| The Grit and Grace Project

I Never Thought I’d Find Purpose in My Pain

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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What My Beautiful, Imperfect Baby Boy Taught Me About Perfection

By Meaghan Dawson / Faith

Almost 11 years ago, I was happily pregnant with my second child. Blissfully dreaming about a healthy baby, my biggest fear was managing two babies under two years old. I was completely ignorant of all that could go wrong. After all, I was healthy. I ate well. I took my vitamins. I didn’t drink or do drugs. I did everything that is required of a pregnant woman. I was owed a healthy, perfect baby. Issues happened to other people. Not us. But, as often happens in life, God had other plans. And those plans came in the form of a child born less than perfect. Problems came in the form of a child who would face challenges I never imagined, with something

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Facing Broken Dreams and Finding a New One

By Joy Hogben / Purpose

When I moved to the east coast of Canada, I didn’t know a soul. It was a big move during the most difficult time in my life. I was a stay at home mom, doing little things to make ends meet and homeschooling my kids. It wasn’t easy, but slowly we began to make friends. One friend, in particular, owned a home decor store in town. I’ll never forget the day I asked if she would consider hiring me. I was shaking and stumbling over my words as my nerves took over. I could just feel my fair skin explode into a brilliant lobster shade of red which I could not hide. Although I had little confidence in myself at the time,

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Her Story Will Make You Cry, But Help You Find Hope

By Ashby Duval / Faith

Sometimes I think about how amazing it would be if we could know just a little bit about what the future holds. But, if you had told me 10 years ago about everything that would come my way, I probably would have curled up in the fetal position and opted out. (If you missed my full story, start here.) We have such definite ideas about what we want and what we think will bring us happiness. Thankfully I’ve learned that God, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, knows which prayers and desires to answer and which ones to veto, although sometimes I don’t understand the “why” behind it. I think that’s okay. I think sometimes you can go through something so horrible that

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Why I Can Now Embrace My Past as a Refugee

By Catherine Ojala / Purpose

I was a dreamer from the day I was born until eight years old. I was going to be the world’s very first Sierra Leonean Ballerina, violinist, singer, and actress all wrapped up in one, big entertainment bow. Although that’s a mouth full, my dreams were endless. It’s mostly in adulthood that we realize the reality of these endless dreams, and we shift to a more logical and reasonable path. For me, that realization came earlier, way earlier. Before I was a mom, I was a businesswoman. Before I was a businesswoman, I was a wife. Before I was a wife, I was a refugee. This last label stung. I didn’t want it on my resume of life, nor did I want

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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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When First Runner Up Feels like “Reject”

By Annie Leigh Edwards / Faith

From as early as I can remember, I pretty much had one goal in life: I wanted to be Miss America. Now just saying that, I’m sure there are all kinds of stereotypes that come to your mind: perfect posture, big hair, and the iconic wave. While we may be tempted to point a finger at Miss America and give a snarl—“I mean, really! Who wears high heels with a bikini? …Well, she must think she is something to enter a pageant!” The truth is, I thought I was pretty awesome! I loved the praise of others. I wanted the mirror on the wall to tell me I was the fairest of them all. In the words of Lady Gaga, I live for the

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Breaking Up in a Digital World

By Sharita Hanley / Relationships

It really was madness—ending an engagement via text message, but at the time I didn’t know what else to do. So I took the easy way out and avoided a long face-to-face conversation. Besides, how could this kind of conversation (between two young kids who met online, talked online, and lived in two different time zones) go well anyway? We didn’t really know each other; we knew the selves we presented online. According to Facebook, he was a writer and I am a writer. We shared similar beliefs and both enjoyed spending time outside. But Facebook never asked me about my love for travel, my volunteer work with refugees, or what kind of stories I wanted to write. There was no text

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A Single Career Woman’s Desire to Adopt

By Kendrick Carlisle / Faith

This is Part 1 of a three-part series following Kendrick’s adoption story. We’ve fallen in love with her big heart and witty words. We know you will too… One thing you need to know about me before we go any further is that I’m a planner. I like to know the plan, I like to stick to the plan, and if the plan seems to go off track I consider it my duty to get things headed back in the right direction. This can be considered my strength, but it can also be my weakness; it leads to a desire to control any and all situations. I may or may not have been placed in the “control freak” category a time or

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Life Before Skylar

By Ashley Jones / Motherhood, Best Of

This is part one of a four part series of a young mother’s story. We were so captivated by her journey we knew you would be too. BS. That was my life before Skylar—total BS. I thought I had my priorities in the right place. I loved my husband (most of the time), and wanted to have three kids to form our perfect little family. I imagined two girls and one boy playing in our green yard, contained in a safe little bubble in the form of a white picket fence… I look back now and just laugh. I was ignorant, selfish, and terribly insecure. Change is hard. Most times, it comes with growing pains—sometimes even suffering. It forces you to face

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My Story Rewritten, Yours Can Be Too

By Beverly Whalen / Health & Beauty, Purpose

My life story began as a child of a hurt woman who fled the unfaithfulness of a husband. Her pregnancy came when she fell in the arms of another man seeking comfort. I was the product of hurt, and a thirst for love, and I became a decision faced by a mother who was not ready for motherhood. My beginning could have looked like this: I am: Unwanted A child of hurt, shame, and secrets A choice to make Without value or purpose Another child, if born, headed for Foster Care Yet that was not the end—that is not who I am. I am not: An unwanted daughter A daughter of shame The choice to end a pregnancy Instead, my mother’s decision,

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