Women and Porn Addiction: Upcoming Webinar

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Amy

This coming Wednesday, May 16th from 2pm-3pm (EST), Covenant Eyes will be hosting a webinar on female pornography addiction.  I am very excited to be one of the panelists for this event, and I will be speaking alongside other Christian women and a Christian Counselor on this subject.  I encourage you to check it out!

Look at these startling statistics, per Covenant Eyes:

  • 34% of today’s young adult women saw porn before the age of 13.
  • 31% of young women today say they use pornography.
  • 18% of young women say they spend some time online every week for sexual purposes. Continue reading →
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Unmerited Favor

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Amy

Last weekend when I flew to Utah to be interviewed for the documentary film, Shamed, so many feelings, emotions and thoughts were stirred up in me.  The very fact that I was participating in this project in the first place amazed me, because it just fell together very easily.

I was met at the airport by 20-year-old Cassandra, a film student at the local community college.  She was very sweet, and I immediately was put to ease concerning who was going to be transporting me to the hotel and set and then back to the airport the next morning.   After lunch, I checked into my hotel room.  I nervously reviewed the questions sent to me two weeks earlier that they might ask me.  These were just a few: Continue reading →

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Porn to Purity

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Amy

Today and tomorrow I am excited to have the opportunity to be the guest blogger over at Porn to Purity by Jeff and Marsha Fisher. You should stop over!  Porn to Purity is a wonderful resource for those (both men and women) who struggle with pornography and sex addiction, along with resources for spouses, ministers and churches.

I would encourage you to check out their website and pass it along to others who may be struggling in this area.  This website is also an excellent resource for spouses of those who have been trapped in pornography. While you’re there, check out Jeff and Marsha Fisher’s story. This is an excerpt from their website’s introduction:

Our world fell apart in 2007 when Jeff’s secret addiction to porn was discovered.  We lost our ministry, our church, and for a Continue reading →

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Shamed

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Amy

I was so humbled (and nervous!) to be part of something so incredible this past weekend. I was given the opportunity to be a part of the filming of Shamed, a documentary focusing on the shame that is involved with pornography use.  When the producer was doing research for this film, she discovered that pornography use is often prevalent in conservative communities. The shame accompanied by it often causes people to feel unable to seek out help, so they remain trapped. Continue reading →

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The Mind is a Battleground

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Amy

I am excited to share with you a guest post written by Nathan Beauchamp, a pastor in the Chicago area.  He is also a writer and blogger who is on his own journey to freedom.  I believe you will be encouraged by his post, as he describes the importance of forgiveness, exposing and replacing the lies we have believed, along with many other aspects that are crucial to receiving healing, freedom and wholeness in our lives. 

Continue reading →

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Who Are You When No One Else Is Looking?

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Amy

My dad was a teacher in the same school district I attended while I was growing up. The first day of school each year was pretty much the same. My name would be called, and the teacher would tell me that he or she knew my dad. When I was young, it seemed as if everyone knew him. This, along with my reserved personality, caused me to constantly be on my best behavior when I was in public. All of this unwanted attention further solidified the importance of not doing anything to disappoint anyone or stand out in the crowd. I didn’t know that the state of my heart was even more important than who I appeared to be on the outside. Continue reading →

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An Exciting New Chapter

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Amy

A few weeks ago I mentioned the women’s breakfast I hosted and how I thought it seemed like just the beginning of something awesome that was going to happen.  It seems like so much has happened since then!

To backtrack a little, first…

A couple years ago, I found out about a women’s ministry called “Praise and Coffee” that was spreading across the country. It’s a women’s ministry for women of all church affiliations and denominations to get together for fellowship.  A friend of mine, Ronel, whom I’ve known from the blogging world since 2008, first introduced me to Praise and Coffee and has become the National Director for Praise Continue reading →

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Do You Need A Fresh Start?

