What God Meant for Good | Breaking Shame, Finding Healing & Walking in Purpose

In this deeply vulnerable episode of The Belief Effect, Nadine Maldonado opens up about grief, shame, abortion, healing, faith, sisterhood, and the powerful truth that Jesus Christ wastes nothing in our lives. Through raw storytelling and personal testimony, Nadine shares how years of hidden guilt and heartbreak transformed into purpose, healing, and ministry through obedience to God.

This episode explores what it means to step out of hiding, release shame, embrace vulnerability, and allow God to use even the darkest parts of your story for His glory. If you’ve ever struggled with guilt, grief, trauma, fear, insecurity, church hurt, motherhood, identity, healing after loss, or finding your purpose in Christ, this conversation will speak directly to your heart.

Topics covered in this episode:
• Christian healing and emotional restoration
• Faith after trauma and loss
• Overcoming shame and guilt through Jesus Christ
• Women’s support groups and biblical community
• Kingdom business and faith-led entrepreneurship
• Grief, motherhood, and redemption
• Finding purpose through pain
• Letting God use your testimony
• Christian personal growth and transformation
• Walking boldly in your calling

Scripture referenced:

Matthew 19:26 — “With God all things are possible.”Matthew 19:26 — “With God all things are possible.”

If this episode encouraged you, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs this reminder today: your past does not disqualify you from the purpose God has for your life

