Can We Recover from Broken Relationships? I believe we can. This is what the image above is about. It’s from my piece titled, “Open Rebellion” which illustrates God’s compassion lifting my wounded soul up and out of a ministry that meant to hurt me and my friends when we did not see it coming.

There are many other images like this one in my gallery that tell different spiritual stories such as this one. You will find many different experiences of what I went through over the years between heaven and hell inside and how God’s redemptive process played out in my life on many paintings displayed on this website.

These paintings are also put together in my book, “The Secret that Kills / Spirit that Saves” which tell many tales of life and death and all the issues in between.

C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien have been important influences in the creative writing process and illustrated imagery as well. Song lyrics have also been very influentual in my creative process.

Is there any hope for recovery from broken and twisted relationships in our lifetime??? I believe so, and that is what this website is about.

In my experience, authentic relationships started with me being transparent and making bold and honest attempts to communicate what had been hurting or disturbing me inside for years.

After many painful attempts in doing this with God and other people, I began to understand what went wrong in my relationships, which started with my parents.

Damaged perception of self..

What was done and said to me as a child, how I responded to abuse, and how I then saw myself as a “Rotten, no good little bastard,” was destroying me a little more each day. While learning through the course studies of “Human Development and Family Studies” at Colorado State University, I began to understand how powerful of an influence parental relationships are on a child and how they can dictate the child’s future relationships for the rest of their life.

In my own life, I eventually learned how my relationship with my parents damaged my perception of myself and others around me. This hindered me from believing I could ever have any healthy relationships. I then decided to seek counseling from a psychologist and other therapists who helped me to understand the difficulty of what I had no choice but to endure as a child.

Over time, I believe God helped me expose all the lies in my bad and broken-down relationships so they could be seen for what they truly were without His love. When I finally recognized the lies spoken to me for many years, it hurt to have them revealed to me. But I began to let them go to God and then a real and deeper relationship with Him developed, and even with others around me.

I’m still in this process and I don’t believe it will ever stop until my life is over. I’m okay with that because my relationships are getting better. I’ve heard people say they want to be “healed or fixed” and then get on with their lives. I’ve discovered this process is ongoing, not just something to get over quickly or cope with daily.

Purging the pain of the past..

Purging the pain of past and present relationships gone bad to God and others was the one of the most difficult things I ever did. I’m amazed I’m even writing about it now. I still hope and want to develop better, more authentic friendships with other people who have also experienced the harsh reality of living in the wilderness of broke-down relationships without hope.

So, if you’re reading this, I hope you can relate to both my artistic and literary process which has produced an illustrated autobiograph of my life entitled, “The Secret That Kills / Spirit That Saves” and be inspired to communicate your own story with myself and others in your life who want to do the same.