Introduction – Tell us a little about yourself.
I am a pediatric nurse practitioner and a Baylor professor. I’m married to the love of my life, a real-life rocket scientist who is amused at the perception that I am the smart one in this relationship. The joy of my life is found in my role as a mom of four kids, ages 20, 18, 16, and 14.
I recently overheard my youngest telling a friend that his mom was a “famous nurse.” The friend replied, “Oh yeah? How do you know that?” My son replied, “I asked Alexa.” It’s true that a quick internet search will show you my credentials and degrees and the ways I’ve been successful in influencing pediatric outcomes through nursing, especially through advocacy around human trafficking. However, that’s where I am today.
I started as a girl with broken family relationships, impacted by generational dysfunction stemming from addiction. I started as a timid community college student, working my way through my associate degree and becoming the first woman in my family to get a university degree. I started as a mom with no confidence, feeling like a fraud and failure in perpetual conflict with my oldest as she reached the teen years.
Today I’m a woman who has taken a healing journey to overcome generational trauma. I’m a mom who has amazing and fulfilling relationships with all four of my kids that is better than anything I could have dreamed. I’m a guide-on-the-side for parents as Dr. Nurse Mama, using my professor brain, hands-on nursing experience, and heart as a mom to engage, equip, encourage, and empower healthy families.
Share about a hard season you have walked in your life.
My parents were high school sweethearts and had me when they were still teenagers. I became the oldest of five children growing up in a small town where my dad was a blue-collar worker and my mom stayed at home. What we didn’t know then was that simply removing an addictive substance or harmful habit doesn’t fix everything. You have to intentionally cultivate a new mindset and a new skillset to build healthy relationships. It’s almost impossible to do when you don’t recognize the difference between just surviving and genuinely thriving. What we feared most were the fatal injuries of falling from a pedestal we precariously perched atop rather than the very real threat of illness and death staring us in the face. My siblings and I all adopted unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with the pressure of perfection. As a teenager, I found myself in perpetual conflict with my parents over my choice to go to college. Relational conflict was the norm, and it enveloped and suffocated nearly every moment of my life. As I prepared to become a mom myself, conflict with my own mom escalated as my own worries and fears relentlessly told me every day I was going to fail. I was an anxious mother, and as a newly minted pediatric nurse practitioner I felt like a fraud, a phony, and a failure. One day when my children were young, I sat weeping on the recliner while talking on the phone, trying to resolve conflict that seemed to never fade. My husband got our digital camera and took a photo of me. I felt so betrayed in that moment but he gently turned the camera around and showed me what our children saw every day… me mourning a life I would never have while my real life was passing right by. Something in me shifted that day and I vowed to be present.
What did God show you during this season?
God showed me His faithfulness, and that He is good in every season. I know that God sees me, He knows me, and He cares for me. He may not change my circumstances, but I can trust He will change me. I know that He allows difficult circumstances for my good and for His glory. He is the most loving and caring author, working to create a masterpiece story of miraculous circumstances.
God took a girl who dreamed of being a four-year student at Baylor University but had no accessible path and created a way for me to be a professor there, now starting my fifth year and sharing the experience with both of my daughters who are Baylor students. How amazing is that?!
God took an insecure nursing student who had no voice to become a confident, international nursing advocate who uses my voice for others who still have none.
God took a book thrown at my head by my 13-year-old daughter during a terrible argument and made it into a best-selling book authored to encourage parents all around the world.
God took a broken relationship with my parents and my willingness to face the past and used it to begin a healing journey that allowed me to see hope and healing in my future.
How did God provide protective care during this season?
God protected my faith and was gracious enough to allow me to see the provisions of His protection. In what I saw as a painful separation, relational brokenness, and estrangement, God saw as protection from destructive generational traumas. It protected my children from experiencing hurt in the same way I had and allowed me to become a mom who strives to be present rather than trying to be perfect.
What scripture(s) encouraged you during this season?
Psalm 84:11
For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord bestows favor and honor;
no good thing does he withhold
from those whose walk is blameless.
Like the sun, God lit my path and showed me the way to go. With radiance, He revealed things I had never been in an emotional place to see before. His companionship warmed my spirit. His light illuminated sin in my own life and gently pushed me toward repentance.
Like a shield, God protected me from destructive patterns of communication, words that caused me pain, and unhealthy generational relationship dynamics.
In giving grace, He poured out unmerited favor as I learned to rely on Him to sustain me, walking daily with the Lord on my well-lit and protected path.
What encouragement do you have for others that may be walking through this season?
Romans chapter 5 tells us to rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Early in the journey I developed a love-hate relationship with hope. I didn’t want to be jaded and cynical but I was tired of having my hopes for reconciliation dashed at every turn. It was this verse that reminded me I was putting my hope in the outcome of a broken relationship, rather than putting my hope in Jesus Christ, a hope that does not disappoint or put us to shame.
I’ve learned not to measure my progress by how close I am to the projected destination, but rather to measure my progress by how faithfully I’m listening and learning along the way. God told Abraham to “get up and go to the land I will show you.” The obedience was not in arriving at the destination but being obedient in taking the journey, leaving the outcome to the Lord. His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than our thoughts.
Are there any books or resources that were helpful during this season?
Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No and Take Control of Your Life by Henry Cloud and John Townsend
What’s So Amazing About Grace by Philip Yancey
The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren
It was also at this time I made it a habit of almost always listening to Christian music. This is an investment that has sown messages of hope and encouragement in my heart that have lasting impact. Even today, I make themed playlists based on whatever struggle I’m facing. For example, if I’m feeling defeated I’ll play a “victory” themed playlist. If I’m feeling anxious, I’ll play a “peace” themed playlist. After learning the science of ear worms and subliminal messages, I am so grateful to have made this investment in strengthening my inner narrative with the hope of the Gospel!
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