“Through waters uncharted my soul will embark, I’ll follow your voice straight into the dark. And if from the course You intend I depart, speak to the sails of my wandering heart.”

For the past few years, my Dad has been talking about chartering a boat, and taking our family on a “week long sailing excursion.” It’s important to note that neither my dad, nor any other member of my family has even a hint of sailing or boating experience, so naturally, the thought of this is absolutely terrifying to me. The thought of putting everyone I care about and love most into a boat, one in which none of us have any experience in doing and just hoping we somehow make it “somewhere” safely, seems like a really terrible idea. It raises so many practical questions that I think anyone would inevitably ask themselves… “Where are we going?” “What do we do and how do we do it?” “Will we make it somewhere or will we just float out to sea and get lost forever?” Shortly after these thoughts, and many more like them, go racing through my head, I immediately start envisioning myself in a Tom Hanks in Castaway type situation. All this to say that as much as I would love to have the same confidence my dad does for something he knows virtually nothing about, and have the faith to believe everything is going to be okay, I don’t. In fact, I am quite the opposite. I would love to have that fearlessness, but I tend to operate more within the confines of crippling fear most days.

I know this seems like more of a humorous anecdote than an actually meaningful thought, but all humor aside, that fear stops me from far more than a family sailing trip. That fear dictates much of what I do. It’s the same fear that was the reason I haven’t written in probably over a year. Reading back over everything from the past few years is bittersweet. I read those words and I am immediately taken back to that time and on one hand, I can see how much growth took place in the midst of everything that was changing in my life. I see Jesus in those pages and through those words. On the other hand, I can’t help but feeling a wave of sadness. The path I was on, the path of growing up and maturing; it doesn’t seem so clear anymore. Over the past 2 years, there’s been a lot of ups and downs. Fear seems to be the overwhelming theme as of lately, and it’s left a wake of destruction and isolation in it’s path. As terrible as this may sound, I used to find a bit of humor in the scene of Castway where Tom Hanks is trying to make his escape from the island and as he falls asleep, Wilson drifts off… not because I lack compassion, but because he’s yelling at a literal volleyball with a face on it. I watched that movie again last night, only this time it wasn’t so funny. I found myself relating to that very moment and my heart truly ached; the isolation, the desperate cry to hold onto the one thing that gave him reason to keep going and watching it slowly slip away, powerless to stop it, and the moment of complete and utter defeat before he was rescued.

I’ve had quite a few people reach out lately, asking me how I’m doing. To most all of you, I’ve said something along the lines of “I’m so great. Life is good.” I felt led to write this, not because I need sympathy from anyone, but because putting this out in the light, takes away its power. Being honest allows accountability and the more I’m willing to be open, I know the more freedom God will allow me to experience. I have a habit of trying to hide my weaknesses and play it off like everything is great. Without fail, God exposes my heart for where it truly is every time. Honestly, it sucks in the moment and it’s really hard to face your biggest insecurities and shortcomings head on, but I believe that’s the only way to find healing.

To all of you who have asked, the answer I should have given you is, life is hard right now. I have found that being in your twenties is one of the most tumultuous times, and I’m only halfway through them. For me, the biggest cause of this has been alcohol. I know this is something that people of all ages deal with, but there’s something about being in your twenties, that you feel almost an entitlement to drink as much as you want, and not have to answer for any of it, because you’re in you twenties, and it’s “just what everyone does.”  You hear things like this a lot, or at least I did, which could be due, in part, to the people I was surrounding myself with. What I failed to realize, is that its not actually what everyone does, and it does affect the people around you, especially when it gets out of hand like it did for me. I will be completely honest, I’m not writing this from a place of having learned my lesson or gotten past it, I’m writing this from step -5. I am in the heart of the monster that, for me, is alcohol.

