Learning, Biblical Counseling, contributing to authentic community in the local church; studying Biblical manhood/womanhood; reading, writing, family, cooking, decorating, entertaining/hosting...pretty much all things domestic; recreating with my dog, Cooper, walking/jogging, fun fellowships with church family, board games (Settlers of Catan!), wine, music, traveling, the beach, learning more about gardening - I want to have a really big garden one day.

I was drawn to the Lord at age five, grew up in a Believing home and was raised in the church, but “unfortunately”, I was brought up in legalism, and the fundamentalist, Independent Baptist church. My parents, especially my mother, was faithful to teach us the Scriptures, “writing it on the doorways and mantles of our hearts” (Deut), and cultivated in us a deep love for Jesus. As I grew older and got into my teens, I strayed from the Lord and my walk was not consistent with my beliefs. When I moved away for college, I had opportunity to experience more healthy churches, though I was not yet reformed. During my college years, the Lord began to grow me in my understanding of certain doctrines and I remember beginning to really hate my sin for the first time. I began to see my need for Jesus in a deeper way. After college I attended seminary and it was over the course of these four years that I became reformed. Ironically, the driest season of my spiritual life was while in seminary surrounded by the scriptures and good teaching – it was difficult to separate academia from my personal spiritual walk with Christ. I also encountered much suffering during these years, which sanctified me and prepared me to do the work of ministry – my “outside the classroom” training! I studied Biblical Counseling and this is my passion – restoring Christ to counseling and restoring counseling to the Church (CCEF). I hope to be able to counsel vocationally at some point.

My personal walk – depends on the week, the day, or even the hour! In short, In this season of my life I have come to see and trust Jesus in a more intimate way, simply because my life circumstances have placed me in a season of personal tragedy and crisis in the demise of my marriage. He has truly been my Portion as I was abandoned and divorced by my husband last November after only 19 months of marriage. I sought to be reconciled but to no avail. More on that later….

For me, coming to understand the Doctrines of Grace was like finding the key that unlocked this nagging sense of longing in my heart for a deeper understanding of the Gospel. "Oh the depth of the Riches of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God.." Thus began my journey in studying the Word and loving the deep things of Christ. The more I studied God's attributes, the more I came to understand my own propensity to sin and my inability to love and pursue Jesus apart from His sovereign election and grace. As I fell in love with the Doctrines of Grace – the blinders were lifted from my eyes. I also began to understand the Bible as one covenant story of Redemption. It shaped my entire worldview as I saw myself rightly before a holy God – I am dust and my heart is “deceitfully wicked”. I began to make more of Christ and less of me as I came to understand God’s zealousness for His own glory.

I do not have a set “Quiet Time”, but I do regularly spend time in the Word. I wish I could say that it was everyday, but it is not; though I meditate on the Word and Christ every day. My devotional time is simple – I try to read through entire books, rather than skipping around. I love the Pauline Epistles, but I usually end my devotional time in the Psalms or in Proverbs. I usually spend time in prayer – sometimes I journal. I hate to admit it, but my quiet time often reflects a “binge and purge” cycle, depending on the season of life I’m in. I’ll go several days without reading at all, but then I will camp out for hours at a time over the course of several days. On the days when I don’t read Scripture, I’m almost always reading theology or discipleship books. I’m still learning the discipline of “DAILY” bread and turning to the Bible before theology books.

The Apostle Paul - his epistles embody the sanctification process we are all in and the struggle with sin that we carry around in our flesh. He demonstrated that while we can be zealous evangelists, missional, passionate about truth, and lovers of the Church, at the end of the day, our greatest battle is to fight our own sin and tendency towards idolatry. Because of this, he was enamoured by Grace and wholly reliant upon Christ. The more we understand our sin nature, the more we recognize the beauty of the Cross.

Discerning / Counselor's Heart

Passionate about the Church

Zealous for Truth

Sensitive Spirit

1. Biblical Counseling in the Church. I affirm the mission statement of CCEF/Westminster Seminary in PA - "Restoring Christ to Counseling and Counseling to the Church". I am not into "christian psychology" nor do I consider myself to be a "christian integrationist", though I studied psychology and do believe it has made valuable contributions to the counseling world in it's methodologies and classifications of human behavior. I just feel it has missed the mark in pointing people to the root of their struggles - their heart and indwelling sin. I'm most interested in marriage and family counseling.

2. The Church. I am passionate about the Body of Christ, the Edification of the Saints, and getting back to the New Testament model of having all things in common and breaking bread together. Other than the Word and Jesus Christ, the pillars of the church should be strong Men and strong Marriages so that we can be effective at shaping the culture. I'm not a huge fan of "youth ministry" per se - I believe children should be integrated into adult worship as soon as possible and that families should worship together not separately.

*A related topic that I'm passionate about is Biblical manhood and womanhood - I affirm the Danver's Statement/Complementarian view of manhood/womanhood. "Equal in Value, but different in role". I believe that the weakening of these roles in the family and marriage has led to the weaking of the church as a whole, and in turn, the culture that we live in

3. Writing - I desire to use my gift for the building up of the Body. I hope the Lord will give me opporutnity to write reformed biblical counseling/discipleship materials for women, marriages, and family. I love to blog and read other blogs! My dream would be to write a book on some counseling topic.

