I legit hated my life. From the time my security blanket was thrown in the trash because I was too old to have it, until the time I became a mom, it just pretty much was miserable. I sucked my thumb, too. Everything about me in my life sucked.

I was a victim of sexual abuse, physical abuse, spiritual abuse, and emotional abuse. I don’t recall a time I was not fully of anxiety, worry, sadness, suicidal thoughts, people pleasing, and just plain old not being good enough. Yeah, I walked through most of my life proving to everyone else I was not the worthless person they believed I was.

As a child I wrote poetry, wrote stories, and found so much refuge between the pages of my little notebooks. I graduated to a locked diary. There was something about the fresh blank pages, and that lock, that made me felt safe. No one could judge me there. No one could tell me I was not good enough. No one could tell me I “had potential,” as if somehow that was supposed to make me feel better that I POSSIBLY could be someone special.

Those pages, like yours, were my safe place to share my life. They gave me a voice. And they freed my mind from every painful thought and experience I faced.

When I was being sexually abused, my pain was expressed in the words in my poetry. During school when I never “fit in,” I created imaginative stories. And as an adult, when I was in emotionally and physically abusive relationships, I wrote my thoughts, and soaked pages with tears.

My journey in life sounds sad. But, it doesn’t have a sad ending. When my daughter was 2, and we were sitting outside in the rain, I looked at her crying and said to her, “when I get through this, I am never going to make you go through this again.” And that is exactly what I did. I got through it.

The past included not graduating from high school, getting kicked out of the air force, being a single mom, but it also included me picking myself up out of the garbage can, going to college, graduating with a Master’s Degree, and becoming a mental health and addictions therapist.

The future took the pain from between those pages, and were transformed into messages of hope inspired by the one and only healer himself, Jesus Christ.

This is a long story that I could never fit into one About Me page. But I am sharing some pieces of it to say this:

I have been there. I have walked the walk of anxiety, depression, suicide attempts, but have also experienced the joy that comes in the morning.

I am here to give you hope. I am here to provide you the opportunity to share your story because your voice matters. Your life matters. And your freedom from the bondage of fear, worry, sadness, perfectionism, people pleasing, low self worth, lack of self confidence, not taking care of yourself, and the silencing of your mental health challenges ALL matters.

Your Refuge Journals Is not just about journals. It is about taking control of your life, finding yourself, discovering your purpose, loving yourself, not comparing yourself to others, and knowing that you can open up to a blank page of your notebook and smile. And we have an entire community that you get to be a part of.

And if you are thinking possibly that it was an accident that you stumbled across this page … it wasn’t. You belong. You are somebody. You are enough. You are special. And you are exactly where you are supposed to be even just reading these words.

Welcome to Your Refuge Journals where you have a voice, can write new chapters of your life, and have your freedom by finding solutions to any of your troubles within the pages of boujie, real, and beautiful dot grid notebooks.