I believe in Heaven with my whole heart, the same way I believe in Christ—you kinda have to, seeing as how they go hand in hand. On my own faith journey, and losing my sweet Mom in 2024, my dear aunt just weeks ago, a cousin recently admitted to hospice and died there less than 24 hours, and even being there when another cousin died in the ICU, I’ve grown intimate with death in ways I never thought I could.

I spent a big chunk of my adult life terrified of death, but with my mom’s passing and being with her when it happened, the fear left me. Now, I am obsessed with reading, listening, and watching everything I can get my hands on about death, the afterlife, NDEs, and extraordinary experiences with God and Heaven beyond our earthly lives.

So, when I found out Julie Bonn Blank—someone who has also died, gone to Heaven, and been sent back—was writing a book like this, with many Heaven experiences, I knew I had to have it.

And it did not disappoint.

Some of the stories really hit me in the gut, but I’m grateful they had the courage to tell them. I think it’s so important that we all tell our stories, no matter how dark or deep they go, so that not only can others relate and see themselves in their own darkness, but so that God’s light can shine on them and through them.

In Julie’s book, Routed to Heaven, we get to see just that—how God uses our pain for good, how He rescues us time and time again from the world and from ourselves. And how He sends so many back because they’re still needed here to fulfill a purpose. I’ve heard this in nearly every NDE account I’ve read—among many other similarities—that it leaves no doubt in my mind that every single one of us who are still here has a purpose to fulfill.

But I realized something new by reading a few of the stories in this book—I began to wonder how many of us might have died and not known it because we didn’t “wake up” in the back of an ambulance, or surrounded by doctors in an emergency room; we weren’t given the proof of death from a documented stopped heart or spent weeks in a coma with little brain activity. I know it sounds wild, but think about it. God can do literally anything He wants, even bringing us back to life when there are no doctors around with life-saving equipment. Many people who have experienced vivid, lifelike NDEs like those with documentation of death may have also died and come back just as the others did. And equally as fascinating, who exactly made up the rule about us having to die to see Heaven? Remember—God can do anything He wants.

One thing I do know for sure—because it happened to me—is that God allows us glimpses of Heaven even when we are fully awake and undoubtedly alive.

Of course, all of this is another rabbit hole altogether!

So, back to the point.

This is an inspirational, eye-opening book, and I highly recommend it to anyone who might be questioning the purpose of their own life, or even the existence of God. I also enjoyed Julie’s candid warmth and joyful moments when speaking of—and to—Jesus.

Oh! And I appreciate how she made me feel less guilty about falling asleep before reaching “amen”.

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**The following is part of my memoir. Please read this page for more information, as well as an easy-access list of each chapter.

Two years after the high-speed car chase, in 1991, Jessica and a friend were drunk one night and decided they wanted to go to California. Somehow, they found their way to a truck stop in Galloway late at night and met an older male truck driver willing to give two young teenage girls a ride all the way to Los Angeles.

“Sure, I’ll give you a ride,” he said, adjusting the waist of his jeans underneath a bulging beer belly. His CB handle was “Southern Comfort,” he told them. “Right after my stop in Mississippi, I’ll be headin’ out West.”

Without a thought, Jessica and her friend climbed into the semi-truck, and Jessica was, once again, on her way to the ever-elusive state of California.

Or so she thought.

They traveled as far as Mississippi with this man, and although he did nothing to make Jessica believe he meant them any harm, she grew increasingly wary of him and sobered up so fast that she took note of it. She had been drunk many times, and never had she felt every bit of the drunkenness leave her body in what felt like seconds.

With her senses clear, she became even more aware of her predicament.

Suddenly, she heard: Jessie, you need to get off this truck. But act casually.

Even when she did talk to herself on occasion, as we all do, she’d never referred to herself by name, and only her family ever called her “Jessie”. Briefly, she thought about how strange that was, too, but couldn’t think about it long because she needed to get her and her friend away from this man. Her friend had passed out by this time, so she wasn’t going to be of any help.

“Hey, um, I need to use the restroom, and I’m starving,” she told the man casually, trying not to let him onto her suspicions. “Can we stop at a gas station?”

The driver grunted his annoyance under his breath, took the next exit a few minutes later, and they pulled into the brightly lit parking lot of another truck stop.

“Stay here, and I’ll go inside and get you something to eat,” he said.

Jessica was glad that she didn’t really need to use the restroom as she’d claimed, because it was apparent he didn’t want her to leave the truck.

The man probably thought that in her friend’s condition, neither of them would leave, so he took his keys and headed inside the convenience store.

“Get up.” Jessica shook her friend, and she woke up, dazed from the alcohol. “We’re getting off this truck—now.”

Jessica managed to help her friend climb down from the truck, and just as they were heading toward the front of the store, where there were more people, Southern Comfort exited the store and came toward them with a bag of chips.

“Hey, where are ya goin’? I got you some food!” He raised the bag.

“Thanks, but we’ll find another ride,” Jessica told him.

Southern Comfort’s demeanor shifted to indignance; he said a few curses, looked around at the people, and then walked back to his truck and left.

Relief washed over Jessica like a crashing wave.

It would seem I dodged some kind of bullet, but then it became clear to me just a few minutes later that I absolutely had.

My friend and I walked through the giant parking lot beneath the bright lights. Another man walked up; he was of average height, skinny, and wore glasses.

“What are you two doing out here?” he asked. “Where are you going?”

For a split second, I was leery of this man, and with good reason. But then immediately I heard that voice inside my head again, and this time instinctively knew that it wasn’t my own. “You can trust him,” the voice said. Even after the close call with the first truck driver, and knowing we had made a huge mistake and were in a dangerous situation, I knew with my whole heart that I would be safe—and that I could trust that voice.

“We’d like to go back home to Arkansas,” I told the man.

“Come on, and I’ll take you.” He waved at us to follow.

You’d think I was crazy to get into another truck with a stranger rather than calling someone to come and pick us up, but that’s exactly what I did. And not once during the many hours-long drive, at night, alone in a semi-truck with this stranger, did I feel I was in any danger.

His CB handle was “Pack Rat”. While on the way home, he told us he had a daughter and that he couldn’t imagine her being out there like my friend and I were, around so many predators. He explained to us what a “lot lizard” is (a truck-stop prostitute), and that we could have been easily mistaken as such. But what shocked me the most and made the blood in my veins run cold was when he told me, “That truck driver was going to take you to the Mexico border and sell you.”

“Sell us?” I asked, not sure what that meant, but I knew it was something awful.

Pack Rat shook his head and sighed. “There’s a lot of human trafficking that goes on at the border, and young girls like you, especially with blue eyes, can fetch a lot of money.” (Decades later, after marrying my Mexican husband, I learned that this “blue eyes” thing is absolutely true.)

I still didn’t understand what I would have been sold for exactly—I was sixteen, and had never heard of these things before—and when I asked again, he reluctantly told me, “Sex slavery,” as if he felt ashamed having to say the word “sex” to two teenage girls.

He explained that he knew it was Southern Comfort’s intention because he had heard him talking about it in code on the CB radio to other truck drivers, but also that it was a common thing that happened. Every. Single. Day.

When daylight came, Pack Rat stopped at a diner and bought my friend and me a good meal, then he took us the rest of the way home and dropped us off in North Little Rock, at a gas station that, at the time of writing this, I live within walking distance of. Every time I pass it now, I think of that night.

Some might call these coincidences, but I call them the Hand of God. God did not want me to go to California, and He made sure I never made it there (until much later in life). He protected me; if not from that earthquake or those riots, or from human trafficking, then from a multitude of other things that could have easily happened to a teenage girl traveling alone with strangers or with just-as-senseless friends.

I was a terrible teenager. I was lost, alone, and confused—and the Enemy reveled in my difficulty and suffering. He led me to believe the only comforts I had were my just-as-troubled friends, an alcohol addiction, and a string of guys who abused me by pretending to love me.

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The text in this article is copyright © 2025 Jessica Tacu.

Bible verses in this article are from the NIV.

MUSIC CREDITS:

ES_Misericorde by Lo Mimieux via Epidemic Sound

SOUND EFFECT CREDITS:

Pixabay & Epidemic Sound

Lydia’s Stillwater Homestead is a heartfelt, modern-day middle-grade series rooted in Christian values and inspired by the quiet strength of Little House on the Prairie and the charm of Anne of Green Gables. Set in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, it follows Lydia, an eleven-year-old homeschooler raised on a homestead where faith is central, the outside world is filtered through Scripture, and life lessons are learned through service, suffering, and simple joys.

Though the tone is gentle and wholesome, Lydia’s story deals with real-world challenges: peer pressure, growing up in a culture that often conflicts with truth, and learning compassion by helping her mother in what Lydia calls the “Dying Home”, a free hospice for families who can’t afford end-of-life care.

Lydia’s Stillwater Homestead offers a fresh, relevant perspective for today’s Christian youth.

She’s got muddy boots, quiet mornings, and a cousin who doesn’t get any of it.

Lydia Fernsby lives a quiet, joyful life on her family’s Ozark Mountain homestead—planting seeds, gathering eggs, and learning timeless lessons from her faith-filled parents. But when her cousin from the city comes to visit, everything starts to feel different.

With a glowing phone in her hand and the latest trends on her tongue, Lydia’s cousin seems to come from another world—a louder, faster, flashier one. As the girls struggle to understand each other, Lydia begins to question her plans to attend public school.

But through weeding gardens, helping at Mama’s “Dying Home,” and sharing quiet talks under the stars, Lydia learns that some things—like truth, beauty, and love—never go out of style.

A heartwarming story about friendship, identity, and holding fast to what matters most.

Available now as an eBook and a paperback on:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Google Play | Apple | Kobo | Smashwords | Everand | Tolino | Vivlio | Fable |

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The text in this article is copyright © 2025 Jessica Tacu.

Subscribe to my Author Jessica Bradford publication to stay up-to-date on all news regarding my Christian Middle Grade/Teen fiction.

I was a thirteen-year-old alcoholic who drank myself into oblivion. After multiple rounds of alcohol poisoning, sexual assault, and close calls with being beaten to death with a crowbar and trafficked at the Mexico border, my reckless, rebellious lifestyle came to an excruciating end at the age of nineteen.

God went easy on me in the beginning: He let me go to juvenile after a high-speed police chase instead of letting me die in the crash—I didn’t learn anything. He saved me from the poisoning, the crowbar, and the truck driver who’d intended to sell me in Mexico—I didn’t learn anything, then, either. He even gave me a baby boy, which straightened me out a lot, but I still drank. When all of that didn’t work, He allowed me to go through the worst pain I’d ever felt in my life. I ended up in a hospital for four days with pancreatitis, where the doctor warned me that if I ever drank again, it’d probably kill me.

I did stop drinking, cold turkey, but it took so much more than it should have to wake me up from that madness.

But I still lived for the world and not for God, the One Who saved me from myself.

I smoked my first cigarette at age eleven and didn’t stop until my lung collapsed at thirty. Five days in a hospital bed with a tube hanging from my chest that made an awful sucking noise, finally woke me from the self-abuse, and I never smoked again.

But I still lived for the world and not for God, the One Who saved me from myself.

After half a lifetime of rebellion and poverty, God blessed me with a bestselling book and more money than I knew what to do with in 2012. This may not seem in the same category as alcoholism, lung collapses, and brushes with death, but I assure you, in its own twisted way, it is.

For the next eleven years, I slowly lost the close bond I once had with my young children, letting the world raise, guide, and comfort them in my place. I forgot how to be frugal and grew wasteful. I forgot the woman I had been raised to be, one who had little yet thrived in poverty, because she knew no other way. Money changed me. It manipulated me, drained me, and opened yet another door for others to use and take advantage of me.

As the money dwindled, I still lived for the world, and not for God, the One Who provided for me in ways I never could have imagined. My life may have changed financially, and I no longer lived the rebellious life, but I wasn’t living a life worthy of Christ, that was for sure.

He had given me so much, blessed me abundantly, answered prayer after prayer, and saved me from death so many times that I get a knot in my stomach every time I think about it.

But I was ungrateful.

I was a miserable, discontented woman who had more than I ever needed, but could not be satisfied.

I had my own home, but I was unhappy.

I lived within walking distance of my favorite park, but it wasn’t enough.

I had my dream car, but I needed something better.

I was financially secure and didn’t need to work, but I was bored and unappreciative of my freedom.

I had my mom, my children, family gatherings, good conversation, and love, but still, something was missing.