1. The Written Word

2. My Salvation

3. The Church

4. Grace

Humility and a teachable spirit, coupled with a desire for strong leadership and willingness to be assertive at the appropriate time. A man who is intentional about having Titus 2 relationships in his life -mentoring/discipleship from older, wise men in the church. A man who desires marriage – not as an end in itself for the purpose of self-gratification and enjoyment (though that is a big plus!), but who understands marriage is an opportunity for two sinners to regularly be displaying the gospel to one another; and takes seriously his role as Husband/Servant-Leader and Father/Shepherd. A man who has strong passion for the Church and the Word – and a desire to teach would be a plus! A man who enjoys fellowshipping, laughing, and enjoying sharing life with others....community. A man who is serious about fighting sin. A man who strives to keep the Glory of God at the forefront of all he does.

Now that I've narrowed the population of eligible men down to less than .001 percent..... ha ha

My Marriage and Family / Biblical Counseling Professors in Seminary and my current Pastor.

This is a deeply personal and intimate topic -so best discussed in detail at a later point. But I should at least explain that I was not "at fault" in the divorce (not to mean I was without sin). I was married for 19 months when my husband committed adultery. I attempted to reconile and was willing to forgive if he was willing to repent and to work on the marriage and get counseling. A month later he committed a second adultery, at which point he was asked by my pastor and elder to leave our home. I still desired reconciliation if he was willing to repent, but he hardened his heart, abandoned the faith altogether, and then proceeded to abandon me emotionally, spiritually, and financially. Even still, by God's grace, the Lord kept my heart bent towards reconcillation, but he is not desirous. At that point, Scripture states he is acting as an unbeliever and "if the unbeliever wants to leave, let him leave, God has called us to peace".

Lots of favorite quotes...I'll get back to this one.

I worked my way through college and seminary as an Administrative Assistant/Secretary and worked my way up to Executive Assistant to the CEO. However, currently, I work as Exec. Assistant to the Senior Pastor of a church in Raleigh, and so taking a break from "Corporate America", which has been good for this season of my life. My long term desire is to do biblical counseling as a vocation or as a layperson in the church. If I am blessed with children, I would want to be a stay home mom and homeschool, but would still want to counsel as ministry on a volunteer/ministry basis.

Open a private counseling practice in some way connected to the local church.

Write a book.

Get married, have a good size family, and homeschool my kids/disciple my kids. I believe the most important factor in children becoming followers of Christ is not what happens at church, but what happens at home. The parents have handed over this job to the church and to children's ministry workers, youth pastors, etc. We must take back our responsibility as being the High Priest of our homes and children and pass down a legacy of faith to the next generation. That being said, I think a woman's highest calling, hardest work, and greatest joy, is to be a wife and mother. In regards to raising children, I have a few favorites books: "Shepherding a Child's Heart by Ted Tripp, and "The Storybook Bible" by Sally Lloyd-Jones, The Myth of Adolescence by David Black, "Age of Opportunity" by Paul Tripp, and others.

I do a lot of reading. I also love board games, and any kind of fellowship activities with my local church / small group. I like to recreate, especially outdoors with my dog. I enjoy good movies of substance and a few television programs. I really enjoy cooking and meal preparation and setting a beautiful table. I love holiday decorating, and making new traditions.....traditions are so much fun and absolutely fundamental to passign down a heritage of faith to our children from generation to generation.

I was born in West Virginia, grew up in Virginia, went to college in Tennessee, went to Seminary in North Carolina, relocated to California when I got married, and now I'm praying about where "home" will be. I've traveled abroad on missions trips to Jamaica '99, Belize '01, Syria/Lebanon '03, Mexico '05.

I LOVE to travel - even just short day trips or long weekends. I tend to avoid tourist traps and try to experience each location as a native/local. I love to find good dives and try to travel on a budget. I take my dog with me when I can. I enjoy driving.

I'm totally open to relocating. I moved from Sacramento to Raleigh in June, after living in LA for 4 months post-divorce (lived with good married friends as sort of a respite to give me time to heal before jumping back into a full time job). My parents and one sister live in Virginia. I am one of four siblings. I have three brothers and a sister. My oldest brother lives in Denver and has 6 kids and my sister has three. My younger brother, and my dearest friend in the world, is getting married in Boston in just a few short weeks in January. I love my family, but I don't feel the need to live near them, but of course it would be a plus.

Love to listen to sermons and counseling videos via podcast, vimeo, youtube, etc. I frequently listen to Mark Driscoll, John Piper, and Erik Meyers.

Books: My favorite authors are: John Piper, Paul Tripp, Tim Keller, C.J. Mahaney, Tim Lane, David Powlison, Elyse Fitzpatrick; C.S. Lewis, The Puritans / Reformers, Nancy Guthrie, Luci Shaw.

Hopefully...leave some things to be discovered :)