staceybooks

I haven’t written a blog in a while.

Not because I didn’t have anything to say.

Because I was tired.

Not the kind of tired that sleep fixes. The kind that settles into your bones after long days, difficult decisions, uncertainty, and carrying responsibilities that don’t pause just because you’re overwhelmed.

I’ve been working long hours. Navigating a season unlike any I’ve faced before. Fighting battles that most people never see.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I’ve been writing.

Not just blog posts.

A trilogy about my life.

What I didn’t expect was that writing would force me to revisit places I spent years trying to leave behind.

Trauma is funny that way.

People assume that when enough time passes, the wounds disappear. That healing means forgetting. That overcoming means you never hurt anymore.

But trauma doesn’t simply vanish.

Sometimes it waits quietly until you begin telling your story.

Then suddenly you’re reliving moments you thought were buried.

Moments when your world fell apart.

Moments when you lost people you loved more than life itself.

Moments when grief stole the air from your lungs.

Moments when fear convinced you there was no way forward.

As I write these books, I find myself back in places I never wanted to visit again.

I remember being a young woman standing beside hospital beds, watching people I loved take their final breaths.

I remember the crushing weight of failure.

The shame.

The loneliness.

The consequences of choices that changed the course of my life forever.

I remember sitting on suicide watch in a jail cell wearing nothing but a paper gown.

Freezing.

Broken.

Certain that my story was over.

The room was cold.

The walls were cold.

The future looked cold too.

There was nothing dignified about it.

Nothing inspiring.

Nothing heroic.

Just pain.

Raw, overwhelming pain.

If someone had walked by that cell and told me that one day I would lead an organization, help thousands of people rebuild their lives, become a grandmother, write books, teach Bible studies, and find purpose in my pain, I would have never believed them.

Because sometimes survival doesn’t look like strength.

Sometimes survival looks like simply making it through one more day.

One more hour.

One more breath.

Yet here I am.

Not because I am stronger than everyone else.

Not because I somehow escaped hardship.

Not because my scars disappeared.

I’m here because I kept going.

The scars remain.

Some of them always will.

There are still memories that hurt.

Still chapters that make me cry.

Still moments I wish had never happened.

But those scars tell a different story now.

They are proof that the wound didn’t win.

Proof that the darkness didn’t get the final word.

Proof that what was meant to destroy me became part of the foundation that rebuilt me.

Today, when people see me, they often see the titles.

The leadership role.

The accomplishments.

The organization.

The work.

What they don’t always see is the woman who once sat freezing in a paper gown wondering if life was worth living.

What they don’t see are the scars.

But I see them.

And for the first time in my life, I’m not ashamed of them.

Because every scar reminds me of something important:

I survived.

I overcame.

I am still healing.

And despite everything I’ve walked through, I am still here.

Sometimes that’s the greatest victory of all.