Presence Over Perfection: A Pirate Party Survival Story

Post traumatic stress disorder isn't a secret in my life, and I talk about it often. As a storyteller, I don't shy away from vulnerability—even when I'm drowning in overwhelm and burnout, I show up with the lessons of a lifetime of healing childhood wounds.

I wasn't raised by people who knew how to love well. Most marriages ended in divorce, relationships were built on competition and passive aggression, love and respect were transactional—and if you weren't careful enough to toe an ever-moving line, you landed in a discard pile faster than an Uno card. Guilt and shame were served as often as hot dogs at a barbecue, and emotions that broke the surface of toxic tradition were as unwelcome as flies. I got good at finding joy in the hard moments, and I lived a "laugh or cry" philosophy that helped me joke my way through trauma.

And then I became a mom, learning to navigate parenting with trauma, which added new layers of wanting change for the next generation. I learned to combine cPTSD and motherhood with grace for both my children and myself, balancing tenderness as a mom with pride in who my daughters and I have become. Even when it's hard because I'm juggling emotional exhaustion and gratitude. But lately, life is brimming with challenge—both new challenges and old ones resurfacing—which means lots of practice to keep my perspective locked on gratitude and my heart filled with peace. Because even when love costs something, choosing love anyway is maybe my greatest strength.

Recently I told a friend, with complete honesty, that "my cup runneth over" because my life is so good. I have good friends, good kids. Stimulating conversations. Enriching hobbies. A life filled with purpose. But then I said, with equally complete honesty, that "it's running so far over, I'm drowning in it!" I can't keep up with all the texts or accept all the invites, there are too many things to worry about, and sometimes I feel like I've got a salad plate in my hands but life is serving a Thanksgiving buffet.

Perfect example: this past week, when I gave everything I had to throwing my youngest daughter a fabulously pirate themed birthday party for her sweet sixteen...and just about lost my mind.

She took my phone, her mouth falling open in surprise as she scrolled down the list. "This is the kind of stuff you've been doing? No wonder you're tired!"

I hadn't touched my book in three days. Instead I'd been frantically reorganizing the entire house, repacking heirloom china to protect it from careless teen guests, cleaning every nook and cranny, stashing clutter. Staging my home. Stressing over dust bunnies and the spider population. A recent bout with depression still held me like a weighted blanket made of fatigue, and anxiety covered my face with a pillow stuffed in shame. I was barely breathing, but I smiled anyway and tucked the phone in my pocket. "Yep. Imagine what's NOT on that list." In less than twenty hours her party guests would arrive—and we still needed to dismantle, clean, and reset our pantry, clean our kitchen, bathroom, and floors, attend a doctor's appointment, eat, shower, and sleep.

She turned the phone over and sighed. "Well, maybe we'll pull an all-nighter." And in my head, I laughed. While she had been excited and carefree, anticipating her pirate party, I had been pulling all-dayers AND all-nighters entirely alone. Because sometimes, showing up with love means sacrifice...and I had sacrificed myself so quietly she hadn't even noticed.

That afternoon, time seemed to slow down—or maybe teamwork really does make the dream work. Either way, we settled the doctor and picked up last minute food and decorations from two different stores within an hour, and then we headed home for the hard stuff. 

Our pantry is built of wire shelving. Completely visible, utterly cluttered. And since it's nearly impossible to move, it was backed by a wall of only mostly-vacant spiderwebs. It took almost three hours to empty, disassemble, clean the pieces, murder the spiders, mop the floor, wipe the wall, and put it all back. She kept hugging me at random moments. She offered a massage when a leg cramp threatened to cripple me. She made dinner when the sun fell behind the mountains and our growling bellies got louder than our spider shrieks. Small acts of love, the offerings of a child realizing what motherhood really means, in the unseen moments of service suddenly brought to light.

"You were right," she said, while the vacuum choked on spiderwebs and we ate our dinner with an episode of Golden Girls. "We are the most disgusting people to ever live."

And I laughed because it's mostly a joke...but childhood shame, depression, and anxiety...well, they were laughing too.

The hours passed and one day turned into another. We swept, vacuumed, shifted, and rearranged. Every time she asked if it was time to decorate yet, I said, "Not until the house is done," and watched her smother discouragement with determination. We checked our list, she took her shower while I tackled the dishes, and with ten hours left on the clock, we chose sleep and an early wake-up. The list wasn't finished. The decorations weren't up. There was still too much to do. But in those hours, we collected joy, swept up giggles, and sprayed a cleansing solution of jokes over the stench of hosting anxiety. And she saw a little more of what sacrificial love really looks like.

