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.
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 God’s peace that passes understanding?
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.
God’s design.
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.
It’s a journey, but God’s peace prevails.
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.
We continue to trust God through the anxiety.
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.
Jesus shows up.
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?
God does give you more than you can handle.
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.”
We aren’t equipped, that’s why we need God’s peace and strength.
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 this happened that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God.”
We might not rely on ourselves but on God. I absolutely think that God gives us more than we can handle, but his goal is to cry out to him and rely on him, and we come to a point in our life where we realize that we can’t do it.
We need God’s peace.
We can’t handle this situation on our own or do it in our own strength. His strength is what we need.
We need God’s peace, joy, and love.
That’s what we experienced going through the situation with our son Elliot. I called out to God, saying, “God, we can’t go through this on our own we need you.We desperately need you to walk through this with us, to be right beside us, to give us the strength, to give us peace.”
We definitely saw God’s faithfulness through the situation and God being faithful to give us his peace.
We saw God being faithful to give us his joy, and I hesitate to say that God was faithful in healing our son because no matter what the outcome had been, God is still faithful.
You know, we are very thankful. We’re incredibly grateful that God chose to heal our son. He chose to give us the outcome we had been praying for, but God would still be faithful. Even if that had turned out very differently.
Kelly Jo Wilson: For sure. I love that you highlighted that and shared the scripture too. I can’t wait to put that in the show notes so everybody can go right to that scripture and say, yes, he does give us more than we can handle to rely on him because, in our weakness, he is strong.
With God’s peace and compassion, we comfort one another.
Laurie Christine: I’ll just point out real quick right before that verse, and if you’re, if you’re wanting to dive into 2 Corinthians chapter one, it says God is the father of compassion and the God of all comfort. I love that verse that promises God gives us comfort.
“He comforts us in all our troubles and has compassion on us.” It says, “so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”
I see how we went through this really difficult situation. Still, now here seven years later, I am here talking with Kelly. I can share God’s goodness and faithfulness, able to offer comfort to other people because God has comforted us.
I just wanted to encourage you all with that.
Kelly Jo Wilson: That is a huge encouragement. Thank you so much, Laurie. You’re so right, absolutely. That’s the purpose of this podcast: to comfort one another with how God has comforted us in the challenges we’ve gone through and how it builds your faith and relationship with him.
I appreciate you sharing, especially about your baby boy. I’m so happy that he’s doing well now.
Really quick just to wrap up. If another mother is listening today and struggling with a similar situation in her child, what takeaway would you want her to remember from this episode?
What is the one thing that you would give to encourage her?
God is with you, even when it’s really hard.
Laurie Christine: Just remember that God is with you in your struggle. It doesn’t mean the struggle or the situation will go away, but that God will walk with you every step.
I would encourage you to be in the scriptures, to be in God’s word. That’s how God communicates to our hearts, through his spirit to our hearts. Through his word. That was lifesaving for me when I was going through the situation with Elliot.
Clinging to those promises of God and to the scriptures, reading them over and over again, memorizing them, meditating on them, and just claiming those promises to be true.
Even when the situation around me felt really, really hard.
Resources for you
Kelly Jo Wilson: That’s beautiful, Laurie. Thank you so much. I’m sure that’s a huge encouragement. I will definitely share the verses Laurie has shared with us today in the show notes to give anyone listening to that encouragement. You can pick specific scriptures to help you along the journey as well.
Laurie, we can find you on your website, but I also wanted to just talk about your website. You have so many wonderful resources to share with moms with different focuses.
Is there one of them to share with the audience today or just to talk about? I can put a link to it in the show notes.
Laurie Christine: Sure. Like Kelly said, I have a lot of free resources on my website.
The one I’m most excited about is a recent book I wrote that is available for free.
It’s a free download on my website right now, especially for boys. So if you’re a mom of boys, I’d love for you to go check out my podcast, Redeeming the Chaos.
Kelly Jo Wilson: It’s great. Check it out.
A special book for your son
Laurie Christine: Also, if you have boys between the ages of 8 to 13-ish, I have a devotional book specifically for boys, and it’s called Rise of the Enemy, and it’s the first book in my Dragon Slayer Bible series.
It’s an action-packed adventure that’s a retelling of a Bible story. There’s a devotional and a short Bible study. The whole theme of this first book is spiritual warfare. Putting on the armor of God and teaching our boys how to defend their hearts against the lies of the evil dragon.
Right now, it’s a free download on my website. You can get it for free, but later this year, I’m hoping it will be available in print for you to purchase.
If you want a free copy now, head over to my website, and you can download it at www.dragonslayerbible.com.
Kelly Jo Wilson: Wonderful. It looks like a very exciting book! I cannot wait to download it and read it with Jake. It looks fantastic.
Thank you so much, Laurie.
I appreciate you talking about your journey through Elliott’s heart condition and your faithfulness, and the grace God has shown you and your family with us today. I’m sure that it’s going to be encouraging to a lot of people. So thank you so, so much.
Laurie Christine: Well, thank you for having me on the show, Kelly. It’s been really great chatting with you, and I appreciate being here.
We have a great show today about trusting God through challenges. Our guest Laurie Christine had to rely on God’s will for her firstborn son through a difficult diagnosis.
Laurie Christine is an author, podcast host, certified biblical parenting coach, wife, and mom of four wild, loud, adventurous boys. Her podcast, Redeeming The Chaos, invites moms of boys to join her in the wild, wonderful adventure of raising courageous boys and connecting them with Christ.
