All the broken fathers who fell short of what we needed and all the faltering mothers who chose their own needs over ours, they follow us, long after we've moved past them, into adulthood, into our own parenting, into our relationship with God. It is the first failing we own, our inability to heal our parents' brokenness. Before we even form a sense of ourselves we know, somehow, we've failed because our existence isn't enough to make them whole.

Our portal into this world, the first voices we hear, first eyes that drink us in, first hands that receive us, are also our introduction...