Healing Through Faith: Kaela's Story

So here I am. At the table. Praying to the Universe and/or God to help me on my journey of hardship and grief and life and love, to find the path I strayed from so long ago. To find my way back.

I was born into a family where my father was a severe alcoholic who couldn’t hold a job. As a hairdresser, my mother worked 2-3 jobs to support raising her three children (me and my two older brothers who are 8-9 years older). She was Roman Catholic, and my brothers were baptized when born and placed into Catholic school. They were severely bullied, so my mother pulled them out of private education by the time I came into this world. Still being a woman of faith, my mother chose not to baptize me or force me into religion. My father left when I was two, and my mother was left to raise her three children on her own.

By the time I was ten, I was an avid reader. I believe it was my uncle Butchie (a gay man living with AIDs) who gave me my first bible. I devoured it. I wanted to become baptized. He took me to his Episcopal church, which was welcoming and accepting to all, and I was baptized. Then, in Sunday classes, I became frustrated with the church – why couldn’t anyone answer my questions about God with factual evidence? Why was everyone so quick to trust blind faith when no answers could be given? I remained spiritual but began to pull away from the church. I felt lost, and no one could provide me a way.

By the time I reached my twenties, I was so separated from God but so connected to the Universe, that I didn’t realize at the time were one in the same. I started a relationship with my boyfriend (who became my husband and now, future ex-husband) who was an atheist, and it became easier to distance myself even further from God and church. One night not too long ago, my sister-in-law (Methodist pastor) and I chatted about her version of God – which she believes is made up of the Universe – and suddenly, the light in my soul that had been dimmed for so long began to flicker. Wait, is this a person of GOD claiming that GOD could actually be the Universe, something that I have become to believe in WITHOUT hard evidence, though I couldn’t do that with God him/her/itself?

My second traumatic brain injury in September 2024 had me laid out, a mother of two beautiful children whom I could barely spend time with without pain from my disability. The four months of healing had me opening my eyes to a lot of truths that I had hid from myself for so long – that I was truly unhappy in my marriage, that there was so much pain that I had excused for the hope that someday he could change for me, that I could change for him – and ultimately, led me to separate from the man I committed, under GOD, to love for the rest of my life. I moved out of my home to a new place that I now rent, and we share time with our children. The truths I finally accepted forced me into spending time on my own, alone – forced me to get to know myself, to love myself in a way I never was able to. And I found inside of myself that something was missing – my love for God that I once had when I was 10. I needed to take the time away from other people’s influences to find my faith again.

So here I am. At the table. Praying to the Universe and/or God to help me on my journey of hardship and grief and life and love, to find the path I strayed from so long ago. To find my way back. To heal through faith.