Kelly Jo Wilson: Laurie, thank you so much for coming. I’m so happy to talk to you.
Laurie Christine: Hey Kelly, I am so happy to be here. This is so fun.
Kelly Jo Wilson: Yes, absolutely. Laurie and I are in a mastermind group together to help grow in our writing, influence among other people, and foster the call that God has given us. So, I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Laurie for a couple years now, and I am so happy to have you on here.
Laurie Christine: Thanks so much. Yeah. Three years. We’re coming up on three years here.
Kelly Jo Wilson: Three years. It’s so crazy! Laurie has a very interesting story that I just wanted to expand on a little bit. Laurie, your podcast tries to reach moms of boys, and I am one of your target people with two crazy boys. But before we get into a little bit of the story that you shared on your podcast, why don’t you just tell the audience, tell the listeners a little bit about yourself, your family, where you’re from and just a little bit more about you.
Part 1 of the interview with Laurie Christine
Laurie Christine: I am from Pennsylvania along with Kelly, and I am a mom of four boys and a wife. My boys are ages 6 to 12. We’re right in the middle of raising our kids. We’re out of the baby stage, the toddler stage, and I almost have a teenager, so that’s getting a little, I’m getting a little nervous about that.
Kelly Jo Wilson: A little nerve-wracking with that age for sure. But what a great range of ages. How fun is that? Right now as we record this it’s right before Christmas, so that probably looks really fun in your house.
Laurie Christine: It gets a little wild and crazy. They’re very excited. Lots of energy in our house.
Kelly Jo Wilson: I’m sure. It’s probably just wonderful. I wanted to expand a little bit on what you shared in your podcast episode about what happened with Elliot, your oldest son, and his journey through his heart condition.
The initial diagnosis shocked everyone.
A lot of our listeners really struggle with trusting God and facing different challenges that are very difficult. We do have a lot of moms that also listen. If you don’t mind, why don’t you tell us about that journey with Elliot whenever he was very young and expand to let the listeners know about your journey through that too?
Laurie Christine: Our oldest son, who is now 12, was born with a congenital heart defect, and we were not aware of it at the time he was born. We found out when he was about three months old. Then we took him to the cardiologist and found out that he was in congestive heart failure, and you know, that’s not the news you wanna hear about your three-month-old little boy.
That’s something that you hear about older people. Congestive heart failure, isn’t that an older person’s disease or ailment? We were told that he would need heart surgery within a month.
When he was four months old, he had his first heart surgery. We didn’t know at the time, but he would end up, over the next two and a half to three years, having four heart surgeries to fix the problem in his heart.
It was a scary time. We didn’t know what to expect, but looking back, we saw God’s grace through all of it. I think one of the ways that we saw God’s kindness and His grace in our lives was that we didn’t know everything that was gonna happen. we didn’t know, we couldn’t see the whole picture. We only knew that he had this heart defect and he would need one heart surgery.
The easy fix turned into a rare condition.
The cardiologist said, “oh, you know, it’s not that big of a deal. You know, this will be an easy fix. Now, look up this one thing.” We went home and Googled it and it was a rare heart condition. I said, wait a minute. He didn’t say anything about it being rare. What’s going on?
It just seemed we learned a little bit more with each step of the journey. We could see God gave us grace for that next step. We just saw God’s kindness in that.
He had his first heart surgery. We found out during the surgery that the condition was a little bit worse than they had originally thought. They couldn’t perform the procedure they thought they could.
They did a palliative procedure to hold him over until he was a little older. We were disappointed they couldn’t fix his heart then but thought it’ll just be one more, and then they’ll be able to fix it.
“This is the last one.”
During the next surgery, we thought it was the last thing that’s gonna have to have to happen. This is the last one.
In the second surgery, they went in to do the repair, and we found out it’s actually way worse than we thought.
They told us, “you’re gonna have to have two more surgeries.”
God gives grace one moment at a time.
Looking back, I think if we knew, here’s what you’re gonna have to go through, that this is serious, and he’s going to have four heart surgeries before he turns five. I think that would’ve been so overwhelming.
Kelly Jo Wilson: Oh yeah.
Laurie Christine: But just knowing one step, then the next step, like, “okay, what do we need today? What do we need to do next?” I think it was God giving us His grace one moment at a time.
Kelly Jo Wilson: I think that’s such a good thing to touch on because, you know, at the moment, it probably didn’t seem like that at first. Because you have that fear. As a nurse, I’ve seen many patients and families handle terrifying news and diagnoses.
But like you said if you knew everything at once? It’s so overwhelming already, just one element of it. Especially you being a new mom, and your son is being diagnosed with anything, any type of condition is very scary. But I think once you realize that it’s a journey, you have a different perspective. Initially, that is something God does share in His grace. He shares that preparation for each step, which I think is such a great way to look at it.
But at the time, were you feeling anxious? What were you going through at the time, initially in that office when they were telling you?
Trusting God through fear and anxiety
Laurie Christine: Yeah, there were definitely times of fearfulness and anxiety. But also times of just overwhelming peace too. In situations where I would’ve thought I would be so upset or worked up, I could feel God’s peace in my heart, helping me to think rationally and take the next step.
But yes, for sure, there were definitely a lot of times when we didn’t know. We didn’t know what the outcome of the surgeries would be. We didn’t know what his long-term prognosis would be. There were a lot of times that I was fearful and anxious.
I tend to be an anxious person in general. Situations like this kinda escalate those feelings of anxiety.
