I Witness

This episode of the I Witness podcast spotlights a compelling story that navigates the often murky waters of mental health and faith. We feature an open-hearted conversation with Christy Boulware, who courageously shares her battle with severe panic attacks, fear, and anxiety. From feeling like she was dying to nearly losing hope, her journey is an intense one, full of desperate moments.

However, amidst the tumult, Christy discovered a lifeline in an unexpected place. This interview will explore her transformative journey from the depths of despair to a place of hope and healing. Whether you’re grappling with similar issues or seeking insights into mental health from a faith-based perspective, Christy’s candid discussion offers relatable experiences, wisdom, and a testament to the healing power of faith.

Listen to the interview with Christy here:

Kelly: Welcome to the I Witness Podcast. I’m your host, Kelly Jo Wilson, and this is the show for women who struggle to accept their worth but want to embrace their gifts and share their witness for Jesus. We have a great show today about overcoming fear and anxiety when you feel powerless. Our guest is my friend Christy Boulware.

Christy is an author, speaker, and podcaster, but first, a passionate follower of Christ. She’s also the wife of a hunky man named Troy and a mom of three beautiful children. With a deep desire to free women and teens from the chains of fear and anxiety, Christy founded and currently leads the not-for-profit Fearless Unite.

Through conferences, workshops, retreats, bible studies, and devotionals, Christy speaks and rights about drastically decreasing the alarming statistics of anxiety in our world. Welcome to The I Witness Podcast, Christy. I’m so happy you’re here.

Christy: Kelly, thank you for having me. We have an important conversation to tackle today, don’t we?

Kelly: Yes, absolutely. I love your mission and what you’re doing. I love that you’re reaching out to women and teens about this pressing issue. Fear and anxiety have been rampant, especially in the past three years since the pandemic.

There’s a heightened awareness, which as a nurse, I can say that I actually appreciate. I feel like there was such a stigma in the past of anybody struggling and having these different thoughts.

I appreciate the awareness nowadays, but I still feel like it can be so much more robust. That’s why I adore what you’re doing.

Why don’t you tell the listeners about your journey, background, and journey with Jesus through your panic and anxiety disorder?

What did your journey look like?

Christy: I grew up a Catholic and like to tell people I was a C E O Christian, which is Christmas, Easter only. That was my journey, and I’m sure somebody is listening on the other side, saying yes, I grew up that way too.

God was important to me, but I didn’t need him. I didn’t rely on him. It wasn’t a surrender in any way, shape, or form. So really, because I like to say that I was superwoman, I was kicking butt, taking names, climbing the corporate career ladder, doing great for myself, and had always just gone after success and accolades and titles.

Throughout high school and then my college career, I was moved into traveling to New York City to try to make it big on Broadway. I was always chasing after something that left me with nothing, truly.

It wasn’t until I was about 25, in 2011, that I had my first panic attack on the sunny beaches of Cancun.

 I was just sipping on a fruity drink, and at that time, I was not committed to following Jesus at all.

I was reading a gossip magazine, and out of nowhere, I just had this shortness of breath and impending doom. I had to get up and walk, and I didn’t know it, but I experienced my first panic attack.

I was a corporate sales director, medical sales, and workaholic. My job was everything to me. When I landed back in my hometown after a nice vacation and opened my email, I missed 200 emails.

I freaked out. How am I going to get all this work done? 

Then the weirdest thing happened. I started getting black dots in my eyes and paralysis on the right side of my body. I call it paralysis, but it was like tingling. It was almost like weird tingling feelings. Have you ever stomped your brakes when somebody cut you off, and then suddenly you feel a jolt of adrenaline go through you? It’s a tingly pins and needles feeling.

That’s the feeling that I had in my body. You want to shake it off and question what is going on.

It just got worse.

When I got home, I started having mini panic attacks. I didn’t know what they were, but I couldn’t sit still.

My chest felt extremely tight. I was having GI issues, and this went on for several days. It got to the point where I had paralysis on the right side of my body.

So, it was no longer the tingling. It was no movement. I couldn’t feel it.

I called my primary care physician in the middle of the night, and he says, “Christy, I think you’re having a stroke. You need to go to the emergency room. Right now.”

At that point, Kelly, any peace or anything is completely gone when a doctor tells you you’re having a stroke.

So, of course, my husband rushes me there, and they do the whole nine yards. They admit me to the hospital and do an MRI, cardiac screening, and all the tests you can possibly do. A day later, the doctor says, “Hey, Christy, you’re okay. Everything checked out just completely fine.”

You wish they would say something different at that moment because you feel like you’re dying.

I literally felt like I was dying.

There was no way I was okay … to the point where I wanted to punch him in the face. I’m like, “There’s no way. Check the test again. This can’t be possible. I feel like I’m dying.”

He looked at me and said, “Christy, you’ve got panic and anxiety, and that’s what’s going on right now. I’m going to write you a prescription for Xanax,” but sent me home. I had to follow up with my primary care physician.

It snowballed completely out of control afterward, to the point where I had back-to-back panic attacks, and my body had a nervous breakdown.

That’s the beginning of my journey of learning how to figure out fear, panic, and anxiety and overcome it.

Kelly: It’s so funny that you said that you wished he would’ve said something different because, in reality, the last thing you want is for the doctor to say you’re having a stroke.

But there is a certain comfort when he gives you the answer. It’s almost a tangible thing, right?

You know how you’re feeling. I mean, for days you experienced this. So for the doctor to say here’s a prescription for one medication and send you home … it turns your world upside down.

Is that how you felt? Like, what are you going to do now? You had to figure it out now, right?

Christy: Yes, and that’s why I’m so passionate about this work because I felt hopeless when the doctor just looked at me. God love him. He was doing the best he could. He was doing what he was told to do.

They don’t have time to sit down with you and go, “Hey. How are you really feeling, and do you know your thoughts matter?”

They don’t have time to counsel you, teach you, and educate you on what fear, panic, and anxiety is, what it does to your body, and what the medication will do to help you.

They don’t, so they give you these things, and you walk out of there thinking, “Wait a minute. What’s next? What do I do now?”

That was truly the journey. The hell I experienced after I went home from the hospital was worse than when I first went. The panic attacks kept coming and coming, and I know now that my body was stuck in flight or flight.

Because of the fight or flight, I had back-to-back panic attacks. But I didn’t know why that was happening to me. I’m the kind of person that wants you to tell me why, and then I’ll understand. Teach me what this medicine is going to do to my body. But until you teach me, I won’t trust you, and I won’t take it.

Another part of my journey was learning what antidepressants do and why they are helpful. In my darkest moments, I had back-to-back panic attacks, hadn’t slept in weeks, and had hair falling out of my head. I was losing weight rapidly. I had suicidal thoughts, Kelly. I didn’t think I was going to make it out of that.

The darkness was so bad. The kingdom of darkness whispered to me, “You’re never going to get out of this. This is going to be your life forever. Why don’t you just use those guns?”

My husband kept hunting guns in the corner of our bedroom, and they weren’t loaded. Still, it was just this visual representation of what could happen if I went ahead and just did it because, honestly, the hell that I was going through the torment.

