What happens when a child grows up believing she is unwanted, yet somehow continues to believe that God knows her name?
My Life Is in Your Hands and I'm Holding On, Lord is Cynthia M. VanderKodde's deeply personal story of growing up amid mental illness, alcoholism, poverty, abuse, rejection, and instability-and of the faith that remained even when life seemed unbearable.
From Harlem to Minnesota, from children's shelters and Christian schools to the people who opened their homes and hearts to her, Cynthia's journey reveals both the wounds of childhood and the unexpected places where grace appeared.
More than thirty years after first telling her story, Cynthia returns to it with new understanding. She names what she once minimized, reconsiders what forgiveness truly means, and separates human brokenness from God's redemptive work.
This is not a story that pretends suffering was necessary. It is a story about what suffering did not get to destroy.
Through grief, motherhood, broken relationships, therapy, faith, and healing, one truth remains:
The pain did not get the last word.
There is joy.
