Broken Pieces Becoming Whole: Liz's Story

Liz’s Story

Life was incredibly hard. Liz's father had just left his family of six children, leaving them with no money, broken hearts, and little hope for the future. Liz sat in the car with her crying mother and thought, “Oh my gosh, it will always be this way. We are always going to be poor like this, we’re always going to struggle, and I’m always going to feel pain.”

She then turned to her mother to comfort and give her strength. Without telling her mother the thoughts running through her head, Liz’s mother turned toward her and said, “Elizabeth, it’s not always going to be this way. I promise you that. One day, we’re going to look back on this time, and we’re going to smile. We’re going to be grateful for it because we will be in a better place.”

Liz did not believe her mother and knew that things would never change. Liz later learned that her mother was right. “Never has anyone spoken truer words. That began my hope that things weren’t always going to be this way, and our situation improved piece by piece,” Liz said.

A Divorce?

Before that night in the car, Liz was an 11-year-old girl and life was wonderful. Her family lived in Virginia and had just bought a farm with some horses. Nothing went wrong in their home. It was full of peace as Liz’s mother attended to her and her siblings, and her dad went to work and came home to play with the kids. Life was just great.

She later started to suspect that things were up between her mother and father. She had seen them get into a couple fights but was too young to understand what was going on. The only thing on her mind was that her parents were together, and it could be no other way. It was like black and white.

Her father then left for some time, but Liz’s mother told her and her siblings that Dad was just away on vacation. Liz later discovered that there was a restraining order on her dad because he had previously pinned her mother against the wall and broke one of her ribs. “I didn’t know any of that. I just thought that dad was away on vacation and would be back soon,” Liz said.

“Mom would pick me up each day from elementary school as I was only 11-years old. I remember one day she picked me up and her lawyer called to ask if she wanted to go forward with a divorce. I heard my mother say on the phone, ‘Yes, I want to move forward with it.’”

Liz’s heart sunk because she thought that there was no way Mom and Dad couldn’t be together. That’s just how life should be, right? “I remember thinking in that moment that my mom was the bad guy because she was the one deciding to get the divorce,” Liz said.

Moving Forward with the Divorce

Her father’s restraining order continued, but fights between her parents got worse. “He would come over and there would be lots of yelling,” Liz said. Her older brother had been a target of physical and verbal abuse, so Liz’s mother then decided to pack up and move to South Carolina. Liz’s aunt lived there, and it would be an opportunity to get away from Liz’s father.

Her father tried to make amends and help the marriage, so he bought a house for Liz’s mother and the children. “It was supposed to be a break from my dad, but then he ended up moving to South Carolina and following us,” Liz said.

There were five other children in Liz’s family, and her parents began to battle for custody. In order to decide who received custody, Liz and her siblings had to go into a room with a Guardian ad Litem. Their responsibility was to find solutions for the best interests of the children.

“They put us into a room, and my siblings and I pretty much told them that Mom was the best and Dad was the worst. Mom finally received full custody of us,” Liz said.

Her father then realized that he would not be getting the children back or his wife, so he decided to leave South Carolina and move to New York. He took all that they had; including the money. He stopped paying for child support, and it left their family in a terrible position.

“Mom didn’t work the entire time I was being raised. She didn’t have a job and relied on my father because he was the provider for the family. We had no money when he left and this resulted in us being evicted from our home,” Liz said.

Liz’s mother had stopped attending the LDS church during the heartbreak and pain of the divorce, but after some time, she started attending church again. Their bishop told her mother that the ward’s funds would help them get back onto their feet. They were able to find a place to live in South Carolina, and her mother found a job working as a CNA.

“Before mom started coming back to church and Dad left us, we literally had nothing. I remember days eating only bread and peanut butter because that’s all we had,” Liz said. Liz had one T-shirt and a pair of jeans, and that’s what she would wear to school every day.

Liz shared with me one of her most memorable Christmas’s. “I remember the best thing that I got was a box of Muffin Mix, and I was so excited because I loved to bake. That was my best Christmas present and that’s why I love Streusel muffins,” she said.

Whole Pieces through Christ

I asked Liz what helped her during this disheartening time of her life and how she overcame it.

She said, “First of all, I think of Lindsey Stirling, who says, ‘You know, it’s not like I have it all made. I wake up every day and have to keep doing things over and over again.’”

There are many layers and pains that she is learning about the trauma of her childhood.

From battling anxiety, which has been a repercussion of her childhood, she shared with me that one of the biggest “healers” is time. “It’s just continuously moving forward and believing that the future is bright because it is,” she said.

