Honor that Heals I

I want to share something deeply personal with you — something I wish wasn’t part of my story. 

*You might want to actually sit down or grab your favorite beverage before you dive into this. 

Just a few years ago, I was stuck in another painful relationship.

I had a long history of finding myself in these chaotic, emotionally draining patterns — relationships that felt like roller coasters of love, guilt, and confusion.

It took me years to recognize what it really was: mental and emotional abuse.

Relational dysfunction.

The only difference this time was that I believed I would be stuck in this painful relationship for the rest of my life.

I had married him —
just six weeks after being saved.

At the time, I was convicted about the sin we were living in.
 

And honestly, I hoped marriage would fix it.

I thought if we just “did the right thing,” – things would change.

But the truth is, no matter how “right” I did things, the cycles of abuse would only continue.

At one point (just after getting saved), I tried to end things after he made me feel guilty for sharing something I was learning about.

He insisted that I was “talking down to him,” even though I was just excited — eager to share what God was teaching me.

All I wanted was to connect. To share my heart.

I still remember leaning against the doorway, feeling misunderstood and frustrated as I said, “I don’t think we’re a good match. I love learning about God and talking about what I’m learning — and if that really bothers you, this isn’t going to work.”

But that conversation didn’t end our unhealthy relationship — it ended in even more confusion.

I found myself comforting him, apologizing for his hurt feelings, and walking away feeling small, guilty, and unsure of what I’d even done wrong.

Without realizing it, I was already caught in the cycle of emotional manipulation.

And instead of breaking up… we got married.

Let me paint the picture.

I met him while dropping off donations for my neighbor at The Salvation Army in late June of that year.  I had four trips to make that week, and he happened to be the one receiving the donations.

By the third trip, I found myself crying as I drove away, wondering,

“Who is this man?”

Unfortunately, I interpreted the emotional rush as “something special.”

What I didn’t realize then was that those tears weren’t about love at all — they were my body remembering pain.

My nervous system recognized what my mind didn’t: this man felt just like my adoptive father.

And tragically, that familiarity felt like love.

He was working there because he was in The Salvation Army’s rehabilitation program — for the second time.

There were no real dates, no genuine pursuit.

Just three-minute phone calls, five nights a week – that I’d drop everything to answer.

That went on for about two months until he “graduated” from the program.

Halfway through those calls, I learned he was a registered sex offender.

I remember going cold inside — and then immediately feeling guilty for judging him.

I listened to his story about a girl who “lied about her age.”

Only later did I find out it wasn’t the whole truth.

At his graduation, only his dad showed up, and the atmosphere wasn’t joyful. It felt like his father was bracing for disappointment rather than celebrating success.

That same night, I drove him back to camp near my place by the river so he could “spend time with God and pray about his next steps.”

He moved in the next day.

I had no idea what kind of spiritual battle I had just walked into…
 

But the consequences would unfold for years.

The night I was saved, everything changed.

I quit my yoga teaching job, practically threw half of my belongings outside, and waited for him to get home from work so I could tell him about what happened.

It was the greatest news of my life — though I’m sure you can imagine, he did not respond well.

I’ll never forget the way he mocked me, asking if I was “planning to be a nun now.”

The very next day, I gave away all my cannabis since God miraculously delivered me from addiction.

He didn’t like it. 

In fact, he was furious — he not only wanted to keep using the cannabis for himself, but he hated seeing me change – especially when it wasn't something he could control.

It wasn't long after this that we got married. 

It's also worth noting that this is about the time I started attending church.

What happened in my heart during that time was truly profound. I was falling in love with Jesus — discovering truth, healing, and hope for the first time.

But the loneliness & confusion I was experiencing in my marriage was excruciating. 

He had no space for my thoughts, my feelings, or my experiences with God. 

I felt judged, dismissed, and completely alone — even guilty for the growing passion and love I felt for Jesus.

It was like living in two completely different worlds. 

