One of the hardest things about trauma is that it doesn’t ask permission before it interrupts your life.
You can be surrounded by the people you love.
Sitting at dinner with your family.
Laughing with friends.
Worshipping at church.
Watching your child do something that should fill your heart with joy.
Everything around you says, “Be present.”
But your mind quietly slips somewhere else.
Without warning, you’re no longer fully in the room.
You’re back in the place where trust was broken.
Where disappointment lives.
Where the unanswered questions still echo.
Where your heart learned to prepare for the worst before it ever had the chance to enjoy the best.
Trauma has a way of convincing your mind that if it stays alert, it can somehow protect you from being hurt again.
So while everyone else is enjoying the moment, your thoughts begin racing.
What if something happens?
What if this doesn’t last?
What if I’m missing something?
What if the peace I feel right now disappears tomorrow?
And before you even realize what’s happening, fear has quietly stolen the very moment you were longing to enjoy.
That is what trauma does.
It doesn’t always scream.
Sometimes it whispers.
It quietly pulls your attention away from the people sitting right in front of you and redirects it toward worries that don’t even exist yet.
It steals laughter before it has the chance to become joy.
It replaces peace with vigilance.
It convinces you that if you let your guard down, you’ll somehow be caught off guard again.
Even on the days when your soul finally feels calm…
when you wake up lighter…
when you begin to believe healing is happening…
it can feel as though a wave suddenly crashes over you.
A memory.
A feeling.
A smell.
A thought.
A disappointment you didn’t see coming.
And suddenly you’re underwater again.
Not because you chose to go there.
But because trauma remembered before you did.
I’ve learned that healing isn’t the absence of those waves.
Healing is recognizing that they no longer define where I live.
They still come.
But they don’t get to stay.
The wave may crash over me, but it doesn’t get to carry me away.
Because there is One who walks on the very waters that once convinced me I was drowning.
When Peter took his eyes off Jesus, the waves became bigger than the One who had called him out of the boat.
How often do we do the same?
We become so focused on the waves of yesterday that we miss the presence of the Savior standing with us today.
Jesus never promised that the storm would disappear.
But He did promise that He would be with us in it.
Maybe today the enemy isn’t trying to steal your future.
Maybe he’s trying to steal this moment.
The laughter you’re hearing.
The hug you’re receiving.
The worship filling the room.
The smile on your child’s face.
The peace God has graciously given you today.
Don’t let yesterday’s pain rob you of today’s grace.
And when you feel your mind drifting back into places you never wanted to revisit, gently bring it back to the One who is already waiting for you there.
“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” — Isaiah 26:3
Perfect peace doesn’t come because our minds never wander.
It comes because every time they do, we know where to bring them back.
Back to Jesus.
Back to truth.
Back to the present.
Back to the grace that is waiting for us in this very moment.
But I’ve learned there is a kind of exhaustion that sleep can’t touch.
It’s the exhaustion that comes from never allowing your mind to fully let go.
If you’re married to someone battling PTSD and addiction, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about.
Your body may be sitting on the couch, but your mind is somewhere else.
It’s wondering if what you’re being told is the whole truth.
It’s replaying yesterday’s conversation, trying to figure out if you missed something.
It’s noticing little changes in behavior that no one else would ever see.
It’s preparing for the next disappointment before this one has even had time to heal.
You don’t even realize you’re doing it anymore.
It has simply become the way you survive.
I don’t think people understand how loud it is inside our minds.
On the outside, we smile.
We go to work.
We cook dinner.
We laugh with our children.
We sit beside our husbands at church.
We answer, “I’m good,” when someone asks how we’re doing.
But inside… our minds never stop searching for solid ground.
I can’t remember the last time I completely relaxed.
Not because I don’t want to.
Because I don’t know how.
When your heart has been blindsided enough times, it begins to believe that if it stays alert, maybe it can prevent the next heartbreak.
So we stay busy.
We keep cleaning.
We keep organizing.
We keep serving everyone around us.
We keep thinking.
Constantly thinking.
Because slowing down means feeling.
And feeling means touching the grief we’ve spent so much energy trying to hold together.
What I’ve realized is that I haven’t just been carrying my own pain.
I’ve been carrying his too.
His PTSD.
His addiction.
His shame.
His recovery.
His choices.
His consequences.
As if somehow, if I could carry enough of it, maybe he wouldn’t have to.
Maybe then he’d finally have enough strength to get better.
But somewhere along the way, I quietly became exhausted from carrying a burden that was never mine to carry.
