“Floaters” I tilt my head toward the ache of heaven, the blue so wide it feels like I could bleed into it, and there they are again, tiny, luminous ghosts, drifting across the vault of my sight like silver minnows trapped behind glass. They are my white blood cells, the body’s quiet soldiers, but I see them as glitter, confetti spilled by God’s trembling hand, proof that something still fights for me, even when I’m too tired to lift a prayer. They swim through my vision like the remnants of...

The first time I met her, she was crying in the church bathroom. Her hands trembled around a tissue, mascara smudged under her eyes. I didn’t know then that her husband had punched her on the way to church. I only knew the look …that stunned, hollow-eyed sorrow that some women wear when they’re trying to believe God still notices them. We spoke like strangers who already recognized something in each other. She told me she used to be Southern Baptist before converting to Mormonism. I told her...

You used to say God could forgive anything. You said it with that cold assurance that kinda made mercy sound like a punishment. It was confusing (and painful- physically and emotionally) being a child under your authority. You mainly and heavily quoted scripture with that sharp tone … the one that made even softness feel like sin. You spoke as if forgiveness were a formula you’d mastered, as if reciting verses could erase everything ugly you ever did. But here’s what I’ve come to learn… God,...