Why I Wrote AWAKE—and What It Means for You

If my story helps you listen more closely to yours, then AWAKE has done its work.

This may not surprise you, beloveds, but I was the weird elementary kid sitting under the tree alone at recess reading a book. I can still recall the musty smell of our “church library” (a generous term) where I sat on the worn carpet and read every Nancy Drew book on the shelves. After I ripped through the series, I moved on to the much lesser but readily available Hardy Boys, fine enough but clearly no match for the beautiful blonde teen sleuth.

I have never stopped reading for any section of time in my whole life. Books have been my teachers, leaders, portals, visionaries. They have taken me to every good place in my life. I remember where I was sitting when I first read Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott and she compared Jesus to an annoying, lurking cat. I had no idea we could experience, much less write about faith like that. My brain melted out of my ears. Rachel Held Evans' writings quite literally changed my life. David Sedaris taught me book by book what impeccable satire sounds like; he has no equal. After reading The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan probably eight times, I grasped the mechanics of a perfect memoir.

Books matter. They mean something. They serve their readers. They introduce us to landscapes and ideas and stories, even if we’ve never left our small hometown. They offer a window into other worlds; the really great ones can actually take us there. (If you think I don’t know every square inch of Mary Lennox’s secret garden, think again.)

I’m in a blitz of interviews for AWAKE right now. A recurring question I get is this: “Why did you write such a vulnerable book?” It’s a good question, to be honest. I get the inquiry. Why? Why would I want to share the worst moments of my life? Why would I disclose all my own bullshit? How could I possibly admit to the whole world the red flags I ignored? Why would I open myself up for critique to a voyeuristic culture obsessed with schadenfreude?

We must go back a bit first. When I shockingly lost my marriage in July 2020, I was completely frozen. I went radio silent online. I cancelled my entire work calendar. I didn’t even know how to get through the day, much less carry on with the visible part of my life. But when a “Christian journalist” exposed my divorce filing in order to “keep Christian leaders accountable” and attracted the venom of the internet before we’d even told our whole family, I was forced to tell you, my community, the next day before I was ready.

God, the way my hands shook typing out that post:

My entire world had crumbled. I had no idea if I would ever recover. I really didn’t know. Back then, every day was ten thousand years. We were so sunk in grief. Everything was chaos. I felt like I couldn’t see more than one foot in front of me. Truly, I couldn’t envision the next week, much less the next year, two years, three.

Then I started reading your comments to the post:

“I’m here holding hope for the other side, even when you can’t see it.”

“I am more than ten years beyond it and can say this, you will make it. You will feel happy again and your kids will thrive.”

“As a survivor of divorce, I want you to know there are so many of us out here pulling for you and your kids.”

“There is no way for you to believe this now, but you will be okay. Your faith will see you through and you will heal.”

“You will emerge from this a new person.”

“Please know there can be a happy life afterwards.”

“I am on my second marriage…better things can happen, and will.”

Let me tell you what these comments were to me then and for the grueling couple of years that followed:

Lanterns in the dark.

They were beautiful voices from my future: keep going, we’ve been there, your life is not over, your story is not ruined, we swear. I clung to these promises from further down the path like you could not believe. Through the black fog of grief, these lanterns offered light, dim and distant, but still I thought: These women cannot all be wrong. They must know something. They can’t all be lying to me.

I probably returned to that social thread a hundred times just to read the comments. When I felt undesirable and unwanted, I went back. When I was terrified and overwhelmed about money, I went back. When my body was falling apart from grief, I went back. This collection of lanterns continued month after month, even year after year. As I slowly recovered and, shockingly, even rebuilt, these stories from the future kept the path illuminated.

And dammit, what do you know? THEY WERE RIGHT. They were all right. Divorce is not the end of our stories, and we are not defined by the men who leave us. The way women are capable of building not just an okay second half, but a stunning second half is the whole entire truth. It doesn’t matter what we’ve lost or what is changing in midlife - marriage, our parenting roles, our bodies, our careers, our friendships, our faith - we have the capacity to reinvent and flourish. I would never, ever lie to you. My story is not special, and I am not special; I am exactly like you, and I am telling you the truth: our best days are still ahead.

AWAKE…is my lantern.

It is my turn to hold it up for you. Let’s be clear: it is not a manual. This is not a how-to. AWAKE is a mirror, not a formula. In short vignettes, I simply told my story in moments and memories spanning 40 years, and I know you are wise enough to find the threads and take what you need. I do not tell you what to do, how to feel, or what to think; that’s your work. I trust you to do it. I trust your wisdom to alchemize what serves you. I know you are smart enough to ask your own hard questions and find your own path, to use mine as a lantern for yours.

If my story helps you listen more closely to yours, then AWAKE has done its work.

My favorite early endorsement for AWAKE came from my friend Jamie Kern Lima. She wrote: “You start out rooting for Jen, and you end up rooting for yourself.”

That is my entire hope, the full reason I wrote this story down.

May it be a light, however dim and distant, for the path in front of you. Or may it be a witness to the path you’ve already walked (this only applies to those of you who have experienced patriarchy, misogyny, body shame, purity culture, religious trauma, gender limitations, sexual dysfunction, or codependency).

So why this book? Why now? Why risk it?

For you.

Because I am still convinced that books matter.