January 12, 2025 • 33 mins
In a world that rushes toward quick fixes and instant solutions, Taryn Marchena offers a refreshing perspective on the healing journey. Drawing from her personal experiences with trauma and trust issues, Taryn shares profound insights about rebuilding relationships, including her remarkable story of reconciliation with her husband after a decade apart. Her wisdom on distinguishing between fear and genuine discernment provides practical guidance for those navigating their own path to healing.
Through honest discussion about faith, forgiveness, and personal growth, Taryn explains how understanding God's personal love for us can transform our approach to healing. She addresses common struggles like people-pleasing, self-betrayal, and the challenges of authentic faith, while offering hope for those who feel stuck in their journey. This episode provides valuable insights for anyone seeking to deepen their relationships with both God and others, while learning to embrace the gentle pace of authentic healing. WEBLINKS Taryn’s Facebook Community Taryn on Facebook Taryn on Instagram
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Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
This is Bleeding Daylight with your host, Rodney Olsen.
Welcome and thanks for listening.
As you listen, consider who else needs to hear this episode and please share it with them.
You can hear dozens of other stories of lives transformed and people kicking against the darkness at bleedingdaylight.net.
(00:36):
In a rapid-paced world that reaches for quick fixes and instant gratification, how do we slow down to walk a slow, healing journey?
As the demands of life continue to shout louder and louder, how do we hear the quiet voice that brings peace?
Today's guest is traveling that path.
(01:03):
Today I'm joined by Taryn Marchena, a compelling voice in the areas of healing and authentic faith.
Drawing from her personal journey through trauma and rebuilding trust, Taryn now guides others in distinguishing between fear and genuine discernment.
As someone who has navigated the complex waters of reconciling faith with trauma, she offers unique insights into healing connections with both God and others.
(01:30):
Teaching from the middle of her ongoing journey rather than from a place of finished perfection, Taryn helps people embrace the gentle pace of authentic healing and trust restoration.
Taryn, welcome to Bleeding Daylight.
Thanks for having me, Rodney.
I'm excited to be here.
As humans, we tend to act out of our past hurts, and that means that we can't push people away when we shouldn't, or in some cases, we welcome people into our lives far too easily.
(02:00):
Can you tell me, where was the trauma in your life that began getting in the way of those healthy relationships?
That is a wonderful question, and one that I don't think can be pinpointed to just one experience.
It is a stacking of broken trust and a stacking of small moments of betrayal that led to a lot of self-betrayal.
(02:28):
One big moment that really impacted my trust for myself was an assault that happened in high school.
So many of the untrue beliefs that I held about myself and about God and about others stem back to that moment and that experience of being 16 and thinking that I was just going to have a fun night at school at this bonfire.
(02:58):
Instead, it turned into a night that forever marked pain and heartache and has really shown up in every dynamic of relationship that I have with pretty much everybody.
That night, in and of itself, I can pinpoint what you were saying, this lack of trust for myself, this lack of trust for others, and this lack of trust with God.
(03:26):
It's interesting you mention that there's a stacking of trauma, a stacking of incidents and beliefs about yourself and about others that contributed to this, because I imagine there's a lot of people, and probably the people that you're dealing with, who say, no, there isn't an event.
We're talking about trauma here, but I can't pinpoint an event.
(03:46):
I mean, you can pinpoint that one event, but as you say, it's a stacking.
Do you find that that's often the case, that people can't really get to the heart of what's causing their issues because they don't realize that it can be so many little things that contribute to the way we think about relationship?
All the time.
I hear that all the time.
(04:08):
This big question that a lot of us end up asking ourselves of, how did I get here?
What are all of the events that took place that led me here, often to this belief of believing that we're not good enough or that we are inherently just broken and unable to get out of our rut or that God doesn't actually love us and He has favorites, but we're not one of them.
(04:35):
Sometimes it is just a total, I don't remember anything.
It is a blocked out series of events that happened in someone's life.
But more often than that, the people that I work with, it's this consistent self-betrayal of, I don't even know who I am anymore.
And I had a moment like that with myself, where I remember sitting in this therapist's office and I was completely unable to make eye contact with her because the reason I was there just felt ridiculous.
(05:10):
I said, when people ask me how I am, I'm not really sure how to answer that.
When they asked me what I do for fun on the weekends, I don't know how to answer that.
I had come to a place that I had chameleons is what I call it.
I had just been what everybody else wanted me to be because that felt really safe.
(05:30):
It seemed like people liked me when I was whatever they wanted me to be, that I didn't know who God had made me to be.
That journey of rediscovering ourselves is what I now get to take people on, but it is not all self-care and bubble baths.
It is a deep discovery of God.
How do you feel about me?
(05:52):
Especially in those moments where I'm pretty sure that you weren't for me and you were not the protective God that I needed.
God, will you reveal your heart to me?
Because I'm struggling to see myself in any other way than just not enough and broken.
You mentioned one of those beliefs is that God has favorites and I'm not one of them, that we can tend to believe that God loves everyone except me.
(06:20):
We tend to get this feeling that as we read through scriptures and we read about God's over-the-top, lavish love that is poured out, we can see that in the lives of others.
We can't so much see that in our own lives.
Why do you think that is when we know that here is the truth about God, that he has this lavish love for everyone and yet we don't feel that that is the case for us?
(06:49):
One of the reasons for the particular group of people that I work with and for myself, not that this is the only thing that happens, but there's a belief that we need to clean ourselves up and that when I am all better and I have healed myself and I have gotten myself to the feet of Jesus, then he will love me.
(07:13):
Instead of just believing that I can right now, in this moment, start a conversation with God and I don't have to crawl my way back.
