April 2, 2023 • 21 mins
The pain of grief and trauma is not something you will ever just "get over" It often takes something small to bring you back to those painful memories years or decades later. Is it still feeling as if it is holding your head underwater? Has it left you in a dark place, and you are afraid you won't be able to move forward again? During this episode of Coffee Chat, Lisa shares her grief over losing a child. She also reveals some things during this dark time that helped her find purpose again.
Thank you for taking the time to like, subscribe, share, and comment. Visit leadingladies.life to find out more. Also, follow @leadingladieslife on social. Amber & Lisa are authors of the multi-award-winning book, Leading Ladies: Discover Your God-Grown Strategy for Success, which dives into the power of community and empowering women of faith to rise up and make a difference, using our gifts and faith to shine brightly in the world. Watch the Facebook Live edition on our YouTube Channel @coffeechatladies .
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:10):
Would you be surprised to know that some of the most
successful women of our timeface challenges just like you
and I do. Hi, I'm Amber. And I'mLisa, we're authors of the book
leading ladies, discover yourgod brown strategy for success.
We invite you to join us in anhonest, messy bun conversation
(00:30):
about the things we'd ratherkeep hidden in our lives. Some
of those things can keep us frommoving forward in purpose. So
grab a cup of somethingdelicious, kick off your shoes
and hang out with us for thenext 30 minutes. We all kind of
get stuck in profound times ofgrief. And we talked about kind
(00:53):
of a Lightstep last week. So wewanted to jump in this week and
talk about some of the moreprofound areas where we
experience the nowhere place andit's stuck into a loss a grief.
And I know that, you know, COVIDkind of made us stop a lot of
us, it affected all of us. Andwe had grief a lot of places
(01:16):
that we didn't think that wewould, because this just
affected the whole world. And somany people lost their families.
So many people lost their jobsfor a while lost their jobs
permanently. We had musicianswho couldn't play we had play
outside of their homes, we had apeople who were speakers who
(01:37):
couldn't go and beyond speakingengagement. So it's made us
rethink everything sure of ourlives, and when will it ever be
the same? Right. So Lisa, youhave a profound moment that
really impacted your life.
Uh, yeah, and and, you know, inkind of recapping this last
week, we did talk about thelighter aspect of this, we
(01:59):
talked about the Groundhog's Daymovie, and how Bill Murray was
kind of stuck in this space inlife where he just kept waking
up and going through thatprocess in the movie where you'd
wake up right there the sameplace until he finally started
learning some things, he finallystarted investing in something
other than himself, and ithelped him to look outward. And
(02:21):
even when it comes to moreprofound versions of being stuck
or going nowhere, or justfinding yourself not able to
putting one foot in front of theother. It's a similar way that
we get out of it even in themost profoundly deep, dark
times. I know all of us gothrough some difficult things in
(02:43):
life. Some of those things wejust choose not to talk to
anybody about. We don't have bigconversations out in the open,
where we say to people, this iswhat I'm going through, I think
we just automatically kind ofcurl inward and try to take it
on ourselves. Only those who maybe walk up close and personally
(03:04):
with us really know what we'rethinking, what we're feeling and
how we're working our waythrough those moments. And so we
get stuck in things that mayseem light and airy. We talked
about procrastination last week.
But we ended the whole conceptlast week of there are deeper
forms of grief. Maybe we've gonethrough extreme trauma, maybe
(03:27):
we've gone through some prettyprofound hurt. And yes, the
grief word. And I ended lastweek on saying even in those
moments, I believe there'snothing wasted in those
profoundly hard times. I believethat we can glean something from
those profoundly hard times ifwe're willing to. This is not a
(03:50):
who's who on whose hurt is thedeepest in life. That's not what
this episode is about. But we doall walk in places that most of
creation walks in as well. Andwe just kind of put it under the
rug. You know,one of the most profound things
that even one of the ladies whoshared in the book, Janelle
(04:13):
Raritan said trauma is trauma,there is no level of trauma,
things affect us in suchdifferent ways. You cannot go
through life saying, well, yourgrief is bigger than my grief,
your trauma is bigger than mytrauma. Trauma has an impact in
our own physical bodies, right?
