February 9, 2022 • 55 mins
How to Make it through Love & Loss.
Randy Kutz is and ordained Pastor & has a Masters in counseling. Randy & his wife, Jennifer Kutz share their life's journey & loss of their beautiful 10 year old daughter, Ellie. Even though their heart still aches, in this encouraging message, they give practical tips & guidelines that have helped them make it though the tough times of life.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The spiritual world is a veryreal place and we have an enemy
of our souls that is trying tomimic, mock and make light of
the real and psychics, any typeof medium and those things.
Though they be real as far asthe spiritual experiences that
you might encounter with them,they are leading you down an
(00:21):
absolute path of separation fromGod, and you will never find the
fulfillment.
You will never find thehappiness.
That is promised us by having alife filled with the truth.
Hi, my name is Camille Battagliawith Heavenly Hookups.
I'm so happy that you could joinus today.
I'm here with Randy and JenniferKutz.
You're in for a treat today.
(00:41):
Randy is an associate pastor atFoundation Stone Church in Ohio.
He has a passion for theprophetic, also if anybody needs
counseling, we can talk moreabout how they can get ahold of
you later.
Let's start at the beginning.
How did you two meet?
It's funny actually I was ayouth pastoring at the time and
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of course this beautiful, awoman sitting here next to me
was a member of the youth group.
I had to be really careful atfirst not to spark any
scandalous anything.
So I had to had a long time towait until she we're about four
years or so apart.
So as I was ministering to theyouth.
And I was ordained an elder atthe young age of 21 years old.
(01:24):
Being put in charge of the youthgroup I waited patiently for
just a year or two untilJennifer graduated.
Then I just approached her andwhat's comical about it as I'll
let her tell this part in aminute.
I went to her parents to askpermission before we ever
started dating or before sheeven knew that I had an inkling
of a liking of her.
So I went to them and to simplyask them when I went there, they
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thought because I was an elderin the church.
They thought I was there on someofficial church business to
talking about something realimportant.
And it was very important, but Iwanted to ask permission if I
could date their daughter, whohappened to be on a mission trip
to Acapulco at the time.
And so it just started off onthis weird note.
I'll let Jennifer jump in here.
So yeah, I was in Acapulco and Ihadn't thought anything about
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it.
Randy had been chatting with mea little more often prior to
this all happening.
I was one of the leaders intraining for youth group and I
just was really involved.
He was just really getting meconnected in with everything.
So right before I left for myAcapulco trip, he gave me a big
hug.
It was a Christmas Eve serviceand he looked at me, said, Hey,
don't have too much fun downthere.
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And I'm like, okay.
I'm like, all right, have a goodChristmas.
I thought I sent a pretty clearmessage.
I had no clue.
So I get back from Acapulco andit's this whole ordeal, like all
of our flights, there's likehundreds of kids down there with
this youth ministry.
Our flights were all delayed andso here I am I'm 17 at this
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moment.
I'm 17 and a half, and I'm allby myself in a Mexico airport
trying to find my way home.
And I was making arrangementswith my parents over the phone
and the airline put us up in ahotel for the night.
I was talking to my mom and as Iwas closing out the
conversation, she said, Hey, bythe way, what do you think about
Randy?
(03:12):
And like Randy Kutz, she said,yeah.
I said he's a good youth pastor.
Why?
Just oh, nothing, honey, we'llsee you tomorrow when you get
home.
And that was it.
That's the weirdest questionever.
And as I laid my head down thatnight, I was just about to go to
sleep.
The Lord just told me like, justpoint blank.
He says, you're gonna marryRandy.
And I'm like what?
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He said, you're gonna marryRandy.
And so when I got back home, myparents just had so much to tell
me, they were like, you'll neverbelieve what happened while you
were gone.
And they told me the whole storyof him coming to talk to them
and they just thought I'd be sosurprised that they didn't want
me to go into a conversationwith them not knowing what his
thoughts were and intentions.
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So which I was quite nieve.
But I ended up approaching herand asked her out in the, I
don't know, the rest is history.
We became good friends.
And then we tried to, we did ourbest.
We really felt the Lord gave usa strategy and how we should
handling our dating and courtinglife and kept ourselves pure by
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the grace of God and was able tohave a wonderful dating courting
relationship, always with theintention of, we're in this to
see if marriage is a realpossibility, we didn't want to
go into it, blindly just,throwing darts at a dartboard,
wondering, we wanted to be veryintentional from the outset and
of course the Lord had the plansand like I said, the rest was
history.
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The hard part about our datingrelationship came towards the
end of our engagement when wewere just a few months about to
be married.
And we experienced the loss ofmy father and he was only 46
years old.
That's part of our story.
Very young and very surprised,he went in for a pretty standard
operation and ended up with apretty severe infection and he
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died very inexplicably onenight.
This was about exactly twomonths before our wedding.
It was actually the day of mybridal shower.
And so, it rocked our world, butit just it's amazing.
Suddenly impacted justabsolutely everything.
My father was the, at the timehe was the associate pastor, the
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role, I currently know fill andhe was associate pastor at our
church.
It just rocked the whole, thechurch world our family life
obviously.
And because it was so unexpectedeverybody just went reeling and
we actually even talked inconsidered, do we postpone our
wedding?
Do we go through all that?
And we felt like the Lord saidto continue on.
And we were by the grace of God,able to find the strength to
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just continue on.
And my mom was just an amazingwoman of faith and her story is
another amazing story, but justbeing able to latch onto the
things that God had for us andlearn how to trust.
However, when we first gotmarried, we had a rough couple
of years.
Let me say that way just as ayoung man and as a young woman
trying to reel from a emotionalshock as well as other issues.
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And this has been a part of herlife that really never got
addressed.
We started off shaky, but by thegrace of God, we learned how to
trust in him and brought usthrough a lot of insecurities
and brought us through a lot ofmy part.
I'll speak for me, a lot ofselfish behavior.
And God really taught us somevery valuable lessons, but
praise God, his plan is alwaysmuch better than ours, when you
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yield to the process and Godended up doing amazing thing
with us, that's 23 years ago, 23years.
God has been faithful.
Yeah.
How did you guys get throughthat?
What was the thing that made youtrust each other?
Was it just hanging on for threeyears or was there a strategy?
Was a difficult time.
When we got married, I was justbarely 20.
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I'd had this whole fairy taleimage in my mind of, we've saved
ourselves.
We've been pure, we've done allthe right steps.
And, God's going to honor that,and, our marriage is going to be
blessed.
And then we walk through thistime of just great loss.
And I'm thinking in my mindokay, Lord, this is not the
picture I had.
This is not how it's supposed tobe.
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And here I am, I'm now married.
And my husband is just he'sgrieving.
He's lost his father.
He's grieving.
And I don't know how to handlethat.
And so both of us just reallyhad to lean into the Lord.
We both had to do some work ofjust growing up and letting
ourselves grieve and and reallyjust trusting the Lord.
And as we trusted the Lord, wewere beginning to just be able
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to lean into each other andtrust each other too.
Yeah, it was, yeah, it was.
And, but some of those things, Iknow that from the bottom of my
heart, that it's through thetestings and trials that we go
through that sometimes thegreatest gems, the greatest
blessings that come in our lifecome out of those things because
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we've learned something.
And we, when we learn how to dieto ourselves and our agendas,
then the Lord can really, showus, that was the work of Christ.
And my father was a propheticman himself.
Matter of fact, he was, I wouldsay a greater prophet than me,
certainly, and many others whohe was a father in the prophetic
in many ways in our church andin the whole prophetic movement
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that we're involved with andlearning how to, and losing him
was just so traumatic for mebecause I identified so much
with him and we were veryclosely bonded and and helping
me in ministry and walkalongside me was just the
greatest joy of my life.
And then all of a sudden thatwas gone.
I was still an elder in thechurch and I was all of a sudden
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felt like a lot of pressure wason me and and I didn't know how
to relate to my bride.
Like I, I thought I, I couldalways think I'll go ask dad for
questions.
And I, we had great counseling.
We had a good pre-marriagecounseling heading into things
but it just didn't set us up forwhat we, our expectations.
I will say that, weren't on thesame level.
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And again, until we learned howto really surrender those
expectations, it was difficultgoing but God gave us a
strategy.
I remember talking to our seniorpastor a couple of times and he
just, had to really teach me howto love my wife, unconditionally
and just say, this is the wifeof my youth, and no matter what,
it's, my selfish desires had tobe laid aside and I had to look
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towards her needs and learn howto respect your needs and lay
those things down.
And that through a process oftime, we just learned how to
embrace each other in a dramaticway and praise God, I believe
were very strong, healthymarriage, and this is the glory
of God, we're pressing on, evento this day, we go through our
things, but we just continue tolook to him for everything.
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Was there a pivotal moment whereyou both realized we've made it
through this season?
I think they're there.
I would point to a couple ofthings actually, but earliest
on, I point to, it was probably,it was.
I would say three, three or fouryears into our marriage.
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After my, of course my fatherhad passed, we had to make a
decision about, how are we goingto be able to buy a house?
And, we had, we were living in amobile home at the time and we
had to make the decision to moveback home for a little while
with my mom, partially to helpher out because she was still
going through a hard time.
Just still picking up the piecesafter my dad left and us, being
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able to save enough to put adown payment on our first home
and things like that.
And it was a hard decision.
And when we sat there and madethat decision, we had to, we had
a real come to Jesus meetingwith ourselves and that was one
of them.
The next one was the birth ofour first daughter, Eliana.
When she was born.
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It, obviously we were still wereliving with my mother at the
time.
And that was just such a huge, Idon't know, how would you
describe it?
It was a blessing and a trial,because, we basically had to
make an apartment out of mymom's basement and it was just
difficult, trying to worktogether to make all that
happen.
Jennifer working and me still inthe throws of, I was working
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full-time at several differentjobs before the Lord brought me
full-time in the ministry, I wasa director down at Toledo's
largest homeless shelter.
And those were some pivotalmoments in my life.
And I met a man when my daughterwas just born.
I met a man down at cherishmission, I'll say his name, Dan
Rogers.
And he was a tremendous blessingin my life and became a a father
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figure to me and mentored me andgave me opportunity.
When, I didn't feel like Ideserved it, but he helped me
find who out who I was.
Through that time of workingwith, some of the hardest
conditions of, homelessness andalcoholism and all kinds of
people that were dependent, hetaught me how to find myself in
that and find who I was inChrist and be able to minister.
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I would like to believe thatbled over into our marriage.
In many ways saved our marriagebecause we were.
It was rough but God gave usgrace and through a strong
mentor, he was able to help holdour hand and to get us through a
lot of very difficult times.
I don't know if you want to sayanything there?
I don't think of a specificturning point.
I know that each of us have been100% committed to making this
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work.
Divorce was never an option.
No.
And so it's just been thisprocess, I just really felt like
I was learning how marriagesanctifies us.
It shows us more and more of thethings that the Lord wants us to
work through and work on.
And I definitely think that he'sworked up that process.
I feel like we would go throughreally good seasons and then we
would, oh, here's another thingwe need to work on.
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And then we worked through thatand then we'd go through a good
season and, oh, here's anotherthing we need to work on.
God's faithful.
to continue to work those thingsin us, but it was around the
time of our daughter's deatheight years ago.
Where we really dug in.
We really dug in, it was, andmaybe I'm getting ahead of
myself, but it was in thedarkness of coming out from that
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grief cloud, like at about ninemonths after her death that we
really sought help.
Like just, we just wanted itdone.
Like this time we got to getthis thing, we've got to work it
through.
From a traumatic event of myfather passing kinda pushed us
into this mode.
And then another traumatic eventof our daughter's passing,
pushed us into the mode of, itshowed, it revealed all the
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cracks in the foundation.
And we had to go to work.
We saw counseling, we went to aa nationally known marriage
therapy program.
