June 25, 2025 • 51 mins
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What happens to a marriage when life doesn’t just get hard—it breaks you?
In this deeply honest and emotional conversation, Cassia shares her and Cory’s journey of staying married while raising a medically fragile child, navigating grief after miscarriages, and confronting the realities of long-term caregiving. From ambulance rides every three weeks to learning how to love when there’s no guarantee of being loved back, their story is one of resilience, raw faith, and choosing to show up—day after day.
If you're parenting in hard circumstances, walking through suffering, or just wondering how couples stay connected in crisis, this episode is for you.
👉 Topics we cover:
Miscarriage and grief
Raising a child with severe disabilities
Faith in the middle of unanswered prayers
How marriage survives medical trauma
Learning to love in one direction
Practical ways to stay emotionally connected
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kasia, I'm super excited to have you on.
I admire you as a person tobegin with, so I just know that
the conversation we're going tohave today is going to be
impactful and important forseveral people.
So happy to have you here.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
I'm excited to chat with you.
Yeah, for sure.
Well, let's start with how longhave you been married and how
(00:22):
did you meet your husband, corey?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah, so we have been married.
And how did you meet yourhusband, corey?
Yeah, so we have been marriedabout 15 years It'll be 15 years
in August, which is crazy.
Congrats, thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah, we met in college atNorth Park University in Chicago
.
We met like day three of school, like before classes even
(00:46):
started, in the cafeteria.
We both knew the same girlsomehow and so plunked down next
to her, on either side of her,and over the course of like a
two hour conversation she had toget up and move because we were
just like having this likereally intense theological
conversation.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
She was like I'm in the way.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Do you remember the topic?
Oh, we talked about differentreligions.
We talked about um, it wasn't,it was kind of all over the
place.
I don't know if we were tryingto outdo one another, but like
it was a lot of like did, butdid you consider so?
Anyway, it was a lot of fun, um, but we got to be really good
friends after that and um gotmarried after our sophomore year
.
Yeah, which is young Um.
(01:24):
Yeah, which I wouldn'trecommend for most people, but
it was really good for us.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Um, and yeah, yeah.
What was it that firstattracted you to Corey?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Um, honestly, that he loved Jesus, which is a very
Christian answer.
So please don't roll your eyes.
I liked it.
I liked a different guy incollege and then just kind of
realized that their faithbackgrounds were taking two very
different directions and so Ijust kind of like gravitated
over to Corey and he was reallyintentional with me really early
(02:01):
on.
We just got to be really goodfriends, um, and yeah, started
dating pretty quick, yeah, butyou didn't friend zone them, you
were friends without it was.
It was all very quick, but like,yeah, there was probably about
a three week period where I waslike I'm not sure he's like I
like you.
I'm like, oh, okay, I'll thinkabout it, I'll get back to you,
(02:21):
I'm very busy, Um no, but we, wegot, we just got to be really
good friends.
Like we had a group of us thatwould spend like on average four
hours a day together.
So it was like a relationshippressure cooker essentially just
kind of forced you deep quick.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yeah, Um, so yeah, well, and I think also, getting
married young forces you deepquick because you don't have
stable jobs.
You don't have like you werestill had two more years of
college we did, but you weremarried, which forced us into
needing jobs real quick.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I mean, the government smiles on people who
get married young, apparently,like we were both eligible for a
lot more in grants.
So that was very helpful, butthat's nice.
But it also forced us into, youknow, needing to get jobs quick
.
So I I wound up with aninternship downtown Chicago.
He wound up with a bunch ofjobs around campus and we I
don't know it it it definitelymatured you a lot quicker than
(03:16):
the normal college experience.
Yeah, yeah, you made it work.
Yeah, it was good.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, it's really good.
I know I feel I was, feel I wasmy.
I mean, rob, my husband is twoyears older than me, but I was
in the middle of my junior year,when we got married okay, so,
and it was a little differentbecause he what he did, he was a
soldier, so he did have a job.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Oh, that's right, that's right, so it was this
whole thing.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
But I still feel like I grew up way quicker than my
peers because I was married andI had to, like, figure out
married stuff and all.
No longer the support of myparents yeah, most, I mean they
probably would have but I waslike, no, we're going to figure
it out, you know.
Yeah, so you just kind of youfigure it out, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
So y'all are married yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
So y'all are married about five years before you
started having kids.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, so we got married in 2010 and we actually
had two miscarriages in likeright before our oldest son.
So our oldest son was born in2015, but we'd had two
miscarriages right before him2015, but we'd had two
(04:27):
miscarriages right before him.
So, even up to the birth, bothof us were kind of like I don't
know if he makes it we were bothjust kind of walking into that,
Like when, when Keller was born, he was purple and Corey was
convinced he was dead forprobably the first.
You know how those first fewminutes, like just everything
seems so much longer.
But, um, he was like, convincedthat Keller was dead, Um, and
(04:52):
we had had stillborn, you know,and I was like why aren't you
like I'm crying Cause I just hada baby, Um, and he didn't do
anything and he just stood thereand I was like what is your
deal?
Like we just had a baby and itwas cause he thought he had died
.
So, um, I think I think thatthose, those two miscarriages
early on also kind of helpedmove us deeper together, but
(05:12):
also um, deeper with the Lord,faster, if that makes sense.
Like we had to wrestle withthings like God, I, you know, I
asked you to keep my babies,babies, safe.
I asked you to protect them, Iasked you to help them grow and
they're both dead.
You know, like that that was ahard thing for me to process
through and to wrestle throughof like, definitely very gun shy
(05:43):
those first few months, Like,okay, are you going to be okay?
Like, are you?
going to be, I think it was.
He was the easiest, sweetestbaby he was probably he was a
good, a good starter, starterchild.
Does that make?
Sense Can you call him that?
Probably not.
He's your kid, starter kid.
But he he, yeah, was a goodinitiation into into parenting.
(06:07):
He's a sweet boy.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
There's a lot of people struggling with their
fertility right now.
Yeah, I'm hearing more.
I have a dear friend they'retrying so hard and she's had one
miscarriage and so just Ididn't even know that was part
of your story.
Yeah, how did you like?
(06:28):
How did you reconcile?
Through God, I prayed for thesechildren and for them to be
healthy, and why did this happen?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I mean and I'd love to give you a nice little bow on
top answer, and here's why itwas fine that my children died
Like.
I don't have that.
I think in the ways that theLord has been walking me through
these different, you know,problems around my kids, like, I
think an earlier version ofmyself trusted God because of
(07:02):
something.
I trusted him to keep us safe.
I trusted him to protect mychildren.
I trusted him to, you know, x,y, z, and I think I think
through these things, he'steaching me to trust him period,
full stop, if that makes sense.
It's not, um, because he hasalways made sure that everything
(07:25):
has gone to the way that Iexpected or I wanted.
But I've seen his goodness inthose stories and in that
heartbreak and I think that'skind of what's kept me on.
After we had the twomiscarriages, I was really angry
with God, I was reallyfrustrated and grieving a lot
(07:46):
and, um, we would have peoplecome up to us, you know cause.
We didn't tell anybody, wedidn't like miscarriage was
still I don't know, peopleweren't talking about it, and I
think that's still true now.
Um, but we would have peoplecome up and be like so when are
you guys going to have kids.
How come you aren't having anybabies?
I mean, it's been five years.
I was working full time, coreywas working full time.
(08:08):
It was like what's going on andI remember that just being
devastating.
Like I don't know if I can,like I keep getting pregnant but
I keep losing them, and so Igot it in my head.
Here's how I will solve this.
I'm going to make a quilt,naturally.
Naturally, this is not my skillset.
(08:28):
I like making things like.
Quilts have to be very perfectand it takes a lot of meticulous
like lining up of things.
This is not my skill set.
But I my mom got me a sewingmachine and I sat and I worked
on a baby quilt.
And I just use that time tolike, like, give the whole
situation back to the Lord, tolike pray over this quilt,
(08:50):
because I assumed I was going tobe giving it away to somebody.
I was praying for the mom underthat was going to use it, the
baby that would sleep under it,things like that, just that they
would be cared for and wouldexperience the goodness of God,
and it was really healing.
And that quilt turned out to beKeller's baby quilt.
You know, it was just like avery sweet full circle, and he
(09:10):
used that time of just sittingin the grief, sitting in the
frustration.
I think that has been a lotmore of my story than God
putting nice pretty bows on topof things.
