THE YEARS THAT TRIED TO BREAK ME

John 14:27

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

WHEN CHILDHOOD ENDS BUT THE HURT DOESN’T

There comes a point in your story where childhood ends, but the hurt doesn’t. Where you’re old enough to understand what happened to you, but still too young to know what to do with it. That was my teen years. The years that confused me, twisted me, shaped me even deeper, and tried their hardest to destroy me.

And even though I didn’t know it then. Even though I couldn’t feel Him. Even though I questioned if He even existed. God was still there. Silent, but present. Watching. Holding. Waiting.

THE SPIRAL BEGINS

By the time I hit fourteen, I was desperate for anything that felt like love. Friendship. Attention. A heartbeat next to mine. I didn’t care where it came from. I just needed something to fill the ache.

I started hanging out with the wrong crowd. Drank. Smoked. Lied to my mom. Skipped school.

I moved through boys like they were dirty laundry. I thought love meant giving up my body. I thought innocence was the price for affection.

That’s when I started seeing a twenty‑one‑year‑old man. And the me now wants to grab that fourteen‑year‑old girl by the shoulders and say, “Sammy. What in the world were you thinking?” But back then? I didn’t care. I probably lied about his age, guaranteed. There was no way my mom would’ve let a grown man anywhere near me. But he was older, and in my broken little heart, older meant attention. Older meant validation. Older meant maybe he’d finally be the one to love me.

He took my virginity. Fourteen years old. And yes, I consented.

Not because I understood anything about love, but because I was terrified of losing him. I thought giving him my body would make him stay. I thought that was the price of being wanted. Looking back now, I see how wrong it was. How manipulated I was. How vulnerable I was. But at that age, I was starving for affection. I would’ve handed over anything just to feel chosen for five minutes.

Jesus saw all of it. Every moment. Every lie I told myself. Every piece of innocence I gave away trying to earn a love that was never real.

He didn’t turn His face away from me. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t leave.

He stayed, even when I didn’t know He was there.

THE RETURN OF OLD WOUNDS

I was still going back and forth to see my dad when it was convenient for him, which was hardly ever. He was drowning in his drinking and lies, slipping further away from reality every time I saw him. But I still loved him. I still begged for any scrap of affection he might throw my way. I didn’t understand why I wasn’t good enough to receive his love. That question killed me inside every single day.

By fifteen, my dad and stepmom were deep into their divorce. Everything was falling apart, but I still wanted to see my stepbrothers, they were my family, my safe pieces of childhood. That’s when my dad fell completely off the deep end. Threatening voicemails. Rage. Drinking. Blackouts. He became someone I didn’t recognize, someone I was genuinely afraid of.

Somewhere inside me, something whispered: “Say something. Speak up. Stop protecting him.”

I had kept silent for so long. I had covered for him through so many lies. I questioned myself over and over. Did that night in Nemo even happen? Was I crazy? Was I remembering wrong? But the discomfort in my chest wouldn’t leave. It was like my body was begging me to stop carrying the weight.

So, I decided to tell my mom.

She told me what happened wasn’t normal. It wasn’t protection. It wasn’t fatherly. It was wrong. But I was still confused. Still uncertain. Still unable to accept it. My mind couldn’t make sense of the truth, but my heart knew it was time.

And here’s the part I didn’t understand until much later: Jesus was in that moment. Right there in the confusion. Right there in the fear. Right there when my voice shook and my world cracked open.

He was the whisper telling me to speak. He was the strength in my chest when everything felt impossible. He was the One who held the truth steady when I couldn’t.

Even when I didn’t know Him, He was already fighting for me.

THE COLLAPSE

Law enforcement started questioning me. They sent me to an advocate who asked me to explain that night. That night I still couldn’t fully understand myself. I sat in her office, confused, uncomfortable, trying to force words out of a mouth that I didn’t know how to speak that kind of pain.

We ended up getting a restraining order on my dad. I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want to disappoint my mom. I wanted to please everyone. I wanted to love him and be loved by him.

I still remember what he told the judge: “I have a drinking problem and black out a lot, so if I did do something, I don’t remember and I am sorry.”

That was it. That was all he said. After everything.

I couldn’t believe it.

I called my grandpa, my dad’s dad, hoping for comfort. Hoping for protection. Hoping for love.

Instead, he said, “That is too bad,” and hung up.

That was the last time he ever spoke to me.

After that, everything collapsed. My entire family stopped talking to me. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, even my older sister. I don’t blame her now. She was hurting too. And today, by the grace of God alone, we talk. I am grateful for that.

But back then? Being forgotten by a whole family you loved. It destroys something inside you.

To this day, the one person I miss the most is my grandma. We were so close. She was my pride and joy. Losing her, losing all of them, that cuts deep. Still does sometimes.

RUNNING FROM THE PAIN

Later that year, my dad went to jail. His face was on the news. His name was everywhere. And everyone at school knew exactly who I was. The underage kid in the story. The embarrassment swallowed me whole. The questions. The whispers. The bullying. The looks in the hallway. It was all too much for a fifteen‑year‑old girl already drowning in confusion and shame. I didn’t even want to be living anymore. I was hurting so deeply, but all I could think was that I was hurting him, and that tore me apart in ways I still struggle to explain.

