Coping

Are you in need of belonging? Listen in to our Coping Conversation with Summer, who shares her moving story of finding her people and understanding belonging.

Kevin:  Welcome. I'm Chaplain Kevin, and today I'm talking with Summer, who grew up as the only child of a single mom. On her journey to live her authentic self, she set out to find her people and discovered the true meaning of belonging. This is “Coping”. 

Well. Summer, thank you so much for being here with me today. I'm just really excited to sit down with you and hear more of your story.

Summer: Thank you for having me. I'm really happy to be joining you and being able to share my story. I have a full house. I have five boys, ages 18 to eight, and a dog, a very sweet baby girl dog. And my husband is home, so we have a full house here and I'm happy to have this opportunity to join you. 

Kevin: Well, it's always nice to have a full house, isn't it? 

Summer: Yes, and you may hear some of them in the background.

Kevin: No worries. It's certainly part of your story, I imagine. Well, as I read some of your story, one of the main themes that came up for me was this idea of belonging. How do you define belonging? What does that word mean to you?

Summer: When I hear the word belonging, I think of being able to be accepted because we're able to be our authentic selves, not having to conform to any other persons or society's expectations for who we are, being worthy and knowing that we're worthy of being loved and accepted and cared for just by being who we are. It's that freedom to be authentic.

Kevin: Right. So where in your life have you sought that freedom to be your authentic self?

Summer: I grew up in a large family. Even though I am, I grew up as an only child. I do have a sister. I don't like the term half sister. We share the same father, but we have different mothers. But I didn't grow up with her. I've gotten closer to her as I've gotten older. But growing up, I was surrounded by cousins and aunts and uncles. And my mother was a single mother. She had me at 19. My father spent a lot of time in and out of jail, so he wasn't an active part of my life. But I always had people around me. 

I was always surrounded by love and support. And when I would go to school, I did find where I belonged. In elementary school, I immediately found some of my best friends who I still keep in contact with today. So I had a village. My grandmother, my aunts and uncles and cousins were that village for me.

Kevin: In such a busy house, how did you know that you belonged? How was it that you didn't just get lost in the mix of all the different people? 

Summer: That's a good question, because it was busy. Looking back, I think one of the key elements that made me feel like I belonged was this feeling of safety. No matter who was there, no matter who was visiting, no matter who lived there, I was always cared for more than just having hot meals and a safe place to sleep at night. 

We had freedom. We could ride our bikes up and down the block. And this was in Watts in the 80s. I felt safe because my family was always looking out for me. I never felt like I was being left behind or forgotten because of all of the kids. 

My grandmother and aunts and uncles and grandfather played a big part in making sure that all of us kids were cared for. And I don't know how they did it, but I always felt safe. And I think that's a big part of knowing that I belonged. 

Kevin: Yeah. Back to your definition of finding that balance between giving you the freedom to be your authentic self, but also including you in the life of the house, the life of the family. 

Summer: Absolutely. Yeah. 

Kevin: At school, how did you find that belonging there? What was it about school that you knew you belong there too?

Summer: My friends and I, we would spend a lot of time at school, but we would also invite each other to have sleepovers, typical for elementary school preteen girls. And whenever they would come to my house, my mother would make sure that we had all the snacks and all of the games, and it was so much fun. And when I would go to their house, it was the same. Their families would care for me and make me feel welcome. 

One of the things that stood out, though, that was, I think, the point where I started to notice what it looked like to have a two parent household with a mother and a father who were present. And although my friends' families always welcomed me, they never made me feel any different because of my home environment being different from theirs. I noticed it. And I think that's the first time in my life when I really started to become more and more aware of my father's absence. And in a lot of ways, I don't think I spent too much time thinking about it, though. I noticed it, but I would move on. 

Kevin: Yeah. It sounds like you didn't feel you were lacking, but it was the first time that you began to wonder.

Summer: Yes. I didn't have any contact with my dad. The only thing I had was I had seen a picture that I took with my dad when I was about two years old, and it was around the time that he was in jail. My mother shared that picture with me because she did want me to know what he looked like and. She never spoke badly about him. She just didn't have a lot of information to give me. The only connection I really had was it was just that photograph. 

So it was around the beginning of entering middle school that I was learning about myself and looking forward to this next adventure in my life. And because we would all my family would always gather at my grandmother's house on Sundays. Like I said, it was the hub. We were there one Sunday afternoon after church, and there was a knock on the door, and it was my father. And it's the first memory I have of meeting him and talking to him. 

My mother wasn't expecting him either. And when he arrived, I remember I can see it in my head, sitting on my grandmother's porch with my mother, listening to him tell us about how much he wanted to develop a relationship and change his life and be better and do better and be active in my life. 

Kevin: How was that for you?

Summer: It was bittersweet. I had mixed feelings about it, and my mother made sure to keep my focus on what I had and not what I didn't have. What I had was a family that cared for me and friends who loved me, and I was where I belonged. And so when he appeared out of nowhere, it seems, I wanted to believe that he was going to stay around. And I think at that stage of my life, I was hoping that this would be an opportunity for us to build a relationship. 

But because of what my mother had taught me and because of how she had allowed me to just focus on. The support and love that I was surrounded by. I didn't get too excited about it. Gosh, as a child, to learn how to have realistic expectations of a parent. 

Kevin: How did your mom teach you that? How did you learn that at such a young age?

Summer: One thing I can always hear my mother saying, and she says it even now, is to remember who people are when they show you who they are. And she would always say, whether it was my friends that I was having a disagreement with or family members or with my father, she would just remind me, we can't pretend to be surprised when people show us who they are. 

And so, because my father was consistently away and not making a consistent effort to be a part of my life, I applied what she had been teaching me, and so I was going to respond to his promises with that understanding. 

Kevin: Right? Yeah. That's really good advice from your mom to remember who people are. In what way is that advice connected to your understanding of belonging?

Summer: It taught me that if I wanted to be my authentic self and be able to belong, and by having the freedom to just be me, I had to extend that to other people, including my father. I couldn't change him. That's one thing that I knew, no matter how many times he showed up and made promises and went away, I couldn't change my father. He was who he was. And so, in allowing people the freedom to be their authentic selves, you are also giving yourself permission to decide if you want to accept that, right? 

Kevin: Yeah. So it sounds like belonging works both ways, right? You give the freedom to the other person to be who they are, and sometimes that leads to them belonging elsewhere. Right? And because of that, it allows you to have some level of peace, to know that I have no control over what you choose to do. 

Summer: And so whatever is your decision, I have to accept that and then accept that I'm not fighting this battle of trying to force something to happen. When he ended up going away and not calling anymore, during that time, my life just sort of continued to move on. 

Kevin: We'll be right back.

Announcement: Today's episode is brought to you by be Well Resources. Be Well is a wellness organization that provides mental and spiritual tools for whole person health. Be Well helps you develop your unique gifts and discover your calling. Follow us on Facebook or Instagram at Be Well Resources to take your next steps toward being well.

Kevin: Welcome back. So you're learning these lessons about belonging at such a young age. Where did your journey take you next? 

Summer: If it was Sunday morning or Wednesday night for choir rehearsal, we were always in church and my mother, I both sang in the choirs. We helped with Sunday school. And it was always a part of my life. I cannot think of my life without my church family. It was another safe space. It. We were allowed to be ourselves. We had fun. And all of my church family really knew that my mother was a single mother. I know it now, but I don't think I knew it then. 

They stepped up to help however they could. They showed up for us.

Kevin: You brought with you this strong sense of belonging.

Summer: Yeah. Yeah, I had this power behind me from all of the these people who had made me feel like I belonged, who had loved me and cared for me in spite of my faults, my shortcomings, my downfalls. And within the first week of school, really on the first day, I found two of my best friends who I still talk to. I am still close to those two best friends and several others that I met within that first semester of school. 

I am still close to those people. Those became my people, and they are still my people. And again, that common thread of just being able to be myself, I was actively involved at Beverly. I started the Black Students Union. I was in student government. I was in an organization called the Wish Project. It stands for World in Search of Harmony. It was coordinated by our school psychologist who saw the need for there to be an understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Before those became the buzzwords of today, all of us converged in the Wish Project, teaching students about acceptance and belonging, allowing people to be themselves and feel safe enough to be themselves because they're going to be loved and cared for with a sense of humanity. And that was where I learned a lot about the importance of not just knowing this for myself, but extending it to other people. So I enjoyed Beverly for three years in my senior year. I was excited about the next phase of my life. 

Summer: Around that same time, we got a phone call from my grandmother, my paternal grandmother, that my grandfather was not doing well. We knew that he had had emphysema and lung cancer. Both of my grandparents were smokers, and they had stopped. But the effects of the the years of smoking had made my grandfather really, really sick. And when we got to my grandmother's house, that's when we found out my father was there. And the last time I had seen my father was on the porch. 

And the promises that were made then and the things that he said he wanted to do to commit to being a better father. So when we got to my grandmother's house and I realized he was there, he asked if we could take a walk. And I'm 16 and a half now at this point, and so my mother trusted how she raised me. She asked me if I was okay with taking a walk with him. I said, yeah, I was fine. And so we went outside and took a short walk. 

And during that walk, my father asked me if I was disappointed in him. And I let him know that I wasn't disappointed because I just never had any expectations. I hadn't built up this false image of him in my head. And I think, in all fairness, that's what he deserved as well. I think it would have been much harder if I had built up these images of him doing more and being consistent and coming to my middle school performances or being there for me when I was applying for college to help me help walk me through the process. 

If I had spent all those years hoping and wishing and being mad that he wasn't there when he asked me that question, I think the answer might have been. Much harder for him to receive if I would have said, yes, I'm disappointed in you because you let me down. 

I knew that who he was, he was not capable of giving me more than he did. So I didn't put that burden on him. It doesn't mean that it's okay. It doesn't mean that I was happy about that. It was just the reality of you can't expect from people more than they're capable of giving. And because of that, I wasn't disappointed.

Kevin: So how did you conclude that conversation with him? How did you leave it with him?

Summer: He asked if he could attend my graduation, and I told him I'd be happy if he was there. I knew my grandmother was planning to come. I knew my grandfather probably would not make it just to the graduation, but he may not survive to that point. And my mother and other family members who have always been there for me were going to be at the graduation. 

So it would not have been a disruption if my father had been there or if he had not. So I left it up to him. I told him I would be more than happy to have you there. You're welcome. It's on the lawn of the school, so almost anyone can come. You don't really need a special invitation. And he did not show up. So I was not really surprised, but I was a little bit sad for that one event. I think there was a slight expectation that since he had asked and I said yes, and it was not too far in the future that he might have been there, but this focus on what I had versus what I didn't have, it really outweighed the disappointment. 

My father's mother was there. My mother was there. Aunts were there, friends were there. It was a great day. Those were my people. It would have been a little sweeter if he had been there, but it was still a great day because my people were there and we celebrated. 

Kevin: So you graduate high school, and you are now even more free than you've been before. Free to now live your your life as an emerging adult. Where did your journey take you next? 

Summer: After high school, I enrolled in Loyola Marymount University. So to save money, I stayed home with my mother. We shared a car. I would drop her off at work and I would go to class. But we knew right away, within the first month of school, that we would need to have another income because it was incredibly expensive.  Not just the tuition, but the books and the commute and all of that. And so I got a job working at UCLA. That's where my mother had been. She was a financial counselor, and I really enjoyed working at UCLA, and I ended up staying there for about ten years. And in 2000, I met my now husband. We were introduced by his parents. My mother and I had joined a new church, and his parents were singing in the choir. His dad is a deacon there. And they came to a mutual friend and said, we want our son to meet Summer. 

London came to meet me, and three months later, he proposed. It happened really quickly, but when you know, you know, talking about belonging and being your authentic self and finding your person, I found all of that in my now husband. 

You have a good sense of self already. You know when you know.. And that is key to finding a partner and being able to feel like you belong. You have to know yourself. And the latter part of the year 2000, I was at work one evening at UCLA. 

I worked at the front desk in the main hospital. And this gentleman walks up to the front desk and says hello to me. And I said hi back. And he said, you don't know who I am? And I said, no, I don't. He said, I'm Tony. I'm your father. Wow. And so the last conversation I had had with him was in 1995, right before I graduated high school and I was a teenager, and I was about to enter the real world and start college. And now fast forward to five years later, to the year 2000. I'm a young woman working a job and about to get married, and here my father is again, unannounced, unexpected, and he introduced himself as Tony and that he was your dad. 

Kevin: What happened next?

Summer: We started talking. It was awkward because I was at work, and I worked at the main desk of the hospital of UCLA Medical Center. So there was always traffic, always people stopping and phones ringing. But in that short amount of time that we spoke that first time, because unlike the other times, he actually did come back, a few times we had more than one conversation. He shared with me that he had and had come back and he had a girlfriend and he was planning to get married and build a family, and he was working and trying to get himself together, trying to get clean and stay clean. 

And he found me by reaching out to my sister because she knew where I worked. And he said he missed me and he wanted to see me and see what was going on in my life. And he apologized for the times that he wasn't there. And I had no negative feelings about it. I was genuinely happy to see him. I was happy to see that he was healthy. He looked good. He looked like he had been working and taking care of himself. And I told him that I was engaged, and he said he would come back the next night so he could meet my husband. 

So I told my husband to come visit me at work. Well, my fiancee at the time, but I told him to come visit me at work. Yeah, so he could meet my father. And so the next night, he came back, and my fiance, London was there, and he and my father hit it off. They started talking right away. And my husband is he's just a genuinely good guy, and he's always looking for the good in people. And he knew what I had experienced growing up without a father. 

He's heard all of the things that I'm sharing with you today. And so there was no reason for him to have animosity towards my father, because he knew that I had made peace with my father not consistently being there.  And so we just would have great conversations. I think there were maybe two or three more times that he showed up and right before my husband picked me up from work. And we talked about a lot of different things and and just like the other times, though, it sort of just came to an end. 

Summer: I can't remember the last phone call or the last conversation. It just stopped again. Wow. And. I had experienced that so many times that I think I knew what to do. I just got back to living life, and that's what I did. 

Right before the wedding, my grandmother reached out to me, my father's mother, and asked if he was going to be invited to the wedding, because she really thought that he should be invited. And I did feel bad telling her no, that I was not going to invite him to the wedding and I had prayed that she would understand my reason. So this was not about excluding family from this event that I was so excited for. It was more about the people who I genuinely knew had been there for me, had been there for my husband, were able to be there and celebrate with us. 

And every person in that room knew that they were there because they had been invited to share this really special moment with us. And I also needed my grandmother to understand that I love my father. There is no love lost on my father. But on that day, I needed to honor all of the hard work that my mother had done to get me to this point. That's what that day was meant to be about, celebrating these genuine, real relationships that had always been there for us. 

