Father

Father, a word that comes with so much responsibility. A word that tastes different coming out of my mouth than it does coming out of yours. It is a word that should warm your heart and come with a smile. Does it warm your heart? Does it come with a smile? It might not, in fact, I don’t expect it to.

It often stirs up anger or confusion. For me, the word father tastes complicated. I know what a father should be, I know the weight that the title carries. I know what I wish my father could have been for me. But I also know of his failures. I saw them and felt them firsthand.

The word father, it holds so much meaning, so much pressure. And yet, it continues to be soiled by the very people who are meant to uphold its meaning and honor it, our fathers, my own father. They do not live up to their title.

A father should love and protect, but what did he do? He told me he loved me, but his actions spoke differently. He acted as if he would protect me, but I was more afraid of what he would do than I was about what anyone else would. A father is supposed to be trusted, but what did he do? He broke my trust over and over. My father took advantage of me when he should have cared about me. My father taught me how to build walls to protect myself. But it didn’t protect me from him.

The very person who was supposed to protect me from heartbreak broke my heart. The person who was meant to build me up, made me feel worthless. This man that should have been my role model is the last person I want to resemble. Father, what a wonderfully complicated word. I think of the word and my head starts spinning.

Maybe it was just my own dad who did not meet the standards of his title? But no, that’s not true. Meet some of the fathers in my life. A man who had a beautiful family, a wife, four kids, but he’s not satisfied. It’s not enough. He decides that another woman will make him happy, but he doesn’t care what that means for his wife and his kids. He gets found out, he gets a divorce, his children are split up. Father.

A man again decides his wife and kids are not enough, he leaves without a word. He abandons his family, and they are left alone and wondering, why? Father.

An alcoholic, he’s angry at himself but he can’t face it. So, he takes it out on his boys. He expects them to make up for his imperfections by being perfect, and if they’re not it causes bruises. All of his insecurities have paved the way for his sons to develop their own insecurities, making them think they aren’t good enough. Father.

These are the men who are supposed to lead their families in purity and love. So much is staked on this word and so much is expected from these men. But it seems as if we are setting ourselves up for disappointment.

This word we use to exemplify love, trust, and protection is a word used to describe a human. Humans are naturally flawed; we constantly mess up. I think the reason we are so broken up by the failures of our fathers is that we are expecting more from them than they could ever give.

Heavenly Father. Two words that, when combined, mean something completely different than the word father. Two words that carry a weight that cannot be measured. A Heavenly Father is one that should love, protect, and be worthy of trust, just as a father should, but He does so in a perfect and unfailing manner.

A Heavenly Father is one that is unselfish, one that truly cares for you. Heavenly Father, words that have higher standards than the word father, and yet, those standards are always met. Unlike the men that are titled father, the being who has the title of Heavenly Father is perfect. What we expect from him will be fulfilled.

Maybe if we cared more about our Heavenly Father than we do about our earthly ones we would be less heartbroken. Maybe we wouldn’t be so hurt and feel such pain if our value came from our Father above rather than the one down here. Maybe we wouldn’t have to ask why he isn’t here if we stopped staking so much on fathers and started staking everything on our Heavenly Father.

Maybe we wouldn’t be so insecure if we dwelt on God’s love instead of the lack of love from our fathers. Maybe we wouldn’t be so disappointed if we put our faith in the one who keeps all of his promises and never breaks our trust, rather than humans who cannot live out perfection.

Father. Heavenly Father. Two completely different concepts, given to two completely different beings. How could we be so impacted by people who cannot fairly be held to the standards set for them? We should instead be so impacted by the fact that our Heavenly Father surpasses the standards set for him.

Our fathers may not live up to their name, but our Heavenly Father does. When the word father comes out of my mouth it doesn’t taste good; it’s messy, it’s complicated. When I say the words, Heavenly Father, they not only warm my heart and bring a smile to my face, but they also taste sweet. Sweeter than anything else in the world. It’s beautifully uncomplicated.

Instead of focusing on fathers and their failures, let’s think about our Heavenly Father and his faithfulness. Heavenly Father, what a sweet name.

The Story Behind the Writing

I know my view of fathers in this piece of writing is quite bleak, so I’d just like to say that my view has certainly softened in the last few years, and God has shown me some men who have stepped up into the role of a father in ways that truly honor God. But back then, my view on fathers was very pessimistic. Not all fathers are terrible, and I know that should go without saying, but I want to be clear about it.

I know many fathers who are just about as good as a human being can be. There are so many fathers who love the Lord and follow Him with their whole self. There are many fathers who love their children selflessly and sacrificially. Praise the Lord for all the fathers who reflect our Heavenly Father in the way they treat their children! They are out there, and I am so thankful for each and every one of them. Now that I’ve said that I can tell you more!

