Generational Trauma Healed and Family Reconciliation through Jesus

Nycole’s Story

Growing up my family was not in church. I had a friend in elementary school that I would tag along to Wednesday night youth group with and learned about God there. My father was an alcoholic, and I would sometimes go to meetings were I would hear addicts share their stories and testimonies. They would end in the Lord's Prayer, during this time I remember watching my dad pray bedside in the morning and at night. That was short lived, by the age of 10, my dad would fall back into addiction and choose drugs and alcohol over his family time and time again. Everything I thought I knew about God at that time was a fallacy. I would later meet my husband, and through him discover Jesus once more and become a believer at my own pace and forge a relationship with Him.

I grew up in an environment where sexual immorality was everywhere on top of an addict father. I don't blame my parents; they were broken people trying to navigate as best they could without anyone guiding them along the way. It was through my relationship with the Lord that I was able to forgive my parents for my upbringing. My mom would remarry but during her courtship with my stepfather it was revealed that he was married and had a family. There was years of trauma and mental abuse that would come from that. But the thing that left the biggest impact was the sexual sin I was surrounded by. They lived a lifestyle that would be considered taboo by many, and it really affected my siblings and me.

Now, this seems like a lot of history, and it is, but it serves purpose. My husband and I led our first community group in the fall of 2023. One night I had this overwhelming sensation to share part of my childhood and talk about my siblings, especially my stepbrother. I broke down about how we were raised and how I wish I could share with my siblings how different life could be if they knew Jesus. How the brokenness we carry and all that we shared wasn't our faults. The shame we had from choices made could be healed completely by Jesus. I sobbed and was prayerful that my siblings would have their own encounter with Jesus and experience breakthrough to just get a glimpse of His goodness. Recently, my stepbrother has been sharing Facebook posts about God. My stepbrother and I have never been particularly close, so I was apprehensive to ask. I finally mustered up the courage and told him I was blown away by the things he was posting. It was from there that he shared with me that he had started going to church and was really working on his relationship with Jesus. I could not contain my tears of joy. If you have families that don't know Jesus or have maybe walked away from him, do not stop praying. God is working on my family. He is healing deep rooted generational curses. He is giving us boldness to discuss things that would have never happened before. He is reconciling relationships in front of our eyes! It is such a beautiful reminder of how good He is and how nothing is too big for our Father.