Several years ago, my friend Heather sent me a care package. In it was a little gratitude journal called 101 Joys Make a Rainbow. The idea was that every day you’d record something you were grateful for and then fold the page. When you were done the booklet, you’d have an entire rainbow of “joys.”

I still remember the day I decided to take a break from church.

For months I had been spiralling after attending the church service each Sunday. I’d go to church, hear the sermon, and it was like every word spoken from the pulpit, every song I heard sung from the congregation was pointing a nasty finger at me, telling me I was defective. I couldn’t get it right. I was unlovable.