A Life of Striving, A Heart in Transition, A Faith That Heals

What do you do when your whole life has been about striving - to be loved, to be seen, to be accepted, and suddenly, God asks you to stop? To cease striving and just… be?

In this deeply personal episode, I open up about the journey from a lifetime of emotional starvation to the slow, painful process of spiritual healing and surrender. I grew up feeling invisible, unwanted, and blamed. I learned early that striving was the only way to survive - striving to please, to perform, to become whatever I thought others needed in order to love me. When that didn’t work, I stopped trying and leaned into the identity they gave me: the black sheep. The problem. The one who never measured up.

Striving became my default setting - my means of survival. I chased attention, validation, and affection in places that broke me more than they built me. I was starving for love and consuming anything that looked like it might fill the void. People, relationships, roles, achievements - it was never enough. I was never enough.

And then trauma hit. The kind that changes you at your core. I lived through things no one should have to experience - abuse, abandonment, violation - and still, I kept going. Still striving. Still searching. Still aching.

Until I couldn’t anymore.

Becoming a mother shifted something in me. My children became my mission, my purpose, my healing balm. I poured my love into them the way I had always wanted someone to pour into me. And yet even in that, I was still striving - striving to be the perfect mom, the best wife, the most dependable employee, the star student.

The addiction to being enough was still alive and well.

And here’s the hard truth: even after walking with God for over 20 years, I still find myself striving for His love. I know He loves me. I know I don’t have to earn it. But after a lifetime of trying to prove my worth, letting that truth sink deep - past the wounds, the trauma, the memories - that takes time. That takes surrender. That takes a willingness to feel the very things I’ve spent decades numbing.

Healing is not a moment. It’s a process. It’s a transition. It’s a slow letting go of what was in order to embrace what is being made new.

And right now, I’m in the tension, the in-between. The space between the old patterns and the new promises. Between striving and surrender. Between surviving and being still. Between doing and simply being.

And maybe you are too.

This episode is for every one who’s ever felt like they had to fight to be seen. For the one who’s tired of performing. For the one who’s addicted to proving. For the one who knows the truth of God’s love but still feels like they have to earn it.

You don’t.

God is doing a new thing in you. Even if it’s messy. Even if it’s slow. Even if it still hurts sometimes.

You are not who you were. You are becoming. And that is holy ground.

Scripture: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up - do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:18–19

If this episode speaks to you, please share it with someone else who needs to know they don’t have to strive to be loved. God already calls them enough.

Check out my writings on Substack at Whyfaithoverfear