When Strength Wasn't Enough

When Strength Wasn't Enough is my raw and personal testimony of what happens when a little girl who desperately wants to be loved grows into a woman determined to never need anyone.

For most of my life, I believed being strong meant hiding my pain. I joined the Army, worked in corrections, climbed towers, covered my body in tattoos, and pushed myself to prove that I could do anything a man could do. From the outside, I looked independent, tough, and fearless. On the inside, I was still carrying the wounds of a little girl who wondered why her father didn't choose her. I chased my father's love, my mother's approval, relationships that hurt me, and accomplishments I thought would finally make me feel like I was enough. I carried anger toward men and eventually toward God. I believed in Him, but the truth was, I knew of God without truly knowing Him. For years, I carried an old photograph of my father and me-a picture I had once clutched as a sick little girl waiting for him to come home. I didn't realize that in many ways, I was still waiting.

This book is my journey through rejection, anger, unhealthy relationships, forgiveness, faith, deliverance, and surrender. It is the story of how God began stripping away the armor I had mistaken for strength and showing me the wounded little girl underneath. I am not telling my story because I lived it perfectly. I am telling it because I survived it, confronted it, and finally stopped allowing it to define me. I thought I needed to become stronger. God knew I needed to become whole. And when my strength wasn't enough, God was.