A lot of times he just leads meinto seasons of sitting in the
frustrations, sitting in thatgrief and not yeah, not putting
(09:38):
a nice bow on top.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah, so you had your two miscarriages.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, keller Keller.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
And you got pregnant again.
I got pregnant again withanother boy.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Did you want like girls and then kept getting
pregnant with boys or I don'tknow.
I think like so, this, this isa girl, we I don't know after
three boys so I had, you know,keller, elin and Jojo, I don't
know.
I was like, okay, I'm done,like I'm a boy mom, the end End
of story, and like I get boys.
Boys make sense to me.
Like fart is always funny inour house, hilarious, always
(10:21):
funny, and so no, I don in ourhouse, always funny, um, and so
no, I don't feel like either ofus had any like we need to have
a girl by any means.
Good boy parents, we'resatisfied, very cheerful with
our boys.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yeah, so what was it like to get pregnant the second
time with elon?
So now you'd have like kellerwas good keller was good.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Keller was healthy, he started out easy, developed a
very large personality, um, sohe he's been, yeah, a sweetheart
.
He's been a lot of fun.
Um, elon, I don't know.
I remember right before we hadelon um, thinking like god,
things are too cushy.
Things feel really easy rightnow.
(11:05):
Like we were just in this reallysweet season of, like I was
working part-time and Corey wasworking full-time at a church
and you know, we had our sweetlittle boy.
We had just moved into thisbeautiful little home in Elgin,
illinois and, yeah, things werejust really good.
And I just remember gettingvery existential and being like
God, are you going to have Ijust bought into the suburban
(11:27):
dream, like, are you going to doanything with me?
Like, what, what's your plan?
Call me, let's go, let's go toa jungle somewhere and I will
leave this.
I will leave pregnant with my,you know, toddlers.
(11:50):
This is going to be so good,what a great plan I have.
Um, and just feeling restless,like what, what is your plan?
Um, and little did I know likeI was cooking Elin and Elin Um,
yeah, I don't wonder if thatwasn't part of the answer to
that, like God, putting ananticipation on your heart of
(12:12):
something about to happen.
Yeah, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
And then what happened?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
So Elin was full term .
We brought him home with us.
He's born at 39 weeks.
We didn't do any time in theNICU.
He was, by all accounts,healthy pregnancy.
The only thing they noticed inthe hospital was that he kept
failing his hearing test, whichis super common because babies
(12:43):
get fluid behind their ears, andso they were like, oh, it's
okay, you know, like I haddropped a fork near him and he'd
startled.
Real bad.
So we're like he can hear, likeum.
But then over the next fewmonths, like he just kept
failing hearing tests and theywere getting more robust and um,
at about at about three months,um, we noticed like he still
(13:05):
wasn't tracking.
Like my friend had a baby aboutthree weeks before me and I
remember sitting with her andher little girl and she's just
looking at her and baby islooking right at mom and I was
like man, elan doesn't do thateven a little bit, like I don't
think he can see my face.
Um, and right about then I tookhim to the doctor.
(13:25):
They were running a bunch oftests and the doctor noticed
that his soft spot on top of hishead had fully closed, which it
shouldn't do at three months.
You know, we need more time forthe brain to grow.
So about about this time, Ithink.
So he was born in October.
This was like January.
Three different doctors calledin MRIs Um, so we went downtown
(13:47):
Chicago to Lurie children'shospital and we did two separate
MRIs on him Um, and that was inthe end of January.
And two weeks into February wewent in to meet with a
neurologist Um and she showed uslike she had a screen like this
, and she showed us um picturesof Elin's brain Um, and it was
(14:11):
even from like a layman'sperspective.
It was like, oh, there's a lotof black there, like you could
see the tissue, but there was alot of water, there wasn't a lot
of brain there.
And so she told us that inutero Elin had had a very
specific malformation to a veryspecific gene.
(14:33):
So this gene is likeresponsible for, like the
development of the tissue.
If you think of it like thescaffolding for the brain tissue
to develop that had had amalformation.
So the brain tissue had neverdeveloped.
Like you and I, our brains looklike spaghetti.
So there's a lot of surfacearea, but he has whole patches
(14:56):
that are smooth because thattissue never developed or um,
sections within his brain are isjust water because the tissue
never developed.
And so while we were sittingthere having this conversation
with her, she all of a suddenpicks up the phone and starts
calling somebody because he hadapparently had a really
(15:16):
dangerous kind of seizure in heroffice.
It's called infantile spasms,that's a whole thing, but anyway
.
So she immediately sent us tohave an EEG done which is like a
full brain scan.
I'm like handing my four monthold over to a technician so she
can hook him up with a bunch ofwires and goop and then wrap him
(15:38):
up and um, they're trying tocheck and see if he in fact did
have the specific um electricalsignature for infantile spasms,
which he did.
Um, so he's immediately put ona bunch of seizure medications.
Um.
So we came home that was um midFebruary.
(16:01):
In March I was sitting upstairsin our attic working.
He was right next to me and Inoticed that it was like
somebody had taken their pinkyin his mouth and just kept
pulling it to the side over andover again, like involuntary.
He's doing like this over andover.
So we called the neurology teamand they're like you must come
(16:21):
in, we need to see what'shappening.
And and we spent about a weekin the hospital and realized
that he'd lost his ability toswallow, probably from those
seizures, um, I think.
Over time we realized that whenhe would have these epileptic
epileptic events, um, he'd losehis ability to swallow.
So while we were there, theyimmediately put a tube into his
(16:46):
nose.
He wasn't allowed to breastfeedanymore, wasn't allowed to
nurse, um, we had to doeverything via his nose, um,
from that point forward fromthat point.
Yeah, he's still a hundredpercent Now.
It's out of his nose, it's inhis belly.
He's got a port, so he's ahundred percent G tube fed belly
(17:09):
.
He's got a port, so he's ahundred percent G tube fed.
Um.
So yeah, it was.
It was rough.
Like over those twoappointments we learned that
what had been our sweet babyright, like he's got
microcephaly, he's got epilepsy,he's functionally blind.
Um, he's got something calledCVI, so his optic nerves are
about a third of the size theyshould be.
He's got something called CVI,so his optic nerves are about a
third the size they should be.
He's got bilateral hearing loss, not entirely, but he's missing
(17:32):
hearing in both ears.
They couldn't tell us at thattime but they're like he
probably will be nonverbal orwill have very limited
communication.
He has never developed theability to sit or roll or
anything.
Everything about him has to besomebody doing it for him.
And yeah, it was a really darkseason of trying, like we
(18:00):
thought this was bad.
Oh wait, there's so much more.
Oh wait, there's so much more,oh wait.
You know, it was just like,yeah, we just kept finding out
more and more things like about,about his situation and
obviously like that's going tocause stress on any individual,
let alone a young couple tryingto like a hundred percent,
(18:21):
trying to trying to navigate it.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
How did you navigate it Like?
How did you navigate it Like?
How did you navigate it withyour marriage?
Did it increase stress andincrease like disagreements?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I mean because you know, when Ithink, as soon as you add kids
to any relationship, like'salready gonna be like a.
Well, I wouldn't do it that way.
I don't like how you, why didyou, you know?
But when you add somebody who'sso, um, fragile and like chaotic
(18:54):
in their how, how they displaytheir disability, like that
first year man, we had theambulance at our house every
three weeks.
You, just because it was likehe'd go into these 18 minute
seizures, our, our seizure planrequired, after we'd given so
much rescue medication, we hadto have EMTs involved, just
(19:15):
because we didn't know how hisbody would respond to that much
rescue medication.
And so it was like we're bothtrying to also balance jobs.
Corey was in the middle of ajob change when all of this
happened, like he was at thesame church but he was moving to
a different campus.
And I'm trying to.
(19:36):
I had just taken this likematernity leave from my job and
it was like I'm back Also,everything's exploding job.
And it was like I'm back also,everything's exploding, um.
So thankfully, they were supergracious with me and like let me
go take my thousands ofappointments to figure out stuff
with elin.
So, anyway that that definitelyadded a lot of stress and I
think in that season we had tofigure out, like, what our
(19:58):
philosophy of care was like.
We learned that for me I Istill believed very
wholeheartedly that there was amagic doctor wand.
All we had to do is take thesick child to the doctor, the
doctor would wave the wand, thechild would be better.
So my, my MO is always likewe've got to go to the hospital,
we've got to go to the doctor,and Corey's like they're not
(20:19):
going to do anything, like we'vebeen to the ER several times
now and all they do is say letus know if it gets worse, and
they send us home, you know, andthat just kept happening over
and over again.
