I used to be a conservative Christian woman following all the rules and working hard to create a happy life for my family, but my marriage was painful and confusing, and after two decades marked with numerous failed attempts to get help from my church community, I hit rock bottom.

One night, eight months pregnant with my youngest child, I escaped to a hotel and spent the entire night writhing in a bed full of tears, trying to get up the courage to slit my wrists in the bathtub and end it all. But the baby inside me kept thrusting his foot into my ribs, reminding me that his life was at stake too. 

Then God gave me this verse: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

I hauled my large and exhausted body out of bed the next morning and went to a bookstore with a laptop and a resolve to figure out what I was dealing with in my life and marriage. That began my journey up and out. 

Over the next four years, I learned how to be honest and merciful to myself and stay focused on my healing rather than the demands of others. Instead of pushing away, resisting, and hiding from my fear, shame, anger, and guilt, I turned around and welcomed ALL those parts of me and started listening to them with compassion and curiosity. I stopped worshiping at the altar of a marriage that was destroying me, and I learned to tolerate the disapproval of others through my three-year separation, 19-month divorce process, and subsequent excommunication and loss of my family of origin. 

I finally accept, love, and even enjoy who God made me, and I love helping Christian women experience this same inner transformation. 

You can read about my childhood programming, the results of these harmful beliefs in my adult life, and my healing journey up and out in my 2024 memoir, All the Scary Little Gods, available on Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and Audible formats.