TO REJECTION

I don’t know how we became best friends. I just know we were. There wasn’t one defining moment I can look back on, but we were joined at the hip from the start.

Always there, never abandoned.

That’s why I loved you.

You were consistent. Always reminding me of how unloved and unwanted I was. Except for you. You were always ready to turn my head to the one that didn’t notice, the one that walked by me, the one that ignored me. A room full of people who wanted me there, and you found the one who didn’t.

My ride or die.

You made sure no other emotion landed as hard. Not the compliments. Not the accolades. Not the trophies. They bounced off. The cuts got in. You held the shield and I thanked you for it.

We grew up together. I knew I could always count on you.

Maybe it was the boy in third grade who called me a dog. The one I had a crush on.

Maybe it was being teased for being fat and not pretty enough.

Maybe it was the girls ganging up on me while we roller-skated down the neighborhood street.

Maybe it was my parents. Sitting in the car crying before the strangers took me away, and the last thing I heard: “Just remember, we always love you.”

I stopped looking for where you were born. What I know is what that sentence taught me at seventeen years old. Love is what people say to you on your way out.

The car drove off. No explanation, no understanding.

Terrified.

How does someone who says they love me let this happen?

But you were there to comfort me.

You taught me how to soothe the pain as I put chemicals in my body.

We got so close I forgot you were even there. Second nature.

I grew up. I built a life. Outwardly I looked like someone who had it all together. You loosened your grip. You got complacent.

You took my friendship for granted.

And so I lived on, and I lived my life.

Then came the year they all left. It began fall 2025.

Two of my closest friends and spiritual pillars moved out of state within a couple months of each other.

My friend got sick. In January she was gone. She didn’t leave me. Cancer took her. But you made even her death about me.

A twenty-year friendship faded me out with no explanation. The more I chased her, the tighter your grip. By February I had to walk away for my own dignity. And even though I did what I knew was best for me, I bawled in a quiet room while you comforted me whispering.

See, even people that have known you the longest don’t want you around. There’s something wrong with you.

But you didn’t stop there.

Then March. The career. Rejected, tossed out, thrown away. As if that wasn’t enough for you to remind me of your dwelling place within me.

But here’s what you didn’t count on.

It backfired.

When I lost the job, you had nowhere to hide. No distraction, no work, no busy calendar of friendships to hide behind. It was me and God now.

Romans 12:2. My verse for 2026. The renewing of the mind. I had no idea it required action. The two lines that sound so great in theory brought me to a battle within my mind I didn’t know was there.

I went to war.

How else do I know you’re there without the experiences to reveal themselves to me?

The closed doors. The silent phone. The people walking away. He couldn’t show me what you were without stripping away everywhere you hid.

I cried. I wrestled. I poured out. I lamented. I prayed. I read His Word and I sat still.

And He slowly started to reveal your true colors. I didn’t see it all at first.

No distractions this time. Just you and me face to face.

You told me you were protecting me. You never protected me. You made sure nothing could reach me and called it safety.

The shield was the stronghold.

How dare you.

I pruned you for thirty years because I believed your lies. I couldn’t let you go because your companionship was my only constant. You were familiar and reliable. But you underestimated how deeply connected I was getting to the Father. The One who made me.

And He pulls from the roots. Matthew 15:13.

Strongholds get demolished. And not with fleshly weapons. 2 Corinthians 10:4.

I stopped chasing you.

I stopped cleaning myself up before I came to God. Stopped over-explaining myself to people who had already decided. I started to turn my head the other way. And then slowly my back.

I picked up the sword of the Spirit I never knew I had. Ephesians 6:17. You made sure of that. Thirty years of your voice in my ear and I never once heard about the weapon sitting in my hands.

God was greater. God is greater.

I’m standing firm while He extracts.

Some days your voice is loud. Some days it’s the first one I have before my feet hit the floor. But now you’re an acquaintance knocking at the door I no longer invite inside.

You’ve been exposed.

His presence is stronger than your grip.

It isn’t a fight I win. He gets to the door first.

On the worst days I’m David in the cave. Psalm 142. I pour out my complaint before Him. No man cared for my soul. The lie and the answer in the same breath.

I’m asking the Holy Spirit to bind up what’s been broken most of my life. Psalm 147:3.

I’m facing the betrayal of your friendship at forty-five years old.

You were crafty. You had me fooled. But now I know the deceiver you really are.

There’s a peace now that doesn’t need the approval. It grew in the soil you left behind.

I’m focused on the ones in front of me. The ones who know me and want to be around me. I’m no longer looking back at the ones who ignore me.

I welcome the quiet. The silent phone was your weapon.

Now the silence is where He restores me. It’s in the quiet moments that I draw near to the Creator, and He reminds me He made me just the way I am.

Deep exhale.

I’m firmly planted where God wants me. Planted by Him this time. Psalm 1:3.

We grew up together. You're not who I thought you were.

We’re no longer embracing. You’re no longer hiding yourself.

I see you.

And I’m turning my back.

I’m being restored.

No one is too lost to be saved.

He finds us in the mess.

If you'd like to support my writing, coffee makes me happy. It helps keep Holy Grit free for the next person who thinks they're too far gone.

Late November 2001.

It was a day like any other. I woke up late, a little hungover, grateful I had the swing shift. I didn’t want to deal with people, but I put myself together anyway. I was working at the local Bed Bath & Beyond.

As I was getting ready to head out the door, my dad caught me and said my brother was having really bad stomach pain earlier in the day. Mom had taken him to the ER to get checked out.

My dad seemed unbothered, and I was too out of it to think otherwise. So I nodded. Told him okay, I’d see him later.

It didn’t seem that serious.

I was well into my shift. The rhythm of the afternoon. Helping customers figure out their sheet counts, looking up out-of-stock items. Then a page over the intercom. I had a phone call.

I walked to the linen station and picked up. It was my dad. His voice was panicked. Cracking.

“Dan, it’s worse than we thought. We don’t know if he’s going to make it.”

I felt the floor bottom out from underneath me.

It felt like an eternity wrapped into a second.