Do not fear, for I am with you.
But during those times, I really just clung to God’s promises in scripture. Throughout the Bible, there are so many times where God says don’t fear.
Do not fear, do not worry. I went through and did a word search in a Bible app. I just looked up all the passages and verses when God says, do not fear or do not worry. There’s a whole bunch, but I came up with maybe 8 or 10, and I printed them out on card stock. I carried those around with me for those years.
I just had this pile of Bible verses and would read them, meditate on them, and just focus on those promises God had made.
One in particular that I loved was Isaiah 41:10, which said,
“Do not fear for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
So many times and in many verses, I found the reason to not be afraid. God wasn’t saying, don’t fear because nothing bad is ever gonna happen. Or don’t be afraid because everything’s gonna be totally fine.
That wasn’t the promise. The promise was, do not fear because I am with you.
Laurie Christine: God’s presence, the reminder of God’s presence, and clinging to that promise of God’s presence was something that just helped to get me through those periods of fear and anxiety.
Cling to God’s promises.
Kelly Jo Wilson: That is so wonderful. It’s so reassuring. I think it’s so great that you printed out the scripture that you’re like, no matter what, he’s coming with me in my purse.
But I think it’s a really important point to make sure that we hold His promises close. That’s what’s so great about having His word at our fingertips. In free Bible apps and things like that, we can go right to the source and remember what He tells us.
But you also pointed out how He says, don’t fear because I’m with you. That comfort He gives you to know you’re not alone is so profound. It’s just so amazing. I’m so happy you felt that in those moments. I think that’s important.
How was it between you and your husband? Were you two handling things? I would imagine handling as a unit, but sometimes things like that happen, and it’s almost like a grieving process. Because you’re trying to handle what’s coming at you, and both of you are probably taking things in a little bit differently.
So how did you two walk together on that path? Was that a challenge in itself, or did you guys have a connection?
Complete surrender of our son in God’s hands.
Laurie Christine: I felt like we were on the same page. I feel it probably brought us closer together during that time.
We had to trust God and put our son in God’s hands, praying for him and our families surrounded us with support.
I wouldn’t say that it caused extra stress between my husband, and I think that it was something God probably used during that time to help us. Connect in a common cause almost. A lot of times, there’s conflict. If there’s conflict in your life, or in a marriage, many times it’s between the two of you. The conflict gets between you.
But when the conflict is outside of you, and a difficult thing to go through that was outside us, we were going through it together. I felt that was helpful.
But, just talking about trusting God, I think my faith was challenged.
I really had to wrestle with, do I trust God?
It was strengthened but challenged at the same time. I really had to wrestle with, do I trust God?
Do I trust that he is good?
Do I trust his character and that he wants what’s best?
I never doubted his power, which was interesting. I never doubted God’s power because I knew that God was powerful, and I knew he could heal my son.
He had the ability to work through the surgeons and allow everything to work out how we were hoping. But I didn’t know if that was his will. I didn’t know if he would allow something more tragic to happen so that we would be drawn closer to him.
God works in mysterious ways. I sometimes found myself trusting in the surgeons more than in God. I thought the surgeons had my son’s best interest in mind and they want to heal my son. They want to fix his heart.
But I didn’t know if they could. I didn’t know if they had the power. I knew that the surgeons would fix Elliot’s heart if they could.
Trust God could, but unsure if He would.
But on the other hand, I knew that God could do it if he were willing and would do it. I just had to trust in God’s character, you know?
In the Bible, through scripture, what is God’s character? God is loving. God is good. Even if this doesn’t feel like a good thing in our lives.
Even if this doesn’t feel like a loving thing for God to do, I know that this is true of him, and I’m gonna continue to trust that it’s true no matter what the outcome.
Kelly Jo Wilson: That is so hard to do. Because if you look at anybody in a situation like that, similar, you could say, Yes. I love how you said, I know God could if he would, and that’s the thing. We know God can, but you trusting him isn’t if he can fix him. It’s trusting him if he’s going to fix it or not.
So I can see where you could say, I know the surgeons really want to heal him, but if God doesn’t, I need to trust that he is taking us through a different journey here.
We didn’t choose it, but He gave us grace for it.
That is so hard, especially as a new mother. I’m sure you had plenty of people saying, I don’t know if I could go through that. Because when it’s yourself versus your son, it’s so different, right?
I mean, it’s just so different. You would probably die for your son, you know? So it’s just a different kind of thing. It definitely takes you through a different trust journey there.
Laurie Christine: It’s interesting that you said about people’s comments, “how do you handle a situation like that? How could you have? I could never go through something like that.” We had people say that to us, and I just had to chuckle a little bit cause it’s not like we chose this.
I don’t feel God chose us to go through this because we had any special abilities or special qualities. God gives you the grace to go through what he gives you, what he puts in your life. He gives you grace when it’s needed. People would be like, “oh, I could never handle that situation.”
It’s when you’re forced to handle it, then you do.
Trust God’s grace for today.
God doesn’t give you grace for the things that might happen, or the things that you’re worried about might happen. He gives you the grace for today. He gives you grace for what is happening right now. So you take the next step, and continue to trust him.
We were thankful for God’s faithfulness in being who he is and who he said he is. His character, his goodness, and his lovingness.
Kelly Jo Wilson: Absolutely. I think it’s so important to really focus on his word and what he tells you. Because it’s so easy, like you said how you felt anxious and fearful, to listen to everything else, such as people close to you who generally have good intentions.
