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.
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
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 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.
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 met God early in her life
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.
God’s unexpected journey for Lisa
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.
Shattering loss changed everything
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.
Brokenness led her back
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 made a choice
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.
God puts people together for a purpose
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.
Grief was different for each family member
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 very tight unit?
Lisa: When Dan died, my children were four years old, and then my oldest had just finished his freshman year of college. So they were at all different points and after he died, you know, it’s hard enough walking through your own grief, but then trying to navigate and shepherd your children through theirs, it’s really just overwhelming.
People will ask me, “how do I do this?”
I think the only answer I can give you because every family is different and looks different, is to just authentically grieve together.
Whatever that looks like, don’t feel like you have to show up all put together for your children. Don’t feel like that or make them feel like they have to, either.
I remember sitting down with my kids and saying, grief is going to look different for each of us, and we’ll have to have a lot of grace with each other this year. That’s how naive I was. Thinking it would just be a year until we got back on our feet. And it did look different for each of us.
Every day in the car, my four-year-old would randomly start crying and saying, “I miss daddy. I miss daddy.” Sometimes at very ironic times.
Grief struck in both dark and happy moments
I remember a few months after Dan died, my daughter went to a Florida event, it used to be called Junior Miss, but now it’s distinguished young women. It’s a scholarship program (slightly a pageant). She won for Florida. We had never done pageants, but this had streamers coming down and the flowers being handed to her. All the kids are going up on stage, and I’m holding my daughter on my hip.
With all this music and confetti coming down, she is whispering in my ear, saying, “I miss Daddy. I miss Daddy.”
That is such a picture of grief. These events are happening, these milestone events, and then in the midst of that is this gaping, painful loss.
It’s never one or the other. It is both coexisting.
How did my family react to that? I think I just tried to walk them through as best I could. We did a lot of reading aloud together. We were a homeschooling family and had the opportunity and the time to have that Bible time together every morning.
I remember we started reading books on heaven. Everything from picture books, from my little ones to bigger books with my older ones.
I kept an open conversation. I tried to keep a safe place for them to just be able to share and talk however it looked. It looked different for my daughter than for my teen sons and my six-year-old and four-year-old.
Grief still looks different
Kelly: Oh my goodness. I am sure it looks so different and probably still looks different for them in every stage you go through together.
I love that you pointed out that you have to authentically grieve together. Because there is no way that you’re going to have that strength for all of them, right?
You want to make sure that you can because you want to shelter them from all these big feelings and all this pain. But, like you said, the perfect picture of grief … wonderful thing happening, missing her father and whispering it. But I think that’s amazing.
I think that you guided them in such a wonderful way and I bet that a lot of women listening to this are probably thinking the same thing. “I don’t know how I’m going to do this. I’m just going to do it with them, and that’s it.”
That’s just a wonderful guide for somebody who’s kind of lost, because it would be impossible to really carry them through each thing while you’re feeling it yourself.
How did you handle that? How did you handle those really tough moments and maybe even angry at God or frustrated with him?
Totally overwhelmed, Lisa met God every day
Lisa: I was overwhelmed in every sense of the word, and I think when life falls apart, you know, we get to a place of overwhelm where we’re having decisions and massive change, hard emotions, and questions. I would get up every morning and get them settled and started for the day.
Then I would get into my minivan.
I say some people have a prayer closet, but I have a minivan. I would go around the corner to this little park and just park. In that quiet minivan where nobody could slip a note under the door or come into my room, I would just cry out to God. Sometimes I cried out audibly. Sometimes, I would journal. Every day I journaled.
But I would have that time to unburden my heart with everything I had been carrying. All the worries I had, all the fears, the missing, and the loneliness, just all of it. I never went through anger.
Desperate for God
I did go through questioning God, saying, “Why would you take such a good dad?”
Some of the ironies of the situation were that his mom, who was not in very good health at all, the last thing he had been doing was paperwork for her. Not that I wanted anything to happen to her, but just the irony of life. He died suddenly so young, and she was there with us for several more years, which was a grace.
I would get alone in my car. I would cry out to God and pour that out to him then open the Bible.
I happened to be reading through the Bible for a year, but I had not started that year doing that, Dan had actually been doing it.
I was just desperate for the Lord. I was desperate for the word more than I needed my own food.
I wouldn’t look for a passage that would meet or speak to me, but I would just open to that day’s reading. It never ceased to amaze me how God would meet me wherever I was reading, whether it was Leviticus, Psalms, or one of the gospels.
