Today, I’m guest posting over at the lovely Sarah Bessey’s blog on why I shared a deeply personal and mortifyingly honest story in the new anthology, .
I hope that ANY reader of mine knows that I understand community and vulnerability to be a key tenet of mutual healing. I wrote this for the broken woman. If all I have to offer is vulnerability and a sense of community, I offer it.
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Last year I contributed an article to the book series, book.
For the project, I wrote a story I’d lived through a mere 12 months earlier sparking me to ask myself who the hell I thought I was writing MY story as if I was in the midst of some triumphant personal victory. Naturally, I kicked the dirt, averted my eyes to the ground and eeked out the following response “well, but, ya know, there’s has been a lot of growth…and well, maybe, hopefully, I mean, you never know, someone might benefit from the telling…I think.”
My article wasn’t written with a bold, brave, empowered smile on my face, but with shaky fingers, a tear stained face, a heavy heart, the slumped shoulders of a woman raked through depression, anxiety, hopelessness. The mustard seed of hope existed only in the hopes someone else may find a yoke-fellow in this broken reed. I was the American Christian women getting frank about taboo things, hoping, praying my bravery matters some.
It is the story of the fatherless girl God sees. The poor in Spirit God loves. My 2,000 words looked directly into the eyes of that God, in the direction of hope, of healing. All was not healed, but I was still alive.
A year earlier, I considered ending my life in a moment I believed all to be lost. All was not well, all would not be well, and all manner of thing would never be well.
I was driving down I-94 West. Returning from Detroit, I’d faced my demons. It was frightening. Maddening. My hands braced the wheel. My heart raced. My eyes fogged and blurred. My body shifted violently through the sobs. Ugly cries, angry screams. I knew either I told my story or someone else told it for me. Call me competitive or OCD or whatever but I could no longer kill myself knowing someone else would tell MY story and prolly JACK IT ALL UP. And that’s how God used narcissism to save my life.
When I wanted to careen off the road into an oncoming semi or plunge into the dark cold lakes off a Michigan bridge, it hit me…
Read the rest of the post here.
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