I can just talk to him right now and say, God, I, whoa, where have I been?
There's a perfectionism almost in it and that is very much a mentality that I learned growing up in the church.
(07:36):
Unintentionally, of course, but when you clean yourself up, then you are acceptable to God.
When you serve enough, then you are acceptable to God.
Enough was never defined.
I have spent a lot of my own journey in faith trying to make sure that I am doing enough for God and enough for people so that he loves me.
(07:57):
It's very much a striving mentality, but then we miss the being with God and we miss that he loves us even here in the unfinished zone while we are still healing, while we are still messing it up and trying to figure it out, that there is no arrival and that that doesn't have to feel scary.
I mentioned in the introduction that you're partway along that journey and you're taking people along with you, which really is what discipleship looks like.
(08:26):
I'm a few steps ahead of you and I'd love to take you on that journey.
Tell me, when did the healing commence for you?
You had this sense of not being enough all this way along.
There must have been a point where you thought, no, this needs to change.
What was the beginning of the healing for you?
What was the aha moment?
I think a large part of it had to do with my husband, my now husband.
(08:55):
We had a child together in high school when we were both 16.
About a year later, we decided, you know what?
I don't think that this is going to work between us.
Let's just co-parent.
For the next 10 years, that's what we did.
We just co-parented.
We began building a friendship when our daughter was about six and rebuilding this idea of trust that had been completely shattered time and time again.
(09:21):
We had seen the worst of each other.
Then COVID really is what pushed us together.
We need people.
Of course, we're both going to see our daughter.
Why don't we just have the three of us?
As we built this friendship, I began getting this sense from the Lord of, it's okay.
It's okay to want more from this relationship that I had always been petrified of and never thought that we would end up together.
(09:48):
As we started exploring our relationship with each other, immense anxiety, it was spilling out of every part of me.
All day long, my mind was wild with thoughts.
I was stuck in overthinking patterns and really terrified of the relationship on one hand and yet deeply wanting that connection on the other.
(10:09):
These two ideas didn't go very well together.
That was the commencement moment of, I want to be healthy in relationships, God, and yet I can't do this without you.
Then the next couple of months realizing, God, it's really easy for me to make this relationship my God.
(10:31):
We are made to get value from relationships, but not get our own value from these relationships.
Really a turning point and realizing, I don't want this person to be my God.
I want you to be the God of our relationship.
In order to do that, I need you to show me that I am enough, whether I'm with this person, whether I am a great mom, all these other things in my life that can speak into my identity.
(11:02):
Lord, you have to be above them all.
He took me to the Psalms of mourning, mourning all of the different areas of my life that gave me worth and that gave me value, laying them down every morning on the beanbag at his feet and saying, God, these should lead me back to you.
(11:24):
In this mourning was this picture that he is enough, even in the moments where he doesn't feel enough, that those emotions don't have to overpower the truth, that he is enough in those moments.
It was those mournings with him of just getting into Scripture mostly that I struggled with.
I think that's where we find a lot of beauty is in Scripture we struggle with and letting him speak through some of that into my journey.
(11:50):
You've mentioned this idea that seems to come through the church that you've got to be enough, and yet no one defines enough.
But one of the other things that we can sometimes feel from church is that everything's got to be great, everything's got to be wonderful, and so when it's not, it's our fault.
Yet, as you mentioned, you went to the Psalms, and I think the Psalms are so undervalued because there is confusion in the Psalms.
(12:16):
There is, where are you, God, in the Psalms.
There is the messiness of relationship in the Psalms.
Obviously, God has put the Psalms there for a good reason.
Do you think we often miss the totality of our faith when we try and deny those doubts, when we try and deny the messiness of what goes on in life?
(12:38):
One hundred percent, because that is not honest faith.
What God desires from us is that we can tell him all of those scary thoughts that cross our minds that, God, I don't think I trust you right now.
God, I am feeling so afraid and like you are not enough.
(12:59):
I am not sure I believe in you.
All of those thoughts that we keep to ourselves because they don't really seem like church talk, and yet they cross every one of our minds.
It is human to doubt, but God says, bring your doubts to me.
Just talk to me about it.
One of the shifts that I get to do as I sit with people is to say, I hear you talking at God.
(13:27):
You are so angry for the ways that he didn't show up for you, or you are so unwilling to even go there because then what does that really mean about how I see God and how I think he sees me?
What would happen if instead of talking at him, you made space to listen and to just say, God, this is how I feel.
(13:52):
Will you meet me here, sit in the Spirit with that, and just wait for him to speak?
Because he will.
He is always going to speak, but we are just afraid, will he?
Will he?
So yeah, there is such richness in laments, but of course we don't want to go there.
Humans try to avoid scary feelings at all costs, and yet suffering is really where authentic faith is found.
(14:20):
There is a depth in relationships that often we don't go to because we are scared of what will happen.
That doesn't just happen with human relationships.
That also happens in our relationship with God, that he wants this depth, this richness in relationship.
But we are so often scared to go that far because of what it might mean for us, and we read in Scriptures that God is faithful, that he doesn't let us down, and yet we don't feel that that's been our experience, so we're not prepared to trust him.
(14:53):
How do we start to get that trust back, both with people and with God?
Yeah, anytime we're talking about trust, there's that risk.
There's the risk of, I have to step into a little bit of trust in order to even build any trust.
So I recognize that it's very scary to step into that.
(15:16):
I can even share a moment from today in my car where I was praying about a relationship that's feeling really difficult in my life.
Wanting his guidance, I was praying, I had my hands open, and I felt like, Lord, I am trying to surrender this to you, and yet I'm sensing resistance in myself.
