About Us
As a Christian, the example I want to follow (albeit sometimes unsuccessfully!) is that of Jesus - he didn't stand off from a person's problems and he didn't judge those who struggled. He got stuck in and got his hands dirty - talking to those who were considered to be outcasts amongst even their own families and protecting the weak. He cried with others and shared their pain but also enjoyed seeing their happiness too. It is because of what he has done for me that My Stopgap became a reality - most people's perception of God, Jesus and Christians is that of a grave and harshly judgemental attitude; pointing fingers and laying blame on others or having no real concept of the real world - just sitting in our comfy churches, spouting verses from the bible at each other and waving tambourines about. For the record, that isn't Christianity and that isn't what God is about either. It's all about forging relationships, showing that you care and being there when you're most needed.
This is why My Stopgap is different - we want to invest ourselves in a person - we want to feel what they are feeling; laugh with them and cry with them; we don't want to give a person in need just one hour of our time, charge them for the privilege and then tell them we can't fit them in again until next week sometime. To us, that is good business, but not good compassion. We don't want people to become completely dependent on us and develop an unhealthy relationship but we want to make it clear that we truly know what you are going through and we will always be ready to listen to you - anytime of the day or night.
My Stopgap was born of an idea to create a truly safe place where people from any and all walks of life can come and talk things through, make new friends and never have to worry about being judged for how they feel about anything. We wanted to provide information that came not only from professional sources such as doctors, nurses and lawyers but also from people who have experienced those situations for themselves and can really understand what you are going through. We wanted to be able to point you in the right direction of other websites that can help you even more and get you to the next stage. We wanted to allow our users the opportunity to discuss anything and everything that matters to them in our forums without risk of being judged or treated harshly by insensitive, opinionated people. We also wanted to offer free counselling via email correspondence without any hidden charges or unexpected fees - when we say something is free, we mean it.
Maybe we're nuts. Maybe we're biting off more than we can chew by getting so involved with the people who need it. Maybe in time we'll be wondering what the hell possessed us to even begin this venture. But so what? See, the point is this - we care and we want to prove that to people. So My stopgap is here and as long as people need us, we'll stick around. Because we are all about meeting you where you are.