"I can't believe you're doing all this just so I can have a birthday party." She wrapped her little arms gratefully around my neck, and as her shining curtain of mahogany hair spilled over my arm, I held my fifteen-year-old daughter for one of the last times. Still my baby, but so nearly grown. And the funny thing is, choosing presence over perfection gave us both.

In the end, the party was a spectacular success made all the more wonderful by friends who showed up early to swab the decks, hoist the sails, and raise the Jolly Roger. Tables were covered, gold coins and plastic gems sparkled in organized chaos, and no one got stuffed in Davy Jones' locker. The galley held a chili bar fit for any ship's captain. And for dessert, we walked planks made of caramel rice crispies. Because in the end, what love really looks like is sharing the load and showing up—even if your back hurts and your to-do list mocks you.

Love is laughing at the mess and choosing joy anyway, even if you're grossed out by spider guts.

*****

In the same way I'm open about the impact of PTSD, I want to be open about the challenges of motherhood with disabilities—especially when those challenges mean hard choices in prioritizing my time and energy. And I don’t always get it right. I don’t always finish the list.

But in the mess and madness of motherhood, mixed with ambition and tempered with limitations, I’m learning not to measure love by what I checked off; instead, I'm making a point to recognize it in showing up.

Am I exhausted? Absolutely. Does my back feel like a shipwreck today? You bet. But my daughter felt seen, celebrated, and loved. And her honest recognition of what it took to make it all happen meant I felt those things, too.

Healing from trauma doesn’t mean I never struggle—it just means I choose love anyway. I choose presence. And I remind myself that the mess doesn’t mean I failed. It just means we lived. Because even when there's dishes in my sink and crumbs on my table, there’s laughter in my lungs and love in my home.

And that’s more than enough to help this mom...

A Letter To My Mother on Mother's Day

Last year, I wrote a letter to my father for Father's Day. In it, I acknowledged that he wasn't the best father—but I also recognized some of the ways he helped to make me who I am. A great deal of my trauma story has his name on it for one reason or another, and yet here I am. His daughter, nonetheless, with his body type and his face shape. And yes, sometimes his temper.

This year, I want to give the same recognition to my mom. She wasn't a great parent either; some of the worst, most painful moments of my life were directly orchestrated by her selfishness, influenced and driven by her own trauma. In many ways, she seemed simple: self-centered, entitled, bitter. Addicted. Manipulative. But she was also a mix of so many other things I understand more and more as I live my life...without her.

Dear Mom,

You know, sometimes I still cry. Six years later, it still stings knowing you're not here anymore. And sometimes I understand why those short months between your mother's death and your own were so few. You counted so much on her for safety, security, rescue. We all did.

And for just a moment, sometimes I look back and wonder why I could never count on you for those things. I think about the way you raised me, the people you exposed me to. The man you chose to step-parent your children. The things I saw, the things I was forced to endure. The horrible injustice I've been viscerally ashamed of for over thirty years even though I didn't know better and couldn't have stopped it...and the equally detestable injustice I did share with you, only to be called a liar.

I look at my beautiful daughters, and I wonder how you could be so physically present but I was as abandoned as if you'd walked away and never come back...and so many times, I wished you would. I think how sad it was for fourth-grade me to be so deeply heartbroken about leaving a children's group home. And how I hated you because you came and took me back from the first place I ever felt safe. Because you thought a dog would make it all better. Because of all the ways you stopped being a mom, but I was still stuck with you for a mother.

I think about your body on the kitchen floor, and the marks of your teeth in my hand. A fifteen year old girl staring down in fear and desperation at a mother who would choose to abandon her own child in such a way. And I think, with a twinge of horrified guilt, of the split-second hesitation before I picked up the phone to call 911. What would my life have been like if I had waited? Or if you hadn't come to scream at me one last time before you poured those pills out? What if you had chewed them before swallowing? What if the ambulance hadn't come in time? What if the stomach pump hadn't worked?

What if you'd never done that at all? What if you hadn't wanted so much to give up? What if you had looked at me and thought it would be worth it to do better, to keep trying?

But then I think of society back then, and the rest of our family, the people we came from. The people you should have been able to count on, who told you that you deserved everything that had happened, that you asked for it. That you should have known better. The people who blamed you for being a single mom even while you worked multiple jobs trying to keep us fed. The people who called you crazy rather than coaching you with compassion. The ones who said PTSD is only for war-torn warriors in uniform, never acknowledging the weight of the war you fought every day in the place you called "home," even though it never felt like one.

