The Living Story: Healing from Heartbreak, Finding Purpose, and Learning to Live Again

Send us Fan MailHow do you trust God when you cannot see how your story will end?In this episode of The Living Story, Tennille shares encouragement for Christian women facing heartbreak, unanswered prayers, grief, uncertainty, and unexpected endings. A quiet moment in her church helped her realize that a painful chapter had ended, but God had continued writing.Through the biblical stories of Naomi in the Book of Ruth and Joseph in Genesis, this episode explores how to hold on to hope, heal after disappointment, release control, and trust God in an unfinished chapter.If fear, rejection, or an old wound is shaping how you see your future, this conversation will remind you that healing does not require perfection. Your current chapter may be painful and unfinished, but it is not your whole story. God is still writing.Support the showEnjoyed this episode? There's more waiting for you on Substack. Longer thoughts, quieter moments, and a community of women who get it. Come find us.If this episode stirred something in you, grab the free guide: I Thought I Would Be Further By Now: 5 Signs You Are Trying to Finish a Story God Is Still Writing. It is a gentle mirror for the woman who is still in the middle. My gift to you!Follow and connect with us on Instagram! 

Send us Fan MailFor a long time, I believed healing would begin the day I finally understood why.Why the relationship ended.Why the prayer wasn't answered.Why life unfolded the way it did.That day never came.Instead, God gave me something I didn't know I needed. He transformed my heart, reminded me who I was, and taught me to trust Him even when the answers never arrived.In the final part of the I Never Got My Why series, we're looking back at the journey we've taken together—from heartbreak and disappointment to healing, surrender, and hope. If you've ever wrestled with unanswered prayers, wondered where God was, or questioned whether your story still has purpose, this conversation is for you.In this conversation:Why healing doesn't depend on getting every answer.How old wounds shape the stories we believe.What changed after I stopped searching for explanations.Why I still ask "why" sometimes—and what I do now.How God brings purpose through seasons that don't make sense.The invitation waiting for all of us in the middle of the story.Support the showEnjoyed this episode? There's more waiting for you on Substack. Longer thoughts, quieter moments, and a community of women who get it. Come find us.If this episode stirred something in you, grab the free guide: I Thought I Would Be Further By Now: 5 Signs You Are Trying to Finish a Story God Is Still Writing. It is a gentle mirror for the woman who is still in the middle. My gift to you!Follow and connect with us on Instagram! 

Send us Fan MailHave you ever thought you were healed, only to find yourself asking the same questions all over again?Maybe a conversation caught you off guard.Maybe you heard news you weren't expecting.Maybe a memory resurfaced, and suddenly it felt like you were back where you started.If you've ever wondered whether that means you've failed, this conversation is for you.In Part 9 of the I Never Got My Why series, we're talking about something we don't often hear in conversations about healing: what happens when old wounds are touched again.Because healing isn't about pretending the pain never existed.It's about learning that the pain no longer gets to tell your story.We'll explore why revisiting an old wound doesn't erase the progress you've made, how God meets us even when familiar questions return, and why choosing to trust Him again is not starting over—it's continuing the journey.If you're discouraged because you thought you should be "further along" by now, I hope this conversation reminds you that growth isn't measured by whether you ever struggle again.It's measured by where you turn when you do.In this conversation:Why healing isn't linear.What to do when old wounds resurface.The difference between visiting the pain and living there.How God gently meets us when familiar questions return.Why trusting God again isn't going backward—it's growing deeper.Support the showEnjoyed this episode? There's more waiting for you on Substack. Longer thoughts, quieter moments, and a community of women who get it. Come find us.If this episode stirred something in you, grab the free guide: I Thought I Would Be Further By Now: 5 Signs You Are Trying to Finish a Story God Is Still Writing. It is a gentle mirror for the woman who is still in the middle. My gift to you!Follow and connect with us on Instagram! 