(15:39):
Even though I think I want to give this to you, I think I want you to transform it, and yet as I sat with that, I'm like, God, what is this armor, is what it felt like.
What is this armor on my front and my back that says, not this, not to God?
I trust him in a lot of areas of my life, but with certain relationships, I trust me more.
(16:03):
That was the coming forward of, oh yeah, God, you're right.
I totally trust me more for this, and I trust my control over your ability to keep me safe.
As we sit with that resistance, he speaks into it.
His goal for us is always safety too, and to get curious about, okay, Lord, what is the freedom on the other end, because not once have you ever brought up a trigger or something painful in my life just because you wanted to remind me of it.
(16:36):
Just because you said this would be fun if I sent this into her mind.
He brings up pain through triggers, usually through other people, because he says there, I have more freedom for you here, and you are not walking in it, and I desperately want that for you even more than you do.
Will you look at it with me?
He doesn't leave us there.
(16:57):
What I've learned walking with people is that as God brings up these triggers, there's a fear of, oh my gosh, what is he going to ask me to do?
We think he wants something from us, but he really wants something for us.
Sometimes we refuse to go deeper into a relationship because someone has done something that has hurt us, and we don't want to let them off the hook.
(17:25):
Now, I know that when someone has hurt us very deeply, it might mean that they're not a safe person to be around, and so we need to forgive, but not necessarily reconcile.
But most of the time, there are those things that people will do, and we think, no, no, I'm not going to go deeper with them because I don't want to let them off the hook.
(17:46):
How important is forgiveness in relationships to be able to build that trust and to be able to continue to go deeper?
It's the cornerstone.
It's the cornerstone of rebuilding relationships.
You're right.
God doesn't ask us to step back into abusive relationships, right?
But yes, the majority of it is just, I'm hurt, and I'm afraid of getting hurt by this person again, God, and it feels easier to just cut off contact.
(18:16):
In reality, the richness that comes from forgiveness is intimacy.
It is intimacy with ourselves.
It's intimacy with the other person, and it is a shocking intimacy with God because we are displaying His forgiveness with us to this other person.
That is a spiritual moment from heaven to earth.
(18:39):
I think of the night where my husband, he had been gone for a lot of years as I raised my daughter alone.
As he came back and we were building a friendship, there was just a night where he said, I want you to get mad at me.
I want you to get really mad at me for being gone.
(18:59):
I said, I'm not there anymore.
I've forgiven you.
There was a struggle to receive that.
God had done such a work in my heart through the separation that seeing him, yes, of course, there's always the little triggers that can come up when we're back in relationship for sure, but the power of forgiveness is so incredibly healing.
(19:24):
That night, to give the gift of forgiveness, yes, of course, it was incredibly freeing for him, but forgiveness is also for us.
Forgiveness allows us to let go, to move forward with lightness, and to not move through the world looking through our wounds.
(19:44):
There's a sense in which we are looking for the answer in how to build relationships.
We want that answer.
We want it locked down, then everything's going to be fine and tied up with a pretty bow.
Yet, as we've mentioned a couple of times, you're still walking this journey.
How important is it for us to build that patience to be walking at the pace that we need to walk at to rebuild relationships, to grow new relationships, and to find that pace that God takes us on?
(20:16):
That is one of the most important things that I get to talk about inside our community, because there's a sense to want to rush healing and to rush growth so that we can get to the other side that we keep hearing about, and it sounds oh so great.
The rushing, it takes us right out of, one, our authenticity, because it clicks on this perfection mode of, okay, what do I need to do?
(20:45):
And it also takes us right into consumption.
What books do I need to read?
What podcast do I need to listen to?
What can I take in?
And it's really easy to get that mixed up with actually doing the work of healing and growth and forgiveness.
The other piece that rushing does is it takes us right out of the present.
(21:07):
Being present with ourselves is essential to healing.
It is essential to being in intimate relationships right here in this moment, enjoying it.
And if we are so focused on, I just want to get to the good part, then we miss every little redeemed detail that God is actually moving in and healing throughout our journey, not just one big whoosh.
(21:36):
We love to think that God is just going to come in and heal with a swoop.
But how much sweeter it is, and I have experienced this, to know that there are details that only God could know about me that hurt so deeply and He will bring exact healing, exact words, exact places and people that mend those wounds in a very specific way.
(22:07):
And that is so much sweeter than a swoop.
It is personal and it reminds me, God, you, gosh, you care about me so much more than I could ever imagine.
And it draws us back into the Lord, really with thankfulness and gratitude and the intimacy that we've been talking about with Him.
When we're on that healing journey, oftentimes it does come down to a relationship or a number of relationships.
(22:36):
How do we deal with the issue of the pace of healing for the other person or the people going at a faster or a slower pace than what our healing is taking?
How do we deal with that if they're not progressing as we would like them to, or they've already reached that point and we're still trying to catch up?
(22:56):
Gosh, Rodney, that's frustrating, right?
We want people to be on the exact same timeline that we are.
I know just from experience that that has led to a lot of pride for me, of feeling like, well, now I am better than, look at me, I have been putting in all of this work and they just haven't.
(23:17):
That's not healing.
Now that I am better than, that's not the goal of healing is to feel like I did it faster than you.
What it's come down to for me and for a lot of people that I walk this journey with is just to trust that, God, you are taking them on a totally separate journey that will not, I promise you, look the same as mine.
(23:39):
Even though I want it to, I want to look for these little progress marks, but that's actually me wanting to control to feel better.
God, I trust that the same journey that you are taking me on that is unrushed and oh so sweet, that they need that experience too.
