Podcast

Finding Hope and Purpose after Abuse and Divorce. Darlene Larson

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Unshakable Hope Podcast, where real life intersects redeeming love. I’m Kelly Hall and this is where we wrestle through faith questions such as, how do I trust God’s heart when his ways and delays are breaking mine? How can I believe God is good when life doesn’t seem good? My prayers that God would renew our hope in these conversations and that each of us would experience the very real power of his presence and love.

I’m so thankful today to welcome Darlene Larson to the Unshakable Hope Podcast. She is a grief, loss and life purpose coach. She loves to talk to people about how to bring purpose out of their pain. She’s walked through her own pain story and seen God bring redemption in those places.

Thanks for being here, Darlene.

Darlene: Oh, Kelly, thank you so much and I’m just glad how God unfolded our connection and our time for today.

Kelly: Me too. It’s [00:01:00] been sweet. Before we get into your story, Darlene, I’d love it if you could just share what God is talking to you about currently.

Darlene: Absolutely. Right now I am working on a manuscript and it has to do with grief and loss and how to go forward, how to grieve and work through it and walk on the other side of it. So Psalm 32:8 has been a verse that I knew years ago, but it’s, “I will instruct you and I’ll teach you in the way which you shall go. And I’ll counsel you with my eye up on you.” I’m waiting on some clarity for other direction in my life and he used this verse a years ago in adoption of my third son. I just love this verse and so as I write the manuscript as well as I’m considering moving Kelly, so there’s a lot of things I’m waiting on for his answer, and I know he sees me and he is got me, and he’ll lead me.

Kelly: Yes. Isn’t that a great comfort?

Darlene: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Kelly: Well, I [00:02:00] know you have a pretty involved story and on this podcast we talk through hard stories to illustrate how God is always there with us and how we can connect with him in our pain. So could you just start with your story, wherever you wanna start.

Darlene: Well, I will just dive in real quick. Really, when I think about, a turning point was 20 years ago, I penned two questions to God in my journal.

It was, “who am I, God” and “what do you want to do with me in this next season of my life?” I was married at that time. Two daughters soon to have a son through adoption and I was doing all to please all teaching in a Christian school. Life was out of balance. A lot of pain was in my story, Kelly and I couldn’t put my finger on it.

And so those two questions, when I pinned him to God, who am I and what do you wanna do with me at this next season of my life? I was feeling the tug that it was no [00:03:00] longer teaching children. I’ve always been in the Word and a woman of the Word, and I love being with women and connecting. It’s always been a big part of who I am.

I sensed I was to leave teaching, which broke my heart because I’m a teacher by heart. God gifted me with that. So I thought, are you done with me teaching? And this was in January, 20 years ago. But a few weeks later after I penned those questions, I lost my father. Suddenly gone, boom, heart attack.

And we expected it to be my mom first because she had prescription induced dementia. So lost my father. The grief was tremendous. And I knew I was to leave teaching. However, within three years of my father’s death, I lost my youngest brother, and it was an identical death.

Kelly. My brother and father both work their full days. Physical labors in both of their jobs. Tall [00:04:00] men, no warning signs, well, physical fit and both men died at the end of their workday and both died in their home and within a mile of each other. And my youngest brother followed his father, to Ford Cemetery, I call it the bookends of death.

Because between those deaths, the way I grieved my father’s death, I left teaching. I grieved immensely for the changes going on. Still couldn’t figure out the emotional pain in my story. But when it came to my brother’s death, that was huge because I had been praying to die.

I just said, “Lord, this pain’s getting so bad. Please just take me home because I’m doing all, I don’t know what else to do.” At that time, my son was a, a part of our family, all three of my children. I thank God he allowed me to be their mom through adoption but during those bookends of death, it’s as if God opened every drawer of my heart [00:05:00] and said, let’s deal with the anger, let’s deal with the jealousy, let’s deal with the perfectionism, let’s deal with the people pleasing.

Let’s deal with it. And we went, God and I went to battle and I dumped everything out and said, okay. Okay. So when my brother died, I’m pretty empty. I’m pretty empty inside. My brother dies. I’m at standing at his casket and said, “Lord, If that would’ve been me in the casket, people would believe a lie about my life.”