Send us Fan MailWhat if God was building something while you were still asking why?In Part 8 of the I Never Got My Why series, Tennille shares how healing often happens quietly—and how purpose can begin emerging long before we recognize it.Through Isaiah 43:18-19 and her own story of heartbreak, healing, and unexpected community, she explores what it looks like to move from searching for answers to discovering what God may have been growing in the middle of the pain.In this episode:• How to recognize signs of healing• Why purpose often emerges from difficult seasons• What Isaiah 43 teaches about God's "new thing"• How God uses heartbreak, loss, and disappointment to shape usDownload the free I Never Got My Why Reflection Guide through the link in the show notes and continue your journey from "Why?" to "For What?"The Living Story Podcast | Story. Scripture. Seen. Set Free.Support the showEnjoyed this episode? There's more waiting for you on Substack. Longer thoughts, quieter moments, and a community of women who get it. Come find us.If this episode stirred something in you, grab the free guide: I Thought I Would Be Further By Now: 5 Signs You Are Trying to Finish a Story God Is Still Writing. It is a gentle mirror for the woman who is still in the middle. My gift to you!Follow and connect with us on Instagram! 

Send us Fan MailWhy does rejection hurt so deeply?In Part 7 of the I Never Got My Why series, Tennille shares a powerful realization from her healing journey: she was asking another person questions only God could answer.Through the story of the woman in Mark 5, this episode explores healing after heartbreak, the pain of rejection, and the identity wounds that often leave us wondering if we are enough, lovable, or worthy of being chosen.In this episode:• Why heartbreak is often about more than the relationship• The connection between rejection and self-worth• What the woman in Mark 5 teaches about healing and identity• How to find your worth in God instead of other people's choicesIf you've ever struggled with rejection, disappointment, feeling overlooked, or questioning your value after heartbreak, this conversation will help you uncover the story beneath the story.Support the showEnjoyed this episode? There's more waiting for you on Substack. Longer thoughts, quieter moments, and a community of women who get it. Come find us.If this episode stirred something in you, grab the free guide: I Thought I Would Be Further By Now: 5 Signs You Are Trying to Finish a Story God Is Still Writing. It is a gentle mirror for the woman who is still in the middle. My gift to you!Follow and connect with us on Instagram! 

Send us Fan MailWhat if the breakthrough wasn't pretending you're fine?In this episode of The Living Story Podcast, Tennille explores the story of Hannah and the moment she stopped hiding her grief. For women carrying heartbreak, disappointment, unanswered prayers, or seasons that feel impossibly heavy, Hannah offers a different picture of faith than many of us were taught.She didn't show up strong.She didn't show up with the right words.She didn't show up pretending everything was okay.She showed up broken.And God met her there.In this episode, you'll discover:• Why honest prayer often begins where performance ends• What Hannah's story teaches us about grief, longing, and faith• The difference between trusting God and pretending you're not hurting• Why God is not waiting for you to clean up your emotions before coming to Him• How lament can become a doorway to healingIf you've been carrying pain while trying to look okay for everyone else, this conversation is an invitation to bring your real story into God's presence.About the SeriesI Never Got My Why is a 10-part podcast series for the woman carrying unanswered questions, heartbreak, disappointment, or seasons that never made sense. Together, we're exploring what happens when God doesn't give us the explanation we wanted and how He gently leads us toward healing anyway.Support the showEnjoyed this episode? There's more waiting for you on Substack. Longer thoughts, quieter moments, and a community of women who get it. Come find us.If this episode stirred something in you, grab the free guide: I Thought I Would Be Further By Now: 5 Signs You Are Trying to Finish a Story God Is Still Writing. It is a gentle mirror for the woman who is still in the middle. My gift to you!Follow and connect with us on Instagram! 

