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Sweet Sixteen: Beyond the Curve

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Content Warning: Suicidal Ideation One night, when I was sixteen years old, I was driving home from work. I had a part-time job at McDonald’s in Somerset, PA. My parents and I lived about twenty-five minutes away in a little coal mining town. From Somerset, there was a decline down one small mountainside and then up the side of another to reach Acosta, where I lived. It was a small town on top of the mountain with only a few streets, our church, and a post office. We had fewer than 200 people in Acosta, making it the smallest place I had ever lived.                                                 Post Office                                            Church and Parsonage I hated my life, I hated it so much. I had already encountered so many painful things. I d...
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Rest in the Shadows

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I heard someone say, “If you work through it, it can’t hurt you anymore.” I’ve spent most of my life shoving hurt down into the deepest crevices of my soul. I didn’t even notice I was doing that at first. I thought I was just blessed to be strong and brave; to rise above the trauma and heartache. But as all those places within me started to fill, eventually there was no more room left. It bulged out further and further like a balloon filling with air. I felt the discomfort of it, but I wasn’t sure what it was. I was still living in this delusion that I was stronger than what I actually was, somewhat untouchable by grief and pain. Then one day, a very small thing happened. It pierced my now over-swollen spirit, like the point of a needle hitting my heart. It was a misunderstanding that led to a negative comment towards me, and just like that, the bulge burst, seeping out everywhere. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think. My mind spun uncontrollably around in circles. All I could do was h...
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The Runaway: Not My Identity

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The story of the prodigal son (Luke 15: 11-32) always reminds me of when I ran away from home at age seventeen. I left in the middle of the night searching for love and acceptance. For once, I needed to just be me, and I had no idea who that was. When I stepped out the front door, I was walking out from underneath the umbrella of God and everything it included. As far as I was concerned, life as a PK (Pastor’s kid) was nothing but horrible, unrealistic expectations, and it was time for me to be me. I think the prodigal son in the Bible just wanted to try life outside of his family. Maybe he, too, was looking for his identity or wanting to change it somehow. I was breaking free from what I felt was bondage. But in reality, I left one bondage (because in some ways it really was) and stepped into another kind of bondage. If I had known the heart of my Heavenly Father, I would have run to Him instead. I walked across town and moved in with a boy I had just started dating. I felt safe with ...
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