I had dependable electricity, potable drinking water, and gas lines in my house, but I took them for granted.

I could experience four seasons a year, but even that, I somehow overlooked.

And so, I left everyone and everything behind and moved to Mexico in 2021.

It was the worst experience of my life, but the best terrible decision I’ve ever made.

I found God in Mexico, much in the same way many people find God in prison. When they didn’t appreciate the life they had, took it for granted, and even hated it at times. When they were given so many chances, but rejected every single one. When they were forced into a place they cannot leave, even long after they’ve realized the error of their ways, long after they’ve repented and are forced to watch the rest of their lives pass them by while they remain behind bars.

I found God in Mexico, much in the same way it took a lung collapse to quit smoking, pancreatitis to quit drinking, and money to make me understand what it could never buy. God gave me so many opportunities to love my life and to find Him in it—He even made my dream come true—but I couldn’t let go of the world and its darkness.

So, since I wouldn’t learn my lesson the easy way, God forced me to learn it the hard way, again, this time in Mexico, far away from home, where I was safe, comfortable, and lived in luxury even when I was in poverty.

I missed everyone and everything I’ve ever loved and who loved me, every scenic route laid out before me like poetry; every blade of grass and flower petal, every winding country road, river rock, and pebble.

I missed my family and those who aren’t but might as well be, and every stranger who had ever been kind to me.

I missed home.

It took two years deep in a jungle in Mexico, where the electricity was out more than it was on, and where a brutal summer heat burns three hundred sixty-five days a year, for me to find Jesus.

It took two years of pain, misery, and dangerous situations that I cannot talk about here, for me to find Jesus.

It took living five hours from the nearest suitable hospital and multiple medical emergencies, including head trauma and an appendectomy, for me to find Jesus.

It took being imprisoned between the four walls of a one-room studio, unable to go anywhere alone or speak to anyone in a language I understood, for me to find Jesus.

And even after I did finally give my life fully to Christ in 2023, He would make me live there two more years before He let me come home to the United States.

Two more years of misery.

Two more years of danger.

Two more years of isolation, solitude, and loneliness.

Two more years of losing loved ones.

Two more years of missing my family.

Two more years of suffering.

Two more years of letting the lessons sink in!

Praying!

Crying out to God!

And then finally, in June of 2025, God opened the door for me, and I ran through it—I didn’t even stop for my shoes.

More often than not, I believe, it takes us walking through 1The Savage Lands for us to ever find God.

We go our whole lives ignoring Him, standing right there in front of us, pointing in the direction He wants us to go, but we never see Him.

We go our whole lives rejecting Him, when all He wants to do is love us.

We suffer needlessly because we refuse to listen to Him.

We are tormented by pain and injustice that never had to be, because we choose to go our own way rather than follow His Way.

We abuse and destroy ourselves because we reject His Word and make up our own rules.

We are rebellious, oblivious, and defiant teenagers who think our lives are our own and that we know everything.

2We know absolutely nothing.

So, I would just like to say that finally, after 50 years, I’m grateful to God for all He has done for me; for all He has provided. I’m grateful that He protected me my whole life, even rejecting my plea when once I pulled an Elijah (1 Kings 19:1-5) and asked Him for the unthinkable.

Back in 2021, when I was preparing to go to Mexico, it became an unmistakable sign from God that He wanted me to go there. The extraordinary circumstances surrounding it left me wordless and breathless. I thought I had some ideas about why, but as the years went by, nothing came to fruition, and life became unbearably worse. I knew then I had been wrong. Not about going to Mexico, but about the reason why God sent me there.

He sent me there to teach me another lesson the hard way.

He sent me there to find Him, once and for all.

And only then would He, once again, create an unbelievable scenario that still has my jaw on the floor, so that I would take the door He opened for me and go home.

Now, I live only for my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Now, for the first time in my life, I have clarity; I know who I am. I am a strong woman instead of a desperate one searching for love in people who will never provide what only He can. I am an obedient woman who refuses to make decisions without His approval and guidance; whose decisions are 100% in His hands—no matter how badly I might want something for myself.

I feel confident and loved. And I am forever grateful for all of the suffering I’ve endured in my life so far, because were it not for suffering, I’d still be that confused, broken, defiant, desperate woman living only for the world.

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The text in this article is copyright © 2025 Jessica Tacu.

Long before the internet, I loved writing and world-building—I loved being creative! It fueled me, never abused or abandoned me, and I felt a great sense of joy, purpose, and belonging even when I had zero audience.

I remember days when I’d spend countless hours lost in my fantasy worlds, or poring over old maps, art, and history books. I never had “writer’s block”—I didn’t even know what that was—or recall a single day when I couldn’t immerse myself in my creative passions, despite what might’ve been going on in my life.

Writing and creating were my escape from all of that.

Then, about thirty years ago, I found my way onto the internet like everybody else, and, at first, it was a fantastic creative outlet. I joined the world of freeform role-playing on MSN Groups/Communities and chat, and met a lot of like-minded, creative people who simply loved to create.

Back then, the only competition anyone had with each other was in-character fantasy battles or dramatic storylines. And when out of character, anticipation looked like wanting to get home from work or school to check and see if anyone had replied to your storyline thread.

Rarely did people feel the need to show real-life photos of themselves or post random comments out of boredom or a need for validation.

Nobody spent all of their time scrolling mindlessly, admiring other people's art and lives and faces while being depressed by their own—because there wasn’t anything to scroll. People were too busy working on their creative projects and just wanted to share them with others. But hey, if there wasn’t anyone to share them with, that never stopped them from creating! 🤷‍♀️

This went on for nearly a decade before social media and then smartphones crept in and ruined everydamthing.

Sure, social media was technically a thing long before MySpace came onto the scene, but it wasn’t nearly as widespread as it is today, nor was it so in-your-face. There was instant messaging here, a chat room there, but nothing that made us walk hypnotized onto a conveyor belt that dropped us into a high-speed emotional grinder.

Personally, I think it was MySpace that killed creativity and kick-started a generation of social media zombies who feed only on their next digital fix and can never get enough.

On MySpace, we put up real photos of ourselves and our ASLs (age, sex, location); we pitted people against each other and played favorites by choosing our Top 8. Personal expression replaced the need to create so fast that we didn’t even notice it happening. We opened doors to allow anyone and everyone into our personal lives, and we essentially gave up human contact and connection for this drive-by, instant gratification sh*tshow that leaves us unfulfilled and begging for scraps of attention.

So, why am I picking on Substack, arguably the most respected social media platform that has ever existed?

Because of Notes.

Notes is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

And most of you reading this have probably already realized that by now—but are still ignoring the obvious—the rest will fight me on it, and that’s OK, but don’t say I didn’t try to warn you.

No matter how positive the content or how kind the users are, Notes is still Twitter/X. It’s the same as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, and whatever else there is out there. And it’s the same because it works in the same way. It feeds us bite-sized bits of information that shortens our attention spans and makes us too impatient to read anything longer than a paragraph. The Notes feature leads people to the same high-speed grinder; it makes us addicted to constantly checking it—we’d snort it through a straw if we could. We’ve replaced reading books and working on our creative projects with scrolling, posting, liking, restacking, and waving our figurative arms in front of everyone, trying to get them to notice us.

It’s the same because most of us are here for the same things: attention, relevance, and money.

(Note that I said “most”, so if you’re not here for that, then I’m not talking to you.)

It’s not about being creative anymore, no matter how you look at it.

We’re here for likes, followers, subscribers, PAID subscribers; we’re here for attention, relevance, and validation (wherever I say “we” I also mean “me”). We get upset when people UNfollow or UNsubscribe, express how sad we are that we worked so hard on writing an article that only two people showed up for. We lose motivation and inspiration if engagement is low, and some of us stop doing everything else, even outside of Substack, because we start questioning our talents and abilities.

We start feeling sorry for ourselves.

And do you know what this proves? It proves that the work we’re doing isn’t for us, or for God, no matter how hard we try to make ourselves believe it—it’s for everybody else; it’s for that attention and validation I mentioned.

And today, I’ve decided to do something about it. It’s not the first time I’ve ditched social media for my sanity. Back in the day, I deleted my Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts with tens of thousands of followers—and I didn’t look back.

I still have a YouTube account, but I deleted the app from my phone when I realized I was spending hours out of my day scrolling through Shorts—and I never looked back.

Yesterday, I deleted the Substsack app from my phone and will not be looking back there, either. Why do I need it on my phone? Why do I need 24/7/365, anywhere-in-the-world access to any social media app, even the nicest one ever created?

I don’t.

I want to be able to read books again, not pick up my phone every second to check out what everybody else is doing.

I want to be able to write articles I’m passionate about because I’m passionate about them, not because I’m trying to prove myself to others.

I want to be able to feel the passion I once felt for creating, and I can’t do that with a creativity-sucking app taking up all of my time and attention.

I want to feel joy, purpose, and belonging in my work again, and that’ll never happen as long as I keep feeding the machine.

So, with all that said, I’m stepping away from Notes (not articles). I’ll pop on every once in a while to post something about new articles and whatnot; I’ll say hi to the dear friends I’ve met here, but for the most part, I’m done with Notes because I didn’t delete Twitter just to rejoin Twitter wearing an orange suit.

You might not even notice my absence because I didn’t post much on Notes and usually ❤️ed a lot of other Notes. But I will definitely notice, because, behind the scenes, I spent a great deal of time scrolling mindlessly while my life kept passing me by.

P.S. Check out another relevant article I wrote titled “The Gift of Creativity | A Superpower You Didn’t Know You Had”.

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**The following is part of my memoir. Please read this page for more information, as well as an easy-access list of each chapter.

Thirteen-year-old Jessica, officially a runaway in late 1988, sat in the truck bed of a stolen blue Chevy Silverado, a friend, Nikki, huddled next to her. Her heart banged against her ribcage and into the tips of her fingers, though it wasn’t fear that took hold of her that day in Greenville, Texas, but rebellious excitement.

Rob, another runaway friend, stood outside the truck, filling the gas tank. It had been a long drive all the way from Little Rock, Arkansas, and if they didn’t get this over with soon, they’d end up stranded on a Texas highway and never make it to San Francisco.

Jessica’s fingers tightened around Nikki’s when Rob placed the gas pump back and walked hurriedly around to the driver’s side. Jackie and Belinda, two more friends who waited impatiently inside the truck, motioned for Rob to hurry.

Rob jumped in, turned the key in the ignition, threw the truck into gear, and sped out of the parking lot, fishtailing as he rounded the corner onto the main road.

The chase was on.

Jessica felt her body lift from the hard metal, and she grabbed the side of the truck bed, holding on for dear life as they made their escape. Nikki screamed as she rolled from beside Jessica and hit the other side.

“Hold on!” Jessica called out to her, her fingers slipping from the metal.

More screams pierced the air as their truck crashed into another vehicle, and Jessica lost her grip; she rolled left and right, her head and back banging against the wheelhouse.

“Whoohoo!” Nikki shouted, trying to cover her fear with excitement.

After a few minutes, sirens wailed, but Jessica stayed low, lying flat against the metal. She couldn’t see how many cars chased them, but knew there had to be several—the owners of the store, the people from the accident, and now the Greenville police. She was shaken, but, like Nikki, she pretended to be on the wildest ride of her life. She cackled and hollered as the truck bounced, swerved, and fishtailed until finally it skidded to a dead stop, kicking up gravel and throwing her against the tailgate.

Seconds later, voices shouted at everybody to get out of the truck, and Jessica, dizzied from the dangerous ride, stumbled from the back of the truck, hands up behind her head and guns pointed at them, just like she’d always seen in the movies.

She spent the next seven days locked in a small, dingy room with one barred window at a juvenile detention center, wearing a bright orange jumpsuit, but not nearly enough regret.

I was the youngest of five friends who decided that day we wanted to go to San Francisco.

I left home without any possessions, and along with my friends, in the middle of the night, we stole a truck from the old man who’d let us hide out at his trailer. By the time we made it to Greenville, Texas, we were out of money, and the truck was nearly out of gas. So, what do rebellious, broke, runaway teenagers do when they don’t have money to pay for gas in a stolen truck?

They steal the gas, too. Back then, it was called “pump n’ jump”.

The first gas station we stole from was a big chain station, and we got away easily because no one chased us. But the second gas station was what southerners call a “mom n’ pop” store, and the last place you want to steal from is one of those, especially in the South—especially in Texas!

It wasn’t long after that when I heard the sirens as the police joined in the chase; they blocked us in on one street, and our wild ride was over. I was still alive and, surprisingly, never thrown from the truck, though I should have been.

