S2 Episode 13: Sarah Mae

Y'all, welcome to another Sister Circles show episode, and I am here with my friend Sarah Mae. We were just discussing how long we've actually known each other.

Yes.

And we're not exactly sure. We're not really sure, but it's been a while.

It's been a while.

It's been like at least 6, 7 years, something like that. So yeah, so we're in a Voxer group together, kind of a mastermind, peer mastermind group. Uh, she's an author friend of mine. She's done big things like run conferences and write books. But you're here today because your most recent book, The Complicated Heart, has released, and it is about forgiveness and loving people.

And it's really hard.

It's when it's really hard. So I don't want to tell your story. I would love you to tell your story because your story is not that something bad happened or hard happened as an adult. This started back when you were a kid.

Yeah.

And I know that a lot of people struggle with forgiveness with things that happen in their childhood. Some of which they remember fully.

Yeah.

Some of which they remember vaguely.

Right.

Because we get really good at forgetting the things we don't want to remember that causes pain.

Yes.

But I think what everybody needs to know, no matter what season of life you're in or when the hurt came, is that you give yourself a gift when you feel it.

Yes, that is— I love that you call it a gift. I think grief is a gift.

Grief is a gift.

Pain is a gift because if we face it—

but we want to run away from it.

Yes, we do.

Did you do that?

Because it's hard.

Did you run from that at all?

Yeah, but I think sometimes you don't even know what you're running from. Like, you don't know.

Yeah.

Until, you know, like, you don't know until it like crashes and burns or like something happens, and then you're like, what is wrong with me?

Right.

Like, what is happening?

You know what, one of the girls, one of our interns just said recently in a Voxer group— I have my interns in Voxer too— she said sometimes your body knows first first what your mind and your soul have not connected with.

Have you read The Body Keeps the Score?

I've heard that I should read it.

Another thing we're going to link.

Is it really good? Is it worth it? I have a whole list about shame and forgiveness and healing and all these things in the list.

I'll tell you why.

Okay.

It's not written by a Christian. That's all right. I know, but that's what I'm saying. So like, it's—

it's just pure science and just research.

It's, it's what literally happened. They've looked at MRIs, like what happens to your brain Your body literally remembers. So your mind— so something might happen. So let's say real quickly, let's say your husband goes to touch you a certain way and you flinch and you don't know why you flinched. He's safe, he's good, he's never hurt you, and it makes no sense. And then what happens is you're like angry at yourself, like, what's wrong with me? What's going on? Scientifically, what happens, your brain and your body are remembering something that happened that your mind has forgotten or has chosen to suppress. And so your body has kept the score. Like, your body will remember that. And so if you can go back and say, instead of going like judging yourself and being like, oh, what's wrong with me? Why am I reacting this way? Just to like get curious and be like, I'm not gonna judge myself for this, and I'm gonna say, Lord, is there something going on here?

Mm-hmm.

Because your body will tell you. Our bodies tell us all the time.

Like, the problem is we're just not listening, right? We're not good at listening, right? We're not good at listening until You can't avoid listening anymore.

Until you can't stop it.

Until you can't function or until you're crying all the time or until you don't know why you're frustrated and angry.

Or you're blowing up, you're so angry, whatever's happening.

So there is a time where your body forces you. It's kind of like sleepy, you know, people talk about how so many people are operating exhausted.

Yes.

But we get used to operating that way, and it's not until you fall asleep at the wheel, your body takes what it needs, or it's not until, you know, you can't stay awake in a conversation with a friend because your body is like, I need— it's not until you You get to the edge, right, that you say, okay, maybe I need to fix this. But your body has been telling you all the time that you're exhausted. Just like for many of us, our body has been trying to tell us that there's something we need to deal with.

Yes.

And we haven't been willing to stop to figure it out because it takes work.

It takes work. And I would say, and I know that you would say this too, is that it's really God trying to get our attention because he made our bodies this way. Like, he made it so that it would get our attention. That's right.

That's really good. Okay, so can you share a little bit of your story?

Yes. Okay, I'm gonna get— I'm gonna even get more comfortable. I feel like I have to hold a pillow.

I know, I need the lumbar support. So there's like—

we're really gonna get— oh gosh, well, okay.

All right, and I'll stop you if I want to.

So let me just say this first, is that really this whole thing, this whole book, my story, it's what I've seen looking back is that it's really how I learned to love and forgive my alcoholic mother. But as I was working through it, I was like, oh my gosh, there's so many things here for people. Like, as I was discovering, you know, things like that anybody struggling with their own complicated heart, with a complicated relationship, like a tangled mind mess relationship, manipulation, all these things, like I think it will be encouraging and helpful. So with that said, my story really starts when I'm 14. Technically, my parents were divorced before I was a year old, so that wasn't even a thing to me because that's all I ever knew. And in an odd thing, my dad got custody of me, and that's not normal, but again, it was normal to me. And so I would see my mother in the summers, and like, she was awesome. Everybody loved my mom. Like, she was so cool, she was so fun. I always said I wanted to be just like her or Madonna. I was not a Christian or anything like that. And, um, but then when I was 14, I was having a really difficult relationship with my stepmom. We had a lot of tense stuff going on, and I just felt like I really wanted to be with my mom. I was like, I'm 14, a daughter should be with her mother. And so I basically, being the arrogant kind of 14-year-old, I told my dad, well, you can't stop me. Like, I'm old enough to decide. A judge would side with me. I'm gonna go live with my mom. And so he relented because what was he gonna do?

I'm just very curious.

Mm-hmm.

Did he give you any warning?

No, and I think—

was there a warning to give? That—

well, I don't know because he would tell me stories like when he would come home from work when I was a baby, I would have just been left in my crib all day and there'd be just like dirty diapers and bottles all around me. And so that, you know, like upset him obviously, and I think, and my mom would have people over and apparently she would like snort cocaine and stuff. I don't know why I'm laughing at that, but I think what she was struggling with honestly is postpartum depression. I don't think she didn't love me. I think she was really depressed. She told me—

She had her own struggle.