Kevin: Yeah. And I hear how your decision to not invite your dad was not about exclusion, but it was about having those that belonged present. Absolutely. So where did your journey take you next?

Summer: Shortly after our young this was born, we were getting ready to go out for the day, and I got a phone call from my sister. She called me out of the blue and said our father died. Oh, my gosh. And this was around 2015. There are those moments that I can picture in my head, like, sitting on the porch talking to him. I can feel the sun on my face when I was that first time that first conversation I had with him. 

And I can remember today, I was sitting on the ottoman, tying my tennis shoes when I got the phone call. And I sat up and said, oh, how are you feeling? Because that was really my only concern. I knew she was closer to him, and I wanted to know how she was feeling. 

And she was sad and in shock and processing her feelings. And she asked me how I was doing, and I said, I'm okay. Thank you for letting me know. I didn't know what else to say. And I told her to call me if she needed anything, any help with the arrangements or she just needed to talk, but I said, okay, but thank you for letting me know and we hung up. And then I walked back to my room where my husband was. And I said, my father just died. And he said, oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry. Are you okay? How do you feel? And I said, I don't really feel anything. I don't know how to feel. I don't really know him. I've only met him a few times, and right now, I don't know if it's a bad thing, but I just don't feel anything. And he said, well, it's okay. You just feel what you feel. 

So we actually went about our day. About a week later, I remember sitting on the edge of the sofa, just watching television or on my phone or something, and out of the blue, I just broke down and bald my eyes out and think it was because all of these feelings that I didn't know I had suddenly came to the surface. And they caught me off guard, because up to that point, I had almost prided myself on not really being. Overly emotional or concerned about whether or not my father was going to be around. Right. And it really wasn't actually the sadness from what he had or had not done in his life. 

The sadness came from the fact that this was so final. Because I had always left that part of my heart open for him to be able to have a relationship with me. The fact that he had passed way made that impossible. There was a finality to his passing. Exactly. And after that day, I know I went through the range of emotions. I went through all of the phases of grieving, including the anger, going through those range of emotions. 

I had to start really being honest with myself about why I was feeling these feelings that I didn't know existed or that I didn't know I had the ability to feel, because that very first day I was just numb, and I had to come to terms with that. 

Kevin: Right. So, Summer, as you think about your life and your definition of belonging, what advice do you have? Others who are struggling with belonging, who desire to belong, what advice do you have for them? 

Summer: One of the first things I had to learn to do and the passing of my father actually helped with this. I knew I had to figure out who I was and not necessarily even the lofty understanding of who I am as a person forevermore, but just who I am today. 

What am I feeling today? Why do I feel these feelings today? What experiences yesterday and in days past have led up to this point where I feel these things? And another thing that I would say is share your needs with others. 

It's important to be your own advocate, to teach people how to care for you, to teach people how to show up for you. And it's not through a step by step list of instructions that you give to your friends and family. It's in how you show up for them. Model for your family members, for your friends, for the people around you. Model for them how you want them to show up for you. And my third piece of advice would be to find your people. 

It's important to find your people, to find the people who will love you and care for you and show up for you the way you need and for whom you can show up and care for and love as their authentic selves without wanting to change each other. And I think the best people, when you find your people, the best people really do bring out the best in you. When you find where you belong, I do believe when you find where you belong, you will start to grow. 

Kevin: Yeah. Well, Summer, thank you so much for sharing your story with me today. I so appreciate your vulnerability, your honesty. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your story with me today.

Summer: Thank you for allowing me to share my story with you. 

Are you in need of trust? Listen in to our Coping Conversation with Michelle, who shares her powerful story of showing up and learning to trust.

Kevin: Welcome. I'm Chaplain Kevin, and today I'm talking with Michelle, who, as a young girl, faced insecurity and instability. Throughout her journey, she learned the importance of showing up, which helped her to build a strong foundation of trust. This is "Coping".

Michelle, thank you so much for joining me today. I am so excited to have you here with me and to hear more of your story.

Michelle: Thank you so much for allowing me to be here. It's a privilege and an honor. 

Kevin: It's great to have you. So as I read your story, one of the main themes that came up for me was this idea of trust. How do you define that word, trust? What does that mean to you?

Michelle: For me, trust means the ability to show up. When you say you're going to be there, you're going to be there.

Kevin: Yeah. Where has showing up been important in your life? 

Michelle: So I have an interesting relationship with trust. When I was young, I had two parents that were going through a fairly contentious divorce, and often I felt like I was caught in the middle of that. I didn't have a deep sense of safety at either parents house because of the nature of their divorce. Police were often getting called in as they were working through joint custody. I was often in a courtroom. I had to do some, like, psychological evaluation so often, didn't feel like I could, I would say, really trust my surroundings. So already I had this shaky foundation of trust. And then probably the hardest part of that culminated when I was around, I think it's around six and a half every Friday night I would wait for my dad and I'm waiting for him to come and pick me up and I wait and he didn't show up. And we really lost contact with one another. I would sparsely get cards and then those came to a trickle and it left me wondering what happened for about six years. And I think at that point all bets were off on the feeling, a sense of trust, just in general. So even though I had a fairly tumultuous childhood, my grandparents created this lovely safe haven. For me, it was just a very rhythmatic pace at their house. I knew it was going to happen all the time. 

I knew during the summertime my grandmother and I were going to sit and watch soap operas. I knew she was going to fix me a sandwich at like, 12:00. I knew that every summer we were going to go away for two weeks to Silver Lake. I knew my grandfather was going to pick me up at a specific time and take me to school at a specific time. At the elementary school down the street, they always showed up for me. 

Kevin: Those rhythms are so important for building trust. 

Michelle: Absolutely. Consistency, especially for. A child who is kind of being tossed and turned is essential, and I'm so grateful that they were there. But there was still a huge gaping hole left in my heart from my dad not being present. When I entered into junior high, I was able to establish connection again with my dad through to one of our mutual relatives. Wow. And it was somewhat of a surprise. I didn't think that I would be seeing him again. And he appeared on the phone one day, which was after six and a half years, a six and a half year old to about a twelve and a half year old. But I think even at twelve and a half years, I had the sensibility that I don't quite understand why this happened, but I'm going to give my dad the opportunity to be a part of my life. 

I think that was important for me to make that decision and give him another chance. So for two years, we reconnected, and it was wonderful. He was with another partner at that time, and I would go down to their house and he started to play that role again of that important male figure that I needed. And I felt like I had my dad back. For Thanksgiving, my dad, his partner and I were planning on going on a ski trip, and I was really excited. About a week went by and I hadn't heard from him. So I called to his house, and his partner at the time picked up and said, well, you haven't heard from your dad. I said no. And she said, well, he left. And I was confused, hurt. I was so excited about this and I had put my trust in my dad, and I think to have this happen a second time, in fact, this expression would often play in my head. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. 

Kevin: So you're 14 years old, and you are learning yet again that sometimes our parents just don't show up for us when we need them to, when we want them to. How did trust continue to evolve for you from there?

Michelle: Yeah, it was challenging, to say the least, at that point. I recently found some poetry that I had written, and sometimes you forget in the recesses of your mind how angry you were. But I was angry and rage filled, and that poetry says it all. Some of it's hard to read. I didn't have a therapist. I needed to have gone to counseling or therapy to work that out, but that wasn't presented as an option. And I just didn't, frankly, know about counselors and therapy at that point. When we're talking about trust and where that kind of takes me, I think at that point, I'm putting a lot of, like, false trust in relationships. Trying to find it seemed like I was just in the quest of trying to find a boyfriend at that time. And then once I got into college, I actually ended up. Getting into a relationship, and that ended up being with my now ex husband. We were together for twelve years. I think he provided, actually, a very stable presence for me, and perhaps I did need that at the time. But then it ended up being very unhealthy after twelve years. So much so that it ended in our divorce. We ended up going to an emergency counseling session, and the counselor clearly said a word I had never heard, which was codependency. And what I later learned that that meant for me at least, was I could not depend on myself. 

I could not trust myself. I could not trust myself to make decisions. I was looking for other people as outlets. It's very odd for me when I look back, because I was so highly independent. I traveled abroad when I was 16 and I lived there. I did all of that on my own. I was living quite like a fiercely independent life. And then when my ex husband and I got together, I think there was something that just switched in my brain to being dependent on him and just seeing him as almost like oxygen that I needed to breathe. I needed him that badly in a very toxic way. It sounds like you were fiercely independent, like you described, but I think you've been wanting to depend on others, especially these male figures in your life. 

Kevin: And that desire to depend and to have somebody dependable then turned into codependency. 

Michelle: Yeah, I think because I didn't understand healthy dependence. So yeah, that's a very. Keen observation that that search for just having a healthy dependency and desire ended up morphing into something very toxic. You know, the the moral of that, that story and the divorce that came out of it is, ma'am Michelle, you got to figure out how to show up for yourself and depend on you first. And that's going to be a real hard road for the next ten years. But that's where we're going. And it was such a like I said, the Band Aid got pulled off in a real harsh way with the divorce, and I was almost thrown into boot camp on how to show up for myself, in a way where, as you pointed out, there's being fiercely independent to the point where you are still craving people to show up for you. And then there's being independent in a healthy way of like I trust myself. 

I know I can show up for me. And I know I have a pocket of people who will also show up for me in a healthy way if I need them to. But first and foremost, I'm going to trust myself, I'm going to show up for me. 

Kevin: Right? Yeah. Those two things are not incompatible being independent and having dependable people. We'll be right back. 

Announcement: Today's episode is brought to you by Be Well Resources. Be Well is a wellness organization that provides mental and spiritual tools for whole person health. Be Well helps you develop your unique gifts and discover your calling. Follow us on Facebook or Instagram at Be Well Resources to take your next steps toward being well.

Kevin: Welcome back. So you find yourself now divorced and in a boot camp of sorts, of learning how to trust and depend on yourself. Where does journey take you next? 

Michelle: So my journey kind of got pulled in two different directions. On one hand, I had people who started showing up for me, and interestingly enough, a lot of them are Christian. There was such a gaping hole in my soul at that point, and they were nourishing me in a way that I had never been fed. It was with spiritual food. At the same time, I think this was so new to me. It was like a divergent path. I was going down another path of old habits, of codependency. So I had some rebound relationships. I was still looking for that soul to be filled in a very destructive manner. And so I was dealing with a lot of anxiety at this point, just trying to find stability for myself. And then this all kind of culminated. I was on my way back home. I was already anxious, driving a car, and I had a fender bender with another vehicle. Cool. So I'm jobless holding on to any financial resources I had, again to this accident. I think that this company is going to come back and sue me because they sent their workers to a hospital again, just as a routine check up to make sure everything was okay. And it just kept me in spiral. I mean, that's what anxiety will do to you. Anxiety will just keep you in the spiral of the worst case scenario for as long as you are kept in it. And it takes sometimes a lot to pull you out. So for one week, I was in a constant state of anxiety. 

I went to my neighborhood dog park, and a neighbor of mine saw how anxious I was. And she had known a lot of background. In fact, she was one of the ones that I was going to Bible studies at her house. So my neighbor pulls me into her house, and she said, Michelle, with all the Bible studies that you've been going to, has anybody asked you to make a commitment to trust him with your heart? And I said, no. And I think the important thing to keep in mind again, because I'm a new person to faith. I did not know what this question meant to me. It had no more bearing than asking me if I want butter on my toast. Like, literally, I did not think about it. I did not understand quite what she was asking me. And all I can tell you is when I said yes, this immediate wash of calm, like, I could not describe came over me. 

It was a night and day difference between me entering her house and prior to her praying for me. I literally can't explain. It's one of those moments that there is no explanation. There's no cerebral explanation. I can't put logic to it. 

Kevin: Something happened, something transformed inside. 

Michelle: Yeah, exactly. So that moment really put me on a path of putting my trust in God, and then ultimately, it's putting our trust in ourselves, and it really set up a very good foundation for me over the next several years of being able to make thoughtful decisions, ones that I could get behind. So much so in 2018. So now it's five years after I sat with my neighbor and she prayed for me and with me. And God puts a prompting on my heart to go through what I call the year of forgiveness or the forgiveness train. And it was essentially laying aside all of the hurt and the pain that I had from some grievances and relationships. You would think that I would have gotten eased into this. But no, we started with the one that I had the hardest time, which was my dad. So this comes somewhat full circle. The last time I had seen him was 14 and a half and I'm now 37. 

Kevin: That's 23 years.

Michelle: Yeah, it was a long time that had gone by and again, through a relative of mine, she was able to connect us and we ended up meeting for dinner. I'm still somewhat angry, dismayed, confused, but I lay all that aside and I go to that dinner and we sit down and we had, for all intents and purposes, what was a very awkward conversation for about 2 hours, but that started us on the path of starting a relationship again. That dinner led to another dinner and that led to me inviting my dad down to my house, a house that I had rented for several years. And I had this dilapidated piece of dirt in the back and I just wanted my dad's opinion on this garden. I wanted this thing to be a beautiful garden. I had lived in this place and I actually wanted to feel like home. And my dad is well versed in construction and just being able to build things from scratch. So as we were talking about this dilapidated piece of dirt and what I could do with it, he made the suggestion, to my surprise, that he would come down and on the weekends we would do this as a project together. 

I think those first few meetings, again, were the start of a relationship. But that garden project was the impetus for us to actually build out a blossoming relationship. 

Kevin: What advice do you have for others that may be struggling with trust and desiring for others to show up for them? What advice do you have for them? 

What I've learned is first and foremost, you have to show up for yourself. Because if you can't depend on yourself, then you do start putting trust in the wrong places. And secondly, I would say that trust is a process. It took a lot of time, I mean, 23 years. It really does take time to build a foundation of trust, to have a solid relationship with somebody else. Lastly, I think trust can easily be eroded, but trust can also be rebuilt. Again, it can take time. It can take a series of events for that to happen. But. our relationship is a testament to the fact that it can be rebuilt and beautiful things can come from it. It can sprout anew, and it can blossom into something that is so magnificently beautiful, you just can't picture it. You can't imagine it. 

Kevin: Wow. Well, Michelle, I just thank you so much for sharing your story with me, with us. Your wisdom, your vulnerability, your strength. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your story with us. 

Michelle: Thank you so much for allowing me to be here. 

Are you in need of truth? Listen in to our Coping Conversation with Anne, who shares her powerful story of finding her voice and telling her truth.

Kevin: Welcome. I'm Chaplain Kevin, and today I'm talking with Anne, who at a young age, discovered her voice through writing. While she fought for her own voice to be heard, she amplified the voices of others, and through it all, she began to live her truth. This is “Coping”. 

Kevin: Hi, Anne. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so excited to have you with me to hear more about your story.

Anne: Yeah. Thank you, Kevin. It's a pleasure to be here with you. Thank you. 

