Warmth Isn't Visible Anyway

Some of you know that outside of my faith as a Christian, my favorite tool for personal growth is my annual focus word. As each year draws to a close, I spend a few weeks reflecting on things I've learned—the ways I've grown, the changes that shape my worldview, the events I witness in the lives of the people around me. And honestly, it sounds a lot deeper than it really is. Mostly, I just try to pay attention.

Intention leads to awareness, awareness feeds observation, observation ignites pattern recognition...and suddenly your one-word theme becomes your catalyst for change.

Each year, I learn more about self worth and self respect, and these lessons form the foundation of my personal boundaries. Each year, I gain new understanding of how healthy boundaries and gentle strength show you who you are. And each year's journey shows how standing up for yourself after a lifetime of people pleasing reveals the people you're surrounded by.

This is not always easy—especially if you're still healing from trauma—and the search for safe people often requires an uncomfortable process of emotional healing that makes you wonder if it's even worth the effort. You trust someone, you open yourself up, you share something vulnerable...and the next thing you know, you're overcoming shame again. You question your progress, your spiritual growth. You see emotional safety as an unattainable fantasy. If it's really bad, you might even let cynicism hit the pause button on your healing journey.

Visible flames make flashy impressions, but fire burns. And maybe this is the beauty of crossing paths with someone just as openly burned as you are. They see you flinch, expecting judgement, and meet you with recognition instead. And then, leading by the example of compassionate faith and simple kindness, they show you why warmth reaches people in ways performance never can.

Perhaps the difference is this: while external flame burns, internal flame warms.

"I know you don't mess with witchcraft and stuff anymore but...I have a spiritual question." He said it so quietly, I almost asked him to say it again before I realized what he'd said. Before I realized what he was after.

I've noticed that non-Christians often trust God more than they're willing to admit, but they never say so because they can't bear the thought of another self-satisfied religious performance. But the first time I met this boy, he casually mentioned his Grandmother's cauldron, laughed at my surprise, then laughed some more when I teasingly threatened to anoint him with oil. And then he asked what it meant—and listened patiently as I tried to explain the protective blessing of faith in a way that would make sense to him.

He's tall and thin, with eyes shadowed by too much life and an attitude built on shame he hasn't fully recognized yet. He's got a smile that would be brilliant if depression didn't linger at the edges, and if you stand too close to him he freezes completely, wide-eyed and tight-lipped enough to make you wonder what he's been through. He's angry at the world, angry at himself. Perhaps because at sixteen, his instinct to guard and protect is bigger than he is.

But he came to me—and as he forced himself to lean back in his chair, crossed ankles hidden beneath the coffee table on my front porch, he asked about spiritual warfare. He told me about scary visions and weird noises and faceless beings that hover in corners, waiting with outspread wings. In a low drawl he thought would hide his fear, he outlined things that sound irrational in daylight, but keep your body tense and your eyes open at night. And at the end, he looked away and said, "I don't know. It's kinda scary."

Maybe he felt safe enough to talk because he's seen my youngest daughter flip me off and get away with it. Maybe he thought he'd get honest advice because when I see him with his vape, something in my face makes him smile, put it down, and leave it alone. Maybe he thought I'd have answers that wouldn't feel tinged with shock and disapproval because in my house, he's witnessed the kind of quiet faith that offers understanding.

So I did what Jesus might do, if Jesus could sit on my porch in the afternoon sun on a Saturday afternoon with a struggling teenaged boy. I frowned a little, and I nodded and quietly said, "Yeah, no shit."

And he didn't ask me for Christian encouragement. He wasn't looking for Bible-speak. In those moments, he was just a boy scared of things he couldn't make sense of, slowly finding hope in a lived faith that doesn't come with judgement. But by the time he left my house, he taught me something, too.

People don't always understand why I talk so much about growth and faith after trauma. About the power of relational ministry that doesn't always mention Jesus by name, and how those convictions lead everything I write. They don't always understand the beauty of an open story that doesn't hide from ugly things. I think sometimes, other Christians are a little afraid of me for that.

Because I don't run from darkness—I square my shoulders and walk right in. Because it's lonely in the dark. And when you've been there, you never forget the cold.

This weekend reminded me of why I'm so determined to keep my faith and my humanity at the same time. Not because I'm uncertain or ashamed. Not because I'm a lukewarm Christian. But because I still believe kindness changes people, and I don’t ever want to be so far removed from humanity that my faith makes my God inaccessible.

And I don't have to burn people to teach them about fire. I just need to show them it's warm.

*****

Christian or not, moments like this are why healing changes the way we move through the world. When you know what it's like to feel cold and alone, warmth starts to look different, and you can't help but notice the people who make room for honesty. The ones who laugh easily, listen carefully, and never bother to ask for perfection. The ones who leave others feeling lighter, rather than smaller.

The people who laugh at inappropriate jokes right there between verses, because they don't treat humanity like it's something separate from faith; they recognize that each piece is part of the other.

That's the kind of person I've been trying to become for years. Not to be louder or more impressive. Not to preach boldly or seem spiritually intimidating or make people behave a certain way. Not to walk around convinced that I have all the answers. But to feel safe enough for vulnerability, so that when someone trusts me enough to speak up, they don't walk away regretting their honesty.