“Wait, what? Dad, what are you say— what’s happening?” My voice got louder as the panic crept in.

“Dan, I don’t know. He’s going into surgery. You better come quick.”

“Okay, Dad. I’m coming now.”

I hung up.

This was never an option. He struggled. He always struggled. But not make it?

I was shaking. I couldn’t think.

Breathe.

Tell my boss. Let them know I’m leaving.

I ran to the checkout where my manager was helping a customer and told him I had to go. The panic must have been all over my face. He didn’t question it. A nod. Go.

I ran up the stairs to my locker, still shaking, trying to think through what I even needed. A coworker saw me. Asked what was wrong. I barely got it out. She said she was driving me. I was in no position to argue.

I don’t even remember her name now.

I don’t remember walking into the hospital. I don’t remember meeting my parents. I somehow remember I was there in his room.

It was worse than I thought. I cried out when I saw him. The breathing machine. All the tubes. The beeps. Like something on TV, except it was him.

This can’t be happening.

I went to his bedside. I called out to him, asked if he could hear me.

To my surprise, before I could even register it, he was already patting my arm. Letting me know he was okay.

He was calming me down. Of all things.

I found out it was a misdiagnosis. They neglected to do the CT scan that would have caught it. A teenage boy in level 10 pain, and no one took him seriously.

How can professionals let this happen?

They thought it was his appendix. They kept him overnight for observation. By morning he was going into shock.

He asked my mom if he was going to die. He knew, but no one listened.

It was his small intestine. It had twisted. All night, the organ wasn’t getting blood. By the time anyone understood, they couldn’t save it.

And here’s the thing. We finally had the answer the doctors could never find.

I have early memories of him in hospitals. The fits where he couldn’t keep anything down. The IVs. My mom fighting for answers she never got. When he got older there was a medication that seemed to fix it, and we thought we were in the clear.

It had been twisting his whole life. No one diagnosed it until it was too late.

My mom, a nurse, started researching. She found that the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center was doing cutting-edge small intestine transplants. They were on the next flight out. They set up in residential housing the medical center provided and got on the transplant list.

He was AB negative. The rarest blood type.

I prayed to something, hoping my prayer would be heard.

We waited.

February 2002.

He got the call after a few months. We couldn’t believe it. With the rarest blood type. It was too good to be true.

The transplant surgery was successful. Our prayers had been answered. A few more months of recovery, and it was going to be okay now.

It was going to be okay, right?

No. The answer came quicker than we thought. It wasn’t okay. It rejected. They had to remove it.

Back on the list he went.

What are the odds of getting another one that quickly, with that blood type?

As the days turned into years, our faith and hope grew weary. My dad and I took turns flying out to see him and Mom.

My trips became something else too. Attempts to clean up, to separate myself from the using. No one knew how bad it was getting.

The shame was setting in. The trips away were welcomed. A fresh start to try and do better. To be better.

My brother’s body was starting to look like Frankenstein. Feeding tubes. PICC lines. Probes. Cuts. Overdoses on medication. Sepsis. Kidney failure. Everything that could go wrong, did.

I had no idea a body could endure so much. And a spirit that didn’t break.

Yet.

My brother was growing tired. He just wanted to come home. So he did.

We got him set up at UCLA.

It was good to know he was home. But I was in full-blown addiction now, and there were days I was just gone.

He was finally home, and I wasn’t there for it.

A brother fighting for his life. And a sister who didn’t care if she lost hers.

While I was off and running, my brother and my dad got confirmed at a local Catholic church.

I didn’t pay attention. I didn’t know what it meant.

In June 2003, I got clean.

My brother was there to see it. We spent time together.

I never picked up drugs or alcohol again. Even in the darkest hours after he passed, I stayed clean for him.

As the gap grew since his first transplant, our hope was fading. It was becoming clear his other organs were affected now. He was jaundiced. He was weak. He was tired.

The first days of February 2005, he went in for a routine visit at UCLA and never came out.

His liver was failing. He needed a whole new digestive system now. He was slipping away.

But his heart was strong. He was on life support.

We had to make a decision. The hardest one we ever made.

When it was my turn to say goodbye, we were alone.

I told him he wouldn’t have to worry about me anymore. I hugged him and I wept.

I didn’t want to say goodbye. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

I told him I knew he’d be my guardian angel.

And then I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

A single tear streaming down his right cheek. The side I was standing on.

He heard me…

He knew, and I knew.

As much as I didn’t want it to happen, it was time. He had suffered enough.

That was it.

My unlikely friend was at the hospital with me. My rock. I sobbed as we walked down the longest hallway. He was right beside me. He took me to a late-night meeting.

I was safe.

The next morning I woke up and got hit with it. My eyes burst open to reality. My stomach dropped as I replayed the last three years.

It was over.

Now what?

I hoped it was a nightmare. That it wasn’t real. I wanted to go back to sleep, pull the covers over my head.

I didn’t want to face it…

Three years of acute stress. So many almosts. But he’d made it out every time.

I went into shock. The denial set in. I was protecting myself from something too brutal for my body to feel. I hadn’t cried since my goodbye.

He wasn’t dead. He was still in Pittsburgh. He was coming home...

The days and months that followed became everyone asking how my parents were doing. Most didn’t realize that bypassed the fact that I’d lost my brother.

My best friend.

Am I an only child now?

What do I say if people ask whether I have siblings?

When we go out to eat, we’re a party of three now.

What about the birthday cards to Mom and Dad that say “from us”?

How do you navigate a world that no longer includes your brother? I didn’t understand it. I was angry at God. There were almost no resources on sibling grief.

But I pushed through. Somehow I made it through a string of days.

I stayed clean for my brother. I kept staying clean, like I promised him.

I never knew depression like I did when he died.

Around a year after his passing, I made a decision. I didn’t want to cry anymore. I started stuffing my feelings. And my face.

That’s when the panic set in.

Slowly, I began to live life again. I honored his memory. I kept him close. And I learned to live without him.

One day I no longer felt guilty to smile. To laugh. I was finding acceptance in a death that wasn’t fair.

Holidays and birthdays are never the same. But I learned to make new memories, always with a nod to the one who wasn’t there.

