Hey there. Welcome to my little corner of the world.
My name is Natalie and I am a Bible-believing Christian, wife to a kind-hearted gentleman, mother to eleven children, home educator, beekeeper, homesteader, writer, and life-long learner.
I am a Midwest girl who enjoys doing life with the people I love most.
Although I have a large extended family, I never anticipated that I would have eleven children of my own. But I am grateful to God that I never planned not to either.
God has given me a very patient, compassionate husband and precious children to share this life with. Without hesitation, even in my most difficult moments, I would choose this life again in a heartbeat.
I have always had a vigor for life but for a time that zeal had been quieted, and not by my own volition. My personality has definitely been shaped out of the more difficult moments, and because of the survival skills I acquired, I refuse to be owned by anything or anyone.
I desire deep, connected relationships that stand on biblically rooted doctrine. And although my story is very painful, God has given me opportunities to point others toward a Sovereign and Merciful Savior through this path.
And even though my children are my primary mission field right now, I have the deepest desire to help other women be released from any bondage they may carry, take up their identity in Christ, and walk in true freedom carrying their torch high.
I find much delight in encouraging you to be a keeper of your home where you are able to build an atmosphere of harmony, peace, and rest. I emphasize having obtainable expectations of yourself and of the direction your family is going.
I love helping mothers understand what it looks like to disciple their children, look for windows of opportunity to speak life into their hearts, and find contentment in the simple things.
Most certainly, it has been my greatest joy to live this full life that God has graciously given. And even though life has never been easy for me, I know now that the difficult seasons I have walked through were used to mold who I am today.
If you are looking for perfect, you won’t find it here. I am a sinner saved by grace, bought and paid for, and now there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
After more than 4 decades of keeping quiet, and with much encouragement from Jason, and a handful of my dearest friends, I reluctantly and prayerfully have stepped forward to share a very small portion of my story.
I decided to surrender how I felt about exposing deep hurts, and allowed the wisdom of others to be my counsel through this process. I am choosing to share just a few of the most painful experiences and vulnerable portions of my life because those I love most have asked me to.
Breaking silence has been not only healing, but I have found freedom in Truth.
Sharing the hard is never easy. There were a lot of fears I had when speaking about the past life God has brought me out of. But when I came forth to be honest with the world about the harder issues no one wants to talk about, I am seeing the fruit that God has produced from it.
I have prayed to be given the courage to withstand, and as I keep my eyes on the Lord for His approval in all that I say in this space, I ask those that do not know me well to extend grace as you read. See, this isn’t really my story. It belongs to God. The One who created me knew exactly what my life would hold when I did not.
I have learned that when Jesus has his hands on any redemption story, that is because, somehow, through our testimony, we would give Him the honor and glory He deserves.
And when you walk through fire, you either walk away stronger, or you continue to live in a place of despair.
You get to choose how you exit.
So, with all of that said, I hope I come across as gracious, moving forward, but greatly burdened for those whom have had similar dysfunctional relationships in their lives.
I hope you can get comfortable and stay a while. I am very humbled you came.
If you were born into a Christ-honoring family, that is because God is good.
If you avoided the trappings of sexual sin, that is because God is your protector.
If you heard the gospel at a young age and responded to it, that is because God was drawing you.
If you grew up in a home where your needs were met, that is because God is faithful.
But that is not my story, and God still reigns.
I was born into a Catholic family in rural Missouri where coal mining and farming were the way of life. My great-grand parents have deep roots in the heart of Croatia on my father’s side. And my great grandfather’s family’s roots, on my maternal side, came across the Cumberland Gap to settle on a small farm just down the road from one another. Ultimately, this is where my parents met. I grew up encircled by both sides of my extended family, and my grandparents lived until I was well into my 30s. From a young age, I found it fascinating that I had so many grandparents and great-grandparents living at one time, and I loved asking them stories of the past. Being a firstborn, I took note of things that I learned, not only from them, but about myself as well.
coal mines and railroad station in my hometown
From the moment I was born, there were so many unhealthy patterns that were taking place all at once. A lot of instability, addictions, conflict, abuse, and neglect are a few words that come to mind, and it definitely took its toll on a very young me. At a tender age, I had already been showing signs of trauma. My mother was detached and affection was a foreign concept in our family. I never once heard her say the words, “I love you.” My father is an alcoholic and the only time I heard him say he loved me, he was drunk. I was 24.