I mean, I don’t wish panic and anxiety on anyone. It is straight from the pits of hell.

It’s so debilitating, awful, and so scary that I couldn’t catch my breath. I would have one, I would have a minute, and then another one would come. I liken it to like a marathon. It was like I would run a marathon, be done, and then another one would happen.

It sounds dramatic, but anybody listening on the other side who has been through a panic attack is saying, “I know what you mean. I know what that means.”

Imagine having a hundred of them back-to-back for three weeks straight. It was awful.

Kelly: Welcome to the I Witness  Podcast. I’m your host, Kelly Jo Wilson, and this is the show for women who struggle to accept their worth but want to embrace their gifts and share their witness for Jesus. We have a great show today, and it’s actually part two of my interview with Alycia Johnson. Alycia is the CEO at Tirzah Ministries, and she’s also the co-founder of Tirzah Place, which is a home for teenage mothers.

I talk with Alycia about embracing God’s love and calling against all odds. In part one, Alycia initially told us a bit about her family and her backstory, and what guided her to become the CEO at Tirzah. She also shares about Jesus and how her faith was tested through the different churches that she was a part of growing up and the church that she was a part of later in her life.

This is part 2, where Alycia discusses how she has carried out her God-given calling and provides some resources and tips on how you can too.

Listen to Part 2 of the interview here:

Kelly: When did you first start the Tirzah Ministries while you were going to school? Is that how you got connected with people and started it?

Alycia: Well, that is a starting point while I was there. Actually, God completely orchestrates my life. People are like, you have to apply for jobs. I have applied for jobs before, but it really is like God just drops things in my lap.

All the professors are like, “You’re crazy. You’re graduating early and moving to Kentucky in the middle of the winter. You’re not even sure you’re accepted to this college and are just going to live there. So you’re taking all your stuff down with you for Christmas.”

I was like, yep, going through.  

Kelly: I love it. I love it. That blind obedience is the best.

Alycia: It really is. Because you don’t know what’s on the other side of it. It can only be good because you have no clue at this point.

I moved there, got accepted, and found a place right away. The day before I moved in was Christmas, and I was looking for jobs. I was trying to find somewhere, and this place appeared.

I had these rules, but you can’t make rules with God, even so, I always try. They were: I would never work in a residential home and did not think I was strong enough to deal with teenagers. So while I was searching, God was like, apply for this job.

It just kept popping up on all these sites. It was Christmas day, and I was applying for jobs. They were looking for a third shift worker that’s 23 years old, and I was 21, not 23. They wanted you to work all night in a residential home for teen moms.

I thought it aligned with my passion, but this violates all the rules, and I’m too young. There’s no way this wasn’t going to happen. I applied for the day job that you could be 21 years old.

But when I sent it at 2:00 AM, the man who runs it with his wife messaged me. He said, “Hey, I got your application. Would you like to try out for the third shift position?”

Kelly: Especially because he knows you’re up at 2AM. He’s thinking you’re already up. You might as well do that shift. That is funny.

Alycia: I thought, okay, well, this is it. There was no stopping at that point. So I worked there for two and a half years. It was the greatest experience.

I found out later they opened the year before I was born, right down the road from where my family’s from.

Kelly: Wow. That is so neat.

Alycia: It was really powerful when I realized that. I see God’s hand in their ministry. Even now, they’re really flourishing and growing. Their heart to minister to people is so genuine. It’s a husband and wife, and their story is amazing.

I’m not going to spend an hour on their story, but I could because there just an amazing couple.

Kelly: You just have to come back. That’s all that means.

Alycia:  Yes, for sure. Because they’re incredible people, and they inspired me. I tell people not to discredit a man’s involvement in a women’s ministry in the right way.

Because he told me that I was strong enough to do that job. She could have told me, but in all honesty, she’s actually more the tough one because you gotta be that way with these girls, and he’s a gentle father figure. He said, “You’re young. You’re quiet. But you know what? I think we are going to feed you to the wolves and leave you, and you’ve got this. I will be there.”

He was there, even at 2:00 AM. If needed, I could call him. There was a tornado once in the middle of the night, and I was alone with all these girls. I picked up the phone and called him because I wanted someone to talk to that wasn’t a teenager. He was someone I could rely on.

He believed in me, and she also did, but there was a lot of power in him being the first person I interacted with. I left for Wisconsin but kept in touch with them. I still do.

That’s what inspired me to pursue the home for teen moms.

I moved back to where my family lives now in Milwaukee. The first job I had was with someone I connected with years ago. I wasn’t for sure accepted to the job, didn’t have a place to live, had a place picked out, and moved back to Wisconsin.

My first client in Wisconsin was 11 years old.

God knew the details because my first client in Wisconsin was 11 years old.

I couldn’t even imagine because I was doing home visitation, and there was nowhere for her to stay. So we called foster care, probably about 20 different calls about this pregnant 11-year-old girl, and no one ever took us seriously. Even teachers called. She left her parents’ home because her mom said, if you can’t take care of your younger siblings, I don’t want you here.

She said I’m not the parent of my younger siblings. Her mom said she was out. She stayed with her grandma, and she wasn’t going to school. I had someone try to traffic her, and she called me because I was the person she was closest to. Even though she only saw me every week once a week.

I would pick her up and take her in my car, and we did our best to make sure everything was legal since she was 11 and I was driving her around. It was horrible for her. I thought, why are there no resources like this? Why is there no one doing anything about these teenage girls?

I saw it at home back in Kentucky, and I’m like, there’s a solution.

I might have been 23 years old, but why not try to start at home? We’re still fundraising because it was another girl and me, and running those homes is expensive.

It’s still in the fundraising stage, but it’s been so much prayer. I know there’s a need. So I know God will do it, and he’ll make it all happen at the right time.

But I see God’s hand in bringing me through my family’s story. Through the home in Kentucky and back into Wisconsin.

I saw a huge need for teenage parents, whom I happen to be the daughter of, and have spent these years working with this home. It’s just mind-boggling how God does that. Because he knows your story.

You can’t make that up. That’s when you know it’s God. I can’t take credit for any of that because I don’t get to take credit for who I was born to or where I’m from, so there’s never a point in my life where I can be like, “Well, I did that.” Because it’s so clear I did not do it.

Kelly: Oh yeah, He’s woven such a passion and interwoven you in many different situations to grow your experience. The best way to get you to experience how to do this beautiful ministry is to thrust you into situations where you have to do it.

I’m so grateful for people like you running these ministries in these homes and outreach and providing these resources for people like this 11-year-old girl. Because that’s an easy situation for people to turn their heads to because you people think somebody else will do it.

But God knows your heart and knows Alycia will be the one to do it. I know it. I know she’s going to do it.

I’m so grateful to you for being that person for her. Even seeing her once a week, she trusted you enough to confide in and see you.

She obviously really wanted help because it takes a lot to even ask for help. But then to come consistently … It’s just so heartbreaking for somebody to be in a spot like that, especially a child. I love what you’re doing. I think it’s just amazing.

What was the place of your first job? I want to include it in the show notes. What is their ministry?

Alycia: It’s called All God’s Children.

