Episode Transcript
Welcome, friends to Healing In Christ's Light. I consider you all my friends, even though some of us have never met. But I am so grateful to have you here today and to learn with me and to be willing to hold space for my story. Really grateful. I'd really love to hear your stories as well someday.
I thought I would start this episode by letting you know a little bit about me and why I am interested in healing in Christ's light. I have been married to my husband for 23 years and we have together six children ranging from the ages of 20 down to eight. But that's where I'm at today, and I want to rewind a bit and tell you more of my story from 23 years ago when I first met my husband, and how we are to the place where we are today. How I am here.
When I first met my husband, I had some qualifications for what I thought I wanted in a husband. And a few of the qualifications included that they have gone on a mission for our church that I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that they live the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And it was important to me that whoever I marry, we get married in the temple because in the temple we believe you're sealed for time and for all eternity. And those were some basic things that were very, very important to me. So I met my husband. I fell in love. He seemed to meet all of my qualifications. I decided that this might be a good fit. I fasted and I prayed and I had this revelation from God that my answer was this is going to be hard. And it was interesting because it was as if my spirit responded and I said, I know, but I promised I would do it. 1s And I can say that it absolutely has been hard and that it has also been worth it because of what I have learned, what I am learning, and who I am becoming. I wouldn't give it back.
We were married in 2000 and we were married in the Dallas, Texas temple. And it wasn't very long after that that I started to realize that something was may be wrong. My husband was really volatile, very volatile. Like he could be amazing and connected and doting and tender and then he really wasn't. And he was angry and easily upset and he was upset about things that I didn't understand. And about nine months into our marriage, I found some emails that had been opened that had explicit titles that I knew that he had been 1s looking at. And I didn't know much about pornography at the time. I didn't know the kind of damage that it could do. I didn't know how it could affect mood and mental health and so many things. And so I remember just thinking this is going to be my chance to show what a good wife I am. And I remember going to him like it's no big deal and saying, this is what I found. 1s And I love you, I forgive you. Now go talk to the bishop and don't do it again.
And he did do it again, many times. So many times that it was really shocking by the time I learned about the frequency and throughout the years, I would say something like, I think I've seen a mouse. I've seen like one thing that I can tell you've been looking at something inappropriate, but I think that there have got to be more mice in the walls. Like there have to be more instances of acting out. And he would say, no, this is it. This is what you saw. That's it. That's all I have to offer. And we would just kind of move on. I can look back and say there was some denial in that for me, for sure, but also a lack of education, a lack of understanding. I didn't get the full gravity of what was going on. The interesting thing is that I really didn't find evidence of acting out very often. Not often at all, in fact. And every few years when I would find something, I would then approach him. And mostly I had no idea, and I certainly had no ideas to the extent of use.
I'm going to fast forward to a point where we have been married 17 and a half years and we have had all sorts of struggles with this. I'm still not understanding the weight of what's going on, the severity of what's going on, the frequency of use. I'm just not getting it. And I had this prayer that went something like this heavenly Father, things are not well. I don't know what the problem is. But if you will help me to figure this out, I will do all of the things. I will do the addiction recovery program, and I will do twelve steps and I will do therapy. I will do all of it. Just help me please, figure out what's wrong. 1s And at that point I had this really strong prompting that came back to me and I felt like, help is now on the way. And thank goodness that it was. After following a prompting, I found evidence of more porn youth.
At that point, I finally realized this is really the issue. This is the root of why there are so many struggles. And from there I entered recovery and started to see that I needed my own help and I needed my own support and I needed more knowledge. And I've been on a quest for more understanding ever since. With a new understanding, I decided that maybe I'm not strong enough to do this on my own, and where can I go and what can I do from there? I entered my first addiction recovery program meeting for family members that are sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And I was fortunate enough to have some missionaries there who had walked the path of recovery and were walking the path of recovery. And I really admired what they had done and what they had developed and who they had become and who they were practicing to become. They were just amazing, amazing people. And I thought, I want that. I'm hungry for that. I want to become something more, I want to do more and I want to learn more.