The allure of drinking started when I was 21. I was in an incredibly vulnerable place in my life, and alcohol made me something I thought I couldn’t be on my own. It allowed me to be this confident, outspoken, beautiful, charming woman, when what I really felt like, was this shy, inadequate, purposeless, scared little girl. It started off great, or so I thought. It allowed me to live without consequence. When things were good, they were great, and if I drank too much, which happened way more than I ever cared to admit, I could get by with the excuse, “Oh well, I was drunk.” Far too many times did I use that as a reason to not be held accountable to things I said or did, and it became a lifestyle.

I read a book in which the author compared struggling with alcohol to an abusive relationship. Now when I first read that, it sounded like a bit of a stretch. To me, it’s apples and oranges, 2 completely different situations. But the more I read, the more I understood. I’m paraphrasing here, but she pointed out how at first it charms you, it draws you in and makes you feel warm and accepted. It gives you confidence and seems to squash any and all insecurities that you have. But the more you give into it’s power and allure, slowly it starts to break you down. Some people see the red flags right away, and are able to correct it and walk away. But for others, myself included, the more you try and walk away, the more appealing it becomes, and soon there after, it seems like it controls everything you do. You become isolated and dishonest, and before you know it, you don’t even recognize who you are anymore, yet somehow, you still feel like you can’t walk away; you need it.

Growing up, when I thought about who I would be at this point in my life, I never in a million years would have guessed that I would be battling with alcohol and consequently watching the relationships around me crumble, watching people that I love or have loved in the past consistently be hurt, friendships be torn apart, jobs be lost, attempts at school fall through, all because I let alcohol hold more value than the people I care about and the plans God has for me. It wasn’t until just recently that I finally hit a breaking point with all of this, and everything fell apart. God finally exposed the one thing I’ve been trying so desperately to hide and he brought it forth with the brightest light possible.

Having to finally be honest with my family, my best friends, and hardest of all, the love of my life, was the hardest moment of my life so far. Having to come clean about all the times I’ve lied about drinking, tried to cover it up, tried to diminish just how badly I was struggling with this for years now, and watching the hearts of everyone I shared this with break for me, broke my heart in a way that I didn’t know was possible. I finally came face to face with the hurt that’s been caused by this and finally saw just how deeply this affected everyone around me, and it was almost too much for me to handle.

For some of you that have known me, I’m sure this is coming as no shock to you. Some of you have even called me out on it, and I want you to know that even though I chose to ignore your words at the time, they weren’t lost on me. To others of you, this may be completely surprising. To share something so personal and something so private is nauseating beyond belief. I wish I could just snap my fingers and make it all go away. I wish with everything I have that I could take back every terrible drunken word or moment that’s caused hurt not only to myself, but to the people I care most about. In all my regret and all my fear of losing just about everything, I am reminded that God is still good. That no matter how far I’ve veered from the path He laid out for me, I was never, and am never out of his sight. I have a nasty habit of making things much harder for myself than they have to be, but I can’t help but feel like God knew exactly what He was allowing me to walk into the whole time. He had to allow me to lose myself so I could rediscover myself in Him. I’m not there yet, and I desperately wish I could say I was. What I do know is, and I firmly believe, is that even in my greatest weakness, God is made greater. That in my most sinful and shameful moments, He is still magnified.

For those of you who took the time to read all of this, I want to thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I truly believe God is going to bring good from all of this, some days more than others. I feel like I’m starting from square one again, which is sort of beautiful, because that’s where this all began. It began with me walking straight into the darkness of the unknown and doing my best to rely on His voice to carry me through. I’ve seen Him do it before and I wholeheartedly believe He will do it again. I believe that God desires so much more for us than to live in the shadows, to hide in the darkness in fear of judgement or shame. Thank you to everyone, past and present, who has come beside me and helped me start to move forward. I have no words to express how grateful I am for every one of you.

“Even when my strength is lost, I’ll praise you. Even when I have no song, I’ll praise you.
Even when it’s hard to find the words, louder then I’ll sing your praise. I will only sing your praise.”