Dear Younger Me: A memoir of survival, silence, and healing (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798181012899)

There are little girls all over the world carrying burdens they were never meant to carry. Some grow up believing they are too much. Others believe they will never be enough.

Some spend their lives searching for love in all the wrong places, trying to earn what should have been given freely from the very beginning.

I was one of those little girls.

For years, I believed my story began with the choices I made, the relationships I stayed in, the heartbreaks I endured, the mistakes I couldn't seem to stop repeating. I carried shame that was never mine to carry. I blamed myself for wounds that had been placed there too long before I had words to describe them.

But healing has a way of uncovering the truth.

As I looked back over my life, I realized my story didn't begin with me, It began long before my first memory. It began with two frightened sixteen-year-olds trying to navigate adulthood before they had ever been allowed to be children themselves. It began with generations of pain, silence, brokenness, and unmet needs passed quietly from one heart to the next.

None of that excuses what happened.

But understanding where pain began changed everything.

This is not a story about blaming my parents. They carried wounds of their own. They loved in only ways they knew how, and sometimes those ways left scars they never intended to create.

This is the story of a little girl who spent her life longing to be seen.

A young woman who searched desperately for love, hoping someone else could fill the emptiness she carried inside.

A woman who faced cancer and discovered that even in the darkest valleys, God never stopped pursuingher heart.

Most of all, this is a story about grace.

If you've ever wondered why, you keep repeating same patterns .....

If you've ever questioned your worth....

If you've ever carried shame that doesn't belong to you....

If you've ever longed for someone to tell you that you are loved simply because you exist....

I hope you'll keep reading.

Because somewhere inside these pages, I believe you'll discover what I did.

We were never meant to carry these burdens beyond the cross.

And maybe, just maybe, you'll hear the words your younger heart has been waiting for all along:

It was never your fault.

Welcome to my story.

I pray that somewhere along the way, it becomes part of yours too.