Against All Odds: Christian Identity, Spiritual Healing, and Childhood Wounds
For most of my life I was a mess. I struggled with long-term relationships, friendships, jobs, and purpose. I had crippling self-esteem issues, depression, loneliness, and a total lack of self-control. I had no idea who I was or where I was going and had lost my moral compass. I had never connected with the Catholic Church of my birth and stayed away from it starting shortly after my eighth-grade Confirmation until the age of thirty-three when I met my husband, who had also strayed from the church but came from a strong Catholic family and was willing to delay sexual gratification until marriage which was important in my search for purity.
As a teenager I often got overheated and dizzy in church and took that as a sign from God that I didn’t belong there. I could hear him in some voice from the Poltergeist movie saying, “Get Out!” In my twenties, I couldn’t even hear the word “God” without cringing due to my aversion to hypocrisy, and the condescension of religious people towards non-believers. But as fast as I tried to run from God, he kept pace with me.
Finally, I realized that my feeble attempts to heal myself weren’t working. Therapy helped some but after twenty-five years of it, I needed something more. I needed spiritual healing: healing from my parents’ divorce and my unhealthy coping mechanisms. As a reluctant Catholic, seeking spiritual healing was a challenge but it was my last hope. My forays into the Church felt awkward and unnatural. I tried on Catholicism like I was trying on a new coat that didn’t quite fit. It was itchy and uncomfortable but I was cold, so I kept it on, fidgeting the whole time. Early in my marriage I attended church out of duty to my husband and tried for years to take on the role of a Christian but there were many obstacles to my faith journey: shame over my sinful past, my cynicism and unbelief, my disdain for authority, and the conflicting messages from the culture.
But it was my atheist father, a forceful personality who was vocal about his disdain of the Church, who had the strongest hold on me and my ideas of God and Church. He came from a strong Catholic background with six family members in religious vocations. But he turned from the Church after his divorce and never missed an opportunity to criticize it, blaming the Church for his sexless marriage and the death of his sister, an alcoholic nun who he says was removed from the convent for her drinking instead of being offered help.
I also grew up in pro-choice household, making it difficult to be a Catholic. My mom was against abortion but didn’t believe in telling other people what to do. My stepmom worked as an educator for Planned Parenthood and believed that abortion rights were women’s rights. I considered myself pro-choice too, so when I went to church and heard strong pro-life messages, I was again reminded I was an outsider. I felt embarrassed and accused sitting in the pew. When I moved from California to Minnesota at the age of 45, I was desperate to make new friends and start a new life, including a new life in the Church. I was about as far from a religious life as one can be, but I kept coming back, kept trying it on, kept following the call of God.
I volunteered for the Befriender ministry, which brings communion to homebound parishioners, and led the rosary even though I’d never recited a rosary in my life and didn’t feel I had the religious or moral authority to do either. In training, when we were asked about our religious background, I found myself talking about my father and his anger towards the Church. I was so influenced by his beliefs and his story that I didn’t have a story of my own. I decided it was time to find my Christian identity—to search and decide for myself what I believed. It helped that I was now geographically separated from my family. I realized I had to reject my dad’s anger and beliefs about the Church without rejecting him. As a child of divorce, I also had to reject much of his parenting and my parents’ divorce, which were influenced by the Sexual Revolution and had caused me so much pain. The teachings of the Church and the healing of our Savior were the missing elements to my spiritual healing. But they also helped in the healing of my own marriage and my childhood wounds from divorce.
I soaked up the teachings of the Church. I went to Bible studies; I read spiritual books including Matthew Kelly’s Rediscover Catholicism and George Weigel’s Witness to Hope, which helped me embrace my dignity; I went to Confession regularly; and I embraced Jesus’s messages of love and forgiveness. I slowly began to grow in confidence, knowing I was a beloved child of God, and that I had a roadmap for life’s challenges. I studied even more, knowing that to have confidence in God I needed to know him better. I also learned about forgiveness and worked to understand it in the Christian context and how to apply it to my life.
Specifically, I learned to forgive my father over time. It started with a question, “How can I forgive him?” and developed from there. I realized that he had done what he thought was right, and that he never meant to harm me. Even though I felt rejected and abandoned by him, I knew that he never stopped loving me, and realized how much I had stopped trying to love him. In following the commandment to honor thy father and thy mother, I decided to start calling him every Sunday, which bore great fruit. When he was in the hospital close to death, he mentioned how much he had enjoyed our weekly calls. Forgiving my father released a lot of the anger that had been lurking unnoticed beneath my sunny exterior for years—mostly anger towards men.
Forgiving my dad and releasing this anger trickled down to my marriage. It also increased my self-confidence and my confidence in God. If He could release me from this burden that I had carried for forty-five years, He could do anything! I learned to trust Jesus and His teachings more than other people and my own fears and shortcomings. When I struggled in my marriage, it was learning about my duty to help my spouse attain holiness that gave me the courage to speak up against unholy behavior. When I had lost trust in my spouse, I learned to trust God—trust that my marriage could be saved and that I could survive some harsh words or treatment without breaking (knowing that if it were too unholy and I needed to get out, God would help me discern that). I knew God would protect me, so I kept leaning in with my whole heart. I was terrified, but worse than a broken heart is a self-protected heart, a form of hopelessness that never gives love a chance.
In searching for my identity as a Christian I was reintroduced to the Church, where I came to know and believe in the love of Jesus, which led to my spiritual healing. This in turn led to healing the relationship with my dad, which hastened the healing of my marriage, which served to further strengthen my belief in God. Building my Christian identity, understanding my dignity, following Church teachings, and learning about forgiveness and trust propelled me into a new life filled with love, hope and a sense of peace. This spiritual approach—even against great odds—healed my childhood wounds and renewed my marriage. It is still a great mystery to me, but God continues to work miracles in my life. Every time I read God’s Word during Mass, finally knowing that I belong there, I consider it a miracle and praise Him for all the blessings in my life.
About the author:
Sandy grew up in Southern California where she spent her time camping, surfing and horseback riding. She earned a B.A. in journalism from Cal State, Long Beach, and has written for Black Belt and Boys’ Life magazines and various community newspapers. She has been married for twenty years and now lives in Minnesota with her husband Mark. She has a blended family with two stepsons, one earning his Masters in Theology, another who is a talented musician, and one son in his first year of minor seminary.
Sandy rediscovered her Catholic faith upon moving to Minnesota nine years ago, and in the last two years has begun the healing process from her parents' divorce. She has been retired since 2019. She is a Life-Giving Wounds online retreat leader, and works part-time for Marriage Material, a pro-life organization.
Reflection Questions for Small Groups or Individuals:
What resonates from Sandy’s experience with your own?
How have you learned to forgive your parents over time? If so, how would you describe it? If not, where are you on that journey?
What events in your life, such as Sandy moving across the country, have really shaken up your thinking and approach to your healing journey?
Have you tried to run away from God only to find him chasing after you?