Kelly: So we’re almost at time, but on this journey you’ve been through, you said you’ve seen a lot of God’s love and grace. You thought about what God said in Genesis about what was meant for evil, but God meant for good.

Was there a verse that stood out to you while you were trying to find your way, experiencing these situations? Especially with your grandmother and your parents. Was there a verse you always remembered that stuck out to you?

Kelly: Welcome to the I Witness Podcast. I’m your host. Kelly Jo Wilson and this is the show for women who struggle to accept their worth but want to embrace their gifts and share their witness for Jesus. We have a great show today about embracing God’s love against all odds. Our guest today is Alycia Johnson.

Alycia is currently the CEO at Tirzah Ministries and co-founder of Tirzah Place, a home for teenage mothers. As the daughter of teenage parents, she spends her time advocating for strengthening families and giving young parents the tools to break generational cycles. Her passion is for women to know their value and carry out their God-given calling.

Welcome to the I Witness podcast today, Alycia. I’m so happy you’re here.

Alycia: Thank you for having me, Kelly. I’m excited to be here.

Listen to Part 1 of the interview here:

Kelly: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So, Alycia and I chatted a bit beforehand, and I just wanted to say that it is such a funny way that we came to meet one another. God has a way of putting people in your path and bringing people together that’s amazing. I’m happy that you are here and happy to be talking with you today. I think you have a wonderful story. So why don’t we just get into a little bit of your background, upbringing, parents, and family? You can tell us about your journey to finding Jesus.

Alycia:  To make it exciting, I will start with my parents’ story because I like to describe it as a Hallmark movie.

Kelly: Oh, that’s great. I love Hallmark.

Alycia: I feel like someday they could be a Hallmark movie. They were teenagers in the Appalachian Mountains and met at a very young age.

They were in high school from two different counties, and I do mean they were from the mountains. My dad had a motorcycle. He played on the football team. He worked at Walmart, helped with his family, and had his guitar. My mom was one of the cheerleaders, so I always think that’s super cute.

They don’t always like to say that’s super cute or even talk about how they got married, but I’ve always thought it was adorable. They actually eloped in a trailer. The man who married them was the pastor and barber, and he might have been the mayor and the school bus driver, too.

This wasn’t that long ago, either. My dad’s friends were the witnesses. During that time, and even today, one of the only ways to leave the mountains is to join the military. My dad was a little bit older than my mom, and he was graduating.

So he joined the military and was actually in South Korea for quite a while when I was young, fighting in the war.

He was over there, and I remember my mom sharing this story, I think she was living with his mom at the time, and she’s 16 with me. She’s barely got her license and realizes her husband has left with the credit card.

She’s like, what do I do? He has the card, and he’s like really going away. So they had to figure that out.

So I have had quite an adventurous childhood. My parents are still together today. I am always blown away. I have heard a lot of statistics growing up and working in the pro-life movement, which I’ve done for several years, about the success rates for teenage parents for marriage.

It’s so funny because when I go to church now, the pastor always says that my parents are couple goals. They grew up together, have known each other through so many seasons, and walked alongside many journeys. They wanted something new for my sister, who’s seven years younger than me, and me.

So they really sought to figure out what that new thing was, which was leaving the mountains. We go back frequently, but they asked themselves, what’s best for us?

The first three years were a military journey. I was born on a military base in Missouri. My dad was in South Korea.

I lived in Louisiana, and then my parents ended up in Bible college in Washington State. My parents took us wherever to figure that out, and being a child wasn’t easy. We moved frequently, but I’ve never doubted that my parents loved me.

They were young and were figuring out life. So it’s been a cool journey that ties into my faith journey of my parents. From what I understand of the story, I got saved when I was a baby.

It’s really cool that we got to start a relationship with God together. I try to describe that to people, saying I grew up with my parents taking notes all night for Bible college when I was three. So at the age of ten, I was sitting with pastors until midnight.

I know it’s not the norm for most girls to spend their nights with head pastors and missionaries from around the world just sitting there and talking about scripture.

There were also challenges because of the church. We attended that church from when I was three years old until I was nineteen. That church introduced us to Jesus. But we were navigating the dynamics of figuring out life. My parents were teenagers, and this church really became like a parental figure in their life.

That sounds great, and there were great aspects to it, but there was also a lot of control.

So once they became pastors, there were many things like unnecessary rules controlling what we did. We lived in properties owned by pastors, and they weren’t the best properties to live in.

We moved from Washington State to St. Louis, Missouri, when I was six. My family went from the Appalachian Mountains into the hood. What surprises many people about me is I grew up in a predominantly African American community. But it wasn’t odd for me at all.

That’s what I knew. That was my norm. We lived there from the time I was six until I was fifteen. My sister was born there. I loved it.

I have so many fond memories, and that really surprises people. But there’s such a sense of community. The neighbors have to protect each other. You really have to watch out.

You know who your neighbors are because you need to know what’s going on. I had so many friends that I loved, and that looked out for me in St. Louis. Let me tell you, that city is amazing because it has so many free things to do.

They just had so many fun things for a family who didn’t have a lot. We could go and explore all these programs, and my parents were really able to learn more about who they are. But unfortunately, in the Appalachian Mountains, there is still a lot of racism today.

That was something I had to navigate growing up. Visiting the mountains every year and having family members ask me what’s it like being around black people. I would say, “Why are you asking me this?”

That wasn’t my norm. My parents were always so loving to everyone. To be honest, nobody ever looked at me as a child and said, you’re white. You’re not black.

I never experienced that when I was in St. Louis. That’s the beauty of the church we attended.

There were so many different races, and you were accepted for your own story, not because of your skin color.

Kelly: That’s fantastic.

Alycia: I feel like my family grew a lot there. It was very challenging. When I was fourteen, I asked Jesus into my heart, but it was more from a place of fear than from wanting a relationship. To be honest. It felt more like, “Well, hell sounds worse, so I don’t want to go there. But I don’t know that heaven sounds that great based on what I’ve been taught.”

Learning through my journey then was like, “I’m going to own this.” But it was all based out of fear and perfection. At that church, my parents were very loved, but I was also seen as one of the perfect children, for lack of a better way to put that, of doing what they were told and following the rules.

I was one of the youngest to be allowed to teach Sunday school alone. That sounds nice, but that is a lot of pressure on a fifteen-year-old girl, for example. If I could go back, I would tell myself, “Don’t take on the responsibility that’s not yours to take on.”

There were grownups in the congregation with their own stories who would look at me and say, “I can’t believe you’re sitting in the back row reading a book right now. Somebody could have got saved while you were reading this book.”

Kelly: That’s tough.

Alycia: The journey of a pastor’s child as well at times. That was hard to hear those things. I’d be like, “Well, am I doing the right thing?” I was constantly questioning. It wasn’t a sense of am I capable of doing something. I’ve always been told I could do many things. But it’s more about, can I not do something? Is there a time when I get to sit and let other people lead? I can go read the book or go to the park. I feel like my family walked through that as well.

Kelly: It’s difficult because it sounds like your family had a lot of faith. They were dependent and active in the church and wanted to do wonderful things.