So like trying to align on likeER level decisions every three
(20:40):
weeks like that, that can causesome tension for sure.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
I can imagine.
I mean, I can't imagine, but Ican think that, or I.
It would seem like when couplesexperience this, there's going
to be the couples that it makesthem stronger and there's going
to be the couples that thistears them apart.
And maybe you've seen it insome of the circles that you've,
that you've been in Causeyou're like way more in those
(21:10):
spheres.
Yeah, way more in those spheres.
What kept y'all from pullingapart?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Um, and I honestly I think there's a lot of grace in
our story.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Like.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I think we I don't know that just was never an
option.
We'd fight, we'd have big blowup fights, but like separating
or divorce was not one of thoselike well, how are we going to?
How are we going to, you know,move forward together.
It was like, well, how are wegoing to?
How are we going to?
(21:44):
You know, move forward together.
And I don't know that's becauseany amount of like willpower on
our part or just we're just soin love, I feel like just a lot
of like, I don't know.
The Lord was really graciouswith us and like gave us what we
needed for that day to um, to,to work through those different
(22:05):
decisions, and kept us together,kept us at the table.
Um, I think we we learned earlyon in our marriage like to stay
in the same room, to not justlike.
I remember trying to storm offone time and was like no, no,
this doesn't work for healthymarriage.
(22:26):
I think keeping keeping shortaccounts has been really helpful
for us.
Um, not letting things fester,not letting things linger.
I'm not necessarily saying likelet's figure it out at bedtime,
when everybody's tired andgrouchy, but not letting things
go more than like 24 hoursbefore you've like talked about
it, addressed it again, tried tosee the other person's
(22:51):
viewpoint, and that's justlittle.
Little things like that havebeen really helpful for us to
try and like.
We still disagree.
We disagree on a lot of things,but I think that's helped us
kind of navigate through those.
Okay, what you're saying makessense.
I guess I'll go with what youwant to do you know, learn to
(23:15):
compromise.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I can imagine, with the amountof the stress and emotions
involved with with all of this,that there's temptation for like
escapism behaviors.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
How have y'all kept?
And I thought of this when yousaid like we come back to it,
instead of like escaping, orinstead of leaving, or instead
of whatever, like we come backto it.
How have you like?
Have you?
Have there been any?
Was that a part of your storywhere it was like man, it would
be so much easier to do thisthing, to escape whatever.
That is yeah, but no, I'm goingto make this intentional
(23:53):
decision to like go do the hardthing.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Um, I wish I could take credit.
I really do.
Um, I think I think it speaksto Corey's skill sets around
this.
I am very much the brooder.
I will sit and feel icy for along time, I'll hold on to
things, and he's always beenreally good about coming
alongside me and being like hey,you seem upset, let's talk,
(24:24):
let's talk.
You know we we had a couple inour church teach us.
Have you talked about FanoF-A-N-O?
So it's an evening check-in ordo it every day.
We've we fall in and out ofthis, but Fano has been a really
(24:45):
sweet way to just clear the air.
So it's feelings affirm needown.
So you come in to theconversation.
It can be 15 minutes.
This is what I'm feeling Like.
I'm feeling frustrated becausemy boss was an absolute jerk
today and screamed at me.
I'm feeling tightly wound rightnow Just kind of helps disarm
the other person.
They're like oh, you're not madat me, you're carrying something
else into this conversation.
What can I affirm aboutsomething in you?
Like?
I affirm that you sat andplayed you know, go fish with
(25:07):
jojo last night.
Thank you for taking time forhim.
What do I need?
I need to sit on the couch andbe left alone for a little bit,
like I just need, or I need youto help with the kids, or I need
help with dishes or somethingand I own whatever, like where I
know I've been wrong.
And having him come to me andsay here's what I need to own
(25:28):
and he can say it better than Iwas rehearsing it in my head,
just deescalates the situationfor me.
Almost every time where it'slike, oh no, you do understand.
I don't need to explain to youthe 18 ways you've made me angry
.
You already see it and you'veowned it and it just takes the
temperature way down.
So that was something that we Ithink there was an elder couple
(25:49):
in our last church that taughtus that and that's been really
helpful for keeping those shortaccounts, keeping those regular
conversations yeah, thoseregular check-ins, so things
can't fester I love that it'sreally good, it's really good.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
I was talking with my dad today about felt security,
as we do which is the you guyssound fun, super fun we're
talking about attachment theory,okay and um, but it's what
you're describing, which is we,like humans, are made to depend
on someone else, like it's howGod created us at the beginning,
(26:28):
like I'm going to make a helperfor you, so we're designed to
need someone else, not like morethan God, but like this is what
this is what marriage is.
But we need to know that thatperson is going to be there for
us no matter what.
So when cory comes to you andis like here's what I'll own,
you feel seen and like he'sthere for you no matter what, so
(26:52):
it's in.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
So it's just like increasing your security in the
relationship and same when youdo that to him, like it's
increasing your security whichright makes you stronger and
allows you to like endure morechaos and storms yeah, it just
helps you give more benefit ofthe doubt for the next time
where it's like okay I can trustyou to be self-aware, to see
(27:14):
when you've done something wrong.
You can also trust you that yousee when I'm working extra hard
in that like affirmationportion, like you see it so it
just, it just keeps buildingthat foundation of trust so that
when he does something and I'mlike, how could you?
it's not, and I mean I stillstruggle with like giving him
(27:35):
the benefit of the doubt, I havenot arrived.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
But like.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
I think it definitely helps.
Yeah For the next, the nextfight.
Yeah For the next, the nextfight.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yeah.
And so now Elan is seven and ahalf, yeah, and you have Jojo,
your four year old, and you'repregnant.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Surprise, surprise.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
How, like, as you've processed through knowing the
diagnosis and parenting and Imean now this is just your
normal rhythm of life.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
How I mean.
What's your relationship beenlike with God, where it went
from God I?
Why didn't you like, why didn'tyou give me my first two babies
?
Oh God, thank you so much formy amazing first kid, yeah, next
two babies, yeah, and then soit's like and why like God?
Why this?
Were you mad at God?
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I think so, I think so, and there's I mean it's in
seasons, right, like I'll gothrough seasons of where it's
like okay, this is just our norm, and you compartmentalize and
you go um.
But there are other seasonswhere it's like to what end?
Like how long are we gonna dothis?
Like he's he's drooling himself, he's peeing to his knees or
(28:55):
he's pooping to his armpits,like he's having seizures every
single day.
You know, like, at some pointyou're just like this is the
good plan, this like it, it.
It definitely ebbs and flows,and I think I went through one
of those seasons at thebeginning of this year where it
was just like what's your planhere, man?
(29:16):
Like what, what are we doing?
Um, and again, like I don'thave this beautiful bow on top.
Where he's like and here's themaster plan?
Um, he hasn't shown me that yet.
I'm still sitting in a lot ofthe already, but not yet.
I'm watching him though, like,meet me in this season.
(29:41):
He's surrounded us with peopleand with care and with support.
He brought us to Tennessee.
I had, you know, a medical team.
I had an amazing educationalteam, like his school team.
I had, um, everything set up inIllinois, and he just uprooted
our family and brought us here,and in that process about two
(30:04):
years ago he met us in ways thatand so it's like, okay, god,
you, you have us here, you haveElan still with us.
(30:33):
I don't know, I don't have a, anice, and here's why, like we're
, we're still sitting in the init, and maybe it's for stuff
like this, maybe it's to walkalongside other families.
Again, that feels trite to justbe, like it's so I can shepherd
the next crew you know like, butyeah, but he's also been steady
(30:55):
and faithful in in the minute,in the um, not the minute
details, but like he's notfixing the big hairy, audacious
thing in the minute, in the um,not the minute details, but like
he's not fixing the big hairy,audacious thing in the middle.
But gosh, he's been.
He's been so active in theperiphery around that he's been
surrounding us as we carry thisbig you know elan burden, um,
(31:20):
that I don't know.
I'm curious to see how he movesus through it and what the
other side does look like,whether that's Elin healed and
well and like miraculously getsto be one of our boys, or we do
lose him and we walk through thegrief of losing him, but he is
made well on the other side ofthis life.
(31:43):
You know, like, where he getsto experience what is good and
what is whole um, you know,before the rest of us do like I
don't, yeah, I don't have thatum buttoned up yet yeah, but do
you and cory process some ofthat?
Speaker 1 (32:03):
at times y'all like talk about that.
