It has Been Eleven years since my mother died!

It has been eleven years since my mother died.

Eleven years without either of my parents.

Our Wedding 2005

1986

And still, some days, it feels as though I am standing in that room again—alone beside her, watching and waiting for the end to come.

The day my mother died was filled with emotions that did not make sense together. Grief sat beside relief. Love beside anger. Sorrow beside exhaustion. There were moments of tenderness tangled together with memories that still hurt. I remember feeling guilty for the ways my heart could not settle on one emotion, as if mourning was supposed to be simple and pure. But it was never simple.

Death does not suddenly untangle a complicated relationship. It does not erase childhood wounds, unanswered questions, or years of longing for things that never fully existed. Instead, all of it arrives together in the same room. The love. The hurt. The hope. The disappointment. The ache for what was, and the ache for what never became.

I remember watching her breathe, wondering which breath would be the last. Time moved strangely in that room. Every second felt heavy. I was no longer just a daughter—I had become the witness to her leaving this world. There is something profoundly lonely about sitting beside death, especially when the relationship itself carried loneliness long before that moment.

I sat there trying to remember a time when she loved me—truly loved me—or wanted me.

And I had none.

No memory came rushing back. No warm moment appeared to soften the silence in my mind. I searched anyway, desperately, as though somewhere inside me there had to be proof that I had once been held gently, wanted fully, loved without condition.

But even with that emptiness sitting inside me, I still wanted my mother.

That is the part people do not always understand. A child does not stop longing for their mother simply because love was inconsistent, absent, painful, or never given in the way it should have been. The ache remains anyway. Deep and instinctive. Almost impossible to explain.

As I sat beside her in those final hours, I remember thinking how strange it was to grieve someone while also grieving what I never had with them. I was mourning her death, but I was also mourning the relationship I spent my whole life hoping would someday become real.

I wanted one memory to hold onto.
One moment where I felt chosen.
One moment where I knew, without question, that I was loved.

But sometimes the hardest truth is realizing that the child inside you kept surviving on hope instead of evidence.

And still, even then, I wanted my mother to reach for me.
I wanted her to say something that could heal the years between us.
I wanted, even at the end, to finally feel like someone’s daughter.

There is a particular kind of heartbreak in realizing that the longing for a mother can survive even when the memories do not.

I still ache for someone to hold me the way I hold my own children.
To wrap their arms around me without hesitation.
To listen without rushing me.
To guide me without conditions, limits, or fear that love might suddenly disappear.

Sometimes I watch the way I comfort my children—the way I pull them close when they are hurting, the way I stop what I am doing to truly hear them—and I realize that somewhere deep inside me is the child who still wonders what it would have felt like to receive that same kind of care.

Not perfection.
Just safety.
Just softness.
Just someone who stayed.

I think the hardest part is that I want to be held just as tightly. I want to feel whatever my children feel when I wrap my arms around them and tell them everything is going to be okay.

And sometimes I wonder—who does that for me?

Yes, I have Ken. My husband. My best friend. The person who has stood beside me through so much. His love is real, steady, and faithful. I am deeply grateful for him.

But the love between a husband and wife is different from the love a mother gives a child.

A spouse walks beside you.
A mother, at least the kind I longed for, is supposed to be the place you fall apart without fear.

There is something so primal about wanting to be mothered. Wanting someone to look at you and see not what you can do for them, not how strong you are, not how capable you have become—but simply see you as someone worth protecting, comforting, and carrying when life becomes too heavy.

I think that is why the ache still lives inside me.

Because I became strong before I was ever held.
Responsible before I was nurtured.
Independent before I ever felt safe enough to depend on anyone.

And even now, as an adult, there are moments when I want to crawl into someone’s arms and rest without guilt. To not be the strong one for once. To not have to explain why I am hurting. To simply be cared for with the same tenderness I try to pour into my own children every day.

My grandmother—my mother’s mother—was the closest thing I will ever know to that kind of love.

And she did love me. I know she did.

But even with her, there was always a line. A limit to how much of herself she could fully give me. Not because she was cruel. Not because she withheld love intentionally. But because before she was ever my grandmother, she was my mother’s mother first.

Her heart was tied to her daughter in a way I could never untangle.

I think one of the deepest pains was watching my grandmother love my mother with the kind of devotion I spent my whole life longing for myself. She protected her. Defended her. Carried compassion for her wounds, her struggles, her pain. And part of me understood that. A mother’s love for her child runs deep.

But I was a child too.

And sometimes it felt as though there was no place for both truths to exist at once—that my mother could be hurting and still hurt me, that my grandmother could love me deeply while never being fully able to step outside her loyalty to her daughter.

So I learned to live within the limits of that love.

I took the comfort she could give. The moments of safety. The glimpses of warmth. I treasured them because they were real. But somewhere inside me, I also understood that there were places my grief could not go with her. Certain truths that sat too close to the pain of her own child.

That kind of loneliness is hard to explain.

To be loved, but not fully held.
To be cared for, but still emotionally orphaned in some quiet way.
To know someone wanted the best for you while also knowing they could never entirely stand on your side without it feeling like a betrayal of someone else they loved first.

And yet, I still carry gratitude for her.

Because even limited love can leave light behind.
Even imperfect love can become a lifeline for a child trying desperately to survive.

