About

My name is Amanda and I am in recovery from many things - alcoholism, abuse, divorce, almost losing my children and almost losing my faith.  As I struggled with addiction and trials, I lost my love for words.  I lost my voice and my knowledge that I am a unique child of God, worthy of love.

As I started to come back to life, my friend Stephanie asked me to write my story for Middle Places.  As usual, God's timing was perfect.  The experience I had with writing my story made me realize that I was ready to recover my words.  I received a lot of great feedback, so I decided to start this blog.

My prayer is that God will use my vulnerability to help encourage someone else.  You don't have to be recovering from addiction, divorce or abuse to lose yourself or your words.  If you've ever felt "less than" or doubted God's love for you, I hope you can look at my journey and have hope.  If you have ever wanted to escape life by using anything in this world (alcohol, drugs, food,other people) to numb yourself, I hope you will see that the pain is always worth going through.  If you numb the pain, you numb the joy in life too.  And then you're not really living at all.

I'm not perfect, so I expect that I will get some things wrong.  Being vulnerable sometimes offends people who aren't ready to be vulnerable themselves.  Also, being in recovery doesn't mean that I have my life all together now.  It simply means I am on the road to healing.  Someone who went on a similar journey to mine summed it up best with this:

"Do not be discouraged.  No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles.  We are not saints.  The point is, that we were willing to grow along spiritual lines.  The principles we have set down are guides to progress.  We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection." (The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous - "How It Works")

Thank you for taking the time to read my words.  Part of the joy in my recovery is meeting new people and seeing God work in their lives too.  I would love to hear from you if my story has touched you in anyway.  I'm new to blogging, so please be patient as I experiement with improving it.  Peace and grace to you, friends. :)