Right, like she's told me she would stare at a wall like all day long, like just stare at a wall, like didn't know how to handle, and she felt really alone. So I'm not making an excuse for all of those things, but I'm just understanding what it is, right?

So there wasn't really a warning.

There was a looking back, there were hints of things, but there wasn't— he didn't— I don't think he knew she was an alcoholic. Plus, every time I would come back after spending the summer with her, I was like sad. I'd be in tears. It was so great. It was wonderful. So he didn't know. And so no, there was not a warning. And so then, so I move in with her, and I'm 14, and she's— her boyfriend who's 20 is living with her. You know, he's half her age, and he was great. He had a mullet. Fun times. That was really random. Sorry.

But it's a part of the memories.

It's just a part of the memories. Anyway, so it's really great for a while. I'm a teen, I can do anything I want. She doesn't really have any rules. I don't have to clean my room, you know, I kind of like have a free-for-all situation. And then things get weird, meaning this mother who I loved so much, who would hug me, we would sit in bed at night, she'd read books to me when I was a little girl, she would teach teach me French because she lived in France for a while. Like, all these wonderful things like that was just not present. And she actually was so cruel, like just a very mean woman, like sarcastic, biting, cutting.

Across the board to you?

Across the board. But she'd never been like that to me. I'd seen her with like— she was married 5 times, so I'd seen her with husbands being like that, you know. But I just kind of thought it was funny or didn't really think about it. I was a kid. Hit.

Well, and then you weren't in her every day.

I wasn't in her every day.

Now you're part of—

and I do think it was getting worse, and there's some reasons for that we can talk about. But, um, but anyway, so just— she would like mock me, make fun of me, like never take me seriously, um, and just say really mean things. Sometimes it was physical. Um, I can remember one time she like came at me, and I don't— I think we were like— I think I like threw a chicken nugget at her or something. She was like coming towards me and I must have had him in my hand because this is the memory I have, and she's like pushes me down in the room and I'm holding her shirt and she's like punching me in the head and she wasn't like this a lot. I mean, this wasn't common, but like there were just those moments of that where she was really intimidating. Like she was a strong woman. A real pivotal moment for me realizing that I was alone and that this was gonna be how things were was when I told her, I remember thinking, I don't want to die, but I want her to care about my feelings.

Yeah, so you start looking for ways to make people care, right? Extreme ways.

Extreme ways. And especially when you're 14 and you kind of say like really emotionally maybe dumb things, but you just don't, you know, whatever. So I remember I was in the bathtub. This is how the book opens actually. I'm sitting in the bathtub at 14 years old. There's this like cheap pink Daisy razor on the side of the tub. I'm literally thinking I wonder if I can kill myself with this razor, because if I do, like, maybe she'll care. Like, maybe then she'll care. Like, maybe then she'll come running to me. And then I hear her right outside the bathroom, and so I yell out, "I'm gonna kill myself!" And really, I mean, it's such a needy declaration, but I was needy. And she said, "Go ahead, I dare you." And of course it didn't, and that was the moment that I was like, okay, I'm— this is it.

So let me ask you this. At this point, yeah, why didn't you go back to your dad? Was going back to your dad and your stepmom an option, or was it just that things were really not that great with your stepmom, even worse than being with your mom?

It was a mix of things. I think I felt, um, stuck. Like, I think I thought I made decision to move here, so like I need to stay here. It honestly didn't occur to me that I could go back, even though my dad would have taken me back in a second.

Right.

It just didn't occur to me, and also I had gotten a boyfriend.

Yeah, well, who's gonna leave the boyfriend?

And even before the boyfriend, I, you know, our hearts really are complicated and strange, and my ex-stepbrother came to visit, who my mom just adored. Like, she just loved him so much. And he was 18, I was 14, and for whatever reason, he slept in my bedroom. Like, I don't know why. I had bunk beds, and I don't know if she put him there, if that's just what happened. I don't remember the situation, but he took advantage of that and like opened up all these things in me that I didn't know about. I mean, it was abusive, but I didn't know it was abuse because I so looked up to him. I mean, he was cute and he was older and he liked me, and I'd never been like a popular girl. I'd never been a pretty girl. I'd never been—

you were getting attention.

I was getting attention.

You were very desperate for it, right?

And so it's— and so at the time— and then he left. He was only there for a while, and then he left, and I was begging him to come back. So I think partly I stayed always thinking he would come back. And it wasn't until I'm older now and I have children that I look back and I'm like, oh my word, like what he did was wrong. And he knew what he was doing. He groomed me. And, you know, a lot of— I haven't talked about this at all, but a lot of the things I learned about sex came from these really bizarre scenarios that later really affected my marriage and my life later that I wouldn't have known how to place. Like, I wouldn't have known that if you're drunk and passed out and like your boyfriend has sex with you, that like that could be weird. Like, that's like— so anyway, so I had all these screwed-up experiences which later, quite frankly, led me to I never had a problem with alcohol or drugs or anything, but I would have to be with somebody all the time. Like, I couldn't be alone. Like, my anxiety would eat me up, and so I'd have to go find somebody to be with. Like, that was my addiction. Like, that was what I had to do. So anyway, so I'm with this boyfriend. I'm stuck in this crap hole place. And to make it even worse, I don't fit in. I'm in this tiny little town in Georgia, border— on the border of Alabama, and It's so racist. Like, it's so bad. It's so bad. And I had never experienced anything like that. Like, I'm this white girl and I was living in Pennsylvania and I just hadn't experienced it. And now I'm in this small little town in Georgia and there's Rebel Flags everywhere. If I talked to a Black person, they called me an N-lover. Like, just— and I was the Yankee. Like, I mean, my yearbook is filled with like, hey Yankee, like blah blah blah. Like, it was so weird. And all the girls were like ponytails with curls and lipstick and purses in the 8th grade, and I was like in my Converse and flannel shirt, and like I just didn't know how to be in this place. So I feel like I don't fit in, I don't understand the culture at all. You know, my mom is totally in her own world with her boyfriend who's half her age, which was ridiculous. He ended up tearing up our whole house one night I came home, and part of the gaslighting and manipulation and weirdness was that when he would hurt her, I became the mom. Like, I would have to comfort her. I'm going all over the place, but it's because I haven't talked about any of these things.