Because growth after trauma teaches you something important: living things lean toward warmth, but only when they're safe from getting burned. And maybe that's what the last few years have been teaching me all along. That kindness is not weakness, gentleness is not compromise, and human connection reflects authentic Christianity better than performative faith ever could.

Maybe that's why my books have sex and violence and cuss words in them. Maybe that's why this Christian writes mainstream fiction. Maybe it's why when I write about Jesus, I usually spell it like "hope." I'm not trying to shock people or demand attention. I'm just mindful of the kind of fire I leave behind...and I hope it's the kind that reminds cold and hurting people that there is still warmth in the world.

I hope it's enough to keep the darkness from feeling so lonely. And I hope it helps my readers...

My Mom Always Said "Imagine That"...So I Did

There's something about motherhood that pushes you to grow beyond your upbringing. Your perspective shifts as your body changes. Your imagination runs wild with hope and hormonal fluctuation. Your joints ache, your feet swell, and the constant awareness of new life brings new meaning to the concepts of resilience and emotional growth. There's a slow-but-somehow-sudden influx of weight, not only in pounds and ounces but in the burden of accepted responsibility to teach and guide and protect.

The labor starts, and everything changes again. The mother suffers excruciating pain—and yet she carries on, driven by anxiety and survival instinct, drowning in the inherited fear of unimaginable risk.

All this, for the sake of hope after hardship.

Often, there's a complicated grief that settles in your spirit as the womb empties and the child within becomes real in a whole new way. The mother's body is still overcoming survival mode as the child is placed in her arms, small and helpless and so often screaming with mindless need. Birth itself is the beginning of generational trauma.

In those moments, when a mother first looks into the eyes of her child, emotional resilience becomes a superpower. In the years to come, she'll blend trauma and imagination into perspective and healing. She'll spend stolen moments healing invisible wounds and growing through pain.

And if she's anything like me, she'll strive to rewrite generational stories by finding humanity in broken parents and meaning in the past. Imagine that.

Mother daughter relationships are weird even when they're great. Good or bad, mothers and daughters float together for a time, on a steadily shifting tide of tradition so deeply steeped in generational patterns they sometimes seem written in stone. Maybe the stories we inherit are lush with color and filled with gentle love, punctuated by annual vacations and family reunions and people that keep in touch because they want to.

Or maybe they're not.

My stories are fossils from the wildlands of trauma recovery. They're faded finger-paintings in forgotten caverns, fragmented drawings of emotionally immature parents who never knew that hope after trauma was possible. They're the old bones of childhood emotional neglect, surrounded by soggy scrolls, where cycles of pain and healing make the thought of becoming soft after survival feel like a fairy tale. I am only a chapter in a timeless compilation of stories, each with a heroine struggling. One woman after another, surviving difficult childhoods, healing while parenting, searching for life after trauma...and not always healing from the past.

My mother's chapter ended in 2019, and while so much of her life showed me the power of becoming different than your parents, her death taught me more about PTSD and healing than I could ever hope to fit in a blog post.

My mom was...quirky. Eccentric. Cynical. The older she got, the more bitter she seemed. The more bitter she was, the more isolated she became. And the more she withdrew from what she saw as an impossibly dangerous world, the more she embraced paranoia. For her, safety was a darkened living room with foil on the windows—and history was the stack of forty-gallon totes hidden in her bedroom closet, filled to the brim with unexpected perspective.

I remember sitting alone in her house after she was gone, surrounded by the scents of fresh laundry and old cigarette smoke. I sat on the floor in the bedroom I'd helped her decorate, my lap slowly vanishing under piles of paperwork. Photos, birthday cards, bills so old the papers were faded with age. Cancelled checks from the 90s, when our favorite way to spend an evening was Pizza Hut and WWE. I wept for her hope when I found a hidden invitation to her first wedding—and for her sorrow as I read the details of the divorce.

I took a break to throw up, halfway through the medical record of gangrene and amputation at the end of her second marriage.  And as I walked, page after page, through the secret parts of her life, I listened to the echo of her spirit in my heart.

"Imagine that." Two simple words, held together with infinite meaning. She said it when she was bitter, when she was angry, when she felt defeated. She laced it with surprise when I told her I'd finished my first novel, filled it with pride when I gave her the first paperback. And injected it with rage and disappointment when I couldn't drive an hour away to bring her a gallon of milk—because my youngest daughter was in surgery.

So often, my mother's history drove her to imagine a world waiting to betray her. A hard and hopeless landscape where all the colors are muted and the light at the end of the tunnel will always be attached to a train. Her survival mindset was built on stubborn determination to win a war she never realized was over, but the legacy she left is more than dusty trinkets and ink on paper. It's a record of imagination as survival, and a daughter still learning to imagine hope as healing through stories.

Imagine that.

*****

Honestly, healing after childhood trauma is never easy, and breaking generational cycles can feel almost impossible. I know, because I've been there—and if you've read this blog for long, you know that most of the time, I still live there. Nobody's perfect, and we're all going through things. But when you face motherhood and healing as a dual process, you can't help but realize that reclaiming your story takes time.