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back, beautiful. You're listening to the space where faith meets real life, where the breaking becomes the becoming, and where we talk about the woman you're growing into through Jesus Christ. I'm Nadine Maldonado, your host, and today we're planning a new seed of belief together. Welcome to the Belief Effect. Welcome back to another episode of the Belief Effect. I'm sorry I've been gone for a couple weeks, but I have been doing so much work in the real world, right? Face to face, arm in arm. And it has been such a beautiful experience. And so many things have been revealed to me during this time that I couldn't hold it in anymore. I was like, I've got 45 minutes to record, and I'm just gonna come and spill it all out in hopes that it touches whoever decides to listen. So welcome to the Believe Effects podcast, and I am so happy you are here. I am Nadine Maldonado, your host. And if you have followed me in any shape, way or form over the years, you have seen so many different versions of me. One thing about me is I've always just been pure of who I am. I don't try to be more or less than who it is that I am because I don't know how to be. And sometimes that was in complete imperfection, sometimes it was to try to be too perfect, and sometimes it was just in this complete mess of the journey that I was on or that I am on. And sometimes when we're in the middle of going through things, and this is a constant thing that I always talk about is what we go through. Because if we don't spearhead these things, they either become our permanent identity and it becomes almost impossible to relieve ourselves from, or it becomes something we're running away from and that we don't want to face and that we're ashamed of. And then on the flip side to that, too, we can get idolized by ourselves and who we are, where we become, that now we are the idol and no longer is God. And I think I found myself in so many of these different spaces along my journey. And maybe at certain points I have felt that, oh, it's embarrassing to talk about this, but at the end of the day, it's human and it's real. So over the last few months, I have asked God for specific things and for specific prayers. And now I'm starting to see them come into fruition and into reality in my real-time life. And I can just only stand in awe and so much thankfulness of Him. One of the first things that was that I was seeking community in a woman's support way. And I'm a woman, so I will say this very boldly. Sometimes it is very hard to get along with other women, right? We come in with our own baggages, our own identities, our own insecurities. And at times it can be really hard for us to find a way to connect because our guards are so up. Being in business, I've done many networking events. And when I come into something and I want to be giving and loving and get to know you, and people are standoffish, I then think, what was wrong with me that nobody wanted to get to know me? I've had situations where I've befriended or joined communities and then it turns into something negative. And again, I'm left thinking, what is it about me that this turns into something bad? So for a while, I strayed away from doing anything community-wise with other women because I didn't want it to lead to something negative. I was tired of the fake friendships or the side eyes and the side comments and the backhanded things that I was like, Lord, this is exhausting. This is not friendship, this is not community, this is not fellowship, this is not sisterhood. Being in church, I kept hearing join a support group. And I'm like, a support group? This is odd for me. I don't want to go into a support group and start talking to people about things that maybe I don't fully under understand and then look at me like I'm less Christian than them and all this stuff, even though I'm just a girl on this journey. And I once again was like self-sabotaging myself with all of these things that weren't even a reality at that point. It was just things I was making up in my head. But I decided that I was going to take a bold step and I was going to join a woman's group. And that I can say was the starting point of where I am today. And I joined that women's group, and I remember walking in, not sure, having my own reservation, my own hesitation, and then thinking, wow, there's something really beautiful here. So I kept showing back up. Even if I didn't fully understand or could completely comprehend exactly what was happening in that room, I kept showing up. And through that, I've created a sisterhood with these women. And it's so beautiful and it's so powerful. And it's almost something that now I feel is like an oxygen that I need in order to continue my journey and my faith walk. And then I had to take it another step further because God said, okay, now more. Open yourself up more, open your heart up more. And as I had mentioned earlier, I'm a businesswoman. I've done many networking groups and I've gone to networking groups where it feels like all we care about is how much money we make, what kind of cars we drive, what are our numbers for the month. But I felt like a lot of people were leaving off purpose. Like, what bought you to this? What how did you get to this point? Where is the glory to God in this? And so it became very hard for me to go to networking events that felt like a hookup culture or felt like we were just there to gloat about our things in life, our materialistic things. And I didn't know really where to place myself because I don't do very well with superficial conversation. I will yawn in your face. I think I have a yawning problem as it is, but I will yawn in your face because I don't enjoy that type of conversation. At one point, I always say I'm a recovering egotistical business owner. At one point, I did love that, right? Because I love that feeling of being powerful. But when you become powerless in your journey, you learn that the power was never yours to begin with. And so I wanted and I looked for people that really were standing on a foundation that was created and made for God. And so I started dabbling in going to different networking groups. I signed up to some, paid a membership, some I've never actually put a foot in the door at. But I knew that God was pushing me into another way of connecting with women. And then I found myself in this group called Purposeful Living Women. And it was just everything I had been looking for. I was embraced, I was loved, I was hugged, it was beautiful. And I was like, okay, I definitely want to be a part of this, more of this. This feels so aligned. We're talking about what God has us doing and where God is bringing us. And I could tell you, I don't even know how much money or if any money these women make. And that would be the least interesting thing about them because they have so much to offer in their words and in their intentions and their hugs and just the relation between them. And then I went to an event that I think I talked about this on one of my podcasts before. I went to another event and I felt, wow, there's something really powerful being here, happening here. And I said, God, just lead me, lead me. And God knows the desires of my heart. And I'll share it with you. One of the biggest desires I have in my heart and has nothing about glorifying me, right? But it's sharing my testimony on how God has worked in my life. I think if we read the Bible, one of the things that I find and I think I love so much about the Bible is it takes you through these stories of people in this time, men and women, and it brings you through their journey, their testimony on how God worked in their lives. And through that, it becomes inspiring. It is a testimony. So therefore, we are all used in the same sense. We all have this same power and ability through God, through the Holy