“In the beginning God…” Genesis 1:1a

Because absolutely everything else comes from God. He is my all.

Sought healing from: Abortion

Why did you seek healing?

I was blessed with loving parents and friends, a good education and was active in sports and church.But, like most teens, I felt I knew best and should live life by my own rules. God became nothing more than a muted voice in the background and my prayers were eclipsed by parties. At twenty, I found myself pregnant and in shock. So, I parked my moral code at the curb and secretly got an abortion, shoving the entire experience into a little box in the back of my mind.

Several years, a wonderful husband and three amazing children later, I found myself in a whirlwind of school, church and volunteer activities. I was drowning myself in my demand for perfection in order to appease God for what I had done. As I was finally crashing, I cried out asking God what he wanted for me. I clearly remember His reply back to me, “It’s not what I want from you. It’s what I want for you.”

How did it help you?

When I finally sought confidential help, I was directed to HEART, a small Christian nonprofit in the area that supports emotional healing after abortion. Through this recovery group, I received and believed total forgiveness and freedom for my rebellion and behavior, discovering a new level of trust in God that I’d never experienced before.

What are you doing with it?

About two years after I went back to school for a Master’s Degree in counseling, I found myself saying to God, “there has to be a way to honor women’s life walks and all the wisdom they have gathered, then teach them to share it with other women, but without all of them having to be credentialed therapists.” Thus, the idea for the Eve Center was born and eventually brought to fruition in 2003.

As a licensed clinical counselor and Founder and Executive Director of Eve Center, I’m passionate about helping women and men understand that identity and security lie in a personal relationship with God the Father through the Son – Jesus Christ. With that comes relational, spiritual and emotional recovery changing and restoring life beyond previous experience. For women who come to Eve Center, this recovery and healing is provided in a safe, confidential environment, at no cost to the client, through our one-on-one peer counseling program, various recovery groups, book studies and a resource library

From one of our HEART clients:
“Jesus saved me on July 10, 2011, while I was in the midst of an argument with my husband. Most memory is foggy except for the “divine union” I experienced for about a month… The world more vivid, life just worked “as it was meant to be” and filled with much joy and peace.

Then my journey started: a Beth Moore Bible Study at a church through an invitation from my best friend. God put in my heart an appetite for His Word.  Started counseling, but sporadically, because hiding this from my husband (knew he’d disapprove) and felt deceitful spending money behind his back.  

Was led to Theophostic Prayer Ministry and that was where my past abortion issues were dug up.  (I had repented and felt forgiven by God when saved, but it was here that I sought help at Eve Center (FREE!)… 

HEART Group and Peer Counseling in January 2013.  I was my Peer Counselor’s first client there; applied, but backed out of the HEART Group.  Sessions with my Peer Counselor were/are a true gift from God.  A lot of hard, painful things learned and made aware of my broken life, but then much freedom experienced.  At one session, I just could not hold in God’s fire and we danced to the song “I’m Alive” by Peter Furler.  

         What freedom! 

         Thank You, Jesus!!!”

Amber:

I am a 29-year-old single mother of two young boys. I live on the Westside of Cincinnati. I was living my life just going through the motions, emotionless and detached. I did not trust anyone in my life. I kept everyone at a distance and this was keeping me very lonely and alone as a single parent. I always felt as though I was grieving the girl I once was before the abuse and never knew how to explain all the feelings I had kept inside for so long. I knew I wanted more for myself and for my boys. My children deserve the best mom I could be and I knew I was not capable of that where I was in my life.

I was already signed up to receive newsletter emails from the Eve Center and one day I was going through my email and opened a newsletter announcing an upcoming group for women survivors of childhood sexual abuse. That was ME. And I heard God whisper to me, “Its time, this is your time to go through this class!” So I emailed the director of this group called HATCH and made a commitment to myself to go through this group and give it my all and hope that I would get some kind of healing.

Through this class, I was reborn. God has made me NEW. I am an active participant in my own life now. I can now have amazing days with my children filled with joy and peace. I kept my boys forefront in my mind while I was going through the classes. With God, I was able to begin to heal this wounded heart of mine. The Eve Center had three volunteer leaders that were creatively selected to be God’s assistants in educating and walking the group through the healing process. It was truly through Christ’s help and His gracious merciful love that I have begun to heal from the traumatic effects of sexual abuse. And for this I am forever grateful, thank you, God, HATCH, and the ladies of the Eve Center. You made me new. The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him. Psalm 28:7

Jeannette

My name is Jeannette and this is my God and Eve Center story.

My marriage was breaking up and my daughter was heading off to college. I felt scared, alone, and insecure. Regardless of those feelings, I trusted God and called the Eve Center. I surrendered all I had to God and left the consequences to Him.

Trusting God and calling The Eve Center was not an easy decision but a necessary one if my life was going to change. The Center equipped me with tools to reach past myself to gain a closer relationship with my own needs and a greater relationship with Christ. One big thing was though I had a relationship with Christ I did not trust Him enough to really take care of me.  As time passed I came to realize for many years He had been providing for me. I just did not know it. Piece by piece He revealed things He had done.

This does not mean the last few years have been easy. It means God does love me and is faithful. I did not think anyone cared about my circumstances or me. Nevertheless, He has proven, as I Corinthians 13: 5-7, says Love always protects, which is what I needed to know the most.

Life with Him has been an adventure, some days dark and others bright. There are times when I know things will be difficult. Nonetheless, I follow the road He has laid out before me because the struggle provides needed growth and He will get me through it. Sometimes the hardest things we face are the very things needed to increase in our faith and in ourselves. In the end, I choose to trust Him in every circumstance knowing His joy and personal growth are the rewards.

Many do not see Christ in their lives. The Eve Center’s peer counseling offers a caring, human, womanly touch to reveal Christ to those who lack this experience. Seeing Christ’s unconditional love in another allows growth opportunities to feel secure in one’s own decision-making.

My peer counselor encouraged and guided me to make some tough decisions. There were probably times when she wanted to break my legs to get me to follow her as the sheepherders did in Biblical times but she did not. She permitted maturity in choices at my own pace. She did not want to control or hurt me, just hear me.

Although I have grown, I continue to ask God to make me whole. In addition, I know the women at The Eve Center will be there to help in this process no matter where I am. Sometimes to mature we must live and die all on the same day.

About a month ago I made a huge decision to die to an old area of life that I might live in a continual adventure with Christ. My own decision happened because of TRUSTING Christ and COUNSELING at Eve Center.

Thank you both for being there when I had nowhere else to turn.