He found me in the middle of my mess.

It started when I was 12

My dad took his own life when I was 12 years old. That's where the story starts — not because it's the worst thing that ever happened to me, but because it's where the wound opened. I grew up after that in pieces. My mom, my brother, family members doing their best. But something broke in me that day that I spent decades trying to fix with the wrong things.

Mental health struggles. Domestic violence. Drug addiction. Self-harm. I was a cutter. I know what it is to hurt yourself just to feel something different than what's already inside you. I know what it is to be in a dark place and not see a way out — because I've been there more than once. I attempted suicide myself. I know that road. I know what it feels like to be standing at that edge.

I have tattoos now that cover some of my cutting marks. And I want to say something about that — because it matters. You cannot tell what someone has been through by looking at them. The tattoos, the piercings, the pink hair, the purple hair, the way someone is dressed, what side of the street they grew up on — none of that tells you their story. God doesn't look at any of that. He looks at the heart. And he loves every single one of them.

Two brothers, two roads

My younger brother is still living. He took the same broken beginning — the same family, the same loss, the same chaos — and went a different direction. He went into the Marines, served his country, worked hard, and became a minister. I took the longer road. The darker road.

I used to think that meant something was wrong with me. Now I understand it differently. Both of our stories prove the same thing: no matter what happens inside a family, God can reach every single one of us. He doesn't need us to take the easy road. He just needs us to come home — and he'll meet us wherever we are on the way.

My brother also lost another brother — we lost him to suicide too. That grief belongs to both of us. And yet here we are. God has restored us. He's still working on us. What came out of all that sadness and chaos is something neither of us could have planned — beauty from ashes, just like the scripture says.

Three years, one coin

I have struggled with addiction in one way or another my whole life. I never thought I'd be the person holding a sobriety coin. I never thought a little coin would matter. But I have my three-year coin now — and only God could have done that. Not my strength. His. His leading, his grace, his patience with me when I had none for myself.

That coin is a small thing. But it shows me the power of our Father — the one who leaves the ninety-nine to come find the one. I was the one. I've been the one more times than I can count. And every single time, he came. That's not something I take lightly. That's everything.

Loss upon loss

In 2024, I lost my mom on April 7th. She was living with me. She passed at my house. Seventeen days later, on April 24th, I lost my only son in a car accident. Two people. Seventeen days. I don't have words for what that does to a person. I lost myself in it. I tussled with God. I wanted to be in heaven. I wanted to be here. I didn't know which way to go.

I'd been involved in church most of my life, but if I'm honest, it was the kind of church where things weren't properly taught and things happened that shouldn't have. I knew the words. I didn't know the Father. There's a difference, and it took me a long time to understand that the church failing me wasn't God failing me.

From victim to victor

The moment things started to shift was when I stopped seeing myself as a victim of my story and started understanding that I was fighting from victory — not for it. God wasn't punishing me with my trials. He was building something in me that I couldn't see yet.

I have two biological daughters, a daughter from my son's fiancée, and nine grandchildren. I want to lead them home. That's the whole thing. I want to plant seeds wherever I can and let God do the rest. I've taken so much in this life. The rest of it I want to give back.

A masterpiece still in progress

What I see now — looking at my brother's life and mine, at the wreckage and the restoration — is that God is making a masterpiece out of all of it. Not just one of us. All of us. The puzzle pieces are coming together. Generational curses are being broken. Our stories aren't over yet, and that's the most beautiful part.

A lot of people don't have fathers. I didn't have mine for most of my life. But I found one in God — in the middle of my mess, in the middle of my grief, in the middle of my addiction and my anger and my loss. If he can love on someone like me and meet me where I was, he can do it for anyone.

That's what Found in Grace is. It's not a polished ministry. It's not a program. It's me — and my brother, and everyone who's walked a hard road — saying: you are not alone, you don't have to have it figured out, and God is not waiting for you to clean yourself up before he'll come find you. He's already out there on the trail. He left something there for you.