My son only knows pictures of an uncle he’ll never meet in this life.

Life was good. But all these years later, the one question I could never come to terms with was still there.

Why?

And even though I knew I’d never get an answer, I finally surrendered it. I was okay to not know anymore.

Some things are just meant for God.

December 2025.

I’m near the end of a Bible study on the book of Isaiah, written by Melissa Spoelstra. I’d never read Isaiah before. It was rich with God’s character. His prophecy. Trusting His timing in all things.

The study runs five days a week, seven weeks in all. I’d fallen behind, a few days of homework left undone. So the night before the final week, I sat down to catch up on what I’d missed.

Session six. Day four.

The prompt points me to Isaiah 57:1-2.

Good people pass away; the godly often die before their time. But no one seems to care or wonder why. No one seems to understand that God is protecting them from the evil to come. For those who follow godly paths will rest in peace when they die.

I blink.

Did I just read what I thought I did?

I read it again to be sure.

Before I even realize it, I’m on the floor. Weeping.

Thank you. Thank you, Lord.

I never knew it was there…

He waited twenty years to show it to me. The last week of the study. On the homework I almost let slide. He saved it for last.

The question I’d finally surrendered. The moment I let it go, He gave me the answer.

I praised and wept and my body shook.

I couldn’t believe it. All roads pointing back to Scripture, even here. Even now.

A blessing He gave me after I finally let go.

A piece of my heart died with my brother. But out of all of it, I saw God’s goodness. The God I had cursed was finally telling me the truth. It was mercy. It was never punishment.

And as I wept, I saw him. The brother who quietly got confirmed on his way out. The one who found Jesus long before I did.

He isn’t suffering anymore. A body that rejected him from birth, sick from the start, whole now.

I know where he is. And I know someday I’ll be there too.

His name was Joe.

Joe was born June 27, 1984. I’m publishing this on his birthday.

- No one is too lost to be saved.

If you’d like to support my writing coffee makes me really happy, and it helps keep Holy Grit free for the next person who thinks they’re too far gone.

— Step Twelve, Narcotics Anonymous

Step 12. The one we wait for. The one where the great profound revelation is supposed to arrive.

Did I experience that? No.

I know that now. On this side of it.

Back then I didn’t know what I was missing. You don’t know what you don’t know. I just knew I wasn’t in it.

But something in me did wake up. I wasn’t putting poison in my body anymore. I was rebuilding my life. I made new friends. I found a higher power, one step better than believing in nothing. I was sponsoring women. I was going to meetings. I was writing, working steps, learning who I was. I was inspired.

And I couldn’t ignore the feeling that something was still missing.

Empty.

I put the drugs down years ago. I wrote multiple inventories (step 4). I cried. I confessed to my sponsor. I let the resentments go.

Or so I thought.

I made amends, made relationships right. I was giving back to the program that had saved my life.

So why was I still always looking for something to make me feel better? To fix my insides? I was still picking up the fork. Picking up the credit card. Picking up the remote. Letting friends fill the nights.

I never picked up the drugs again. I picked up everything else.

The panic attacks had tapered off. The dread hadn’t.

It was an undercurrent deep below the surface. Anytime life was good, my inner critic was waiting for the perfect moment to remind me something bad was coming.

The strongholds that had formed from childhood.

Waiting...

Something bad is going to happen, I just know it. Don’t get too excited or too happy, then you won’t be let down as much.

After my first meeting, I made a decision. If they could stay clean, I could stay clean.

I was renewed. I had hope. I was hanging onto their garments and believing.

I was riding the pink cloud. I got a sponsor. I started working my steps. For the next fifteen years, no matter what came, she led me back to them.

My first higher power was the group. I was told it could be anything, it just had to be bigger than me. I’d been my own higher power my whole life, depending on yours truly. But there was real power in those rooms. I sensed it. I felt belonging. I wanted to be like them, so I leaned in.

I got clean young. Twenty-two, with a lot of life still ahead of me and a lot of darkness already behind me.

When I walked into my first meeting, my brother was fighting for his life. My first eighteen months clean were his last eighteen months alive.

He passed away. And despite the worst thing that had ever happened to me, I stayed. I found a home in those rooms. I found a community that walked me through the grief.

The panic attacks came a year after he passed.

I leaned on the rooms again, gripping my chair.

Breathe.

I went to therapy. I learned I was having a physical reaction to my emotions. I just didn’t want to cry anymore.

I was one Xanax away from ending the torment.

I didn’t get clean to feel like this...

I let myself cry. Raw, unabashed. Screaming into my pillow. Wailing at night.

There was freedom on the other side of that panic.

I persevered. I leaned on the ones who had lost before me. An unlikely friend became my grief partner. I white-knuckled through a dry desert of grief, and on the other side of it I found laughter again. I found a reason to smile. I started helping others who had lost someone. I was believing in myself for the first time.

I watched people in those rooms go back to school at 60 and walk out with law degrees. I was in my late 20s, asking myself the same question. What do I want to be when I grow up?

So I buckled down. I worked full-time and put myself through two years of junior college and two years of a university. I met my husband there, both of us in school, both in the program. In May 2016 I graduated. I started my big girl job that Monday. In August we were married. And on Black Friday that November, we found out we were pregnant.

2016 was a big year.

Life was beautiful.

Exhale.

Over the years my higher power evolved. Nature sometimes. Energy. I never had a concrete grasp of what it was. I just knew I needed to believe if I wanted to stay clean. I watched the ones who couldn’t believe in anything go back out. I didn’t want that to be my story.

In my later years I started seeking. The 11th step. Prayer and meditation. What was meditation? I’d never meditated in my life. Nobody in recovery was teaching it.

A gap.

My unlikely friend and I started an 11th step meeting with a few others, just to learn how to meditate. I went to Buddhist temples. I was learning how to sit still. I did yoga.

Trying to feel something I knew was missing.

Still empty.

A new chapter was settling in. Motherhood. Wife. New identities.

Then 2020 hit. The world shut down. I was stuck in a second-story condo with a two-year-old, no backyard, and the gripping panic starting to surface again.

