For years, Erin poured herself into the lives of others, convinced that if she could just mend their broken pieces, her own would finally fit together. It didn’t look like a burden at first; it felt like a calling—a noble purpose of being the one who cared more. But beneath that “purpose” was a decades-long struggle of playing God, an exhausting attempt to cure others.
The patterns were relentless: different faces and situations, but always the same ending of frustration and depletion. She lived as a “mom” to those who should have been partners, giving until she realized that no amount of fixing could fill the emptiness inside.
Her faith was a collection of stories and religious “backdrops” where nothing felt right; she knew the language of God, but He remained a distant figure to be acknowledged rather than a Savior to be relied upon. She was caught in a cycle of toggling who sat on the throne of her life, defaulting to her own “illusion of control.”
She kept trying to work harder and fix more, hoping that if she finally “got it right,” she would find the place where she truly belonged. Yet, no matter how many times she started over on those “wide roads,” she ended up in the same place: tired, confused, and still searching for a narrow road she couldn’t quite find on her own.
This is her story. Read on.
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When Nothing Felt Like Home
I grew up knowing there was a God to some extent. With a backdrop of the first 11 years in the Catholic faith, then until I was 18 in the Methodist church.
Nothing felt right, even looking back, I couldn’t find my place, I couldn’t find the people I belonged with.
School was difficult for me—from comprehension skills to the bullying that happened faithfully until I graduated. Wrong kind of faith. Painful bullying and watching others be bullied as well.
What’s wrong with me? Somewhere in these years kids started telling me I didn’t look like my parents. What does that mean? So I went home and asked my parents why don’t I look like you guys like other kids look like their parents—hair and eye color, height, etc
My parents sat down with me to tell me how special I was, how they adopted me as a baby and my sibling, too. We have separate biological parents.
As a child this brought much confusion, fear of abandonment, almost made sense why I was being rejected and treated harshly by others in school, at least in my child like thinking it did.
I began running, rebelling from the simplest forms of obedience that authoritative figures had in place to keep me safe.
I was born in the north and we moved as far south as you can imagine in my 6th grade year due to my dad’s job relocating us. This was trauma to me at the time since no family would be conveniently near, so now no family gatherings on the weekends and surviving the mean kids at school. Sure some family would come annually to visit and I treasured those seasons but began living in a fantasy world to avoid where my feet actually stood.
Alcohol was prevalent in the dynamic of my home growing up yet I believed it was normal. My parents loved me that was about the only thing I knew held true. No matter what I did or didn’t do, they never left.
Due to my extreme running and my parents not knowing what to do, I was placed in an adolescent unit in my mid teens. Today it was the best thing that could have happened to me at the time. I was literally walking through many doors that could have led to death.
Teachers, my parents and the team I had for medical care while in this adolescent unit never stopped believing or loving me. I think this is the first place I truly learned and embraced structure. I knew what to expect from one hour to the next, one day to the next.
Upon discharge, I was now on medication diagnosed with a mental disorder that over time I allowed to become a part of my identity. The dots never connected, I could possibly be affected by the drinking in the dynamics of my home or watching other loved ones drink as well. I had to know to some extent the alcohol was affecting me because I would worry if I saw a loved one drinking, they would die. I did not know the fine line of social drinking and a loved one possibly having a problem.
By the grace of God, when I was discharged after a little over 3 months, I graduated high school. Oh I was so excited to be done with those 12 years that I hadn’t thought about what next. I had no desire to go to college, why would I expose myself to such meanness in another school. I had already established a few toxic friendships ones that led me into substance abuse, a season of a lot of wrong doings on multiple wide roads, and yes eventually smoking cigarettes…not alcohol though I knew the toxicity of drinking or that’s what my irrational belief was.
Trying to Fix What Was Never Mine to Fix
I ended up in a relationship that harvested from deception and a false belief I could “save” this person just like my other loved one, growing up. We married as the years went on I knew I was not meant to be in this marriage and as he did me wrong, I did him wrong, that was the life I lived. After 20 years, in a reactive, irrational moment I had what was a glimpse of what I believed the grass would be greener, so I left leaving this person literally at the doors of homelessness.
It took me a long time to leave because my parents through my childish perception never left one another, never divorced, so to me this was living out to the fullest until death do we part. Even though, neither encouraged me to leave but definitely knew I wasn’t happy, being a mom to a man who should be my husband was becoming exhausting in addition to now shifting from things against authority to a full fledged work a holic!
I couldn’t fix him, so the greener grass became, the person I can fix must still be out there. I moved in with someone I had met in the rooms of an outpatient facility, when that didn’t work, I bounced back into living with a friend I grew up with but hadn’t seen in 20 years.
