Some stories pierce the heart because they reveal what it really means to love like Christ.
When Michele Simpson joined me on the Cycles & Sanctity podcast, I expected a conversation about Catholic coaching and the struggles of marriage touched by addiction.
What I didn’t expect was the quiet strength of a woman who has lived faithfulness in its rawest, most demanding form—and still dares to rejoice in the messiness.
For thirty years Michele has walked beside her husband, a man she loves deeply, who has wrestled with addiction since before their wedding day. Eight children, countless tears, moments of hope and heartbreak—her story is not tidy. Yet, in every thread of suffering, you can trace the shimmering thread of grace.
The Hidden Strength of Faithfulness
When Michele spoke about her marriage, there was no bitterness in her voice.
She didn’t minimize the pain, but she didn’t glorify the suffering either.
Instead, she described a daily choice: to stay, to love, to keep believing in the goodness of her husband and the mercy of God.
It’s easy to forget, when living in the shadow of addiction, that every sinner remains beloved.
The world teaches us to divide people into villains and victims.
But Michele has learned a deeper truth: we are all wounded, and we all need mercy.
Faithfulness, for her, isn’t blind endurance.
It’s a deliberate act of seeing as God sees—recognizing the Belovedness of her husband even when his choices have wounded her. That’s not weakness; that’s supernatural strength.
It’s the strength of a woman who refuses to let sin or suffering define her story.
When Love Looks Like the Cross
During Lent one year, Michele’s parish priest gave a short talk series on learning to love like Christ.
He reminded the women that love always begins with God.
We cannot pour from an empty vessel; we must first receive His love before we can offer it to another.
That truth resonated deeply with Michele.
She realized she had spent years trying to fix, control, and protect everyone around her without first receiving the healing love of the Father.
“I had to learn to love myself as a beloved daughter,” she said. “Only then could I let God’s love flow through me to my husband.”
Loving like Christ doesn’t mean excusing harmful behavior. It means standing at the foot of the Cross, offering mercy instead of revenge, forgiveness instead of resentment.
Michele’s love became cruciform—stretched wide between justice and mercy, between truth and tenderness. She began to see her vocation not as a series of disappointments but as an invitation to participate in Christ’s redemptive love.
A Walk Beside the Cross
When she described her work as a Catholic coach, Michele’s eyes brightened.
She now walks with other wives who carry similar crosses—women married to husbands in the throes of addiction. “I can’t promise you your husband will get sober,” she tells them. “But I can be your Simon of Cyrene. I’ll help you carry the cross.”
What a Christlike image that is: not fixing the problem, not controlling the outcome, but walking beside another soul under the weight of their suffering. That is love in action.
She knows the loneliness of that road—the shame, the judgment, the temptation to hide behind a perfect façade. “It can feel like you’re covering up everything just to survive," she said. “But healing starts when we stop hiding and let God meet us in the mess.”
Rejoicing in the Messiness
That phrase—“rejoice in the messiness”—has echoed in my heart ever since our conversation.
It’s the heart of the Gospel, isn’t it?
Christ didn’t wait for the world to be tidy before entering it.
He came straight into the chaos of a stable, the poverty of Nazareth, the scandal of the Cross.
Michele has learned to rejoice, not because everything is perfect, but because God is present even when everything is not.
Her marriage has seen seasons of sobriety and relapse, hope and despair.
Yet she says with conviction: “It’s not my time; it’s God’s time. There are days I accept that easily, and days I struggle—but I keep choosing to stay faithful.”
That perseverance—choosing faithfulness when the outcome is uncertain—is itself a form of rejoicing. It’s an act of trust that says, "I don’t see how this story ends, but I believe the Author is good."
Healing the Generational Story
Both Michele and I have lived through the ripple effects of addiction in our families. She spoke about the guilt that comes when you realize your children carry wounds from the home you tried to hold together.
“There are things my children will have to heal from,” she said quietly. “That’s hard for me—to know I was part of their story of pain.”
Every mother who’s ever looked back with regret can understand those words.
Yet Michele has found peace in surrendering even that guilt to God’s mercy.
She knows her healing helps heal her children, too.
“When we don’t heal, the pain is transmitted,” she said, quoting Sister Miriam James. “But when we let God in, the pain is transformed.”
That transformation is slow and imperfect—but real.
It’s what it means to rejoice in the messiness: to believe that God is already redeeming what once felt irredeemable.
Learning to Feel Again
One of Michele’s greatest breakthroughs came when she learned she didn’t have to suppress her emotions. Years of living with addiction had taught her to survive by shutting down. “My children dealt with a mother who didn’t have emotions,” she admitted. “I was too afraid to feel.”
Through Catholic coaching, she discovered that emotions aren’t the enemy—they’re teachers.
“It was freeing to realize emotions last only ninety seconds,” she laughed. “I actually set a timer once and told myself, just breathe for ninety seconds. I can do that!”
In that small act of allowing herself to feel, Michele reclaimed her humanity.
She learned to be safe within her own skin again, to trust that God meets her not after the storm but right in the middle of it.
That’s the essence of Christian joy: not denying pain, but daring to feel it with Jesus.
Choosing to Stay
Perhaps the most radical thing Michele said was simple: “I choose to stay.”
In a culture that treats vows as disposable, her words shine with countercultural courage.
She doesn’t stay because it’s easy or romantic.
She stays because she believes in the sacrament she made before God.
“It said in sickness and in health,” she reminded us, “and addiction is a sickness.”
Her choice to stay doesn’t mean passivity.
"It means vigilance—guarding her thoughts, resisting the lies that whisper, "I can’t do this anymore."
She has learned to recognize those thoughts for what they are: temptations meant to sow despair.
Through Catholic mindset coaching, she’s strengthened her will and learned to discern the voice of truth from the voice of fear. When she says, “I’m choosing to stay,” it isn’t resignation—it’s spiritual warfare. It’s burning the boats of escape and standing firm in faith.
Grace in the Everyday
One of the most beautiful moments in our interview came near the end. Michele reflected on how her husband once cared tenderly for her when she battled cancer.
“He has a disease too,” she said. “Addiction is a sickness. It’s minutes-hard for him, just like my recovery was minutes-hard for me.”
That empathy—seeing her husband’s struggle through eyes of compassion—has softened her heart. It doesn’t excuse sin, but it transforms judgment into intercession.
“Just knowing how hard it is for him to stay sober changed everything,” she said. “It helped me see him the way God does.”
That’s the fruit of faithfulness: not perfection, but perspective. Not control, but compassion.
The Invitation for Us All
Michele’s story is more than one woman’s testimony—it’s a call to every one of us.
Whatever our “mess” looks like—an imperfect marriage, rebellious children, chronic illness, spiritual dryness—God invites us to rejoice in it because He is there.
Rejoicing doesn’t mean pretending it doesn’t hurt. It means believing that our pain, united to Christ’s, becomes redemptive.
When we rejoice in the messiness, we proclaim that grace is stronger than sin, mercy deeper than shame, and love more powerful than despair.
As I told Michele at the end of our conversation, her faithfulness is a living testimony to the truth that nothing is wasted in the hands of God.
Her years of steadfast love are planting seeds of healing she may never see until heaven.
For the Wife in the Shadow
If you are reading this and living in the shadow of someone else’s addiction—please know: you are not alone. You are a beloved daughter of the Father. You are seen, held, and cherished.
The road may be long, but Christ walks it with you.
And like Michele, you can rejoice—not because life is easy, but because love is real.
Rejoice in the messiness, friend. That’s where the miracles begin.
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