Breaking the cycle of family dysfunction is not easy to do.

For Lucille Williams, a national speaker who has ministered to couples and families for more than 25 years and author of The Impossible Kid: Parenting a Strong-Willed Child with Love and Grace, she struggled with an eating disorder that she did not want to pass on to her daughter. 

"I had to get help in my early 20's to break the cycle. I had bulimia," said Williams. "Food in my family was like an event."

As much as Lucille tried to hide her eating disorder from her children, they knew. 

"Every family has dysfunction. It's just whether or not you're going to recognize it," Lucille explains."You know, you grow up and things happen, and you say I'm never going to do what my parents did. I'm not going to do that, and then you have your own children and you find yourself doing those same things that messed you up."

Lucille says once people recognize there is dysfunction within a family, they need to find a way to break the cycle. For her, that meant trusting in God and receiving professional help via therapy and 12 step programs.

"Knowing that there is someone that you can hand this to and knowing that's God is huge," says Williams.

At the end of the day, Lucille says, we're not all good, we're not all bad, we're both. 

"Every once and awhile we're going to mess up. We're human, we're people, were flawed and it's okay. I think we need to learn to embrace those flaws and love those flaws and do better in the future."

Today on Connections, Lucille shares her story and how she managed to break the cycle of family dysfunction. She also talks about the role that God played in all of it.