Katharyn Howd Machan Somehow I Always Knew church wine would never be mine. I was raised on purple grape juice— or, let me say, the lust for it, me in my sober navy dress, flat shoes, my grandmother shoving me into hymns while she readied her thighs to rise. I had to remain alone on the hard wooden pew devoid of sinful cushions that shaped other churches’ prayers for soul’s redemption. But how I longed for God’s permission to stand and step and kneel and taste sweet forgiveness on my tongue after what my little body had allowed a devil grandson to do to it, and me so very young.
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