Our community was very small. No one asked questions and most turned a blind eye. Few knew what was going on behind closed doors, and even then, they only caught a small glimpse of my reality from time to time.
Some saw the evidence of abuse, such as bruises, a welt, or just a brokenness within us. The little that was said and the intimidation to keep quiet about home-life were the ingredients I had to never ask anyone for help. Any signs of sadness or worry were quickly corrected because mother valued what others thought.
It is important to note those details because, like any child, I trusted her when she trained us on how to “put on a good face” for others. I was a compliant child (in her words) and my personality provided a perfect environment for her to teach me to hide truths.
When there were real tears streaming down our face after any physical altercation with our dad (and when I say physical, I mean throwing us or kicking us across the room with his workboots, or using his belt while we were made to lie face down on the floor) my dad would sarcastically say with great authority, “Ahh, yea. You kids got it pretty bad don’cha” making it known that what we just experienced was normal.
I was an adult before I understood why we were never allowed to talk about our home life.
I never knew help existed like it does today.
By the time I was four and five years old, I was playing ball on the boy’s baseball team. I was taught to play hard, throw accurately, steal bases, and giving it everything I had to be the best I could in whatever sport I was playing.
Perfection was heavily ingrained.
It was important to my dad that I became a tomboy, and out of fear of showing him any signs of weakness, I conformed to who he wanted me to be.
From the time I could spell my name, I had a view of men as unpredictable, inconsistent, conditional, intimidating, and anytime they “touched” me, it hurt. I had a messed-up framework of men as dangerous and unsafe to be around.
And my views of most women were cold, unloving, and emotionally distant.
When I was not playing ball, I was being dressed up like a doll to highlight my mother’s abilities. I learned what was important to each parent and tried living up to those expectations. I made every effort to be pleasing to those around me.
I was often told that I had been an easy child to raise. I tried to never be a cause to any problem, as they had my loyalty and compliance. I took my grandfather very serious when he would tell us to keep our nose clean. It was not only a sense of duty to family, but that the highest standard was a must if you wanted to be approved of.
It was an intense life. It was also exhausting.
Condemnation started to take root in my heart, and any joy that I once had, would soon be snuffed out.
The power and influence that Satan’s grip had on my parents was incredibly strong. Consequently, family-life became my greatest source of pain.
Because my dad was raised in a works-based culture, little to no grace was ever extended. I don’t think he understood the meaning of the word. He had developed many addictions from a very young age, and lashed out in anger at any given moment.
When my mother was very young, she embraced the world’s view of the feminine role, and as a result, she became distracted and cold toward her own children. Her children were being sacrificed while she continued to climb the career ladder. And by the world’s standards, she appeared financially successful.
As I was forming friendships in school, I was making decisions in those relationships based on my experiences at home. My mother emphasized my outward appearance and created a feminist box for me to fit in. My dad fought her on me wearing dresses, perming my hair (pony tails were his preference) and wearing makeup would not be an option in hopes that I would reject all future male advances.
I was caught between trying to please two polar opposites. Here I was in elementary school, being the girl who chose to go barefoot and play kick ball at recess. I had 2 brothers and male cousins. I didn’t have a need to do girly things.
But seeking the approval of two parents whose ideologies did not line up with each other is very difficult for a child to gain acceptance. Everything hinges on that child’s performance, depending on which parent they’re talking to in the moment.
You could never be good enough for her liking.
I was insulated from the world and confused. The uncertainty of life was brought on by two people teaching me separate views of culture that did not come from the creator.
I didn’t understand how chaotic my life was because it was all I was exposed to. My fingernails were chewed to the quick, and my hair was brittle and falling out.
There wasn’t anything I felt safe enough to talk about because there were so many secrets in our home, and a lot of continued hurt. I was used to burying my feelings out of fear of not knowing what would happen to us. And anytime I would try to bring those events up with my mother to make sense of the chaos we were living in, they were quickly dismissed and redefined as normal. It was classic gaslighting.