Yeah, all of the like.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
I don't even know all of it like, like, what, what,
what do you mean?
Speaker 1 (32:16):
like, what is our like, what is the future with
elan and how are we going tonavigate through these next
stages and certain things.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
I'm so frightened of puberty that was one of the
first things we saw when we cameinto this world was a mom and
her daughter and they had her onthe daughter on puberty
blockers because it was trashingher epilepsy as soon as, like
(32:47):
it's like a full restart forsome of these kids where you'd
had them on these differentmedications and you know
whatever.
So like that, I think thatfrightens me.
I think it is a daunting ideaand it like it feels horrible.
But like to care for a fullyimmobilized, fully disabled
(33:08):
adult.
Like there's so much moresupport right now, like from the
state, from the school system,from whatever for children, um,
like I get I get in-home nursingat night, which has been an
absolute game changer.
That's one of the ways thelord's been really caring for us
in this season is like we getto sleep at night eland doesn't
(33:28):
sleep great, um, and as soon asthey turn, I think it's like 18
or 21, your hours get cut.
For a lot of these kids theydon't, or then they're adults.
You know what I mean.
Like just the support.
The support drops way off and solike I was talking to a mom who
(33:51):
had a son very much like Elin afew days ago actually, and she
lost him when he was nine andshe was like I ache for him, I
would do anything to be able tolike hold him and kiss his
little cheeks again and likelove him.
But just like we can't likekeep people captive, you know,
(34:16):
like our children, like youcan't leave my house because I
love you so much, like that'snot good.
She's like I don't wish himback for his own sake.
I don't wish him back into achair, 24, seven, unable to see,
unable to speak, unable to orhaving seizures all the time.
She's like I do love him andbecause I love him, I'm thankful
that he's free from you knowwhat he had been living in.
(34:39):
And like that's a that's areally hard thing to wrestle
with as a mom, cause you'resupposed to be like no, no, I
will fight until the very end.
But there's like that, yeahWell, where you just start
holding things a lot moreopen-handedly to be like, okay,
god, like I I don't want that,but also I love him and I don't
(35:01):
want him to be as miserable asas he.
Well, he's not miserable, Ishouldn't say it that way but
like I want what's good for him,I want him to be well and to be
whole and things.
So, yeah, it definitely leadsyou into some more existential
conversations, um, and we dotalk about that stuff and I I
(35:23):
appreciate that.
About Corey, that he's I thinkhe's probably 10 steps ahead of
me usually when we have theseconversations and it takes it
just takes me longer to kind ofparse through a lot of those
thoughts and feelings and like,okay, now, what do we do with
that?
He's a lot more spockish than Iam.
I married spock.
It's great, um, but that'sthat's been really helpful, like
(35:48):
to, yeah, to be married tosomebody who, who I don't know,
can just get like parsed throughthat a lot quicker.
I don't know he's, he's beenmuch more the leader in this
like emotional journey.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Which has been really good.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
How has having Elan and loving Elan changed what you
think about love?
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Hmm, I think, kind of like, like what I was saying,
what my friend said before,where it's like love is so at
least love for elan, looks a lotdifferent than for my other
kids.
For my other kids that love isreciprocal.
I get those, you know, dopaminehits of them saying mom, I love
(36:37):
you, or like hugs or kisses.
But for Elon, so much of ourlove is very one way.
He doesn't know my face, heknows my voice and he'll semi
respond to it.
But that love, like seeing,seeing the Imago Dei in Elon, I
think is what kind of pushes usforward to fight hard for him.
(37:03):
You know, and we adore him, heis the sweetest little guy.
He, he's probably my mostobedient child, 100, um, he's,
yeah, a delight.
But I think I think that issomething that we've learned in
having him is like oh, oh, love,love isn't always reciprocal.
(37:27):
Sometimes love is very one wayand it's kind of like a good
image of the way the fatherloves us, you know, way Christ
loves us.
It's like there's a lot of oneway love, um, that we don't
reciprocate back, that we don'treciprocate back Um, and yeah, I
(37:47):
think he's, he's kind of drawnus into that, that picture a
little bit more deeply.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
I love that.
I love that I.
That's super powerful.
I don't know that there's anyperson in my life that I could
say like I've had a one way lovetowards them.
Right, yeah.
There's always somethingreciprocal about them, right,
yeah, there's always somethingreciprocal about yeah, right,
right, how beautiful, though Ithink that unlocks a deeper
(38:13):
level of love, like you probablyknow how to love in a way
different way than I know how tolove, because you've done it
with no, without expectinganything back necessarily from
it.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
But, like.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
You do it daily, consistently.
You want to like.
You do it daily consistently.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
You want to like, and you do it because you want to,
not because you have to, andthat's, I think that's well, and
please hear me, elan ismagnetic, like he goes nowhere
without people being like youare amazing, we get, he's got
quite the following.
We've got this little facebookpage for him and people just
like they've never met himbefore and they already adore
him, you know.
So it's, it is both and he is.
(38:50):
He is a darling.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Yes yes, he is, but also yeah, sure, yeah, yes, but
also you are doing hard thingstoo, thank you.
How do you make time foryourself and for your marriage
with all the kids, so many kids?
Speaker 2 (39:08):
So many kids, so many of them More coming.
More, dear Lord.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
There's so many you have like neighbor kids that I
see you hauling around sometimes.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Oh my, goodness, it's a farm, do you have?
Speaker 1 (39:20):
chickens.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Do you have chickens?
I have chickens.
I have a dog, I have a cat.
If you want a dog or a cat, Iwill.
We just offloaded nine hens andtwo roosters.
How do you do it?
Six hens and two?
Speaker 1 (39:32):
roosters.
Okay, now really, how do you doall this?
Speaker 2 (39:36):
No, it's great fun.
I recommend chickens toeverybody.
They're so low maintenance andthey eat all of your kitchen
scraps.
They eat all of your uh kitchenscraps.
They're just like little garbagedisposals and they're like your
compost and they're snuggly.
There's one of our chickens no,please hear me, one of our
chickens is very snuggly.
Anytime cory comes home, shecomes running up on the deck.
Just put, just to him, not tothe rest of us, just him.
She'll come running up onto thedeck and like ask to be picked
(39:59):
up.
It is the trippiest thinganyway.
That is amazing, baby.
The chicken is um, just thebest.
Uh, yeah, no, I don't know it's.
I was very nice getting rid ofthe roosters to a kind farm, yes
, where they're living theirbest life, right, no one has
eaten them, nobody's eaten them.
They're very fine, it's okay.
All is good all is good.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
What was your question?
How do you take, how do youhave the time?
Oh sure care of yourself andyour marriage um yeah, I mean
there's a lot of factors there.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
I think cory and I are both homebodies so we do
like two things we work and wehave our kids and it's pretty
much it.
There's not like golf andshopping and things.
You know, like we're we're kindof just, we've kept things
pretty close to home, um, and Ithink we just cory and I
(40:56):
specifically like we just enjoyeach other's company, like he is
my best friend.
I tell him everything, he tellsme.
I think everything like we, wejust love to sit and talk to
each other, which really helps,like I want to spend time with
him Honestly, like part of God'simmense grace to us in this
(41:19):
move is we've gotten ourbackyard neighbors have become
like surrogate grandparents toand like nobody's replacing
their regular grandparentsplease hear me, but of course,
but gosh, they're the oneswatching my kids right now so I
can be here you know they loveelin, they ask for elin, they
ask for the other boys to comevisit.
(41:41):
You know, like so, we never hadthat.
In Illinois I had a young womanwho would nanny for me and she,
if she wasn't available, like I, I wasn't available.
You know, um, our cause, ourmoms were out of state in
Illinois too.
Sometimes my mom would drivedown from Wisconsin.
But, like so, I think I think,having those people in our life
(42:04):
who are fighting for us to havea date night, fighting for us to
go away, being creative aboutdate nights where it's not like
I have to leave the house and Ihave to do X, y, z, it's like,
well, maybe this week date nightis, put the kids to bed and we
have a glass of wine.
Well, had a glass of wine, aglass of water, a glass of water
(42:24):
, but the wine, but yeah, or youknow we'll, we'll do stuff like
that.
Try and be intentional.
The Fano has been super helpful.
Um, we recently have starteddoing screen-free nights with
the kids where it's like, okay,mondays and Wednesdays we're
screen-free.
(42:45):
So last night was Monday and wesat and Corey and Jojo played go
fish and I worked on thisbaby's quilt and Keller done a
quilt for every baby, yeah, whenyou sit and you pray over.