Send us Fan MailWhat happens when your mind knows the truth, but your heart is still grieving?In this episode of The Living Story Podcast, Tennille shares the lesson she learned in the aftermath of heartbreak: understanding something intellectually is not the same as accepting it emotionally.If you've ever known what God was saying but still felt stuck in sadness, disappointment, or unanswered questions, you're not alone. Healing is not measured by how quickly your emotions obey your theology.In this episode, you'll discover:• Why the heart and mind often move at different speeds• The shame many faithful women carry during grief• What Proverbs 3:5-6 teaches about trust and surrender• How the question of "Why?" begins to become "What is God doing here?"About the SeriesI Never Got My Why is a 10-part podcast series for the woman carrying unanswered questions, heartbreak, disappointment, or seasons that never made sense. Together, we're exploring what happens when God doesn't give us the explanation we wanted—and how He gently leads us toward healing anyway.Download the free I Never Got My Why Reflection Guide below to walk through the series with us.Support the showEnjoyed this episode? There's more waiting for you on Substack. Longer thoughts, quieter moments, and a community of women who get it. Come find us.If this episode stirred something in you, grab the free guide: I Thought I Would Be Further By Now: 5 Signs You Are Trying to Finish a Story God Is Still Writing. It is a gentle mirror for the woman who is still in the middle. My gift to you!Follow and connect with us on Instagram! 

Send us Fan MailIn Part 4 of the I Never Got My Why series, Tennille explores the true context behind Jeremiah 29:11 and why God's promise of hope and a future was first spoken to people living in exile.What happens when God doesn't change the season?Through the story of Israel in Babylon, this episode explores how to stop putting your life on hold while waiting for the next chapter and how to build, grow, and flourish in a place you never planned to stay.Inside this episode:• The real context of Jeremiah 29:11• Why God's promise did not remove the exile• How to stop living emotionally packed for departure• The difference between surviving a season and growing inside it• What God may be building in your waiting seasonIf you've ever felt stuck, delayed, disappointed, or tempted to believe your real life starts later, this episode is for you.Support the showEnjoyed this episode? There's more waiting for you on Substack. Longer thoughts, quieter moments, and a community of women who get it. Come find us.If this episode stirred something in you, grab the free guide: I Thought I Would Be Further By Now: 5 Signs You Are Trying to Finish a Story God Is Still Writing. It is a gentle mirror for the woman who is still in the middle. My gift to you!Follow and connect with us on Instagram! 

Send us Fan MailIn Episode 3 of I Never Got My Why, Tennille explores the wilderness story of Hagar and the powerful name she gives God in the middle of unanswered questions: El Roi, the God who sees me.This episode is about isolation, edited pain, emotional honesty, and the deep human need to be seen fully in suffering.Inside this episode:Hagar in Genesis 16El Roi, the God who seesemotional isolationthe edited version of painwhy women hide the full truth of their griefbeing seen versus being explainedSupport the showEnjoyed this episode? There's more waiting for you on Substack. Longer thoughts, quieter moments, and a community of women who get it. Come find us.If this episode stirred something in you, grab the free guide: I Thought I Would Be Further By Now: 5 Signs You Are Trying to Finish a Story God Is Still Writing. It is a gentle mirror for the woman who is still in the middle. My gift to you!Follow and connect with us on Instagram! 

Send us Fan MailWhy do some questions stay with us long after the moment that created them?In Episode 2 of I Never Got My Why series, Tennille explores what happens when heartbreak, disappointment, and unanswered prayers stop being something we experience and start becoming the emotional place we live.Through the story of Naomi in Ruth 1, personal reflections, and an honest conversation about the gap between knowing truth and trusting it, this episode is for the woman who feels stuck in grief, waiting, or the unanswered question she cannot seem to move past.Inside this episode:• Why grief can become an emotional home• The story of Naomi and what Scripture teaches about bitterness• The difference between visiting pain and living there• Functioning publicly while grieving privately• The gap between the mind and the heart• Why slow healing is not spiritual failure• Hope for women who still have unanswered questionsSupport the showEnjoyed this episode? There's more waiting for you on Substack. Longer thoughts, quieter moments, and a community of women who get it. Come find us.If this episode stirred something in you, grab the free guide: I Thought I Would Be Further By Now: 5 Signs You Are Trying to Finish a Story God Is Still Writing. It is a gentle mirror for the woman who is still in the middle. My gift to you!Follow and connect with us on Instagram! 

