My Grandma Told Me I Would Break The Generational Curse In Our Family, Then My Marriage Was Like Hell
The Generational Curse Assignment
One bright afternoon, when I was 8 years old, I lay across my grandmother’s bed, and she spoke these words,
“Kierra, you are going to break the generational curse of broken marriages in our family. I’m praying for your husband even now.
Then she added.
“His name will be David.”
When I get to heaven and see my grandmother again, I’m going to smile and say, “Grandma, you were wrong… His name was Paul.” 😂
(Kidding. But our son David is named for my grandmother.)
It’s amazing how words are timeless and they live on for years. My grandmother spoke those words to me 24 years ago and I still feel the weight of them as I type this to you, Mama.
She had a well found reason for her passion.
A History Of Brokeness
My great-grandfather was a rolling stone leaving my great-grandmother to raise 6 children alone. Both of my grandfathers left my grandmothers. My grandfathers both eventually remarried – but my grandmothers didn’t. My family is interwoven with resilient, unmarried, divorced, separated, and single women who are all strong in the face of unchosen adversity.
But on that day when my grandmother spoke those words, she made it very clear that she did not want that narrative for me. I had no idea why I was chosen among all people in my family for this job. After all, I showed the least bit of wifely qualifications and even potential. I didn’t fully understand what this “generational curse-breaking” business was all about – but something in me made me believe that I had to do it.
My beloved grandmother died of cancer when I was 19, and at that time I felt as though all of my hopes and dreams were buried with her. It devastated me. I couldn’t see my life beyond her, so I hopelessly choose to abandon my faith and live in wreckless sin. That is when the vision of marriage seemed the most impossible, and I gave up on it. But God didn’t.
Our Marriage Story
I attended my late grandmother’s church periodically and that’s when God led my path to intersect with a young hunk of chocolate named Paul (not David). One evening we were on the phone and he asked me, “Is Jesus the Lord of your life? ” I suddenly was awakened to the fact that the answer was No. I was determined, and I repurposed my heart to allow Jesus to rule and reign over me and my life.
I was back on assignment – Mission: Generational curse breaking.
God’s answer to my grandmother’s prayer came about quickly. Me and Paul became friends, then best friends. When I was 22 years old we got married. And we lived happily ever after – for like a week.
I Didnt Know Anything
I didn’t realize that if I was going to break the generational curse of broken marriages, then getting married was merely a prerequisite. Getting married wasn’t the finish line, it was just the beginning.
I was a wife with no life-long reference point. I became a wife with only the model of brokenness embedded in me. Successful relationships were a foreign concept. And while I had such shining models at church to look to, it was all still so very new to me. I couldn’t seem to break through my own norm. Unbeknownst to me, the curse that I was told to break, was in full play.
I was lost in a big world of expectations, I rejected love, submission, and peace – they were very things I needed. I was ruining my marriage from the inside out while outsiders assumed that we were still honeymooning. For the first five turmoiling months, our marriage was drowning fast like a boulder thrown into the sea, and it was sinking quickly because of the weight of my sin plus the sin of everyone that came before me.
The Turning Point
One morning I stepped onto the elevator at work, alone in a small place, I pushed the floor number and I desperately cried “God, You have to help me.”
It was at that moment that I knew He would… and I waited on Him. Nothing visibly changed, but my heart did.
I had to rely on God to show me the path that He charted for me. And even though we have endured challenging and desperate times in the years to follow, God has held our marriage together with His loving hands.
We have To know How To Fight Marriage Battles
It took nearly eight years to redeem this marriage. We went through cycles of hard times until we identified every stronghold and stood together and said ENOUGH. We cried tears of agony, we had many damaging fights, and many words were spoken that we wish were never said. Then we turned our swords away from each other and towards our true enemies. We started praying, healing, and forgiving, we started fighting for our marriage.
But it didn’t have to take eight years long. That’s how long it took for us to figure out how to fight. And I’m here to save you years of fighting.
I was saved, and we both were, but we still had curses to break. And I know that’s true because of the evidence that was shown in my life. I wondered how was I saved but was still in so much turmoil? What I learned was this: Salvation not only ensures our eternal life, but because of the sacrifice of Jesus. it gives us the power to break every curse that is against us.
Galatians 3:12-14 New King James Version
12 Yet the law is not of faith, but “the man who does them shall live by them.”
13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), 14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Being saved is like being let out of prison as a previous felon, going back as a curse breaker is going back to every accuser and showing them a clean record and demanding that you take your rightful place at your job, your home, regain custody of children, and reclaim your destiny because you have been justified by faith. All of this is because you are in fact now a lawful citizen and no longer a felon, and you are stating your lawfully gained rights.
Today I declare that the generational curse in my family is broken- not through me, but through Christ.
What I Know Now
Anyone can get married. Heck, anyone can stay married.
But living in a love-filled, sacrificial, covenant-honoring, lifelong partnership, with your best friend, with God at the center, is truly the intent of marriage fulfilled.
The Generational Curse is Broken and Now it’s Your Turn
Paul is my best friend, he has always been. No, his name is not David, but he is like David. He seeks after God’s heart in all that he does. He loves me like Christ loves his church. He lovingly fathers our four sons, if you meet him before you meet me, you’ll understand quickly how much he loves his wife – me.
That’s right, me. The same 8-year-old girl who was told that she would break the curse of broken marriages in our family.
My grandmother was like my Moses, showing me the way. Now, I am her Joshua, ready to take the Promised Land by force, and BA-BY I’m taking all who will come with me.
This blog is dedicated to all the women like me. Those that were married without a clue of what to do — to wives who never saw a successful marriage– to mothers who longed to love their children. It is to mothers and wives who grew up without a father. And to those women that the world rejected… this is for you.
If no one told you what my grandmother told me. Listen to me.
MAMA, you will break the generational curse of brokenness of all sorts in your family.
Its stops at YOU. It stops at Me. It ends because of Christ, and it begins through Christ.
So will you journey with me? Will you march into the Promised Land with me?
To the mamas who have to be what she never had never had, and do what she has never seen… this is for you.
This space is for you, you are beloved, Mama.
Love you,
Kierra
Romans 9:25