Beautifully Broken: Real Life Stories and the Lessons Learned from Them.

This book is full of practical lessons that I have learned through my separation and divorce. It is for the believer or nonbeliever. It shows grace working through my humanity.

When I was a girl, I wrote my story of the way my life was going to be. I had everything planned down to the description of my prince. My life would be the ultimate fairy tale. I would have the perfect children and would be the perfect mom and wife.

And then I grew up. I thought I had found forever, but I was wrong. My invisible children were perfect, but my real ones were human. I read hundreds of books and followed every rule. However, I realized I was not perfect and that life (and God) was not just about rules.

We can do everything right, but that doesnt make us exempt from hard times. God determines every outcome even when we dont understand them, and we want to cry, scream, and stomp our feet in protest of the injustice we feel. If we are willing, God will guide our steps, and He will protect our hearts. He knows where we are in our story, but it is our choice how it ends.

I am a small town, country girl that looks at our familys farm as the place I called where I grew up although we moved over 20 times and went to 12 different schools in 13 years. I was raised an Independent Baptist preachers kid. (Dont write me off yet!!) When I was a girl I wrote my story of the way my life was going to be. It turns out, life is not black and white nor is it a fairy tale.
In the fall of 2003 I went to the Bible college I dreamed about. I was dating the guy I thought I would marry until my dad told me that if I truly loved him, I would break up with him. He went on to say, the guy I was dating was a like my dad and I was like my mom. I would make him miserable. Around the same time, my future husband had his heart broken and a few months later we met. We were young, heartbroken and homesick. We dated for a year and were married at nineteen. We were very naive. He was my first in every way. A few months after we were married, I realized he lusted me, he didnt love me. It was not until years later that I was setting him up to fail more times than not. I expected him to be at the same level my dad was but did not take into account that my dad had years to get to that point. Through many mistakes, addictions, two kids and ten years later, we were divorced. I did not grow up playing the single mom that was over worked, under paid and terrified at every turn I would lose my house and my kids. I dreamed I was going to be a rooting tooting cowgirl name Calamity Jane (Doris Day movie) I never thought I would live through emotional and verbal abuse, rejected by my dad, and when I finally told my family the truth of my circumstances, no one believed me. No one believed me until my mom finally got a glimpse of my reality. Here we are four years later and I am finally putting some of the lessons God taught me during a painful time of growth in a book. Some of my favorite chapters are about the lessons I learned through my kids or ones that are chapters about the funny things my kids have said or done.
My kids and I currently live in the town of Concord, North Carolina. I am currently singing in the Cowboy Church that is located near our home and speaking whenever the opportunity arises. God has allowed me to grow so much since the first chapters of this book was written. My humor has become my greatest tool in coping with life and keeping the negative thoughts that creep in my mind at bat. I was remarried in 2015 to an amazing man that has three awesome daughters. More on that later in my next book, Lets Get Real.