2023 was my year from hell.

Looking back now, I truly believe God was preparing me for it. I had to walk through that season to become the person I am today, though if I had known what was coming, I would have run the other direction as fast as I could.

Yet in a strange way, I think part of me knew.

Before the year even began, I remember telling a friend that I was dreading 2023. That was completely out of character for me. I’ve always been the optimistic one—the person looking ahead to what good things might be waiting around the corner. I’ve always given each year a theme: renewal, growth, gratitude, hope. But when I thought about 2023, only one word came to mind: dread.

Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see God’s grace even there.

Some people may think it’s strange to say that God was preparing me for what was ahead. Honestly, there are parts of that I still don’t fully understand myself. What I do know is that what happened shook me to my core. It challenged everything I thought I knew about life, faith, and even God Himself.

I’ve been a believer for most of my life, but there were moments during that season when I questioned everything. If God is good, why would He allow something so devastating? Why would He allow so much pain?

Those are difficult questions, and I don’t pretend to have all the answers. What I can tell you is that trauma has a way of exposing the deepest fears, doubts, and wounds in our hearts. It certainly did in mine.

I’ve walked both sides of that struggle—the side that desperately wanted to trust God and the side that wanted nothing to do with Him. And somehow, even in my anger, confusion, and brokenness, He never stopped pursuing me.

The year of 2023 was filled with busyness, disconnectedness, and financial difficulties.  By the middle of the year, I barely recognized our marriage. We weren’t constantly fighting, but we weren’t thriving either. We had become experts at managing responsibilities while neglecting each other. We were exhausted, disconnected, and drifting farther apart than either of us realized.

Looking back, I can see that 2023 was a year of unraveling. Things I thought were secure began to fall apart. My faith, my marriage, my plans for the future—everything felt shaken. At the time it felt like destruction. Now I can see that God was uncovering what needed to be healed before He could begin restoring it.

And then, near the end of the year, I discovered the affair.

 It was an awful discovery, painful and disgusting.  It was a discovery that, while I was not surprised, I was shattered to the core.   In hindsight I can see God was telling me that it was time.  No longer was he going to let me, let us sit under this shroud of deceit and destruction.  No longer would He let us continue to wither away. 

So I left him.    In my mind I thought we were done.  I did not see how we could come back from this.  So many times our son would tell me that he thought we’d get back together and I would just sit with him, hug him and love him.  I could not tell him we would, I did not think we would and I just couldn’t bear to tell him that. 

So, here we were…separated and apart.

The weeks that followed were some of the darkest of my life.

Every time we met to exchange the kids, my anger seemed to grow. I hated what he had done. I hated what our family had become. I hated that we were discussing schedules and visitation instead of simply being a family.

But if I’m being completely honest, my anger wasn’t directed only at him.

It was directed at God.

That may be uncomfortable for some people to read, especially from someone who has spent most of her life in church, but it was true. I was angry, hurt, confused, and deeply disappointed. I knew all the right answers. I knew the verses. I knew what I was supposed to believe. But knowing those things and actually feeling them were two very different things.

The more time passed, the more convinced I became that our marriage was over. I began making plans for a future without him. I looked at schools, jobs, housing, and places the kids and I could start over. In my mind, reconciliation was no longer even an option.

What I didn’t realize was that while God was exposing things in my heart, He was also working in his.

During our separation, my husband began pursuing counseling and taking a hard look at the man he had become. Slowly, God began changing him. At first I couldn’t see it. I didn’t want to see it.

Then one night, during a conversation fueled largely by my anger, I heard something in his voice that stopped me in my tracks. It wasn’t excuses. It wasn’t self-pity. It wasn’t someone trying to convince me to come back.

It was humility.

It was repentance.

It was a quiet resolve to become a different man, regardless of whether our marriage survived.

For the first time since everything had fallen apart, I felt the smallest flicker of hope.

Maybe God wasn’t finished with us after all.

And that ladies and gentlemen was my first inclination that there may be hope for us yet.

I remember listening to an interview with John Piper where he spoke about infidelity and reconciliation. He described reconciliation as requiring two miracles. The first is deep repentance and long-suffering patience from the unfaithful spouse. The second is forgiveness from the wounded spouse.

Looking back now, we experienced the first miracle, and I can only describe it as God’s work. My husband became a man I had never seen before, even after nearly twenty years of marriage. He had never been a bad husband, but this was different. There was a humility, sincerity, and servant-heartedness that could only come from a heart being transformed by God.

It was around this time that God began preparing the way for the second miracle.

Forgiveness did not happen overnight. It wasn’t a single decision that suddenly made everything better. It was a process—one that I had to revisit over and over again. There were days of progress and days of struggle. Days when I felt hope and days when the pain felt just as fresh as before.

Through it all, my husband remained patient. He listened, he accepted responsibility, and he gave me the space I needed to work through my grief and anger. He never demanded that I move on or questioned why I was still hurting.

Over time, God used that patience, along with His own grace, to soften my heart. What began as forgiveness slowly became healing. And while healing is still a journey, it was in those moments that I began to believe restoration might actually be possible.

Healing is a whole different journey, and both of us will tell you that it isn’t easy.

One of the most valuable things my therapist ever told me was that healing is not linear. There are good days and there are really hard days. There are moments when you feel like you’ve finally moved forward, only to find yourself wrestling with an old wound all over again.

Over time, I’ve learned how to navigate those moments better. I’ve learned the value of journaling, prayer, counseling, and giving myself grace when healing doesn’t happen on my timeline. I’ve learned grounding techniques for the days when grief, fear, or painful memories threaten to overwhelm me. Most importantly, I’ve learned that healing isn’t about never struggling again—it’s about learning where to turn when the struggle comes.

Even now, nearly two years later, there are still moments that catch me off guard. There are still questions, memories, and comparisons that occasionally find their way into my thoughts. But there are far more good days than bad ones now. And through it all, God has remained faithful.

That is really the heart behind My Steadfast Love.

This ministry was born out of some of the darkest moments of my life. What began as a place to process grief, heartbreak, and loss has become a testimony to God’s faithfulness through it all. Not because I have all the answers. Not because I’ve arrived. And certainly not because life is now perfect.

Rather, it exists because I have discovered that God’s steadfast love is often most visible in the valleys.

Our story is still being written. I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but I know who holds tomorrow. And because of that, we have hope.

Our prayer is that if you find yourself walking through heartbreak, betrayal, grief, loss, or a season that feels impossible, you’ll find encouragement here. If God can bring healing, restoration, and hope to our family, then perhaps He can do the same for yours.