Nancy Breaking the Cycle, Part 1

With a shaking hand, Nancy slid the key into the brass lock and swung open the door to her new home. It was dark. There was no furniture anywhere. It was as barren as her battered heart. Alone and exhausted, Nancy fell to her knees with a gut-wrenching moan. “Lord, I’m a mess.”

When Nancy was a child, it seemed that when it came to God, all she learned at home, church, and school was about His wrath, anger, and eternal damnation. Her little heart trembled as her teachers at school seemed to confirm this fierce picture, as the nuns were often cruel even toward the smallest children.

“It was horrible,” says Nancy. The guilt and fear of seemingly unavoidable hellfire played into years of rebellion long after she left the Catholic Church. “All I heard was that you cannot do this or that or you will go to hell. That kind of perfection seemed impossible, so I felt like I wasn’t worth anything.” She rebelled against it all, and this tragic misunderstanding of her value in the eyes of God would torment her for years to come as she struggled to fill the spiritual void left in her heart.

While Nancy was baptized as a born-again Christian in her twenties, along with her husband, that nagging picture of God left big room for doubt. Her new church hinted at God’s grace, but the place was more of a center for social events rather than a place to find a life-changing belief system. All the same, Nancy and her husband took their children with them to church every Sunday. They were happy—that is, until Satan crept in and brought a wave of destruction into their marriage.

Riddled with guilt and heartache over the demise of her relationship, Nancy slid further downhill, hitting one devastating pothole after another. She began drinking and partying, moving in and out of relationships.

This cycle of heartbreak continued in a desperate search for love and acceptance, but it amounted to little. To make matters worse, she was even diagnosed with cancer. “Why I didn’t turn back to God at that point, I really don’t know,” says Nancy. But that was about to change.

Reflect: Have you ever struggled with making the same mistakes over and over again? God has great patience and goes to great lengths to reach out to you.

Key Bible Texts

For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee. (Isaiah 41:13 KJV)