How God dependency healed me from codependency
While God’s framework for family is perfect, we are not, and under the weight of a broken world, the experiences most of us have with families are fractured rather than whole, distorted rather than ideal, and this was certainly true for me. As a child, I experienced mental, emotional, and at times physical abuse. Performance, or being good, was, for me, a way to protect myself. During middle school, a bomb dropped in our family, which intensified my pain. I became angry, confused, and felt abandoned. My abandonment issues led to a constant need to secure love from others at any cost, which led to more brokenness.
At one point, feeling so desperate to be loved, I attempted suicide, and during this crisis, my subconsciousness formed a deep, destructive, drumbeat of lies leading to a rhythm of codependency to cope. I am not worth fighting for. I will work hard to succeed and thus prove I am valuable. If I am weak, I’ll get hurt again. I have to be the best. I can never fail. I must please others. If I am not perfect, I am not good. Although I never noticed or articulated these lies, they became my false formulas to live by—inner vows to fix my broken heart and help me find happiness, worth, identity, and, ultimately, life. At this juncture, performance became more than a way to self-protect and gain love; it was a weapon of revenge to prove to anyone who hurt me that they were wrong about me – that I was worth fighting for and worthy of love.
Codependency and Perfectionism Were My Drumbeat…
Over the years, my codependency coping mechanism led me to adopt unhealthy relationships and controlling tendencies to create the life of peace and love that I craved. Even though I became a Christian when I was twenty-three, the well-worn patterns I’d used to cope with life remained. I brought my codependency and performance mentality into my relationship with God. A fixer and rescuer with a ferocious victim mentality, I never really walked under God’s blessing. My codependency flew right under the radar of self-focused good works and actually increased as a Christian because what I heard in church and how I interpreted those messages through the lens of my life supported my codependency drumbeat.
The drumbeat would not stop
The enemy used lies about God, myself, and others, keeping this codependency drumbeat going and preventing me from walking in my freedom in Christ. I did not understand that laying my life down for God did not mean pleasing others but putting God first. I didn’t see my codependency as idolatry of man. Waving my victim flag kept me self-focused. God was not my source of love because the world’s false definition of love ruled my heart. I confused forgiving with trusting, and I did not set boundaries with unhealthy people. Self-reliant moral striving sabotaged God’s power and left me worn out. Hustling hard for inner healing felt like an endless, frustrating chase. Busyness prevented me from being fully present with my family. I was born again but burnt out and sucked dry because I saw people as the source for love.
The drumbeat was louder than God’s voice
Like the Samaritan woman at the well, those lies kept me trapped in the never-ending cycle of searching for that something, or someone, to satisfy the ache in my soul. But the truth remained – unless I connected to the Healer through complete, daily God-dependency, I would continue to search for healing.
Out of failure God began my road to freedom
One day the enemy created what I now call the perfect storm – and through my choice to become enmeshed in an unhealthy friendship and find my worth through ministry efforts the perfect life I had worked so hard to create came crashing down like a house built on sand. But in the rubble of failure, an epic new journey began – an awareness and unraveling of codependency through God’s beautiful refining fire that would open my arms to authentic intimacy with Jesus, freedom through God-dependency, and living in the power of the Holy Spirit by putting God first.
Exchanging my codependency for God dependency
Now, my heart beats with a new daily rhythm that rests on God’s Word and power. And I do this – one day at a time – one step at a time, walking by faith in God’s living Word in daily dependence on him. I traded my pursuit of perfection to pursue Jesus. I am free to put God first and experience the fruit that flows from abiding in Him – including loving others with God’s real love. And this love spilled over into my family of four, where I experienced and gave true, biblical, unconditional love to others for the first time.
God healed my fractured heart, transforming my pain into parchment paper where he wrote His story of redemption, illustrating the power of God-dependency through my new life of freedom to live treasured.
Sharing this life of freedom with others
But God’s restoration story did not end there; he gave me a passion for helping other women rise out of past trauma to live treasured – and as a result, Treasured Ministries and the Treasured Tribe were born. Comforting others with the same comfort we received by investing in others is vital to completing God’s healing cycle. Climbing out of the pit of codependency and the adversity of trauma gave me empathy for other hurting women. Those ashes lit a fire in my soul for every woman to discover God’s truth, so they can live in the freedom he intended.
Jesus said the truth sets us free, but often the truth is buried under layers of shame, lies from the enemy, damaging words from others, trauma, our childhood experience, or religious rhetoric. This is why I do what I do at Treasured Ministries – so every woman can find her voice by turning her heart toward Jesus and nourishing her soul with the only source of Perfect Love.
God’s love is what anchors me. God’s word, the Bible, is a love letter to my soul that I read every day. And God has a love letter for you. He wants to speak words to nourish your heart each and every day. I invite you on the journey to discover a deeper, more perfect love of Jesus. This adventure is one I hope we can experience together through Treasured Ministries.
Aliene Thompson is the president of Treasured Ministries International, the creator of the Nourish Bible Study Method, and the founder of the Treasured Tribe, an online Christian community for women. Her podcast and popular series on YouTube, “Conquer Codependency God’s Way”, helps women worldwide move from codependency to God dependency so they can thrive.