(04:34):
That it impacts us in a waywhether it is a big T trauma,
like loss of a spouse, that canhit us in the same area. That a
loss of a job or a loss ofcareer or even the loss of a pet
you know, that hits us in thesame physical place and it
(04:58):
stores in a place called the MBig you love the brain, and
trauma is trauma. So I think thething about it is Lisa, when you
talk about these differentplaces of trauma, we all have
different areas, but she has nothe loss of a child the loss of
her career. We have a lot ofthis, but we cannot rate trauma.
No, I think the thing that wecan do is we can acknowledge
(05:22):
that what took you to that placeis not exactly the same as what
took me to my place. Exactly. Ilost a child. While it was
profound. It's not the same asyou losing a husband altogether,
something else took us there.
And I think that's one thingthat I really think is
important. And it helps in thewhole spectrum of getting you
(05:44):
out and forward motion. I feellike for me, I had to find a way
to reframe, re adjust what I waswalking through. I'm not saying
I had to act like it didn'thappen, because there was no way
to do that. When you lose deeplyand profoundly, you cannot just
act like it didn't happen.
(06:06):
Share a little bit about thatstory where you were at in life
when you lost.
Sure we had moved back to theKansas City area to be around
family, Randy and I knew wealways wanted to have four
children, we had three beautifuldaughters, I didn't have any
huge aspirations that we weregoing to get a boy, as a matter
of fact, we'd been told thatNoah was a girl all along
(06:28):
through the pregnancy withultrasounds. So I went into
preterm labor a couple of timestowards the end, then when I did
deliver, he was still born aftera full pregnancy. You know, it's
funny, I had had three verysuccessful pregnancies. So for
me, it had never registered inmy brain that I might experience
(06:50):
a loss right. At the time, myparents who had been married for
over 35 years, were alsoexperiencing a divorce, and it
was rockin my world, I'm notgonna lie, I'm so grateful that
time has passed. And that'stotally different story. And we
should talk about it someday.
Because watching people gothrough that type of a divorce,
(07:11):
especially within a family, evenas an adult child, I had to work
through some stuff. But back tothe original story with losing
Noah, I never in my wildestdreams occurred to me that I
might lose a child because I hadthree very healthy children. And
the pregnancies were not alleasy, but it just had never
connected, that I might lose.
(07:34):
And so when I did was very hard.
I feel like I spent months in avery dark place. And there were
wonderful people who wanted tohelp my family through that. And
people were loving and kind andpraying, I had to find a reason
to come out of the dark place.
And my reason for me was mythree little girls, my three
(07:55):
children, or what helped mecrawl out of that space. And
what's so funny about grief,ladies, is that I can be this
many years past that thishappened in 1999. I can be this
many years past this, and griefcan take you right back to those
(08:16):
very deep, profound moments. Andso in my journey, I had to find
a way to make sure that thatlittle life which I know goes on
due to my personal beliefs as aChrist follower into eternity, I
know it does. I believe in myheart someday I'm going to see
that child of mine now do I knowwhat is going to look like? Do I
(08:39):
know? Is he going to be in grownform? Am I just going to sense
his presence? Is it going to bea little baby and I get to raise
them all over? I don't know anyof that. We don't know that
much. God doesn't give us thatmuch information about what that
looks like. But I do believe Iwill be reunited with him. And I
had to do some things to makesure in my heart and my mind
(09:01):
that that little life wassignificant. And I had to start
walking through my grief in waysthat put it in perspective that
he was significant. He didmatter. He did have purpose. I
may not get what the purposesnow, but down the road later,
maybe it will make more sensethis many years past losing him.
(09:23):
Doesn't make sense. It's stillnot something that I would ever
wish anyone go through. But Ihave to be honest, my little
girls helped me crawl out ofthat dark space, my sweet
husband who was equally walkingthrough such difficult profound
grief watching me close in onmyself. It was such an
(09:45):
interesting time because I dofeel the thing that helped me
move past it was recognizingthere were others that needed me
and also finding a way and Ihate to use this word, finding a
way to memorialize this littleperson and whose life made such
a big impact in such a shortamount of time. And so there
were ways that I was able to dothat I one of the first things
(10:08):
that I remember I did was Iimmediately started to find ways
to let people know he had beenhere. So whether it was online
memorial site where I couldregister his name and say, Hey,
he was loved, we don't get towalk with him, but he was loved,
or immediately recognizing,okay, my story is hard to tell,
(10:29):
it doesn't feel good to tell it.