I wrote this right around Christmas of 2017. It was the first Christmas I spent without my dad. My dad bought me a typewriter as a gift, and this is what I wrote. I was feeling overwhelmed with so many emotions as I wrote this. I was missing my dad because I still wasn’t sure how to live without him, but I was so angry that I missed him. I was angry at him for being a terrible father and I was upset that I knew so many other terrible fathers.

When you write on a typewriter, there is very little room for error. Unless you go back and use white-out, what you write is what stays on the page. I wrote this in one sitting and I didn’t go back and fix anything. When I started writing it, I didn’t think I was going to bring God into it, but God brought Himself into it. I thought I would just vent about how terrible my dad was and some of the other fathers I knew, and then I would call it a day. But that’s not what happened.

Once I wrote about the disappointing fathers in my life, there was still more to be said, and I believe God wanted to show me something. I realized that I had one of the worst fathers, but I also had the best Father in the world—God, my Heavenly Father.

That has always been the way I connect most with God. There are so many aspects to Him; Savior, Friend, Rock, Redeemer, Healer, King—but Father, that has always been my favorite way to relate to God. The fact that He has loved us so perfectly, so unconditionally, so purely—that is the most amazing thing in the world.

I realized as I was writing this piece that there are some pretty high expectations for fathers. I think it is perfectly okay to have high expectations and it is actually a good thing. Fathers should love and protect their children and children should be able to trust their fathers. I think fathers should strive to be the very best they can be and try to love their children like Jesus would.

I think we get into a dangerous spot when we expect fathers to be perfect and to fulfill us. When we expect them to never fail and to never be selfish. That is just not attainable, but there is someone who can attain this.

God, our Heavenly Father, truly is perfect and will never fail you and will never mess up. He is the only father in the world that will always do right and will never disappoint you. For those of us who have fathers who have deeply wronged us and messed up in huge ways, this idea of a perfect father seems insane. If you feel that way, this post is for you!

I honestly still have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that God loves me perfectly. But when I look back on my life, I can’t find a time where God has messed up or disappointed me. He has been there for me every single time, He has loved me in purity and done so selflessly, He has protected me, and I trust Him 100%. I want you to know that you can have a perfect Father too.

God loves you more than you can ever imagine and certainly more than you deserve. He is a God of justice; when you are wronged or when someone sins against you, God hurts for you, He is full of righteous anger, and He will defend you. When you are sad or lonely or in pain, He is there for you, and He will comfort you. God cares for you with absolute purity and loves you sacrificially. Everything God does is for your good and His glory, He will always do what is right and what is best.

For those of us who have earthly dads that have failed us, there is still hope! Even if you didn’t have a bad dad or you were never able to know your father, God’s love is for you and He wants to be your Father. I would invite you to ask God to be your Heavenly Father and to let Him love you in a way you have never been loved before. When you ask God to be your father, your life changes. He will mend your broken heart, He will show you how valuable you are, He will fulfill every promise He has made to you, He will prove worthy of trust, He will show you the sweetness of the words, Heavenly Father.

When you have a relationship with God and you are His child, He totally redefines the way you think of the word father. I am not saying that there won’t be any hurt from the wounds of your earthly dad, and there won’t be any pain that still shows up. Those things that happened still happened, but there is so much healing as you learn to trust your Heavenly Father in spite of everything your earthly father has done.

Experiencing God’s love is truly the best medicine for any hurt that you have been through. If you allow Him to shower His love on you, you will once again be able to utter the word father with a smile on your face. No longer will that word be complicated and messy, it will be sweet. I hope you will seek to be His child; despite the pain you’ve been through in the past. Be brave, let your Heavenly Father love you. That’s what I have done, and it has changed my life.

I am so thankful that I have experienced the love of a perfect Father, and I hope you will experience that love too. If the people in your life who were supposed to care for you and protect you did the exact opposite, I am truly sorry for what you have gone through. I hope that you run to God and that every hurt you have been through will be healed and that you can experience wholeness again.  Thanks for showing up,

-Elena ❤

Boasting in Our Weakness

Writing is something I have loved ever since I was a kid. I used to spend hours in our basement on our old Mac desktop writing stories. I kept journals that I would write in almost every day, and I wrote countless notes and letters to family members, friends, and teachers. I just loved to write.

My favorite class before college was a writing class I took in middle school, and once I got to college my favorite classes were always the creative writing ones. All of my friends had so many tests and quizzes during midterms and finals, but I had research papers, short stories, or mini chapbooks (books of poetry), which meant hours and hours of writing. But that’s what I preferred.

During all of these creative writing classes, I realized just how passionate I was about writing, and I got this desire to write books and start a blog someday.

I had a friend who was starting a blog about a year and a half ago, and every time she talked about it, I felt so much excitement. Not only was I excited for her and her journey, but also because I just knew I would do that someday. It’s funny too, because every time someone said, “why don’t you just start a blog,” I said, “because everybody does that” and dismissed the idea, but a huge part of me knew I wanted to do it.

