recovery
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Lately I’ve been thinking about how strange it is to wake up one day and realize you have spent years trying to get back to a person you used to be, only to discover that God was quietly making you into someone else. I look at my children and sometimes feel the distance between who…
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There are two rather foolish ways of raising a child in a dangerous world. The first is to tell him that there is no danger. The second is to tell him that danger is everywhere. The first produces innocence without wisdom. The second produces fear without peace. Neither is particularly useful. We have become strangely…
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There is a strange thing that happens when you have spent most of your life surviving. You become very good at it. You learn to read the room before anyone speaks. You learn which footsteps mean trouble. You learn to anticipate moods, swallow needs, stay useful, stay busy, stay alert. You become capable. Independent. Productive.…
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The Things Logic Cannot Feed There is a peculiar poverty in a life that has learned how to explain everything. We have become suspicious of mystery. We want to know why the child died, why the marriage failed, why the heart broke, why the stranger appeared at precisely the right moment. We dissect our suffering…
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We have a strange habit of explaining away the things that should stop us in our tracks. I have carried a needle full of Hepatitis C into my body. I’ve looked down the barrel of a gun. My heart quit beating at twenty-seven. We speak about miracles as though they belong to another century. As…
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I spent years trying not to feel. Not just pain. Joy, too. Longing. Grief. Love. Wonder. The whole unruly mess of being human. I learned early that some feelings seemed too dangerous to touch. Trauma teaches you that. Addiction reinforces it. Before I ever put a needle in my arm, I was already looking for…
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If you’re grieving, you’re not failing at anything. You’re just human in the rawest possible state, stripped down to what can’t be argued with or managed or optimized. There are days when the heart doesn’t feel “broken” so much as shattered early and quietly, like something cracked in childhood and you only learn later how…
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Jesus keeps setting tables in the strangest places. I know because I’ve stumbled into a few of them. A child’s bedroom where something sacred was being violated. A house full of secrets. A girl learning too early that the world could be beautiful and monstrous at the same time. I thought I was abandoned there.…
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Introspection — what better way to start a week. Question: Do you easily call out the deception in your abuser(s) or do you deny what you see? One of the easiest ways to stay outside of healing and freedom is to deny what you see. As children, if you came through childhood sexual crimes, you…
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Jeremiah says God already knows the plan. That line lands differently when your childhood was a demolition site…when trust was not a given but a gamble. When the adults meant to be load-bearing walls turned out to be paper props & you grew up sharp-eyed, feral with insight, suspicious of every promise. Hope sounds like…