These terms cover your use of hopehealingwords.com. They are written to be read rather than skimmed past, so they are in plain English wherever plain English will do.
Acceptance of these terms
By reading the site, subscribing to the daily email, sending a message through the contact form, or giving toward the running of it, you agree to what is set out here. If you do not agree, please do not use the site.
What Hope Healing Words is
Hope Healing Words is an independent devotional site. A short reading goes up for each day of the year: a verse, a few lines about what it asks of you, and often a prayer. It is written and run by one person.
It is not a church, a denomination, or a registered religious organization, and it is not affiliated with any. Nothing here should be taken as the position of any church or ministry.
Who may use this site
Anyone may read the site. To subscribe to the daily email or to send us a message you must be at least 16 years old, or 13 with the permission of a parent or guardian.
We do not knowingly collect information from children under 13. If you believe a child has given us an email address, write to us and we will remove it.
Using what you read here
Everything on the site is free to read. You are welcome to:
- read it, print it for yourself, and keep it
- share a link anywhere you like
- quote a short passage with credit to Hope Healing Words and a link back
- read a reading aloud in a service, a study group, or at home
Please do not republish whole readings on another site, reproduce the writing in a book, an app, or any product for sale, or present the writing as your own. Ask first and the answer is usually yes.
Scripture quotations belong to the translations they come from and are used under the terms each translation allows.
Copyright and takedown requests
If you believe something on this site infringes your copyright, write to us with enough detail to identify the work, where it appears here, and how to reach you. We will look at it and take down anything that should not be here. We would rather correct a mistake than argue about one.
The daily email
The daily email is free and you choose to receive it. Every message carries an unsubscribe link and leaving takes one click. You can also write to us and we will remove you by hand.
We do not sell, rent, or lend the subscriber list to anyone, for any reason. We send one email a day. If that ever changes you will be told before it changes, not after.
Donations and the supporters wall
Giving is voluntary. Nothing on the site is behind a paywall and nothing ever will be.
Donations are handled by PayPal. Your card details go to PayPal and never reach us, so we cannot see them or store them.
Hope Healing Words is not a registered charity and is not a 501(c)(3) organization. Your gift is not tax deductible and no receipt for tax purposes will be issued. What is given goes toward hosting, the email service, and the time it takes to keep writing.
If you ask for your name on the supporters wall, you are agreeing to it being shown publicly on that page. Tell us if you would rather stay anonymous, or if you change your mind later, and we will take it off.
Refunds are looked at one at a time. If you gave by mistake, write to us within 30 days and we will return it.
Questions and messages you send us
Whatever you write to us stays yours. By sending it you are giving us permission to answer it, and to publish the question or part of it on the site if the answer would help someone else. When we do that we leave out your name and anything that would identify you, unless you have asked us to use your name.
Please do not send anything confidential. A contact form is not a secure channel and it is not the place for anything you would not want a stranger to read.
How you may not use the site
- sending false, abusive, or unlawful messages through any form on the site
- trying to reach parts of the site you are not meant to reach
- scraping, harvesting, or copying the site with automated tools
- using the site in a way that interferes with anyone else using it
Advertising
The site carries advertising from Google AdSense. Those advertisements pay for the hosting, and they are the reason the reading can stay free.
We do not choose the individual advertisements and we do not endorse what they say. Google and its partners may use cookies to show you advertisements based on your earlier visits here and to other sites. You can change what Google shows you in Google’s Ads Settings, and how Google uses this information is set out in Google’s own privacy policy.
What this site is not
The writing here offers encouragement and a place to think. It is not professional theological counsel and it is not pastoral care.
It is also not medical, psychological, or psychiatric advice, and it is no substitute for care from someone qualified to give it. Some of what is written here touches grief, illness, fear, and loss. If you are struggling, please speak to a doctor, a counselor, or someone trained to help. If you are in immediate danger, or thinking about harming yourself, contact your local emergency number or a crisis line now rather than reading further.
The site is offered as it stands. We do not promise that it will always be available, always be free of errors, or always suit your situation.
Availability and changes to the site
We may change, move, or remove anything on the site at any time, and we may take it down for maintenance without notice. We are not obliged to keep any particular reading online.
Limitation of liability
So far as the law allows, Hope Healing Words is not liable for indirect or consequential loss arising from your use of the site, including lost data, lost profit, or lost goodwill. Nothing here limits liability for anything that cannot lawfully be limited.
Links to other sites
The site links out to other places: PayPal, Google, Bible resources, and now and then an article worth reading. We do not control those sites and we are not responsible for what they contain or do. Their terms and their privacy policies are theirs, not ours.
Privacy, cookies, and your data
How we handle your information is set out in the Privacy Policy. What cookies the site uses and what they do is set out in the Cookies Policy. If you live in California, the CCPA Notice sets out your rights. Those three pages are part of these terms.
How this site is written
The readings are written by a person. Where a tool has helped with drafting or editing, the reading of scripture, the thinking, and the final words are still a person’s, and everything published here is read and approved by a human being before it goes up.
Changes to these terms
We may update these terms. When we do, the date at the top of this page changes with them. If a change matters we will say so on the site or in the daily email. Using the site after a change means you accept it.
If part of these terms cannot be enforced
If any part of these terms turns out to be unenforceable, the rest still stands. Not enforcing something once does not give up the right to enforce it later.
Governing law and disputes
If something goes wrong, write to us first. Almost everything can be settled by two people talking, and we would far rather do that.
Where a dispute cannot be settled that way, it is governed by the law of the place where the operator of this site is established, and is subject to the courts of that place. Nothing here takes away any right you have under the consumer law of the country you live in.
How to reach us
Write to [email protected] or use the contact form. We read everything that comes in.