I disqualified myself from doing a blog because I didn’t want to do something that so many others were doing, especially because I felt like I wasn’t special enough to have people want to read what I have to say. I felt like it would be pointless, or I wouldn’t be good at it, or it would be too overwhelming, and the list of fears goes on. With all the insecurities and fears I had, the biggest thing that held me back was timing—waiting for just the right time to do the thing.

My whole life, doing something with this passion for writing was a someday thing. I wonder how many of us have had “someday” dreams for years and years, just waiting for a magical time when everything falls into place and the stars align. Stepping forward in faith is a scary thing, but God does amazing things when we are willing to follow Him even though we are scared and even when it doesn’t exactly feel like perfect timing.

The only perfect timing is God’s timing, and honestly, God’s timing is rarely convenient for us. He either asks us to wait much longer than we had hoped, or He opens doors unexpectedly, at a time when we don’t feel ready.

I started working on this blog in 2020, but there were so many different things going on in my life that I just told myself it wasn’t a good time. I felt like I needed to be further along in my healing and further removed from some personal things I was working through. I didn’t touch this blog site for almost a year, then I just felt this urge to pick it back up this fall.

I questioned God’s urgings about making any posts on the site, but I did start preparing for it. As I stepped further into this process, I just felt like God was telling me it was time. I was not on board right away, I felt like such a mess. It just didn’t quite make sense to me that this would be the time to start. But God is always willing and ready to use our messiness, in fact, I think He prefers it.

This process has reminded me of a passage in the Bible that I’d like to share with you. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 says, “But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

That verse truly sums up this blog for me. The only way I am able to do this is through God’s grace and His power. In my own strength, I would just fail miserably at all of this. Sharing this stuff with you is not easy for me, it can be very scary, but this isn’t about me. It’s about what God has done in my life and what I believe He can do in yours. So, just like the verse says, I declare the hardest and worst things about me and my life; the hardships, the difficulties, and my own weakness, because God displays His strength through those things. I am weak, but because of Him, I am strong.

Please, make sure you don’t spend your whole life waiting for fear to leave before you can step out in faith. Faith is all about choosing to believe God no matter how you feel or how uncertain things are. Oftentimes, fear walks hand in hand with faith, trying to crush it and stop you from exercising your faith. But if we are willing to follow God’s leading, our fear and our weakness are replaced with God’s confidence and His strength.

Whatever it is that lights up your eyes and brings a smile to your face, that thing that makes you excited and nervous and happy just thinking about it—pray about it, go do it, or at least start making plans for it. If you feel ill-equipped, God will equip you as you step forward, and if you feel weak—good, God will display His strength in you.

There are obviously times where the timing isn’t right, and God closes doors and asks you to wait. If that’s the case, of course you should be obedient. Just don’t let fear or insecurities or apathy be the reason you don’t pursue something.

When we have hopes, dreams, and passions, we tend to make our own plans and try to equip ourselves and carry those things out in our own strength. But hopes, dreams, and passions that are worthwhile are ordained by God and sovereignly planned out for us, we don’t have to worry about messing them up.

It should be supremely comforting to us that God has already organized the fruition of every dream and passion that is worthwhile. We don’t have to worry if our passion will be wasted or never see the light of day because God will do what He wants to with the gifts that really matter.

God gives each of us specific gifts, talents, and skills for us to go out and do something with. I’m not saying that your gift or passion has to be something that you share with hundreds of people, it could just be something that brings you joy and fills up your heart. It could affect just you, just a few close friends and family members, or it is possible that it could reach many people. If God has placed a passion in your heart, it is there for a reason.

Like I said, I had a lot of fear and a lot of insecurities when I even thought about pursuing writing, and honestly, those things have tried to creep back in even in the short time I have been doing this blog.

When people tell me they read my post or that someone they know read it, my immediate response is excitement but if I am honest, fear follows shortly after. I start to overthink every word I wrote and wonder if people really enjoyed reading it and if it really made an impact. Or I remember the fact that I have openly talked about being abused and that more people know that about me now, which leaves me feeling very vulnerable.

There are so many thoughts that crowd my mind in this process and before I know it, I am doubting what I am doing. But even though I have fears and this can be uncomfortable at times, I am not going to stop until God says to. I feel confident that this is what God has asked me to do, so even if I don’t know what that looks like, that’s okay because God does. I am not going to do this perfectly and it might look nothing like I expect it to, but I can be assured that I am walking in obedience to God.

Following God can be scary and doing things you are passionate about can be scary. But how awesome is it to see God glorified and magnified through our lives? How amazing is it that God uses the worst, ugliest, and weakest things and He makes them the best, most beautiful, strongest testimonies of who He is and how good He is? If God can do that by us stepping out in obedience to Him, then it is well worth it.

God will strengthen even the weakest parts of you. His grace is sufficient. If you are anxious or scared to do what He is asking, that’s okay, just don’t let it stop you. We’re not perfect, but God can use us in mighty ways if we have faith in Him and lean on His strength.

