From Silence to Calling

I’m a writer. 

I have been for as long as I can remember. 

Rewind to Oak Grove Elementary, 1990.

Mrs. Kathy Johnson published a book I wrote when I was in the 4th grade called Jonathan and Friends. I also did the illustrations. I wish I could say I was as good at drawing as I am with words, but sadly, that is not the case. I really thought I was something, but looking back now, I can say as an English teacher, that little book lacked depth. It did encourage me to keep writing. I’m sure that was the goal. (Thank you, Mrs. Johnson. I still have that book, and you made me feel special.) 

As I got older, writing became an intimate way for me to communicate with God and strengthen my faith. 

Fast forward to 1994. 

I wrote my prayers and thoughts in brightly colored Lisa Frank notebooks as a 12 year old girl sitting on my bed before dinner. Most of those prayers were about identity —and feeling like I didn’t fit in. I can still smell Mom’s fried pork chops wafting down the hall as I poured my heart out onto the page. I quickly tucked my journal under my pillow and bounced down the hall when she called me for dinner.

Fast forward to 1999. 

I scribbled prayers as a teenage girl in the late hours of the night. Most of those were about finding purpose and direction for my life-needing to know which way to go.

Fast forward to 2008. 

I wrote prayers in my early 20s in more sophisticated notebooks, but I found that God didn’t really care what form of paper I used. Those 20-something prayers were about my career path and leading my family well. I prayed desperately during all of 2008 & 2009 for a child— I cried and begged God to help me on dark days when I couldn’t find strength to trust His plan. My Isabella was born in 2010. 

I wrote prayers while having coffee on my front porch. 

I wrote them when my marriage started to fall apart. 

I wrote to God when I felt completely misunderstood.  

I could pour my raw emotions onto the page, and God would meet me there every single time. 

Some pages were stained with tears, and God met me on those days, too. 

I need to pause time right here for just a moment. 

In stark contrast to the personal healing that came from my writing throughout the first half of my life, one of the worst wounds I’ve ever endured came when one of my private prayers was brought into a custody hearing. Somehow—in ways I still do not fully understand—my prayer journal ended up as evidence in a courtroom.

I can still feel my heart racing as the attorney handed me a xerox copy of my handwriting, and I immediately recognized the page design and knew what this had been turned into. 

Evidence.

Evidence of what?

Evidence of my weaknesses poured out to God. 

Evidence of me asking God to help me in areas where I knew I needed growth.

Attorney: 

“Is this your handwriting?”

“Can you read it aloud, please?” 

Trembling, I read my prayer aloud to people who were never meant to hear it.  

The court transcriber typed the words as I read them.

I could hear her fingers hitting the keys.

It felt like such a deep betrayal—mostly because those words were mine—between me and God—and were supposed to remain that way. 

But they didn't. Not that day.  

I was already having a really hard time trusting God because I was grieving a marriage that was breathing its last breaths right in front of me, and this just felt like a final blow to a faith that already felt buried.

I left court that day, and I went silent. 

I stopped praying. 

I stopped writing. 

I stopped asking God for help. 

I got lost in that dark moment, and Satan started whispering a lie in my ear: God betrayed you.

I believed him. 

For seven years, I wandered. 

Aimlessly.

Filling the God-shaped hole in my heart with the world’s cheap substitutions. 

I longed to talk to God, but I was angry with Him. 

I felt so misunderstood. 

I would go to church, but I felt empty. 

I would try to pray, but it felt like my prayers hit the ceiling. 

I was "religious," but that intimate relationship with God that I once had felt very far away.

Seven years later, in a moment of desperation, I picked up my pen and a notebook.   

I was tired of running. 

I talked to God that day—really talked to Him.

It all came pouring out—the words I had been holding onto suddenly spilled onto the page, finally visible and free. 

In one way, it felt unfamiliar. It had been so long.

In another way, it felt like coming home. 

That day, I finally accepted the truth that God wasn’t the one who betrayed me.   

I chose forgiveness that day. 

I forgave myself for wandering away from God. 

I forgave others for hurting me in ways they may have never fully understood.

And I vowed that I would never put down my pen again. 

Fast forward to February 20, 2025.

Words written in my prayer journal—

“God, show me my purpose...” 

“I’m so tired of waiting…”

“I can’t see your direction.” 

I remember where I was sitting in my living room when I wrote these words—a favorite pen and a spiral notebook with worn edges. I have always felt words burning in me like fire, but I had nowhere for them to go except into the notebooks I held in my hands. 

That day, something inside me shifted. 

I knew God wasn’t going to waste my difficult moments. 

The words that kept spilling out of me whispered that the lessons I learned were meant to be shared. 

1 Peter 4:10

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.

I read those words and felt the weight of them settle somewhere deep. 

Fast forward to March 5, 2026

Known & Becoming was born—not as a brand idea, but as a calling I could no longer ignore.

There are no wasted moments in our lives. 

God won't waste your dark seasons and difficult moments, either. 

If you’ve laid down your pen-pick it back up. 

He’s still there, waiting.

Nothing wasted. Never the same.