Part 1: When Becoming a New Creation Isn’t the End of the Healing Journey
Written by Mariana Guice,
a member of the MPC Community Education team and also a peer advocate
Lately, I have been reflecting on trauma and the authority we have in Christ to experience true healing. As believers, we celebrate the promise found in Scripture that we are a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). But what happens when we embrace that truth while quietly leaving our deepest wounds untouched? What happens when we believe we are made new, yet avoid inviting Jesus into the places that still carry pain?
Before I go any further, I want to make something clear. I wholeheartedly believe in the power of Jesus Christ to heal, deliver, restore, and transform. I believe His blood is sufficient for every wound, every chain, and every broken place. I believe the Holy Spirit is still bringing freedom to captives today. Yet I've begun asking myself a difficult question:
When if what we call "healing" actually avoidance?
For many years, I unknowingly answered that question by saying, "That happened twenty years ago. I'm a new creation now. That isn't who I am anymore." While there is truth in that statement, I eventually realized I was using biblical truth to protect myself from biblical transformation. Instead of allowing Christ to gently uncover old wounds, I was covering them with spiritual language, especially in places where I felt my choices led me to.
God, because He is faithful, has been showing me that becoming a new creation does not erase my need to surrender every hidden part of my heart to Him. Healing is not pretending the wound never existed. Healing is allowing the Great Physician to touch the places we've spent years trying to keep hidden.
Recently my prayer has simply been, "Lord, make me a woman after Your own heart." Now I just laugh because that prayer has brought me into places I didn't realize I had locked away. He hasn't condemned me. He has been revealing what my heart has been protecting for years. I lived apart from Christ for thirty-five years before surrendering my life to Him. Even after walking with the Lord for over a decade, I find myself asking why I still believe my ways of coping are sometimes better than His ways of healing. The answer, I think, is that trauma often teaches us that survival is safer than surrender.
Only recently have I begun to truly believe that I am safe in the presence of God. That safety has become the foundation for healing. It is in that place of trust that the Holy Spirit performs the delicate surgery my soul has needed all along. God's healing is never rushed, never forceful, and never rooted in shame. He restores with compassion, patience, and perfect love.
Why "The Porn Talk" Can't Wait: A Parent's Guide
What Is Pornography, and Why Does This Conversation Matter?
Porn is the depiction of sexual behavior in books, pictures, videos, and other media that is intended to cause sexual excitement. Many parents do not even want to use the word around their children/teens because they are scared that if they talk about it then their children will become curious and seek it out.
Research shows the opposite to be true. Why? Because if your child has any type of connection to the outside world, s/he has probably been exposed to it before you even think to bring it up. The average age for first exposure is 6 or 7 years old. Even if you keep your child off electronics/internet at home it doesn't guarantee that s/he will not be exposed. It's everywhere. It's a conversation that has to happen.
This isn't just anecdotal — a national study by Common Sense Media found that most teens have already seen pornography, many before the age of 13, and that teens who talk with a parent or trusted adult about sex learn far more from that relationship than they do from pornography itself. In other words, staying quiet doesn't protect kids — it just leaves porn as their default teacher.
Starting the Conversation with Young Children
The conversation does not have to be an in-depth depiction of what porn is starting at a young age. As a parent, you can ease your children into the idea.
There is a great book by Kristen Jenson called Good Pictures Bad Pictures that can be helpful to get you started. The concept is to begin the discussion with the idea that there are some things (pictures) that we should not be viewing even as adults! It helps build confidence in children to know the difference and to feel comfortable sharing with you if they do see it.
For even younger children, Jenson also wrote Good Pictures Bad Pictures Jr., designed for kids ages 3 to 6. It uses gentle, age-appropriate language to teach children a simple "Turn, Run, Tell" plan: TURN away from a bad picture, RUN to a trusted adult, and TELL them what they saw. It's a great way to give your youngest kids a first line of defense, long before they can fully understand what pornography is.
Talking to Teens Who Haven't Had "The Talk" Yet
If you are already a parent of a teen and haven't had the conversation yet, it is not too late. The chance that your teen has not been exposed is low, but opening that door to being able to talk about this tough topic allows the teen to know s/he can come to you if s/he has questions.
Keep Shame Out of the Conversation
Remember in these conversations to never make it seem shameful. Once shame enters the picture, open dialogue and vulnerability exits. Make sure your teen knows that they can come to you if this is something s/he ever struggles with and that you can help them.
The Bottom Line
Open the door, have the tough conversation, be awkward. If you don't, someone else will.
What Is Emotional Abuse? Recognizing the Signs of Gaslighting, Love Bombing, and Unhealthy Relationships
What is emotional abuse?
Emotional abuse is one of the hardest types of abuse to spot. When people talk about abuse in relationships the types that usually pop into the mind are sexual or physical abuse. Therefore, emotional abuse often runs under the radar.
Like most abuse, emotional abuse is all about power, control, and manipulation. It also follows typical abusive patterns—sometimes to the point where it can be predicted. And overtime it may be seen as cyclical: The perpetrator abuses, asks for forgiveness, a honeymoon period starts, and then the abuse is done again.
