Fringes.

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Hi, friends.

I’m starting a new series here with a bit of fear and trembling, as it marks a decision to dive in deep and live out loud through a process of healing I’m currently living.

I shared a few weeks ago that some as-yet-unrecognized truths surfaced in a session with my spiritual director last month. It’s wreaked a bit of havoc in my inner and outer world, and I’ve been taking intentional steps ever since to enter more deeply into those truths and surround myself with what I need to begin the difficult (and scary!) healing process. Thankfully, I have a really great support system in place that’s already helped me take several courageous steps forward and is helping me stay with this.

But here’s what I’ve noticed:

As I’ve been taking these steps, it feels so much like starting over.

Truths I’ve learned and lived into for years now feel so far away. In certain parts of myself, I feel so much like that 19-year-old girl who first discovered she had a heart, she didn’t understand grace, and she’d been living inside some coping mechanisms that left a lot to be desired.

When it comes to these new revelations and the work of integrating them into my life and story, I feel like I’m starting over. And I’ve been realizing that I need to teach this new and tender part of myself, step by step, the things I learned over the long-haul journey of growth and healing and new life that began for me at age 19.

Then last night I realized:

It might be helpful for me to form out loud through this process with you here.

Perhaps you’ve been in this place of starting over, too — healing a fresh wound, or an old-but-feels-fresh one. Or perhaps you’re at the beginning of the journey and need some help even knowing where to start.

In this series, I’m going to share with you my process as I’m walking through it. I’m also going to share things I learned when going through this circuitous journey the first time around. Hopefully you’ll find it helpful or encouraging in some way for your own experience. I know that, for me, it will be helpful to have a place to process the journey and “re-teach myself” things I need to re-learn.

Would you like to take this journey with me?