I’m a preacher’s daughter, raised with love and structure, always in church when the doors were open. The hardest part of that life was the moving, having to start over again and again. The last move, in eighth grade, was the one that broke something in me. I didn’t fit in. I pulled away. And somewhere in there, I started losing my voice and my identity.

By twelfth grade, I’d fallen for a boy and decided to leave school for good. We married young, and it wasn’t long before the relationship I thought would save me became the thing that silenced me. What started as jealousy and control turned into years of narcissistic abuse, verbal, emotional, and physical. I made excuses. I stayed quiet. I told myself I’d just try harder.

We had two children together, and for years I kept hoping things would change: a new baby, a new state, a new house. Surely this would be the thing that fixed it. It never was. I sat in church pews and smiled, while at home I was hiding bruises and swallowing fear. I couldn’t even find the words to protect my own son.

It took years, but I finally left. I was torn down, unsure of who I even was anymore. I grieved the version of myself I’d lost along the way.

Two years later, I met the love of my life. Tim. What we had was nothing like what I’d known before. Ours was a love that was Christ-centered, patient, and safe, the kind of love that builds you back up instead of tearing you down. We were married for 28 years. Together we built and ran a business we were both proud of, side by side, partners in every sense. Tim’s love changed the entire trajectory of my life. For the first time, I got to know what it felt like to be cherished, to be heard, to be free to be fully myself.

Then, healing continued in ways I never expected. Being loved well by Tim helped me finally understand what I hadn’t known how to give myself: grace. I stopped trying to figure everything out on my own and started actually leaning on Jesus, asking Him for help instead of white-knuckling it alone. Slowly, my identity, my voice, my prayer life all came back to life.

Just when I thought I understood what it meant to lose yourself, God asked me to walk through it again, in a different way. I became a widow. Losing Tim taught me that grief doesn’t just visit once. It has its own way of stripping you down all over again, making you ask, “Who am I now, without him?” But what I learned the first time carried me through the second: I know how to find my way back. I know Whose voice matters most in the silence.

Two years ago, I went through the 180 Method®, and real healing took place. Freedom from pain I’d carried for far too long. Today, my walk with God is stronger than it’s ever been, and I get to help other women who’ve lost their voice and their identity, whether through abuse, grief, or both, find their way back to who they were always created to be.