The Wilderness Before the Assignment

Valentine's Day 2021 is a day I will never forget. I was 28 years old, sitting in my bed, and my life felt like it was collapsing in slow motion. In that moment, it seemed like everything around me had fallen apart — although if I told the truth, it never really felt like it had come together in the first place.

Just days before, I had experienced one of the most humiliating breakups of my life. The man I loved had proposed to another woman — a woman he had always introduced to me as a "family friend." The betrayal was devastating. Adding to the emotional weight of that day, Valentine's Day also happened to be the anniversary of my relationship with my first love. We weren't together anymore, but the memory of that relationship still lingered. Everything felt like it was crashing into me at once.

As I looked around at my life, I couldn't ignore what I believed were all the ways I had fallen behind. I was barely making ends meet financially. My career wasn't where I thought it should be. I was still driving the same car I had in high school. I didn't own a house. I wasn't married. I didn't have any children. My life didn't look the way I thought it was supposed to look by 28.

Truthfully, the expectations for my life had always been high. By the time I was 26 years old, I had already broken several generational curses in my family. I had done the hard work — the emotional work, the spiritual work, the work that often goes unseen and uncelebrated. Yet sitting in that bed, it felt like I had nothing tangible to show for it.

I had broken curses, but I felt empty. I had fought battles that generations before me hadn't fought, yet the reward I expected on the other side never seemed to arrive.

The emotional weight of everything happening that day created a snowball effect. One painful realization turned into another, and before long I was experiencing a series of panic attacks. I woke up that morning with no desire to get out of bed. If I am being completely honest, I didn't even want to live in that moment. I remember lying there asking a question that many believers wrestle with privately but rarely say aloud: God, I'm doing the work… but for what?

I spent most of that day lying in bed watching Titanic on repeat. Not because I particularly love the movie, but because in that moment it perfectly mirrored how I felt. I felt like I was drowning in sorrow and grief with no lifeboat in sight. Scripture says, "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit" (Psalm 34:18). At the time, I didn't feel saved. I felt crushed.

Yet it was in that exact moment — when I was emotionally depleted and spiritually exhausted — that God spoke.

Somewhere between the waves of grief and exhaustion, I heard three words in my spirit: The Enamor Effect.

I remember sitting up in my bed thinking, What does that even mean? The phrase felt random, almost out of place in the middle of my breakdown. But I have learned something about God over the years: when He speaks, it rarely comes with a full explanation. Often, it comes with an invitation to seek Him deeper. Scripture reminds us, "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know" (Jeremiah 33:3). That day, I began searching.

God immediately brought something back to my mind that I had not thought about in years — my psychology books. Even though I was no longer working in the field, I had never been able to throw them away. Something in me always felt like I might need them again. So that day, I pulled them out.

As I began flipping through those books, God started speaking to me about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow's theory explains that human development occurs in stages. At the base of the pyramid are our most basic needs — food, shelter, and physical safety. Once those needs are met, people begin seeking belonging, love, and acceptance. From there, individuals move toward esteem and ultimately self-actualization, which is the ability to live fully in one's purpose and identity.

As I revisited the theory, God revealed something deeper to me. While people are getting older biologically, many people are not growing emotionally. When certain needs are not met in childhood — especially needs like safety, love, and belonging — people often become emotionally stuck at the age where those needs were first neglected.

In other words, someone might be 48 years old physically but still responding to life like a wounded six-year-old. A woman who never felt safe may spend her entire adult life seeking validation. A man who never felt affirmed may spend his life chasing approval and external success to compensate for internal emptiness. People grow up in age but remain stuck in emotional development.

As I sat there processing this, God spoke something to me that would change the trajectory of my life: You are called to help them grow up.

Suddenly, so many things about my life began to make sense. Growing up, I had always wondered why I experienced certain life challenges earlier than most people my age. Relationship heartbreak. Emotional betrayal. Identity crises. Spiritual wrestling. I was facing things in my early twenties that people ten or fifteen years older than me were just beginning to confront.

The difference was not that it was easy for me. It wasn't. There were many days I had no idea how I was going to survive what I was facing. But by the grace of God, I always made it through. Sometimes I had access to therapy, and sometimes I didn't have the money for therapy. Yet even in those moments when professional help wasn't available, God would speak to me through Scripture, prayer, and conviction. James 1:5 says, "If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault." There were seasons where wisdom was the only resource I had — but it was enough.

That day I realized that God had not wasted any of my pain. Every heartbreak, every betrayal, every identity crisis, and every dark night of the soul had been preparing me for something. By the time Valentine's Day was over, the same day that began with panic attacks ended with purpose. God had given me the framework for a six-step coaching curriculum that would eventually become the foundation for my platform, Enamor Effect.

The message behind Enamor Effect is simple but transformative: helping women of faith fall out of love with their trauma and fall in love with their God-given identity. The word "enamor" means to fill someone with love or admiration. Over time, I realized that many women have unknowingly become emotionally attached to the pain that shaped them. Their trauma becomes familiar, and familiarity can easily be mistaken for love. But God calls us back to something greater than our wounds — He calls us back to our identity. Scripture reminds us in Psalm 139:14 that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made." The tragedy is that many believers know that verse intellectually but struggle to believe it emotionally.

Everything that followed the birth of Enamor Effect came through obedience. I wrote the ebook because God told me to write it. I created the journals because God told me to create them. I built the coaching curriculum and later developed a membership community simply because I felt led to do so. None of it came from a carefully crafted business strategy. It came from surrender.

What I did not realize at the time was that my obedience would become the very thing that saved me from myself. Even after the business began, the wilderness season did not end. In the years that followed, I experienced some of the darkest moments of my life. Two years ago, I suffered a miscarriage. In 2025, my relationship with my son's father became physically abusive. Those experiences forced me to wrestle deeply with my faith. There were moments where the pain of those realities seemed impossible to reconcile with the promises of God.

Faith, I learned, does not eliminate pain. But it does transform it.

You can trust God completely and still be heartbroken. You can believe you are fearfully and wonderfully made while struggling with the physical pain in your body. You can know God is good and still grieve the loss of a child. Romans 8:28 reminds us that "in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Not some things — all things.

Today, the work I do through Enamor Effect is not theoretical. It is deeply personal. I know what it feels like to stay in a relationship longer than you should because you believe love means endurance. I know what it feels like to lose a child and wrestle with God through grief. I know what it feels like when your body feels like it has turned against you. I know what it feels like to question your identity while still trying to hold onto your faith.

Because of that, when women come to me feeling trapped in painful relationships or overwhelmed by their past, I do not speak to them from a place of theory. I speak from a place of understanding. Amos 3:3 asks a powerful question: "Can two walk together unless they agree?" Healing requires connection, and connection requires understanding. If I cannot understand where someone is emotionally, how can I help them move forward?

When people know that you have walked through the valley too, something shifts. Trust is built. Hope becomes possible.

Looking back now, I understand something that I could not see on that Valentine's Day in 2021. God wastes nothing. Not the heartbreak. Not the humiliation. Not the grief. Not even the panic attacks.

What felt like the lowest moment of my life was actually the beginning of my assignment. The wilderness was never meant to destroy me — it was meant to prepare me.

And sometimes the very place where you feel like your life is falling apart is the same place where God is quietly building the foundation for everything He has called you to do.