Testimonials
We hope that some of the following testimonials from clients are helpful and give you hope for the future. We give God all the glory, thanks and honour for the change and freedom He has wrought in the lives of the many people He brings to our organisation. All names are false for the protection of our clients’ identities.
It’s safe to say that many people have some sort of history or relationship in regards to engagement with pornography.
It may be a sad reality but it is the reality and for too long people, myself included, have felt guilt, shame and fear around this issue which has stopped us from sharing with each other the true extent of the problem.
The lack of honest conversation around this issue fuels the problem and keeps it in the dark for too long and causes pain for all.
For me, my first exposure to pornography wasn’t traumatic as such or overly alarming in any way. I was maybe in my early teens (which nowadays I’d imagine is relatively late on) and got hold of a naked magazine that one of my friends had.
As I got older, access to pornography got easier and easier as the Internet became the norm.
When I moved away to university I, for the first time, had my own laptop with unlimited and unrestricted access to the World Wide Web and, from there, my use of pornography skyrocketed.
While at the same time as looking at more and more pornography I was also engaging more and more with my local church and growing in my relationship with the Lord. I know that might sound crazy but it maybe shouldn’t because it’s something that happens time and time again with Christians: God moves despite of our sin – and this was certainly true for me.
Despite my ongoing use of pornography God was drawing me into a closer and deeper relationship with Him through involvement at my local church.
Throughout university I tried a lot to stop looking at pornography. I had accountability with close friends each week to talk about if I had managed to go a week not looking at porn. I put restrictions on my laptop which were password protected by Christian friends.
I prayed. I fasted. I asked God to help but time and time again I’d find myself back looking at pornography.
If I’m honest at some point along the way I think I gave up really believing it was possible not to look at pornography until I was married and having sex. I convinced myself that the problem was a physical problem and when married things would sort themselves out.
Fast forward to today: I have been married for 7 years and have a daughter who is almost 2. I can promise you that the sin of pornography is not a physical or biological issue that is fixed by having sex.
Pornography is spiritual sickness that in my experience can’t be healed by purely physical solutions (like having sex, creating blocks on your internet or attending accountability groups). It is a spiritual issue so needs to be addressed spiritually.
Today is the middle of November. In April I attended, with my wife, our first counselling session at Dove. While there I was encouraged to bring what I had thus far kept hidden in my marriage into the light and to share with my wife my still current relationship with pornography.
The thought of doing this was somewhat crippling – what would she say, how would she react would our marriage be on rocky ground due to a hidden sin kept from her for years?! The enemy was running rampant with lies but God is bigger and stronger and enables us to fight.
I shared with my wife the truth and to my amazement her response was Christ like in every way; she showered me in grace and was delighted for me that I had brought something, which was so dark and destructive into the light to be dealt with.
From there I attended a separate counselling session at Dove where, for the first time ever, properly tackled the sin of pornography that had been a plague in my life for 15 years.
Although I had tried many things over the years I can honestly say now with hindsight that the prayer of repentance I walked through during that Dove counselling was the first time I truly repented of all aspects of the sin and importantly asked for The Spirit of God to fill me with His power.
Since then, seven months ago, I have walked in true freedom from pornography with very limited thoughts of temptation.
Please don’t hear that and think that my enslavement to pornography wasn’t as real or as bad as you might think. It was. At its worst I was looking and acting on pornography multiple times a day.
I share that to testify that what took place during my counselling session with Dove that day was little short of a miracle but, from what I read in scripture and who I understand our loving heavenly Father to be, it is the freedom available for all those who love Jesus and believe in His power.
I initially approached Dove because I wanted counselling from a Christian perspective. I’d had a breakdown over ten years previously, then a second breakdown a few years after that. I had struggled to get my life back together ever since while battling depression and major anxiety.
Throughout those years I’d seen Counsellors, Psychologists, a Psychiatrist and Occupational Health Therapist and, while most were helpful in some way, I never felt I left with a sense of being better equipped to deal with my life.
