Ep. 25- Karen's Story

Becky and Tiffany sit down with Karen to share her story. Karen is a co-founder of the Healing Through Christ 12-Step program.  She is a mom of five children, has sixteen grandchildren and another one on the way.

Karen shares that she had been married for two years when she began feeling disconnected from her husband. She knew something was off. She prayed a lot to know what the problem was and it became more and more evident there was something really wrong.

However, Karen says she didn’t find out the truth about her husband’s sexual acting out until they had been married for twenty-five years. After her husband’s disclosure, Karen talks about how she felt so betrayed.  She shares:

I had no idea what my life was.

Karen says she questioned why the Lord did not let her know what was going on sooner.  She felt a strong answer that there was no help available at that time and that He was aware of her and had a plan for them.  During those long years in the dark, Karen explains that she had developed unhealthy behaviors to cope with her husband’s out-of-control behaviors. She felt the need to control what was happening. 

Becky reminds us that there is a lot of pain around our loved ones’ acting out behaviors… “but when we can pull back and recognize that this (person) is a choice son of God who is struggling, we can give him compassion. Sometimes that compassion means stepping away from the relationship, and for some people, the relationship can continue.”

Karen shares that she felt overwhelmed as she learned more about her husband’s actions. “My mindset was it was my job to heal everything,” Karen says. However, the Lord whispered to her: This is not your job. I will take care of your husband. You don’t need to heal his addiction.

Feeling a sense of relief that she could try to surrender this, Karen shares that she began attending 12 Step meetings. After about a year, she got to Step 4, which asks us to take a searching moral inventory. She felt she was being self-righteous for feeling this way, but she couldn’t think of anything she’d done wrong.  Becky shares that she has learned that Step 4 is really about finding where we really need healing and taking it to the Lord.  Tiffany shares that she recognizes that doing her more recent Step 4, she knows that there is another piece she is going to need to surrender and that feels scary.

Karen says that it took going through a long, arduous illness before she began truly surrendering to God and to His will, which was a huge thing for someone who, as she describes, wanted to control everything. After meeting with many doctors and no answers, Karen shares she fully surrendered to the Lord.  The Lord stepped in and brought the right doctor and right information into her life.  When she began healing from her illness, she finally understood what to include in her fourth step moral inventory. She recognized where she was truly broken and where she needed healing. 

It was going through the fourth step when I felt an intense love from the Lord.

Karen shares that feeling this desire to no longer dictate to the Lord what His will should be that truly helped Karen heal from her betrayal trauma. She shares: “Since then I’ve come to see a challenge in front of me and instead of telling the Lord what I need to have happen, I can say, ‘Wow. I didn’t know this was going to happen. I don’t know what to do about it but I know you knew it was going to happen and I know you know what I need to learn from this or what I can learn from this and you know how to get me through it. So please help me to learn what I need and please guide me in this next step. Please show me the way.’”

Karen explains that she feels addiction is a rollercoaster and she didn’t always know if her marriage would survive. But finally, her husband made the efforts that he needed to put his addiction behind him. When asked what helps her when she feels stuck, Karen explains that she falls to her knees in prayer. 

I’m shedding this mortal ‘gunk’ through Christ. Christ is the basis of my recovery.

Karen’s Recovery Resources:

Healing Through Christ 12-Step program   http://www.healingthroughchrist.org

Prayer

Surrender

Trust in the Lord

Christ- the One Who is Healing my heart

Karen’s Song:

“Beautiful” by Mercy Me