E35 Victim vs Martyr - How to Share Your Story Well

E36 Follow the Fruit to the Root

Years ago I walked into our bathroom and found raw sewage backing up into the toilet and the tub. We could have spent the rest of our lives scooping it out, or we could deal with the massive tree root that had grown silently underground for decades until it finally broke the sewer line. Most women I coach are still scooping.   You've been trying to change the behavior. You've prayed harder, set up boundaries, read the books, listened to the podcasts, started over a hundred Mondays. The same patterns keep coming back. The anger, the control, the people-pleasing, the shutting down, the fear. This isn't about effort. You've been doing the work. The patterns keep coming back because the work has been happening at the wrong layer. The fruit you see grows from a root that is still alive underground.   This is part two of the series I started last week with the victim and the martyr. Last week I told you both of those identities were ditches and asked you to be honest about which one you lean toward. This week I show you how to climb out.   We talk about soul wounds, the unhealed emotional pains from your past that the enemy uses as a legal entry point to attach lies, accusations, shame, and fear. I explain why the most dangerous soul wound is the one you never acknowledged as a wound, and why a "great childhood" can still hide the filters that are running your life.   Then I share the five whys, the strategy I use with my wise wives to reverse engineer the visible bad fruit in your life all the way back to the root memory. From there, I give you five steps to actually heal it. Identify the fruit and the stronghold. Acknowledge the wound. Invite Jesus into the memory. Forgive and renounce the lies. Command the spirits to go.   You cannot forgive what you won't admit, and you cannot heal what you won't confront. By the end of this episode, you'll have the framework, the workbook, and the prayers to do the actual work. Resources mentioned in this episode - The Fruit to the Root workbook (free): https://www.wisewife.co/root [https://www.wisewife.co/root] - Last week's episode: The Victim and the Martyr - The Wise Wife Community: https://www.wisewife.co/community-sp [https://www.wisewife.co/community-sp] - Scripture: Matthew 18:21-35 (the parable of the unforgiving servant), Matthew 18:35, Luke 10:19 Here are the three key takeaways from this episode 1. You cannot heal what you won't confront. The most dangerous soul wound is not the biggest one. It's the one you never acknowledged as a wound. A "normal" or "great" childhood does not mean you escaped without filters. Some of the most controlling, fearful, people-pleasing patterns come from women who would say they had it good.   2. Soul wounds give the enemy legal access. When a wound is delivered and not healed, the enemy attaches lies to it, and demons exploit those lies. Inner healing without deliverance is incomplete, and deliverance without inner healing is temporary. Forgiveness, renouncing the lies out loud, and commanding the spirits to go in Jesus' name is how the door gets closed.   3. The five whys take you from fruit to root. Pick one piece of bad fruit. Anger, control, fear, resentment, people-pleasing, stonewalling. Ask why. Answer honestly. Ask why again. Keep going past the noble, convenient answer until you find the earliest memory of feeling the way the fruit is making you feel now. That memory is usually the wound. That is where Jesus wants to meet you. Subscribe and review If this episode met you somewhere, do one thing for me. Hit subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and leave a quick review. Reviews are what put this show in front of the next woman who needs to hear that the root, not the sewage, is the real problem. Thank you for being here.

E35 Victim vs Martyr - How to Share Your Story Well

There are two sinful responses to trauma, and most of us are living in one of them. The victim is sharing her story compulsively, looking for someone to confirm her pain is real. The martyr is stuffing it all down and calling that strength. Today I'm naming both, exposing the root wounds that drive each one, and showing you what it actually looks like to share your story well, with discernment, with dignity, and without destroying the covenant or yourself. This episode will ruffle your feathers. Resources mentioned: Subscribe to The Wise Wife Letters at www.wisewife.co [http://www.wisewife.co] for prayers and resources to help you start anointing your home, your husband, and your family. Join us in Atlanta: The Wise Wife Conference is coming September 12–13, 2026. Find out more at www.wisewife.co [http://www.wisewife.co] If this episode encouraged you, share it with another wife who needs hope today. And if you want to go deeper, join us inside the Wise Wife Mentorship at www.wisewife.co [http://www.wisewife.co]

E34 My Marriage Stand Part 3 - How He Came Home

My Marriage Stand: Part 3 — How He Came Home I got the call I had been fasting and praying for. Tim's opening line was, "Natasha, I don't love you. I haven't loved you in a really long time." I dropped to my knees. Not because the words were good. They were the worst sales pitch of all time. But I knew in my spirit that something had broken. This is Part 3, the final episode of my full marriage restoration story. Parts one and two covered the breakdown and the year of separation. This one is about what God used to break through to Tim, what the call actually sounded like, what the first two years of being back together cost me, and what I want you to take with you if you're standing right now. Don't skip to this one. Go back and start at Part 1. You need that context. But if you're ready, let's finish the story. God did not bring Tim home the way I expected. No dramatic repentance at my door. No apology. He called to say he hoped to one day love me again, and for the next two years, he made good on that. He really didn't feel anything for me. And I had to choose, almost every day, whether I was going to fight in the flesh or fight in the spirit. Most Sundays I kissed him on the cheek, smiled, and went to church alone with the boys. My flesh wanted to slam the door. Key Takeaways God did not use who I expected. I spent years praying that someone would say the right thing to Tim. People from church, people from work, all of them offering to reach out. And I kept releasing them from that because God didn't need them. He got through to Tim using the other woman. The one I had been asking Him to remove. Stop managing how He does it. The call did not sound like victory. "I don't love you. I haven't loved you in a really long time. But I can't see my life without the boys, and I hope to one day love you again." That was it. But I heard what God was saying behind those words, and I dropped to my knees in gratitude. You have to be anchored enough in the Lord to hear what the Spirit is saying when the words are not what you wanted. Coming home is not the same as coming back. Tim came home physically. For the next two years I was still proving out the work. He saw that I had changed, but he did not trust it yet. Two years physically back together before emotional connection. Two more years after that before he came back to the Lord. Know what you are actually standing in. Abigail exists because neither of us quit. Our daughter, our restoration baby, born 13 years after the twins. She would not be here if I had given in to my hurt feelings or Tim to his stubbornness. She is what obedience looks like with skin on. The sanctification was the point. The biggest gain from those years was not getting my marriage back. It was what God built in me through it. Even if Tim had never come home, I would still thank God for that season. The woman He made me into, I would not trade her. Seek His kingdom first, and all these things get added. That is the whole testimony. Resources Wise Wife Conference 2026 — Atlanta https://www.wisewife.co/wise-wife-conference-2026 [https://www.wisewife.co/wise-wife-conference-2026] Wise Wife Co Community https://www.wisewife.co/community-sp [https://www.wisewife.co/community-sp] The Wise Wife Letters — Weekly Newsletter https://www.wisewife.co/newsletters/the-wise-wife-letters/ [https://www.wisewife.co/newsletters/the-wise-wife-letters/] This is Part 3 of 3. Start at the beginning: Part 1 — I Hated My Husband.