I can only imagine the fear you must have felt with his hands at your throat and your daughter looking on. The shock and fury that must have filled you as you waited to see if your only son would recover from that BB-gun shot to the eye. The sheer stubborn courage you had to muster up from the pits of nowhere to stand in front of his truck—and take that devasting vehicular blow—to keep your monster of a second husband from killing his own child.

Why would you give so much to protect his child...but you let him do what he did to yours? Mom, you did so many things wrong, and those things can never be excused. From mother to mother, you did a piss-poor job of loving your babies.

But I'm a mom now too, and I know the guilt. The shame. The way every mistake weighs on your heart and every dirty dish feels like proof of failure. I know the fear of confrontation, the broken dream of the perfect family, and the desperate hunger of untreated trauma. And from woman to woman...

I'm so sorry you didn't have someone to hold your hand when you needed it. To tell you that your children would remember yoo-hoos and scratch-off tickets and beanie-weenies just as deeply as we remember violence and pain. I'm sorry you were made to feel like you had to hide inside yourself, and you were never given the grace to truly heal. I'm sorry the shame was so deep and so painful that you had to lie even to yourself to avoid being crushed by it. I'm sorry for the ways you felt too irredeemable to seek and accept help.

And I'm proud of the way you never wore a uniform but you were a warrior anyway. From you, I learned to stand in the face of horrible things and still find reasons to laugh, glimmers of joy, and strength to keep going. I can't even see a cup of coffee without thinking of you, and I treasure every one of the sentimental mementos you managed to hold onto. My baby book, my baptism certificate. Those books of photos you gathered so carefully in the early days...before everything went to shit.

I keep memories of you everywhere. You're in the angel wings on my dining room wall, the vase of flowers in my bedroom. You're in the postcard you kept just because it was pretty...and now I keep it framed because it was yours. And you're in the color of my eyes and the wrinkles on my face and all the reasons I tried so hard to be a different kind of mom. I find you still, in the scent of the river current and the flash of red cardinal wings and the rustle of a Doritos bag.

I wish you were here to see yourself in my writing. To see the ways I want to change the world for women like you, because of you. I wish you could see that the weakness you were so ashamed of birthed a legacy of determination.

Mostly...on this day, I wish there were phones in Heaven.

*****

I didn’t set out to write a novel about my mother, but somewhere between the lines of grief and memory, that’s what I did. My mother did have the opportunity to read the first edition of FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM, but I wish she could have been around to see the second edition—which released on May 8th, which is both her birthday and the anniversary of her passing. I think she would have loved that I chose her day to honor her memory, because as broken as our story was, it was still ours. And in some way, maybe this book is my attempt to give us both a better ending, one shaped by empathy, legacy, and stubborn refusal to be defined by pain.

Because trauma doesn't have to be the last chapter, and beauty can still come from the ashes of moments that nearly destroyed you.

Maybe the greatest way to honor her now is to write stories that are honest and brave. Stories that hold both sorrow and strength in the same trembling breath. And by remembering her, not just as the mother who failed me, but as the woman who taught me in so many ways that it's worth it to...

Letting Go: How To Heal From "Goodbye"

This was a mom-heavy week, the kind where I watched my children and students wrestle with emotional growth, self-awareness, personal boundaries, heartbreak and healing. The editing process on STILL FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM is dragging slowly along...but behind the scenes, my non-fiction world is full of coaching moments on the value of self-respect, knowing your worth, and recognizing the right time to walk away. It's never easy to set boundaries with toxic friends, especially when you're young and all you want is to feel seen and accepted—but setting boundaries and recognizing patterns is the key to protecting your peace, even when it means losing a friend or learning how to heal from rejection. And honestly, I can't even say how deeply I wish someone had taught me those lessons when I was their age.

My daughters and students range from fourteen to twenty-one, and as I've watched them struggle to maintain peace in their various relationships this week, I've found myself sharing and reflecting on my own turning points—the moments when doors closed, truths clicked, and people I once loved showed me who they really were. Because the truth is, the idea that "hurt people hurt people" is a cop-out, and sometimes, what you really need to ask yourself is, "What do I stand for? And who's standing with me?"

I knew about toxic relationships before they became a catch-phrase; pain is easily recognized, whether it's physical or emotional. What I didn't know was how to recognize the emotional exhaustion of intentionally healing from toxic people, or what to do when a friend turns on you. What I didn't know was that when friends hurt you repeatedly, they're no longer friends. What I didn't know was that choosing yourself is okay and moving on with grace is often the only closure after betrayal. Because there's freedom in forgiveness.