But let me pay attention to thedetails. Because maybe someday,
there might be somebody else whohas gone through this type of
grief. And maybe just maybe Icould help them. You know, if
somebody could get out of thehole a little bit more quickly,
maybe I can help. Once again,it's very similar to what we
talked about last week, when wetalked about when we're stuck,
(10:51):
we have to start looking up andoutward. What can I do rather
than just you know, the blindersare on, I'm all caved in, in
this emotional, fetal position,looking up and outward. Are
there others out here that Icould impact or I could be able
to move through this with thatwas one of the turning points
(11:16):
for me that helped me crawl outof that space,
I noticed that a lot of timesyour head, because I know what
it is like to walk through verydark, dark, dark times. And
grief is almost an illnesspeople cannot see just like any
mental health thing is, you canonly turn in so long before it
(11:40):
just becomes completelysuffocating. And even though we
all need to have our time ofprocessing those dark places,
and you know what, you neverreally get over?
Yes, I've put it this way. Itfeels like the moments where you
are taken back in time becomefewer and far between. Yes,
(12:01):
sometimes things happen. Andyou'll go right back there. What
if what you experienced what ifthis stuck you're in came from
violence, an act of something sohorrific that reliving those
moments in your mind, it's justhard to break out of that space?
I would say in those moments,there is no shame in getting
(12:21):
help. You know, we talked lastweek about some things that we
need to look at when we'restuck. One of them is you need
to find your team, those peoplethat can build you up and
encourage you. Sometimes that isprofessional, sometimes we need
a good therapist, we need acounselor, we need someone to
help us go in and process thetrauma, the grief in order to
(12:45):
open it up, wash out that deepseated pain and hurt and to heal
properly. That is one thing thatbenefits.
I think what you talked abouthaving someone to talk to
ladies, I think sometimes weunderestimate the need for
having that person in place. VIPperson in place that you can
(13:09):
process things through. I knownot everybody has a counselor
that they're established with.
But I remember the day that Istarted praying for someone like
Lisa in my life because Irealized I didn't have a person
in place that I could talkthrough some of the things girls
if you don't have someone whoyou see as a iron Sharpens Best
(13:31):
Friend, you can be who you needto be without the makeup on. You
need that person now they willnot be the be all and end all to
get all the solutions. You needall the answers to the
questions, but they can be aguiding voice to you and help
you in every area of your life.
(13:53):
So ladies, if you're trying tomove in purpose, and you're
trying to move daily, you need aP IP person in
place, find your posse find thecrew find your group and your
writer die ladies find that andyou know what? Sometimes we have
difficulty even recognizingokay, what kind of women can be
(14:14):
that, like Ember said ironsharpens iron, find women who
have gone through some toughstuff and you know what, maybe
they don't think like you. Youdon't look like you. Maybe they
didn't handle a personalsituation the way you would
have. I think sometimes thatmakes all the difference finding
those people that are going tocall out the best in you even
(14:35):
when it hurts, but do so in loveand walk with you through those
storms. Another thing is justlike we talked about last week,
acting your way into feeling anddoing acting your way into
wholeness and health and resolveand making sure that you are
taking tiny baby steps to do so.
Those little girls helped me getup every day whether it was
(14:57):
making breakfast So are helpingthem get their clothes on, or
getting them Tubby time at nightand getting them back in bed.
Those are things in life thatmay seem mundane, but they're
little tiny steps that keep usin focus moving forward, not
head down. But looking up andout. Yes, there's a time where
(15:18):
you don't need to be lookingout. But once you get to that
point where it's time to start,just some of the most mundane
things of life can be God's wayof pulling you back into RIA
everyday life again, right?
