Discovering God’s Healing When Normal Life is Stripped Away

What a weird time we are living in, huh? A worldwide health crisis, not seeing our friends and family as we usually do, routines out of whack and so many unknowns. No doubt, there is a lot of extra difficulty these days. Worry, fear, and uncertainty can stir up the deepest parts of our hearts: old “stuff” that we had already “dealt with” or even new “stuff” that is throwing us off even more. Perhaps this sudden stripping away of normal life reveals parts of ourselves that we didn’t even know needed attention. What if this time of social distancing and quarantine, as hard, scary, and confusing as it is, is a way that the Lord is asking us to let all it go - comfort, routine, normalcy, expectations, etc. - in order to see who we are underneath? To see where His love, His light, and His Mercy can rush in to comfort and heal.

That is exactly what the Lord did for me when I moved to Honduras in 2012 to serve as a nurse. I had left my job, moved away from family and friends to a new country, new culture, and new language. Everything that had been holding me together - my “normal life” - was now gone. This transition ended up being one of the lowest points of my life, but at the time I thought my discomfort was because I couldn’t “cut it” as a volunteer. I knew I needed to make a change, so after about 9 months of living overseas I made the excruciating decision to leave Honduras early and go home. And after another whole year of being distracted by life, but still in a rather dark place, I finally sought out therapy. 

Working with my therapist and diving into my depression, struggles, beliefs about myself, etc., the dots were finally being connected back to the root of it all: the wound of my parents’ divorce. 

I was angry. I was in disbelief. But, mostly, I was ashamed. For the last 20-something years the culture had been telling me that my parents’ divorce didn’t affect me and that I was resilient. And I believed it. I was proud of it!

Let me provide a little more of my story. My parents divorced when I was 7 years old. I was outside playing with friends when my parents called me over to our front porch. My mom was crying and she was the one to tell me they would be getting divorced. But, because I was 7, I didn’t have a clue what that meant. I just wanted to go back and be with my friends. Eventually, my dad moved out of our house and in with his girlfriend, and my mom and I moved up the street to a new home.

And from then on, life was just…normal. My parents have what people would call a “good divorce.” There were straight-forward custody arrangements, minimal fighting, and my dad was very involved in my life; he attended all of my swim meets and school events. Again, life was normal. I grew up having a great relationship with both of my parents, I did well in school, didn’t get into trouble, had a beautiful reversion back to my childhood Catholic faith, and graduated from college. I have enjoyed a wonderful career in nursing, I’ve traveled the world, did mission work overseas, and bought a home. From the outside, and from what the world says, my parents’ divorce had no effect on my life. 

So here I was, in my late twenties, diving into all of the things with my therapist and we began to make these connections that led straight to that 7 year old little girl, whose world was flipped upside down. To wrestle with the reality of my wounds and expectations I held onto for over 20 years was very difficult. I was so proud that my parents’ divorce didn’t have any bearing on my life, and yet I could now see that, actually, I wasn’t really fine. I was faced with this new reality and forced to unlearn bad habits and beliefs about myself. 

These include my struggle with perfectionism (in so many areas) for fear of rocking the boat, either by making my mom worry more or fearing that my dad would stop loving me and leave me, too; to making decisions and taking risks; to believing my worth was in external things. I am still a work in progress. 

For me, therapy, sharing my story, and finding others who have this same wound have been instrumental in my healing. Finding God through it all has also been incredibly healing. The Life Giving Wounds retreat has profoundly impacted my ability to truly see who He is in my life amidst the pain, difficulties, sufferings, worries, and doubts and cling to His love for me. One of the graces I received from the retreat is to be grateful for my wounds. Grateful for what they have taught me, grateful for leading me closer to Christ, grateful for connecting me with others, grateful for my time in Honduras. For it was because of Honduras and the stripping away of “normal life” that the Lord used to gently show me where I needed healing. I hope that this time of a pandemic - as difficult as it is - can be for all of us a time to slow down, take a good look inside, and with God’s Mercy face our wounds and find the life-giving joy that is there. 

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Jen was formerly the Nursing Director for a small non-profit serving children with special needs, outside of Washington, DC. However, she is most proud to be called a friend, daughter, godmother and aunt! Jen is a contributor to Primal Loss: The Now-Adult Children of Divorce Speak and serves on the traveling retreat team for Life Giving Wounds retreats. She has a heart to sit with others in their pain and to encourage them in their healing!