That's good.

At all. This part of the story anyway. So I'll get back on track. So at 16, I find out I'm pregnant, and I—

Who'd you tell first?

I first told my grandmother, my dad's mom in Pennsylvania.

Yeah.

I was really close with her.

This is why I ask you that because usually in scenarios like that—

Boyfriend, I guess technically first, but then my grandma. Yeah.

Because you know, you have a great dad. You wanted your mom to care. You told your mom, you know, you threatened to kill yourself because you were looking for attention.

Right.

But when you really have something you want to share, you don't go first to your mom.

Mm, right.

Hey, look at me, I need you.

Right.

You don't go first to your dad. Why your grandmother?

So I'd always thought we were like best friends, like we were so close. I loved her so much.

You felt safe. I felt safe.

Or you thought you felt safe. And she was the person who just kind of like supported me, like she was kind of a mother. Like she would send money every month. Like made sure I was taken care of, made sure like my mom got me to the dentist. Like she was the one who from Pennsylvania sort of like made things happen.

So when you told her, what did she say?

She said, "I'll have it taken care of." And I was like, "What? Like I'm keeping my baby. Like we'll get married. Like we'll get a trailer and this is like what it'll be." And she hung up the phone. And Then I called my dad and he was incredible. He gave the best response anybody could have ever given and he said, "Maybe it'll be fun to have a little one running around." And he didn't think that.

No. But he was like, "I love you." He knew how scared I was.

And he needed to give her something to let her know, "I'm here for her." Exactly. And when I told my mom finally, which I didn't want to tell her, it was sort of an accidental thing. Somebody called, she happened to hear on the phone call. It was kind of one of those deals. She checked out completely. Like, I literally couldn't tell you a thing that she said to me. She just completely like went blank in her face and checked out of the whole thing. I don't think she ever said a word about it. And I found out later that my mom had had 2 abortions and had never dealt with them. And I think the body remembers. The body remembers. And like, she just froze. Like, I couldn't even tell you one conversation we had about it. None. Zero. Zilch. So I was like, well, that's not a thing. Well, it was coming towards summer, so I was about to go back to Pennsylvania. So now go to Pennsylvania in the summers to be with my dad, and I was so sick, like, I mean, throwing up morning, noon, and night. There was no morning sickness. It was all day long, and I was just really frail and skinny and like pale and sick and blah. Anyway, so I get off the plane and all of a sudden my dad is being This man who hangs the moon in my world doesn't know how to be with me anymore. And of course, I'm sure he had pressure from his own mom, my grandmother, who said she wanted to have it taken care of. And she won't even look at me. She wouldn't talk to me, wouldn't look at me, nothing, nothing. This person who I was so close to, I remember looking at her and she literally turned her face away from me, like wouldn't even get near me. And so, and then my stepmom, who was Catholic and very pro-life, wanted me to keep the baby and she wanted to raise the baby as like her child and it would be my brother or sister, which is so weird. And I was like, I cannot do that because one, we don't get along, and two, that's just really a weird situation. I had a prominent family where I lived and so there was all this talk about like, oh, we'll send you to New Jersey with an aunt and then nobody will know you're pregnant and after you have the baby you can come back. It was just really weird. So, um, Just a very lonely, weird time. Couldn't talk about it, you know.

So what did you decide to do?

So 3 months into the pregnancy, I am so sick of being like, you know, not touched, unloved. So another grandmother, my mom's grandmother, came to visit me and she puts her arm around me and she says, "Why don't you just have an abortion? Because then you can go to prom and like, you know, have a life." And at this point I'm like, she's touching me, she's like, she's talking tenderly to me and I'm like, fine. I'm like, "Yes, I will have an abortion." So the other grandmother sets it up. The doctor says I'm too fidgety to have it in a clinic, so they take me to a hospital. They change my name because I had a prominent family. So on all of the paperwork, which I went and got later, it doesn't say Sarah Clark, which was my maiden name. It says Sandy Charles. So like, Sandy Charles had an abortion that day. I did not. And they put me under completely.

And you mean that literally or also—

I mean, soulfully, so both, yeah. And that's such an interesting question. And anyway, so I— my dad was with me the whole time except for the actual, actual surgery. Like, he stayed with me, held my hand. And then I had to move in with my grandmother, my dad's mom, because my stepmom didn't want me in the house after I had the abortion. So I slept for 2 days after the procedure and And the night before the procedure, I had just held my stomach and cried and just asked the baby to forgive me. And so I wake up, I go out into the kitchen, my grandmother has breakfast for me, and she has a smile, and we never talk about it. It's never mentioned, it's never brought up, like nothing.

So probably to jump forward a little bit— Say, "Stop it." You have given so far a series of situations where you were looking for something that you weren't getting, and then to add that, add to that, then at a time when you need what you've been looking for the most, not only are you not getting, but you're getting turned away from. You said they don't know how to look at you, they don't know how to talk to you. So at this moment in your life, still 16, if you had to describe 16-year-old Sarah Mae, how do you describe her?

That's a really good question.

How would you describe her at 14?

At 14? Before you moved to live with your mom? Very innocent, naive, earnest, tender. I really believed that if I could just say how I felt about a thing, that like somebody would be like, "Oh, okay," and we'd like work it out and it would be great. Like just this very sort of innocent innocent, I think, innocent would be the way, and naive, innocent, naive.

16.

16, I was numb. I would say numb and curious, meaning I had gone through these experiences where people would do what they wanted to me and I didn't have a say, and so I got really interested in that, like what is that about, why is that happening? So with my body, I knew that I could get what I wanted if I gave my body, and I would just separate my mind.

You learned that lesson.

With the abortion, I never chose over my body. I felt like I didn't have a choice, and people did what they want anyway.

Do you feel like even in that, that there was a separation of your mind from your body?

