MSW Student Turns Her Pain Into a Purpose

Brooke Eggen is picking up the pieces from an abusive marriage and using her experience to speak hope and life to women going through similar circumstances

It’s fair to say that life hasn’t exactly gone as Brooke Eggen planned. For years, her world revolved around her family – the four children she homeschooled, a marriage she believed would last a lifetime, and a deep commitment to her faith and church community.

But profound personal hardship changed everything. Her marriage, tainted by abuse, ended after 20 years, and she encountered roadblocks when she approached the church for answers. In the aftermath, she felt compelled to leave a job she loved.

Through it all, however, Eggen discovered that her story, as painful as it was, could become a source of hope and healing for others.

Today, she finds herself in the unlikely place of being a student again, enrolled in George Fox University’s Master of Social Work program – unlikely because she never envisioned the need to return to academia after years of homeschooling her own kids and working a steady job that she never thought she would leave.

“I got into pursuing a master’s degree in social work because I was in a very abusive marriage,” she says. “Once I got out and recognized the patterns of coercive control that were in my marriage, I wanted to help other women not experience the same thing that I did – especially those inside the church, which often struggles to help identify those patterns.”

A Fresh Start

Eggen resigned from her position with a nationally known domestic violence nonprofit in 2024. It wasn’t an easy choice – she loved her work – but she felt she needed to begin anew.

It wasn’t the first time life took an unexpected turn. “In 2018, when I divorced, I lost everything I thought I was going to be – a stay-at-home mom, a wife, married for life, with financial stability,” she says. “My parents had divorced and I never wanted to be divorced, but God had other plans. Beauty from ashes.”

She also had a change in focus: She wanted to help women in the church who were coping with an abusive marriage. “I experienced what so many women experience,” she says. “Sadly, 91% of faithful women say they go to their pastor first [to report abuse], and only about 4% of those women say that they’ll ever go back to their pastors after that initial consultation. The vast majority of the women that I’ve worked with have been either kicked out, excommunicated, or just run off from their church. And I’ve worked with at least a hundred women.”

Determined to be a source of support, she pursued training in domestic violence advocacy and began working in faith-based ministry, helping churches and individuals better recognize and respond to coercive control.

But as she poured herself into the work, Eggen sensed there was more she needed to learn.

“I just really felt the Lord calling me to get my master’s degree,” she says. “At first, I resisted. I thought, ‘That’s too much money. I shouldn’t spend that kind of money on myself.’”

What followed, she says, was a series of events that felt divinely guided. In the middle of July, with the fall semester less than a month away, Eggen decided to apply to George Fox’s Master of Social Work program. The program director told her she could start – if she could gather all her materials within two weeks.

“I was like, ‘I bet I can do that,’” she says with a laugh.

She did. And when the practical obstacles arose – the weekly commute from Puyallup, Washington, to Newberg, Oregon, and finding a place to stay overnight – solutions appeared just as quickly. A casual conversation at her child’s horse lesson led to a connection with a family near Newberg who opened their home to her.

“It was just one thing after another,” Eggen says. “Everything kept falling into place.”

‘I Want to Follow Wherever He’s Leading’

Now in her second year of a three-year program, Eggen balances coursework with her practicum at a DaVita dialysis clinic, where she works directly with patients navigating life-sustaining treatment. The setting is far removed from her domestic violence work, yet deeply connected to her understanding of social work as holistic, relational and rooted in dignity.

“I work with an MSW who serves patients every single day, and she’s fabulous,” Eggen says. “But I also find myself asking, ‘How do we stop people from getting here in the first place? How do we meet needs upstream?’”

Those questions reflect Eggen’s broader vision for social work – one that spans individual care, systems change and education. While she still feels a strong pull toward domestic violence advocacy, she is intentionally holding her future with an open mind.

“I’m very careful not to say, ‘This is exactly where God is taking me,’” she says. “I want to follow wherever he’s leading, even when it’s not clear.”

That posture of trust has been shaped by hard-won growth. As a single mother, Eggen returned to school while still homeschooling two of her children – now 14 and 18.

“The idea of taking on my own education while I was still homeschooling two children made me stop and think, ‘This is a lot to take on,’” she says. “But it’s been so rewarding and encouraging to my kids. They have been my biggest supporters. They were the ones telling me, ‘Mom, spend the money. Go back to school. Take care of yourself.’”

The George Fox Difference

For Eggen, pursuing her degree is as much about modeling perseverance as it is about professional development. “When I tell my kids that education matters, they can see me living it,” she says.

She chose George Fox because it offered a nationally accredited master of social work program in a faith-based setting.

“I wanted a Christian school,” she says, “but not one that was dogmatic or unwelcoming to other viewpoints. Social work requires you to welcome people where they are.”

At George Fox, she found what she had been seeking: professors who share a love for Christ without insisting on uniformity of thought, and classrooms where students from diverse backgrounds engage one another with respect.

“All of my professors love Jesus,” Eggen says, “but they don’t all agree with each other – and they don’t all agree with me. That’s been incredibly formative.”

She describes the program as a place where integrity is not just taught, but practiced. “You walk into an ethics class, and the professor is ethical in how they teach,” she says. “You’re in a human rights course, and when you push and ask questions, their framework holds.”

One distinctive of the program that resonates deeply is its emphasis on spirituality as an integral part of social work practice.

“Every person has a spirituality,” she says. “George Fox makes space for that in a way that’s so helpful, especially when you’re working with people facing end-of-life things.”

That integration of faith and practice aligns seamlessly with Eggen’s own understanding of social work, which she traces back to the life of Jesus. “I see Christ as the first social worker,” she says. “He led from behind. He asked questions. He empowered people to help themselves.”

It’s that posture – listening, believing and asking good questions – that Eggen believes makes social work transformative. She has seen it firsthand in her time of advocacy work, walking alongside women as they leave abusive relationships, sometimes over the course of many years.

“One client told me the most helpful thing was that I believed her,” Eggen relates. “Not that I had great advice – just that I listened.”

Future Dreams

Looking ahead, Eggen dreams of work that operates on multiple levels: direct counseling, group work for survivors, policy advocacy, and training future clinicians. She can see herself as an educator at conferences or in academic settings, where she can share her knowledge and inspire others in their journeys.

What she imagines is a space where women can heal together, where systems are challenged to do better, and where the next generation of social workers is equipped with both skill and compassion.

“It’s a big dream,” she says. “And it’s a little scary. But I trust that God will make the next steps clear.”

For now, Eggen is exactly where she needs to be – learning and growing in a George Fox community that has supported her healing as much as her education.

“I didn’t know how much I needed this,” she says. “George Fox has been a huge blessing to me.”

Through her journey, Eggen has learned that faithfulness does not always mean staying. Sometimes, it means leaving. Sometimes, it means starting over. And sometimes, it means turning pain into purpose – so that others might find their way to freedom, too.