Wendy Redroad is a free-spirited content writer, support group facilitator, and retreat speaker. With great warmth and a bit of wit she colors the bleakest of circumstances with hope, unexpected laughter, and tangible steps towards healing and forgiveness.

She is the creative member of Mission EDIFY, LLC and founder of The Wilderness Initiative, a charitable teaching initiative purposed for small non-profit organizations aiding young adults impacted by adverse childhood experiences such as:

• aging out of the foster care system

• domestic violence

• child exploitation/human trafficking

• the abandonment of a drug addicted parent, or partner

Drawing from the insights of Aquinas on “the passions,” and Ignatian spirituality - finding God in all things, Wendy’s presentations acknowledge the complexities of healing and forgiveness while fostering both spiritual and emotional health. She is an affiliate member of the Catholic Psychotherapy Association and approved safe environment facilitator in the Fort Worth Diocese. Wendy serves inside and outside of her parish in multiple capacities.

BACKGROUND BIO

Like many adults, the abuse Wendy endured as a child forged a dysfunctional template for adulthood. Homelessness, a teen pregnancy with a former high school teacher, infidelity, divorce, single motherhood, toxic relationships, and complex post traumatic stress disorder were the rhythmic constraints in her life. Hurt in church, at age fourteen she bid Christianity adieu, vowing never to speak the name Jesus again.

Twenty-three years later, she was too weary to hate and too weak to point a condemning finger. Wendy broke her vow of silence and spoke the “J” word. Midway through a year-long commitment to group therapy for adult survivors of child sexual abuse, she purchased her first women’s Bible Study. This marked the beginning of countless ten-week studies that often stretched into twenty weeks as she jotted down tough questions, additional Scripture, and witticisms along the sides of every page. A decade later, when her marriage came to an abrupt and brutal end, she could not help but wonder, Where is the Bible study for women in crisis?

Wendy’s mission is to bridge the perplexing gap between the effects of trauma and the Christian imperative to forgive. “God does not minimize the effects of trauma. We do when we deny him access to the pain.”