Legacy Changer: Heal the Hurt, Redeem Your Story, Create Hope for Your Family

A Note from the Author

Few things are more unnerving than sharing your heart. The only thing that might surpass this is sharing your story when it involves other people’s hearts.

When I heard God calling me to write this book, I questioned him for a while in the hope I had heard him wrong—maybe it was a different topic he really wanted me to write on. As it goes with God, however, he says what he means and means what he says. God has been writing a new ending to my family’s story, and that is the story I’m supposed to share.

Writing about the hard things in your family is just that—hard. I know for many in my family, just my suggestion that things could have been done better or differently will feel like a betrayal. I hate the thought of causing anyone pain because my intentions don’t look anything like betrayal. I’ve shared each story with two intentions: first, for you to know you are not alone in your pain; and second, to point to God as our source of hope. I have done my best to honor all the people I love with privacy, and not an oversharing of details.

The stories I’ve shared are based on my memories, which without doubt, are not perfect. As with all experiences, I’m sure there are pieces of information my child-self wasn’t privy to, and I know others would have different perspectives. Just as much as those things are true in my stories, they are true in yours. Your mind and body are working with what you can remember, and it’s those memories that make up so much of who you are today—for better or for worse. Our families are part of our stories, and we are part of theirs. In this book, I mean not for us to rag on the shortcomings of others but for us to better understand our past and become intentional about the way we show up in our family from this day forward.

I pray this book, this act of vulnerable obedience, will become a tool that helps your story head in a different direction than how it started. Every one of us has a unique story, possibly with pages we’ve ripped out and shoved in a drawer for no one else to ever see (and for us to forget they ever existed). Shame loves to isolate, telling us no one could ever understand and they might abandon us if they ever found out. Shame is a liar, however, because pain is one of life’s great uniters. No one escapes pain entirely, and every heart knows the sting of rejection, shame, and betrayal to some extent.

The irony is, so much of the pain we still carry around today originated from the ones we most looked to for love. Sometimes our parents’ and grandparents’ bad behavior hurt us with the shame, anger, impulsivity, and secrecy they inherited from their own parents. Other times, our pain stems from everything they didn’t do. All the people who didn’t show up, didn’t keep us safe, and didn’t teach us what love is supposed to look like.

It’s time to give a voice to all the stories you hold—a voice that both can recognize all you’ve been through and is also committed to speaking hope over your future. It is possible for your legacy to pass on to the next generation with less pain than the one you inherited. As you invest your time—and let down your heart’s guard—while reading of the pages of this book, I pray God will do more than you ever thought was possible.

As I put the finishing touches on this book, I’m driving across the New Mexico–Colorado state line, taking a trip to visit friends and family in the very place where so many of my hard memories occurred. While my chest tightens at the sight of the Welcome to Colorful Colorado sign, I still remind my husband to pull over for us to take a family photo underneath it. I’m committed to writing a new narrative, for both me, my marriage, and my kids. New, healthy memories help to heal my old, painful ones and teach my kids about courage and hope. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bit easy and the healing journey never ends; I’ll never drive across some border to take a picture under the Fully Healed sign. It simply doesn’t exist on this side of heaven because we weren’t designed to chase after the perfect family or a pain-free life. Through all our memories and all the experiences that are yet to come, growing closer to our perfect Father in likeness and relationship is what we’ve needed and will continue to need. I hope this book helps you do just that.

Blessed is the one who endures trials, because when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

—James 1:12 CSB

Pain—whether in mind, soul, or body—cannot stay hidden forever. I spent decades shoveling pain from difficult family relationships into the dark corners. I hoped I could cover things up and deny the existence of pain and that, eventually, everything would be better. The problem is, unresolved conflict and trauma leak out from the tiniest cracks and threaten to cover every inch of the spaces you occupy. Like lava simmering underneath the surface of the Earth, unresolved pain will eventually break through and hurt not only you but everyone in your path. You can’t avoid pain, but you can heal it. Your family of today and tomorrow doesn’t have to look the same as your family of yesterday.

You see, whether we realize it or not, every one of us inherited a legacy from our parents and will pass a legacy down to our children. A legacy is the invisible family heirloom that is bestowed upon generation after generation. Like a royal crown, this heirloom has seen so much and gathered inevitable dents and dirt throughout the years. She may have suffered great losses, marked by a missing gemstone or two. However, no matter how rough your crown appears, and no matter what painful memories she may remind you of, there is a part of every one of us that wants to wear her proudly. We want to feel safe and confident when seen with this crown upon our head.

We may even feel sour that other people seem to have inherited gorgeous crowns while we are left holding a clearly neglected mess. Don’t fall for that trap. There is no use looking to the left and the right, lusting after the brightly shining jewels on someone else’s head—that will only make this crown feel heavier. There is only acceptance of the crown we were given, and tender care to be taken. We can buff out the dents, polish away the dirt, and even add new gemstones where the old went missing. The crown is ours for the keeping—and ours for the handing down—so we best get to work fixing her up and doing her the honor owed to the One who created this family in the first place.

The legacy of your parents and grandparents has been handed to you, and it’s up to you to decide what to do with it. Will you ignore it the best you can until it’s time to hand it to your kids, or will you face it, heal it, and nurture it into something beautiful?

I want you to know that healing is possible, but the pain that has taken generations to accrue won’t disappear overnight. The pain might even intensify before it gets better, like it did for me.

Going Down before We Go Up

Decades of toxicity had resulted in a downward spiral for my family, and on one terrible spring evening, we hit bottom. We simply ran out of room to stuff conflict. We didn’t know how to communicate with each other, and my years of codependence with my mom’s struggles had placed so much tension on our relationship we were beginning to burst at the seams. The result was a night of screaming, crying, and chaos that echoed throughout the house. In the end, I asked my fifty-seven-year-old mom to move out of my home, although she had nowhere to go. And as cruel as it sounds, it was the best alternative I had at the time to save my family and myself.