Yeah, because it was kind of like the same as with sex, like, go ahead, do what you want. With the abortion, go ahead, do what you want. That it became like I'm not my body. Like, I'm me and this is separate from me. And you can do what you want to this, but you can't do anything to like who I am. But I— so I'm so like, I guess numb would be the best way. Numb and angry. There was like a numbness, like where I wouldn't think about things.

Like I didn't know what to do with the pain, but there was an undercurrent of anger.

So there was rage, like a fire burning that like I didn't know I didn't know what to do about it.

But every now and then would push through the numb.

Right.

Right.

And so that was weird. And so, and I couldn't, I wasn't allowed to face my pain. Like I would write a lot, like I would write poetry, like angsty teenage poetry, you know, and journal and those kinds of things because I didn't know, I couldn't tell anybody, I couldn't talk to people about these things. And for me, I really learned that sex was power. And even with the abortion, it became again like I felt like— trying to figure out how to describe this— I just knew it could get me what I wanted in any situation.

When you look at that and the work that you've done, not just writing the book, counseling, all the things you've done to work through it, when you say, man, there are certain ways in which the way I thought, the way I acted, and to a certain degree some of the outcomes in my life to a certain point.

Absolutely.

They mirror my mom's.

Yeah, when I found my mom's journals and I read them, I could have written some of them. I mean, we had different circumstances going on, but the way she wrote them was so much how I write in my own journals or my own angst or how I deal with my emotions. It was so weird. And at one point I remember making a vow like, I will never be like my mother. I will never be an alcoholic and I will never be like my mother. The thing is, like, I, I was like my mom and I had my own addictions and I am like my mother, but I don't have to have all of the crummy stuff.

There are choices, right?

There are choices I can make, but I can take the good. I mean, she was a writer and she artist, and she thought deeply and felt deeply, you know, all of these things.

You can decide what you take.

Right. Yeah.

So talk about your mom and her struggle with the alcohol and what that did to her physically.

Yeah, so I— my mom drank for as long as I knew her. I just never paid attention to it until she— I moved in with her. And before I moved into her It was just really beer and stuff, I think. But something, a few things happened in her life. You know, I had the opportunity in a sense when I found her journals to almost like trace a life. Like what causes somebody to become an alcoholic? Like what causes, not because it's an excuse, but I'm just like, what happened that you would be so mean to your own kids?

And settle in there.

And settle in.

And not want to change.

Right. Or take action to change. Especially because she's somebody who always said she believed in Jesus. And that was the weirdest— this is another reason why I call it The Complicated Heart, because I'm like, she never acted like it. You'd never know. In fact, if you read my mom's journals and you didn't read anything else, you'd be like, oh my gosh, she loved the Lord, and like she had all these, you know, like hardships in her life, and like, but she was a good woman who loved her kids. I mean, it's a whiplash. It's very, very weird. She was in such denial.

So she's not here to speak for herself, but why do you think there was such a disconnect?

Disconnect? Okay, so I think she had so much pain, it's the only way that she could cope.

Undealt with pain.

Undealt with pain. So for example, she'd always wanted the love of her father. Through her journals, I have them going way back to like when she was like in elementary school, and she just always, always wanted to be good enough for her dad. She wanted unconditional love all the way up until her dying day. That's all she ever wanted. Was him to love her unconditionally, and she never felt like she had it, and she didn't. And also, significant things happened. So, um, by the time she was 30, she'd been divorced 3 times and had 2 little kids, one of which she was losing— 2 of which she was losing custody of. And that, you know, was really awful. I'm not saying she didn't have a part in that, obviously, but it was still very damaging and hurtful. And then when I was, I want to say 9 years old, I don't know if that's correct. I was young. My sister is 5 years younger than me. She was accused of sexually abusing my sister and I, which did not happen. But my sister had been brainwashed. My sister and I talked about this. She's okay that I told this story. And when she was like 3, like forced to say these things, Talk about messing a kid up. And so imagine, I can't even imagine going through what that must have been like, that you are having to like go to court, deal with people, and say like, I did not sexually abuse my children.

Well, it's loss. She's had loss over and over again with relationships, loss over and over again because of the love she wants with her dad. Now her children. She's lost her children.

Right.

It's just one big story of loss.

Yes.

And the drinking helped the grief not hurt so bad.

Right. I think it just made her not have to hurt so bad.

She didn't want to feel it.

She didn't want to feel it. I mean, I think that was probably the tipping point, I would imagine, those accusations. And then also during all of that, she— my sister's dad had taken her. My mom had dropped her off for a visit visitation, and he just took off with her. I mean, he essentially kidnapped her. And so for like 6 months, we couldn't— she didn't know where she was. So she's going out of her mind. She gets married. Literally, the guy that she was with said, let's get married so we can pull our resources together and we will find her. And so, um, I mean, and so I wasn't allowed to see my mom during that time. I had to go into some like counseling thing where this woman was trying to convince me that my mom had done these things that she hadn't done. So terrible. And I really think that because I moved in with her shortly after the sort of last, like, end of the marriage with that guy who'd helped her find my sister and all these things. Here's a light in the dark moment here I want to say, is that when my sister was taken, I can remember, um, I didn't know the Lord. My stepmom was Catholic, so I'd gone to Catholic church, but I didn't really know anything or understand it. But I remember praying to a God I didn't please bring my sister back. And every night I prayed, please, please bring my sister back. And so when we found her, it cemented in my heart that God heard you, that God heard me, like that there was a God and he heard me. So I didn't know anything else, but there was no doubt that he heard. There's this God that heard me.

Talk about your mom being sick.

So eventually, like, so Gosh, there's so many things I have to reorient my brain here to get to that part. So my mom got sick when I was— I'd gotten married. We had worked through— I mean, there's a whole bunch of practical stuff that I write about and talk about, about, you know, how you get through, how do you love when the— forgive when the wound is still open, all of these things. Because when I became a Christian, God told me to stay in relationship with her, and I don't think that's for everybody, but it was for me, and there were reasons for that. So fast-forwarding through all of those huge massive chunk of the story that is in the book, I got a— one of my impossible prayers was that my mom would stop drinking and come to know the Lord. I just— but I never held hope onto that. I mean, it was like—

it was just a request, right?