At one point, I decided to go visit my state president, who's our clergy over our area. And he shared with me the contact information for someone named Katy Willis. And Katy is sunshine in human form. She would share publicly how she had been sexually betrayed in her marriage. So she related with things that I was going through. At first, when he shared that with me, I thought, there's no way I'm calling her. There is no way that I'm going to share with somebody how messed up things are, where things are at. I don't think they'll understand. I don't think that this is a good idea. Well, it took a few weeks, but I got some courage up and I called Katy. And Katy ministered to me in such beautiful ways. She brought a care package and she validated where I was at and what I had experienced. And because I had never really entered recovery, my recovery to that point had been literally I would pray and pray and pray for hours at a time. And while that was valuable because I gained this amazing relationship with my Heavenly Father, it didn't really solve the problems. He had different answers for me as to what I needed to do to actually take action and not just pray. But Katy had walked this path before, and she had done the things and she had done the therapy and group therapy and twelve steps, and she understood better than I did some of the things that might help me. I found that I had some misunderstandings of doctrine. And I remember one that I'll just point out was I remember telling Katy that I did not think that boundaries were a righteous principle. And I really pushed hard on this, and I laughed because I'm all in with boundaries now. But Katy, bless her heart, she gently pushed back. She held her sacred ground, and she did it in such a loving way. Later, she told me that as we were chatting on the phone about boundaries, she was sitting in front of the Brigham City Temple looking at the fence surrounding the temple to keep it safe.
Since that time, I'm glad to report that I've come to find out that God uses boundaries. He does. He uses boundaries. And if He does, then it's okay if we do too. In righteous ways. 1s While working the addiction recovery program, the family member side, I joined a group therapy that's called LifeStar that was so foundational, it was just so good for my healing and my learning. But it was also confusing because I kept thinking, okay, this is really important head knowledge. How does this fit in with the gospel of Jesus Christ? How how does the Spirit work with these things? And do I just follow rules or do I rely on revelation? And where is Christ in the process? Is He found in therapy? Because my recovery to that point had been prayer and to all of a sudden rely on tools and on things that men had studied, I just needed more. I needed more understanding and I needed to know how what I was learning fit with doctrine or didn't fit with doctrine.
Fast forward five and a half years or so and my husband is working his own recovery and I'm working my own recovery. And while I'd love to tell you that things are amazing and they're going so much better, the truth is it's hard. It is still very hard, actually. And my situation is extreme in a lot of ways. For instance, my husband suffers from severe mental illness and that wasn't diagnosed until a couple of years ago. I've heard varying professional opinions on why he does struggle with such severe mental illness. What I've come away with is that there's something related to his mental illness and his addiction. I don't know what it is exactly, but I can say that. We once went for some SPECT imaging on his brain and before beginning our session, the neurologist asked my husband do you have any addictions to heavy drugs or anything like that? And my husband does not. He's never tried any of that stuff. What I have come away with is that the chemicals produced from acting out have contributed to maybe even caused some very, very severe mental illnesses. In fact, three diagnosed and severe mental illnesses due to this. I have struggled severely. My husband struggles severely. Our children have struggled severely and our story is unfinished because of that.
What I bring to the table is a lot of curiosity, a lot of wondering. What can I do differently? What boundaries do I need to set? How can I work this through with God? What is my role? What is God's role? What have others done? And I approach all of this with a lot of curiosity with wanting to learn, with a desire to do better, and to improve my family's lives and our situation. I also feel called to share what I have learned and what I am learning and what I am practicing and my journey a bit. And one of those efforts is that I have written a book that's called Healing in Christ's Light from patterns of sexual betrayal as a covenant-keeping daughter of God. (Betrayal trauma) And obviously, that is not going to apply to everyone. But what does apply to everyone is how to heal in Christ's light. Something else that I focus heavily on is how to heal in Christ's light when there are patterns of the four A's which are abuse, addiction, adultery and or abandonment. Because when there are these destructive patterns that are not changing, something needs to happen. We need to do something. We get to be agents who act and who are not acted upon as we learn from 2 Nephi 2:26.