Learning compassion for your parents requires a certain intentionality, especially when you're young and struggling to see them as people. It's easy to resent the things they couldn't give or didn't have, and looking at them in a different light often means making peace with complexity. But it takes another level of purposeful growth to learn empathy for abusive parents and the stories they lived before we came along.

And I'm not saying it's okay, because it isn't. I shouldn't have to break cycles my parents started, and there are parts of my life I'm not sure I'll ever be able to forgive. I'm just saying that maybe sometimes, I understand. And maybe sometimes, the growth that comes from that understanding is the very thing that helps me...

The Freedom In Letting Go

The last several years have taught me a lot about why letting go is hard. In today's mental-health culture, we talk it all the time—people pleasing vs boundaries, releasing expectations in relationships, healing from rejection, moving on without closure. We're drowning in life hacks on how to let go of people, how to stop seeking validation, and how to find peace in solitude. 

And for a long time, I wondered if the relief I felt was just exhaustion in disguise. Like I was too jaded, too tired to bother feeling hurt anymore. And then I got scared because...well, what if the detachment I felt was really just emotional numbness? Or worse—what if I wasn't feeling things I should feel because I'd spent too long feeling things I shouldn't? Were my experiences teaching me self worth and boundaries...or was I letting go emotionally because of ego or bitterness or self-protection? 

Was letting go without cutting people off even possible? And why did learning to step back from relationships that hurt still feel like loss?

Somewhere in the middle of it all, I learned three distinct truths. The first is that no matter how hard we try to balance feeling like an outsider with releasing the need to be understood, there's a sadness that cannot be ignored. The second is that no amount of self-questioning or relational overcompensating will ease the grief of unmet expectations. The third is that choosing yourself without guilt leads to an unexpected peace that feels like freedom. 

The thing is, I didn't find that peace when the people around me changed. I found it when I realized I didn't need them to.

I used to wonder why boundaries feel so lonely. It shouldn't be hard to ask the people who love you to truly know you, and it shouldn't feel unsafe to communicate pain when your people don't show up for you. Honesty shouldn't be offensive, vulnerability shouldn't need defending, and it should be safe to tell the people in your circle when you feel unappreciated, unheard, or unwelcome. 

One thing about boundaries is that they teach you what you think you deserve. The other thing is...they teach you what the people around you think you deserve, too.

The year of No has gone almost exactly the way I expected it to, and some days I hate it, because it isn't always easy to stand in the space between blooming hope and looming disappointment. There are days when the silence is too loud and loneliness looks like proof of failure. Moments that still ache in my chest, interactions that taught me the difference between being tolerated and being accepted. Little pebbles of pain that don't seem heavy until there are too many to ignore. 

And as I collected those pebbles, I did what I've always done. I told myself I was probably overthinking. I wondered if I was expecting too much. I toned down. I showed up. I shut my mouth, turned the other cheek, and I pretended it didn't hurt when fake smiles went unnoticed. 

It wasn't until recently that I realized how often I step away. How hungry I am for the quiet healing moments sneak themselves like blessings into my schedule—soft and subtle, the way the sky brightens as the sun rises and the world welcomes a new day. At first, I chalked it up to introversion. Just the simple need for space to breathe. Emotional independence.

And then I recognized it. Relief. From the sting of rejection. From the struggle to stay present in pain. I thought about how many times I've heard pastors teach about Jesus stepping away to be alone, and the way those teachings are always guided by discipline and devotion, using Jesus as the model for seeking God in the quiet. And those teachings aren't wrong.

But this week, in a moment of quiet withdrawal, I felt something a little more...human. Because when Jesus withdrew, he wasn't always surrounded by strangers. Like me, he was often surrounded by people he loved, who loved him. People he chose, knowing that they couldn't understand him. Knowing that in the end, they wouldn't stand with him. They wouldn't stay.

I couldn't help wondering if sometimes those moments weren't just about prayer for him, but if maybe they were about finding places that molded pain into peace and pulled solitude from loneliness. It was a reminder that this feeling is not unique, and that reminder shifted something in me. Like a sudden tide catching those pebbles and carrying them away.

I let them go. I stopped trying to cross the chasm, close the gap. Stopped reaching for a connection that wasn't there. Stopped hoping that if I explained better, showed up sooner, gave more, things would feel different.

And I found freedom in letting go. Not because I was angry or bitter. Not because I settled into indifference. But simply because if you spend all day wearing pants that don't fit...it feels really good to finally take them off. Even if they're perfectly fine pants.

Because it's okay to admit when perfectly fine pants don't fit, and it's okay to recognize when a delightful addition to your circle isn't meant to stand in your corner. And as it turns out, I never needed to worry about loss after all—because this was never about letting go of people I love. I didn’t need to cut anyone off, I didn't need a confrontation, and I didn’t need big exits or hard lines in the sand.

What I needed was to let go of the expectation. The hope that kept shifting toward disappointment. I needed to realize that letting go was never about losing people. It was about releasing the craving for something that wasn't on the menu.

And what's funny is, I couldn't access the freedom to truly love people until I stopped needing people to love me the same way. I couldn't access the freedom to enjoy showing up until I let go of asking certain spaces to offer what they didn't have. 