Rob, Belinda, and Jackie, who were eighteen and nineteen, were taken to jail, and Nikki and I were hauled off to juvenile. Our little stunt even made the news and the local newspaper, so I was criminally famous for 1.2 seconds at such a young age.

Then, less than one year later, on October 17, 1989, a 6.9 earthquake hit the San Francisco Bay Area, killing sixty-seven people and causing more than five billion dollars in damage.

Of course, that might seem like a coincidence, and I’d probably believe it was nothing more, too, if a mind-blowing string of similar “coincidences” didn’t happen for years afterward.

Fast-forward to 1992, when I was sixteen. I tried to go to California again. This time, Los Angeles, on a Greyhound bus. It was just me and one friend—the same friend, Rob, who had been driving the stolen truck that day in 1988.

He had enough money to pay for two bus tickets, so we caught a cab to the Greyhound bus station in North Little Rock, Arkansas, bought our tickets, and sat down to wait for our bus to arrive. This was back in the day when people didn’t question or care about anyone underage catching a ride so far from home.

One hour passed. Two. Three.

The lady at the ticket counter told us the bus was having mechanical problems.

Yet another hour passed, and still no bus. By then, my friend had already changed his mind about going to California.

“Are you sure you want to go?” he asked me. “It’s a long way by yourself.”

“Yeah. I want to go,” I told him.

“Well, all right,” he said. “I hope you make it.”

He left, and I sat there and waited for that bus, but it never came. I left the bus station that night, and I can’t recall where I went, or even where I was living at the time.

Then, just a few months later, on April 29, 1992, four Los Angeles police officers were acquitted of the savage beating of Rodney King, and the famous Los Angeles riots ensued. Sixty-four people died, and over two thousand were injured.

As if the third time was supposed to be a charm, or something superstitious like that, I tried yet again to go to California at the age of sixteen.

Oh, this one is a doozy, so prepare yourself.

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**Names were changed in this story to protect identities.

The text in this article is copyright © 2025 Jessica Tacu.

Bible verses in this article are from the KJV - King James Version.

MUSIC CREDITS:

“ES_Mystery Potion (Sting Version)” - Kikoru - via Epidemic Sound

SOUND EFFECT CREDITS:

Sound effects are from Epidemic Sound and Pixabay

This post has been moved to my main author publication, “Author Jessica Redmerski”. You can find the full post there.

God graciously stitched me together with the gift of creativity, and I feel so blessed. You should, too, because you have the same gift, even if you don’t realize it.

I don’t claim to be great at my creative efforts, but that’s the thing—we don’t need to be great to be creative. Because creativity in and of itself is an extraordinary power and titles like “great” or “professional” are just human labels used to pit us against each other, the same as viewing someone as “pretty”.

When God created us, did He say, “OK, this one I will make prettier than this one,” or “This one is the standard of beauty—those over there are just so-so.”

No, He made each of us in His image, and the gifts He blessed us with were tailored to us, and we are all equal in His eyes, gifts and physical appearance and all. He doesn’t love any one of us more than another; He doesn’t secretly admire one talent or skill over another, and He certainly isn’t judging the physical features that He crafted us with.

So, why do we do it to each other?

Why do we watch talent shows that pick creatives apart, elevate and praise the “best,” and tear down those who don’t fit into society’s definition of “talented”? Why does one person’s art evoke admiration and envy, while another’s makes us cringe? Why do …

Subscribe to my author publication, “Author Jessica Redmerski”, to follow and support me in all of my creative projects.

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The text in this article is copyright © 2025 Jessica Tacu.

I highly recommend watching the video for this post, located at the end.

Also, I apologize for the “bad writing,” but I took the text from an unscripted audio file and didn’t want to change it too much from the original.

One of the hardest things to face, or even talk about, is suffering.

It’s in those moments of deep pain, loss, or trauma that we begin to question everything, including God Himself. When we’re hurting, nothing seems to make sense. We struggle to understand how a loving God could allow such things to happen to us or to the people we love. We may blame Him. We may use that pain as a reason to stop believing altogether.

But suffering is precisely when we need God’s strength the most. We need Him at all times—in joy and in hardship—but in our darkest moments, we feel that need more intensely. We want Him to fix what’s broken. If we’re honest, we want anyone to fix it. Yet some wounds, some traumas, simply can’t be healed by human hands. Only God can sustain us through them.

I’ve been trying—really trying—to lean on God in those desperate times. I always have, in a way. But trusting Him has been harder. Like so many others, I want to believe fully, without wavering, especially when life falls apart. I don’t want to rage at Him or question His goodness. But when pain grips our hearts, our humanity shows. It is hard not to ask Why, Lord?

Still, even in our trials—whether sudden blows or long, creeping sorrows—there are glimpses of beauty if we look closely enough. A flower’s quiet perfection. The strength of an old tree. A mountain’s steady presence. A sky painted with clouds or stars. These small wonders are gifts from God, moments of natural healing for our emotional, spiritual, and physical selves. If we bring our whole hearts to Him—our grief, our anger spoken with reverence, our honest questions—He will meet us where we are. And if we look back, we will remember the countless times He has carried us before.

I have seen God’s hand in my life more times than I can count. I have lived through things I should not have survived. Unmistakable, unbelievable moments where the only explanation was His protection. Yet when something new goes wrong, it’s so easy to forget every good thing, every past deliverance. Instead of remembering blessings, our minds rush to every old wound. I’ve done this too often—telling God, My whole life has been nothing but hardship. Will it ever change? Will it ever get better? And sometimes I even add, But if it doesn’t, Your will be done. I will still love You.

Years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to say that. I saw my suffering only as punishment or failure. I remembered my past sins and assumed that my hardships were tied to them. But I know better now. I have confessed them, one by one, and repented of as many as memory could hold. God has forgiven me. He is not punishing me. And because of that, I must stop looking backward. I must not be like Lot’s wife, turning toward what God has already freed me from.

None of us would ever ask God for suffering. But when it comes—and it will—I wish more of us knew how to live with it, learn from it, and grow through it. Even when life is grey and heavy, we still have a choice. We can look for beauty. It’s hardest to see when everything feels dark, but that is precisely when beauty matters most. That is when our faith is being tested. That is when peace in suffering becomes a holy strength.

I am learning, slowly and imperfectly, to grow with my suffering. To lean on God in the everyday, not just in the emergencies. To ask Him for strength, endurance, and peace of mind. And He has been faithful.

If we never ask, we will never know what it means to be strong through our suffering, not just beyond it.

May God bless you, your family, and your life.

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The text in this article is copyright © 2025 Jessica Tacu.

Music Credits:

“A Familiar Smile” by Sunfish Grove via Epidemic Sound

“A Love That Once Was” by Gavin Luke via Epidemic Sound

“Cain” by Lo Mimieux via Epidemic Sound

I highly recommend watching the video for this post, located at the end.

Also, I apologize for the “bad writing,” but I took the text from an unscripted audio file and didn’t want to change it too much from the original.

When we finally come to Christ, when we reach that point where we’ve had enough of the world’s cruelty, suppression, and pain, it’s often those very things that drive us to Him. Sadly, that’s usually what it takes to wake us up and see the truth. Because when life is smooth, when everything seems fine, we don’t feel a need to search for help or hope. It’s like a person with a healthy leg not thinking to visit a doctor for a cast.

But faith doesn’t work that way. It should be the reverse.

I’ve known this truth my whole life, but I ignored it. I knew my life had more meaning than what I pretended it did. But as long as everything looked okay, I didn’t seek the truth. God should be the first One we go to in everything, in joy and in sorrow, in peace and in pain.

When little children wake up, who do they run to? Their parents—for hugs, breakfast, and love. Not because they’re hurt or in trouble, but simply because they crave that closeness. They don’t wait until they fall or scrape their knee to seek out their mother or father. It should be the same with us and our Father in heaven.

Since coming to Christ, a whole new world has opened up to me. Yes, it’s a world where darkness still exists, but now I can see it clearly. I see the things I once ignored, the sins I excused, the truths I hid from. And once you see the truth, you can’t unsee it. I wouldn’t want to. I never want to lose what God has revealed to me.

When we become aware of our sin—the guilt, the shame, the stain it leaves—we realize it can’t be washed away by our own strength. Only the blood of Christ can do that. And though we sin again and again, His mercy remains.

There truly is no place like Home, not even the one we build here on earth. Our eternal home with Christ surpasses everything this world could ever offer. And that’s where my heart longs to be. I know my works don’t earn salvation, but my faith drives me to live for Him with sincerity and purpose.

Now that the Holy Spirit has awakened me, I see and understand things I never could before. I see the wrong I’ve done, even the things I once thought were harmless. And every day, I strive to be the woman God created me to be, to wash away the darkness within and walk in His light.

But awakening also brings pain.

Seeing the truth means facing it. And coming to Christ doesn’t erase our pain or shield us from suffering; Scripture promises the opposite. Yet I’ve learned that pain isn’t meant to disappear, but it’s meant to teach. We learn to live with it, to walk through it, and to surrender it all—not just the hardest parts, but everything—into His hands.

Becoming aware of my sin hasn’t been easy. Even now, as I walk closely with Christ, I still stumble. We all do. It’s part of being human in a broken world. But now, when I fall, I recognize it. I feel that nudge from the Holy Spirit, a gentle reminder that I’m not who I used to be.

I used to think things like overeating or losing my temper were just part of me, flaws I couldn’t change. But now I know better. Each time I feel conviction, I know God is helping me grow, teaching me repentance, and showing me grace.

I’m not where I want to be yet, but I’m not where I was. And that’s the beauty of this walk. God knows my heart. He sees that I’m trying, that I’m asking forgiveness, learning, and growing. And that’s what carries me through each new day.

May God bless you, your family, and your life.

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The text in this article is copyright © 2025 Jessica Tacu.

Music Credits:

“Ever After” by William Claeson via Epidemic Sound

“Starlit Fantasia” by Amber Glow via Epidemic Sound

“Try Your Wings” by Helmut Schenker via Epidemic Sound

If you are subscribed to Sincerely, Jessie Ann solely for my fiction writing projects and nothing else, I have two separate publications: Author Jessica Redmerski for my adult/general fiction projects, and Author Jessica Bradford for my Christian Middle Grade/teen projects.

If you’re not interested in receiving emails about my faith, struggles with life, and personal opinions on worldly issues, please unsubscribe from Sincerely, Jessie Ann, and subscribe to my author publications.

I apologize for the confusion in having multiple publications, but I feel it’s necessary so that readers can pick and choose the content they receive in their inboxes.

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I highly recommend watching the video for this post, located at the end.

Also, I apologize for the “bad writing,” but I took the text from an unscripted audio file and didn’t want to change it too much from the original.

One thing I remember so well about myself as a teenager was how badly I wanted to leave home. I hated everything. I didn’t even know why—I just did. I hated where I lived. I was resentful of being made fun of for my southern accent. I don’t think it’s as strong now as it was then, but back then it made me feel small. People often assume that having a southern accent means you’re less intelligent.

Spoiler alert: they were wrong!

It wasn’t just that, though. It was rebellion.

I wanted to be anywhere but home, anywhere but where I was born and raised, where my family loved me deeply. I wanted to go where I could make my own rules, where I could be anyone I wanted to be. I thought the world would give me more than home ever could.

I used to say I grew up poor, and in a material sense, I did. We lived in trailer parks, wore off-brand clothes, and got by on very little. But the truth is that I believed I was poor, and that belief helped define me. In a negative way.

I wanted better.

I wanted more.

I wanted to make something of myself.

By thirteen, I was already dreaming of California.

I tried several times to get there, and every time, God intervened. Looking back, I thank Him for it. If He hadn’t stopped me, my life would have been an even bigger mess. But that restless spirit stayed with me for years.

Even within Arkansas, I was always running—from home, from family, from the life that grounded me. I moved in with friends, or people I thought were friends, always chasing something that never quite filled the emptiness. I spent my whole life trying to get away, trying to do more, be more, prove myself, to the world, to the people who mocked me, and even to myself.

But what I didn’t know then was that who I already was—the girl from Arkansas with the accent and the small-town life—was exactly who God made me to be. I just kept rejecting her.

Eventually, I made it to California. I lasted about six months before I came home. I missed everything—the rain, the trees, my kids, my little dog. I missed simplicity. I missed peace. And when I came back, I said, “I never want to leave home again.”

That was in 2017. But by 2019, the cycle began again. Restlessness crept in. I thought I needed more. We started planning to move to Mexico.