I started my journey of gettingmy graduate degree in counseling
and it was a through all that,it was just such a, just a long
while it was a couple yearprocess of us, really, again,
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never, we never had considereddivorce but we knew that we
weren't living the kind of lifeand the marriage that honored
the Lord in the ways that weneeded to.
We wanted more.
We wanted better.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We wanted to grow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's so good.
What I'm hearing you two say isthat you were engaged and
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committed.
Like those are two key words,like maybe you weren't engaged
to where everything was, the wayyou had imagined your married
life would be, but you wereengaged.
You were committed, like divorceis not happening and we're going
to work through this.
So I think that's a key thingwith the commitment is also to
be engaged.
You have to be present.
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And you have to do it together.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And certainly the Lord'sdefinitely brought us to this
place where like we have theability to help others and to
speak into others' lives becausewe've walked through so many of
the things that married coupleswill deal with.
And so it's been it's been ablessing on that end to be able
to comfort others and to walkwith others and to have an
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understanding of where they'reat.
I can see that the Lord'sdefinitely used it.
To me, it keeps going back tothe, the dark moments of your
life.
You know what I mean?
It kept us engaged because,since divorce wasn't an option.
And even though there was a lotof tension at times, it kept us
focused on, on what we needed tobe focused on and learning the
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process.
And instead of saying, okay,we're just going to quit.
Try something else.
We stayed engaged and, again,through the pain, and then, like
Jennifer said, when our eldestdaughter passed away eight years
ago, it opened up a whole newlevel of understanding for us
that, Ecclesiastes 3:11 issomething that comes to mind
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often, and it says, that he hasplaced eternity in our hearts.
But that man cannot determineits beginning from its end.
That whole verse just sent me ona quest of understanding, what
is the heart of God towards us?
And what is the heart of Godtowards us as not just as a
couple, but as a family and as ahuman race, he wants us to be so
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engaged with him in those ways,even in our darkest moments
where we all feel like giving upand giving in, if we can just
continue to press in and pressthrough, he will speak to us.
And that's a lot of ways howit's shaped a lot of the
prophetic things in our lifethat we share with people and
share with couples and, as wehelp them and help ourselves
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really enter into a place whereknowing Christ becomes the
number one goal andunderstanding what's happening
in an eternal realm.
And you could use that eternityand call it the kingdom of God
and, pressing into the kingdomand all those ways, it opens you
up to be able to realize thatthere's freedom beyond religion.
There's freedom way beyond justthe day-to-day road of this is
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what I have to do, and this iswhat I have to be as a
Christian.
It opens you up into a whole newparallel existence where you are
living.
Even though we're having a lifein the natural world, we're have
this parallel life where we'reliving in the kingdom of God
simultaneously and the richnessand the blessing of being led by
the spirit and letting him comeand enter and dwell us is just
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the most magnificent thing.
Yeah.
Do you want to get into a littlebit more about what happened
with your daughter and then whathappened after that?
I'll let Jennifer jump in hereand I'll just interject a few
things here and there.
I'm sure.
All right.
So Ellie, so we have justintroduce the family a little
bit, Eliana.
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She at this point, she would be18.
Sophia 16.
Sam is 14 and Tabitha, the babyis 11.
Now I'm going to go backwards alittle bit Tabitha, when she was
born.
She surprisingly we had Ellie inthe hospital and then we had
Sophia very suddenly at homewhen she was born.
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And then that was such a greatexperience that we ended up
having the other kiddos at home.
That's how I'm going to put it.
I delivered my daughter in thebathroom as we were trying to
get to the hospital.
So yeah, so Tabitha, we wereplanning the birth at home and
once she was born, we didn'tknow it, but she had a
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congenital heart defect that waslife-threatening.
And she ended up by the grace ofGod.
Surviving until we got hermedical help and they deemed
that she had a heart conditioncalled transposition of the
great arteries.
And essentially she was gettingno oxygen blood flow to the, her
body.
And 20 years ago they would say,Hey, we can't really do anything
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for you for this.
Just enjoy your baby for a fewdays.
And then you'll have to let themgo.
Maybe that was 30 years ago now,but they've come up with some
really good surgery.
They were able to do open-heartsurgery, arterial switch on day,
I think 10.
And that whole situation wassuch a trial.
It was so intense.
We didn't know from one momentto the next, what was going to
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happen or if she would survive,they couldn't promise us that
she would one survive or to haveany kind of life.
Once she did have the surgery,they couldn't promise anything.
It was just this whole thing oftrusting the Lord and it opened
our eyes to a whole community ofcongenital heart defect
families.
And it just a whole nother thingthat we'd never experienced.
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It was so intense.
And I really thought, okay, theLord's going to be using this
one.
This is the difficult thing thatour families walk through, that
the Lord's going to use, andwe're going to be able to reach
out to other people.
And then just, what was it Threeyears later, three years later
Ellie's 10th birthday.
She right around that time shecame down with a little
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sickness.
We just thought it was a normalchildhood illness.
It actually, it was strepthroat.
But she had become a littleextra delirious.
And so we took her to thehospital and the doctors looked
at us and said, mom, dad it'sjust a little fever.
It's just a little virus.
Give her a double dose of Motrinand go home.
In the process though, and thetesting, like it was a traumatic
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experience.
So they did, they gave her adouble dose of Motrin, sent her
home.
She came out of her likedelirium that she had been in
overnight.
Then the next day it was churchday and Randy was preaching that
day.
So Ellie and I stayed home andwe laughed about what had
happened the day before, becauseshe had been so delirious that
she was saying such sillythings.
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And she's quite cognitive, shewas with it.
She was telling me the story.
She had spent the night withgrandparents the night before.
And she was telling me storiesfrom that.
And then she was really sad.
She's mom, I was hoping to go tochurch today.
I had invited a waitress tochurch.
She told me she was going tocome.
He said, I wish I could be thereto greet her.
It was just a sweet day thatwe'd had together.
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And then Randy and the kiddoscame home and she placed her
order for some soup fromsomewhere Trisha's or something.
Then she said, mom, I want toget a bath before they come
home.
Cause she'd been sick andsitting in bed all for the last
couple of days.
And so she went up to get a bathand while she was getting a
bath, she looked at me and shesaid, mom there's something
wrong with my legs.
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Can you help me get out of thebathtub?
And so I helped her out and shesat on her bed and she was like,
man, mom, I don't, I think Ineed you to carry me down the
stairs.
I'm not feeling too well.
And we got her downstairs justin time for everyone to get home
and sweet Sophia.
At that time, she wanted to bewith her sister they're only 18
months apart.
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And she was sitting there tryingto feed her soup and just
telling her about the day atchurch and stuff.
And in that process, like herleg started to cramp up and we
were really confused.
We thought maybe she'sdehydrated.
We were calling the doctor andtrying to figure it out.
But what really was happeningwas her body was shutting down.
She had gone septic and from thestrep, they'd never treated the
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strep.
They actually scratched the backof her throat during the tests
the day before when they swappedher and they swapped her.
And there was a wound on theback of her throat.
This is where the sepsis endingup going in, where the infection
entered the bloodstream.
So we raced her back.
We raced her back to thehospital and I'm on the way
there.
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I was sitting in the backseatwith her and Randy was racing
through all the lights andtrying to get there quick.
And as we were going, she wastelling me, she was like, mom, I
can't feel my knees now.
And then mom, I can't feel, Ican't feel my waist.
And it was just systematicallygoing up.
And as we pulled into the ER,just like that moment, it just
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hit me like, oh my goodness,what's going on here?
And I just was able to tell her,I said, baby girl, I love you.
You're so beautiful.
And I think we scooped her upand we placed her in the
wheelchair and ran in just likeany kind of ER, show you would
say, you just yelling for help.
And in that last moment shehelped us get her into the
wheelchair.
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And that, I think that was hervery last thing she did.
And.
And Randy didn't even know it.
He was parking the car as I'mrunning into the emergency room
and they scooped her up andstarted yelling, cardiac arrest
and doing all the things to tryto bring her back.
They worked on her for about anhour and then just couldn't get
her back.
(22:56):
So that was, yeah, that was verydifficult.
But in that time, yeah.
We had so many people surroundus, like within moments at the
hospital.
Yeah.
I, I would pause here to say,that, you cannot devalue the
body of Christ enough, and Iwould encourage anybody to
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everyone to get as involved asyou can within the body of
Christ.
Even though there could be a lotof pain and a lot of hurt
involved with being with people.
There's, we found so muchstrength.
We, I dunno how many people cameto the hospital, a hundred
people or so was there, andtrying to support us as my
daughter was fighting for herlife and that she was actually,
they were trying to work tobring her back.
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In the whole process, one of mydear friends came up to me and
seeing the, just the outpouringof love and all the things that
were happening.
And he whispered in my ear, hesaid, Randy said, We get to keep
this forever.
And even though there was such atragic loss, the reality that,
that our family here is sotemporary it's temporal and what
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the reality of it is in thekingdom of God it's not it's
forever.
And we get to keep that forever.
We, that never goes away.
And I have lived on thatstatement for these past eight
years realizing, and knowingthat the reality of my life is
very little to do with what'saround me, we have, since, the
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Lord has opened up ministryopportunities and we run a
counseling center for grievingpeople.
The Lord has brought propertiesinto our life and all kinds of
things that would consume ourtime.
But.
All those things areinconsequential to the
knowledge.
And knowing that what we'reactually living in a parallel
life is so much greater becausewe can enter into the spirit
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realm and we can interact withthose that have gone before, and
we can have experiences withChrist and he can bring us into
a new understanding.
And we're surrounded, thescripture says right, with a
great cloud of witnesses andthey're witnessing the fact that
they made it, and if they werehere with us in the flesh, I
preached this many of thefunerals that I do as a pastor.
You know what I mean?
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If that person that passed on nomatter their situation, if they
were here, they'd be telling usone thing.
And one thing only surrendereverything to getting to know
Christ.
That's their message that betheir message to us.
So don't worry about anything.
Just develop your relationshipwith Christ because that's where
true life is and all these otherthings.
That's what the scripture seekyou first, the kingdom of God
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and his rights and all of thesethings that we worry about.
All of these things that we wantwill be added to us.
But when we have this amazingopportunity to see the kingdom
of God in its fullness and itsrally and live it, and he's
invited us in by the power andthe work of the holy spirit.
It's beyond our comprehension inthis world, which is great for
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me because I don't considermyself the smartest guy in the
world.
But I love the fact that theLord does not have to use the
most intellectual.
He doesn't have to use somebodythat can know the Bible cover to
cover.
All he wants is somebody that'swilling, yielded and submitted
to him.
And he can open up the windowsof heaven, not just as far as
blessing us here in this life,but as far as blessing us for
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our soul and blessing usinternally.
And that's where the Lord is asjust deposited in us, this
desire to help people getthrough these difficult times
and help them.
To think about and look at andsee eternity from a different
perspective than how we just allwait for eternity as if it's
gonna, the moment I die here,then I'll have to deal with it.
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I just could not believe,disbelieve that anymore.
Your eternity is now, we arealready alive forever, and
Christ already gave us eternallife and we can begin to live
that life now and reap thebenefits of here in this life
and have a mission and have apurpose and have goals in this
life that are become meaningful,become filled with purpose
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because we're seeing life andseeing the pain and the joys and
the life that we experiencethrough his eyes and being able
to help others as is, becomesthe mission, because you're
experiencing it yourself.
Wow.
A lot's going through my mindright now.
Like, how do you deal with maybeunbelievers who've lost a loved
one or, even speak to the fearthat's going on in society right
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now, I feel like I'm hearinglike all these questions that
people might have surroundingwhat happened to you.
You don't get to that placethough.
It's definitely a work inprogress.
I know that we didn't suddenlyin this place, in this
understanding when we lost Elliewe had to fight, we had to work
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through the pain.
We had to work through thegrief, the trauma we were
desperate to have others aroundus who understood what we were
going through.
