My Story
My story is the same as many other women who lived afraid to speak. For over two decades I lived what I believed was a healthy marriage, but over the course of those two decades I slowly began to realize the rot of lies, delusion, and narcissism eating away at my soul. Years of emotional, psychological, financial, spiritual, and sometimes physical abuse wore me down. The constant gaslighting and ongoing web of lies made me doubt my own reality and intelligence until I couldn’t make heads or tails of my life.
Me and my six beautiful children in our Ukrainian vyshyvanky.
For years, I had been forbidden to write. I was not allowed to have access to money other than my weekly allowance. I was told that every tragedy I suffered: a brother dying by suicide, a house fire, another brother’s death in that fire - were all God’s judgements on me for not submitting to my ex- husband’s delusions. Nothing I ever did was enough. At one point my ex-husband turned to my kids on the way to church and said “Mommy is just sensitive. I am helping her to be a better person because she isn’t good enough.”
I was so incredibly broken when I walked into church that morning. Completely demoralized and beaten down, I sat on the pew filled with rage and hurt. And while my family was with me, I was completely and utterly ALONE.
Fortunately, my church sees the unseen. They see the broken and the beaten down and helped support me as I gained the strength to admit that somehow I was what society would deem “a battered woman”. Upon that confession, I secretly started to prepare an exit for me in my kids. Two years of safe houses, post office boxes, secret bank accounts, and an alias. Two years of unraveling a messy web of lies and deceit. Two years of intensifying abuse as my husband grew more and more suspicious and more and more anchored in his religious delusions and cult-like theology.
So Much My Heart is the story I was forbidden to write. It is the story of my healing and my journey to freedom. It is my hope for the future and my voice to others like me who suffer silently. Jesus met me in my brokenness. He met me on the bathroom floor. He met in the Michael’s parking lot hysterical and afraid - and he brought me to freedom.
Jesus’ heart is to set the captive free and to redeem the years the locust have eaten (Joel 2:25). So Much My Heart isn’t just about my heart, but the heart of the Father for His daughters. My prayer is that if you are reading this, you will know that you are not alone. Jesus sees you just as he saw me, and there is hope for you because you most certainly are not alone.