Maybe you grew up watching me as Blair Warner on The Facts of Life. Maybe you watched me scheme and starve for 39 days on Survivor: Philippines. Perhaps you attended a Women of Faith event in your local arena. Or read one of a dozen books I wrote during my fundamentalist evangelical years. Maybe we’ve known each other so long that you even came home from school and turned on The New Mickey Mouse Club in the seventies and watched me sing and dance as a Mouseketeer.

But there’s a lot you don’t know.

Like what it’s like to move away from home at the age of 12 to become a child star and then leave show business behind to become a pastor’s wife and homeschooling mother at 24. To write books about raising kids for Jesus and then quietly start asking different questions. To sit in silence for 30 days at a monastery, drink Ayahuasca with shamans in Peru, and walk 500 miles across Spain wondering who you are and what you believe.

Both my life and my faith have evolved in unexpected ways. Some things I’ve held onto. Others I’ve gently set down. A few I’ve thrown out entirely — hence the name. The baby Jesus stayed. The bathwater went out.

People tell me they feel like they’ve grown up with me. I love that. Let’s keep going.

This is where I share the stories behind the story — the ones that didn’t fit on TV or in a Christian book. Survivor. Silent retreats. Psychedelics. The Camino. Construction. Deconstruction. Reconstruction. All of it.

I'm excited to build a community here. I read every comment, and once a week I'll post answers to questions and reflections on feedback from paid subscribers. This isn't a monologue. It's a conversation.

Subscribe and come along.