The Unraveling

The Unraveling Musings About Codependency, Deconstruction, Divorce, Hope, and Rebirth, Book 1

By: Helen Joy George

Narrated by: Helen Joy George

This beautiful book documents the author's intimate journey of codependency, religious deconstruction, divorce, heartbreak, and ultimately ends with her finding her way back to herself.

©2024 Helen Joy George (P)2024 Helen Joy George

Windows of Peace

I am not a regular reader of poetry, but I am so grateful for the story shared by HJ in these poems. She shares so much of her pain and growth, and I can hear the peace she’s been gifted in her self-reflection

Passion

Helen Joy has done it again! Her raw, unfiltered vulnerability draws you in, and you are immediately by a cozy fire, sipping on something warm, cuddled up in your favorite blanket. Her writing is that special! This is such a great read on the insider perspective of what someone goes through when everything falls apart and comes back together.

Her beautiful expression of what was in her heart

Her poetic writing style is so beautiful. The pouring out of her soul is so raw and touching as she peels back the layers to healing and then recovery in finding herself.

Devastatingly Raw and Beautiful

The story told in Unraveling is at once heartbreaking and awe-inspiring, brutal and empowering.

Helen Joy delivers a reading of her poetry about seventeen years of grappling with a loveless, psychologically abusive marriage, then awakening to her worthiness and saying yes to the death of that relationship in order to live.

This is a woman’s potent reclamation of her belovedness. This is the telling of a homecoming journey. This is a bold expression of the choice we face when we look at the collateral damage of the patriarchy and its ties to Evangelical Christianity, and make the brave decision to grieve it all in order to know joy and wholeness.

The lines that stood out to me most were written in a poem in which George talks about how miserable Saturday mornings used to be, as she would regularly find herself berated by her husband with nagging, degrading comments as he tried to play the good guy role by making family breakfast. Amidst the onslaught of insults would be critique with why she had let the greens go bad…again. In the wake of her divorce and newfound love, she speaks of what Saturday mornings now look like; sleeping in, kids at ease, spending time writing…and then she closes with:

“…my spinach rots in the fridge
And I am free.”

An incredible journey of vulnerability and rebirth

This collection of poems feel like a precious offering for anyone who has been hurt by a love they were told was good and holy, whether by another person or a religious institution. Helen Joy writes with such raw vulnerability about the anguish, loneliness, and despair that this kind of violence can inflict on us, especially when it comes at the hands of parents, lovers, and people of faith. Yet, even in her heart wrenching recollections, she weaves hope, joy, beauty, wonder, peace, healing, and reconnection throughout this book while clinging to her Christian faith as a source of strength and refuge, separating her Creator from when she has experienced at the hands of His creation.