My first experience with friendship betrayal was when my best friend and I liked the same boy in middle school. We agreed on a philosophy of "may the best woman win," right up until he chose me—and my friend instantly turned her back on me. Heartbroken, I crossed paths with her at school every day, each time hoping things would be better, that she might find a way to be as happy for me as I would have been for her. Each time shattered by the weight of a silent glare or haughty dismissal. Later, when she dated that same boy, I supported her relationship in every way. Because friendship means celebrating their win, even if you wanted it.

The most painful experience I've ever had with learning to get go of unhealthy people was when I ended my relationship with my father. His chronic anger and ongoing bitterness toward women were easy enough to understand because I knew so much of his story; for him, misogyny was a trauma response rather than a way of life. But when I became a woman myself and had that bitterness poured over me like buckets of toxic slop, I learned the power of walking away from pain I didn't cause, the necessity of learning to say no in relationships, and the power of healing after cutting someone off. Because every party in every relationship deserves the dignity of respect.

One day when my youngest daughter was little, she came home from school sobbing. She told me her "friend" was always mean to her. Calling her names. Making hurtful jokes. Telling other kids not to play with her. She was so hurt, and so confused. I held her close and told her that a mean person at school is NOT a friend, but she tearfully insisted that this other child WAS her friend because her teacher taught that every student was a "friend." I began to teach her more intentionally about healthy relationships and how to recognize when a friendship is emotionally unhealthy...because friendship should feel like a covering shield, rather than a cutting sword.

Those painful memories have become core parts of both who I am as a friend and what I require from the friendships I invest in—and looking back in order to share them with the young people in my life makes me even more grateful for the friends I have now. Those early experiences taught me how to grieve a friendship breakup and how to recognize relationship red flags, paving the way to new people who showed me how to set healthy boundaries, not to control someone else's behavior, but to outline my own value and my planned response to having that value attacked. The contrast between the two helped me accept that whether it’s a friend, a mentor, a parent, or a partner, when someone you trust hurts you rather than helping you, it’s okay to walk away.

Sure, there’s heartbreak in outgrowing people or relationships you love, but there’s freedom and strength in knowing that loyalty doesn’t mean tolerating pain, and the beauty of growth is that it reshapes our definition of friendship. It teaches us that love should feel like safety, not confusion. It reminds us that protecting our peace isn’t selfish, and that sometimes walking away is wisdom—not weakness. I still believe in second chances, grace, humility, and honest repair, but I’ve also learned not to chase closure from people who can't (or won't) see the good in me. And I'm making peace with the fact that not every relationship is meant to last forever.

Because real friendship isn't about proving your worth. It’s about choosing the people who saw it all along.

*****

And speaking of fighting fiercely for what’s worth it, this week marks the re-release of FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM, the first book in the Freedom Series—and from now until May 15th, you can grab your copy for 40% off!

Christine's story is hope for recovery if you’ve ever loved someone who didn’t know how to love you back. It's a promise of growth and encouragement if you've ever had to salvage scraps of self-worth from the rubble of a toxic relationship. It's compassion for survivors of domestic abuse. And I hope it brings healing to anyone wrestling with the pain of starting over.

Because healing begins when we stop shrinking for the wrong people—and finally learn to...

So Be It: A Feminist by Firelight

So often online, I'm scrolling through discourse after discourse on the debate about feminism and the devaluing of women in our society. It's particularly nasty in two places:

One, the undertone behind the passive-aggressive battle between working mothers and stay-home mothers. Because obviously, all working mothers are power-hungry, egotistical narcissists who hate their children and go to work specifically to avoid raising their babies. And just as obviously, all stay home moms are clearly pathologically lazy, pre-civilized moochers who use their offspring to sap pocket change from the world around them. (Satire: trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly.)

And two, the backbiting from men with no clue what it truly means to be a woman forced to make decisions that feel wrong no matter what she chooses. Men who berate and degrade women on both ends of the spectrum, sometimes at the same time.

I have had both men and women accuse me of being lazy because I was a stay home mom, accuse me of being financially ignorant simply because I don't have a lot of money. That's easy for them to do, I guess, because so many of us have gotten too callused and uncaring to guard our words as carefully as we guard our money and our possessions. But I believe it takes a certain level of financial savvy to be able live a good life, raising a teenager alone on less than $1500 a month. Do we have a crappy car? Small apartment? Limited extracurricular options? Sure, all of the above. But there is joy in every flip of the light switch, every sip of a monthly Starbucks treat, and every room of our home. Because "home" is more than the money we pay to live under a particular roof. "Home" is the person who chooses to make it so.

