“Hidden Scars: When Love Hurt, and How Jesus Healed Me”

Not all wounds are visible. My story of trauma.

In this deeply personal episode of Unrelated Sisters: Truth & Grace Conversation, I share my story of emotional abuse, survival, and healing through Jesus.

Because trauma doesn’t always show in words—it shows in patterns.

From constantly apologizing… to feeling unworthy of love… to believing lies about identity—this episode brings truth, awareness, and hope.

If you’ve ever struggled with emotional wounds, insecurity, or feeling unseen… this conversation is for you.

👉 You are not broken beyond repair.
 👉 You are seen, loved, and redeemable. 

Because trauma… doesn’t always look the way people expect.

It doesn’t always show up as bruises.

👉 Sometimes… it shows up in behavior.

 The signs are hidden in behavior… not in what they say out loud. 

1. You’ll notice things like…

She apologizes constantly.

Even when she did nothing wrong.

Because somewhere along the way…

👉 She was made to feel like everything was her fault.

2. And small conflicts?

They don’t feel small.

Because her mind is connecting present moments…

👉 To past pain.

3. She might break down over something that seems “little”…

But it’s not little to her.

Because she’s not just reacting to the moment…

👉 She’s reliving something she never fully healed from.

4. She needs reassurance…

Not because she’s needy—

But because emotional neglect taught her:

👉 Love can disappear without warning.

Trauma doesn’t always speak.

👉 It shows up in patterns.

 Psalm 34:18

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

 2 Corinthians 10:5

“We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

Romans 5:8

“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Isaiah 61:3

“To give them beauty for ashes… the oil of joy for mourning…”

And slowly…

I started to believe:

👉 I am loved.
 👉 I am chosen.
 👉 I am not what happened to me.

 ENCOURAGEMENT (4–5 minutes)

If you’re listening to this…

And you see yourself in this story…

I need you to hear me clearly:

You are not too far gone.

You are not too broken.

📖 Psalm 147:3

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

 PRAYER

Father God,

Thank You for being close to the brokenhearted.

Thank You for seeing the wounds no one else sees.

Lord, for every woman listening who has been hurt, broken, or made to feel unworthy—

Meet her right where she is.

Heal what still hurts.

Restore what was lost.

Break every lie that was spoken over her life.

And replace it with Your truth—

That she is loved, chosen, and worthy.