It was really important to besurrounded with people who would
speak into that and influencethat and walk with you and
sometimes carry you.
And that's important.
On a very practical side ofthings, hearing somebody's
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story.
And, somebody that maybe hasexperienced grief that say I
don't understand what you'retalking about.
I don't understand, thespiritual world then, in talking
with somebody that at thebeginning of that processes is
sitting down with somebody andsaying, tell me your story, tell
me, what you're dealing with.
Tell me how what this loss meantto you and how are you dealing
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with it?
And tell me about this person.
Tell me about their life.
Tell me about who they were andtell me, what hopes and dreams.
And even though that is like,ripping a bandaid off in a lot
of ways.
It's such a could be a verypainful experience.
It's so necessary in the processof being able to share that
story.
And for the believers out therethat are one of help and work
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with people that are strugglingthere, my advice would be to be
that voice of listening ear,where they can just come to and
they can just feel the opennessand the warmth that, that Christ
would ultimately provide throughyou.
And for those that arestruggling, that, that don't,
have have the security and theknowledge of who they are in
Christ.
I would say open yourself up tosee and to hear, what else is
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available besides just dealingwith the pain.
The pain is not going anywhere,the loss is not going anywhere,
but we can have a relationshipwith the Lord that will help us.
I don't know how?
It'll be quite honest with you,when we're dealing with and
helping people that are in theworld, I it's a very difficult
thing because they don't havethis connection.
That their whole world waswrapped up in this person.
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Their whole life was wrapped upin that person.
And we have to help them get tothe place where we can help them
understand that, there's a hope,we have a hope, the scripture
says we have the anchor of oursouls, a hope that we have that,
that we don't know what thefuture holds.
We don't know, but we can beginto trust in Jesus and we can
begin to put the anchor in ourlife that will bring us to the
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next place.
And helping them navigate thosewaters but just by being a
listening ear, just by beingsomebody that is open, you will
see opportunities that will openin front of you.
And we have to learn to developthat type of a mentality and a
heart of, what Christ cared foreveryone equally.
He loved the people so much.
He wasn't about, lettingsomebody just stay lost, he had
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a concern for those that werelost and he, wasn't just
accepting, these uncertain timesthat live in, there, people are,
they don't know what to do.
I know the person that does knowwhat to do, and that brings me
hope and peace and life, and Ican learn to trust.
In the knowledge of knowing thathe is, he's got this no matter
what happens in life, he's gotthis and we just have to, we
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just have to live in encourageeach other.
You don't have to seek first,him seek first, the kingdom of
God, let it become the thingthat, that motivates you.
And you that's the number onething that we can do is to help
people to get refocused on whatis important.
To speak to the fear.
That was something I definitelydealt with after Ellie died.
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Lord, I can't handle the thoughtof losing another, that fear was
really great.
And I remember specificallywrestling with the Lord on that
one because, she was young, shewas healthy.
There was absolutely nopre-existing conditions.
This just came out of the blue.
So to think that, life is sofragile as a mom, that's so
difficult to deal with and whenCOVID comes along and we're
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dealing with all of the fearsthat the world has put in front
of us right now.
I'm challenged as a person causeI've already lost.
I've already lost a kid to avery common illness.
So I'm challenged to keep thatfear in check.
And I just feel like the Lordhas challenged me.
He said that we can't live infear.
We must, we absolutely must justkeep our eyes on him and live.
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We have to live and we can'tlive in fear.
We just need to live and bethose that can walk with one
another and carry the burden ofthose who are trying to break
out of fear.
But yeah it's hard when allthose things are presented and
thrown at you though.
Yeah, I know.
I can't imagine.
I can't imagine.
That's some really great advicebecause a lot of times, you look
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at someone who's lost someonebut you don't know what to say
to that person.
I think that's very helpful andyou're right Jesus was just
concerned for everybody ornon-believers.
One of the, one of thecomforting phrases that king
David even writes about asthough I'd make my bed in hell
thou art with me.
He didn't say, I take you out ofthere.
It doesn't say I do.
He says you're with me and this,and that's one of the best
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things we can do and be forpeople it's just with them in
their pain with them.
And even now, with the world,dealing with all this stuff it's
dealing with, we have to be inthe world.
We're not of it, but we're init, and just be present with
people is a very, just acomforting thing.
If we recognize the power thatwe have as believers, just at
being present people, I think alot of good will will happen.
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Come of it.
Yeah.
That's incredible.
And was your marriage challengedduring this time?
About nine months and felt likeI had alluded to this earlier
about nine months after Elliehad died, that grief cloud, that
kind of makes you a person numbwas starting to lift for me.
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I started to go into this darkplace.
I just, it scared me how.
How painful and desperate Ifelt.
And it was at that time that Ijust, I told Randy, I said,
listen, I have to get rid of allother pain in my life right now,
because I can only, I can'thandle anything else.
I know that the grief is notgoing to go away suddenly.
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It's not oh, you grieve for ayear.
And you're good.
It's gonna be something that wework through regularly, we've
got to deal with this.
We've got to deal with the painand the difficulties, the things
that we struggle with ourmarriage, then I really feel
like we had the grace to reallypull together and let each other
grieve the way each other neededto grieve through that time.
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I feel like we've really had thegrace to do that.
There's a lot of statistics outthere.
It says that, those difficultthings such as child loss and,
it increases the risk ofdifficulties in marriage and
stuff like that.
I don't feel like it caused moredifficulties in our marriage.
I felt like it actually drew ustogether on one end on one side
of it.
But on the other side, it wastime to get rid of this issue,
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these pains that we were dealingwith in the marriage.
And so that's when we really dugin and did our work.
That's when we just reallybuckled down and committed.
For me, it on my side of it, ithad a lot to do with me,
surrendering.
What I needed to do, to be a manand be really actually
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accountable to other men, and mywife, and learning what that
means meant to be honest andopen and sharing.
It's difficult, for men outthere, it's very difficult for
us to open up and to share andto be honest with our feelings
and even for men, it's hard evento decipher what your feelings
are.
Sometimes, I still struggle eventrying to figure out what it is
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I'm feeling, but then, once Ilearned how to convey that
message, that's where some ofthe healing process begins in
learning how to say something,and fortunately, I was married
to a an understanding wife, whodealt with my sin, dealt with my
issues and with with a grace andwas able to deal with some stuff
and likewise me with her.
As we learned how to share andlearn how to communicate with
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real spirit led emotion, whereyou're not letting your emotions
control you, but you'resurrendering them to the Lord
and then letting him help you tofigure out what it is that
you're actually dealing with.
Then you're able to communicatethose things and able to share.
And it opens you up to a newlevel of trust in one another,
as a result.
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That's where the healing processbegins, and speaking with
kindness to one another andspeaking, with an agenda,
speaking life, and blessing, mysenior pastor, one of the things
that challenged me with early onand all the time as he's one of
the guys that holds meaccountable, he's are you
blessing your wife?
I said I pray for every day.
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And he said, that's not what Isaid, are you speaking blessing?
Spirit led blessings and I hadto stop and had to realize, the
life and death is in the powerof the tongue.
As we said in 1st Corinthians14:3 says he, who prophesies
speaks edification exhortationand comfort.
Revelation 19:10 tells us forthe spirit of Jesus Christ is
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the spirit of prophecy, and so Ihad to realize that I had to
speak kindness over my wife.
I had to speak life.
And as I began to bless herlife, I begin to bless her
coming in her, going in herhealth and her day and her
conversation.
And as they begin to do thosethings, that brings a healing
process where you can begin toshare and begin to be open and I
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teach that when I teach even thelittle kids, about the receiving
the baptism of the holy spiritor mentoring into the prophetic
realm, I say, it starts with usjust speaking kindly, because
the enemy doesn't want to speakin kindly.
He wants us to speak negativeand curses and all those things.
But if we speak kindly, then youare beginning to understand what
it means like to listen to theholy spirit, because that's how
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he speaks to us.
I was learning authenticity andhonesty and speaking those
things in love.
Like, I would appease in asituation, but I wouldn't speak
honestly.
That wasn't fair to my husband.
I wouldn't be fully truthful.
I wasn't holding integrity bynot being honest and truthful
with how I was feeling or, Iwould let those frustrations get
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all pent up inside of me.
And then I, I would grow upsetand frustrated and or bitter.
And so that would lead to me,not being able to connect with
them.
And so I was just learning tothat time, just how to be just
how to be honest and authenticwith him.
And that was really important.
That's hard to do.
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I don't know if or not, but Istruggle with that too.
It takes intentionality.
And then after awhile withintentionality it becomes
normal.
It becomes, I have it.
And then you have to sometimespractice it somewhere.
But I think through that time tothe Lord was working on healing
us in all different kinds ofways.
And there was specifically withthe trauma of losing Ellie.
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I had one experiencespecifically where the Lord was
just showing me he just showedme this vision.
All of these pains and all ofthese emotions, I was trying to
give them a name and to givethem to him.
And as I gave them to him, itwas like they were these bricks,
these heavy bricks in a bag.
And, I'd have anger.
(38:32):
I would have fear or, any of theemotions that I had, I was
handing him each of these bricksand then I would hand them the
brick that said pain.
And so he take each of these andhe would, he'd take them from
that from me and dispose ofthem.
But when I came to the one thatwas what that was labeled pain.
He took that so preciously andhis hands and he crushed it and
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he created this beautiful gemand he placed it back in my
hands and he said, listen, thisone is for you to hold.
And this is not just for you,but it's for the people.
It's for others around you, thatour pain is precious.
Our pain is something that wecan relate to others on and it's
a precious gift to be able towalk with others in their
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difficulties, in their trialsand their struggles.
And it's something beautifulthat as humans, we can walk with
one another.
That was very vivid to me thathe really, from that point on
the trauma and the traumaresponses that I had that were
triggering every time I would gointo flashbacks of the difficult
time he healed me of all of thatin that very moment.
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Like I hadn't, I have not hadthat experience since then the
trauma responses.
But that pain, it just, that,that doesn't go away.
The pain, we don't lose thepain.
We that's it's the love that youhave for someone that you've
lost that is not there with you.
And that's a precious thing.
It's a precious thing to be ableto walk with others and their
difficulty.
So that was another thing thatthe Lord walked with me through
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that time and helped me tounderstand.
Yeah, that's beautiful.
Randy, do you want to talk alittle bit about your experience
with heaven?
And yeah, so yeah it was it wasabout a year or so after Ellie
passed.
I had been obviously justgrieving and I was with my
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senior pastor and we were doingwhat we title, our school of the
holy spirit.
And we were ministering to achurch.
And in the last session, weteach on just visions, entering
into trance, like states wherewe, just let your faith go and
you just let the Lord begin to,really speak to you and comfort
you.
As we were in this place ofworship and deep intercession
(40:45):
and deep worship and just deeplyinteracting with the holy
spirit, the Lord just showed metook me on a vision.
And the vision just became this,the most vivid experience that
I've just about ever had.
And as I was there, Lord took meinto a place of just this
beautiful pasture, beautifulgreen pasture.
And I saw my father and I wentover to him and as I'm walking
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over to him, I just startedtalking to him and say, dad, how
are you doing?
And I felt the presence of theLord there, with me, holding me
through this process.
And my dad started talking to meand started saying, Randy, just
share some personal things withme.
I'm proud of you.
And some things like that.
And he said, your daughter'shere.
And we're, I'm just having sucha wonderful time with her and,
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and I said, I know, and that Ilooked up and I saw Ellie off in
the distance.
And she was playing with anotherlong dark hair girl who I'd
never seen before.
And Ellie, she come running overto me and embraced me and I had,
it was just a very emotionalexperience.
And as I was embracing her andtalking to her, I said, who's
this young lady you with?
And she goes, oh, this is hername was Rebecca.
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I don't know why I rememberthat.
But she told me her name wasRebecca.
And she's waiting for herparents to get here too.