Maybe you have too.
Maybe that’s why you’re so tired.
Not because you’re weak.
Not because you’re doing life wrong.
But because you’ve been trying to hold together things that only God can hold.
I wish I could tell you I’ve learned how to quiet my mind.
I haven’t.
There are still nights when my thoughts race faster than I can pray.
There are still days when one unanswered question steals my peace.
There are still moments when I catch myself looking for evidence that everything is okay instead of simply living.
But I’ve discovered something beautiful.
The only place my mind ever stops fighting… is at the feet of Jesus.
Not because my circumstances suddenly change.
Not because the addiction disappears.
Not because tomorrow suddenly feels certain.
But because His presence reminds me that I was never asked to carry tomorrow.
I was only asked to trust Him with today.
There are moments when I open my Bible with tears already filling my eyes, and before I even finish reading, I can almost feel my soul exhale.
For just a moment, the fear grows quieter.
The “what ifs” loosen their grip.
The constant pressure to figure everything out fades into the background.
Nothing around me has changed.
But something inside me has.
Not because I became stronger.
Because I remembered who was carrying me.
Maybe that’s what our souls have been searching for all along.
Not another answer.
Not another promise from the person we love.
Not another guarantee that everything will finally be okay.
Maybe we’ve simply been longing for a place where our weary hearts can finally set the weight down.
Jesus knew there would be people like us.
People who would become weary from carrying burdens they were never meant to carry alone.
That is why His invitation still reaches into my heart every single time I read it:
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” — Matthew 11:28
Lately, when the noise in my mind becomes too loud, I’ve found myself playing “Quiet (Stripped)” by Maverick City Music.
There is something about those simple lyrics that reminds me of what my heart has been longing for all along—not answers, not certainty, just the quiet peace that only God’s presence can bring.
Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to Jesus.
Not because everything is okay.
But because when my mind refuses to rest, He gently reminds my soul that it can.
If your heart is weary today, I pray you’ll find a quiet place, open His Word, press play, and simply sit with Him for a while.
I have taken full control of them because addiction made it necessary.
We’ve done rehab.
We’ve done therapy.
We’ve involved family.
We’ve brought other people into the situation for accountability.
We’ve had the conversations.
We’ve cried.
We’ve prayed.
We’ve made plans.
We’ve talked about consequences.
We’ve had promises made after painful discoveries.
We’ve tried things that were supposed to help.
And still…
the addiction continues.
The lies continue.
That’s the part I’m struggling to understand now.
Because eventually you run out of smaller boundaries.
There comes a point where you’ve already moved the money. You’ve already created accountability. You’ve already encouraged treatment. You’ve already stopped hiding everything from the people closest to you.
And you’re still standing there looking at the same behavior.
So what boundary comes next?
That question terrifies me.
When You’ve Done Everything Except Leave
Maybe that’s the part I haven’t wanted to say out loud.
What happens when you’ve done almost everything you know to do except physically remove yourself from the cycle?
That’s a much harder question than, “How do I set a boundary?”
Because I know how to set boundaries now.
I know how to protect the finances.
I know how to say no.
I know how to involve other people.
I know how to encourage treatment.
I know how to recognize manipulation much faster than I used to.
What I don’t always know is what to do when none of it changes the person I love.
There is a painful realization that comes with that:
Maybe the purpose of my boundaries was never to make him change.
I think somewhere inside me, I still believed they would.
If I controlled the finances, maybe the gambling would stop.
If enough people knew, maybe the accountability would stop the lying.
If he went to rehab, maybe he would finally understand.
If therapy uncovered the deeper issues, maybe everything would begin to change.
If he saw how close he came to losing his marriage, surely that would be enough.
But what happens when it isn’t?
What happens when every safeguard you put into place becomes another obstacle the addiction learns how to work around?
That is when boundaries stop feeling empowering and start feeling heartbreaking.
Because I am forced to confront something I desperately don’t want to be true:
I can make it harder for addiction to destroy our lives, but I cannot make another person choose recovery.
I Cannot Boundary Someone Into Recovery
That sentence hurts to write.
I cannot boundary someone into recovery.
I cannot monitor someone into honesty.
I cannot control the finances enough to create integrity.
I cannot make accountability work if someone is determined to hide.
I cannot love someone into telling the truth.
I cannot find the perfect therapist, rehabilitation center, consequence, Bible verse, conversation, or arrangement that will make someone choose something they are unwilling to choose for themselves.
And maybe that’s why this stage feels so different.
In the beginning, there was always another thing to try.
