Years ago, roots of fear were buried in me so deeply, that I couldn’t truly, truly, love my husband, Ken. They took over my life and everything around me.

Over time, bit by bit, things crumbled into piles of brokenness around me.  We lived a double life. To some people, our lives looked fine, but to others it looked entirely different.

I asked myself, “How do I clean up this heap of messes?”  My husband Ken and I owned a business with close to 200 employees. We were a sweet Christian family who had just launched a non-profit company.  I asked myself, “How will we get out of the entanglements of our double life? What about our reputation?”

Does this resonate with any part of your life? Have you ever controlled things or people so that you could feel safe most of the time—or flat out 24/7? Before I got married, I built up a wall of security with a plan for what would happen if things went wrong in my marriage. It went like this: “If I leave my husband first, then he can’t hurt me.”

Before I met my husband, I had a bad case of “looking for the one”—with numerous short-term, long-term and one-night stand relationships. (Yes, I said it – “one-night flings!”) Those were some of my darkest moments.  On and on it went.

I asked myself, “Is this man going to be the one? Could he be Mr. Right? Is this next date going to click things into motion and turn into my Hallmark marriage?” This dangerous and deadly guessing game threw me down a swirling hole of self-destruction and self-sabotage. Little by little, I handed out my self-worth on a plate, until I had little to no self-esteem left. Mr. Right was nowhere in sight.

But later I found out that the love my soul was longing for was the love of my Heavenly Father.  He was The One I’d searched for my whole life!

I searched and longed for things of this world till I was thirty-eight. I had no points of reference for my faith. No one I knew was walking with God. I grew up without knowing who the Lord was.

I went to church only a few times—some years, just Easter and Christmas.  Now, years later, with hindsight, I’m glad I went. In today’s world, millions and millions still have not found The One—Jehovah-Jireh (the Lord who Provides).

Boy, was I happy to be at the end of myself and the beginning of Jesus at thirty-eight years old! A prayer of acceleration arranged the next thirteen incredible years!

Two scriptures spoke to me at the beginning of my journey with Jesus:

“Whoever finds their life will lose it and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39).

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, and follow me'” (Matthew 16:24).

At this point, I had to hear it only once. I got my marching orders and knew what I needed to do! That was easy. Okay—maybe I was broke. Okay—maybe I was just about homeless. I’d lost my house to foreclosure. The lease for my Mercedes had just one payment left to go. With very little common sense, I was in survival mode—drowning in financial quicksand.    My next decision was the best I’d ever made. I took Jesus’ invitation to follow Him! So from Minnesota to Southern California I went. I gave up my entire life for Christ. I’ve been completely on fire for Him ever since!

Mid-point in my marriage, while I was living in Orange County, California, fear ran me out of my marriage over five times.  The “run-away bride” had nothing on me!  I had “commitment phobia” big time.  I thought that the source of all my problems was my husband. I was blinded by my own wounds, hurts, and pains from my past. I was unable to see what I was contributing to the process.

You see, with every spinout of complete utter chaos and verbal assaults with my husband, I thought I was married to a crazy man partnering with the devil. Later, I realized it takes two to “ride the crazy train” to continue the craziness after six years of marriage.  I had my share of contributing to our devastating messy marriage, and so did he.

What I learned in the last six years, was that my need for inner healing and deliverance from the demonic contributed negatively to our marriage. My husband I both had lots of hurts, pain, terror and trauma to process and heal.

One of our blessings came when we both agreed to walk through the Refiner’s Fire and clean up both sides of our families’ dysfunctional past. We were ready for blessings to be passed down to our children and the generations to follow.

One of the keys of my healing and freedom process was to stay focused on myself—and to not shift or get distracted with what my husband was or wasn’t doing.  The vertical beam of the cross goes up and down. That represents Jesus and us. I focused on my relationship with Father God.

While I do that, the “God factor” kicks in (that’s the supernatural Jesus part) that handles our spouse’s grooming and growing into his fullness.  As we surrender to His process for us, God will work on our spouse’s development. This is the horizontal connection that goes across from you to your spouse—where Jesus meets him.

You see, we can be responsible for changing only ourselves while God works on our husbands.  It’s easier that way. I learned early in our marriage that I ain’t his mama—and I don’t want to be!  That takes the joy right out of us! Who wants all that weight and pressure—to be responsible for another person?

Nada here, nada me!

So then we got separated. At this point we’d both had enough. The last argument was a verbal exchange of extremely cruel words, character teardowns, and a yelling match that landed us right into an attorney’s office.  For the first time, we were separated for four months. Previous times, I’d returned within a few days because I hadn’t wanted to raise Josiah, our son who needs special love and care, on my own.

But not this time. This time the separation felt real.

When we came face-to-face at the attorney’s office, Kenny was fuming. He spewed a couple of things at me and stormed out of the office.  This wasn’t going as I’d hoped. I was four months pregnant with our youngest son, Noah.

I knew it was time to do some serious business with God.

And so I did.

On my Kingdom Wife Kingdom Life YouTube channel, you can hear wonderful stories when “but God” miracles came to life! Hear the rest of my testimony and how the powerful Holy Spirit showed up every time!

Kenny and I are now the happiest we have ever been in our thirteen years of marriage and spend our time between Hawaii, California,  and the state of Washington with our two younger sons, Josiah (eleven) and Noah (six).  We have a supernatural life of abundant living. We own multiple marketplace businesses, run an impacting ministry called Heal Our Land, oversee Abba’s Kidz Sunday gatherings in Vancouver, Washington, and coach singles and couples how to inherit all of Daddy’s promises through our Freedom Formula!

Friend, one day God will ask, “Did you learn how to truly, deeply, profoundly love your husband, kids and those I placed in your life? ❤️ And did you learn how to love yourself, alongside loving your Jesus?!”