It's a surrender of the people that we love that we desperately want these relationships to look very different right now.
(24:06):
God just has this picture of the blowing of the sand is what he's given me, that there's this fossil and I want to come in with a little paintbrush and like, look, I can uncover it really quickly.
God's like, no, watch me blow.
The sand will go slow.
The image will be covered up for longer than you want it to.
(24:27):
But once you see the picture I have for this relationship of you and this other person, oh, you don't want that to be rushed.
You want those sweet redeeming moments along the way.
We've mentioned that you walk alongside others in their healing journey, inviting them into the kind of healing that you've already experienced.
(24:49):
I know that you can't say too much about some of those people because you want to preserve their privacy.
But are there sometimes for some of those people that you've seen a real aha moment in them, that you've seen a coming together of what you've been talking about that has given them a new lease on life?
(25:09):
Absolutely.
I would say that something that consistently brings breakthrough is this idea that when we are all covered up, our authenticity is all covered up by lots of coping behaviors and our past and beliefs that we've picked up along the way that aren't helpful, that it also covers up our ability to know what our gut says.
(25:36):
And I believe that our gut is also just another word for the Holy Spirit in us, that he is giving us that internal guidance.
If there is anything that the enemy wants us to experience, it is confusion over our guts.
It says that we cannot trust ourselves when we are not sure what the Holy Spirit is speaking in us, and it undermines the very foundation of our faith if we're not quite sure, wait, Lord, was that you?
(26:03):
Was that you?
Or was that just me?
Was that you?
Or is that my fear?
A consistent aha moment is the work that we do to help someone uncover, yes, you are experiencing the Holy Spirit in you, and attuning to that voice.
Often, for the people I work with, it is the difference between fear and discernment.
(26:26):
Fear feels like a megaphone in our ear.
It sends us into overthinking, and it gives us lots of second-guessing going on in our heads all day long, all day long.
But discernment, it's just a hush.
It's a quiet voice.
It's that thought that feels a little bit out of place, that could only be from the Lord.
(26:47):
Helping someone discern the difference between the overthinking and that hush, oh, that is a breakthrough because that is just them experiencing the Lord's goodness in them and learning to trust that, oh, He does speak to me.
He does speak to me.
I was just missing it because fear had me all wrapped up and tangled.
(27:08):
We mentioned before this idea that many of us can feel that God has a great love for others, but not for us.
And so the people that you're working with who may be experiencing that, that must be incredibly empowering for them when they suddenly realize, no, this is for me, too.
God's love is for me, too, and He desires to communicate to me and with me through the scriptures and through the gentle nudging of the Holy Spirit.
(27:36):
You must have seen some incredible joy when people realize that that's for them.
Well, interestingly enough, the word I would put to it is not joy.
It's almost a shock and a grief of realizing, whoa, I missed it somewhere.
(27:58):
And this is for me, too.
It's a little shell-shocking.
I work with a lot of people who give out, give out, pour, pour into others, and they are so quick to say, yes, of course God loves you, that they've never really stopped to think, wait a minute, is that true for me?
They believe it in their heads, but not wholeheartedly in their hearts.
(28:23):
It's just a barrier to get over that piece of, wait a minute, do I really not think that He is for me?
But absolutely, joy is on the other side.
But at first, it's incredibly shocking to realize this is for me, too.
This is for me, too.
And what you're talking about there is also that difference between mental assent of, yes, of course God loves me, but also knowing that deep in the heart, and that's a bit of a change, isn't it?
(28:56):
Yes, yes.
I'll tell you the moment that I realized this for myself, because I grew up in church, of course, like you said, I knew in my head, yeah, God loves me.
I get that.
I've even told other people that.
But I was wrestling with the scripture of the story of Hagar in Genesis.
(29:18):
Because I found so many parallels between my story and hers, I felt extremely triggered by the way that Abraham was treating Hagar.
And I felt like, God, she has no control in her situation.
She is a slave.
She didn't choose to get pregnant.
(29:39):
And now she's being abused by his wife.
God, there is no goodness in this story.
And I am so confused.
This is exactly how I feel, how she wanted to run away.
That's me.
I feel like I want to run away from all of this.
I read the story every day for a month and every day for a month, ask God the same question, God, where is your heart in this story for her?
(30:05):
Because I know you love women, but I don't see it.
I was reading this prayer and the words that the angel gives her in that story.
And there was this phrase that kept standing out to me that seems out of place.
And it just said, your son will be a wild donkey of a man.
And I thought that's the number one thing a mother does not want to hear about her son.
(30:29):
And that is terrifying.
Oh my gosh.
What the heck does that mean, God?
I went back and just got some historical and contextual understanding.
And what I learned is that the wild donkey in that day, in that location that they were at resembled a Mustang of our understanding, a wild horse.
(30:52):
And immediately I had this piece wash over me that God was saying, you know what I'm telling Hagar that she and her son are going to be free.
That is what I'm telling her.
And that is what I'm telling you that I did not create this situation.
(31:15):
Humans did, but I will always come in and bring freedom.
And it was that feeling of, for the first time, I feel what Hagar felt.
God, the God who sees.
God, you see me and I know how much you love me in this moment.
Taryn, there's probably a lot more we could talk about in this healing journey, but I'm sure that there are people who would want to get in touch with you or connect with your community.
(31:45):
Where is the easiest place for people to find you?
Yeah, you can find me on Facebook or Instagram, Taryn Marchena, I'm the only one.
And I have a free community that I would love to invite you in.
It's just on Facebook, where we explore all things relationship with yourself, relationship with others, and relationship with God to really heal some of that trust in an honest and safe way.
