HerStory | The Grit and Grace Project

I Never Wanted to Be a Pregnant Widow

By Ashby Duval / HerStory, Relationships

This is part one of a three-part series following Ashby’s story. A pregnant widow: two words I never thought I would use to describe myself, especially considering I never wanted to get married or have children. However, I’m grateful to say God had very different plans for me. I met my husband, Spencer, at a fundraiser where an organization we were both a part of called CREW was raising money for my mission trip to Africa. In his mind, he had pictured me as a 26-year-old black man and was surprised to see that I was a 5-foot tall blonde, young woman. He said he fell in love immediately, but much to his amusement, I completely ignored him—something his handsome and funny […]

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I Cheated: How Grace Changed My Marriage for Better

My Affair: How Grace Changed My Marriage for Better

By Sarah Beth Wright / HerStory, Relationships

Sitting on the side of the tub in my parents’ bathroom, I stared at the two lines on the pregnancy test. I felt numb. I felt scared. I felt ashamed. What was I going to tell my husband? It was not his. The last few years had been full of tragedy and chaos for our family. During this time, there was a disconnect in my marriage that we were not able to address at the time. My husband, Josh, was in an accident and because of this he was diagnosed with a Traumatic Brain Injury and PTSD. I hit my very lowest point in life. I felt I had lost the man I married. My husband, who was once outgoing and full of life,

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I Never Thought I’d Find Purpose in My Pain

By Katey Maddux / HerStory, Faith

I was still reeling from the shock and pain of breaking up with my boyfriend of 5+ years just minutes before. He was my first love, and I loved him with everything I had… I was sitting in the car with one of my best friends, “D and I are done. We have to go out tonight. I can’t think about this.” Going out in Austin, Texas typically means going to 6thstreet. A row of bars, clubs, and debauchery that goes on into the morning. I think this is where my shame stems from… I wanted to go out and get drunk. I wanted to forget. And not face the pain that I knew was coming. I got more than I asked for.

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This Is Why Choosing Life Was Hard

By Shannon Barbosa / HerStory, Motherhood

On June 20th, the most heartbreaking thing happened in my state. Rhode Island state senator, Gina Raimondo, passed an “abortion protection bill.” She stated, “The essential protections instilled by the RPA will ensure all Rhode Islanders—and especially people of color, people with low incomes, and anyone who struggles with barriers to health care—can access the reproductive health care services they need,” she said in a statement. “Abortion is health care, reproductive care is health care, and health care is a human right.”1 How anyone can fight so hard to protect the act of abortion and not human life and call it a human right, I will never understand. I fell under two out of the three categories she described as hardships. I,

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This Is a Window Into My Widowhood

By Julie (Graham) Bender / HerStory, Audio Articles, Relationships

(Listen to the audio version of this article here.) I remember getting the call. “Paul has had an accident and it’s not good. We need to get over there.” It was his dad delivering the news, and we needed to travel an hour and a half to learn more. The detective called him because the friend who was with him on the job site didn’t know his phone passcode but did know his dad’s number. By the time I reached my in-laws’ house in the neighboring city, they had decided we were all going because the detective had called again asking where we were and reiterated that we needed to get to the other coast urgently. So, his parents, our three-year-old son,

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A Life Full of Hardship Has Made Me Joyful

By Ashleigh Marie / HerStory, Purpose

Creating an article about my life story had me really unsure about where to start or what to share. My story is not neat and tidy or easy to understand. There are a lot of loops, dips, and plot twists. It’s not one for the faint of heart, and it is so extremely difficult to tell. Sometimes, if not most of the time, I feel like I should not talk about it at all. It’s always as if there are too many pieces that no one on earth could ever relate to or understand. So why share? This was my stance on life for a long time until a very wise person told me, “Someone out there needs to hear your story.”

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This Is What I Learned About Life After My Rape and Pregnancy

By Monique Jackson King / HerStory, Motherhood

In 2009, I was ending a relationship that had me completely mesmerized! I was involved with this man for the previous five years in what was called, by today’s standards, a “situationship.” In other words, I was madly in love with a man who had no intention of honoring our relationship with validity or legitimacy. Each of my close friends would ask me what our status was, and my standard answer was, “We’re taking it day by day.” In my heart, I knew this wasn’t the love that was designed for me, but I also did not want to let go of the good conversation, the companionship, the intellectual stimulation, or the familiarity that it provided. I allowed that fear to blind

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