She Thought “The Sum Total of Life is Loss”

“All of these things plus the surmounting pressure of not dealing with anything from my childhood, there was no way forward. I had to take my own life,” says Melanie Waldman. 

She grew up with five siblings in a house full of turmoil and abuse. Her parents used drugs and alcohol to cope with life. “By the time I was seven or eight, I had been on a motorcycle accident with third-degree burns. There was a knife fight between my mother and my brother, and one of my brothers shot the other one - it was really dark and scary,” recalls Melanie.  

When she was eight years old however, she had the opportunity to attend a Christian camp. Melanie remembers, “I experienced lightness for the first time. Swimming, being loved on. I met Jesus. And we had chapel every day and I would walk forward and sing...surrender songs to the Lord and pray that He would save me.”

The uplifting camp experience was soon erased when she returned to her chaotic life.

“Our house had burned down to the ground. And so, the eight of us were living in a motel. It was around that time that I was abducted. I was taken into a car. I was sexually overcome,” said Melanie.

She was let go later that night and never told anyone. Melanie buried that secret trauma and began to form her own coping mechanisms.

“I was operating even into my adulthood for decades based on lies that had taken hold because of these things that had happened in my youth, that I was worthless, that the sum total of everything in life is really loss, and that no one can be trusted. These kinds of lies are what I based my adult life on” said Melanie.

She tried to escape her broken past by creating her idea of a perfect future. Melanie recalls, “I strove for perfection. I had to be the best at everything I did. I had married a man who looked perfect on the outside, kinda checked all the boxes, it looked like this perfect couple. I went to work and got a position at a corporate job and I was promoted to Director of a Fortune 500 company by the time I was 27.”

She had a son and felt solely responsible to raise him while trying to maintain the appearance of perfection. Before long the pressure was too much.

“All of these things plus the surmounting pressure of not dealing with anything from my childhood, I could see no way forward.” Melanie says, “There really was nothing else for me to do but to leave, but to escape this life.”

Melanie was about to overdose on pills when suddenly she felt compelled to call 9-11. She was admitted to a hospital where she had a nervous breakdown. Soon after she began making changes, looking for hope. Yet her old ways of thinking were still deeply ingrained.

Melanie reflects, “I separated from my husband. Ended up getting wooed into a really horrible relationship and that really started a series of perpetual harm against myself through relationships I got into. Physically abusive and sexually abusive relationships. I thought, 'Well, that's really what life is like. Right?' Because that was my upbringing, crisis. I thought that that's how it was supposed to be.” 

She continues, “I had to give up my son, who was, you know, the person I loved the most, for his wellbeing. And so I had nothing else. I had nothing else. I gave up my house, gave up everything.”

Melanie rented a home near a church and started attending regularly. As she began to experience real change, she was able to get her son back.

With a smile she says, “We were both living at that home and going to church and in those Sunday mornings, it was like camp. It was lightness again. And the songs, a lot of them were the same and I just started being wooed by God. That's how it felt."

Over time Melanie says she gave her heart to Jesus and is thankful for her new life in Christ. She says, “I think for me it required surrendering everything and getting to a point where I had nothing to lose. And he just redeemed everything. He put my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along. He gave me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to Our Lord And it's because of Him. It's because He restores and He renewed me and He gave me new life.”

Today Melanie is married and is sharing her love for Jesus through ministry and music.  

“All of this is a gift from God who's brought us back to himself through Christ. He's given us this task of reconciling others to Himself. I am a precious child of God. Perfectly and wonderfully made. God wants me to be happy and full of the love of the Father, being fully who He created me to be. I am blessed and I base my life on these truths now and my life is abundant.”