One of the most profound thingsthat I did at the height of my
(15:38):
mental health issues is I wentoutside and I found great joy
and just taking pictures, youhave to make yourself do those
kinds of things. I had to makemyself focus and I would write
about Hey, God, this is honestlyhow to journal. In fact, that's
how my Instagram started. That'show my bare face journals fair
(16:01):
face girl started is I just hadto write to God, honestly, how I
was feeling exactly. But turnthat back around to the
goodness, I know that God wasgiving me and showing me all
around. Because you have to havethat balance. You can't live in
denial about greed. Nope. Aboutstuckness. And in your
(16:23):
humaneness. It's not sinful, tobe stuck in grief. No, it's a
dark place of stronghold thatGod doesn't want for you to be
to destroy you.
He loves us. You know, it's notthat we're not going to go
through life and never havehardship. He doesn't promise
that. And I would challengeanyone who believes that that is
(16:47):
truly what the Christian mindsetis that it's just all sunbeams
and unicorns, and it's not yourgoing to have struggle, it's not
much to my granddaughter, nor isdemise it is not all unicorns.
But at any rate, it's like thatyou have to find a way in those
(17:07):
difficult moments to find yourjoy, and to find peace. And I
believe that is what God is allabout doing for us when we're in
those deepest, darkest momentsand times, he is all about that.
And we just have to allow him tohelp us through them. You know,
part of why we don't put feet onour dreams and just keep towards
(17:29):
it is these little distractions,whether it's okay, we're
procrastinating, or whether wewalk through some really heavy
issues in life, we don't findthat there's anything about
those that might be salvageable,or might be worth stepping on
top of to get to a better place.
Nobody wants to hear about thatin your life. People have their
(17:51):
own problems, people have theirown issues. Part of what I find
interesting about the women thatwe included in this book is that
they all have walked throughvery similar spaces in life.
Some of them have had verysimilar experiences that term,
there's nothing new under thesun. You know what, we all walk
through some stuff, we all bumpup against some stuff. The key
(18:15):
is how do we move past the stuffand start to really walk in the
purpose that God put us herefor? How do we do it, these
women that we want to introduceyou to in this book are going to
show you ways that they've hadto walk through the same stuff.
And they're choosing to let youlook in and see that for a
(18:36):
minute, in the hopes thatsomehow you get a foot up and
you start walking in yourpurpose as well. And that's just
kind of a great segue, as ourtime is coming to a close here
to talk about just why we'rehere. We're here because we want
you to find your God givenpotential. And we're gonna let
(18:57):
you sit down with this book isgoing to be like having a little
cup of coffee or tea and sippingit along as you read their
stories and gleaning what youcan to help put yourself into a
more successful pattern ofliving life fully for the cause
of Christ.
And we would love for you guysto get involved we would love
(19:19):
for you to share your stories ofstuckness of solutions that you
walked through and it has been abenefit to you. We're a almost a
sisterhood of sisters liftingsisters helping us do those
brainstorming, thought leadingwe can't do what we do without
(19:39):
each other. We can't moveforward and purpose without each
other and we need to value who'snext to us more than we have in
the past because we're not onthis journey alone. Firstly, we
have our Father who never leavesus or forsakes us and we have a
community of sisters like us whojust want Don't walk tandem with
(20:01):
us and cheer each other on aswe're moving in together and
help each other as we get stuck.
Soyour assignment this week, once
again, we just asked you to liftup your gaze, lift up your eyes,
look around, you look at what'shappening around you, could
there possibly be things tolearn from in this moment that
you're going nowhere, you'restuck. Usually, there are things
(20:24):
that we can glean from themoment. And if we ask God to
show us what those things are, Ibelieve that he does, and I
believe that he will. And sofind that circle of trusted
people that have your bestinterests at heart and find
those iron sharpens ironrelationships in your life and
ask God, what do you have forme? What is there that you've
(20:47):
given me that I could startutilizing in a new and a fresh
way and go to leading ladies dotlife sign up as one of our VIPs
get that song download fromMikayla soon and very soon,
we're going to start talking toyou about launching that book
and what that looks like. Andthere are big plans being put in
place for that. And we're goingto ask for your help those of
(21:10):
you that are willing, if youhave questions about that, drop
us a message and we'll try togive you a little insight as to
what that looks like. And wejust want you to go about having
a great week this week. Ember,any final words,
we just love you and we knowthat God is going to move you
forward and the big and smallwaves and in what you think are
(21:31):
stuck ways into amazing purposebecause that's what He has
called you all to do. And I wantyou to receive that God has
something big for you. Right?