I hope this encourages you to be bold in your faith and to be confident in God’s strength. I know that God has a plan for you and a plan for your giftings and passions, you just have to seek His guidance as you pursue those things, and He will bless that.

Thank God that He is so gracious that He chooses to use us despite all our flaws, and thank God even when we are weak, He is strong. Thanks for showing up,

-Elena ❤

My Cell

TRIGGER WARNING: Sexual Abuse


This darkness is a prison

My heart and mind and body

Are trapped inside with no key in sight


My eyes have yet to see anything but blackness

My ears have yet to hear anything but this deafening silence

My heart has yet to feel anything but this pain


Why does my mouth stay shut

Why does my heart not express

Why do I not break this silence


They do not know

But I cannot tell them

I am only a body


I can feel his fingers

I can feel his breath

But I sit there frozen


The only thing I see are the terrors of my mind

The only thing I hear are the screams that I held in for so long

The only thing I feel is his hands all over me


But no one else sees these terrors

No one hears my screams

No one has felt his hands


But they are not in my cell

They are not bound to this darkness

They are not in search of the key


The Story Behind the Poem

This is the first poem I ever wrote about my experience of being abused by my dad as a little girl and not being able to talk about it. I didn’t write this until the spring semester of my sophomore year of college when I was 18 years old. By that time, I had finally told my family about the abuse that had gone on for so many years. I was finding my voice, and it was so painful, but extremely freeing.

I had never expressed the way it felt to be abused in a house full of people who could have helped if they had just known what was going on. I had never expressed what it felt like to never talk to anyone about the abuse except my abuser. It truly was a prison, one that I felt trapped in even after telling my family, and even after the abuse had stopped.

I was so lonely and pushing down so much pain. I was able to suppress my trauma to a point of almost forgetting it, but I never quite forgot it. It would sneak back in and cause me to stumble through the everyday things of life, and no one knew why I was emotional, why I was sensitive, why I was closed off.

After I told my family about the abuse, the trauma I had suppressed and the emotions I had bottled up all wanted to come out at once. These were things I didn’t let myself deal with for years, then suddenly, I had to face them. Learning to process and feel the pain from the abuse I had endured and also trying to function at the same time was extremely difficult.

I had just escaped this prison of silence and abuse, then I was tossed into this prison of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). I was an 18-year-old who was working part-time, going to college full-time, and also trying to have a social life, that in itself was already a lot. Doing those things while also dealing with PTSD felt like a whole different type of prison.

When I tried to go to work and focus on those tasks, when I went to class or tried to do homework, when I was hanging out with friends or at an event, the trauma would show up. Everywhere I went, everything I did, the trauma had a way of manifesting itself. I would experience flashbacks of the abuse, I would experience triggers that caused my brain to hyper-focus on the abuse, or I would be sent into panic attacks because my body suddenly went into fight mode after something reminded me of my abuse. Even though the abuse itself was over, the effects lingered in my life and left me feeling trapped.

Back then, it really felt like there was no bright side. I was finally not living in the same household as my abuser, but I still hadn’t really experienced much healing. There were so many transitions that I had to make and so many changes going on, it was overwhelming and a lot of the time I felt pretty hopeless.

When I wrote that poem, it was one of the first times I realized I could write something that didn’t have a happy ending. I could actually just express how I felt and what I had been through, and that was enough. I didn’t have to dress it up and make it look cute.

I honestly felt like I spent my whole life trying to make sure other people were okay and no one was inconvenienced, hurt, or uncomfortable. Talking about abuse isn’t comfortable, but there I was, writing a poem about abuse and sharing it in my poetry class. It didn’t matter if it made other people uncomfortable, because I needed to share it.

There was something very therapeutic and healing about allowing myself to recognize that what I had been through was hard. Writing about how painful it was, how lonely it was, how hopeless it was, and telling the story of feeling trapped and silenced and not feeling the need to lessen how bad it was, I had never done that until I wrote that poem.

It’s sort of funny looking back because I thought that this poem was so vague and that people might not even know that I was talking about abuse. When I shared this poem in class, my classmates told me their interpretations and what they thought about it, and people clearly knew what it was about.

My professor reached out to me to thank me for my vulnerability and asked if I was okay. I was so surprised by the reaction to my poem for two reasons. One, because they really liked it, and that helped me become more passionate and confident as a writer. And two, because these people talked about the seriousness of abuse and made me feel truly seen.

It was very validating to have a bunch of strangers tell me I was a good writer and express their sympathies for what I had been through. Those people didn’t have to say the kind things they did about my writing, and they didn’t have to express that they cared about the pain I had experienced, but they did it anyway.

When I wrote and shared this poem, it was one of the best feelings I had during a very hard time in my life. I needed an outlet for all of the complicated things I was working through, and I needed to release some of my pain. I also needed validation, support, and some kind people to make me feel less alone. It is crazy that God provided all those things through a poetry class full of people I had never met.