Because of the brainwashing and constant gaslighting, I had not figured out for myself how to formulate my own thoughts, nor communicate them. This left me with a huge amount of guilt and shame because I really believed that I was “no good.”
It was overwhelming to think “what if” I confided in someone because of the shame-based culture I was raised in. The summer before I was 12, the abuse was so bad I got on my bike and rode over three miles, on a windy country road to my coach’s house, in the pitch dark. But I learned never to do that again.
As I was coming into my young adult years, I found myself needing to escape more and more because of how highly controlled our environment was. I was being suffocated at every turn and my home felt more like a prison. My refuge was my grandmother’s house, but the fears of not surviving on the outside kept me conformed to the toxicity inside my mother’s home.
From childhood to adulthood, my mother would condescendingly say, “Where are you going to go Natalie; who would you run to?” as a constant reminder that I had no one.
Isolation is a real thing and causes so much damage.
I was being stripped of any dignity that I once had and left with this constant pain in my chest. And in my despair, I became a very hopeless, lonely child.
Fear is paralyzing. Enduring abuse leads to self-condemnation. Having extreme anxiety, emotional scars, and so much more left unsaid leaves a person hopeless of ever getting out.
Consequently, I started having more health complications and had battled several ulcers that the school nurse was kindly trying to help me with. I was under an extreme amount of pressure and the critical voices that dominated my life was a lot to handle. With my health tanking, and events that surrounded my childhood, it set the course for future failure in most of my relationships.
As my senior year of high school rolled around, one particular week I found myself at a total loss of how to move forward. I decided to not go to school that Friday because I had another pair of black eyes generously given to me by my father. What was I going to tell them? How was I going to hide it from my teachers? I was embarrassed and humiliated. And I was tired of being loyal to a lie that my mother was so desperate to hide. I was weary from having to cover for her and hide stories from my grandparents. The bible uses a better word – exasperated.
I remember the very moment I gave up in my heart that I was going to be okay.
I came in after school. I had asked a friend to come home with me because it was my birthday. As we walk in, my dad was sitting in the chair. He startled me by saying a very derogatory comment and then mentioned he was glad I was still a virgin… which I was. The degrading comments about women in general, the humiliation I felt, and their critical tongue, I decided in that moment life had no meaning and was hopeless anything good would ever come from the bondage surrounding these two.
Emotionally, I was crippled by my mother, utterly voiceless to have any say in what happens to me. My dad’s drunkeness was becoming too much for me to bear anymore, and after a 2-year high-school relationship, I surrendered my Catholic desires for purity and exchanged it with the world’s pressures of giving myself over to him for one night. Shortly after, I found myself being abandoned by that same foolish boy when he found out I was pregnant. His parents quickly moved him out of town and I never heard from him again.
I felt like I was going to die. Everyone that I was told to put my faith and trust in had abandoned their responsibilities. Again, just like mother said, the reality of having no one was becoming more clear every day.
The specific events surrounding that year forced me to identify who was honest and who was not. It was then that I realized that my parents were my first bullies. It was no wonder I had been leading a boundaryless life. I was trained to be compliant for their gain, but at my expense.
I began to question what real Truth was? I didn’t want my mother’s version, not my father’s version either, but real, authentic Truth. Truth that wasn’t hypocritical. And Truth that was consistent and reliable.
I remember looking up after a really good cry, and wondering if God had left me because who in their right mind would allow this to happen to children? I had such hopelessness and had nothing left to give anyone. I begged Him to have mercy. I begged Him to ease the pain. My spirit was crushed on so many levels and I felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. I pleaded with Him not to allow me to experience any more. I couldn’t endure one more person not loving me and buried my head in the shame that I had caused.
What seemed like the 330th time, I said aloud that I believed Jesus was from a virgin birth, He died and rose again on the third day, and that He sits at the right hand of the Father. I recited my rosary prayers. (phrases from the Apostles’ Creed and some other liturgical readings that I had memorized from childhood, but I had no idea what any of this really meant)
I asked Him to protect me from evil, as I have always felt both a light and dark presence around me from a very young age. And because I wanted to be a girl that lived in a Truth-based reality, I poured out my confusion to God. I didn’t know what it meant to be a Christian, or who to ask. I had always loved God the best way I knew how, but I had never seen this lived out by anyone in my life.
