Winston-Salem, NC – Christine Luebke Mort, Solarté’s Director of Non-profit Partners and Special Events in Florida, shares her #SolarteStrong story for Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” I kept telling myself over and over while trying to fight back warm tears and thousands of swirling emotions. Anger, sadness, resentment, and fear came over me like tidal waves. It was 2018, and I just found out my husband was leaving me for a younger woman. I was blindsided and devastated, completely shell-shocked by this new reality. “Who is she?” I thought, and how could this person have more to offer my husband than I do? How could he leave me after twenty-two years? We have two precious young daughters and shared over two decades of daily routines, school plays and dances, family dinners and vacations, and lifelong dreams of retiring with our business built and a level of financial and emotional security everyone hopes to cultivate.

I used to imagine our golden years together, enjoying the fruits of our labor and watching our future grandchildren play on the beach the way our daughters did. Now what?

How could he allow such a destructive decision to change our lives forever? As it turns out, he didn’t have to look very far. I thought more about the ways it could happen and realized she was a woman who worked for our company, the company that we built from the ground up before it grew to one of the largest commercial construction companies in the southeast.

Although she attended company picnics alongside my young family of four and was always playfully doting on my husband, I never dreamed she would go after him and eventually leave her own husband and family to continue a relationship that would destroy the foundation of our home.

This was it. It was over. In an instant, I felt like twenty-two years of marriage sifted through my hands like sand, and every promise he had ever made to me was absolutely meaningless and empty. The many years I spent– dedicated to him, our girls, and the roller coaster of owning a business. It seemed all for nothing!

I just knew I would wake up from this terrible dream, and it would all be okay. Well, I didn’t wake up from a bad dream, and it wasn’t okay. I had to learn how to be alone for the first time in twenty-two years, and develop ways to overcome the emotional heartbreak, one day at a time. It took all I had to stay brave with family and friends, following my husband’s pursuits and agreeing with them. So much betrayal, and I couldn’t believe how each person that used to spend time with me chose his side. Life had to go on. I had to start the grieving process and create new boundaries to prevent further heartbreak.

Finally, after many months of grieving, I started to see that my life was not over, and if I trusted God with the broken pieces, He would heal my heart. I reached out to life-long friends, visited them frequently, and asked God to show me each step of the way. I saw the healthy relationships I so desired, and I prayed and started to forgive my ex-husband for leaving me while still facing unknowns.

One of those unknowns was losing my adoring mother to Alzheimer’s in early 2020 and then learning to face life without my mom for the first time in 47 years. She was a purely delightful woman who loved her children so well. I will never forget how miraculously, even to the very end of her moments on earth, she was smiling. So, my mom left me with that memory, and I started smiling again. I knew she was finally set free from Alzheimer’s and could rest knowing I would be okay.

Looking back, the grief journey was a wake-up call. I couldn’t control outcomes, only the way I responded to them. I had to hand it all over to God. I finally decided to trust that He would take care of me and that if I could survive this and grow through a divorce and this new excruciatingly painful process of losing my mom, I would eventually rebuild my life.

So now, in the last year of my forties, I’m gratefully aware of how far I have come these last five years and the true healing that has taken place. In faith, I never gave up hope, and I trusted that I was worthy of the things I had longed for and that I would see blessing after blessing. It’s truly an exciting time, as I have found new love, and he is truly the love of a lifetime. After so much loss, grief, and healing, I finally have a spring in my step and a new fire in my heart to finish this new journey before me and win with grace and gratitude.

Solarté Collections is a private luxury body care brand that pledges to inspire fearless lives filled with confidence, joy, and well-being. Solarté offers an exquisite line of French body care to boutiques hand-picked by Angela Jenkins, CEO. The collection features all-natural shea butters, hand creams, body lotions, shower creams, and soaps. In addition to a beautiful line, Solarté partners with safe houses and non-profit organizations nationwide to take a stance in the overall cycle to end domestic violence and abuse.