It was an impossible prayer.

Yeah.

And I thought, it's never gonna happen. I don't even know why I'm praying it. Like, it's ridiculous. Well, one day I'm married, I've got two kids, I'm pregnant with my third, and and I get a phone call from a hospital and they say, "Your mom is here and she has stage 4 cirrhosis of the liver." So she didn't know anything or you didn't know anything? I didn't know anything, she didn't know anything. No, just wait. And so I was like, and they're like, "She maybe, maybe has a month to live. Like you need to come say your goodbyes, get her affairs in order." You know, all of that. And I was like, What? So I was like, can I talk to my mom? And they said yes, so they put her on the phone. And I said, Mom, like, what happened? And by this point, um, we were talking. I had hated her for a really long time, and like I said, so much has happened in between. Um, and she said, God told me to stop drinking. And I was like, come again? Like, what? And she said, I was making my morning vodka and I heard a voice tell me, put that drink down, you don't even want it. And she said, I poured it down the drain. And she said, I think if I wouldn't have done it, I would have dropped dead right then. But what happened is, because you can't drink for 20 years hard alcohol morning to night, you can't just quit on your own. So she went through detox on her own. She poured the drink down and then didn't drink. And so she basically was like blacking out, hallucinating, all this stuff for 2 days, and then passed out, and somebody found her in her trailer and took her to the hospital, and that's when they told her she had stage 4 cirrhosis of the liver. So here, on one hand, it's like, oh my gosh, you stopped, you listened, you heard a voice tell you to stop drinking, what? And then now you're gonna die? It was too much to handle. It was like this roller coaster this impossible prayer being answered, but then also now she's gonna die.

How long did she actually live after that?

Oh my gosh, like 9 more years, you guys. She just didn't die. She was in like hospice care, but she lived with us for a year and a half because they didn't want her to die alone. Finally hospice is like, uh, we're releasing your mom, she's not dying. Honest to God, it's not like I wanted her to die, but at some point I was like, you gotta go. Like, you gotta go, you gotta go get your own house. Like, You are fine. And so she, so she did. She lived sober.

And, um, like, that was it.

Yeah, that was it. Is that not crazy? I mean, there's so much more, you guys, to this. There's so much more. We're hitting the, like—

well, and I have a few— I have some more questions.

I just—

okay, you, you, um, so let me start. We did we did this, then we jumped over, now we're here.

Oh, we've been jumping. So I want to work backwards for a couple of minutes.

Okay, okay. So, first of all, how do you describe, if someone were to try to understand what it means now for you to have put your mind and your body back together?

Mm.

First of all, is that something that you feel like you've Yes and no. Still working on it.

So the truth is there has been massive healing and massive freedom with the abortion, with intimacy. I have a very kind, safe husband, so that's been helpful. However, because God continues to work on us all of our lives, things still come up and I'll have to deal with them. Like, I have to go—

Do you feel better equipped for dealing with them?

So I feel much better equipped. I know when things begin to come up to go, okay, like I need more work here.

What's come up recently?

Um, so when I gave that example in the beginning about the intimacy, like if your husband touches you a certain way or whatever, y'all have been married for how long? 16 years. But for so long I wanted to be this good Christian wife, you know, and I'm supposed to have sex with my husband whenever he wants it. I mean, you know, these things, right? Like I have so many things I want to say to new married couples, but anyway, um, maybe that's another podcast. Yeah, right, that's another book. And so for years I just suppressed all of the rage. Like, when my husband would touch me, I would feel rage, but I had like no reason to, so I was just angry at myself and I was like, why? What is wrong with me? And so for years again, I kept doing the same thing, like just numbing myself. And it's not that I love you, honey. I love you.

Numbing yourself?

Oh, I just mean like my mind would go elsewhere.

Yeah, yeah.

Same thing. But God loves me so much that he kept bringing it up. So it's been in the past few years actually that I finally got really honest and I was telling him how I really felt. It's not like he couldn't tell there was a wall. He'd be like, "You have a wall like a million miles. It's not like I don't know, Sarah, like how thick your wall is." I was like, "I don't have a wall." He's like, "Yeah." So was putting your mind and body back together a matter of acknowledging the feelings? The first part for sure was acknowledging. Finally, finally, finally saying, I think something's wrong. Like, I think I'm not just being a bad wife. Like, I think my body's telling me things. And so we had a bit— we had it out majorly and decided to get counseling. And I actually have been starting to realize that my abortion, even though I went through healing for that, other things are coming up that I hadn't realized, like loss of control of my body. Like, I hadn't really realized how much I felt out of control. And I feel like I have to be in complete control of my body, and I don't want anybody else to get a say over my body at all anymore, even my safe husband. And so I'm like, no, you don't get to do this. Like, you don't get to touch me because I don't want you to have your way. Like, I had all— I have all these twisted up things. So it's been coming back together very slowly for me through counseling and surrender, and I'm willing to stop judging myself. My one counselor said, you can't heal if you're judging yourself. So like, when I would escape— I'm just gonna be really grossly vulnerable right now— so I would escape into a fantasy in my mind if I was with my husband so that I could be with him. Yeah, but I hated myself for it because a good Christian girl doesn't do that.

It's a catch-22.

But it was the only way I could have sex.

Right.

And I remember finally telling my husband the truth, and I would always say, I will never tell him, I will never tell him. And then God's like, oh, never? Really? Mm, I want you to tell him. And it like freed something in me to be honest and say, this is what's happening.

Mm-hmm.

And then the counselor actually saying like, don't judge yourself for that. Like, ask God, like, why am I doing this? Like, what's— instead of being like, I'm so I'm such a wretch, like, look at me doing this. It was like, why don't you ask the Lord, like, what's happening there? Because I didn't want to do it. It wasn't like I was just free-for-all, like, yeah, let's go!

Like, it's a coping mechanism, right?

It was a coping mechanism, right? Exactly. So, um, yeah, over the past few years, God's been doing a lot of work there, and it's— it's— there's still work to be done, and I think there will always be. I mean, I hope it's not forever. Like, I would really like to not have to deal with this, you know. But it is, it's still there. It's still hard.

