Category: Marriage

Choosing Light … Again

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There are some entries that are easy to write because I can clearly see what God has been teaching me. Then there are entries like this one. The ones where I almost don’t want to write because I wish the story had gone differently.

This weekend I hit a breaking point. Not the kind where everything falls apart all at once. It was quieter than that. It was disappointment on top of disappointment until I didn’t want to carry it anymore. One of the deepest lies God has been exposing in my heart over the last several months is the lie that I’m not enough. Not enough to be chosen. Not enough to be pursued. Not enough to stop having to prove my worth. This weekend I realized another lie had been quietly growing right beside it: I’m optional.

I don’t want to be someone’s option. I want to be someone’s choice. I want to know what it feels like to be chosen over and over again.

Saturday felt like little sparks of connection that kept going out before they ever became a fire. Every time I thought we were connecting, it disappeared just as quickly. By the end of the day, my heart was exhausted. Instead of taking that pain to Jesus like I’ve been learning to do, I reached for something that would numb it.

For a little while, I drifted.

I let go of the anchor that had been holding me steady and reached for something else to quiet the pain.

I’m not proud of that. But I want to be honest about my own journey. Healing isn’t a straight line. Sometimes it’s beautiful. Sometimes it’s incredibly messy… and this weekend was messy.

What surprised me is what God did in the middle of that mess.

Somewhere in the middle of all of it, walls came down. Conversations became more honest than they’ve been in a long time. I finally found words for the ache I’ve been carrying. The ache of feeling unseen. The ache of wondering if I will ever truly be chosen. For the first time in a long time, I think my husband didn’t just hear my words. I think he heard my heart.

There wasn’t one big dramatic moment. Instead, it was soft and slow. We missed church because we overslept, then spent the afternoon building our new chicken coop together. At one point I was kneeling on the ground stapling chicken wire while he stood above me fastening the sides. I reached up and flirted with him in a way I haven’t in a long time. He looked down and asked if he was in my way. I smiled and said, “No.” He smiled back, and we went back to work.

Later that evening we made a frozen pizza and sat on our bed having a little picnic while we talked. There wasn’t anything extraordinary about those moments, and maybe that’s exactly what made them so meaningful. They felt normal. They felt like friendship again. They felt like the kind of connection I’ve been missing. I felt seen, and maybe for the first time in a long time, he understood why this journey has been so painful.

Today I find myself holding two things at the same time: hope and caution. Part of me wonders if this was just another flicker that will fade away. Another part of me wonders if this is the small spark that God will gently breathe into a steady fire. The truth is, I don’t know, and I don’t have to know today. Real change isn’t measured by one conversation or one good day. Real change produces fruit over time.

So instead of trying to predict the future, I’m choosing something else.

I’m choosing light.

Again.

I’m choosing to bring my failures into the light instead of hiding them. I’m choosing to thank God for the good moments without demanding they become guarantees. I’m choosing to anchor my hope in Jesus instead of another person’s ability to love me perfectly.

One of the reasons I started Rooted & Anchored was because I didn’t want to pretend that following Jesus means having everything together. It doesn’t. Sometimes following Jesus means admitting that I let go of the anchor. It means admitting that I drifted and tried to quiet my pain in a way that could never truly heal it.

But letting go of the anchor does not mean I can’t reach for it again. The good news is that Jesus never lets go of me. He is still inviting me back. Still reminding me who I am. Still replacing lies with truth. Still teaching me that my identity isn’t found in whether someone else chooses me. It is found in the One who already has.

So today, that’s what I’m doing. I’m reaching for the anchor again. I’m choosing light again. And tomorrow, if I need to, I’ll choose it again.

– Aimee
July 20, 2026

Perfect Peace, Even Here

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I used to think emotional regulation meant learning how to not feel so much. I thought healing would mean I would not be as emotional or as easily affected by things. Maybe if I could learn to control my reactions better, I would finally feel stronger and more secure.

But I am realizing that is not what God is asking me to do. He is not asking me to pretend I am fine when I am not. He is not asking me to push down grief, anger, fear, or disappointment. He is not asking me to become numb. He is teaching me to bring those emotions to Him before I let them take over.

There are still moments when something that may seem small can send my mind racing. It can be a change in someone’s tone, a facial expression, a delayed answer, or a conversation that does not feel finished. My mind immediately starts trying to figure out what happened. I replay the conversation. I wonder what was really meant. I question what is true, what is safe, and what I might have missed.

Betrayal taught me that what I thought was true might not have been the whole truth. It taught me that there could be another reality happening that I did not know about. Because of that, my mind still looks for what I might be missing. Sometimes my body reacts before I have even figured out what I am feeling. My heart beats faster, my chest feels tight, and I feel like I need answers right away.

