Telling people who I am has always been a weird thing for me.I've always felt like I needed to give you the good sales pitch, hiding the women, the lemon under the hood.Reading you and telling you about the things that would connect you and me.

It's part of my survival story.Knowing when I walk into a room being the person you want me to be instead of the real, the messy.For 16 years I held a secret.

Hi my name is Bonnie......Ohhh you want a little more.

I'm a girl that loves her first sip of coffee in the morning.It's a rule with the people in my house they know mom is off the clock until she drinks her first cup of coffee.Dominik now looks into my up a few times every morning waiting for that final sip to disappear.I normally have a bag or four of Reese peanut butter cups in my night stand that I nibble on every night before.I love the warmth of a sunny day and a great glass of wine.

My love language is all about being served…..I have often wondered is that due to my childhood.I am probably the only person in the world that has no clue what her engram number is.I love all things crime show……Law & Order, Criminal Minds, Crime Junkie podcast.I went to school to eventually work in the law enforcement field and actually tested for a corrections officer position but because of bad habits and copping skills I was turned away.I was self-medicating with drugs, alcohol and sex.

I was sixteen when the words actually left my mouth. Sixteen years I held a secret. My dad has been physically, emotionally and sexually abusing me for years. I spoke truth when a complete stranger saw the signs. My truth came with consequences. The loss of the people I once called family, becoming a victim in a whole new way. I had to beg a judge for my things, my family turned their backs on me and for three years I did not get to see the siblings I once used to protect.

Three years later my mom would visit me at work and share that it finally happened. The women that turned her back on me the women that I had called mom for so many years called. She shared how my dad had been self-medicating and had an episode. My dad was bipolar, his self-medication and the spiral of me finally sharing my secret caused an episode which he now was being sentenced for. Attempted premeditated murder.

I was 21, a single mama that did not want to face her truth that had lived in a place of denial.My healing started here.

People have asked me how I'm able to see past their pain, what they have done to their kids and I've said it time after time.I've had those moments.The choices that could have ended so differently.It does not excuse what they have done but it gives me connection, grace a place to say I see you instead of what you have done.

My husband tells people all the time he fell in love with my son before me.We met in the emergency room he was there with kidney stones and I was there with a friend.A quick introduction and a few nights later we would meet up as a group and head out to a strip club in San Francisco where we would bond over a lap dance.Seeing the shock value in people's faces when we share our first date experience is something we both now giggle over.Each time were asked how we met we make eye contact, smile and start to share.

We were non-believers, both broken and married and pregnant within 6 months.My husband would eventually adopt our son.So we've seen what adoption can do for a family. Our marriage was rough I yelled and broke things over him and he punched holes into the wall.Each one of us, blaming each other for what was wrong in our marriage and with each other.

The disconnect finally pushed me to seek a connection from someone else.It's didn't go far but it broke us.It made us come to this place of knowing we both needed to change.For ten years my husband knew about my dad's physical abuse but I finally came clean with his sexual abuse.

I knew I needed to change; I needed to finally take responsibility and face my truth.My healing, my truth has been a process and every daily I have to be intentional on showing up for myself.

Our marriage is not perfect.I struggled emotionally with the normal husband and wife connection which is a completely different situation then when I and my husband met.Instead of hiding my pain in sex, he's had to learn to give me time, space in healing which you guys this man deserves a metal because at one point the wait was 3 years…..but you can't rush healing.

The time line of my life will point out my brokenness but it will also point out His redemption, His love.

My prayers to be healed, to see purpose in my pain.

That's what foster care has done.Instead of asking Him why, He did this to me He's taught me my pain has purpose to help others.You are not alone, I see you in your brokenness.

Each child, each family we have said yes to.We fight to let them know right now in the trenches; in this valley that there's purpose.A place to heal and be saved.

Our journey in saying yes to kids in care has been hard.The story of each kid, the weight of what is expected and unknown by the outside community.Policy for bios over what's best for the kids.Timelines.

But each yes has brought healing for both them and our family.Seeing a story, a person that has given up now connects, see their worth and heal.

Every time it gets rough, the hard days become very present I remind myself of my prayer to him.Please use my pain for purpose.Use me as your vessel no matter the cost of my heart.If I died today my only want is to let others know they are seen, to speak their truth out loud instead of carrying their shame in the dark.

So let me introduce myself…..I'm a women that loves deeply, that is bold when I speak because at one point I couldn't I lived in shame and darkness, I had a messy life but I show up each day saying Yes to the gifts He has given me.

My life is not about fitting into the world's normalcy of perfection, it's about living out loud His love and redemption for a purpose.

To help change the conversation.