So when, you know, the hard part of you putting your mind and body back together, of walking in honesty and authenticity with the people that are close and safe for you to do that with, of course your husband, counselors, all those things.

And I'm not numb when I use them.

Right, right, and that's what I was getting at. So this is a part of this process of ongoing acknowledgement and a willingness. I love that word, willingness for surrender. A willingness to deal with the stuff. When there's something that comes up that shouldn't be there, acknowledging that it shouldn't be there.

That's right.

And then being willing to do whatever the work is required. Okay, but from your mom and all that pain to your ongoing willingness, right, there were some key things, key things, some points where you said I've got to do something different. I'm going to make a different choice.

Right.

So what made you even start to say, like, what is one moment maybe where you remember going, okay, I'm not— I'm going to do something different here?

Well, none of that would have happened without Jesus. Like, honest to God, like, it starts with Jesus. It starts with Jesus.

Like, and the realization of saying I'm supposed to forgive Jesus and what? Like, you got Jesus and then like—

No, it was the realization that Jesus loved me in spite of everything I'd done and everything I was doing and everything I would do. Because I had so much shame, I did not feel lovable at all. I had no worth whatsoever. A speaker once said, if Jesus walked in the room, what would you do? And I was like, well, I would hide, obviously. Like, he wouldn't want to see me. And believing— it was the end of high school, beginning of college— believing that that I actually was loved by God was the very first and major game changer for me. Because all of a sudden it was like, I'm not on my own. I am tethered to something secure. And even in spite of all of the shame and all of my craziness, because I was, I was like emotionally like, wack job. So off the charts. Yeah, off the charts. He is with me and I am loved. That was huge.

But a lot of people believe that Jesus loves them and they don't attach it to the extension of love to somebody who's hurt them. Or they don't actively attach it.

Well, so then, so the first thing Jesus had to do was just say like, I've got you. So like, he was in the pit with me, he was leading me out of the pit. So that was huge. Then though is when he began the work. Then it was, you know, I'm reading the Bible, I'm understanding the scriptures for the first time in my life, I'm going nuts, like I can't get enough. And of course, what are the themes I'm reading about? So much love, forgiveness, you know, like all these things. And then I'm like, at this point, like, I hate my mom, I want nothing to do with her. Like, we talk on the phone, you know, but like from a distance. I'm not there anymore. I moved back to Pennsylvania. And I'm just knowing that God is saying, like, "I want you to stay in relationship, love her, and forgive her." And I'm like, But how? Like, that's nice.

How can I do that and be healthy?

But like, how can I do that because I'm still kind of a crazy girl? And so he, in his kindness, like brought different people in my life to teach me. So like, for example, he started to reveal all of these lies that I had believed that were making me crazy.

And this just happened automatically? Were you engaged and involved in seeking out the information?

No, not at first.

Like he was just bringing—

No, I was just this little girl little like withering plant he was just pouring water on, like until I could bloom out and open up for the water. I don't know if that's a terrible example, probably I just made that up.

But you basically are saying he met you where you were at.

He was doing everything until I could start to walk on my own. I was literally a baby. I mean, it is, that analogy that scripture talks about is so perfect because he had to hold me, he had to feed me. I could not do it. And then he started teaching me to walk. And then he started teaching me—

How did you even—

Okay, so as a baby, how he fed me was—

How did you even meet Jesus?

Oh, I, well, so I'd always been wooed by him, like I said. So I'd always believed in God, I just didn't know Jesus. And so when I was, there's a couple significant things. I don't have a date. When I was living with my mom, an uncle came to visit and brought a Christian cassette tape of contemporary Christian music, Clay Cross. I don't know if you know who he is. I didn't know there was such a thing as Christian music. I knew there were hymns, like from the Catholic Church, but like I didn't know there was like actual like Christian music.

That's rude.

Right, so I'm playing this. Why I played this, I have no idea. Probably because we didn't have phones or anything and there was nothing else to do. So I played it. You know what I mean? Like why am I a teenager listening to a tape my uncle gives me? I don't know.

Y'all, a tape—

A cassette tape.

A cassette tape is a little thing like this. It has two holes.

Not this.

And it has a little piece of tape that runs through it and it plays music. Or other kinds of stuff.

And you have to rewind it and it— shh—

it's forever.

So anyway, I'm listening to this man singing and praying to God, like, I don't know what this man is singing about, but I want it. I want whoever this Jesus is, whatever this is, I want it. So that was significant because I really think God— I know God was wooing me, so he's planting these little, like, you know, things. And then I started to go to Young Life when I moved back to Pennsylvania. All the cool kids, to get out of the house on Wednesday nights, would go to Young Life, which is a ministry for high schools. They go into public schools. And I began to hear the gospel. Like, so, you know, I began to hear about how, you know, there's this God-man, Jesus, and he died for my sins. And what does all this mean? I'm real curious about this. And I get like a Young Life New Testament, and I'm reading it and highlighting it.

So all of these things are happening, and I remember being like, "Yeah, I want to follow Jesus." I was like, "I'm a Christian." I love the fact that you don't have a date, because a lot of people get hung up on whether or not they can remember the exact moment, but they know that they know that they know.

I knew that I knew that I knew, and I remember being like, "I'm going to be a serious Christian." All of a sudden I'd come from chaos, and I wanted— I went kind of a little bit towards legalism. Right, legalism.

You were trying to figure out how to do it. Mm-hmm.

And I remember I was that obnoxious Jesus girl. I would like, in college, I would argue with like the atheist in my dorm room. Of course, I didn't know a dang thing at this point because I'm a brand new Christian, but Jesus is in me, so you can't get rid of him. And I remember being like, um, you know, the 5 Gospels. And he was like, aren't there 4?

The atheist said there are 4.

And I was like, yeah.

That's great.

You know, I mean, So, like—

Well, I love how you're describing wooing because I think for a lot of people they go, "What's wooing?" But if they think back, many of us can think to moments when you just were a little closer.

Right, and I'm sure I prayed a prayer. Like, I probably prayed 10 times. But like, it wasn't that. It wasn't that.

