Healed, Not Hidden: Finding Complete Healing in Christ

In this episode of Backwards But Redeemed, Pastor Victoria shares a heartfelt and biblical message on the healing that is found only in Jesus Christ. Whether you're carrying wounds from your past, battling disappointment, navigating broken relationships, or longing for freedom from emotional and spiritual pain, God's desire is not merely to help you survive—He wants to make you whole.

Healing in Christ is more than recovering from what hurt you; it is allowing God to redeem every broken place, restore your identity, and reveal His purpose through your testimony. Pastor Victoria unpacks what Scripture teaches about surrendering our pain to the Great Physician, breaking agreement with shame and lies, and walking confidently in the new life Jesus purchased through the cross.

No matter what you've been through, your scars do not define you—Christ does. Your story isn't over. What the enemy meant for destruction, God can redeem for His glory.

If this episode encouraged you, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to be reminded that healing is possible through Jesus.

Backwards But Redeemed is a podcast with Pastor Victoria, where biblical truth, authentic testimony, and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit remind us that no life is beyond God's redemption. Because of Christ, what once seemed backward can become a testimony of His grace, restoration, and purpose.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hey everyone, welcome back to Backwards But Redeemed. Last episode I shared about finding out about my biological father and the wounds that came from that. And so today I want to talk about carrying those wounds into my teenage years. Um looking for love in all the broken places and wrong places, all the red flags that I should have seen and followed and I didn't. So we're going to talk about that today. Probably the next two episodes, we're going to discuss that. And so for those of you watching, you may see me stand up and walk around. It won't affect those that are just listening, but I'm just going to be honest. Me setting, my mind doesn't flow correctly. So I'm going to stand up and move. I might be up and down. But like I said, it's only going to affect those watching me. And so we're just going to go ahead and get right into this and just start talking what it was like carrying those wounds with me. You know, even after finding out who my dad was, I still went to church. Um and I still had moments, as I call them, those goosebump moments, but I never really knew who God was. Um I hadn't experienced him in a way that I have I experienced him now. Sorry guys. Um but he was still showing up in my life. I just didn't see him in it in the moment. Um so a little bit, we'll just jump into my childhood real quick or my teenage years. Um I data a few people. Um, I had a guy that I was friends with from like middle school up until my early 20s. And um in middle school and high school, I guess you could say we tried to date, but it just never worked out. Um and then I ended up getting married um at 18. Someone I just met. Um and I knew I probably shouldn't have married them, but I did because I just wanted out. Um and after about a month or two of being married, he had to leave for training. Um, he was in the Marines, and he had some training he had to do, and it hit me like, oh my god, what did you do? Um, and I didn't know how to get out of the situation, so I I did what I'd always done. I started drinking and hanging out with my friends and going to bars and clubs and all the things, and yes, I was 18, I could still do those things. Um and I shouldn't have legally, but I was. And I run back in to the gentleman that I was just talking about that we had met in middle school and high school and tried and never worked. Um, and we started talking again, we started hanging out again, um, and we started dating. I know I was still married, I was dating someone else. Um, and in the midst of all that, I didn't see as when I was a teenager that God was trying to protect me by not allowing that relationship never to bloom, by not allowing that real, that was God's hand saying, don't do this, but me being stubborn, I was gonna make it work because I just knew deep down in my heart this was the love of my life, is what I told myself, anyways. Um, and I'm a determined person. If I think that this is what I want to do, I'm gonna do it. Um, I don't care what anybody says. Definitely at that point in time in my life wasn't nobody giving me any constructive criticism that I was gonna take. Um, and as I look back now, I was just working out of wounds, I was working out of wanting to be healed. And I thought this person could heal me. I thought if I could just make them love me enough, it would heal me. And how crazy is that that we put responsibility on other people to heal wounds that only God can heal. You know, I was expecting a relationship to heal wounds that only Jesus could come in and heal, that only he could come in and fill up with the Holy Spirit and with his love. And I'm expecting someone else to do that. We do that so often. We so often put expectations on other people to heal wounds in us that they can't heal, and then we get upset when they can't heal them, and that's where I was. I was 18, 19, 20 years old, and I had all these expectations for this one person that he wasn't even designed. God did not design him with that responsibility of healing my wounds, but I had all these expectations on him, and it just was complete chaos. That whole relationship was chaos. First off, I was trying to have a relationship with someone while I was married to someone else. That should have been red flag number one for me, and it wasn't, but then as I look back now, it was because I started drinking more, I started doing more drugs because of the shame, because I felt the shame of that, because I knew it was wrong, I knew everything I was doing was wrong, and there was so much shame on that it led to more bitterness, it led to me feeling more rejected, but not rejected by man, but rejected by God. Like, how could he love me now? How can he take this woman who is married in a relationship? And I haven't even got to the next part, gets pregnant by this other man. How can he take her and fix her? How could he ever want to use her? And what is he gonna do with her? So at that point, I just went complete rogue. Um, I did whatever I wanted, um, because I didn't see a point