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:
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This is part 2 of the interview with Lisa Appelo
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,
THIS IS TOO HARD. I CANNOT DO THIS.
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.
Listen to God speaking and nudging you
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.
You are not alone, life is messy for all of us
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?
How does God speak to us?
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?
Does the grief ever get better?
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.
God speaks through the love of people, too
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.
We have encouragement in God speaking through other people
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.
God spoke through testimony
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 would not harm any of them, especially if they hadn’t accepted Jesus.
Elizabeth Elliot though, she also lost her second husband after he had passed. But I think it’s so amazing, and it shows such grace that she returned, I wanna say, a year later to minister to those same people who murdered her husband. Only God can give that kind of fierce forgiveness.
Lisa: She would go and live with the very people who had killed her husband and get to know them, understand what they were thinking, and why they killed her husband. Many would come to Christ through her, her witness, and her little girl.
We witness through our character how God transforms our heart
Kelly: Absolutely. And it just speaks volumes to how God can work through us. How we can be the light. Just like he’s working through you. He really is. Even just being here today and sharing a discussion and your story because it isn’t easy to be vulnerable.
Especially about something just so tragic, Lisa. I’m just so grateful to you for being here. I wanted to ask you, was there any verse that really carried you or even carries you now through grief that really speaks to you? I know you said the verse earlier, come to me all weary and heavy laden, and I’ll give you rest.
That’s a fantastic verse. Did that verse help you, or was there another verse that helped you through that?
God’s word is a living encouragement
Lisa: Yeah, there were a lot of verses that meant a lot to me. But I think one early in my grief that I probably never would’ve come across unless I had been reading through the Bible every day chapter by chapter. I found a verse in Deuteronomy 33:27, and it says, “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”
It was such a picture of God that while my world was shaking and imploding, God was steady and eternal. That he held us, and those eternal arms, those everlasting arms were carrying us and holding us when I felt like everything else had fallen apart.
I just clung to that.
I started signing my emails with it and writing it in thank-you notes. I just clung to that verse and that picture of God being our eternal refuge.
When we feel overwhelmed, we have God’s word to comfort us
Kelly: Oh, that is just beautiful. I will also put that in the show notes for the listeners to help them. Because I feel like sometimes when you’re feeling overwhelmed, you’re grasping at straws, and it’s hard to remember even what you did the day before. Especially whenever you have such a hurting heart.
But that is just beautiful. Thank you so much for that.
So I know you are a writer and an executive team member for the Compel team for Proverb 31 Ministries, but you also published a book. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about your book and what your book is about?
Because you really discuss a lot of this in the book, right?
Lisa’s book helps those suffering with shattering loss in many ways
Lisa: I do, yes. So I published a book late last year, actually, it was in April of last year. It came out and is called Life Can Be Good Again: Putting Your World Back Together After It All Falls Apart.
The book is for that woman who finds herself navigating a life she didn’t expect, a life that she doesn’t want.
It can happen in a lot of ways. It can happen through a diagnosis, marriage, or even a business that implodes, and life looks different now. Even a relationship with somebody who’s living but has been cut off causes a lot of pain. Maybe the death of somebody you love.
There are many ways we can find ourselves in that place of shattering loss.
I remember wanting to know one person who was just a few steps ahead of me who could both assure me I would make it through and was flesh and bones. I knew God would be faithful. He’d said he would be faithful in the word, but I wanted to see it on flesh and bones lived out.
Life can be good again, Lisa helps you to walk the journey
Also somebody who could just take my hand and say, “this is the way. Let’s do this.”
So this book does not gloss over the heart. It’s called Life Can Be Good Again, because I remember wanting and worrying that I would never smile again, that I would just make the best of life that it was now, but I would never experience real joy. That kind of organic joy that bubbles up again.
The promise is that life can be good again, but we have to walk through the hard questions and hard emotions. So how do we do that?
Practices that we can do to find our footing and begin taking little steps will help us move forward in this life we didn’t expect.
Kelly: Oh, that’s so wonderful. See, I just, oh my goodness. I just love it so much! Your book is very encouraging. I definitely encourage our listeners to get it, for sure. You said you wanted somebody to help take your hand and see how. So now you are living this wonderful purpose of helping women by taking their hand, being somebody in the flesh.
I love that you’re giving back in that way. It just warms my heart so much. Thank you for doing what you do.
God will never give you second best
Suppose you had one takeaway from your experiences of knowing Jesus and your journey through grief with God through ups and downs. What would your takeaway be to a woman dealing with a similar struggle and pain?
Lisa: Something was impressed on me, probably not early in grief, but probably my second year of grief because I was still really struggling, still in a place of despair.
I mean that second year the fog of grief had lifted, and this hard reality had just settled in. I remember one day in my minivan saying, I don’t even know if I said it out loud, but saying something like, “I don’t like my life. This is not what I ordered.”
On the heels of that came this thought that while this was not what I had expected, it did not surprise God. He allowed it. It was not a Plan B, that it was a chapter two. Because God had allowed it, it had as much abundance, goodness, and joy as the chapter before.
I didn’t immediately feel better or immediately say, “oh, well, I’m all better now. Let me just move on.”
“I still had a lot of missing loneliness and grief to work through.”
But it shifted my perspective and helped me lean on the truth that God does not give us plan B. For so long I thought I was living out the leftovers of the life I wanted, that this was second best and first best was my first plan that was gone.
But God does not give us second best. He does not give us the leftovers. What he allows is chapter two. It’s never a plan B, which can shift our paradigm if we lean on that and say, “well then, by definition, God, if you’ve allowed it, there is goodness here. If you’ve allowed, there is joy and abundant life here, and I’m going to fight for it.”
Lean into God and hear Him speak to your heart
Kelly: That’s just so wonderful. Lisa, thank you so much. I love that you say lean into God because it’s hard. It’s hard, but we start to lean on him. I mean, it’s just a wonderful picture of really leaning on his strength.
He tells us, in our weakness, he is strong. So when we feel most weak, lean into him. I just love how real and raw you are about it. How you do not sugarcoat anything, and you say in my second year of grief. I bet even that statement is helping someone listening because like you said, it’s not a timestamp.
You can’t timestamp it. But yes, what a fantastic takeaway. What a wonderful way to embrace what happened and find that journey back to having hope and joy again. Thank you so much, Lisa.
Do you have any closing encouragements?
Lisa: No, but for the one who’s listening to this, just don’t believe the lie of your circumstances. I think our emotions and our circumstances will lie to us. While our emotions can tell us that we’re dealing with difficulty, they cannot predict our future. Only God can do that, and trust him with that.
Kelly: Yes, absolutely. Just wonderful. Thank you so, so much. I will put Lisa’s book in the show notes, a link to your website where we can find you, and absolutely will share the Bible verses you graciously shared with us today too, Lisa.
Lisa: Thank you for having me, great conversation. I appreciate you making space for this. This is a hard conversation for many, but I really appreciate it.
Kelly: Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for sharing your heart with us today, and I feel so honored to have you here. Thank you.
Lisa: Thank you
Bible Verses for Encouragement
Matthew 11:28, NKJV, “Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Deuteronomy 33:27, NKJV, “The eternal God is your refuge, And underneath are the everlasting arms; He will thrust out the enemy from before you, And will say, ‘Destroy!”
Resources for You
Lisa’s book Life Can Be Good Again helps women to put their lives back together after it falls apart.
Lisa also has a free devotional, 7 Days of Hope for Your Shattered Heart, to help women walking through devastation focus on hope.
Where to find Lisa Appelo:
Visit Lisa on her website www.LisaAppelo.com
Connect with Lisa on the following social media sites:
