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story of hope
by Ashley Podgorski
Ashley is a native of West Dundee, IL and is here with her family of 5 for the spring to support her daughter Breanna to develop her gifts as an actress and singer. They love attending Mosaic Pasadena and are passionate about marriage and family ministries. |
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“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “Plans to prosper you, not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.” - Jeremiah 29:11
As I pondered these words over and over, I wondered how that could ever be the case for me. I felt like my life was one extended trial! Yes, God had always been there for me with His comfort, His strength and His endurance; but after several years of living with an abusive husband, eight miscarriages, and severe health problems; I was so tired… so tired!
My life was like a fairy tale growing up. I had two parents who loved me very much, believed in me and provided me with many wonderful opportunities. They supported me as I pursued the intense world of a competitive figure skater, enabled me to attend private schools, college and graduate school, and instilled within me the belief that anything was possible if I believed in myself. We lived in an affluent neighborhood, traveled internationally and enjoyed being together. The greatest gift they gave to me was the foundation for a strong faith in Jesus Christ. I accepted Jesus as my Savior when I was 5 and have seen Him as my best friend ever since.
I met my husband, Bruce in 1990 at church. I knew the instant I met him that he was “the one”. He was tall, dark and handsome with a passion for life and for the Lord. He had grown up in a tough environment, but had gone through counseling and come out the other side. Wow! A man humble enough to look at himself! What a catch! Within a few months, we were engaged and tied the knot six months later. I was sure that my fairy tale life would continue into marriage. After our perfect wedding day, my life took a radical turn.
On the first day of our honeymoon, I saw a side of Bruce I had never seen before – a power hungry, mean and selfish side. If I didn’t do what he wanted, he unleashed his rage on me. Until this point, I had rarely had someone raise their voice at me and here my husband, the man I pledged my life to, was screaming at me and calling me names!
Over the next eight years, Bruce’s rage came in cycles. He would always apologize after the rage and promise to do better, but he couldn’t seem to help it. The cycles appeared once every few weeks early on and then progressed to several times a week. I had no idea how to process this kind of anger and would retreat into a protective emotional shell. I would just “go numb”. I couldn’t feel, but I could function. This numbness would last from several hours to several days. Slowly, I would come out just to be hit by yet another painful emotional attack.
As this numbness swallowed my heart, it also took my libido. How could I love someone who told me I was dirt? This lack of desire really hurt Bruce, leading to even more intensity in his rage. I no longer felt like a woman, I felt like an empty shell. I would look at other women and think, “I bet they are able to love their husbands. What’s wrong with me?”
We started counseling within the first 6 months of our marriage because Bruce was sure that if he could fix me, he wouldn’t be angry anymore. I was such a people pleaser that I was sure that he was right. We were in counselors offices as much as three times a week for the next 8 years. What I did learn is that I had no idea how to handle conflict. I was never taught that lesson in my home. By retreating, I would further trigger Bruce’s rage. I had to learn how to handle the conflict in a healthy way, to set boundaries and not to run.
The rage in our home took a severe toll on my health. I ended up with chronic fatigue syndrome, food allergies, migraines and depression. It destroyed my libido, my self-worth and my ability to love. I had eight miscarriages and felt that I was slowly dying. As I got sicker, Bruce felt more abandoned which intensified the cycles even more.
Eight years into our marriage, I hit a wall. I couldn’t take anymore! I wrote Bruce a letter and said that I loved him, but wouldn’t allow him to sin against me anymore with his rage. If something radically didn’t happen, I was leaving and taking our two year old daughter with me. This was an incredibly humbling place for me. I was a HUGE believer in the marriage covenant. I also was a perfectionist and had never failed at anything. Here I was admitting failure in the part of my life I held most dear. I truly believed that God called me into marriage with Bruce and here I was saying I couldn’t cut it!
