I’m in round two of book edits this morning. The more detailed kind of edits that make me dig down deep to get to the softest heart spots. You know the ones – the most-protected-places that make your eyes leak the second they are uncovered.

I didn’t realize that I had left out one detail of The Shawna Story until I saw the comment from my editor right there in the manuscript-margin. “When was this? I feel like we need a sense of time here,” she wrote. “We usually remember exactly where we are and what we’re doing when we get awful news like this.”

And then the tears started. Without warning. And I realized: I had subconsciously cut out that “where I was when I heard” detail because I was embarrassed. Because hindsight is 20/20, right? I should have been there with her when the cancer news came. But I wasn’t. I was an hour and a half away, pampering myself instead.

And the memory of it embarrasses me.

But as I wrestled through it on the pages of my prayer journal this morning, I had to remind myself that those are the kinds of details that are relatable. And then God flashed a scene from This Is Us in my brain. The one where Rebecca is beating herself up all those years later because the moment she found out her husband died she was eating a candy bar. “That moment haunts me still,” she said. And I breathed out relief because I’m not the only one.

So this morning, I’m pushing up my sleeves and pushing away the shame of that moment that is ordinarily not shameful. And digging in deep to fill in the holes of this book. Because September is coming up quick. And this book-babe is almost cooked.

Also, if you could title an Instagram post, I would call this one “That Time That God Used This Is Us To Speak To My Shame”.