As I’ve said before in previous posts, summertime is the best time to catch up on your reading…Over the past few weeks, I’ve featured fiction books so today I thought I would feature a non fiction selection…Presenting The Stones That Built Me Strong: Turn Hurtful Stones from Your Past Into Stepping Stones for Success! by Alissa R. Jones…

Are you holding on to something you need to let go of?

Have you ever felt like all the odds are against you to succeed?

Have you ever felt like you fell in love with the wrong person?

I came up against these questions at life’s most trying moments. For many years, I was silenced by fear and suppressed the bad memories of my childhood.  At the age of 11, I was abused by a man my mother let rent a room in our home. I discovered my dad I’ve known for 13 years wasn’t my dad biologically. I looked for love in the wrong places, trying to fill the void of all the things important to me being taken and leaving me hopeless.

When we don’t deal with our past it can’t be healed. I made a choice to marry a man for the wrong reasons. In hopes of holding on to him, I continued to lose myself in the process and deal with situations I should not have.

With each stone thrown at me, I have come to know peace, understanding and forgiveness through turning to God. After turning to God, I learned that what was once a negative and a hurtful stone can turn into a positive one. I realized sometimes God places these obstacles and trials before us to humble us, and prepare us for what He truly has in store for us.

The Stones That Built Me Strong: Turn Hurtful Stones from Your Past Into Stepping Stones for Success! is available on Amazon.

The post The Stones That Built Me Strong – New Book Alert!!! appeared first on After the Altar Call.

Hello World,

If anything good has come from this whole Penn State scandal, it is the awareness that pedophiles are truly all around us, and often they are people that are trusted and revered by others. Since the news of these allegations broke, people across the nation are admitting they were sexually abused when they were children and are no longer hiding in secret shame.

Here is one person’s story on NPR: Penn State Scandal Emboldens Other Abuse Victims

This summer when I attended the Greater Philadelphia Christian Writers Conference in August, I met Angela Williams, who shared her story of being sexually abused by her stepfather for 14 years. Williams, who lives in the metro Atlanta area, founded VOICE Today, a grassroots initiative to launch child sexual abuse as a highly visible public issue. It is a multifaceted program that engages all forms and outlets of media and is designed to bring about social change by increasing awareness and advocating PREVENTION education. Below are some alarming statistics about child sexual abuse from the VOICE Today website:

• Numbers of children abused before they are 18 years old: 1 in 4 girls, 1 in 6 boys. Only 1 in 10 children tell.
• 90 percent of children are abused by someone they know.
• Serial child molesters may have as many as 400 victims in their lifetimes.

VOICE Today offers various services for child sexual abuse victims including education and prevention workshops and healing workshops. For more information, please go here.

I also met New York Times best-selling author Cec Murphey, who was a victim of child sexual abuse as well. Through his blog menshatteringthesilence.blogspot.com, he provides a safe place for other male victims of child sexual abuse to connect with each other. He is also the author of “When a Man You Love Was Abused: A Woman’s Guide to Helping Him Overcome Childhood Sexual Molestation” which is available on the blog site.

I pray that all of us, even those of us who are not parents, take care of our children…they need us…

Any thoughts?

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