thought, “Hmmm, this information is so important, I should probably make it available free of charge to those who for one reason or another won’t or can’t buy the book.” Continue reading “Yes, We Really Do Have Authority in Jesus Christ”

Dear friend~

In our correspondence, you referred to the parable of the talents as a story of a person being punished “because he feared the master’s severity.  It was not about the cleverness of investing but about how he viewed the owner/master,” you said. “I hate it… but that’s soo me. And I know it displeases Him. Because if I BELIEVED in my heart what my head and you tell me of Him, I wouldn’t be feeling this. So I don’t. And it feels like I can’t.” Continue reading “The Parable of the Talents, for a Fearful Abuse Survivor”