For a long time, I thought the goal was to stop having those reactions. Now I think the goal is to learn what to do when they come. I am learning to pause, breathe, pray, and pay attention to what is happening inside of me before I react. I am learning that a feeling can be real without being allowed to lead me.

My feelings are not wrong, but they do not always tell me the whole story. Fear can make something feel urgent. Anger can make me feel like I need to act immediately. Grief can make it seem like the pain will never end. I am learning to bring all of that to God and let Him help me sort through what is true.

Isaiah 26:3 says, “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.”

I have always liked the words perfect peace, but I think I used to picture them differently. I thought perfect peace would come when my life felt peaceful. I thought it would happen when my relationships felt secure, when I had answers, and when nothing unexpected was happening around me.

But that is not what this verse says. It does not say God will keep everything around me peaceful. It says He will keep me in peace when my mind stays fixed on Him and I trust Him.

That means perfect peace can exist even here. It can exist in the middle of uncertainty. It can exist while I am still healing. It can exist when I do not have all the answers and when someone else’s choices are completely outside of my control.

Peace does not mean nothing is wrong. It means I know where to turn when something is wrong. It means I can remind myself that God is still God. He is still with me. He is not confused or caught off guard. He sees what I cannot see, knows what I do not know, and understands what I cannot make sense of.

God is not asking me to figure everything out before I can rest. He is asking me to trust Him.

Sometimes that means turning my mind back to Him over and over again. Peace is not always one big spiritual moment. Sometimes it is a lot of small choices throughout the day. It is choosing not to keep replaying a conversation. It is telling God what I am afraid of. It is waiting until I am calm before I respond. It is choosing what I know is true instead of following where fear is trying to take me.

If you are healing from betrayal, emotional regulation is not about excusing what happened or pretending you are okay. It is not about becoming quieter, less emotional, or easier for everyone else to be around. It is about slowing down enough to let God meet you in what you are feeling.

For me, being rooted and anchored in Jesus means learning to pause before I react. It means telling God the truth about how I feel and asking Him to help me choose the next right thing. And God can handle the truth. He can handle my anger, my questions, my fear, and the moments when I do not feel peaceful at all.

Psalm 62:8 says, “Pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.” I love that verse because it reminds me that I do not have to hide any of this from God. I do not have to clean up my emotions before I come to Him. I can pour everything out and trust that He will meet me there.

I have not mastered this. Not even close. There are still times when I react too quickly. There are still moments when fear becomes louder than truth. There are still days when my mind feels anything but steadfast.

But I can see God gently rebuilding the places in me that have lived in survival mode for a long time. He is teaching me that peace is not found in controlling every outcome. It is not found in knowing everything or making sure I am never hurt again. Peace is found in Him.

Maybe perfect peace does not mean I am never shaken. Maybe it means I know where to return when I am.

Between His Shoulders

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There are certain Bible verses that stay with you through different seasons of your life. For me, one of those verses is Deuteronomy 33:12: “The one the Lord loves rests between His shoulders.” I first held onto that verse after my daughter Melanie died when she was just 18 years old, waiting for a double lung transplant that wasn’t meant to be. I pictured myself riding piggyback on God’s back. My arms were around Him, my head was resting on His upper back between His shoulders, and He was carrying me because I did not have the strength to keep walking on my own.

That picture brought me so much comfort. I was not trying to be strong. I was not trying to figure everything out. I was just being carried.

That image has stayed with me through so many hard things since then. Through losing my daughter Rosie 22 months after her double lung transplant. Through learning about my husband’s addiction. Through learning about his infidelity. Through the night before our Full Therapeutic Disclosure, when I knew I might hear things that would hurt me deeply and change the way I remembered parts of my life. That night, this verse came back to me again.

I did not know what I was going to hear the next day, but I knew I needed to hear the truth. I also knew that the same God who carried me when Melanie and Rosie died would carry me through this too. I do not understand why my life has included so much loss. I do not understand why I had to bury two daughters and then walk through betrayal trauma. Maybe I will understand someday. Maybe when I get to Heaven, I will not even need the answers anymore.

But I do know that God has never asked me to carry any of it by myself. He has carried me when I could not walk. He has held me when I felt like I was falling apart. He has stayed close when I did not know what to pray or even what to think.

When I think about everything I want to write here, this is where it begins. Not with betrayal. Not with grief. Not even with healing. It begins with God carrying me.

This blog is about what God has done in my life through the hardest things I have ever walked through. It is about learning to trust Him when I do not understand. It is about becoming rooted and anchored in Him when everything around me feels uncertain. And it is about resting between His shoulders when I do not have the strength to take another step.

-Aimee