The Healing Choice

This is one of the two books I have ever had an internal struggle about reviewing on my blog. Both for personal reasons. This one needs publicity.

The Healing Choice by Brenda Stoeker and Susan Allen is a book about moving past the betrayal of your husband through pornography and infidelity.
I wasn't really thrilled with the comparison of Brenda's mother's death to cancer and a husband's sexual betrayal. I get what she was saying in a lot of the feelings and the anger with God, but I feel like they are so completely different. One is something that happens, it doesn't matter who you are, it can just randomly happen, and you can't stop it. The other is a choice someone chooses to inflict upon you. The betray is totally different. However, the denial, the pain, the guilt, the anger, the hatred, the mourning; those may be similar. The book is excellent, still.
Recovering from such a horrid betrayal in your marriage is not easy, and it is not fast. Even years after the healing things will come up to tear away your peace if you don't work hard all the time to live in forgiveness and healing. I think that eventually you do accept and find peace with losing someone to death.
Women need someone who has been there to help them through their pain, to help them see that God is still there and has a purpose for their lives. He hasn't betrayed them, even though He did allow this to happen. God prepared me in advance to deal with the blow I would take not once, but twice, in our marriage. He taught me that I am not so much more special than everyone else that I deserve a "perfect" husband, and that no matter what the sin, every one's sin brings the same price, no one's is worse in God's eye. Jesus had to die for my little white lie just as He did for my husband's pornography use.

I am so thrilled to see this book and the accompanying workbook! I am praying about starting a Healing group in our community with this set.

Summary: In the aftermath of discovering a husband’s battle with pornography or other forms of sexual infidelity, countless wives are left feeling humiliated, betrayed, angry, and desperate. Worse still is the sense of isolation created by the fear of revealing the truth even to trusted friends.
Authors Brenda Stoeker and Susan Allen understand all too well the pain inflicted by a spouse’s sexual duplicity, and in this empowering book and companion workbook they lead women out of the closet of shame and into the light of God’s healing. With biblical wisdom and compassion born of experience, they lovingly guide women in moving toward genuine spiritual and emotional restoration, even if their husbands never change.
Drawing on their own stories and those of other women, the authors provide step-by-step counsel in grabbing hold of intimacy with God and the community of women to find the needed support to move beyond devastation and into a restored wholeness. Through these powerful, practical resources, women will be equipped to find healing and to make wise choices for themselves, their children, and their marriage.

Author Bios:

Brenda Stoeker is a registered nurse, mother of four, and seasoned marriage teacher with life experience in rebuilding a broken marriage. She and her husband, Fred, are coauthors of Every Marriage Restored, which lays a foundation for the deeper personal needs addressed in The Healing Choice. Brenda and Fred live in Johnston, Iowa.

Susan Allen is a counselor and, with husband Clay, the cofounder of Avenue, a ministry centered on healing and restoration from sexual brokenness. The author of Avenue’s acclaimed curriculum for women’s small groups, she specializes in helping women create and maintain effective healing groups, both in churches and communities across the country. She and Clay live in Danville, CA.

If you would like a copy, leave a comment, you don't need to have a story or reason to have this book, just leave a comment. I will be giving away one copy of just the book to one US winner, or US military member with an APO/FPO.

I am more than willing to email with anyone who is going through this pain or has been through it. qtpies5 at msn.com. Giveaway ends August 3.

The Healing Choice is available for purchase HERE.