It's been so good.
It's been so good.
I'm getting better at quilting.
(43:05):
Keller's was pretty bad.
You've had four.
This is your fourth one.
This is my fourth quilt, so youknow it's still a B minus, but
you know we're makingimprovements.
So I was doing that and Kellerwas bopping around and Elin was
sitting by.
It was just really sweet familytime.
(43:26):
So, yeah, just keeping oursphere small, keeping few irons
in the fire I think has beenreally helpful for us to juggle
the chickens and the chickensand the kids and the jobs and
the things you know.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
And the dog and the cat.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Well, we might just, if you want, again very
cheerfully give you the dog andthe cat you are looking to
offload.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense Like do less things
better and what's moreimportant than your family yeah.
It's been really helpful In allof this.
Have you ever doubted that Godexisted?
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Oh, not existed, maybe his kindness for sure.
There've been times where I'mlike, what are we even doing
here?
Like, but I think he he'll letme have my tantrum, you know,
like punch a wall, kick a floor,like he'll let me scream my
things and then he'll usher mevery kindly back into his grace,
(44:33):
very kindly back into hisgoodness In some way.
It is rarely him fixing the bigugly thing that I'm screaming
about, but he'll meet me againin that periphery, in the things
surrounding that, saying I've,I've cared for everything around
you.
Trust me with the big hairything too.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
Do you ever still have that like vision or
anticipation or longing of, likeGod, what's next?
I'll move.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Like, let's just move .
Elizabeth Elliott and I werejust caught through the world.
Um, I do.
I did actually this last summer.
I was, you know, my youngest iscoming up on four on preschool.
I've got you know, my older twoare in full-time school.
(45:30):
I was, you know, I'm anaccountant by trade.
So I was like man, I'd love todo something else.
And so I was like God, what doyou want to do with me?
What's next?
Like, will I start writingabout Elan?
Will I start doing you know?
(45:51):
Know, like, what do you wantfor me?
So, like, seems to be a thing,I know, I know I keep being like
god, I'm gonna do these bigthings for you.
And then, like, like kids, yeah, but I think I think he ushered
me very tenderly back intomotherhood, you know.
I think I was ready to move onto the next stage, where my kids
were a little bit moreindependent, and he was like
nope.
I'm going to keep you verysquarely in in this sphere with
(46:11):
a very new baby, elin'sfunctionally a six month old,
you know.
But I think my kids are stilllittle and they do still need me
and this has been him kind ofgently redirecting me and I
still get to do fun stuff likethis where, like, I get to um um
, talk about Elin and like,hopefully encourage other other
families that are walkingthrough things a similar story,
(46:34):
um, but in this next season I'mnot going to be working anymore,
just going to be mom and I'm.
I'm actually excited about thatnow.
I think last summer me was likeI will write and I will do
things and, yeah, I'm excitedfor this next season of just
being mom.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
I love that.
Yeah.
What are the key things youwould tell someone listening who
is also parenting with adifficult situation like a
special needs child?
They feel overwhelmed, tired,unheard.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Does.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
God, see me.
What would you say to thatperson?
Speaker 2 (47:14):
I would say I'm so sorry, the same thing that
somebody said to me I'm so sorrythat you're part of this club.
There are a lot of amazingpeople in the club but nobody
wants to be here.
There are a lot of amazingpeople in the club but nobody
wants to be here.
I think it's really easy inthis sphere to go like racing
(47:36):
ahead and I know people alwayssay take it one day at a time.
But genuinely, we get grace fortoday.
We don't get grace for threeyears from now.
Take today, live in today, makedecisions for today.
We don't get grace for threeyears from now.
Take today, live in today, makedecisions for today.
(47:56):
Um, I think where I get the mostexistential or angry or
agitated is when I'm likerunning into all the different
hypotheticals, like, what ifthis happens?
What if this happens?
What if he can't?
What if he won't?
What if they don't?
Um, and I don't need to bemaking those decisions.
I don't need to be goingthrough those emotional
exercises of like, what ifs?
(48:17):
I need to deal with what is andI need to stay there now, like,
please hear me, you need to.
There are things you do need toplan in advance for and you do
need to like, actually, you know, figure out what school you're
going to go to and things, butgiving those those things down
the road, any emotional energybefore they actually exist, I
(48:38):
think, is what drains people inthis world.
Living in that fear, living inthe unknowns.
So, just remembering to keepyourself emotionally in today,
and only today, and to rememberthat I think a lot of times,
(48:59):
especially in the West, we arepromised a very different bill
of goods than what God actuallypromises.
I think a lot of times we comeinto this going like God is for
me and therefore he's going todo what I want him to do and
therefore things are going to gowell for me.
And sometimes that is true,things do go well for us and
(49:21):
things are good and it's becauseof his goodness and kindness.
But sometimes he walks usthrough dark, dark seasons.
Um, and that is very much partof the Christian story, it is
not just from mountaintop tomountaintop.
(49:41):
There's a lot of valley time, um, and remembering that, like his
, his goodness goes with us.
It doesn't save us from things,it goes with us.
His presence is what matters.
Um, yeah, that's.
I think that's what I wouldencourage people with.
And find people, find peoplewho are walking it with you,
(50:03):
like I think that this communityhas always been so welcoming to
me, like I found people onInstagram, cause those were the
only people walking throughstuff like this that I could
find and those relationshipshave actually turned out to be
really healing.
They, they get it.
Yeah, yeah, don't do it alone.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Yeah, a hundred percent yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
I just always love talking to you.
Yeah, this is fun.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
I always go away from it Like I have learned so much
and laughed so hard, and I thinkthe combination is what makes
you such a wonderful person.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
Brian I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
Yeah, I appreciate it .
I think it's really thisepisode, I believe, is really
going to help a lot of peoplewho need it.
And I appreciate that.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
I think it's really thisepisode, I believe, is really
going to help a lot of peoplewho need it.
And I appreciate you sharing,being vulnerable, being open,
seeing hope in the situation andwanting to share that with
others.
So, thank you.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
Yeah, thanks for having me Appreciate it.
Kasia, I'm super excited to have you on.
I admire you as a person tobegin with, so I just know that
the conversation we're going tohave today is going to be
impactful and important forseveral people.
So happy to have you here.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
I'm excited to chat with you.
Yeah, for sure.
Well, let's start with how longhave you been married and how
(00:22):
did you meet your husband, corey?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah, so we have been married.
And how did you meet yourhusband, corey?
Yeah, so we have been marriedabout 15 years It'll be 15 years
in August, which is crazy.
Congrats, thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah, we met in college atNorth Park University in Chicago
.
We met like day three of school, like before classes even
(00:46):
started, in the cafeteria.
We both knew the same girlsomehow and so plunked down next
to her, on either side of her,and over the course of like a
two hour conversation she had toget up and move because we were
just like having this likereally intense theological
conversation.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
She was like I'm in the way.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Do you remember the topic?
Oh, we talked about differentreligions.
We talked about um, it wasn't,it was kind of all over the
place.
I don't know if we were tryingto outdo one another, but like
it was a lot of like did, butdid you consider so?
Anyway, it was a lot of fun, um, but we got to be really good
friends after that and um gotmarried after our sophomore year
.
Yeah, which is young Um.
(01:24):
Yeah, which I wouldn'trecommend for most people, but
it was really good for us.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Um, and yeah, yeah.
What was it that firstattracted you to Corey?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Um, honestly, that he loved Jesus, which is a very
Christian answer.
So please don't roll your eyes.
I liked it.
I liked a different guy incollege and then just kind of
realized that their faithbackgrounds were taking two very
different directions and so Ijust kind of like gravitated
over to Corey and he was reallyintentional with me really early
(02:01):
on.
We just got to be really goodfriends, um, and yeah, started
dating pretty quick, yeah, butyou didn't friend zone them, you
were friends without it was.
It was all very quick, but like,yeah, there was probably about
a three week period where I waslike I'm not sure he's like I
like you.
I'm like, oh, okay, I'll thinkabout it, I'll get back to you,
(02:21):
I'm very busy, Um no, but we, wegot, we just got to be really
good friends.
Like we had a group of us thatwould spend like on average four
hours a day together.
So it was like a relationshippressure cooker essentially just
kind of forced you deep quick.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yeah, Um, so yeah, well, and I think also, getting
married young forces you deepquick because you don't have
stable jobs.
You don't have like you werestill had two more years of
college we did, but you weremarried, which forced us into
needing jobs real quick.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I mean, the government smiles on people who
get married young, apparently,like we were both eligible for a
lot more in grants.
