Dear Self,

This journey will not be an easy one. You must be willing to face the parts of yourself that you like the least and that scare you the most. You must be willing to walk through the cemetery of your past, and read the writing on the gravestones.

Remember that you live in the safest place you have ever lived at in your entire life. You are strong and you can relive the nightmares in order to truly live again.

Express yourself. Be yourself. Climb into your pit of memories and write to the people with whom you need to speak. Climb out of your pit and write to the people in your present with whom you need to speak. Don't be afraid.

Jamie

Dear God,

It should be simple, writing a letter to God. The words should flow from me like blood, cleansing blood, from a gaping wound. They should, but they don't.

God, I am numb. My tears are lost in some place, deep within, that I can neither see nor feel; yet I know I'm drowning there. I need you to help me find that place.

How can my life contain this much, yet I feel this empty? How can I be drowning and dry, both at the same time?

I stopped praying to you when my earthly father died. I ran headfirst into a forest where I could only see what was before me. I did not realize—I guess I didn't care--that the things beside me and the things behind me had the power to kill me. I sit before you God, dying.

Nine eleven. My miscarriage. My sister's near murder. Dear Scott's death in Iraq. My nervous breakdown. Since I faced all of those moments without you, did I really face them at all? I cried tears, but tears so dry they cleansed nothing. I want my real tears back.

I know better than turning my face from you. I learned to pray, at my Granny's side, our knees touching where they pushed into the carpet beside her big cold bed. We would pray for our lives, for our souls, for our very breath and then we would climb, quickly, between the freezing sheets and huddle there until your warmth reached us. It always did. I know better than to throw away prayer.

Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep,

If I should die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

That prayer scares me now when once it comforted me. Why?

I have no answers when once I thought I had them all. I stand before you God, answerless, numb, needing you. Please help me.

Amen.

Your child,

Jamie