You just want to wake it up.
Yes.
Would you be surprised to know that some of the most
successful women of our timeface challenges just like you
and I do. Hi, I'm Amber. And I'mLisa, we're authors of the book
leading ladies, discover yourgod brown strategy for success.
We invite you to join us in anhonest, messy bun conversation
(00:30):
about the things we'd ratherkeep hidden in our lives. Some
of those things can keep us frommoving forward in purpose. So
grab a cup of somethingdelicious, kick off your shoes
and hang out with us for thenext 30 minutes. We all kind of
get stuck in profound times ofgrief. And we talked about kind
(00:53):
of a Lightstep last week. So wewanted to jump in this week and
talk about some of the moreprofound areas where we
experience the nowhere place andit's stuck into a loss a grief.
And I know that, you know, COVIDkind of made us stop a lot of
us, it affected all of us. Andwe had grief a lot of places
(01:16):
that we didn't think that wewould, because this just
affected the whole world. And somany people lost their families.
So many people lost their jobsfor a while lost their jobs
permanently. We had musicianswho couldn't play we had play
outside of their homes, we had apeople who were speakers who
(01:37):
couldn't go and beyond speakingengagement. So it's made us
rethink everything sure of ourlives, and when will it ever be
the same? Right. So Lisa, youhave a profound moment that
really impacted your life.
Uh, yeah, and and, you know, inkind of recapping this last
week, we did talk about thelighter aspect of this, we
(01:59):
talked about the Groundhog's Daymovie, and how Bill Murray was
kind of stuck in this space inlife where he just kept waking
up and going through thatprocess in the movie where you'd
wake up right there the sameplace until he finally started
learning some things, he finallystarted investing in something
other than himself, and ithelped him to look outward. And
(02:21):
even when it comes to moreprofound versions of being stuck
or going nowhere, or justfinding yourself not able to
putting one foot in front of theother. It's a similar way that
we get out of it even in themost profoundly deep, dark
times. I know all of us gothrough some difficult things in
(02:43):
life. Some of those things wejust choose not to talk to
anybody about. We don't have bigconversations out in the open,
where we say to people, this iswhat I'm going through, I think
we just automatically kind ofcurl inward and try to take it
on ourselves. Only those who maybe walk up close and personally
(03:04):
with us really know what we'rethinking, what we're feeling and
how we're working our waythrough those moments. And so we
get stuck in things that mayseem light and airy. We talked
about procrastination last week.
But we ended the whole conceptlast week of there are deeper
forms of grief. Maybe we've gonethrough extreme trauma, maybe
(03:27):
we've gone through some prettyprofound hurt. And yes, the
grief word. And I ended lastweek on saying even in those
moments, I believe there'snothing wasted in those
profoundly hard times. I believethat we can glean something from
those profoundly hard times ifwe're willing to. This is not a
(03:50):
who's who on whose hurt is thedeepest in life. That's not what
this episode is about. But we doall walk in places that most of
creation walks in as well. Andwe just kind of put it under the
rug. You know,one of the most profound things
that even one of the ladies whoshared in the book, Janelle
(04:13):
Raritan said trauma is trauma,there is no level of trauma,
things affect us in suchdifferent ways. You cannot go
through life saying, well, yourgrief is bigger than my grief,
your trauma is bigger than mytrauma. Trauma has an impact in
our own physical bodies, right?
(04:34):
That it impacts us in a waywhether it is a big T trauma,
like loss of a spouse, that canhit us in the same area. That a
loss of a job or a loss ofcareer or even the loss of a pet
you know, that hits us in thesame physical place and it
(04:58):
stores in a place called the MBig you love the brain, and
trauma is trauma. So I think thething about it is Lisa, when you
talk about these differentplaces of trauma, we all have
different areas, but she has nothe loss of a child the loss of
her career. We have a lot ofthis, but we cannot rate trauma.