God reminded her of who he is
God would meet me on the words of that page. He would remind me who he is and how he cares for us, and it would give me enough hope to go back into the house and parent for that day. It was not enough for the week. I would have to go back the next day and do it over. It became like that daily manna.
I would go out and pick up my daily manna, which was enough for that day.
When we say God is enough, that’s what it looks like. It’s not like God is enough, and we never have to go through anything hard. It’s that God is enough to get through this moment, to get through this difficulty, get through this day, and it won’t always feel like this.
I kept telling myself that it won’t always feel like this, but I did have to have that hope to get through each day. Until we got our fitting and until my smile came back.
Daily walk through the pain
Kelly: Wow. That is so perfect to say how he’s given it to you for that day in the daily walk with him. Because it’s so unknown. When you say you were overwhelmed in every sense, I think that is an overwhelming piece of it. You think, when is this going to go away? When is it going to lighten up? When is it ever going to get better?
But I think you made a good point that you surrendered every day. You made that time, no matter how busy you were, no matter how intense or overwhelmed you felt. You made that time in the morning or whenever it was and took everything to him. Which I think is a really great thing.
Many women who listen to this podcast struggle with making time and even feeling good enough for God to meet them where they are. A lot of them feel broken and that they don’t deserve it. But also, especially if they’re angry at God for something that has happened.
How can you surrender your pain to God?
What would you say helped you to be able to lay it at his feet whenever you went there? Did it come very easy to you because you had been in the scriptures and walking with God through it? Or was there something or anything extra that you did to maybe help the woman listening now who says, “It’s so hard for me to just surrender?”
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.
I could feel the enemy and felt like the enemy was trying to get his toe into our family and just pull it apart.
This was not Lisa, who had everything together and was doing everything right. This was Lisa, who was desperate for the Lord.
Listen to God’s nudge
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, somebody who is holding out their hands and says, “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. He will encourage you and remind you how much he loves you. He will remind you of his promises and his 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.
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.”
Resources for You
Lisa’s book Life Can Be Good Again helps women to put their world back together after it falls apart.
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.
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.
How coping with grief tests a marriage
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.
What can you do to save the marriage after losing a child?
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.
How long does it take to cope with grief?
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.
Jenny shares how she coped with grief from a healing scar, not an open wound
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.
We are not meant to cope with grief alone
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.
How did Jenny’s oldest son cope with the grief of losing his brother, and what did his journey look like?
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.
What about coping with grief and survivor’s guilt?
He battled with survivor’s guilt, and he has his own story.
He could also help some people struggling with those issues from losing his sibling.
Kelly: For sure. Especially because they were so young, and it’s so easy when you’re young and don’t have years of experience behind you. But, I don’t know. You guys are pretty awesome. I mean, at 22, you dealt with cancer and everything too.
You were such a good example with that strength, you and your husband together. So I’m so happy that he had you to look up to, but yes, I was going to say that about the survivor’s guilt. I wonder if he struggled with that because it’s his brother.
I’m glad that he’s worked through that.
And he’s a teacher? What an amazing job! Also, at an elementary school, he’s shaping young minds every day, and then to want to reach out and share his story too. I think that that’s just so inspiring.
You guys are good people. It’s wonderful. Honestly, I love that you’re here talking about coping with your grief. I can’t wait to share the episode. I like that you said you always think it will happen to somebody else, and then it doesn’t.
And then when it happens to you, you think, how will I ever handle that?
But I love that God was always with you and all of you. Even in fear and anger, he walked you through that, which is wonderful. So I love you sharing your story.
How to cope with grief using God’s word
I like to ask the guests on the show to share a Bible verse, and I know you’ve already shared a couple of verses with us, so I appreciate that. I love the verses that you shared in Romans, and then also about how God doesn’t leave us or forsake us. I’ll definitely put those in the show notes.
When we go to that muscle memory with all that pain instead of going to what we want to do in our flesh, it’s so good to have a verse, even one verse, to take with us to have that truth.
So thank you so much for sharing those verses. Like I said, I’ll also put links in the show notes for the listeners, so they can always take those verses because God does work all things for good, even if we can’t see it.
Which, most of the time, we really can’t. I mean, God’s very mysterious in his timing and ways.
Jenny: There is one more I’d like to share.
Kelly: Yes, wonderful. Great!
Jenny: So, then after the accident, one of the verses that I felt like God gave me for that season of healing, everybody knows Jeremiah 29:11 “for I know the plans I have for you.” Everybody knows that one.