So that was very helpful, butthat's nice.
But it also forced us into, youknow, needing to get jobs quick
.
So I I wound up with aninternship downtown Chicago.
He wound up with a bunch ofjobs around campus and we I
don't know it it it definitelymatured you a lot quicker than
(03:16):
the normal college experience.
Yeah, yeah, you made it work.
Yeah, it was good.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, it's really good.
I know I feel I was, feel I wasmy.
I mean, rob, my husband is twoyears older than me, but I was
in the middle of my junior year,when we got married okay, so,
and it was a little differentbecause he what he did, he was a
soldier, so he did have a job.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Oh, that's right, that's right, so it was this
whole thing.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
But I still feel like I grew up way quicker than my
peers because I was married andI had to, like, figure out
married stuff and all.
No longer the support of myparents yeah, most, I mean they
probably would have but I waslike, no, we're going to figure
it out, you know.
Yeah, so you just kind of youfigure it out, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
So y'all are married yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
So y'all are married about five years before you
started having kids.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, so we got married in 2010 and we actually
had two miscarriages in likeright before our oldest son.
So our oldest son was born in2015, but we'd had two
miscarriages right before him2015, but we'd had two
(04:27):
miscarriages right before him.
So, even up to the birth, bothof us were kind of like I don't
know if he makes it we were bothjust kind of walking into that,
Like when, when Keller was born, he was purple and Corey was
convinced he was dead forprobably the first.
You know how those first fewminutes, like just everything
seems so much longer.
But, um, he was like, convincedthat Keller was dead, Um, and
(04:52):
we had had stillborn, you know,and I was like why aren't you
like I'm crying Cause I just hada baby, Um, and he didn't do
anything and he just stood thereand I was like what is your
deal?
Like we just had a baby and itwas cause he thought he had died
.
So, um, I think I think thatthose, those two miscarriages
early on also kind of helpedmove us deeper together, but
(05:12):
also um, deeper with the Lord,faster, if that makes sense.
Like we had to wrestle withthings like God, I, you know, I
asked you to keep my babies,babies, safe.
I asked you to protect them, Iasked you to help them grow and
they're both dead.
You know, like that that was ahard thing for me to process
through and to wrestle throughof like, definitely very gun shy
(05:43):
those first few months, Like,okay, are you going to be okay?
Like, are you?
going to be, I think it was.
He was the easiest, sweetestbaby he was probably he was a
good, a good starter, starterchild.
Does that make?
Sense Can you call him that?
Probably not.
He's your kid, starter kid.
But he he, yeah, was a goodinitiation into into parenting.
(06:07):
He's a sweet boy.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
There's a lot of people struggling with their
fertility right now.
Yeah, I'm hearing more.
I have a dear friend they'retrying so hard and she's had one
miscarriage and so just Ididn't even know that was part
of your story.
Yeah, how did you like?
(06:28):
How did you reconcile?
Through God, I prayed for thesechildren and for them to be
healthy, and why did this happen?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I mean and I'd love to give you a nice little bow on
top answer, and here's why itwas fine that my children died
Like.
I don't have that.
I think in the ways that theLord has been walking me through
these different, you know,problems around my kids, like, I
think an earlier version ofmyself trusted God because of
(07:02):
something.
I trusted him to keep us safe.
I trusted him to protect mychildren.
I trusted him to, you know, x,y, z, and I think I think
through these things, he'steaching me to trust him period,
full stop, if that makes sense.
It's not, um, because he hasalways made sure that everything
(07:25):
has gone to the way that Iexpected or I wanted.
But I've seen his goodness inthose stories and in that
heartbreak and I think that'skind of what's kept me on.
After we had the twomiscarriages, I was really angry
with God, I was reallyfrustrated and grieving a lot
(07:46):
and, um, we would have peoplecome up to us, you know cause.
We didn't tell anybody, wedidn't like miscarriage was
still I don't know, peopleweren't talking about it, and I
think that's still true now.
Um, but we would have peoplecome up and be like so when are
you guys going to have kids.
How come you aren't having anybabies?
I mean, it's been five years.
I was working full time, coreywas working full time.
(08:08):
It was like what's going on andI remember that just being
devastating.
Like I don't know if I can,like I keep getting pregnant but
I keep losing them, and so Igot it in my head.
Here's how I will solve this.
I'm going to make a quilt,naturally.
Naturally, this is not my skillset.
(08:28):
I like making things like.
Quilts have to be very perfectand it takes a lot of meticulous
like lining up of things.
This is not my skill set.
But I my mom got me a sewingmachine and I sat and I worked
on a baby quilt.
And I just use that time tolike, like, give the whole
situation back to the Lord, tolike pray over this quilt,
(08:50):
because I assumed I was going tobe giving it away to somebody.
I was praying for the mom underthat was going to use it, the
baby that would sleep under it,things like that, just that they
would be cared for and wouldexperience the goodness of God,
and it was really healing.
And that quilt turned out to beKeller's baby quilt.
You know, it was just like avery sweet full circle, and he
(09:10):
used that time of just sittingin the grief, sitting in the
frustration.
I think that has been a lotmore of my story than God
putting nice pretty bows on topof things.
A lot of times he just leads meinto seasons of sitting in the
frustrations, sitting in thatgrief and not yeah, not putting
(09:38):
a nice bow on top.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah, so you had your two miscarriages.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, keller Keller.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
And you got pregnant again.
I got pregnant again withanother boy.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Did you want like girls and then kept getting
pregnant with boys or I don'tknow.
I think like so, this, this isa girl, we I don't know after
three boys so I had, you know,keller, elin and Jojo, I don't
know.
I was like, okay, I'm done,like I'm a boy mom, the end End
of story, and like I get boys.
Boys make sense to me.
Like fart is always funny inour house, hilarious, always
(10:21):
funny, and so no, I don in ourhouse, always funny, um, and so
no, I don't feel like either ofus had any like we need to have
a girl by any means.
Good boy parents, we'resatisfied, very cheerful with
our boys.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yeah, so what was it like to get pregnant the second
time with elon?
So now you'd have like kellerwas good keller was good.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Keller was healthy, he started out easy, developed a
very large personality, um, sohe he's been, yeah, a sweetheart
.
He's been a lot of fun.
Um, elon, I don't know.
I remember right before we hadelon um, thinking like god,
things are too cushy.
Things feel really easy rightnow.
(11:05):
Like we were just in this reallysweet season of, like I was
working part-time and Corey wasworking full-time at a church
and you know, we had our sweetlittle boy.
We had just moved into thisbeautiful little home in Elgin,
illinois and, yeah, things werejust really good.
And I just remember gettingvery existential and being like
God, are you going to have Ijust bought into the suburban
(11:27):
dream, like, are you going to doanything with me?
Like, what, what's your plan?
Call me, let's go, let's go toa jungle somewhere and I will
leave this.
I will leave pregnant with my,you know, toddlers.
(11:50):
This is going to be so good,what a great plan I have.
Um, and just feeling restless,like what, what is your plan?
Um, and little did I know likeI was cooking Elin and Elin Um,
yeah, I don't wonder if thatwasn't part of the answer to
that, like God, putting ananticipation on your heart of
(12:12):
something about to happen.
Yeah, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
And then what happened?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
So Elin was full term .
We brought him home with us.
He's born at 39 weeks.
We didn't do any time in theNICU.
He was, by all accounts,healthy pregnancy.
The only thing they noticed inthe hospital was that he kept
failing his hearing test, whichis super common because babies
(12:43):
get fluid behind their ears, andso they were like, oh, it's
okay, you know, like I haddropped a fork near him and he'd
startled.
Real bad.
So we're like he can hear, likeum.
But then over the next fewmonths, like he just kept
failing hearing tests and theywere getting more robust and um,
at about at about three months,um, we noticed like he still
(13:05):
wasn't tracking.
Like my friend had a baby aboutthree weeks before me and I
remember sitting with her andher little girl and she's just
looking at her and baby islooking right at mom and I was
like man, elan doesn't do thateven a little bit, like I don't
think he can see my face.
Um, and right about then I tookhim to the doctor.
(13:25):
They were running a bunch oftests and the doctor noticed
that his soft spot on top of hishead had fully closed, which it
shouldn't do at three months.
You know, we need more time forthe brain to grow.
So about about this time, Ithink.
So he was born in October.
This was like January.
Three different doctors calledin MRIs Um, so we went downtown
(13:47):
Chicago to Lurie children'shospital and we did two separate
MRIs on him Um, and that was inthe end of January.
