amy lorraine au

I’m a native Texan who took a 17-year detour through Asia with Cru International before putting down roots in the beautiful state of Colorado. I’m a lover of words and images. I’m curious about the adjectives people use to describe themselves, love to mine truth from Oscar-nominated movies, regularly seek solace in the poetry of Jan Richardson and am editing my first book. I believe well-told stories set our souls free as we exchange the shame of survival for the grief of powerlessness.  

EDUCATION & TRAINING

School of Spiritual Direction Level 1 & 2

New Way Ministries (2003, 2006)

Addictions Course 

Reformed Theological Seminary (2012)

The Story Workshop

The Allender Center (2012)

Leadership Evaluation and Formation Program Coach 

Cru International (2012-2013)

Women’s Sexual Abuse Recovery Workshop Level 1 & 2

The Allender Center (2013, 2016)

NARRATIVE THERAPY

REFRAMING THE SHAME OF SURVIVAL INTO STORIES OF DIGNITY & HOPE

Deep healing begins when the cost of silencing parts of ourselves becomes so high we are ready to pursue wholeness. We must decide to exile nothing. Every choice we made to survive our stories needs to be available to be told, reframed, and comforted so shame is dispelled. In my own journey as an childhood trauma survivor it has often felt like standing at the edge of a cliff and finding the strength to dwell there for a season. The vista on the horizon is hopeful, but the view down into the ravine of pain can be terrifying. As a therapist, facilitating community for people journeying back to their true selves is my greatest joy.

INDIVIDUAL SESSIONS:

60 minutes: $120

available Now!

Reimagine a deeper story of Hagar’s life and reckon with the important ways she is first in the Genesis narrative.

As a slave, she is the first woman to experience oppression, abuse and rejection in the Bible. Hagar is the first person to receive a visit from a divine messenger and the only woman to receive a direct promise of many descendants. She is the only person to give God a name. Finally, she is the first female in scripture to liberate herself from oppressive power structures when she flees to the wilderness and the first freed slave. How we understand her story sets the trajectory for seeing every woman’s story in the Bible. Her story matters.

online OFFERINGS

Going deeper with my novel, Banished to Freedom

Banished to Freedom Processing Group

6 weeks, 6 sessions, 2 hours each

Open to 8 participants

Cost: $450

Summer:

Tuesdays: June 24, Jul 1, 8, 15, 22 & 29 (11:00am-1:00pm MST)

Fall:

Thursdays Sept 11, 18, 25 & Oct 2, 9, 16 (7:00am-9:00am MST)

Tuesdays: Oct 14, 21, 28 & Nov 4, 11, 18 (11:00am-1:00pm MST)

This 6 week processing book group explores 6 key questions:

What draws you to Hagar’s story?

How were your personhood and body the solution for other people’s suffering?

How did you feel both seen and sent back to harm?

In what ways do you feel you live between life and death?

How are you banished in your own story?

What does it mean to imagine freedom and flourishing?

Cultivating our Spiritual Understanding of Gender Oppression

Course: 6 months, twice a month, 12 sessions, 3 hours each

Open to 12 participants

Cost: $1200

2025 Dates: Oct 8 & 22, Nov 5 & 19, Dec 3 & 17

2026 Dates: Jan 7 & 21, Feb 4 & 18, Mar 4 & 18

This 6 month course explores 12 key topics:

Dynamics of Diablos (Evil): Creation Turning Against Itself

God as Witness, not Bystander

The Middle Space of Trauma

Inherency & Infallibility of the Text

Patriarchy & the Mother Wound

Purity Culture & White Feminism

Tyranny in Families & Caregiver Harm

Female Envy

The Faces of Sexual Harm

The Fawn Response & How it Becomes Chronic

Fawn & Women in the Bible: Abigail, Ruth, Tamar & Lot’s Daughters

Building an Intolerance for Harm in our Lives