I wrote From the Bottom to Grace because some stories cannot be understood by looking only at where someone has been.
To understand them fully, we must also consider who they are becoming.
This story is personal because the woman at its center is my cousin, whom I have known for most of my life. I knew her before addiction became part of her story, and I have witnessed the effects addiction can have on a person and an entire family.
WHY I WROTE THIS
I did not want to write another story that reduced a person to addiction.
Addiction can so strongly shape the way people see someone that they forget a whole person existed before the struggle began.
I wanted to tell a different kind of story, one that recognized the person behind the struggle. I wanted to remember the woman I knew before addiction entered her life while remaining honest about the damage it caused.
Most of all, I wanted to write about what God could still see when everyone else could only see the brokenness.
WHAT GOD SAW
He saw a worshipper.
He saw someone whose life was still worth restoring.
That truth changed how I understood her story and strengthened my belief that a person's worst season should never become the only thing we know about them.
A person's worst season should never become the only thing we know about them.
A FAMILY STORY
This book is also about family.
I have watched members of my family experience addiction's devastation. Some have come through it and found another way forward, while others are still struggling.
That is why I believe stories like this matter.
Sometimes someone needs to see that another person made it out before they can believe there is a way out for them.
FAITH AND GRACE
At the heart of this story is grace.
I do not mean grace that ignores what happened, but grace that faces the truth while still believing restoration is possible.
God does not have to pretend our brokenness never happened in order to redeem us from it.
He can enter the very places where we have been wounded, trapped, or broken and begin writing something different there.
The past may explain where someone has been.
It does not have to determine where they are going.
MY HOPE FOR THIS STORY
My hope is that anyone who reads these pages will look beyond the label.
Look beyond addiction and the mistakes that may have followed.
Look beyond the years that may feel lost.
Try to see the person who is still here, with a future that has not yet been fully written.
There is still a person beneath the label.
There is still a story being written, and there is room for change.
And where God is involved, the story is not finished simply because the darkest chapter has already been written.
I believe her story is a testimony that surrender does not have to end in captivity.
Surrender can become worship.
Addiction does not get the final word.
Grace does.