As you said, they always shared love. They were always loving people. They raised you to see people for who t...

This episode is part 2 of the interview with Lisa Appelo. Lisa unexpectedly lost her husband, and she takes us through how God spoke to her on her grief journey with her seven children. She shares resources and encouragement that helped her along the way and could help other women struggling with the pain of shattering loss.

Lisa Appelo inspires women to deepen faith in life’s storms and is an ECPA bestselling author. A former litigating attorney, Lisa is passionate about rich Bible teaching. Lisa founded a team of writers at HopeinGrief.com and currently serves on the executive team for Compel with Proverbs 31 Ministries. Her work has been featured at Life Today, Insight for Living, and many more. As a single mom of seven, Lisa’s days are filled with parenting ministry and long walks to justify lots of dark chocolate.

Listen to Part 2 of the interview here:

Lisa: It is for sure too hard for us. We were not made for death, divorce, disease, or devastation like this. We weren’t made for it. So when these things happen, it does overwhelm us. That old saying that God won’t give you more than you can handle. That’s just not true.

We can absolutely find ourselves in circumstances that are too hard for us.

I remember writing at the top of my journal every day for well over a year,

All caps, bold, underlined. That was the reality of my heart. I’m sure people looked at me and thought, you’re so strong.

But I knew what was going on inside. I knew the war raging in my thoughts and my emotions and could feel the enemy. I felt like the enemy was trying to get his toe into our family and just pull it apart.

Listen, this was not Lisa who had everything put together and was doing all the right things. This was Lisa who was desperate for the Lord.

Sometimes I think we can feel that nudge to meet with the Lord, open the word, meet with him in prayer, maybe read a devotion or read the Bible, and we think it’s guilt. You think God is guilting us like, “You haven’t met with me. You’re so bad.”

But it’s not. It’s wooing us like somebody who loves us, holding out their hands and saying, “I have everything you need. Come to me.”

It makes me weep. Because I remember … I remember those days when I just was desperate. And he says, “Come to me.”

So I think for the woman listening to this right now and saying, “I’ve stayed away from God, and I haven’t opened the word. I am mad,” to just listen to that nudge. Open it and give God a chance to meet you where you are.

 It won’t look all tidy, and everything won’t be wrapped up with the bow that first day. God will meet you where you are. He will give you hope and encourage you. He will remind you how much he loves you and remind you of his promises and faithfulness, and that’s how we do life.

We’re not promised that life will be easy. But we’re promised that God will be faithful.

Kelly: Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing that, Lisa. I think that is so encouraging that it won’t be easy. We know that we’re not promised that. It’s going to be hard, and it’s going to be messy.

A lot of women take comfort in knowing that other women are going through it too, and it’s messy and hard for them too. But there is a way to come through it.

 Like you said, listening to that nudge, I’ve had many women reach out to me who don’t think they hear God’s voice. They’re not sure if it’s him.

They question it a lot, but I think a lot of times it is not necessarily questioning him, but more questioning themselves. I love that you said, just listen to that nudge because it is there. It’s like a soft, still voice. Do you feel like it was like that with you? Like he just kept pulling you?

Lisa: God speaks to us in his word, so we can be sure that we can open up the word and see him speaking to us. I mean, not audibly, like how Moses heard or Paul heard, but he speaks to us through scripture.

Somehow a hundred women could read the same passage. God applies it to each of us personally not differently, not in opposition to each other. Still, God will apply it personally to us because scripture’s alive. I would say open up scripture. You don’t even need a devotional. Devotionals are awesome, but start the book of John. Just see who Jesus is and what he has to say to you.

Kelly: What a wonderful book to start in. I read John a lot too. I also really like Matthew. For some reason, I’m so drawn to Matthew when reading about Jesus and I usually read the New King James version. But I like going through different versions to see how he’s speaking to you.

But yes, what a wonderful encouragement. So this happened years ago, but it never fully goes away. Right? You always have this part, and time just kind of moves you past it. You just learn to live with it, I feel like right?

Is that how it is with you?  Is that how it feels? The wound is not quite as open, but it’s still there, and you learn to manage it.

But was there anybody that inspired you during that time or your journey that you could look up to or helped guide you? Did anybody walk alongside you?

Lisa: Well, a couple things come to mind. One is, yes, grief does lessen and soften if we do the hard work of grief. Time is not a natural healer it’s neutral. It’s what we do with that time. So there are definitely ways that we process grief and loss over and over and over.

It’s never just a one-and-done thing, but it does lessen and soften. Most days I would say I’m very much used to this pace of life and love life.

But we miss Dan at every milestone and at every dinner that we have together. He will always be missed.

I didn’t know any other young widow I could walk with, but I had friends that loved on me. That’s such a lesson to us because sometimes we think, well, I don’t understand what she’s walking through. I’ve never lost a child, or I’ve never been through a divorce, or I’ve never had cancer. So we don’t think that we are capable of really ministering to that person.

But really, it’s just loving that person in it. It’s just loving them and showing up. That’s the big thing. We don’t have to have magic words.

We can’t fix the problem, so we can just let ourselves off the hook of having to fix the problem. But just showing up, being present, reminding, sending a text, having coffee, and listening to their heart. There are so many ways we can love somebody in it, which was huge for me.

There’s somebody who is no longer living but has always been a heroine for me is Elizabeth Elliot. Her writing is just so good. She recently came out with a book after her death, but they put it together, called Suffering is Never for Nothing. She knew suffering more than just her two husbands who passed away. She’s two times a widow, but she had other losses in her life. So, her writing and her steady trust has been a huge encouragement.

Kelly: Wow. That is so amazing that you just said Elizabeth Elliot right now. Because I can’t even tell you. I was just looking up her story. So It’s just funny,     to me, those little coincidences.

I love so much that you had friends that loved on you, because that is so important. It’s so encouraging to just sit with somebody, and most times it probably doesn’t even matter what they say. Right? Just to be there to listen, to hug you.

It’s so true. You’re so right. “I don’t have cancer. I don’t know how I’m going to help people. I didn’t, I never lost a child.” Many people say that and I think it it’s very well intended. I think that it’s, “I don’t walk that path. I don’t know it, how can I tell them anything?”

But really, nobody even wants you to tell them anything. They just want your love, your hug, and you to listen to them. So, I am so happy that you had friends like that because, man, it really does make a difference. That’s why fellowship within one another is so important too.

Especially as women, I feel like we get each other. There’s so much pressure in the world, these unrealistic expectations set for us and we don’t even know how that happens. We’re not in competition with each other.

We are here to encourage each other and I love so much that you said that and had that support. Because what a difficult walk.    

Elizabeth Elliot, just to share with the listeners, her husband was killed overseas. They were missionaries and they went over to help to minister to people about Jesus. I think they were called the Auca people.

Lisa: I think they’re called a Waudoni is their name now that they use.

Kelly: Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, absolutely. Her husband and four other missionaries were speared by men who did not want them around. They did not accept the word. I was actually just reading something that her husband could have drawn a pistol to defend himself. But he made a promise to them that he wouldn’t. He woul...

Lisa Appelo shares how she saw who God is through the shattering loss of her husband. Lisa describes how she was desperate for God in those hard moments, and how her family grieved together but in their own separate ways.

