I am not a cryer.
I used to be, but for the last six years, I haven’t really cried—at least not in public. Maybe an occasional tear here and there, every few months. Even then, I try to hide it. I don’t like people seeing me as vulnerable.
After four years in an abusive marriage, during which I birthed three children and fostered five more, I had built a wall around my heart. Very little got in, and even less got out. I’d stand in my kitchen after another argument with my husband, barely able to breathe, and whisper to myself, “Build the wall… but don’t let your heart harden.”
I knew that the moment my heart hardened, bitterness would take over. Joy would have no room. Every single morning, I had to choose joy. I chose to snuggle my babies, savor their giggles, and find beauty in a life that often felt like hell.
My marriage, however, continued to unravel, like someone slowly pulling yarn from an unfinished sweater. It didn’t take much. I watched the life I had imagined, stitched together with plastered-on smiles and endless apologies, crumble. I’d sit in the front room of my house, stare at the custom-built bookcases I had dreamed about, and think, “I can’t do this anymore. I need out.” Then, moments later, “I can’t leave my marriage over a house.”
One day, I sat in my mentor Marla’s office. I inhaled sharply when she said, “You need to ask the Lord if He has released you from the covenant you entered into when you married.” Marla’s words always carried weight—either humor or deep wisdom. At my next therapy session, I felt the Lord speak clearly: He had released me. After all, a one-sided covenant isn’t really a covenant.
As I drove home, tears flowed freely. I told God I was ready to fight for my marriage. But He gently reminded me I had been fighting for four years already—and that it was okay to stop.
I watched my childhood dreams, teenage hopes, and longings leave as if they had never intended to stay. I said goodbye to friends who didn’t understand my decision, my dream house, my car, and the illusion I had lived in for four long years. I didn’t even miss him—my world was somehow less frightening without him.
Five months later, I stood in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit waiting room. My arms wrapped around my brother and parents, while our pastors sat quietly behind us. Rain poured outside in the blackness of night, and I began to sing.
My mom joined in. We sang and prayed as medical staff worked tirelessly behind double doors to stabilize my sister. She was sixteen, and after attempting to take her own life, she had gone a long time without oxygen to her brain. The first 72 hours were critical, and hundreds of people visited the hospital during that time. Friends and family drove through the night to be with us. Thousands of prayers were whispered, sung, cried, and shouted, all pleading for Krissie’s life.
But when those 72 hours ended, we said goodbye. Her brain had been deprived too long.
Kristel Renee Hope.
She had been named after three great aunts, and the name Hope fit her perfectly. Doctors told my mom she would never bear children. Even as a teen, she prayed to adopt. A miracle brought me into our family, another miracle my brother KJ, and four years later, another miracle—my adopted sister, Krissie.
She had come from a mama who loved her deeply enough to let another family raise her as their own. Kristel was born into two families.
I had prayed for a brother. Then I prayed for a sister. God answered both prayers. I’ve known my entire life He is a hearing God because of that.
So, when I learned of her suicide attempt, I circled my kitchen island whispering, “I prayed for her! God, I prayed for her!” I wanted to run out and punch trees, to release the rage swelling inside—not at her, not at God, but at a broken world, at the enemy, who temporarily thinks he wins. I didn’t run. I didn’t punch. I circled the island and whispered again before heading to the hospital.
Sometimes, God answers prayers the way we expect. Sometimes, He doesn’t. When I was seven and prayed for a sister, He didn’t open my mom’s womb—she no longer had one. He gave me a redemption story instead.
God didn’t heal my sister here on earth. We didn’t see the miracle we prayed for—but He gave us a miracle through her life, her sacrifice, and through His resurrection almost 2,000 years ago.
Krissie’s blood type and organ health made it possible for her body to save lives after she passed. She, who had planned to be a paramedic and travel the world helping others, became a life-giver in the most profound way. Over the next days, we prayed for every person receiving a part of her: heart, kidneys, liver, corneas, bone marrow, skin grafts. We thanked God for letting us hold her earthly body one last time.
On April 23, the day after what would have been her seventeenth birthday, we walked her down the PICU halls with our extended family behind us. Nurses, doctors, and technicians lined the hallway, paying respects to a hero. We knew her spirit had left days earlier, but holding her body was comforting. The double doors opened, and she was gone.
Kristel Renee Hope Stahl.
When I say her name, I don’t see a hospital bed. I don’t see her funeral. I see her smile that lit a room. Her laugh. Her little eye-roll at my “mom fashion.” Her soft hands, perfect pixie nose, and her sandy curls. I imagine her holding a tiny bird wearing a flower crown, the wind in her hair. Her spunky walk. Her heart.
I prayed as a little girl. God transformed those prayers, breathed life into them, and gave me Krissie.
Hope.
I cry more these days. I’m healing, with therapy, family, friends, and God. The stones I carefully laid around my heart have been removed, one by one.
Through these tears, I’ve discovered new hope. Hope that my story isn’t over. That my pain isn’t wasted. That the grief of my marriage and my sister’s death won’t always hurt so sharply. Hope that I’ll see Krissie again, because this earth is not our home. Hope that her story continues through the lives she touched, through every prayer and memory.
Hope that lives and breathes because Jesus lives and breathes.
I share this story with tears streaming down my cheeks. I am healing.
Maybe, just maybe, I am a cryer again.
