I’ve Been There. I Am There.
The story behind my coaching, from Heidi Bylsma-Epperson, Christian mind renewal coach
Friend, maybe you’ve wondered whether anyone could really understand what you carry. This page is my answer. You don’t have to share my story to be safe with me. But if some part of it sounds like yours, I want you to know: I’ve been there. In some ways, I am still there. And God meets us here.
A little girl who needed protecting
My father was a respected physician. He was also the man who abused me, physically, emotionally, verbally, and sexually. The neighborhood boys groped. Very early, I learned that my body was not a safe place to live.
By the time I was a pre-teen, food had become my comfort. Years later I understood that my weight had become a shield, too. I once described it as “a self-imposed prison that provided safety for years.”
So when a woman tells me food feels like the only thing that has ever kept her safe, I don’t flinch. I understand. There is no condemnation here.
“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.”
Psalm 68 : 5Learning to call Him Father
Can I be honest? “Father” is still a tender word for me. For a long time it carried my dad’s face. But I believe God knew exactly where that wound would be, and He chose to be my Father anyway, so He could bring healing to that very place.
Getting to know the love of Jesus has been the greatest treasure of my life. I want to shout it from the rooftops: He is crazy about you, sister-friend. We are His.
The body that loved to move
I’ve always been an athlete. As a kid it was any sport at all. As an adult it was competitive tennis, hiking, swimming, and my horses. I was strong, and I loved being outside.
In 2006, I learned to eat when I was hungry and stop when I was no longer hungry, and it brought me real freedom. My body changed, and for years I lived active and well. I was the before and after.
And then, the after the after
In 2014 I was training at high elevation for a bucket-list trip to Machu Picchu. I still remember my last real hike, in Tahoe, when I couldn’t catch my breath because my spine hurt so badly. No one could tell me what was wrong, and my body wasted away. When doctors finally found a staph infection in my spine, I had surgery, and my medical team urged me to eat so I could recover. I never made it to Machu Picchu.
The infection, and the years of treatment since, have changed the way my body works. I know some people look at me now and wonder whether what I teach really “works.” Here is what I’ve learned: my peace cannot rest on the shape of my body. It has to rest in Christ. Revelation Within was never about a number. It’s about walking with God in the God-crafted body I actually have, today.
When the marriage I trusted broke
For more than thirty years, my first husband was my best friend and my ministry partner. I never dreamed he would be unfaithful. But he was, and it wasn’t only online. It reached into real relationships with real people.
After one massive “come to Jesus” disclosure, we pressed into recovery ministry through our church and worked with counselors who specialize in sexual addiction. And still, he went back. As my pastor gently told me, he had left long before any papers were signed. In the end, I was the one who had to file, and I grieved what I had fought so hard to keep.
If you are living with betrayal right now, I won’t hand you easy answers. I’ll sit with you in it. And if this isn’t your story, please hear me: you are just as welcome here.
A love I didn’t see coming
I didn’t expect to marry again. I was just about done with online dating when I agreed to meet one more man. His name was Michael. We married in 2019, and within two months God swept us off to Catalina Island, just in time for Covid.
I’ll be honest with you: marriage to Michael has been the hardest relationship of my life. His temperament is nothing like what I knew, and I had no “file” for a man like him. There were seasons when, if we hadn’t been on an island with no easy way off, I’m not sure we would have made it. We began receiving marriage coaching before we even said “I do,” from a wise man we still miss.
Today our trust grows a little more every year. After three years helping care for Michael’s mom, we finally have a home of our own, with room for our dog, Bleu. It is a million times better than it was. Not because it’s easy, but because we keep choosing each other, and God keeps meeting us there.
I am still there
I don’t coach from the far side of the mountain. Mind renewal isn’t something I finished. I practice it every day with the same tools I share with you: my God List, Praisefest, and Truth List. When old lies get loud, I ask, “God, what are YOUR thoughts about this?” and I let His Truth inform my feelings.
We renew our minds, and He does the transforming. That’s Romans 12:2, and it is still happening in me.
Every chapter is His
Friend, if you take only one thing from my story, let it be this: Jesus is the hero of every chapter. He saw the little girl no one protected. He met me on the trail when my body gave out, and in the grief of a marriage I couldn’t save. He carried Michael and me on an island with nowhere else to go. Every bit of healing on these pages, every new beginning, is His doing. I am simply the woman He keeps carrying. To Him be all the glory.
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine… to him be glory.”
Ephesians 3 : 20–21
If any of this is your story too
Friend, you don’t need to have walked my road to be safe with me. But if you know the ache of abuse, betrayal, a body that changed, or a word like “Father” that still stings, you won’t have to explain it all. I’ve been there. I am there. And Jesus is crazy about you.
“He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.”
Psalm 18 : 19
~ Heidi