Jason & Leanne’s Story
We joined Journey in 2020 hoping to grow in our faith and learn more about discipleship. We had heard about it from different people and thought it would be a helpful course.
We both have a history of depression and anxiety. At Journey, Jason learned that he has a low self-esteem and tries to perform in all areas to feel good about himself.
And those areas include work, faith, the Church, friendship and even marriage. He’s always had the head-knowledge that Christianity isn’t about performing, but at Journey he learned what that truth really meant for the first time. Leanne continued to deal with her issues around food and her body which she had already been seeking help for in psychotherapy for a number of years, but she found it was coming at it from a different angle. Instead of a course targeting behaviours and mindfulness, she encountered God the Father targeting her heart’s desire to be loved and seen as beautiful.
Relating to one another during these courses proved to be difficult, especially for Leanne. She wanted to know what was going on for Jason, but He barely knew what was going on for himself. It took another two Journey Discipleship Course’s and a Journey Intensive before Jason could truly connect vulnerably with Leanne.
We hit a crisis in our marriage in early 2022 and sought counselling through Journey. When we began, we had just hoped to go back to how we were before the crisis, but as we finally practiced true intimacy, we realized God had much more in store for us. Finally, the three years of deep work was freeing us to new life. We are finding freedom individually in various areas such as work and service for Jason and body image for Leanne, but our new marriage is our greatest joy.
We have no delusions that all our problems are now solved, but we have the peace of knowing that when the tough times come again, we know what do with it, and we’re free from the anxiety of trying to hide from each other and our Heavenly Father.