Another conversation.
Another boundary.
Another safeguard.
Another treatment.
Another chance.
Doing something made me feel like there was still something I could control.
But eventually you arrive at a place where the question isn’t:
“What else can I do to stop him?”
It becomes:
“What am I going to do if he doesn’t stop?”
And I don’t like that question nearly as much.
Because that question is about me.
The Apology Doesn’t Fix It Anymore
There was a time when an apology brought relief.
Maybe this time he understood.
Maybe this was rock bottom.
Maybe losing this much would finally be enough.
Maybe seeing me this broken would finally make something click.
But after enough cycles, apologies begin to feel different.
You want to believe them.
Part of you still does.
But another part of you is quietly keeping track of everything that came before.
You remember the other apologies.
The other promises.
The other “last times.”
The other moments when you thought the nightmare was finally ending.
So you’re standing there listening to someone say they’re sorry while two completely different voices are fighting inside you.
One says:
Give him grace.
People mess up.
Addiction is hard.
Marriage means fighting for each other.
God can still restore this.
And the other says:
We’ve been here before.
That second voice used to make me feel guilty.
Now I’m beginning to wonder if that voice isn’t bitterness at all.
Maybe it’s discernment.
Maybe wisdom sometimes remembers the pattern even when your heart desperately wants to believe the promise.
When Hope Starts Keeping You Stuck
This is difficult for me to admit because hope sounds like such a beautiful Christian word.
And it is.
I believe in hope.
I believe God changes people.
I believe marriages can be restored.
I believe addicts can recover.
I believe broken things can become beautiful again.
But I’m beginning to understand that hoping someone changes and living as though they already have are two very different things.
I can hope for recovery without pretending recovery is happening.
I can pray for honesty while acknowledging that I’m still being lied to.
I can believe God can restore my marriage without calling the current situation restored.
Maybe faith isn’t denying what is happening because I’m afraid of what acknowledging it might require me to do.
Maybe faith is trusting God enough to tell the truth about what is happening.
This Is Where Avoidance Gets Really Uncomfortable
Because when all the smaller boundaries have already been put into place, there aren’t many comfortable options left.
That’s when my avoidant side wants to bargain.
Maybe give it a little more time.
Maybe this apology is different.
Maybe therapy will eventually click.
Maybe I need to be more understanding.
Maybe I’m expecting too much too quickly.
Maybe I should just be thankful for the good days.
Some of those thoughts may occasionally contain truth.
Recovery isn’t perfect.
People do stumble.
Change takes time.
But there is also a difference between an imperfect recovery and an ongoing pattern of addiction, deception, and manipulation without sustained change.
I have to be careful that compassion doesn’t become the excuse I use to avoid making a decision.
Because eventually, “give it more time” can become years.
The Boundary I’m Afraid Of
Maybe this is where I am learning that the hardest boundary isn’t controlling money.
It isn’t demanding treatment.
It isn’t telling family.
It isn’t even saying, “I won’t tolerate this anymore.”
The hardest boundary may be accepting what I will have to do if nothing changes.
I don’t write that lightly.
I don’t believe marriage should be discarded because things become difficult.
I don’t believe struggling with addiction makes someone unworthy of love.
And I certainly don’t believe every wife reading this should make the same decision.
But I also no longer believe that loving someone requires me to endlessly absorb the consequences of choices I cannot control.
There is a point where I have to stop asking:
“What else can I do to make him change?”
and start asking:
“God, what are You asking me to do if he chooses not to?”
That prayer scares me.
Because I have spent so much time praying for God to change him.
Maybe now I also need the courage to ask God to show me what obedience looks like for me.
Maybe Boundaries Were Never About Saving My Marriage
I wanted boundaries to save my marriage.
I wanted treatment to save it.
I wanted accountability to save it.
I wanted controlling the finances to save it.
I wanted therapy to save it.
I wanted love, patience, forgiveness, prayer, consequences, and second chances to eventually add up to transformation.
But none of those things can substitute for another person’s willingness to change.
Maybe boundaries aren’t how I save my marriage.
Maybe boundaries are how I stop losing myself while I wait to see what the other person chooses.
And maybe that is what I am finally beginning to understand.
I can love him.
I can pray for him.
I can forgive him.
I can hope for him.
I can believe with everything inside me that God is capable of completely transforming his life.
And I can still tell the truth about what is happening right now.
The addiction continues.
The lies continue.
The boundaries haven’t produced the change I hoped they would.
And I cannot keep pretending that an apology is the same thing as recovery.
Maybe the next step isn’t another rule for him.
Maybe it’s finally asking God what He wants from me when I have done everything I know to do—and the person I love still chooses the addiction.
I don’t have a neat answer to that yet.
Maybe that’s okay.
Maybe understanding myself begins with finally being willing to ask the question.
It’s difficult not to carry bitterness after years of lies, isolation, disappointment, and neglect. Even when progress finally begins to happen—when you start to see the changes you’ve prayed for over countless sleepless nights—your trauma-fogged mind doesn’t immediately celebrate. Instead, it whispers, What if this doesn’t last? What if this all falls apart again?
Before long, those whispers become screams. Don’t trust it. Don’t believe it. You’re going to suffer again.
It’s a fight-or-flight response that every wife living alongside PTSD understands. It’s that familiar feeling of being pulled back into the darkness just when you thought you had finally found your footing. You try so hard to climb out of the hole, only to find yourself peering back over the edge, waiting for the ground to give way beneath you again.
The truth is, that kind of bitterness doesn’t simply disappear when happiness or healing begins to emerge. It lingers quietly in the background, like a shadow waiting for the perfect opportunity to remind you why you built walls around your heart in the first place. It waits for one bad day, one harsh word, one familiar pattern, hoping to convince you that nothing has really changed after all.
Because when you’ve lived in survival mode for so long, joy itself can feel unsafe.
At the end of the day, the feelings of happiness, romance, love, being wanted, being needed, and finally being seen can sometimes feel like a mask you’re simply waiting to slip off. You’re bracing yourself for the moment when the only reality you’ve ever truly known comes rushing back. The bitterness you’ve held onto wasn’t always hatred—it was protection. It was armor. It was the emergency plan you kept hidden away because some part of you refused to trust that restoration could actually be real.
Trauma leaves wounds that do not always bleed where others can see them. They remain open beneath the surface, quietly whispering that you’ll never be enough, that you’re not safe, and that hope is dangerous.
But perhaps the greatest act of faith isn’t pretending those wounds don’t exist. Perhaps it’s choosing, one day at a time, to believe that God can heal the places we’ve spent years trying to protect ourselves from feeling.
Between the responsibilities, the heartbreak, the expectations, and the silent battles no one sees—you got lost. Not all at once. But slowly. Quietly. Piece by piece.
And now you look in the mirror and barely recognize her.
Here is the truth no one wants to say out loud: You will not find yourself in the noise. You will not heal by staying busy. You will not rise by pretending you’re fine.
You find yourself in the longing.
That ache deep inside that whispers, There has to be more than this.
We were never called to survive at surface level. Survival keeps you functioning—but it does not make you whole. It keeps you moving—but it does not make you free.
Freedom lives in the secret place.
Not a physical place. A sacred one. The place where only you and the Father have walked. The place you avoid because it feels too deep, too raw, too exposed.
But that is where she is.
The happy, carefree, full-of-life, Jesus-got-this kind of girl. She isn’t gone. She’s buried under fear, disappointment, and exhaustion.
Scripture says,
“He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” — Psalm 91:1
It takes courage to sit still long enough to feel what you’ve been outrunning. Courage to face the darkest parts of your own heart. Courage to stop surviving and start seeking.
But healing does not happen on the surface.
It happens in the depths—the place where the tears fall freely and the masks come off. The place where you finally whisper the prayers you’ve been afraid to pray.
And there, in that quiet, the Father meets you.
Not with shame. Not with disappointment. But with presence.
Until you choose to rise and visit the hidden places of your soul, you will never rise from the ashes of the life you are living.
It is okay to feel. It is okay to stop. It is okay to take time for you. To be quiet. To be still. To search. To seek. To pray.
Push yourself toward what makes you healthy. Safe. Stable. Whole.
Turn down the noise. Shut the door. Go to the secret place.
And stay.
Because when you do, the pieces begin to settle. The lies lose their grip. The chaos grows quiet.
And one day you will look in the mirror again—
And recognize her.
Not the woman who barely survived. But the one who went into the depths… and came back alive.
It isn’t cold. It isn’t punishment. It isn’t manipulation.
It is exhaustion. It is grief. It is quiet defeat after fighting battles no one else saw.
When her voice has been dismissed long enough… When her emotions have been minimized… When her needs have gone unmet…
Silence does not arrive loudly.
It creeps in.
Slowly.
She does not wake up one morning deciding to withdraw. She arrives there after trying. After explaining. After crying. After praying. After hoping.
And when nothing shifts… something inside of her does.
Silence becomes protection.
Not because she wants distance — but because she can no longer survive exposure.
Survivor mode is never a place she longs to be.
No woman dreams of becoming guarded. No wife desires to grow quiet. No heart hopes to become cautious with the very person it once felt safest with.
And yet, survivor mode often finds her.
It finds her when she realizes she must fight not just for the marriage — but for herself.
There is a particular kind of desperation in silence. It is the moment she realizes that if she does not guard her heart, she may lose herself entirely in the longing for what used to be.
But here is the sacred turning point:
If she finds the strength and courage not to disappear inside the silence… she will discover something unexpected there.
She will find herself.
Not the version shaped by disappointment. Not the version shrinking to be understood. Not the version constantly over-explaining her pain.
But a woman rebuilding.
A woman expecting.
Expecting growth in the quiet. Expecting clarity in the stillness. Expecting healing in the hidden places. Expecting peace that does not depend on another person’s consistency.
There is hope in her silence.
Because silence is not the end — it is the reset.
Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Be still.
Not because the pain isn’t real. Not because the marriage doesn’t matter. Not because the hurt disappears.
But because in the stillness, God begins to restore what chaos tried to steal.
In the silence, He reminds her:
She is not invisible. She is not irrational. She is not too much. She is not alone.
He meets her there — not in the shouting, not in the proving, not in the defending — but in the quiet surrender.
And slowly, what once felt like defeat becomes rebuilding.
She finds peace in the silence. Growth in the silence. Joy in the silence. Hope in the silence. Laughter in the silence. A new breath of life in the silence.
The silence that once felt like loss becomes the place she rediscovers her strength.
And when she rises again, she will not rise hardened.
She will rise healed.
And that kind of woman? She no longer fights to be heard.
She walks in peace — knowing the One who sees her never stopped listening.
Oftentimes I sit at the large kitchen island, directly across from a dirty window.
I sit there with great intention — determined to put my thoughts on paper. But more often than not, I find myself just staring… gazing for what feels like an eternity through that dirty window.
And as I sit here again, staring through the smudged glass, I begin to wonder why I have never mustered up enough motivation to clean it.
In an awkward, almost confusing way, I have come to realize something:
I find comfort in the dirty window.
As strange as that sounds, I’ve caught myself rationalizing it more than once. The dirty window has become a quiet form of consistency. And if I am honest, consistency is something my heart longs for more often than I would like to admit.
The window is imperfect — yet unchanging. The beautiful view beyond it is clouded by spatter and streaks. The mess blurs what could otherwise be clear.
And yet… it remains the same.
Then it hits me.
Life is the dirty window.
Each day brings its own spatter. Its own streaks. Its own unexpected splashes of chaos that we often have no idea how to cleanse. The more we try to wipe it away, sometimes the more smeared and cloudy it becomes.
We try to fix the mess. We try to restore clarity. We try to regain control.
But life lacks the consistency we crave.
Every new day holds unknown variables. Unexpected conversations. Unplanned disappointments. Unforeseen struggles.
And that lack of consistency can create an environment that feels unsteady. Unstable. Unpredictable.
Yet at the end of the day, when I sit back down at the island and gaze through that same dirty window, there is something oddly comforting about its unchanged imperfection.
The mess is still there. The smudges haven’t moved. The view is still blurred.
And somehow, that consistency in the imperfection steadies me.
But here is what the Lord has been gently whispering to my heart:
While the window may remain dirty… He does not.
Our days may feel inconsistent. Our emotions may fluctuate. Our circumstances may cloud our vision.
But God is not unstable.
“The Lord is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” — Psalm 91:2
Refuge. Fortress. Not shifting. Not unpredictable. Not clouded.
When life spatters our windows and blurs our view, it is easy to grow accustomed to the mess. We learn to live with the streaks. We adapt to the distortion. Sometimes we even mistake the familiar chaos for comfort.
But our true consistency is not found in the unchanging mess.
It is found in an unchanging God.
Hebrews 13:8 reminds us:
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
Yesterday — when the window first got dirty. Today — as we stare through it. Forever — long after the smudges are gone.
Life may feel inconsistent. Our emotions may feel unstable. Our clarity may feel clouded.
But God remains steady in the middle of our scattered days.
And maybe — just maybe — the dirty window isn’t there to comfort me.
Maybe it is there to remind me that even when my view is blurred, my foundation is not.
Even in the mess. Even in the unknown. Even in the inconsistent chaos of each day.