Welcome to the I Witness Podcast. I’m your host, Kelly Jo Wilson, and this is the show for women who struggle to accept their worth but want to embrace their gifts and share their witness for Jesus. We have a great show today about life after shattering loss.

Listen to Part 1 of the interview here:

Kelly: Our guest is my friend and fellow author, Lisa Appelo. Lisa inspires women to deepen faith in life’s storms and is an ECPA bestselling author. A former litigating attorney, Lisa is passionate about rich Bible teaching. Lisa founded a team of writers at HopeinGrief.com and currently serves on the executive team for Compel with Proverbs 31 Ministries. Her work has been featured at Life Today, Insight for Living, and many more. As a single mom of seven, Lisa’s days are filled with parenting ministry and long walks to justify lots of dark chocolate. Welcome to the I Witness podcast, Lisa. I’m so happy to have you here.

Lisa: Thank you so much, Kelly Jo. I’m happy to be with you.

Kelly: Yes, yes. Thank you. So, today I just wanted to talk about the wonderful but challenging journey you’ve traveled. Your faith and walk with God over these past few years. So I just wanted to share or wanted our listeners to hear a little bit more about your background and family and then go from there about your faith journey.

You’re really passionate about helping women through shattering loss and grief. I think it’s just so inspiring, and you have such a wonderful story to tell. So why don’t you start by telling us a little bit about your family, background, and even how you came to know Jesus. Like how old you were and just a little bit of what that looks like.

Lisa: Sure, when you were asking that question, I was thinking about my story, and I thought, even now, it’s hard to believe this is the story that God has written. This is not what I would’ve expected. And I think so many of us can identify that we are living out a life that we didn’t expect things that have happened or that we wanted to happen that never happened.

I’ll start with when I came to Christ. I was a young girl. I was raised in the church, and I was in Sunday school from the youngest I can remember. In church, you know, things weren’t perfect. Even in my home, there wasn’t much teaching about Jesus.

Most of that was coming to church on Sundays, but I knew I needed a savior at eight. So I count that at eight years old, but we weren’t a family that wrote the date in the Bible or anything like that. So that’s really as best I can remember that I was eight, going forward and pastor, and getting baptized and all that.

But then, in my teen years, I did some teen things as a 15-year-old but rededicated my life. So, from that time on, owned my faith as an adult. You understand what you can as an eight-year-old. Then we grow older and almost have to make those decisions over again as an adult wrestling through some of these issues that seem so simple at eight years old, right?

Kelly: Oh, absolutely. Yes.

Lisa: But, fast forward, I married my college, well, I married my high school sweetheart, so we actually were in Sunday school together. We met in seventh grade, but he was just another boy across the room, and then by high school, we were in a big group of friends. He was a surfer.

We’d go to the beach together, and he was my first date. He was my only date. We went to college together very intentionally because we knew we had a future together. We married sometime in college and ended up with seven children, which is another unexpected thing.

This was not in the plan, but God will tender our hearts and ask us to step out in faith in ways we never thought we could.

So, I have seven children. Five are launched and have their own families, and I am still actively parenting two. My two youngest are at home. My story … I think when we talk about shattering loss and how God really gave me a heart for the woman who’s walking that started 11 years ago.

I went to bed happily married and woke up a widow and single mom to my seven children. There were no signs of symptoms, but I woke up in the early morning to my husband’s funny breathing on the pillow next to me and called 911 and started CPR.

The paramedics were there within minutes, and I thought, “okay, he’s in good hands. He’s going to be mad when he wakes up and finds out he has to miss work today.”

But he never recovered.

I went into the ER, and they called me into that room you never wanna go into, and the ER doctor said, “we’ve worked on him for over two hours and have never been able to revive him.”

I went home to tell my kids that was it, that their dad was in heaven. After that, life in every sense fell apart, just shattered into a thousand pieces. It would never be the same again.

Kelly: Wow. That definitely would cause your life to absolutely shatter. Being so young and loving him so much pretty much immediately. You went on a date, and you both were so young and full of life and dedicated your lives to one another. Then you have this family, and like you said, your life took a completely unexpected turn, which is even more of a blessing once you’re walking that path.

But then you wake up in the middle of the night, and oh my goodness, as you put it, you went to bed married and woke up a widow. Happily married and woke up a widow.

But, first, I’m just so sorry you had to deal with that, Lisa. I just can’t imagine, and I’m sure you’ve had many people say that to you.

I will say, though, the encouragement, inspiration, and help just even by being here today as we talk through your story. And knowing you and your passion for writing and reaching women, I’m sure that you’ve provided a lot of comfort to a lot of people, and have really blessed them.

I’m so gracious that you’re here today to talk about this. Going back quickly, whenever you’re young, I just wanna point out one thing, which I think is neat. So you’re eight years old and like, yes, I love Jesus. Your family is going to church and you know about him, but it’s not like writing it in a calendar.

I completely identify with that. I feel like my family had always talked about Jesus, that it was kind of like well-known that you’re Christian, right? That you just know him, say prayers and that’s it. So you can’t really pinpoint the day. But like you said, when you were a teenager, after you come to know him a little bit as you were young, but it never left you just like he tells us it never departs from you.

But once you make some mistakes, dealing with all the hormones and teenage everything, you know? I completely identify with you there. Once you realize, once you see a little bit of the brokenness that you are and then go back, it has a little bit of a different meaning right?

Lisa: Yeah, for sure.

I was doing things I shouldn’t have been doing, and I really felt the before and after, and I didn’t get saved at 15. I was saved at eight but wasn’t living fully for the Lord. I was wandering from him, and was really at a point where I could have kept wandering.

Maybe not come back, or I could say, “no, this is the truth.” So he is my savior, and I desperately need him. It’s interesting because I was actually at a youth camp. It was one of those things where everybody was emotional, and I never went forward. They were like, “come forward or pray.”

I never went forward. I stayed right in my seat.

But I remember praying, “Lord, do not let this be a mountaintop experience.” Just praying that over and over. Then I went home.

Dan and I were not dating. We were really good friends. Then, a few weeks after returning school had started in the fall, he said, “You’re so different. You’re so different.” So isn’t that interesting? Somebody who knew me so well could see the difference.

Kelly: Wow. That is interesting. And you weren’t dating him then, he already saw the change in you, though, being your friend. Wow. And especially him too, you know, seeing that change in you maybe sparked a little something extra in him too. You never know. I feel like God really does put people together. It just seems like he really put you together for a wonderful purpose.

It’s just amazing how he can work in our lives. So, I definitely did not want to pass over what happened with Dan in that story. I just wanted to talk a bit about you returning to God when you were a teenager.

That’s so funny that you say that Dan really recognized it. I think that’s great. But you started your life together and had seven children, so that’s completely devastating. So share what you feel comfortable sharing.

I don’t wanna take you too much through every step of that, but how was the family unit?

How did you guys pray together?

Did your kids embrace Jesus, or was it kind of like they were questioning things?

Or do you feel like you were a ver...