I have had those same men and women accuse me of being full of myself because I put so much effort into building a platform for my writing...hoping to build a career that will give me financial autonomy. They love that. Spouting spite like full-on geysers, lest any woman should stand up, make an effort, and build something she might call her own. How dare a woman manufacture the boldness of spirit to become a mother and still stay a person? Or worse...what if she chooses not to become a mother at all, and instead decides to live her life for other callings to which she feels more connected? Because after all the possession of her uterus is, in many men's (and women's) eyes, her only purpose for being. And that deep place within her body and spirit, that fertile womb is an explorer's most envied land in which to plant a flag. (Because of course, only men can be explorers, right? Women shall henceforth have no sense of adventure at all!) And yet I have literally had a man sneer at me as he said, "You can't put uterus on your tax forms."

We won't dig into the Mommy issues so clearly apparent in such a man, particularly when he was raised by...you guessed it. A stay home mom.

I was once in a relationship with a man who spoiled me tenderly, and supported me selflessly. I would apologize when I was tired and unlively, feel guilty and ashamed when I was overwhelmed or sad or scared. Or angry. And he would remind me of all that I do in the course of a day for the people who count on me to show up. He was the original writer of all my "ta-da lists." There is such beauty and power and grace in validation. In simply hearing and seeing and acknowledging another person's input, especially when it's different from yours...because in doing this, you see their strengths cover your weaknesses. This in-and-out, give-and-take...it's why puzzle pieces fit together the way they do. One piece doesn't try to be bigger, better, bolder than the others. It simply is, in perfect knowledge (such as a puzzle piece can have) that every piece is necessary in its role.

Later, that same man would often tell me my moods were too much, my needs were too many, my expectations too high. In other words, "Your value doesn't quite reach your asking price." In other words, "No. You're not worth the effort." Once when I was literally so overwhelmed and exhausted I was in tears because life felt particularly crushing and soul-shatteringly lonesome, he said, "I mean, I don't get what your problem is. You're just a mom." Just a mom.

Just the one who knows every doctor (all 10-20 of them, not counting my own). Just the one who keeps every schedule. Just the one who plans, shops for, prepares, and cleans up after every meal. Just the one who washes every ounce of laundry. The one who sweeps up every mess. The one who kisses every booboo and answers every question. The one who will skip sleep, or food, or social interaction, or even basic hygiene...the one who feels erased even as she smiles through tears and holds the eraser herself...because the mom is the one who puts everyone else first. And somehow, there's always someone waiting for resent her for that, too.

I have been accused of being a feminist. And you know what? I am one. And I'm proud of it because let's just make this one thing clear: there is a difference between manipulative Herodias (Matthew 14:8) or nagging Delilah (Judges 16:16) and humble Abigail (1 Samuel 25:14-25) or bold Rahab (Joshua 2:8-13).

I never wanted to be a feminist. When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a Princess. Even as an older girl, when I wanted to be a lawyer and argue with people and get paid for it, I still wanted to be a Queen who went home to a King every night after court. And now as a woman, I write novels about women who would have been happy to "just" be women...if only they were met with men who saw and appreciated the value of what that means.

Because I've seen men turn submission into oppression. I've seen men turn violent at the drop of a hat or the mere suggestion that for even a second a woman might dare to be HERself, rather than the costume-self a man chooses for her to wear.

And yet...I've seen men complain about their jobs and their lives because they're required to submit at work to incompetent, unappreciative, dismissive, high-handed leadership.

So yeah, I guess I'm a feminist. Because I didn’t grow up trying to rule the world. I just wanted to be a woman. To be seen as worthy of the crown a King should proudly place on the heads of the women around him. A woman willing to kneel when it's holy, rise when it's time, and speak when it matters. I don't think we need louder women or quieter men.

What we need is to remember the puzzle piece, which is only beautiful when every edge is allowed to fit in its place—and appreciated for what it brings to the bigger picture.

I’m not burning bras or bashing men. But I will tend a flame, and happily teach other women to do the same. Perhaps not the raging flame of an inferno, but the kind that refuses to go out just because the room is cold. The kind that builds warmth for others, but only when it's needs for air and fuel are met. The kind that dares to believe a woman’s worth is not up for debate (regardless of who she is or where she came from or what she chooses to do with her life) and never has been.

If that makes me a feminist, so be it. I will light the flame and rise from the ashes and still as always...

The Day I Met My Favorite Author

Surrender has never been easy for me. With a traumatic past like mine, faith and hope can be hard to come by. Grace wasn't something I saw modeled in my early life, and some parts of my childhood were so dark I'm not sure light will ever shine on them again; I have entire chunks of time I barely remember, interspersed with periods of pain and hopelessness I almost wish I could forget. 

