Not In A Million Years: Moments That Changed It All

I’ve been sensing that it’s time to write and share more about the changes that have been running in the background of my life.

There are parts of the story that I never, ever imagined happening, parts of the story that have changed everything.

I’ve found myself saying, “Not in a million years did I expect to go through this.”

Through all of it, life has continued on. My girls are in their “big girl” jobs, successfully navigating life, and rocking the transition back to the states after living overseas. Like most TCKs, they’ve struggled but they’re doing this adulting thing, walking with Jesus, and figuring out the challenges one day at a time.

My coaching business is off the ground and I’m absolutely LOVING working with my clients, hearing their stories, and walking women through things like ministry, neurodiversity, challenging relationships, life struggles, and personal growth.

After 18 months of the girls and I living with my parents, I’ve moved into a third floor apartment, gotten a puppy, set up an office, and as the girls say, “Mom, we live in a Hallmark movie. We’ve traveled the world and now we live in a small town with lots of snow.”

For another huge change, I’m going back to school for psychology so that I have more education to go with the life experiences that brought me to coaching, all while keeping my ministerial credentials. I know that, regardless of the story unfolding, God has not closed the door on my calling into ministry, even if I don’t know what that looks like yet.

My social media has transformed from Our Goodwin Journey to Jenilee Rachel, from overseas life to life coaching, from lots of family adventures to a lot of just me as I respect my girls’ privacy and move from mom blogger to business owner.

Not in a million years did I see life going this way, but it has and God is graciously, lovingly moving me forward on this unknown, unexpected path.

A journey I didn’t see coming.

A life I didn’t know I’d experience.

A season of hardship unlike anything I ever imagined walking through.

Not in a million years… so many moments that have changed everything.

I was browsing through some of my favorites on youtube when something new popped up. It was a video from The Minimalist Mom sharing her own “not in a million years” story. It sat like a brick on my heart knowing I needed to share something similar with my world.

I’ve kept my world so open over the years, sharing our lives behind the prayer card and giving friends, family, and ministry partners an open window into our lives. But the past few years have been a “behind the prayer card” thing that was so far behind the card that even I didn’t see it for a long time.

Then, as the “not in a million years” story unfolded, I had no idea how to share such a story.

I suppose my personal side of the story began in 2017 when God very clearly told me to stop. I have a journal entry from that summer, writing about the word stop and it being confirmed through a word directly to me from a woman at a church we visited.

I’ve written a bit about this stop before but I honestly didn’t know what it meant other than God was saying, “Stop. Just stop.”

As I prayed about the stop, I slowly knew in my heart that the stop God was asking of me was too big, too much, too painful.

In an attempt to obey, I played with other stops first. Stop writing as much. Stop sharing. Stop “me” things. Stop reading. Stop singing. Stop teaching. Stop anything extra. Just keep the ministry going, keep our lives going, keep the family going, just keep going.

Yet, those kinds of stops, the wrong stops, made my heart sad and my soul feel like it was buried under all of the “just keep going” things. It felt like huge parts of me were dying.

My life was buried under the things that I knew must stop, things that actually, desperately needed to STOP.

Deep inside of me, the Holy Spirit was telling me what stop meant but I was terrified of my world falling apart so I didn’t. I waited. I rationalized. I disobeyed God’s firm call to stop.

Fear kept me frozen in patterns that were harming, destroying, enabling, and hurting.

I was getting sicker and sicker, absolutely exhausted and far beyond the end of my ability and strength.

I was crushed under the mental, spiritual, physical, and professional load for our family.

It had to STOP.

Finally, in 2021, I asked for help. I sat in my doctor’s office and she said, “This has to stop.” I listened.

I sat in sessions with my counselor who also said, “These things have to stop.” I believed her.

I sat with a godly friend who asked, “What is really going on?” and “Oh, that has to stop.” It was a divine appointment.

I felt my whole body flashing warning lights, saying, “STOP.” I paid attention.

The entirety of 2022 was pulling apart all the things that had to stop. I read a hundred books on mental health, healing, abusive relationships, neurodiversity, marriage, anxiety, stress, boundaries, and rebuilding.

My counselor said that I’d read so much, I’d earned my master’s degree.

I dug into the Word of God like never before, searching, studying, reading, praying. I was filtering what I was learning and seeing through what God has to say about it all. I was journaling, allowing myself to be honest in words like never before.

In my own life, I found unhealthy cycles, boundary-less actions and unrestricted availability while explaining myself to death and way over-functioning in every area of my life. I realized that all of the busy kept me from having any margin whatsoever for God’s calling on my life.

As I learned, I knew that it all had to finally stop.

I couldn’t unsee it. I couldn’t unlearn it. I couldn’t unhear it.

I discovered that “No.” is a full sentence. I learned and implemented boundaries around my time, my thoughts, my words, my actions, and most importantly, specific rules around my yes.

Unfortunately, my stop was met with exactly what I feared would happen. My world began to fall and crumble around me.

The year 2023 brought clarity, confidence, focus, and more professionals speaking into the full story of what was happening. I was getting stronger as I learned new skills, even though the impact on me had been nearly catastrophic. My health had declined, my energy was gone, my capacity was at zero but I was being given sweet glimpses of the health, strength, and the path forward in obedience.

