Transformative Blog
Weekly blogs to help you find healing, hope, and freedom
Loving the Fatherless: Interview with Brent Wernsing
Loving the Fatherless What does loving the fatherless mean? The Apostle James said pure religion is to open your eyes and see the fatherless, to care for them, protect them, and help them (James 1:27). Sometimes love is demonstrated just by being with the child,...
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Overcoming the Father Wound and Past Trauma: Interview with Fred Kornis
The Father Wound I had the joy of interviewing Fred Kornis, who has been an evangelist for 45 years. I first met him in the early 1980’s as he taught a few of us some rope tricks to use in street evangelism. Fred has walked through many kinds of trauma; some of the...
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You Don’t Have to Earn God’s Love
The wonderful truth that took me years to learn is you don’t have to earn God’s love or forgiveness! Also, the Heavenly Father loves us to celebrate freedom. Did you know God likes numbers? He had Israel organize life into groups of 7. In the 49th year, which is 7...
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How You Can Experience Freedom From Curses
Words have power to bless or to curse others. The words you speak over yourself have the same power. Negative words bring limitations, insecurity, torment, illness, and even death. The joyful news is there is freedom from every curse. Prepare to Die I was in seventh...
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How Servant Leadership Saved My Life
When I was seven, I nearly drowned. As I wrote this story, I realized my brother exemplified servant leadership. Lea is my hero. His example teaches us how being present in the moment and envisaging the end result will help us move with thoughtfulness and clarity. The...
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A Love Letter to Hurting or Struggling Moms
Dear Mom, You may be a mom whose heart is breaking. You might struggle with exhaustion from caring for a mentally challenged, special needs, or very ill child. Perhaps you lost your child to death or your child was physically taken from you. Your anguish may be...
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What Does Bringing Up the Past Have to Do With Mental Health?
Some people believe bringing up the past is like digging up bones. Fascinating! Some Christians believe to speak of unresolved issues from the past shows lack of faith, is irrelevant because we are new creations in Christ, or feel it’s flat out sin. If you didn't...
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Why Verbal Affirmations Don’t Help You Stand Strong
It is wise to daily speak words of affirmation over yourself. It is especially important to speak words of life if you have the habit of thinking or speaking negative and even insulting words about yourself. One Problem The wonderful affirmations may momentarily make...
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How To Find a Secure Hope
In what do you place your hope? Perhaps it's success. A great career. Making a fortune. Being loved or having children. If it is something transient, you have placed your hope in something false that can crash and burn. In my thirties, I felt full of hope. Married,...
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How To Rebuild A Strong Boundary To Keep You Safe
Sometimes life tears down the boundary fences that keep out danger. Unless we are proactive and rebuild a healthy fence, we won’t feel safe or find courage to embrace the abundant life. When I moved to Nebraska, my life was in shambles. In the midst of some difficult...
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4 Things Abuse Teaches and How To Overcome the Victim Mindset
Abuse and the Victim Mindset Abuse is a teacher that lays a foundation of lies and limiting beliefs. Those beliefs control your thoughts, cause you to self-reject, teach you to be a victim, and dictate all your reactions. Abuse is powerful. There's good news! You have...
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Signs a Relationship is Becoming Toxic
If you are in a relationship where you're not accepted for who you are; you aren't treated with respect; your boundaries are ignored; you are being manipulated, mocked, humiliated, and even victimized – you need to know – the Lord doesn’t approve of what is happening....
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What is Abuse and Why Do We Avoid Talking About It?
It’s uncomfortable to talk about abuse. It takes courage to name the abuse and to speak the truth about what happened.
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Abuse Doesn’t Have the Authority to Shape Your Identity
Power Vs. Authority Abuse has power to shape you but it doesn’t have authority to determine who you become. Abuse says you have no value. Tha's a lie. Abuse has no authority to tell you who you are. My dear friend, you are so much more than what happened to you. Are...
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It’s Ok To Be Where You Are
A Rescue Mission I want to share a secret. For you to get unstuck or be set free from whatever is holding you in bondage – you have to learn to be where you are – in the moment. And being present, it is important to be able to open your mouth and ask for help when...