Kevin: Well, as I read your story, one of the main themes that came up for me was this idea of truth. What does the word truth mean to you? Well, I think it means letting my voice be heard. Where has truth and letting your voice be heard come up for you and your life? 

Anne: I think I discovered my truth and my voice, actually, when I was 16 years old, I got the idea or the gift to start writing poetry, and I just felt if I didn't write a poem a day, I would lose it. So I kept writing poetry and then eventually started publishing my work. And then I had a wonderful English teacher my senior year of high school and got me involved in writing for the student magazine. And then I got the idea to write to Irma Bombeck, the humorist, who was pretty popular at the time. And she actually lived in the next town over from me. She was writing columns for the newspaper Kettering Oakwood Times. And I thought, “Well, I'll write her a letter to see if I can.” You know, get some advice from her about writing. 

And surprisingly, she did write me back. She was very encouraging. She wrote you're on your way at 16? She goes, When I was your age, I couldn't write my name on my gym shorts. Oh, my gosh. And then she said, good luck and God bless Irma Bombeck. 

Kevin: And you still have the letter today?

Anne: I do. Yeah, I do. She still inspires me.

Kevin: Wow. So with so much positive feedback from your teacher, from the local newspaper, from this writer, what were your parents saying? What was their take on this whole writing thing? 

Anne: Well, it was really interesting because maybe this is what makes a writer. My parents weren't very communicative. We weren't taught or encouraged to share our feelings and our thoughts. And I was writing in a diary at that point too, all my thoughts and feelings. My parents were very kind of wonderful people, but very kind of stoic. And my father, having been a Marine and just kept a lot of his thoughts to himself. I mean, he was more physical and being a physical therapist, taking care of patients, and my mom was taking care of us, but communication wasn't something in our home. So I think my father was a bit just indifferent or didn't understand. 

And my mother, maybe she didn't understand what I was trying to do either and was a bit of a struggle because I felt like editors were hearing me, but not my own family.

Kevin: Wow. Where did your journey take you next? 

Anne: Well, I knew I wanted to go to a certain college because they had a good creative writing program there, and they had writers there, professional writers who were professors. Again, there was a little bit of opposition there. My father thought it was a party school. I didn't. That was the furthest thing from my mind. You know, I thought I was wanting to be a serious writer, and I wanted to learn from serious published writers who were farther along on their journey, I guess. And so my high school teacher, Mr. Keane, very much encouraged me. I think my mother must have convinced my father. So I was able to go to the college of my choice, and it was a dream come true to actually have an independent study set up for me where I could write 20 poems for the quarter and have a professor who could guide me. 

And then I had another wonderful professor, Byron Scott, who encouraged me to write articles. So it just was like another turning point for me, and he let me kind of come in through the back door and write for the Student Community magazine. I got to take some classes and started entering contests. I found out about the Mademoiselle Guest Editor Competition, whereas if you won, you got to spend a month in New York and work on the magazine. So I entered twice and got honorable mention. The second time, I really got into some journalistic stories writing about black lung disease, and I interviewed families in the Appalachia area, which was where my college was located, and also did another article about rape awareness on campus. And I learned so much. I learned to be a good journalist as well. Wow. I met my husband at the time in college. He was studying law, so we were both working really hard on our potential careers. And I always knew I really wanted to go to New York City. 

Anne: I felt like that was the place to be. That was the sort of. Magazine book publishing mecca, you know, of the country. And so first year of our marriage, I was in Cleveland. He was scared of taking the bar in New York City, so there was a little bit of some struggle there. And I had to fight for protecting my voice and wanting to continue and move forward with my career. So I finally convinced him to go. We loaded up all our stuff in a U Haul and drove to New York City. 

I'd always been drawn to health. I felt like I could help a lot of people writing articles about health. So when I was working at Ladies Circle magazine, we had a section of the magazine called Survival Stories, and it was about women who survived situations and learned to thrive. So I felt like being a writer, I could use my voice and express my truth. But I got a great deal of satisfaction in helping other women find their voices as well. To me, it was sort of a nice ripple effect. 

I not only could use my voice to help others, but encourage others to use their voice as well. We were really having a great time in New York City, and we moved to the suburbs, and I was still continuing to do my writing. And then we had another child. And all of a sudden my husband comes home one day and tells me we need to move. His company is moving us. And where were you guys moving to? To San Francisco. Clear across the country. Can't take the train into New York City anymore. It was quite a jolt because I thought, “Now what am I going to do to leave this mecca of the publishing world to go to San Francisco?” 

Anne: I thought< “What's in San Francisco for me?” And I tried to look at it like an adventure and with the kids, and I thought, “Well, maybe moving to California wouldn't be so bad, and I'll figure something out.” But in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, “Gosh, is this the end of my career? My voice? How am I going to be heard now?” So we ended up moving and and shortly after we moved, I had an agent contact me and he had seen my credentials in a directory that we put out through the American Society of Journalists and Authors. 

I got into that group, which was another wonderful acknowledgment of my voice. And then he asked me if I had any ideas and introduced himself. And I said, well, sure, yeah, I do have some ideas. So I told him about my book idea and he helped me write a book proposal, and lo and behold, we found a publisher. And so I ended up writing the book. But again, my voice was stymied because I had this book advance to write the book, but my husband started throwing a lot of concerns at me. “Well, who's going to take care of the kids? How are you going to get the time to write a book?” Blah, blah, blah. But thank God, I had a really good friend of mine whom I had to leave in New York, who told me, don't worry about anything. Write the book. 

Kevin: Why do you think your husband was expressing concerns? What was the basis of his concern?

Anne: Well, I really wish I knew. I always felt like if we helped each other, we both could be successful. And so, persevered. Anyway, I would take the kids to nursery school, a wonderful nursery school, which they enjoyed from nine to three. And during those hours, I would go be home writing like crazy. So nine to three was my time. Then I would pick my kids up from school, take them to swim lessons or their activities, bring them home, fix them dinner, put them to bed. And after they were in bed, my husband would come home from his work. 

So it was pretty much all on me, truly, the picture of a working mom. Yes, I was a working mom. I mean, times too, actually, I felt like I had double two jobs, double duty. But to me, I felt so strongly about being able to help women, and I felt by writing this book and helping them, that they could have their voice again. It was me wanting to make a difference in the lives of other women. At the time, I kept thinking, I'm just going to keep pushing and pushing, and he'll be proud of me, my father will be proud of me, my mom will be proud of me, everything will fall into place. And I was determined again to write this book, to have my voice be heard. So I got the galleys around Christmas time. My parents were visiting, and I was really excited about it. I thought, oh, now my dad will be proud of me. Now he'll maybe read the book and sort of understand what I'm all about and my mom. But for some reason, I didn't expect this from my father. But he started reading the galleys, got through like a page and said to me, “Did you have all your marbles when you wrote this?” 

And it felt like someone just took a gun and shot me through the chest. I was like. Almost paralyzed. I just I was just devastated.

Kevin: We'll be right back.

Today's episode is brought to you by Be Well Resources. Be Well is a wellness organization that provides mental and spiritual tools for whole person health. Be Well helps you develop your unique gifts and discover your calling. Follow us on Facebook or Instagram at Be Well Resources to take your next steps toward being well. 

Kevin: Welcome back. Can you tell me about the importance of continuing to tell your truth, letting your voice be heard in the midst of opposition? Why is that so important to continue to push and make sure that your voice is heard? 

Anne: I think it's important for women to let their voice be heard because we are worthy. And I think we need to stop believing whatever lies come our way from others because we are worthy. And each of us, I think, has a special gift. And we can't let our voices be silenced. Yes. So New Year's came and went, and I remember thinking the book was going to be published in January. Just feeling sort of this shadow of shame from what my father said, but hopeful that good things would come from the book. Lo and behold, it did. My book was excerpted in not just one edition of Reader's Digest, but three editions of Reader's Digest. Wow. In not only Reader's Digest in the US. But Great Britain and Canada and I ended up being on the Today show and several other TV shows and over 60 radio programs.

Kevin: Wow. So this highlight of being recognized by the Reader's Digest and being on the Today show, where did your journey take you next? 

Anne: I was still writing and still being mom, pretty much with all my kids activities. And then my husband tells me we need to move again, that there's a job opportunity in Dallas, Texas. So here we go again with more change. And I had no clue of Texas. We had visited his brother in Texas, but I thought, again, what am I going to do there? So we did move to Texas. And as I was wondering what am I going to do with myself, with my voice, I saw a little advertisement in the, I think, the Dallas Morning News about the Dallas Screenwriters Association. 

I didn't have a clue about writing screenplays, but I thought, oh, it's a writing group, so I'll join. So I started going to the meetings, learning about writing scripts, and it was like my passion was renewed again. I found the energy and passion for my voice again, and I just poured myself into it. 

Kevin: Wow. Being uprooted yet again. How do you know when to let your voice be heard, when to speak your truth? Put your foot down versus being accepting and trying to make the best of your circumstances?

Anne: Yeah, sure. I think it's listening to your heart. I mean, certain situations, sometimes you don't have much of a choice. But part of me as a writer is that sense of adventure, that sense of. New experiences to write about. And I thought, okay. So in the back of my mind, I'm like, maybe I need to just take a chance with this and see what new experiences I could write about, because I think, in a way, that made my voice stronger. 

Kevin: That's really good, Anne.

Anne: Thank you. So when we were in Texas, um, I was writing for The Dallas Morning News and writing screenplays. And then I got word that my father, who had Alzheimer's, was not doing very well. And I was going back there fairly often. So I did get to see him. But when I came back to Dallas, he had passed away. And that was a turning point for me. I felt like this heaviness had been somewhat lifted and a new window had opened. 

While I missed him, I felt this relief not to have to get his approval anymore. It was also a turning point in my marriage because I felt like my spouse and I were drifting apart, very involved in our careers at that point. The kids were off to college. We were empty nesters and I started thinking about California again, and especially Southern California, because I had gone there several times to visit my daughters. And I had started making connections with producers and writers groups. 

In my heart, I knew I was supposed to be there. Long story short, I loaded up my PT Cruiser with. Belongings and my three cats, my dog Charlie, and headed to California. And the apartment just happened to be a block from the ocean. 

Kevin: Wow. So you take this drive from Texas to Manhattan Beach, California. What happened when you got there?

Anne: I began getting established and was writing more and more screenplays and going to various workshops, and I was learning a lot, writing a lot. At this particular juncture, my daughter graduated, was working for ABC and becoming a producer. And eventually we thought, well, maybe we'll join forces here. She's a good storyteller. So we started working together a little bit, and currently we're marketing four screenplays, two romantic comedies, and two true stories, and we're hoping to get one or some of those produced at some point in the future. 

And I'm also writing a blog called The Other Side of Everything on Facebook, which is a series of essays. I've always loved writing essays. I've published essays. For me, that is the greatest form of using my voice because it is very personal. I tell personal stories, funny stories, inspirational stories, and I can offer my own thoughts and inspiration and encouragement to others and also thinking to attempt the last form I haven't yet, which is to write a novel. 

To be able to put all that together – the visual with poetry and screenwriting and the ability to do research, I think could all come together nicely and possibly a future novel.

Kevin: So, Anne, what do you say to others who may be struggling with speaking their truth and letting their voice be heard? What advice do you have for them?

Anne: I would say keep speaking up. Don't hide your voice. Don't hide your gift. It was given to you for a reason. You are worthy of it, and don't give that up for anybody. And I would say, immerse yourself in truth. For me, I have all these affirmations taped to my bathroom wall, and one of them is being a person of faith. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” 

And then I would say, surround yourself with positive voices, other people, friends that can be encouraging to you, who are for you, not against you, who understand your thoughts, who want to know your thoughts and feelings and encourage you that don't judge you. 

Just today, I ran across a quote by Brene Brown which really struck me. And she says in the quote, “One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through, and it will be someone else's survival story.” I think what we go through can have a ripple effect. It's like a stone tossed into a pond. And when we reach out and help others, then those others can also reach out and help even more people.

Kevin: Thank you so much for sharing your story with us today. We thank you for your voice, for being so strong and speaking your truth and the encouragement that you give for others to do the same. Thank you for sharing your story with us today.

Anne: Yeah, thank you very much, Kevin. 

Are you in need of acceptance? Listen in to our Coping Conversation with Amy, who shares her powerful story of acceptance.

Kevin: Welcome. I'm Chaplain Kevin, and today I'm talking with Amy, who, from a young age, learned not to allow her physical limitations to limit her life. Throughout her journey, she faced countless challenges, including discrimination, as she made her way toward acceptance. This is “Coping”. 

Amy, I am so excited to have you here with me today. Thank you for joining me and sharing some of your story with us. 

Amy: You're welcome.

Kevin: So, as I read your story, one of the things that stuck out to me most was this idea of acceptance. How do you define acceptance? What does that word mean to you?

Amy: Acceptance, for me, means embracing the unexpected. Where in your life have you had to have this kind of acceptance? Well, I think from the very beginning, I was born premature. My mother was 22 weeks into her pregnancy when she was diagnosed with preeclampsia and went into labor. So I was born via an emergency C section. And essentially, they told her sister, who was with her at the time, to just brace the family because they weren't sure either one of us was going to make it through that. 

And my mom said she was able to hear that even though she was sedated, but she felt peace. She wasn't afraid. Wow. She felt that everything was going to be okay. 

Kevin: Wow. And where do you think that that peace came from for her? Where did she get that kind of peace?

Amy: My mother has always been a very faith filled person. So I just think that she knew that God was with her at that moment and that everything was going to be okay, no matter how complicated it was. 

So, like I said, I was born via C section. My mother didn't get to physically see me at all. They took a picture of me and life flighted me to the neighboring town because the town I was born in did not have a NICU. At that time, I was in the hospital for two months because I only weighed three pounds 5oz. Wow. So basically they kept me for two months to gain weight. After the two months, I was able to go home, and my mother was under the impression that she had a healthy, perfect baby girl. 

So at six months, my mom, of course, like any mother, would play with her child, and she noticed that I would reach out for the toys, but I would not open my hands. My hands were always in a fist. So at six months old, I'm getting an MRI and all these tests to see why I wouldn't open my hands, because outwardly I looked like a healthy baby girl. 

They come to find in the MRI that since I was so premature, I lacked oxygen in the brain, which caused, essentially brain damage. And I was then diagnosed with cerebral palsy. So even though she received difficult news to cope with or accept, she knew that if she worked hard with me, she could provide the best life that she could give me. 

Kevin: It sounds like your mom was the first example in your life of teaching you how to embrace the unexpected. Can you speak to that a little bit? How did she teach you how to have that kind of acceptance? 

Amy: So the way she did that was basically teach me that I would be able to be as independent as I could possibly be and that I should never allow myself to feel inferior to everyone else because of my physical disability. 

