My Story
It was a cozy winter morning, just a few days after Christmas. I had kissed my husband as he left for his new job as a stockbroker, after having been the president of a bank. Our teenage children were still asleep on Christmas break from school. I stepped into my art studio, cup of tea in hand, ready to work on commissioned textile art pieces after a successful one-woman art show. Life was full and familiar, until the phone rang.
We had a beautiful life. It wasn’t perfect, but it was full of love, purpose, and joy—the kind of life we had built with intention and care. The phone rang, and my husband told me he had just been indicted by the federal grand jury. We had no idea of the reason. We hadn’t been served papers. We were in shock. Our attorney told us it was because we had signed blank papers for the refinancing of our home a couple of years before. My husband had trusted a lending officer he had worked with on bank loans for 20 years.
The attorney told us it had been decided to make an example of my husband. That one call shattered our world. It was national news. He lost his job, and in the devastation that followed came public humiliation, financial loss, declining health from stress, eventually bankruptcy—and perhaps most painful of all, the deep sorrow of watching our children suffer. We had to leave our home, our stability, and the life we had known. In the middle of trying to survive and rebuild our life, my husband died.
I raged at God. I begged Him to let me die, too. Grief was all-consuming. Nothing in my life had prepared me for that kind of devastation. The pain of becoming a widow was unbearable—each step forward felt uncertain and heavy.
Even in the darkness, I kept searching for meaning. I asked, “What am I supposed to learn from this?” I clung to faith, though often with trembling hands. I didn’t always know what to do or how to move forward, but I made choices, one at a time, and slowly began to build a new life. God didn’t abandon me; He carried me through it. Over time, I found courage I didn’t know I had, and a quiet resilience began to grow in me. I eventually began to rebuild—not the life I once had, but something new. I had learned we can't go back. I found strength again and thrived in new endeavors, though I was forever changed.
It was a cozy winter morning, just a few days after Christmas. I had kissed my husband as he left for his new job as a stockbroker, after having been the president of a bank. Our teenage children were still asleep on Christmas break from school. I stepped into my art studio, cup of tea in hand, ready to work on commissioned textile art pieces after a successful one-woman art show. Life was full and familiar, until the phone rang.
We had a beautiful life. It wasn’t perfect, but it was full of love, purpose, and joy—the kind of life we had built with intention and care. The phone rang, and my husband told me he had just been indicted by the federal grand jury. We had no idea of the reason. We hadn’t been served papers. We were in shock. Our attorney told us it was because we had signed blank papers for the refinancing of our home a couple of years before. My husband had trusted a lending officer he had worked with on bank loans for 20 years.
The attorney told us it had been decided to make an example of my husband. That one call shattered our world. It was national news. He lost his job, and in the devastation that followed came public humiliation, financial loss, declining health from stress, eventually bankruptcy—and perhaps most painful of all, the deep sorrow of watching our children suffer. We had to leave our home, our stability, and the life we had known. In the middle of trying to survive and rebuild our life, my husband died.
I raged at God. I begged Him to let me die, too. Grief was all-consuming. Nothing in my life had prepared me for that kind of devastation. The pain of becoming a widow was unbearable—each step forward felt uncertain and heavy.
Even in the darkness, I kept searching for meaning. I asked, “What am I supposed to learn from this?” I clung to faith, though often with trembling hands. I didn’t always know what to do or how to move forward, but I made choices, one at a time, and slowly began to build a new life. God didn’t abandon me; He carried me through it. Over time, I found courage I didn’t know I had, and a quiet resilience began to grow in me. I eventually began to rebuild—not the life I once had, but something new. I had learned we can't go back. I found strength again and thrived in new endeavors, though I was forever changed.
Six years later, I remarried. I believed in the promise of a new beginning—a chance to love and be loved again. But that marriage ended after seven years. Divorce was never something I imagined, especially not after marrying a pastor. I was raised to believe divorce was never an option. My story involves many broken promises, broken dreams, and a broken heart.
I loved the good side of him, but the other side brought deep trauma that nearly broke me. Out of fear—of what might happen, of what others might think, and of facing the truth of my suffering—I kept everything hidden. I concealed my pain from the world and even tried to bury it from myself. The core of who I really am was altered in all of the trauma.
But God rescued me.
The end of that marriage led me into a dark night of the soul that stretched on for months. I wasn’t sure if I could ever rise again. Rebuilding my life in midlife—again—brought the same pain, devastation, and overwhelm as before. I wanted to give up. And yet, healing began to come. Slowly, I started to grow—not only in how I relate to others, but in how I see and understand myself.
Still, I asked: What am I supposed to learn from this?
Each loss stripped something away, challenging my identity and my sense of worth. But slowly, I began to see that falling doesn’t define us—our willingness to rise does. These hard seasons have grown me, not just in how I relate to others, but in how I understand myself.
Through it all, my faith has been the thread that’s held me together. I’ve learned to surrender, to let go of what no longer serves me, and to trust that even in brokenness, God is at work. Healing didn’t come all at once. It came through missteps, heartbreak, and choosing to get back up again, over and over. Healing is a choice!
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