It’s funny, though—today it’s chilly, rainy, and gray outside, and it feels perfect. Whether it’s hot and humid or freezing cold, this place is perfect to me now.

There really is no place like home.

For years, I believed home wasn’t enough. I thought I needed the noise, the opportunities, the glitter of the world. But none of it ever filled the emptiness the way home does. The peace I was searching for was never out there—it was always here!

So many people feel the same way. They want to leave their small towns, chase careers, chase dreams, chase lives they think will be better. Sometimes we have to leave—for safety, for opportunity, for reasons beyond our control—but many of us leave simply because we’re restless or bored. Because we think we deserve more. Because we believe happiness is “out there.”

But for most of us, home has everything we need. And when we leave for the wrong reasons, we often come back with a deeper appreciation for what we had all along.

I used to think Arkansas wasn’t enough.

But before I turned fifty, I realized it was everything I’d ever need. This is where I belong. When we leave home, we miss moments we can never get back—births, holidays, the small joys, and the big heartbreaks. Life goes on without us, and we can never reclaim that time.

Now, I’m no longer chasing other lives. I’m no longer reaching for more. I’m no longer rebellious. It may have taken me fifty years to figure it out, but better late than never, I guess.

This is home.

North Little Rock, Arkansas. My park, my peace, my sanctuary. The trees here turn yellow, red, and gold in the fall, and today they glow like sunlight. I have four seasons, the sound of rain, the stillness of the woods, and the whisper of wind through the branches.

What more could I ever want?

This is where God placed me, and this is where I’ll stay—with gratitude in my heart for the simple, beautiful life He’s given me to cherish until I get to go to my ultimate and eternal Home to be with Him.

May God bless you, your family, and your life.

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The text in this article is copyright © 2025 Jessica Tacu.

Music Credits:

“Love That Once Was” by Gavin Luke via Epidemic Sound

“Evening Love Song” by Arden Forest via Epidemic Sound

“Ingaroo” by Franz Gordon via Epidemic Sound

“Will You Ever Know?” by Anna Landstrom via Epidemic Sound

I highly recommend watching the video for this post, located at the end.

Also, I apologize for the “bad writing,” but I took the text from an unscripted audio file and didn’t want to change it too much from the original.

Trees are so beautiful. I often wonder about their strength—how long they’ve stood, how tall they’ve grown, how their roots reach deep beneath the earth to hold them firm. We can learn so much from nature, but especially from trees.

They are majestic—unchanging, yet always changing. Their leaves turn in the fall and fall away in the winter, but they always return in spring, renewed.

I often think about this in relation to my own life. Everything changes, but not all of us stand as strong as we could. I know I haven’t always been as strong as I should be. Yet, in fifty years of living, I’ve learned more about myself than I ever imagined. People have shown me how strong I truly am and how much strength I bring to others.

For most of my life, I thought I was weak. I let people run over me. But I’ve come to realize that even that can be a kind of strength—a gift. Those of us called pushovers often love so deeply that we’ll do anything for others.

My greatest weakness, though, has always been fear—especially the fear of death.

That fear fed my depression, my anxiety, and much of the darkness that consumed me for years. I feared disease, accidents, loss—death in any form.

When my mom was dying, we moved her into my aunt’s house, the same house where I live now. She passed away in the very room where I sleep. I mention this often because it changed me. I thought watching her die would traumatize me, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave her side. I stayed, and instead of fear, I felt peace. Her death made me stronger.

My mother made me stronger, even in her passing. And looking back on her life, I see now that she was the strongest person I ever knew. Life was hard for her, and little seemed to go right, but her spirit never broke.

It’s a windy, beautiful day today, and in my quiet moments alone, I’ve learned that even when I thought I was weak, I was strong. Of course, it is God who gives me strength in everything I do. But even in moments when I thought it was all me—when I believed I was the weakest woman alive—I was still strong, because I endured. I survived. And when I look back at all I’ve come through, I can’t deny that strength anymore.

I’m no longer afraid of death. I’m finding strength in other places now—in the trees, in the wind, in the way nature moves and breathes. When we step away from the noise of the world long enough, we begin to see how nature heals us. It brings peace, clarity, and joy.

God gave us nature. Sometimes it’s the only medicine we need, the only therapy our souls crave.

Now my great-aunt Peggy is dying in hospice, also from cancer. She said something recently that would have once made me anxious or sad, but it gave me peace. She told me she isn’t afraid of death—only of pain. She hopes it comes quickly, and she’s ready because she knows where she’s going. That kind of faith, that calm acceptance, makes me stronger too.

We draw strength from others, just as we give it. Our emotions are contagious—our sadness can weigh others down, but our strength can lift them up. I don’t mean we should never cry or never show pain; we absolutely should. But I don’t want to live in darkness anymore. I don’t want to spread my sadness. I want to be strong, for others and for myself.

No matter what we’ve gone through—our traumas, our trials—we can still smile, laugh, and look for beauty. I want to have the strength of trees. I want my roots to grow deep and strong.

That’s my prayer.

I want to be strong like my mother, like my Aunt Peggy—like the woman God created me to be. I know now that everything I’ve endured has shaped me for that purpose. Our pain is not a competition; it’s a testimony.

When we share our weaknesses, especially in the middle of them—not just after we’ve overcome—we show the world what growth really looks like. That’s how others connect. That’s how they find hope.

I want to be a tree that stands tall for a hundred years or more—one that sheds its leaves each year, then returns more vibrant and beautiful than before.

That’s the woman I want to be.

May God bless you, your family, and your life.

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The text in this article is copyright © 2025 Jessica Tacu.

Music Credits:

“Box Full of Memories” - Anna Landstrom via Epidemic Sound

“How Long Is Tomorrow” - Franz Gordon via Epidemic Sound

“Redolent” - Ever So Blue via Epidemic Sound

“Smell of Morning Coffee” - Franz Gordon via Epidemic Sound

I highly recommend watching the video for this post, located at the end. Otherwise, you’ll miss my argument with an angry squirrel.

Also, I apologize for the “bad writing,” but I took the text from an unscripted audio file and didn’t want to change it too much from the original.

Every time I cry from sadness or grief, every time I get angry, no matter what the reason, every time I feel nothing but sorrow and despair, even for a moment, the enemy claps.

He enjoys it when we worry, when we fear. He delights in it because he knows he has successfully drawn us away from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Even if only for a moment, he revels in those times. And I am tired of being tired. Tired of allowing darkness to consume everything I am—every part of me—until it suffocates the woman God intended me to be.

The woman I want to be for Him.

Today, I choose to fight for that woman, with every bit of strength I have. It’s time I take back the life God gave me and live for Christ in the way I didn’t realize I hadn’t been.

I can do all the right things: read the Bible, go to church, have fellowship, and leave behind the secular life. I can pray daily, through tears of sadness or joy—I can do all these things.

But if I still live in the shadows, if I let the enemy press me further beneath his foot, pulling me away from Christ, then none of it matters.

I don’t want to live like that anymore.

I don’t want to be sad.
I don’t want to be depressed.
I don’t want to be angry, afraid, or anxious.

I don’t want to walk through life with slumped shoulders and a lowered head.

I want the world to look at me and see someone who lives for Christ. But I can’t do that if I keep letting the darkness consume me. I know I have my moments, and sometimes they last longer than they should, but I don’t want to let that happen anymore.

I want to focus on the beautiful and the good. I want to live in Philippians 4:8—on whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, and praiseworthy.

I want to focus on good things, not just in the light, but especially in the dark.

(See the video at the end for visuals.)

Are you threatening me? Bring it on! He really is. He’s mad that I’m on his territory.

The squirrels out here are big and red and not afraid of people. They own the place.

There’s no place in the world I love more than this—except Greers Ferry Lake in Arkansas. Burns Park is a close second, and that will never change.

It’s chilly today. It was cold this morning, and I loved it. I’m wearing a sweater and a turtleneck, and the wind is blowing softly. It’s so beautiful. I want this to be my everyday—even when it’s not.

This is my soft hallelujah.

Most days, I feel too weak and exhausted by this world to lift my head, my eyes, or my hands. And when I finally can, everything feels robotic—my movements, my thoughts, my emotions. They’ve become something foreign to me, like they don’t even belong. But I wear them anyway, like something that doesn’t fit.

I’ve lived that way my whole life—so familiar with the darkness that it became comfortable. Anything else, anything other than sadness, depression, grief, or sorrow, felt uncomfortable. And that’s exactly what the enemy wanted.

But I don’t want to live that way anymore.

They say if you keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result, that’s insanity. I think they’re right.

So, this is my new motivation: to renew my mind and my heart—to live differently.

And I know I can do this only with Christ. Only through Christ.

May God bless you, your family, and your life.

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The text in this article is copyright © 2025 Jessica Tacu.

Music Credits:

“A Familiar Smile” by Sunfish Grove via Epidemic Sound

“Cain” by Lo Mimieux via Epidemic Sound

Animated Arrow:

Surkhab Ahmad via Vecteezy

**The following is part of my memoir. Please read this page for more information, as well as an easy-access list of each chapter.

Jessie was excited to spend the weekend with her daddy.

Ever since the day she came home with her mom and little brothers to find Daddy moving his belongings out of their trailer, she was heartbroken, and nothing made sense anymore. She loved him so much and couldn’t understand why he wanted to live anywhere but home.

The news that she’d get to go to his new place—without annoying little brothers this time—made her forget about those sad thoughts. Eagerly, she packed a small bag to take with her, and couldn’t get into his car fast enough.

On the short drive, classic rock music played through the speakers from the Magic 105 radio station. They drove past her school, and she told him all about her good grades, tetherball wins, hopscotch, and about a boy who got into trouble for kissing her ankles while her legs dangled from the monkey bars. They stopped at the grocery store and Daddy picked up some of her favorite things: SpaghettiOs with Meatballs, Little Debbie snack cakes, Kool-Aid packets, and a giant bag of sugar to make them sweet.

His trailer was small and noisy, the air thick with cigarette smoke. As the day faded into evening, more of Daddy’s friends came to visit him, too. By the time it was dark outside, Jessie felt that the trailer had gotten even smaller somehow. And noisier. And smokier. But she didn’t care—she was with her Daddy and didn’t want to be anywhere else.

Jessie sat cross-legged on the carpet, a notebook open on her lap. She drew pictures because Daddy liked to draw, and she loved anything that made her feel closer to him. Rock music poured from the stereo while the TV flickered in the background, but the jumble of adult voices swallowed both.

She looked up suddenly, startled by a feeling she couldn’t explain. It was as if she sat inside an invisible bubble that muffled every sound…except one.

Daddy’s voice.

He stood nearby, talking to a tall man with brown-gray hair and a thousand lines carved across his face. The man’s lips moved, but Jessie heard nothing from them.

He glanced down at her…a slow, unsettling glance that made her look away quickly. Something icy slid beneath her ribs. A danger she didn’t understand, but recognized all the same.

Daddy’s expression shifted to something that she had never seen before. His shoulders stiffened. His jaw hardened. The beer can in his hand dented under his grip.

“That’s my fu*king daughter!” Daddy said, voice sharp enough to cut the air.

They were the only words she would hear, the only ones that mattered, and she never forgot them.

I loved my time in Southern Pines Mobile Home Park in Little Rock in the 80s, mostly, I think, because it was the last place my dad lived with us as a family.

But I have so many other memories from there, all of which helped make my childhood wonderful and unforgettable: My friends, Felicia, Brandy, Marybeth, and my best friend, Debbie. I remember waiting impatiently at Brandy and Marybeth’s home for Michael Jackson’s Thriller to come on the radio so we could record it onto a cassette tape. At Felicia’s, we often played with Barbie dolls in her bedroom, and made Friendship Books and paper fortune tellers. It was at Debbie’s that I watched my first (and last) horror movie, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. We had so much fun—I even went on trips with her and her mom!

Baseline Elementary School in Southwest Little Rock was another era of my young life, whose memories are as rich, vivid, and cherished as those of Lifeline Baptist Church, Greers Ferry Lake, and Southern Pines.

I loved school. And school loved me.

I remember that no walls separated the classrooms. I could stand on my tippy-toes, peering over a bookshelf, and see the fifth graders far away on the other side of the building. I can still smell the food from the cafeteria-slash-auditorium and hear the crackling of the intercom in the speaker when announcements were made.

Each morning, every student in the building would stand, place their hands on their hearts, sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and recite “The Pledge of Allegiance”.