Besides time, Liz believes that there is a more beneficial tool than all: that is the Atonement of Jesus Christ. “I will testify of that until the world ends because there is no other way that a broken thing can become whole,” she said.

(Greg Olsen painting)

Liz gave a talk last year about the Atonement and how it is literally the only thing that can put a person back together. “There’s this law called the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This law states that anything in a closed system will continue to increase in chaos (or entropy) until it’s completely combusted. It will continuously go into chaos. For example, if you take a glass cup and push it off of the counter, let it smash on the floor, and leave it, it will never become a whole glass again by itself. People are going to step on the pieces or accidentally move them around, and the glass jar will break into smaller pieces while becoming more broken,” she said.

As a child growing up with emotional and physical pain of her childhood, Liz said, “It feels like you’re broken on the inside, and no matter how much you try to sweep up the pieces, you always miss some. They break a little bit more, or when you try to glue them back together, you just get cut.”

The chaos in Liz’s life continued to increase and she felt exactly like this broken glass jar. She could never glue the pieces back together by herself. When she tried, she discovered that cracks would accumulate.

“But, Jesus Christ died and was resurrected so that all of us could have the power to be healed and resurrected in the same way that he was. He wasn’t resurrected as a broken person. He didn’t come back mangled. He came back looking perfect, except for his scars to show us that it was actually him. That’s what he promises for us in the resurrection and also in healing,” Liz said.

All of those broken pieces that we have, scars from childhood, lost loves or things that we feel like we can’t heal from, Jesus Christ can literally take them and make them whole. He not only makes them whole, but he makes them better.

Liz remembers last year just feeling so broken about the trauma in her childhood. She thought that there was no way she could fix things. But, by accepting the Atonement and Christ’s sacrifices into her life, she’s learning more about Jesus Christ and asking for healing.

“He was able to take those broken pieces and seal them together. He made them stronger and made them my strengths instead of my weaknesses. Which is just absolutely not possible without him,” Liz said.

There are still pieces that she is figuring out, layer by layer, every day. She’ll go through waves of really hard times and find one more thing that she has not addressed yet.

There was so much pain she experienced and effects of not growing up with a father the rest of her childhood, but in some way or another, she felt love through the Savior. “Whether it’s through some individual coming into my life to share a message that I need to hear, whether it’s through the feelings of the spirit as I go to the temple, whether it’s from a Priesthood blessing, or just Christ helping me to feel stronger; he heals every single piece bit by bit. I can feel myself becoming stronger and appreciating my trials instead of resenting them,” Liz said.

Keep Moving Forward. Don’t You Give Up

Liz emphasized the importance that ANYONE can make their life good. “I had crap. I had nothing. Literally we were so poor, my father was the worst and my mom was in so much pain. She drank to deal with the pain, and I was an 11-year-old child who had to watch that. I didn’t know how to do it. It was hard and it sucked, but at the same time, I’m okay. I’m okay as a person. I’m not doing drugs. I’m not living on the streets. I’m not a horrible person. The same goes for my siblings. They all went through the same things; some even worse.”

“For anyone who feels like they don’t have a future because of what they’ve been through, I would tell them that is so not true. First of all, I’d give them a hug because I feel what they’re going through. I have felt the loss of hope because you have no money and don’t know how you’re going to pay for college, but Heavenly Father provides a way."

"Three words that have kept me sane are KEEP MOVING FORWARD. Trust God and keep moving forward. Whatever your past is, don’t let it hold you back. You move forward and become the person you want to become because it is possible. It is always possible. And if nobody is cheering you on, if your family sucks and disowns you, and all of your friends leave you, Heavenly Father is your cheerleader and He is cheering you on. It's like Jeffrey R. Holland says, 'Heaven is cheering you on yesterday, today, and forever,'" Liz said.

Liz is one of the bravest, strongest and most amazing human beings I have ever met. I met her on January 28, 2016, the day that I stepped off of a coach in Sutton Coldfield, England. I was privileged to receive her as a mission trainer for three months, as a companion later on for another three months, and to have her as a roommate at college.

She has taught me to appreciate so many little things that are so easy to look past. She has this outlook on life of recognizing and appreciating the little things, like stopping to smell the roses. She is so strong, and such an incredible fighter. She chooses not to give up, despite the obstacles that have stood in her way. She’s chosen to go to college, serve a mission, and to push herself to love and forgive others.

She has chosen not to let her past define who she is and to look forward to a bright future. We all can do this. Our past is not who we are. What matters is the direction that we are moving forward in today.