My Testimony

In order to share how Jesus has carried me, I need to explain the brokenness from which He picked me up.

​

Shame is a heavy burden—one that lingers, whispers, and convinces us we are too broken to be whole. Some carry shame from daily struggles, from mistakes made and regrets held. Others carry a shame that was forced on them, wounds inflicted by the very people who should have protected them.

I know that kind of shame.

I was raised in a strict Baptist home where faith was used as control. It was a front to hide horrible things under the surface. My father twisted scripture, teaching me that if I didn’t obey perfectly, Jesus would send me to Hell. But beneath the surface of religious rules and smiling church faces, I endured something much darker—physical, emotional, and sexual abuse at the hands of my father.

For years, I carried secrets no child should bear. I lived in fear, believing that if anyone knew the truth, I would be cast out. I learned how to smile on the outside while suffocating on the inside. “Children are to be seen and not heard” was his famous saying. Even as I grew older, the weight of that shame stayed with me. It shaped the way I saw myself—unworthy, unlovable, and damaged beyond repair. I was to be seen and not heard. Be productive and keep quiet.

​

At the age of 13, everything changed. A friend overheard my father telling me to stay quiet about our secret. She refused to let it go and forced me to tell my mom. When the truth came out, my parents divorced. Instead of feeling relieved, I felt like it was my fault. I carried the weight of breaking up my family, believing that if I had just stayed silent, maybe everything would have remained intact. Our family never talked about it, further proving “seen and not heard.”

The shame was overwhelming.

During this time, I was kicked out of my home. We were cast out of our church, which had also been my school, and suddenly, I had lost everything familiar. Thrust into public school and now from a broken home, I felt abandoned, exposed, and completely alone. The trauma, the anger, the confusion—it all deepened. I learned to bury it, to perform, to pretend I was okay, even when I wasn’t. 

For years, I tried to outrun it.

I became an overachiever, excelling in school and later in my career as a teacher. I poured myself into my students, believing that if I could just be enough—smart enough, successful enough, perfect enough—maybe the past wouldn’t define me. Maybe I could rewrite my story.

But trauma doesn’t disappear through success. It lingers. It seeps into your relationships, into your view of God, into the quiet moments where shame still whispers, You are not enough.

​

When I met my husband, I thought love would erase the pain. But love alone doesn’t heal trauma. I had vowed never to marry, never to become a mother, because I feared passing down the brokenness I carried. I didn’t believe I was capable of being a wife or mother without my past poisoning it. I didn't feel worthy of that kind of love.

But God was working.

Through my husband’s patience and the guidance of a Christian counselor, I began to understand that healing isn’t about burying the past—it’s about surrendering it. It wasn’t about pretending it never happened but about being honest and allowing Jesus to meet me in the places I had kept hidden for so long. 

Even after years of counseling, motherhood brought my wounds to the surface again. Holding my daughter in my arms, I felt the weight of my own childhood pressing down on me. The fear of failing her consumed me. My perfectionism was spiraling. I wanted to give her everything I never had—security, love, a safe home. But deep down, I feared that no matter how hard I tried, I would never be enough.

 The enemy whispered:

What if you fail her?

What if you can’t keep her safe?

What if she grows up to hate you?

And then there were the voices of those who didn’t understand or were too uncomfortable to acknowledge—family members who dismissed my pain.

“You turned out fine, didn’t you?”

“You’re too sensitive.”

“It was so long ago—just move on.”

As if my pain was an inconvenience.

Then, last year, I saw my father again, after almost 17 years. And in that moment, the past I had worked so hard to heal from came rushing back. The fear, the anger, the shame—it almost pulled me back under.

I had told myself I was stronger now, that I had healed enough.

But I wasn’t.

For so long, I avoided being truly honest with God. I grew up believing that anger toward Him was wrong. But I knew that in order for healing to really happen, deep within, I needed to be honest with Him. Not the polished, church-version of honesty where I said the right things and kept my emotions in check, but the raw, unfiltered truth:

I was angry. Oh, so angry.

Angry that it happened to me.

Angry that I was just a child, innocent and trusting, and it was stolen from me.

Angry that it was my own father. The person that I look just like. Who I see in the mirror every day.

Angry that I had to carry this burden, that I had to do the work to heal from something I never asked for. 

Angry that he continued living his life while I had to fight so hard to keep my head above the weight of his actions.

Angry that the people who should have protected me didn’t.

Angry that, for so long, it felt like God had been silent.

​

Questions of:

Where was God when I was being hurt?

Why me?

Why do innocent children go through such awful things?

But the truth is, God already knew my heart. He wasn’t afraid of my anger.

He wasn’t disappointed in my questions. He wasn’t asking me to pretend I was okay.

So I sat in my car and let it all out—the hurt, the betrayal, the deep ache of injustice, the anger, the fear of keeping my daughter safe. 

And instead of condemnation, I found something unexpected: grace. peace. 

I felt so much lighter.

God didn’t push me away. He met me there.

In my anger, He whispered, I know. I saw. I never left you. 

In my brokenness, He reminded me, This was never yours to carry alone.

In my fear, He promised, I am still making beauty from these ashes.

That honesty—that surrender—was the turning point. Because healing didn’t mean pretending I was never hurt. It meant finally giving the pain to the only One strong enough to hold it.

It is why this blog, this website was born.

This is my surrender, my stepping forward, my light in the darkness.

Raising my little Luci in trust that Jesus already has her story written out. There is nothing that I can do to derail her from God’s plan for her life. 

The enemy uses shame to keep us silent, to keep us small. He knows that our story is too powerful if we ever get bold enough to share it. He wants us to believe that our past disqualifies us from a future filled with God’s goodness. But God turns broken stories into testimonies.

So, here’s the thing that God is showing me—shame is not mine to carry.

And it’s not yours either. God never meant for us to live like that.

Because despite what I feel, despite the fears, despite the desperate perfectionism that haunts me, God reminds me:

I was never meant to be Luci's savior.

He already is.

I was never meant to carry the weight of perfection.

His grace is sufficient.

I was never meant to parent out of fear.

He has already redeemed my story.

Shame does not define me. My past does not define me.

Christ does. 

And He says I am free.

2 Corinthians 12:9 – My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.​

Through all of this, I have realized that Motherhood has become my ministry. ​