Dr. Susan Joy Simkins
Author | Speaker | Professor
Moving from wounded to whole through the power of divine reversal
Susan Joy Simkins, Ph.D., is an author, speaker, and professor of industrial-organizational psychology whose work and life bear witness to the grandness of God’s transformation from devastation to restoration. After overcoming paralyzing anxiety and healing from emotional trauma and spiritual abuse, she now writes books that document God’s redemptive power, including her award-winning memoir Divine Reversal. When not writing or teaching at Penn State University, Susan enjoys traveling with her husband, spending time with their three children and five grandchildren, and finding the words to capture God’s presence in everyday moments.
About Susan
Susan Joy Simkins loves stories, especially underdog stories that start wretchedly and end gloriously. But no underdog story brings more tears of joy to her eyes than the one she has lived. She spent most of her life deeply ashamed of her abusive past. But Jesus reversed the worst of life’s cruel blows into a marvelous display of redemption and triumph. Now Susan considers the story she was never going to tell to be the most sacred treasure she can offer others in need of hope and healing. Read her testimony below.
My Passions:
- Helping you discover divine reversals in your story
- Collecting stories of redemption and restoration
- Writing words of hope and help you’ve been searching for
- Teaching Biblical truths that can set you free
- Sharing the turnaround Jesus has made in my life and can make in yours
Bio
The daughter of non-U.S. citizens who never graduated from high school, Susan earned a Ph.D. from Ohio State University and is a professor of industrial-organizational psychology at Penn State University. She has conducted award-winning research, mentored doctoral students, and taught undergraduates for over thirty years.
As an award-winning Christian author, Susan Joy Simkins specializes in memoirs and devotionals that bridge the gap between deep spiritual insight and practical, everyday application. She delights in discovering divine fingerprints in ordinary circumstances and helping readers recognize similar patterns in their own lives. Her own thirty-year emotional healing journey deeply informs her writing, combining the compassionate vulnerability of a survivor and the authentic testimony of a thriver. The hope she offers emerges from scripture and a life dramatically transformed, a testament to what she calls “Divine Reversal,” where God turns devastation into restoration.
Susan’s early passion for writing was nearly extinguished by paralyzing panic attacks triggered by the pressures of academic writing. What once flowed freely as a child became a source of overwhelming anxiety as an adult. Yet, out of this torment, God continues to craft a story of restoration. She not only writes for a living but also writes to uplift others in her discretionary time.
Susan leads Bible studies/small groups and speaks at conferences, churches, and other events. She relishes the opportunity to offer hope and help to those who feel trapped in pain, shame, and blame. She is a living witness that when Jesus said He came to this earth to heal the brokenhearted, He did and continues to do precisely that.
The roles that mean the most to Susan are wife, mother, and grandmother. The former single mom on welfare has been married to John for over seven years now. Together, they have three adult children and five grandchildren. Highlights of their year include gatherings and vacations where family members reunite via food, games, and shared travel experiences. Joy also bubbles up when Susan is gardening, scrapbooking, taking leisurely walks outside, and being Grandma Joy.
Beyond her own divine reversal story, Susan yearns for others to experience the 180-degree turnaround from woundedness to wholeness that God has earmarked for them. While our past cannot be erased, it can be reversed. Will you join Susan on the journey from devastation to restoration through the love of God?
“For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.”
(Isaiah 43:19 NLT)
Have I got a story for you!
Susan Joy Simkins’ First-Person Narrative
I was born and raised on the island of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. As a child, I lingered on the balcony of our home, delighting in the sunlight playing hopscotch on the shimmering turquoise waters of the Atlantic. But I didn’t want to go back inside.
To my dad’s drunken rages and domestic violence.
To my dad’s untreated paranoid schizophrenia.
To my dad’s criminal activity that landed him in prison.
I never knew what it was not to be afraid.
Our situation continued to deteriorate, and when I was 14, my mom, sister, and I escaped to the mainland U.S.
I expected our move to be the promised land, but we exchanged one set of problems for another. Throughout my high school years, we couldn’t afford a phone or a car. The crushing weight of poverty and isolation, added to the shadows of my past, left me vulnerable to a pastor who exploited my orphan heart.
A pastor who offered the words of love and affirmation that I had never heard from my dad.
A pastor who, for five years, said he would never leave me nor forsake me,
but then said the baby wasn’t his when I got pregnant.
A pastor who dropped me off at a home for unwed mothers and refused to pay child support.
I found myself a frightened and clueless single mom on welfare, shrouded in shame. In that home for unwed mothers, every dream I had ever imagined for my life died.
But God does His best work in dead places.
God, who called me by name and rescued and re-fathered me (2 Corinthians 6:18)
Jesus, who declared that his mission in coming to earth was to heal my broken heart (and yours!) (Luke 4:18)
The Holy Spirit, who comforted me in all my grief, loss, and affliction (2 Corinthians 1:4)
The healing journey I’ve been on for over three decades has been grueling, layered, and marked by both setbacks and breakthroughs. Progress occurred little by little, often seeming nonexistent and agonizingly slow.
With a 30-year perspective, however, I can attest that the results have exceeded what my heart dared to dream. The cumulative effect of restoration has been a 180-degree supernatural turnaround. And it’s all because of Jesus.
The shame of exploitation transformed into my greatest source of pride: my daughter. My single-parent journey from pregnancy to her self-sufficiency is culminating in a ministry that is a mother-daughter effort.
Neither of my parents graduated from high school, yet I train doctoral students for a living, helping them navigate the very journey I struggled with as a single mom.
I’ve been devastated by the worst of church hurt, but I’ve also been restored by the best of the help church members can offer.
Because of a pastor’s spiritual and sexual abuse, I vowed I would never entrust my heart to a man. Today, I am happily married to the love of my life.
I spent most of my life deeply ashamed of my past. The story I tried to sanitize and pretend never happened became my tell-all memoir, Divine Reversal.
I continue to be stunned by the redemption my story illustrates, which restores my belief in what is life-giving and victorious. So, divine reversal is not just a message I find intriguing. Or merely believe. Divine reversal is the reality I have lived. Even as I write this, I am filled with fresh awe of God, who turned a horrifying mess into a hope-filled message.
And now for the best news of all!
Divine Reversal is not just my experience, but God’s style. His way! If He did it for me, He can do it for you!
I’m not settling for my own restorative story. I want you to experience a radical transformation, too. Because it’s available. Yes, in the very places that seem hopeless. In the middle of your worst nightmare.
Remember: God does His best work in dead places.
“God who brings the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing.”
(Romans 4:17 NLT)
You can read more about my story in my memoir, Divine Reversal. I’ve also chronicled my recovery process in Devastation to Restoration: A Healing Guide for Your Healing Journey.
Some of my favorite things:
- Reflecting with my daughter about our journey together and how far we have come
- Exchanging “navel-gazing questions” with my husband and learning from our answers
- Watching our adult children grow and blossom
- Reading picture books to our grandkids
- Noticing God at work in everyday moments
- Rejuvenating during a Sabbath day of rest
- Finding just the right word to describe something
- Restoring my soul in stillness and solitude
- Basking in direct sunlight (No wonder I have so many freckles!)
- Rejoicing when a seedling breaks through the soil in my garden