While I have no problem with secular counselling if it is professional and reputable, I had never felt understood from the perspective of my Christian faith where my identity was formed.
l was forty-six years old and felt my life was slipping away from me. I could either resign myself to the rest of my life in a sense of despair and isolation, or I could take the necessary steps to have a life again.
I finally decided, if I was to live again, I had to have counselling founded on the Christian faith I identified with so much.
Approaching Dove through their website was a step of faith as I had no idea what they were like. I knew that just because something is advertised as being Christian doesn’t automatically mean they will be helpful. However, I had prayed that God would lead me to Christian counselling which would be neutral, non-judgemental and not based solely on one denominational way of thinking.
I was not attending church because of the effects of ill health and was quite reclusive, finding socialising in any context difficult; finding help through a church community wasn’t an option and an internet search was virtually my only way forward.
The first impression I had was of genuineness, that these people cared with a genuine empathy. They were actually listening and weren’t simply going to trot out standard mechanical responses I’d heard a hundred times before.
From years of therapy I had learned to detect fairly quickly whether someone was genuinely interested or just going through the motions. I quickly sensed genuineness at Dove.
In fact one of the strengths of their counsellors was that, although I was there for counselling, the warmth I felt from the outset put me at ease straight away and it felt very informal and friendly.
Being prone to acute anxiety, the state of being at ease and feeling relaxed and comfortable is not natural for me. Yet at Dove it honestly felt more like chatting with friends than counsellors, even though I had never met them before.
I immediately felt a sense of approachability from them, that I need not fear opening up to them, and that I could say anything, no matter how serious or silly it sounded to me, and it would be taken seriously.
This was crucial as I had long held things in which sounded somewhat bizarre even to me.
Dove helped remove barriers to me opening up as I am both an introvert and quite a private person. As I prayed before the sessions I felt God saying to me that nothing was off limits, I could talk about anything.
Being a semi-academic person, I had studied the atheist / faith / science debate where, from a secular perspective, scientific rationality reigns and anything remotely supernatural is laughed out of the room (ignoring the fact that many great scientists are also Christian). I think that secular thinking had probably shaped me more than I liked to admit because I was so wary of saying things out loud that might sound strange.
Nonetheless, remembering God had told me nothing was off limits, I shared some things that I thought sounded weird and Dove listened and, to my surprise, responded as though what I’d said was the most natural thing in the world. The sense I had was not only that Dove took me seriously but that God took me seriously and wanted to help me move forward in my life.
The Bible says we should be transformed by the renewing of our minds and I knew moving forward meant changes in the way I thought about some things, correcting harmful thoughts that had developed within my mind and learning how to allow God access to every area of my life.
It is no small thing to be able to be completely honest with someone and tell them anything and trust that they will listen honestly, take your words seriously and only have the desire to help you without any agenda of their own other than enhancing your own walk with God.
Through the counselling I learned to look back and forgive myself and others. There were times and experiences in the past which were still affecting me far more than I realised or admitted to myself.
I realised I was carrying around with me things from my past which deprived me of experiencing God in the present. For years I had held on to attitudes that were holding me back rather than helping me flourish.
One belief I held was that I had to work towards experiencing God again at some point in the future. Years ago I had felt alive while preaching in churches. I had not felt this since my breakdown and I felt I could not feel alive in God again unless and until I preached again and this would not happen for maybe years to come, if at all.
Thus I would not feel alive in God again for years and effectively closed the door to experiencing God in the joy he promised in my life now.
Dove listened and gently pointed some things out to me and I learned how to experience God in the here and now rather than some future occasion I’d have to work towards.
The thought of the work it would take to experience God again in the future had felt exhausting and hampered my daily living now, but Dove taught me that God was there for me right now.
In truth these were things I already knew in theory but the Dove counsellors helped me move beyond the theory to actual experience.