But I would be lying if I said it did not ache sometimes—to realize that my grandmother loved her daughter with the kind of fierce, unquestioning love I spent my entire childhood hoping someone would someday give to me.

Sometimes I want to scream from the top of a mountain for someone to help me.

Not because I am falling apart in some dramatic, visible way. Most people would probably say I am doing well. I work. I teach. I parent. I love my family. I keep moving forward.

But underneath all of that is this ache I cannot fully explain.

An exhaustion that does not come from one bad day, but from a lifetime of carrying myself.

And the hardest part is that I am not even sure what I need.

I do not know if I want someone to save me, comfort me, guide me, or simply sit beside me and finally notice how heavy everything has been. Sometimes I think I just want permission to stop being strong for a little while.

Because when you grow up without being emotionally held, you learn how to survive by becoming your own protector, your own comfort, your own caretaker. You become the person everyone else can lean on while quietly wondering where you are supposed to go with your own pain.

So the feelings build in silence.

The grief.
The loneliness.
The longing.
The exhaustion of always being the one who manages, adapts, survives, and keeps going.

And sometimes it rises so suddenly inside me that I feel like screaming into the sky:

“Can someone please help me?”
“Can someone please see me?”
“Can someone please hold the parts of me that have been carrying too much for too long?”

But even then, I do not always know what help would look like.

Because what I ache for is not something that can be neatly fixed.

I ache for the kind of safety that is supposed to begin in childhood.
The kind of love that teaches your nervous system it is okay to rest.
The kind of care that allows a child to believe they do not have to earn tenderness.

And when you grow up without that, part of you keeps searching for it long after childhood ends.

I think that is what people misunderstand about trauma. Survival does not mean the longing disappears. Sometimes surviving only means you learned how to function while carrying an invisible hunger for comfort, protection, and unconditional love.

There are days I envy the ease with which my children collapse into my arms when they are hurt. They do not hesitate. They do not apologize for needing comfort. They trust completely that I will hold them.

I wonder what that must feel like.

To need someone and not fear becoming a burden.
To cry and know someone will come.
To rest without waiting for love to be withdrawn.

Sometimes I think the little girl inside me is still standing somewhere with her arms open, waiting for someone to finally say,

“You do not have to do this alone anymore.”

There are days when it feels like this is not just a wound, but a missing part of who I am.

Not something broken that can simply be repaired, but something that was never fully given to me in the first place.

People often speak about healing as though every pain eventually closes neatly with time, love, or understanding. But some losses are different. Some grief comes not from losing what you had, but from never truly having it at all.

And how do you fully heal from the absence of something your heart needed in order to grow safely?

I do not know if that ache will ever completely disappear.

There is still a part of me that feels unfinished. A quiet emptiness where a mother’s comfort, protection, and unconditional love were supposed to live. Sometimes I think I carry that absence everywhere I go. It follows me into motherhood, into relationships, into the way I question myself, overthink everything, and struggle to believe I am worthy of being cared for without conditions.

It is hard to explain to people who were loved gently as children.

The absence becomes part of your identity.
Part of the way you see the world.
Part of the way your body holds fear, loneliness, and longing.

And maybe the hardest truth is realizing that some wounds do not heal by disappearing. Some wounds heal by learning how to live beside them without letting them consume every part of you.

I do not think the little girl inside me will ever completely stop searching for the mother she needed.

But I also know this:

That missing piece did not stop me from becoming loving.
It did not stop me from becoming gentle.
It did not stop me from becoming the safe place I once searched for in someone else.

Sometimes I look at my children and realize they will never fully understand the depth of what they were given simply by being held, heard, comforted, and loved consistently. And part of me is grateful for that. They should never have to understand that kind of emptiness firsthand.

There are still moments when the grief feels bottomless. Moments when I wonder who I might have become if I had been loved differently from the beginning.

But even in that sorrow, there is something sacred in the fact that I chose not to pass the emptiness forward.

The ache may always live inside me.
The longing may never fully leave.

But so does grace.
So does love.
So does the quiet courage of becoming the kind of mother I once needed myself.

I hold them when they cry.
I listen when they speak.
I apologize when I am wrong.
I stay.

And sometimes, in those quiet moments when my children rest safely against me, I grieve and heal at the same time.

Because somewhere deep inside me is still the little girl who wanted someone to hold her like this too.

Mother’s Day: The Pain and the Joy

Mother’s Day has always felt complicated to me.

Beautiful. Tender. Heavy.

For some, it is a day filled with flowers, laughter, handmade cards, and family gatherings.
For others, it is a day that quietly reopens wounds they spend most of the year trying to hold together.

And for many of us, it is somehow both at once.

There is joy in motherhood, real joy.
The kind that comes when little arms wrap around your neck.
When children call out “Mom!” from another room, they trust you will answer.
When bedtime stories, messy kitchens, and small ordinary moments somehow become sacred.

There are moments when I look at my children and feel something I never truly understood growing up: safety.

Not perfect safety.
Not a life untouched by fear or mistakes.
But a home where children are allowed to laugh loudly, cry honestly, and exist without constantly preparing themselves for someone else’s anger.

And yet, alongside the joy, there is grief.

Because becoming a mother does not erase the child I once was.

Mother’s Day has a way of shining light on what was missing.
On the things I needed but never received.
Gentleness. Protection. Comfort.
A mother who saw me clearly and chose me consistently.

