I didn’t realize what an obstacle a criminal record really is. It’s hard to make any forward progress. It’s a wonder they don’t give up. Working here, you become a more compassionate person, because you’re exposed to peoples’ stories that you never would have known anything about.

While applying for the job, a memory of my own childhood re-surfaced. During the recession, around 2007-8, one early morning, I was getting ready for grade school. I was shivering, and brushing my teeth with cold water. For a few months, we did not have heat or hot water. I would boil pots on the stove to take baths in the mornings, and double up on socks at night. This was life.

As a believer, I gain great peace in the knowledge that my Lord and Savior is the Great Sustainer, despite my limitations and failures. He keeps His promises to us and in Him, we succeed. In Him, we can start or stop anything. In Him, we have strength.

As God’s children, we have both the ultimate justice and the best place of belonging in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Each of us is known to Him—we are known before we are born into this world and in every circumstance after until we are called Home. Each hair on our heads is known to God. What a staggering concept that is—that we are known, continuously and at that level of detail, by the Maker of Heaven and Earth.

My practice is focused on representing survivors of domestic abuse in family law and protective order cases. Two of my clients suffer from permanent brain damage because of the beatings they received at the hands of their husbands. Several of my clients have endured violent attacks in front of their children or grandchildren. Some of my clients came to me full of uncertainty because their spouses “only” abused them emotionally or financially, and maybe, they wondered, it wasn’t really that bad.