No, I think the thing that wecan do is we can acknowledge
(05:22):
that what took you to that placeis not exactly the same as what
took me to my place. Exactly. Ilost a child. While it was
profound. It's not the same asyou losing a husband altogether,
something else took us there.
And I think that's one thingthat I really think is
important. And it helps in thewhole spectrum of getting you
(05:44):
out and forward motion. I feellike for me, I had to find a way
to reframe, re adjust what I waswalking through. I'm not saying
I had to act like it didn'thappen, because there was no way
to do that. When you lose deeplyand profoundly, you cannot just
act like it didn't happen.
(06:06):
Share a little bit about thatstory where you were at in life
when you lost.
Sure we had moved back to theKansas City area to be around
family, Randy and I knew wealways wanted to have four
children, we had three beautifuldaughters, I didn't have any
huge aspirations that we weregoing to get a boy, as a matter
of fact, we'd been told thatNoah was a girl all along
(06:28):
through the pregnancy withultrasounds. So I went into
preterm labor a couple of timestowards the end, then when I did
deliver, he was still born aftera full pregnancy. You know, it's
funny, I had had three verysuccessful pregnancies. So for
me, it had never registered inmy brain that I might experience
(06:50):
a loss right. At the time, myparents who had been married for
over 35 years, were alsoexperiencing a divorce, and it
was rockin my world, I'm notgonna lie, I'm so grateful that
time has passed. And that'stotally different story. And we
should talk about it someday.
Because watching people gothrough that type of a divorce,
(07:11):
especially within a family, evenas an adult child, I had to work
through some stuff. But back tothe original story with losing
Noah, I never in my wildestdreams occurred to me that I
might lose a child because I hadthree very healthy children. And
the pregnancies were not alleasy, but it just had never
connected, that I might lose.
(07:34):
And so when I did was very hard.
I feel like I spent months in avery dark place. And there were
wonderful people who wanted tohelp my family through that. And
people were loving and kind andpraying, I had to find a reason
to come out of the dark place.
And my reason for me was mythree little girls, my three
(07:55):
children, or what helped mecrawl out of that space. And
what's so funny about grief,ladies, is that I can be this
many years past that thishappened in 1999. I can be this
many years past this, and griefcan take you right back to those
(08:16):
very deep, profound moments. Andso in my journey, I had to find
a way to make sure that thatlittle life which I know goes on
due to my personal beliefs as aChrist follower into eternity, I
know it does. I believe in myheart someday I'm going to see
that child of mine now do I knowwhat is going to look like? Do I
(08:39):
know? Is he going to be in grownform? Am I just going to sense
his presence? Is it going to bea little baby and I get to raise
them all over? I don't know anyof that. We don't know that
much. God doesn't give us thatmuch information about what that
looks like. But I do believe Iwill be reunited with him. And I
had to do some things to makesure in my heart and my mind
(09:01):
that that little life wassignificant. And I had to start
walking through my grief in waysthat put it in perspective that
he was significant. He didmatter. He did have purpose. I
may not get what the purposesnow, but down the road later,
maybe it will make more sensethis many years past losing him.
(09:23):
Doesn't make sense. It's stillnot something that I would ever
wish anyone go through. But Ihave to be honest, my little
girls helped me crawl out ofthat dark space, my sweet
husband who was equally walkingthrough such difficult profound
grief watching me close in onmyself. It was such an
(09:45):
interesting time because I dofeel the thing that helped me
move past it was recognizingthere were others that needed me
and also finding a way and Ihate to use this word, finding a
way to memorialize this littleperson and whose life made such
a big impact in such a shortamount of time. And so there
were ways that I was able to dothat I one of the first things
(10:08):
that I remember I did was Iimmediately started to find ways
to let people know he had beenhere. So whether it was online
memorial site where I couldregister his name and say, Hey,
he was loved, we don't get towalk with him, but he was loved,
or immediately recognizing,okay, my story is hard to tell,
(10:29):
it doesn't feel good to tell it.