My father did the same thing. He held education to be one of the most important things in life, and he also included me in every single activity he could possibly include me in, which meant changing the lock on the door or going fishing or giving the dog a bath. I mean, for him, I was his daughter, and my physical disability was not going to stop me from doing every single other activity that any other child could do. It sounds like part of what your parents were teaching you was that acceptance doesn't accept the limitation and that your physical limitations is not going to limit you in your life. 

Kevin: Exactly. Yeah. So your parents were this great model for you in your life. Where did your journey take you next?

Amy: So when I started school, I was three years old, so it was 1990, and it was the beginning of ADA awareness in our country. So there was a moment when I was in school and the special education classroom had an accessible bathroom, but no other restroom in the school had an accessible. Stall. Wow. So here you see me with another classmate trekking down the hall as quickly as I could because I had no access to one near me. 

Actually, my mother fought for those things, and we got them placed before I left that school. Wow. That's amazing. So I was the only child in school that walked in a walker. A lot of times, that's how I was recognized the girl in the walker. But the time I really started to feel very different and very maybe not accepted by my peers was mostly in high school. So I couldn't sit in the same desks that my classmates did. I always had to have a special desk to myself, which, without the teachers realizing, kind of set me apart from everybody. So I always found it difficult when teachers would say, okay, let's work in groups. I couldn't get up to approach anyone because, of course, they would set my walker aside so it wouldn't be in the way. But my classmates wouldn't approach me either, and then the teacher would have to ask a group to include me. But I did realize they're only working with me because the teacher asked them to, not because it came from them to, oh, I want to work with Amy. 

It wasn't this overt mistreatment. It was more just the subtle things that reminded you of being different. I think the only time I faced a very overt situation that I knew I was different was when my English teacher freshman year told me I could not be in her class. 

I was very fortunate that my high school did have a very good department for students with disabilities. So I told them about that situation, and they went with me and my mother to talk to that teacher, and she said it wasn't because I had a physical disability, but she thought I could not handle her coursework. But she only made that judgment upon seeing me with my physical disability. Wow. She had not even graded an assignment of mine yet because we were early in the school year. She saw you, and she already decided what grade you were going to get. 

I had already submitted an assignment to her. So the person from the Department of Students with Disabilities at the school asked her, you have her assignment. Grade it. Grade it first before you make that decision. And she said, okay, but I'm a very hard grader. Very few of my students ever get A's from me because I'm very strict. Sure. So we sat there as she graded my assignment, and she gave me an A. Wow. Yes. 

Kevin: Yeah. That's awesome.

Amy:  So in high school, I was a very good student. I was actually part of a program called the IB program. Basically, you're taking college level courses. So when I graduated high school, I graduated with a 3.67 GPA. And when I started college, I did not have to take English, History, or the initial classes for, like, a foreign language, thanks to me being part of that program.

Kevin: And your hard work.

Amy:  My goodness, yes. Definitely hard work. At that point, I felt that I needed to spread my wings and go away to school. So, without telling my parents, I applied to three different universities. All three of them different distances away from home, and I got accepted to all three. So I first told my father I felt that he would be more receptive to it than my mother, so I told him first. The first thing he asked me was, have you told your mother? And I said, no. And he said, Well, I support you 100%. 

I said thank you. I'm glad you feel that way. I said, But I need you to help me tell mom.So we went together and we told her, and she was like, no, you're not going. And I said, Why? 

She said, well, you don't know how to do laundry. You don't know how to cook for yourself. She was coming up with all these things that she told me I could not do. And I looked at her and I said, mom, but my whole life you've told me I need to learn to be independent, because there will be a time when you're no longer with me. And my mom's like, I don't know what you're going to do, but you're not going. And I was faced with having to say one of the harshest things I've ever said to my mother. And I basically turned to her and said, if I didn't have my physical disability, would you be saying no to me right now? 

She looked at me with tears in her eyes, and it took her a minute, and she said, no, I wouldn't. That was the end of that conversation. A month later, we were going to orientation and looking for apartment. 

Kevin: Wow. We'll be right back.

Announcement: Today's episode is brought to you by Be Well Resources. Be Well is a wellness organization that provides mental and spiritual tools for whole person health. Be Well helps you develop your unique gifts and discover your calling. Follow us on Facebook or Instagram at Be Well Resources to take your next steps toward being well.

Kevin: Welcome back. 

Amy: So from here, I'm a new town that I've never in my life been. I have a roommate who's a person that I met when I met, like, two days before school started and I'm faced with having to do everything my mom did for me. And I remember rolling through the kitchen one day, and I'm like, this is sticky. And I was like, I'm going to mop. And I remember my mom calling me and saying, what are you doing? 

And I'm like, I'm mopping the kitchen. She was like, how in the world are you allowed people mopping that kitchen? Who told you to do that? I'm like me. How are you doing it? I'm like, I'm sitting in the scooter in the carpeted area, and the mop is long, and the kitchen is not very big, and I have long arms. 

So, yeah, this is how I'm mopping the kitchen. And she's like, Only you would come up with a way to do these things. I'm like, I have to. The floor was sticky. I couldn't take it anymore. Um 

Kevin: You were figuring it out? 

Amy: Yes, just figuring it out. Yeah. So it was a very enjoyable time. I learned a lot. I also learned about the kindness of people in general, which many people will say today we lack a lot of but it's still out there. 

I even met a friend. Of course, she started out as a classmate who tells me one day, hey, if you want to go to the grocery store after class, I can take you. And I'm thinking, well, I'm in my scooter. Not most vehicles can accommodate that. I can. You sure about that? She's like, yeah, definitely. I can take you. I said, well, if you want, just meet me at my apartment. I could pick up my walker, and then we can go. She said, no, we can go from school. I have a wheelchair van. I'm like, I have a wheelchair van. Why? Oh, because a family member. And in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, what are the odds that I meet a person with a wheelchair van who's willing to take me to the grocery store? 

So my senior year, I was actually only taking one class because I'd already taken all the other classes that I needed to graduate, and that class revolved around an internship. So I reach out to Brenner's Hospital for Children here in Houston. 

Amy: I grew up doing surgeries, therapy, the works, because of my disability there. So I figured since I already knew people there, I had a better chance of obtaining an internship. So I went there as they're telling me, yeah, you can do your internship here, but also we have a job opening if you're willing to take it. I apply. A week later, I interview. A week later, I'm hired. So here I am, working at the hospital that saw me grow up and doing my internship with the person who ended up becoming my supervisor. So I graduated in December of 2013 with a bachelor's degree of science in Health administration. 

My plan was to work for a year, then go back and get my master's degree. So I go to work in August 2014. It's a Wednesday. I remember. I get up, do my morning routine, go to work. I'm having in my mind a pretty good day. I did work on the nursing unit, and things were going smoothly. Almost midway through my shift, I get a phone call from my mother. She says, Amy, can you tell them you need to leave early, and I have someone on the way to pick you up? And I asked her. I said why? What's wrong? She says, we just have a family emergency. So at first, I'm not panicked, and I let my boss know, hey, I need to go home. They're on the way. So I said, well, if anything is going on, my dad will know. 

I call him. No answer. Go to voicemail. That sometimes happens, especially if he's at work. So I didn't think much of it. He'll call me back. He was really good at calling me right back. About an hour passes by, and the person that's picking me up is taking a little while. So about an hour passes by, and I still don't get a phone call from him. I call him again. At this point, I get nervous, and I start shaking. And my coworkers are like, Amy, you know what? Stop what you're doing. 

They somehow got my belongings together. I don't even know how. And they say, “Go downstairs and wait for your ride.” So I go down to our lobby to wait for my ride, and I decide to call my mom. Well without her knowing she clicks on her cell phone, and I recognize that she's talking to one of my dad's brothers in Mexico. And all I hear her say is, Felipe passed away, which is my dad's name. I lose it. I hang up. I start crying. 

I am basically screaming. The security guard was nearby, and he says, what's wrong? What's wrong? And I just tell him, my dad died. My dad died. And he calls another security guard who was a good friend of mine there at work, to be there with me. 

I'm distraught at this point. My ride finally gets there and picks me up. I get home, my mom just runs to me and hugs me. And at this point, she's bawling. I come into my room, and that was the first night. 

What happened was that he just had a massive heart attack that took him on the spot. By the time paramedics got to him, there was nothing they could do. Gosh, I'm so sorry, Amy. So it was a shock. It was, once again an unexpected event for all of us. And honestly, at that point, I felt like there was a huge hole inside of me. I don't know how else to describe it. Your parents have taught you your entire life how to embrace the unexpected.

Kevin: How did you get to a point where you could accept this kind of loss? 

Amy: It's a little complicated. I knew dad was gone. I knew that I would never physically see him again. I was able to accept that part. But. But without realizing, I kind of just got stuck in life, if that makes sense. I just got into this daily routine. Didn't stray from it one bit. Didn't move forward from where I was in terms of life goals and things I knew I wanted to do, dad knew I wanted to do. I didn't do that. 

My mom would tell me, you promised your dad you'd go back to school. It really took seven years and working with a professional to move on from that. It really took. I'll be honest. And as crazy as it seems, pandemic starts 2020. My anxiety hits the roof. And I remember one morning I called work crying, saying that I couldn't come in. I just couldn't take it. And my boss just ever so gently says, you know, you need help, right? And I say, yeah. And she says, I'll check back with you in a couple of days, but I want to know when I call you again that you've at least set something up. It was time. It was time to get unstuck. It was so I was able to find a professional and work. 

I was able to just finally, I guess, get unstuck, just kind of pull all those dreams out of that hole that I was stuck in and move on with them, which hadn't happened in years.

Kevin: As you think about others who may be struggling with acceptance and embracing the unexpected, what advice do you have for them? 

Amy: I think the biggest advice would be that know that you're not alone. No matter what the unexpected is, you're not alone. Another lesson that I thought of was being grateful for the small things like I mentioned when I was in college, meeting someone that had a wheelchair event or just basically having a friend that would say, oh, let me cook you dinner. Most people might take that for granted, but for me, that was huge. That was significant. I always remembered what my father would tell me. You will figure out a way, even if it's different, even if it takes longer, you'll figure out a way. 

It brings me back to the embracing of the unexpected, because I will be able to face anything else that life could throw at me.

Kevin: Well, Amy, thank you so much for sharing your story with me today. Thank you for your strength. Thank you for your wisdom today.

Amy: Thank you, Kevin, so much. 

Are you in need of grace? Listen in to our Coping Conversation with Melinda, who shares her powerful story of grace.

Kevin: Welcome. I'm Chaplain Kevin, and today I'm talking with Melinda, who, from an early age, battled insecurity and anxiety. In the midst of her challenging circumstances and overwhelming emotions, her journey to find grace led her back home. This is “Coping”. 

Melinda, thank you so much for being with me today. I'm so glad to have you here, and I'm excited to hear more about your story

Melinda: Thank you so much. It's awesome to be here.

Kevin: You know, as I read your story, I did pick up on the main theme of grace. How do you define grace? What does that word mean to you?

Melinda: I equate grace with the action and feeling of coming home, where home is a place that is welcome. It's safe, it's secure, and it's full of forgiveness. And the reason I chose that is because in one of the hardest seasons of my life, grace called me home physically and spiritually.

Kevin: So where in your life have you had to find this kind of grace? When I look back, I definitely remember being nervous a lot of the time, and I don't think we called it anxiety. I was growing up. Maybe somebody else did, but not in my family or church. It wasn't a word that you knew. There wasn't a way to define what I was experiencing. So, for me, the best way I knew to deal with it was to…I'm kind of an emotional person, so I definitely would cry it out with my parents or by myself in my bedroom.

Kevin: How did you know that what you were struggling with was anxiety as opposed to just the normal angst that any teenager might feel? 

Melinda: That's a really good question. I definitely think it was dealing with anxiety because was even though it didn't show up on the outside, probably to other people, it was very emotionally for me on the inside. I think it's because it inhibited me from forming deeper relationships with people, and I'm naturally an introverted person. And so I think I leaned into sometimes pulling away.

Kevin: The anxiety for you was very internal. You perhaps weren't the stereotypical anxious person. It was something internal that was preventing you from connecting with people, making real connections, and perhaps getting the support that you really needed. 

Melinda: Exactly.

Kevin: Where did your journey take you next?

Melinda: Well, I did theater, and I loved it. It was so freeing to be able to express myself and find my voice on stage. And one of the things that really stuck out to me and I think helped me is that in theater, when you do your part, you're just supposed to do your part. And when everyone does their part, it makes this beautiful piece. And that was really freeing to me. Whereas anxiety would have you believe that you had to do more than just your part.

Being in love with theater, I worked at a theater company in Houston, and then from there, I decided I wanted to dig a little deeper. And so I went to grad school, and I got my Masters in theater. And so from there I moved to New York City to pursue acting on the stage and had a great time there. And then I moved to Los Angeles because I wanted to do more film and TV, and that had just been a lifelong dream. And when I got here, things were, of course, amazing. Bright lights and hot Hollywood sunshine. So that's why I moved to Los Angeles.

Kevin: And so as you were transitioning to LA. how did you get plugged into a community of support?

Melinda: It's pretty cool. When I first moved here, a friend in New York actually put me in touch with this lady, her and her husband and her kids. They had a house in the Culver City area, and the whole purpose was to give spiritually minded women a place to stay while they found their footing in Los Angeles. So when I got here, I met that lady and her wonderful family, and the rent was really cheap. And so I had about three to four months to find a place to live and meet people. And I had family nearby that reached out to me, and I was able to reconnect with them. 

Kevin: Yeah. So it sounds like the transition was going pretty well. You were getting plugged into a good network of support, you had a good living situation, you were meeting new people. Where did your journey take you next?

Melinda: So now we're fast forward to 2016. 

Kevin: How many years have you been in LA?

Melinda: That would have been a year and a half to two years. So I'm still pursuing acting. I've met an agent and I have a manager. I'm attending a really cool church I like. And I made it a priority to meet someone. And I did meet someone. And I'm in love for the first time. We all can remember what being in love for the first time is. That definitely adds a whole other layer to whatever you're going through. 

 I'm getting called in and called back for Netflix shows and other fun projects. I'm meeting casting directors that have been on my list to meet. And I keep chasing my dreams. I keep setting those goals. I'm crossing them off. I'm going to networking events, and it's the same thing on repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. And I think the anxiety really came in when I wasn't booking those jobs. I wasn't bringing in any money from acting. 

All of this hard work, it's basically a full time job, like pursuing work and doing these creative projects in hopes that you'll make it. And I wasn't seeing any fruit of that. And then I had to find they call it a survival job, right? 

For actors, you want that survival job so you can pay the bills, so you can do acting. And then it just hit me one day, like, I'm not really enjoying this whole process. I feel really lonely. I feel like I've met cool people, but I am not having deep relationships with them. I feel far from God.

