Romans 8:1: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

Meaning: “Not guilty. Let this person go free.” What would those words mean to you if you were on death row? In reality, the whole human race is on death row, justly condemned for repeatedly breaking God’s holy law. Without Jesus we would have no hope at all. But thank God! He has declared us not guilty and has offered us freedom from sin and supernatural power to do his will.

Reflection: Where Do I Blame Myself for Things I Couldn’t Control?

There are parts of my story I used to tiptoe around, like broken glass scattered across the floor of my childhood. I tried to walk on it carefully, pretending it didn’t hurt, pretending I wasn’t still bleeding. But the truth is — some wounds don’t fade quietly. Some wounds scream. Some wounds sit in the center of your chest for years and tell you everything was your fault.

And for the longest time… I believed them, sometimes they sneak up and I still do.

🌙 When Blame Becomes the Background Noise of Your Childhood

There were so many things in my life that I blamed myself for — things no child should ever absorb, things I never had the power to control. But children don’t understand power. They only understand patterns. They see pain and assume they caused it.

For me, one of those patterns was my mother’s alcoholism.

I knew something was wrong long before anyone ever told me. Kids are sharper than adults think — they see what isn’t said, they feel the heaviness behind closed doors. I could tell the difference between the mom who woke up sober and steady… and the mom who dissolved into someone else by nightfall. Morning mom cooked breakfast, tied my shoes, laughed easy. But night mom… Night mom was heartbreak wrapped in a woman’s body.

She would crawl into my bed thinking I was sleeping, wrap her arms around me, and cry like her soul was leaking out. Not a few tears — sobs. The kind of crying that soaks through your shirt. The kind of crying that makes a kid hold her breath because she doesn’t know what to do except exist quietly beneath the weight of someone else’s sadness. And mixed in that sadness was the smell: Crown Royal, wine, whatever bottle she reached for too dull whatever was eating her alive.

That’s when the blame attached itself to me like a second skin. I was just a little girl trying to make sense of a mother who was two different people. And in my child brain, I made the only conclusion I knew how to make: She drinks because she can’t handle being my mom. Some nights I thought she drank because I wasn’t enough. Because I was too much. Because men had left. Because I believed, even as a child, that I was the problem in the room or that it was my responsibility to fix it.

I tried to fix what was never mine to fix. I tried to be her comfort. I tried to be her emotional anchor. A nine-year-old playing the role of a grown woman’s lifeline. Do you know what that does to a kid? It rewires your entire understanding of love. It teaches you that love means carrying someone else’s weight on your tiny shoulders. It teaches you that you’re responsible for someone’s pain. It teaches you to blame yourself for things you didn’t break.

The Blame That Still Makes My Hands Shake When I Write It

There’s one wound — one memory — that has shaped more guilt in my life than anything else. And it still makes my chest tighten and my eyes burn when I put it into words.

The summer after I turned 11, I made the decision to go live with my father. It wasn’t rebellious. It wasn’t dramatic. It was survival.

I couldn’t handle the constant whiplash that came with loving my mom but never knowing which version of her I’d get. I was exhausted. Confused. Emotionally stretched thin by things no child should have to navigate. So I left. From May to November.

Later I was told that during those months, she drank more. She cried more. She spiraled deeper. And hearing that felt like someone pressed a branding iron into my heart. My child brain turned that information into a verdict: She got worse because you left.

But I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t know the universe was shifting. I didn’t know God was setting up the last chapter of her story. All I knew was that when I came home to visit, I felt pulled back. So I moved in again.

I didn’t realize God was handing me the final three weeks I’d ever get with her. Three weeks that should’ve been precious. Three weeks that should’ve been slower, softer, sacred. Looking back now, with grown-woman eyes and a healed heart slowly stitching itself together, I can finally see something I couldn’t see then:

God gave me three extra weeks with my mom. Three weeks. Twenty-one days. Moments disguised as ordinary life — moments I didn’t recognize as sacred because I had no idea I was living inside a countdown. When I came back home that November, something in me instinctively felt lighter, like I had returned to the place where some invisible thread was pulling me. I thought I came back because I missed her, because the weight and guilt of living away from her grew too heavy. But now I know — it was God’s hand on my shoulder, gently guiding me back for a goodbye I didn’t realize I needed.

But when I think about those three weeks… I can feel the sorrow rise in my chest like a tidal wave.

Because I didn’t know. I didn’t know the clock was ticking. I didn’t know every moment mattered. I didn’t know her laughter, her tired eyes, her presence in the home — all of it — was slipping through my fingers faster than I could catch it. And if I could go back… my God… I would have lived those twenty-one days so differently. But I was 11. I didn’t know the clock was running out.