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Transformation: What It Is and Isn’t
Transformation Have you ever wondered what transformation is about? Or pondered why it has become the buzzword among life coaches and public speakers? In Latin, trans means across or through and forma means to form. To transform means there is change that cuts across...
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In Honor of True Friendship
Loss of a True Friend On February 7th, 1979, my beloved child, Charissa died, a victim of SIDS. Since that day, many I loved have died. Tragically, the arch enemy cancer has stolen the lives of many of my friends and family, including my grandmother, Aunt Winnie, Aunt...
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When God Doesn’t Do What You Want
Each morning I go outside with a cup of hot water and walk barefoot through the grass to a little hill facing the woods behind my home. In the bright morning light and fresh air, I talk with the Lord. One morning I heard a noise in the undergrowth in front of me....
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Bird in a Cage
Depths of a Dungeon Sandy lay slumped against the dank wall in the dark cell, deep in a dungeon no one except her tormentor knew about. Her hair was straggly and tangled, her clothes torn and filthy, her heart irreparably broken. As she tried to change position, a...
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The Power of Trauma to Trap You In The Past
Trauma wields great power In the moment of impact – the impact of steel as a truck slammed into your car. The impact of a hand raised in violence. The impact of rape. The impact of early childhood trauma. The impact of any other type of violence leaves one powerless....
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Have You Given Yourself Permission to Grieve?
The loss of a parent is the loss of the past. The loss of a spouse is the lost of the present. The loss of a child is the loss of the future. In your loss, have you experienced this to be true? As I got into the car the other day to go to the market, I heard the last...
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6 Topics. 6 Videos. 9 Minutes.
Questions Over the last week, I've shared videos to Facebook on hot topics. Because some of you aren't on social media, I wanted to make sure you also had access to this content! I'm excited to share the videos with you, which were just uploaded to Vimeo. Each video...
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A Prayer for 2019 | Video Blog To Encourage You
Blessings of Peace Just as Jesus stilled the turbulent Galilean sea, may the Lord quiet your heart. In the midst of the turbulence, may Jesus be your peace. In this week's episode of 5 Minutes to Transformation, (which is under 3 minutes), I pray for you and speak a...
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Are You Stuck? My Top Tip for the New Year VLOG
Are You Feeling Stuck? If you’re wondering how to make 2019 great, you’ll love my top tip to start the New Year strong. This is my last blog for the year! I appreciate you for taking time to read or listen to what I share. The times you have also responded and shared...
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A Christmas Message | Video Blog
Dear Friend, Only 5 days until Christmas! Some of us love Christmas and experience great joy simply at the thought of that day. Others find it to be a lonely and difficult time of the year. No matter your situation or the struggles you face, may the wonder of Christ,...
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Did Jesus Celebrate Hanukkah? The Light of the World | Video Blog
Did Jesus Celebrate Hanukkah? Today I share in under 5 minutes what I learned during Hanukkah! I answer the question, "Did Jesus celebrate Hannukah?" and share some of the history behind the Festival of Dedication. Enjoy the vlog and let me know your thoughts. May the...
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Your Failures and Limitations Do Not Define You
It is easy to focus on a disability or limitation and allow that to become your identity. It is also easy to focus on failure or the failure of a person who rubs you the wrong way.
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May This Festival of Lights Bring Blessings Upon You and Your Loved Ones
God's Provision After the defilement of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, Judah Maccabee led his people against their enemy. Triumphantly entering Jerusalem, he reclaimed the Temple; then purified it from the abomination and defilement of the Greek army. Originally,...
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Memories and Wishes for a Wonderful Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a day set aside to be thankful I grew up in Wisconsin. At Thanksgiving, churches happily decorated the altar with large pumpkins and colorful gourds. Corn stalks, a bale or two of hay, and colorful leaves reminded us of God’s faithfulness. The hard...
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Do You Ever Engage in Imaginary Conversations?
A World You Can Control Do you ever engage in imaginary conversations where you become a victim? I am sure you will quickly answer no. But if you are like most of humanity, then you regularly engage in such conversations. You know. The kind where you were walking down...
