I’m taking a blogging break this week and am running some of your favorite posts. 🙂 Enjoy. . .again.

Welcome to Real Hurts, Real Hope! I’ve had a place in my heart for this blog long before I thought of it. How do I know? Because you’ve been on my mind, my sweet sister in Christ.

For you I write. I understand, I’ve been there.

Real Hurts, Real Hope was born out of my own pain. Among them was the pain of loneliness and isolation. I’d go to church desiring friendship with godly women, but it seemed everyone was talking to everyone else and they knew the secret handshake or the secret password or whatever and I didn’t. I was the wallflower, just another pretty daisy lost in the lobby.

Can you relate?

Know this, my sweet sister: You are not alone in your emotional and spiritual struggles. You are not alone in the pain that tags along with your physical problems.

Here you are welcome. I encourage you to soak in God’s truth that you are valued, significant and loved. Our God is tender toward you, my sweet sister. He knows your name and has written it on the palm of his hand. He calls you — Beautiful.

Back in the early 1990s, I didn’t understand these biblical truths. . .and I was a follower of Christ. Depression had darkened my mood. Anxiety had rattled my mind too. On top of this tough stuff,  difficult memories jabbed me. Yes, there was my parents’ divorce but something even worse.

How could I tell anyone my pain? Especially women in the church who seemed to have it all together? 

Fast forward to 2000, the year of God’s specific call on my life.

A summer day. Sunny, a soft breeze. Me alone, in prayer.

God whispered to my heart: “Lucy, comfort my sheep who are hurting with the comfort you’ve received from me.”

“Who me?” I asked

“Trust me, Lucy.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Trust me.”

Like the fuzz of a dandelion, my arguments floated away and I said, “Okay, Lord.”

Since then I’ve ministered to hurting Chistian women and to the people who love them. Fearful women. Lonely women. Abused women. Women caught in addiction: shopping, alcohol, pornography. Women who’ve committed adultery. Women with hard pasts. Women like me. Like you.

And now our Lord has led me to write Real Hurts, Real Hope to reach more Chistian women with the truth that God cherishes you and wants to heal you.

Will you journey with me? You’re my dream come true.

You Are Loved!