It’s easy to get distracted by your feelings and your emotions in situations like that, especially with your baby boy. But it’s just like you carried the promise cards around. I love that so much. I think it’s so strong.
Even when you probably felt weaker than you ever felt in your whole life.
What ended up being the outcome? You guys realized pretty early that this wasn’t gonna be a one-time thing. That this was a journey. What was the outcome of Elliot’s journey? How is he doing now?
A blessing emerged.
Laurie Christine: That’s a great question. So after his first two surgeries, we ended up getting a second opinion from a different cardiologist who sent us to a different Children’s Hospital in Boston.
We went to Boston Children’s Hospital, the best in the world for pediatric cardiology. We were so thankful that God brought her into the situation, and we connected with her because, in Boston, they were able to repair his heart.
They were able to make the repair that the other hospital couldn’t. And so, after his third surgery, Elliot was two. Anatomically it looks very different, but it’s functioning properly.
Trusting God through the unexpected
His fourth surgery was actually very unexpected. That was when he was five we had another opportunity to trust God. We thought this was behind us. We thought that we were moving along.
When he was five, one of the valves in his heart which had been replaced during the previous surgery, failed.
He needed a valve replaced. We went to Boston again. I know Kelly, you know all about cath labs, but for those of you listening who have no medical experience, basically, they were going to go in through an artery with this long tube and put a valve into his heart and not even have to cut open his chest at all.
That was the plan.
They did the heart catheterization and put the new valve in during that procedure. But he developed an aneurysm on his pulmonary artery.
An aneurysm is basically a bulge, like a weakness in the artery. It got bumped or knicked, and this big bubble was a weak spot. It’s a pretty dangerous situation.
There were a couple of days he was under general anesthesia and intubated, so for two days, we waited to see if it would resolve itself. He was in a very fragile state.
Then the surgeon came in and told us we would have to operate again. We’ll have to go in and do a fourth open heart surgery to repair what had just happened.
Kelly: We have a great show today about healing and hope. Our guest is my friend and fellow author, Carolyn Rice.
Carolyn has suffered severe abuse but found comfort and healing at the feet of Jesus. Jesus led her to serve people in numerous ministries that helped her. In addition, she has served as the alumni director for Seattle Bible College, where she received her associate’s degree. Carolyn’s books encourage, empower, and walk women through the word of God into the victory that only can be found in Jesus Christ.
Kelly: Yes, I’m so excited to have you. So, Carolyn, why don’t you share a little bit about your background, your family, and what you feel comfortable sharing with our listeners? We’d love to know a little bit more about you.
The past abuse and trauma
Carolyn: Okay, so I came from a background of severe trauma where I experienced physical violence, but I also witnessed physical violence as a child. I grew up with that trauma and brokenness, and it led to more dysfunction for me. I thought dysfunction was normal. The Lord had to pull me out of that.
I also come from a background of the occult. My family was into tarot cards, palm reading, and ouija boards, and I didn’t come from a Christian home. I only knew about Jesus at a young age because of a woman named Wanda. I went to her house and heard the name God mentioned, but I didn’t know what or who it was. I thought He was like this big giant. Somebody said He was this guy up in the sky, and I really thought of Jack and the bean stock. So, I went to my neighbor’s house, and I was like, who’s God? is there really this big giant and the sky? She started telling me about Jesus and how He died for my sins.
That was my experience with the gospel as a child. The Lord had to bring me out of brokenness. My testimony about how I came to the Lord is through Wanda, but I grew up in that dysfunction and in the occult. But I actually read tarot cards. I was reading tarot cards one night and heard this voice that said, “Turn on the tv.”
I turned on the TV, and a woman was talking about ouija boards and tarot cards stealing your soul and that we needed to live for Jesus.
I threw them away and started walking with Jesus for the rest of my life. I never looked back.
I never looked back.
Kelly: Wow. That’s amazing. I’m so sorry that you had to endure the trauma that you had to endure. But, sometimes, God brings you to the other side of it.
Carolyn: Yes, He does.
Kelly: That’s amazing. I love that. You had such a sweet heart that you thought He was this big guy in the sky because it would sound like that. Especially when you’re young and you don’t know. I appreciate you sharing that so much. Do you remember who you saw on tv? Who was talking about tarot cards and talking about Jesus?
Carolyn: I don’t. It was so long ago. I really don’t remember who it was.
Kelly: It accomplished the task and put a deep enough seed in you, right? That’s wonderful.
So, you saw on TV and heard His voice to you, which is very scary sometimes because it’s that reverent kind of fear you know is powerful, but it’s not gonna hurt you. Is that how you felt whenever you heard Him speak to your heart?
Carolyn: Actually, I didn’t think anything of it. I was just like, “Oh, I should turn on the tv then.”
Kelly: That’s wonderful. I’m so glad that you turned on the TV that day.
Carolyn: Me too.
What does the healing journey look like?
Kelly: Where did you go from there? When you decided to follow Jesus, what did that walk look like?
Carolyn: It was a journey. It was a healing journey. One of the verses, when I think about my healing journey, is in Isaiah. It talks about how God didn’t bring them straight to the point where they could have been. Instead, He brought them the long way, and I feel like the Lord really brought me the long way.
There was a guy in our Bible college class who said, as he’s drawing on the board, the journey with God goes from here to this point. Then it goes over here, and then here, and then here, and finally, you get over here. That is my journey with the Lord. He took me from one thing to another, and I really feel like my life is like that verse.
