The Health of My Heart

The response to my last post, “Surrender,” has been unbelievable. So many precious people have reached out to me and offer me encouragement. Several others reached out to share their similar and extremely painful experiences. Even more reached out to check up on how I am doing. I have been overwhelmed by love and I have felt the weight of every broken heart. To every single person who has reached out - who has expressed love, support, grace, pain, brokenness, etc. - I thank you.

To give an update on the health of my heart - I am happy to report that I am doing very well!

Though the last six months have been peppered with the pain and torment of divorce, I have also experienced so much joy and growth. Every day is a new challenge, as always, but I feel altogether healthy. I have spent a great deal of time this summer and fall seeking out the whole, happy, healthy life I strive to help others find. I have been purposely pursuing total health - relationally, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.

On my journey to find healing, I have gotten to travel a lot (to Memphis, Nashville, Kentucky, Hot Springs, Austin, and Italy). I have plugged into The Porch at Watermark. I’ve made a lot of new friends and reconnected with old ones. I’ve spent hours and hours in counseling. I finished my Master’s degree. I became a Certified Christian Life Coach. I started to substitute teach. I’m eating healthier and staying active (I’ve lost about 20 pounds!) I am writing again. I am dating someone.

In the last six months, I have spent a lot of time hurting. But I have also spent a lot of time healing.

Thank you to all who have reached out to me to check on me. Thank you all for loving me well and giving me so much grace. I also appreciate each of you being patient as I took a sudden and unexpected step back from blogging and coaching. Now that I am feeling healthy and happy again, I feel much more comfortable offering my coaching services and wisdom via writing. (So check out my Coaching Services page and let’s get you into some coaching sessions!)

You are all amazing. I am so thankful to have a place to grow alongside all of you. I am so glad to know we are all in this together - pursuing health, wellness, healing, and happiness. It is humbling to me that you all let me be vulnerable and transparent as we journey together!

As always, you can expect more posts from me regarding how I attempt to practice what I preach. In the meantime, focus on the joy of the Lord and ask Him what it looks like to seek a whole, happy, healthy life. If there's anything I can offer to you so I can spur you on in that way - let me know!

Surrender

I am a 24-year-old divorcée.

As a Christian woman, divorce was never on the table for me. Never in my life did I ever think I would be divorced. I thought that if my marriage ended, it would be death that made us part. I planned and prepared for death - death from old age, from military action, from unexpected sickness. Never did I think to prepare my heart for divorce.

I was faithfully committed to loving my husband for my whole life. I made vows to God and my husband in front of all of my family and friends. I promised to hold up my end of the deal. And I upheld those vows.

The man I married, tragically, did not.

The man I married revealed on our one year marriage anniversary that he had been concealing a serious addiction to pornography for the entirety of our relationship. Through that, I fought.

The man I married lied continuously, hid constantly, and attempted to cover up his tracks. Through that, I fought.   

The man I married refused to seek or receive help for his sexual sins and struggles. Through that, I fought.

The man I married repeatedly and unapologetically took sex from me that I did not consent to or want. Even through that, I fought.

The man I married sought out another relationship with another woman, becoming emotionally and sexually intimate with her. With that, I surrendered.

The man I married chose himself over me. He chose his own will and fulfilled his own sexual desires. He chose himself. He also chose someone else. He hurt me over and over and over and over and over again without making any significant efforts to repent or change. For two years, I fought tirelessly for change, for love, and for my marriage. But all of my efforts to save my own marriage were fruitless. The fighting was one-sided. The fighting was met with complacency, denial, and anger.

So I filed for divorce.

I filed for divorce from a man who destroyed me with his addiction, abuse, and adultery. I filed for divorce from a good man who is deeply confused and entrenched in his own sin. I filed for divorce and I sought healing.

I know God hates divorce. (So do I, for the record.) But I also know God hates addiction, abuse, and adultery. I trust God loves me more than the institution of marriage. I believe He gave me the grace to seek freedom from a relationship that was literally, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually killing me.

I know (for the most part) that I do not need to defend my own actions. I know I don’t need to justify myself and I know I do not owe anyone an explanation for why I chose to divorce this man.

But for the sake of honesty, openness, and transparency - I would like to begin a dialogue. Just like I did with the “Me, Too” post, I would like to open up and create a conversation for any others walking through a similar season. I also want to tell my side of the story and have control over my own narrative. This summer held for me the single most difficult and most tragic season of my entire life. I have been battling so many feelings of hurt, of loss, or brokenness, of shame. I know I am not alone in that.

So if you feel like I have felt, I want you to know you are loved. If you trudging through tragedy, I am right there with you. If you need any prayer or encouragement, please reach out. And if I can request one thing from you all, please have grace with me. I am navigating this as best as I can. There is no guidebook to divorce. It is messy and controversial and painful and sad. It is not what I wanted for my life or love or marriage.

But it happened. Half a year has passed since I came back home. It's real and it is a part of me now. Divorce is a part of my story. And I do not want to be kept silent (especially by my fear of the opinions of Christians) about something that affects so many of us in so many ways. 

I am devastated. But today I feel strong. 

A note - I know many of you reading this may know my ex-husband personally. Please know my heart is free from any hate or malice toward him. My writing this is not to attack him in any way, but to process through my own story, my own experiences, and my own pain. Again, any grace you can extend to me would be much appreciated.

Me, Too.

I don’t want to talk about the time I was five years old and on a Kindergarten field trip, a boy kissed me against my will and threatened to kill me with his karate if I told the teacher.

