I’m currently starring in the most chaotic season of my life—think soap opera meets survival reality show, with a dash of psychological thriller. Somehow, I’ve crammed a decade’s worth of emotional plot twists into just six months. It’s been a year of hitting rock bottom, clawing my way out, brushing off the rubble… only for life to yell “plot twist!” and drop a fresh load of chaos on my head.
This has been:
• A year of heartbreak.
• A year of grief.
• A year of pain.
• A year where childhood trauma threw a surprise party and invited every unresolved issue it could find—plus a few I didn’t even know existed.
It’s been a year of facing the mess—some of it dumped on me, some of it handcrafted by yours truly—and having no choice but to sit in it.
No distractions.
Just me. And my mess.
And maybe a stale granola bar I found under the couch that I briefly considered eating because, well, survival mode.
For a long time, I was basically an emotional Houdini. I could sweep things under the rug like a seasoned pro. Avoidance? I didn’t just dabble—I had a full-blown doctorate in it.
I kept myself busy with a never-ending to-do list, church volunteering, and chauffeuring my teenage boys to approximately 47 sports practices a week. I was a one-woman Uber with snacks and spiritual guilt.
I got used to the chaos. I wore it like a badge of honor. “I can handle it,” I told myself. “The past is the past. What’s done is done. I can do hard things…”
Spoiler alert: I can do hard things. But not all at once. And not while pretending I’m fine when I’m clearly unraveling like a dollar-store sweater.
Here’s the thing about trying to do it all while avoiding your personal demons: at first, it works. You feel productive, even heroic. But eventually those demons bulk up, hit the gym, and start bench-pressing your sanity.
Unresolved trauma is like getting a pebble stuck in your shoe. But instead of taking the shoe off and removing the pebble like a rational adult, you just keep walking with it in there. You ignore the discomfort, tell yourself it’s “not that bad,” until suddenly you’ve got a blister the size of Texas. And then, instead of calmly removing the shoe, you rip it off and hurl it at the nearest innocent bystander—who, let’s be honest, probably just asked if you were okay.
So yeah. I’ve learned that healing isn’t passive. It’s messy, inconvenient, and sometimes involves apologizing to people who got hit with metaphorical footwear.
And through all of this, God has been teaching me—sometimes gently, sometimes with the spiritual equivalent of a megaphone. I’ve always been someone who thrives in community. He’s blessed me with an incredible circle: an amazing husband, awesome kids, friends who are more like sisters, mentors who’ve stepped in as second parents, and yes—even a couple of delightfully crazy uncles who keep things interesting.
So please don’t misunderstand me when I say this next part.
Even with all that love around me… this season has been lonely.
Because healing requires solitude. It requires silence. It requires sitting with the hard stuff instead of running from it. I’ve started going to therapy to deal with the trauma I’ve spent years avoiding. And because I’m human (and occasionally a hot mess), I’ve hurt people. I’ve been hurt. And I’ve had to go back, swallow my pride, and apologize.
It’s humbling. It’s hard. It’s holy.
And somehow, in the middle of all this mess, I’m finding grace. Not the polished, Instagram-filtered kind—but the gritty, soul-saving kind that shows up when you least expect it and reminds you that redemption is real.
Messy Moments, Holy Ground 