Kristen LaValley

A little over a year ago, my doctors thought I had a cancerous tumor on my o***y. A few months later, I was diagnosed with Adenomyosis - the most painful chronic illness a woman can develop.

Just when we were starting to come up for air after years of trauma, I developed a progressive, chronic disease, that has had me flat on my back for large parts of the last five years of my life.

Please send all your prayers, thoughts, and good energy up for me on Friday (May 15th) at around 7am eastern time. I’ll be headed into surgery to make sure I never have a red devil in my baby box ever again. 😆

So grateful for all the ways God has healed me and provided miracle after miracle for me to be a mother and now one last miracle through the hands of an all female medical team who listened to me, believed me, found what the boys refused to look for, and gave me a runway to healing.

For the ladies, we give thanks.

I’ll see you on the other side of surgery. ✌️

I woke up this morning thinking about the past few years of my life when people have been concerned for my faith. The years of faith when I have finally started believing that God really does love us, that he’s really REALLY good, that he meant the things he said. Concern for my faith because of the company I keep, the books that I read, the choices I make.

But no one was ever concerned when I hated myself. Or when the company I kept was cruel and cold and mean. Or when the books I was reading told me not to get help for my depression and anxiety. When I wanted to die. When I woke up every day terrified to breathe wrong in case it made God angry. When I was living in constant panic and anxiety about how my faith was being perceived and recieved by the people I love and the people I don’t. That was acceptable. That showed earnesty and sincerity. If you’re miserable, you’re trying.

But when you relax into the love of God and actually believe that Jesus came for us to have LIFE and to have that life in abundance, people start to side eye a little.

Some people are a lot more comfortable when your faith makes you miserable. I will never ever understand why a faith that makes you feel alive, free, loved, and excited is less palatable than one that makes you afraid.

Freedom in Christ is a beautiful thing, my friends. And it doesn’t have to cost your joy, peace, and nervous system. You can be a faithful follower of Jesus without spiritual (and physical) misery.

___

When my mental health was at its worst, I lived inside two stories :

Only Zach could save me.
I was too much to care for.

He was the hero and I was the burden.

Those things were both true and not true at the same time, but they shaped the way we loved each other.

When I finally started getting real help (therapy, support, naming what was actually happening inside of my mind and body) I began to see how much those roles were costing us.

My healing was never supposed to hinge on someone else rescuing me. And my suffering never made me less worthy of being loved.

I’m not a project to fix or wait out. He’s not a savior whose purpose in life is to rescue me.

Relationships can’t survive on pedestals or shame. They need to stay down here were the humans are … where things are honest and messy and sometimes uneven.

Where one person says:
“I can’t carry all of this for you.”

And the other says:
“I won’t make you responsible for my wholeness.”

That’s where codependency and resentment started to lose their hold on us. I needed to get help and support outside of him and we both needed tell the truth. I had to be realistic about what my health has cost him without feeling ashamed. He had to stop feeling like he was a hero for taking care of me. We both had to face the reality that that there are inescapable, burdensome aspects of being in a relationship.

And that that is absolutely ok.

He doesn’t have to be a hero to love me well.
I don’t have to be “easy” to be worth staying for.

neither do you.

//

Wrote a whole chapter on this in 👉

We packed into a cozy little bookstore in Lancaster, PA and I read from my book and answered questions and had conversations that don’t wrap up cleanly but matter SO deeply.

Growing Up Saved has had a complicated road to readers so far, so nights like this mean the world to me.

To everyone who came: thank you doesn’t cover it, but it’s what I have. You made the room feel like exactly what this book is about : the power of being seen, understood, and finding belonging exactly AS you are, WHERE you are.

And not for nothing, but to every bookstore that has ever taken a chance on an author event: you are doing something really, really important. I always say things like this put skin on the work that I do, and that’s important (crucial) for me, but it’s important for readers too.

Several of the women waiting in the signing line told me they’d been talking to each other while they waited and what they kept saying was how safe they felt. Just from being in a room full of people who had all found their way to the same book/person.

There is something so powerful about words that gather people. They’re a homing signal that lets people know they aren’t alone. The power of “hey same.” Authors need bookstores who make room for those connections, so I’m really grateful to for making that happen last night. 🥹

(Thank you for that last photo ! It’s a good representation of how last night felt.)