I know there will still be moments that feel lonely, but more and more, I'm learning how to hold a quieter kind of joy that doesn't need to be shared to feel real. An inner celebration that's exciting specifically because it needs no recognition to exist.

A letting go that doesn't feel like emptiness. Because it feels like light.

*****

Sometimes the lessons we learn in life are painful, and personal growth through seasons of loneliness often hit us harder than we expect them to—but there's a sense of self-certainty that settles beautifully when we learn that silence can feel like peace rather than punishment.

With my upbringing, that hasn't always been easy for me. I still remember the crushing weight of days spent in silence because my father would speak to everyone but me. I still remember the devastation of eagerly sharing a major accomplishment I'd seen celebrated in others, only to have mine treated like it was half as cool as an unfinished grocery list. And I still remember exactly where the pain broke in my chest when I confessed a big goal...and was met with such utter betrayal that I gave up and never followed it through.

I know what it is to feel like your circle is full but no one's in your corner, because I've been there. And I know what it is to feel like you're on the outside looking in, with your face pressed against the window glass. I've been there, too. In fact, I've stood there with my face to the glass while people urged me to come inside...while refusing to unlock the door.

But maybe the magic of comfort in solitude is clarity. Maybe it's the realization that none of us are immune to loneliness, and the recognition that if we've all felt it, none of us are really alone.

Maybe that's why I never leave my house without a book. At the very least, I know I can always count on a good story to help me...

Ever feel like life is getting harder and harder to keep up with? Same. That's why I've got you covered with a free Monday-morning round-up; it's packed with writing updates, peeks into my life behind the scenes, links to my most recent content (including these posts), and updates on the adventures of my accidental indoor pepper twins. But the best part is, you don't have to go looking for it. It'll just show up, right in your email!

Two Hearts In Ink

I usually love Sundays. It's always a busy day for me because it's the start of a new writing week, but it's also when I find the most time to sit with God. I get up early to watch a local church online, and when it's done I wake my youngest for the day. We get dressed, get ready, and head out to our home church together—and most Sundays, those moments of worship are the only ones I get to let go of emotional exhaustion. In a life spent juggling multiple chronic illnesses, parenting a neurodivergent child, juggling autism and emotional awareness, and struggling to build a career as a writer...those are the small moments that matter most.

In those moments, when my hands are raised and my eyes are closed and I stand surrounded by likeminded believers, I'm not just another random person holding on in hard times. I'm not debating the difference between being seen and overlooked. I'm not searching for emotional connection or worried about being understood. It may be a crowded room, but in those healing moments of surrender to faith, I stop feeling like an overwhelmed mom and I bask in the joy of feeling held. Feeling seen, by the kind of quiet love that's somehow just for me...and also just for everyone else.

I don't talk about my faith here often—not because it's private or unimportant, but because I know a great deal of my readers are not Christians and I want to be both open and respectful. You don't need to be a Christian to find yourself caught in the balance of unseen vs seen, you don't need to be a Christian to hunger for simple moments of connection, and you don't have to sit in church to wonder what it feels like to be truly seen by the people around you.

Because noticing the little things and learning to recognize real love in small moments is universal, no matter what you believe.

I've been a Christian for over twenty years, but some days, walking into church is hard for me. There are days when I'm feeling stung by people who do or say hurtful things. Days when I struggle with the vulnerability of everyday connection, especially in a spiritual setting. Days when the scars of old wounds hurt all over again, and I walk in with my eyes down because no matter deeply I long to know what it feels like to be truly seen, I still wonder sometimes if safe love—especially love in hard seasons—is even real.

Some Sundays, I tiptoe into church carrying more than I have words for. I avoid conversations because I'm afraid someone will ask me how I am...and I'm afraid they'll know me well enough not to settle for, "I'm fine! You?"

The thing is, it's not always dramatic. Sometimes it's just a quiet kind of heaviness, hanging from the ache in my chest where joy and satisfaction should be. Like an emotional shadow that follows me from room to room, task to task. And I smile around it and push myself to function in the spaces between it, because even if I could explain it, talking about it would make it seem bigger than I want it to be.

Today was one of those days.

But I showed up. I sat beside my youngest daughter, silenced my phone, sipped my water. Went through the motions, and told myself to get through it, because the days you least want to are often the days you most need to.

We stood for worship, and as the music sank into the ache, I let stress and sadness and heartache bleed through the tears slipping silent down my face. Eyes closed, I raised my hands to the truest sense of safety I've ever known, and for a little while, I let go of worrying about my business, my children, my finances, my car, my aching left knee with the probably-torn meniscus. And as the music faded, my daughter and I settled into our seats. Just like always.

Except not.

My youngest isn't usually very cuddly. She's the quiet one, the serious one. The one who often has to work harder because autism makes emotion and social cues difficult for her. We've worked hard at it though, and these days, she's playful, witty, and the kind of fun where you crack surprisingly harsh jokes with each other and no one gets hurt. Still, she struggles to pick up subtle vibes. She doesn't often notice shifting moods.