anymore, because I'd already destroyed my life in my head, and I honestly I hadn't. Did I make a lot of bad decisions? Yes, but I allowed the shame and the guilt and the brokenness to continue, and you know, looking back, God's hand protected me and so much of that, and that relationship eventually ended. Um, and it's so funny. I was sitting this morning praying, and okay, God, what do you want me to talk about in this? Because I don't want to glorify any of that because that's not what this is. This is all about you. But I was so stubborn and I was so determined to make this relationship work. God physically had to take me out of the relationship. God had to create a circumstance, and I'm not going into that, uh, but he had to create a circumstance that I had no choice but to leave. I had no choice, I had to leave because it was either going to be mine and my daughter's life or his. And God said, You have to leave. I didn't see God in it in the moment, but he created a circumstance where I had to get me and my daughter out of that situation, and I did. And in that moment, I remember saying to God, if you get me out of here, I'll never come back. I will never come back. And he did, he got me out of that situation, and I had I never went back. And in the moment, I'm just throwing up a half-hazard prayer of just get me out of the situation, God. And I had said them so many times. So to me, it was just this haphazard prayer. But going back now and looking, he answered that prayer. I didn't see it in the moment, and I felt like my life was falling apart, and this was the love of my life, and all these things, but his hand was covering me. He's like, You're not listening to me. I'm telling you to leave, and you're not listening, so I'm gonna create a circumstance that you have to leave and you have no choice, and he did, and because of that, some of my healing started, but I was still stubborn. I didn't want to go to church, I didn't want to be around church people, but God was still working in the midst of all my brokenness and shame and bitterness, he was still working in it, and looking back now, I can see that, you know, and then that relationship ends, and my husband shows back up in the picture, and even though I knew that I still needed to end that relationship, he showed up at the right time. Let's say, um, the enemy will use any opportunity he can and make it look like it's something good. Um, he showed up. We were actually discussing divorce, and I don't know how divorce went into us getting back together, but it did, and we got back together, and he, you know, knowing that I had a kid with someone else while we were married, he still took on the responsibility of that kid, um, of her, not that kid of her, um, of my oldest daughter, and he helped me raise her and all those things, even though I knew deep down I didn't need to be in that relationship, I still wanted someone to comfort me. I still wanted all these things, and then I moved the expectations to the one person to him to try to heal me because I wasn't healed. At no point in time in me was I healed enough to be in a relationship, I wasn't even healed enough to be a mother, but that wasn't an option. I had to. There was no option in that. I had to, but there was an option and jumping back into another relationship, and I did it anyways, and then I put all the expectations on him that he needed to heal what was wrong with me, and he needed to figure out, and he was just gonna have to deal with the woman that I was, all this anger and bitterness and shame compacted on top of it, and that wasn't fair to him, and it wasn't fair to me, and it wasn't fair to our daughter because then, like a year later, I get pregnant again, and it wasn't fair to any of us, and you know, we do that so often, we relive these cycles because we're trying to get healed, we're trying to fill voids that may have happened in childhood or other people had left, but we try to fill them in relationships, you know. And when you're wounded, a lot of times you don't want healing, you just want relief. And in that moment, I wanted relief, and there's complete difference between healing and relief. Those are not the two same, those things are not the same at all, they're completely different. You want relief, which is temporary, it makes the hurting stop temporarily, not permanently. Healing is when God deals with the root of the pain, which was my childhood, and just feeling rejected. That's healing. When I allow Him to get in there and deal with the root of it, you know, a good illustration of this is say I break my arm. You know, when you break your arm, you want relief. So you take medication, you take Tylenol or ibuprofen, whatever, and it relieves the pain, but it doesn't heal the broken arm. You get relief in the moment with the medication, but the healing never happens. And that's where I was. I was trying to find relief in these relationships, but there was no healing happening in me because I wasn't allowing God to get down and pull out the root and deal with the root cause of it. But his hands were still all over my life because I was in so much shame of everything I had done. Like, like I said, I'm not going into details. I had done so much, and there was so much shame there. I just kept compacting on top of that root of all the rejection, all the guilt, all the things, and I'm trying to be a mother from a broken place, I'm trying to be a wife to someone that I had all these expectations on. Um, that there's no way he could have ever lived up to them. And as God started talking to me and dealing with me, because even after I had a true encounter with God, I still felt shameful. And he took me back to John 4. For those of you who don't know, um, let me get there real quick. Um that wasn't planning on going here, but we're gonna go. Um, you know, in John 4, God and his disciples are traveling, and he wanted, they ended up going to Samaria. Um, they were on their way to Galilee, and he had traveled through Samaria, and they came to a town of Samaria, and um the guys are, I believe, going on into town, and he sets down by the well, and this woman comes. It's hot of the day, um, because everyone else usually comes in the morning or late evening to get water, and she's coming in the hot of the day, and um when she gets there, I will read it to you. It says, A woman from a woman of Samaria came to draw water. Give me a drink, Jesus said to her, because his disciples had gone into town to buy