This month I wanted to give you the opportunity to meet my husband. The first night I met him I sensed the Lord speak to me, “This is the kind of heart of man I want to give you.” And I can honestly say, that for us it has all been about the heart. It was our hearts that attracted us to each other. We weren’t each other’s picture. We both know that. But God has given us more than we could have asked for. Because He gave us hearts that were connected and hungry and desperate for Him.
I’ve been so transparent with you over this last year and a half- so I thought I’d let Philly share a little of his journey and ours.
Babe, I have told our readers very little about you. But what I have shared with them is how keeping our hearts connected to our Father is the major lesson we have learned in our healing and growing process. Would you mind sharing with our readers a little of your story. And share with them when your heart began to gradually shut down and how it came back to life?
My heart actually began to shut down during my teen years and then continued to gradually shut down until my early 30’s.
I grew up in a home where my dad was absent a lot. He was a football coach, which had him a little disconnected to what was going on at home. It led to an environment where my mom not only began to manage our home life but also began to step into a role of leadership for our family. With my dad being emotionally absent during that season, the emotional dependence of my mother shifted to me, which is never healthy for a child. One of the ways I felt that I could please my mom was to set and achieve high goals for myself. This put me in a cycle of “performance”, causing me to feel like love and approval was only there if I was a responsible and capable man, yet I was really only still a kid.
So, instead of living a normal teenage life and experiencing the “freedom” that comes with simply being a kid, I was forced to grow up quickly. As a result, I think this is when my heart actually began to shut down. During my teen years, I learned to shut down my emotions because I thought it was a sign of strength if I could be steady and in control at all times.
I chose to get married during my senior year in college. Of course, I wasn’t prepared to be a husband, but it seemed like the next logical step to take as the accomplished, mature young man that I thought I had become. We began right away to create the “perfect family.” We had 5 kids in 7 years. At the same time, I was also trying to build a successful career and was working long hours. We also thought it would be a wise financial decision to use our home as an investment, so we made a habit of flipping our home every couple years. We ended up moving six times in 10 years. In addition, the dynamics that had been set up between me and my mom made it difficult for me to leave and cleave to my wife, and other factors in our marriage created a lot of resentment for me. It was a train wreck.
As a teen, I had already learned to shut down my emotions. Now, as a young adult, through the difficulties of marriage, I learned how to “manage” through the different pressures and “hang on” tight to the illusion of control. As a result, I drifted from the Lord and lost a sense of community and accountability. My heart was completely shut down by this point, which made me a prime candidate for unhealthy behaviors, which made me feel seemingly alive again and provided an escape from the unmanageable mess all around me.
My heart began to come back to life when I learned to loosen my grip and to let go of control. I began to place my trust in the Lord again. I repented for ignoring my heart all of those years and asked God to revive it and to bring my emotions back. I wanted my heart to be restored to the way He had created me in the first place. It didn’t all happen at once. It has been a process, and I’m still on my journey to re-discover who God really created me to be and to live life with the freedom He intended. But over the past couple of years, I have experienced God’s redemptive power as He has restored so much of what was lost, including a much healthier and truly enjoyable relationship with my mom and dad.
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