A Life Redeemed - Introduction
As I try to comprehend the immeasurable love, mercy, and grace of God, I find myself standing in awe of a compassion that reaches into the deepest darkness and still rescues. His steadfast love never runs dry. His power to redeem is never limited. His mercy isn’t fragile. It is eternal.
This book was once going to be a recounting of what I survived. But the more I held my story before the Lord, the more I sensed that He was asking something different of me. The things I lived through were devastating. To relive them in order to write them is costly. And if it is costly for me to write, it would be too heavy to ask someone to simply endure as a reader. So, I’ve chosen another path.
Holding tightly to the mighty hand of Jesus, I will not write a book centered on trauma. I will write a book marked by stones of grace. Throughout Scripture, stones were set up as memorials. They testified that God intervened. That He delivered. That He made a way where there was none. My life, though scarred by profound evil and loss, is also lined with these stones. They mark places where God entered the story and refused to leave.
My son, Alex, took his own life on January 22, 2025. He believed he was alone. He believed he was beyond redemption. God’s Word declares that no one is beyond the reach of Christ’s blood. There is no sin greater than His mercy. Jesus shed His blood for all.
Alex never knew the full history of my life. He didn’t know the depth of the trauma that shaped our early years. He didn’t get to meet the woman God was rebuilding in Christ. That reality carries a weight I will carry all my days. Yet even here, I entrust him to the sovereign God who knew every breath he would ever take. The Lord is perfectly just. Perfectly merciful. Perfectly wise. I trust that God will be glorified in all things, even in mysteries I don’t fully understand. His nature is not divided between love and justice. Even His wrath flows from holy perfection.
This book is not an attempt to answer eternal questions. It is a testimony to the One who rescues from despair. I know despair. I know what it is to contemplate death as relief. I survived multiple suicide attempts. I survived sexual abuse, trafficking, domestic violence, and cycles of trauma that could have defined the remainder of my life. If this book were only about those events, it would be unbearable. But that is not the story God is writing.
In my weakest moments, when I had nothing left to offer, God revealed Himself. Not always with immediate rescue. Often with quiet endurance. With covenant promises whispered into broken places. With Scripture that became breath in my lungs.
The stones of grace in these pages will not deny suffering. They will reveal redemption within it. My prayer is that this book magnifies the God of all creation. The God who speaks through His Word. The God who appointed His Son heir of all things, through whom He also created the world. Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature. He upholds the universe by the word of His power. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of Majesty on high. He is not distant from pain. He entered it.
If you are grieving. If you are drowning in a broken past. If the enemy whispers that ending your life is the only way forward. There is another way.
This book is an altar of remembrance. Each chapter is a stone set upright to declare that God redeems what the enemy meant to destroy. That suffering is not sovereign, God is, that even when our story is marred by devastation, it can still be redeemed for His glory.
My survival is not the centerpiece. His grace is. And that grace is still being written across my life.
Glory to God
I worship You through victory
I worship You through pain
I worship You on sunny days
I worship You in rain
I know there’s no other God like You
You know the steps of man
You’re the Creator of all heaven and earth
Everything is by Your plan
Your ways are always perfect
Your Word proves ever true
You’re eternally faithful and just
In everything You do
Your goodness and Your mercy
Are constant and divine
You extend them to us daily
And all throughout our lives
You’re immanent and holy
You stand outside of time
Your eyes search the whole world
You’re all-knowing and You’re kind
All glory and honor
And praise belong to You
Even when I think I hate
Some of the things You do
I know Your ways are perfect
I trust Your Word is true
You proved the depth of Your love for me
By saving and making me new
I know You are the Potter
And I am but molded clay
You made me in Your image
What more could I ever say?
Because You can be trusted
Because all this poem is true
I trust my son’s death has purpose
For beforehand this day You knew
So, I will glorify You in my joy
I will glorify You in my pain
I will glorify You ‘til the day I die
Because above it all You reign