Growing up in the Bible Belt, in a small town in North Carolina, faith was always a part of our home. God wasn’t just someone we talked about on Sundays, He was the center of everything. But everything shifted the day tragedy struck. I was 11 when my dad was in a terrible car crash just down the road from our house. He clung to life for a few days, but then doctors told my mom she had to make an unthinkable decision—to turn off the machines that were keeping him alive. It felt like our entire world shattered in that moment. Grief overwhelmed my mom. And though she loved me deeply, she didn’t know how to handle the pain. She made mistakes. A lot of them. And those mistakes made my own pain even heavier. I had to grow up fast. Too fast. My teenage years were full of confusion, heartache, and trauma. At 15, I met a boy. By 18, I married him. I think part of me was trying to fill the hole my dad’s death left behind. I thought marriage would bring the love and stability I had lost. But instead, I found myself trapped in another storm. My husband started drinking. At first, it was subtle, but it quickly spiraled. The verbal abuse came next, the kind that chips away at your identity and worth until you barely recognize yourself anymore. It wasn’t physical, but the emotional wounds ran deep. I felt invisible. Alone. Through all of this, my mom had found her way back to God. She was no… Read More
