Glennon Doyle Melton Describes The Beautiful Payoff Of Hitting Rock Bottom

Momastery writer and best-selling author Glennon Doyle Melton has experienced more than a few rock bottom moments, from the surprise pregnancy that forced her to confront her addictions to the break-up of her 16-year marriage. Now sober, rebuilding and dating again , Melton explains that her experiences have led her to think of rock bottom in a very specific way.

“Rock bottom is a crisis... and everyone wants to avoid crisis. But what ‘crisis’ means literally is ‘to sift,’” Melton says, referencing the Greek root of the word. “Like a child who goes to the beach, lifts up the sand and watches all the sand fall away, hoping that there’s treasure left over. That’s what crisis does.”

Melton’s rock bottom has had this very effect. “It comes into my life and I have to watch everything fall away that I thought that I needed so I can find out what’s left over,” she says.

What Melton is left with once everything else falls away, she says, are her faith, hope and love three things that can never be taken. It’s a profound realization that Melton believes makes women like her stronger than ever.

“Women who have been to rock bottom, that’s why they’re the brave ones and the kind ones and the wise ones and the ones who can laugh at the days to come,” Melton explains. “Because they’re the ones who know that the only things you really need are also the things that can’t be taken from you.”

Another eye-opening moment:

The time Melton realized there was no room for brutal honesty on playdates