In this episode, Jennifer Wheland shares her journey of dealing with her daughter's cancer.  Join us for this vulnerable and encouraging interview which will connect you with her heart and give you hope for seeing a bigger purpose in all our struggles. The community of Mamas she talks about is exactly what God intends for all of our pain. When we are vulnerable with each other about our pain, it connects us to the painful human experience we all share. Some stories, like dealing with cancer are much tougher than others, but there is beauty in the connections we find. I hope you listen to this story, cry a little, (it shows your connection with the pain of others) laugh and take courage from this Mom's story and her heart for helping others on their journeys.

You can support families in RI dealing with childhood cancer through the Tomorrow Fund

Transcript:

Welcome everyone to Hold My Iced Coffee podcast. We are very excited today. I'm just over the moon to have Jennifer Wheeland here. She is someone who… She's dancing. You can't see that right now, but she's someone who really refreshes. She refreshes the soul and you're going to get to experience that too. There's going to be a time of refreshing. She is high energy, but she's a wise soul and it just oozes out of her pores. You're gonna you're gonna love this so we're going to get right into it. She is, I know her through a mutual friend, Patty and she’s spoken so highly of you and I've I've gotten to see your if it's OK to say your I've heard some of your singing. I've heard you know who what you're all about and I've just loved it and I'm so glad that we can make contact with each other. We know that you are a Rockstar Mom, you are a musician, a singer and so talented and what you do. Talented events planner and we are in a great friend. You know someone who you would want to grab coffee with. And want to just know and say I am so thankful that you're in the world. You have such warmth and you know you took on a role. Jenn, that you never expected. So first we just want to say thank you and welcome to hold my ice coffee

Cindy shares a story of how she and her husband had the same argument for decades until she decided to "jump off of the hamster wheel" and try something different. She really listened! What she discovered has the power to change all of our relationships, even the way we see ourselves. It is also the hope of getting past the divisiveness in our country right now.  We hope you will listen and join the conversation. We'd love to listen to what you have to say! 

Quotes:

I can't fully listen to people without judgment and… or a defensiveness of myself if I don't understand how much God loves me. Or maybe I should say, the more I grow in understanding the better I get at being able to fully listen to people because. Like you know I said that thing about that. You don't throw…or that when people throw shit at you. It's because they're staying in a pile of it. Well, if we want to get rid of our own stuff, then it comes from our security being around how much God loves us. The more secure we are the less we need to defend ourselves. and the more it's OK to be uncomfortable with somebody else’s pain

A friend of mine, her child died and it was tragic and it was incredibly hard. I was really surprised by some people's reactions to her daughter's death. Several people told me things like that they couldn't go to the funeral because it hurt them too much. There was too much fear for them to see a child that died because they had their own children. And I get that and I'm not trying to be too condemning of people for that. I was just surprised. It really made me think about, that a lot of people were afraid to reach out to my friend because of the fear of it happening to them. They didn't want to think about it. You know and it was hard. There's something in us when we see other people’s pain, there's a part of us that just reacts with this fear,  to face whatever it is that that person is going through. We just want to be like that can't happen to me right? And the problem is, that when we feel like that can't happen to me, we make religious excuses that isolate that person in their pain. But they also hurt us because, we are going to experience pain. And we're going to have bad things that happen to us and make other people uncomfortable. And, if we think that denying it and you know, ignoring it somehow helps, or that's the appropriate way to shield ourselves from that fear, we miss out on the connection with each other. We also miss out on God's heart for this world when we are suffering. And I just really believe the more that we know that, the more we can walk through other people's pain with them. And it's a beautiful honor. Every time somebody shares their pain with me, it's not easy. But it's just… it's so incredible and I think it helps to understand that people push us away during our pain from… because of their own fear. But it also helps us confront it in ourselves, that none of that is from God. I mean he never promised. You know, like any of these horrible things, he never promised that he would free us from life. He said he would give us fullness and walk with us through all of those problems. Whatever comes our way. Then we get to comfort other people with the comfort he gave us. And so. All of that goes back to deeply listening to people. And we don't have to have the answer…to

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fix anything, we just get to be there and kind of just listen and understand. Because fixing anything… that's God's job.

The article I referred to about how we are not as far apart as we think.

https://perceptiongap.us/