The Part No One Talks About

We’ve all turned on the TV and stumbled into stories of incredible transformation—lives that began in hardship and somehow ended in triumph. We watch with awe as rough beginnings give way to beautiful endings, and those stories feel even more powerful because of where they started.

When we search for the greatest success stories, familiar names rise to the top: Oprah, Helen Keller, Steve Jobs. Their accomplishments are known worldwide because we know where they began—and we know how the story ended. Success. Recognition. Impact. Stories that inspire those who were overlooked, underestimated, or told “no” too many times. Stories of people who turned limitation into purpose, rejection into innovation, and pain into leadership.

And it’s beautiful.
We celebrate them.
We watch the documentaries.
We’re moved by the highlights of their struggle.

But what we don’t see are the daily tears.
The quiet fear that this storm might never end.
The moments when hope felt thin, even when quitting would have made sense.

Those struggles are often condensed into a chapter, a montage, a paragraph—but they were lived one day at a time. Alone. Heavy. Uncertain. Even with support, the pain was still theirs to carry.

Because the truth is this: the hardest battles we face are lonely ones. And no one can fully understand them unless they’ve stood in the middle of that storm themselves.

We love transformation stories because they promise us something—that pain can lead somewhere meaningful, that suffering isn’t wasted, that endurance will eventually make sense.

But the hardest part of any transformation isn’t the beginning or the ending—it’s the middle. The place where the outcome is unclear, the fear is loud, and faith is the only thing holding you upright.

That’s where my story lives.
Not in the applause.
Not in the outcome.
But in the unseen middle—where prayers are whispered instead of celebrated, and strength is built quietly, one choice at a time.

This season hasn’t come with clarity or comfort. It’s come with uncertainty, surrender, and moments where continuing felt harder than quitting. But I keep choosing the next right thing—not because I’m fearless, but because I trust that God is still writing the story, even when I can’t see the ending yet.

Society often tells us that when a marriage breaks down, the answer is to retreat to our corners and prepare for battle. To build a case. To keep score. To decide how we’ll “win” because we were wronged—and surely someone needs to pay for that pain.

When my storm first began, as my early blogs reflect, I wanted that too. I wanted to feel justified. I wanted my hurt to be validated, my reactions excused. But God had a different plan.

It took God, my little one, and a daily commitment to doing the next right thing—415 days of choosing love for someone who was lost, wounded, and afraid. Afraid of the past. Afraid of accountability. Afraid that anyone could still love, forgive, and offer grace after the damage had been done.

Friends and family watched me reopen wounds—again and again—by allowing myself to see, hear, and know things that only deepened the pain. And while there were moments when my strength faltered, my love for my person never truly left. It stretched. It strained. But it stayed.

Even when love remains, we all have a breaking point.

A point where hope—what felt like a second chance—starts to feel less like a gift and more like something dangled just out of reach. Like a toy waved in front of a cat only to be pulled away again. And eventually, you learn that no amount of love can justify ongoing harm.

The pain I carried all year didn’t compare to the weight of the last fifty days.
Why come back just to leave again?
Was this confusion—or manipulation?
Was hope being offered honestly, or was it being used to keep access to me?

Everyone in my corner saw the pattern for what it was. And even my most faith-rooted heart had to confront a difficult truth: maybe my person didn’t love me in the way I needed—or deserved. Maybe what they loved was access. Comfort. The safety of knowing I was still there.

So I denied that access.

I could feel something darker pressing in—something that didn’t belong anywhere near my purpose. And I made a decision I’ve always stood by: I will only draw battle lines if my purpose is threatened. That promise isn’t new. I’ve made it to every member of my family. If a choice endangers the mind, heart, or stability of my purpose, I will protect it—without hesitation.

That conviction carried me through this last year. God has always known that while my heart is capable of extraordinary love, there is one thing I will never tolerate: evil near my child. No matter how deeply I love the person standing in its way.

And God, in His perfect timing, continued to reveal truth—always when I was strong enough to receive it. This threat to my purpose wasn’t random. It was another moment of divine clarity. Another invitation to choose healing over harm.

I had no idea what God was preparing when I finally stood firm.

As lines were being drawn—right before our story could have mirrored so many others—God stepped in.

I set boundaries so firm that the only access my person had was to our little one. Every attempt to negotiate, explain, or soften what had already been made clear was shut down. Like in any battle, there comes a moment when communication ends—not out of cruelty, but out of necessity.

God knew my heart was beginning to detach—not because I stopped loving, but because the cost of staying open had become too high. He also knew my little person needed a mother who wasn’t constantly wounded. A mother who was present. Whole. Not endlessly asking why or wondering what else might be taken.

I needed to move forward—for my child.

And then—God did what He does best.

In an unexpected moment, my person reached out through a channel we had never used before. And something felt different. Less guarded. Less defended.

Was it urgency?
Was it desperation?
Was it finally something that mattered?

Or was it another attempt to regain access—to soften a heart that had already begun to close?

That question lingered. And this time, I didn’t rush to answer it.

I didn’t rush toward it—because I didn’t fully believe it.

I didn’t trust his words. I had heard them before, only to watch him not choose me again. And I couldn’t bear that kind of heartbreak another time. So I allowed communication, but only on my terms—without surrendering to the comfort of what I wanted to hear instead of what I needed to see.

This time, my person stood before me differently. Not asking for forgiveness from me—but seeking it for himself. He wanted me to know that even if I never gave him another chance, he would still choose to walk this path alone, committed to proving—through his life, not his words—that something in him had changed.

He couldn’t explain it.
Only God.

God met him in a way we’ll never fully understand. In the kind of way that pulls someone out of a frozen state of fear and forces them to see what’s at stake. A moment of awakening—recognizing that this was his last chance before losing his family entirely.

God is weird like that.
The timing. The interruption. The way He speaks when everything else has gone quiet.

God showed my person what it feels like to have peace—the kind that only comes from faith. Faith that I might choose him again. Faith that he could choose us faithfully for the rest of his life. Faith that love, when rooted in truth and accountability, can still be protected. And the peace that followed—that stillness, that certainty—could only have come from God himself.

So as we celebrate beginnings and admire endings, I hope we learn to honor the middle.

The ugly middle.
The painful, gory, heart-wrenching middle.

Because without it, I wouldn’t be who I am today. And neither would my person.

The accountability for the hurt in our marriage belongs to us—not to outside judgment, not to those who doubt what God can do. Miracles don’t always look clean or easy. Sometimes they look like endurance. Like humility. Like choosing faith in the middle of the mess.

And that middle—however uncomfortable—is where transformation actually happens.