Meg Corrigan, Christian Writer and Motivational Speaker
Then I Am Strong: Moving from My Mother’s Daughter to God’s Child is for any readers who have experienced challenges and disappointments in their lives and want to be counted as survivors and thrivers, not victims. This book is an insightful, humorous, and courageous look at the life of one girl growing up in a profoundly volatile family. The story chronicles Meg Corrigan’s existence with her alcoholic mother, her codependent father, and her over-responsible sister, as they move through their lives in the shadow of the bottle. Corrigan describes the lack of permanency of her military family, her unstable childhood with her mother’s addiction, and the anxiety of having no one in her world that she could count on. Anger and depression haunted her as a young adult.
At age twenty-five, Corrigan was sexually assaulted at gunpoint, and then was victimized once again by the unconscionable treatment of the medical and law enforcement communities, and by her own father who told her to forget the entire incident happened. She spent nearly two decades married to a man who was never able to understand or provide empathy for what she had been through. She eventually saw a therapist and was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Because of her many traumas, Corrigan also developed chronic pain, which remains with her to this day.
When she was twenty-eight, hurting, and despondent, Corrigan discovered God and His plan for her life, which allowed her to forgive her parents–and most of all, herself. She ended her marriage and began her journey from pain to healing. She got married to “the right man,” one who treats her well and wants her to be whole and happy.
The author shares her journey to encourage others and to show that no matter what happened in your past, it does not have to determine your present and future.
I felt honored to read this wonderful narrative…the dynamics of a family system are well-articulated…It details, as the Big Book would say, ‘what it was like, what happened and what it is like now.’ This author has an important story to tell. ~ Robert H. Albers, PhD, Professor of Pastor Theology, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, New Brighton, MN