I knew darkness. But this was different. The whole world was in it at the same time. It was heavy, and I couldn’t navigate it on my own.

I began seeking again. Praying fervently to something I still couldn’t name. There had to be something other than this darkness.

I took to Twitter. My algorithm kept leading me to Ephesians 6: The full armor of God. A fight that isn’t against flesh and blood. It’s against the powers of this dark world.

I didn’t know why it kept finding me. God knew what I needed before I did.

It resonated. It spoke. It was alive.

The darkness was real. I wasn’t crazy.

And there was a woman. A beacon of light on top of a hill. Every Thursday night at the women’s meeting, unfazed, grounded, she had inner peace. She was open about being a believer, in rooms where that gets you shunned.

I know, because I was one of the ones who shunned. For years, if someone said their God was Jesus Christ, I was one of the people who walked out or tuned out.

Ouch.

Now I couldn’t stop watching her.

We started talking and hanging out. I knew I needed her to be my sponsor. I wanted what she had.

Maybe this was the something that was missing.

She walked me into my very first church service.

I walked into another room, someone by my side again. I wasn’t alone. I felt like the girl from seventeen years ago, walking into her first NA meeting.

I had never opened a Bible. I didn’t understand what any of it was or meant, outside of Easter and Christmas. But once again I saw a group of people doing something I was craving. They looked happy. They were singing, smiling, shaking hands.

The pastor preached about current times. It spoke straight to my heart.

God knew the sermon I needed. He knew the church I needed. He knew the pastor I needed, for that time.

I didn’t know what stepping in that day would start. But I knew I wanted it.

Hope.

I kept coming back.

In August 2021, I was baptized. I turned my will and my life over to Jesus. The God of my understanding finally had a name.

We found a Christian private school for our son. My little man was finding a love for the Lord, and the Lord was using me to give him the foundational framework I never had.

That fall, I joined the Women’s Bible Study at my church. It was on Exodus.

I’d heard of Moses. I’d heard the Old Testament was hard to understand. But I thought it might be a good foundation, a way to learn what this whole thing was about anyway.

Once again, God knew what I needed before I did.

The study was Jen Wilkin’s, two parts. Ten weeks in the fall, ten weeks in the spring. The first part was God’s character. Good. Faithful. Through all of it.

And week by week, a theme I couldn’t ignore. The steps were in the Bible. The spiritual principles I’d practiced in all my affairs. They were His Word. I’d been working it before I ever opened it.

But I was seeing God for the first time. Wilkin listed thirty-two attributes. I’d mostly been told three. Patient. Kind. Loving.

Now there were words I’d never thought to use for God. Omnipresent. Provider. Merciful. Faithful. Wrathful. Jealous.

Brand new concepts. I’d never understood.

I showed up every week. I asked the questions that might make me sound dumb. If recovery taught me anything, don’t be afraid to speak up. Ask the questions. Without the questions, there’s no understanding.

So I did. Why would God keep the Israelites in bondage as long as He did? What did Passover actually mean?

And as I learned God’s character, the theme Jen Wilkin kept exposing was undeniable. All roads lead to Jesus. Through Egypt. Through the wilderness. To the promised land. He’s there through the entire Bible.

Shocked.

I left that study more inspired to learn the Word of God than ever before. I’d built a community of women I felt safe asking questions with.

I brought into my new faith what recovery taught me early on. The meetings are where we get support, but the real work is in the steps and the literature. That’s where the change happens.

I kept showing up to my recovery and I kept opening the Bible. I was doing the real work now. Learning who God is. Who Jesus is. Who the Holy Spirit is.

Twenty weeks inside Israel’s story. The slavery. The rescue. The wandering. The grumbling. The golden calves. The provision.

I never once saw myself in it...

May 2026.

I’m a few weeks into writing on Substack. I’m dropping pieces of my life.

Before recovery, in recovery, and my newfound love for Jesus. What I’m struggling to reconcile is where and how seventeen years of recovery fits into this story.

How do I explain a God of my understanding who carried me that long?

I’m fired up about a piece I want to write. I’m discovering I’m the woman at the well, wanting to tell everybody. I’m working through it. I’m thinking about my life. Seventeen years of a higher power I couldn’t explain. But God was good through all of it.

And then He gives me the download.

Tears welling up.

How did I not see until now?

He gifted me Exodus first. The first study I ever sat in. Before I knew anything. And four years later, I finally see it.

I was living my own.

The using. That was my Egypt.

Recovery. That was my rescue out of it.

The seventeen years with a higher power I couldn’t name. That was my wilderness and He was providing the whole way through it.

The something that was always missing.

It was Him. It was always Him.

He was teaching me my own story while I was still standing inside it. He was there before I knew Him.

I’m not wandering anymore. I’ve had the spiritual awakening.

I’m in the promised land.

If you’d like to support my writing coffee makes me really happy, and it helps keep Holy Grit free for the next person who thinks they’re too far gone.

It started with a simple “God is watching over you,” over an event I still can’t explain away. Then a moment of clarity in the mirror. Followed by denial breaking in front of my friends and family. Finally, the nail in the coffin. My best friend, telling me she couldn’t stand by and watch me kill myself.

I never felt more exposed.

There are moments you look back on and wish your future self could intervene and stop you. You have no idea what your “yes” is about to do.

A couple years prior, my parents were out of town. A harmless get-together.

I stepped outside to check on a friend like any good host would. He was sitting at the backyard table with his guest, getting ready to put something up his nose. He looked up and asked if I minded him doing it in my home.

“Only if you make one for me.”

No second thought. It just came out.

That was it. The moment. The clouds parted. A euphoria I had been searching for my whole life overcame me.

I was off and running.

A yes I couldn’t take back. It was fun in the beginning. I called it partying.

That’s all it was, right?

I couldn’t see the shame coming, or the condemnation, or a dark world I didn’t know existed.

My darkest days leading up to my bottom consisted of my mom locking her purse in her bedroom and me spending time in drug dens with the winners of society.

June 2003. I’m 22.

I’m jonesing. I want to use.

God, how did I get here? A plea to something or someone I was never sure existed.

