Nena Hart is the Director of Nursing at Maui Health Systems. She is also a mother to four amazing children, a wife, married for 15 years, and a blogger. Nena is real and vulnerable about how she changed her heart from a stone to a living, healing heart. She considers herself super blessed.

Nena, help me understand your broken heart and how it changed to a healing heart?

Well, my dad went to prison when I was 12, and I lost both of my grandmothers that following year. Something just broke in me, my heart, my gentleness, everything just turned to hurt and anger. Long story short, I was sent away after my behavior escalated, and I was expelled. I went to a Christian boarding school that, after some controversy, is closed now. I stayed there for 18 months. My heart only truly started to heal after I met my husband, Jed. It was God’s way of showing me the truth of his promise that he had something amazing for me. Something that I had believed wholeheartedly was not ever going to be possible for me because of all I had done.

Talk to me about converting your heart from stone to flesh?

I had great mentors and support in my life who have counseled me and given me hard truths about life and how to use the natural consequences of my actions to grow. When I got married, I started to understand what love really meant: the choice, the humility. I started to realize what a selfish and self-focused person I had become. I started to realize this because I saw the kind of person my husband was and recognized I was not like him at all.

Growth and success in life need a lot of healing, introspection, and will to deal with stuff. Explain how you did it and came out thriving?

I have tried really hard to realize (usually after the fact haha) that I am not right and don’t need to be. That I am not all-knowing. I ask people why they did things and intentionally choose not to judge their answers. I am quick to judge a person so it has to be something I stop myself from doing.

In your blog, you talk a lot about tools in dealing with life. I want to know more about these tools.

Reflection and asking why. Writing, journaling.

Cutting out sources of negativity – even movies and the news if needed (I don’t watch gory movies, I don’t watch the news, and I don’t read smutty gossip type magazines, period) it doesn’t take me anywhere I need to go mentally, or in my career, as a parent, wife, etc. I try to only read helpful, encouraging, uplifting, positive materials.

Creating accountability and allowing people who are worthy and want to build you up.

Literally leaving behind temptations, and situations that set you up to fail. Cutting ties as much as possible with those who bring you down and do not support your ultimate goals of growth (not your crazy goals of blowing all your money on weird investments) but people who are users, who need you to fail to make themselves feel better, or people who cannot love you in a healthy way. I created physical, emotional, and mental distance from these people. Why – because I know I am NOT strong enough to be around people who are bad news. I had to start completely over.

Are religion and spirituality the same to you or is it different and why?

No, not really. I am a Christian. Religion to me is very confusing and not a relationship with Jesus, which is what I have. Spirituality can really be anything you want, the wind, the sky, I think it is very open to interpretation. What I am is saved by the Grace of God. It is VERY specific. It is not a debt I can repay. I have been restored from a dark place and it’s a personal experience that you can’t describe as do’s and don’ts. I think many people miss out on by being “religious” I also find that it is really easy to treat people badly when religion and rules are your guiding factor. That is not what Jesus wanted from us. It’s the opposite of what he preached and practiced on Earth.

Forgiveness….easy to write about…easy to talk about…but in reality, it is a process. Any comments?

I haven’t even fully achieved this yet. Sometimes an ugly memory will come up and I will feel resentment. I had expectations of people that they were not able to live up to, many unintentionally. My hurts are things I have to choose to let go of.

Humans are made to connect. There is a hole in each of us that can only be filled by connecting with people. We are leading busy lives and fail to connect. Does this alarm you?

It does sometimes when I realize my kids are in front of me begging me to play and I’m working or on my phone. I have to put it down and get on the floor face to face with them. Intentional parenting is something I’m really passionate about and I’m working on a separate blog about it!

How has marriage changed you?

Marriage has forced me to be a less selfish version of myself. It has been so hard and so easy to watch 15 years go by. Every day, choose to continue loving. I refuse to keep score against my husband. I refuse to expect fairy-tale romance and Instagram worthy pictures. THAT IS NOT REAL LIFE. I won’t sit and feel sorry for myself because marriage is not perfect. I have read tons of books and done several courses and it is your perspective and your self-talk that determines the health of your marriage. It is not something your partner can “do” for you. It’s not their job to make you happy and you won’t “feel happy” being married. Not real. False expectations. That being said, my husband is the same (even though we are total opposites) so it makes it easy when we are both committed to being positive and making it work NO MATTER WHAT. We consider each other feeling’s and apologize. Practicing humility and repeating Ephesians 4:2 A LOT.

You are a mother of four children. What have you learned from this experience?

These people need you to be understanding Growing up is so hard. They need 1:1 time with you. They need you to not freak out when they tell you something that as a mom makes you want to DIE. They need you to be approachable and not run them all over God’s creation to every single thing that they get invited to. They need boundaries. They need No.

Give me some tips to have a successful marriage?

Be humble. Don’t keep score. Don’t be right. It’s not worth being right, and there is no right answer, and it probably doesn’t even matter. “Is my marriage worth winning this argument?” Coming from divorced parents, I would do just about anything to make my marriage work for my kids, but God gave me a great guy and that helps a lot.

Let us talk about how faith, food, finance, and family are important to you?

I LOVE FOOD. ALL FOOD. I love to bake with my kids and make them special things. It is a kind of comfort that speaks to me. I like to teach my oldest how to cook things. My mom used to let me “bake” experiments and it helped me be creative in the kitchen. Most of my recipes are experiments haha. Faith is what should drive my life and my actions and my parenting, and my marriage. It should be #1 in my life. I struggle with that because reading my Bible is really challenging for me. Prayer comes easy for me. Just talk to God. Ask him what he wants, tell him what you want. Apologize when you screw up. It is a relationship.

My husband and I are completely debt-free except for my hefty school loans. It has been a painful process but 110% worth it. No credit cards. We follow Dave Ramsey and completed Financial Peace TWICE (I’m a slow learner and stubborn). it has probably saved our marriage more than twice. We don’t fight over money anymore. We use every dollar app and do a budget EVERY month. I’m a spender and our full-time income. I budget money on things I like to spend on (clothes and stuff for the kids mostly). It makes everything very simple and straight-forward. We pay with cash or debit. We have a small emergency fund and own a home (that we rent in another state) and our vehicle.

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