And she's, she was alive, duringJesus' day.
And I, that started to just, puta lot of pieces together in my
brain about you, the eternalnature, the Lord.
But then as I'm talking to mydaughter, I failed to mention
that I have a twin brother alsothat passed away when we were
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babies three months old, he diedof SIDS and I never got to know
my brother, Andrew and Andrewwalked over.
And as we were talking.
Andrew came over to me.
And my daughter ran over to himand hugged him and they
obviously had known each otherand Andrew walked over to me and
just said, is it okay if I lookout for her?
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Until you get, look over, lookafter her, once you get here.
And of course my heart was justoverwhelmed.
And I said of course, and Istarted to put the picture
together, my brain of the familyof God, and how the family of
God works, that we're all inhim.
And as we are in him, he was theone keeping us together.
He was the one that even thoughthis was a vision and I was
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using my imagination, it wassuch a real thing for me.
And it began to put me on aquest.
Like I mentioned, Ecclesiastes 3and some of those verses that
are begin to study.
John 14, of course, that Christ,I've go to prepare a place for
you.
And this place has many roomsand all kinds of stuff.
The reality of knowing that's inthe here and now that's not
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somewhere off in the future.
I could begin to enter into thatnow because he's there and he's
prepared a place for me and he'sgoing there and he's even
invited me to be there.
And anyway, so as, and then, andeven now Camille I do it as
faithful as I can, but lately inthe last six months or so, I've
just been on a, an amazing questwith the Lord, even during my
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personal times of worship orcorporate times of worship, I
have just been able to enterinto this place and even see
this pastor again, I go thereall the time and I don't want to
sound wacky or crazy or anythinglike that, but it's this place
I, in the spirit that I just getto interact with the Lord, and
as I'm interacting with the LordI'm seeing, almost what's behind
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the veil.
You know what I mean?
The scripture says it's justthis.
Like looking through a glassdarkly or just on the other side
of this veil and that's howclose it is, the reality of the
second.
And the Lord wants to show usthose things.
And so I can, I see things and Iinteract with the Lord and I
interact with those that havegone before.
And I see the beauty of what theLord has created.
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And one of my goals is when Iget to heaven, I want to be
familiar with it.
I know I'm going to be blownaway.
I'm going to be there's thingsI'll never be able to explain
or, and all those things and beshocked.
But at the same time, I wantthat familiarity in my heart.
Like I know this place becauseI've allowed myself to accept
what the Lord's doing.
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I believe that shapes us as apurpose person.
And as people, when we canaccept who we are in Christ and
accept that, I've alreadyreceived eternal life.
I don't have to wait until this.
I shed this mortal body, whichI, this mortal body, when it
goes, until it goes, I've gotpurpose, I've got destiny to
fulfill and I've got a job todo.
I've got a family to love and totrain the people to train.
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But man when we get there, ourjoy will be fulfilled.
The glory, the joy, unspeakableand full of glory.
One of my favorite authors C.S.
Lewis yeah, I'm sure everybody'svery familiar with them.
He, he has a devotional bookcalled the business of heaven
and I'll just give everybody thesecret right now.
The business of heaven is joy,so he gets that place.
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And one of the things heexplains in this book is, the
little snippets on earth that wehave of joy, of the happiness,
of even pain, of even the stuffthat we go through.
It's just a shadow of what is tocome.
You know what I mean?
Because at some point, we canlearn to live in that joy and if
I learn to let joy become myportion.
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The joy of the Lord is ourstrength.
It's his grace upon our lives.
That gets me through theseuncertain times.
It gets me through the grief andthe pain.
I go through times of pain allthe time, so missing my
daughter.
It will hit me unexpectedly, andas I've learned how to grieve.
Over the years, I have learnedhow to let joy, just become my
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portion.
And that's not to say tritelythat, oh, I, every time I feel
pain, I just make myself happy.
But I allow the pain.
If this makes sense, I allow thepain to, to reveal to me the joy
that is set before me, it wasthe joy that was set before
Christ by which he endured hisgreatest pain.
The cross and if we can learn toemulate that behavior and Christ
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and the holy spirit can alsoshow us the same thing that
through our pain, we can see thejoy behind the curtain, so to
speak it's that makes this lifeworth living.
And I know that it makes the oneto come more than we could ever
possibly explain as far ashappiness and fulfillment and
just that's the whole meaning.
That's the whole purpose of whathe created us for to rule and
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reign with him to be a part ofhim to not just be subjects of
him, but to be part of hisfamily, his bride, his beloved,
and we're get to co-reign withthem.
It's just such a, an amazingconcept.
And sometimes, it's, blows themind to think about, but boy,
it's a lot of fun to think aboutthe same time.
Jennifer, did you want to sayanything else about what Randy
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was just talking about?
So I haven't, speaking ofheaven, like it's really funny
how losing a loved one justreally puts an emphasis on the
heavenly yearning.
I'd grown up thinking aboutheaven and okay, that's our
destination, but that yearningthe becomes less scary.
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It becomes less out there.
It becomes more normalized inyour life.
After Ellie died, we were, I wasdesperate.
I was desperate to, to learnabout heaven.
I was desperate to learn aboutothers who had walked this path.
I ended up with a book in myhands from a dear family,
friends.
It was called my time in heavenand it was this gentlemen's
experience.
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He was a pastor his experience,he was in a car accident and he
woke up toe tagged in themorgue.
And the story he wrote was hisspiritual experience in the
interim and in the in-betweentime.
And a couple of the things thathe wrote about it just really,
it really comforted my heart.
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One was that when he was therehe was in this waiting area and
in this waiting area, he sawthis elderly woman walked
through the veil and as she did,she became youthful and he was
just observing.
And one of the things you sawwas a little baby who sat there
and had the full capacity tospeak and have conversations and
stuff.
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But the baby said, Jesus, let mestay little so that she could
raise me.
And just how precious it was andthe revelation in that moment,
in my own heart, that he's goingto redeem every minute.
Every minute lost will beredeemed.
And that was such a comfort tomy heart.
Then another thing besides allthe, just the glorious pictures
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that he painted that justbrought so much joy to my heart,
just to think about.
But one of the other things thathe said that in the center of
the city of God, and there werethese clouds in the sky and he
says, I looked at him.
I realized that there werepeople on these clouds and I'm
thinking, oh, great.
Cloud of witnesses or something.
He said, no, It's those on earthwho are worshiping.
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They don't realize that whenthey enter that place of
worship, they are truly inheavenly places worshiping with
us.
And just how closely connectedwe are to the heavenly realm.
And we just have no idea.
And so I just love to imaginethat I'm in that place
worshiping alongside of Ellieand all of our other loved ones
who are there already.
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And it's just, it's such anencouragement to my own heart to
just to know, and to understandjust how close we are in the
spiritual realm that we justdon't even realize.
Yeah, that's beautiful.
One thing I just feel like weneed to talk about just for one
minute for an unbeliever, thisis not the same as going to a
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psychic, like there's adifference between what Randy
experienced and I don't wantpeople to think that they can go
and experience this, by payingfor someone that's false.
Let's talk a little bit aboutthat.
The spiritual world is a veryreal place and we have an enemy
of our souls that is trying tomimic and mock and make light of
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the real and psychics and anytype of medium and those things.
Though they be real as far asthe spiritual experiences that
you might encounter with them,they are leading you down an
absolute path of separation fromGod, and you will never find the
fulfillment.
You will never find thehappiness.
That is promised us by having alife filled with the truth.
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Jesus Christ is only one way.
There's only absolutely only oneway.
And to try to experience thosethrough, through other sources
is just going to lead to deathand separation and brokenness.
They make all the claims thatthey want to, but that is not
how you get there.
Those are fake experiencesthrough demonic forces, through
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unreal spiritual beings, thatare leading you down a path that
have, that are forsaking theirfirst state and forsaking their
inheritance.
They're trying to lead you intoa place of destruction and so
psychics and all those thingsare a, a very pale counterfeit
because they don't leave youfulfilled.
They don't leave you with peace.
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They don't leave you with joy.
They leave you with questionsand leave you with all these
things.
No matter what, they'll try totell you, because they're
masters at deception, but thereality of it is there's only
one way and that's through thetruth of Jesus Christ.
And I would if anyone's tryingto gain access to a spiritual
realm through psychics orwitches or mediums or any of
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those entities, they are,they're setting themselves up
for I'll just be honest.
They're setting themselves upfor torture and their end is
going to be much, much worsethan they ever started out
being.
Thank you.
You said that very succinctly.
If there's anything else thatyou want to share, and then
Randy, if you could close us outin a prayer for people who may
have lost loved ones.
(52:22):
Sure.
Yeah.
When do you have anything youwant to close with dear?
I would just say, just as aclosing thought, the eternal
realm is a wonderful, beautifulplace.
It's available through thefinished work of Jesus Christ.
It's something to look forwardto, it's nothing to be taken
lightly.
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If we keep our focus on JesusChrist and we endeavor to be
truly discipled by him and learnto have fellowship one with
another and grow in ourexpectations of what he has
called us to then that he's gota world available to us that
truly will blow our mind.
And know, I'd love to just say aprayer for all those that are
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grieving and hurting.
And for those that areexperiencing loss it's,
sometimes it's inexpressible,even how to express pain and to
feel it and what do you do?
What do you say?
But let me just offer thisprayer.
It's just a hope for us.
Father in Jesus.
Father.
I just, I pray for all thoseright now that are, that have
experienced loss that don't knowhow to deal with it.
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Lord that, and even ourselvesFather God, it's not like we
have the corner market onanything, Lord, we're just
learning to trust you.
And I pray that over everybodythat's experiencing loss right
now and pain that they wouldjust learn to turn their heart
towards you.
Not even as an answer for thepain, but as a way to, to live a
new life of joy and happiness,even with the pain in their life
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that you have caused a greatnessof your glory to dwell with them
and be upon them.
Father, I just speak.
Absolute grace, absoluteblessing, absolute peace Father,
God, right now, Father God, overthe hearts and minds of those
struggling Father, God.
And as we look to you, Father, Ipray for wisdom.
(54:11):
I pray for hope.
I pray for supernatural grace tounderstand what you have brought
us into and the joy that isinexpressible and full of glory.
Father, I bless all thelisteners right now, Father God,
even if they're not grieving, Ibless them right now in the name
of Jesus, with wisdom and powerand supernatural might to
(54:33):
overcome all the works that theenemy would try to do.
He knows that his day is growingshorter and he's pulling out all
the stops.
But Lord we have a hope in youthat is eternal.
We have a life in you that ispowerful beyond what we could
ever possibly imagine or thinkso, Father, we bless all the
listeners, Father God, and wespeak life and grace and peace.
(54:53):
And the precious name of JesusChrist.
Amen.
Amen.
And amen.
And Randy, how can the listenersget ahold of you and your wife
for either speaking engagementsor counseling?
Yeah, the best place to, toreach out contact us would be
through our website.
It's Ellie's house.org, E L I ES H O U S E.org.
(55:20):
And that would be, all ourinformation is there and the
story, and we'd love to hearfrom anybody that would like to
to reach out and we can offer ahope and peace and no matter
where you're at in the world, wecan offer counseling through the
likes of all the differenttechnologies that are available
to us today and different waysof connecting.
Yeah, we'd love to hear from youand pray with you and be present
(55:40):
with you in your time ofgrieving.
Thank you so much.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you so much for joining mehere on Heavenly Hookups.
Again, my name is CamilleBattaglia.
Thank you for hitting thesubscribe button and following
the podcast on all the socialmedia channels.
God bless and Have a great week!
The spiritual world is a veryreal place and we have an enemy
of our souls that is trying tomimic, mock and make light of
the real and psychics, any typeof medium and those things.
Though they be real as far asthe spiritual experiences that
you might encounter with them,they are leading you down an
(00:21):
absolute path of separation fromGod, and you will never find the
fulfillment.