Can I do this? Like really do this? I’m so tired of being sick and tired.

Leading up to the wedding, I had told my parents I needed rehab. I was finally saying it out loud.

I need help. SOS.

I couldn’t do it on my own, however hard I tried to white-knuckle it. I was weak. Too much temptation around me. I didn’t know how to say no, and I didn’t know how to stop.

That was the plan then. Get through the wedding, the bachelorette who left me on the floor, and get clean. A perfect chance to show everyone they can trust me. For real this time.

But how?

I’ll figure it out. But it’s not that day, so I’m going to party until the wheels come off.

My friend Brandon. We partied hard, but he had a genuine heart, always looking out for the people around him. His mom is sober in AA. He tells her I want to clean up. She says she knows exactly where I need to go. Monday night, an NA meeting over the hill. A safe distance from everyone I was trying to leave behind.

Things just got real.

It’s the Monday after the wedding.

We pull up.

A church? Really?

A group of people congregating outside the meeting room. Smoking.

Phew.

Ok, at least I know they’re not saints.

I’ll join them for a cigarette later. They’re probably not even clean.

No one is really clean…

I walk in. A big half-circle with rows behind it. It’s a big meeting. Men, women, young people like me. A head table up front, someone behind it leading the group.

Stomach knots. Butterflies. Gazing at the floor, no eye contact. I sit down in the back.

They’re all looking at me, aren’t they? They can see right through me, I just know it.

My heart is pounding. My arms are folded tight across my chest. I’m terrified.

The meeting is about to begin. I look up.

I scan the room and feel a stirring from within. An emotion I’m not familiar with anymore.

Joy.

People are smiling. Hugging, greeting each other as they walk in. People are smiling at me. I think I even hear a welcome from someone who can tell I’m not a regular.

Are these people actually clean and happy? Did I see light in their eyes? There’s no way they used like me and are sober now, but also full of life…

The meeting starts with a welcome and a brief message about the group.

I don’t know if I’m going to be asked to say anything. I’ve seen it in movies and TV shows. The dreaded surrender. The admission of who you really are.

Can I stand up and say it?

“If anyone is new to recovery or at their very first meeting, can you please stand and tell us your name?” the leader asks.

Dang it.

I look around quickly. I’m not standing if no one else does…

Before I can finish the thought, people get up. Brandon’s mom looks at me. I give her a smirk and a shrug and slowly get out of my seat.

Heart thumping as my turn edges closer.

“Hi, my name is Daniela. This is my first meeting ever. And I’m an addict.” My voice shakes.

People shout welcome. Clapping.

I breathe out, relieved it’s over, and sit back down. People are looking at me with big smiles.

Can they really be this happy I’m here? Are they really clean? I know someone is lying.

The shift.

They’re celebrating people staying clean. First, they’re handing out key tags. 30 days.

How does anyone not use for 30 days straight?

Now 60, 90 days, six months, nine months, a year?!

No way.

I watch the cheers, the smiles, people so happy for the ones hitting milestones I never thought I could reach. People sharing how they stay clean one day at a time, sometimes one minute at a time. Sharing the struggle, what they went through, how grateful they are to be clean. Mending relationships. Getting their lives back.

That sounds like me…

The adrenaline from standing and identifying starts to pass. I settle into my chair and let myself think about a life without using.

The meeting ends and I’m bum rushed. People hugging me, welcoming me, so excited I’m there.

It actually feels genuine…

They tell me to call if I want to use and write their numbers on a meeting list. They tell me I need to find a sponsor. They hand me pamphlets.

A glimmer of life in their eyes. I remember having that once.

I didn’t realize what I was stepping into. A promise. That I could stop. That the desire could leave. That there was a new way to live.

I smiled as tears welled up in my eyes. Maybe I can…

- No one is too lost to be saved.

If you’d like to support my writing coffee makes me really happy, and it helps keep Holy Grit free for the next person who thinks they’re too far gone.

It was all coming to a head. I could no longer hide my using from anyone.

A week ago, I was left crying on the floor by friends who couldn’t tolerate me anymore. They were heartbroken too.

I was invited back to the house to meet them in the garage. I knew the confrontation was coming. So, I did what any good addict does. I got high first so I could face them. I didn’t want to hear it.

I pulled up to the house, parked on the street. I threw my head back against the headrest. Deep sigh. I took a final hit to get me through it, and stepped out.

Head down.

Walk of shame.

They were all sitting in a half circle waiting for me. It was nighttime. The garage was glowing inside. I never walked in. I stayed in the dark and sat on an empty box while they all looked at me.

Crickets.

I muttered a hello.

The one who owned the house piped up first. I don't remember what she said. She was saving face. She knew what she'd done with me behind closed doors.

Eye roll inside.

My arms were crossed. Body was tight. Head still down. Heart was racing.

Was it racing because I was nervous? Or was it the hit I just took?

I stayed quiet.

Once the hypocrite spoke, everything drowned out after that. Of all people, she was the one with the audacity to speak first.

After her turn, I heard voices off to the side talking to me. I can’t recall what was said. It’s a blur.

I finally looked up. I locked eyes with the one God knew I needed to hear from. She was sitting in the center of the half circle, directly across from me. The friend I passed notes with. The one I giggled with about the boys we would marry. Thelma & Louise since 4th grade. The one I never thought would leave me.

Squirming.

“Dan. I always thought we’d grow old together.” My 4th grade friend said. “That we would be in each other’s weddings, and raise our kids together. I’m terrified when the phone rings at night that I’m going to find out you’re dead. I can no longer stand by and watch you destroy your life and kill yourself. I can’t be a part of your life anymore. I’m done.”

Gut punch.

Mic drop.

I did not expect this from my sweet friend. The one I could always count on. The one with so many shared inside jokes and memories.

How did I end up here? Sitting across from the friend I never thought twice would ever leave me. I knew I was bad, but this was next level. I did not see this coming.

I winced.

What could I say? She was right. I knew where I was headed. Jail or dead. I had hoped for the second more than once.

I nodded and muttered, “Ok, I understand.”