Spirit being inside of us. And so I know that is a big calling on my life because number one, I've I have felt it for years. I've done it, I've done it, but I wasn't doing it in the way that glorifies God. And it's just something that I see him naturally pulling me towards and to without me. I don't want to say that there's no effort, because there's definitely effort there, but without me striving for it, God is just revealing and allowing it to happen. And I am just so thankful because I am being used in the way that I ask God to use me. Every day I wake up. God, allow me to be your hands and feet, allow me to serve the people that you want me to serve. Highlight them in my day, God. Let me see who it is that you want me to serve. So I'm gonna take you guys down a journey with me that is probably a little bit deeper and something I've never really spoken about publicly. But this is what I want to show you that God is doing. And as I'm saying this, it even says on my wall, with God, all things are possible. Matthew 19, hey man, it is so true. So I went to an event with one of the groups that I was talking about and I had set up a table for my book. And the goal was I really just wanted to meet other people who are trying to build kingdom-like businesses or walking in their journey and to be able to connect. I didn't have an expectation on book sales. I didn't have an expectation of what I wanted the event to be. I just wanted to be present and in the moment because I knew God had something waiting for me there. And when you go into your days expectant of looking for what God is doing for you, you pay attention to everything. And it wasn't until the end of the event that I was able to say, this is why God put me here. I was talking with an individual and me and her were just, we were just conversing, getting to know each other. Never met her before. It was our first interaction together. And the event that we were doing was a walk for life for a pregnancy center here locally where I live. And as I'm speaking to her, these words just pour out of my mouth. And it said, Yeah, when I was younger, I had an abortion and I felt that God punished me from doing that because of when my daughter passed away three months after. And then I stopped and I was like, I can't believe I just said that out loud. I don't talk about this. And it's a reminder that when we don't talk about things, it's because we're holding on to that shame and to that guilt, and we don't want nobody to see that scar or that wound. And then she opened up and she told me something about her journey that was very similar. We hugged and we embraced each other because it was again, now we no longer felt alone. Here are two whole, full women who love God, who are walking this journey out, who are trying to become the best of them that they can be whole in God's image. But yet we have these layers of us that are still unhealed, these layers of us that maybe we're still holding on in shame. But in that moment, it didn't feel like shame. It almost felt like a connection. And I remember just feeling so inspired in that moment to be able to stand in what that reality of that situation actually was and a toll on me and the way that I held it and I felt about it. And at that event, I one of the people from the pregnancy center was like, hey, you should come in and just talk about volunteering or something of that nature, because they had saw my book and some other things. And I was like, Yeah, I'd love to. So I actually went into an appointment with them. And this is where I swear God waste nothing. And this is why I feel so empowered to share this. Okay. I am pro-life, I will tell you that. Only because of somebody that has gone through the process of an abortion, I was 19 years old. I can give you all the ins and outs and the details. But at the end of the day, those things don't matter. And I know that the guilt and the shame that I had lived with that and because of that. And I'm I go and I meet this individual and I'm sitting in her office. She's so, Nadine, tell me why it is that you're here. And I said, honestly, I have no idea why I'm here. I just feel like God is moving this. So I'm just here in obedience. I don't know exactly why I'm here. She's okay, I love that. She goes, why don't you tell me about yourself? So I go through my story and I tell her I was the crazy teenager, didn't like to listen to my parents. I was the what they would call the free-spirited wild child. I had my first child when I was 18. I got pregnant, and my mom gave me until I was seven months pregnant to get out of her house because her thing was that I was not going to be raising a child in her home. And as harsh as that may sound, I'm so thankful for my parents giving me that direction because it's what allowed me to step into being an adult, is to being a mom and understanding what it is that I had to become responsible and I had to take care of my child. And I said, during that time, a lot of life happened after my daughter had was born. I felt like I finally had purpose in life. Being her mother was my greatest joy. It was the only thing in life that I felt that I was actually good at. I loved being a mom. I said, this is what I was made for. And throughout that time, I was going through some issues with my ex-husband, who at that point was my boyfriend. We were living together and we were going through some issues. And when my daughter was about, I don't know, nine or 10 months old, I ended up getting pregnant again. And I remember not wanting that baby. I didn't want that baby for so many reasons. And it wasn't the baby itself. It was, I'm 19 years old. We're not even together, me and the children's father. This is a constant cycle of heartbreak. I'm already putting one child through this. I don't want to put another child through this. And I don't, I can't do this. I can't do this to myself. I can't do this to her. And as maybe selfish as that may sound, that was the reality of my mindset at that time. And I went through with getting an abortion. And I remember that process, and man, that was brutal. My process of getting the abortion. And I'll share this. I guess more so because maybe if there's somebody listening that's thinking about going through this process, I can possibly help to talk you out of it. But it was brutal. I went the route of doing the abortion pill, which I don't know what that looked like from 2009 to now. But I remember I bled so much. I almost felt like I was bleeding a fetus out of me. It was absolutely nightmarish. That's the best way that I can put it. Those days of that bleeding and just going through that process of my body ridding the pregnancy, it was brutal. And after that, I never repented for it until many years later. I never really asked God for forgiveness. I just felt like I was doing what I needed to do in that moment because of the situation that I was in. I didn't have a lot of knowledge. I didn't have a lot of anybody telling me, don't do this. So I just did what I felt that I needed to do in that moment. Three months later, my daughter that I did have, at that point, she was already a year old, had died in a car accident. And I remember silently, I had felt this feeling that she died in this car accident because I decided to have an abortion. And this was God's payback. You give, I take. And this is where my relationship with God became very broken. And I was very hurt and I was so confused. But then all the time I was giving shame to myself and I was upset with myself. And I was, I believed that even though I was not the cause for the car accident, that I was the cause for it even happening because of the choices that I had made months prior. And I carried this shame for years. Four years, I carried this shame. And I wouldn't talk about it. It was like one of those things that happened in life that you did and you never