I started writing when I felt like shards of my soul were lying in pieces on the floor. I started writing when I woke up with my hands shaking so much that my fingers rattled against the keyboard. I started writing when my mind would dissociate and float above my body, making it extremely difficult to concentrate or focus. I started writing broken.

I started broken.

Do you feel broken? Shattered? Has the world you carefully constructed come apart? Do you struggle to know who you are anymore with all that has happened?

Is there something--anything--that makes you feel whole for a moment?

I tried keeping house plants. I tried crochet. I tried sour dough bread. I was desperate for some glue to help me put the pieces back together. One day, a friend said, "You pray beautiful prayers at our weekly bible study. You should write them down." So I did.

Tears would stream down my face as I wrote, the words emerging from the cracks running through me. Healing grew with each word, with each passing day, as I awoke in the dark stillness and crept through my sleeping house to sit at the fluorescent screen and write.

It may seem like you need to have it all together, that you need to get your stuff figured out, learn everything you can, put the pieces back together, solve the meltdowns, find peace...and then you'll be ready for that first step.

But you might do it broken.

You might start broken.