In that class, I was able to share, bit by bit, my story. It was a very scary, very exciting time for me. I think those poems really catapulted me into becoming the writer I am today. I realized I loved sharing my life with people and it helped me to connect with others and with myself.

So, even though the poem itself is a very dark and sad piece of writing, it helped me learn more about myself and step further into healing. It allowed other people to encourage and support me, and it showed me that it’s okay to talk about uncomfortable and painful things. In fact, it showed me the importance of talking about abuse and loneliness.

That poetry class is probably one of the biggest reasons why I am writing this blog now, which is really cool to think about. I am thankful that God allows impactful things in our lives at precisely the moment that we need them. And I am thankful that first poem spurred me on to keep writing and gave me the confidence to share my story with others.

I hope you enjoyed reading this post and that it was impactful to you. If you enjoyed reading one of my poems, you are in luck! I will be sharing more of them in the future, so stay tuned. Thanks for showing up,

-Elena ❤

Experiencing the Fullness of God

In my last post, I shared about how I decided to follow God. I wrote about the hope that entered into my life and this wonderful connection between me and my Heavenly Father. I also shared that the abuse I was experiencing didn’t stop when I chose to follow God.

After that moment of choosing to follow Jesus, there was so much refinement and sanctification that had to take place. Not to mention, God is currently and always will be refining me and sanctifying me as I go through life.

Immediately after getting saved, I had a strong desire to read the Bible and learn more about Jesus, I was more engaged at church and Bible study, and I felt like I had purpose. Reading stories about God’s character and His people was very exciting. I felt like I started to understand how much more there was to being a Christian than just “being good” or going to church.

I remember wanting to honor God with my actions and choosing to be intentional about the things I said and thought. There was a lot of work going on under the surface, in my heart. God made me new.

While I did experience all of these changes, I feel that a huge portion of my spiritual growth was extremely stunted. Spiritual growth requires vulnerability, honesty, and accountability. Those were three things that I did not understand or completely avoided. I always thought I was an open book when I was younger, I was willing to talk to anyone about anything. Well, looking back now, I see that was definitely not the case.

I was willing to talk about anything, EXCEPT the abuse I was experiencing and anything that had to do with it. Almost all of the hard things I went through from the time I was age 4 to 17 pretty much had to do with being abused. This resulted in me putting forth only my best self, the parts of me that were happy and smiley and not struggling, leaving me with very shallow relationships. I ended up feeling misunderstood or alone even with my closest friends and family.

A huge part of being a Christian is the aspect of community. We meet up as the church to spur one another on towards Christ and worship Him together, to support and encourage one another, to grieve and to celebrate with each other, and to hold each other accountable for our actions. The church isn’t just meant to come together, listen to sermons, and maybe have a few surface level conversations and then disconnect. We are meant to truly share in each other’s lives and really love one another.

It was not completely the fault of the church I was in that I wasn’t in fellowship with other believers. Though churches and church leaders have to be intentional about the fellowship and community they are cultivating, it is still each individual churchgoer’s choice whether they will participate or not. I participated to the level that I thought I could, which was not a deep level.

My dad made me feel like I could never tell anyone about the abuse. He manipulated and scared me into thinking that everything would fall apart, and it would be all my fault if I said anything. Because I felt so much fear for what could happen if I was open and honest, I just wasn’t.

I felt like I could have my relationship with God and speak only to Him about the real things, and that was enough. But we aren’t meant to just share our lives and hearts with God. We are meant to bear one another’s burdens and help each other in every way possible as the church.

So, in not having vulnerability, honesty, and accountability with the church, I wasn’t experiencing the healing, freedom, and security in my identity in Christ that followers of Jesus have access to. As I have mentioned, I felt a lot of loneliness, I felt very misunderstood, and I was bound in a lot of darkness. For me, it was hard to understand how I could possibly still be in this predicament after choosing to follow God. I knew that He promised a life full of light, freedom, and healing, yet I felt like I was still in chains.

When I was 17, God led me to tell my family about the abuse that had been happening. I will make a more in-depth post about that story, but for now I will just say—I am confident that it was God who made the way for me to speak up, and He has been moving miraculously in my life ever since I did.

Soon after I told my family about the abuse, there were more and more people in my life who started to figure out. My family was respectful about who they told, and I told whomever I was comfortable telling. It was very strange going from absolutely no one knowing, to most of the people in my everyday life knowing. I got a HUGE wave of love and support from family members and friends, and it was completely overwhelming. I never knew how loved I was until that happened.

I had never in my life felt so visible and so seen as I did when the people I loved knew the pain I had been through. No one ever knew how hard my life was when I was younger, and it felt amazing that I could finally talk about it. My church family truly became family after that, and that changed my life, it certainly changed my spiritual life.

I began to experience real, deep friendships and relationships like never before. I started sharing the really hard things I was working through, I let myself breakdown in front of people, I was honest. I learned how to empathize with others in such a beautiful way. I decided I wanted to be vulnerable with others, I sought accountability. After doing all these things, the spiritual growth I had been craving skyrocketed.