But this morning as we sat together, she shifted a little closer. And then she did it again. And as her head settled on my shoulder, I felt as if she'd heard something I hadn't said. Like she'd quietly read a sign I hadn't posted. She shifted again, sinking more snugly into my side as I set my arm around her shoulders. She sighed as we listened to the pastor, her head resting just beneath my chin. Before long, she was holding my hand, her short little fingers laced with mine.

And after a while, she grabbed a pen and started drawing. Two hearts. One large, one small. Her right hand, my left. Tiny doodles, ink on skin, drafted in the quiet between whispers. A simple act of recognition in a moment most people wouldn't have noticed. Balm to a wound most people wouldn't see.

And she held our hands up, still linked as the service ended. "Look, Mom. Matching tattoos!"

*****

There might always be a part of me that wants to believe the big moments in life are the ones that define us. The milestones, the turning points, the adversities we overcome, the relationships that aren't always easy to hold. The wounds often remembered and spoken of long after they've passed.

But more and more, I'm learning to appreciate the smaller moments—those quiet acts of love that carry more truth than all the rest. The moments where action speaks louder than words ever could, and patterns have visible meaning that stands the test of time.

Unexpected curiosity. Soup cans at your door when you're sick. The friend who texts to say, "You've been distant lately. What's going on?" The shifting weight of a wholly independent teen against your shoulder, a hand reaching for yours in the quiet...and two hearts inked on skin, simply because someone noticed the heaviness you couldn't speak of out loud.

These little things don't need to announce themselves, and they aren't driven by visibility. They don't fix everything, and they can't erase the hard part of life. But maybe they ease the weight just a little, and remind you that even in the middle of exhausted uncertainty, you are not as unseen as you may feel.

And it's not always easy to notice those moments without dismissing them. To recognize when love shows up quietly, just to remind us that it's there. But sometimes, it's enough to notice it and let it be what it is. To find comfort in those small things, and hold that comfort close. Because so often, it is those small things that help us...

There's a special magic in truly choosing to show up for each other, and every reader who shares their time and emotional energy with me is a precious part of how and why I write the way I do. Now, I'd like to make that as simple as possible for you—with free updates you don't have to search for. Sign up here!

Knowing When To Pull The Plug

Emotional growth lies in the quiet courage behind hard decisions, tucked into the moments when things don't work anymore. You find yourself wrestling the hidden costs of inner conflict, caught between holding on and letting go. Bit by bit, those life transitions mold hard-won self trust into personal boundaries that shape our behind the scenes reality. And the people around us witness the aftermath—the changes in financial security, emotional resilience, or the way we spend our time.

What people don't see is the burden of choosing wisely or the weight of long term thinking. The long nights and early mornings. The stress of sacrifice. The unseen decisions that shift the balance between choosing what supports you and letting go of something you love. For most of the last fourteen years, I've partnered with Draft2Digital to share my books with a wider range of readers, and as a proudly independent author, I'm truly grateful for what that partnership made possible.

But sometimes, stewardship means choosing sustainability and knowing when to walk away from systems that no longer work.

I love writing. I love sharing stories that settle into people's hearts and make themselves at home, and I don't see myself ever walking away from that. But for me, writing sustainably means carefully balancing priorities and juggling the value of access against economic affordability—even when choosing what's best means letting go of what's comfortable.

It's funny how our lives cycle from lesson to lesson, from theme to theme. The operational changes at Draft2Digital feel like echoes of other changes in my life. Places that no longer feel comfortable, people I no longer feel close to. Conversations that forge no bond, moments that demand emotional investment but offer little return. Clutter that devours space but serves no purpose.

I'm looking at life a little differently these days. Reading between the lines, tracing the undercurrents between what is said or done—and what isn't. Lately, I've been taking time to hold everything intentionally. And piece by piece, I'm decluttering every aspect of my life.

Do I really need that app on my phone? Am I actually going to use that item? Is it useful, or is it just another thing to dust? Is that person truly standing in my corner, or are they just wandering around my circle? Is it serving a purpose? Does it teach me something, bring me joy, move me forward? Is it improved by my presence...or is it better left alone?

Sometimes these questions end with me standing in the quiet, my eyes closed, my fingers clutching some trinket enriched by long-ago memories, like the Precious Moments figurine my father gave me when I was a teenager. I trace the lines of her little dress, the texture of her sculpted curls, the tiny bump of her barely-there nose...and I think of the girl I used to be. The one who knew she could survive anything because she'd already overcome so much. The one who could never have anticipated what was coming. 

And I keep the figurine.

Other times, I'm flipping through old notebooks and paperwork, and I pause to breathe through the squeezing in my chest. Because there in some quietly forgotten place is a brightly colored greeting card, and I remember when I got it. I remember where it came from and who gave it to me, and I don't need to open it to remember what it says—but I'll open it anyway. I'll read the words and let my eyes dance over scrawled sentiments no longer felt, soaking in sweet memories soured by time. I'll remember the contour of a beloved face, the texture of skin, the warmth of a laugh.

And when cruelty chases joy from the room, I throw the card away.

It's not always that easy, though. Sometimes it means looking at someone I dearly love and recognizing that the relationship only goes one way. Chill nonchalance settles into emotional distance that wasn't there before, and I can't imagine a life that person isn't part of—but when I'm overjoyed and eager to celebrate, I know who not to call. So I walk carefully through the moments of my life, sometimes holding on simply because I am not yet ready to let go.