My yellow Cabbage Patch Kids lunchbox and thermos sparked ridiculous joy. I know it sounds silly, feeling pure delight over a plastic lunchbox, yet there I was, beaming like it held treasure.

The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986. The whole school sat cross-legged on the green carpet, eyes locked on the boxy TV rolled into the room. A girl behind me braided my long hair while history unfolded in horror right before us.

The Scholastic Book Fair and field trips were the best days, except for that one boring courtroom visit where I fell asleep and got scolded. I was nine. What did they expect?

The tornado scare that sent us into the hallways, knees to chests, while a freight train of wind howled just beyond the school walls.

From first through fifth grade, I was an angel of a little girl and a straight-A student. I never got into trouble (well, except for that day in the courtroom), was Teacher’s Pet every year (I know it wasn’t a nice thing to be called, but…it was true!), and I won creative art and academic awards—I was going to “go places”, the teachers said.

Until I didn’t.

At least, not the sorts of places everybody thought I’d go.

When I entered sixth grade, not only did I change schools and trailer parks and friends, but everything else changed, too. It was around the time my dad left us, and my parents were going through their divorce. The killing of the rabbits had already happened, but it would be another year or so before my Grannie Nelson would pass away.

And a lot can happen in a year.

I smoked my first cigarette in fifth grade. In sixth, I slapped my first girl and skipped my first day of school. My dad was gone, and my sweet mom had no idea the storm that would become our lives because of his abandoning us. Part of me still carries heavy guilt, because she had escaped one abusive relationship with my dad and wound up in another one with me, that “angel of a little girl” who everybody had been so proud of.

But before I turned “bad”, I went to spend that weekend with my dad.

He’d moved from Southern Pines to another trailer park on Coffer Lane, within walking distance of my beloved Baseline Elementary. I vividly remember that day. How a shadowy darkness covered me, but couldn’t touch me. And that strange bubble that protected me from that darkness. Even then, I was in the presence of something divine.

Of course, my dad was there to protect me, too. I was Daddy’s Girl, after all. He never would’ve even for a second considered allowing something so evil and vile.

After 1988, at the age of thirteen, I can’t remember a moment when I was a child anymore, except for the day Grannie Nelson died and I ran off to play on the creek with my cousin Buckey. That moment, that death experience, didn’t play a part in my rebellion, but it did mark the last moment of my innocence. The last good grade. The last sweet little Jessie, who loved the country and her best friend, Dusty. It was the final goodbye to a life being devoured by the world.

That’s all I remember:

My great-grandmother dying in her room…

Me running toward the woods with Buckey…

Rebellion.

That precious, innocent little girl named Jessie was gone.

The first cigarette I smoked at eleven turned into a pack a day by thirteen. I missed my dad so much that I guess I wanted to be like him, and so I picked up his drinking habit, too. Skipping school became an everyday thing.

My mom was going through a lot, too, and it wasn’t long before she replaced my dad with a live-in boyfriend.

I didn’t like that one bit.

If I was rebellious before, having a man move in and replace my dad was like lighting the fuse on a stick of dynamite. It burned for a little while, slowly but surely making its way up.

I went from hiding my bad behavior to—BOOM!—parading it around, giving the middle finger to the whole world.

I lashed out at my mom whenever I got the chance. I stole her boyfriend’s marijuana, took it to school, and sold it. I stole from her and from my brothers and the corner store. I snuck out at night with friends and broke into cars. I skipped school so much that I eventually dropped out in the eighth grade. Thirteen years old. Full of rage. Full of regret that I would only realize much later. I did a lot of awful things I’m ashamed to admit…though I will, as the story continues.

That day in 1988, when I whispered to my cousin, Buckey, “Grannie Nelson is dying,” so was young Jessie—she just didn’t know it.

Despite my rebellion, doing whatever I wanted as long as it was bad, I remained a virgin, even though most of the girls I hung out with had already given their virginity away. It was the “in-thing” in the 80s to have sex even at a young age. You were either a tease if you didn’t give it up, a slut if you did, or so spoken for and loved by one person that others looked at you with envy.

That’s what I wanted, to be so loved by a boy who, in a way, could replace my dad, who had abandoned me. Unfortunately, I would never be spoken for, and no one ever looked at me with envy.

But that’s a whole chapter in and of itself. Or two. Or three…

One day, in 1989, while hanging out with my friends, I decided to run away with them to San Francisco.

A stolen truck.

Another perverted old man.

A hit-and-run in Greenville, Texas.

Making the newspaper and local news.

Juvenile detention.

All of that in just one incident, while my train-wreck life picked up terrifying speed.

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The text in this article is copyright © 2025 Jessica Tacu.

Bible verses in this article are from the KJV - King James Version.

Music Credits:

“We Are the Stars” by Silver Maple via Epidemic Sound

“I Already Knew” by Miles Avida via Epidemic Sound

“Coma Visions” by Martin Klem via Epidemic Sound

**The following is part of my memoir. Please read this page for more information, as well as an easy-access list of each chapter.

Jessie couldn’t wait to get out of the car when they pulled into the grass-covered driveway at her great-grandmother’s house. She flung open the door and jumped out, meeting her cousin Buckey and their German Shepherd friend, Dusty, in the yard.

Spring sang through the air. Sunlight poured from a cloudless sky, and butterflies fluttered above the begonias crowding a nearby flower bed.

“Let’s go to the creek,” Buckey urged. He gripped a stick taller than himself, because Buckey never went anywhere without a stick. It served as a staff, a sword, and more often than not, a gun.

“Yeah!” Jessie answered, already moving.

Their sprint toward the trees ended abruptly when a voice carried across the yard.

“Jessie! Buckey! Go inside the house for a while! You can play later!” One of their uncles waved from the barn.

The cousins sagged in unison, all dramatic sighs and drooping shoulders, then trudged toward the house like condemned explorers.

Inside, the air smelled of cornbread rising in the oven, the house wrapped in a thin blanket of heat from the baking. Dark-paneled walls were decorated with mounted deer heads, antlers, and old photos. Two clay owls hung near the door—Jessie and her Mama had painted them for Uncle Darrell years ago and gifted them one Christmas.

Cousin Buckey went into the kitchen while Jessie plopped down on the sofa to wait, but she had too much energy for sitting or waiting—and why couldn’t she play outside, anyway?

Curiosity got the best of her, and she went to the window overlooking the backyard. Peering through sheer yellow curtains, she glimpsed the barn in the distance. A few uncles were there, all standing around the rabbit cages.

Jessie propped her elbows on the windowsill and rested her cheeks within her hands. She smiled, watching, thinking about a bunny they let her hold one day, but wouldn’t let her keep.

Maybe they’ll let me hold one today, she wondered.

Her smile faltered.

Why is he…?

Jessie’s elbows slipped. She straightened, heartbeat rising into her throat.

No…don’t do that…

Her forehead pressed to the glass. Her breath fogged a halo around her mouth and nose.

One uncle lifted a rabbit by its hind legs. It thrashed, shrieking. The sound fought its way through the window anyway.

One blow to the rabbit’s head with a hammer, and it went limp.

Jessie stumbled back from the window, tears running hot and silent.

She was never the same.

Growing up, death seemed to follow me everywhere. Even to this day, fifty years later. And each death brought with it either trauma or a supernatural experience that, until today, I could never explain.

I was at Greers Ferry for the weekend. It might’ve been Easter, I don’t remember.

My uncle raised rabbits for food, and there are things that must be done when animals are raised to be eaten. That experience traumatized me and changed everything I thought I knew about the world—it showed me how dark and frightening it really is. And what made it so much worse was to witness family members whom I loved dearly and trusted and felt safe with, engaging in such cruelty.

Now, don’t misunderstand. I adored my family. I felt safe with them, and I know now that killing animals for food is a natural part of survival. But to a child, witnessing such a thing can be traumatic. It alters how you think, how you grow, and how you see the world.

The killing of the rabbits changed me.

I couldn’t unsee it, couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened. In the days that followed, I woke not with joy or curiosity, but breathless and sweating, wishing only to run away from everything.

Then came the death of my great-grandmother in 1988—the first family death I was old enough to truly understand.

We all lose loved ones at different points in life, and most people, I imagine, come away with a clearer understanding of what death means.

I didn’t.

I wasn’t traumatized by my great-grandmother’s passing, but I didn’t find peace in it, either. Combined with the memory of those rabbits and my dad battling that high-rise inferno, her death only deepened my fear of the inevitable.

My great-grandmother lived across the dirt road from my grandparents in Higden, Arkansas. I spent just as much time at her house as I did at the creek, in the woods, or out in the field. We celebrated every Thanksgiving there, surrounded by the scent of Dial soap and old, weathered wood. Some Christmases, and family reunions, too, until the year she died.

I wondered if that meant we were no longer a family after Grannie Nelson’s death, since we didn’t do family reunions anymore.

But that day, I didn’t understand what was happening at first. It wasn’t a holiday, yet everyone had gathered—inside, outside, all around the house. The air felt heavy, thick with whispers and the scent of casseroles cooling on the kitchen counter. Aunts and uncles I’d never met before stood in corners with stiff smiles, speaking in soft, careful voices as if even their words might disturb something sacred.

When it was my turn to visit my Grannie Nelson lying in her bed, I suddenly knew what was happening. At first, I felt a strange uneasiness I’d never experienced before, and I was afraid to go inside.

But something told me, “It’s OK, Jessie.” The voice I heard wasn’t audible, and it wasn’t mine, but it was unmistakably a voice—gentle, calm, sure.

I remember a golden-white light pouring into the room, piercing through the thin curtains that covered the windows, but it wasn’t sunlight. It had a weight to it, a quiet pulse, like it was alive. The light seemed to rest on everything it touched—the quilt folded at the foot of her bed, the glass of water on the nightstand, even the decorative comb resting on the dresser.

The windows in her room were closed, yet a cool breeze brushed across my face as I stepped closer, like invisible hands had parted the air just for me. The scent of powder lingered around her, faint but comforting. Her kind eyes, framed by delicate lashes and wisps of white hair, watched me quietly. Her breathing was faint but steady, a soft rhythm beneath the ticking clock on the wall.

My Grannie Nelson was leaving this world.

But what filled that room wasn’t sadness—it was peace.

Something sacred was there.

The air shimmered with a still light, and a warmth wrapped around me, quieting every sound in my head. It was as if Heaven itself leaned close, and I knew, without question, that angels surrounded her that day in 1988. And no one—not then, not ever—could convince me otherwise.

When my moment with her ended, I went outside to find my cousin Buckey. I whispered, “Grannie Nelson is dying.”

And she did die that day, right there in that bed, surrounded by those who loved her, and the angels that took her.

But when they left, they took the light and peace with them.

Watching someone I loved slip away while angels filled the room didn’t frighten me—it filled me with a peace that I can’t find the proper words to describe. I felt the presence of Heaven itself and knew without question that she wasn’t alone. There was no darkness in that moment, only light.

But afterward, when the light and peace faded, I realized something that stayed with me for years to come: death was real. Not just something that happened to animals or strangers on a screen, but it could touch the people I loved.

And once I understood that, the fear took root.

From then on, I waged war on death the only way I knew how—by ignoring it, even as I feared it. Because if it could take my Grannie Nelson, then it could take my Grannie Bradford; it could take my mom or my dad or my grandpa, or my aunts and uncles, or my cousin Buckey. It could take everyone I knew and loved.

And it could take me.

I couldn’t block anything out anymore. My childlike mind was gone. By the time my great-grandmother died, my ability to cope had already been stripped away. And then other memories—things I’d witnessed but not understood—started surfacing again, uglier now that the veil had lifted.

• The man found stabbed to death inside his semi-truck parked near our trailer in Southern Pines. I’d overheard my mom and neighbors whispering about it.

• The man on Coffer Lane in Little Rock who stood naked on his porch, touching himself as my friends and I walked by. I was told he was just “a nasty old man” and to stay away from him.

• The anger in my dad’s voice as he told a friend, “She’s my daughter!” I didn’t understand the context then, but I knew it was something sinister, and I never forgot it.

• My mom asking me after a sleepover, “Did her daddy touch you?” I said no, but later learned he had been abusing his daughter.

• The sisters who played with me outside my grandparents’ house, who told me a secret that still puts a knot in my stomach every time I think about it.

I was never molested as a child, but I was exposed to it through my friends, and I was the object of perverse attention from more than one man before I turned ten.

By fourteen, I realized that for some girls, perversion had become a way of life. Even those raised in loving homes often lacked the wisdom or protection needed to face the darkness waiting for them.