This was a season that would change me forever. A long 9 month journey of feeling trapped in a scene from the movie I Can Only Imagine. Losing everything and still believing I could “fix” this person at all costs! Finally, after leaving this season, ending up back at home with my parents, I realized I had trauma that is difficult to articulate into words but it was all from my once again trying to save a loved one from alcohol. Alcohol was to blame not anyone else, not even myself. Why don’t “they” just avoid the alcohol section of the grocery store? Ignorance is bliss.
When Everything Finally Fell Apart
I was done—done with men, done with getting attached to fur babies, and done with my ways. I was tired of trying to fix others. I knew I couldn’t! I was tired of trying to measure up to air brushed women, the manipulation, deception, and trying to measure up to my bar of perfectionism, it all came crumbling down. I definitely didn’t have what it took to not only fix others but could not control their behaviors yet over decades of playing God actually believed I could cure them all and herd them all into my liking—my definition of love. My prayer was Dear God, no more men, no more fur babies and once my debt is paid off I want to die. The irony in this prayer is I wasn’t working, I had been removed from the workforce due to medical issues for about a year and a half with no hope of returning, so I am not sure how I was going to pay my debts off much less die since I had never been consciously suicidal.
I started serving at an animal shelter just to get out of the home. Didn’t exactly line up with “MY” prayer..lol. With the black and white personality I had lived with for so long, I poured myself into this service opportunity truly believing this simple prayer would come to pass if I just took it one day at a time. Not so much. The short version a person came in fostered a blue heeler I had gotten close to, then in the same day there was a knock at my parents front door. A lady stood there with a red heeler and a blue heeler on a leash. A lady who had only lived 9 homes up for over 2 decades I never knew existed.
Here husband had told her of my attachment to the blue heeler, so she asked me to walk with them almost daily. We had many talks and it was great to see the blue heeler I had grown so close to so often. I knew this was God but what I didn’t know would come next was astounding, everything against my prayer, His goodness was starting to come to pass.
I was invited to her home to “meet” a friend of theirs who had just come out of a difficult season himself. For at least, 2 weeks I declined, I avoided with an extreme! Then one day, we were talking on our walk and today I believe she started the conversation knowing it wouldn’t end before we were at the end of my parents driveway but hers instead. Ugh, God what are you doing? Don’t You remember my prayer?
I proceeded to lie to myself to muster up enough courage in the self conscious and unworthy me. I can leave, this is a one time meeting. We talked for 5 hours at their kitchen table with the blue heeler close in between both of us. He talked so much about the Lord in what he had just went through. It left me silently thinking about my prayer and just maybe I was missing something but not trusting I kept this to myself. I went home and started to change the direction of my prayer just a little—Lord show me the goodness from the season I just came out of? Something at the time I thought didn’t carry weight to make myself feel “safe,” and not exposed nor vulnerable.
A friendship formed, what’s wrong with this man, he doesn’t see me like I see myself. One night I picked him up from work and we talked well I listened for quite some time once again about this God who has done so much for him. Hmmm, 🤔
Since I wasn’t in the Lord’s word, a lot of times I would ask him to “break it down in lamest terms,” today realizing I was trying to say personalize it while I wasn’t willing to be exposed I had the expectation of him to expose himself—which against how I thought it would end, he actually did.
Finding Who She Was in Christ
I went home into my room, sat on the bed, Lord I think I need to delete the whole prayer I once said. I need to be in Your word too or something of Yours and not of me. There sat a Bible and Jesus Calling book. I would read. It seemed like I wasn’t getting anything, like those once struggles with comprehension skills were failing me, again…but they weren’t.
I woke up one day and was sitting out back and the same tree that had been there for over 20 years looked as if it had come to life, those perceptions of fear had gained clarity not mine but of His.
Our friendship grew…I was still struggling with the illusion of control, fixing others, and at the time my addiction to cigarettes. I went down a few more wide roads, praise God for parents who kept on loving me even if it was through tough love, I was able to seek the narrow road once, again. Things appeared lighter. Ugh, I now knew I had feelings for this person beyond a friendship love.
We both had our seasons over the course of two years where we would go from the 99 to the 1 and the Lord with His faithfulness would always pull me back in.
My friend knew how I felt about him. In my eyes we were playing house. I had given up on anything more than a friendship yet in that giving up was settling for less if that makes sense. One thing is for sure, we were best friends and this was different to my past.
Still reading the Lord’s word and excited to share what He would show me, one day I asked my friend, “When the day comes for you to marry, what will happen to our friendship?” The response I received was beyond insanity, women don’t play well together is what I said.
