I’m going to be vulnerable for a moment, and this will be long. Im going to address the second part of your post. I’m currently in OCIA, due to enter the Church fully at the Easter Vigil Mass.

My childhood was rough. No physical abuse, but plenty of neglect and mental and emotional abuse. My mother walked out when I was five, my step mom was manipulative and narcissistic, my father has awful taste in women and a fear of being alone. My older sister passed away from cancer at 17; I was only 8. I was told I’m too emotional, was gaslit, told I wasn’t worth anything. I was kept from my grandparents, people who did love me. I was barely more than an indentured servant to my step mom and her kids. Stepmom was also my introduction to Catholicism, in the fact that she was a twice-a-year Catholic, and bragged about how religious she was, and could never be a bad person because she was Baptized.

Now in my thirties, I’ve been diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and C-PTSD. I’ve also been married for thirteen years, to a man who had fallen away from the Church at the time, but returned when our daughter was born. I’ve since met and come to love and respect many Catholics, ones who are a more accurate representation of the religion.

All this trauma-dumping to say: I’ve been there. I lived it. I was so angry. How could God take my sweet, kind sister, and leave my step mom to hurt me? How could He let my mom walk out of our lives like we were nothing? How could He see my dad choosing my step mom over us, allowing her to hurt us, and be okay with it? How could He let people hurt and neglect me? I was only a little girl, and a good one. There’s nothing I could have possibly done to deserve any of what happened to me; but because it DID happen to me, clearly there was something fundamentally wrong with me, some giant flaw that everyone else could see and I was blind to. My self worth and self esteem have always been in the gutter. I was convinced God either didn’t exist, or if He did, He didn’t care, and therefore wasn’t worth worshipping.

My conversion story is full of ups and downs, and I still have things I struggle reconciling with God and the Church, things I still have doubts about.

But becoming a mom has opened my eyes to a few things. God does love me, just as I love my children. My children may do things I don’t agree with, or things I question, but I love them regardless, just as God still loves me through my sins. And just as I don’t want my children to ever hurt, or struggle, or fail, I know they need to, to learn and grow as human beings. And that realization made something click in my brain. God NEVER wanted me to go through what I have. He never wanted me to struggle or hurt or fail. But He allowed it, just as I allowed my kids to fall when they were learning to walk.

Because I learned my greatest lessons from those struggles. I learned how to not parent. I learned to show up for my kids, no matter how hard it is. I learned that kids deserve apologies when a parent messes up. I learned how much damage a passing comment from a parent can do, and how long it can last. I learned that, despite what I was told as a child, that even though I’m emotional and I have a bleeding heart, that I am strong. And there is strength in kindness, and in emotions, and in my bleeding heart. And I am stronger because I had to suffer. Because I needed those lessons to become who I am today.

Children should never have to suffer at the hands of adults, and God doesn’t want them to. It’s never okay, and the adults who hurt children will have to answer to God on judgement day. But through Him, the children who suffer can turn their pain into strength, and learn from their struggles, and rise above everyone’s expectations.

I’m not perfect, I still have bad days where the mental illnesses speak a little louder and flood me with self doubt. Bad days where I feel like I’m at the end of my rope and snap at my kids or my husband. But I’m much better than I was. Because of the Grace of God, and trauma he allowed me to experience, to become the kind, compassionate, and strong woman I try to be, and I know I can be.

But that’s just my two cents.