Many people don’t keep reading, though, and right after that, verses 12 and 13, so Jeremiah 29, all the way through 13.
So yes, he does have plans to give us hope and a future, but right after that, he says, “if you seek me with your whole heart, you will find me.”
And after the accident, that verse was crucial to me more than the most commonly known verse 11. Because there were times when God felt so distant, and I know part of that is the grief.
But there were times when God felt so distant, and I just didn’t understand.
I couldn’t wrap myself around why. But God would bring me back to that verse, that if you seek me and seek me with your whole heart, you’ll find me. And that was crucial in recentering me when I got off course.
What does God do when your grief takes you to a dark place?
I wouldn’t even realize I’m down a rabbit trail in my thinking. But God would remind me of that verse, and it would re-anchor me on hope, truth, and faith. If I just seek him, if I seek him with everything I have within me, I don’t have to understand. I may never understand. I may understand a little tidbit here, but then get the full thing in heaven, I don’t know.
But I do know that if I really seek him with my whole heart, I will find him. He has proven faithful even in that. Sometimes those questions have been answered, and sometimes they’re still questions that I may never know the answer until eternity. When I get to ask him one day, “why, why did it have to happen that way?”
That’s one thing that I would love to leave with your listeners: if you seek him, he will provide answers.
It may not be in the timing you want or even in the way that you think the answers will come, but he will provide those answers if you really seek it.
Kelly: That’s fantastic. I appreciate you sharing that so much because that is so true. Wow. That’s such a good point, too, the future and the hope, but then you seek him. I love that you shared that you were so honest about times of anger and fear and just getting frazzled with emotion because that’s going to come, it’s going to come, it’s inevitable.
The fact that you could go to that verse is great. I think that’ll really help the women listening to this who struggle with a similar challenge. Coping with the grief of losing a son or a child, or struggling in very fearful situations. Cancer. That diagnosis alone, especially metastasized and stage four.
I mean, it’s very scary. The number one thing that you want to say to God is, why? Why, why, why did this happen?
Your finding comfort is very encouraging. It encourages me very much. I’m sure it will encourage people listening to this and I appreciate you sharing.
We all have the same fears, but God is faithful
Jenny: Hey, you’re welcome. I don’t want people to think we’re superhuman or anything. We’re just like you. We have the same fears and same struggles. We’ve just found God to be faithful.
Kelly: That’s it, and we’re not even meant to. One of the things that I’ve shared on my blog and with different people, is that we are not meant to be like “good enough.”
We’re meant to have flaws. We’re meant to be that way, so we can rely on God to really guide us because, in our weaknesses, he’s strong. I love that you shared such a powerful verse. Well, verses is in Jeremiah too. That’s wonderful. I can’t wait to put that in the notes too.
How to learn more about coping with grief and the Leavitt’s journey with God
So where can we find you if somebody wants to learn more about you?
I understand that you actually just released a new book. Do you want to tell the listeners a little bit about that?
Jenny: Sure. Since my husband is a pastor, he kind of jokes that he’s the preacher, so he’s the one who does the speaking in the family. Since the accident, he’s shared our story everywhere, from mock DUIs at high schools to small groups at churches. Wherever they ask him, he shares our story, and he’ll tailor it for the audience.
And inevitably, people would come up to him afterwards and are like, “well, what’s the rest of the story?”
He says no, I’m the preacher. My wife’s the writer, so that’s kind of how it evolved. I just wrote our book, and we strategically released it on November 25th this year, which was Black Friday.
But it also would’ve been our son Jacob’s 25th birthday on the 25th of November.
So we released it on that day. It’s God Prints: Finding evidence of God in the Shattered Pieces of Life. So it tells the rest of our story. It goes into a lot more detail about when I had cancer, even when we lost everything, were homeless, and then the accident and everything.
So folks can check it out there. I have the photo gallery that goes with the book, and that’s open to everybody.
Jenny’s website is a place of hope for others coping with grief
Even if you don’t read or get the book, you can still scroll through it. I have captions so people can get a feel and look at some things. I’ve shared some tips and things that have gotten us through those hard times. I’m going to continue to build on that. I want it to be a place where people can come for practical help.
A place that I wish we had had seven years ago.
A place that I wish we could have gone to and been like, “Am I normal? Where can I go for help? Does anybody understand this? What are some resources? What are some podcasts?”
I want it to be where people can come and get some hope. So I’m hoping to have interviews with others who have overcome adversity and have those kinds of things too. So to be a place of not just help but hope and healing too.
Kelly: That’s fantastic. Thank you so much, Jenny.