Taking the long way
He had to take me the long way because the things that I faced, especially with a background in the occult, to face them all at once would’ve been too much for me. It was a journey of healing, growing, and bringing me step by step to a place of healing. I realized that each thing He got me through prepared me for the next.
Kelly: That’s wonderful. It is so true that it is a journey all over the place. That is so funny. You’re absolutely right. I feel like you hit the nail on the head whenever you say He is preparing you in each phase or in each part of it. That’s wonderful.
Someone with a history of what you’ve gone through has a wonderful opportunity to reach people differently. Because we feel so much comfort when speaking to people who go through things we’ve gone through.
Why don’t you talk a little bit about when you went to Bible college and were involved in women’s ministries and what that journey was like when you went to Bible college?
What did God teach you?
How was it learning there? Did you learn many techniques and tools that helped you embrace your story and share it, especially with women who have gone through similar things?
Carolyn: My journey to Bible college is interesting, too, because I wanted to be a librarian. I worked at the library, and I would pray, and I’d feel “go to Bible college instead.” I was actually going to school to be a librarian. I dismissed it, then someone came to my house who had no idea what God had been talking to me about, and they were talking about Bible college and how great it would be. It kept coming up.
So I said, “Lord, if you really want me to go to Bible college, show me where to go.” My husband and I were on a breakfast date, and I saw a sign that said Seattle Bible College. I checked it out and said to my husband, “I think I need to go to Bible college.”
He goes, “Well, where would you go?” So I told him, and he said, “That’s where my family went.” I had no idea that they had gone there.
So I went there, and one of the teachers said my name, and looked at me and said, “So which Rice do you belong to?”
An unknown legacy
I came with this legacy that wasn’t mine but my husband’s. He firmly planted me, and I didn’t have a really good grasp on the word when I went there.
But through Bible college, I grasped the word. I feel like I got a fire hose of the word, a fire hose on me. Because I had not learned that stuff as a child or a young adult, and I read my Bible, but I didn’t understand a lot of it. I just went to Bible college in obedience to Christ.
He really changed my life. I learned how to study the scriptures, understand them, and apply them to my life. I learned the background and history. Then I was able to take that and give it to other women. But what Bible college really did for me is teach me how to live in that for the rest of my life. How to study the scriptures, and how to pull out the truth. You know that saying, teach a man to fish, and he’ll fish for a lifetime, that’s what I got at Bible college.
Kelly: That’s wonderful. Wow. I didn’t even think about how you didn’t grow up in that. Gosh, that would be like a fire hose, for sure. Wow, that’s amazing. But the Holy Spirit helps you all the way. Where God guides, He provides. That’s great. I love it so much.
So what else would you say you got from Bible college, with your firehouse of information, and it’s a part of you now. Is that what started your writing journey? Is that what started your writing ministry?
The next step in the healing journey
Carolyn: I think that provided the background, but after I graduated from Bible college. I said, “Well, what’s next?”
Because I wanted to be a librarian, I went to Bible college because He told me to. I had no idea what we were doing. I don’t think God did this or caused it, but I broke my foot about a month after Bible college. I was off my foot for five months because it took a long time to heal.
During that time, I was like, “Well, what do I do now? I can’t clean my house. And I’m just kind of sitting here.”
That’s when I saw this ad for writing classes, and I just knew that’s what I was supposed to do. I ended up studying writing way longer than my foot was broken.
I studied with a company for three and a half years how to put an article together, writing fiction and nonfiction, and that’s where I learned how to write.
Kelly: Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry you broke your foot. That takes so long. There is really nothing you can do at all. Did you have a cast?
Carolyn: I had one of those big black boot things.
Kelly: What a way to put you right where you needed to be and stop you at all costs.
Carolyn: Yep.
Where God guides, He provides
Kelly: He has a way of doing that. But I think you are showing us something really important that maybe you don’t see or maybe have not even realized. I definitely see it so clearly, and it’s just obedience. The obedience you have for Him, listening, letting Him guide you, surrendering the control. Surrendering is so difficult.
It is, especially from the background that you have. But, so often, when people go through what you’ve gone through with the abuse and everything, there’s a fear guiding your life. It’s so scary to give that control away. It’s so hard.
So, I think it’s wonderful, amazing, and really inspiring. It inspires me. I’m sure it will inspire many women that listen to this to have that kind of obedience to really listen to Him and do what He’s asking. Even when He gives you a broken foot.
Even in those challenges because that in itself is a challenge. We had something similar happen recently. My husband had an accident. Let me tell you, it’s been a difficult time.
You’re a mom with a daughter, a son, and a wonderful granddaughter. You’re most likely the glue holding everybody together, and here you are with this boot on and can’t walk. But I love that you were still sharing your knowledge and ministry.
After you did the writing classes, what was the project, your first book? How did that look? Did you start writing every day?
What was that journey like? I’m sure God was guiding you through.
Working through obedience
Carolyn: I knew I was supposed to write a book, and I knew how to write a devotion well. I felt like the Lord, well … this is some background on the book I’ve never told anyone about. I pulled out every verse I could find on the love of God. I meditated on that verse for myself. I studied that verse, and then I turned each one into a devotion talking to a woman who has been broken.
I was talking to myself in the past and giving her hope in speaking to her.
I knew I was supposed to take all these devotions and turn them into a book, and I didn’t know anything about publishing. Someone introduced me to a publisher named Athena. I prayed “where am I supposed to go with this?” Every time I prayed about it, I would see this Athena water truck go by.