But let me pay attention to thedetails. Because maybe someday,
there might be somebody else whohas gone through this type of
grief. And maybe just maybe Icould help them. You know, if
somebody could get out of thehole a little bit more quickly,
maybe I can help. Once again,it's very similar to what we
talked about last week, when wetalked about when we're stuck,
(10:51):
we have to start looking up andoutward. What can I do rather
than just you know, the blindersare on, I'm all caved in, in
this emotional, fetal position,looking up and outward. Are
there others out here that Icould impact or I could be able
to move through this with thatwas one of the turning points
(11:16):
for me that helped me crawl outof that space,
I noticed that a lot of timesyour head, because I know what
it is like to walk through verydark, dark, dark times. And
grief is almost an illnesspeople cannot see just like any
mental health thing is, you canonly turn in so long before it
(11:40):
just becomes completelysuffocating. And even though we
all need to have our time ofprocessing those dark places,
and you know what, you neverreally get over?
Yes, I've put it this way. Itfeels like the moments where you
are taken back in time becomefewer and far between. Yes,
(12:01):
sometimes things happen. Andyou'll go right back there. What
if what you experienced what ifthis stuck you're in came from
violence, an act of something sohorrific that reliving those
moments in your mind, it's justhard to break out of that space?
I would say in those moments,there is no shame in getting
(12:21):
help. You know, we talked lastweek about some things that we
need to look at when we'restuck. One of them is you need
to find your team, those peoplethat can build you up and
encourage you. Sometimes that isprofessional, sometimes we need
a good therapist, we need acounselor, we need someone to
help us go in and process thetrauma, the grief in order to
(12:45):
open it up, wash out that deepseated pain and hurt and to heal
properly. That is one thing thatbenefits.
I think what you talked abouthaving someone to talk to
ladies, I think sometimes weunderestimate the need for
having that person in place. VIPperson in place that you can
(13:09):
process things through. I knownot everybody has a counselor
that they're established with.
But I remember the day that Istarted praying for someone like
Lisa in my life because Irealized I didn't have a person
in place that I could talkthrough some of the things girls
if you don't have someone whoyou see as a iron Sharpens Best
(13:31):
Friend, you can be who you needto be without the makeup on. You
need that person now they willnot be the be all and end all to
get all the solutions. You needall the answers to the
questions, but they can be aguiding voice to you and help
you in every area of your life.
(13:53):
So ladies, if you're trying tomove in purpose, and you're
trying to move daily, you need aP IP person in
place, find your posse find thecrew find your group and your
writer die ladies find that andyou know what? Sometimes we have
difficulty even recognizingokay, what kind of women can be
(14:14):
that, like Ember said ironsharpens iron, find women who
have gone through some toughstuff and you know what, maybe
they don't think like you. Youdon't look like you. Maybe they
didn't handle a personalsituation the way you would
have. I think sometimes thatmakes all the difference finding
those people that are going tocall out the best in you even
(14:35):
when it hurts, but do so in loveand walk with you through those
storms. Another thing is justlike we talked about last week,
acting your way into feeling anddoing acting your way into
wholeness and health and resolveand making sure that you are
taking tiny baby steps to do so.
Those little girls helped me getup every day whether it was
(14:57):
making breakfast So are helpingthem get their clothes on, or
getting them Tubby time at nightand getting them back in bed.
Those are things in life thatmay seem mundane, but they're
little tiny steps that keep usin focus moving forward, not
head down. But looking up andout. Yes, there's a time where
(15:18):
you don't need to be lookingout. But once you get to that
point where it's time to start,just some of the most mundane
things of life can be God's wayof pulling you back into RIA
everyday life again, right?
One of the most profound thingsthat I did at the height of my
(15:38):
mental health issues is I wentoutside and I found great joy
and just taking pictures, youhave to make yourself do those
kinds of things. I had to makemyself focus and I would write
about Hey, God, this is honestlyhow to journal. In fact, that's
how my Instagram started. That'show my bare face journals fair
(16:01):
face girl started is I just hadto write to God, honestly, how I
was feeling exactly. But turnthat back around to the
goodness, I know that God wasgiving me and showing me all
around. Because you have to havethat balance. You can't live in
denial about greed. Nope. Aboutstuckness. And in your
(16:23):
humaneness. It's not sinful, tobe stuck in grief. No, it's a
dark place of stronghold thatGod doesn't want for you to be
to destroy you.