Perhaps a part of me fears the empty space I won't be able to ignore when that person no longer stands in it. Perhaps somewhere in my heart, shame and relief are still at war. Learning to make hard choices is rarely a good time...so how is it that choosing what supports you brings the kind of peace that falls like rain on parched soil?

Why is it that letting go of treasured things only seems hard in the moment, before the thing is gone and solitude fills the vacancy?

Maybe it's because we don’t realize how much weight we’ve been carrying until we finally set something down. Maybe it's because we spend so long convincing ourselves that holding on is safer. Or maybe what we’re really afraid of isn’t the loss itself, but the silence that follows. The space where something used to be—the place where we decide, all over again, what we’re willing to carry forward.

Little by little, I’m learning that empty space can be celebrated rather than feared, and in that space, I’m starting to see the difference between what I can carry…and what I actually should. Sometimes moments that feel like loss are actually invitations to better, more intentional stewardship. And it's only as we learn to love those empty spaces that we begin to recognize what truly belongs.

*****

None of us like making difficult choices. We shift from when and where to how and why. We agonize over the risk of making decisions that disappoint other people. And when we're comfortable with how things are, it's tempting to wonder why letting go is necessary in the first place. But holding onto a rope that's burning the skin off your hands seems silly when your feet are firmly planted on the ground, doesn't it?

For the past several years, I’ve proudly made my books available through both Amazon and wider distribution platforms like Draft2Digital. I liked the idea of meeting readers where they were, and I believe accessibility is part of what makes independent publishing so powerful—but with recent changes in how those systems operate, I’ve had to take a closer look at what's actually sustainable for me as an author. And after a lot of consideration, I’ve decided to move back into Amazon exclusivity for the foreseeable future.

I know that pulling the plug on my partnership with Draft2Digital means some readers will be meeting my stories and characters in a different way than before. But I also believe that with this shift toward creative stability, my writing—and by extension, my readers—will be met with better stewardship and intentionality going forward.

And I'm not rejecting wide distribution in principle. If you've read my work on other platforms before, please know I am genuinely grateful you found me there. It's just time to gauge the pros and cons, and to recognize what I can realistically maintain while protecting the time, energy, and focus it takes to keep writing.

If you found me on Amazon and followed from there, nothing changes for you, and I'm just as thankful for the time and emotion you invest in my books. It is, after all, the reader who makes a story complete.

At the end of the day, I’ll still be right here, doing what I’ve always done. Writing bold stories about resilience. Crafting characters right in the middle of healing. And through it all, encouraging you to...

It's normal to feel like life is too hectic, but this is a problem with a simple answer: show up, streamline, and simplify. One way I'm doing this? I'm looking more closely at what I take in during the day. No more mindless scrolling. So if you're working on that too, let me invite you to my Substack roundup—it's a once-weekly email that gives you links to all the best of my content, writing updates, sneak peeks at my life behind the scenes, and more!

The Legacy of Survival

A little over a week ago, I published the second book in the Freedom Series. The plan was to finish that book, get it out there, let the world know, and dive right into the next project...but I've been struggling. Because there's something surreal about closing the door on Christine's story and letting it go.

Stories like this one don't come out of nowhere. They aren't just imaginary threads pulled from the fabric of creativity. They're the fruit of truths that sometimes feel impossible to digest, echoes of pain in places we don't always talk about. They're trauma and compassion, forgiveness and understanding, survival and identity. They're pictures of the emotional healing process that transforms a childhood trauma perspective. Illustrations of how a survivor mindset shifts the psychological impact of abuse toward understanding and the reclaiming of personal power.

The Freedom Series begins with devastation—because domestic violence awareness is more than a pretty purple ribbon, and I refuse to look away. Too often, we admire resilience after trauma. We celebrate the silent strength in women healing after domestic violence, and we talk about emotional growth after abuse.

Am I doing those things in the Freedom Series? Of course I am. But the truth is, Christine's post-traumatic growth wouldn't look the same without addressing the reality of hidden abuse, and understanding abusive relationships is deeper than asking why women stay.

That's also why it isn't a story about violence. The violence is there, but the story is about what happens after. It's about the power of survival, and the slow, painful process of reclaiming your voice in the aftermath. Because Christine is more than a character in a book. She's an invitation to a place where trauma-informed empathy is more than a buzzword—a peek at the strength in choosing understanding over judgment.

She's every girl overcoming resentment for things she shouldn't have had to see. She's every woman working overtime in the struggle to break cycles of abuse. She's empathy after anger. She's me, standing in the gap between trauma and self-awareness after learning compassion the hard way. And she's everything my mother deserved a chance to become.

I still remember the look on my mother's face when I told her he was dead. The man who ruined our family. The man who made me loathe everything about her.

He was a violent convicted felon, covered in gang tattoos and racist symbolism so revolting she didn't even know what it all meant. The kind of sadistic monster that makes horror films seem almost funny. She should have known better. Everyone else did. But surely, by the time she married him, with her frightened children looking on in helpless dread, she knew. Shouldn't she have known? Why did she sign that form and speak those vows and surrender everything she'd worked so hard to save?