Kevin: So it sounds like you were running around doing a lot of things to be successful. Why did you feel that all of a sudden it hit you that you weren't happy?

Melinda: I think I was looking for a place to belong, looking for a home, in a sense. And that's where grace, I think, started to call me and point those things out to me. So then I've realized these things, and to be honest, I'm in a lot of debt, and I'm not making enough money to cover my bills and not ask for help. And as you get older every year in life, that becomes a little embarrassing, and you're like, okay, I need to now. I need to become an adult. So I decided to stop doing acting and to figure out what full time career I should be doing. 

Not having learned anything from the past, I kept striving. I jumped in even harder. I was in this mindset of, it doesn't matter what, I'm just going to make anything work. And so I decided to do digital marketing. I landed my first job, and doing marketing, I hated it, so I quit. And then without taking any time to slow down or listen, and I say listen, because I was definitely praying a lot, but I wasn't listening. I didn't stop. I didn't listen. I just kept going, I have to figure this out. I have to get out of debt. I have to make something work. And I took a position doing social media marketing, and it was a dream job, honestly, but it turned into a nightmare. And it was totally on me because I didn't ask the right questions in the job interview, because I just so badly wanted the job. It was completely wrong.

Kevin: How does anxiety play into all of this? 

Melinda: Well, at the time, I don't think I realized that it was anxiety. So in order to combat those feelings. I just ignored them, to be honest.

Kevin: And that was allowing the anxiety to build and to be played out in poor decision making and not stopping to deal with it, because maybe subconsciously, you knew it was so big that if you stopped, it would be pretty overwhelming to try to start dealing with. 

Melinda: Yeah. And the other piece to that puzzle is that I was very much in love with one of the most amazing person I've ever met. He is kind and loving and super supportive, and I didn't want to lose him because I couldn't figure this out. But I also felt like, I don't want to tell him what's really going on inside of me because then maybe he won't love me. And I think that grace came along and was, like, knocking at my door, going, you just have to listen to me and take, like Emily Freeman says, the next right step. 

But the anxiety comes in because there's that terror there of what is the next right step? I just accepted this job. It's all wrong for me. If I quit it, what will happen to this amazing thing I found? 

I'm, like, tearing up. It's like reliving all those emotions all over again. Sorry. 

Kevin No, it's okay. We'll be right back.

Announcement: Today's episode is brought to you by Be Well Resources. Be Well is a wellness organization that provides mental and spiritual tools for whole person health. Be Well helps you develop your unique gifts and discover your calling. Follow us on Facebook or Instagram at Be Well Resources to take your next steps toward being well.

Kevin: Welcome back. 

Melinda: So I was completely determined that this job was going to be right for me because I didn't want to accept that it wasn't and lose what I had found or what God had brought into my life. So I worked a lot of overtime. I drank a lot of coffee, which, if you deal with anxiety in general, you know, coffee is not the thing to do. I would go into the office early. I would leave late. I would work at home a lot to prove to myself and to the people that had hired me that they didn't make a mistake, that I didn't make a mistake. But all the while, there's that underlying fear all day, all night. And then it finally came to a breaking point one day, and I felt lightheaded. I couldn't stop crying. I remember my body was shaking and I didn't want to go to the job. I didn't want to go in. I think it was a weekend, and I knew what was waiting for me on Monday. And I couldn't keep up. I couldn't keep up with the job. I couldn't make sense of it. It was just making me crazy. I felt like I was going crazy, and I didn't know what else to do. And I was in my apartment and I was all by myself, and this wave of emotions just came over me, and I couldn't reframe my thinking, and I couldn't calm down. 

I didn't know what else to do. So I called my parents and woof. And it's interesting to me because the first person I didn't call was this man that I love, because I didn't want to be rejected by him.

Kevin: The risk of telling him what was going on and how hard things were for you, it felt a little bit too vulnerable and risky that he might see a different side of you and not love that side of you.

Melinda: Yes, exactly. And also, I had gotten into this pattern of accepting a job, quitting it. Accepting it, quitting it, accepting it, quitting it. And so to admit to him that I needed to quit yet another job was almost too much. 

Kevin: So you called your parents and what happened next?

Melinda: Yeah, so, of course. They're amazing. And they were really worried about me. They had never heard me quite like this. They encouraged me the best they knew how. But we finally decided that it would be best if I came home. And so I packed up my bags and I drove all the way from LA to Houston in two days. And I remember I didn't listen to any music. I just gave my parents updates so they knew I was safe. I kind of just took in the scenery of being on the open road.

Kevin: Why was it so important to you at that time?

Melinda: I think I had so many emotions that I didn't know how to process them. It was kind of like this bottleneck we're experiencing in the distribution line. Because of COVID I feel like my emotions were stuck somewhere they couldn't get out. And I did cry a lot on the way home. I'm sure I prayed a lot.

Kevin: Yeah. And when you prayed, what were you praying? 

Melinda: Well, in addition to just asking for help, I think a part of my prayer life that was missing was just listening. I just needed to listen. And the only thing I heard was go home. So that's what I did. 

Kevin: Back to your definition of grace. You heard God say go home. What happened next?

Melinda:  So I made it home. And of course my parents want to help me as best they can. And this is the time where I formulated my thoughts that I had had a panic attack and was dealing with anxiety. And I think it was freeing to name it, to give it a name instead of feeling like there's just forever this thing wrong with me. Forever. This deep internal battle I'm having with myself all the time. 

Kevin: And once you name something, you can get help.

Melinda: Sure. So that's what I did. And in Texas, there are several megachurches. They all have counseling departments where you can apply to get free counseling. And as you know, I was broke and didn't have a lot of money to spend on that. And so I think through my family, through community, through a counselor, I felt like I was starting to put roots into the things that mattered. 

I had been home for about two months, and I felt like the tears had finally stopped. I felt very grounded. So I came back to Los Angeles in March 2019. My sweet boyfriend accepted me. We had a lot to talk through, and I think to know that I could trust him with that information was a game changer in our relationship. 

And then we got married in September of 2019. And so I'm newly married. I'm still kind of figuring out my career and what's happening with that. And then not but six months later, we're dealt this pandemic coming to the US. 

Kevin: And two years into the pandemic, how are you doing with your anxiety? How's everything now?

Melinda: The beginning of it was pretty hard for me. I definitely freaked out. And for anyone struggling with anxiety, the thoughts and fears of the unknown are pretty much like would drive it. But I would say that everything is going really well. And the reason for that is the very beginning of the pandemic. I knew that I needed to reach out for help, and so I knew I was coming in with this named Anxiety, but we dug into it a little bit more. We dug into how to process it. Who I am as a person. What are the things that can trigger it for me? And how, with my personality, can I process that? 

I actually found a career where I became a professional organizer, and part of my business is helping people create space.

Kevin: Does that allow room for breathing? That allow room for listening? It's almost as if you are helping other people find home in the way that you were able to find it. 

Melinda: Yes. That's always my prayer before each session when I work with clients, that I am able to give them the best of myself, but also that I can help their homes become a sacred place to lead them to grace, that they need to move forward in their lives. Because you're right. Home is where I was led back to grace and was able to restore my faith.

Kevin: Yeah. So what advice do you have for those that may be struggling with grace in their own lives? What do you say to them? 

Melinda: I would say to just stop the striving; to just stop. And oftentimes that's followed by breathing. Don't forget to breathe. Yeah. Physically breathing. And then when you've stopped, I find that I've created space because I've stopped to take the next step. 

And for me, that is to drive yourself home. I physically drove myself home, and then when I needed to during the pandemic, I figuratively drove myself to help, to get someone to come alongside me and help me process. And so home can be different to you. Maybe it's being outside in nature. Maybe it's calling that friend, whatever it is. I would just say drive yourself home. Melinda, thank you so much for sharing your story with me today. 

Kevin: Thank you for your vulnerability, your life lessons that I know will touch so many as we continue to endure in this very stress-filled world. Thank you, Melinda.

Melinda: Thank you so much for having me. 

Are you in need of Joy? Listen in to our Coping Conversation with Lindsay, who shares her powerful story of Joy.

Announcement: This episode centers around the topic of eating disorders. If you or someone you know is struggling with eating difficulties, you can seek support from the National Eating Disorder Association. Call or text 1800-931-2237, or you can visit them online at www.nationaleatingdisorders.org. Listener discretion is advised.

Kevin: I'm chaplain Kevin, and today I'm talking with Lindsay, who found herself trapped in a cycle of comparison. And through it all, she received help that supported her journey towards joy. This is “Coping”. Hi, Lindsay. I am so excited to have you here with me today. Thank you for sitting down with me and sharing some more of your story.

Lindsay: Yeah, Kevin, I'm so happy and honored to be with you today. And I actually have with me also, Emma Kate, who is two months old. She's resting on me right now, so you might hear her kind of make her little baby breathing noises.

Kevin: Sure. As I was reading your story, one of the main themes that came up for me was this idea of joy. How do you define joy? What does that word mean to you?

Lindsay: I think that joy is something that we are able to access and kind of cultivate when we make what is often has to be a conscious decision to remove kind of these glasses of comparison. So a lot of times. Actually, we might think of joy as putting on, like, rose colored glasses. Like, we just want to pretend like everything's great and fine and happy, and that's really not what joy is. I think when we choose to put on kind of glasses and lens of comparison, where we're constantly comparing ourselves and our circumstances, then we really kind of close off our ability to receive joy. 

Kevin: Yeah. Where in your life have you had to take off those glasses of comparison to really experience true joy?

Lindsay: So I started off as a kid, as a pretty joyful person, a pretty joyful kid, and I loved school. I was on a lot of sports teams. I had a boyfriend all through high school and was pretty confident in myself and had a lot of capacity for joy. I think I was the girl who would when you'd go to homecoming dinners and all the girls would order a salad, I would order the pizza. 

I was a very confident and healthy person around food and all that, but we had a family friend, a close family friend that had two girls. One was my age, and one was a few years older than I was, and I can remember that Nicole was her name. She started to lose weight, and everybody was getting really concerned, and we weren't really sure what was going on. And after some time, I don't remember it was I remember getting a call from my mom one day, and she said, Lindsay, Nicole's dead. And her mom had walked in. At that point, I think she was, like, 21 years old. Her mom had walked into the apartment, I think, and found her. Her body had just given out. And I remember going to her funeral service. And the biggest emotion I felt was anger. And I was so angry that we had somehow developed into a society that would make girls feel like they had to do that to their bodies in order to be beautiful or loved or accepted. And I can just remember my righteous anger about that. And so when I got to college, I moved all the way from the West Coast in California, all the way to the East Coast to Virginia, and was really excited about that but I moved into a dorm and really started becoming more aware of a lot of things related to body image. I was also sort of dealing with a big transition in terms of my identity as a student and was in kind of a tumultuous situation, trying to hang on to the high school boyfriend and letting go of that. 

Lindsay: There was just a lot going on. I remember coming home during Thanksgiving and I had lost a little bit of weight, which in my mind was really unintentional. And I thought it would be a good idea if I went to see my doctor back home just to check in on everything. And so I already kind of had that layer of support and checking in, making sure I was still healthy. But I hadn't really connected it at that point to any specific actions or mindsets yet. It didn't feel like a huge red flag, but it was something that we noticed. 

Kevin: And how did you feel? Did you feel like you were healthy even though you had lost a little bit of weight?

Lindsay: I think I was really separating my physical body from my emotional part of myself at that point. And I think I was probably in a little bit of denial about how much that transition was really kind of rocking me to my core because I so badly wanted to just keep being that really good driven student and daughter and person. 

So I think I probably was kind of becoming a little bit distanced from the connection there that was happening to me physically from the rest of me. Sure. Yeah. So once the doctor had kind of checked me out, kind of explained that this is not necessarily unusual to happen in a big transition, weight fluctuation. So we were just keeping an eye on it and at that point went back to college after the winter break and was gradually just becoming a little bit more obsessed with tracking my food and in the dining hall they would post calorie content and nutrition information, all that. 

I started noticing myself paying a lot more attention to that and trying to figure out a regular exercise routine. I had done sports year round in high school, so all of a sudden I was having to give myself my own schedule and routine where that had always been provided. 

Kevin: Who knew about this struggle that you were having with your weight but also with relationships? Who was helping you navigate some of these dynamics and difficulties?

Lindsay: I think my friends were probably noticing some things but weren't really sure what was going on. And so I think what was happening was I was slowly becoming a little bit depressed and wasn't really sure at all. That had never really been part of my story before and so by the time I went home for summer break, I was working two jobs. I was a nanny in the day, I worked at a restaurant at night. And I really wasn't home that much. And so I was able to really start to isolate and to develop these really restrictive eating habits. I became really obsessive and really perfectionistic. I’d think about, you know, exercising all the time, counting calories and nutritional information of how many calories and comparing like should I eat this or should I eat that. And we're talking like a five calorie difference might really make me change my mind even if I really wanted something else. And so really losing my own ability to tune into my body like what do I want? What sounds good? What do I need? Am I hungry? Am I full? And really just ended up even being really secretive about certain things. Like if I wanted to eat a piece of pizza with everybody but I wanted to take a napkin and get all the grease off of it first. But I didn't want anybody to see me doing that. All these things that are just so actually unhealthy. 

But in my mind I thought I'm being so healthy and I'm going to make sure that I keep my body the way that it's supposed to look. By all of these standards, that must be right. And another really big talk about wearing comparison glasses. 

I was constantly looking at what would other people eat and what was their body type like and then wanting to make sure basically that I would eat less than they would eat. And so just hyper aware of what everyone else is doing and eating. And as long this kind of weird satisfaction if knowing that I ate less or I ate quote unquote, healthier. And I'm talking about like I had a spoonful less rice or whatever than somebody. I mean, just like absurd like that's going to make any difference. 

Lindsay: But that's how obsessed and kind of in my head. I was about things like that. So all these little really bizarre specific themes just really sucked the joy out of eating, which is really such an important way that we experience joy with people we care about.  It sucked the joy out of eating, but also the joy out of you. Can you imagine how you would feel eating with me? I mean, I was so not fully present to people. I mean, I was trying to keep up everything, and in some ways I did that for a while, but there was this lack of underlying joy. 

And by the time the end of summer came, I remember my mom coming home and finally just saying, what is going on? Look at you. You're not the same. You're really irritable. You never seem happy, and you've become a skeleton. And I remember going into a dressing room at a store kind of for the first time in a long time and looking, like, turning around, and I was trying on a shirt, and I think, like, looking at my back and being really horrified by what I saw. Just like, bones, basically. And that was when I had this moment of realization, like, yeah, I have a problem.

Kevin: We'll be right back.

Announcement: Today's episode is brought to you by Be Well Resources. Be Well is a wellness organization that provides mental and spiritual tools for whole-person health. Be Well helps you develop your unique gifts and discover your calling. Follow us on Facebook or Instagram at Be Well resources to take your next steps toward being well.