I was a lost soul walking alone through a wilderness. I had no armor, no weapons, nothing to shield me from the demons I would face.

Or so I thought.

It took me decades to understand that God was with me the whole way. He protected me, but He no longer shielded my eyes. He walked beside me through the fire and even saved my life, but He still allowed me to endure the darkness.

Because I needed to know it, I needed to understand it. I needed to, so that I would, eventually, cling to Him whenever I faced it.

I went through life haunted by a fear of death that never left me, but also by something else: a desperate need to be loved by anyone who pretended to offer it.

And this darkness would be far worse than my fear of death ever was.

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The text in this article is copyright © 2025 Jessica Tacu.

Music Credits:

Zuhandenheit - Neoklassik Intro by SamuelFJohanns via Pixabay

Rest of the Fallen by GuilhermeBernardes via Pixabay

Fragile by Bonn Fields via Epidemic Sound

Bible verses in this article are from the KJV - King James Version.

**This article also has an unscripted video at the bottom of this post that has much more content. I recommend you watch instead of reading for a more personal experience.

How many times have you heard someone say, “I don’t feel God’s presence anymore”? Or maybe you’ve said or felt that yourself.

When that happens, we wonder, “Where did He go? Has He abandoned me?” I can’t count how many times I’ve thought the same thing. I’ve been in that place where everything around me felt dark, desperate to feel His presence again, feeling rejected, forgotten, even betrayed by God.

But when I was finally able to think clearly, I realized something many others have realized long before me:

When God feels silent, it doesn’t mean He’s abandoned me. It usually means that I’ve turned away from Him.

There are so many little ways we drift from God in our everyday lives. Whenever I find myself desperate to feel His presence again, I can usually trace it back to one thing—I’ve let myself be too influenced by the world. Circumstances, worries, relationships, finances…all those daily pressures creep in and start to dictate how I think and feel.

Instead of trusting that God will handle it, I try to control everything myself. That’s when the distance begins.

This doesn’t mean we should never feel worry or concern. It means that in those moments, when fear or doubt takes hold, we must still choose to trust Him. The moment we stop trusting, the moment we hand our peace over to the enemy instead of giving it to God, that’s when He starts to feel distant.

And this isn’t only true in hard times. Sometimes everything in life is going beautifully, and yet God still feels far away.

Why? Because even—especially—in our happy moments, we often forget Him. We get comfortable. We pour ourselves into the joy of life and forget to praise the One who gave it. We forget to thank Him, to show love and appreciation for all that we have, and naturally, He begins to feel distant.

I’m guilty of this in both the bad times and the good. When life is hard, I cling to Him. But when life is good, I sometimes forget I need Him just as much.

We need God every second of every day, through the good and through the bad. He isn’t just supposed to be a part of our lives; He’s supposed to be the center of them. Without Him, we are nothing.

Most of the time when we feel distant from God, it’s during seasons of suffering—grief, loss, depression. That’s exactly where the Enemy wants us. He wants us to blame God. He wants us to think that because we can’t feel His presence, God must have turned away.

I learned this the hard way.

When my mom’s cancer came back, I rushed to the U.S. to be with her. It turned my world upside down. I put all my work and projects on hold to help her.

After a time, her doctor said the tumors had shrunk, and she seemed to be improving. I returned home to Mexico, trusting she was in good hands with my family.

Before I left, I had felt God’s presence everywhere. I was reading the Bible daily, immersed in His Word and His light. But when I came back home, it was like all of that had vanished. I couldn’t find my footing again.

Then one day, after finally getting motivated to start a new project, I suddenly felt crushed by a wave of sadness. I couldn’t understand why. I prayed through tears, “God, please just tell me what You want me to do.”

Five minutes later, I got a message from my daughter: my mom was going into hospice.

That was my answer.

I dropped everything and went back. My mom passed away a week after I arrived.

After her death, the same darkness crept back in. I asked God, “Where are You? Why can’t I feel You when I need You most?”

But I see it now. God didn’t abandon me—I had let grief and fear and heartbreak consume me. I let the Enemy whisper lies into my heart, making me feel distant from God. But His presence never left.

He doesn’t always answer the way we want or in our timing, but He is always there. Nothing happens that He doesn’t allow for our good and His purpose.

When things fall apart, it’s not because God pulled away. It’s usually because we did. We let the world, the enemy, and our own worries take over.

Sometimes, even when we’re doing “everything right,” we still feel distant. We read the Bible daily, pray regularly, go to church, do good works, and yet we still feel something missing.

That’s when we need to stop and ask ourselves if we’ve become too focused on the doing instead of the being.

It’s easy to fall into a legalistic mindset—treating our relationship with God like a checklist. But our faith isn’t about performance; it’s about love. When our works become a burden instead of a joy, when it stops coming from the heart, we’ve lost focus.

Sometimes, we simply need to slow down and remember that God doesn’t want perfection—He wants connection.

Countless things can pull us away from God. Here are a few that I’ve had to confront in my own life:

• Secular influences — Music, TV, books, movies, or toxic relationships that feed the flesh instead of the spirit. What we consume shapes who we become.

• Overwork or distraction — Pouring too much time into projects, hobbies, or even good things that don’t remind us of God can leave our souls starving.

• Neglecting the Word — Whenever I skip even one day of Bible reading, I feel my mind drift. One missed day becomes two, then weeks, then months. Staying rooted in His Word keeps me grounded.

• Letting the old self creep in — My old nature—anger, gossip, gluttony, pride—still tries to resurface. Every time I give in, I’m giving the Enemy more room to work.

• Guilt and depression — I lived with depression and anxiety for over 25 years before God healed me almost overnight. But the Enemy still tries to use nostalgia and sadness to pull me back under. It starts as a drip, then becomes a flood if I let it.

If you ever feel like God is distant or that He’s abandoned you, take a step back and ask yourself:

• What am I allowing to control me instead of letting God take control?

• What have I let into my life that’s pulling me away from Him?

• What am I doing—or not doing—that might be dimming His light in me?

Sometimes God does allow us to walk through darkness. He uses trials to strengthen us, to refine our faith. But so often, when He feels far away, it isn’t because He’s left us. It’s because we’ve drifted.

God never moves.
We do.

May this remind you, as it reminds me daily, to turn back toward Him.

May God bless you, your family, and your life.

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The text in this article is copyright © 2024 Jessica Tacu.

Background Music by Lachm from Pixabay

**The following is part of my memoir. Please read this page for more information, as well as an easy-access list of each chapter.

Jessie sat in the field near the walnut tree, watching as the day slowly gave itself over to night. Grannie Bradford’s house glowed softly in the distance, the porch light catching the edge of the trees. Lightning bugs floated over the grass, blinking like tiny embers, and somewhere deep in the woods a Whippoorwill called. The air was thick with the sound of crickets and frogs, a steady hum that seemed to hold the world together.

Jessie stayed there until Grannie’s voice called her in, gentle but certain, cutting through the dark like a lantern beam.

Inside, the house smelled of coffee and cornbread and Grannie’s favorite White Shoulders perfume.

Grannie sat beside Jessie on the bed. “You’ve had a busy day,” she said, tucking the sheet around her. “Tomorrow, we’ll go fishing. Would you like that?”

Jessie smiled and nodded, her eyes heavy.

“Goodnight, sweet girl.”

When the light switched off, the room slipped into moonlit quiet. The grandfather clock ticked steadily, a faucet dripped somewhere in the dark, and the night whispered just beyond the window, where tiny glass jars sat along the sill.

Shadows from the trees danced across the walls as Jessie drifted toward sleep, the world softening around her. In her dreams, the stars stayed bright and familiar, the air warm and safe. She wandered through memories that felt close enough to touch—Grannie’s laughter, the smell of rain, the hush of the fields at dusk.

And when she woke up, she was a grown woman, torn apart by the world.

My moments spent in Higden, Arkansas, on the banks of Greers Ferry Lake were the most magical and bittersweet of my life.

I go back there often—mentally and physically—trying to relive it, to grasp some trace of what once was. I was an innocent child who, despite growing up surrounded by domestic abuse and alcoholism, still saw the world’s beauty and magic through a child’s unclouded eyes.

My best friend was a German Shepherd named Dusty, who followed me everywhere. My family knew I’d be safe playing in the woods or down by the creek alone because Dusty was as protective and capable as any adult—she’d never let anything happen to me.

I’d catch crawdads in a bucket while exploring the creek alone or with my cousin Buckey. I’d spend hours there, listening to the birds in the trees and wading barefoot through the cool, shallow water. Mosquitoes? Spiders? Snakes? All manner of creepy-crawly critters? I’m sure they were there—it was the woods, after all—but I never worried about them. I knew to be careful, but I never entered that wonderland with fear in my heart.

My grandparents lived in the house my grandfather built. They kept a big garden that grew every kind of vegetable, a grapevine I’d always pick from, and a watermelon patch that seemed to take hours to reach, though in truth it was only a few minutes’ walk through the woods.

I chased lizards that skittered alongside the house and watched deer crossing the field through the fog of early-morning sunrises while my grandparents sat on the porch at dawn.

Many times, my Grannie walked with me to the corner store where I’d always get my favorite orange sherbert and vanilla ice cream push-up pop. But on the way, there were so many other places to stop and people to visit.

Uncles Darrel, Chester, Marvin, Aunt Peggy and Uncle Ed and their big pond—almost everyone who lived on that road were family members.

We’d also stop at the honeysuckle and blackberry bushes alongside the dirt road, pick a few to take with us for the short trip.

But at night in Greers Ferry, that vast field in front of my grandparents’ house was my most treasured place.

Lightning bugs blinked on and off in every direction, as far as I could see. I’d catch them gently and talk to them for a while before setting them free. Lying on my back in the grass, I’d look up at the stars, wondering about everything beyond them, in complete awe of the mystery, power, and beauty of space.

The universe has fascinated me for as long as I can remember, and I’ve always felt a deep connection to it. I’d look up at the moon, the stars, the blackness, and it would take my breath away—it still does! Not only because it’s endless and mysterious and primordial, but because it’s so vast it defies human comprehension. Scientists claim to know how big it is, how old it is, and how it was created, but they forget to include Who created it.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m a science-lovin’ girl through and through! But I’m also a God-lovin’ girl, and I know which came first.

In contrast, it’s often the smallest things that carry the greatest weight and influence.

The nightly song of crickets, katydids, and frogs was music to my ears, and as I lay on that grass looking up at the magnificent sky, their euphony comforted me. Even now, every summer when I hear them, I close my eyes and savor it. Millions of tiny creatures all singing, oblivious to the chaos of the world, oblivious even to me, their quiet audience, lying there in awe.

But there was something else singing amid that chorus of thousands: a solitary Whippoorwill. Its lonely call rose above the others instead of being drowned out by their numbers. But I only ever heard the haunting bird when I was a young girl, and only in Greers Ferry.

When my innocent childhood ended, it stopped singing, too.

The grand chorus of nature that once comforted me eventually drowned out the Whippoorwill’s call. In the same way, the loud, boisterous world, so bewitching and persuasive, drowned out God’s voice in my heart.

That’s why this part of my life was so bittersweet—I lost my innocence there.

It remains the most vivid and influential time of my life, because it marked the end of my happy, fearless childhood. It was just before the harsh realities of life grew too heavy, the Enemy’s influence too strong, and my tender faith too fragile to stand beneath the weight.

It would be in the very place—Greers Ferry—where I found the most joy, that I also met sorrow.

Little did I know that Sorrow is good friends with Darkness, and before long, they became my constant companions.

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The text in this article is copyright © 2025 Jessica Tacu.

Bible verses in this article are from the KJV - King James Version.

**The following is part of my memoir. Please read this page for more information, as well as an easy-access list of each chapter.

A little girl with reddish-brown pigtails stood at the window, clutching her stuffed bunny as she gazed out over Edwardsville, Pennsylvania. From her child’s perspective, their apartment seemed impossibly high—perhaps a thousand stories tall. Beside her, her mother stood frozen, eyes wide with dread, the reflection of colossal orange flames flickering in her pupils.

Miles away, where the fire raged against the night sky, the little girl’s father was among the volunteer firefighters battling the inferno. Fear gripped her small heart as she wondered if he would come home or if the fire would take him away forever. Her mother’s stillness said everything. The little girl didn’t yet understand prayer, but that night she sent wordless pleas into the smoke.

That was the first time she ever felt the weight of death. And over four decades later, she never forgot it.