Send us Fan MailWhy can’t I move on… even when I know the relationship is over?In this first episode of the I Never Got My Why series, I explore the emotional and spiritual exhaustion of living inside unanswered questions. If you’ve ever wrestled with heartbreak, grief, disappointment, emotional looping, or wondering why God allowed something painful to happen, this episode is for you.Through honest storytelling, biblical reflection, and emotional truth-telling, we talk about:functioning publicly while grieving privatelywhy heartbreak can become part of your identitythe gap between what the mind knows and what the heart can holdMoses at the burning bushEl Roi, the God who seeswhy asking “why” is not weak faithThis episode is not about quick answers.It’s about learning how to stay honest with God in the middle of pain.Support the showEnjoyed this episode? There's more waiting for you on Substack. Longer thoughts, quieter moments, and a community of women who get it. Come find us.If this episode stirred something in you, grab the free guide: I Thought I Would Be Further By Now: 5 Signs You Are Trying to Finish a Story God Is Still Writing. It is a gentle mirror for the woman who is still in the middle. My gift to you!Follow and connect with us on Instagram! 

Send us Fan MailBefore you compare your life to someone else’s, remember this:You joined their story in the middle.In this episode of The Living Story, we’re talking about comparison, social media, waiting seasons, and the quiet belief so many women carry that they are somehow “behind” in life.Maybe you thought you’d be married by now.Maybe you thought you’d have children, clarity, healing, purpose, or peace by now.Maybe you scroll through someone else’s life and wonder why their story seems to be moving while yours feels stuck.But what if you’re not behind at all?What if you’ve simply been comparing your page one to someone else’s page three hundred?In this episode, Tennille Martinez explores: why comparison is emotionally destructive  how social media distorts our timelines  the hidden middle chapters people never show  what the stories of Joseph and Hannah reveal about waiting  why God’s timing is not punishment  and how your “middle chapter” may actually be the place where transformation is happening most deeply This episode is for the woman who feels overlooked, delayed, discouraged, or exhausted from measuring her life against everyone else’s.You are not behind.You are being formed.Support the showEnjoyed this episode? There's more waiting for you on Substack. Longer thoughts, quieter moments, and a community of women who get it. Come find us.If this episode stirred something in you, grab the free guide: I Thought I Would Be Further By Now: 5 Signs You Are Trying to Finish a Story God Is Still Writing. It is a gentle mirror for the woman who is still in the middle. My gift to you!Follow and connect with us on Instagram! 

Send us Fan MailBefore I met God, I had a whole library of stories I believed about myself.Stories about rejection. Worth. Being overlooked. Being too much and somehow not enough at the same time. Stories about love, purpose, identity, and whether I was chosen at all.In this episode of The Living Story, we’re talking about the quiet lies women carry for years — the ones repeated so often they stop feeling like stories and start feeling like truth.If you’ve ever struggled with: low self-worth  overthinking relationships  feeling unseen  people pleasing  fear of rejection  comparison  identity confusion  heartbreak  or believing you missed your purpose… this conversation is for you.We explore: how false narratives are formed  why emotional wounds become internal beliefs  the stories women silently rehearse  what happens when God interrupts those narratives  and how healing begins through truth, surrender, and renewal of the mindFree Resource:Download “The Story She Keeps Telling Herself,”  a truth-and-lie reflection guide designed to help you identify the narratives shaping your life. My gift to you!Support the showEnjoyed this episode? There's more waiting for you on Substack. Longer thoughts, quieter moments, and a community of women who get it. Come find us.If this episode stirred something in you, grab the free guide: I Thought I Would Be Further By Now: 5 Signs You Are Trying to Finish a Story God Is Still Writing. It is a gentle mirror for the woman who is still in the middle. My gift to you!Follow and connect with us on Instagram! 