Sometimes I watch my children run toward me without fear, and I realize I never had that kind of certainty myself.
I learned early to survive instead of simply being a child.
To study moods instead of resting in love.
To prepare for disappointment before hope could even fully form.

Mother’s Day can reopen those quiet wounds.

Not because I am ungrateful.
Not because I do not love my children deeply.
But because healing often works this way: joy and grief sit at the same table.

And for many mothers, the grief carried into Mother’s Day is even deeper.

There are mothers grieving miscarriages.
Stillbirths.
Infertility.
Children lost too soon.
Dreams that never had the chance to fully become reality.

The world often treats these losses as invisible because there are no school photos, birthday parties, or visible memories for others to hold onto.
But a mother begins loving her child long before the world ever sees them.

The moment hope appears, love begins growing too.

A miscarriage is not “just” a miscarriage.
It is the loss of a child imagined and loved.
A future dreamed about in quiet moments.
A thousand tiny hopes suddenly gone.

Stillbirth carries another kind of heartbreak entirely.
To prepare a nursery while also preparing for goodbye.
To leave a hospital with empty arms when every part of your body expected to bring a baby home.

There are no perfect words for that kind of grief.

And so many mothers carry it silently because people do not know what to say.
Or worse, they try to explain the pain away.

“You can try again.”
“Everything happens for a reason.”
“At least…”

But grief is not healed by explanations.

Sometimes what grieving mothers need most is acknowledgment:

Your child mattered.
Your love was real.
Your motherhood counts.

And I think the world forgets something important about Mother’s Day:

Motherhood has never been defined only by birth.

There are women who carried children in their bodies.
And there are women who carried children through life.

Women who stayed.
Women who protected.
Women who listened.
Women who nurtured.
Women who stepped into spaces where love was needed and gave it freely.

Some women desperately wanted children and could not have them.
Some chose not to have children for deeply personal reasons.
Some became mothers through adoption, fostering, mentoring, teaching, ministry, friendship, or simply through the way they cared for others.

And none of those forms of motherhood are lesser.

I can think of several women who never gave birth but still shaped people with the tenderness, steadiness, and sacrifice of a mother.
Women who noticed pain others ignored.
Women who fed children, encouraged them, prayed for them, guided them, and loved them without needing a biological title to make it real.

Because motherhood is not only biology.

It is presence.

It is the choice to nurture life in someone else.
To make another person feel safe, valued, seen, and loved.

Some of the most mothering people in this world are teachers.
Grandmothers.
Aunts.
Mentors.
Godmothers.
Older sisters.
Women in churches and communities who quietly gather hurting children under their wings and love them as their own.

Sometimes, for wounded children, those women become the closest thing to a mother they ever truly knew.

And I also know this hard truth:

Not everyone who gives birth becomes a mother.

Biology alone does not create safety.
It does not automatically create gentleness, protection, or love.

There are people who bring children into this world yet never truly see them.
Never protect them.
Never nurture them.
Some children grow up learning fear long before they ever learn trust.

And that reality can make Mother’s Day deeply complicated for survivors of abuse, neglect, abandonment, or emotional harm.

Because while the world celebrates motherhood, some people are quietly grieving the fact that they never truly had one.

A child should never have to earn love by becoming smaller, quieter, easier, or less needy.
A child should not have to become hyperaware of moods just to survive inside their own home.

And yet many of us did.

Some women gave birth to children but left the mothering undone.

And some women who never gave birth became the very definition of what a mother should be.

That contrast can be painful to sit with.

Especially when society insists that titles alone deserve automatic honor while ignoring the lived reality of children who were harmed by the very people meant to protect them.

The truth is, motherhood is not proven in a delivery room.
It is proven over time.

In patience.
In sacrifice.
In consistency.
In the ability to make a child feel safe enough to rest instead of constantly survive.

Real motherhood is not perfection.
But it is presence.

It is showing up.
Apologizing when wrong.
Protecting instead of controlling.
Listening instead of silencing.
Choosing love even in difficult moments.

I think many survivors wrestle with guilt on Mother’s Day because they do not feel the warm emotions others expect them to feel.
Some are mourning mothers they lost.
Others are mourning mothers they never truly had at all.

And those are not the same grief, but both are real.

There is a particular kind of loneliness in realizing that someone can be your mother biologically while never becoming a safe place emotionally.

But I also think there is healing in recognizing this:

The failure to mother well says everything about the wound within the parent and nothing about the worth of the child.

Children were always worthy of tenderness.
Of protection.
Of comfort.
Of being chosen fully and lovingly.

And many survivors grow up determined to become the kind of safe adult they once desperately needed themselves.

That is part of what makes Mother’s Day both painful and beautiful.

Some people spend the day grieving what they never received.
Others spend it quietly, celebrating the fact that the cycle stopped with them.

That, despite everything, they learned how to love gently.

How to stay soft without becoming weak.
How to nurture others even while healing themselves.

And maybe that is one of the most courageous forms of motherhood there is.

Mother’s Day holds both ache and gratitude now.
The ache of the daughter I once was.
The gratitude of the mother I became.
The grief for children lost.
The joy for children held close.
The sorrow for prayers unanswered.
The hope that love can still grow in wounded places.

Both joy and grief deserve space here.

Because healing is not learning how to erase sadness.
Healing is learning how to carry joy beside it without shame.

This Mother’s Day, we honor every kind of mother:

The mothers raising children beside them.
The mothers grieving children they never got to hold long enough.
The mothers carrying invisible loss.
The women who mother through teaching, mentoring, fostering, caregiving, and loving.
The mothers trying to break cycles they did not create.
The women who became safe places for children who desperately needed one.

And we honor the little girls many of those mothers once were too.

The ones who survived long enough to become the safe place they once needed themselves.

The Echo of Doubt

There is a voice that follows me.

It does not shout.

It does not rage.

It whispers.

Are you sure?

Did you handle that right?

What if you made it worse?

What if you’re wrong?

For most of my life, I thought this voice was wisdom. I thought it was humility. I thought it meant I cared deeply.

But it wasn’t wisdom.

It was fear dressed as responsibility.

Second-guessing myself did not start in adulthood. It started in survival.

When you grow up in a home where the rules change without warning, where love feels conditional and correction feels like humiliation, you learn to scan for danger. You replay conversations. You anticipate reactions. You study tone shifts the way other children study spelling words.

You become fluent in doubt.

If I say this, will it upset her?

If I don’t say this, will it be worse?

Did I forget something that will cost me later?

In a house where being wrong meant punishment, second-guessing was protection.

But what protects you at eight can imprison you at forty.

There are days when the second-guessing does not stop at one decision.

It spills into everything.

What I said.

What I didn’t say.

The look on someone’s face when I walked away.

The pause in their voice.

The way they signed their email.

I replay conversations the way some people replay songs.

Over and over.

Searching for hidden meaning.

Looking for the moment I missed.

Trying to find the mistake before it finds me.

It is exhausting to live inside a courtroom where you are always the defendant.

The hardest part is that it does not end with replaying.

It moves into planning.

If I anticipate every reaction, maybe I can prevent conflict.

If I prepare for every possible outcome, maybe I won’t be caught off guard.

If I rehearse every conversation in advance, maybe I can control the ending.

So I plan.

I draft the email in my head before I ever open my computer.

I imagine the parents’ response before they’ve typed a word.

I practice boundaries in the shower.

I rehearse difficult conversations while driving.

What if they say this?

Then I’ll respond like that.

What if they push back?

Then I’ll clarify this.

What if they misunderstand?

Then I’ll explain it differently.

I build entire conversations that never happen.

And even when they don’t unfold the way I feared, my body still braces for impact.

What makes this even harder is that I do not sit down and decide to do it.

I do not wake up and think, Today I will doubt myself.

I do not intentionally replay conversations like homework assignments.

It happens automatically.

Before I even realize it, my mind is already scanning.

Already analyzing tone.

Already reconstructing dialogue.

Already predicting outcomes.

It is not a strategy I choose.

It is a reflex my nervous system learned long ago.

Sometimes I catch it mid-loop.

I’ll be washing dishes, and suddenly I’m back in a conversation from six hours earlier.

I’ll be folding laundry, and I’m rewriting a sentence I already spoke.

I’ll be driving, and I’m rehearsing a response to something that hasn’t even happened.

And I think, How did I get here again?

It is as if my brain believes its job is to prevent danger by reviewing every possible mistake.

It is not malicious.

It is protective.

But it is relentless.

When you grow up in unpredictability, your body learns to stay on alert without asking permission.

It does not check in with you first.

It does not say, “Would you like to ruminate now?”

It simply activates.

Scan.

Analyze.

Prepare.

Rehearse.

Over and over.

This is not overthinking because I lack confidence.

It is overthinking because my nervous system once depended on it.

Second-guessing everything has a cost.

It steals joy from good decisions.

It steals peace from neutral ones.

It turns small mistakes into evidence of inadequacy.

It keeps me from celebrating growth because I am too busy auditing it.

Even in moments of success, I think:

Yes, but what if you handled that better?

Yes, but what if someone was offended?

Yes, but what if it unravels later?

There is always a “what if.”

And “what if” has a way of shrinking the present moment.

I see it in the classroom sometimes.

After a hard parent email.

After redirecting a student.

After making a decision quickly because teaching rarely allows slow deliberation.

I go home and replay it.

Should I have said that differently?

Was I too firm?

Was I not firm enough?

I love teaching. I know it is my calling. I know it the way you know sunlight is real even when clouds roll in. But when accusations come — when someone suggests I don’t care or that I’m not doing my job — it doesn’t just sting.

It awakens something old.

It awakens the child who was told she was the problem.

And suddenly, I am not just responding as a teacher.

I am responding as a little girl trying to prove she is not defective.

Second-guessing shows up in motherhood too.

The first time I didn’t yell.

The first time I held my boundary and walked away.

The first time I chose calm even though my nervous system was anything but calm.

Instead of celebrating growth, I questioned it.

Was I too soft?

Did I let that slide?

Trauma teaches you that mistakes are catastrophic. That one wrong move unravels everything. That you are one decision away from becoming the very thing you swore you would never be.

But healing teaches something different.

Healing says: you are allowed to learn in motion.

There are moments now when I catch the spiral early.

Not always.

But sometimes.

I’ll feel the tightening in my chest — that subtle pull backward into replay — and before it takes over completely, I pause.

Grounding has become my quiet rebellion.

When I notice the loop forming, I try to come back to my body before my mind runs too far ahead.

Five things I can see.

Four things I can feel.

Three things I can hear.

Two things I can smell.

One thing I can taste.

The light hitting the wall.

The weight of my wedding ring.

The hum of the refrigerator.

My children laughing down the hallway.

Trauma lives in the past.

Anxiety lives in the future.

Grounding lives here.

Now.

When I use my senses, I remind my body:

You are not in that house anymore.

You are not in danger.

This is your kitchen.

These are your children.

This is your life.

Sometimes the spiral loosens immediately.

Other times it only softens.

But even softening matters.

Grace has been rewriting my internal dialogue slowly, like water smoothing stone.

Grace says:

You can make a decision and stand in it.

You can apologize without collapsing.

You can be corrected without unraveling.

You can be misunderstood and still be whole.

Grace reminds me that perfection was never the assignment.

Faith alone was.

Not flawless performance.

Not endless self-monitoring.

Not proving I am worthy.

Just faith that God’s mercy is not fragile.

Just faith that I am not one misstep away from losing everything.

I may never completely silence the reflex.

But I can interrupt it.

I can choose not to follow every anxious thought to its conclusion.

I can reflect once.

Adjust if needed.

Then release.

Not replay.

Not rehearse.

Not reconstruct every possible alternate ending.

Just release.

If my children inherit anything from me, I pray it is not hyper-vigilance.

I pray they inherit steadiness.

I pray they make decisions without fear that love will disappear if they misstep.

I pray they know that being human is not the same as being unsafe.

And when they doubt themselves — as all people do — I hope their inner voice is gentler than mine once was.

I hope it sounds like grace.

Why I Became a Teacher

 

Why I Became a Teacher

At the beginning of every school year, before we open textbooks or talk about rules, we begin with one question:

Who do you want to be this year?

Each student chooses a single word, statement, or phrase to guide them through the year ahead. Some choose bravery. Others choose try again. Some choose longer phrases—I am more than my mistakes, or I don’t give up when things are hard. There is no wrong answer. What matters is that the choice is theirs.

Once the word is chosen, we share it—not just with each other, but with our families. I ask students to tell the people at home what their word is and how they want support in living into it. We talk openly about what that support might look like: encouragement, reminders, patience, celebration. This is not a goal we abandon after the first week. We commit to it together, and we return to it all year long.

The word becomes part of our classroom language. We reference it during hard moments. We celebrate it when growth shows up quietly. When students feel stuck, we ask, How does your word guide you here? The goal is not perfection—it is persistence. And the responsibility is shared.

This practice matters to me because I know what it is like to move through a year without anyone asking who you are becoming.

I have always been someone who asks why.

Why people behave the way they do.
Why do certain experiences leave marks that never fully fade?
Why do some spaces feel safe enough to breathe in, while others tighten around your chest the moment you enter?

These questions did not come from abstract curiosity. They came from survival.

My childhood was shaped by instability and trauma, and long before I had language for it, I learned to observe the world closely. In the absence of consistent guidance or emotional safety, I watched patterns—how adults reacted, how power moved, how silence could protect or punish. I learned that beneath our differences, most people are driven by the same fundamental needs: to be seen, to be safe, and to belong.

Much of my childhood play happened alone. My parents were largely uninvolved, and I spent long stretches of time creating structure where none existed. I turned my bedroom into a classroom—complete with a whiteboard, lesson plans, and an imagined group of students sitting quietly in front of me. Teaching gave me order. Predictability. A sense of control in an otherwise unpredictable world.

Even then, teaching felt less like play and more like grounding—a way to make sense of chaos.

School, however, was not the refuge I hoped it would be.

While it offered routine, it also became another site of harm. I struggled academically due to severe dyslexia that went largely unrecognized and unsupported. Reading was exhausting. Spelling was—and still is—extremely difficult. No matter how hard I tried, my effort was invisible.

Instead of receiving help, I was labeled.

Teachers called me stupid—sometimes indirectly, sometimes directly.
My parents called me stupid to my face.
They told me I was dumb, lazy, and not trying hard enough.

These words were not whispered. They were spoken plainly, repeatedly, and without hesitation—by the very adults who were supposed to teach and protect me.

Classmates laughed when I misspelled words or stumbled while reading aloud. Teachers treated my learning differences as character flaws. I was talked about rather than talked to. My difficulties were framed as defiance or lack of effort, not as signs that I needed support.

Over time, those words became my internal voice.

I stopped raising my hand.
I stopped trusting my instincts.
I stopped believing I was capable of learning at all.

School became associated with shame and failure—not because I lacked curiosity, but because curiosity had become dangerous.

As I grew older, my engagement with formal academics declined. Not because I didn’t want to learn—but because learning had come to mean exposure, judgment, and risk without safety.

And yet, the instinct to teach never left me.

I shared ideas with friends. I talked through books, beliefs, and questions late into the night. Teaching became relational rather than evaluative—rooted in shared understanding instead of correction. Without realizing it, I was reclaiming learning in a way school never allowed me to.

I did not set out to become a teacher. In fact, for a long time, I was certain I never would.

But becoming a parent changed everything.

Watching my children learn—especially my son, who is autistic—reshaped how I understood intelligence, behavior, and worth. I saw firsthand how quickly children are labeled, how narrowly success is defined, and how easily those definitions exclude brilliant, capable minds. I recognized myself in the children who struggled loudly and the ones who struggled quietly.

When I began working in intervention, something finally clicked.

I found myself sitting beside students who lived in the in-between—children who were behind, but not “enough.” Students whose needs were real, but not officially recognized. These were the children I had been: trying hard, misunderstood, and slowly learning to disappear.

My own school trauma changed the questions I asked.

I stopped asking, What’s wrong with this child?
I started asking, What has this child learned about themselves?
And just as importantly, what do they need now?

As a teacher, I intentionally disrupt the dynamics that once caused me harm. One of the first things I tell my students is that I am dyslexic. I tell them that I misspell words. I explain that if they notice a mistake on the board, they are welcome to raise their hand and help me fix it.

Immediately, something shifts.

Mistakes become normal.
Learning becomes collaborative.
Shame loses its power.

There is another rule in my classroom—one I am unwavering about.

“Stupid,” “I can’t,” and “hate” are not allowed words.

Not when students speak to each other.
Not when they speak about the work.
And especially not when they speak about themselves.

I explain that these words are heavy. They carry harm. They shut down curiosity and convince the brain to stop trying. Many of us learned these words long before we were old enough to understand what they do to us—and in this room, we learn a different language.

If a student says, “I’m stupid,” we pause and rewrite it together.
If someone says, “I can’t,” we add yet.
If a child says they hate something—or someone—we talk about what they are really feeling underneath that word.

Language shapes belief. And belief shapes behavior.

That is why social-emotional learning is not an add-on in my classroom—it is woven into everything we do. We spend intentional time building self-esteem, emotional awareness, and identity exploration. We talk about feelings, boundaries, strengths, and values. We practice naming emotions, reflecting on experiences, and understanding ourselves and one another more deeply.

SEL gives students language for what they feel and permission to explore who they are becoming. It teaches them that emotions are not weaknesses to be hidden, but information to be understood. Through reflection, discussion, and shared experiences, students learn to see themselves as capable, growing individuals—and to extend that same understanding to others.

That is why every Monday morning, we begin our week with affirmations.

Before the work begins—before expectations, lessons, or assessments—we take time to speak truth out loud.

I am capable.
I am allowed to learn at my own pace.
Mistakes help me grow.
I belong here.

These moments are quiet and intentional. They set the tone for the week ahead. Over time, I hear a shift in students’ language. I see the way their posture changes when they face something difficult.

At the beginning of the year, I also read my students You Matter by Christian Robinson. Afterward, we sit in a circle and take turns completing the sentence: “I matter because…” When a student struggles to find the words, the class helps. No one is skipped. No one is left alone with silence.

This is what grace looks like in practice.

Grace is not excusing harm or lowering expectations.
Grace is making room for growth without humiliation.
Grace is remembering that worth is not earned through performance.

Mercy, too, has a place here.

Mercy looks like curiosity instead of punishment.
Like pausing before reacting.
Like choosing connection over control.

Teaching is a position of power, and without reflection, that power can unintentionally recreate the very harm it is meant to prevent. I know this because I lived it. That is why I believe teaching must be rooted in mercy—especially when it is inconvenient, especially when it is undeserved.

I have seen how deeply students long to be seen and valued. For some, the classroom may be the only place where their academic and emotional needs are met with consistency and care. Trauma does not stay outside the classroom. It shapes behavior, self-perception, and the ability to learn—for students and educators alike.

This is why reflection matters.
Why trauma awareness matters.
Why social-emotional learning, grace, and mercy are not optional—but essential.

I did not become a teacher because school was kind to me.
I became a teacher because it wasn’t.

Because I know what it feels like to be called stupid by people whose words carry authority.
Because I know how shame silences curiosity.
Because I believe classrooms can be places of repair, not harm.

I cannot change what happened to me.

But I can meet my students with the grace I needed.
I can teach with the mercy I was denied.
I can help them explore who they are—safely, honestly, and with dignity.

And that is why I became a teacher.

Faith Before Words: Growing Up in the Same Church That Still Holds Us Today

 

Faith Before Words

“For by grace you have been saved through faith—and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”
— Ephesians 2:8

My first memory of faith is not of God.

It is not scripture or sermons or prayers spoken aloud. It is not belief, as adults understand belief. My first memory is of people, the church, and being there.

I remember the nursery.

I don’t remember lessons or songs, but I remember the adults who took care of us. The way they lifted us, watched us, tended to small needs with quiet consistency. At the time, I didn’t have language for what that meant. I only knew that for a little while, someone was paying attention. Someone was responsible for me. Someone noticed if I cried.

Looking back now, I see grace there—before I knew its name. Not dramatic or announced. Just steady care, freely given, without asking anything from me in return.

Most of those people are gone now. Some have died. Others left the church long ago. But they remain in my memory not because of what they taught, but because of how they showed up. Their care was ordinary and temporary—and yet it mattered more than theology ever could have at that age.

I also remember the pews.

I remember lying across them, small enough that the wood felt wide beneath my body. I would look up at the lights and the ceiling, tracing patterns I couldn’t name. I listened to the choir sing. I didn’t understand the words, but I felt the sound fill the room and move through me. It settled somewhere deep and unformed.

Church, in those early years, was not something I understood.
It was something I experienced.

Light.
Sound.
Stillness.
Being watched over.

My faith began before I had words for God. Before I knew what belief required or demanded. It began in fragments of safety—in moments where the world softened just enough for me to breathe. Grace arrived first, long before belief knew how to follow.

But even then, church was complicated.

Attending church with my mother—and sometimes my father—was confusing in ways I did not yet know how to name. I saw a version of my mother there that did not exist at home. I watched her speak kindly to others, laugh easily, offer care and concern. People trusted her. They saw her as gentle and warm.

And I sat beside her, holding two truths that did not fit together.

The mother others saw did not match the one I knew. I did not understand how both could exist in the same person. I didn’t have language for masks or image or charm. I only knew that something felt deeply wrong—and that no one else seemed to notice.

Church was one of the first places I learned that appearances could lie.
That people could be one thing in public and another in private.
That harm could hide behind kindness.

Grace did not erase that confusion. It did not rush to explain it away. Instead, it stayed with the child who sensed something was wrong and quietly trusted her awareness, even when no one affirmed it yet.

Around the age of eight or nine, something shifted.

I was old enough to listen—to the readings for that Sunday and the sermon that followed—and to begin wondering whether God might be more than atmosphere. I remember sitting there and thinking, Maybe God will help me. Because I believe in Him.

That thought landed with weight.

It wasn’t theological. It was desperate. I didn’t yet have words for what was wrong in my life, but I knew I needed help. And if believing in God meant help was possible, then I would believe with everything I had.

So I started praying.

Every day.
Sometimes two or three times a day.

They weren’t polished prayers. They were repetitive, earnest, almost bargaining in their hope. I prayed because I believed belief itself mattered—that if I did this correctly, if I was faithful enough, God might intervene. Might soften something. Might fix what I could not explain.

Prayer became my private lifeline. Something I could do that felt active instead of helpless. I prayed before school. I prayed at night. I prayed quietly in my head when the day felt too heavy.

I didn’t pray for miracles.
I prayed for relief.
For safety.
For things to change.

Only later did I realize that grace was already answering those prayers—not by fixing everything, but by keeping me alive, by giving me a place to turn, by holding me through what I could not yet escape.

For a long time, church and faith were the same thing in my mind.

As a child—and well into my early twenties—I did not know how to separate them. Church was where faith lived. Faith was filtered through people, systems, sermons, and expectations. What happened inside those walls shaped what I believed God was like.

So when church disappointed me, faith felt like the disappointment too.

When I felt unseen or misunderstood, it wasn’t just people who failed me—it felt like God had. When silence was expected, I assumed heaven echoed that silence. When obedience was praised over honesty, I learned to distrust my own voice not just with others, but with God.

Resentment crept in slowly.

I resented the way faith seemed tied to places where truth felt unsafe. I resented how easily people spoke of grace while I was still trying to survive. I resented how belief was presented as simple when my life was anything but.

And because I could not yet separate church from God, I resented them both.

For a long time, I misunderstood grace.

I thought grace was conditional—something given after repentance, after forgiveness, after I had proven myself worthy. I thought it was fragile. Something I could lose if I was angry, questioning, or broken for too long.

But grace was never asking me to earn it.

Grace is not deserved.
Grace is not negotiated.
Grace is not withdrawn when faith is messy.

Grace is God’s unmerited favor—moving first, staying longest, holding even when belief is confused. It does not belong to buildings or people or performance. It belongs to God alone.

Learning this did not erase the past—but it loosened its grip.

It meant God was not aligned with harm, even when harm happened in holy spaces. It meant my childhood prayers were not evaluated for correctness. It meant my resentment did not disqualify me, and my questions did not exile me.

Grace had been present all along—quiet, patient, waiting until I could recognize it for what it was.

And still—I remain.

I still attend the same church I did when I was a young child. The church where my parents were married. The church where I was baptized. The same building where I lay across the pews and stared at the lights.

It is also the church where I was married.
Where my children were baptized.
Where they are now growing up—walking the same aisles, sitting in the same pews, learning faith in the same space where mine began, fractured, and slowly re-formed.

This is not because the church has been perfect.
It has not.
Neither have the people within it.

But grace does not require perfection to remain.

This place has seen my whole story.

It has seen me as a child searching for safety.
As a teenager clinging to belief.
As a young adult resentful and tired.
As a woman learning to untangle God from harm.
As a mother bringing her children forward, trusting grace to meet them more gently than it met me.

My faith has grown here—not in a straight line, but in cycles. It has questioned here. Broken here. Rebuilt here. Grace did not rush any of it.

There is something sacred in that continuity.

Not because the building itself is holy—but because grace has been willing to meet me here again and again. The same walls that once held my earliest prayers now echo with my children’s voices. The same font that marked my beginning has marked theirs.

My faith did not outgrow this place.
It learned how to live more truthfully within it.

Reflection
Grace found me before I could name it, stayed when I resented it, and remained when I learned to trust it again. I promise to let my faith keep growing without forcing it into certainty—and to trust that grace is wide enough to hold my whole story, and my children’s too.

When “Feeling Well” Had No Shape

 

When “Feeling Well” Had No Shape

Once, in a PTSD recovery program, I was given my very first assignment.

It wasn’t a worksheet or a list of symptoms. There was no checklist to complete, no scale to circle, no trauma timeline to map out. Instead, the facilitator spoke softly and told us to use whatever words came to us. There was no wrong answer. No pressure to get it “right.”

Then they helped by offering suggestions.

Safe.
Cozy.
Cheerful.
Playful.
Fun.
Introverted.
Spiritual.
Curious.
Loving.

The list went on.

And then came the question, written plainly, almost gently:

What are you like when you are feeling well?

The room grew quiet in that particular way that invites honesty—or exposes the absence of it. Others began to speak. Someone said they were calmer. Another said they laughed more. Someone talked about feeling lighter, more present, less guarded.

When it was my turn, I realized something unsettling.

I knew how to act out all of those words.

I knew how to look safe.
How to behave cozy.
How to sound cheerful.
How to perform playful and fun when it was expected of me.
I knew how to appear spiritual, loving, curious.

I had spent years learning how to wear those traits convincingly.

And it wasn’t just wellness I could perform, I knew how to act out emotions, too.

I knew how to display sadness in acceptable amounts.
How to show concern without needing comfort.
How to cry quietly, briefly, and recover quickly.
How to express gratitude, remorse, even joy in ways that felt appropriate and contained.

I knew what emotions were supposed to look like.

But actually feeling them—letting them rise without controlling them, without editing them, without preparing an explanation—that was different.

That was unfamiliar.
That was unsafe.

Somewhere along the way, I had learned that emotions were things to manage, not inhabit. That feeling too much was dangerous, and feeling too little was preferable to feeling out of control. So I learned performance instead of permission.

I could name emotions.
I could mirror them.
I could respond to them in others.

But allowing myself to feel them—without rushing past, without minimizing, without punishing myself for having them at all—was something I had never really done.

And I didn’t even know how to start.

Not because I was unwilling, but because there was no map. No internal memory of what it felt like to let an emotion move through my body and stay there long enough to be acknowledged. Feelings had always been things to survive, not experiences to explore.

So when the assignment asked me to describe who I was when I felt well, my mind went blank.

I had words for survival.
I had words for vigilance, endurance, and functioning.
I could describe myself when I was bracing, when I was managing, when I was holding everything together with quiet compliance and practiced steadiness.

But well?

That word hovered somewhere far above my lived experience, untethered from memory, floating like a concept meant for other people. It sounded clean and complete, like something with edges and weight and a clear beginning. I could understand it intellectually, but I could not locate it inside myself.

I tried anyway.

I searched backward—through childhood, adolescence, early adulthood—turning over memories like stones, hoping to find a version of myself that existed without threat. 

I was about 3 in this photo

This was in Second Grade

4th Grade

5th grade

I looked for a time before my body learned to stay alert, before my mind learned to scan rooms for danger, before shame arrived faster than thought. I searched for a self that moved through the world without bracing.

I found moments.
Laughter that caught me off guard.
Connection that felt warm and real.
Joy that rose suddenly and honestly.

But they were moments, not a state.
Interruptions are not a foundation.

They existed despite the fear, not because it was absent. Even in happiness, something inside me stayed watchful, waiting for the shift, counting the cost. I had never rested inside joy—I had only visited it.

“Well” had always been conditional.
Temporary.
Borrowed.

It depended on circumstances lining up just right. On no one being angry. On no one needing too much from me. On my body behaving, my emotions staying contained, my needs remaining small enough not to be noticed. Wellness was something I was allowed briefly, as long as I did not inconvenience anyone with it.

Sitting there, staring at that first assignment, another realization surfaced—quiet, but heavy.

If I knew how to act well without actually feeling well…
If I knew how to perform emotions without allowing myself to experience them…
What did that mean?

It meant I had learned performance before safety.
It meant my nervous system knew scripts, not rest.
It meant I could imitate wellness and emotion long before I was ever allowed to live inside either one.

That realization landed harder than I expected—especially for a first assignment that was supposed to introduce healing, not expose its absence.

I saw how deeply my sense of self had been shaped by endurance.

I did not know who I was at rest.
I knew who I was under pressure.

I knew how to disappear.
How to comply before being asked.
How to anticipate moods and needs before they were spoken.
How to absorb harm quietly, efficiently, without drawing attention.

Those skills had once kept me safe. They were adaptive, even necessary. But over time, they had become my identity. I learned who I was by how well I could survive, not by how fully I could be.

So when I was asked—on day one—who I was without the weight of trauma pressing against my nervous system, without the constant internal scanning, without the reflex to apologize for existing, I had nothing to point to.

No internal reference photo.
No baseline.
No memory of inhabiting my body without armor.

And the shame came quickly after that realization.

Not because I hadn’t healed “enough,” but because some part of me believed I should know. As if not having an answer meant I had already failed recovery. As if this blank space was proof that something essential had been missed or broken beyond repair.

It felt like discovering a missing chapter in my own life and assuming it was my fault it had never been written.

But over time—slowly, gently—that first assignment began to shift.

The question did not change.
What are you like when you are feeling well?

But the way it sounded did.

It stopped feeling like an accusation and started sounding like something unfinished. Not a test I was failing, but a sentence with a blank space I had never been given permission to fill.

I still don’t have an answer.

What I have instead is the awareness that I learned how to survive before I ever learned how to feel. That I can name emotions, perform them, even explain them—while still not knowing how to let them live inside my body.

And I don’t yet know how to begin.

But for the first time, I am allowing myself to admit that.

And this time, I am not ashamed of the silence that follows.