Kevin: Welcome back.

Lindsay: So it was like this physical manifestation. Like, yes, I had lost weight, and yes, I had physically become the skeleton, but I had also lost all the other parts of myself. Spiritually, I was starved. My friendships were really starved too. For just my fullness of presence, you're able to see it for the first time.

I really had become a shell of myself, kind of in very literal and metaphorical ways. And I was willing to say yes, like, something is really wrong and I don't really know. Then we got on board with finding medical professional help and my diagnosis was anorexia. And I really hated having that label at the time because it feels like it's just such a defining label. And it was also sort of like, how could I be anorexic? I saw what happened to my friend and I should have known better. 

And so I think grappling with that and I think for my parents, them experiencing the real fear that the same thing was going to happen to me, that I might die. And if I had continued on the path I had, then I would have died. I firmly believe that. It was August when this happened. I was getting ready to go. Supposed to be going back to school for my second year, moving into an apartment with with a roommate and my parents, I really am grateful to them and I think they wanted me to be able to go back and have this experience at this school that I really did love. And so once they knew they could have a team in place for me, which required three people, medical doctor, a nutritionist, and a therapist, then they were willing to let me go and start again. 

Kevin: But there was constant communication between the team and them. Did that feel restricting to you? Did you feel that it was a burden or did it feel like it was helpful? Could you see the help that it was intended to be at that time? 

Lindsay: I'm a people pleaser, and I've always wanted to be a pleaser with my parents. So I think I knew this is my new thing I have to do in order to be good and to be perfect and to do it on one level, I really knew I really had a problem. I was so deep in my eating disorder that I did not really understand what needed to change. I thought if I would just start eating a sandwich every day at lunch, that I was going to eventually things were just going to be fine. And so just a real lack of truly understanding the depth. I mean, I come back to the second year, like, excited and all of that, and what I come back to is a bunch of people who are like, what's wrong with you? Because I had even lost a lot of weight since I had left for the summer. And so I come back to friends who are happy and supportive, but I now am no longer just a normal college student. I now have a full time job of recovery, while I also have my full time job of being a student and I'm trying to hold those realities and keep one very secret and private because I'm essentially ashamed that I have this problem, right? And while also trying to still be my outgoing, extroverted self. 

So this real struggle to hold both of those things and recovery was really a journey. So I would have to go and be weighed on the scale every week while everybody else was just doing normal college things. And every week I had signed a contract, basically, that if my weight fell much further below, like a specific number, that I would then have to go into inpatient to an inpatient center. And so I did not want that to happen. And so every week having to go to get weighed was like this very fearful experience wondering, is this going to be the day that changes everything or not? And I really want to keep making weight, but I also don't really want to gain weight, but I want to gain enough weight, but not too much weight. 

So the eating disorder kind of took on this. It kind of adapted to this new phase of recovery, to where I could be in recovery, but still kind of hang on to the eating disorder. Right. It was still that people pleasing that you're attempting to do within the illness that you're eating now, because this is what your team and family want you to do, but you're holding on to not eating too much. 

So still not super joyful, if you can imagine, because my head is really still all up in this space of comparison. Your joy is about making other people joyful, fulfilling other people's plans and goals for you. 

Kevin: Yeah. You mentioned that you thought eating a sandwich would be enough to turn things around and that you really had no concept of what that really entailed. What did your true recovery actually entail? 

Lindsay: Yeah, so if I kind of think about the first months of recovery, I had to kind of I'd like to call it kind of date a few therapists until I finally down the right one. So in those early months, I was in just kind of this very superficial level of recovery. 

I remember being in college at a party at someone's apartment early in that second year of college, and going into the bathroom so I could lie down and do sit ups. That is how obsessed I was about things still and thinking, like, I'm still in recovery. And clearly, that's just such a not a normal thing to do. And I can remember early in that year, too, like, going to hang out with a bunch of people at someone's house and having some friends who hadn't seen me all summer and pulled me aside into a room, off to the side and were like, what's going on? We think you have a problem. And having to convince them, I know I have a problem, but I am getting help. And people kind of not believing me because they didn't really have much evidence to back that up. 

Kevin:  And did you share the label anorexia with them, or were you vague and what details you shared with your friends?

Lindsay: That's such a good question. I don't know if I shared that label. I think I probably steered away from really claiming that label too much. But there was a time later when I lived in a sorority house and I had a sorority sister, like, tell our house mom that I was throwing up, which I wasn't, but I was basically accused of being bulimic so I had to sit down and have a meeting with them and think kind of all these series of these, like, meetings, and having to explain just made me, I think, feel really ashamed, as if the recovery and the illness wasn't enough. The stigma with it, too. I was afraid to admit, like, I had fallen into that, too.

Kevin: Right, right. So you're in the midst of recovery. You have this team of support around you. You're dealing with the stigma of your diagnosis. Where does your journey take you next?

Lindsay: Yeah, so I reached a point where I kind of hit sort of a plateau, I think. And so I was basically in early recovery, but the eating disorder still had a really tight grip on me, I would say, and we ended up finding a referral to a woman named Kate Bruno. And she did work almost primarily with eating disorders, and she was right in the town where I went to college, and so I started working with her, and she had had an eating disorder in her past as well, anorexia, and had recovered. 

And one thing that a lot of people don't realize is that it's really common in the eating disorder world to sort of frame it as, listen, this is an issue that you will always struggle with. And to me, I do not think that has to be true. I can remember one night falling to my knees in tears, because at that point, I was like, I don't want to live like this forever.This is actually miserable, and I can't just wake up tomorrow and it be gone. But I know I don't want to just cope with this. And Kate was the first person, I think, who really gave me hope that you can. You can recover from this and you can get your joy back. And I'm an example of that. 

She saved my life in so many ways. It took her voice kind of helping to retrain the voice in my head to really rewire my brain. And it's the reason why my daughter's name is Emma Kate. I knew years ago, before I ever met my husband, that if I ever had a daughter, I would want to name her after Kate. Because to grow up in a world that doesn't always teach girls and women to be confident and joyful in who they are. So naming her after Kate was sort of my way of honoring just the importance that Kate played in my life in my recovery. And I actually got to see her this summer for the first time in like eleven years or something and tell her in person that I was going to name the baby after her. 

Kevin: Wow. What advice do you have for those who may be struggling with eating disorders right now?

Lindsay: I think if you find yourself in an eating disorder type of situation, specifically, I just would want to encourage you to find your Kate, to find help and to know that you're not alone.  It's such an isolating sickness and it's its own form of addiction as well. And there's a lot to lose in that. But you don't have to stay stuck in that. And you're not a bad person because you've experienced that. 

I mean, I think about now how much I value and love the students I've worked with that have gone through that, and it doesn't make me view them less. It makes them strong in ways that other people might not get to experience. 

Kevin: Sure. And what advice do you have for those that are struggling with joy because of those glasses of comparison?

Lindsay: I think there are probably lots of your listeners who don't identify with an eating disorder specifically, but I would be willing to bet that many, if not all of them, know what it's like to kind of live in a state of comparison, of constantly wondering if we're measuring up and how quickly comparison is the thief of joy. And so comparing to others is really never going to help us become better ourselves or be a better version of ourselves. And there is a verse that has always really captured, I think, what recovery looks like. 

It's from Romans 12:2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” I think just knowing the fact that it is possible for us to rewire our thinking, to be transformed in our thinking, that that recovery and healing, it really is possible and I am a testament to that. 

Kevin: Lindsay, thank you so much for sharing your story with me today. Thank you for your honesty, your vulnerability and these lessons that you've shared with me today. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time today. 

Lindsay: Yeah, thank you so much.

Are you in need of Love? Listen in to our Coping Conversation with Jean, who shares her powerful story of  Love.

Announcement: This episode includes a discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know is experiencing thoughts of self harm, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1800-273-8255. It's free, confidential and available 24/7. Listener discretion is advised. 

Kevin: Welcome. I'm Chaplain Kevin and today I'm talking with Jean, whose life has been filled with memories of love and loss. She describes her journey with its many highs and many lows. And yet, even in her lowest lows, she found a way to keep on loving. This is “Coping”. 

Hi, Jean. Thank you so much for being here with me today. I'm so glad to have you and I'm excited to hear more about your story. 

Jean: Kevin, it's great to be here with you. Thank you for inviting me.

Kevin: It's great to have you. So, as I was reading your story, one of the main themes that came up for me was this idea of love. How do you define love? What does that word mean to you?

Jean: I think for me, love. I'm going to give you the analogy and compare it to a merry go round, a carousel at a park, an amusement park, where everyone's excited to go and to participate with family and friends. And you get on that carousel and it goes round and round and round and up and down and up and down. And for me, that's what love is. It's a continuous circle, but with lots of ups and lots of downs.

Kevin: That's so true. Ups and downs and all the rounds. Where in your life has love been like a merry go round?

Jean: I just have to say, being the middle child of five, I was always in the center of the merry go round, and it was an active, fun place to grow up. And yet we had I think the biggest down would be when my youngest brother, who had just turned 19, was killed in a motorcycle accident. Actually, the night before he died, he had come to the college where I was teaching and we went and saw a movie together that night and I remember asking him, “So what are you going to do when you graduate and when you really grow up?” And he started laughing and he said, “You know, I've had a rough supplemental years that I have taken mom and dad and all of you through.” 

He said, “But I know that I am in the palm of God's hand. I'm excited about my future.” So fast forward, not even 24 hours later, get a call from home saying that my dear brother was dead and he died at a very young age, just before he was graduating from high school. 

No one's ever prepared for losing a loved one. And right after that, I jumped into a relationship with a man that everything looked good on the outside and found out less than a year into the marriage that he had chosen another person for the last five years. And I went through that loss and that broken relationship and the grief that that took me through. And I can say I was on the very bottom rung of the carousel at that point of my life.. 

Kevin: You have this loss of your brother, and then soon after this relationship with some unfaithfulness. How did you pick yourself up from that point on?

Jean: It was sort of my mindset then to get my house in order to prepare my my heart and my my mind and my body to to really be prepared for whatever the future held for me. Where it took me it took me to India. Not Indiana. It took me to South India. How did that happen? I listened to a young guy share a story about helping people in India and in Sri Lanka and Nepal and Bangladesh. And he was working with the poorest of the poor. And I thought, wow, I'm going to give that guy some money. I'm going to say some prayers for this guy. And I'll never go. Well, fast forward. I did go. 

We married the following year. We went to India the following year. We lived in and out of India for 30 years. And my beloved soulmate, Chip, he taught me how to love, and he taught me how to look out past when I was really down. And he always called it navel gazing. He said, “Stop looking at your navel. Look out, look up, look over. There's always someone that you can lift up.” And he took me on many carousel rides, some emotional rides, and some amusement parks. 

Kevin: Tell me a little bit about those emotional carousel rides that he brought you on.

Jean: We sent our children, our three kids to boarding school. The only downside is that it was about 8 hours drive. And I'm going to tell you, every time we went, we had at least two flat tires. So the roads were not good. And I remember that was another very low time I just had said to Chip, “We have spent these years with the kids with us. I don't want to send them all three to boarding school. It's just too hard for me.” Before I went to bed that night, I just started praying, and I just said,” God, give me peace that they'll be okay.“ And then fast forward two weeks later, actually seems like yesterday, which is amazing. 

We received a call late Sunday night, and it was from my oldest daughter, Tetura. And she said, “Mama, there's something definitely wrong with Naomi.” And I said, “What do you mean?” She said, "She's been throwing up. She's been very sick. I think she's lost probably 20 pounds in two weeks, and there's something wrong with her.” We got another phone call from the nurse saying that “it looks like your daughter has juvenile diabetes. Do you have any of that in your family?” We're like, no, we don't. And they said, well, we're going to try to get her down to a hospital, and we're not sure if she'll make it through the night, down through the mountain to the hospital in Cumbator, but we are going to do our best. So we advise that you leave and you meet us at the hospital. And we did get to the hospital, and we thought she had lost 20 pounds in two weeks. And she was tiny, tiny to begin with. She looked like a little skeleton in a makeshift ICU. 

Jean: We stayed there one night. Chip had gone back to boarding school to see the kids and spend some time with them. We were ten days in the hospital, and while we were there, Chip said that he was talking to Naomi. 

He was saying, “So how do we make lemons? We've got all these lemons. How are we going to make some lemonade?” So they were sort of laughing and really upset about this new health challenge that Naomi would be having the rest of her life. And we just felt like that was a big low for us. And yet, at the same time, we knew that that invisible disability would open up doors of relationships for us that we never, ever expected, and it would give us another part of compassion for people that are struggling. 

They were talking about that, and then that's when we saw 9/11 happen on the television. That really shook us back into the reality of the world. And, like, yes, our worlds are important. But even though we were down, there were hundreds and hundreds and thousands of people devastated as a result of that horrible situation. 

It's interesting. The next day, we lived in a Shihai community in Bangalore, and we had several Muslim families that came to our gate, and they were saying, “Please, please, we're so sorry what happened. Don't blame us.” And you see, when you work with families affected by disabilities, it doesn't matter what the religion is, it doesn't matter what the gender is, it doesn't matter what the economic status is, because disability hits us all at some point. 

Kevin: We'll be right back. 

Announcement: Today's episode is brought to you by Be Well Resources. Be Well is a wellness organization that provides mental and spiritual tools for whole-person health. Be Well helps you develop your unique gifts and discover your calling. Follow us on Facebook or Instagram at Be Well Resources to take your next steps toward being well.

Kevin: Welcome back. How is your daughter's health today?

Jean: Thank you for asking, Kevin. Naomi's remarkable. I tell her when I grow up, I want to be just like her. And the fact that she's so resilient and her health? She's on a medical device that she gets insulin 24/7. She's actually worked for that company for twelve years now and is a huge advocate. She's written four books as a result of this situation in her life with type one diabetes and just a real advocate for people. 

She's amazing. I marvel at all three of my kids and tell each one different aspects. I want to grow up and be like them one day.

Kevin: So after this medical crisis with your daughter, where did the carousel life take you guys next? 

Jean: Our son Noah was thriving. It looked like he was thriving. We thought he was thriving in the fashion industry, working with celebrities. It all looked good on the surface, but we realized quickly that he was drinking a lot, he was doing drugs, and he was getting pulled into this downward spiral of depression and overeating it. And during that time, it was very, very hard because talk about a carousel, our horses were going up and down, up and down, up and down. And there was a time nine years ago that Noah decided that life wasn't worth living. 

He was standing on a beautiful penthouse ledge in downtown L. A. And ready to step off of it. And he didn't, yet he didn't change immediately after that. It was several months after that that he decided, “I'm done with this business. I'm done with my life of over abuse, with food and drinking.” And today he's a nutritionist living overseas in Bali and has a thriving business. But we went through a lot during that time. I can just say that that's been a real blessing to know that he took something that was broken and began to help other people. 