(32:10):
So yes, feel free, or you can email me at Taryn@TarynRachel.com.
And I will put links in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net so that you can find those links very easily.
Taryn, I just want to say thank you so much for being open with your story and for what you're doing with so many other people at this moment.
(32:31):
And thank you for your time today on Bleeding Daylight.
Rodney, thanks for having me.
Thanks for facilitating the conversation.
Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight.
Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others.
For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net
Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
This is Bleeding Daylight with your host, Rodney Olsen.
Welcome and thanks for listening.
As you listen, consider who else needs to hear this episode and please share it with them.
You can hear dozens of other stories of lives transformed and people kicking against the darkness at bleedingdaylight.net.
(00:36):
In a rapid-paced world that reaches for quick fixes and instant gratification, how do we slow down to walk a slow, healing journey?
As the demands of life continue to shout louder and louder, how do we hear the quiet voice that brings peace?
Today's guest is traveling that path.
(01:03):
Today I'm joined by Taryn Marchena, a compelling voice in the areas of healing and authentic faith.
Drawing from her personal journey through trauma and rebuilding trust, Taryn now guides others in distinguishing between fear and genuine discernment.
As someone who has navigated the complex waters of reconciling faith with trauma, she offers unique insights into healing connections with both God and others.
(01:30):
Teaching from the middle of her ongoing journey rather than from a place of finished perfection, Taryn helps people embrace the gentle pace of authentic healing and trust restoration.
Taryn, welcome to Bleeding Daylight.
Thanks for having me, Rodney.
I'm excited to be here.
As humans, we tend to act out of our past hurts, and that means that we can't push people away when we shouldn't, or in some cases, we welcome people into our lives far too easily.
(02:00):
Can you tell me, where was the trauma in your life that began getting in the way of those healthy relationships?
That is a wonderful question, and one that I don't think can be pinpointed to just one experience.
It is a stacking of broken trust and a stacking of small moments of betrayal that led to a lot of self-betrayal.
(02:28):
One big moment that really impacted my trust for myself was an assault that happened in high school.
So many of the untrue beliefs that I held about myself and about God and about others stem back to that moment and that experience of being 16 and thinking that I was just going to have a fun night at school at this bonfire.
(02:58):
Instead, it turned into a night that forever marked pain and heartache and has really shown up in every dynamic of relationship that I have with pretty much everybody.
That night, in and of itself, I can pinpoint what you were saying, this lack of trust for myself, this lack of trust for others, and this lack of trust with God.
(03:26):
It's interesting you mention that there's a stacking of trauma, a stacking of incidents and beliefs about yourself and about others that contributed to this, because I imagine there's a lot of people, and probably the people that you're dealing with, who say, no, there isn't an event.
We're talking about trauma here, but I can't pinpoint an event.
(03:46):
I mean, you can pinpoint that one event, but as you say, it's a stacking.
Do you find that that's often the case, that people can't really get to the heart of what's causing their issues because they don't realize that it can be so many little things that contribute to the way we think about relationship?
All the time.
I hear that all the time.
(04:08):
This big question that a lot of us end up asking ourselves of, how did I get here?
What are all of the events that took place that led me here, often to this belief of believing that we're not good enough or that we are inherently just broken and unable to get out of our rut or that God doesn't actually love us and He has favorites, but we're not one of them.
(04:35):
Sometimes it is just a total, I don't remember anything.
It is a blocked out series of events that happened in someone's life.
But more often than that, the people that I work with, it's this consistent self-betrayal of, I don't even know who I am anymore.
And I had a moment like that with myself, where I remember sitting in this therapist's office and I was completely unable to make eye contact with her because the reason I was there just felt ridiculous.
(05:10):
I said, when people ask me how I am, I'm not really sure how to answer that.
When they asked me what I do for fun on the weekends, I don't know how to answer that.
I had come to a place that I had chameleons is what I call it.
I had just been what everybody else wanted me to be because that felt really safe.
(05:30):
It seemed like people liked me when I was whatever they wanted me to be, that I didn't know who God had made me to be.
That journey of rediscovering ourselves is what I now get to take people on, but it is not all self-care and bubble baths.
It is a deep discovery of God.
How do you feel about me?
(05:52):
Especially in those moments where I'm pretty sure that you weren't for me and you were not the protective God that I needed.
God, will you reveal your heart to me?
Because I'm struggling to see myself in any other way than just not enough and broken.
You mentioned one of those beliefs is that God has favorites and I'm not one of them, that we can tend to believe that God loves everyone except me.
(06:20):
We tend to get this feeling that as we read through scriptures and we read about God's over-the-top, lavish love that is poured out, we can see that in the lives of others.
We can't so much see that in our own lives.
Why do you think that is when we know that here is the truth about God, that he has this lavish love for everyone and yet we don't feel that that is the case for us?
(06:49):
One of the reasons for the particular group of people that I work with and for myself, not that this is the only thing that happens, but there's a belief that we need to clean ourselves up and that when I am all better and I have healed myself and I have gotten myself to the feet of Jesus, then he will love me.
(07:13):
Instead of just believing that I can right now, in this moment, start a conversation with God and I don't have to crawl my way back.
I can just talk to him right now and say, God, I, whoa, where have I been?
There's a perfectionism almost in it and that is very much a mentality that I learned growing up in the church.
(07:36):
Unintentionally, of course, but when you clean yourself up, then you are acceptable to God.
When you serve enough, then you are acceptable to God.
Enough was never defined.
I have spent a lot of my own journey in faith trying to make sure that I am doing enough for God and enough for people so that he loves me.