You will never find thehappiness.
That is promised us by having alife filled with the truth.
Hi, my name is Camille Battagliawith Heavenly Hookups.
I'm so happy that you could joinus today.
I'm here with Randy and JenniferKutz.
You're in for a treat today.
(00:41):
Randy is an associate pastor atFoundation Stone Church in Ohio.
He has a passion for theprophetic, also if anybody needs
counseling, we can talk moreabout how they can get ahold of
you later.
Let's start at the beginning.
How did you two meet?
It's funny actually I was ayouth pastoring at the time and
(01:03):
of course this beautiful, awoman sitting here next to me
was a member of the youth group.
I had to be really careful atfirst not to spark any
scandalous anything.
So I had to had a long time towait until she we're about four
years or so apart.
So as I was ministering to theyouth.
And I was ordained an elder atthe young age of 21 years old.
(01:24):
Being put in charge of the youthgroup I waited patiently for
just a year or two untilJennifer graduated.
Then I just approached her andwhat's comical about it as I'll
let her tell this part in aminute.
I went to her parents to askpermission before we ever
started dating or before sheeven knew that I had an inkling
of a liking of her.
So I went to them and to simplyask them when I went there, they
(01:46):
thought because I was an elderin the church.
They thought I was there on someofficial church business to
talking about something realimportant.
And it was very important, but Iwanted to ask permission if I
could date their daughter, whohappened to be on a mission trip
to Acapulco at the time.
And so it just started off onthis weird note.
I'll let Jennifer jump in here.
So yeah, I was in Acapulco and Ihadn't thought anything about
(02:09):
it.
Randy had been chatting with mea little more often prior to
this all happening.
I was one of the leaders intraining for youth group and I
just was really involved.
He was just really getting meconnected in with everything.
So right before I left for myAcapulco trip, he gave me a big
hug.
It was a Christmas Eve serviceand he looked at me, said, Hey,
don't have too much fun downthere.
(02:30):
And I'm like, okay.
I'm like, all right, have a goodChristmas.
I thought I sent a pretty clearmessage.
I had no clue.
So I get back from Acapulco andit's this whole ordeal, like all
of our flights, there's likehundreds of kids down there with
this youth ministry.
Our flights were all delayed andso here I am I'm 17 at this
(02:51):
moment.
I'm 17 and a half, and I'm allby myself in a Mexico airport
trying to find my way home.
And I was making arrangementswith my parents over the phone
and the airline put us up in ahotel for the night.
I was talking to my mom and as Iwas closing out the
conversation, she said, Hey, bythe way, what do you think about
Randy?
(03:12):
And like Randy Kutz, she said,yeah.
I said he's a good youth pastor.
Why?
Just oh, nothing, honey, we'llsee you tomorrow when you get
home.
And that was it.
That's the weirdest questionever.
And as I laid my head down thatnight, I was just about to go to
sleep.
The Lord just told me like, justpoint blank.
He says, you're gonna marryRandy.
And I'm like what?
(03:34):
He said, you're gonna marryRandy.
And so when I got back home, myparents just had so much to tell
me, they were like, you'll neverbelieve what happened while you
were gone.
And they told me the whole storyof him coming to talk to them
and they just thought I'd be sosurprised that they didn't want
me to go into a conversationwith them not knowing what his
thoughts were and intentions.
(03:55):
So which I was quite nieve.
But I ended up approaching herand asked her out in the, I
don't know, the rest is history.
We became good friends.
And then we tried to, we did ourbest.
We really felt the Lord gave usa strategy and how we should
handling our dating and courtinglife and kept ourselves pure by
(04:15):
the grace of God and was able tohave a wonderful dating courting
relationship, always with theintention of, we're in this to
see if marriage is a realpossibility, we didn't want to
go into it, blindly just,throwing darts at a dartboard,
wondering, we wanted to be veryintentional from the outset and
of course the Lord had the plansand like I said, the rest was
history.
(04:35):
The hard part about our datingrelationship came towards the
end of our engagement when wewere just a few months about to
be married.
And we experienced the loss ofmy father and he was only 46
years old.
That's part of our story.
Very young and very surprised,he went in for a pretty standard
operation and ended up with apretty severe infection and he
(04:58):
died very inexplicably onenight.
This was about exactly twomonths before our wedding.
It was actually the day of mybridal shower.
And so, it rocked our world, butit just it's amazing.
Suddenly impacted justabsolutely everything.
My father was the, at the timehe was the associate pastor, the
(05:18):
role, I currently know fill andhe was associate pastor at our
church.
It just rocked the whole, thechurch world our family life
obviously.
And because it was so unexpectedeverybody just went reeling and
we actually even talked inconsidered, do we postpone our
wedding?
Do we go through all that?
And we felt like the Lord saidto continue on.
And we were by the grace of God,able to find the strength to
(05:41):
just continue on.
And my mom was just an amazingwoman of faith and her story is
another amazing story, but justbeing able to latch onto the
things that God had for us andlearn how to trust.
However, when we first gotmarried, we had a rough couple
of years.
Let me say that way just as ayoung man and as a young woman
trying to reel from a emotionalshock as well as other issues.
(06:04):
And this has been a part of herlife that really never got
addressed.
We started off shaky, but by thegrace of God, we learned how to
trust in him and brought usthrough a lot of insecurities
and brought us through a lot ofmy part.
I'll speak for me, a lot ofselfish behavior.
And God really taught us somevery valuable lessons, but
praise God, his plan is alwaysmuch better than ours, when you
(06:26):
yield to the process and Godended up doing amazing thing
with us, that's 23 years ago, 23years.
God has been faithful.
Yeah.
How did you guys get throughthat?
What was the thing that made youtrust each other?
Was it just hanging on for threeyears or was there a strategy?
Was a difficult time.
When we got married, I was justbarely 20.
(06:47):
I'd had this whole fairy taleimage in my mind of, we've saved
ourselves.
We've been pure, we've done allthe right steps.
And, God's going to honor that,and, our marriage is going to be
blessed.
And then we walk through thistime of just great loss.
And I'm thinking in my mindokay, Lord, this is not the
picture I had.
This is not how it's supposed tobe.
(07:08):
And here I am, I'm now married.
And my husband is just he'sgrieving.
He's lost his father.
He's grieving.
And I don't know how to handlethat.
And so both of us just reallyhad to lean into the Lord.
We both had to do some work ofjust growing up and letting
ourselves grieve and and reallyjust trusting the Lord.
And as we trusted the Lord, wewere beginning to just be able
(07:30):
to lean into each other andtrust each other too.
Yeah, it was, yeah, it was.
And, but some of those things, Iknow that from the bottom of my
heart, that it's through thetestings and trials that we go
through that sometimes thegreatest gems, the greatest
blessings that come in our lifecome out of those things because
(07:52):
we've learned something.
And we, when we learn how to dieto ourselves and our agendas,
then the Lord can really, showus, that was the work of Christ.
And my father was a propheticman himself.
Matter of fact, he was, I wouldsay a greater prophet than me,
certainly, and many others whohe was a father in the prophetic
in many ways in our church andin the whole prophetic movement
(08:14):
that we're involved with andlearning how to, and losing him
was just so traumatic for mebecause I identified so much
with him and we were veryclosely bonded and and helping
me in ministry and walkalongside me was just the
greatest joy of my life.
And then all of a sudden thatwas gone.
I was still an elder in thechurch and I was all of a sudden
(08:35):
felt like a lot of pressure wason me and and I didn't know how
to relate to my bride.
Like I, I thought I, I couldalways think I'll go ask dad for
questions.
And I, we had great counseling.
We had a good pre-marriagecounseling heading into things
but it just didn't set us up forwhat we, our expectations.
I will say that, weren't on thesame level.
(08:55):
And again, until we learned howto really surrender those
expectations, it was difficultgoing but God gave us a
strategy.
I remember talking to our seniorpastor a couple of times and he
just, had to really teach me howto love my wife, unconditionally
and just say, this is the wifeof my youth, and no matter what,
it's, my selfish desires had tobe laid aside and I had to look
(09:17):
towards her needs and learn howto respect your needs and lay
those things down.
And that through a process oftime, we just learned how to
embrace each other in a dramaticway and praise God, I believe
were very strong, healthymarriage, and this is the glory
of God, we're pressing on, evento this day, we go through our
things, but we just continue tolook to him for everything.
(09:38):
Was there a pivotal moment whereyou both realized we've made it
through this season?
I think they're there.
I would point to a couple ofthings actually, but earliest
on, I point to, it was probably,it was.
I would say three, three or fouryears into our marriage.
(09:59):
After my, of course my fatherhad passed, we had to make a
decision about, how are we goingto be able to buy a house?
And, we had, we were living in amobile home at the time and we
had to make the decision to moveback home for a little while
with my mom, partially to helpher out because she was still
going through a hard time.
Just still picking up the piecesafter my dad left and us, being
(10:20):
able to save enough to put adown payment on our first home
and things like that.
And it was a hard decision.
And when we sat there and madethat decision, we had to, we had
a real come to Jesus meetingwith ourselves and that was one
of them.
The next one was the birth ofour first daughter, Eliana.
When she was born.
(10:41):
It, obviously we were still wereliving with my mother at the
time.
And that was just such a huge, Idon't know, how would you
describe it?
It was a blessing and a trial,because, we basically had to
make an apartment out of mymom's basement and it was just
difficult, trying to worktogether to make all that
happen.
Jennifer working and me still inthe throws of, I was working
(11:04):
full-time at several differentjobs before the Lord brought me
full-time in the ministry, I wasa director down at Toledo's
largest homeless shelter.
And those were some pivotalmoments in my life.
And I met a man when my daughterwas just born.
I met a man down at cherishmission, I'll say his name, Dan
Rogers.
And he was a tremendous blessingin my life and became a a father
(11:26):
figure to me and mentored me andgave me opportunity.
When, I didn't feel like Ideserved it, but he helped me
find who out who I was.
Through that time of workingwith, some of the hardest
conditions of, homelessness andalcoholism and all kinds of
people that were dependent, hetaught me how to find myself in
that and find who I was inChrist and be able to minister.
(11:48):
I would like to believe thatbled over into our marriage.
In many ways saved our marriagebecause we were.
It was rough but God gave usgrace and through a strong
mentor, he was able to help holdour hand and to get us through a
lot of very difficult times.
I don't know if you want to sayanything there?
I don't think of a specificturning point.
I know that each of us have been100% committed to making this
(12:11):
work.
Divorce was never an option.
No.
And so it's just been thisprocess, I just really felt like
I was learning how marriagesanctifies us.
It shows us more and more of thethings that the Lord wants us to
work through and work on.
And I definitely think that he'sworked up that process.
I feel like we would go throughreally good seasons and then we
would, oh, here's another thingwe need to work on.
(12:34):
And then we worked through thatand then we'd go through a good
season and, oh, here's anotherthing we need to work on.
God's faithful.
to continue to work those thingsin us, but it was around the
time of our daughter's deatheight years ago.
Where we really dug in.
We really dug in, it was, andmaybe I'm getting ahead of
myself, but it was in thedarkness of coming out from that
(12:56):
grief cloud, like at about ninemonths after her death that we
really sought help.
Like just, we just wanted itdone.
Like this time we got to getthis thing, we've got to work it
through.
From a traumatic event of myfather passing kinda pushed us
into this mode.
And then another traumatic eventof our daughter's passing,
pushed us into the mode of, itshowed, it revealed all the
(13:19):
cracks in the foundation.
And we had to go to work.
We saw counseling, we went to aa nationally known marriage
therapy program.
I started my journey of gettingmy graduate degree in counseling
and it was a through all that,it was just such a, just a long
while it was a couple yearprocess of us, really, again,
(13:41):
never, we never had considereddivorce but we knew that we
weren't living the kind of lifeand the marriage that honored
the Lord in the ways that weneeded to.
We wanted more.