I didn’t want to lose my friend. I didn’t want to die. I had a brother fighting for his life due to medical neglect. I was actively pursuing to end mine.

This was the call out of Egypt. The one who loved me enough to walk away.

I got up. I held it long enough to exit. I knew where they stood. If my best friend could no longer be a part of my life, I knew the rest would follow.

I called the guy I was seeing at the time. He’d distract me.

Who needs them anyway?

I did.

Deep down I didn’t believe my own lie.

- No one is too lost to be saved

They’re finally asleep. I quietly get up from the bed. My son was in bed by 8:30 pm. My husband was usually rolled over and asleep by 9 or 9:30 pm. The earlier the better. That meant more viewer time for me.

I tiptoe. Grab my robe. Phone flashlight to guide me. I close the door. I sneak down the hall to my grail. The couch. I’d been waiting all day to get to it. I had to stay on top of the recordings so I could keep up with the culture. I couldn’t open Instagram yet. I had to watch first. No spoilers. Friends knew not to text until we confirmed all were caught up.

I grab the remote. I cozy up with my blanket. I hit play. I lean back. Deep sigh.

The moment I’d waited all day for was finally here.

My Housewives. My Bravo content. If it was on Bravo, I watched it. I called it my light-hearted guilty pleasure. A soft framing of a pop culture phenomenon that wasn’t just watching.

It was religion.

The toxic shade. The adrenaline rush. The pupil dilation. The interwoven storylines that continued through multiple seasons.

It was loyalty.

Confrontation I didn’t have in real life. Taking sides. The scene I couldn’t wait to bring to dinner. BravoCon plans. Podcast drops, to see if my takeaways aligned with the professionals.

It was an exclusive club.

If you know, you know. When the gold line dropped in pop culture, it was a connection.

“Who gon’ check me boo?”

The same way you see a stranger wearing your favorite team’s hat and feel an instant kinship. Yeah. That was real for me too.

These are my people. I knew them. I defended them. I had their back. It was real. It was more than just casual watching.

This was worship.

It was the guilty pleasure I’d speak of, but most didn’t know how deep it went.

My husband hated it. I’d remind him that this is the soap opera of my generation. His mom watched Dynasty. I watched Housewives.

He called it my wrestling.

I couldn’t have it on around him because I couldn’t stand the snicker and snide remarks he’d make about my housewives. I had to defend them.

Frustration.

I finally gave up. I had to watch alone.

He called the show Beep Beep.

He couldn’t stand every other word being beeped out due to profanity. It was like nails on a chalkboard to him. For me, I had never noticed until he pointed it out. It still didn’t bother me. That’s what subtitles were for.

At this point you might be rolling your eyes. You may be jumping ship. Housewives may not land for you. This piece may not be for everyone.

Fill in the blank. Whatever it is that gives you that fix you’re eagerly seeking. Maybe in secret. Maybe hiding in plain sight. We all have it. Or had it at one time. Do you skip church on Sunday to watch football?

This was my religion. This was my sports. My play-by-play. My BravoCon. My late night by myself. My Andy Cohen. The person I watched every night. The people I looked up to. The people I wanted to meet.

My fix. My companion. My idol. My replacement.

Summer. 2025.

Until one day it didn’t hit quite right. The normal in-scene of screaming across the dinner table was no longer giving me the thrill I so eagerly sought after.

The very thing that rewarded me after a long day of work, homework, packed lunches, and cleaning was my Bravo.

What is this? I don’t normally feel this way when I’m watching the very thing I live for.

So I pushed through. Maybe it’s just a down week. A slump in the show.

It wasn’t.

The more I chased the feeling, the worse and more disappointed I became. The fighting began to repel me. My facial expression went from satisfaction to disgust. It was no longer my escape.

Nothing. No fix. No adrenaline rush. No feeling. No content.

Ugh no.

Not my house.

So I decided to see if I could give it up for a week. I knew my husband would be happy. But what would I tell my friends next time I saw them and they couldn’t wait to catch up with me on all the storylines? Would they judge me? Get mad? Or worse, would they be disappointed?

In the back of my mind it was a real possibility. But I couldn’t ignore that this was no longer sitting right in my spirit.

Am I ready to let this go? This was a 20-year commitment.

I decided to see if I could go a week. Still recorded. But no watching.

I never went back.

I stopped the recordings. I unfollowed the podcasts and Instagram accounts. I told my friends. They loved me anyways.

I didn’t replace it with other late night TV.

I had heard of conviction for sin. I only ever considered it to be the obvious ones. Like my addictions. Recovery carried me for many years. When the Higher Power from those rooms finally had a name, I thought that was it. I didn’t know more change was coming. I had certainly never looked at my reality TV as anything but entertainment.

At the time I didn’t understand.

In the spring, I’d watched a movie trailer with my son and felt the true weight of grace. What Jesus had died for. To save an undeserving person like me. I didn’t realize that was the start of something I wouldn’t have a name for until months later.

Sanctification.

A term I didn’t know.

The four years prior, I’d stepped into the church for the first time. I was baptized. I went to church on Sunday. I showed up to weekly Bible study. I was doing everything I thought I was supposed to and doing it well. Nothing within me had really begun to change until that moment of grace.

A few months later, the slow stripping of interests began to fall away.

This was a turn in my walk I didn’t see coming. I didn’t ask for it. It just happened.

This was the first.

I’m still slipping away when the house goes quiet. But now it’s to be with Him.

From living room couch to prayer room on the floor.

Now when my husband walks past my office and the door’s closed, he asks me about it the next day. What are you doing in there with the door closed?

Praying. Duh.

The craving never left. The object changed.

From drugs to Bravo, it was Him the whole time.

- No one is too lost to be saved

Weeks after I saw what I was becoming, I showed up to my friend’s bachelorette party. I was the Maid of Honor and I hadn’t planned a single thing. I was splitting duty with my childhood friend. I put it all on her. I had been too consumed with myself, too caught up in my using, and everything I was hiding.

I walked in late. The room went still. All eyes on me as I walked into the kitchen where they all were. Something was off. The energy. The looks. The distance.

Deep down I knew. But I didn’t think they did.

