Be Restored
Healing Our Sexual Wounds through Jesus’ Merciful Love
by Bob Schuchts
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app
1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date 17 Sep 2021 | Archive Date 14 Oct 2021
Talking about this book? Use #BeRestored #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!
Description
We all have sexual wounds—some caused by over-sexualized culture, some by our personal choices, and some through the actions of others. Have you struggled with wounds from sexual abuse and molestation, pornography use, infidelity, divorce, sexual identity confusion, genophobia, or unwanted sexual compulsions?
In Be Restored, bestselling and award-winning author Bob Schuchts of the John Paul II Healing Center offers you concrete steps for healing and wholeness, relying on a combination of clinical expertise, Catholic theology, and personal experience as a survivor to guide you.
An essential guide to healing sexual wounds, Be Restored speaks to our deepest longing for sexual wholeness. It reveals the way to be freed from debilitating shame, sexual compulsions and sin, identity confusion, and wounds in psychosexual development. You will discover the reasons behind your emotional pain and how it’s connected to your sexual wounds—whether those wounds come from acute moments of sexual trauma in the past or from the more subtle trauma of living in our sex-saturated world.
Speaking from his own experience of sexual woundedness and his professional background as a marriage and family therapist, Schuchts—the bestselling author of Be Healed—is sensitive to the shame of sexual wounds. In Be Restored, he compassionately guides readers through a comprehensive understanding of potential areas of sexual wounds and shame. He then lays out a practical roadmap for restoring sexual wholeness.
Each chapter in Be Restored contains “Take a Moment” reflections and personal activities that include prayer and scripture-based exercises, emotional mapping, and thought-provoking reflection questions.
Four appendices offer specific instructions and prayers for restoring sexual wholeness.
A Note From the Publisher
After receiving his doctorate in family relations from Florida State University in 1981, Schuchts became a teacher and counselor. While in private practice, he also taught graduate and undergraduate courses at Florida State and Tallahassee Community College. Schuchts later served on faculty at the Theology of the Body Institute and at the Center for Biblical Studies—where he taught courses on healing, sexuality, and marriage—and was a guest instructor for the Augustine Institute. He volunteered in parish ministry for more than thirty years.
He retired as a marriage and family therapist in December 2014.
Schuchts has two daughters and eight grandchildren. His wife, Margie, died in 2017.
Advance Praise
“This book will challenge you, comfort you, convict you, and call you to a deeper love than you ever knew was possible but always ached to experience.”
From the foreword by Sr. Miriam James Heidland, S.O.L.T.
“It’s hard to imagine anyone in our culture today who doesn’t need to read this book. It gets to the source of so many of our struggles and helps remove the obstacles to our faith, our identity, and our efforts to live a whole and abundant life in Christ.”
Carrie Gress
Author of The Marian Option
“This is a desperately needed book. Be Restored gets to the heart of our sexual brokenness and offers lasting healing and restoration.”
Matt Fradd
Author of The Porn Myth
“Bob Schuchts shows us that mercy is not a quick fix. Mercy is power. It leaves us stronger for our wounds that have been healed. The world needs this book now more than ever!”
Scott Hahn
Catholic theologian and author
“Reading this book took longer than expected, for I wasn’t merely reading a book, I was encountering the Lord anew in my heart.”
From the afterword by the Very Rev. Mark Toups
Vicar general of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux
“This is an exceptionally powerful book. I honestly can’t think of anyone I know who will not benefit immensely from this—myself very much included! I don’t think I have ever come across a book on healing sexual wounds that is quite as raw and direct as this and that is precisely why it has such a powerful impact. I especially appreciated the exercises at the end of each chapter. All too often this essential step is neglected, leaving the reader with no immediate, prayerful application. Finally, as a victim of childhood sexual abuse, I found particularly helpful the chapters dedicated to understanding and healing that trauma.”
Fr. John Riccardo
Founder of Acts XXIX
“Reading this book felt like finding a gemstone in the midst of a wasteland. Numerous authors write about sexual brokenness, but none address the subject with a complete understanding of the causes that Bob Schuchts has in this book. He offers not only insightful perspectives on the core problems but also his expertise on what is needed to destroy disordered desires to find the freedom to reclaim God’s plan for sexual wholeness. We speak from personal experience when we say the message of this book can save your soul and marriage. We plan to order this book by the case and distribute it to the many people we meet who need to glean Schuchts’s wisdom.”