In part 2 of this episode of the I Witness podcast, Jenny Leavitt shares how she coped with the grief after losing her youngest son, Jacob, to a drunk driver. The Leavitt family has been through extreme hardship, and Jenny shares how God’s peace has led them through healing deep wounds. In addition, she discusses how the event impacted her marriage and her older son, Caleb, who almost died in the accident alongside his brother.

Listen to Part 2 of the interview here:

Jenny: Our God is so good.

I think there are multiple reasons He prepares us. It can be to heal past wounds, past insecurities, and areas where we don’t feel we deserve his love or care. But it can also be for something in the future he knows that’s coming that we don’t know.

Kelly: That’s a wonderful way to look at it and such a good point. I feel like you and your family have really embodied that so much … how he has truly prepared you. I am grateful to him for the peace that he gave to you.

Because as a mother outside looking in, and I’m sure you’ve heard this throughout telling your story, I don’t know if I could do that. I’m sure you’ve heard that, too, “I don’t know if I could handle that.”

But that’s kind of the point. We can’t handle it without Him, and I’m so grateful you had that peace.

Like you said, when he told you they were his, and then again, at that moment because that is tough.

I appreciate you so much for coming on and talking about that because it’s very hard. I love that your husband was trying to protect you even in the midst of it. He’s by your side through cancer, through all of this. That is so great because a tragedy can shake that marriage up big time in families, especially marriages.

But you guys are rooted in Jesus, rooted in faith.

 Do you feel like going through all this has strengthened you both and fueled togetherness in your marriage?

Jenny: Just three months before we lost Jacob, there was a little girl in our church who was seven or eight that died from brain cancer. My husband and I were the children’s leaders, so we walked that road with the parents.

So, just three months before, we had told the parents the stats were not on your side. In marriages that lose a child, the odds are stacked against you that the marriage will not survive.

Then we lost Jacob three months later. We had been in ministry long enough to know what we told them was right. Looking back now, I think we had a solid foundation in our faith, and we had been together a long time, but it still rocked our marriage in certain areas.

What I tell people is if there are cracks in your relationship, miscommunications, and things you don’t handle well … I’ll use myself as an example. I tend to withdraw and shut down.

My husband is the opposite, and that makes him feel like I want to distance myself completely from him and not want to work it out when that’s really not to me. I’m trying to process it. I don’t want to say something that I’m going to really regret.

It’s just a different mindset. Then you have a serious trauma like this hit marriage, and you have to go into it being aware. My husband and I are polar opposites on so many different things. We’re just completely different, night and day. Then you have the fact that we’re also male and female and grieve differently.

You have to fight.

You have to fight for the relationships that you want to survive. It will not just be handed to you on a silver platter. We were good solid Christians too. We still had to fight through those human tendencies to revert to what is comfortable and familiar and not want to battle anymore.

You gotta fight through that and be like, “No! You know what? Our marriage is worth fighting for. Our relationship is worth fighting for.”

Not to say that we’ve arrived, because we haven’t, but we have come through a lot of the hardest times. 

As you and I were sharing earlier, I read or heard a long time ago that before you share something so close to your heart, make sure that you’re speaking from a place of your scars and not your wounds.

I really feel like my husband and I have … God has brought a lot of healing to those deep wounds. So not to say that we’ve arrived, because we have not, but I do feel like our marriage is more of a place where God has brought some healing salve to those wounded areas, and there’s scarring now.

It still hurts.

That pastor that I told you about, he’s in his eighties, that they lost their daughter. His wife told me, this actually made me feel better, that it had been 37 years at that point. And she was crying when she was talking to me. I remember thinking, okay, I feel normal.

If she’s 37 years away, and it still gets her thinking about her daughter that she lost. Okay. So, I’m not weird. It’s okay.

She told me, “Jenny, you can think about the what-ifs. Sometimes we’ll sit around and think, ‘I wonder how old she would be and if we’d have grandkids’, but I can’t let my mind stay there. It’s not healthy. We have to just say, you know what, God, thank you for those 15 years that we had, and we’re gonna have all of eternity with her now.”

So, shifting that mindset. And their marriage has survived.

They’ve been a great example to us that a marriage can survive. It’s worth fighting for.

Kelly: I love that you had them … I don’t love that they had to go through that too, but I love that you had them as kind of like a mentor. I mean, it really is so true how God puts people in your path.

I love what you said about sharing things from your scars, not your wounds.

It’s so profound. It really is. Because there is a difference. Once you have felt the scarring, the scars start to heal in your soul and heart. Then you can really help a lot of people.

I love that you are reaching out to help and walk alongside people, especially in your church.

Just sharing your story with somebody can make such a huge difference. Especially coming on and talking to me today, sharing how you have gone through it, is amazing.

People go through these things. But, especially once you’re a believer, once you believe in Jesus, and you declare him as your savior.

It is not saying you’re never going to have heartache. There will be times it’s almost harder because you know there’s a struggle. But having him, he’s there to walk alongside you.

I love that you’re taking that and your pain and trying to help others.

It even says in the Bible, Paul had said, how we comfort one another with these words. That’s kind of the point because no matter what, there will be suffering. There are going to be difficult times. Like you said before, how you’ve gone through these seasons and how this healing is building on itself.

That’s so true. I think because you had that foundation and, like you said, keep the focus on those small nuggets of wisdom and the peace and understanding that God gives you. Because in those moments, it’s not this big thing, sometimes, it’s that small, still voice that will give you that comfort and reassurance.

I love that you said that because it’s so true because we are human. We’re going to go to the muscle memory of anger and fear.

But those small moments and his small voice inside us will build and help us in our weaknesses. He even says in our weakness, he is strong.

So I love that you had that through this journey because it is very difficult, the path you guys have walked, but you, your husband, and your son walked it together. So Caleb is doing well now? Caleb had a lot of healing to go through as well. How old is he now?

Jenny: He is 27 now. Before the accident, he already had his associate’s degree, and it took him about a year after the accident. He had to learn how to walk again like there was so much physical and cognitive therapy. I didn’t even know there were four different types of therapies that he had to do afterward.

So it took about a year for him to be able to rejoin the world. He went back for his bachelor’s degree and is currently an elementary school teacher in the county where we lived in northeast Florida. Some exciting news is he just proposed to his girlfriend on Black Friday …

Kelly: Yes! That’s wonderful!

Jenny: We’re excited.

Kelly: Oh, congratulations!

Jenny: We’re excited. They’ll be getting married next year. We’re super excited. He’s also been praying about and seeking God’s wisdom on if there’s anything that he can do.

He has a heart for people like him who have lost a sibling because he didn’t find many resources to help him. There’s more out there for parents, and when he told me that, I started looking to see if I could find anything to direct him.

There really isn’t a lot out there for people that have lost a sibling, and not just in a tragic way like this, but just on the whole.

There’s not a whole lot out there. So he’s been considering some steps he might be able to take to help other people. He’s got an entire testimony of his own. He had to navigate through anger towards God, the driver, and even himself.

In part 1 of this episode of the I Witness podcast, Jenny Leavitt shares her journey through faith when an unthinkable tragedy struck her family. The Leavitt family is no stranger to difficult times, and Jenny shares how God prepared her for her worst nightmare.  

