My Story
ABOUT JULIE
I see You. I was you.
I am Julie. A single mom, a Christian, and someone who has lived a hard life and come out the other side. This is the short version of how I got here, and why I built Strength and Light.
who i am.
I'm a single mom to four boys. I homeschool the younger two, and I run a small business from my kitchen table. Some days it feels like I'm carrying a lot, because I am.
The truth is, I'm a private person. Sharing the hard parts of my story doesn't come naturally. But I keep coming back to the same reason: community.
I think about the woman sitting in her car somewhere, trying to hold it together, searching for something that reminds her she's not the only one struggling. I've been her.
If being honest about my journey helps even one mom feel seen, understood, or encouraged today, then sharing my story is worth it.
THE VALLEY
I did not start here.
I left home at fifteen. I have overcome addiction and am a survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault. I had my first son at seventeen. And I spent twenty years with a man whose drinking and abuse shaped the home my boys grew up in.
I held it together for a long time. I tried to be the good Christian wife and make everything look fine from the outside. For years I believed the quietest lie there is: that I was completely alone, and that if anyone knew the truth about my life they would judge me or walk away.
THE TURNING POINT
He let me break to free me.
I knew I had to leave, and I had to find a way to provide for my boys on my own. I had no idea how I was going to do it, but I took the first step anyway.
So I started building from the ground up. I launched a business and taught myself skills I never imagined I'd need. Even now, there are mornings when I sit with my coffee and tell God I need Him to show up because I don't have it all figured out. And He does. Not always on my timeline, but always right on time.
Why Strength + Light exists
I built what I could Not find.
Strength and Light is for the mom still in her valley. The one who is years into something that is wearing her down. The one who built a wall after being hurt too many times. The one who smiles at church and says she is fine, then goes home and cries alone.
I am not here to perform, or pretend I have it all figured out. I don't. I am still in my own process and I still have hard days. I am here to walk it out honestly, with you, and to hand you something you can actually use.
Psalm 68:5 calls God a father to the fatherless. That promise is the ground everything here is built on. He did not look at your family and see a deficiency. He said, I will be that.
Raise him on purpose.
If you want somewhere to land
Come be with women who get it.
There is a free guide and a free community waiting whenever you are ready. Come introduce yourself and find the other moms doing exactly what you are doing. You are not alone here.
