An Unexpected Anchor: How Faith Steadied Me

I want to start by being honest about what this is, and what it is not.

This is not a sermon, and it is not me telling you what to believe. It is simply one survivor sharing something that turned out to be a quiet, load-bearing part of her healing. For me, that something was faith. For you, the anchor might be different. But I would not be telling my story truthfully if I left this part out.

Faith showed up in the hardest place

For seven days after my accident, I was in a coma, somewhere I still cannot fully describe. My family organized themselves into a rotation, taking turns at my bedside, up days and nights, talking to a body that could not talk back. Raul held my hand and read to me, and he recited the Lord's Prayer and any other prayer that came to him.

At one point, I heard our parish priest, Father Drew, softly calling my name. I cannot explain it, but a feeling of peace moved through me. I woke on the seventh day. I have thought often since about how, in the story I grew up with, the seventh day is the one when creation rested. Make of that what you will. I only know that in the darkest and most uncertain stretch of my life, I did not feel completely alone.

What it gave me was not answers, but an anchor

I did not come out of that with all the answers. I came out changed, seeing everything in a different light, and unable to fully explain it. What faith gave me was not a tidy explanation. It was an anchor.

When my body would not cooperate, when my memory failed, when I grieved the person I used to be, faith was the thing that held. It gave me a reason to keep looking forward. It let me say, even on the hard days, that I was grateful to be alive, that I had been gifted this life, my husband, my boys, another morning. And it helped me believe that what happened to me might mean something, that perhaps I was still here to help someone else.

Your anchor may not look like mine

Here is the part I most want you to hear. I am not asking you to believe what I believe.

What I am saying is that healing from something this big is very hard to do without something to hold onto. For me, it happened to be faith. For you, it might be the people who love you, or nature, or a sense of purpose, or a simple promise to yourself that you will keep going. The name of the anchor matters far less than the holding. What carried me was having one at all, on the days the current was strong.

I am not a doctor, and this is not advice, spiritual or otherwise. It is only what was true for me. If faith is part of your life, lean on it. If it is not, I hope you find the thing that is, and lean on that instead.

Every sunrise

There is a reason this app is called Sunrise. A sunrise is faithful in a way few things are. It does not skip a day. No matter how dark the night was, the light comes back around, quietly, on schedule, asking nothing of you first.

That is part of why each morning the app offers a small moment to pause and reflect before the day begins. Not to preach anything, but to give you a quiet beginning, and a gentle reminder that you made it to another one.

I am forever grateful for every sunrise. I hope, in whatever way is yours, that you come to be too.