I had attended various theological institutions, gained degree level academic qualifications and admittedly considered myself fairly well informed on Christian theology. I admit it took a while for me to accept that I didn’t know it all, that my theological thinking was just that, mine, at times badly filtered by my own reasoning and not necessarily what God was actually saying. I had allowed my own faulty thoughts to prevent me experiencing God in the here and now.
When I submitted my mind and heart to God to become teachable, then I felt an inner sense of God’s Spirit working within me, something I hadn’t felt for a long time.
There were also areas of my life which I had never understood, or had only ever had one understanding of and carried that understanding for years. The Dove counsellors helped me see that there could be different perspectives, perspectives which proved a revelation to me and shone a new light on to things that had always puzzled me.
It is both strange and thrilling when one moment’s revelation can alter in a second the puzzlement of many, many years.
On one particular occasion it was like chains falling off and a new dawn arising, a new way of looking at something which changed everything.
They asked me at the start what I wanted to achieve from the sessions. It’s something I hadn’t really considered (which sounds strange even to me now!) and it took me a while to conclude that I wanted to be happy, to experience joy again as I couldn’t honestly remember the last time I had been happy.
Although a Christian, I had a distinct lack of joy in my life and through the counselling faced up to barriers and areas of my life which, sometimes unwittingly, I had closed off to God and I learned how to open myself up and invite God to grow in me once more.
I learned some prayers for dealing with things I used to let dwell in me for a long time. I confess it had troubled me that I was a Christian, believed God’s Spirit was within me, yet I had felt little happiness or joy.
One of the things which struck me most about the sessions was that beforehand I had sometimes thought I knew what I wanted to talk about, yet, when I arrived, I found myself talking about different things. Yet they seemed right.
I believe that was God, in answer to prayer and in the safety of the counselling environment, guiding my thoughts to areas he knew needed addressing.
More often than not, after a counselling session had finished, I left with a song in my heart and on my lips. That might not happen with everyone but it did with me. It was confirmation that God was in the process. God was here where he hadn’t been in such an immediate way previously, or rather he had always been available to me but I had not always been open and honest enough to allow him space in my life.
When I gave him the space, I found a song in my heart. This has stayed with me and through my Bible readings, especially Psalms and Isaiah, it has struck me how much praise and worship via singing are a natural response to God’s love for and care over us.
During the time I spent being counselled I separately received a diagnosis of Adult Autism. I had been referred by my Doctor for an Autism appraisal.
This diagnosis was in itself life changing and is something I am keen to learn more about and how it relates to my Christian faith. I have found some though not a huge amount of literature on the subject.
As I said at the start, after years of counselling and therapy, I came to the point where I knew I wanted to speak to someone who understood me from the perspective of my Christian faith. I believe this was crucial.
What was equally important was to find counselling that didn’t force a denominational view of God onto me or pressurise me but let me find God for myself.
I can thoroughly recommend Dove. They both listened and spoke to me with sensitivity, seriousness, humour and a gentleness which I have found rare in other therapeutic sessions I have attended.
I am so grateful for the counselling help I received through Dove Christian Counselling! My life has changed so much because of the freedom and hope I was able to grab a-hold of through the counselling process.
I was suffering a depression, due to a combination of overwhelming external pressures happening in a relatively short period of time:
- my teenage daughter becoming pregnant;
- the back wall collapsing in our building and the subsequent financial catastrophe, being decanted from the flat – withfour children, almost two years of headaches with insurance, construction, and a constant stream of workmen after we returned to the flat, dealing with unscrupulous and dishonest businesses in the reconstruction process;
- the precarious and declining health of my elderly father, two overseas trips to be with him;
- the untimely and acrimonious leaving of a close work colleague;
- my own failing health.
Added to these were the internal pressures as well, which only really were pushed to the surface because of my external struggles.
I had, over the years, accumulated a hopelessness that seeped into and poisoned almost every area of my psyche. My mantra had become “I can’t!” I had lost sight of hope and the truth about God, myself, and my world.
