Jesse & Erin Benson
If I could describe my story in three words, they would be: surrender, perseverance, and hope. However, the journey there felt like a trip, stumble, and fall.
My husband and I were given the grace of a lifetime to step out of our “survival mode”, break the cycle of hurt, and learn how to give and receive true and genuine love for each other. Finding that love meant both of us making the necessary sacrifices and surrendering one hundred percent of ourselves to God‘s will, only getting there felt like hell in the hallway.
Being the loved one of an addict was the unexpected reality in which I found myself as a young wife and mother. I was caught somewhere between a grown woman and a vulnerable child, and I began experiencing my marriage buckle under the pressures of life. Simultaneously, my husband‘s struggle with addiction began to surface, and the unbearable ripple effects of my childhood trauma crept in to haunt me. Pushing through the only way I knew how, I was forced to hit the 10th basement of rock bottom - at the same time as my husband. Our life as we knew it was completely shattered. We began drifting apart and away from God. Our souls were taking a spiritual beating from the onslaught of daily attacks on normal life: finances, jobs, friends - they just kept coming. What seemed like normal family growing pains were magnified for us, though, because of the effects of unhealed trauma and drug addiction. There wasn’t a detail the devil missed.
The struggle to find God and accomplish His will, while desperately holding onto the hope of bringing my family back together, was painfully overwhelming. Everything became too much to carry. I lost myself and even gave up on God for a time. But during that spiritual combat, the struggle was what became the grit that earned us grace. This is where we earned our badges of perseverance. While all seemed lost for our family, God was making a way for us behind the scenes. When we invited Him to lead, doors that we didn’t even know existed were opened. Step by step, our crooked path was made straight. He showed us that surrendering to Him taught us to hope. One of the greatest lessons in all of it, though, was that God is waiting, and you must be relentless in your pursuit of Him. He healed us and not only made our family whole, but also completely renewed. He gave us all and more than what we asked for, and it was that trustful surrender, perseverance, and hope in Him that saved our family.