Namaste, y’all.

Hey, I’m Lauren.

A thirty-something, doubtful-yet-hopeful Jesus person, gym rat, and bookworm. Working through spiritual decon/recon, infertility, and self-doubt.

I daylight as a professional conversion copywriter, penning words even non-readers read: descriptions on product packaging and Amazon pages, brand taglines, social media ads…

But after 5 o'clock, I moonlight as an aspiring WRITER writer. I’m preparing to publish my first non-fiction in partnership with my publisher, Lake Drive Books. It’s a travel memoir that follows my journey through India, spiritual deconstruction, and trauma recovery.*

The only one in the friend group who doesn’t do caffeine, alcohol, or sugar. Enneagram 5. INFJ.

I used to be:

• A confident evangelical

• A homeschool student

• A foster mom

• A world traveler

• A professional videographer

I don’t really claim any of these identities anymore. But enough about me.

*If this sounds interesting to you, make sure to add your email to my subscribers list. I won’t pester you, promise. I don’t have time to write tons of emails. But you will be the first to know when I hit benchmarks in this publishing journey.

And you are?

This space is for people who bounce. People like you. 

Odds are you’ve watched the unthinkable shred your life to pieces. Maybe more than once. Betrayal. Exclusion. Loss. Sickness. Death. So you know the cold hardness of rock bottom, the quiet emptiness of doubt, the searing pain of impossible trauma. And yet still you rise.

You know this “bounce” isn’t immediate. It’s not like a basketball, nor is it a dramatic, slow-mo shot where the hero (you) finally steps into victory and lives happily ever after. Not at all. The bounce is small and brutally repetitive: eyes opening in the morning, even though a fresh wave of realization waits to pounce as soon as you turn off your alarm: “Remember what you lost…” Again and again. Every day.

You’ve seen too much darkness to mindlessly swallow whatever the local preacher’s dishing out. But you’ve also seen too much unwarranted goodness, too much inexplicable magic, to turn away from spirituality completely. This means you often feel spiritually homeless, not quite fitting in with the church crowd. Not quite at home anywhere. 

Welcome. I’m so glad you found your way here. This is a space for the rest of us.

What’s your story?

Social media is abrasive.

Sharing your story on traditional platforms will often be met with abrasive and argumentative comments. Not so here. If you have a story about forgetting and relearning, leaving and rediscovering, then I want to hear it. And so do my reader friends.

My readers are kind, engaged, and understanding. If you’d like to join our tribe and share your story here, please reach out to me at lauren@cibene.com.

There’s space for you here.

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