What mother exposes her children to a world where gang initiations happen in the front yard, where broken things become the landscape of childhood and sex education begins before Kindergarten?

I hated her for the memories that came before. For scratch-off tickets and Yoo-Hoo bottles and bike rides and minnow fishing. For a Barbie dreamhouse that got left out in the rain. For memories that felt like hope was ripped from my hands before I could even write my name. For memories so fragmented they barely even make sense—like the time I was stripped and photographed by police in the guidance counselor's office at school. A third grader, covered in bruises, wearing the wrong days-of-the-week panties. I still have no idea what happened to me, or why.

I hated her when he strangled her on the front porch for making his sandwich wrong. I hated her when I spent my fourth grade year in a children's home. And I hated her when she came to get me, after he ended up in prison again. Because it was her fault. She should have known better. She should have left sooner. She should have protected us.

My mother died a lot. The first time, complications from a heart attack and a blood clot. The second time, complications from infection after her fingers were amputated. Another time, her heart refused to start back up after a bypass. I hated her because her disability made her fragile. Because she was angry at the hardness of her life. Because she was irresponsible and stubborn and paranoid. Because she was selfish. Because she was an addict.

But when I was fifteen, my boyfriend hit me. I was tickling him, trying to wake him up for work, and he said, "You better quit before I slap you." And I thought, "He would never." Then he did. I didn't break up with him until a year later...and I thought about my mom.

I spent almost five years with an addict who couldn't quit. "Well, I just won't let it get serious." When we moved in together, it was, "Yeah, but I'm not getting married." And after we were married, I was definitely "not having kids with him." When I finally left him for the third and final time, he told me he'd kill me. He'd leave voicemails telling me how. And I thought about my mom.

I lived with a narcissist for a decade, and the constant chaos made me wonder if I was losing my mind. It seemed like every day was a new disaster that was always someone else's fault, and in the turmoil, I thought about my mom.

Because I didn't ask for it. I was fooled into it. And I couldn't have known better...because it was all I'd ever known.

Sometimes, my mom would talk about her second husband. And as the internet grew, I learned how to look him up in the prison system. I saw the way her eyes relaxed when I told her he was still locked up, and her relief kept me from telling her when he got out. For years, I tracked his whereabouts, reassured by far-away addresses. And I still remember the look on my mother's face when I told her he was dead. The way she held my phone like a priceless gift, slowly reading the obituary that resurrected hope in her life.

I've gone to therapy in ways that she couldn't, experienced compassion that she never saw, and healed in ways she didn't have access to.

She died for the last time on the morning of her sixty-first birthday. And by then, I didn't hate her anymore. Not because she changed, not because she apologized, not because she healed into stability. She didn't do any of those things. And as a daughter who is now a mother as well, my feelings for her will always be complicated, but seeing your parents as human opens a door to perspective and healing. My mother was a victim—and a survivor. She was an embarrassment—and an inspiration. A weakling—and a warrior. She never had the chance to become what she might have been, and yet she made me so much of what I am.

It is for her that I share the stories of the Undaunted.

*****

For a long time, I thought strength looked like knowing better. Choosing better, doing better. I thought abuse recovery looked like leaving. Drawing a hard line. Something obvious we could point to and say, "There! That's courage. That's what it means to stand up for yourself."

But it doesn’t always look like that, especially with generational trauma. Sometimes, it's surviving something no one else fully understands. Sometimes, it's staying longer than you should, because fear is louder than reason, or hope isn’t quite dead yet. Sometimes, it's carrying the weight of choices you didn’t make in a world that says you did.

It took me a long time to realize that some strength is quiet. So quiet it goes unrecognized for years. Or decades. And I didn’t always see that in my mother, but I see it now. Not perfectly, and not without questions. Not without the ache of what could have been...but with an understanding I didn’t have as I struggled to survive the aftermath of her decisions.

I think that’s part of what it means to stand up, too.

And yes, the moment we find our voice matters—but maybe those moments are possible because somewhere along the way, we soften enough to choose compassion over judgement, and we allow someone else’s story to be more than the worst thing we remember about them.

Maybe that’s how it spreads, too. We open a door to make space for understanding that wasn't there before, and then one voice becomes many, one song becomes an anthem, one story becomes a reason to keep going. One woman stands in a way no one else notices, and still leaves something that matters behind.

I’m still learning what that looks like, even now. Learning to hold both the hurt and the understanding in the same space. And it isn't always easy to look at hard truths or to offer compassion without pretending it fixes everything. But sometimes the greatest legacy isn't what we survive, it's how we use that survival to help someone else...

Life is fragile, but we’re stronger when we share it, and every day is an unopened gift. Sometimes it's heavy, sometimes it's light, but it's always worth unwrapping. So if my words helped you feel seen today, I'd love to keep sharing moments like this with you. Each week I send a quick recap directly to my favorite readers, including links to recent content, updates on my writing projects, and tidbits of my life behind the scenes. Want in? Sign up here!