Loneliness is not something we choose. It is not something we crave. It is a dark and tender place we sometimes find ourselves in at the most unexpected moments of life. A place that feels cold. Heavy. Quiet in ways that echo too loudly.
It can feel impossible to carry the burdens we bear when there is no one beside us to help hold them.
In those moments, what we long for is simple—conversation. Connection. The kind of emotional safety that allows us to exhale. The kind of bonding that lets us be fully ourselves without fear of judgment. There is something sacred about genuine conversation. It reaches into the deepest parts of our loneliness. It reminds us we are seen. It can bring light to the worst of days and lift our spirits just enough to keep going.
Sometimes it’s the smallest things—a shared laugh, a thoughtful message, a few minutes of feeling understood. Little bursts of sunshine. Brief reminders that we are alive and that someone notices.
But when that connection fades… when the conversation stops… when what felt like your last lifeline slips away, the grief can take you by surprise.
You find yourself staring into the stillness of the day. Sitting in the car longer than necessary, gathering the strength to step back into normal life. Lying awake at night, alone with thoughts that replay what once was. And in those quiet hours, you feel grief—not only for the person or connection you lost, but for who you were in that season… and for what you hoped it might become.
It is grief for what was. Grief for what could have been. Grief for the version of you that felt less alone.
And yet, even there—in the quiet car, in the sleepless night, in the ache you can’t quite name—Scripture whispers something steady and true:
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” — Psalm 34:18
Close. Not distant. Near. Not absent.
When loneliness convinces you that you are unseen, God draws nearer still. When your spirit feels crushed under the weight of loss, He does not turn away from your grief—He moves toward it.
And in those desperate, fragile moments, a question rises in the silence:
How far are you willing to go for connection? How much of yourself are you willing to trade just to not feel alone?
Loneliness can tempt us to reach for anything that promises relief. But not every connection is healthy. Not every conversation is safe. Not every lifeline leads to life.
Sometimes the bravest thing we can do in our loneliness is pause. To remember that our longing for connection was placed in us by God—not to drive us toward desperation, but toward healthy, life-giving relationships. Toward Him first. Toward people who reflect His heart.
You are not weak for feeling lonely. You are human.
And even in the quiet, unseen places, you are not abandoned. He is close.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” — Matthew 11:28 (NIV)
Loneliness brings with it a longing—for conversation, for connection, for someone who will simply listen. Often, we can be surrounded by people and yet feel completely isolated in the room. It’s in those moments that our thoughts tend to take over. A million things swirl through our minds—things we long to say out loud, hoping someone might care enough to hear them.
And so, we begin to ramble to ourselves.
Washing dishes. Sweeping the floor. Folding socks. The simplest tasks of life become the closest thing to conversation we have. I found myself there—stuffing blankets into the cupboard, talking out loud, letting random thoughts spill into the air, fully aware that no one was listening. My mind jumped from one thought to the next until I suddenly stood still, suspended in a moment that felt detached from reality.
And then, I imagined walking into the fairytale land of Narnia.
Disappearing into the cupboard that stood before me—its presence faint, almost inviting. We often find ourselves dreaming of a place beyond reality, a place that offers escape from everything we carry inside. A world of redemption waiting just beyond the applewood doors. A life untouched by pain, fear, or disappointment.
If only it were that easy.
The weight of real life presses so heavily on our souls that we begin to create a delusion—believing there must be something better, something lighter, somewhere else. Yet, as we journey through this uncharted land of fantasy, we quickly discover that even it is plagued by an eternal winter. Betrayal comes from those closest to us. Innocence is stripped away by deeper magic. And the escape we longed for becomes nothing more than a reflection of our own broken reality.
And then—we see Aslan.
The creator. The redeemer. The one who transforms this place of escape into a mirror of truth. Suddenly, it becomes clear: the sinner is desperate—for forgiveness, for redemption, for salvation. Desperate for a Savior willing to lay Himself down, taking on every sin of humanity.
I close the applewood doors. I snap back to reality.
And in that moment, I realize my burdens were never meant to be carried into another world—they were meant to be laid at the altar. His grace is sufficient for me. Always. Every single day of my life.
Lord, You see the quiet moments—the cupboards, the silence, the words spoken into empty rooms. You see the longing, the exhaustion, the places we wish we could escape from and the places we wish would save us. Help us to remember that true redemption is not found beyond imaginary doors, but at Your feet. Teach us to lay down what is heavy, to stop carrying what was never ours to hold, and to trust that Your grace is enough—right here, in this life, on this day. Amen.
Life As A PTSD Wife 