I had been willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of having peace, but I found myself submitting to the flesh when life became too unbearable to face. I didn’t know what sin was, nor what it was doing to me. I only knew certain behavior was “bad.” Sin vocabulary was not a part of my family’s vernacular, so it kept me in a state of accepting my family’s cycle of abuse, and me not submitting to the proper authority of God.
I really believed Christianity was a group of people who made no mistakes, lit candles, said their Hail Mary’s, and fed the poor like Mother Theresa. I thought Christians were people that had happy parents, could say no to bad things, and yes to the good. I didn’t realize that Christians were people that had been taken hold of by God, given a renewed mind, had a heart change, were to be set apart, and to be able to say no to sin because of the power of Christ that rest upon them.
I didn’t have anyone that I could talk to who would treat me as an image bearer, someone who could help me be set free from the chains of unnecessary ties to the past instead of throwing moral issues at me to heap on the shame.
I saw God allowing my life to become more burdensome because I was holding onto the loyalty I had with my parents. (trauma bond) In God’s goodness, He continued to not let me forget that we weren’t meant to be at peace with everyone. (This is clear in Matthew 10:34-36.) And as I was wrestling in my heart with living in this same family dynamic, it came to a point that I started to slowly realize I was the only one who wanted something better for our family, a change for the good. I desperately wanted to find the right answers so we could have peace. I grew very weary of the isolated feeling that Christians have when they want growth but everyone else chooses to stay stuck. For generations, pride and selfishness was what got our family in this place.
I never realized sin could be so blinding.
There is something about the doctrine of suffering that shows us that sin is not satisfying.
Being with people who are wrong for you, toxic, lovers of themselves, the selfishness that I witnessed, and all of what 2 Timothy 3 says was being revealed that I found myself begging for the opposite. I see now that God never allowed me to have comfort in these relationships because He was asking something different from me.
During this vulnerable time of unraveling, an older man and woman came into my life through a mutual friend. These people would eventually promise me safety within their family away from the abuse happening in my home. The evidence of abuse on my body told a pretty ugly story, and this couple said affirming statements for me to feel safe. They assured me that neither of my parents would be able to hurt me and I had a safe haven with their family.
For the first time I witnessed another family’s comings and goings outside of my own family dynamics. The time away from my parent’s constant fighting and chaos gave me breathing room, and I had time to think for myself.
When all was silent, one evening I got onto the floor and I cried out to God with the greatest sadness I have ever known. I was soaked in tears all night long. I cried out for the lack of a relationship with my mother in particular. I felt so rejected by her my entire life and my heart was shattered by her lack of love for anyone.
I believed God created me for a reason, despite how she viewed me, but the lies and loneliness were a torment. And my lack of confidence in God seeing me through this nightmare led me to much despair. No one had been trustworthy in my life, therefore, I had a wrong view of God as well.
After my grievances were shared with God that night, it occurred to me that I needed a Bible. I needed to read and understand it for myself instead of being told what to believe.
The only Bible that I was aware of was a large Catholic Bible that was never opened. I didn’t know where to go to buy one, because up until this point, I didn’t shop anywhere on my own unless my mother took me. I didn’t think of the library, as the only library door I had ever walked through was in public school.
The following Sunday I was in church and the sermon was on David’s trials. I “heard” that our difficulties we experienced in childhood was an obvious absence of God in the heart of man. It was the first time I allowed myself to admit that we had been abused. As I would hear the Word preached, I would constantly self-examine the choices I made, and how to move forward. That Sunday was significant for me and my perspective on how families are to treat one another.
I was still not in complete understanding of how to navigate healthy boundaries with others, and because of my strong ties towards my family, it became difficult to navigate normal adult life. I tell people all the time, who come out of significant trauma, that those first years of steering your own ship is a process. There is grieving involved. There is a time of denial, and anger. But with wise counsel, sailing that ship successfully can be done. It’s hard work and I would never want to go back to that time. But it is necessary to do the more difficult things if you want to ever make it to the other side.