E34 My Marriage Stand Part 2

My Marriage Stand: Part 2 — What God Did With the Wreckage He moved out. I was at the house with the boys. And by God's grace, I did not lose my mind. That surprised me more than anything, because nothing about how I'd been living had prepared me for dignified separation. There was not a single fleshly reason I should have held it together when he was packing that car, but I did. What followed was the hardest year of my life. Tim was gone, done, and not shy about saying he was never coming back. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit took full advantage of the opening. Rotten layer after rotten layer, every part of my wretchedness exposed. This is Part 2 of my full marriage restoration story, and I'm telling you exactly how that year gutted me and what God asked me to do with it. Key Takeaways The first key to saving my marriage was that I stopped looking at his wretchedness. Tim was doing what Tim was doing that year, and it was bad. What I had to do was stop staring at it. That is not the same as excusing it or pretending it isn't real, but you cannot change yourself and obsess over him at the same time. Looking at yourself with truth, not condemnation, is where the actual work starts. Obedience feels like freedom when you step into it. God convicted me to quit my job. Not to perform change for Tim, not to make myself look better. He showed me I had put my career on an altar and sacrificed my marriage, my children, and my soul on it. Quitting was obedience, and the moment I stepped into it, I tasted freedom I had never felt before. Take one idol down and God shows you the next one. Spiritual warfare became my education that year. I had never heard of it before. Daniel chapter 10 was my first real encounter with the reality of spiritual battle, a literal war in the heavenly realm, an angel warring the Prince of Persia for 21 days. I was 26 years old with no grid for any of it. That was the beginning of everything I now teach about warring in the spirit. Resources Wise Wife Conference 2026 — Atlanta https://www.wisewife.co/wise-wife-conference-2026 [https://www.wisewife.co/wise-wife-conference-2026] Wise Wife Co Community https://www.wisewife.co/community-sp [https://www.wisewife.co/community-sp] The Wise Wife Letters — Weekly Newsletter https://www.wisewife.co/newsletters/the-wise-wife-letters/ [https://www.wisewife.co/newsletters/the-wise-wife-letters/] This is Part 2/3.   Part 3 is coming soon

E34 My Marriage Stand, Part 1

My Marriage Stand: Part 1 — I Hated My Husband There was a time I hated my husband. Not the small kind of hate. The kind where you lie awake at night wondering if you married your mortal enemy. And the part that's even harder to say? I thought I was the good one. This is Part 1 of a 3-part series where I'm telling my full story. Not the cleaned up version. The actual story of how my marriage died, what was really happening underneath it, and what God did with all of it. In this episode I talk about how we met, what we both brought into the marriage that we never dealt with, the slow collapse that followed, and the moment I found out it was over. I gave up on my marriage. Then I gave up on God. And that's where Part 1 ends. If you're in a hard marriage right now, this one is for you. Not because it's going to be easy to hear, but because I'm not going to pretend it was easy to live. Key Takeaways We both came into marriage with idolatry. I wanted Tim to be my spiritual leader, my validator, my everything. He came in with a survival mentality. Neither of us knew what we were doing, and nobody in the church had equipped us for any of it. The turtling is the most dangerous place. When a wife has tried and tried and finally just shuts down and concedes, that's not peace. That's the enemy's finish line. Giving up on your marriage is bad but recoverable. Giving up on God is the real crisis. That's what I did, and that's what the enemy was after the whole time. My heart posture was the problem. There was truth in everything I was bringing to God. But I was bringing it as a victim demanding a verdict, not as a wife asking what needed to change in me. The more he failed, the more controlling I became. And the more controlling I became, the more he withdrew. We fed each other's worst patterns for years before anything broke open. Resources Wise Wife Conference 2026 — Atlanta https://www.wisewife.co/wise-wife-conference-2026 [https://www.wisewife.co/wise-wife-conference-2026] Wise Wife Co Community https://www.wisewife.co/community-sp [https://www.wisewife.co/community-sp] The Wise Wife Letters — Weekly Newsletter https://www.wisewife.co/newsletters/the-wise-wife-letters/ [https://www.wisewife.co/newsletters/the-wise-wife-letters/] This is Part 1 of 3. Part 2 — What God Did With the Wreckage — is coming soon.