God is working things for good through your ministry, reaching out and, like you said, even just helping. Even if you help one person struggling with a similar thing, then it’s powerful. I appreciate you so much for coming here and sharing your story today.
I will put links to your website and the God Prints book in the show notes. And Jenny, thank you so much. I appreciate you so much for talking with us today on the I Witness Podcast.
Jenny: Thank you so much for inviting me.
Listen to Part 1 of this Interview: What happens to a mother’s faith when tragedy strikes?
2 Corinthians 12:9, NKJV “And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
Jeremiah 29:11-13, NKJV “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”
Bible Verses from Part 1 of the interview with Jenny:
Hebrews 13:5, NKJV “Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Philippians 4:7, NKJV “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
Romans 8:28, NKJV “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
This episode is brought to you by The Wilson Shop. Visit The Wilson Shop on Etsy for beautiful, Christian-inspired designs on your favorite home decor, apparel, and accessories.
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.
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.
God has a way of changing life’s plans and testing faith
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.
God prepares ahead of time
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.
Faith in God was tested and rocked
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.
Jesus never left me
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.
Fear grips faith
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.
Faith in God is shaken
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.”
Peace surpasses all understanding
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, as they were growing up, there were times when I probably should have been scared at some of the things they were doing and places they were going. But that peace carried with me.
Wrestling with God
I wrestled with God about that and he gave me that peace and that stayed with me. It was a staying factor. Actually the night of the accident, that was crucial in my receiving the news about our boys. That was actually a reference point that I have no doubt that he’s the one who brought that back to my memory.
Kelly: I’m sure. That is intense. That peace is very difficult to describe unless you have experienced it. It’s like when you should be writhing, you’re still. It’s only him that can really do that. Right?
Jenny: Mm-hmm.
Kelly: I think it’s interesting, like you said, how he prepares you with the verse before going through the actual thing you’re gonna go through. So you get through cancer, get through all of that.
So having that peace, and him telling you they’re mine, and you know he will hold them in his hands. Why don’t you tell me what happened later? So, in a way, that was preparing you for the next thing, right? The accident. Like I said, you don’t have to go into a ton of detail, but what happened with the accident. How did you handle that?
Jenny’s faith in God is tested even more
Jenny: In the interim. Because I’ve been cancer free since November 1998.
Kelly: Oh, praise Jesus!
Jenny: Yes. The accident happened in August 2015. So in that interim of, what is that, like 17 years or so, another verse that, when I look back in my life, it’s the verse that held those years together.
A lot of people know it. It’s the Romans 8:28, how God works all things together for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.
Because so many times over those years, we saw how. Even on this side of eternity, we may never understand exactly why I had to go through cancer. But we’ve seen how God has used it for good.
Steadfast faith, even when they lost everything
There have been so many times that a coworker, somebody from the church, our pastor, or somebody will say, “Hey, I just met so-and-so and they just found out they have cancer. Would you guys mind talking to them?” Or, “Hey, I know so-and-so and his wife, and it’s not looking very good. Can both of you talk to them? Because I think the husband could benefit from Myron talking to them too.”
Times like that, just seeing God work good out of it. There was also an interim time when my husband broke his back. I mean, horribly. He’s had two back surgeries since then.
At that time, my husband, who’s a very hard worker and has one of the strongest work ethics I know, was sent home because he wasn’t allowed to work for almost a year and a half.
We lost everything.
We had two houses, we had cars, and we lost everything. So in that interim, we even saw God work those things for good because, during that time of being homeless, we could look back and draw from the times that God brought us through cancer.
My husband would even say, “God brought us through that. He’s gonna bring us through this.”
We could look back and use that as a reference point. So even those things in our life, that scripture, I feel like, was the overall theme for that time. Which led us up to the greatest time of trial in our lives.
A mother’s worst nightmare
So on Saturday, August 29th, 2015, our whole family had been volunteering at our church in Jacksonville. My husband and I worked with the youth, and they were doing a special event for the community. My husband and I were involved and our oldest son was actually in the event.
Our youngest son, Jacob, it was his first time being in the lights and sound ministry. He was so excited.
When you volunteer like that, you’re the first ones there and you’re the last ones to leave. So we had just gotten home, but it was super late. It was almost midnight we got a call from our pastor’s wife, because they drove home a similar way from us, asking us if we knew where the boys were.
When you’re faced with something like that, even with a cancer diagnosis, sometimes that shock and numbness can be like, “no, that happens to other people. That doesn’t happen to me. That doesn’t happen to us.”
