PRISON DIDN'T CREATE THE WOMEN WE HAD BECOME. It simply put walls around the survival we had already been living. When I first entered prison, it would have been easy to look around and see inmates. Numbers. Uniforms. Sentences. Women who had done something wrong. But the longer I lived among them, the harder it became to see them that way. I began seeing mothers. Daughters. Aunties. Wives. Women who missed their children. Women who still needed their mothers. Women who wante

An Acknowledgment. A Good-Bye. There are some lives we never get to live. Not because we didn't dream about them, but because life took us down road's we never imagined walking. Before continuing the prison journey, I needed to stop and acknowledge the woman I might have been—the dreams she carried, the choices she might have made, and the life that was never written. This interlude isn't about regret. It's about learning that healing can include grieving what never got the c

When I entered prison, I thought the hardest part would be the bars, the walls, or the years ahead. It wasn't. The hardest part was realizing that no one—not the people I loved, not my regrets, not even my memories—could walk that road for me. In this week's Closing the Gap, we explore the roads we all face alone, the burdens we were never meant to carry by ourselves, and the hope that meets us when we finally stop running. Because some prisons have bars... And some are built

🌳 Lessons from the Orchard There was a time when I thought the orchard was simply a place to escape. As a little girl, I wandered beneath the pecan trees whenever life became too heavy. They never asked questions. They never judged my silence. They simply stood... offering shade, stillness, and a place where I could breathe. I didn't realize then that God was already teaching me. Years later, I began looking at those same trees with different eyes. I noticed their roots, the

Sometimes healing doesn't happen in the dramatic moments. Sometimes it happens quietly... while we're waiting. Waiting for answers. Waiting for breakthrough. Waiting for the next chapter. A rose doesn't stop being beautiful because it's standing in the rain. If anything... the rain reveals its strength. As we wait for Episode 10 of Where Healing Began, I want to encourage you not to rush through your own waiting season. Growth often happens underground before anyone sees the

There comes a kind of tired that sleep can't fix. Closing the Gap — When Your Soul Is Tired. There comes a kind of tired that sleep can't fix. It's the kind that settles into your soul. You wake up exhausted before your feet ever touch the floor. You smile because people expect you to. You answer, "I'm fine," because explaining would take more energy than you have left. Trauma has a way of doing that. It doesn't just wound your heart. It recruits your mind into fighting battl

When I was little, I believed in fairy tales. I believed love would always be kind. I believed home would always feel safe. I believed one day I'd have my own little house with a white picket fence and live happily ever after. But fairy tales don't prepare you for trauma. Mine wasn't stolen in a single moment. It disappeared one wound at a time. For years, I believed I had lost my chance at a beautiful life. What I didn't realize was that God wasn't writing a fairy tale—He wa

There are seasons when we become so accustomed to carrying the weight of life that we forget what it feels like to truly rest. We carry yesterday's regrets. We worry about tomorrow's uncertainties. We replay conversations. We fight battles no one else can see. Sometimes, the greatest act of faith isn't doing more...it's trusting God enough to be still. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, Thank You for carrying me through another week. Some days have been filled with joy, wh

There are moments when the very thing God has called you to do feels like the thing that's breaking you. I've felt that. There were times I wanted to walk away from this podcast and this website. Not because I stopped believing in the message... but because the process became so frustrating. Buttons wouldn't work. Pages wouldn't cooperate. Things I thought would take minutes took hours. There were moments I wondered if it was worth it. But then I remembered something. I've su

This weekend I realized something that broke my heart. Every time someone talks down to me, I don't just hear their words... I become the little girl who learned to disappear. When I was a child, I would hide after being hurt so no one would see my tears. I thought I had outgrown that. But I hadn't. I had simply grown older. This weekend, I found myself doing the same thing. Instead of enjoying my family, I withdrew. I stayed away. Not because I wanted to... ...but because li

Sometimes the tree that looks the most damaged is the one that teaches us the most about resilience. I was the different one in the orchard. The lonely tree. But even after the storm, I learned I could continue to stand inspite of. I remember one tree that stood out from all the others. Lightning had struck it. Its branches were scarred. It didn't look like the other trees in the orchard, yet somehow it was still standing. As a little girl, I didn't realize why I was drawn to

We made it thru another week. We've carried responsibility. We've carried worry. We've carried yesterday. We've even carried tomorrow before it arrived. Then when God finally gives us a quiet moment, we don't know what to do with it. Maybe rest isn't something we're naturally good at. Maybe it's something we have to learn. Today, I'm learning I don't have to earn rest. It's one of Gods gifts. "Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." -Matthew 11:

Rest is the language I'm still learning.