And then the day came when she could finally, at last, look herself in the mirror and say, "Wow. Wow, sister, look at you. Look at where you have been, and what you have overcome. Just, wow."

She'd heard it many times over from other people. But was she ready to be able to allow herself to say it to her own self? To give herself accolades for having triumphed over some of life's biggest traumas?

It had finally come to that. Because she started to realize that all of the other options were just....too...incredibly....agonizingly painful.

And so finally, at long long last, on a clear night in June, the answer finally became: Yes. She'd come into her own worth. She'd forgiven and surrendered and asked and understood and made her amends and let it all go. And then finally, after months and months of a new kind of inner warfare that had surfaced because something just wasn't sitting right, finally she asked the questions again, and revealed another deep and sad truth. But this time she knew it was just an old story. And so she realized that instead of that sad old lie about how bad or wrong or dirty or shameful she was...She turned the story around.

Instead, she said to herself these words: Wow. You're pretty strong. You're pretty gifted. You're pretty amazing. You didn't let that topple you, or crumble you, or...define you. Instead, you finally saw that you get to choose your response, and you realized that your response could actually be: Wow, sister, look at you and what you have overcome. And I love you so much for all of it. We've done it. Hallelujah. And now, who even cares that that happened? Because don't you have a pretty phenomenal life to live some more? Hop to it! The clock's ticking! Go for it. Go and love some more and live some more and adventure some more and just go and enjoy. Be in peace. Stop letting those sorry old stories haunt you. Define you. Suffocate you. Because life's too short to waste another breath on them. Just. Love. You. 

And that's how the rest of the story went. Because she remembered she could choose it that way. At long, long last. And she was eternally grateful for ALL of the help she had had along the way to getting there--because she was never...never alone. And that's the truth.

Amen.