So to make a long story short, our boys were in our oldest son’s Ford Escape, and they were hit by a drunk driver.
Our youngest son, Jacob, was 17 at the time, Caleb was 20, Jacob was 17. Jacob died on the scene and Caleb almost died.
A miracle emerged from the devastation
To this day, I’m so grateful for the first responders who were there. It was a dark, dreary night, like drizzling rain out in the middle of the country, so it was not a well-lit intersection.
Without them getting there quickly and getting them in, we would’ve lost him too. It was still touch and go with him for at least a couple of weeks. He was in a coma for eight or nine days. He, he’s had so many surgeries that we have to start with the top of his head and work down to the bottom of his feet to remember everything wrong.
He’s a miracle. When people see him now they can’t believe it because he just barely has a limp when he walks. He’s got so much titanium in him, it’s amazing. He came home in a wheelchair and C-collar and is walking today.
God’s faithfulness all along
All those lessons we learned kind of converged all in that timeframe, which was instrumental in how we were able to heal and process. Looking back on our lives, seeing God’s hand of faithfulness, and how he prepared us even when we didn’t know he was preparing us. All those lessons that we learned that was because he knew what was coming.
He had placed people in our lives … one of our dear friends in the fellowship of churches that we’re in, he’s a mentor, almost like a grandfather to us.
Our pastor’s pastor is in his eighties, and he and his wife lost their daughter when she was 15, like 40 years ago. So, we knew that about him. He talks about it frequently when he’s preaching. So things like that God had put into our life, and we didn’t realize the significance.
Until you’re going through that, and even then, I’m condensing months, even years of healing after the accident. Things that God helped us work through. Deep wounds that he had to heal.
These lessons and the people God had placed in our lives were instrumental in that healing.
Healing through faith and surrendering to God
Those verses that I shared with you already, they came back around where we were like, “Okay, all right. You said you would never leave us. You said that you’re gonna work all things for good, all things God. So you’re not a liar. If you said you’re gonna work ’em all for good, we don’t see it right now, but somehow you’re gonna bring some good out of this somehow because you’re a man of your word. You’re faithful. You’ve proven to us that you’re faithful in our times of homelessness, our facing cancer. In me lifting the boys up to you.”
Earlier, when I told you that that was going to be, I didn’t realize how much me wrestling with God about that and finally surrendering and getting that peace.
The night of the accident, when Myron got that phone call in our house, he went to the accident scene. He didn’t tell me this until a lot later, but he was really in the back of his mind thinking, if it is the boys, I don’t really want her to be there until I know what to expect.
So even in the middle of that, he was trying to shield me just in case.
What he did when he found out that it was our boys is he sent one of my good friends who’s also our assistant pastor’s wife, out to our house to pick me up and take me.
In that timeframe, when I knew she was about 20 minutes away, I was just pacing back and forth in the kitchen and in the dining room. Just pacing and trying to pray, and at that point, all we knew was that it was our boys.
The unknown strangled her until she had enough
We didn’t know anything about their status. I was praying, and I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. I couldn’t get focused.
Finally, I still remember, I stopped by the dining room table and said, “God, you know what. Enough! If you told me all those years ago that they were your boys and that you loved them even more than I do, then I’m gonna have to take you at your word that you still love them more than I do, which can’t fathom, but okay. And so God, I’m choosing, I’m gonna choose right now to trust you. I’m just going to put it back in your hands that even if it’s our boys, I’m going to trust you that you said you love them even more than I do.”
And once again, that peace came over me where I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. Even all these seven years later, I can still feel that peace when I talk about that time because God knew I needed that anchor. He knew that Jacob was already gone.
Faith in the little things
I didn’t know that, but he knew that and knew I would need that anchor. So, once again, it was just those little times, those little nuggets. Sometimes I have told people when I’m talking to him, don’t discredit those little times that God plants those seeds in your life. Hold on to him with everything you’ve got because you don’t know why he’s putting that there.
Our God is so good.
I think there are so multiple reasons He does it. It can be to heal past wounds, past insecurities, and areas where we don’t feel like we deserve his love or his care. But it can also be for something in the future he knows that’s coming that we don’t know.
Bible Verses for Encouragement
Hebrews 13:5, NKJV “Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Philippians 4:7, NKJV “and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
Romans 8:28, NKJV “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
This episode is brought to you by The Wilson Shop. Visit The Wilson Shop on Etsy for beautiful, Christian-inspired designs on your favorite home decor, apparel, and accessories.
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).
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