This letter freaked Bruce out. He didn’t want to lose us, so he called the counselor we were seeing and asked what to do. She recommended that we go to a place in Colorado that specialized in abusive relationships called Life Skills, International. What we experienced there was amazing! We spent 40 hours one-on-one with a counselor over a one-week period of time. I learned that there are 13 forms of abuse and only three are physical. We were experiencing the other 10 in our relationship. I didn’t think I was being abused because Bruce never hit me. I learned that words can be stronger than a fist. Abuse hurts, it is wrong and you don’t have to take it. I no longer felt like a weakling for not being able to put up with it anymore!
Bruce had a radical transformation while we were there. He had come from an abusive alcoholic home. He witnessed horrific acts of violence against his mother and his father would chase Bruce around the house telling him he would kill him if he caught him. Bruce always blamed his father for his pain which would come out at me. In Colorado, God showed Bruce that he was inflicting the same pain on me that he had experienced from his dad. This broke him! He came to me fully repentant and cried on my shoulder for 30 minutes. He had been sorry before, but this was different. This was repentance.
Now, I had a decision to make. I could either leave the marriage or stay and work things out with Bruce. By the end of the week, I knew what God was asking me to do. I obeyed and put a stake in the ground to stay and put my energy toward healing our marriage.
I never knew what the path of healing would look like. I just knew that I could trust God and His promises to me – that He would lift the strongholds and give me a hope and a future. I just felt so tired! It was a long uphill battle that I stumbled through. I felt that I would take 2 steps forward and fall, and then have to find the energy to get back up again and keep going. It took me a very long time to trust Bruce with my heart again. It also took me a long time to learn how to communicate effectively within conflict. Bruce’s rage was gone, but we had eight years of poor patterns that we had to rework. We both had to put our best efforts forth to dig our relationship out of the grave we had created over eight years.
One of my biggest hurdles was the process of forgiveness. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t seem to get closer to Bruce. Something was blocking my heart. As I prayed about it, God revealed to me that I had built a wall of hate around my heart towards Bruce. This was a humbling realization! In order to start this process of healing, I flew to the Sequoia National Forest to spend a week in solitude with God and Lew Smede’s book, Forgive and Forget. This was an instrumental step in my process of healing.
During the path of emotional healing, God would step in with beautiful blessings. One of the best ones was that He led me to the right team of doctors to determine the condition in my body creating all the miscarriages. As a result, we have been blessed with three more children. I had always dreamed of having 4 kids and now I do!
God was progressively healing my heart, but my body was still struggling. I had fought to regain my health, but was heading downhill fast two years ago. My adrenals had crashed, my immune system was shot, the doctors thought I had ovarian cancer, and a valve in my heart was deteriorating. I truly felt that I was dying! I had 4 young children and could hardly function. I was working with the top people in Chicago, but they told me that it would take a minimum of 5 years to heal and a possible valve replacement (via open heart surgery). I couldn’t bear this report and started praying for the right path. God had promised me during a time of solitude 2 years earlier that he would completely restore my body. I leaned into that promise and started looking.
Once again, God proved faithful! He guided me to a doctor in Germany that performed Live Cell Therapy (LCT). This is where they take cells from a 17-week old sheep fetus of organs depleted in your system and inject them intramuscularly inside of you. Your body then takes those cells to the matching organs within you, they attach and start regenerating. There was no risk for side effects and a 75% chance for recovery so I went. Two weeks after the treatment, I was 100% well! Two years later and I still feel terrific! What a gift!
No, the road has not been easy, but it has been worth it. God has been amazingly faithful in the midst of the climb. Now, 19 years into this marriage, He has blessed us with four healthy children, my health, a successful business, a heart to help others struggling in relationships; and best of all, a beautiful marriage. I have never in my life felt as loved as I do by Bruce. He is my best friend, my cheerleader and my soul mate. We continue to work to tweak our patterns, but are so blessed with the fruits of our labors! Yes, God is faithful and His words ARE true!
“Seek Me first and My righteousness and all these things will be granted unto you.” - Matthew 6:33
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