(07:57):
It's very much a striving mentality, but then we miss the being with God and we miss that he loves us even here in the unfinished zone while we are still healing, while we are still messing it up and trying to figure it out, that there is no arrival and that that doesn't have to feel scary.
I mentioned in the introduction that you're partway along that journey and you're taking people along with you, which really is what discipleship looks like.
(08:26):
I'm a few steps ahead of you and I'd love to take you on that journey.
Tell me, when did the healing commence for you?
You had this sense of not being enough all this way along.
There must have been a point where you thought, no, this needs to change.
What was the beginning of the healing for you?
What was the aha moment?
I think a large part of it had to do with my husband, my now husband.
(08:55):
We had a child together in high school when we were both 16.
About a year later, we decided, you know what?
I don't think that this is going to work between us.
Let's just co-parent.
For the next 10 years, that's what we did.
We just co-parented.
We began building a friendship when our daughter was about six and rebuilding this idea of trust that had been completely shattered time and time again.
(09:21):
We had seen the worst of each other.
Then COVID really is what pushed us together.
We need people.
Of course, we're both going to see our daughter.
Why don't we just have the three of us?
As we built this friendship, I began getting this sense from the Lord of, it's okay.
It's okay to want more from this relationship that I had always been petrified of and never thought that we would end up together.
(09:48):
As we started exploring our relationship with each other, immense anxiety, it was spilling out of every part of me.
All day long, my mind was wild with thoughts.
I was stuck in overthinking patterns and really terrified of the relationship on one hand and yet deeply wanting that connection on the other.
(10:09):
These two ideas didn't go very well together.
That was the commencement moment of, I want to be healthy in relationships, God, and yet I can't do this without you.
Then the next couple of months realizing, God, it's really easy for me to make this relationship my God.
(10:31):
We are made to get value from relationships, but not get our own value from these relationships.
Really a turning point and realizing, I don't want this person to be my God.
I want you to be the God of our relationship.
In order to do that, I need you to show me that I am enough, whether I'm with this person, whether I am a great mom, all these other things in my life that can speak into my identity.
(11:02):
Lord, you have to be above them all.
He took me to the Psalms of mourning, mourning all of the different areas of my life that gave me worth and that gave me value, laying them down every morning on the beanbag at his feet and saying, God, these should lead me back to you.
(11:24):
In this mourning was this picture that he is enough, even in the moments where he doesn't feel enough, that those emotions don't have to overpower the truth, that he is enough in those moments.
It was those mournings with him of just getting into Scripture mostly that I struggled with.
I think that's where we find a lot of beauty is in Scripture we struggle with and letting him speak through some of that into my journey.
(11:50):
You've mentioned this idea that seems to come through the church that you've got to be enough, and yet no one defines enough.
But one of the other things that we can sometimes feel from church is that everything's got to be great, everything's got to be wonderful, and so when it's not, it's our fault.
Yet, as you mentioned, you went to the Psalms, and I think the Psalms are so undervalued because there is confusion in the Psalms.
(12:16):
There is, where are you, God, in the Psalms.
There is the messiness of relationship in the Psalms.
Obviously, God has put the Psalms there for a good reason.
Do you think we often miss the totality of our faith when we try and deny those doubts, when we try and deny the messiness of what goes on in life?
(12:38):
One hundred percent, because that is not honest faith.
What God desires from us is that we can tell him all of those scary thoughts that cross our minds that, God, I don't think I trust you right now.
God, I am feeling so afraid and like you are not enough.
(12:59):
I am not sure I believe in you.
All of those thoughts that we keep to ourselves because they don't really seem like church talk, and yet they cross every one of our minds.
It is human to doubt, but God says, bring your doubts to me.
Just talk to me about it.
One of the shifts that I get to do as I sit with people is to say, I hear you talking at God.
(13:27):
You are so angry for the ways that he didn't show up for you, or you are so unwilling to even go there because then what does that really mean about how I see God and how I think he sees me?
What would happen if instead of talking at him, you made space to listen and to just say, God, this is how I feel.
(13:52):
Will you meet me here, sit in the Spirit with that, and just wait for him to speak?
Because he will.
He is always going to speak, but we are just afraid, will he?
Will he?
So yeah, there is such richness in laments, but of course we don't want to go there.
Humans try to avoid scary feelings at all costs, and yet suffering is really where authentic faith is found.
(14:20):
There is a depth in relationships that often we don't go to because we are scared of what will happen.
That doesn't just happen with human relationships.
That also happens in our relationship with God, that he wants this depth, this richness in relationship.
But we are so often scared to go that far because of what it might mean for us, and we read in Scriptures that God is faithful, that he doesn't let us down, and yet we don't feel that that's been our experience, so we're not prepared to trust him.
(14:53):
How do we start to get that trust back, both with people and with God?
Yeah, anytime we're talking about trust, there's that risk.
There's the risk of, I have to step into a little bit of trust in order to even build any trust.
So I recognize that it's very scary to step into that.
(15:16):
I can even share a moment from today in my car where I was praying about a relationship that's feeling really difficult in my life.
Wanting his guidance, I was praying, I had my hands open, and I felt like, Lord, I am trying to surrender this to you, and yet I'm sensing resistance in myself.
(15:39):
Even though I think I want to give this to you, I think I want you to transform it, and yet as I sat with that, I'm like, God, what is this armor, is what it felt like.
What is this armor on my front and my back that says, not this, not to God?
I trust him in a lot of areas of my life, but with certain relationships, I trust me more.
(16:03):
That was the coming forward of, oh yeah, God, you're right.
I totally trust me more for this, and I trust my control over your ability to keep me safe.