I was born and raised in Arkansas, but for a short time, my family lived in Pennsylvania, where my dad’s side of the family was from. My memories from those early years are scattered and hazy, but a few stand out, like slides on an old movie reel, as if time itself wanted me to remember.

There was the “candy train” that crawled along the tracks each week, tossing sweets to the children who waited, barefoot and eager. There was my stuffed bunny, the one I clutched tight when I slept under the coffee table, feeling safe in my little cave. I remember fire engines and the mustached men who laughed with my dad, the kites we flew together, the snow piled higher than my head.

Those were good memories. But the night of the fire—and the fear that my dad might never return—was my first encounter with a kind of fear that would follow me into adulthood: the fear of losing someone I loved.

Another memory from Pennsylvania left a different kind of mark. I was sitting on the floor, holding a baggie of cookies, when my parents started to argue. I don’t remember what it was about, just the sharp sound of my dad’s voice and the sudden blur of movement. The cookies flew across the room and hit the wall. I sat frozen, crumbs at my feet, confused and afraid of my dad for the first time.

Why is Daddy treating Mama that way?

That was the day I learned that domestic abuse was “normal”. It contributed to my string of unhealthy relationships later in life and exposed me to alcoholism.

My father never abused me, but he did abuse himself—and those who loved him most—through alcohol. My parents loved me dearly, but not each other. Their relationship was loud, painful, and unpredictable, and I soaked up every bit of it, even the parts I didn’t understand. Like the night my dad stood as a silhouette in the darkness, peeing inside my closet because he was too drunk to realize he wasn’t in front of the toilet.

When I was two, my dad’s addiction destroyed more than our home. He was involved in a drunk-driving accident in Arkansas that killed one woman and crippled another. He served eight months in jail and was discharged from the Air Force for his crime.

Alcoholism ran in his blood. My grandfather, also an alcoholic, died after falling asleep with a lit cigarette in his hand. His apartment burned, and they found him on the floor by the front door—almost out. Almost.

It seemed I was doomed from the beginning.

Abuse. Alcoholism. Fear of death.

Despite it all, I loved my dad deeply. I cherish our few good memories—his help with my Crater Lake science project, the days he picked me up early from school to take me swimming, his smile before the alcohol took it away. I fondly remember eating chili dogs while watching “The Dukes of Hazzard” in Southern Pines Trailer Park; sharing popcorn while “Star Wars” and “Superman” played on the big screen in the domed theatre on the corner of University and Asher Avenue.

But most of what I remember are fragments, flashes, like dreams where you know who’s there, but you can’t see their face.

I can’t remember a single moment of my mom and dad in the same room, except for that day when the cookies hit the wall.

I believe God protected me from the worst of it. I didn’t find out until decades later that my dad put a gun to my Mom’s head once. I never understood that the strange building where men were not allowed, and where my younger brothers and I stayed with my mom, was a Battered Women’s Shelter.

I never remember feeling unsafe around my dad, not really. I was daddy’s girl; he’d never hurt me. So then, why did we have to move into that strange place where the air smelled funny and the carpet was stained?

God is always in the details we often overlook.

It was only after my parents separated that my memories of them as individuals started to come together. But mostly what I took with me was the knowledge of fear without faith and an illustration of how relationships are not supposed to be.

But remember…God is in the details.

Despite the turmoil, before my parents separated, one of my brightest memories was of the blue bus from Lifeline Baptist Church. I can still see it now, rumbling down our road every Sunday morning, its paint faded and sun-worn, but to me, it was the brightest part of my day.

The man who drove it—CJ—had curly black hair and big, round glasses, and always brought a box of fresh donuts. I’d plop onto the squeaky vinyl seat, glazed sugar on my lips, heart full of joy.

Inside the Sunday School classroom, the walls were lined with colorful pictures of Noah’s Ark and Jesus with His sheep. The teacher had wavy, sandy-brown hair and kind eyes, and she always wore a long-sleeve blouse and a silver watch on her dainty wrist. I even remember her voice as she helped us memorize the books of the Bible—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus... The memory is so sharp that I can still see the paper in front of me, with its two neat columns of names.

It’s strange what the mind chooses to keep. I can recall that paper in perfect detail, yet I can’t remember the sound of my parents’ laughter.

One Sunday, another teacher from church told us that if we were “bad,” we’d go to Hell. I went home and told my mom, and that was the last time I ever rode the blue bus. I never saw CJ again or tasted another donut on those squeaky seats.

Church, from then on, became an every-now-and-then thing, something to do, somewhere to send us kids for a few hours of peace. Talk of Jesus Christ was rare, mentioned in passing like homework or chores. “Say your prayers before bed,” they’d remind me, the same way they told me not to touch a hot stove.

But even then, something in me knew.

I didn’t understand God, but I felt Him. I felt Him in that classroom, in the songs, in the stories of miracles. And though I would wander far from Him for decades, that little girl on the blue bus never stopped wanting to know the Man she heard about on Sunday mornings.

Why did something so small—a blue bus, a kind teacher, a list of Bible books—stay with me for over forty years?

Why did I prefer to sit in the spare bedroom of my grandparents’ house and look through a giant Bible that sat atop a chest of drawers, rather than to go outside and play?

Because it was God’s hand, guiding me even then.

He was already at work in my life, long before I ever knew His name.

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The text in this article is copyright © 2025 Jessica Tacu.

Bible verse credits:

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

**This is the beginning of my memoir. Please read this page for more information, as well as an easy-access list of each chapter.

June 17, 2015 – Maumelle, Arkansas

A Little Tree air freshener dangled from the rearview mirror of my car, where I sat in a Kroger parking lot. Alone. Broken. And tired—so very tired. Tears choked and blinded me; my insides were a mass of emotions coiled around one another like serpents knotted around my ribs.

I couldn’t breathe.

The harder I cried, the harder I cried. The unraveling of my body was like pulling the only thread left that held me together. Bit by bit, the demon tugged, grinning its devil grin, teeth dripping with malice and melancholy.

I wanted to die.

Not the emotionally driven, figure-of-speech, or attention-seeking kind of death, but the profound, literal kind that no one can possibly understand unless they’ve experienced the overwhelming feeling firsthand.

I. Wanted. To. Die.

As someone with an unhealthy, irrational fear of death for most of my adult life, suddenly wanting it to take me was confusing and cathartic. I welcomed death’s mercy. I felt a sense of freedom and joy in the moment that I cannot adequately describe in words, even as someone who once wrote for a living.

The parking lot, I thought, would be the next-to-last leg of my journey—the place where I’d pray a prayer that I hoped would set in motion the end of everything for me in this life. The days leading up to it trailed behind me like something lifeless, already gone.

I spent seventy-two hours in my walk-in closet, tucked inside a big house that was as ill-fitting on me as the world was. I had everything I’d ever wanted—and prayed for—even a successful career as an author with bestselling books that paid for that engulfing, too-big house I lived in. But I didn’t care for any of it—not the recognition, the money, the home, the car, the college fund for my kids, or the ticket out of lifelong poverty. The only thing that gave me any comfort in those seventy-two hours was the carpet beneath my wet cheek and my little dog, Ares, who never left my side.

I lost thirty-two pounds in what seemed like one week, though it was probably around three weeks leading up to the day in the parking lot. I remember I was so weak I could hardly feel my foot pressing the gas pedal or my hands white-knuckling the steering wheel as I drove toward it. I don’t even remember why I stopped there, of all places, or if I even knew where I was going.

The only thing I was sure of was that I didn’t want to be here anymore, and I was desperate to find a way out.

But how did I get to this point?

What could have possibly happened in my life that led me down a path of darkness so dark that I thought the only way out was to check out early? What could make a young woman who feared death and loved life—even when it didn’t love her back—want to die? How could a single mother who loved her children more than the world want to leave them in it to grow up without her?

Twenty-nine years. Twenty-nine years of living only where the dark things grow.

Thankfully, I was too afraid to take my own life. Instead, that day in the parking lot, under the cloudy sky and surrounded by passersby who were oblivious to my desperation, I prayed to God that He would do it for me. “Lord in Heaven, please just let me die. Or help me to live!”

He did the latter.

He changed my circumstances so quickly and drastically that there was no mistaking the events that unfolded soon after were a blessing—maybe even a miracle. Unfortunately, it still took eight more long, agonizing years before I would finally give my life to Jesus Christ in 2023.

It took half a lifetime (I hope) to wake up—to pull the blind away from my eyes. Little did I know that giving one’s life to Christ doesn’t make everything rosy and peaceful—quite the opposite. But I’ll get to that in a later chapter.

That answer to my desperate prayer in 2015 was just one of many that God has answered in my life; one of countless blessings and miracles He has performed; one of numerous times when He saved me from the brink of death, and saved me from myself.

Nevertheless, these blessings, however extraordinary, grand, or microscopic in scale, were only moments for me—like breaks in thick, black clouds allowing me to briefly experience the clear blue sky and feel its breezes on my face. But all too soon, the darkness would blot out that invigorating sunshine, and I’d start the cycle all over again.

And again.

And again.

The Darkness was a seed, planted in my life long before I knew there was such a thing as darkness. Slowly, over time, it grew—with and without sunlight. It was always there, in my happy moments and in those less-than-joyful. But I never saw it for what it was. Even when I was neck-deep in its soil, I wasn’t quite sure what it was doing to me. And by the time I understood, the twisted black vines had already wrapped around every limb, every thought, everything that meant anything to me.

And when I finally raised my head from the mire, death was there, waiting.

**The story you just read is the beginning of my memoir. Please read this page for more information, as well as an easy-access list of each chapter.

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The text in this article is copyright © 2025 Jessica Tacu.

Bible verse credits:

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Trigger Warning: The following article contains sensitive content that might be triggering to abuse survivors.

Recently, I found something I wrote in 2022. I even posted it on my Medium page, which I never use and forgot existed, but it’s still there, hanging in the digital air like dust in the aftermath of a demolition.

I wrote it as a fictional story, but looking back on it today, I realize how much it reveals about me. However, I won’t get into that. But I would like to post it here for anyone who might find it helpful.

“You, my friend, feel guilty. I understand; believe me, I understand.

The thought of leaving him to make yourself happy—to protect yourself—to live the life you long to live, is almost unbearable. And you usually ignore it.

Because you’re kindhearted; otherwise, you would have left a long time ago. And that is the problem with people like us—we care too much. We care so much about others, their feelings, their situations, and their circumstances that we neglect our own. We are not living our own lives, we are living everybody else’s, and sometimes we have to let go.”

My sister knew. She knew it the moment she looked at me. There were no bruises on my face or tears in my eyes—she knew because she had been there before. Just as our mother was before us, and our grandmother before her. I imagined it must run in the family, like breast cancer or heart disease.

“How are things with Grant?” she asked. (“Did he hurt you?”) is what she really wanted to say.

“Oh, things are good,” I told her with a smile in my voice. Does she know I’m lying? Am I fooling her?

She set a glass of iced tea in front of me, then pulled out a chair from the table and joined me there. Her kitchen was always so clean and bright; it had to be for all the photography and filming she did between its far-apart walls and tall ceiling. My sister was a food vlogger; she made a decent income preparing magic meals nobody had ever heard of and baking magic desserts that twenty-thousand-and-following subscribers salivated over. I envied her. She had a hobby she could be passionate about, something to keep her busy when life wasn’t being too kind.

On the other hand, I could only dream about that kind of passion anymore. My love for painting lost its luster about four years ago.

“Are you sure things are good, Olivia?” she asked. “It’s not like you to show up here. Randomly. On a Tuesday. At least, not anymore.”

Lifting the glass to my lips, I took a sip, if for anything, a distraction.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I knew what it meant, of course.

“Well, you used to show up randomly all the time,” she said, paused, and then added with caution, “before you got married.”

“Oh, come on,” I said, “things always change when people get married.”

“Not all things.” She stood and went to the counter, rummaging inside her big slouchy hobo purse. “I wanna show you something.”

She returned with her phone in hand, pulled her chair closer, and sat down again. Running her finger over the glass screen, she opened her photos and began to scroll. Down, down, down, until she made it all the way to the top. She set the phone on the table in front of me.

“Have a look.” She nodded toward the phone, insisting.

“What am I supposed to be looking at?”

I peered into the screen; photos of me from five years ago stared back at me from the glass.

“Yourself,” she said and leaned over, touching the screen with her fingertip. She scrolled slowly. “Look at how you used to smile, Liv. You were so happy then. Vibrant. Lively. Dramatic. Mouthy, even, but I always loved that about you.”