And I think that's what our family's done. All three of our children do something with their careers that are reaching into other people's lives. That's a huge up for me. That's your legacy in the lives of your children. And speaking of legacies, about five years ago, Chip and I decided we would come back to the United States and that we would do writing together, we would do teaching together. So that was heartbreaking to leave. 

And I can just say that the legacy that we wanted to build together, God had a different plan. And what I mean by that is that we started noticing that Chip thought he had kidney stones. He did an X-ray.  Yes, there were kidney stones. But then we were told we needed an MRI. But when the MRI came back, then we were asked to go meet with the specialist. When we met with the specialist, he showed us that there was some cloudiness over this kidney, and he wanted to do an exploratory surgery. 

Jean: Exploratory surgery showed that there was something serious there. So he said, we are going to have to do major surgery. We went in and. June. And that's when they came back and they said that there was a sarcoma. We need to identify it. They said this is rare. We've never seen this in a 64 year-old man. Three weeks after that, the cancer had come back on the kidney wall. And so the doctor said, "It's spreading.” 

So he did some more tests, and things never go as fast as you want them to do in many ways. Then we were looking into the very first part of August, and that's when the doctor just said, “This cancer is going everywhere.” And he said, “I wouldn't even recommend chemo.” And Chip had said, I will not do chemo. People around us were like, you have to do this. You have to do this. And we said, no, we just have to be in agreement with each other and what we will go forward with. 

He knew that was just going to be too much for him. Well and he was like, Why? And he said, Doctor, how much time do you think I have? And he said, I don't know, Chip. He said, It could be two months. It could be six months. And I remember asking him, well, our kids are coming back from India for Thanksgiving. And he looked at me and he said, I think they should come now. Came home and we waited a couple of days just processing it before we talked to our children. 

And immediately the kids were able to come in from India. And we were all together. Hospice came in that week, and yeah, Chip was with us in six weeks. And then he passed away. Ten weeks later, he passed away.

Kevin: Wow. So what do you say to those who may be struggling with love and loss right now? What advice do you have for them?

Jean: I think the best advice I can give is. Just lower your expectations of yourself, take care of yourself, rest more. You see, I will always have a hole in my heart for my beloved husband. And yes, there's a Band Aid there, there's a healing there, but that part that's been ripped apart from me, that it should be there.

When we love hard, we lose hard. Another thing I would just say is you're going through loss to loosen your grip. Loosen your grip on your children, on your careers, on your things, on your spouse, on your parents. Loosen your grip and have your hands open to love more. And the more we can open our hands instead of tightly holding things and we can really let go, that only then I think, can we have pure joy and experience. Love beyond measure.

Kevin: And what do you say to those who may be on a really low part of their carousel ride? How do they find their way back up again?

Jean: Probably my best advice is to quote my husband: “Stop navel gazing, stop looking at yourself, look out straight, look around you, and then look up”. And sometimes I will just walk outside and just look up. I just will look up. I'll look up at the sky, I look up at the trees, I look up at birds, I look up at clouds, or at night, look up at stars. And something about looking up gives me more hope. 

And I would tell people that are lowest where you are on the carousel of life, there's always hope. Hope is the best of things.

Kevin: Well, Jean, thank you so much for our time together today. I really appreciate your whimsical definition of love and how that plays out, even when there's loss. Thank you. Thank you so much for your story today.

Jean: You're so welcome, Kevin. Thank you for allowing me to share part of my story today. I'm just grateful to be able to share, and I hope that those that are listening today will be able to keep looking up. 

Are you in need of faith? Listen in to our Coping Conversation with Stephanie, who shares her inspiring story of faith.

Announcement: This episode centers around the topic of domestic violence. If you or someone you know is experiencing abuse, help is just a phone call away. You can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1800-799-7233 or visit them online at www.thehotline.org. Listener discretion is advised. 

Kevin: Welcome. I'm Chaplain Kevin, and today I'm talking with Stephanie, who, from an early age, suffered from domestic violence. Her journey towards wholeness brought her back to her most trying relationship, and through it all, she grew her faith. This is “Coping” Hello, Stephanie. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm so glad to have you here with me today

Stephanie:  I'm glad to be here.

Kevin: One of the things that came up for me as I was reading your story was this idea of faith. How do you define faith? What does that word mean to you?

Stephanie: When I think about faith, I think about the mustard seed. That little seed is so tiny, but yet when it's planted, it just grows into this gigantic tree. 

Kevin: And it's hard to imagine something so tiny growing into something so gigantic. Where have you seen mustard seed faith in your life?

Stephanie: I've seen it since I was a child. I lived in a household of domestic abuse. My father was an angry man. And my twin sister and I lived in a constant state of fear. I just remember him coming home from work, being angry, shouting, not satisfied with the way things were in the home, whether it was we didn't do our chores or we did our chores, but not to his satisfaction, or he was just angry at my mom. It got as serious as us watching our mom being abused by our dad, watching that on her being hit. And I have this memory of coming home one morning and my mom was laying down on the porch and we thought that she was dead. 

I remember my sister having this overwhelming sense of just sadness and crying. And I remember my dad picking my mom up, taking her to the shower and her waking up and this relief that she wasn't dead. I just remember feeling fear all the time when he was home. Over the weekends, my mother would drop us off over to my grandparents home and we would spend the weekends at her home. For some reason, I just felt that even though all week long there was fear over the weekends, I had something to look forward to in the way of being loved and cared for and being a place of safety. And I just sort of just held on to the good. The good is what got me through. 

Kevin: So because you had that taste of good, no matter how bad things got, you still continually put your hope in that good that was to come? 

Stephanie: Exactly. Exactly. I held on to that. Yeah. 

Kevin: How old were you when that whole situation happened?

Stephanie: My twin sister and I were probably around six, seven. We were definitely under the age of ten at that time. 

Kevin: What then happened? I imagine things escalated from there. Tell me more about your childhood and your experiences from there.

Stephanie: I remember many times my mom putting us in the car and attempting to leave him, maybe going to stay with a relative but we were always right back home with our dad.

I have this memory of our dad taking us to dinner at this really nice restaurant and even though I didn't quite understand what was happening, when I look back on it I realized, oh, that was one of the moments where he was making up for or trying to get us back home with him. 

I remember the last one though, the moment that my mom left my dad for good and filed for divorce at that time. I remember that one because I was twelve. 11-12. I remember my dad kissing us, which he rarely did, hugging us and cried. That's how I knew it was the last time because it was different than any other time.

Kevin:  Wow. And where did you guys go?

Stephanie: So we lived at that time in Arkansas. North Little Rock. We moved outside of the Little Rock area. It was tough because my mom couldn't afford to have her own place, and we lived with my aunt who had five kids of our own, and then adding us to the mix and my mom. It was tough. 

We went without a lot of necessities. When I say necessities, I mean, like, toothpaste was hard, and we were really, truly fending for ourselves at this time. I remember my mom got a job working at a fast food restaurant to try to make ends meet. It was really tough.

Kevin: We'll be right back.

Announcement: Today's episode is brought to you by Be Well Resources. Be Well is a wellness organization that seeks to equip you with relevant resources that help you discover and develop your unique gifts. Be Well provides practical tools for wellness and wholehearted living. Follow them on Facebook or Instagram at Be Well Resources to take your next steps toward being well.

Kevin: Welcome back. What did your mom teach you about faith throughout your childhood? 

Stephanie: She taught me about perspective, that your circumstances should not define how you view life. She taught me that your circumstances may be hard, but you have to look at the totality of your life, not just the hard, rough moments of life, because life is defined by your perspective and how you view life in totality, not just focusing on this one thing, which is this tough, hard thing. 

Kevin: Sure. Looking back, how do you see your faith developing throughout your childhood?

Stephanie: It was growing like that mustard seed. And obviously I didn't realize it at the time, but every hard thing you deal with and you get over that or you get through it, then you go through another hard thing and you get through it, but it becomes over time, your frame of reference says, oh, I got through that, so that I'll get through this too. 

Kevin: With every hard thing, your perspective is growing that mustard seed. Faith is growing over time. For you, faith is a lot about focus and what you're focusing on.

Stephanie: Exactly. And I didn't know it as a child, but my focus was on God. That was God with me every step of the way, building my faith, growing my faith, and me focusing not on the hard stuff, but focusing on the love that I got from my grandmother, the care and concern that I got over the weekends, that was nothing but God for me because he provided for me. Even through the rough, hard times he provided.

Kevin: Tell me a little bit about your journey after high school and into your early young adult years. How did your faith continue to grow?

Stephanie: I remember at church this woman shared how she was in a tragic car accident, and for some reason, impressed upon my heart about the distance that I had had from my father. I was estranged from him since the divorce, and immediately I just felt like this conviction to want to restore my relationship with my father. And so I started with first writing him a letter, but it didn't change anything. 

Kevin: How did he respond?

Stephanie: He was still angry. He was still his same difficult self. I just felt like he didn't know or wasn't capable of being the kind of father that I needed him to be to me. I just knew that he didn't know how to love me the way that I needed to be loved. Plus, I saw how he had anger, I had anger. And I could see how that anger was affecting my own family. I could see how it was affecting my husband. It was affecting my children. And I didn't want that as a legacy. 

I couldn't bear the thought of leaving this earth without trying to do something to turn that around. 

Kevin: You saw yourself embodying as a parent, the same type of anger that he had as your parent.

Stephanie: Exactly, and the only way to deal with that anger was to go to the source and face it. You can't cure something that you're not willing to face. And I was willing to face it, no matter how hard it was. 

Kevin: How did the relationship evolve over time?

Stephanie: It was just conversation. And mind you, I had to pray before I called him because he was not the easiest person to talk to. He had a lot of anger. He was always upset. But eventually the conversation started to shift, and I don't recall how long it took to get to that point, but eventually it did. I softened. He softened. Whereas I think that it started out as him seeing me as this twelve year old, but over time it grew into him actually seeing me as an adult and appreciating me as his daughter as an adult and it just grew over time. And now we're able to really appreciate one another and love on one another.

Kevin: And what do you say to those who are struggling in their faith right now?

Stephanie: That maybe their faith is only still the mustard seed. Or maybe there's not even a seed.

Kevin: What advice do you have for those that are struggling in their faith right now?

Stephanie: I'd have to say that struggling with faith is actually a good thing, because that means that you acknowledge that you can't do it on your own and that struggle is a necessary part of the journey of faith. If you didn't have that struggle. Then you wouldn't have that journey. That's faith. And I really try to make sure I don't let the hardship define my whole life. I know that I can move beyond it because I have in the past. If I did it in the past, I can do it again and again and again.

Kevin: Well, Stephanie, thank you so much for our time together today. I so appreciate you sharing so openly and honestly with me today. Thank you for your example of faith.

Stephanie: Thank you for having me. 

Are you in need of courage? Listen in to our Coping Conversation with Ana, who shares her inspiring story of courage.

Kevin: Welcome. I'm Chaplain Kevin, and today I'm talking with Ana, who from a young age, faced insurmountable challenges that caused her to question everything. And yet she summoned courage in the midst. This is coping. 

Kevin: Hi, Ana. Thank you so much for joining me for this conversation. I'm excited to have you here with me today.

Ana: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Kevin: You're welcome. So, as I was reading through your story, the main theme that came up for me was this theme around courage. How do you define courage? What does that word, courage mean to you?

Ana: That's a great question. At this point in my life, I've kind of narrowed it down now to just being able to get back up after life. Circumstance knocks you down. That really, to me, is a real definition of courage. Why is courage displayed by being knocked down and getting back up again? What is courageous about that? I think what's courageous about that is that whatever circumstance comes your way, you're not allowing it to keep you down. You're not allowing it to hinder any type of life grow or just moving on, reaching your goals, to be able to experience something and to say, I'm going to move forward from this. I'm going to get back up. I think that, to me, that's the courageous aspect of it, to be able to get back up and make that conscious decision to move forward. 

Kevin: Yeah. Where in your life have you been knocked down and had to have the courage to get back up again? 

Ana: Gosh, I feel like that's happened in different times from day one, it seems like. So, in all honesty, I think my first memory is of me migrating to this country when I was four years old, and I have memory of us crossing the border. 

Ana: My feet are muddy. My mom is holding my she's holding me. Her feet are muddy, and it's dark, and she's perspirating because she's probably running with me. But that's really kind of my first memory of this idea of, like, I had to really be courageous as a four year old, living through this traumatic experience and being able to move forward in life. And as a four year old, then crossing the border, having to find the courage to start this new life,.

Kevin: How then, did courage evolve for you?

Ana: By the time I was 14 or 15, I had already experienced some other pretty significant traumatic experiences. I grew up without a father, obviously. Like I said, I migrated to this country. My mother was a single parent with two children by the time I was 14. So I was also very parentified. I was the oldest, so I had to take care of my younger sister. There was abuse, domestic violence that I had seen from her, my mother's relationships. Um, there was sexual abuse that I had experienced at a younger age. I remember being a young adult and having suicidal thoughts and having depression and struggling with mental health, illness.  Because of a lot of the trauma that was not processed and a lot of the just different factors. But I was 14 years old, and I was invited to church. My faith kind of began from there, and it was during that time that I started to see that there was a lot of other people who had difficult life experiences, traumatic experiences, and they're okay, I'm going to be okay. 

Ana: By the time I was 14 or 15, I wasn't experiencing the domestic violence anymore. The abuse had already subsided. So it was technically out of that type of danger or trauma, if you will. But the support system played a significant role in allowing me to process, even years later. 

Ana: I remember specifically my youth pastor one time kind of shared and said, you know, you've been through a lot, but knowing and loving God doesn't mean that we it doesn't mean we get to not live a life that's difficult. It just means that you have a God who loves you even amongst these situations and is still with you in the middle of these situations. And I think for me, that was such an anchor that I may still have to go through this difficult situation, but I have someone who still loves me and that accepts me, and I fit in completely and fully with him. 

Kevin: Very affirming that your story of pain and trauma fits within the story of God.

Ana: Absolutely.

Kevin: So learning about courage in a very real, intangible way, how did those lessons translate as you were becoming an emerging adult? 

Ana: Gosh, I was 18 or 19 years old when I traveled back to Mexico, my hometown, for the first time. I started to really get curious about the idea that, hey, I have a father. He's here. Do I want to see him? Do I not want to see him? It was a second trip. I think I was like 2021 or 22 years old and. I had the opportunity to meet him. And so I took the opportunity, and it was obviously, as you can imagine, it was awkward at first, right? That was kind of like the beginning of, oh, I I do have a father. Oh, I could have a relationship with my father. So I met him the first time when I, you know, early twenties. I wasn't married at the time. Fast forward a couple years. I get married and I decide that the next time I want to go to Mexico, I want to show, introduce, if you will, my dad and my now husband. And so we make this trip, we're there. And then I'm told all of a sudden that he's in prison. And I'm like, what? Why is he in prison? What happened? Everybody is not wanting to tell me why. And so at some point I was like, okay, well, nobody wants to tell me why.  I'm just going to go see him. And so finally, my mother and my grandmother sent me down, and they say, Listen, we need to tell you something. And that's when they tell me that he's in prison because he was in Spanish a sicario. In English, he's a cartel member. 