Mm. And at the funeral home, I recall standing, looking around and saying, what, where have I gone? All my siblings were going forward in life, but where had Darlene Terrell disappeared to, my maiden name? And it was as if God began to move the veil back and say, you’re getting closer to understanding your story.

Within weeks of my brother’s death, I had been praying during those bookends too, why am I still alive? My voice in the marriage was being ignored. I was [00:06:00] being criticized. I was being negated, which means I was constantly being crossed off, crossed off, and crossed out, or picture of Big X or hit the delete button.

Minimized. That’s where I lived and what I lived in for over a quarter of a century. At that time, my brother’s death. It was 21 years of marriage. So my brother dies. I within weeks, God being God and he is always used books. Kelly I picked up a book in a Christian bookstore and it was about discovering your like purpose and it was boom, devoured the book that summer saw Life Purpose Coach training in the back of this book.

Got on the website, thought this is why I’m alive. And that was, that was eight. Huh? That was oh six. So that’s 17 years ago. When coaching was just coming out, and I knew I was to be a life purpose coach, I am also a life coach, but I’m heavy on life purpose because God gives us breath [00:07:00] for a purpose.

When we’re done, he’s gonna take us home. And I have been praying, what is my purpose for years? Why am I still alive? So that fall I traveled out to California and started getting all my coach training. Then it was the next year I had to have my own life plan facilitated, which is a two-day in-depth study of your life.

And my coach who I met, which was a divine appointment and she’s still my coach today, is she saw the abuse in my story. And that year, 22 years into the marriage three children, I discovered that I was living in mental and emotional abuse, and that’s where all the emotional pain was coming from.

Kelly: Wow.

Darlene: 22 years and three children through adoption. And Kelly, I was not going to walk out on my children. Was not, was not, was not. I knew how by then [00:08:00] I knew the weapons that were used against me. I was never physically abused. But my heart was mutilated and pretty minced and diced.

Kelly: Yes. Yes. So, that was 22 years of marriage when you went to this coaching?

Darlene: 21 and 22. 22 is when God revealed to me what it was I lived in. I believed in marriage, in the institution of marriage. Mm-hmm. But I so I headed right into counseling and even though I had all my coach training started. I knew this was the other part of my story that I had to deal with, and really, God gave me my life purpose, which was to coach, speak, teach, and write on behalf of the needs of hurting, harried and hungry women. He gave me my life purpose and showed it to me. So I would then realize, okay, now it’s time to stand up to the story of the abuse you’ve lived in.

Mm-hmm. And it took over five years for me [00:09:00] from that time to exposing to get into counseling. Both of us, however, you can only change yourself and when one chooses not to or to deal with toxicity, then divorce papers were sent to me. And within 40 days I lost a lot.

Kelly: Oh, wow. We’ll get to that point in a minute. First of all, that was heavy Darlene. That was so much you mentioned the bookends of death. You lost your dad and then you lost your brother. But in the middle you mentioned something about the tragedy of death. It looks like one loss, but it’s really a cascade of dozens and dozens of losses that have to be grieved and processed.

And it seems like God was walking you through that with your dad while he was dealing with a lot of other things inside of you.

Darlene: That is so true. [00:10:00] It was like he was unpacking my story and unpacking everything that I had just I just stashed in my heart a lot of the hurt over the years, and it was time to do what Psalm 62:8 says, and that David gives us permission is to pour your heart out to God.

And that pour, really is go to God first and empty out. And Kelly, that’s a part of my next book that will be coming out hopefully next year. But is how to do that and how to stay in the posture of trusting God. Mm-hmm. When your life is nothing like you ever dreamed, which I have not coached a woman yet, or met or woman who has said, my life has gone just like I expected.

Kelly: Exactly. So this is exactly what I expected.

Darlene: When I stood at my brother’s casket, I did pray to the Lord and said, if any good can come from his early death, let it begin with me. Mm. That was 17 years ago.

Kelly: That is a powerful prayer. One of the [00:11:00] things that God revealed to me as I’ve processed grief and loss over the years is the importance and the power of Psalm 62:8. When we pour out, he pours in, we lament the losses and he meets us there. We put words to our pain and God ministers in that place. My comfort in that is that whatever he reveals, he is going to heal.

