Education & Information

Linda Settles is a survivor of childhood abuse in many forms.  She and her husband of twenty-three years live in Virginia where they enjoy the moutain vistas and the fellowship of friends and family.  Life is good and getting better.  It hasn’t always been so.  Linda became a care-giver to five younger siblings by the age of thirteen and stayed trapped in a cycle of abuse until the age of thirty-three.  The process of recovery has been difficult, but worthwhile.  It has invovled facing the trauma of her past and getting a mature perspective on the trauma she experienced as a child and beyond.  Linda took to heart the scripture, “Study to show yourself approved a workman that needs not be ashamed.”  In fact, she studied so intensively that she decided she might as well make it official and earned a Master of Arts in Biblical Couneling from American Bible College and Seminary in 2002.  The college, which was recommended to Linda by American Association of Christian Counselors took an approach to healing that was more pastoral than clinical.  It was just what Linda, an avid student of the Word of God, wanted and needed. 

Soon after getting her degree, she began working with Pastor Wesley Peterson (Family Care Pastor) at Christ the King church and was blessed to see men and women begin to heal from the woundings of their past.  She saw marriages healed and women restored to wholeness after working through issues of abuse.  Using materials provided by the Association of Christian Counselors, Linda trained a group of lay counselors to counsel others.  The experience was enriching to Linda’s life is so many ways as it was also to those who came every week and increased their understanding of how to help others heal.

After moving to Virginia about three years ago, Linda pulled out her manuscript (which she had begun many years ago) and resumed writing the book, Redeeming Our Treasures/Finding Joy in the Shadows of an Abusive Past.  She just finished a Companion Workbook which she hopes will be used in church and support groups to help people heal from the devasting after-effects of childhood abuse.  

Redeeming Our Treasures is a journey of discovery.  Because Linda endured many forms of abuse from the age of five years old until she fled for her life at thirty-three, she writes from the heart about physical, emotional, sexual, and psychological abuse.  Her experince and training have prepared her for the immense task she has undertaken in reaching out to adult survivors of childhood abuse.  It is her prayer that survivors will find help and healing on her web sites and in her books.  She prays also that those who long to understand the challenges and triumphs of the survivor in their life will read and understand the resouces they find in Linda’s work.

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