The line you're walking, recovery, faith, and what's left standing after hardship, is one a lot of artists avoid because it's hard to make it feel earned rather than performed. This doesn't read as performance. The fact that you're building a body of work around these themes, not just dropping one symbolic shot, says you're actually working through something. That consistency matters more than any single frame.

The weathered surroundings framing that cross really sell what you're describing here. Recovery themes hit different when the setting itself looks like something fought through, not just pretty light in a clean studio. That contrast between ruin and the symbol of belief carries weight.

I work mostly in line and graphite, so my understanding of photography comes from learning to see what light does before I try to draw it. Your choice to strip it to black and white keeps the focus exactly where the story is. Color would have competed.