Ana: I'm talking and asking more and more questions. I'm getting more details. He had been imprisoned now for almost a year and a half. My mother and my grandmother had known about it for that long, I guess because he was such an important member of the cartel, when they arrested him, it actually made international news.  And they had seen it on the news here in California, and that's how they found out. But again, nobody told me. A researcher by nature. By this time, I was in the middle of my graduate degree. And so I was like, okay, I'm going to dive into research. 

Ana: So I'm googling his name. I'm googling news. I'm looking for news articles. I'm looking for all kinds of information and details that, for whatever reason, my family doesn't want to share with me. And so. It was disheartening. As I'm reading all these details and things about this person who you know, is my father, and realizing that even the years before, when I had gone to see him for the first time, he was already hiding money, drugs, guns, people's bodies in the same house where I had on to visit and meet him for the first time. 

Ana: At that point, I think time froze. Like, I still remember that. And it feels like a moment where time freezes because I was like, wait, what the shock and the questions? And why am I being told this now? It was just a lot.

Kevin: Today's episode is brought to you by Be Well Resources. Be Well is a wellness organization that seeks to equip you with relevant resources that help you discover and develop your unique gifts. Be Well provides practical tools for wellness and wholehearted living. Follow them on Facebook or Instagram at Be Well Resources to take your next steps toward being well. 

Kevin: Welcome back.

Ana: Soon after that, I found out we were pregnant. We were bringing our first my daughter. And so that brought in a whole nother level of issues because that was thinking like, oh, my goodness, what am I going to tell her when she asks me about her grandfather? That was the first time that I went to therapy because I felt like I couldn't handle everything that was. That I had and I had to deal with and the questions that I had, and I needed some clarity and assistance on, like, where do I even start? 

Ana: But I remember I had a dream one time where I was in a jail, and I kept running down these hallways because he kept calling to me, and I kept trying to find him, and I couldn't. And I wanted and the dream, I wanted to find him because I wanted to share a little bit of light on what seemed to be a very dark world for him. And so after that dream, I shared it with my husband, and I shared it with a couple of close friends, and it was that consensus of maybe it's time to maybe now is the time to sit down and have a conversation with dad about everything that's been going on and also share with him about your faith. And so I did. I hired somebody to go look for him in Mexico. By the time when they found him, he had already been released from prison, and he was at that time, what I think are considered to be him, like, in rehabilitation. And I was very happy about that, and I was able to make contact with him. I let him know that I was pregnant, he was going to have a grandchild. I let him know that I was married, and we would have conversations every so often over the phone. 

Ana: Later on, found out that there was rumors that he was involved in that life again, once again. And so I remember asking him straight out, "Are you doing this? Is this still your lifestyle? Are you choosing to still be a part of the cartel and all of that?" He never answered me. He couldn't say yes or no. And so I took his silence as an answer, a clear answer. And again, because of how high up he was and the organization, the crime organization and all of that, I said, you know, "I'm sorry, I cannot have a relationship with you, even over the phone anymore, for the safety of myself, but also that of my family."

Kevin: And what was his response?

Ana: All he said was, "I understand. It makes sense." And he said, "You're much wiser than me, and you're wiser now probably than I ever have been. And there's nothing that I could have done about that that was not in my control." He was already defeated in many ways.

Kevin: Back to your definition of courage, that perhaps he was knocked down and was unwilling to get back up again, whereas you have been knocked down so many times and gone back up so many times. 

Ana: Absolutely. I basically put the ball in his court, and I said, "If and when you can guarantee that you are no longer part of that lifestyle, you can call me. The door is always open on my end."

Kevin: Did he ever call you? 

Ana: I think four years. Three, three, four years went by. I came home after work like any other day, day, started making dinner. My husband was very serious, and I could tell something was wrong. And I said, "What's up?What's wrong? What's going on?" He kind of just looked at me and he said, "Listen, I have some bad news." And I said, "What is it?" And he said, "Your dad's been murdered." And I was like, "What?" And that's when he shared, "Your cousin posted the news article on Facebook. They've identified it, and it's your dad."

Ana: Obviously, the news article link it to organized crime or what they called organized crime or cartel battles, kind of thing. And that, I think, was the beginning of yet another journey of, how do I process this? Now I don't even have a dad anymore. Wow. How does one cope with all of these layers of trauma? Where do you find the courage and strength to move through it all? I think I've had to be courageous from day one. 

Kevin: Sorry.

Ana: It's okay. I think I've had to be courageous from day one, not knowing and not willingly, but then eventually having the understanding that I've had to have courage to move on. For me, having the courage to even go to my creator and stay and kind of just cry out and really question, like, why is this happening? Why me? Why now? How do I move forward? What do I do? It's. So that has also been very helpful to give me that strength to move on and to keep going and to give me the comfort that I needed to have. I think that's how I found the courage to move on. 

Kevin: What do you say to those who may be struggling? With their relationship with a parent or just struggling to have courage in general?

Ana: Yeah, that's a really great question. I think that for me, I would encourage them to use the support system that they have to look for help, whether that be professional, therapeutic help, or faith based help, or just help with a friend who you're able to be vulnerable enough and open and honest about what you're struggling with.  What is a life situation that has knocked you down? And how can you move forward from that? How can you get back up and face one more day? And that's part of the other suggestion that I would have for people is you take it one day at a time, sometimes even 1 hour at a time, depending on the situation you're going through.  It can give you the encouragement that you need to say, okay, one more day, one more day, one more day. And I think that enough of that happens, that eventually you get to a point where you look back and that situation that knocked you over is now a situation that could potentially would have propelled you to get through this and probably other stuff as well. 

Kevin: Well, Ana, thank you so much for your vulnerability today, sharing with us about the struggles that you have gone through and have overcome. Thank you for your example of courage. Thank you. Kevin, if you or someone you know has been the victim of sexual abuse, help is just a phone call away. 

You can call the National Sexual Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE. That's 1-800-656-4673. Or you can visit them online at rainn.org. That's R-⁠A-⁠I-⁠N-N dot org. Thank you.

Are you in need of perseverance? Listen in to our Coping Conversation with Kathy, who shares her inspiring story of perseverance.

Kevin: Welcome. I'm Chaplain Kevin, and today I'm talking with Kathy, who, after becoming a single mom, was faced with the choice of family stability over financial stability. And in the process, she defined what it means to persevere. This is “Coping”. Well, Kathy, thank you so much for joining me today for this conversation. Really appreciate you being with me today. So one of the things that arose in your story is a theme around perseverance. 

Kevin: How do you define perseverance? What does that word mean for you?

Kathy: Sure. Well, I like to think of perseverance as an analogy of when we are at the beach and we are walking along the ocean and maybe wading into the ocean and if we are deciding to go for a swim. 

Kathy: That when you try to maybe ride with the waves as the waves get stronger and stronger if you're walking against the current that some waves may knock you off your feet and topple you over. And I've always thought that perseverance is trying to find your footing in the midst of crashing waves coming again and again, and just even if it topples you upside down and swallow saltwater. Figuring out a way to get back on your feet. Wow. Where in your life did you have to find a footing? Where have you been knocked down by the waves in your personal life? Well, there are many stories. 

Kathy: Like most people's lives, I have numerous areas of my life where I've been knocked down. The one that comes to mind is about twelve years ago when I became a single mom. I was the mother of, at that time, three children under the age of five. And I felt completely knocked off my feet because it was very quickly and abruptly and found myself in a situation where I didn't have a job, I didn't have family around. We were in a new city and had, like I mentioned, three kids under the age of five find myself trying to figure out how to put one foot in front of the other. And had been literally everything that I could think of had been taken away from me and removed, including my ability to work. Because now I have three young kids to take care of and no help or support to get back to work or to afford to put them into some sort of daycare. 

Kevin: How did you find a footing? The first thing was to figure out what my responsibility was and where it was and who it was too. And I knew that I had had what I would say. A divine word that I needed to stay home, which sounds a little bit crazy and also counterintuitive that I would stay home as a single mother. 

Kathy: But what I kept hearing again and again is that there needed to be some consistency in the lives of my children. So I needed to be that stabilizing force. So I had to be there to drop them off to school, to pick them up every day, day, to put them into bed at night. 

Kathy: And so the first thing that I did was decide what my responsibility was and how I had to move forward with that in my life. And that was to make a decision to not go back to work as a single mother. You would think that going back to work would be this stabilizing force for yourself, for your family. 

Kathy: And you chose the opposite. How is that a footing for you? How did that become the way that you found stability for your family? Well, it's something that I now teach a lot. It's about figuring out what your values and priorities are and honoring those and making decisions based around that. 

Kathy: So if I knew that my value was family, and especially my three children who didn't have stabilizing security in their lives, then for me to be that person that would be consistent for them would be to honor the value of my family and to be there for them. And what I've often told single moms is that we can't put a price tag on how well our children are doing. So have been making all of my bills on time, but then very possibly, my children would have been suffering more emotionally, physically, spiritually, relationally. 

Kathy: And so my choice was to stay at home. And be there for them in every aspect as much as I possibly could. 

Kevin: You were valuing emotional, spiritual well being, their mental well being, over financial well being. 

Kathy: That was the value, yes, absolutely.

Kevin: Tell me more about some of the obstacles that you faced as you're trying. To find your putting so obviously with deciding to be a stay at home mom as a single mom. 

Kathy: It, of course, had the consequence of bringing up this question of where was the income going to come from and how would we make it day to day? And so the financial picture soon became very bleak, and I had to face the reality of asking for help and reaching out for all sources of income. 

Kathy: So, for example, I didn't want to consider this, but I found myself going to the office for family services and filing for paperwork for food stamps and getting government assistance, which I could never have imagined having a higher degree education. 

Kathy: It was unthinkable to me. So another thing that happened is we fell behind on our mortgage, and also we lived in a townhouse. We fell behind on both of those and began to face the consequences of that. One is we got a lien placed on our house. And then also there was one day that I recall where my kids were playing outside and they. I was there and I saw a gentleman come start taking pictures of the house. 

Kathy: And when I approached him, he said he was taking pictures because the house was going to be foreclosed. 

Kevin: Oh, my gosh.

Kathy: And the truth of that was, is that in the years of me being a single mom, we almost lost our house three times, and we were within 90 days. The closest we came was 90 days of being evicted from our home. And so the reality of the consequences of my choice to honor my values really was tested. And this is where perseverance, where the rubber really meets the road, where you are really called to decide if this is the footing that you're going to stand on in the midst of so much loss and hardship. 

Kevin: It goes back to your definition of perseverance. Right. That you keep getting knocked down by these waves. The waves just keep on coming one after the next, making your footing feeling like it was even more insecure. 

Kevin: Feel almost like you're drowning, right?

Kathy: Absolutely. 

Kevin: Where else did the help come from? Where did you find yourself asking for help?

Kathy: So anything that I could think of for help, obviously family came alongside and helped in a significant way. But anything that I could think of where income could come from, then I pursued it. 

Kathy: For example, for the kids to have Halloween costumes every year, I would resell their old costumes on eBay for us to go on vacation. We would have a garage sale or yard sale in front of our house. For the kids to have a birthday party or Christmas gifts. I would sell anything else that we had in the house to come up with income. I would go to resale shops to get clothes and things like that. What was very important to me, one of my values is that the children would never know that we were in such financial dire straits because they are children and it shouldn't be a burden of theirs. 

Kathy: So even to this day, if you interviewed the children, they are aware of it. So I always wanted them to know that we weren't wealthy, but they didn't know the depths of the hardship or how close we came to losing the house. And also I filed bankruptcy twice and was was also sued by a credit card company and had to file a lawsuit against a credit card company to prevent lien getting slapped on future wages, for example.

Kevin: What do you say to anybody who looks at your value of choosing family over finances and says to you, it's just too much that it can't possibly be the right thing or God's will for you to be in such financial trouble, and that the consequences that you're facing was the result of bad choices rather than hard values choices?

Kathy: Well, it was a question that came up and it was something that was told to me that I was being financially irresponsible. So it is something that I wrestled with. At the end of the day, each person has to make their own choices about what they value and what the consequences of that are. 

Kathy: And so for me, and I know that our time with our children is a very short time, and I made the choice to sacrifice for them. And in the middle of all of it, I started two businesses. And so I was working. 

Kathy: The income that was coming in was not enough to cover everything. So it wasn't that I wasn't working. I ended up creating two of my own businesses that once is still in existence today. Tell me a little bit about your financial situation now. 

Kathy: Well, miraculously, we have been climbing out of debt for about twelve years and still are climbing ourselves slowly out of that. We have not been released completely from the financial hold that we've been under, but there has been. Huge blessings that have come in the way of income. And even during COVID people were out of work, our business actually picked up and doubled and tripled and that was a huge blessing to us. And so we are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel financially, finally. But know that it is grace. And if someone came in to look at the books over all the years, couldn't come up with how it is that we made it through this far. 

Kevin: A miracle, like you said. I wonder, what do you say to those who are struggling to persevere now? What encouragement do you have for them in the midst of the crashing waves? 

Kathy: Well, I would say a few things. One would be that there's always light in the midst of the darkness. So we have to seek out the light every single day. 

Kathy: We have to find the places of gratitude, of hope, of joy, of peace. And I kept holding on to those every single day, even if it was an expected check that came in the mail or my children doing well at school or getting a surprise visit, something every single day. Find the light. Look for the light in the midst of the darkness. God is always trying to shine light into the darkest places. That's where I believe he does his best work. And so that would be the first thing that I would say, is look for light in the midst of your darkness. 

Kathy: One other thing that I'd like to say is that when we're in the midst of the hardest storms of our lives, we don't feel brave, we do not feel strong, we don't feel like we can get up the next morning and do that. 

Kathy: But my admonition is that you don't have to feel it, you just have to live it. And you have to just keep putting one foot in front of the other and ask for the strength and the support and the help to keep going. 

Kathy: So perseverance is not a feeling, it's an action. And much like faith, I encourage you to just keep on keeping on, as the saying goes, and finding the help, which would be another one of my pieces of advice. 

Kathy: I never wanted to take help, and I learned hard lessons about taking help and the value of help and taking help from others. So that's what I also like to say. 

Kevin: Kathy, thank you so much for your time today. I just really appreciate you sharing some of your story with us, these bits of wisdom and advice for others. Thank you.