Picture a girl sitting alone on a rock in a campground, her face streaked with tears. She is fourteen, though her thin frame makes her look even younger.

She could be pretty—with her green eyes and long blonde hair—but her face is dirty, and there is a taste in her mouth she knows she will never forget.

She has been hurt before, but not like this. A breeze passes through the oaks above her, and the dandelions around her stir. She wipes her tears, trying to steady herself.

What would it feel like, she wonders, to matter?

Then she sees the truck. White, worn, moving slowly toward her. She recognizes the man behind the […]

It’s hard to comprehend how one day life can feel completely ordinary, and the next, everything is shattered. The people and places we love can be taken in an instant, while the world continues as if nothing has changed—the sun still rising and setting, unchanged.

It feels deeply unfair, even cruel. As an adult, I understand this in a way I couldn’t before. But as a child living through it, nothing about that day felt normal. We likely ate lunch after my father left. It was early afternoon, and my grandfather and the pastor remained in the house. I remember sitting at Aunt Connie’s kitchen table while Uncle Chuck silently prepared something for us, moving through the […]