Once I became more open about being abused, others started opening up to me about the abuse they had been through. I never realized how many people, especially women, have been through abuse, even sexual abuse, and how common it is within the church. God allowed me to support and encourage those women and they did the same for me. There was so much healing and chain breaking as a result of us choosing to open up about our lives.

I dealt with my own sin in a way I never had before. I finally began to see that I was also a big sinner, not just everyone else (imagine that…). God showed me so many heart issues that I had, and so many lies that I believed. I wanted to become holy and righteous, I didn’t want to fall into sin anymore.

I now feel 100% free from the shame I once felt, the worthlessness, the dirtiness, the ugliness—all of that is gone. Through putting my identity in Christ and in His love for me, God has shown me my value, my beauty, my worthiness, my purity—I am a daughter of the King. My value is no longer placed in what was done to me or what I have done, my value is in what Jesus did on the cross and who He is.

I have also experienced so much healing over the last few years from the abuse I went through and its effects. There was so much trauma involved, I was dealing with PTSD very strongly, and a lot of anxiety and depression. Though I still struggle with PTSD, anxiety, and depression, I have seen so much progress and healing in those areas. I know that I could be 100% healed from those things someday, I used to think that was impossible. I know that God is the ultimate healer, and I will be healed to the measure He allows on this earth, and I will be fully healed and whole in heaven.

God also used my relationship with my husband Dillon to help me grow exponentially. I met Dillon a month after I opened up to my family about the abuse, so he entered into my life when I first was learning how to talk about all of it. Dillon helped me learn vulnerability more than anyone in my life, and it was terrifying for me. He helped me learn how to trust again and he gives me faith in godly men.

There are so many things I could say, I could go on and on about how God has changed me and helped me to grow. I am so thankful for what He has done in my life, and I am so happy that I can sit here and write this all out to share with others. Five years ago, I never could have imagined sharing my story with anyone who chooses to read it, or even just one person for that matter.

God has shown me over the last four years what He can do with the most hopeless circumstances. God has allowed me to share my story with many people in my life, people at work, in church, on mission trips, and even strangers. I felt inspired by God to start this blog and even specifically to write this post. God will use your story if you let Him.

I would much rather use what I have been through to help others and allow God to make something beautiful from the ashes, than just act like it never happened or keep being angry about it. The truth is, it did happen, and I can’t do anything about that now. All I can do is choose to let it not be in vain. So here I am, telling you what God has done for me and what He can do for you!

If you are feeling stuck in your relationship with God or your spiritual growth is stunted, I would challenge you to ask these questions. Am I being vulnerable with other believers in my life? Am I being honest? And do I have spiritual accountability in my life?

If you aren’t sharing your hopes, dreams, struggles, and fears, if you’re holding in your feelings and emotions, or you are struggling with sin in secret—you will only be able to grow so much. Whatever that thing is that comes to mind, or whoever that person is that comes to mind—address it, share it, confess it, talk to that person, make a plan to change.

If you are an introvert or you just don’t especially like vulnerability and sharing life, I would encourage you to move past that discomfort or those preferences. If you are a Christian, you are called to be vulnerable and share life with other believers.

I would also like to say for anyone who has ever been in an abusive or traumatic situation, there is healing for you. I know it can seem impossible or just way too hard, but there is healing. It is a very difficult and long journey, but it is well worth it. Keep praying for it, keep seeking support, keep asking for help, keep pushing for it. The first step is sharing with someone what you have been through and getting out. You can’t experience true healing until you get out of that situation and into a safe place.

I really hope that my story can be encouraging to you, and I hope that you know that God can change lives with your story if you are willing to share it. Thanks for showing up,

-Elena ❤

How I Came to Know Jesus

As I was thinking about how to start my blog and what I should write about first, I shied away from telling you about my childhood and the story of how I came to know Jesus. I was hesitant because there are some sensitive topics and things that people in my life haven’t heard. I thought maybe I would wait to talk about the darker stuff, and I would try to find something easier to share first.

But if there is anything that God has shown me in the last few years, it’s that He rarely asks us to take the easy route. In fact, just about every time in my experience, God has asked me to take the harder route, the one I want to avoid with every fiber of my being. So, naturally, here I am about to dive right into the hard stuff.

Despite all of that, I do feel that it makes the most sense to first tell you about how I became the woman I am today. Most of that has to do with how I grew up and the fact that I met Jesus.

As a kid, I had so many blessings in my life. I had a mom who loved and took care of me, we were decently financially secure, I had 5 awesome older siblings, and I was surrounded by people who loved me and loved Jesus. I grew up going to church every Sunday and having a Bible Study every Friday night at our house. My dad was the worship pastor at our church and Bible Study, and he often led the discussions during the study.

I was homeschooled by my mom, and I had so many wonderful friends in that community who made school fun and exciting. I had so many influential women in my life as well, teaching and educating me. I loved learning and I honestly thrived in school.

