When I began Real Hurts, Real Hope more than a year ago, my purpose was to give hope to Christian women who hurt and to the people who love them. This remains my passion.

Healing the brokenhearted is my heartbeat. It’s God’s work for me and my joy.

God spoke a “second step” to my heart too: The Sisterhood of Beautiful Warriors. Click the link and take a peek.

My beautiful warrior blog encourages Christian women who have struggles — and don’t we all? — to acknowledge their pain, bring it to the Lord and leave it at the cross AND to embrace the truth of who they are: God’s little girls all grown up, completely loved and accepted by him.

In a few days, I’ll pour Real Hurts, Real Hope into The Sisterhood of Beautiful Warriors and I’m asking you to come along. I plan to send you the Beautiful Warrior blog and let it minister to you. If you don’t want it, tell me. Just send an email to Lucy@LucyAnnMoll.com. Sound reasonable?

A few things my Beautiful Warrior blog gives you:

~ encouragement, just as you are

~ reminders that you are who God says you are

~ opportunity to hear from other Christian women who’ve faced difficulties and found hope

I’ll post Monday through Thursday and some Fridays at Beautiful Warrior. If you have suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

Here’s the lineup, which’ll change with your input ~

Rainy Days and Mondays

Blog Talk Tuesdays

Warrior Wednesdays

Let’s Give Thanks Thursdays

Funny Fridays

In case you’re asking, Why the change? I can’t keep up with two blogs and do both well. A girl’s gotta know her limitations and where God is leading. 

You Are Loved!

The old saying is true, People don’t care how much you know till they know how much you care.

Trust. This matters. If you don’t care, no one will trust you.

Seriously. Why would you? or me? Why would we trust someone whom we don’t know and get hurt again?

Like the Caddyshack gopher — yep, the one with the dance moves and destructo mindset — I dig a hole, hide in the dark, popping up only when I determine it’s safe.

WHAT IF SAFE IS, like, NEVER?

This is a cry of so many women: Keep me safe, hold me, make the scary stuff go away.

Because I’m scared

and if people only heard my thought or knew the real me

they would run

scream

flee in the other direction.

I used to be one of the scared, of the untrusting.

Now, I don’t hang out my dirty underwear for all to see but, hey, if my slip is showing, so what. Really, who cares?

In my scared, untrusting days, confiding in someone — even God – would unnerve me. More than that, it would send me running.

To. My. Dark. Hole.

One sunny morning, the hole became so dark, it caved in. I had to reach out or die. A slow death of losing myself.

Then I forgot myself, looked to Jesus and found myself in him.

This marked the day I decided to drag myself out of depression. I couldn’t do it alone. I needed God, my family and a counselor. I needed to take a chance and trust.

Not easy. It took time.

Lots of time.

This is the nature of trust. Built over time, trust can bridge the fear of being found out.

So what it my slip is showing.

You Are Loved, Lucy

P.S. Watch this and smile: The Caddyshack gopher and a Tiger. Enjoy.

P.S.S. Do you struggle with depression? Check out Real Hope Biblical eCounseling. There’s hope.

  STRANGER DANGER. Remember this term?

I do.

Fifth grade. Gym class. Horrid blue boomers. All the girls wore these silly no-stretch, big-bottomed gym outfits in the ’70s.

Only God know where our male classmates were. This was girl time.

The woman gym teacher told us about Stranger Danger. We needed to look out for him. He could hurt us. He could touch us in bad places once he lured us in his car with the promise of candy or the opportunity to pet his puppy.

We all knew what touching in bad places meant. At least I think so. A few of us, I suppose, knew enough to imagine rape. Back then, they called it rape, not criminal sexual assault like today. I don’t like the latter term. It sanitizes this atrocity. The word “rape” fits better. It sounds ugly to my ear.

That day my heart beat double-time as I fast-walked eight blocks home the day of the stranger danger talk. My eyes darted left and right as I looked for the stanger and his candy and his puppy. I lost my taste for sweets. Puppies now spelled trouble. Even the cute ones. Especially the cute ones.

But I didn’t meet stranger danger the day of the talk.

Or the day after.

Or the day after that.

Rather, I met him at age 14 and he was no stranger. He was family.

Confusion garbled my thoughts. Should I tell? Should I stay quiet? Would anyone believe me? Did it even happen? Was it a dream?

The last time my not-a-stranger danger touched me, I snarled “No.” And he never bothered me again. Not ever.

Yet I kept watch. For days, weeks, months.

AND HE DIDN’T COME BACK.

My pain wrapped my heart in electrical tape. I shut down, thinking “I can’t share this now. One day I will.”

Twenty years later.

On a Saturday morning, seemingly out of the blue, I woke up sobbing down to my toes. Memories jabbed me inside out.

And I finally told someone what had happened. The healing began.

The weirdest thing, God gave me new insight into the Bible verse, “Speak the truth in love.” To follow this teaching, I had to speak. Speak. Not shut down or shut up. Or say nothing. But speak.

The Word freed my words and, praise God, the electrical tape tore in two, from top to bottom.

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for the freedom you gave me from my prison of memories of sexual molestation. I praise you that you are El Roi, the God who sees. Thank you for teaching me to speak. My “no” spared me from further abuse. Thank you that you empowered me to say “No” to the bad and “Yes” to the good. Please heal others with a story of sexual abuse. Help them to speak.

If you or someone you know needs someone to listen deep and counsel well, consider Real Hope Biblical Counseling, which I founded.

You Are Loved, Lucy

Freedom? Do you live it? It depends on how you think. Think right and you’ll live free in Christ and experience real hope.

Allie, a 20-something Christian woman, thinks wrongly about herself. ”I don’t measure up,” she confided in me. “I never have.” Yet God sees her as a saint, as someone who possesses every spiritual blessing in Christ now, present tense. (Ephesians 1:1,3)

She measures up in the most important way. As a believer in Christ, she has become God’s child, can live victoriously, and is heaven-bound. Insistent that she doesn’t measure up, depression and anxiety stalk Allie, a pretty, accomplished young woman.

You may relate to Allie’s comment. Or you may know someone who does.

One of their her needs: To stop negative thinking and replace it with God’s truth. When negative thinking halts, so do negative emotions and ungodly behaviors.

This is how it works.

Let’s say I think, “I’m a horrible mother.” What’s my likely resulting emotion? Probably I’ll feel anger or frustration, sadness or fear, or self-pity. However, I may feel nothing at all.

Now what’s my likely behavior? Many possiblities exist. I could clam up and seek refuge before the TV or in my bedroom. Perhaps I seethe or snarl at the kids. I may use an irritated voice to tell them to pick up their toys or clean their rooms or do homework.

My dear hubby may become the target of my frustrations. He could be in an affectionate mood at bedtime, and I say, “No way, Jose!,” turn my back on him, and fall into a fitful sleep punctuated by nightmares.