So Jesus is in you.

Jesus is there.

You have this wooing that's happened.

The wooing happens.

He's in you. You're reading, and the light is going on that there's something he wants you to do.

Yeah, right. He wants me to love and forgive my alcoholic mother, and I'm like, "Nah, I can't say no. Like, I know you now." So it's, "Show me how to do this." So, he began— so, okay, so you were saying, like, "Well, how do you do that? You're this baby. How's this happen?" Yeah. So I just do the next thing out of Young Life, and I go to college.

Do the next thing. I just want you to understand this whole story, and most people's stories, is a sum total of just doing the next thing.

In obedience.

So the next thing was?

So I got involved in a collegiate ministry, The Navigators. So I'm going to The Navigators every week because You know, that's what I do as a Christian. And it was through there that there was this— the wife of the main Navigator minister, I went to her house one day and I was like a junior in college and I'm like, "Why am I so emotional? Like, what is wrong with me?" And she gets this piece of paper out and she starts writing things like, "I'm not good enough.

I'm not in control." She's writing these things down because that's what you're saying?

Or she's just writing them down? No, she's just writing all these sentences until I say, "Oh." Like, I'm not taken seriously. Like, I'm not pretty. I'm stupid. I'm not smart. All of these things. And she's like, "Do any of these hit you?" And I'm like, "Heck yeah." I'm like, "I'm not good enough. I'm not smart. I'm not taken seriously." And she's like, "Okay." And then she writes a few more things and they're like, I must be smart. I must be pretty. I must be in control. She's writing all these things down because what happens is we develop these lies and then these— then we make demands on others. Like, I have to be seen— it's all subconscious, but like, we have to be seen a certain way. And when we're not, because it's attached to love, then we like blow up or we get anxious or depressed. Those are the three triggers: anger, anxiety, and depression. Not chemical depression, like situational. And so where basically God is guiding me into understanding all of the ways that I have believed lies because he wants to then replace them with the truth. So as children, we're excellent observers of a situation, but we're usually terrible interpreters. We make conclusions that aren't actually accurate.

Because we don't have all the information.

Because we don't have all the information, right. And so with my mom, I observed that she was not taking me seriously. When I told her I wanted to kill myself, or when I told her she was an alcoholic, you know.

And you imputed that to, I am not the person who will be taken seriously in any situation.

And if I'm not taken seriously, then clearly I'm not worth being taken seriously, which really means I'm not loved. Right. So I associated all of these things.

It becomes a whole story that you told yourself.

Right, and this was just one of the lies.

Right.

I had several.

I think it's interesting too that the lies get debunked Yes, because Jesus, God, the Word is all shining a light on that. But there were also a series of people that God brought into your life that said, "Hey, you're a fish story." Right, like people had to direct me to these.

I didn't just know. Like, I didn't know. And so she's then showing me how to replace the truth. Like, she's like, "Sarah, this is great. When we recognize our lies, they force us to the gospel." Because then we can begin to see that our worth only comes from Jesus. God is the only one who has the authority to tell us who we are. And so he says I'm righteous and I'm loved and secure. So if somebody doesn't take me seriously, that's okay because my identity is not in that. It's in Christ. I don't need their approval.

I don't need them to give that to me. Right, because it's already been given to me.

It's already been given to me. Right. And so beginning— this was like a huge revelation for for me because I did not know how much it impacted me. So like if a boyfriend, I felt like he didn't care or he was dismissive or somebody didn't listen, even if they were just having a normal interaction but I interpreted that way, it's like stepping on a landmine in your heart. It just explodes.

It's a sword. It's a sword.

And then I'm crazy and then I'm like, I'm gonna hurt you because you are hurting me, so I'm gonna cut you down. I was just like my mom in that way. I could use sarcasm. I could cut like the best of them and just tear somebody down. But then I'd be like bawling my eyes out after, like, why did I do that? You know, it's terrible. And so that's why I'd gone to Kathy in the first place. But there were two other significant things. If we have time, I'll tell you. So, so God always used people. We're not made to be in isolation, right? So, so that was Kathy, this wonderful woman, taught me all about core lies. And then I met— I was, I was a human development and family studies major in college. I wanted to be a counselor.

Okay.

And we had a guest lecturer, and he was this bald man in a black leather jacket, and it turns out he was this addiction counselor. So of course I run up to him after class, and I'm like, I need to talk to you about my mother. Like, what do I do with her? Because I knew God wanted me to stay in a relationship with her, but every time I tried to be kind— like, I was trying to be kind, you know, like, but I was also super self-righteous. But like, We'd get on the phone and she would say something that hurt me, and then I would say, that really hurts me, and then we'd go into this whole like dumpster fire of a conversation. And so I'm telling the guy this, you know, like, what do I do? And he says to me, if I have a ball in my hand and I throw it to you, what are you gonna do? And I said, I'm gonna catch it, right? And he said, and then what? I go, well, then I'm gonna throw it back. And he said, oh, so you've decided to play the game. Game with me. He said, if you don't want to play the game, stop throwing the ball back. And this was my first experience with boundaries, and I had a lot to learn about how to set boundaries, but that was my first experience about what I would and would not tolerate in my life.

So what does that look like?

So what it looked like was we're on the phone, and literally he would say, if it starts to go down, be like, oh, someone's at the door, gotta go, click bye. I just didn't care about lying at this point. It was kind of one of those, you cannot engage. So I set it up. I mean, I said, Mom, if it starts to go downhill, I'm gonna hang up the phone. But if you've ever been with a narcissist or somebody who doesn't let you get off the phone, it doesn't work that easily. And that's why he's like, you literally have to just hang up the phone. It sounds really cruel, but if you want to get emotionally and spiritually healthy, you've got to get your own head on straight. And mine was upside down, right? So I would do this. I would just be like, oh, Mom, I'm so sorry, gotta go. I wouldn't even give her a chance to say bye because I had to get out.

That didn't create—

oh, she was sick. Oh yeah. Oh, completely.

Okay.