We kept living life, trying to find our way, then one Sunday night my friend said so what about getting married? I initially had my back to my friend as I was listening to worship music Matthew West My Name Is and journaling. I didn’t realize he was asking me to marry him. I dropped my pen, the music went off, and I looked at him and said ask me again tomorrow…lol. This was on a Sunday night. We had “in my mind,” never been on a date, held hands or reflected any type of affection in this direction towards one another—no kissing, lovey dovey names for one another, really nothing except he would work, I would make sure our little room had its rent paid and the home was clean, like I said playing house. Outside of the home, others saw us as friends.
I laid there the whole night watching a digital clock on a microwave minute by minute thinking surely he won’t ask me again on Monday. God, are these walls talking to him? Lol
Monday morning 5 a.m., I lay there and as he was getting ready for work came over and gave me a kiss and told me he loved me before he left out the door. Holy Mac n cheese Lord I think he is being serious. Lunch time came and the question arose again. Yes, I said I just want you to know though this has to be until death due we part and I don’t do deception. I will not go through a divorce and I will not give you a divorce.
He said I want this to be a marriage where we fall under God’s authority. Now I had no clue what that meant, no clue at all. I asked God to show me, teach me to love the way He wants me too. By the way, we also have that same blue heeler that was in the beginning of our story now all ours, the link the Lord used to bring two broken people together in His kingdom.
We married…I found the rooms of recovery and realized pieces of my story were already being told by so many. The Lord led me to recovery, this was the first decision I had made for myself in decades outside of finally getting connected with a church family that based on my past seemed too good to be real. The love was authentic and without motive. They wanted to help me and they wanted to love me, love us!
This is when the most pivotal turning point of my life happened with the power of forgiveness. I was married to a man I loved for about a year. I am out driving and out of left field I sense the Lord asking me to forgive this person from 4 years ago. Baffled and shaking as this was 4 years later, Lord I have moved on. I can’t go back to that environment. The Lord told me, I will never put you in harm’s way. Okay, Lord I don’t know the how but I am willing.
There’s no blueprint to this journey but in my Yes to Him my trust with the Lord grew. I also knew putting aside my fleshes confusion showed me God has a plan and a time for everything. In this Yes, He showed me it wasn’t all about forgiving the other person as much as it was forgiving myself for putting myself in such harms way. He began to renew my worth from the damages of my self destructive behavior trying to play God. He showed me my value didn’t come from anyone else, it wasn’t a pass or fail and it definitely wasn’t measured on money.
About two weeks in, somehow I knew there was true forgiveness towards myself and the other. A lightness, freeing, like walking on clouds, where He was illuminating His life all around me. Then the same night of the first day, I recognized this breakthrough, I received a phone call. A person’s name on my caller i.d. I hadn’t seen in 4 years. A loved one of this person. I listened as she told me her loved one was found deceased on the living room floor. I can’t explain how grateful I was in the moment to have walked through the Yes to forgiveness. God’s timing is always on time! I went to bed and at 3 a.m. sat straight up from a sound sleep to a voice I heard so clearly. The voice of this person saying “I made it!” There is more of God to this journey I will focus on one day in a separate article. Just know from this synapse of Yes, God healed me and He healed the other. I also was able to love my husband more without fear from that season. The forgiveness helped me tremendously with the grief. The Lord brought such great clarity where chaos and trauma once resided.
I started asking questions I had been carrying from reading the Lord’s word. I knew I was right where the Lord wanted me; everything was lining up from the heart healings He was doing through me in recovery and the church family.
One morning we had an argument is my guess, I don’t really remember but what I do remember is disengaging, reaching out to a person in our church family, one of authority and dumped…when I stopped to breathe (lol) this person said something I could have never seen coming and drew questions to my walk with the Lord. “I think what you are looking for can’t be found in your husband nor another.” What in Earth does that mean?
I was asked to pray about being water baptized. I said okay, I was baptized though as a baby. Just pray about it… sometimes as an adult it’s a personal decision where as an infant the parents do it as a form of commitment to the Lord. It was also suggested, I start reading the book of John. I was missing Jesus in my walk!!
So on March 25th, 2018 I was water baptized and turned my life over to Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
Did I? I believed I did until my earthly father passed away and in a season where significant levels of anxiety returned with the grief the Lord revealed to me during a step study how I saw Jesus as Lord but would toggle who or what would sit on the throne as my Savior.
Upon this awareness and yearning more of the Lord and learning what it looks like to have Him as both Lord and Savior I felt convicted to be water baptized again on Easter Sunday in 2025.
Today, I can honestly say it’s a day to day choice to keep Him on both and when my life gets wacky doodle, I stop and pause…Lord, am I placing anything but You on the throne as my Lord and Savior?
LIFE SCRIPTURE
“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”
2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT
TESTIMONY SONG
LOVE MOVED FIRST BY CASTING CROWNS
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