Joyce Shankland

Threads of Hope Joyce Shankland

At the age of thirty-three, I became a Christian. With the inability to love or to feel loved, and with the fear of God, I came under the subtle power of spiritual abuse in the church I attended. Wives were taught to submit to their husbands as unto the Lord. As unto the Lord, I learned to be afraid of God as a child-so I feared my husband and the leadership of the church. These teachings of submission can be crippling to wives who have abusive and controlling husbands. In these pages, you'll see what I saw and feel what I felt. You'll experience the trials that came to me, and you'll see how God took me through a series of inner healing of my past abuse and revealed His unconditional love for me. God enabled me to love Him and revealed to me what reverence of God was-not the fear of God. He became involved in every aspect of my life. And over the years, through the crucibles of suffering, I came to know His enduring love and guidance.