But for me, Easter is a precious time of year. It's a time of intentionally bathing myself in the redemption of my personal testimony of faith. I spend Holy week meditating on how Jesus changed my life when I was terrified and hopeless. I think back to how faith started for me—a little girl in her Sunday best, staring in stunned wonder as a shining trail of tears chased each other down her father's proud face. And in remembering the day I was saved, many years later, I think of the same shining tears pouring down my own cheeks as, for the first time, I found grace that saved me and peace at the foot of the cross. 

I realize this post may not be everybody's cup of tea, but in the interest of staying true to myself, I hope you'll humor me in sharing what Easter means to me. Because it's more than just the belief in something greater than myself; it's a love story, pure and simple. Because on Easter weekend in 2005, as I sat alone in a small church in Oak Ridge, Tennessee...everything changed.

I never wanted to set foot in a church again.

I still remembered the church of my childhood, that once joyful place where I first saw faith in the trembling lips of my weeping father. Those shining pews, where my childhood spirit soaked in the splendor of my Daddy's impossibly rich baritone. The pool I went into when I was baptized, held in the arms of the Pastor who never seemed to mind when I greeted him by hugging his waist—and then buttoning his suit coat. My father's beautiful voice, which I never heard lifted in song again after he lost his place in the choir...for daring to divorce the wife who abused me. That pastor, who went so far as to reject my family from the church because of our turmoil, rather than counseling. Rather than caring. That building, those people, now tainted with the stench of pariah-by-proxy.

Forgiveness? Nah, we don't know her. And I would've dared anyone to challenge me with talk of salvation or purpose. I might sooner have nailed someone to a cross myself than fall at the foot of one on my knees. Relationship with Jesus? New beginnings with Christ? No thanks, I've met his people.

But I had a niece. A child I loved, who looked like me, thanks to the genes my father passed to all his descendants with such confident strength. And she had a part in the Easter play. And she wanted her auntie to come. To every performance.

So I went.

It was Easter weekend, 2005. I was a brand new single mom, mostly alone as I spent my days juggling doctor's appointments for my daughter's heart condition and my nights painfully aware of every creak in the floor, every shift of the wind outside my window. My thoughts circled from the overhanging possibility of open-heart surgery for my one-year-old daughter, and the constant death threats from my estranged, drug-addicted husband.

On Friday night, I sat through a live-action version of the Passion of the Christ, complete with live animals and freeze frames in all the right places. There was magic on the stage—the acting out of a story that was so much deeper than clever performance. When the cross fell into place with a long-haired, perfectly blood-soaked Jesus hanging from it, and the forty-plus people on the stage went utterly motionless in that moment, I sobbed silently in my seat, safely hidden in the dark anonymity of the audience. (Perhaps I should mention that at the time, I had been a practicing Wiccan for over a decade.)

I sobbed through the performance on Saturday afternoon, too. Twice. And then on Sunday morning as the stone rolled away to reveal an empty tomb, that storied symbol of the resurrection of Jesus, my own past of personal pain went from lost to found in Christ. It didn’t erase the pain or the memories. The testimony that came after didn't remove the hardship that came before. But in that moment, I stopped running from healing. I stopped fighting my demons alone. And I let grace find me just as I was: broken-hearted, spiritually bruised, and desperately adrift. That morning, I gave my life to Christ. And nothing about me has ever been the same.

*****

The re-release of FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM is now just over three weeks away—and between preparing for release day and editing STILL FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM, I’ve spent so much time crafting Christine’s story that it’s no wonder I’m feeling extra grateful for God's work in writing my own. There’s so much of myself woven into the Freedom Series, from her fear and her doubts to her longing for safety and her uncertain identity. Christine’s story may be fiction, but the thread of redemption is real. And forty-one year old me is overwhelmed with gratitude for the plot twist the author of my life wrote into those early chapters.

This Easter, especially if you're struggling, please remember that faith isn’t a magic fix. It didn’t erase my trauma, and it probably won't erase yours. It didn’t make me perfect, and it won't make you perfect either. But it gave me hope I was painfully hungry for, and strength I couldn't have ever imagined. It gave me the courage to believe that maybe, just maybe, even I was still worth saving. And you are, too.

Whether you’re celebrating Easter today, or just barely holding on through an especially hard season, let me use these words to hold your hand and remind you that healing is real. That hope is stronger than despair. That even in our deepest grief, there is life, love, and the blessing of another breath.

That even in the darkest seasons of brokenness, there is still time for the author to write light into your story. Because the stone is still rolled away. The tomb is still empty. And we can still choose to...