Carolyn: I published my first book with Athena. I’ve gone on from there, but the Lord really showed me the publishing journey through her. She really believed in my book, and I did my first radio interview with her. So it was really praying and following Him. I realized that when you don’t know where to go, wait until He shows you and step out.
I was always afraid of making a mistake and doing the wrong thing. The Lord showed me that if I make a mistake, He’s gonna make sure I get back on the right road because He’s a good Father. When we step out in that obedience, if we make a mistake, He will not judge us and pound us with a hammer. He’s going to lead us back in the right direction.
God leads us in the right direction.
Kelly: Oh yeah, that’s just beautiful. Carolyn, thank you so much for saying that because, man, do we need to hear it. I totally understand the fear of making a mistake. That’s something that always plagued me, personally, and a lot of women listening to this, too. You want to try and do everything right. But yes, absolutely.
Man, that is so funny about the truck. He’s showing you right there. He’s like, “This is how you do this. Just go with them, and that’s it.” That’s wonderful. I love your trust. During this whole journey, even though it was kind of like a scatter plot, did you feel like your trust just grew and grew, even though you still had challenges?
You still broke your foot, and I’m sure there were other challenges, such as never publishing before. But, also, thank you for sharing how you put your book together, especially if you’ve never shared that before. I feel honored that you’re sharing that with us today, honestly. That’s so much work, going through each verse like that. Especially when you have no idea because you didn’t plan necessarily to put them into a book. So you were doing that genuinely to learn, and God has repurposed it and made it new. That’s just so inspiring, honestly.
Trusting God through the healing journey.
But do you feel your trust throughout this is growing? Or is it still kind of like, what the … what’s He doing?
Carolyn: It’s, it’s growing. But, I enter situations where I’m like, “Lord, I don’t, I don’t understand this. Why am I going through this? I just obeyed you.”
I have to stop and remind myself what He’s already done. And when I do that, it helps me trust Him to move forward. Even now, I’m in a time of transition where my husband and I have walked into things that we didn’t realize we would walk into, and the Lord keeps putting that verse in front of me.
Kelly: That’s wonderful. That was going to be my next question for you, is there a verse that really resonated with you that you’d like to share? Because I feel like a lot of people sometimes can’t, especially when it’s hard times, you can’t really remember because you’re overwhelmed and feeling really upset.
Kelly: So it sounds like you said that verse is from Isaiah.
Carolyn: Yeah, I didn’t write that one down, but I did write one down, though.
Kelly: Oh, good. What’s the verse you’d wanna share?
Carolyn:John 14:27“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” NKJV
Kelly: That is so powerful. I can see where that verse can really stick with you in your journey, for sure. It’s not easy to find peace in this world, but especially when you’ve had a start like you’ve had as a child. So yes, thank you so much for sharing that.
Healing the Father Wound
Why don’t you tell us a little more about where we can find you and where we would be able to find your books. I know you have a new book, Healing the Father Wound. Why don’t you talk a little bit about that book and how it can really bless our listeners, especially with the focus of healing and the hope that Jesus provides.
Carolyn:Healing the Father Wound is a book about looking at God the Father. I’m just gonna share the story of where this book came from.
We were sitting in church, and this pastor from our church, who’s not the regular pastor, was speaking. He said, “Anyone who’s birthing something in prayer, stand up.”
I felt like maybe I should stand up, but I don’t know. My husband’s looking at me like, “you should stand up.” But I didn’t. He wanted to pray for intercessors. Then my heart started beating out my chest, and this guy goes, “The woman who’s sitting there in your heart is beating fast, you need to stand up too.”
God calls you where you are
So I stood up. Now I know the man very well, and he’s a very good, faithful, authentic Christian. But when I stood up, I looked at him and saw anger. So I went home, and the Lord was putting on my heart to go back and watch the Facebook live of that church service, so I did.
When I stood up, there was no anger on his face at all. So the Lord showed me that I was putting anger on any man in authority. I saw him as angry. I saw him as controlling, and I knew I needed healing from that. So Healing the Father Wound is going through the book of Mark, because Mark is the action book, and looking at the actions of Jesus. John 14:9 says that when you’ve seen Jesus, you’ve seen the Father, and relating to what we see in Jesus by his actions to what our Heavenly Father is like. So many women who have been through trauma and abuse, we have looked at other men in authority, even the Heavenly Father, as angry, controlling, and mean. That’s not who our heavenly Father is. So it’s looking at who He really is.
Looking at God for who He is
Kelly: Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that, too. I love that. Your heart was beating out of your chest, and he called it so accurately. But that’s very true. A lot of women struggle with that, and I love the humility that you have. But, again, it goes back to your obedience. To listen and look at it again because you could easily say, no, this is how I see it. But you went back and saw how he didn’t have that face at all. He was trying to call on you to validate what you were already hearing and feeling. That’s amazing. We can find this book on your website, yes?
Kelly: Wonderful. I will definitely put a link in the show notes. Carolyn’s newest book, Healing the Father Wound, sounds like it will be extremely inspiring and bless so many people. Especially in the book of Mark, it’s such a wonderful book.
So before we go, is there any other encouragement you would like to share with the women who are listening? Or share a takeaway from your journey of where Jesus brought you from, even when you were young until now? Through all of this obedience you’ve shown, is there one encouragement you would like to share for women who may have struggled or are still struggling with what you’ve endured?
