Allison looked like she had it all together. She was a junior high teacher, high school youth group leader, and mom to a young daughter. She was married to the man she’d loved since high school, and it seemed like everything was falling into place.
She smiled a lot. She closed her eyes and lifted her hands when she sang worship songs in church. She laughed in the cafeteria and counseled her students in the hallways. Most of her colleagues respected her, and she was always surrounded by friends.
But not everything was perfect. Under the surface, Allison’s soul was in turmoil. She and her husband had been fighting a lot, and it never felt like old cycles would stop. Though she loved her daughter, she felt like she was failing a lot and not connecting to her like she should. She didn’t have a best friend to turn to who could really understand. And worst of all, her relationship with God felt more public than private, more tenuous than steady.
Allison couldn’t tell anyone about the pain she felt. Instead, she found a different way to cope.
She became a cutter.
When it hurt too much to deal with the pain, she hurt herself instead. At first, it didn’t matter how she did it; anything that drew blood on her skin helped her find relief from what she felt inside. Eventually, it became methodical. She kept a razor blade near her bed. She cleaned her wounds. She bandaged her scars.
And she kept them hidden.
Allison was the same person that she had been but in long sleeves. She didn’t want anyone to know what was going on beneath the surface. She was ashamed and wanted to stop, but she couldn’t. Self-injury becomes addictive. With pain comes an immediate rush of endorphins, and she was addicted to that temporary relief.
But it wasn’t the physical cycle that kept Allison in bondage; it was the spiritual. Each time she wanted to escape, she imagined exposing her secret. The shame crippled her, and she needed the release of cutting to lift her up. The Enemy used shame as a tool to keep her trapped.
It wasn’t until Allison heard the message of Dauntless Grace that things began to change. This message was the catalyst she needed to break out of her old story and have hope for a new story.
There are fifty other women like Allison who we have identified and who are waiting for this catalyst moment. Here’s what it takes for you to help others like Allison. For only $200, you can provide these women with access to personal coaching sessions so that they can identify the brokenness in their old stories and reveal a pathway to new stories written by God.