Darlene: Absolutely. Amen.

Kelly: Darlene, you mentioned that you lost so much all at once. You received the divorce papers. There was a lot of processing and trying to save your marriage before that five years. You realized you had an abusive marriage, you tried to save it, went to counseling, then you received the divorce papers. So can you describe the losses that you experienced at that time in your life?

Darlene: Yes, I will. And it was a tsunami. That’s the best way to describe it. , [00:12:00] God had healed so much of my heart in the abuse to keep me alive. I was fighting to stay alive, and I was fighting to get my kids through it, even though it didn’t turn out how I had hoped it would.

But when I exposed the abuse, Things got worse and my church stood with me and therefore it got even more worse. So, because , there was so many warnings I gave out in this marriage that were ignored. We lost our house, went into foreclosure, marriage home of 22 years, was going into foreclosure.

At that same time, and during the 40 days of losing the home, my mother passed away. So losing a home, losing my mom. And then the divorce papers hadn’t come yet, but [00:13:00] because of the foreclosure on the house, we all had to move. And the line was already drawn in the sand of who was moving where and who was moving with who.

And so in 40 days, I really became parentless and homeless, spouse-less, and my three teens chose to go live elsewhere. Mm. And so then once all that collapsed, I was on the other side living alone and learning how to grieve again. Yet God had healed a lot of me. So this time it was the grief of really, really missing my children and learning how to one of my children was already of age, so two of them were in high school, so it was grieving that.

But then it was also learning how to release the mantle of mourning and to wear the garland or to Praise him as he says in Isaiah. [00:14:00] So God began to shift me, and I’d get my feet out of bed every morning and place him on the floor and say, I’m gonna praise you. I’m gonna praise you. I no longer am going to be ignored in my home.

I’m no longer going to be minimized in my home. I’m no longer going to be laughed at. And so, and at that time Hearts with a Purpose, my business was four years old, because I started that God gave me my purpose to drive me forward and to begin to help and coach women. That was already four years old.

So a lot of loss. A lot of loss, and spent five years in therapy and sitting on leather couches and chairs and working through all of that. Kelly, yes.

Kelly: Oh my goodness, Darlene, I can’t even imagine. Processing all those losses at once. But my heart is really encouraged because I see how God was ministering to you prior and preparing [00:15:00] you to even walk through those losses.

One of the things that has comforted me and actually surprised me about God is when I would be thinking, okay, I just need to suck it up. I just need to try harder. The Holy Spirit would say to me, Kelly, you need to grieve. And so instead of going and doing, it was a sitting, resting and being healed by the Holy Spirit. And to let myself be loved in that way by the Lord brought so much healing, such a gift, and it was hard to receive.

Darlene: And, you know, Kelly, that is something that is very uncomfortable and I’ve written it in the sense where we think if we feel the pain that we’re gonna get sucked up in a drain or something.

Yes. And washed away. Mm-hmm. I knew I had to stop then and grieve my father and brother’s death, and I did. So when I got [00:16:00] out of the abuse, I had already done a lot of grief because I spent years in grief and not realizing what I was grieving, but I was grieving a marriage that wasn’t a marriage. People thought I had a wonderful marriage and it was not true.

Kelly: Yeah. Mm. The crushing weight of sorrow. How to walk through that, how to heal from that? I’m wondering if you could hand our listeners some specific ways to process loss some steps to actually even connect with the heart of God in those deep places of pain.

Darlene: Absolutely. Number one , is recognize that. He knows your heart, you can’t hide anything from God. Then I would suggest that whatever the disappointment, the anger, the bitterness, whatever’s there you just do the posture of Psalm [00:17:00] 62:8, which is the pouring your heart out. And the key is, like you had said earlier, Kelly, if we have to pour it out so God can get in our heart through the Holy Spirit and he can begin to grow the fruit of the spirit.

And so we have to let go of old ways, from anything from withholding, to the idols of perfectionism, of criticalness, of people pleasing, all those were some of my false idols, my reputation. I did not want to have to do what I had to do. Did not, because I knew the house built on toothpicks was going to collapse.