Do not give up
Carolyn:Do not give up. Keep following the Lord. He’s gonna bring you on a journey, and it may not look how you want it to look. You may not be miraculously healed overnight, but tomorrow you will be a little bit more healed than today. In a month from now, you’ll be more healed than you are today. Then, when you look back years, you’ll see all that the Lord has done in your life.
We may not understand why things happen the way they do, but when we are old, when we’re on our last days, we’ll be able to look back and see how good the Lord is. I’m middle-aged and am already looking back and seeing how wonderful the Lord has been to me. Where would I be without Him? I just, I don’t even wanna think about it.
Kelly: Yes, totally. I agree. Thank you so much. That’s just wonderful. I feel honored that you’re here today. Thank you so much for sharing your story. It’s extremely inspirational to all of us. I know I definitely have a new outlook on a lot of things, especially the struggles you’ve gone through, and I can’t wait to read your book. Carolyn, thank you so much again for being here.
Carolyn: Thank you.
*This is the edited blog version of the podcast episode. Some parts may have been edited or changed from the audio version for ease of reading and flow of information.
If you or someone you know suffers from abuse or domestic violence and want help, you can visit the National Domestic Violence Hotline or call 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE).
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.
Are you fighting the never-good-enough battle?
Do you want to embrace your unique gifts to share Jesus’s love with the world?
The goal of this podcast is to encourage and show you ways to witness for Jesus in your character daily. We embrace stories of difficult situations that test faith and discuss the hard challenges of being a woman in this world just trying to follow him. I’m so happy that you’re here for this very first episode.
This is our pilot episode for the I Witness Podcast. I am just so grateful for you to join us today.
This has been a long time coming. God has really been speaking to my heart about setting up this platform for people to share their stories and encourage each other.
Kelly’s Witness
A little background about me, my name is Kelly Jo Wilson. I’m a mom of two wonderful boys, a wife to an amazing husband, a nurse with a master’s degree in nursing education, and a writer. I have been called to pursue this path, and God just plucked me right out of my nursing profession.
I’ve always loved being around people, talking with them, and serving them in any way I can. I really love being a nurse. I miss caring for patients, but when God calls you out of where you are, you have to listen, or he’ll put pressure on you and make you listen.
I’m just trying to follow that call and want to share my quick story with you.
I would like to witness today about some things that I’ve struggled with, and maybe you can relate. When I was young, I always fought body image issues. I was a happy kid, well-liked and well-loved, with lots of friends and a wonderful family.
But I always struggled.
I grew up in an Italian family, you know, where gatherings were always centered around food, which was delicious. When I was younger and then into my early teen years, I was a little on the softer side.
My body was bigger, different, and never-good-enough
I was a teenage girl going through all those changes that we go through, and I just didn’t like what I saw in the mirror. When I went to school one day, I decided not to eat my lunch that day. Then one day turned into a week and a week turned into a month, and before I knew it, the struggle was into a full-blown eating disorder.
I didn’t even know it at the time. I didn’t mean to hurt anybody, it was a very concrete kind of thinking that if I wanted to be thinner and prettier, I had to stop eating. It was very simple. My mom took me to a few doctors, and she was a nervous wreck.
Once I realized that it was an issue and it was more than what I really wanted or thought it was, I had to realize that this was a real problem.
I remember talking to one of the doctors and he asked me to describe my normal thinking every day about myself, about food, and what I would do, essentially.
He asked me what started everything and he said how many times a day are you weighing yourself? I told him that I wasn’t, I didn’t weigh myself at all. It was only going on how I looked. I remember him writing that down, so in my teenage mind, I thought that was significant. I thought I should focus on getting better.
A secret battle with unrealistic expectations
I really struggled internally. Anybody with any mental health issues like that, an eating disorder, or any other mental illness, it’s really a secretive disease. It’s a really kind of keeping it to yourself, don’t wanna hurt anybody, don’t wanna bother anybody.
You just want to handle everything on your own. At least, that’s how I felt. So, that kind of thinking really plagued me for most of my life, leading into my young adulthood and even early adult days.
It really fueled that, you’re never good enough, I was never thin enough, never pretty enough. It fueled the unrealistic expectation that I could just never meet. I don’t even know why or how that expectation got set, and it was really difficult.
It led to me making very poor, horrible choices throughout my life. And to not really care about my body, going into this never-enough mindset, and trying to people please all through my adulthood. It really was a struggle internally for a long time.
On the outside, I had a lot of friends, and not many people know or knew. This is the first that I’m really sharing it in the open. When I got older and God brought me to a place of realization, I recognized that food and image weren’t the issues.
It was about control, and that control issue was something I was chasing but I could never get. It wasn’t until Jesus really spoke to me one day and said “You’ve got to stop,” that I made a really drastic change in my life when I heard His words.
I knew exactly what He meant. He meant that I had to stop this never-good-enough, never thin-enough, just always tearing myself down. It was into such a spiral that with every single mistake I made, I spiraled more and more down this web of shame and guilt.
And I knew him, I accepted him into my life when I was very young and always felt his presence and the presence of the Holy Spirit.
But, the more I felt shame and guilt, the more I knew I was unworthy of Him. I didn’t even feel worthy to speak His name. So, I really did not embrace what He teaches us, to rely on Him and come to Him when we are weary and weak. I just didn’t even feel good enough to even talk to Him.
Once He spoke to my heart, I knew that it was time to reevaluate what I was doing in my life. I had a season when I was completely broken down to my core. I had to surrender everything to him. It was a very life-changing moment.