My mom couldn’t heal more than she was willing to, and her mental and physical states were beyond the capabilities of my good intentions—or desperate efforts. That’s the thing about codependence; it always breaks in the end because an unhealthy root eventually affects the whole plant. She had moved in with us a couple of months prior when she needed a place to stay, but the place just couldn’t be with us any longer. The chaos in our family that originated generations before me was spilling over onto our kids, and I stood in the middle as the conduit. My grandma passed it on to my mom, and my mom passed it on to me. Now was the time, however, for me to stand up and refuse to pass these hurts on to my own kids.

Late pastor and author of Generational Legacy Dan LeLaCheur says, Generational influences multiply. A blessing becomes larger as it passes on, and a curse becomes magnified as it is relived in each succeeding family. Sin begets sin. There is a law of increasing returns with each generation.¹ LeLaCheur reminds us that trends in families are always in forward motion, whether they are blessings or curses. Unless something intentional takes place to change course, blessing begets blessing and curse begets curse.

It would be decades into my life before I began to have enough awareness to face the painful cycles that dominated my life and relationships. The gaps in my mom and dad’s parenting drove me into a hypervigilant, anxious childhood with little emotional regulation or attachment to anyone. As I grew into a teenager, I began to form little cracks from all the pressure, and the pain started to ooze out of me in the form of unhealthy choices left and right.

There was far more going on than my eye could see. The spiritual battle going on around me was legit. When I view my story now—with the eyes of a woman who now knows Jesus—it is easy to see the hold darkness had on me.

I spent far too many years of my life seeking after distraction, affirmation, and pleasure that would numb the pain I felt from broken family relationships. As I look back on my story, I feel incredibly loved to know how intentionally God was battling for me, all while I was so wayward. I have a tender spot for the story Jesus tells in Matthew about a shepherd leaving his ninety-nine sheep to search after one. I can picture myself as the one lost sheep, chasing hard after someone to love and care for me, totally unable to see Jesus, who is following behind me and protecting me from myself. In the next scene, he catches me and hugs me tightly, glad that I finally stopped and turned my head in his direction. Not only did he fight for me, never abandon me, and protect me while I was still lost; it was while I was still a sinner that he died for me. It’s too much love to comprehend. For years I had enjoyed the comfort of looking the other way from my family’s unhealthy patterns, not ever taking full stock of our mess.

This time, however, the well-being of my children was at stake, and I couldn’t continue making excuses. It was time for me to face the facts.

When addiction, abuse, or toxicity of any kind have caused a relationship to become unsafe, life-altering choices need to be made for your own well-being, as well as for the well-being of your family. Gary Thomas articulates this truth perfectly in his book When to Walk Away, which is about protecting his children from toxic people or behaviors: I can’t save you [toxic person] from yourself, but I can save them [kids] from you.²

My mom’s unhealthy decisions—physical, mental, and emotional—were affecting my family, and ultimately, it was my job to protect them. Asking my mom to move out was a necessary choice to protect my kids from chaos and create a new legacy. My mom rejected every conversation about her or her health, and she continued to make choices that made everyone’s life more dangerous and more difficult. For the first time, I chose to distance and protect myself and my loved ones from continued trauma. It was without a doubt the right thing to do—and the hardest.

That decision would lead to many months of silence between my mom and me; it was a break I both needed and felt tortured by. Eventually, letters were written, and baby steps were taken toward each other. I continued to watch for any sign of healing on her part or any indication that it was safe to dive back into a deeper relationship. As I’ve healed, I’ve been able to take more responsibility for my side of the relationship. I’ve developed more resilience and a greater ability to engage in this less-than-perfect relationship. When she is trying her best and our interactions are healthy, I’m able to lean in a little more. When things turn toxic, I step back a bit. It’s not perfect, but nothing this side of heaven is.

So many books offer wisdom from a place of victory—healed, overcome, and looking back on a path to success. This book is different. As much as you are in the thick of it, I am too. Healing is a process that doesn’t produce a finished product. There is no finish line, gold medal, or certificate for a completed achievement. As I write this book, I am riding the waves of complicated grief, allowing myself the space to feel the lows, and praying hard as I navigate any bits of healing I can find between my mom, my dad, and me. My mom is still struggling with her physical and emotional health, and I can’t be sure how much healing God will offer on this side of heaven. I’m embracing both the reality of her health as well as the supernatural healing still available because of God.

Next to knowing Jesus as my Father and Savior, nothing feels truer for me to tell you than this: doing the hard work of healing is the most profound way you can impact your family now and for generations to come.

Our stories may not be the same, but I have a feeling we know similar pain. Families are broken, strained, and hurting everywhere we look. Your story may be more traumatic or less traumatic, and you certainly do not need to reach a crescendo of this magnitude to recognize brokenness. I want to share with you some of my experiences so you know you aren’t alone and that there is hope. I understand what it feels like to be in a gut-wrenching situation with your family, facing painful choices. If you have felt lonely, desperate, panicky, angry, forgotten, or fed up, me too. No matter how awful your life may have felt before and how negatively that continues to impact you now, you are not beyond healing and redemption. All those feelings are completely normal—and they’re also a sign that things need to change.

In this book, you’ll learn about what has happened in your brain and body through decades of painful experiences, either large or small, as well as what the Bible has to say about toxic relationships. We will look at what has been passed down in our family legacies through attachments, boundaries, and shame. I will help you piece together fragmented memories into one coherent story that will bring helpful perspective as you heal. We will unpack the root of wounds as we examine childhood developmental needs and