Send us Fan MailYou read the books. You went to therapy. You journaled, processed, grew, and did everything the personal development world told you to do. And something is still missing. Not because the work was wrong. Because there is a question underneath all of it that none of it could answer. Am I actually known by something larger than all of this? This episode is for the woman who has tried everything available and still feels like one piece is not quite in place. What changed when the Bible stopped being something she circled from a distance and became something she actually opened. And what it says about who she is that nothing else could tell her.Here is the free guide mentioned on today's episode: The Story She Keeps Telling Herself. It is a truth-and-lie finder for the woman who is ready to stop believing everything the middle has told her about who she is and who she will become. My gift to you!Support the showEnjoyed this episode? There's more waiting for you on Substack. Longer thoughts, quieter moments, and a community of women who get it. Come find us.If this episode stirred something in you, grab the free guide: I Thought I Would Be Further By Now: 5 Signs You Are Trying to Finish a Story God Is Still Writing. It is a gentle mirror for the woman who is still in the middle. My gift to you!Follow and connect with us on Instagram! 

Send us Fan MailThere is a Japanese art form called kintsugi. When pottery breaks, the artist repairs it with gold. The cracks do not get hidden. They become the most luminous part of the whole piece. What if God works the same way in your story? What if the chapters you have been trying to get past are actually the chapters He has been filling with something that makes them the most beautiful part of what He is building? This episode is a slow and honest look at the gold thread running through your life. Even the chapters that felt like detours. Even the ones you would rewrite if you could. Nothing was wasted. And the story He is telling through your life is more beautiful than you can see from where you are standing right now.Here is the free guide mentioned on today's episode: The Story She Keeps Telling Herself.   A truth and Lie Finder for the woman who is ready to stop believing everything the middle has told her about who she is. My gift to you.Support the showEnjoyed this episode? There's more waiting for you on Substack. Longer thoughts, quieter moments, and a community of women who get it. Come find us.If this episode stirred something in you, grab the free guide: I Thought I Would Be Further By Now: 5 Signs You Are Trying to Finish a Story God Is Still Writing. It is a gentle mirror for the woman who is still in the middle. My gift to you!Follow and connect with us on Instagram! 

Send us Fan MailTwenty years. Thousands of girls. And one thing that has never changed: the moment a girl decides she doesn't matter is the moment the world loses something it cannot afford to lose. This episode is for every woman who remembers being that girl. And for every parent, mentor, or educator who has one in front of them right now. Tennille Martinez opens up about what she has watched happen to girls in classrooms during her career, what she wished someone had said to her at twelve, and why she built Her Story Begins — a literary and identity experience that gives girls what the curriculum never could. If you have a daughter, a niece, a student, or a girl in your community who is disappearing quietly into someone else's idea of who she should be, this episode is for you both.Support the showEnjoyed this episode? There's more waiting for you on Substack. Longer thoughts, quieter moments, and a community of women who get it. Come find us.If this episode stirred something in you, grab the free guide: I Thought I Would Be Further By Now: 5 Signs You Are Trying to Finish a Story God Is Still Writing. It is a gentle mirror for the woman who is still in the middle. My gift to you!Follow and connect with us on Instagram! 

Send us Fan MailI deleted messages on WhatsApp. More than once. And every time I did, I restarted the clock on my own healing without realizing it. If you have ever reached back for something God already moved, if you have ever stood in a room with tears running down your face while worship music played and wondered why it was not getting easier, this episode is for you. This is what real healing actually looked like for me. Messy and circular and full of grace I did not earn. And what I found in Isaiah 30 on the night I finally stopped running from the truth.Support the showEnjoyed this episode? There's more waiting for you on Substack. Longer thoughts, quieter moments, and a community of women who get it. Come find us.If this episode stirred something in you, grab the free guide: I Thought I Would Be Further By Now: 5 Signs You Are Trying to Finish a Story God Is Still Writing. It is a gentle mirror for the woman who is still in the middle. My gift to you!Follow and connect with us on Instagram!