We wanted better.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We wanted to grow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's so good.
What I'm hearing you two say isthat you were engaged and
(14:01):
committed.
Like those are two key words,like maybe you weren't engaged
to where everything was, the wayyou had imagined your married
life would be, but you wereengaged.
You were committed, like divorceis not happening and we're going
to work through this.
So I think that's a key thingwith the commitment is also to
be engaged.
You have to be present.
(14:22):
And you have to do it together.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And certainly the Lord'sdefinitely brought us to this
place where like we have theability to help others and to
speak into others' lives becausewe've walked through so many of
the things that married coupleswill deal with.
And so it's been it's been ablessing on that end to be able
to comfort others and to walkwith others and to have an
(14:45):
understanding of where they'reat.
I can see that the Lord'sdefinitely used it.
To me, it keeps going back tothe, the dark moments of your
life.
You know what I mean?
It kept us engaged because,since divorce wasn't an option.
And even though there was a lotof tension at times, it kept us
focused on, on what we needed tobe focused on and learning the
(15:06):
process.
And instead of saying, okay,we're just going to quit.
Try something else.
We stayed engaged and, again,through the pain, and then, like
Jennifer said, when our eldestdaughter passed away eight years
ago, it opened up a whole newlevel of understanding for us
that, Ecclesiastes 3:11 issomething that comes to mind
(15:27):
often, and it says, that he hasplaced eternity in our hearts.
But that man cannot determineits beginning from its end.
That whole verse just sent me ona quest of understanding, what
is the heart of God towards us?
And what is the heart of Godtowards us as not just as a
couple, but as a family and as ahuman race, he wants us to be so
(15:48):
engaged with him in those ways,even in our darkest moments
where we all feel like giving upand giving in, if we can just
continue to press in and pressthrough, he will speak to us.
And that's a lot of ways howit's shaped a lot of the
prophetic things in our lifethat we share with people and
share with couples and, as wehelp them and help ourselves
(16:10):
really enter into a place whereknowing Christ becomes the
number one goal andunderstanding what's happening
in an eternal realm.
And you could use that eternityand call it the kingdom of God
and, pressing into the kingdomand all those ways, it opens you
up to be able to realize thatthere's freedom beyond religion.
There's freedom way beyond justthe day-to-day road of this is
(16:31):
what I have to do, and this iswhat I have to be as a
Christian.
It opens you up into a whole newparallel existence where you are
living.
Even though we're having a lifein the natural world, we're have
this parallel life where we'reliving in the kingdom of God
simultaneously and the richnessand the blessing of being led by
the spirit and letting him comeand enter and dwell us is just
(16:52):
the most magnificent thing.
Yeah.
Do you want to get into a littlebit more about what happened
with your daughter and then whathappened after that?
I'll let Jennifer jump in hereand I'll just interject a few
things here and there.
I'm sure.
All right.
So Ellie, so we have justintroduce the family a little
bit, Eliana.
(17:15):
She at this point, she would be18.
Sophia 16.
Sam is 14 and Tabitha, the babyis 11.
Now I'm going to go backwards alittle bit Tabitha, when she was
born.
She surprisingly we had Ellie inthe hospital and then we had
Sophia very suddenly at homewhen she was born.
(17:36):
And then that was such a greatexperience that we ended up
having the other kiddos at home.
That's how I'm going to put it.
I delivered my daughter in thebathroom as we were trying to
get to the hospital.
So yeah, so Tabitha, we wereplanning the birth at home and
once she was born, we didn'tknow it, but she had a
(17:59):
congenital heart defect that waslife-threatening.
And she ended up by the grace ofGod.
Surviving until we got hermedical help and they deemed
that she had a heart conditioncalled transposition of the
great arteries.
And essentially she was gettingno oxygen blood flow to the, her
body.
And 20 years ago they would say,Hey, we can't really do anything
(18:22):
for you for this.
Just enjoy your baby for a fewdays.
And then you'll have to let themgo.
Maybe that was 30 years ago now,but they've come up with some
really good surgery.
They were able to do open-heartsurgery, arterial switch on day,
I think 10.
And that whole situation wassuch a trial.
It was so intense.
We didn't know from one momentto the next, what was going to
(18:43):
happen or if she would survive,they couldn't promise us that
she would one survive or to haveany kind of life.
Once she did have the surgery,they couldn't promise anything.
It was just this whole thing oftrusting the Lord and it opened
our eyes to a whole community ofcongenital heart defect
families.
And it just a whole nother thingthat we'd never experienced.
(19:05):
It was so intense.
And I really thought, okay, theLord's going to be using this
one.
This is the difficult thing thatour families walk through, that
the Lord's going to use, andwe're going to be able to reach
out to other people.
And then just, what was it Threeyears later, three years later
Ellie's 10th birthday.
She right around that time shecame down with a little
(19:28):
sickness.
We just thought it was a normalchildhood illness.
It actually, it was strepthroat.
But she had become a littleextra delirious.
And so we took her to thehospital and the doctors looked
at us and said, mom, dad it'sjust a little fever.
It's just a little virus.
Give her a double dose of Motrinand go home.
In the process though, and thetesting, like it was a traumatic
(19:48):
experience.
So they did, they gave her adouble dose of Motrin, sent her
home.
She came out of her likedelirium that she had been in
overnight.
Then the next day it was churchday and Randy was preaching that
day.
So Ellie and I stayed home andwe laughed about what had
happened the day before, becauseshe had been so delirious that
she was saying such sillythings.
(20:09):
And she's quite cognitive, shewas with it.
She was telling me the story.
She had spent the night withgrandparents the night before.
And she was telling me storiesfrom that.
And then she was really sad.
She's mom, I was hoping to go tochurch today.
I had invited a waitress tochurch.
She told me she was going tocome.
He said, I wish I could be thereto greet her.
It was just a sweet day thatwe'd had together.
(20:30):
And then Randy and the kiddoscame home and she placed her
order for some soup fromsomewhere Trisha's or something.
Then she said, mom, I want toget a bath before they come
home.
Cause she'd been sick andsitting in bed all for the last
couple of days.
And so she went up to get a bathand while she was getting a
bath, she looked at me and shesaid, mom there's something
wrong with my legs.
(20:51):
Can you help me get out of thebathtub?
And so I helped her out and shesat on her bed and she was like,
man, mom, I don't, I think Ineed you to carry me down the
stairs.
I'm not feeling too well.
And we got her downstairs justin time for everyone to get home
and sweet Sophia.
At that time, she wanted to bewith her sister they're only 18
months apart.
(21:13):
And she was sitting there tryingto feed her soup and just
telling her about the day atchurch and stuff.
And in that process, like herleg started to cramp up and we
were really confused.
We thought maybe she'sdehydrated.
We were calling the doctor andtrying to figure it out.
But what really was happeningwas her body was shutting down.
She had gone septic and from thestrep, they'd never treated the
(21:33):
strep.
They actually scratched the backof her throat during the tests
the day before when they swappedher and they swapped her.
And there was a wound on theback of her throat.
This is where the sepsis endingup going in, where the infection
entered the bloodstream.
So we raced her back.
We raced her back to thehospital and I'm on the way
there.
(21:54):
I was sitting in the backseatwith her and Randy was racing
through all the lights andtrying to get there quick.
And as we were going, she wastelling me, she was like, mom, I
can't feel my knees now.
And then mom, I can't feel, Ican't feel my waist.
And it was just systematicallygoing up.
And as we pulled into the ER,just like that moment, it just
(22:15):
hit me like, oh my goodness,what's going on here?
And I just was able to tell her,I said, baby girl, I love you.
You're so beautiful.
And I think we scooped her upand we placed her in the
wheelchair and ran in just likeany kind of ER, show you would
say, you just yelling for help.
And in that last moment shehelped us get her into the
wheelchair.
(22:35):
And that, I think that was hervery last thing she did.
And.
And Randy didn't even know it.
He was parking the car as I'mrunning into the emergency room
and they scooped her up andstarted yelling, cardiac arrest
and doing all the things to tryto bring her back.
They worked on her for about anhour and then just couldn't get
her back.
(22:56):
So that was, yeah, that was verydifficult.
But in that time, yeah.
We had so many people surroundus, like within moments at the
hospital.
Yeah.
I, I would pause here to say,that, you cannot devalue the
body of Christ enough, and Iwould encourage anybody to
(23:16):
everyone to get as involved asyou can within the body of
Christ.
Even though there could be a lotof pain and a lot of hurt
involved with being with people.
There's, we found so muchstrength.
We, I dunno how many people cameto the hospital, a hundred
people or so was there, andtrying to support us as my
daughter was fighting for herlife and that she was actually,
they were trying to work tobring her back.
(23:38):
In the whole process, one of mydear friends came up to me and
seeing the, just the outpouringof love and all the things that
were happening.
And he whispered in my ear, hesaid, Randy said, We get to keep
this forever.
And even though there was such atragic loss, the reality that,
that our family here is sotemporary it's temporal and what
(24:04):
the reality of it is in thekingdom of God it's not it's
forever.
And we get to keep that forever.
We, that never goes away.
And I have lived on thatstatement for these past eight
years realizing, and knowingthat the reality of my life is
very little to do with what'saround me, we have, since, the
(24:25):
Lord has opened up ministryopportunities and we run a
counseling center for grievingpeople.
The Lord has brought propertiesinto our life and all kinds of
things that would consume ourtime.
But.
All those things areinconsequential to the
knowledge.
And knowing that what we'reactually living in a parallel
life is so much greater becausewe can enter into the spirit
(24:48):
realm and we can interact withthose that have gone before, and
we can have experiences withChrist and he can bring us into
a new understanding.
And we're surrounded, thescripture says right, with a
great cloud of witnesses andthey're witnessing the fact that
they made it, and if they werehere with us in the flesh, I
preached this many of thefunerals that I do as a pastor.
You know what I mean?
(25:08):
If that person that passed on nomatter their situation, if they
were here, they'd be telling usone thing.
And one thing only surrendereverything to getting to know
Christ.
That's their message that betheir message to us.
So don't worry about anything.
Just develop your relationshipwith Christ because that's where
true life is and all these otherthings.
That's what the scripture seekyou first, the kingdom of God
(25:30):
and his rights and all of thesethings that we worry about.
All of these things that we wantwill be added to us.
But when we have this amazingopportunity to see the kingdom
of God in its fullness and itsrally and live it, and he's
invited us in by the power andthe work of the holy spirit.
It's beyond our comprehension inthis world, which is great for
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me because I don't considermyself the smartest guy in the
world.
But I love the fact that theLord does not have to use the
most intellectual.
He doesn't have to use somebodythat can know the Bible cover to
cover.
All he wants is somebody that'swilling, yielded and submitted
to him.
And he can open up the windowsof heaven, not just as far as
blessing us here in this life,but as far as blessing us for
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our soul and blessing usinternally.
And that's where the Lord is asjust deposited in us, this
desire to help people getthrough these difficult times
and help them.
To think about and look at andsee eternity from a different
perspective than how we just allwait for eternity as if it's
gonna, the moment I die here,then I'll have to deal with it.
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I just could not believe,disbelieve that anymore.
Your eternity is now, we arealready alive forever, and
Christ already gave us eternallife and we can begin to live
that life now and reap thebenefits of here in this life
and have a mission and have apurpose and have goals in this
life that are become meaningful,become filled with purpose
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because we're seeing life andseeing the pain and the joys and
the life that we experiencethrough his eyes and being able
to help others as is, becomesthe mission, because you're
experiencing it yourself.
Wow.
A lot's going through my mindright now.
Like, how do you deal with maybeunbelievers who've lost a loved
one or, even speak to the fearthat's going on in society right
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now, I feel like I'm hearinglike all these questions that
people might have surroundingwhat happened to you.
You don't get to that placethough.
It's definitely a work inprogress.
I know that we didn't suddenlyin this place, in this
understanding when we lost Elliewe had to fight, we had to work
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through the pain.