Mm. And I am a person that likes her privacy. Yeah. I like my privacy. God’s like, your, your life is mine. So back to our listeners, is number one is, to go to God. He is our first Psalm 62:8. We are to [00:18:00] go to God first. Number two is to pour your heart out. Number three is to keep pouring your heart out, and four is to start believing the truth to get into your heart.

See, with grief and loss, we’ve gotta be willing to grieve, but then we gotta be willing to receive. What we wanna receive is the truth, not the lies. Not what social media says or anything else but the truth of his word. Like Darlene, I understand you, Darlene. I am for you, Darlene.  I see you, I hear you. And that we start believing that and keep pouring it out and it’s gonna take time. This is not a one and a done. Mm-hmm. This is to stay in that posture. And you know, Kelly, when my brother died, I did tell the Lord this. I said, I wanna grieve his death really hard. I wanna get past grief.

I wanna get past emotional pain because I really want some joy on this side. And God did that for me. [00:19:00] He did that. Let’s get it all out of me, Lord. Let’s get it all out. And we did that. And it’s messy. It’s hard work. I also tell people grief, it’s uncomfortable because we wanna put platitudes or think, I don’t wanna get angry. I don’t want God to know this. But see, that’s false. No. He already knows.

Kelly: Right. I have found it so freeing when God allows me to put words to the core pain in my heart. Absolutely. It was such a cool moment you would think, this may have been a really sad moment for me, but I felt joy.

The moment God revealed that the deepest wound in my heart was this question, how do I trust your heart God, when your ways and delays keep breaking mine? God showed me that I wept I actually felt relief and joy at the same time I felt hope that that was the question God was going to answer for me. It was a relief to put words to it.

Darlene: The [00:20:00] delays and disappointments are huge in life. Mm-hmm. And I think. If we don’t deal with the first disappointment, we’re setting ourselves up to fall down the stairs. I say all the way down to despair, depression, and darkness. And it’s really important that we cut that off and start believing the truth and letting him into our heart to heal us so we can go forward.And so we really can turn Kelly and use our pain or purpose for the good of the kingdom as he tells us to do in Corinthians.

Kelly: Yes. That is so hopeful, so true. Darlene, I wonder if you could talk really specifically about the deep sorrow you felt losing that relationship with your children. For me, that this is hard to comprehend and it just seems suffocating.

Darlene: My children, and yes, they were adopted and I’m for adoption, and two were stateside. One was international. So I never thought of adopted children less than or anything. [00:21:00] They were my children. Mm-hmm. And so I totally even forgot until someone asked me the labor story that women liked to talk about.

And so that was the hardest, hard. I love, I love them immensely, I know what they heard and they saw, and unfortunately children have to decide. Yeah. And in that situation, they had to make a choice. Today to understand my children, one is now 31 and the other 2, 28 and 27, they’re all married. I have four grandchildren that I’m a Grammy to, and one relationship is really, really good. One is gaining and one relationship is not right now. I pray in time. I pray for them daily. I pray I can’t do their story. And if for moms listening to this, we do not own our children. Mm-hmm.

And I had to learn that before I even left the hospital with[00:22:00] my two oldest daughters. Cuz yeah, we were chosen by the birth mom. But the key is we don’t own our children and then as they grow up. And whether they leave the nest or not. The key again, is our emotional being and our acceptance does not come from our children.

And if I see Kelly where women get stuck, it’s right in that area of releasing that emotional piece, thinking my children gotta give me something of what? Of value, of why I’m alive. Well, in my story, I lost everything but my soul. Mm. And so it was, do I believe God has a purpose with me and a plan, or do I not?

And our roles, he gives them to us, but he also is God and he can take our roles away from us. Mm.

Kelly: Wow. Yes. We can’t find our identity in that place. Our identity is in Christ. [00:23:00] I can remember when My daughter, who’s never been able to live outside of our home because of illness. I remember she was receiving prayer and as she was talking through parts of her story, I felt like the weight of her entire story fell on my chest.

And I couldn’t even breathe at that moment. I said to the Lord, This is too much for any one person to handle. She should not have to handle all this help Her and my sorrow was so deep and I felt the Holy Spirit draw near and lift that weight off my chest and say to me, Kelly, this is her story. It’s not your story. It’s not your fault. It’s not for you to fix. You need to trust me with her, trust me with her story. I’m at work here, trust me.