🌪️ The Night Everything Changed

The night before she died is a memory I’ve replayed so many times it feels burned into me. She was drunk before 5pm. Slurring. Stumbling. Already slipping away into that version of herself I didn’t have the emotional strength to deal with anymore. So, I did what I always did when I felt overwhelmed — I left. I asked to sleep at a friend’s house. She drove me.

I don’t remember the conversation, but I remember the sting of frustration, the embarrassment, the exhaustion. And when I shut the car door, the last words that came out of my mouth were: “I hate you.” I don’t know if she heard me. And honestly, that uncertainty is its own kind of torture.

But what haunts me isn’t saying it — kids lash out, kids get overwhelmed. What haunts me is this: I couldn’t remember the last time I told her I loved her. Because at that time… I didn’t feel like I did. And then she died. And the guilt ripped me apart for years.

💔 The Next Morning — The Moment Childhood Ended

I woke up to missed calls from my brother. When I finally called back, all he said was: “I’m coming get you.” His voice sounded wrong. Shaky. Panicked. The whole drive home, nobody answered my questions. I could see fear in their faces, and I felt it crawling under my skin, but nobody said a word. When we pulled into the driveway, he turned around from the passenger seat… and that image? I will never forget it.

My brother — only fifteen —staring at me with tears streaming down his face. His eyes red. His lips shaking. His whole world collapsing while he tried to find the words and keep it together. And then he said them.

“Mom died.”

His voice broke. He broke, not on the outside, but I saw the light leave his eye in that moment, and it’s never came back. I felt something inside me die with those words too. I didn’t scream at first — my body just stopped. Then the tears came, realization slowly setting in. When I stepped out of the car, that’s when it hit me.

My legs gave out. Completely. I dropped to my knees on the concrete — the kind of drop where you don’t even feel your body hit the ground because the emotional pain is louder than anything physical.

My brother — a child himself — scooped me up. Lifted me off the ground. Carried me inside because I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t exist in that moment. Do you know what that does to a person? To see your brother — still just a kid — carrying you inside as he sobs, because both of you have just become motherless children in the same second? It carves something into your bones. A grief that isn’t clean or quiet. A guilt that doesn’t ask permission — it just moves in and grows roots.

The feeling I can only describe like this: It felt like the world caved in on top of us, and neither of us could save each other from the pain. Like regret was an avalanche and I was standing at the bottom. Like every “maybe if I had…” and “I should’ve…” swallowed me whole before I could even catch my breath. I didn’t just hear that she died — I felt it. In my knees. In my lungs. In the way the world suddenly tilted sideways.

There are no words big enough for that kind of grief. There are no metaphors deep enough for that kind of moment. It’s a rupture. A tearing. A soul fracture that never really seals the same way again. And that’s when another form of blame rooted itself inside me like poison: I blamed myself for not answering the phone sooner. I blamed myself for not staying home that night. I blamed myself when another adult said, “If she would’ve stayed home, she probably wouldn’t have left.”

Do you know what that does to an eleven-year-old? It buries them alive. For years, I believed I could’ve saved her. That I should’ve saved her. & That the fact I didn’t save her meant I failed.

🌤️ But Now — As a Grown Woman — God Is Teaching Me the Truth

I was a child. A daughter who needed a mother. A little girl doing the best she could with a reality she never asked for. I didn’t cause her addiction. I didn’t trigger her pain. I didn’t make her drink. I didn’t fail her. Her choices were not my responsibility. Her demons were not mine to slay. Her death was not something I could have prevented — no matter how hard I’ve punished myself.

And God… God has been slowly, lovingly dismantling every lie I grew up believing. What looked like abandonment was actually protection. What looked like trauma was shaping me into someone stronger, softer, wiser. What looked like loss was setting the stage for redemption.

I’m learning to accept that my story, as painful as it is, was allowed — not to destroy me — but to transform me. I’m learning to breathe without the chains of guilt strangling me. I’m learning that healing isn’t forgetting — it’s understanding. It’s letting God rewrite the meaning of things I never understood before. It’s realizing He was there in every moment — even the ones that broke me. And slowly… so slowly… He’s teaching me to forgive myself for things that were never mine to carry.

🌾 Closing Prayer

God, lift the blame I stitched into my soul. Teach me to release what was never mine to hold. Wrap my younger self in mercy and whisper truth into the lies she believed. Show me that even the darkest parts of my story were woven into Your plan for my healing. Give my heart rest, give my spirit peace, and let me walk forward unburdened — knowing I was a child, knowing I was loved, and knowing none of this was my fault.

Amen.

XOXO, The Healing Wildflower