speak about again. I could talk about everything else in my life that I had overcome or that I did, or when I used to, when I was younger and drank and did drugs and I stole my parents' car. But this whole thing, this abortion, kept me in complete silence. And it was my monster. It was my giant that I just could not face and really speak about. And it wasn't until I found this lady who I don't even know. And I just said it out loud. And it was like God's way of saying that if you release it, you're repentant of it, then it's done. You were forgiven, my child. So I ended up going to the facility for the pregnancy care center after this event. And I'm sitting and I'm talking with the lady. I'm telling her this entire story that I'm sharing with you. And as I'm in my story, she says, Can you do me a favor? Can you hold on one second? And I'm like, Yeah. And I'm like, oh man, they hate me. They think that I'm trash. I'm so embarrassed, all of this stuff. And what where's she going? And I hear her go into the all hallway. She's speaking to another woman. She goes, Do you have a minute? I have an amazing woman that's sitting inside of my office right now that has an absolute marvelous story that I think could help many women in our facility. And I'm listening to this, and I just feel like in that moment that I am in God's hand, and I smile and I say, for something that I have felt so shamed over, so embarrassed of, that I do not talk about, that I do not let people in on, that I feel that God punished me in the like maximum sentence and distance himself from me because of he's now having me sit in this place. I feel the Holy Spirit right now. He now sits me in this space and he's reminding and letting me hear that now what he that what he's doing. That what the enemy meant for evil, God meant for good. And that what we are so shamed about that we can oh man, sorry. That what we are so shamed about that we can use to help other people when we are vulnerable, because the thing is that as Christians, as humans, we are imperfect. As individuals, we are imperfect. We have all made mistakes, we have all sat in sin in some kind of form of our life. And if we feel in some kind of sense that we need to hide that, that we can't show that, God is going to use that to raise you up and to heal generations. We have no reason to be ashamed. Now, don't get this confused or complicated with go live in sin and don't worry, you're gonna be redeemed. No, when you know better, you are to do better, right? We are called to live and walk differently. That is the God-given ordain and rule that is given to us. We are to follow his commandments, his rule, right? And we can't just walk around life thinking, oh, I'm gonna go and do this and do that. And don't worry, God's gonna forgive me. He's gonna use it for a greater purpose. No, that wasn't even my thought process when I was in that stage of my life at 19 years old. It wasn't in my thought process that God is going to use this. No, my thought process was this is going to stay inside of me and no one will open up this door. No one will open up this shame. This is a secret that I will die with. God's no. I'm going to open up, I'm going to unravel all of these layers of you so that way you, my child, can be used to heal people, to help people, to speak, to get into these rooms that scare you and you be your most vulnerable open self so that way you can then pull something out of other people that they've been hiding in shame, that they've been in secrecy about, that they've been hiding from the world. And we're gonna open it and we're gonna release those feelings of shame, those labels off of us, so that way we can stand in the honor and the glory of our Father. That is what God has a desire for. So for you, my sisters, my brothers who have been laying in the dirt, hiding yourselves, just trying to cover yourself up with more dirt, more mud, more dirt, more mud. I'm telling you that it is time to step up out of that grave, and it is time to step outside of that grave, and it is time to step into the power that God has given to you. It is your turn. There is no more shame. There is no more guilt. God has made us clean. And I need you to feel that in your soul. That when you start to do these things that are uncomfortable and feel unsafe and feel too vulnerable and feel too, oh God, what are these people gonna think of me? Who cares about what people think of you? What does God say about you? What does God want you to glorify? What does God want to show in your journey, in your life? Who cares if you feel like you don't have the perfect words? I say it all the time. I come onto this podcast, I No script. I have no idea what's going to come out of my mouth. I have no idea how the Holy Spirit is going to work inside of me. But I just allow him to in every single step in the way that things continue to open themselves. It's imagine having a bunch of gifts that are just waiting for you. But what you have to do is take that bold and courageous step to step inside of it. Today I was hearing a story and I don't want to mess it up, right? But it was the story of comparing Moses to Joshua and how Moses was scared to step inside of it. But Joshua was ready. He didn't wait, he didn't just stick a sack down and say, God, do what you do. No, Joshua stepped inside of it so that way the walls of Jericho could come down. And so that way he could do what God was promising. And I have to ask you today, are you ready to step inside of it? Are you ready to take off all the labels? Who cares if you're scared? Who cares if you're still wearing them? Who cares if they're still a part of your identity? It's time to call them out and silence the devil and say, this has no more power over me because what you meant for evil, God is going to use for good and it's going to change generation. So I want you to do the next scary thing. I want you to step outside of your comfort zone. I want you to do the thing that you feel that you're not capable of doing. And I want you to see just how truly powerful you are. There is something so beautiful that's waiting for you. God's promises, they're solid. They're solid. God wastes nothing. God wastes nothing. A shameful person like me doing all of the wrong thing. God did not waste that. He knew that even in those moments when I was sinning at the deepest level, so distant from him, so departed from him, that he knew she's gonna come back. She's gonna come back. And he never stopped pursuing me. I just was not listening, I was not looking, but he did not stop pursuing me again and again. I can look back at my life now, at journal entries, at moments where God was still pursuing me, even when I said, Nope, don't want to see you. I don't want to see you. He was still pursuing me. And now I can only imagine that God's up in heaven looking down on his daughter and he's dancing. That's my girl. That's her. And that's how he sees every single one of you. You're his girl. You are his girl. He sees you. So now it's time for you to just step into it. Step into it. You don't got the money? Who cares? You don't have the success? Who cares? God doesn't ask for any of that. I have not found in the Bible where God says, I want to use the richest of richest and wealthiest of wealthiest, and the most solid of my believers to do my good works. I don't see it. He uses the unqualified, the undermined, and he forms them into who he created them to be. And today, that is your call. I hope this message spoke to you in some kind of way. And I'll see you guys on the next episode of the Belief Effect Podcast. This is the Belief Effect, where healing meets becoming and faith meets transformation. If today spoke to you, share it with someone who needs a reminder that their story isn't over. I'm Nadine Moldonado, and remember, when belief takes root, everything changes. See you in the next episode.