As an example, when anyone would start to ask questions, I still wasn’t ready to admit those hurts and bottled things up pretty tightly. My dad’s words would replay in my ear like a broken record, “Yea, you kids have it real bad.” The denial and anger stages were really hard because of how often I had to face hard realities. My loyalty to them ran deep and managing my emotions was sometimes all I could do moment by moment… a little each day.
Fast forward about a year later, I had my own little one-bedroom apartment. I was babysitting to pay the bills and this enabled me to be a stay-at-home-mom. I lived very simply, had no phone, no car.
A woman from church started to pick me up every Sunday who I often babysat for in return. I was going to Bible study every Tuesday with all married women at least 15-30 years older than me. Solid teachings and interpreting it through the eyes of scripture lit my fire. I was hungry for Truth to stand on and I was finding it on the pages of scripture! Praise God for those women that took the time to help me navigate what Christianity was designed to be.
During that time, I had heard about a small, Christian bookstore from some of the ladies in my Bible Study. The weather was decent, so I packed up the stroller and walked uptown.
I remember the first time I walked in. Her name was Roberta. She was a kind, gentle soul. She and her husband sold a large number of books, tapes, and Bibles. They also had a loft area upstairs where they kept some children’s toys, that included a little handmade Noah’s Ark set. We formed a sweet friendship, and I looked forward to seeing her the next time.
I decided to save up enough money to buy the cheapest Bible they sold. The day came. I walked in and excitedly said, “I am ready to buy a Bible, but I need to be able to understand it.” Roberta smiled and handed me a version that she thought I would like.
To my surprise, the more I read the Bible, the more my past life hurt. The less I understood why this life had to be so painful, the more I was drawn to read the Bible. The more ups and downs I was still having with my parents, the more I felt compelled to turn to the scriptures for answers.
Not only did the scriptures condemn the abuse we experienced and my choices that followed, but also the sins that were passed onto me. As devastating and disgusted with sin as I was, I found those same scriptures offering me hope.
And as I kept studying, my eyes were being opened to a host of issues that seemed to all fall in my lap at once. I wrestled with thoughts of life being unjust to “What am I going to do with this now that I know?”
I was just riddled with anxiousness, guilt, and deep wounds that I didn’t know what to do with. The scales were being lifted off my eyes to see things I never saw or understood before. And I finally started to have the words to vocalize my hurts to a God that could bear them for me.
The more I was lured into my parent’s presence or conversation, the quicker I saw God giving me a way of escape. When my spirit was weary, hymns became my salve. When chaos came knocking at my door, the more I desired to seek Jesus. God was dealing with my heart in a way I didn’t fully understand, but I was absorbing His Truth like a sponge.
Being a victim of abuse, we believe what we endure is normal. We drink the poison. It is the language we speak. And it is all we know. It is not of God’s nature to be lording over someone or being one’s slave. I wasn’t a puppet to be mastered! You can just imagine the freedom I was starting to grasp.
I was still struggling to conceptualize how to apply God’s Word because it was completely foreign to me. When you grow up in a home where no one takes responsibility, apologizes, repents, forgives, or utter the words “I love you,” you can not possibly understand how that process works.
With a lack of exposure to any of these concepts, and because my relationship with my parents were so toxic, little of God’s attributes make any sense. My parents and grandparents were all I knew. They were my life and all I had.
So, I held on, pushed through, and persevered through the mud. I pulled up my boot straps every day and God began to use my brokenness to heal parts of my heart I never knew existed. I started to see the people who were supposed to love and care for me, were really the ones who were the most deceptive and hurtful. I started recognizing where those self-condemning patterns came from. I learned to replace those lies I once believed with the Truth of scripture.
A true healing was beginning.
This is the part in the story where I express much gratitude for my husband. He has been paramount in my walk and daily healing. His guidance has been a huge source of strength for me in many different areas. But, I give every piece of my story to God’s glory. He is why I write. He is why I share. And He is the only reason why I am able to heal.
Jason was only a vessel who was willing to be used by God. We sort-of jokingly say that I became his best client because my mother was so challenging.
When I learned that children strongly identify with the same gender parent, I was blown away. It took me a few days to sit on that one. This was important because it explained why I longed for a connection and approval from my mother, only receiving a transactional relationship instead.