Darlene: Beautiful.

Kelly: It was beautiful and I was able to let it go. But learning to walk in that place of continuing to let it go, it’s like you said, it’s not a [00:24:00] one and done thing.

You have to continually pour out and rehearse and declare what’s true and believe it in your heart.

Darlene: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Kelly: I’m so touched by all of your wisdom, and it makes me think of all the women that you minister to and all the lives that are being redeemed through your pain as you bring comfort and wisdom and hope to other women.

I’m wondering if you could just share some of the ways that women have found freedom. Through your Counseling through your coaching, through your story,

Darlene: I’ll be glad to. I wanna encourage our listeners, Kelly, that every one of us have a life purpose.

We do have something that will excite us to wanna get up out of bed and to keep going. Because life can get where we think the long haul of life. How are we gonna do this? What is it that jazzes me? There’s no greater joy than doing what God’s created you for. Mm-hmm. [00:25:00] As he moves you onward and through stages and roles of life.

So when I think back, and I’ll tell you last night I was looking at some of. My files of clients over the years because I’m slowly packing some things. I am overwhelmed at God because of the way he’s brought me women. Women are wanting more, and in a general sense, they usually want more direction.

They want clarity. They want their story. To be used. If they’ve had a lot of pain, they want that pain to be used. However, some, may not have had a lot of pain, but there’s more and they know there’s something more. Some of them have been women that were sexually abused as a child and they get stuck in their forties and fifties with the emotional abuse.

Because if you haven’t healed from that part, that traps you in midlife as well, the emotional abuse. And so they want to know how to handle healthy relationships. How not to criticize, how not to put the thumb on people. [00:26:00] So that’s been great to watch women grow beyond and having healthy relationships watching women that want to write Bible studies that have, like, I think I’m to write a Bible study and to see them jump in and to coach them how to get the story out and how to start writing,

I coach a lot of women that have hard stories, hard and want to grieve loss. I’ve coached women, not widowed once, but twice. I’ve coached women in abuse to out of abuse. I’ve coached women that have been spiritual abuse to now freedom and stepping into other churches to worship.

It’s just been all over the board, Kelly, and yeah, it’s just a blessing, we each have a leverage, people are like, what do you mean, Darlene? Well, it’s really what makes you uniquely you because yes, there are a lot of authors out there.

There’s a lot of. We could say painters, and this is what the enemy does, is he wants us to not step out cuz he is gonna do all he can [00:27:00] to stop you. And usually the arrows he sends is right against your purpose. Mm. And so you have to keep facing it and going toward it, toward that arrow that he tries to stop.

And one was for me, I believed I could not write, and yet God was calling me to write books and so, the lies women believe I’m not good enough to really. That’s a lie. And that’s a big one, , that the enemy uses. He knows what works with women and that’s one of ’em.

Fear is another monster. So seeing women be courageous to face their fear and to go forward is some of the greatest joy. I’ve seen one of my clients had her artwork in Europe. A novel just came out from one of my clients this year. so it’s all different ways from moving through what stops them to forward movement.

Kelly: Oh, that is beautiful. What you said is so true the lies that women believe they just seem to [00:28:00] center around. I’m not enough. I hear that all the time. And that’s what God had to heal me of. I didn’t even realize I was living with this shame until I was in my fifties and the leader of women and had already written and published a Bible study

One of the things you mentioned almost brought tears to my eyes. You said the enemy comes with arrows and he always aims right at your purpose. Can you share more about that, how God revealed that to you in your own life or in other people’s lives?

Darlene: Well, for me, that’s how I stayed alive is I had to track backwards. So whenever I took a step, and this was when in the abuse, whenever I took a step where I thought it was God’s calling in my life, usually an arrow came flying against me. It could be a verbal attack from an individual. It could be casting doubt, second guessing. [00:29:00] So every time I went forward toward it, I was pulled back every time. It’s quite sad and it’s just the way God also has grown my discernment mm-hmm.

Because of what I lived in, my antennas are pretty high. To listen. To stop and what we say and what stops us because I had to either listen to lies or I had to learn to listen to God while I was in a prison, a prison of deception, cuz that’s what I lived in.