Stalled Progress, Sourdough, and the Strength to Show Up

This was one of those crazy weeks that had me feeling like I was trapped on an emotional rollercoaster. There was relief; setting new quarterly goals went a long way toward easing emotional tension, aiding me as I worked toward recovering from burnout and releasing the mental exhaustion of last quarter's challenges. There was excited anticipation, as my daughter and I looked forward to attending Secret Church 2025 with a group of friends.

For me, those moments of deep spiritual reflection and fellowship are the little wins that matter most, bolstering my faith in frustrating seasons. In those times of togetherness, I learn so much about finding peace in chaos, balancing rest and progress with my trust in God. Those are the moments I find it easiest to let go of the chronic stress of single mom life and the emotional overwhelm of life with complex PTSD.

There was curiosity and expectation too, as I learned to make a wheat-free sourdough starter! Living with food allergies isn't always easy, and I love that my little experiment is going well so far—even if it is another thing to juggle.

But this week, as is so often the case, there were also moments spent wondering what to do when everything goes wrong. I found chances to practice choosing joy in hard times, like when I was accidentally exposed to wheat before Secret Church, and had to suffer the brain fog and hangover of a triple-dose of Benadryl. And I saw opportunities to choose gratitude in hard moments, like when my car wouldn't start after church today but several people stepped in to help.

The thing is, there will always be beauty in broken moments...if we look for it.

Church isn't always beautiful, but today it was.

Sometimes it's easy to forget that Christians are still just people; we love God, but we're just as burdened by chronic stress and anxiety as anyone else. Faith doesn't erase the need for emotional resilience—but church opens doors to support and community. I love that my church offers a place for someone as broken and messed up as I am to lay powerful hands on the shoulders of fellow believers, an opportunity to use God's gift of eloquence to speak life into hurting hearts. These moments of intentional encouragement are where prayer meets healing in everyday life, where a teacher is blessed and one mother holds space for another's pain.

Our home church is in many ways a very social place, and by the time my daughter and I approached our car the parking lot was clearing out. We settled into our seats, chatting about our afternoon plans: what to have for dinner later, my current battle with spider mites in one of my plants, the recent phenomenon of our fledgling sourdough starter.

Regardless of the spiritual energy of a beautiful morning at church, I will always detest the quietly defiant click of a car engine refusing to turn over.

My car (a rebellious little jerk named Todd) has been mostly well-behaved in the last few months, and he chose today to remind me that he is unwilling to be taken for granted. So I set my powerfully blessed church hands on the steering wheel, closed my eyes, and whispered to Todd, "Start, you bastard." Then I turned the key again. And heard that click again. Chagrined, I gentled my grip on the wheel, closed my eyes a second time, and demanded to speak with Todd's manager. "Jesus," I said, "it's hot out here. I just need to get home. I haven't even paid off the last time this stinking car was in the shop!" And I turned the key. Click.

My daughter and I shook our heads and climbed out of the car. I thought about the mechanic's balance on my credit card. Remembered the orange gas light blinking on during our ten-minutes-late ride to church, and my plan to stop and fill up on the way home. I thought gratefully about how, just in case, we live only 3 short miles from our church. And I thought, somewhat less gratefully, about the idea of walking home with an autistic teenager, a spastic, unbalanced gait, and sweaty, soggy hair that I didn't have a ponytail for.

This week's peace crashed into new stress: the Benadryl hangover from Friday, the spiritual/emotional fatigue of Secret Church, the joy of rest (as I slept off the Benadryl Saturday), the weight of waking up to reality and a list of answered-prayers-in-waiting. And Todd. My stupid, stinking, unreliable car.

It was a moment of defeat, but in the balance between car trouble and gratitude, God showed up as reliably as always. Within a few minutes, Todd's hood was up, the key was in the ignition, and a cheerful, curly-haired angel stood beside Todd's dangling, duct-taped bumper. "Alright, try it now," he said, and on the second effort, Todd rumbled to life.

Alternately, I cursed the car and blessed the community of my church as my daughter and I rolled toward home. We got gas and picked up a bigger jar for our growing sourdough starter, with my daughter waiting in the car because we were afraid to turn it off. When we got home I shut the engine down in the driveway, then closed my eyes and started it up again, reveling in the rumble as the engine came to life.

I can't and won't ignore the miseries in my life; hiding from them won't make them go away, and in many ways I must shoulder the challenges of maintaining the life my daughter and I lead on my own. But there is also incredible beauty in this life of mine—and today, as we stepped into our house and exclaimed over the growth of our yeasty little jar of sourdough, I was proud to have the presence of mind to look for it.