But I had to do it. Like, I had to get away. And in fact, it got so bad that I actually ended up taking like 6 months away from talking to her at all. I said, I cannot talk to you. I need to get my head straight. Which that— I mean, she held that grudge to me like basically till her dying day. But I don't regret it because during that time I got counseling. Like, I didn't know what was true and wasn't. When you're manipulated for so long, You don't know if you're actually— if you are making a big deal out of nothing, if you are just too sensitive. Like, you don't know what's true. And I needed clarity, and I couldn't have clarity if I was tangled up with her. And so during my time away from her, you know, learning how to set boundaries, what that means, and eventually you learn how to set them in more loving ways. But initially, like, I just had to get— I had to—

what did other loving boundaries—

so here was a key to that. That, I went to another counselor who I'd been introduced to because underneath all the rage, it turned out I was really sad.

Mm-hmm.

And I didn't know I was sad until I didn't get a birthday card from my mom one year. And I would see all of my friends in college, like, they have moms they can call, they can talk to about boys, they have movie nights, they cuddle up. I mean, if I tried to get close to my mom on the couch— remember one time I snuggled up next to her and she pushed me away and was like, what, are you a lesbian? Like, what are you doing? And I was like, okay. So I was so jealous of all of these people who had moms. Of course, under the jealousy, I'm like a bawling mess because I just really now want a mom. My daughter heart is longing. So I go to a counselor.

I'm telling, you know, the counselor like, I just want a mom, blah blah blah.

And I'm waiting for the counselor to be like, you can have that one day. But she doesn't do that. She says, Sarah, you you need to mourn the loss of a mom as though she died because you don't have one. And the process of mourning is facing reality and letting go of your expectations. So we don't mourn the future because that's where hope sits, but we, but we face reality. And it is like mourning a death. I mean, I had to learn how to grieve her as though she, she died because the reality was I did not have a mom. I just didn't want to face that. Yeah, I wanted to hold on that if I could just explain myself enough, which kept you open so that every time you were reminded that you don't have it, it just hurt again. It was just running into that fist over and over again. And so that was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life, but letting go of the expectation that, that she would be a mom allowed me to just see her her as a human made in the image of God who needed love. So that when God said to love this person, I could love her without the expectation that she would be kind to me, that she would mother me, that I would get anything back.

You know what, you talked about this process starting because you began to understand how you were loved and how God, while he does give us rules for living, not rules, but guidelines so that we can have abundant life. He wants us to actually have a good life without unnecessary pain and drama. But if we don't, his love is still unconditional.

That's right.

So what you're saying is, I learned how to unconditionally love my mom.

That's good.

Well, I love how you are taking your journey, your lessons learned, and willing to— I mean, you know, because this is a hard story and there's a lot of hope in it.

Right, there is a lot. There's some incredible, incredible stuff that God did.

There's a lot of stuff that God has done and is still doing. But one of the things that he's still doing is allowing the healing that you've experienced and are still experiencing to overflow. Because we talked to you about how writing this book was out of overflow. Overflow out of your experience and into the hearts and minds of the experience people are currently living right now.

After I read my mom's journals, honestly, I just wanted to love everybody because everybody's hurting.

Everybody's hurting.

Like, even the worst person. And I don't think everybody's called to stay in relationship.

Yeah, somebody— you have to know you're like— you have to know, but everybody's hurting.

But everybody's hurting.

Yeah. So for the person who's watching, yeah, who is in the middle of the thing. Straight up unforgiveness. They don't want to deal with the person. Even watching this conversation to this point has been gut-wrenching because stuff is stirring on the inside. And they don't really do anything about it, but they've stuck with us this long because they know they need to. What is the thought that you want to leave them with?

I would say a couple of things. Um, hope sits in the future. I can't remember who said that. That's not unique to me, but I love that because you don't know what the future holds. God does still answer impossible prayers, even if they're not what we think they would be. He's always doing a work in us that we maybe think could be impossible. Um, that everybody really is hurting. That you don't have to stay in relationship with somebody who is causing a lot of toxic stuff to go on with you. But the key is going before the Lord and saying like, God, what do you say? What do you want? And then trusting him. Like, if he calls you to stay in relationship, he's not doing it to be a jerk or to hurt you. It's because he knows things that you don't know. He knows the— all of the history of that other person, of you, all of your pain, all of their pain, sin, wounds, all of those things. He knows it all, and he knows what's going to happen. And so if he calls you into relationship, he's doing it because he has a reason for that. And if he's asking you to love and forgive somebody that you think, oh heck no, you— who do you trust more, like your own hurt, or are you going to trust the Lord and what he's telling you to do? I am I am so glad that I stayed in relationship. It wasn't easy. It was really hard and very painful, but I would regret it tremendously if I did not obey him because of all of the crazy things that happened later. One of them being my mom never apologized to me. Some of you know what that's like. You have somebody in your life who who the only apology they'll ever make is, "I'm sorry you feel that way." Sorry you're so sensitive or whatever. The year before she died, she told me, she said, "The Lord told me that I was a bad mom to you and I want to tell you I'm sorry." You guys, I about fell out of my chair. That would have been like saying there is a purple monster staring at you outside the window. Like it was so not my mother at all, like shockingly so. But see, she had bent her knee to Jesus too, and that can change everything.

And I want to add to everything you just said, once you realize whatever the thing is that needs to be done or acknowledged in a relationship, boundaries, all the things, yeah, that you just decide to be willing Yes, decide to be willing and get help.

Talk, tell somebody, tell the thing, tell whatever it is. I mean, yeah, don't do it alone. Don't think you can handle it alone. You can't.

I want to show everybody, this is Sarah's book. It's The Complicated Heart, and everybody I know has a complicated heart.

Everybody has a complicated heart.

But particularly if this story of hurt, healing, and forgiveness hope is resonating with you and you want to know the story in full, she's poured her heart out into this so that she can help somebody else.

Yeah, I really want to see other women on the path to freedom and healing, especially when you feel like nothing's gonna change. It's not possible.

Well, you're proof that it is possible. Hey y'all, I hope you enjoyed that video. Be sure and subscribe so that you don't miss anything.