food. How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? She asked him, for Jews don't associate with Samaritans. Jesus answered, If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, give me a drink, you would ask him, and he would give you living water. Sir, said the woman, you don't even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get the living water? You aren't greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, and did his sons and life sock. Jesus said, Everyone who drinks from the water will get thirsty again, but everyone who drinks from the water that I will give them will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life. Sir, the woman said to him, You give me, you give me this water so that I won't get thirsty, and come here to draw water. Go call your husband, he said, and come back here. I don't have a husband, she answered. You have correctly said, I don't have a husband, Jesus said, for you have five husbands. And the man you know have the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true. Sir, the woman replied, I see that you are a prophet or an ancestor's or ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place of worship is Jerusalem. Jesus told her, Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. The woman said to him, I know that the Messiah is coming, who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us. Jesus told her, I, the one speaking to you, am He. And then if you jump on down and you keep going, you know, he tells her to go and sin no more. And when he took me back to that story, like when I first came to him, he he took me there and and he said, I know, I know what you've done, but that doesn't matter. He said, I know. And the enemy was still trying to tell me lies, he was still trying to convince me that I wasn't good enough, he was still trying to convince me that no one could love me, not even God. I had gone too far, is what he was trying to convince me of. But I kept going back to her, even though he knew. Yeah, she was married, she had affairs. He still wanted her, he still came for her, he still went to the cross for her sins, and I could relate to her, and that's what I needed in the moment of when I first come to him. I could relate to her, and I think that's why he kept drawing me to the story because I could relate, I know what it feels like, the shame that comes on, and I know there are women listening today, but that shame is setting on you because you've made maybe decisions like I did, or maybe not that crazy, but you made decisions and the shame is setting on you and the regret is setting on you. It doesn't have to stay, but you have to be willing to forgive yourself, you know. Um, and the enemy, as long as you allow him, he will continue to convince you of those lies. You know, I wish someone would have told me loneliness is not an emergency. Being wanted is not the same thing as being loved. You know, we get lonely and we think immediately we need someone. We need someone to love us. No, you need someone in that moment, you're wanting someone to just give you attention and give you a relief. Love is completely different. Love is letting people come in and maybe point out the wrong and show you, hey, you need to fix this in your life. You need to go to the root of what's causing you to do that, and you need to pull it out, and you need to work on it, and you need to fill it back up with love. You know, love without wisdom can be very dangerous. I think I loved people, but not to the capacity that I could have. You know, there it was dangerous. I hurt a lot of people in what I thought was love. Um, a lot of people got hurt due to these feelings of rejection and bitterness and these wounds that I didn't deal with. A lot of people got hurt, and I I've forgiven myself for that. And I've asked for forgiveness from those. And some have never replied, and some have. We uh we end this podcast. I want you to hear me. Forgive yourself. It starts there. Before I could truly forgive anyone else, I had to forgive myself. And yes, did the rejection and those wounds come from childhood and childhood trauma, if you want to call it that? Yes, but I allowed those wounds to fester into my adulthood and I allowed things to happen, and then I allowed the shame and I allowed the enemy to continue to talk to me. But I want you to hear me. God loves you, and there's nothing that you could do that's going to stop that. He will knock on the door, he's not gonna bust through the door, he's gonna want you to open it and let him in. And hear me, there's nothing you can do that will stop that love. He sent his son to the cross for you. There's so much grace in that. And if all you need to do right now is go to your Bible. If you don't have a Bible, everyone has a phone. Google Jesus going to the cross. Just read that. Just read that and understand that God sent his son to the cross for you. So all of the shame that you have is covered under the cross. Now, did it take me years to tell myself, quit going back there? Yes. But the more I've talked about it and the more I've told my story, the shame is gone because the enemy wants you not tell your story and not talk about it so he can keep the shame on you. If you just talk about it, yeah, that was wrong. I shouldn't do that, I shouldn't have done that. You can heal from it because then he can no longer keep you under his little basket of darkness and keep you bound to that. Shame leaves when you start talking about it, because then he no longer can keep you hidden. So I hope that helps you guys today. I want to invite you back next week. Um, we're gonna talk about more of me ignoring the red flags when God was like, hey, get out of here. I hope this is helping you guys. Um and I do want to encourage you with this. I want to read, let me see. Ephesians 1, 3. We might end with five. I don't know, but I do want to encourage you with this. Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ. For he chose us in him before the foundations of the world to be holy and blameless and loved before him. He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the beloved ones. That verse has always gotten me through. Um, because for a long time I didn't know who I was. Had an adopted dad, I had a biological dad, I had a stepdad. But that verse tells me he adopted me and he loves me. And the day I said yes to him, my DNA became his, and I am his daughter. So I hope that encourages someone this week, and we will see you back here next week. Have a great week.