When a Woman Finds Her Voice

We women all have stories to share. These tales are based on epic heartache and breath-taking redemption. Through the trials of abuse, abandonment, death, mental illness, and divorce (along with many others) we tend to think our stories don't matter because they are not what people want to hear. We begin to believe the person who hurt us when he or she says, "No one will listen to you. They don't care."

In our own shame and rejection we swallow the misunderstanding that the life experiences we gain through sorrow have no value. It's easy to fade into the background when others are leading the lives they always dreamed. The thought of throwing our hands up, letting go of expectations, and not wanting to live anymore becomes more real with each passing day as our hearts burn stronger with tormenting pain.

Can I share a hard truth with you? A truth that causes my hands to tremble as I type it out?

A year ago this coming October I had the overwhelming desire to leave my life.

Three years before this my three small children and I had been abandoned by my first husband. He allowed his own darkened past to take over and left us for drugs and a life in and out of prison. J never let me in to really help, he carried it all inside and finally the dysfunctional cycle became too much for him.

I never thought I would get divorced. The shame of his behavior carried over into my heart and I was so embarrassed of his failures. His choices became my identity and I wrestled with how to move on and live again knowing that my heart was bruised and battered by a man I had given it to freely.

I worked on my Master's degree and completed my schooling in December 2011. When my ex-husband left our children were ages 4, 18 months, and 11 weeks. As I pushed through school I raised them the best way I knew how along with the help of my mother.

We would not have made it without her. She housed us, fed us, and loved us like no one else did. She deserves a medal of honor or whatever we give women who put their children and grandchildren before themselves over and over.

I met Bryan in the Fall of 2011 and he changed my life. We married in June 2012 and at the end of July he lost his job. To say we were devastated would be an understatement. I began teaching that Fall and fell into a deep depression.

October brought my 32nd birthday and the realization that I was hurting deeply and looking for a way out. I shared this with my newlywed husband and just saying those words changed my world. God took my admission of not being able to hold it all together on my own as an invitation to work in my heart. And boy did he ever.

The next eight months became filled with hope, light, strength and a lot of work. God gave Bryan a new job, moved us to a new town and developed some amazing friendships for me online and in real life. He also brought me to this place, this blog, to share my story, to begin healing and more importantly to begin helping others.

Late this summer I found an email in my inbox from Jo Ann Fore. I had signed up for email updates from her blog Write Where it Hurts.

It was an application to be part of a book launch team for her first published work When a Woman Finds Her Voice. I read the words several times thinking,

"How in the world can I do this? Yes I've started a blog but to support someone else's writing when I've just begun to work on my own? Will I even be accepted? Can I make a difference?"

My heart was telling me to go for it so I filled out the application and told no one. I didn't want to share the rejection if I wasn't chosen.

But I was. I joined a team of 85 women who are just as broken as I am. We all have stories to share, hearts to be mended and others to encourage.

As a I read through Jo Ann's book I kept thinking of myself and how God has taken my unbelievable pain and weaved into a beautiful masterpiece of recovery and thankfulness.

Jo Ann speaks so eloquently about the shame of an abusive marriage, her cancer scare, and how she overcame the negative thoughts burned into her mind for so many years. Her words have been a refreshing spring of life to my sometimes saddened soul which still believes my story won't help anyone else.

As we walk those lonely paths of distrust we forget about the One who created us to be so much more. We do not see His hand in our lives so we try to control our destiny. Jo Ann provides the steps to gain strength in our stories, to find the raw places still untouched and bring them to the 

surface exposed in the light. 

She gives us women with knots in our stomachs and lumps in our throats the encouragement to trust the God who can take any story and make it a work of art. She also shares the deep, resonating effect we can have on others if we bravely take the necessary steps to break the cycle of silence and become the one who shreds the darkness.

Speak up for the people who have no voice, for the rights of all the down-and-outers.

Proverbs 31:8

I hope you will join me over the coming weeks as I write more about Jo Ann's book and how she takes her readers on a journey of healing and self discovery. It is truly a resource for any woman seeking to find her voice and learn how to embrace the amazing role of "story-teller"that God has called us to be through scripture.

You can find details about the book coming in October 2013 HERE.

I'm linking up with the members of Jo Ann's amazing book launch team to share our stories of how we are each finding our voices. Please hop on over and visit!