I ended up moving to Pierre to live with my Godmother for the rest of my sophomore year. I just wanted my dad to get better. I hated everything that was happening. I remember praying, begging, for everything to go back to the way it was before that night in Nemo. Before the confusion. Before the fear. Before the truth started unraveling my entire world.

Then it came time to prosecute, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t relive it. I couldn’t hurt him. I loved him. I wanted him to get better, that was all I wanted. I was still confused. Still drowning. Still unable to think straight. The thought of sitting in a room full of people, being questioned, reliving something I wasn’t even prepared to face yet, it broke me. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t have the strength. I didn’t have the words.

But here’s what I didn’t understand until much later:

Jesus was in that moment too.

He was there when the news broke. He was there when the kids whispered. He was there when I cried alone in my room. He was there when I ran to Pierre to escape the pain. He was there when I couldn’t prosecute. He was there when I felt like I couldn’t breathe under the weight of it all.

He didn’t shame me for not being ready. He didn’t rush my healing. He didn’t turn away from my confusion.

He stayed, steady, patient, present, and waiting for the day I would finally understand that He was carrying what I couldn’t.

BECOMING WHO I WASN’T

This is where it got really bad.

I learned something dangerous: If I hurt people first, they couldn’t hurt me.

So I made it my mission. Deep into my twenties, to keep everyone at arm’s length. To strike first. To protect myself by destroying anything that got too close.

Especially men.

I wanted them to feel pain the way one single man made me feel pain.

I can’t take any of it back. But writing it, reliving it, letting it breathe in the open, it heals me. Because now I know the truth:

God was there through all of it.

He was comforting me even when I didn’t feel Him. He was preparing me for this moment, this healing. Because back then, I wasn’t ready to receive love. Not His. Not anyone’s.

I was angry with Him. I questioned if He even existed.

But He stayed.

THE MOMENT GOD SPOKE

It wasn’t until about a week ago, while writing my other blogs, that I asked God to take me back to that kitchen. Back to that night. Back to the moment my world went into confusion.

And He delivered. Loudly. Clearly.

All this time I thought maybe I was crazy. Maybe things didn’t happen the way I remembered. But when God took me back there, the moments I relived every day. I sat in silence and knew:

It did happen. I felt what I felt. I wasn’t imagining it.

Here’s the thing: I don’t think my dad even knew what he did. I don’t think he remembers. I think he was so far into his drinking that he blacked out and became someone else entirely.

And God told me that.

When someone is drowning in their own hurt, they will do anything to numb it. Alcohol was his drug of choice. It consumed him.

But somehow, God worked in me. He helped me forgive my dad. He lifted the hurt, the pain, and the shame off my heart.

Because He knew it wasn’t mine to carry. It never was.

The freedom I felt in that moment. I want you to experience it too.

Forgiveness doesn’t make what they did okay. It doesn’t erase the hurt. It doesn’t mean the memories stop trying to creep in.

It means you have a new way of handling it. It frees your heart. It reminds you that you don’t have to carry it anymore.

Jesus carried it up on that cross. And you can give it to Him. Over and over and over again.

For the One Who Needs to Know He Stayed

To the woman sitting in her own darkness right now. The one who feels forgotten, dirty, unlovable, too broken, too angry, too complicated, too far gone:

I see you. I know you. Because I was you.

You are not the sum of what was done to you. You are not the mistakes you made trying to survive. You are not the girl who gave herself away just to feel wanted. You are not the woman who hurts others because she’s terrified of being hurt again.

You are more.

Jesus has not walked away from you. Not once. Not ever. Even in the silence. Even in the rage. Even in the numbness. Even in the nights you questioned if He was real.

He stayed.

And He is still staying.

Your story is not over. Your healing is not impossible. Your heart is not too damaged to be restored. Your past is not powerful enough to steal your future.

You are loved. You are seen. You are wanted. You are worth rebuilding.

Most importantly, you are not alone anymore.

A Prayer for the Heart That Hasn’t Felt Safe in Years

Jesus,

I am praying for the woman who feels like her childhood and teenage years still own her, still define her, still sit heavy on her chest every time she tries to breathe. Lord, I lift her up to You. I ask that Your healing and comforting hand rest over her in a way she cannot ignore. Meet her right there in her hurt, in the memories she avoids, in the places she still feels small.

Look at her younger self, Jesus, the little girl who never felt safe and hold her tight. Remind her that You have been beside her through every moment she thought she faced alone. Every wound. Every lie. Every night she cried in silence. You were there.

Lord, I pray she finally releases these burdens and lays them at the foot of the cross, because they are not hers to carry anymore. Help her forgive the ones who hurt her and help her forgive herself for the ways she tried to survive. Let her feel the freedom that comes when she hands You the weight she was never meant to hold.

Remind her that You are writing her new beginning. That whatever is bothering her, whatever still haunts her, whatever tries to pull her backward, she can give it to You over and over again.

You heal the brokenhearted. You bind up wounds that feel too deep to touch. You make beauty out of the places she thought were ruined.

Lord, I pray she lets You. I pray she surrenders herself to You, fully, honestly, without fear, trusting that You will make all things new.

In Your Holy Name,

Amen.