Kelly: Welcome to the I Witness Podcast. I’m your host, Kelly Jo Wilson, and this is the show for women who struggle to accept their worth but want to embrace their gifts and share their witness for Jesus. We have a great show today about tragedy that shakes faith. Our guest is Jenny Leavitt a pastor’s wife, mother, author, and follower of Jesus.

Jenny is amazed by God’s reach to rescue broken, hurting people, and has witnessed God’s faithfulness through shattering loss. Jenny’s passion is encouraging others to lean into Jesus during life’s ups and downs. Jenny lives in Florida with her husband of nearly 30 years, Myron, and her dog Molly, who thinks she’s a cat.

Listen to Part 1 of the interview here:

Welcome to the I Witness podcast, Jenny. I’m so happy to have you.

Jenny: I’m so happy to be here.

Kelly: Great, great. Today we want to talk through a little bit of your journey and your struggle with the tragedy that happened to your family. As I said, you can share whatever you feel comfortable sharing. So why don’t you let our listeners know a little bit more about you and your family?

Jenny: Well, I became a Christian when I was 15. I met my husband when I was 16, and we got married when I was 18, so very young.

Kelly: Wow, that’s wonderful.

Jenny: Both of us had parents who were married for a long time, but we had at least one parent that battled with some addictions.

So we carried some baggage into our marriage and then married young. So, obviously, there were some maturity issues that we had to work on together and grow together. Then, we both fell in love with Jesus in our late teens.

So, God has a way of reaching in and changing your life’s plans. And neither one of us really planned on being in the ministry when we were growing up, but God had some other plans. So, we’ve been in some form of ministry almost all of our adult lives. This is the third church he’s pastored that we’re pastoring right now.

Kelly: Wow, that’s wonderful.

Jenny:  We’ve also assisted with youth ministry, for years and years back in our home church. That’s actually where we were, in our home church in Jacksonville, assisting with the children’s ministry at the time when the accident happened, back in 2015.

Kelly: So that’s pretty cool that you guys met whenever you were in high school and that you’re like high school sweethearts. You have been married for what about 30 years now? That’s great.

Jenny: We just celebrated our 29th anniversary this past Monday.

Kelly: Congratulations! Happy anniversary.

Jenny: Oh, thank you. Actually, he’s four years older than me, so I was a senior in high school. He was in the military when I met him. I was trying to do the math in my head.

Kelly: Oh, no worries. Yeah, no, he was 20-something. So that’s what we could say.

Jenny: Yeah. Yes.

Kelly: So that’s great, you guys are high school sweethearts celebrating your anniversary. You were into the ministry, which is funny because I agree with you, God definitely works in very mysterious, funny ways. So you had some struggles before the accident. You had some things that you had to fight through.

Do you want to talk about that a little bit? Talk about some of those major struggles that really shook that faith, shook your faith.

Jenny: Probably the first really big struggle was, I was only 22 years old married just a few years, and already had our two boys, but I got a phone call on a Friday afternoon. I had recently had our youngest Jacob in November of 97. Ever since then, I’d been having a lot of weird, symptoms that they kept trying to blame on postpartum issues, but it was like weird things. One pupil would dilate while the other would stay large, and then they would flip.

So it was like bizarre symptoms. It wasn’t your normal postpartum symptoms. And I never had anything like that with my oldest son anyway. So anyway, finally, after I started passing out and what really got them looking was I got jaundiced, and that’s when they really started taking me seriously.

But I was still only 22 when I got a call on that Friday afternoon. The doctor, the specialist, said, “I hate to tell you this over the phone, but timing is critical. So, I have to tell you over the phone that the test came back, and it’s non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.”

I was 22, totally naive. I said, “I don’t even know what that is.”

He said, “It’s cancer, and it is in every lymph node in your chest. Your chest is full of it.”

 He felt pretty confident that they thought the tumor in my pancreas was the non-Hodgkins lymphoma metastasizing down to my pancreas.

I was only 22 and I think that was probably the first time that, my faith was really tested and rocked.

I gave my life to Christ when I was 15 and thank God that he led me into a good Bible-believing church. At that time, I didn’t realize it, but God was putting some foundational truths in me that he knew I would need.

Like for instance, when I became a believer. I think that one reason God gave me the scripture I’m about to share as a new believer was partly because of my upbringing. My parents were together, but it was rough. One of the scriptures that in those first years before cancer really just was like an anchor for me was where Jesus said, “I’ll never leave you. I’ll never forsake you.”

As much as I loved that scripture, I didn’t realize how much I needed that anchor until I went through cancer.

There were some times, I mean, my husband, God bless him, he was there as much as possible, and he has continued to be throughout the years as I go back for treatments and cancer scares and all kinds of stuff, he’s continued to be there, but the one constant through it all has been that Jesus has always been there.

He’s never left me, never forsaken me. Looking back, it seems through all these different seasons of my life and things we’ve gone through, there was always a verse that God was speaking to my heart ahead of time. I didn’t even know why he was giving me that one to focus on, but he’s just so good and so faithful like that to prepare us even when we don’t know. That’s what he’s doing, giving us that little kernel of truth to hold onto.

Kelly: For sure. That had to be scary, especially young, 22, and a new mom, you’re just trying to navigate that with two, two young boys. But, then getting the call. I can totally understand how it can resonate there with you and I love that you had that to carry with you. Personally, I had a similar, similar scare too. I got the call too, and I had to have surgery.

It was cervical cancer, though. But a similar thing. The fear that grips you is so inexplainable because it’s more so for everyone else, I felt like. Did you feel like that? Like you look at your boys and your husband, and you’re like, “I can’t imagine. I have to be here for them.”

I think the scariest part for me was the PET scan. That was probably the scariest part for me. Because going into that, it’s like they know it’s there. But it may be a little bit different for you just because of the nature and type you had.

But for me, it was like, “Okay, is it everywhere, or is it just in this one spot?”

I don’t want to focus too much on that, but I can understand a little bit of your fear. So what a great verse to carry you through.

Jenny: That fear was so … I mean, I totally agree with you. I had settled it with Christ, so I felt confident that if God chose to take me home, I knew I would make heaven my home. My fear was my boys. I can’t tell you how many times I would be like, “God. We have a three-year-old and a baby. How is Myron going to do this?”

I know he’s a tough man and everything, but that’s a lot. And that’s a big part of my testimony I’ve shared many, many times over the years with other moms. I remember one night in the throes of all the treatments. I had six months of chemo treatments and 56 radiation treatments.

So somewhere in the middle of all that, in the middle of the night, I couldn’t sleep. My mind was just whirling with all that fear over the boys, “What’s gonna happen to them if I die?”

I found out later that I had stage four and I didn’t know that at the time. I just knew that the prognosis wasn’t very good. I just remember I went out in the living room in the middle of the night and I said, “God, I am not leaving until I get some peace from you about our boys. I can’t keep living in this fear. I just can’t.”

I don’t know, it was probably an hour, hour and a half later that I just kept wrestling God about that and just praying. There is no other way to describe it, which the Bible actually says that peace that passes all understanding. You can’t describe it.

