There I Am: The Journey from Hopelessness to Healing―A Memoir

There I Am is an arresting, inspirational memoir about one woman’s journey from chronic pain and hopelessness to finding joy, redemption, and healing.

At seventeen years old, Ruthie Lindsey is hit by an ambulance near her home in rural Louisiana. She’s given a five percent chance of survival and one percent chance of walking again. One month later after a spinal fusion surgery, Ruthie defies the odds, leaving the hospital on her own two feet.

Just a few years later, newly married and living in Nashville, Ruthie begins to experience debilitating pain and becomes bedridden. She is dependent on painkillers and hopeless when an X-ray reveals that the wire used to fuse her spine is piercing her brain stem. Without another staggeringly expensive experimental surgery, she could well become paralyzed, but in many ways, she already is.

As her life unravels, Ruthie returns home to Louisiana and sets out on a journey to learn joy again. She trades fentanyl for sunsets and morphine for wildflowers, weaning herself off of the drugs and beginning the process of healing—of coming home to her body.

Raw and redemptive, There I Am is not just about the magic of optimism, but the work of it. Ruthie’s extraordinary memoir urges us to unlearn the stories of brokenness that we tell ourselves and embrace the wholeness, joy, and healing that lives inside all of us.

Perhaps best said by Teacher and Co-CEO Natalie Kuhn, "It reads like your best friend is telling you their story over a glass of wine." 

Hardcover, 288 pages.