Really, it was like solitary confinement of what I lived in for a long time. And so I had to learn to listen to God and when I got clarity and saw my coaching material I used and I saw my answers, God’s word, women growth, writing, I think I’m to write all those oppositions were right against it all.

Mm-hmm. Yes. And so with clients, oh yes. Especially with life purpose, whenever [00:30:00] we take a step toward purpose because the enemy recognizes what a threat we are. Oh yeah. When we are serious, something in the book Lies Women Believe by Nancy DeMoss, but she says something in that book that the enemy does not really care if we go in and out churches Kelly.

But once we go and take his word serious and we begin to apply his word, And become a threat. Well look out. And so whenever women enter into their coaching plans with me, I can guess about couple months, unfortunately something’s going to happen. It can be illness, it can be job losses.

It can be all kinds of things. Yeah. And so a woman has to realize, okay, so where I’m headed is really a threat. So, am I gonna back away or am I gonna keep going? We live in a spiritual war. So we must be aware of that. Not become fearful and wimps and cowered down.

No, to cause us to stand [00:31:00] up and stand firm on the word and to suit up with as he tells us to. Amen.

Kelly: Yes. Wow. I just, I need a cheering section for you right now. That was one of the things I noticed when I was moving forward with the podcast. All of the obstacles that I kept running into, and technology hasn’t been my friend in the past.

So it was really hard. It was a huge learning curve. And one of the things a friend of ours, said to me was, God is preparing you for greater attacks than this. This is your training ground, so don’t back down. Stand up, fight in his power and move forward. Don’t let him defeat you.

Darlene: You know that is yes. Amen. I have to tell you. I believe all of the rejection that I had years ago, all the rejection, and since then, more rejection. I do believe it was to prepare me for my books to be rejected because I’ve lost track of [00:32:00] how many agents and publishers I have pitched to over the years, but God landed me my top notch agent last year, and so I agree with that. And as long as we allow God to heal us, we’re gonna be able to keep going and know and trust him. Stay in the word, put support around you.

Kelly: Yes. Thank you so much, Darlene, for everything that you’ve shared with us so much wisdom, my heart is full. I’m just ready to move forward and spend time with the Lord and pour out my heart some more and not back down when the enemy attacks.

I’m thankful for your ministry. Your website is called Hearts With a Purpose,

Darlene: Kelly, they can sign up for complimentary few minutes of coaching with me. Mm-hmm. Or they also can receive my first book free in a download. Or they can get a freebie of 10 truths to stand on when the bottom drops out of your life. And for your podcast [00:33:00] listeners, if anyone is interested in coaching or I have a do-it-yourself course that I put together to help women write their hard stories and how this all fits with their life purpose and they work through it on their own for 90 days, I’d be glad to give each woman $400 off if they would like to reach out to me and just say they heard, us over at Kelly’s podcast.

Kelly: That’s awesome. Thank you for that generous offer, Darlene. You’re welcome. I’m wondering as we close our time, if you wouldn’t mind just praying briefly over those who are listening.

Darlene: I would love to. Lord, I thank you first of all for Kelly and her willingness to be obedient to begin her podcast. So I pray blessings all over her and her ministry, and Lord for our listeners today, whoever they are at on their journey whether they’re joy filled, tears are leaking in abuse, greed, loss, or wondering if you even care, Lord.

That [00:34:00] they would recognize that there’s no accident that they’re hearing this podcast today, that they would open up their word and even go to Psalm 139 and to read how much you are for them, how you understand them, how you see them, how you search for them, and you know them. Or that open up to Psalm 62:8 and to realize that we are to pour our heart outs to you.

Or Psalm 32:8, Lord, where you say, I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go, and my eye is upon you. So I pray for the listeners to take a step, not to sit, soak, and get sour and bitter over life, but to embrace you, to grieve and receive all you have, Lord, and thank you, and bless them in Jesus name.

Amen. Amen. That was beautiful. Thank you so much for being here today, Darlene. Thank you, Kelly. It’s been a joy and an honor.

Kelly: Thanks for listening to the Unshakable Hope [00:35:00] podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe and leave a review. To continue the conversation and for free resources, be sure to visit me@kellyhall.org. Thanks so much