My counsellor listened non-judgmentally to my struggles and asked questions that helped clarify my thinking. As we worked through my issues, she lovingly and gently held out the truth to me, reminding me, as a person whom God deeply loves, that I am not a victim and that I can choose my response to pain and suffering, and that I can choose to believe truth or not, and that if I do claim what is true, that the truth would set me free.
She also gave me some simple tools to apply the truth to my Life, so it became not just a mental understanding, but also a living basis and framework for my behaviour and feeling.
Getting my life on to a solid basis again has empowered me to resume my work and responsibilities to my family, and to move toward becoming the person I am meant to be and accomplishing my goals and dreams.
The truth has, indeed, set me free! I thank God for the help I have received through Dove and I would urge anyone who needs help to not wait. It is more than worth the effort!
To an outside observer, my childhood would have looked fine. But for me it was a time when I received emotional wounds from those closest to me which would stay with me and have a profound influence on my perception of God, myself and others into adulthood.
Emotional reserve and criticisms hit hard and, unable to shrug them off, I grew up feeling rejected, unlovable and inadequate.
Over the years, I came to recognise that my present self-loathing and other emotional difficulties had their origins in my childhood experiences but, despite the love and appreciation of dear friends and a family of my own, I was unable to put past hurts behind me and move on.
Finally, I reluctantly admitted to myself that I was going to have to ask for professional help, but fear of rejection meant that I put it off for years, despite feeling that I was barely coping with life.
The turning point came when I was diagnosed with a degenerative medical condition. Now I had a whole new challenge to deal with.
I hit my lowest point – life seemed hopeless and I knew I could no longer rely on ‘getting by’.
I had briefly had a few sessions of secular counselling in the past which helped for a couple of years, but had offered no permanent solution to my problems. I thought that Christian counselling would address the issues I struggled with in the spiritual context within which, as a Christian, I live my life. A Google search for ‘Christian counselling Glasgow’ led me to Dove.
The first few sessions with a counsellor at Dove involved pouring out my story, along with many tears! I felt as though I had brought a tangled mess with me but over the weeks, clarity emerged from the confusion.
It helped me to be able to rationalise my past, to identify the specific words and behaviour which had led me to wrong beliefs about myself, others and, most importantly, God. Then it was time to forgive and to change my mind about how I was going to view God, myself and others from now on.
Of course, it was a painful process, but I was encouraged and excited by the progress I could see each session and it was made so much easier by the fact that I felt safe and accepted, and by the sense that God was at work in me.
I haven’t been brainwashed – I can still remember the past – but when I do, the sting has gone from the memories. As a result, I’m less emotionally fragile – more robust, more peaceful and relaxed. I used to wish I could be convinced that God really did love and value me, but I found myself unable to believe because of the messages I had received from the past, that I was unlovable, insignificant, just not good enough.
The process of counselling has been like going to hospital to have an old, infected wound cleaned out and bandaged up! I can already feel the effects of the healing process. Now I am more comfortable being me – I’m less defensive and accept myself more.
I used to hope God loved me; now I am convinced of it, and truly grateful. I no longer feel on the outside looking in. The past is forgiven: now I can keep a short account of any wrongs against me.
Pain can be all-consuming, whether physical or emotional. Now past hurts have been dealt with, I can look back over my life so far and see how God’s hand has led and guided me, even when I thought He wasn’t there because I wasn’t important enough for Him to take notice of me. Now I can see that during those years He was working out His purposes in me, forming my character and demonstrating how much greater He is than I could ever imagine.
I experienced a breakdown of sorts five years ago. Brought on, I thought, by a stressful time at work. I ended up being on sick leave for 4 months.
During this period, and after much soul-searching, I finally surrendered my life to Christ. In that respect I’m glad I went through it all.
However, five years on from that life changing experience, I was to suffer a much more serious breakdown. At first I blamed it on another stressful event going on in my life. Eventually – with the help of others’ perspective – I saw that event merely as the tipping point.
Though Christ had changed my life dramatically it became clear that there were still issues / hurts from my childhood that exerted a damaging influence on my thoughts and behaviour. I could not know real healing until these had been properly examined and dealt with.