The Meaning of Spring

I've always seen winter as a timeless symbol of slowing down in life. Nature loses its color as naked trees stand bare against brutal winds, bears vanish to sleep away the cold, and even snow falls quietly—as if the very world is learning to rest again, finding peace after the chaos of summer fun and fall festivity. Winter makes space for quiet moments of reflection. For emotional healing. For good books and hot chocolate.

Spring tends to sneak up on me, though. One day the world is gray and the cold is bitter, and then suddenly sunny mornings fill with birdsong. Temperatures rise only to fall again, and blooming flowers bow under the weight of late frost. And as the trees begin to bud with new leaves, it's like the world is learning to breathe again. Not just healing from the past but rising from the ashes of what was.

It's the season of renewal, brimming over with fresh starts and new beginnings, overflowing with the kind of resurrection symbolism that fills my soul with hope.

Maybe I'm feeling sentimental because it's Easter. Maybe it's a side effect of rediscovering peace after a season of chaos. Or maybe it's just the beauty of personal renewal that only shows up in silence, when the kitchen is clean and early morning sun highlights the contrast of cream swirling into hot coffee. It's funny how something so ordinary can feel like a miracle when life has been moving too fast for too long...when you find yourself caught in a moment of unexpected peace, where nothing is rushed and no one is loud and you remember what it feels like to take a deep breath.

I think homes have seasons too, just like the earth does. Some are crowded and fast-paced, filled with life transitions and growth we didn't feel ready for. Others filter in like gentle breezes, sweet with the kind of emotional healing that shows us how to embrace new seasons of life.

The meaning of spring—especially spring as a metaphor for life—is this: there is life after difficult seasons.

Mornings are hard for me, especially during the week. I stumble out of bed each day, bleary-eyed and cursing the clock. Wishing for a little more sleep. A little more rest. Quiet that breaks just a little more gently. But Saturdays are different. Most Saturdays, there is no alarm, no rushed beginning, no drama, no jostling.

Yesterday I woke up and crept out of bed in the quiet, leaving warm blankets and soft pillows for the cool solidity of the stairs beneath my feet. I poured water in the Keurig, chose a coffee pod, and set my favorite mug on the counter. And for those few moments, as the kitchen filled with the scent of vanilla coffee, I stood beside a clean and empty sink, alone in a pool of sunlight, watching through the window as robins searched for breakfast in the yard.

Twenty-one years ago this weekend, I gave my life to Jesus, and just last week, I released the second book in the Freedom Series. So as I poured cream into my coffee, I thought of Easter and new beginnings.

The first sip is always more than coffee. Steamy, stinging heat is the memory of my mother, whose story inspired so much of the Freedom Series. Vanilla cream, as smooth as her laughter when I was little, because when she sent me to get her a fresh cup, she knew I'd drink half of it on the way back. The bitter undertone that lingers on my tongue, like the trauma that came after those early days, when everything fell apart. But when I close both hands around the mug to cradle its warmth? When I close my eyes and savor that second sip? It's a celebration of emotional recovery. A quiet recognition of contrasting, coexistent truths. She was a terrible mother—and she didn't mean to be.

Yesterday I carried my coffee to the living room and curled up on my couch. The one I built myself. The one that makes me think of my Grandfather's woodshop and the way he loved his mean old cockatiel...and the stench of Camel cigarettes.

It's not always easy, finding peace in quiet seasons like this one. My oldest daughter just moved out again, and she's one of the busiest, most high-energy people I've ever known. I like that I'll have my office back, I like that I won't have to spend as much time driving, and I like that there's so much less laundry to do. But in the absence of her wild laughter and high-speed personality, lately I've had more time to spend with the ghosts of the past.

The atmosphere of my house has changed. Time is slower. The quiet is deeper. Peaceful routines are falling back into place, beginning again after a hard season of busyness.

Yesterday I drank my coffee between crochet stitches, sifting through memories, thinking of Easter and new beginnings and how resurrection isn't always about the screaming fire of phoenix wings. Sometimes it's the silence left behind when the ashes settle, and the magic of the moment when something new begins to breathe, and the way spring writes stories of renewal on the world.

*****

Spring is more than blooming flowers and pollen floating on warmer air, or the way a barren landscape swells and gives birth to new foliage. It unfolds bit by bit and bloom by bloom, a reminder that renewal rarely arrives all at once.

So often, spring comes quietly—not only to the world around us, but to the universe we carry within. It's hidden in the little moments where finding calm after stress feels magical. It's in the memories that make us, even as we learn to hold them gently. And it's in the stories that rise from ashes we thought would bury us.

I've never been secretive about my life or my story, and when I share the trauma of my past, I do it boldly because it shaped who I am, what I write, and why I write it. My story started in a cold, dark place, and the little girl I used to be has seen her share of winter. Since then, my life has held bright summer days filled with joyful activity—and it has held the crunching weight of half-dead leaves in autumn.

Maybe that's why spring has always felt so meaningful. Because stories like mine aren't always easy to tell. And that's okay.

The thing about hard stories is that they soften us if we let them. They plant seeds of compassion and understanding. They water with hope and fertilize with determination. They carry us through the hardest seasons, often guiding us toward healing we didn't even know was possible. They remind us that life returns after winter, that the pages of our stories form the soil we're meant to grow in.

And when spring brings resurrection, those stories help us...

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