Bruce and Jeannie Hannemann
Directors of RECLAIM Sexual Health
“A gifted healer and writer, Bob Schuchts dives into areas of deep shame and brokenness and surfaces the truth that Jesus can restore us. His sound understanding of Catholic anthropology, psychology, and spirituality—culled from more than forty years of clinical and pastoral experience—makes this a must-read for all who seek to restore and be restored.”
Andrew Comiskey
Founding director of Desert Stream Ministries
“When I invited Bob Schuchts to teach a course for the Theology of the Body Institute on sexual healing and redemption in 2009, little did I know what an impact it would have on my own life. Wounds I didn’t even know I had came to light, and thus began a much deeper journey of healing. Schuchts’s insights in this book—gained through decades of experience as a therapist, teacher, and retreat leader, but even more through taking his own healing journey seriously—serve as a gentle and luminous invitation into the open side of Christ, the source of all our healing.”
Christopher West
President of the Theology of the Body Institute
“The reality of the oversexualized culture can be daunting. When we experience its effects through woundedness and sin we are often left devastated and hopeless. Although the path is not easy, there is a path to restoration. Through vulnerable stories, practical tools, and decades of experience, Bob Schuchts invites readers to be honest about their sexual history so the light of Christ can shine through and heal. Too often authors write about sexual issues from afar or circle around them, but Schuchts, with the confidence of Jesus, guides us through our sexual stories into restoration and healing.”
Jake Khym
Executive director of Life Restoration Ministries
“With personal stories and biblical truth, Bob Schuchts courageously treads into the darkness of wounds and trauma to bring them into the healing light of Christ’s love. His masterful articulation of how a person’s sexuality is impacted by the wounds in their history allows the reader to enter new levels of self-awareness and understanding of both their past and present struggles. This knowledge, along with the practical tools offered, are stepping stones to freedom in Jesus. Be Restored is a must-read for anyone desiring freedom, hope, and healing in their sexuality.”
Heather Khym
Cohost of Abiding Together Podcast
“Be Healed wonderfully broke open the healing conversation for all of us, and Be Restored stands right beside it as its continuation and well-developed completion. Bob Schuchts gently yet courageously walks with the reader into the painful depths of sexual brokenness and offers a beautiful pathway from darkness to light in Christ Jesus. Insightful, piercing, and practical, this book will bless all who read it.”
Fr. John Burns
Author of Lift Up Your Heart
“Our world, our Church, and our families are experiencing an unprecedented amount of brokenness. All too often, individuals who carry deep sexual wounds enter their vocations or ministries seeking to offer the wholeness to others that they have yet to receive in their own lives. For this reason, the work of Bob Schuchts and the John Paul II Healing Center helping others find healing and peace from sexual brokenness is foundational to the new evangelization.”
Jason Evert
Founder of Chastity Project
Available Editions
EDITION | Paperback |
ISBN | 9781646800230 |
PRICE | US$17.95 (USD) |
Featured Reviews
So many of us suffer from deep violations of our person. The pain can be overwhelming at times. As a result, untold numbers of people need healing from the sexual wounds that have been inflicted upon them by family members, acquaintances, and, in some instances, strangers.
This is why Be Restored: Healing Our Sexual Wounds Through Jesus' Merciful Love is such a treasure. The book offers a prescription for emotional and spiritual healing that is sorely needed in today's society. With sensitivity and wisdom, author Bob Schuchts provides survivors of sexual trauma a roadmap to restoration in Christ.
As Schuchts writes, "I am confident that Jesus desires to bring restoration in every area of your sexual brokenness, past or present. My continual experience as a therapist, teacher, and conference leader applying these truths assures me that he will restore you to sexual wholeness to the degree that you invest yourself in this process and actively seek his help."
Sexual wounds can keep us isolated, fearful, and distrustful. Through this powerful book, readers can find the solace and joy that come from communion with Christ. As Schuchts notes, "This is why Jesus came to earth: to restore the glory of our broken human nature."
I don't know how to start this review.
I must say that perfect timing for this book. I really need to read it. I loved it so much.
I realized so much things.
Mainly, I realized that Jesus wants to reveal his glory in the places of my shame and the area that I'm most ashamed of right now is the area he most desires to reveal his glory in my life.
This book teached me so many things. I love that in the end of the each chapter have questions to reflect.
This book is life-changing! I think every catholic need to read it. I hope it will be translate in portuguese.
Thank you Netgalley and publisher for free ARC in exchange of honest review. All thoughs are my own.