When I realized that the relationship with her was never going to be what it was designed for, it was like living with a slow, painful death. I had to learn to swallow the reality of letting go of someone I never really had to begin with. And I grieved a long time over her lack of care in my childhood, for the woman I was becoming today, and I struggled to let go of the idea of never having a normal mother. I cried countless nights over the fact that she was never going to call to just check in, never drop by for coffee, never to embrace me with a hug, and never to express her love towards my growing family. It was wounding on so many levels. I can’t even begin to describe that kind of pain.
God continued to say, “I loved you first.” 1 John 4:19
I knew enough about myself that I was hesitant to believe it but aware enough to see my lack of faith! I knew I was coming before a righteous God nd I didn’t feel like what I had to offer him was enough to be loved.
I was convinced I wasn’t enough because His death on the cross was still a mystery to me. But the daily unpacking, repenting, and being faithful was Jesus meeting me where I was at one day at a time. I had so much self-condemnation. It was really terrible the kinds of things I was led to believe about myself.
As the years continued, my relationship with my mother did not improve. The struggle was real when the afflictions created by her exceeded my understanding of why God would allow that kind of divisiveness in my life. Most days, just the mention of her name felt like salt being poured into a wound, much like Paul’s thorn.
As Jason and I forged ahead, growing our family, and consistently bathing ourselves in scripture, Jesus drew me near during that lonely season of life. I found that when my burden felt too heavy, His burden is light and His yoke easy.
God speaks with such Supreme Authority in all things that when situations came up that Jason and I were forced to deal with, we found that Christ met us there with clear answers. He gave both of us the right words. He gave me a way of escape. I held onto He is a God of order and not chaos. And the freedom that comes with that is indescribable when you are dealing with selfish people.
In the Gospels, I saw Jesus being rejected by his own people, and betrayed by those closest to Him. He was abused and left for dead. David ran from Saul and his enemies for years. I identified with all of that.
In intense moments with my parents, I saw Jesus teaching me how to spot the manipulation I faced in those family dynamics, and slowly recognized that it was more toxic than it was healthy. I was learning about spiritual warfare and the armor I needed to protect myself, and more importantly my children. I started to have confidence in my responses toward any accusation thrown our way.
Jesus said that Satan is the father of all lies, and I witnessed how he thrived on creating dissension. I read how he tempted Jesus during His 40 days in the desert. And even though Satan bruised His heel, Christ had the final say, and crushed his head.
It was as if His words leaped off the pages, deposited Truth in my heart, and became a salve to my soul. I finally had absolute Truth I could stand on and had a faith that would not be shaken easily. I had answers on how to handle difficult people, and I had clear direction.
Even though I was deeply hurt and emotionally exhausted during that period of my life, I knew I was going to be okay. (Psalm 91 became my rhema). I trusted what I was learning, and He truly became the Father that I had always needed.
Then came my pivotal, jaw-dropping moment. In all the growing and learning I had been doing, I was still greatly burdened by my mother’s lack of love towards me. Anyone in my situation would feel the emotional heaviness if they were being honest. It was the one thing I could not shake. I was grieved by her purposeful divisiveness and manipulation, and I prayed that God would change it.
I wanted so desperately to be loved and accepted by her, and I thought growing closer to God would help remedy this. I thought, “Maybe if I was finally the right person that she wanted, she would love me?” “Maybe if I gave her this gift for her birthday and wrapped it up pretty she would like it?” Or “If I did this good thing for her, maybe then it would be enough for her to approve of me?”
As I was wrestling with some serious spiritual warfare, the unsettling torment of “Get over it. You are unlovable. You’ll never be good enough.” was a daily affliction. I could hear her sharp words saying this over and over. But in His perfect stillness, God deposited this into my heart.
“Natalie, do you think you would ever pursue me as fervently as you pursue after your mother’s approval?”
My heart sunk because I knew that’s exactly what I was doing. I had never thought of it in that context before. I was trying to balance God’s desires and my mother’s wishes. Both were polar opposites. I had also unknowingly placed an emphasis on a relationship with my mother over a relationship with Christ.