Some of the most common signs of emotional abuse:
the victim walking on eggshells
the perpetrator getting angry when approached about problems
the perpetrator minimizing abusive behavior
blame-shifting, victim playing (“I guess I’m just a horrible person”)
love bombing
gaslighting.
Here we will focus on the last two: love bombing and gaslighting.
Love Bombing
There are two main types of love bombing.
Someone comes on thick and fast at the beginning of the relationship. It can be gifts, acts of love, etc. that is over the top and too much too soon.
A last-ditch effort to save a relationship. One person starts to pull away so the other love bombs to keep the other in the relationship. Once things are good again, the love bomber slows down with the love bombing until the other person again starts to pull away and then the cycle starts all over again. It might be said that it is the thrill of the chase. And the cycle continues until the relationship reaches its inevitable end.
Gaslighting
Anyone who has raised kids has experienced gaslighting at some point in their parenting.
Any of this sound familiar?
You are looking at your toddler who is covered in chocolate, and you ask, “Who ate the chocolate”?
While it’s obvious who ate the chocolate, your sweet and messy child adamantly argues he has no idea who ate the chocolate.
Emotional abuse gaslighting often looks like the perpetrator causing the victim to question their own view of the world. The perpetrator often can make the victim to believe he or she is crazy. And once that is fully believed, the victim stops talking to outside people because he or she is really worried it’s true! At times the victims even get to the point of gaslighting themselves into thinking they are the abuser.
The truth of love
As Christians, we have a very clear explanation of what love should look like in scripture
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
The word “always” is repeated throughout that scripture. Why? Because love should be consistent. There is no cycle, there are no major ups and downs, there are no traps. This is the kind of love we should strive for and should give to others.
What to do if you are in an unhealthy relationship
First: Make sure you have a safe person outside of any relationship. Be brave and confide your concerns with this person. Be open to listening and hearing their response.
If you are not at the point where you feel comfortable reaching out for help yet, or you feel stuck, then Step 1 is to put the behavior into the context of why it took place. Seek to understand the goal or intent of the behavior. Do the behaviors you’ve experienced raise red flags for abuse?
Second: Reach out to others for help. That can look like a parent, friend, pastor, therapist, or coach. Sometimes we need outside help to fix an inside problem.
Third: As we always say in the classrooms: Abusive relationships must end.
There is no hope of them fixing while you are still together. That does not mean forever, but it must be for right now. Separate, do work on yourselves, then come back together and see if the relationship can be saved.
In the end, emotional abuse is extremely common, especially among high school and college relationships. One in three high school relationships has abuse in it, and that includes emotional abuse.
If you see it in yours, get help. We’d love to be that person for you.
The Fatherless Crisis
Our nation’s youth are in crisis. They have no frame of reference when it comes to healthy relationships. One out of every four teens have no father in the home. This is not to say that the remaining 75% of teens living in two parent households have a front row seat to a healthy marriage. Considering our cultural climate, it could be that as much as half of today’s teens have no positive male influence when it comes to relationships.
Who then is the dominant influence when it comes to sex, sexuality, and relationships? According to Forbes, teens spend about 8-9 hours per day in front of a screen. Many of the students we address in class tell us that they spend this much on their phone alone. Social media has a lot to say on all these subjects and obviously much of that is garbage. On top of that, internet pornography is an epidemic, a leviathan that may never be destroyed. All these things teach students about relationships that simply are wrong and unrealistic.
The Bible does not actually call men to be leaders. It says that they ARE leaders. Every man will impact those around him. The question is, how? Is he going to abandon his family and lead them into a life of chaos and destruction? Or is he going to come home from work, crack open a beer or twelve, turn the game on, and tune out? Or maybe he is abusive? Just because he is present, doesn't mean that he is leading his family well. Nonetheless, the bible says he IS the leader. His actions are LEADING his family into chaos.
There are so many good fathers out there and praise God for them. But given that this is not the case for so many students, I take my role in CE very seriously. I do my best to teach kids about what a healthy relationship looks like and how a healthy marriage can do so much good for their lives. I might be the only positive male influence when it comes to teaching on this topic. I am praying that God uses me to influence the next generation of fathers to be fathers on purpose. To get married, have children, have joyful and loving homes, and hopefully find Jesus.
This is what will drastically change Modesto. Children growing up in fatherless homes are more likely to commit violent crimes and to abuse drugs and alcohol. If we wish to see our community improve, we must influence the next generation to create loving families. I hope that when I talk as a father to future fathers, they are inspired to have what I have. While we are forbidden to discuss our faith in the public school, I hope and pray that they figure out that I only have my lovely wife because of Jesus. I only have my three beautiful, healthy, hilarious kids, because of Jesus. I did nothing to deserve them, but Jesus blessed me anyway. The state presents us from “planting the seed” as evangelicals like to say, but they cannot stop us from showing them the fruit. My goal is that students see the fruit of a Christ-centered marriage relationship and then ask us where they can get the seeds.
Written by Dustin Van Vliet, Community Educator