Most of the articles I’ve published through the years fall into the category of Personal Experience. Sometimes, I worry this category is a cop-out. Too easy. No research needed. No interviews to conduct. No fictional plot to arc. (Trust me, you can’t make this stuff up.)

But then I remember the gospels are personal experience pieces. Sometimes in the first person, as in “then we sailed to Ephesus.” Sometimes in the as-told-to form. (Luke wasn’t at the Nativity, but scholars think he probably heard the story straight from Mary in her latter years.)

Experts differ on how one should approach a personal experience story. In the 1980’s, I heard a famous Guideposts author declare she never used the real names of her children in any story.

In our family of writers, we not only use their real names, we discuss their bowel habits. I have used real names in everything. Except that one time when I wrote on a delicate subject and thought I’d use a pseudonym so I changed my name and Wendell’s. Then I decided to just be me, but I forgot to change Wendell’s name back. So now our great-grandchildren may discover a book in my collection someday where I talk about intimate issues with my husband, Allen.

Sometimes Jesus and the gospel writers used real names. Like Mary Magdalene who once had seven devils in her soul. Other times, they used a general term, like the Prodigal Son, who may or may not have been an actual person.

So, I keep being transparent. And never more so than in a recent article published by Proto magazine, a publication of Massachusetts General Hospital. In the essay, I discuss our family’s struggle with addiction and the medical community’s inability to diagnose it.

Addiction is rarely a public conversation. We have a global organization devoted to Anonymity, after all. Yet, Wendell and I are fortunate to live in a community where such struggles are without stigma. Many of our friends have faced similar issues, and we continue to cheer one another on in our new lives with Christ.

Maybe, our story will help someone else man-up the way Wendell did. Maybe someone else will find the courage to take the medicine of repentance and achieve the peace that passes understanding.

Maybe using our real names will help some other family find forgiveness. Maybe by being transparent, we can help someone else see the Light.

If you are interested, you can read the story here.