With being an Adult Child of Divorce comes a healing journey that is complicated and messy, at best. This is the most succinct way to describe my own personal healing journey. It is one that I am very much still on, but I know that I am healing and am on the up and up. Like you, my journey has not been linear by any stretch of the imagination. It is one of many turns, bumps and painful feelings resurfacing—but that is because I, like you, am still healing. Healing is not linear;  however, the healing journey is always oriented towards heaven, so we are always headed heavenward in our healing. In this post, I will share six points that have been instrumental and life-changing—for me—in my journey towards healing.

Jesus has called me to serve Him now, and our community, in attending to the Eucharist.  Christ asked me to be a Eucharistic Minister in the fall of 2021.  I love being a Eucharistic Minister! I serve at Mass as well as bring the Eucharist to the sick and homebound.  Being spiritually and physically this close to Christ during mass, adoration, as well as bringing the Eucharist to the sick, has provided me much intimate time with Christ, where I have  received much healing grace as an ACOD.  And I know that Christ is guiding me to new ways to serve and attend to Him in the Eucharist. 

Upon entering religious life, I tried to hide in the coping mechanisms that had worked for me growing up, such as people-pleasing and anticipating others’ needs. I desired to please the Lord, could follow community customs and was good at serving others. Not only was I good, but was praised for my attentiveness to the needs of others and my generosity in service. As I continued further in formation, those coping mechanisms started to unravel and the truth of the pain I was in surfaced.

What I am about to write, I honestly thought I would go to my grave with, and never discuss it out loud. It is truly a grace that I have the courage to say what I am about to say. I want to share how I went from being a child of fear to a child of God.

This healing journey has been bittersweet for me. I have come to grips with the fact that I am a survivor of child abuse. The term still brings tears to my eyes and probably will for a very long time, only because it can sometimes make me feel like a broken doll, or what may be a more popular term, “damaged goods.”

"Work is for man, not man for work. Everyone should be able to draw from work the means of providing for his life and that of his family, and of serving the human community” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2428)