About Arla Caraboolad MFT

Arla Caraboolad's new series, Love's Playbook, is the Bible told as a story from a female, family-systems, cosmic-war, good-God perspective. Why? The Bible was written by men, who use few words, were mostly warriors, and who focus on facts with little or no explanation. She believes God's story could engage us and make us want to keep reading!

Beginning with episode 1, God decides to go ahead with our creation even though a cosmic war between good and evil has begun. It moves on through two books on Genesis, then Job, a simplified version of the oldest and most celebrated literary work. Next is Exodus, and to date book 6, Cosmic Crisis, goes through Deuteronomy and is out! The one that says God's laws keep us! If you have wanted to read the Bible but got bogged down, couldn't understand, or it scared you, (like it did her) this series is for you! It's full of research along with imagination to reveal the truth of an all-good God, in a fun and easy-to-read story version. You can always check out the facts, most of them are in the notes. Enjoy falling in love with a new picture of God.

Her first job after college was teaching high school English and math at the women's prison in California (1972). There, the question she heard most, "If there is a loving God, why did He allow what happened to me as a child?" begin 40 years of research about why we suffer, had culminated in her first book, The Worst Evil--Losing Yourself (2011).

Arla's adventure, after marriage, motherhood, and divorce, continued with going back to graduate school and becoming a Family Systems Therapist in 1987. Her goal is to make huge, difficult topics simple, and to help people find their true selves and an authentic relationship with God, who by the way, is all good.

Born in Minnesota, Arla married there in 1978, and had her daughter. This was after being transplanted in Southern California in 1972, from Lincoln, Nebraska, where she grew up and graduated from college.

While in Minnesota she owned a natural foods restaurant from 1976-79. Health had become another passion, leading to her children's book Tommy Tortoise, and recently both an ebook and workbook version of Love Losing. It changes your focus from your looks to your health--reasonably. That's how she lost 30 lbs. and never thought about weight again. She exercised on a mini trampoline for 25 years! And says, anyone can get on a trampoline for 5 min. a day.

She moved back to California with her daughter in 1982 after a divorce. She says that is when she really learned to trust God, living as a single parent on $200 a month. She went back to school at Loma Linda University and earned a Masters degree in Family Life.

She remarried Richard and became a step-mom to two more children. More education. She was licensed as an MFT in California in 1992. And now celebrates nine grandchildren! And keeps up with two blogs that post here and her websites. One is her perceptions on a variety of topics, the other is the life of Jesus in a year--called Know God in a Year, or God-in-Box--Your Inbox from Godhelps.net