As we sit with that resistance, he speaks into it.
His goal for us is always safety too, and to get curious about, okay, Lord, what is the freedom on the other end, because not once have you ever brought up a trigger or something painful in my life just because you wanted to remind me of it.
(16:36):
Just because you said this would be fun if I sent this into her mind.
He brings up pain through triggers, usually through other people, because he says there, I have more freedom for you here, and you are not walking in it, and I desperately want that for you even more than you do.
Will you look at it with me?
He doesn't leave us there.
(16:57):
What I've learned walking with people is that as God brings up these triggers, there's a fear of, oh my gosh, what is he going to ask me to do?
We think he wants something from us, but he really wants something for us.
Sometimes we refuse to go deeper into a relationship because someone has done something that has hurt us, and we don't want to let them off the hook.
(17:25):
Now, I know that when someone has hurt us very deeply, it might mean that they're not a safe person to be around, and so we need to forgive, but not necessarily reconcile.
But most of the time, there are those things that people will do, and we think, no, no, I'm not going to go deeper with them because I don't want to let them off the hook.
(17:46):
How important is forgiveness in relationships to be able to build that trust and to be able to continue to go deeper?
It's the cornerstone.
It's the cornerstone of rebuilding relationships.
You're right.
God doesn't ask us to step back into abusive relationships, right?
But yes, the majority of it is just, I'm hurt, and I'm afraid of getting hurt by this person again, God, and it feels easier to just cut off contact.
(18:16):
In reality, the richness that comes from forgiveness is intimacy.
It is intimacy with ourselves.
It's intimacy with the other person, and it is a shocking intimacy with God because we are displaying His forgiveness with us to this other person.
That is a spiritual moment from heaven to earth.
(18:39):
I think of the night where my husband, he had been gone for a lot of years as I raised my daughter alone.
As he came back and we were building a friendship, there was just a night where he said, I want you to get mad at me.
I want you to get really mad at me for being gone.
(18:59):
I said, I'm not there anymore.
I've forgiven you.
There was a struggle to receive that.
God had done such a work in my heart through the separation that seeing him, yes, of course, there's always the little triggers that can come up when we're back in relationship for sure, but the power of forgiveness is so incredibly healing.
(19:24):
That night, to give the gift of forgiveness, yes, of course, it was incredibly freeing for him, but forgiveness is also for us.
Forgiveness allows us to let go, to move forward with lightness, and to not move through the world looking through our wounds.
(19:44):
There's a sense in which we are looking for the answer in how to build relationships.
We want that answer.
We want it locked down, then everything's going to be fine and tied up with a pretty bow.
Yet, as we've mentioned a couple of times, you're still walking this journey.
How important is it for us to build that patience to be walking at the pace that we need to walk at to rebuild relationships, to grow new relationships, and to find that pace that God takes us on?
(20:16):
That is one of the most important things that I get to talk about inside our community, because there's a sense to want to rush healing and to rush growth so that we can get to the other side that we keep hearing about, and it sounds oh so great.
The rushing, it takes us right out of, one, our authenticity, because it clicks on this perfection mode of, okay, what do I need to do?
(20:45):
And it also takes us right into consumption.
What books do I need to read?
What podcast do I need to listen to?
What can I take in?
And it's really easy to get that mixed up with actually doing the work of healing and growth and forgiveness.
The other piece that rushing does is it takes us right out of the present.
(21:07):
Being present with ourselves is essential to healing.
It is essential to being in intimate relationships right here in this moment, enjoying it.
And if we are so focused on, I just want to get to the good part, then we miss every little redeemed detail that God is actually moving in and healing throughout our journey, not just one big whoosh.
(21:36):
We love to think that God is just going to come in and heal with a swoop.
But how much sweeter it is, and I have experienced this, to know that there are details that only God could know about me that hurt so deeply and He will bring exact healing, exact words, exact places and people that mend those wounds in a very specific way.
(22:07):
And that is so much sweeter than a swoop.
It is personal and it reminds me, God, you, gosh, you care about me so much more than I could ever imagine.
And it draws us back into the Lord, really with thankfulness and gratitude and the intimacy that we've been talking about with Him.
When we're on that healing journey, oftentimes it does come down to a relationship or a number of relationships.
(22:36):
How do we deal with the issue of the pace of healing for the other person or the people going at a faster or a slower pace than what our healing is taking?
How do we deal with that if they're not progressing as we would like them to, or they've already reached that point and we're still trying to catch up?
(22:56):
Gosh, Rodney, that's frustrating, right?
We want people to be on the exact same timeline that we are.
I know just from experience that that has led to a lot of pride for me, of feeling like, well, now I am better than, look at me, I have been putting in all of this work and they just haven't.
(23:17):
That's not healing.
Now that I am better than, that's not the goal of healing is to feel like I did it faster than you.
What it's come down to for me and for a lot of people that I walk this journey with is just to trust that, God, you are taking them on a totally separate journey that will not, I promise you, look the same as mine.
(23:39):
Even though I want it to, I want to look for these little progress marks, but that's actually me wanting to control to feel better.
God, I trust that the same journey that you are taking me on that is unrushed and oh so sweet, that they need that experience too.
It's a surrender of the people that we love that we desperately want these relationships to look very different right now.
(24:06):
God just has this picture of the blowing of the sand is what he's given me, that there's this fossil and I want to come in with a little paintbrush and like, look, I can uncover it really quickly.
God's like, no, watch me blow.
The sand will go slow.
The image will be covered up for longer than you want it to.
(24:27):
But once you see the picture I have for this relationship of you and this other person, oh, you don't want that to be rushed.
