For the last eight years, Reaching Out has been my assistant at this blog. She has helped me immensely and I am very grateful for all the things she has done to keep the blog functioning and uphold the purpose and priorities of the blog.
If you don’t know who Reaching Out is, that’s because she has largely laboured behind the scenes, out of the public eye. She is a survivor of multiple forms of abuse, from multiple abusers, and in multiple environments.
Reaching Out volunteered to be my assistant in 2017 or early 2018 (I was extremely stressed at that time and I don’t remember the date). I gratefully accepted her offer.
In 2018, through no fault of my own, the blog went offline overnight. You can imagine my horror. All the material that had been so helpful to abused wives was no longer online. The only remedy was to change the blog’s URL from .com to .blog — which broke every link in the blog that pointed to another item in the blog!
Reaching Out spent untold hours fixing all the broken links. I am eternally grateful to her for doing that and for all the other help she gave me keeping things working at the back of the blog, fixing eternal links that had broken, and saving articles to the Internet Archive so they can be found even if they get scrubbed from the website that published them.
Reaching Out emailed me on Jan 23 2026, saying that she was following the leading of the Holy Spirit and resigning from the blog. I replied, “I’m grieved, and shocked. But I trust that the Holy Spirit is leading you and I respect your decision. Thank you for all the myriads of things you have done in assisting me at the blog. 
I hope we can still be friends.
With love and warm wishes for your future — Barb.”
I haven’t heard from her since. She truly loves the Lord, and I trust that she is okay.
Because Reaching Out has resigned, have updated the About page of the blog.
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Dear Reaching Out – Thank you (100x over!) for giving so sacrificially of your time, talents, and deep concern for others. You definitely have made a difference. God bless!
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Dear Reaching Out and dear Barbara Roberts,
I hope you are both well, and will be well with the Lord.
Thank you for all your good work the invisible hours.
I rarely comment, but follow everything, need too much time to process.
I woud wish this blog woud stay forever. I woud wish you both continue good work the Lord calls you to do.
But then, in our world, our small lives, if we can be there for just a few people and make the difference, strengthen their faith, this may be more than we can hope to accomplish in our lives.
There is a (Jewish) saying, that, if you save one life, you have saved a world.
You, Barbara, and you Reaching Out, by making this blog live for so long, have saved my life and have helped me to save or help other lives-spiritually, or maybe even litterally.
Thank you, and whatever the future will be, I pray for you both, and for everyone in your blog-community.
May the Lord bless and keep you.
May his love, mercy and light shine upon you.
As you helped make shin His light in the world.
May it be there, with you and beyond all your good work.
Thanks and Blessingd.
Yours gratefully.
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Thank you so much, Go(o)d is not evil! My belly heaved when I read your comment. It almost brought me to tears. Good tears.
I really appreciate your comment as it’s hard to keep going when it seems like I’m speaking to an empty room. I am so glad that you process what I’ve written. And I understand taking time to process!
I have been writing lots but have published nothing since before Christmas other than the announcement about Reaching Out’s resignation. Sooner or later I will publish a post, or maybe a deluge in quick succession.
Your comment had gone to the spam folder, but WordPress’s JetPack App alerted me to it. Go figure eh? Maybe God intervened, because the App usually doesn’t notify me of comments that are in the Spam folder.
Now I have to look at the other 62 items in Spam and see if any of them are genuine. Reaching Out used to check and clear the Spam folder, and now she gone, I’m the one doing it. It’s an unpleasant chore but in time I will habituate myself to it. It’s an essential part of the work, sifting the wheat from the chaff. Let us not despise the day of small things!
Thank you for loving the Lord!
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