As I looked out the window at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, I witnessed our heroic soldiers walking back and forth across the campus. Although I noticed some of our brave soldiers had physical wounds, I also began to ponder how many of our soldiers and so many others in life, in general, have not only physical wounds and scars but who also have invisible wounds that tend to go overlooked because we cannot see the wounds that come as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a bad relationship, emotional wounds, behavioral issues, cognitive inabilities, or some other mental health challenge.

Wounded Souls is a book of hope, healing, comfort, and restoration for all people whether you served as an honored soldier in the military, as a leader, as a husband/father, as a wife/mother, as a teacher, as a youth leader, or as a soldier in the Army of the Lord (the Body of Christ). If you have ever been brokenhearted, wounded in spirit, have physical and/or mental wounds, suffered from the loss of a dear loved one, struggled with diverse addictions, homelessness, distressed because of the chaos we see in our world, or just simply discouraged that your life is not turning out as you anticipated, then this book is a must read for you. It should lift your spirit, give you hope, encouragement, strength, and the courage to continue to strive in life to follow your passion and dreams. The anointed words in this book will transform our lives, if we open our hearts, minds, and let the words be a balm for our wounded souls.

The good news is that for everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose. As there is a time of war and peace, there is also a time to heal, to build up, to laugh, and to dance. Wounded Souls is another tool of truth (God's Word is truth) for our toolbox to allow our hearts, minds, and wounded souls to be made whole. As we read this life altering book, I desire that our wounds will be healed, families will be restored, and all people will be reconciled to God, through his son, Jesus Christ. Now allow your healing to begin.

This superb book is threaded with tools, resources, and strategies that increase readers' understanding of the potential for hope, healing, and overcoming. With the turn of every page of Wounded Souls, I found myself thanking God for Denise's having awakened in me a cathartic reconsideration of my own and others' moral vulnerabilities, which alerted me to previously overlooked imagery of sickness, injury, and woundability that is prominent in the news as well as in the texts I teach.

-Teresa Gilliams, PhD, Professor of English, Albright College