In this handbook, as I bring you on my own journey of coming forward, I will invite you also to come forward on your own, and hope that you will discover within you the eternal source of all that you need to be bold enough to heal.

My hopes for this book

I truly hope that this book will follow as a continuum to my first handbook, Child, Arise! The Courage to Stand. A Spiritual Handbook for Survivors of Sexual Abuse and that it will be a practical spiritual handbook for survivors of sexual abuse to assist in the journey of integration and healing through Scripture, visualisation and art therapy.

The added component of art therapy in this second handbook is intentional. Often survivors express an inability to articulate their traumatic experience. The invitation to gently explore the Scripture through art therapy and creative expression will facilitate survivors who find it difficulat to articulate their inner world to form a language of words. At the conclusion of this handbook, the reader will end up with an art journal that visually captures their own healing journey. I hope that survivors may experience how Scripture combined with art therapy is a powerful tool that empowers them to put words to their traumatic experiences…

I hope that this handbook will also benefit family and friends of survivors as well as members of the clergy and religious , to gain deeper insight into the life-long impacts and effects of child sexuall abuse and the journey that is implied for healing. You may too find yourself doing the walk as you work through Scripture reflections offered in this handbook.

I am also hoping that this handbook will be a useful resource for those who are pastorally and spiritually accompanying survivors of sexual abuse and that the content and structure of this handbook may be useful for the fomration of facilicated spiritual support groups for survivors that are made as safe as possible with professional support.