Give her strength to heal…

And courage to walk forward in freedom.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Dear Lord Jesus, we thank you for this day. We thank you for your mercy, your blessings, and your grace. We thank you for this opportunity to share our story. Lord Jesus, please give me the strength to be honest and vulnerable today, to tell a story that I've never really told anyone before, Lord Jesus, to share my love and my experience through my trauma, Lord Jesus, and then through your healing. Just give me the strength. That's all I ask for, Lord Jesus. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Hey, sisters, and welcome back to Unrelated Sisters Truth and Grace Conversation. It's just me today, Shannon. And today's episode is a little personal. Uh, it's kind of one of those conversations that people don't always talk about out loud. But for many women, it's a silent walking that they've gone through or that they're going through today. And it's been on my heart to share. And I guess it's time to share. Trauma. It doesn't always look what like what people expect it to look like. It doesn't always show up with bruises and physical marks. Sometimes it just shows up in the way you act or the way you respond to things. And that's what kind of what we're going to talk about today. What nobody tells you about emotional abuse in women is that the signs are hidden in behavior. And it's not what we say out loud, but it's how we react to things. It's how we show different emotions towards different things. Sometimes we overreact to small things that shouldn't mean as much, but they do. You know, uh, if she's still in the middle of her, of her abuse, she's gonna constantly apologize for even when she's not done things wrong. She's gonna constantly put her head down. She's gonna constantly look at the ground. Because somewhere along the way, she was made to feel that everything was her fault and that nothing she does is right. You'll see her struggle in believing that she's beautiful, that no matter how many times people tell her, because her identity was shaped in what or who broke her and what they did or how they said it. It's not always built. You know, someone's not always built her up. Most of the time they've teared her down. Small conflicts that don't seem small to her, just certain ways you say things that you didn't mean to hurt her feelings. You didn't know it was going to hurt her feelings, you didn't know, but that's small. It don't feel small to me. It don't smell feel small to her. In her mind, it's connecting to a present moment, to a past pain, to something that someone said or did or how they acted. She might break down over something that seems so little to the rest of the world, but it's not little to her. Because she's not just reacting to that moment, she's reliving something that never fully healed from, something that she never understood, an emotion that she doesn't understand today. She needs reassurance, not because she's needy, but because emotionally neglect taught her love can disappear without a warning. That love is given and taken away when they want it to be. And she doesn't understand love. She avoids asking for help because depending on someone else has always felt very unsafe. And it left her feeling very unprotected. Trauma doesn't always speak, sometimes it just shows up in the patterns of the way she reacts. In Psalms 34, 18, the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. And the story is going to feel very familiar to some people, and it's going to feel like a story to others. But there was a girl who felt very lost, who was searching for something and someone that could make her feel safe. And she met a boy who seemed very strong, and he seemed very protective. He seemed like someone that could keep her safe. And at first, he made her feel very loved, very seen, very chosen. He made her feel like she was the only thing in the world. But not everything that looks safe is really safe. And not everything that you think is safe isn't safe. And because that boy, who was a wolf in sheep's clothing, one day he hit her for the first time. And she knew that that wasn't right. So she left. She was angry and she was mad and she knew she didn't deserve to be treated that way. But the boy followed her. He cried. He apologized. He begged her not to leave him. He just needed someone to love him. And she felt like she loved him so much, and that she could help him. And she believed it would be the only time. Sad but true. That's how it starts. It starts with one time. By the time it happened again, he had already pulled her away from her family. He had already isolated her from her friends. And he had already made her believe she wasn't worth anything to anyone but to him. And that he was the only boy that was ever going to love her. You know, and it started with small things. They lived in their own apartment, you know, and he would go out and supposedly work all day long, and she would stay home. And it started with expectations, the way the house should look when you come home, the way the kitchen should be, what she should have fixed for dinner. What didn't she love him? Didn't she want to be a good a good girl for him? And it started out with small things like that. You know, and then it was a grab of the wrist. Real hard when he was angry, when the kitchen wasn't perfect, when dinner wasn't ready when he came home, even though she never knew what time he was going to come home. Sometimes he would come home drunk or high. And she knew. She knew when he walked through the door it was going to be a bad night. She knew that the nights were going to get darker. And the days, they seemed to feel shorter and shorter. And she slowly started believing his lies. You know, he slept with a knife under the pillow, so she was afraid to move at night. She was afraid to get up out of the bed in the middle of the night. She was afraid that not only would he hurt her, but he would hurt the people that she loved the most, her family. And then one day, one day in the front yard, he hauled off and he hit her real hard, and he he beat her up pretty bad. And someone called the police. And the police showed up and they arrested him. And at that moment, she got a quick sense of urgency. She got a she found courage. And she packed what few things she owned, and she found her way home. Now she didn't run home to mama and daddy right away. She had two black eyes, a broken rib, bruises on her arms and her upper body. But she did find courage and went to her friends. And that friend helped her, helped her to heal physically. But the moment the bruises were gone, the moment he was out of jail, the girl wanted to run back home to him. That friend didn't let that happen. That friend made her stay. Made her stay. Recorded her telling stories of her crying at night, of her doing all the things. And she shared it. And eventually the boy went to jail. But even though the boy went to jail, the damage was still there. The fear was still there. The thought of him escaping and coming to her at night was still there. And that took years to heal from. That I believed I truly believed that I wasn't worth the ground that I walked on. And that he was gonna always rule the thoughts in the back of my head. And I went from one man to another, each one treating me differently, but still emotionally abusing me, still giving me that sense of doubt of myself. And those thoughts don't always go away. They don't just go away because you choose to be different. One day I decided I felt myself pregnant in an abusive relationship, and I decided that that wasn't the thing I wanted for my son, that he was not going to live in that trauma. So I packed my stuff and I went home to my mama. And in that time, the thoughts didn't go away. And the trauma doesn't just affect my past, it affected how I seen myself after my son was born, how I connected with my son. I had lots of trauma and lots of healing to do. In 2 Corinthians 10, 5, it says we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. Because healing has to start in your mind and in your heart. And those are hard. It's hard to let go of the walls that have built you've built around your heart to stop you from getting hurt. And it's hard to let go of the nightmares that you have when you're alone and it's silent in the room. But then things can change. They can. And I was like, I am broken. I am broken beyond repair. Not just from the abuse, but from the drugs and from the choices that I made. You know, I grew up in church. I knew I knew God and I knew what God loved, or I thought I knew. But because I met Jesus, and for the first time, I heard something different in my thoughts and in my hair and in my heart. In Romans 5, 8. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, God died for us. It doesn't say, fix yourself first. I will love you now. That's not what it says, and that's not what it means. God sent his son on the Easter episode I did talks about this tremendously. To die for us, to know that I was going to be raised as a Christian, that I was going to get mad at God, to know that I was going to walk in a path that no one should have to walk through. God knew I was going to live in this trauma. And God knew I was going to find my way home. Not just home to my mama, but home to my Lord Jesus Christ. And I did. In Isaiah 61:3, it says, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning. To give them beauty for ashes. The oil of joy for mourning. And you know, I slowly started to believe that I am loved. I am chosen and I'm not what happened to me, but I'm what God chose me to be. And today, that same girl, which was me, I am married and I am loved and I am cherished. In 2015, God sent me a man that I thought three years prior to that was too good for me. That I thought, why would he ever love me? And in three years, in three years' time, I found God. I found redemption. I found that I was loved, that God loved me no matter who I was and loved me where I stood. That I was chosen and that I could be loved by someone else. Not I didn't have to be loved by somebody who broke me or tore me down. I didn't have to be tortured to feel wanted. I wasn't loved by someone who breaks me, but by the man God intended for me. But more than that, I found I'd found healing. I had found healing in God. I had found that I didn't need someone to justify me or to make me feel better for myself. All I needed was to know that I was and I am a daughter of God and that he loves me more than anything in this world. No matter where I've come from, no matter what choices I've made in life, he loved me and he has healed me. If you're listening to this and you see yourself in this story, I need you to hear me clearly today. You are not too far gone, and you are not too broken. In Psalms 147, 3, God says he heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Healing is possible and it starts with truth. It starts with his truth, and then it works its way out. Dear Father God, thank you for being close to the brokenhearted and thank you for seeing the wounds no one else sees. Lord, for every woman listening today who has been hurt, broken, or made feel unworthy, meet her right where she is. Heal what still hurts. Give the man of her life the understanding of what she has been through. Restore what was lost, break every lie that has been spoken into her life, and replace it with your truth. That she is loved, she is chosen, and she is worthy. Give her strength to heal and courage to walk forward in freedom. Give her man, her, the man that you have sent her, the understanding of what she needs and the love that you have given him to give to her. Let her open her heart, Lord Jesus, and let her feel your love for the first time. And encourage her to walk and encourage the two of them to walk forward in freedom together as you have intended. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. If this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who needs to hear it because someone out there is still believing a lie that God is ready to replace with the truth. You are not what broke you, you are who God says you are. Until next time, ladies, remember you are chosen and you are loved.