It was May of 2016, somewhere around 10:30 p.m. It was another night in the brutal nightmare that had made up the last year-and-a-half and it was during that time when I began to secretly self-medicate.

We’d spent It the previous year seeking medical answers non-stop, during which time I’d also given birth to our third child. Only three months after my baby boy’s birth, my husband underwent corrective brain surgery, losing his job and our health insurance immediately after.

Though I’d graduated college and worked most of my adult life, we’d chosen to make sacrifices so I could remain home while our children were small. We had worked so hard trying to establish a good footing for our family . . .  but in a matter of weeks everything had been reduced to a pile of rubble.

By this point Chad had been officially diagnosed with ALS but I was already so depleted from the grueling journey to diagnosis, that I began to spiral quickly. My life was falling apart. I felt obliterated, alone, and utterly hopeless. I was on the brink of complete despair.

On this particular May night, once everyone was in bed, I laid down outside, sipping from the can in my hand. This had become my go-to posture. My place of escape to look up at stars and try to calm the fear tyrant inside me.

Chad was dying. I felt like I was too.

The presence of God felt completely withdrawn. Gone, just like the life we once had.

What had gone so wrong? What grave sin had I committed to cause this level of destruction?

As tears began seeping out the sides of my eyes, I tried to talk to God but couldn’t speak. All I could do was try to keep taking one deep, labored breath after the next.

 A stream of shandy-laced saliva converged with a stream of trauma-induced tears, forming a river of fluids that ran out the sides of my mouth, down my neck and shoulders, soaking the back of my shirt. Lord, how did I get here?

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