Although Dove were recommended to me early on as a source of help, I was reluctant at first to go down this route, preferring a self help approach using books.
Reading Neil T Anderson’s Victory over the Darkness and The Bondage Breaker helped me greatly. Eventually though I realised further help was necessary. Deciding to call Dove was, itself, a major step in the healing process.
At my initial assessment session I shared where I was at, shared much of my life and speculated on what had brought me to where I was now. I pondered on how one thing led to another and what I hoped Dove and the counselling could do for me. It just poured out.
In the following weeks we explored more deeply, various childhood issues / past hurts that had been buried for many years. The counsellors brought a fresh perspective on matters, grounded in Biblical truth.
I found the process very therapeutic. I was also directed to excellent books very relevant for my situation.
A crucial part in the healing process was really coming to know who I was in Christ – my primary identity as a child of God. Although I thought I had come to know this since becoming a Christian, the Dove counsellors questioned whether this head knowledge had really transferred to my heart.
The past hurts and unhealthy thinking, stemming from my childhood, were preventing this. I’d been leaning on other identities I’d constructed for myself over the years. My breakdown had occurred when these had fallen apart.
Over the sessions I was led through a process of forgiveness. This involved forgiving others for hurting me. I also asked for forgiveness for different things I had done, including believing lies rather than God’s truth. I hadn’t been aware of this as a choice before and I came to see the freedom I could experience by choosing to believe the truth and reject lies.
Past vows I had made were also examined and broken. A real and powerful release was experienced as this process was completed.
It has now been a few weeks since my final Dove session. I really do feel a deep healing has taken place in my life. A new level of freedom has been found.
I look daily to my primary identity as a child of God through my Saviour Jesus. I have a new awareness of Satan’s tactics. Knowing who I am in Christ equips me to stand against these. He now knows this!
I have already been sharing my experiences to help others and am looking forward with great anticipation and excitement to what God has in store for me next!
I am deeply grateful for the professionalism, patience and love shown to me throughout by my Dove Counsellors.
Thank you again!
Writing is not something I usually find difficult, but on this particular occasion it does not come easily. On one hand, I am overwhelmed by the immensity of God’s love and forgiveness but, on the other, I still, at times, feel ashamed of the extent of my sin.
This Easter time I moved into a greater understanding of the depth of God’s love and the lengths to which he stretched, to redeem, rescue and heal me from sin and myself.
An article in The Times told a story about an earthquake victim in Italy. A young man had been visiting a friend in another neighbourhood when the earthquake struck. The block of apartments he was in collapsed and he was trapped in the ruined building with little hope of being rescued, as no one knew he was there.
His father, a doctor, was worried about his son’s safety and well-being when the earthquake struck and tried to call him at home. There was no reply and he didn’t know where his son was. He walked the streets in the neighbourhood calling his son’s name and would not give up in his search.
Eventually he felt an urge to stop and call out. He was standing beside a collapsed building and he called out his son’s name. He asked those around to be quiet while he listened intently.
He heard a muffled cry and moved closer calling again. The faint voice from beneath the rubble gasped, ‘Papa I’m in here and I can’t breath’.
The father (Dr Colangeli) got the help of a man who was a caver and they carefully removed boulders and rubble with their bare hands until they had cleared enough space to reach his son and pull him out.
This story moved me to tears as it is, in a strange way, my story too.
I was struggling with some difficulties in my marriage and personal life. I was weakened and strayed from God’s path. At the time it did not seem far and it didn’t take long, but the consequences were devastating and shook me to the core.
I became involved in a relationship I shouldn’t have – I ventured into an unsafe building and no one knew I was there. My sin was secret. When the building and my world collapsed around me, I was trapped inside with all the dirt and ruin on top of me, buried in the rubble.
When no one knows you are trapped and injured, how can you hope to be rescued? Who will come looking? I felt utterly alone, desperate and ashamed – too ashamed to tell anyone I was in there.