One where my heart was being tenderly restored by God, and another full of torment — cycles of betrayal as well as mental and emotional abuse that left me constantly hurt & confused. 

After about two years of that torment — and a new baby in my arms — I finally found the courage and clarity to draw a hard line – all glory to God.

He hadn’t been sober for a single day since his so-called “graduation,” and I was done pretending.

Just because the drugs came in prescription bottles or were legal from local head shops, didn’t mean they weren’t destroying our lives.

I told him he had two choices:
Get clean — or live somewhere else.

I still didn’t have language for the emotional abuse, but I knew the pain of this relationship was absolutely unbearable.

I had hit my breaking point.

He left that day, convincing half of our church that I was the problem — that I was controlling. Mentally unwell. Emotionally unstable.

But deep down, I knew I wasn’t crazy. 

I knew there was something deeply wrong with the cycles he kept repeating — hiding drugs, getting caught, having a dramatic “breakthrough with God,” and then falling right back into the same patterns again.

And yet, even in that painful clarity, God was convicting me.

I needed to stop trying to fix him and finally tend to my own aching, broken heart.

I’ll never forget the words the Lord spoke to me as I prayed for direction:

“I will provide.”

Those words reverberated through my heart like a holy echo.

In His kindness, He repeated them again and again — especially when fear crept in.
 

Fear about how I would pay the bills.

Fear & shame about being a single mother – again.

Fear about being misunderstood and judged by those at my church. 

But I knew: if I backed down out of fear again, things would get far worse.

So by God’s grace, I stood firm.

And He did provide — just like He said He would.

About six months later, with my baby napping in my arms and my heart still healing, I noticed a book I’d picked up at a thrift store nearly a year earlier — buried under stacks of unread things.

Something in me knew that it was time to read it. 

I finished it in less than a week — and when I discovered there was a course connected to it, I couldn’t shake the conviction that this was my next step.

It would nearly max out my credit card, but I knew I had to say yes.

And I’m so glad I did.

Inside that course, I finally learned what I had been missing — the natural laws of honoring father & mother… of sowing and reaping… how bitter roots grow from unhealed pain… and how dishonor toward our parents (even when they were wrong) can quietly block blessing and perpetuate suffering through repeated patterns in adulthood.

For the first time, my “stuckness” began to make sense.

Even after salvation, I was still reaping fruit from roots I didn’t even know were there.

I mean I knew that the trauma I endured as a child really messed me up, but for the first time I was given a glimmer of hope… that I could actually do something about these patterns and experience lasting healing breakthrough. 

God, in His mercy, began to teach me — and heal me — in ways I never imagined.

The truth is, it wasn’t going well with me… and for the first time I started to understand why.

I had prayed for change. 

I had begged for healing. 

I had tried harder in every way I knew how — to love better, to forgive, to be “enough.”

But no matter how hard I worked to fix things, the same patterns kept repeating.

Different places & faces – same fruit.

And that fruit was rotten.

It showed up in my relationships, my finances, and even in my sense of worth.

Everything I tried to build eventually collapsed in on itself… Which only increased my sense of shame and beliefs of being “too broken beyond repair.”

I hadn't realized it before, but I was living bound by natural law.

The patterns weren’t random (or because I wasn't trying hard enough) — they were rooted.

Those roots fed off old lies I had agreed with long ago:

that love must be earned,

that my worth depended on performance,

that if I just tried harder — prayed harder — then maybe peace would come.

But striving never produces good fruit.

Every bit of “bad fruit” in my life — every repeated heartbreak, every financial struggle, every area that refused to flourish — was revealing something deeper:

There were bitter roots operating in my heart.

And bitter roots always produce bitter fruit.

They make it impossible for things to truly go well with you, no matter how much you try to make them.

I can’t wait to share more of what the Lord showed me in that season —
because when you learn how to walk in Honor that Heals, everything begins to change.

In my next post, I’ll unpack the truth that changed everything for me — what the Bible really means by “honor,” and how understanding it unlocked the healing I’d cried out for all my life.