And two weeks into February wewent in to meet with a
neurologist Um and she showed uslike she had a screen like this
, and she showed us um picturesof Elin's brain Um, and it was
(14:11):
even from like a layman'sperspective.
It was like, oh, there's a lotof black there, like you could
see the tissue, but there was alot of water, there wasn't a lot
of brain there.
And so she told us that inutero Elin had had a very
specific malformation to a veryspecific gene.
(14:33):
So this gene is likeresponsible for, like the
development of the tissue.
If you think of it like thescaffolding for the brain tissue
to develop that had had amalformation.
So the brain tissue had neverdeveloped.
Like you and I, our brains looklike spaghetti.
So there's a lot of surfacearea, but he has whole patches
(14:56):
that are smooth because thattissue never developed or um,
sections within his brain are isjust water because the tissue
never developed.
And so while we were sittingthere having this conversation
with her, she all of a suddenpicks up the phone and starts
calling somebody because he hadapparently had a really
(15:16):
dangerous kind of seizure in heroffice.
It's called infantile spasms,that's a whole thing, but anyway
.
So she immediately sent us tohave an EEG done which is like a
full brain scan.
I'm like handing my four monthold over to a technician so she
can hook him up with a bunch ofwires and goop and then wrap him
(15:38):
up and um, they're trying tocheck and see if he in fact did
have the specific um electricalsignature for infantile spasms,
which he did.
Um, so he's immediately put ona bunch of seizure medications.
Um.
So we came home that was um midFebruary.
(16:01):
In March I was sitting upstairsin our attic working.
He was right next to me and Inoticed that it was like
somebody had taken their pinkyin his mouth and just kept
pulling it to the side over andover again, like involuntary.
He's doing like this over andover.
So we called the neurology teamand they're like you must come
(16:21):
in, we need to see what'shappening.
And and we spent about a weekin the hospital and realized
that he'd lost his ability toswallow, probably from those
seizures, um, I think.
Over time we realized that whenhe would have these epileptic
epileptic events, um, he'd losehis ability to swallow.
So while we were there, theyimmediately put a tube into his
(16:46):
nose.
He wasn't allowed to breastfeedanymore, wasn't allowed to
nurse, um, we had to doeverything via his nose, um,
from that point forward fromthat point.
Yeah, he's still a hundredpercent Now.
It's out of his nose, it's inhis belly.
He's got a port, so he's ahundred percent G tube fed belly
(17:09):
.
He's got a port, so he's ahundred percent G tube fed.
Um.
So yeah, it was.
It was rough.
Like over those twoappointments we learned that
what had been our sweet babyright, like he's got
microcephaly, he's got epilepsy,he's functionally blind.
Um, he's got something calledCVI, so his optic nerves are
about a third of the size theyshould be.
He's got something called CVI,so his optic nerves are about a
third the size they should be.
He's got bilateral hearing loss, not entirely, but he's missing
(17:32):
hearing in both ears.
They couldn't tell us at thattime but they're like he
probably will be nonverbal orwill have very limited
communication.
He has never developed theability to sit or roll or
anything.
Everything about him has to besomebody doing it for him.
And yeah, it was a really darkseason of trying, like we
(18:00):
thought this was bad.
Oh wait, there's so much more.
Oh wait, there's so much more,oh wait.
You know, it was just like,yeah, we just kept finding out
more and more things like about,about his situation and
obviously like that's going tocause stress on any individual,
let alone a young couple tryingto like a hundred percent,
(18:21):
trying to trying to navigate it.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
How did you navigate it Like?
How did you navigate it Like?
How did you navigate it withyour marriage?
Did it increase stress andincrease like disagreements?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I mean because you know, when Ithink, as soon as you add kids
to any relationship, like'salready gonna be like a.
Well, I wouldn't do it that way.
I don't like how you, why didyou, you know?
But when you add somebody who'sso, um, fragile and like chaotic
(18:54):
in their how, how they displaytheir disability, like that
first year man, we had theambulance at our house every
three weeks.
You, just because it was likehe'd go into these 18 minute
seizures, our, our seizure planrequired, after we'd given so
much rescue medication, we hadto have EMTs involved, just
(19:15):
because we didn't know how hisbody would respond to that much
rescue medication.
And so it was like we're bothtrying to also balance jobs.
Corey was in the middle of ajob change when all of this
happened, like he was at thesame church but he was moving to
a different campus.
And I'm trying to.
(19:36):
I had just taken this likematernity leave from my job and
it was like I'm back Also,everything's exploding job.
And it was like I'm back also,everything's exploding, um.
So thankfully, they were supergracious with me and like let me
go take my thousands ofappointments to figure out stuff
with elin.
So, anyway that that definitelyadded a lot of stress and I
think in that season we had tofigure out, like, what our
(19:58):
philosophy of care was like.
We learned that for me I Istill believed very
wholeheartedly that there was amagic doctor wand.
All we had to do is take thesick child to the doctor, the
doctor would wave the wand, thechild would be better.
So my, my MO is always likewe've got to go to the hospital,
we've got to go to the doctor,and Corey's like they're not
(20:19):
going to do anything, like we'vebeen to the ER several times
now and all they do is say letus know if it gets worse, and
they send us home, you know, andthat just kept happening over
and over again.
So like trying to align on likeER level decisions every three
(20:40):
weeks like that, that can causesome tension for sure.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
I can imagine.
I mean, I can't imagine, but Ican think that, or I.
It would seem like when couplesexperience this, there's going
to be the couples that it makesthem stronger and there's going
to be the couples that thistears them apart.
And maybe you've seen it insome of the circles that you've,
that you've been in Causeyou're like way more in those
(21:10):
spheres.
Yeah, way more in those spheres.
What kept y'all from pullingapart?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Um, and I honestly I think there's a lot of grace in
our story.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Like.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I think we I don't know that just was never an
option.
We'd fight, we'd have big blowup fights, but like separating
or divorce was not one of thoselike well, how are we going to?
How are we going to, you know,move forward together.
It was like, well, how are wegoing to?
How are we going to?
(21:44):
You know, move forward together.
And I don't know that's becauseany amount of like willpower on
our part or just we're just soin love, I feel like just a lot
of like, I don't know.
The Lord was really graciouswith us and like gave us what we
needed for that day to um, to,to work through those different
(22:05):
decisions, and kept us together,kept us at the table.
Um, I think we we learned earlyon in our marriage like to stay
in the same room, to not justlike.
I remember trying to storm offone time and was like no, no,
this doesn't work for healthymarriage.
(22:26):
I think keeping keeping shortaccounts has been really helpful
for us.
Um, not letting things fester,not letting things linger.
I'm not necessarily saying likelet's figure it out at bedtime,
when everybody's tired andgrouchy, but not letting things
go more than like 24 hoursbefore you've like talked about
it, addressed it again, tried tosee the other person's
(22:51):
viewpoint, and that's justlittle.
Little things like that havebeen really helpful for us to
try and like.
We still disagree.
We disagree on a lot of things,but I think that's helped us
kind of navigate through those.
Okay, what you're saying makessense.
I guess I'll go with what youwant to do you know, learn to
(23:15):
compromise.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I can imagine, with the amountof the stress and emotions
involved with with all of this,that there's temptation for like
escapism behaviors.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
How have y'all kept?
And I thought of this when yousaid like we come back to it,
instead of like escaping, orinstead of leaving, or instead
of whatever, like we come backto it.
How have you like?
Have you?
Have there been any?
Was that a part of your storywhere it was like man, it would
be so much easier to do thisthing, to escape whatever.
That is yeah, but no, I'm goingto make this intentional
(23:53):
decision to like go do the hardthing.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Um, I wish I could take credit.
I really do.
Um, I think I think it speaksto Corey's skill sets around
this.
I am very much the brooder.
I will sit and feel icy for along time, I'll hold on to
things, and he's always beenreally good about coming
alongside me and being like hey,you seem upset, let's talk,
(24:24):
let's talk.
You know we we had a couple inour church teach us.
Have you talked about FanoF-A-N-O?
So it's an evening check-in ordo it every day.
We've we fall in and out ofthis, but Fano has been a really
(24:45):
sweet way to just clear the air.
So it's feelings affirm needown.
So you come in to theconversation.
It can be 15 minutes.
This is what I'm feeling Like.
I'm feeling frustrated becausemy boss was an absolute jerk
today and screamed at me.
I'm feeling tightly wound rightnow Just kind of helps disarm
the other person.
