Class of 2025 College Scholarship from Soul Custody Press
Soul Custody Press wants to hear from children of divorce to help other parents stay married. If you are a high school senior planning to attend college in the fall of 2025, enter your three-page, double-spaced essay for a chance to win a $500 college scholarship. Tell us what you think all married parents should know about the impact of divorce on you. Your entry will be considered for an upcoming anthology of essays, Soul Custody: Voices of Divided Children. Apply here: https://bold.org/scholarships/children-of-divorce-lend-your-voices-scholarship/
Essay deadline: June 24, 2025. Prize announced July 24, 2025.
Readers write! Here’s what readers are saying in advance of the Easter Sunday release of Soul Custody: Sparing Children from Divorce.
Katie and Jules, married 44 years, five children, eight grandchildren: “In this imposing memoir, Pamela courageously and generously opens her heart to those of you who are contemplating divorce where there is no abuse. She invites you to think deeply about your reasons for leaving your married partner. Her counsel is wise and prayerful. She describes the damaging ripple effects that affect not only you and your spouse but your children and many others. Examine those things that are alluring you to leave. Life is not going to be better, and you may have only half the time you have now with your children. Pamela bares her soul in the hope of saving your marriage and has found peace and forgiveness through strong faith. Her prayer is that you will stay married and not have regrets as she did. As a married couple we have had our challenges but we always came back to the belief that ‘Love is a decision.’ We recommend you read this book because the answer may lie within.”
Josh Howeth, Lead Pastor, Pathway Church in Redlands, California: “In a world where divorce has become more encouraged, and even applauded amongst couples going through turbulent times, Pamela has stepped in with a compassionate, yet courageous word for marriages. Her vulnerability is disarming, and her pleas for slowing down and considering the outcome of divorce on not only the couples involved but also their children and context of community are so valuable. No matter what your reason is for picking up this book, you are holding in your hands the life experience of your newfound advocate in your marriage.”
Stephanie Whiting, mother to a 40-year-old son: “If I had read this book even two months after my divorce, I would have done everything I could to get back with my husband.”
What if the escape you’re seeking through divorce is really an escape from yourself? Put your divorce on hold until you read this book.
In this powerful memoir, Soul Custody: Sparing Children from Divorce exposes the hidden phenomenon of “escapist divorces,” cases where married parents pursue separation not from genuine irreconcilable differences, but from unresolved personal demons. Drawn from Pamela’s deep personal experience and spiritual insight, this book challenges the modern impulse to divorce as a solution to marital discord.
Through raw honesty and hard-won wisdom, she reveals how patience, self-reflection, and faith can change seemingly broken marriages into opportunities for deep healing. For anyone standing at the crossroads of divorce—especially parents—this book gives a crucial perspective on what’s really at stake: the impact on children, the weight of sacred commitments, and the possibility of finding peace without walking away.
Soul Custody isn’t just another book about saving marriages. It’s a courageous review of how facing ourselves within our marriages can lead to the liberation we mistakenly seek in divorce. It’s an essential read for anyone considering divorce or counseling those who are heading toward it.
To receive a link in your inbox on April 19, 2025 when it’s available in paperback, ebook and audiobook on Amazon, email soulcustody.pamela@gmail.com.
In 2003, I counted all my journals. Stacked high, they amounted to 432. I spent the next year weeding the collection down to about 200. So satisfied with my method, I turned it into a workshop I now present virtually called “Pandora’s Box: Managing a Private Journal Collection.”
I realize there are many new digital ways to preserve material, but I was interested in the way I did it, because all I did is get a blank book and pretend I was on a year long journey taking notes as if recording in a travel diary. I didn’t worry about chronological order, topics, or categories. By the end, I had one journal I titled “The Journal of Journals” that I could hand to any family member and say, “Here’s an index of my collection.” This spares them from the burden of reading 200 journals but still getting a good idea of anything they might want to read more about. They can even decide to throw out the 200 and keep just the index.
Then, I began to use this index to create new writing projects for myself. I started keeping new journals for people. And I offered this method to anyone willing to trust me with their collection, to produce a hand-written journal for them as an index to all the material they hand me in one shipment, or two.
This method is so much fun, I can teach you how to do this for yourself in a two-hour Zoom session. While I just told you the method above and it sounds simple enough, what I teach you is how to edit, how to discern, and how to discard. Most people cannot part with writing just as they might not with photographs. They get stuck in the reading process, become overwhelmed, and give up. There is an art to not wallowing in the past. And there’s a definite art to not creating a burden for your future readers. -ph
Visit http://www.beforeyoudivorce.org to find a five-session program for a married couple to work through videos and a workbook with a facilitator in order to gain a realistic understanding of the traumatic impact of divorce on the family. A Christian-based approach, this marriage crisis intervention tool uses Scripture and Biblical interpretations to help couples navigate rocky roads in search of grace and the glory of God.
So, you’re thinking you want a divorce? A survey suggests 30 percent of people who divorce regret it. If that’s your potential, don’t do it before you read my next book, Soul Custody: Sparing Children from Divorce. I have poured everything I wished I was told before filing for divorce, into this one memoir in an attempt to save your marriage.
I was married 16 years with three children and am now divorced 16 years with three grown children, and do I have a true story to tell you. Email soulcustody.pamela@gmail.com to receive updates on the book, coming on Easter Sunday morning to Amazon.
I know you don’t really want a divorce. Nobody does. You just don’t know that there’s another way. I found a way years after divorce, when it was too late. But it’s not too late for you. Promise me you won’t file for divorce until you read my book. If you have already filed, don’t sign yet.
Your children’s lives depend upon it.
1976 oil portrait of Alan and Pamela by Juan Badia. Soul Custody: Sparing Children from Divorce is Pamela’s memoir of divorce with a powerful case for staying married.
A lifelong dream saw the light of day yesterday when Mary Ellen Corbett’s memoir, Half Souls, joined the shelves of Amazon Books. Here is the link on Amazon:
Half Souls is free on Kindle Unlimited, $9.99 in ebook, and $19.99 in paperback. Its 568 pages will inspire you to write your own memoir. Please email me if it does: soulcustody.pamela@gmail.com Meanwhile, enjoy her lifelong dream come true to share her words with you.
Soul Custody Press is developing a book titled Soul Custody meant to soothe the souls of anyone experiencing the effects of divorce at any age and stage, especially those considering divorce. We want to select questions from an audience of all ages, one per page, anonymous or with your name, in order to prompt the responses from our writers. We want to get at the heart and soul of the experience in order to help families heal. Be thinking deeply about your issues and needs when you ponder the questions you send in. Please email soulcustody.pamela@gmail.com, also granting permission to print your question if selected. Here’s my question to you: With so many unique divorce situations, how can one book address all in a healing attempt to comfort families?
Soul Custody Press publishes memoirs with a message in a redemptive effort to help other people with our own life experiences. Today marks an important event in the afterlife of my stepmother, Mary Ellen Corbett, who died four years ago today. Her memoir Half Souls became available May 4 on Amazon in e-book, and Mother’s Day marks the occasion for the debut of her paperback. For anyone who wants to write a memoir, this is a must-read. Her detail will inspire your detail. Her issues may be different than yours, but they’ll invoke the need for you to share yours. The way she tells her story will inspire you to discover the way to tell your story. She lived to write, she loved to write, and her words can now inspire yours from beyond the grave. Discover the meaning of Half Souls when you receive her message by reading this epic memoir.
Soul Custody Press 