Dr Paul Allen

Building a new family from the ashes of past abuse is an opportunity to defy destruction and illuminate hope. When you’ve come from an abusive past, building up your own new family is no ordinary thing. It joyfully, actively, and creatively crushes the work of Satan . The work of establishing a Christ -centered family stands as an act of redemption and re-creation that proclaims God ’s glory and dominion over evil. We are made in God’s image, created to reflect his value through our lives, words, and works — but we don’t come into the world fully mature. God designed families to serve as one of the most essential arenas of our development. Thus, we are born as malleable, impressionable children, who intrinsically imbibe the world of our caregivers. And this can be a world of affection and instruction in Christ, or a world of neglect and abuse. Being raised in a godly home should communicate to us that we are loved, that Christ is to be trusted, and that God is our Father ...

Living in a fallen age, in fallen bodies, in which our fallen natures vie with our regenerate natures for control, we unfortunately cannot avoid the plague of bad moods. We are not, however, victims of these moods, and we certainly must not make others victims of them, either. Instead, we must develop the skilled habit of challenging them, ruling over them (Romans 6:12), and laying them aside so that they don’t weigh us (or others) down in the race of faith ( Hebrews 12:1). You Are Never “Just” in a Bad Mood When we feel irritable or cynical or discouraged or sad, we sometimes excuse sinful attitudes by saying, “I’m just in a bad mood.” But we are never “just” in a bad mood. Moods never come from nowhere. We may not always be conscious of what’s fueling our mood, but we can be sure something is. Our moods are at times affected by our body chemistry. A chemical or hormonal imbalance in our bodies can cause irrational emotions. I’ll touch on this more shortly. But when our bodies a...