“I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false and to incur my own abhorrence.” (Frederick Douglass)

Step 5: Hold your head up and be true to who you are no matter what.

Boy, for me in the wake of the destruction of 2009, this proved to be a hard one. It was NOT fun!

I remember the first Sunday after our life ended, my children looked at me and said, “We don’t have to go to church today, do we?” (None of us wanted to face our congregation for the first time after such a disaster.) And I had to be the one to say, “Yes, we are going.” Honestly, it wasn’t fun. In truth, it was awful. Not just the uncomfortable and awkward, but having my oldest sit on the pew and cry during the meeting while my middle son sat and drew on a piece of paper, “There’s a hole where my heart used to be” was terrible. I was grief stricken and disgraced, but we went to church because it was who we were. In life, you have to do that.

What I didn’t expect was an even greater challenge. A moment of temptation to be someone I was not and never had been.

Stay tuned.