In Exodus 20 where it spoke of our God being a jealous God, it is clear that He shares His status with no one. Talk about bawling my eyes out. I had no idea how badly I had yearned for her affection, to be a part of my life, and it consumed my thoughts every single day. I had made her an idol.
There it was. My stumbling block. This was why God allowed a wound to keep festering.
Matthew 6:24 says, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
God wanted to be front and center and this was a monumental moment in my walk. The proof of my salvation wasn’t the absence of being tempted to honor my mother’s wishes (which were endless). The proof of my salvation was the awareness that I now had the power to obey Him, not her.
Big difference!
Ephesians 4:22-24 says, “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”
God was allowing pruning. He was allowing purpose in the pain. He was shedding me of anything I was putting above Him. I found letting go of her so incredibly agonizing at times, but I also found freedom in surrendering her over.
I can not put into words how grateful I am for His perfectly timed revelations when I needed Him most. As hard as it felt, decisions become easy when God’s Truth is evident.
I am sure that most of you don’t have a crazy story like mine, but I encourage you to share yours with others. We all come to Christ through different avenues and circumstances. You don’t have to have tragedy or walk through a lot of sin before you realize you need saving. In fact, I would highly recommend teaching your children the gospel message at an early age so they can spot lies, avoid the devil’s trappings, and living with the consequences from wrong choices.
It doesn’t matter how you came to faith, young or old. God can use a 6 year old’s testimony to glorify His name just as much as he can a 65 year old’s.
If they reject you, Jesus promises that. Who are “they” anyway? Their opinion doesn’t matter.
If there’s shame and guilt, Christ took that to the cross. You’re free from all condemnation.
If “they” continue to remind you of who you really are, you remind them you may not be where you want to be today, but praise the Lord you’re saved from who you used to be.
What God has done for you allows you to be aware of Satan’s lies and discern his wicked schemes. Remember, the devil uses people and accusations to distract us. Just because someone says it, doesn’t make it true.
You will find His grace in the midst of the hardest of days. You will find that His mercies are new every morning. And you will find forgiveness when you least deserve it.
This is where we rest.
We all need to preach on our life story and how God brought us out. Don’t allow the fears you have to determine who you follow. Jesus had His hands on your redemptive testimony from the beginning of time for the sole purpose to bring Him glory. It isn’t our story anyway. It’s His. It’s to be given away freely so that others can see Who He is, and what He’s done for all mankind.
God doesn’t necessarily want to use what we do now as much as He wants to use the things He saved us from. So, when Jesus wipes the slate clean, sits at the Right Hand, chose to die in my place, and continues to be faithful to this very day, I choose Him over any fear of telling my story.
When my husband asked me to share with you, my hope is that it helps you see that a God of Truth does not waver, nor vacillate in His redemptive qualities.
I know that was a really long read, but for those that have wounds that run deep, you get it. You can’t sum up your testimony into a short, neat 10-minute share. There is a long road ahead to heal and my love for people to be free is what motivates me.
I get asked a lot if I wished hardship hadn’t taken place or if I yearned for a different life growing up. I want to speak directly to the wounded and broken people of this world, so here is my answer.
I do think it can be dangerous to play the what-if game because there could be an ungrateful spirit in that question. I have many things I am thankful for and as we grow as Christians, the trials that inevitably come, I choose to see those as distractions from the enemy.
Just as people are used as vessels for God’s glory, people are also used for destruction. And when you view trauma or broken relationships through that lens, you’ll see that evil people work for the devil, even if it’s a family member.
It has taken me decades to be comfortable enough to share more personal stories in my note section. But I am not the same Natalie, and I have the liberty to stand up and say never again will you lay a hand on me. Never again will I allow you to have the opportunity to make me drink poison. And never again will I be blindsided by the coercion and manipulation.
There’s also wisdom in learning to live with a balanced view for the sake of what is healthy.
Someday it will be clear why God allowed such grievances, atrocities, slander, and for me to walk through a very difficult childhood. But as I grow, I stand grateful for the things He has saved me from. He has given me the courage to be bold in my faith, provided physical protection over my life and my children’s, shielded me from destructive relationships, and most of all, I get to be the mom I never had.
“And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.”
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
For more candid details of my journey from heartbreak to healing and redemption, you can visit Natalie’s Notes.
