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...