I asked. I looked them in the eye, casual, like nothing was wrong. They didn’t pretend with me.

Gulp.

I felt the stomach drop. Free fall.

I looked down. I couldn’t hold eye contact anymore.

And that’s when I knew. The girl I saw in the mirror, they could see her too.

It was undeniable. The denial I had been living behind started to crack.

I felt the wave of it. What I’d been stuffing. What I hadn’t let surface that night in the mirror. The continued using days on end to mask what I could no longer deny. The broken mess and the path of destruction I had created could no longer be contained.

I excused myself with urgency and ran to the master bathroom. I closed the door just in time for the guttural cry that could no longer stay quiet. I sat on the floor and sobbed.

The shame.

The fear.

The embarrassment.

The weight of what I had been doing to myself and what it was doing to the people around me could no longer stay buried. It all came up at once.

I felt exposed.

Raw.

There was nowhere left to hide.

My body shook with the pain of the life I didn’t want to confront.

And then they left…

I don’t even remember exactly how it happened. Their frustration, their hurt, had reached a point where they couldn’t stay. They got in the limo. I wasn’t in it.

I was left there.

And as much as it hurt, something in me knew why. I had been disappearing for a while. First to myself, then right in front of everyone else.

I didn’t know yet. I was in Egypt. But God did.

I knew something had to change.

And instead of doing something different, I went back to the very thing that was destroying me.

- No one is too lost to be saved

My son and I were fighting. Dad was golfing. We were lying on my bed trying to figure out what to do with the rest of our afternoon.

I remembered the animated film King of Kings was still in theatres and thought, this is what we need to get back on track. My son was hesitant. He thought it was too “little kid” for him. I suggested we pull up the trailer and watch again. We both had seen the preview already, but this time something hit me differently.

I didn’t have a name for it then. I do now. He’d been guiding me much longer than this moment. But this moment was loud.

A flash of a cartoon depiction of Jesus being crucified was all it took.

The levee in my spirit broke. The weight of what Jesus did for me…

His sacrifice. My salvation.

It all washed over me.

My past life flashed before my eyes. The times I could have overdosed or gotten arrested. The worry and pain my family and friends felt while I was destroying my life. The sleepless nights I gave my parents. The multitude of scenarios of a darker life that could have been mine. I could have been dead.

And yet here I was.

Sitting inside my home, looking at a beautiful little human, living a life I know I didn’t earn or deserve.

Grace.

I quickly sat up and scooted myself to the edge of my bed. I turned my back towards my son and began sobbing.

I knew he could hear me. I couldn’t contain it.

I hadn’t grasped any of it until a one-second cartoon picture of Jesus on a cross took me down.

I turned around to my then 7-year-old son, who looked like a deer in headlights trying to comprehend why his mother was weeping. I told him I was ok and I just love Jesus for saving my life. I told him he’d understand one day.

We went and saw the movie that afternoon, just the two of us. And when the full scene of Jesus being crucified showed up, the tears were streaming down my face again, quietly, as I thanked Him for saving me.

My son kept looking over to make sure his mom was ok. He put his arm around me and told me he loved me.

We both really enjoyed the movie.

- No one is too lost to be saved.

I didn’t recognize the girl staring back at me.

I’d been up for days and my mind was scrambled. I paced inside my small bedroom at my parents’ house, head down, trying to take the edge off.

A movement caught my attention and I looked up. I began staring. Who was I looking at? I didn’t recognize her. Who was that looking back at me? I stepped closer, and then another step, my eyes locked, not blinking. I came within an inch and stared deeply.

Big brown eyes once full of life were black.

Empty.

Soulless.

The reflection in the mirror staring back at me gave me a chill down my spine I will never forget. The girl who once had all the dreams was disappearing.

A flash.

The honor-roll student. The swimmer. The friend who passed notes and giggled about the boys we’d marry and how we’d raise our kids next door to each other. The one who dreamed of college.

That girl no longer existed.

Empty.

I blinked hoping it wasn’t real. But it was.

I could see it happening right in front of me. The choices I was making, the way I was living, the things I was numbing, they were slowly destroying my life. For the first time, I couldn’t pretend anymore.

I was going to die. Maybe not that day, maybe not tomorrow. Death didn’t seem like the worst idea. Maybe if I just kept going as is, I would “disappear,” and life could go on without me.

I knew I needed to stop. I just didn’t know how.

But God did.

And I didn’t see it yet.

- No one is too lost to be saved

My normal was 8:30am school drop-off, home by 8:45, fresh cup of coffee, sit down, start the day. The pings from my team. The catching up. The rhythm of it.

Gone.

I sat in the quiet office in my home with no pings, no purpose, no direction. Just the question I didn’t know how to answer yet.

Who am I?

Loser is what I felt like. I couldn’t put down the reminders, the people I might never talk to again. The loyalty. The ten years. Erased. No warning. No notice.

How dare they.

Getting laid off hurts. It claws at your ego. It creates doubt. It leaves you asking, what did I do wrong?

The anger came first. Then the rejection settled in. And then the strongholds showed up, the ones that had been waiting.

My inner worst critic, gleeful, taking full advantage of the self-worth I had allowed my career to carry. That was gone now. Distant memory.

This is who you really are.

I had heard of a wilderness season. I thought I understood dying to self.

For eight months they had been falling off. One by one, the identities stripped away after I surrendered. I watched them go. But this one, the career, ten years, no notice, no warning, taken, not surrendered on my terms.

The most brutal one yet.

Just God’s timing.

Not mine.

Okay God. What now?

Trust. Wait. One foot in front of the other.

Breathe.

One of my Christian pillars told me to start dreaming again. A clean slate. An opportunity to start over.

But I didn’t feel like dreaming. I felt like hiding.

So here I sit asking my 45-year-old self… what do I want to be when I grow up?

I knew He hadn’t brought me this far to drop me. I knew it. But knowing something in your head and feeling it in your body are two different worlds. And I was living in the gap between them.

The flesh was winning. Every morning I woke up and had to choose, and most mornings, the strongholds got there first.

And underneath all of it, quieter than the anger, quieter than the rejection, was the question I was most afraid to ask out loud.

