I remember standing on stage with the chalkboard in my hands. Grace was the topic of the sermon series, and I was asked to share what that amazing grace had done in my life.

On one side of the board, I scribbled words about feeling unloved, unwanted. Words about abuse at the hands of men I was told I should trust, the robbing of innocence and the pain of shame. And on the other side, words about understanding my own beauty, about being happy and free.

I showed the first side. And then the other. And smiled a huge, affirming smile for the hundreds of hungry and hopeful eyes in the crowd.

It was such a lovely picture.

It was such a lovely lie.

I would have given anything to have taken that chalkboard and shattered it into a million pieces. Because then it would have told a better story, a truer story, a…