Once I did that, I finally realized that it was never about me being worthy enough to accept Him, be loved by Him, or be good enough to talk to Him.
It was always because He is worthy that I am accepted through God’s grace. And once I realized that’s when I could fully embrace His presence and what He wanted to change inside my heart.
Life was still hard, but He changed me
After that, I had a number of challenges that I’ve gone through in my life, my adult life. It’s not like it completely disappears. Once you finally listen, sometimes you even face challenges that are a little harder.
But all through those challenges, instead of the craving for control, I was able to surrender the control and give it to Him. I really stepped back and let Him work.
I still struggle sometimes to take up my cross and follow Him and give Him that control. It’s, it’s always been my struggle. It probably will always be, but He is with me in the fight.
Reason for this podcast
So, that’s one of the reasons why I started this podcast is that, as women especially, we really struggle. We play all these different roles and we have all these roles in our lives. We are juggling all these balls in the air. It’s really hard to give up control when we have so many things, and we’re just that glue for our families and for all the people in our lives.
We’re trying to live this life for Him. But we especially struggle with guilt, shame, past mistakes, and never-good-enough thinking. I wanted to have this platform for other women and people struggling with that or have struggled in different situations to speak.
To share how their faith was changed and their relationship with God and Jesus changed when they faced those hard times. He brings us through to the other side to see things we would never have seen if we kept going down a certain path.
I initially had the idea for this podcast years ago called I Witness. Just us witnessing, literally writing down and sharing a big notebook across the world, and just kind of a naive. . simple idea.
But, loving technology nowadays, this is a wonderful place to share and get that message out. To share the encouragement of how Jesus works in our lives and how he brings us through really difficult times into a peace that we never would’ve known.
Podcast Overview
I am going to share a couple of details just to give you an overview of what to expect in future episodes and what the podcast can provide for you. One of the reasons to listen to the show is for encouragement and an opportunity to have community with other women struggling with things similar to what you’re struggling with.
I really hope to provide some tools, tips, and different resources for us to embrace that daily walk with Jesus and embrace those times that are really hard
If you are a mom, wife, single woman, or a Christian woman just struggling to see yourself as a capable, beautiful, worthy daughter in Jesus. If you fight that never-good-enough battle in your mind and wonder what unique gifts you can share in witnessing for him every day are, then this podcast is for you.
I hope this will encourage you and empower you to live your purpose for Him, that He’s calling you to live.
Future episodes will be some solo episodes. A devotional style, sharing devotional stories, resources for you, and recommendations that can help, depending on what topic we’re talking about for that day.
It’s also an interview-style podcast that will have people on with really compelling stories of faith in hard situations to show us how God works in our lives and to share that encouragement with one another.
How to subscribe to the podcast
If you want to subscribe to the podcast, you can open your smartphone. It will have a podcast app built in, whether it’s through Google, Apple, Android, or you can use Spotify or any other different kind of podcast app.
You can click in your podcast app and search for I Witness. If you click the button to subscribe right in the app, that would be fantastic.
I just wanted to give you a quick overview and share my story. I appreciate you so much for listening today. Just hit that subscribe button in your podcast app so you can be notified of new episodes.
I hope that you have a wonderful day, and thank you so much for listening.
If you or anyone you love struggles with an eating disorder, please click here for support through the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA). “Eating disorders have the second highest mortality rate of all mental health disorders, surpassed only by opioid addiction.”- NEDA
You want to help people. But you’re not sure how to move forward.
It’s hard to focus on what you want to do because you need to function for everyone in your life.
But you don’t want to bury your talent. Instead, you want to embrace what God wants you to be. He gave you a unique gift.
Once you spend more time with Jesus, He ignites a spark in you.
He works in your heart to conform to His way. He is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).
But you sin. We all do.
So why does He need us to help Him?
He doesn’t. He needs us to help each other.
Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” Luke 10:2, NKJV
Jesus chooses people to teach and spread the word of God. He wants His chosen to go forward in love to different cities. But, just like a ripe harvest, there is no gain unless the laborers gather the crop. So it’s a balancing act between timing and conditions.
If the crop is picked too early, the farmer has to pay more for handling it. But, on the other hand, it could mean losing more plants if it’s too late.
Signs indicate when the crop needs to be picked, but the farmer must have a keen eye.
Once picked, preparation is meticulous. Specific stages of the harvest process are essential and take time.
Jesus tells us the harvest is great, but we must be like the farmer and read the signs. People need encouragement, mercy, and love.
And we all need Jesus.
If someone is going through the hardest time in their life and we shove a Bible in their face and tell them it will make everything better, they probably aren’t ready for that yet.
But in the same situation, if we offer comfort or encouragement through our gifts from the Holy Spirit, we have a better impact.
God made every one of us a unique reflection of His glory.
You help people with your gift.
You have a perspective that no one else does in this world. Your life experience helps you connect with people in a particular way, walking with them through trials you’ve been through yourself.
But when you believe in Jesus, and the Holy Spirit comes into your life, you are blessed with a spiritual gift that tends to the harvest.
Some people are the leaders, guiding people through organization and planning. Others are the comforters, loving people in every moment.
Helping people is an important part of your calling because He wants you to share it, regardless of your gift.
Where God calls your heart, that’s where He needs you.
So spend time with Him, even a few minutes in the morning before your coffee.
The more you pray and spend time with God, the easier it’ll be to see His purpose.
You can make a difference right now. Don’t burn yourself out trying to live up to the world’s expectations.
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