She continued to scroll. I knew where she was going with this, but I didn’t dare to point it out. The photos told a story. My story. About the person I used to be, the vibrant, lively, dramatic Olivia who used to show up randomly at my sister’s house for tea, wine, love, and conversation.

Photos. Four years ago…My smile had dampened. Just a little, but it was there, fading with the life I used to love.

Photos. Three years ago…A dampened smile had become something fake. Nobody smiles like that unless it’s forced.

Photos. Two years ago…There were fewer photos of me with my sister. She had to scroll through several months before she found one. I wasn’t smiling at all. What was I doing? I don’t even remember that day. Where was that taken? And why do I look like I just lost a loved one?

Photos. Last year—There were no photos of me with my sister. Not a single one.

She took the phone from my hand and placed it on the table, prompting me to look at her. At first, I couldn’t; a part of me felt ashamed to look her in the eye. I used to be able to tell her anything—I told her everything once upon a time. Now, I don’t visit her anymore, except on rare occasions, and the moment always feels awkward, silent, and needing. Like today. Like right now.

Yes, she knew I was lying all along. And no, I wasn’t fooling her.

Maybe that’s why I came to see her today—because she knew me better than I knew myself sometimes. Because she’d be able to detect it, to know right away that something was wrong. Because she’d have all the right words to say, and I’d know, in my heart, every single one that came out of her mouth would be true. And because I needed to hear them. It didn’t mean I’d heed them—but I needed to hear them, nonetheless.

“I don’t like to see you this way,” she said. “I miss my sister.”

“I’m the same sister,” I told her, unable to convince myself even. “I’ll start coming by more often if you want.”

She gave me a frustrated, knowing look. “This isn’t about me, Liv, and you know it. It’s about you and— ” She stopped herself.

Will she do it this time? Will she risk offending me by dragging Grant into this and forcing me to stay away from her for a few more months?

I didn’t want her to. And it was never that she offended me—she was right, and I was too proud to admit it. But I didn’t want to be too proud this time; I didn’t want to stay away. She was my sister, and she was all I had. And so, I stopped her.

“He doesn’t hit me,” I came out with it. “It’s not like it was when you were with Caleb.”

She flinched at those words; I didn’t mean for them to sound critical, and I hoped she didn’t take it that way. I was merely stating the truth.

My sister regarded me, tilting her head thoughtfully to one side.

“He doesn’t have to hit you for it to be abuse, Liv. Dad never hit Mom, as far as I know. But he still abused her. And he deserves to be where he is right now.”

Dad was six feet under right now, and her comment stung even though it was true. He died five years ago of a heart attack. Maybe it was the thirty-three years he lived with our mother, yelling at her constantly and reminding her daily how much he hated her, which damaged his heart and dropped him in the middle of the living room floor that day.

My sister reached out and took my hands into hers atop the table. Hers were soft like I remembered the last time she held mine, the day Mom died.

“I don’t know what Grant does or what he says,” she began, “but I do know that you’re not happy. You’re miserable. You’re not yourself anymore. Your light has burned out, Liv, and nobody should live like that—nobody.” She squeezed my hands.

Nobody. . . I thought.

Has your light gone out like Olivia’s? Are you in an abusive relationship that doesn’t fall into the category of abuse because it’s not physical? Is that what you believe, that it can’t be abuse because he doesn’t hit you?

Well, you’re wrong, and deep down, you know you’re wrong. Because deep down, you already know the solutions to most of your problems.

You know. . .

Millions of women are trapped in relationships like Olivia’s. Before they met their significant other, they might have been energetic, carefree, and happy. And maybe some of them might not have been so happy but lonely, hoping to find someone to fill the blank spaces in their lives. But they might have also been passionate about something, at least. They still had their hobbies, their families, and their friendships. These things, these people, always kept them afloat in their darkest times, even when they didn’t realize it.

Then one day, they met the person they thought was “the one”. This person evoked feelings they had never felt before and showed them a life they had never imagined. They found themselves on air with love, breathless, their heads filled with thoughts of this person, and they couldn’t wait to see them, to hold them, to be held by them. Before they knew it, they had pushed their families and friends away; they didn’t immerse themselves in their passions anymore because this person easily replaced them all. They had no time for anyone or anything else. Not even God.

Because they were in love.

And then one day. . .one day. . .he showed you who he really was, the gritty material his personality was made with; the dark, sad man who hid from you just long enough to trap you. Maybe it wasn’t intentional that he tried to trap you—in many situations like these, they never try. The only thing he did try to do with any level of coherence was to make himself believe he wasn’t who he was. He might have genuinely wanted to change, and he hoped, with all his heart, you would love him enough that it would change him—that you would change him.

But, my dear friend, my sister, hear me and understand me when I say this:

It is not your responsibility to change him, to make him a better person. Nor is it your responsibility to love him enough to make him change.

No. . . No. Listen to me. . . hear my words. . . let them sink into your mind and settle there. Think about them, believe in them, even if only for a moment.

You have only one life. One. And you have no idea how short or long that life will be.

You don’t know. . . You just-don’t-know…

I left my sister’s home after a long talk that I knew I’d never benefit from. It was the same advice she had given me before, the same hollow words I needed to hear so badly, but that I would forget the moment I stepped into my own house. The moment I saw Grant and his smile, the feeling of relief washing over him to know that I had come home. That I had forgiven him. Again.

But. . . the truth was that although I had forgiven him, I couldn’t forget. Not really. Five years together, four of them in a bad place, and a part of me knew that God didn’t want me to continue to allow him to abuse me.

No, I was just going through the motions, far too rooted in my life to make significant changes. Change always frightened me and made me uncomfortable. What would I do if I left him? Where would I go? But divorce would cause me so much stress, and it says in the Bible that. . . Well, Grant isn’t a bad person. Sometimes, he just gets lost and forgets who he is, who I am, and who we are together. We all have problems, and nobody is perfect—I don’t know how he puts up with me sometimes! (Excuses)

“Liv,” he said as I set my purse on the coffee table, “I really didn’t mean any of the things I said. I don’t know why I said them—(Because you meant them)—but I’m going to do better, I promise—(You always say that).”

He wrapped his arms around me and pressed his lips to my forehead.

(I love him. . . I just hate it when we fight.)

(And fighting is normal. There’s not a couple in the world that doesn’t fight now and then.)

But is it just fighting? Ask yourself that vital question. What does he say to you? How does he make you feel when he says these things? Deep down in the depths of your heart, do you believe he means them? What else has he done that has brought you to this moment, this stage in your relationship, that you can no longer accept and enable his emotional abuse, but can’t leave him yet?

There are many different kinds of abuse, my dear friend. If you answer “yes” to any of the questions I’m about to ask you, then you should listen to that other part of you, the part that brought you here in the first place.

Just listen to it. . .

❓Does he curse at you and call you names?
❓Does he scream at you?
❓Does he talk down to you, tell you how stupid or useless you are?
❓Does he use your weight or anything about your appearance against you?
❓Does he accuse you of things you haven’t done?
❓Is he controlling? Do you feel like you can’t go where you want or do what you want, or that it will create a problem?
❓Is he intrusive? Does he look at your text messages or check your social media accounts?
❓Is he jealous? Does he, in veiled jest or even in earnest, accuse you of looking at other men or being attracted to someone other than him when you have done nothing to warrant the suspicion?
❓When angry, has he ever grabbed you or pushed you?
❓Has he ever broken your belongings out of rage?
❓Do you feel like you’re always walking on eggshells around him?
❓Does he get angry with you easily? When he gets angry, do you often feel it was unjustified?
❓Does he get angry over the smallest things?
❓Does he threaten you? In any way?
❓Does he deliberately try to make you feel guilty for something you shouldn’t?
❓Do you feel manipulated by him?
❓Does he refuse to own his mistakes and always seem to have a reason or excuse to justify them instead?
❓Does he apologize after a fight, promising he’ll never do it again, only to…do it again?
❓At times, even if just for a fleeting moment, do you feel unsafe around him?
❓Do you find yourself apologizing or agreeing with him during or even before a brewing argument only because you don’t want it to escalate? Does it seem to escalate anyway?
❓Do you find yourself lost in your thoughts, wondering how peaceful your life might be if he weren’t in it?
❓Does he gaslight you?
❓Does he lovebomb you when he needs to lure you back in?
❓Do you have doubts about his love for you?
❓Are you suspicious of everything he tells you—especially when it’s lovebombing?
❓Has he ever cheated on you? Even once?
❓Are you unhappy?
❓Are you unhappy?
❓Are you unhappy…?

“I can’t take it anymore!” I slammed the door behind me and jumped in my car. Tears streaked the makeup on my cheeks, and my eyes burned. I thrust the key in the ignition and drove away before Grant could come after me.

He wouldn’t hit me—would he?

I’ve thought about it over the years that he might get mad enough to put his hands on me one day. He was never angry when we first met; he was the picture of a gentleman, the kind of man any woman would want to bring home to her parents. He treated me with respect and didn’t seem to have an angry or hateful bone in his body—everybody loved him.

But then that all changed—he changed. Like a snake shedding its skin.

It didn’t happen all at once but over time. Little things here and there, color began to bleed from his character. And I probably should have seen it then, heeded the red flags, but I ignored them because I was so in love with him.

I made excuses.

I blamed myself.

Maybe he is capable of hitting me—he gets so angry. Maybe that’s the next phase of his metamorphosis.

I white-knuckled the steering wheel as I drove onto the highway. Where am I going? What am I doing?

I knew I couldn’t go to my sister’s house. Not this time. It had only been two weeks ago I was there, sitting in her brightly lit kitchen, the darkness in my life casting a shadow in the room.

I can’t keep doing this; I can’t keep living like this.

But I love him. . .

Or. . . maybe I’m still in love with who he used to be—who I thought he was. No, no, I can’t say that!

Now I feel guilty—why do I always feel guilty?! Why is it always me?!

I drove to the park, slid the windows down, and turned off the engine. I used to do this all the time: sit alone in the park, listen to the birds chirping in the trees, watch the children play, and envision my next painting.

Oh, how I miss the smell of acrylic paint, the smoothness of the brush strokes. . . I. . . want my old life back. But. . . I just don’t know what to do.

You, my friend, feel guilty. I understand—believe me, I understand.

The thought of leaving him to make yourself happy—to protect yourself—to live the life you long to live, is almost unbearable. And you usually ignore it.

Because you’re kindhearted; otherwise, you would have left a long time ago. And that is the problem with people like us—we care too much. We care so much about others, their feelings, their situations, and their circumstances that we neglect our own. We are not living our own lives; we are living everybody else’s, and sometimes we have to let go.

We need to break the cycle. Too many women go on like this, wasting their lives away in relationships that break us down. We need to learn to be strong, to put ourselves first, before these men who do not deserve our love, devotion, affection, and time. We need to care about ourselves so much that we raise our heads high and say, “No more. I refuse to let any man treat me this way ever again.”

I know it’s difficult to choose to do the right thing because of the guilt we feel and the fear we face, but understand this. My final message to you. Listen and understand.

The relationship will end anyway. If you’re unhappy, in a toxic relationship, no matter how many times you forgive and forget, the day will come when it will all fall apart. Either he will leave you or do something unforgivable to make you leave him, or you will finally be so exhausted by it all that you will be the one to let go. But how many years will pass before that happens? How many years of your short time on this Earth will you waste in that toxic relationship that you continue to allow yourself to suffer?

There is a bright, peaceful, exciting, fulfilling future ahead of you if only you can pull your head and heart out of the darkness so you can see it. Picture it right now. Close your eyes and imagine doing all the things you’ve dreamed of; imagine finally taking that step forward toward your goals and passions and not having that burden weighing you down.

Untether yourself, cut the ropes that bind you, the strings that control you, and become who you were meant to be.

Life begins when you let go. . .

An update: I know many Christian women in abusive relationships have a difficult time believing they can leave, separate, or even divorce because they think it’s a sin and unbiblical. But it’s absolutely not. I struggled with this myself for most of 2025 until God opened my eyes and gave me clarity—after opening the door for me to leave my own abusive relationship.

The point is that I want to ease your concerns. Or rather, I would like to do something I don’t normally do, and link to someone that I don’t know personally, but can address these questions and concerns you might have.

Check out the perspective of YouTuber Kris Reece, who tackles this sensitive topic from a biblical perspective. She has helped me to understand a great deal, and I think she can help you, too.

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Text in this article is copyright © Jessica Tacu 2022-2026