He loves us. You know, it's notthat we're not going to go
through life and never havehardship. He doesn't promise
that. And I would challengeanyone who believes that that is
(16:47):
truly what the Christian mindsetis that it's just all sunbeams
and unicorns, and it's not yourgoing to have struggle, it's not
much to my granddaughter, nor isdemise it is not all unicorns.
But at any rate, it's like thatyou have to find a way in those
(17:07):
difficult moments to find yourjoy, and to find peace. And I
believe that is what God is allabout doing for us when we're in
those deepest, darkest momentsand times, he is all about that.
And we just have to allow him tohelp us through them. You know,
part of why we don't put feet onour dreams and just keep towards
(17:29):
it is these little distractions,whether it's okay, we're
procrastinating, or whether wewalk through some really heavy
issues in life, we don't findthat there's anything about
those that might be salvageable,or might be worth stepping on
top of to get to a better place.
Nobody wants to hear about thatin your life. People have their
(17:51):
own problems, people have theirown issues. Part of what I find
interesting about the women thatwe included in this book is that
they all have walked throughvery similar spaces in life.
Some of them have had verysimilar experiences that term,
there's nothing new under thesun. You know what, we all walk
through some stuff, we all bumpup against some stuff. The key
(18:15):
is how do we move past the stuffand start to really walk in the
purpose that God put us herefor? How do we do it, these
women that we want to introduceyou to in this book are going to
show you ways that they've hadto walk through the same stuff.
And they're choosing to let youlook in and see that for a
(18:36):
minute, in the hopes thatsomehow you get a foot up and
you start walking in yourpurpose as well. And that's just
kind of a great segue, as ourtime is coming to a close here
to talk about just why we'rehere. We're here because we want
you to find your God givenpotential. And we're gonna let
(18:57):
you sit down with this book isgoing to be like having a little
cup of coffee or tea and sippingit along as you read their
stories and gleaning what youcan to help put yourself into a
more successful pattern ofliving life fully for the cause
of Christ.
And we would love for you guysto get involved we would love
(19:19):
for you to share your stories ofstuckness of solutions that you
walked through and it has been abenefit to you. We're a almost a
sisterhood of sisters liftingsisters helping us do those
brainstorming, thought leadingwe can't do what we do without
(19:39):
each other. We can't moveforward and purpose without each
other and we need to value who'snext to us more than we have in
the past because we're not onthis journey alone. Firstly, we
have our Father who never leavesus or forsakes us and we have a
community of sisters like us whojust want Don't walk tandem with
(20:01):
us and cheer each other on aswe're moving in together and
help each other as we get stuck.
Soyour assignment this week, once
again, we just asked you to liftup your gaze, lift up your eyes,
look around, you look at what'shappening around you, could
there possibly be things tolearn from in this moment that
you're going nowhere, you'restuck. Usually, there are things
(20:24):
that we can glean from themoment. And if we ask God to
show us what those things are, Ibelieve that he does, and I
believe that he will. And sofind that circle of trusted
people that have your bestinterests at heart and find
those iron sharpens ironrelationships in your life and
ask God, what do you have forme? What is there that you've
(20:47):
given me that I could startutilizing in a new and a fresh
way and go to leading ladies dotlife sign up as one of our VIPs
get that song download fromMikayla soon and very soon,
we're going to start talking toyou about launching that book
and what that looks like. Andthere are big plans being put in
place for that. And we're goingto ask for your help those of
(21:10):
you that are willing, if youhave questions about that, drop
us a message and we'll try togive you a little insight as to
what that looks like. And wejust want you to go about having
a great week this week. Ember,any final words,
we just love you and we knowthat God is going to move you
forward and the big and smallwaves and in what you think are
(21:31):
stuck ways into amazing purposebecause that's what He has
called you all to do. And I wantyou to receive that God has
something big for you. Right?
You just want to wake it up.
Yes.
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