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Practical Steps to Forgiveness | How To Forgive Deeply Video Blog
How to Forgive Last week we talked about how to break the cycle of abuse. Even if you aren't in an abusive relationship, if you live on this earth, you will have experienced some kind of abuse. Unresolved abuse will set you up to feel like you are a victim. The first...
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You Can Break the Cycle of Abuse
Break the Cycle of Abuse If you have been victimized, you don’t believe you are worthy of respect. You probably don’t even respect yourself. This leads to a fairy tale mindset where you imagine scenarios where someone comes and rescues you. Living in your imagination...
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How To Overcome Perfectionism
Perfect You don’t have to be perfect. I know you don’t believe me. I didn’t believe it either. That was before I learned how to overcome perfectionism. As a child I desperately tried to be perfect. Longing for affirmation, I modeled my behavior by what I had heard...
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Just Breathe: Keys to Regulate Reactive Behavior
Extra Notes As you take time to just breathe, it down-regulates your amygdala and enables you to move out of the reactivity of the reptilian brain that yells danger. Exhaling through your nose switches you into the thoughtfulness and cognitive functioning of your...
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Will I Ever Feel Safe After a Divorce?
The pain of divorce is overwhelming. Major problems confront us. Will the pain ever end? Will we ever feel safe after a divorce? Will we be able to trust again?
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Did You Know Gratitude Empowers Your Mind to Grow?
Gratitude and the brain Did you know gratitude is good for your brain because it empowers your mind to grow? Before I studied this subject, I tended to walk around like Eeyore or like Puddleglum in The Silver Chair. My glass was half empty; I found little to be...
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Have You Ever Wondered What Your Scars Say About You?
Scarred Do you have a scar on your body you hate? Or an emotional scar you hide? We tend to hide our scars, but scars are a normal part of life. We all have at least one. Scars indicate an engagement where we were wounded. There should be no shame in having scars. The...
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How Can I Find Balance Between Healing & Accepting My Disability?
Healing? Two dear people asked me to write on healing. One asked me to write about building faith to be able to heal more serious maladies through prayer. The other asked me to write about Christian attitudes towards handicaps, whereby God heals everyone. Wow! Two...
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Jonathan Edwards Book Review
Years ago I was introduced to Jonathan Edwards when a young man quoted from “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. My internal safety system went on high alert for I believed God was an angry, cruel old man up in the skies longing to catch someone – especially me –...
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How to Set Boundaries for Godly Sexuality
God wired us for sex. He wired us to find pleasure in it! If you are human, you were created to find pleasure in sex. Juxtaposed with pleasure, God established boundaries for the expression of sexual needs and desires within healthy relationships. Sex is to be between...
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Do You Walk With the Charlie Brown Posture of Depression?
Charlie Brown Perhaps one of the best loved cartoon characters is Charlie Brown. His ability to capture our heart lies in his simple honesty, which resonates with our own life experiences and enables us to smile, perhaps because we feel less isolated. Do you remember...
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In Your Experience, Have You Found Christ Is Enough?
Is Jesus Enough? That is a hard question. Perhaps more to the point, it is difficult to answer honestly because we are taught Jesus is enough. To admit we don't find Him to be enough can be quite devastating. Statistics show a high percentage of American pastors are...
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Celebrating Your Singleness: Are You Happy Being Single?
Being Single Singleness is an interesting topic. Somehow in many churches across our land, being single is equated with missing out, lack of success, failure, and even the impossiblity of ever finding contentment. But does one need to be married to have value, to be...
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Who is the Gatekeeper of Your Memories?
Just Get Over It! From childhood, we were taught to stuff our emotions. As tears slid down your face, perhaps you were told, “Men don’t cry!” Or, “It didn’t mean anything, he was drunk and didn’t know what he was doing.” Or “Good girls don’t get raped.” Or “Christians...
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5 Ways You Can Turn Failure into Opportunities to Grow
A More Excellent Way Alexander Pope said, “To err is human”. You are human, so you will make errors! Accept that as your reality. On your journey in life, you will fail, most likely, you will fail many times. In our fast paced world, we dread failure. Within the...
read moreAbout Barbara
Restoring dignity and hope to trauma survivors.
As a trauma survivor, Barbara finds joy in helping people experience healing and spiritual restoration.