I started to really pick up on the fact that this might be a topic that is maybe a little underrepresented when I received some feedback from some of my beta readers for my book. In my book, I do talk about how it is different when there are the forays the addiction, abuse, abandonment and adultery. And I said it in a different order, but we treat those things differently, or at least we should treat them differently. And when people had read that part I started to get feedback on it and I could tell that it was sinking in, that people were soaking it in. And the spirit said to me this is what I want you to focus on a little more strongly. And so my reach is broader here and I'm expanding my efforts from Betrayal Trauma to include Betrayal Trauma and to reach out arms to welcome others as well. Just to let you know, a few of the modalities of healing that I have used, they've included individual therapy, marriage therapy, group therapy, therapeutic Yoga, and Accelerated Resolution Therapy which is kind of like EMDR. And for several years I was a frequent attendee at Addiction Recovery Program family support meetings that are run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for which I have also been a missionary in that program. For the last few years, I have worked my own recovery through the Twelve Steps, which I absolutely love. I do it through a program called Essay Lifeline and a large part of my story has been sharing my story with others, which includes my upcoming book that will be published in January of 2024. And also I previously have a podcast that I may or may not add to sometimes that is called Betrayal Trauma. SOS. And while there are good things in that podcast and what I shared, I will say that at the time I was only, oh, let's see, two and a half years into recovery, I think, when I started that. I remember feeling this really strong prompting to start it, and I remember responding to God and saying, I will do that in two or three years, when I have more recovery under my belt. And the response was, “now.” I would consider what I shared there to be decent and that I am fine-tuning things with God. That I'm practicing and that I'm learning. I would present some things somewhat differently but it's still overall, really good information.
This much I know: I can use all of the tools, I can do all of the therapy, and I can gain all of the awareness. But without Christ, it's incomplete. And so I welcome you to join me along this journey as I continue to learn how Christ heals us and how his grace works and different ways that people access it. Because there's not one exact formula. It's not this checklist. I'll do this and this and this and this and this and I am going to feel better. It's not like that. Christ is the answer, but the way he's the answer is sometimes different. It eludes me. And there's real beauty in that because with that comes this journey of exploring. And He delights; He delights in manifesting Himself to me. Something that I have learned is that He is a relational God. He values relationships like I do. And when I invest time and resources and love into that relationship with Him, He gives back. And He gives back in some pretty fantastic, amazing ways. I plan to end every episode by asking my guests to testify about how healing in Christ's light has benefited them. And as I've conducted some interviews already, this is my favorite part. I sit and just kind of drool over what the person is saying and let the Spirit speak to me. So it is my honor today to testify about how healing in Christ's light has benefited my life.
I found Christ in healing through so many different ways. I found Him as I was searching for Him in therapy and in scripture and in prayer. And he's healed me in various ways and at various times in different ways. For instance, there have been a couple of times where I was just sobbing my eyes out in prayer, and it was as if He stood me on my eat and wipe my tears. And then another time, I approached him and I said, you know, 2s I know that you can do this. I'm struggling. Can you see me here? I cannot breathe almost. I'm struggling so much. I want you to please heal me. I know you're capable of it. And his response that time was, I want you to be grateful for this. At the time, that was a pretty incredulous thing to hear, because my husband was not doing well with mental illness things. And it was a very, very real possibility that I could be a widow with six children to raise, and I was terrified. However, as I started to be grateful, and not just grateful, but authentically grateful, He did something for me. He changed me from head to toe, and I did find myself grateful, even for those hard challenges, in part because, through them, I came to understand Him better. I began to gain a relationship with my Savior, to better understand pain, and to connect with other sacred human beings. And so with assurity, I can say I love Jesus says. I love my Jesus. I want to know Him better. I want to see Him better. I want to understand who He is and what He delights in and who I was created to be and how I can really, really get His image in my countenance, which I fail at a lot. But because He's taken some of those ugly things about me and made them beautiful or helped me to overcome and He has, at times, wiped my tears and healed my heart, I can say that I know Jesus is the Christ and that He saves, that He does things I cannot do. I love Him dearly.
I'm truly grateful that you joined me today. I'm looking forward to interviews with therapist Geoff Steurer, my husband, Bart Brockbank, and Chad and Portia Louder, plus more. I hope that you'll follow this podcast on your favorite platform and consider leaving a rating so that others can more easily find it. Healing In Christ's Light can also be found on Instagram. Thanks for healing with me in the light of the Savior.