I don’t want to look back on the numerous times that as a child, I would walk the short distance from my house to the park, and a car would slow down and drive beside me as I walked. A man with a scary voice and a twisted up face would always roll the window down and say things like, “hey baby, where you going?” or “you’re beautiful, you know that?”.

I don’t want to think about the first time (of many) that someone grabbed my butt in the seventh grade hallway. I don’t want to remember turning around, embarrassed and shocked, to see him high-fiving his friends who were sneering and giggling and mocking me.

I don’t want to flash back to the time in ninth grade when I was wearing my “flyaway” cheer skirt, and I caught my history teacher licking his lips at me. I don’t want to recall his big wink and the chuckle he let out when I made eye contact with him.

I don’t want to talk about Halloween my sophomore year, when the boy I loved locked me in his house, pinned me down on his couch and tried to force himself on me. I don’t want to remember having to physically shove him off of me and onto the floor. I don’t want to hear his angry voice calling me “bitch” ringing in my head.

I don’t want to remember when I was fourteen and a boy I didn't like forcibly kissed me when I was laying down on my couch. Or when I was fifteen and another boy forcibly kissed me by grabbing the back of my head and pulling it towards him, sitting in his fancy SUV that was running in my driveway. Or when I was sixteen and another boy grabbed me and forcibly kissed me in front of my English class.

I don’t want to think back on the time I was in college and was filled with so much anxiety and fear after all of these years of sexual mistreatment, harassment, and assault, that when the boy I wanted to marry overstepped the physical and sexual boundaries I was comfortable with, I tailspun into a wild episode of depression and anxiety, unable to properly function for months.

I don’t want to admit that the man I did end up marrying used his addiction to pornography as an excuse to abuse me sexually, to molest me, to attack me in my sleep, and to rape me. Not only that, but when I wasn’t enough for him, when I couldn’t fill his sexual desires, he entered into another sexual relationship with another woman, hurting me even further.

I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t want to remember it. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want every bad touch or scary feeling or creepy stare or gross word or sick smile to be seared into my memory. I don’t want to carry this brokenness with me. Because I don't want any of this to have happened. 

But it did. It happened. 

So I do want to talk about it... because I want to share my experiences. I want control of my own narrative. I want the boys who have hurt me to be held accountable. I want others to know they are not alone in their hurt. I want to be a part of opening the dialogue so that this sin has nowhere to hide. I want to remove all shame, all guilt, all embarrassment from every survivor of this kind of sexual torture.

Of course, I also want to be heard and believed. Ultimately, however, I know that not everyone will hear or believe me. Thankfully, though, I know I have a heavenly Father who hears my pleas, mends my broken heart, knows my testimony, and is restoring my soul. He is my hope and my salvation. He is my strength. He is my joy. He is the only reason I am alive and have not taken my own life, despite my flesh’s constant longing to be torn apart.

If you have a story like mine, please know I love you. Please know I want to talk to you and empathize with you. Please know I believe you. And please know that there is an abundance of life and joy and grace and healing and freedom that is found in my Savior.

When Life Feels Messy

Do you ever feel like a bit of a mess? Like in some way, some part of your life feels crazy and chaotic and messy and you can't figure out how to get it together? 

Maybe you're doing really well at your job, but you keep finding yourself in unhealthy relationships and can't figure out why. Maybe you are in school right now, in a great relationship, but you have no idea if you even like what you're studying and what kind of career you want. Maybe you live with your mom, don't have a job, and are going through a devastating breakup. 

I don't know what's going on in your life, but I can confidently guess that if you were to take an inventory of your life, you probably wouldn't decide that it is perfect. There are probably areas of your life where you feel you could use some growth or improvement. There may even be areas of your life you are legitimately angry about - because it feels messy and it doesn't feel like your fault. 

Whatever the case may be, I just want to provide you with some encouragement today. Life is messy. Life is great and life is hard. There are times where we have our stuff together and times where everything is falling apart. C'est la vie, y'all. That's life. 

Does that mean you just have to accept whatever is coming your way, whatever is breaking, whatever mess you find yourself in? No. There are things you can do to improve your situation and surroundings. There are people and resources (and life coaches... and a great God!) around you who are all available to help you bring beauty out of whatever mess you find in your life. But it does mean that it's okay. It's okay that you sometimes feel like a mess. It's normal and it's temporary. It's life. 

So, don't be bogged down with the aspects of life that are confusing or messy or scary. C'est la vie, y'all. Don't buy into the lie that because your life is a mess in some way, you are "less" in some way. C'est la vie, y'all. Don't be discouraged when things don't turn out the way you thought they would. C'est la vie, y'all. And la vie est belle.

Seeking Health Through Adventure

If I could be super totally honest with y'all for a minute, I have been walking through one of the toughest seasons of my life this summer. It's not yet something I feel totally comfortable talking about, but it is why you have been seeing less of me over the last several weeks.

In the midst of this stormy season, one of the ways I've been seeking personal growth and health is through traveling. By making every day a daring adventure, I am more eager to embrace the highs and lows that will inevitably come.

Adventure requires strength, flexibility, and movement. It can include uncertainty, danger, and risk. But it is almost always exciting and sometimes ends in some sort of victory. Those are my favorite adventures - when I am successful or victorious in some way.

This week, I dare you to think about your life as one big adventure. Embrace all it brings and be thankful for the opportunity you have to live with such fullness! Be an adventurer and a conqueror this week, beloved!