We had to work through thegrief, the trauma we were
desperate to have others aroundus who understood what we were
going through.
It was really important to besurrounded with people who would
speak into that and influencethat and walk with you and
sometimes carry you.
And that's important.
On a very practical side ofthings, hearing somebody's
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story.
And, somebody that maybe hasexperienced grief that say I
don't understand what you'retalking about.
I don't understand, thespiritual world then, in talking
with somebody that at thebeginning of that processes is
sitting down with somebody andsaying, tell me your story, tell
me, what you're dealing with.
Tell me how what this loss meantto you and how are you dealing
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with it?
And tell me about this person.
Tell me about their life.
Tell me about who they were andtell me, what hopes and dreams.
And even though that is like,ripping a bandaid off in a lot
of ways.
It's such a could be a verypainful experience.
It's so necessary in the processof being able to share that
story.
And for the believers out therethat are one of help and work
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with people that are strugglingthere, my advice would be to be
that voice of listening ear,where they can just come to and
they can just feel the opennessand the warmth that, that Christ
would ultimately provide throughyou.
And for those that arestruggling, that, that don't,
have have the security and theknowledge of who they are in
Christ.
I would say open yourself up tosee and to hear, what else is
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available besides just dealingwith the pain.
The pain is not going anywhere,the loss is not going anywhere,
but we can have a relationshipwith the Lord that will help us.
I don't know how?
It'll be quite honest with you,when we're dealing with and
helping people that are in theworld, I it's a very difficult
thing because they don't havethis connection.
That their whole world waswrapped up in this person.
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Their whole life was wrapped upin that person.
And we have to help them get tothe place where we can help them
understand that, there's a hope,we have a hope, the scripture
says we have the anchor of oursouls, a hope that we have that,
that we don't know what thefuture holds.
We don't know, but we can beginto trust in Jesus and we can
begin to put the anchor in ourlife that will bring us to the
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next place.
And helping them navigate thosewaters but just by being a
listening ear, just by beingsomebody that is open, you will
see opportunities that will openin front of you.
And we have to learn to developthat type of a mentality and a
heart of, what Christ cared foreveryone equally.
He loved the people so much.
He wasn't about, lettingsomebody just stay lost, he had
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a concern for those that werelost and he, wasn't just
accepting, these uncertain timesthat live in, there, people are,
they don't know what to do.
I know the person that does knowwhat to do, and that brings me
hope and peace and life, and Ican learn to trust.
In the knowledge of knowing thathe is, he's got this no matter
what happens in life, he's gotthis and we just have to, we
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just have to live in encourageeach other.
You don't have to seek first,him seek first, the kingdom of
God, let it become the thingthat, that motivates you.
And you that's the number onething that we can do is to help
people to get refocused on whatis important.
To speak to the fear.
That was something I definitelydealt with after Ellie died.
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Lord, I can't handle the thoughtof losing another, that fear was
really great.
And I remember specificallywrestling with the Lord on that
one because, she was young, shewas healthy.
There was absolutely nopre-existing conditions.
This just came out of the blue.
So to think that, life is sofragile as a mom, that's so
difficult to deal with and whenCOVID comes along and we're
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dealing with all of the fearsthat the world has put in front
of us right now.
I'm challenged as a person causeI've already lost.
I've already lost a kid to avery common illness.
So I'm challenged to keep thatfear in check.
And I just feel like the Lordhas challenged me.
He said that we can't live infear.
We must, we absolutely must justkeep our eyes on him and live.
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We have to live and we can'tlive in fear.
We just need to live and bethose that can walk with one
another and carry the burden ofthose who are trying to break
out of fear.
But yeah it's hard when allthose things are presented and
thrown at you though.
Yeah, I know.
I can't imagine.
I can't imagine.
That's some really great advicebecause a lot of times, you look
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at someone who's lost someonebut you don't know what to say
to that person.
I think that's very helpful andyou're right Jesus was just
concerned for everybody ornon-believers.
One of the, one of thecomforting phrases that king
David even writes about asthough I'd make my bed in hell
thou art with me.
He didn't say, I take you out ofthere.
It doesn't say I do.
He says you're with me and this,and that's one of the best
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things we can do and be forpeople it's just with them in
their pain with them.
And even now, with the world,dealing with all this stuff it's
dealing with, we have to be inthe world.
We're not of it, but we're init, and just be present with
people is a very, just acomforting thing.
If we recognize the power thatwe have as believers, just at
being present people, I think alot of good will will happen.
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Come of it.
Yeah.
That's incredible.
And was your marriage challengedduring this time?
About nine months and felt likeI had alluded to this earlier
about nine months after Elliehad died, that grief cloud, that
kind of makes you a person numbwas starting to lift for me.
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I started to go into this darkplace.
I just, it scared me how.
How painful and desperate Ifelt.
And it was at that time that Ijust, I told Randy, I said,
listen, I have to get rid of allother pain in my life right now,
because I can only, I can'thandle anything else.
I know that the grief is notgoing to go away suddenly.
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It's not oh, you grieve for ayear.
And you're good.
It's gonna be something that wework through regularly, we've
got to deal with this.
We've got to deal with the painand the difficulties, the things
that we struggle with ourmarriage, then I really feel
like we had the grace to reallypull together and let each other
grieve the way each other neededto grieve through that time.
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I feel like we've really had thegrace to do that.
There's a lot of statistics outthere.
It says that, those difficultthings such as child loss and,
it increases the risk ofdifficulties in marriage and
stuff like that.
I don't feel like it caused moredifficulties in our marriage.
I felt like it actually drew ustogether on one end on one side
of it.
But on the other side, it wastime to get rid of this issue,
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these pains that we were dealingwith in the marriage.
And so that's when we really dugin and did our work.
That's when we just reallybuckled down and committed.
For me, it on my side of it, ithad a lot to do with me,
surrendering.
What I needed to do, to be a manand be really actually
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accountable to other men, and mywife, and learning what that
means meant to be honest andopen and sharing.
It's difficult, for men outthere, it's very difficult for
us to open up and to share andto be honest with our feelings
and even for men, it's hard evento decipher what your feelings
are.
Sometimes, I still struggle eventrying to figure out what it is
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I'm feeling, but then, once Ilearned how to convey that
message, that's where some ofthe healing process begins in
learning how to say something,and fortunately, I was married
to a an understanding wife, whodealt with my sin, dealt with my
issues and with with a grace andwas able to deal with some stuff
and likewise me with her.
As we learned how to share andlearn how to communicate with
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real spirit led emotion, whereyou're not letting your emotions
control you, but you'resurrendering them to the Lord
and then letting him help you tofigure out what it is that
you're actually dealing with.
Then you're able to communicatethose things and able to share.
And it opens you up to a newlevel of trust in one another,
as a result.
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That's where the healing processbegins, and speaking with
kindness to one another andspeaking, with an agenda,
speaking life, and blessing, mysenior pastor, one of the things
that challenged me with early onand all the time as he's one of
the guys that holds meaccountable, he's are you
blessing your wife?
I said I pray for every day.
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And he said, that's not what Isaid, are you speaking blessing?
Spirit led blessings and I hadto stop and had to realize, the
life and death is in the powerof the tongue.
As we said in 1st Corinthians14:3 says he, who prophesies
speaks edification exhortationand comfort.
Revelation 19:10 tells us forthe spirit of Jesus Christ is
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the spirit of prophecy, and so Ihad to realize that I had to
speak kindness over my wife.
I had to speak life.
And as I began to bless herlife, I begin to bless her
coming in her, going in herhealth and her day and her
conversation.
And as they begin to do thosethings, that brings a healing
process where you can begin toshare and begin to be open and I
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teach that when I teach even thelittle kids, about the receiving
the baptism of the holy spiritor mentoring into the prophetic
realm, I say, it starts with usjust speaking kindly, because
the enemy doesn't want to speakin kindly.
He wants us to speak negativeand curses and all those things.
But if we speak kindly, then youare beginning to understand what
it means like to listen to theholy spirit, because that's how
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he speaks to us.
I was learning authenticity andhonesty and speaking those
things in love.
Like, I would appease in asituation, but I wouldn't speak
honestly.
That wasn't fair to my husband.
I wouldn't be fully truthful.
I wasn't holding integrity bynot being honest and truthful
with how I was feeling or, Iwould let those frustrations get
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all pent up inside of me.
And then I, I would grow upsetand frustrated and or bitter.
And so that would lead to me,not being able to connect with
them.
And so I was just learning tothat time, just how to be just
how to be honest and authenticwith him.
And that was really important.
That's hard to do.
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I don't know if or not, but Istruggle with that too.
It takes intentionality.
And then after awhile withintentionality it becomes
normal.
It becomes, I have it.
And then you have to sometimespractice it somewhere.
But I think through that time tothe Lord was working on healing
us in all different kinds ofways.
And there was specifically withthe trauma of losing Ellie.
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I had one experiencespecifically where the Lord was
just showing me he just showedme this vision.
All of these pains and all ofthese emotions, I was trying to
give them a name and to givethem to him.
And as I gave them to him, itwas like they were these bricks,
these heavy bricks in a bag.
And, I'd have anger.
(38:32):
I would have fear or, any of theemotions that I had, I was
handing him each of these bricksand then I would hand them the
brick that said pain.
And so he take each of these andhe would, he'd take them from
that from me and dispose ofthem.
But when I came to the one thatwas what that was labeled pain.
He took that so preciously andhis hands and he crushed it and
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he created this beautiful gemand he placed it back in my
hands and he said, listen, thisone is for you to hold.
And this is not just for you,but it's for the people.
It's for others around you, thatour pain is precious.
Our pain is something that wecan relate to others on and it's
a precious gift to be able towalk with others in their
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difficulties, in their trialsand their struggles.
And it's something beautifulthat as humans, we can walk with
one another.
That was very vivid to me thathe really, from that point on
the trauma and the traumaresponses that I had that were
triggering every time I would gointo flashbacks of the difficult
time he healed me of all of thatin that very moment.
(39:39):
Like I hadn't, I have not hadthat experience since then the
trauma responses.
But that pain, it just, that,that doesn't go away.
The pain, we don't lose thepain.
We that's it's the love that youhave for someone that you've
lost that is not there with you.
And that's a precious thing.
It's a precious thing to be ableto walk with others and their
difficulty.
So that was another thing thatthe Lord walked with me through
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that time and helped me tounderstand.
Yeah, that's beautiful.
Randy, do you want to talk alittle bit about your experience
with heaven?
And yeah, so yeah it was it wasabout a year or so after Ellie
passed.
I had been obviously justgrieving and I was with my
(40:23):
senior pastor and we were doingwhat we title, our school of the
holy spirit.
And we were ministering to achurch.
And in the last session, weteach on just visions, entering
into trance, like states wherewe, just let your faith go and
you just let the Lord begin to,really speak to you and comfort
you.
As we were in this place ofworship and deep intercession
(40:45):
and deep worship and just deeplyinteracting with the holy
spirit, the Lord just showed metook me on a vision.
And the vision just became this,the most vivid experience that
I've just about ever had.
And as I was there, Lord took meinto a place of just this
beautiful pasture, beautifulgreen pasture.
And I saw my father and I wentover to him and as I'm walking
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over to him, I just startedtalking to him and say, dad, how
are you doing?
And I felt the presence of theLord there, with me, holding me
through this process.
And my dad started talking to meand started saying, Randy, just
share some personal things withme.
I'm proud of you.
And some things like that.
And he said, your daughter'shere.
And we're, I'm just having sucha wonderful time with her and,
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and I said, I know, and that Ilooked up and I saw Ellie off in
the distance.
And she was playing with anotherlong dark hair girl who I'd
never seen before.
And Ellie, she come running overto me and embraced me and I had,
it was just a very emotionalexperience.
And as I was embracing her andtalking to her, I said, who's
this young lady you with?
