For nearly two decades, I shared my life with the person I loved.
We built a home together, raised a family together, faced life’s hardships together, and imagined growing old together. Like many marriages, ours experienced seasons of joy, seasons of struggle, and seasons of uncertainty. Yet I always believed that whatever arrived our way, we would tackle it side by side.
Life, however, does not always unfold according to our plans.
Over time, the relationship changed in forms I never expected. The person I had married embarked upon a gender transition journey. With the passing years, further changes followed, including new relationships and a new direction in life. While I respect every person’s right to make their own choices, I found myself enduring a real sense of loss, confusion, grief, and loneliness.
Many people assume that when a marriage changes, the pain belongs only to the person going through the transition. What is often overlooked is the journey of the spouse left trying to understand where they fit in a life that suddenly feels unfamiliar.
There came days when I felt betrayed, abandoned, rejected, and misunderstood.
Days when I scrutinised everything (from people praying that my spouse would come back to his senses — yet he didn’t, to those who prayed what felt like curses over his soul). I began to despise the lack of faith in people’s prayers, and that’s when God revealed that just as Joseph had to be sold into slavery to fulfil his purpose (deliver the world from starvation), so too was my situation, and rather than pray for my spouse to change, to pray that his (God’s) will be done in my life.
There were days when I wondered whether God had forgotten me.
As a Christian, I contended with questions that had no easy answers. I prayed. I cried. I fasted for 21 days, hoping for some miracle. I searched Scripture. I asked God why that future I had believed in seemed to be slipping away before my eyes.
Yet it was during that wilderness season that I began to discover something unexpected.
God is still present.
Not always in dramatic miracles. Not always in the answers I wanted. But in small moments of comfort, unforeseen friendships, timely conversations, and kind reminders that my story was not over. After 21 days of fasting, everything except water, God revealed the answer in song form on the 21st night (the entire night my head laide on my pillow until the birds started chirping): “Be anxious for nothing, but in prayer and supplication, let your request be made known unto God, and the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. — Phil 4:7” .
So, I tried living one day at a time…
Then, during one of the most difficult periods of my life, of friendship rejections, betrayal of trust, and efforts of blackmail, someone entered my world.
I call him Sunwarrior.
He did not arrive as a rescuer riding over the horizon. He did not magically solve my problems. Instead, he brought something I desperately needed: steadiness.
He listened.
He encouraged.
He prayed with me.
He stood firm when everything around me felt unstable.
He helped carry my burden, I felt I could no longer bear.
Most importantly, he reminded me that there were still good people in the world.
Over time, our friendship became one of the unexpected gifts God used to help restore my hope. When I was struggling to make sense of loss, Sunwarrior helped me remember who I was as a woman, as a warrioress. When anxiety came close to overwhelming me, he helped me find solid ground again.
Looking back, I sometimes describe it as God sending someone to help me keep my sanity.
Not because he was perfect.
Not because he was my saviour.
But because God often works through people. Just as he worked through Joseph, through Esther, through Jesus and his twelve disciples and the prophets of old.
The butterfly became an important symbol during this season.
To many people, a butterfly represents transformation. To me, it turned into a reminder that painful endings can become beautiful beginnings.
The greatest transformation occurs during the quiet, private, and final phases of the Chrysalis season. That something can emerge from the darkness stronger than before. A season of learning what it truly means to be in the new mindset of Christ.
The warrior became another symbol.
A sign of strength, loyalty, courage, and standing firm during life’s storms.
Together, the butterfly and the warrior became part of a story I never expected to tell.
Eventually, that story found its way into music.
Song after song emerged from journal entries, prayers, tears, memories, conversations with my Sunwarrior, and instances of gratitude. The playlist I now call “My Testimony” was born from those experiences.
It is not simply a collection of songs.
It is a record of survival.
A record of faith.
A record of healing.
A record of justice.
A record of obedience, rewarded.
A record of God’s faithfulness through one of the most difficult chapters of my life.
If there is one lesson I have learned, it is this:
The breaking is not the end of the story.
Sometimes the most beautiful chapters begin after everything you thought would last forever has fallen apart.
My testimony is not that life became easy.
My testimony is that God remained faithful.
And sometimes, when you least expect it, He speaks through his green trees (that reflect his emerald bow in heaven), He sends a butterfly, a warrior, and enough hope to carry you into the next chapter.