*****

The good news is, the editing process for STILL FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM is still moving forward slowly but surely. This is the largest novel I've ever worked with—part of the struggle in shaving it down is that there's so much packed into this book, and all of it matters. I don't think I've ever been so intimidated by (or so incredibly proud of) my own work. The re-release of FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM is only 24 days away; I am constantly delighted by the slow trickle of preorders from people interested in Christine's story and what it represents.

In the meantime, this week reminded me that peace isn’t the absence of stress, it’s the presence of beauty in the midst. And while I definitely could’ve done without the car trouble (and the Benadryl hangover), I’m still standing. Still writing, still laughing. Still choosing joy.

That’s the whole point sometimes, isn’t it? Not that everything is beautiful, but that beauty can still exist right in the middle of chaos. Sometimes it's in the willing aid of a friend…other times it's a happy little jar of gluten-free sourdough bubbling on the counter.

But always, we have the power to choose gratitude for those little wins. For good community, good stories, good food, and God's good timing. Because it's in that gratitude that we harness the magic of learning to...

Q2 2025: Failing Forward and Resetting With Intention

It's the first week of April, which means for me, it's time to sit down and evaluate my personal growth as well as my goal-setting and productivity. Balancing writing and real life isn't always easy, and managing goals with chronic illness often means giving myself grace and self-compassion—especially when I'm struggling to meet writer goals in the face of creative burnout.

I haven't always had self-reflection without shame, but I have always had a growth mindset, and that's a major part of why I love setting quarterly goals. It's about progress over perfection, goal setting with intention, learning how to set realistic goals, and developing the emotional resilience to practice self-compassion in hard seasons. It's about redefining success, and choosing grace over guilt. Missed goals may be a fact of life, but they don't have to feel like the end of the world.

Which is good, because in this goal review from the first quarter of 2025, I'm giving several missed goals grace for the sake of both mental wellness AND productivity. Here's the scoreboard on my goals for the first quarter of 2025:

Honestly, three out of five goals felt like failure, and I debated not sharing this post at all. I think I could have let it slide by and most people wouldn't even have noticed...but I pride myself on having the courage and the openness to share my author life behind the scenes. I know I'm not the only one still learning to balance accountability with kindness—and I like to think that in sharing my end of quarter reflection, I can offer you some encouragement in how to bounce back after failure and reset your goals while giving yourself grace. Because in the end, growth and reflection are the real accomplishments anyway, even if they take longer than we expect.

In my house, 2025 began with a wave of illness that felt a little like germ warfare before it was over. We spent most of January battling the flu, which worked wonders for my housekeeping and decluttering goal but really put a damper on my editing goals for STILL FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM. In February, my daughter and I went hard after resetting and catching up on overdue medical appointments—but six appointments, three birthdays, and the mental pressure of falling behind on my writing goals wore me down, which meant I stayed behind. March rolled in with spring break and psychotic weather; between chronic illness flare-ups, caregiving and ministry responsibilities, and the March 2025 storm system that stretched all the way from the Gulf Coast to the Canadian border, my typical daily schedule got completely wrecked.

Let me tell you, that spring weather chaos felt like a metaphor for my mental state too, because I was struggling. By the end of March, I was writing through discouragement because I knew there wasn't enough time to complete my goals, but I was also actively working to give myself grace for missed goals because I may be a lot of things but I am certainly not a quitter. I leaned on my faith, kept up with my Bible reading plan, and promised myself a productive reset was on the way.

And yes, I did celebrate the wins, not only in the goals I did meet, but in the way those first three months felt despite falling behind. I spent time with friends. I laughed until my belly ached. I watered my plants, I grew my platforms, and I loved my people. But now, it's time to put that first quarter behind me and set my focus on my goals for the second quarter of 2025:

You might have noticed that some of those goals are directly recycled from the first quarter, while others are adapted to complete goals I didn't quite meet—and that's okay. The first takeaway from how to learn from failure is to accept that failure is a given. We can't all win all the time. It's just reality. But even when you take the L, you suck it up and you keep trying. You don't quit on yourself or the person you're hoping to become. You don't give up, even if reaching your goals feels like it'll take forever. 

Remember that success is progress, not perfection; you can acknowledge discouragement without surrendering to it. And it's totally okay to own missed goals while choosing to move forward with grit and grace.

So with that being said, I'm signing off to work on those Q2 goals! If you're setting goals for work, personal growth, or even just better self-reflection, I'd love to see them in the comments below. And I hope as you set and work toward achieving whatever your goals might be, you'll...