From Safe to Shattered to Sacred

There comes a moment in a woman’s life when the structure she’s built — crafted from the rules she was handed, shaped by the need to be good, to be safe, to belong — begins to crumble. She’s given her all, done what was expected, poured herself into every role with devotion. But somehow, it’s no longer enough. The life I had so carefully constructed began to unravel through a series of health crises — subtle at first, then undeniable — that initiated me into a deeper awareness beyond the box I had lived in. It ruptured the myth I was unconsciously inhabiting, calling forth something ancient and sacred within me that I hadn’t known existed. At the time, I couldn’t name what was happening. I only knew that the life I had built no longer fit the shape of my soul.

For the first fifty years of my life, I followed the textbook I had been handed. I was raised inside a rigid Christian framework that defined womanhood in narrow terms: virtuous, silent, self-sacrificing. My father was the embodiment of patriarchy — an abusive alcoholic who found religion and became an extremist. My mother, the dutiful wife, modeled what it meant to smile at the predator, to stay in service no matter the cost, to swallow her pain with grace. From her, I learned how to be a “good girl.” From him, I learned that obedience meant survival. I believed my purpose was to serve my husband and children, and that God would punish me if I ever left my marriage.

Dating wasn’t part of my story — my father told me God would choose my husband for me, and I believed him. Naivety replaced experience. I went to college, earned my teaching degree, and by 24 I was married. By 30, I had three sons. I did everything I was taught to do, building a life around someone else’s definition of success, safety, and service. I lived in a state of unconscious competence — not questioning, just doing. I accepted Jesus as my Savior in the 7th grade and devoted myself to pleasing Him, longing only to go to Heaven one day. But in all those decades of Sundays, Bible studies, and scripture, not once did I hear the language of awakening. Of inner transformation. Of the soul.

I ended up in a marriage that mirrored the patterns of my parents — trauma folded neatly beneath the surface. I kept the pain silent and hidden, shoving it down until my body began to whisper back. Minor health crises started to show up, little red flags waving gently, asking for my attention. But I had no connection to my body’s messages, no concept that it was speaking for my soul. So I stoically carried on. I had a vision of what I wanted to give my children — security, safety, a happy home — and I was determined to give it, no matter the cost.

All the while, something inside me knew things weren’t right. But I didn’t know what to call it. I felt like a juggler with eight balls in the air, terrified that if I stopped — if I let even one fall — the whole thing would collapse. So I kept juggling.

By 2014, I was an empty nester. And then, the major health crisis arrived — the one that broke me open. Inside the diagnosis, something shifted. I made a quiet but seismic decision: If I survive this, I will ask for a divorce. Come what may.

I survived.

And I asked.

What followed was a toxic uncoupling — and the moment I finally put up a boundary. I told my siblings I had given my husband 27 years of my life, and I wasn’t going to give him any more. I didn’t want him at family functions. But they told me it wasn’t my decision. They chose to keep him — and so I made the hardest choice I’d ever made: I let them. I walked away. That was my moment of betrayal. My Jesus-in-the-garden moment. The first true step into the Dark Night.

As the divorce unfolded, I moved into a remote cabin. No internet. No TV. No family. No reinforcement of the belief systems that had bound me. And then… it all came tumbling down.

Shortly after, I was struck — not once, but twice — by drunk drivers, both collisions leaving me with traumatic brain injuries. The irony was piercing, for alcoholism and addiction had already carved deep wounds in my family line and my marriage. It felt as though the very force that had haunted my upbringing had come barreling into my present, demanding to be reckoned with. I was forced to close the businesses I had poured my heart into, each one a reflection of beauty and care. And yet, in the midst of the wreckage, a quiet truth began to rise from the ashes — something ancient stirring beneath the rubble, whispering: This is not the end. This is the beginning.

This was my initiation.

The beginning of my Hero’s Journey.

The descent into the alchemical fire.

The first breath of my soul’s awakening.

I didn’t have the words for it then. I just knew everything that was not aligned had to fall away.

Before I could rise into the stillness and sacredness I now live in,

I had to be undone.

This was my passage - from safe to shattered to sacred - and I now know it was never a destruction, but a divine reconstruction.

Because sometimes, life as we knew it must come to an end.

Not because we are doing something wrong,

but because the soul is ready to live something more true.

And the gift of this life — in all its wild mercy —

is that when we won’t let go,

it does the letting go for us.

Not to punish us,

but to set us free.

If you are standing at the edge of an undoing,

know this:

what feels like the end

may be your beginning.