You want those sweet redeeming moments along the way.
We've mentioned that you walk alongside others in their healing journey, inviting them into the kind of healing that you've already experienced.
(24:49):
I know that you can't say too much about some of those people because you want to preserve their privacy.
But are there sometimes for some of those people that you've seen a real aha moment in them, that you've seen a coming together of what you've been talking about that has given them a new lease on life?
(25:09):
Absolutely.
I would say that something that consistently brings breakthrough is this idea that when we are all covered up, our authenticity is all covered up by lots of coping behaviors and our past and beliefs that we've picked up along the way that aren't helpful, that it also covers up our ability to know what our gut says.
(25:36):
And I believe that our gut is also just another word for the Holy Spirit in us, that he is giving us that internal guidance.
If there is anything that the enemy wants us to experience, it is confusion over our guts.
It says that we cannot trust ourselves when we are not sure what the Holy Spirit is speaking in us, and it undermines the very foundation of our faith if we're not quite sure, wait, Lord, was that you?
(26:03):
Was that you?
Or was that just me?
Was that you?
Or is that my fear?
A consistent aha moment is the work that we do to help someone uncover, yes, you are experiencing the Holy Spirit in you, and attuning to that voice.
Often, for the people I work with, it is the difference between fear and discernment.
(26:26):
Fear feels like a megaphone in our ear.
It sends us into overthinking, and it gives us lots of second-guessing going on in our heads all day long, all day long.
But discernment, it's just a hush.
It's a quiet voice.
It's that thought that feels a little bit out of place, that could only be from the Lord.
(26:47):
Helping someone discern the difference between the overthinking and that hush, oh, that is a breakthrough because that is just them experiencing the Lord's goodness in them and learning to trust that, oh, He does speak to me.
He does speak to me.
I was just missing it because fear had me all wrapped up and tangled.
(27:08):
We mentioned before this idea that many of us can feel that God has a great love for others, but not for us.
And so the people that you're working with who may be experiencing that, that must be incredibly empowering for them when they suddenly realize, no, this is for me, too.
God's love is for me, too, and He desires to communicate to me and with me through the scriptures and through the gentle nudging of the Holy Spirit.
(27:36):
You must have seen some incredible joy when people realize that that's for them.
Well, interestingly enough, the word I would put to it is not joy.
It's almost a shock and a grief of realizing, whoa, I missed it somewhere.
(27:58):
And this is for me, too.
It's a little shell-shocking.
I work with a lot of people who give out, give out, pour, pour into others, and they are so quick to say, yes, of course God loves you, that they've never really stopped to think, wait a minute, is that true for me?
They believe it in their heads, but not wholeheartedly in their hearts.
(28:23):
It's just a barrier to get over that piece of, wait a minute, do I really not think that He is for me?
But absolutely, joy is on the other side.
But at first, it's incredibly shocking to realize this is for me, too.
This is for me, too.
And what you're talking about there is also that difference between mental assent of, yes, of course God loves me, but also knowing that deep in the heart, and that's a bit of a change, isn't it?
(28:56):
Yes, yes.
I'll tell you the moment that I realized this for myself, because I grew up in church, of course, like you said, I knew in my head, yeah, God loves me.
I get that.
I've even told other people that.
But I was wrestling with the scripture of the story of Hagar in Genesis.
(29:18):
Because I found so many parallels between my story and hers, I felt extremely triggered by the way that Abraham was treating Hagar.
And I felt like, God, she has no control in her situation.
She is a slave.
She didn't choose to get pregnant.
(29:39):
And now she's being abused by his wife.
God, there is no goodness in this story.
And I am so confused.
This is exactly how I feel, how she wanted to run away.
That's me.
I feel like I want to run away from all of this.
I read the story every day for a month and every day for a month, ask God the same question, God, where is your heart in this story for her?
(30:05):
Because I know you love women, but I don't see it.
I was reading this prayer and the words that the angel gives her in that story.
And there was this phrase that kept standing out to me that seems out of place.
And it just said, your son will be a wild donkey of a man.
And I thought that's the number one thing a mother does not want to hear about her son.
(30:29):
And that is terrifying.
Oh my gosh.
What the heck does that mean, God?
I went back and just got some historical and contextual understanding.
And what I learned is that the wild donkey in that day, in that location that they were at resembled a Mustang of our understanding, a wild horse.
(30:52):
And immediately I had this piece wash over me that God was saying, you know what I'm telling Hagar that she and her son are going to be free.
That is what I'm telling her.
And that is what I'm telling you that I did not create this situation.
(31:15):
Humans did, but I will always come in and bring freedom.
And it was that feeling of, for the first time, I feel what Hagar felt.
God, the God who sees.
God, you see me and I know how much you love me in this moment.
Taryn, there's probably a lot more we could talk about in this healing journey, but I'm sure that there are people who would want to get in touch with you or connect with your community.
(31:45):
Where is the easiest place for people to find you?
Yeah, you can find me on Facebook or Instagram, Taryn Marchena, I'm the only one.
And I have a free community that I would love to invite you in.
It's just on Facebook, where we explore all things relationship with yourself, relationship with others, and relationship with God to really heal some of that trust in an honest and safe way.
(32:10):
So yes, feel free, or you can email me at Taryn@TarynRachel.com.
And I will put links in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net so that you can find those links very easily.
Taryn, I just want to say thank you so much for being open with your story and for what you're doing with so many other people at this moment.
(32:31):
And thank you for your time today on Bleeding Daylight.
Rodney, thanks for having me.
Thanks for facilitating the conversation.
Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight.
Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others.
For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net
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