To God’s Daughters: The Story Behind the Book
For more than 25 years, I have had the privilege of listening to women share their stories. Stories of courage and resilience. Stories of suffering, abuse, and betrayal. Stories of faith, questions, and the complicated journey of healing.
Over the years, particularly in my work with Christian women, I began noticing recurring themes.
Messages about what it means to be a good woman. A good wife. A good Christian. Messages about submission, obedience, forgiveness, and sacrifice. Messages about women’s worth, their voices, their relationships, and their place in the world.
Some of these messages were spoken outright. Others were communicated through silence, expectations, exclusion, or the misuse of power. And some, even when communicated in the name of God, were deeply harmful.
I found myself wrestling with a question:
What have women been told—and what is actually true?
From a Personal Lament to a Book
So, I opened my journal and began writing out of the grief and angst I had been carrying about the messages I was hearing again and again.
How had so many women come to believe that their needs didn’t matter? That their voices should be silenced? That setting boundaries was selfish? That being faithful required tolerating harm?
And perhaps most troubling, how had some of these messages become intertwined with women’s understanding of God?
I began writing what I called To God’s Daughters—reflections on the messages women had received and the truths I believed they needed to hear.
As the pages accumulated, I began to wonder: What if other women needed to hear these truths, too? What if we could begin to identify the messages that shaped us and gently separate what was harmful from what was true?
Those journal entries eventually became 30 truths. And those 30 truths became a book.
Why a Trauma-Informed Devotional?
One of the things I have learned through my work as a trauma therapist is that knowing something is true and experiencing it as true are not always the same thing.
A woman may know intellectually that she has worth, yet struggle to feel worthy. She may believe that her voice matters, yet struggle to speak up. She may understand that boundaries are healthy, yet experience overwhelming guilt when she begins setting them. She may believe that God is loving, yet struggle to reconcile that belief with the ways she has been harmed by people who claimed to represent Him.
Our experiences shape what we believe about ourselves, others, and God. And when certain messages have been repeated over many years, it often takes more than hearing a different message once to begin changing those deeply rooted beliefs.
Healing takes time. It takes repetition, reflection, and opportunities to experience something different.
That is why I chose to write To God’s Daughters: 30 Truths to Challenge the Messages That Shaped You as a devotional-style book.
Each of the 30 short chapters invites readers to consider a message they may have received and ask whether it reflects what is actually true. Through Scripture reflections, guided questions, and somatic meditations, women are invited to slow down, reflect, and begin integrating truth into everyday life.
I didn’t want to write a book that women would simply read and put back on a shelf. I wanted to create something they could return to.
A truth to read in the morning. A question to carry throughout the day. A reflection to write about. A meditation to listen to. A truth to practice.
Because healing doesn’t always happen through one significant breakthrough. Sometimes it happens through small moments of truth, repeated over time.
Who Is This Book For?
While To God’s Daughters was shaped by my work with women who have experienced abuse, trauma, and spiritual harm, it is not exclusively for survivors.
It is for the woman who has spent years trying to be a “good Christian woman” and still wonders whether she is enough.
It is for the woman who has been taught that loving others requires abandoning herself.
It is for the woman who struggles to trust her own voice, discernment, or intuition.
It is for the woman who has experienced abuse or spiritual harm and is trying to rebuild her understanding of herself and God.
And it is for the woman who may never have experienced overt abuse but recognizes that certain expectations and beliefs have kept her from living fully as the person God created her to be.
At its heart, this book is an invitation to reconsider the stories we have internalized about ourselves. Not to discard everything we have been taught, but to examine those messages carefully, hold on to what is good, and challenge what has caused harm.
My Hope for To God’s Daughters
I wonder what might happen if more women began questioning the messages that have diminished them.
What if women began recognizing their God-given worth and dignity? What if they learned to trust their voices, exercise their agency, establish healthy boundaries, and recognize that their needs matter?
What if women who have experienced spiritual harm could begin separating the character of God from the harmful ways God has sometimes been represented?
And what if we could begin creating families, relationships, churches, and communities where women are honored as whole people?
I don’t imagine that a single book will accomplish all of this.
But I do believe that small encounters with truth can create meaningful change.
One truth. Then another. Then another.
Until the story begins to change.
That is my hope for To God’s Daughters.
Join Me on This Journey
To God’s Daughters: 30 Truths to Challenge the Messages That Shaped You will be released in January 2027.
I would love for you to be part of this journey.
Learn more about the book and pre-order information at ToGodsDaughters.com
Thank you for being part of this journey.
With gratitude,
Heather