It was a path that required godly sorrow, repentance, reconciliation, restoration, reciprocity, responsibility, and real relationship.

I wouldn’t settle for less as God continually held my heart responsible for my own life and actions, requiring me to allow God to also hold other people accountable for their own.

I learned about my CORE strength, stopping all the JADE {justify, argue, defend, explain}, implementing the boundary work that was necessary, and repenting of how long I’d waited to obey God’s direct command to stop all the things that were not mine to do.

I would no longer give away level 10 access to my heart, my thoughts, my abilities, my talents, my brain, my body, my emotions, or my friendship to anyone who only gave level 2 in return.

I would no longer live just to make life ok for everyone else when I had things that were mine to do to care for my own.

I would obey God and commit to standing before him one day, being able to fully answer for my own stewardship of my life, not someone else’s, even if it made that someone else mad.

I could no longer paint a pretty picture online that was not the truth. I’d realized that my writing about life as if it was funny and okay was a way to cope with how not-funny it was to live in the very not-okay-ness of it all. As that short video link explains, I stopped playing tennis.

Detaching with kindness. Disentangling with intentionality. Disengaging with healthier practices and prayerful decisions.

I had to be 100% committed to the truth and trust that God would honor his promises to me, regardless of the bad behavior coming at me. God was calling me out of relationships and systems with coercive control, manipulation, emotional immaturity, abusive behaviors, passive aggressive words, and a deep entitlement for access to my entire person.

God’s voice returned to being louder than anyone else. He was back on the throne of my heart. My desire to obey him in everything brought a strength to my actions, choices, decisions, and faith.

I had an audience of One.

I had to confront that I’d never really looked at what God ACTUALLY had to say about marriage, relationships, divorce, and the theology around personal responsibility, bad behavior, abuse, and foolishness. I found that marriage is not an unbreakable thing to be idolized over godliness, obedience, and health. I saw that the hardness of someone’s heart matters greatly to God.

I had to wrestle with what I was learning and what it meant with the behaviors, defensiveness, and entitlement I was hitting up against.

It was like a cement wall. Unyielding, unchanging, unrelenting.

2023-2024 brought one appointment after another, trying to get specific help. Counselors, programs, groups, psychologists, tests, assessments, sessions, and at the end of April 2024, I again heard God say, “Stop. Just stop.”

I was at the end of what I could do and God was saying stop.

I wrestled, prayed, cried, and then, stopped. I obeyed God in the hardest stop of all.

I walked away from the cement wall. I walked off the tennis court.

It was terrifying to go through the death of my own marriage, to see it ending, to feel God’s peace through what was a “not in a million years” experience.

I never in a millions years thought I’d be separated or divorced.

I had to reconcile that most people didn’t understand, most people didn’t know what I was feeling or seeing or experiencing. I had to hold that most wouldn’t believe me. I lost whole networks of people, friends, family, and co-workers. I watched people that I’d known my whole life or for my whole ministry career make judgements, say unkind things, and believe things that weren’t true.

I grieved not being able to fully speak or explain or defend.

My full hope was that God truly does go before and behind me. He is my protector and defender, the author of my story and my journey and my path forward.

I will stand alone before him one day and answer for stewarding my own life, my own talents and abilities and calling. I will answer for the example I’ve set for my girls and how I handled this part of my story.

Yes, the letting go of what was not mine to hold, carry, or do has been as horrible as I imagined it would be. It’s been painful, messy, and lonely.

Yet, it’s allowed the parts of me that were buried and hidden under the pressure of someone else to absolutely thrive.

God is healing, restoring, rebuilding, and reworking my life.

In coaching, I’m hearing stories of women just like me, women who are dying under the weight of entitled expectations and knowing that God is calling them to stop doing all the things and only do what is truly theirs to do. They are facing and walking the fear of the unknown while knowing God is with them. They are enduring questioning, spiritual abuse, and having to fight for health and safety from people who are supposed to shepherd and support them. It’s not a story that anyone chooses to walk through.

I know, for many, my story is hard to read, hard to hear, hard to imagine.

Not in a million years, right?

I’m taking one day at a time. I’m following God’s go in fun, new ways. I’m hearing him say, “Go. Go more!”

Oh, it’s scary, exciting, amazing, and pretty crazy to be in my 40s and rebuilding from nearly nothing. It’s a wild ride to have a front row seat to God’s full imagination over my life, to fully see him trying my reins with possibilities, with life to the full.

I have everything I need as I watch God show up in each new day. I have a fresh expectation of hearing his voice while following his lead, and allowing him to light my path, one step at a time.

It’s been Psalm 23 brought to life.

Even in the valley of a death that I never in a million years imagined I’d walk through, he is with me, preparing a table for me beside still waters of healing in a little town with lots of snow.

I’m thankful and grateful for friends and family who’ve stuck close, who’ve listened to the messy, spilling trauma dumps, and prayed the long prayers with me over the past few years. I’m thankful for those who’ve sent messages and cared to hear what I had to say, what I was going through.

I’m thankful for God’s people who are rising up to bring change to what is considered domestic abuse, to the validity of emotional and verbal abuse, to the call on believers to be holy in all things, including marriage.

I’m honored to advocate and listen and sit with women in seats like mine.

We can know that God is faithfully holding us as we walk through things we never imagined, not in a million years.