Until I Met My Savior

This might be the most polarizing blog I ever make. And yet, on good Friday… I feel the need to share something so deeply personal that the weight of it not only broke me, but freed me forever. Something I’ve shied away from because it feels impossible to explain and in that, the weight it carried is being left at the cross today.

It was a long twenty nine and a half years. As I sat there I said, I said “I’m just waiting for my twenties to be over.” (April 2021)

Somehow, deep inside... I knew I needed to just get through my twenties.

I was angry. ...that it had to be over. My marriage, my choices, everything I worked for. Over. Four months later my husband died. In a shocking turn of events, I’m not done writing about this (shocker.)

Well, whats hard about calling him my husband is…he was also so much more than that. We were together for 10 years, almost all of my twenties he was written into. A year and a half prior to his passing (June 2020), I had to walk out the door of my home for the very last time. And with my two kids in the backseat of my car we left Pennsylvania and drove to San Diego leaving my husband behind.

 

I remember in that moment, looking at the doorframe of the house, walking towards the door, thinking I can't look back. There he was standing behind me. Watching me walk out the door. And that was the first time I lost my husband. 

The second time was when I got that phone call that he had taken his life, and I went from this person who was trying to protect myself from this man to a widow in 30 seconds. 

When I got that phone call, I fell to my knees. I was at work, and my knees hit the concrete. And I remember searching for my keys, the need to get out of there permeated my skull, and not knowing where my keys were in my bag. 

When I was finally able to stand up and walk towards the door, I just fell again. In that moment, my coworkers came, and they carried me, sat me down, got me water, and brought me to my car. Then one of them drove me home. 

That was the first pivotal moment in my life where there truly was no going back. He was not coming back. The police confirmed that. 

Through the next year and a half, I had to face my anger with God for the life that I thought I had, and the life that I was no longer going to ever have. I worked through grief and trauma, and understanding what life is beyond what somebody can do to you. My husband suffered with PTSD/addiction, multiple concussions, and deep mental health issues.

 

I understood instantly that through his passing, I was no longer fighting him. I had to learn how to love him again, and I could not do that. While it is the deepest part of my testimony, it is the most vulnerable for me to say because I ended up being wrong once again. When my husband died I thought I was free. I was in shock that there was no longer someone after me, angry with me, and ready in his mentally ill state to harm me. I was relieved when he died. But only because I was not only naive but also ignorant to what freedom was. 

The day I entered a support room for widows (April 2023), I wasn’t aware it was a Christian non profit. It turned into the first time I had an inkling, that maybe this was more than me. That my attempts to convince myself through outside validation that I was ok was not something that I could sustain. That the dam was bursting and all my bandaids were tearing.

Even at that moment, I knew my mentality was fragile, but I couldn't face it. And three months later, when I finally hit wrong bottom (August 2023), I told God, I said, take this from me because I can't do this any longer. I could not carry the weight and the pain of the hurt any longer. 

My soul was crushed. The moment I told God, to take my anger from me, he did, and I was finally able to breathe. And that’s why the cross and Good Friday mean everything to me. Because I metaphorically laid what was too hard for me, what broke me in every sense of the word at the foot of the cross. I stepped down from the cross I built. Defeated from doing things my way. I left everything and walked away as Jesus took my place.

If you have yet to see the parallels let me make it abundantly clear. The scariest thing I have ever done is leave my husband. I walked out that door expecting it to feel like stepping down from the cross. When my husband died, I thought the cost of his life meant I was finally free. I knew even in the moment I thought it, that it was the most horrible thing I could ever think up. I didn’t want to feel that way, but I kept thanking God for being free. I struggled with a “Good God” that would make me free from someone else dying. I struggled with that because the temporal relief of feeling falsely free because of the power I thought a man held over me was just that, false.

But what I didn’t know was that my same thoughts on what would fix me like crystals, vacations, numbing myself with tv were all wells that ran dry. They worked until they didn’t. I’d suffer rebounds from the boyfriend that swore I was it for them. I was sold on these men, my purchases, by my actions to pretend I had control of things… I was not lied to by things of this world. They were being what they were, things of the world. My husband was ill, these men were hurt and “things” were that… just things. Slowly but surely God showed me where to look for, for eternal peace.

I spent the next year and a half being told that the next step was baptism. 

And those words were so piercing to me because I didn't want to be controlled again. I didn't want to be manipulated.

I told my friend about this, she said, “the reason why I chose to get baptized was because it was the moment I knew I was never going back to my old life.” That resonated with me not only because I was made new in Christ, but the fact that I didn't choose my past. I didn't choose to be emotionally, psychologically, physically and sexually abused. And yet, That was what being baptized represented to me, a new life and freedom from the pain of my past that destroyed me.

I knew then that I had my answer. I committed to being baptized in a Chick-Fil-A, from a simple yet powerful comment from a friend. 

When I got baptized on April 27th 2025, I was surrounded by three other widows and my children, baptized in the ocean. As I put my feet into the sand, I can even still count the steps in the water. I looked out... at the shore, at my children, knowing, this is our legacy. This is how we move forward…Together with Jesus. 

As I went under the waters and the wave crashed over me. I realized that this was Jesus' gift to me. Being baptized was him giving me a gift to start over. Accepting Jesus into my heart before was my gift to Jesus, and this now, was his gift to me. It wasn’t checking my baptism off the list of things to do. It was for me.

And to walk out of that ocean. Again, counting my steps. Now, from water to sand, into my new life. 

Over the last few years, I realized that I had put my fate into the hands of other people and their actions. There was always something more for me to be fearful of. And when I finally surrendered to God, that's when true, everlasting freedom came. Today I attended my second ever Good Friday (April 2026). Last year was my first. The year before that was the first time I ever heard of Good Friday ( I was too scared of what it was to attend). It’s amazing that what brings me to me knees in gratitude, was right in front of me, and yet felt a million miles away all of my life until I met my savior.