And she goes, oh, this is hername was Rebecca.
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I don't know why I rememberthat.
But she told me her name wasRebecca.
And she's waiting for herparents to get here too.
And she's, she was alive, duringJesus' day.
And I, that started to just, puta lot of pieces together in my
brain about you, the eternalnature, the Lord.
But then as I'm talking to mydaughter, I failed to mention
that I have a twin brother alsothat passed away when we were
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babies three months old, he diedof SIDS and I never got to know
my brother, Andrew and Andrewwalked over.
And as we were talking.
Andrew came over to me.
And my daughter ran over to himand hugged him and they
obviously had known each otherand Andrew walked over to me and
just said, is it okay if I lookout for her?
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Until you get, look over, lookafter her, once you get here.
And of course my heart was justoverwhelmed.
And I said of course, and Istarted to put the picture
together, my brain of the familyof God, and how the family of
God works, that we're all inhim.
And as we are in him, he was theone keeping us together.
He was the one that even thoughthis was a vision and I was
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using my imagination, it wassuch a real thing for me.
And it began to put me on aquest.
Like I mentioned, Ecclesiastes 3and some of those verses that
are begin to study.
John 14, of course, that Christ,I've go to prepare a place for
you.
And this place has many roomsand all kinds of stuff.
The reality of knowing that's inthe here and now that's not
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somewhere off in the future.
I could begin to enter into thatnow because he's there and he's
prepared a place for me and he'sgoing there and he's even
invited me to be there.
And anyway, so as, and then, andeven now Camille I do it as
faithful as I can, but lately inthe last six months or so, I've
just been on a, an amazing questwith the Lord, even during my
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personal times of worship orcorporate times of worship, I
have just been able to enterinto this place and even see
this pastor again, I go thereall the time and I don't want to
sound wacky or crazy or anythinglike that, but it's this place
I, in the spirit that I just getto interact with the Lord, and
as I'm interacting with the LordI'm seeing, almost what's behind
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the veil.
You know what I mean?
The scripture says it's justthis.
Like looking through a glassdarkly or just on the other side
of this veil and that's howclose it is, the reality of the
second.
And the Lord wants to show usthose things.
And so I can, I see things and Iinteract with the Lord and I
interact with those that havegone before.
And I see the beauty of what theLord has created.
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And one of my goals is when Iget to heaven, I want to be
familiar with it.
I know I'm going to be blownaway.
I'm going to be there's thingsI'll never be able to explain
or, and all those things and beshocked.
But at the same time, I wantthat familiarity in my heart.
Like I know this place becauseI've allowed myself to accept
what the Lord's doing.
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I believe that shapes us as apurpose person.
And as people, when we canaccept who we are in Christ and
accept that, I've alreadyreceived eternal life.
I don't have to wait until this.
I shed this mortal body, whichI, this mortal body, when it
goes, until it goes, I've gotpurpose, I've got destiny to
fulfill and I've got a job todo.
I've got a family to love and totrain the people to train.
(45:08):
But man when we get there, ourjoy will be fulfilled.
The glory, the joy, unspeakableand full of glory.
One of my favorite authors C.S.
Lewis yeah, I'm sure everybody'svery familiar with them.
He, he has a devotional bookcalled the business of heaven
and I'll just give everybody thesecret right now.
The business of heaven is joy,so he gets that place.
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And one of the things heexplains in this book is, the
little snippets on earth that wehave of joy, of the happiness,
of even pain, of even the stuffthat we go through.
It's just a shadow of what is tocome.
You know what I mean?
Because at some point, we canlearn to live in that joy and if
I learn to let joy become myportion.
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The joy of the Lord is ourstrength.
It's his grace upon our lives.
That gets me through theseuncertain times.
It gets me through the grief andthe pain.
I go through times of pain allthe time, so missing my
daughter.
It will hit me unexpectedly, andas I've learned how to grieve.
Over the years, I have learnedhow to let joy, just become my
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portion.
And that's not to say tritelythat, oh, I, every time I feel
pain, I just make myself happy.
But I allow the pain.
If this makes sense, I allow thepain to, to reveal to me the joy
that is set before me, it wasthe joy that was set before
Christ by which he endured hisgreatest pain.
The cross and if we can learn toemulate that behavior and Christ
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and the holy spirit can alsoshow us the same thing that
through our pain, we can see thejoy behind the curtain, so to
speak it's that makes this lifeworth living.
And I know that it makes the oneto come more than we could ever
possibly explain as far ashappiness and fulfillment and
just that's the whole meaning.
That's the whole purpose of whathe created us for to rule and
(46:58):
reign with him to be a part ofhim to not just be subjects of
him, but to be part of hisfamily, his bride, his beloved,
and we're get to co-reign withthem.
It's just such a, an amazingconcept.
And sometimes, it's, blows themind to think about, but boy,
it's a lot of fun to think aboutthe same time.
Jennifer, did you want to sayanything else about what Randy
(47:20):
was just talking about?
So I haven't, speaking ofheaven, like it's really funny
how losing a loved one justreally puts an emphasis on the
heavenly yearning.
I'd grown up thinking aboutheaven and okay, that's our
destination, but that yearningthe becomes less scary.
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It becomes less out there.
It becomes more normalized inyour life.
After Ellie died, we were, I wasdesperate.
I was desperate to, to learnabout heaven.
I was desperate to learn aboutothers who had walked this path.
I ended up with a book in myhands from a dear family,
friends.
It was called my time in heavenand it was this gentlemen's
experience.
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He was a pastor his experience,he was in a car accident and he
woke up toe tagged in themorgue.
And the story he wrote was hisspiritual experience in the
interim and in the in-betweentime.
And a couple of the things thathe wrote about it just really,
it really comforted my heart.
(48:22):
One was that when he was therehe was in this waiting area and
in this waiting area, he sawthis elderly woman walked
through the veil and as she did,she became youthful and he was
just observing.
And one of the things you sawwas a little baby who sat there
and had the full capacity tospeak and have conversations and
stuff.
(48:42):
But the baby said, Jesus, let mestay little so that she could
raise me.
And just how precious it was andthe revelation in that moment,
in my own heart, that he's goingto redeem every minute.
Every minute lost will beredeemed.
And that was such a comfort tomy heart.
Then another thing besides allthe, just the glorious pictures
(49:02):
that he painted that justbrought so much joy to my heart,
just to think about.
But one of the other things thathe said that in the center of
the city of God, and there werethese clouds in the sky and he
says, I looked at him.
I realized that there werepeople on these clouds and I'm
thinking, oh, great.
Cloud of witnesses or something.
He said, no, It's those on earthwho are worshiping.
(49:24):
They don't realize that whenthey enter that place of
worship, they are truly inheavenly places worshiping with
us.
And just how closely connectedwe are to the heavenly realm.
And we just have no idea.
And so I just love to imaginethat I'm in that place
worshiping alongside of Ellieand all of our other loved ones
who are there already.
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And it's just, it's such anencouragement to my own heart to
just to know, and to understandjust how close we are in the
spiritual realm that we justdon't even realize.
Yeah, that's beautiful.
One thing I just feel like weneed to talk about just for one
minute for an unbeliever, thisis not the same as going to a
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psychic, like there's adifference between what Randy
experienced and I don't wantpeople to think that they can go
and experience this, by payingfor someone that's false.
Let's talk a little bit aboutthat.
The spiritual world is a veryreal place and we have an enemy
of our souls that is trying tomimic and mock and make light of
(50:35):
the real and psychics and anytype of medium and those things.
Though they be real as far asthe spiritual experiences that
you might encounter with them,they are leading you down an
absolute path of separation fromGod, and you will never find the
fulfillment.
You will never find thehappiness.
That is promised us by having alife filled with the truth.
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Jesus Christ is only one way.
There's only absolutely only oneway.
And to try to experience thosethrough, through other sources
is just going to lead to deathand separation and brokenness.
They make all the claims thatthey want to, but that is not
how you get there.
Those are fake experiencesthrough demonic forces, through
(51:20):
unreal spiritual beings, thatare leading you down a path that
have, that are forsaking theirfirst state and forsaking their
inheritance.
They're trying to lead you intoa place of destruction and so
psychics and all those thingsare a, a very pale counterfeit
because they don't leave youfulfilled.
They don't leave you with peace.
(51:40):
They don't leave you with joy.
They leave you with questionsand leave you with all these
things.
No matter what, they'll try totell you, because they're
masters at deception, but thereality of it is there's only
one way and that's through thetruth of Jesus Christ.
And I would if anyone's tryingto gain access to a spiritual
realm through psychics orwitches or mediums or any of
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those entities, they are,they're setting themselves up
for I'll just be honest.
They're setting themselves upfor torture and their end is
going to be much, much worsethan they ever started out
being.
Thank you.
You said that very succinctly.
If there's anything else thatyou want to share, and then
Randy, if you could close us outin a prayer for people who may
have lost loved ones.
(52:22):
Sure.
Yeah.
When do you have anything youwant to close with dear?
I would just say, just as aclosing thought, the eternal
realm is a wonderful, beautifulplace.
It's available through thefinished work of Jesus Christ.
It's something to look forwardto, it's nothing to be taken
lightly.
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If we keep our focus on JesusChrist and we endeavor to be
truly discipled by him and learnto have fellowship one with
another and grow in ourexpectations of what he has
called us to then that he's gota world available to us that
truly will blow our mind.
And know, I'd love to just say aprayer for all those that are
(53:04):
grieving and hurting.
And for those that areexperiencing loss it's,
sometimes it's inexpressible,even how to express pain and to
feel it and what do you do?
What do you say?
But let me just offer thisprayer.
It's just a hope for us.
Father in Jesus.
Father.
I just, I pray for all thoseright now that are, that have
experienced loss that don't knowhow to deal with it.
(53:26):
Lord that, and even ourselvesFather God, it's not like we
have the corner market onanything, Lord, we're just
learning to trust you.
And I pray that over everybodythat's experiencing loss right
now and pain that they wouldjust learn to turn their heart
towards you.
Not even as an answer for thepain, but as a way to, to live a
new life of joy and happiness,even with the pain in their life
(53:50):
that you have caused a greatnessof your glory to dwell with them
and be upon them.
Father, I just speak.
Absolute grace, absoluteblessing, absolute peace Father,
God, right now, Father God, overthe hearts and minds of those
struggling Father, God.
And as we look to you, Father, Ipray for wisdom.
(54:11):
I pray for hope.
I pray for supernatural grace tounderstand what you have brought
us into and the joy that isinexpressible and full of glory.
Father, I bless all thelisteners right now, Father God,
even if they're not grieving, Ibless them right now in the name
of Jesus, with wisdom and powerand supernatural might to
(54:33):
overcome all the works that theenemy would try to do.
He knows that his day is growingshorter and he's pulling out all
the stops.
But Lord we have a hope in youthat is eternal.
We have a life in you that ispowerful beyond what we could
ever possibly imagine or thinkso, Father, we bless all the
listeners, Father God, and wespeak life and grace and peace.
(54:53):
And the precious name of JesusChrist.
Amen.
Amen.
And amen.
And Randy, how can the listenersget ahold of you and your wife
for either speaking engagementsor counseling?
Yeah, the best place to, toreach out contact us would be
through our website.
It's Ellie's house.org, E L I ES H O U S E.org.
(55:20):
And that would be, all ourinformation is there and the
story, and we'd love to hearfrom anybody that would like to
to reach out and we can offer ahope and peace and no matter
where you're at in the world, wecan offer counseling through the
likes of all the differenttechnologies that are available
to us today and different waysof connecting.
Yeah, we'd love to hear from youand pray with you and be present
(55:40):
with you in your time ofgrieving.
Thank you so much.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you so much for joining mehere on Heavenly Hookups.
Again, my name is CamilleBattaglia.
Thank you for hitting thesubscribe button and following
the podcast on all the socialmedia channels.
God bless and Have a great week!
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