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Amy

Everyone likes the feeling of a fresh start.  I know I do.  New Year’s Day for many people carries the feeling of such excitement and great anticipation of a new beginning.  It’s a day to start over.  Even the thought of a new week or new month sometimes gives us the feeling that we can start over and have another chance to accomplish what we unsuccessfully tried to accomplish the week or month before.  I know in the past I’ve started several diets on a Monday. By Wednesday, I wasn’t sticking to it anymore…so I always resolved to start again next Monday. Continue reading →

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A Self-Protected Heart

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Amy

God has really been speaking to my heart about the subject of vulnerability lately.  Maybe you think it’s not an issue for me, since I pretty much put myself out there on this blog quite often.  True…but it’s somehow easy (for the most part) for me to write about most things. Being willing to make myself vulnerable is something that I’m just now realizing is something that I really need to work on. Continue reading →

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Finding Strength In Our Weakness

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Amy

I was so excited to be able to see Jason Gray at the “Called To Love” tour the other night.  Ever since I discovered his music, I’ve just loved it.  He writes and sings a lot about who we are in Christ and how God has made us each a new creation.  He focuses a lot on how God sees us verses how we often see ourselves, along with the freedom we have in Christ.

A few minutes into speaking the other night, he stopped what he was doing to mention that he may stutter now and again throughout the evening.  He talked about God giving him strength to do what He called him to do (sing and speak) while having the “weakness” of stuttering.  As I listened to him minister to us and encourage everyone with scriptures and stories spoken straight from his heart, I found myself getting choked up.  It reminded me of when God called Moses to speak when he felt so unable to do so. Continue reading →

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Free To Be Me

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Amy

1 Thessalonians. 1:4 “For we know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you“.

Do you ever feel pressure to be like someone else? I have never been one to intentionally do things to fit in with the people around me. Somehow, I escaped that pressure practically my whole life…until recently, that is. Continue reading →

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Maintaining Your Freedom

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Amy

Breaking free of strongholds is life-changing.  Being delivered, set free and healed is a wonderful gift that Jesus died for all of us to have.  Receiving a measure of freedom is like winning a battle, but this battle is only part of an ongoing (spiritual) war.

How do we maintain our freedom and not return to our old ways of living?

How do we avoid slipping back into old thought patterns and strongholds?

These are some simple (but very important) steps you can take to maintain the freedom that you have received: Continue reading →

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When Healing / Deliverance Comes Slowly

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Amy

I have posted a few testimonies recently of when deliverance came quickly and sometimes unexpectedly for me.  Although this was wonderful, powerful and it all changed my life quickly, deliverance isn’t always so immediate.  In fact, I would guess that deliverance and healing isn’t usually so immediate – although it obviously can work that way, too.

There has been one particular area of my life that God has been delivering me very slowly of over the past several years.  Healing seems to have come in stages, usually with a revelation from God to speed everything up for a while…but then it all slows down again.  Often, it seems like nothing is happening at all, and sometimes it seems like I’m even going backwards.  I’m learning that it’s all part of the process, though, and I’ll take it all if it means continued healing in the long run. Continue reading →

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Set Free From Nightmares

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Amy

As I have mentioned a few times before, I used to have terrible nightmares (of a sexual nature) for many, many years.  I had these dreams for a long time, but a few years ago they started to get much worse.  They were sexual dreams that closely resembled the movies I used to watch and pornography I would look at online.  These dreams were horrible, and I would wake up feeling like I did all of these terrible things.  It was like I had one life during the day and a totally different life in my dreams at night.  I felt like I was leading a double life, and I didn’t know how to make it all stop. Continue reading →

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Delivered From Fear, Anxiety and Shame

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Amy

As a follow-up to my last post, “Deliverance: Truth or Hoax?“, I want to share with you my experience of how I was delivered from fear, anxiety and shame.  To give you a little background first, I had dealt with anxiety for as long as I can remember.  Getting around groups of people always made it worse, and I would feel so uncomfortable that I couldn’t wait to get home to be by myself.  My heart would pound, and I couldn’t concentrate on anything much of the time.  If anyone I didn’t know very well would ask me a question about a subject I wasn’t confident talking about (which was mostly everything), my mind Continue reading →

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