As a Christian of many years I knew that God could rescue, but guilt and shame weighed heavily upon me. I also knew that I could not get out without help: the hole was too deep.
I was speaking to the Lord and pleading for the help I so needed but didn’t deserve, and I wondered if he would help me.
God prompted me several times to contact Dove Counselling Service as I knew some of the people there. That would mean being open and honest about my sin; it would also mean taking the risk of being judged by someone I knew and trusting them and God to help me.
God waited for my willingness and I took the step.
My Father used skilled counsellors (cavers) to move the boulders, pull me out of the rubble and help me put my life back together again. They did not judge but helped me face and work through the consequences of my wrong choices.
Over the last year I have experienced the awesomeness of God’s total forgiveness. I have also been melted by my husband’s forgiveness and we are working together to rebuild our marriage on a strong foundation.
Can God work a miracle and save a wrecked marriage? Absolutely! Can he work forgiveness into a hopeless situation and heal past, present and future wounds? Most certainly! I am living proof of both.
God did not rest until he had found and rescued me. When He called my name I said: ‘Papa I’m down here and I can’t breathe’. He wept with grief and joy as he watched me being pulled from the rubble.
Corrie Ten Boom says that there is no pit too deep that God’s love isn’t deeper still. It is true. I am also discovering that ‘she who has been forgiven much loves much.’
I am so grateful to God for His love and forgiveness that I can’t hide it.
I am still afraid that people will find out and judge me and sometimes when I look at friends I draw back from allowing them near because if only they knew…
Perhaps I will learn to live with this in time. Sometimes casual words sting as I hear friends passing judgement on others.
The day you said to me that you didn’t judge me and that you were proud of me for telling my husband what I had done was a real turning point for me. You had such compassion and genuine love in your eyes that it brought tremendous healing to me – it really was like soothing balm pouring into my burned and troubled heart.
The doctor explained a strange ‘symmetry’ in events when he flagged down an ambulance:
‘The other passenger was one of the doctor’s own in-patients, an elderly man who was being taken to hospital by his daughter, also a doctor, to the hospital where she worked in Rome. It was like a divine exchange. I had treated her dad and she was able to help my son.’
I pray that I will one day be able to bless you in a deep and dynamic way.
Update
Dear Friend
It’s Easter 2010, another year on, and as I contemplate what Jesus has done for me, I realise that I no longer feel the raw pain of my sin. I have not forgotten, but I don’t think often of it.
I have a deep gratitude but know that God wants me to choose to look forward rather than back. It is no longer a part of who I am.
For a long time I lived in the shadow of the ruin I was rescued from. I revisited it regularly to remind myself of how utterly dark it was, believing that remembering would keep me safe. Then God challenged me to move on. He explained it like this:
‘When you stand in the shadow of your ruin, it blocks out the sun’.
I have learned that as I look at the Son I am reminded of his love without having to stare at the past. He chooses not to remember it, so why should I?
Today I thanked him for all he has done for me and I am amazed at his unfailing love.
It’s gone –
Over.
By my forgiveness.
Done.
In these last 24 years I’ve been to Clinical Psychologists and Psychiatrists many times and never has anyone been so successful or made more sense to me than the Dove counsellors.
Dove has freely given me the tools for breakthrough. It has given me the strength to deal with issues from my past.
Giving me a safety and security, Dove provided me with a place where I could open up and be honest about myself, other people in my world and situations happening around me. Being able to talk about what I really felt allowed me to find solutions and get the right thinking I needed to move forward from past hurts.
Not only has it equipped me with an inner strength, it has helped me become more confident in myself and in taking control of my own life and choices. This, in turn, has made me much happier within myself.
I’m so thankful that God has set me up through Dove into a closer and deeper relationship with Him than before. God was always with me but because of outside opinions I would get so confused and question God in my life.
Praying at the end of each session helped me re-learn how to approach God for myself and hear Him too.
Thank you Dove for giving me a platform to re-build my life. You have set me on a road of healing and wholeness, and helped me achieve so much in these last six months.