So, from the outside looking in, everything seemed to be great. People in my life often talked about how great my family was, how lucky I was, and how awesome my parents were. Yes, I was very blessed in many ways, and I am extremely grateful for those blessings. But in some ways, my life was extremely difficult from a very young age.

When I was 4 years old, my dad started sexually abusing me. This abuse went on for years. It also morphed into manipulation and control issues that caused emotional, mental, and even spiritual abuse. The physical side of the abuse lessened significantly when I hit my teen years, but it never really stopped. When I was 17 years old, I finally opened up to my mom and my siblings about what had been going on. Not until that time, when my dad was kicked out of my house, did the abuse truly stop.

There are so many factors that played into why I wasn’t able to tell anyone I was being abused for so long, and I would like to talk about that in another post down the road. I will also share the story of how God helped me to open up and expose the sin that had been going on in secret. But for now, I want to share more about how I encountered God and chose to follow Him even while this abuse was happening.

As I mentioned before, I was heavily involved in church even as a kid. I was surrounded by Christians and people who followed Jesus, as well as those who falsely claimed to follow Him, like my dad. The key to me being able to not rule out God as a being worth following was recognizing the difference between who God is and who those that profess to follow Him are.

God is not like man that He should sin. God is perfect and has no flaws. God does no wrong and He would never do anything like the things my dad chose to do. Some people ask how I can believe in and follow a God who would let me go through the abuse I went through. That is something I struggled with during my childhood, but I always knew that God was hurting for me so much as I went through that.

He wept with me and hurt with me. He never wants to see His children get hurt, but God allows man to choose his own actions. Just as God allows me to make my own choices, He allowed my dad to make his. God doesn’t always stop terrible things from happening, but every single time something terrible does happen, He will use it and make something beautiful out of it. Not one of the struggles or trials you or I have gone through in our lives has been in vain, and I know that is the truth.

Of course, if I could go back and change what I have been through, there is no way I would choose to go through that abuse. Abuse is always wrong, and it is never something I will be able to look back on and be thankful for. I don’t think God would ask us to be thankful for any suffering we have been through, or that He would expect us to go through suffering with a smile. Suffering is suffering no matter how you want to frame it. But at the end of the day, I am thankful that God was with me through that suffering and that He uses what I have been through for my good, the good of others, and His glory.

During the abuse, I felt so alone. As a kid, I was confused about what was happening and I hated it. It caused me a lot of pain and it was extremely difficult to cope with. But I distinctly remember the moment I went from being alone and hopeless to realizing I had a loving, Heavenly Father who cared so deeply for me. He offered me comfort, peace, and hope in my situation.

I can’t remember every detail, but I do remember I had been crying in the shower after something happened with my dad. I got out of the shower and as I stood there, trying to collect myself and keep pushing through the sadness, I had this sudden feeling of warmth and I felt seen. In that moment, I knew that God was with me, He loved me, and that He wanted to have a relationship with me. I knew that He would never hurt me and that He desired to protect me.

I had heard the gospel before and I knew a lot about the Bible and the stories in it, but I had never personally chosen to follow God and have a relationship with Him. That was the moment where I decided to believe the things I had learned and to have faith that God was who He said He was, He was good, and He was the only one in the world who could love me perfectly.

After experiencing the abusive and toxic relationship I had with my earthly dad, the feeling of being in a relationship with a Father who loved me so purely, unconditionally, and wholly, was and is the best feeling I have ever had. That moment has changed my entire life. I honestly don’t know if I would be alive today if I hadn’t encountered God that day. Not only did God offer me salvation and a new life, but He literally saved my life.

I don’t remember exactly how old I was when that happened, I think I was around 6 or 7 years old. After I got saved, the abuse didn’t stop, and my situation remained the same. The thing that made it possible for me to even keep moving forward in my life was my relationship with God.

I’m sure you have heard people say that God doesn’t promise us an easy life, but He promises us that He will be there through every bit of it. I can see why that sometimes doesn’t feel good enough, or it almost feels like someone is mocking you. But if you feel that way it is probably because you have never experienced what it is like for God to be with you through everything, it truly changes your life. When God is with you, the hard things are still hard, but the impossible things are now possible. God allows us to move through grief, pain, abuse, tragedy, and trauma in ways that are not possible without Him. He makes a way where there is no way.

I know that it is so hard to understand how God allows anything bad to happen when we know He is also powerful enough to change any circumstance. But the bad things that go on in our lives and in the world have so much more to do with the depravity of man and the fallen state of our world than they do with God’s character. Bad things don’t happen because God doesn’t care, they happen because sin destroyed God’s perfect design.

From the very beginning of creation, God was good. He always has been, and He always will be good, and no circumstance in the world or experience you have had changes God’s goodness.

