Welcome to our new series, Real and Raw: Soul-Stirring Stories. In this series, guest authors* will get “real and raw” about the most challenging situations in their lives.
Too often there’s a tendency in the blogging world to whitewash our lives when sharing with others. As Catholics, we may feel self-conscious about admitting to doubt, confusion, sorrow, or anger in our relationships with each other and with God. We want the world to be attracted to our beautiful faith, so we minimize the darkness and emphasize the light in our lives, usually at the expense of authenticity. Yet there’s value in sharing our journey in all its shades–in admitting there are gray and black days, too.
Through the Real and Raw series, we will stop sugar-coating our spiritual journeys and suffering in silence about our addiction to alcohol or porn, surviving a spouse’s infidelity, enduring the agony of infertility, living with chronic illness, or managing our child’s mental illness. Our authors will share the good, the bad, and the ugly about life’s heaviest crosses, which we hope will destigmatize many struggles lived out daily by our brothers and sisters in Christ. We also hope these stories will reassure our suffering readers that you are not alone–we’re in the trenches with you and so is God, Who loves you and has a divine purpose for your pain, even if it’s hard to see or accept in the moment. Most importantly, we hope these stories will give you hope…hope that there is empathy and help, and that you, too, will survive. And one day, you will make it out of this darkness and be stronger for it.
*While some authors may post anonymously for privacy reasons, we assure you that each story is authentic and reflects the journey of a real person.