It was like this peace just settled on me. God spoke that, that quiet, still voice that he does, and he said, “They’re mine. I love them even more than you do. I’m gonna take care of them.”

There was such a peace that just settled over me that I mean, I kid you not even as they were growing up, obviously, I survived cancer. But, still, ...

Have you experienced God’s peace?

In part 2 of the podcast interview with Laurie Christine, she explores the meaning of God’s peace and how it overpowers understanding. We talk about how God’s peace affected her situation with her son’s heart condition.

Listen to Part 2 of the interview here:

Laurie Christine: I thought, okay, we’ve been through this before. We’ve done this three times, and now we can do this. I felt at those moments when we got that news, this is really bad. We’re going to have to do this.

But those were the moments I felt God’s peace.

The verse in Philippians says don’t worry about anything, pray about everything and you will experience God’s peace. In the King James version, or what I memorized when I was a little girl, it said the peace that passes understanding. I never understood what that meant.

What is the peace that passes understanding? I didn’t understand the peace that gives us understanding. It didn’t make sense.

But, as I grew and have been exposed to other versions of the Bible, the New Living Translation says you’ll experience God’s peace which exceeds anything we can understand. It’s the peace that surpasses understanding.

It’s the peace that God gives us that we can’t understand. 

Like, where did this come from? This is a terrible situation. I should be very anxious, but I’m actually experiencing God’s peace.

I feel that I’ve experienced the promise in that verse.

We will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and your minds as you live in Christ Jesus. So just in aside from Elliot’s story, I definitely felt God’s peace that surpasses understanding in those situations.

Anyway, back to Elliot’s story, but I have to throw in those little nuggets of truth.

Kelly Jo Wilson: Yeah, for sure. It’s the best.

Laurie Christine: So they ended up doing the fourth open heart surgery. They fixed the aneurysm and put in a different valve. This is the third one now in that same position. They put in a third valve that was actually bigger.

It worked out well in the end because they could put in a bigger valve, which would not need to be replaced for much longer.

So that was now seven years ago. Elliot was five when that last surgery happened, and he’s now 12. He has been doing really well ever since.

Kelly Jo Wilson: That’s fantastic.

Laurie Christine: He has very few restrictions on life. I think by God’s grace, he doesn’t really love sports. But people always ask me if he can play sports and does he have any restrictions.

I’m like, well, he doesn’t like sports, so that actually worked out okay. He could play sports if he wanted to, but he couldn’t get hit in the chest. He has a very weak sternum and rib cage. So contact sports would not be the best for him.

But, the way God designed him, he doesn’t desire to do that. So it all worked out, but we still see the cardiologist. First, it had been every three months and then every four months. Now it’s every six months.

They continue to monitor everything. There is still a possibility down the road, actually a likelihood, at some point in his life, that he’ll need additional surgeries as he outgrows something in his heart.

He had a conduit placed in his heart and a valve replaced. He’s got some coils in his arteries, so as he gets older, some of those pieces may need to be updated or replaced. If a valve fails or something like that.

But it’s not anything on the schedule. It’s not anything anticipated at this point.

I often tell people it’s kind of like your car. You know you’re going to have maintenance on your car at some point, but you don’t know when the muffler’s going to go out. You take it to get a checkup every couple of months or once a year, and then they tell you. Time to replace the muffler.

That’s how it will be with his heart. I want to say that I’ve put all worry and anxiety behind me, but …

Kelly Jo Wilson: Not for mama

Laurie Christine: For the most part, that is true. We’re not living daily in the reality of his heart condition.

A couple of times a year, when we go to the cardiologist, I am a little nervous. I think, this is when they say you need to head up to Boston again. Or something is not going right, so you need to check this out.

There’s always that underlying little bit of anxiety. But we continue to trust God, that he’s good, in control, and that He loves Elliot. He is working in Elliot’s heart. His physical heart and his spiritual heart as well. We continue to trust God with him.

Kelly Jo Wilson: That’s wonderful. That is such a good picture of the journey itself. I mean, it’s never the one thing, like you said, and it’s been seven years since his last surgery, but every six months, every three months, it’s always a reminder.

I can imagine how in that time it’s like, here we go, God, I need you to do it again.

But I love that you guys are so faithful. I think it’s so important and so sweet that you said the peace that passes. That’s how I’m going to remember that going forward, is the peace that passes.

It’s interesting that you say it was an overwhelming peace. I’ve heard other people in different situations talk about that too. I’ve actually experienced it myself, for a heart issue for my son who just turned one.

Just a quick little story.

We went in, and they did the ultrasound at the five-month mark when they check the anatomy. We had about six different people trying to find the large vessels in his heart. By the second group of people, I was looking at my husband like this is not good.

It took a long time to find, and they didn’t see the major vessels in his heart. So they thought maybe he didn’t have them. They weren’t able to visualize it correctly.

You were much more graceful in what you shared about how you guys were in those moments.

At that moment, I was like, “Jesus help us!” Literally screaming out of my soul. I can tell you that minutes later, he showed up because the doctor suddenly said, “oh, I see them. I see them. It’s okay.”

It was very intense. But, it is interesting, the overwhelming peace. It’s how it is when you live through that, and hard to describe in words sometimes.

Being your friend, I love that you guys could experience that, and it didn’t have to be an overwhelming peace with a different decision that God had made with Elliott’s life.

I just love that he’s doing well now and that you guys are taking the journey each step at a time.

There was one thing that I wanted to point out from your podcast episode. I thought it was so wonderful, and I was hoping you could share it with the listeners.

Everybody always says in times like this, very challenging times where you have to trust God, that God doesn’t give you more than you can handle. I love what you said about that. Would you mind sharing that? What your take on that is?

Laurie Christine: Sure. You hear all the time that God won’t give you more than you can handle. But I don’t believe that’s true. I think that God definitely gives us more than we can handle.

I actually have a scripture verse to back it up.

Many times people quote the verse in first Corinthians 10:13, which says, “no temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.”

I think many people take that out of context and say, well, this applies to any situation I might be struggling with.

But that verse is specifically talking about temptation. So I think when we are tempted to sin, God gives us a way out. He does give you an option. You don’t have to give in to that temptation, but this verse does not apply to other challenges, struggles, or trials.

Because God definitely gives us more than we can handle. Anyone who’s gone through something like this says, “I can’t handle this. This is too much.”

When someone tries to tell you, “God knows that you, he chose you to go through this because he knew you could handle it, or he knew that your character was really strong.”

Anyone on the other end of that conversation is like, no way. I know that that’s not true of me. I know that my character is flawed, and my character was not anything special that God chose me to go through this.

There’s a verse in 2 Corinthians chapter one, and it was Paul writing to the Corinthians about a trial he was going through. He said that “we were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure,” far beyond their ability to endure so that “we despaired of life itself,” they wanted to die.

This was such a difficult situation that they were going through, and he said we felt that we had received the sentence of death.

I know some of you listening may have gone through situations where you have gotten news of a diagnosis or a tragedy, and that’s what it feels like. Your despairing of life. You feel you’ve received a death sentence beyond your ability to endure.

But the next verse says, “but th...