Am I worth the blessing? Would He actually use me?

I’m living in the Saturday. The in-between. Good Friday happened. The Resurrection is coming. I know that. I believe that.

But that time isn’t now.

The whisper keeps getting louder. The more I try to drown it out, the louder it gets. A pull to write about raw perseverance, the mess where He meets us, The Holy Grit. A life of bad decisions, trials, sufferings, miracles, and blessings, told with no filter. Not wrapped up in a pretty bow.

So I’m stepping out in faith.

And I wait.

Because the truth is, this isn’t the first time God showed up before I understood what He was doing.

- No one is too lost to be saved.

It was a Tuesday.

My VP added a Teams meeting to my calendar the day before. Titled “Check-In.” We were due for bonus conversations, so I assumed that’s what it was.

I could not have been more wrong.

No warning.

No signs.

The moment I joined the call and saw HR on the screen, my stomach dropped.

My heart started pounding. I still didn’t know what was coming, but I knew it wasn’t good.

She read from a script. My position was being eliminated. Whatever came after that could have been another language. Nothing was coherent after “position eliminated.” And before I could process it, she dropped off the call.

There I was…alone with HR.

Just here today, gone tomorrow.

Ten years of friendships, culture, people I managed, relationships built over eight-hour days in the trenches. The kind where people end up knowing you better than some of your own family. One breakup is hard enough. This felt like ten at once.

And before I could even register it, it was gone. Did that really just happen?

Do I call my husband?

No. I’ll fall apart.

Do I tell my team?

No. I’ll fall apart.

Breathe.

Head down. Focus.

I lose network access by 6PM. It’s 10:30AM. My son’s baseball game is at 4PM. I’m already leaving early.

The clock is running.

Breathe.

Flash drive. Check. Ten years of files, pictures, folders. Comb through everything. Save what’s mine.

By 1PM, every name on my team chat had gone red except mine. They were all talking about me. And then the pings started.

Daniela, I just heard. No words.

Daniela, I’m in shock.

Yeah. Me too.

I couldn’t respond. The moment I responded, I’d fall apart. So I kept my head down.

Breathed. Kept moving.

At 2PM I sent my goodbye letter. Graceful exit while dying inside.

Then I called my husband.

He’s the head coach. First game of the season, the one that sets the tone, the one he’d been preparing for weeks. He needed a clear head. I knew that. I’d known it all morning.

I called anyway. I held it as long as I could.

And then I fell apart.

He showed up. He always does.

I got to the field and let the game hold me for 90 minutes. The dirt and the cheering and my kid rounding the bases. The noise of something that had nothing to do with any of it.

He hadn’t brought me this far to drop me now.

But I wasn’t ready. Not yet.

God, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be on my terms.

Here’s what’s true: I wasn’t growing. I was stifled. I’d already been questioning whether this was still the right place for me. Whether I could retire there, or whether I was just too scared to leave.

And somewhere underneath the shock and the rejection, I knew.

This was God’s hand.

It just hadn’t traveled from my head to my heart yet.

I’ve been a believer since 2020. I didn’t fully surrender until September 2025. And since then, everything has been shifting. There were nights I cried out and said: I want to work for You. Something meaningful. Something aligned.

Be careful what you pray for.

The rug came out. The career identity, gone. And in the silence after, something I hadn’t been able to ignore for months got louder.

Write.

A reawakening of something I loved that I had stuffed down. A passion that's lived with me since I was 8. Career. Mom. Wife. A life of drop-offs, practices, games, dinners, errands, friends, and a passion that was forgotten.

Not polished. Not pretty. Not wrapped up. Just true.

They won the game that night.

- No one is too lost to be saved.

But something happened that I’ve never been able to explain.

I was just trying to get home. Sixty miles from Santa Barbara to Thousand Oaks. I was tired, hungry, and in desperate need of a shower. I had been partying harder than I should have. The details of how I ended up there are still a blur.

Somewhere along the way my phone just stopped working. Not dying slowly. Just… stopped. It was 2003. I had a Sony Ericsson phone that played the Sopranos theme song anytime I received a call. A much simpler time, pre-iPhone.

I made it down to my aunt’s house in Ventura, and when I went to leave, I ended up with a flat tire. My best thought was to call a friend who knew how to change it. She helped me put on a donut, and I didn’t think twice about it. I just wanted to get home.

As I was driving on the 101 Freeway, just before the Camarillo grade, almost home, the entire wheel came off the car.

Not a blowout. Not a warning. The wheel just… came off.

I remember the sound, the sparks, the feeling of the car dragging, but somehow, I was already in the right lane. I pulled over to the side quickly and then I watched the tire roll. It crossed every lane of traffic like nothing was in its way, bounced off the center divider and flew onto the other side of the freeway and hit the side of a big rig.

It could have gone through someone’s windshield, but it didn’t. And somehow no one was hurt.

I pulled over, shaking, and reached for my phone. Ugh, I forgot it was dead. I had no choice but to start walking to a Call Box.

And that’s when I saw a car pull over to help me. I don’t remember if it was a man or a woman. It’s blurry now. Older. Calm. Not panicked like I was. They offered me their phone.

And then they said, “God is watching over you.”

I didn’t want to hear about God. I had no framework for that. I just wanted help. But as I was standing there trying to reconcile what I just heard, my dad drove by.

I was driving a red two-door Volkswagen Fox, pretty distinguishable, and only made for a few years. The moment he saw the car, he knew it was me. He happened to be on his way home from teaching in Oxnard.

Out of all places, all times. He saw me and pulled over.

And when I turned back, the person was gone. No goodbye. No explanation.

Just… gone.

At the time, I didn’t think much of it. I got in the car with my dad. He called AAA, handled everything, and we went home.

Twenty-two years later, I still haven’t been able to shake that encounter, the timing, the details, the way everything lined up.

I didn’t know God then. But something, or Someone, was there. And that moment was the beginning of something I didn’t have words for yet.

And not long after that, I found myself standing in front of a mirror, looking into my own eyes, realizing I was destroying my life.

- No one is too lost to be saved.