When I remember the abuse I have been through, all of the really awful things my dad has done, and how much hurt he has caused me and my family, I don’t blame God. My dad is the one who chose to do those things, and he is the only one responsible for those actions and that hurt. When I think about how much healing has happened in me and my family over the past few years and the ways my experiences have been used to help others, I give all the glory to God. For me, it’s that simple.

That is the story of the choice I made to surrender to God and have a relationship with Him, but there is so much more that God has done in my heart since then. I will be sharing how God continued to move after that day in my next post.

I would also just like to say, if you are struggling to believe that God is good, or you are blaming Him for the bad things that have happened to you, I would encourage you to bring those doubts and that hurt to God. Pray through those things and be honest with Him. Have conversations with people in your life that you trust and be honest with them as well. Talk to those who have learned to believe in God’s goodness and have managed to no longer blame Him for the suffering they’ve experienced. Read God’s Word, starting in Genesis. These are all things I did to find out if I could truly, 100% trust God.

Even though that journey is scary because you’re afraid you might find out God isn’t good, it is so worth it. If you can’t completely trust God and trust that He ultimately wants your good and His glory, then He isn’t worth following. So, I challenge you to ask those questions and find out what you truly believe. Don’t be afraid to solidify your beliefs, one way or another, God will provide answers to your questions.

I would also like to mention, if you or someone you know is experiencing abuse—please, please, please reach out to someone. Talk to someone, a family member, a friend, a leader in your church, or even the police. It is extremely difficult to talk about abuse, especially if that is something you have never shared before, but things will get so much better when you get help.

No one ever deserves to be in an abusive situation and abusers should always be held accountable and responsible for their actions. If you feel unable to talk about what you are going through, I understand where you are coming from, and my heart goes out to you. I would encourage you to think about it, and if you can’t get yourself to reach out to someone in your close circle, I am always here. If you would like to contact me, go to the “Contact” page on this site. Thanks for showing up,

-Elena ❤

Welcome to My Blog!

Hello everyone, welcome! My name is Elena Lucas, and this is the space where I will be sharing some of my writing with you. I am so excited to start this journey and see where it goes!

I have always loved to write, and the older I get the more I realize that I want to share my writing with others. The idea of people reading what I write is very intimidating and very exciting at the same time.

Whether it’s a poem, a short story, or just something God has taught me, I feel like I am meant to share those things with you. I have wanted to do this for a long time and have been pushing it back because I never felt that the time was right. My life was very chaotic, I was super busy, I wasn’t in the right mental headspace, or I was just afraid that I would not be able to fully commit to maintaining a blog and posting as often as I would hope.

But the truth is, there is no good reason why I should keep waiting on something that I know I am meant to do. Life will always be chaotic, I will always be busy, there will always be some hard mental health days, and I will learn as I go!

That being said, I am not sure how often I will post or exactly what all my posts will look like. There may be times when I cannot post as often or times where I am able to post a lot. But I hope that you will be interested to read my posts as they come, and you will share in my life and grow with me!

A lot of what I share will be about my faith and what God is teaching me. He is always showing me new things and giving me new wisdom as I go, and I will share that with you because I know we can all use more wisdom.

The other things I will be sharing are stories and experiences from my life and what God has shown me through all of it. I will be talking a lot about healing from abuse and working through trauma and what that process has looked like for me. I will also be sharing some poems that I have written about those experiences. The things I share will likely have some weight to them, but even with the heaviness of it all, God will always provide hope and a new perspective.

There are many people in my life who don’t really know my story. Even people who have known me for years may not know a lot about my childhood and some of the issues in my family. There are a lot of things that I just wasn’t sure how to talk about or I didn’t feel like it was necessary to share with everyone I know.

I could easily get stuck in fear or shame and never share parts of my story with anyone. But often times God intends to use the worst moments in our lives to help others who go through similar things. I will try to push through the obstacles that come before me and choose to share my life with you as openly and honestly as I am meant to.

I am definitely nervous to share the really hard parts of my life and to have a lot of vulnerability and transparency here. I am used to being open in my life when I interact with people, but not online or through social media. But God has shown me that He wants to use every hardship I have been through to help others, whether that is educating others who have never experienced abuse or trauma or relating to and supporting those who have experienced it.

One of the reasons I chose the name, “Rejoicing in Truth” is because of my own story of speaking the truth. When I was 17, a series of events, that no doubt were ordained by God’s hand, led me to tell the truth about the sexual abuse I had endured. After opening up about that, I was catapulted into so much healing and freedom—and it was all because the truth had been spoken. That was a huge moment of rejoicing in truth for me, and it still is something I rejoice in.

The other reason why I chose that name is because of my faith in the Lord and in His Word. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life and because of that, no matter what is going on in the world and in my own life, I am able to rejoice. I rejoice in the truth of His goodness, of His love, and in the truth of the gospel.

I hope that you and I will learn how to rejoice in the truth more and more on this journey. I pray that God will use what I write to help you in some way, because that’s why I am here. Thanks for showing up,

-Elena ❤