They're like oh, you're not madat me, you're carrying something
else into this conversation.
What can I affirm aboutsomething in you?
Like?
I affirm that you sat andplayed you know, go fish with
(25:07):
jojo last night.
Thank you for taking time forhim.
What do I need?
I need to sit on the couch andbe left alone for a little bit,
like I just need, or I need youto help with the kids, or I need
help with dishes or somethingand I own whatever, like where I
know I've been wrong.
And having him come to me andsay here's what I need to own
(25:28):
and he can say it better than Iwas rehearsing it in my head,
just deescalates the situationfor me.
Almost every time where it'slike, oh no, you do understand.
I don't need to explain to youthe 18 ways you've made me angry
.
You already see it and you'veowned it and it just takes the
temperature way down.
So that was something that we Ithink there was an elder couple
(25:49):
in our last church that taughtus that and that's been really
helpful for keeping those shortaccounts, keeping those regular
conversations yeah, thoseregular check-ins, so things
can't fester I love that it'sreally good, it's really good.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
I was talking with my dad today about felt security,
as we do which is the you guyssound fun, super fun we're
talking about attachment theory,okay and um, but it's what
you're describing, which is we,like humans, are made to depend
on someone else, like it's howGod created us at the beginning,
(26:28):
like I'm going to make a helperfor you, so we're designed to
need someone else, not like morethan God, but like this is what
this is what marriage is.
But we need to know that thatperson is going to be there for
us no matter what.
So when cory comes to you andis like here's what I'll own,
you feel seen and like he'sthere for you no matter what, so
(26:52):
it's in.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
So it's just like increasing your security in the
relationship and same when youdo that to him, like it's
increasing your security whichright makes you stronger and
allows you to like endure morechaos and storms yeah, it just
helps you give more benefit ofthe doubt for the next time
where it's like okay I can trustyou to be self-aware, to see
(27:14):
when you've done something wrong.
You can also trust you that yousee when I'm working extra hard
in that like affirmationportion, like you see it so it
just, it just keeps buildingthat foundation of trust so that
when he does something and I'mlike, how could you?
it's not, and I mean I stillstruggle with like giving him
(27:35):
the benefit of the doubt, I havenot arrived.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
But like.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
I think it definitely helps.
Yeah For the next, the nextfight.
Yeah For the next, the nextfight.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yeah.
And so now Elan is seven and ahalf, yeah, and you have Jojo,
your four year old, and you'repregnant.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Surprise, surprise.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
How, like, as you've processed through knowing the
diagnosis and parenting and Imean now this is just your
normal rhythm of life.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
How I mean.
What's your relationship beenlike with God, where it went
from God I?
Why didn't you like, why didn'tyou give me my first two babies
?
Oh God, thank you so much formy amazing first kid, yeah, next
two babies, yeah, and then soit's like and why like God?
Why this?
Were you mad at God?
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I think so, I think so, and there's I mean it's in
seasons, right, like I'll gothrough seasons of where it's
like okay, this is just our norm, and you compartmentalize and
you go um.
But there are other seasonswhere it's like to what end?
Like how long are we gonna dothis?
Like he's he's drooling himself, he's peeing to his knees or
(28:55):
he's pooping to his armpits,like he's having seizures every
single day.
You know, like, at some pointyou're just like this is the
good plan, this like it, it.
It definitely ebbs and flows,and I think I went through one
of those seasons at thebeginning of this year where it
was just like what's your planhere, man?
(29:16):
Like what, what are we doing?
Um, and again, like I don'thave this beautiful bow on top.
Where he's like and here's themaster plan?
Um, he hasn't shown me that yet.
I'm still sitting in a lot ofthe already, but not yet.
I'm watching him though, like,meet me in this season.
(29:41):
He's surrounded us with peopleand with care and with support.
He brought us to Tennessee.
I had, you know, a medical team.
I had an amazing educationalteam, like his school team.
I had, um, everything set up inIllinois, and he just uprooted
our family and brought us here,and in that process about two
(30:04):
years ago he met us in ways thatand so it's like, okay, god,
you, you have us here, you haveElan still with us.
(30:33):
I don't know, I don't have a, anice, and here's why, like we're
, we're still sitting in the init, and maybe it's for stuff
like this, maybe it's to walkalongside other families.
Again, that feels trite to justbe, like it's so I can shepherd
the next crew you know like, butyeah, but he's also been steady
(30:55):
and faithful in in the minute,in the um, not the minute
details, but like he's notfixing the big hairy, audacious
thing in the minute, in the um,not the minute details, but like
he's not fixing the big hairy,audacious thing in the middle.
But gosh, he's been.
He's been so active in theperiphery around that he's been
surrounding us as we carry thisbig you know elan burden, um,
(31:20):
that I don't know.
I'm curious to see how he movesus through it and what the
other side does look like,whether that's Elin healed and
well and like miraculously getsto be one of our boys, or we do
lose him and we walk through thegrief of losing him, but he is
made well on the other side ofthis life.
(31:43):
You know, like, where he getsto experience what is good and
what is whole um, you know,before the rest of us do like I
don't, yeah, I don't have thatum buttoned up yet yeah, but do
you and cory process some ofthat?
Speaker 1 (32:03):
at times y'all like talk about that.
Yeah, all of the like.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
I don't even know all of it like, like, what, what,
what do you mean?
Speaker 1 (32:16):
like, what is our like, what is the future with
elan and how are we going tonavigate through these next
stages and certain things.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
I'm so frightened of puberty that was one of the
first things we saw when we cameinto this world was a mom and
her daughter and they had her onthe daughter on puberty
blockers because it was trashingher epilepsy as soon as, like
(32:47):
it's like a full restart forsome of these kids where you'd
had them on these differentmedications and you know
whatever.
So like that, I think thatfrightens me.
I think it is a daunting ideaand it like it feels horrible.
But like to care for a fullyimmobilized, fully disabled
(33:08):
adult.
Like there's so much moresupport right now, like from the
state, from the school system,from whatever for children, um,
like I get I get in-home nursingat night, which has been an
absolute game changer.
That's one of the ways thelord's been really caring for us
in this season is like we getto sleep at night eland doesn't
(33:28):
sleep great, um, and as soon asthey turn, I think it's like 18
or 21, your hours get cut.
For a lot of these kids theydon't, or then they're adults.
You know what I mean.
Like just the support.
The support drops way off and solike I was talking to a mom who
(33:51):
had a son very much like Elin afew days ago actually, and she
lost him when he was nine andshe was like I ache for him, I
would do anything to be able tolike hold him and kiss his
little cheeks again and likelove him.
But just like we can't likekeep people captive, you know,
(34:16):
like our children, like youcan't leave my house because I
love you so much, like that'snot good.
She's like I don't wish himback for his own sake.
I don't wish him back into achair, 24, seven, unable to see,
unable to speak, unable to orhaving seizures all the time.
She's like I do love him andbecause I love him, I'm thankful
that he's free from you knowwhat he had been living in.
(34:39):
And like that's a that's areally hard thing to wrestle
with as a mom, cause you'resupposed to be like no, no, I
will fight until the very end.
But there's like that, yeahWell, where you just start
holding things a lot moreopen-handedly to be like, okay,
god, like I I don't want that,but also I love him and I don't
(35:01):
want him to be as miserable asas he.
Well, he's not miserable, Ishouldn't say it that way but
like I want what's good for him,I want him to be well and to be
whole and things.
So, yeah, it definitely leadsyou into some more existential
conversations, um, and we dotalk about that stuff and I I
(35:23):
appreciate that.
About Corey, that he's I thinkhe's probably 10 steps ahead of
me usually when we have theseconversations and it takes it
just takes me longer to kind ofparse through a lot of those
thoughts and feelings and like,okay, now, what do we do with
that?
He's a lot more spockish than Iam.
I married spock.
It's great, um, but that'sthat's been really helpful, like
(35:48):
to, yeah, to be married tosomebody who, who I don't know,
can just get like parsed throughthat a lot quicker.
I don't know he's, he's beenmuch more the leader in this
like emotional journey.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Which has been really good.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
How has having Elan and loving Elan changed what you
think about love?
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Hmm, I think, kind of like, like what I was saying,
what my friend said before,where it's like love is so at
least love for elan, looks a lotdifferent than for my other
kids.
For my other kids that love isreciprocal.
I get those, you know, dopaminehits of them saying mom, I love
(36:37):
you, or like hugs or kisses.
But for Elon, so much of ourlove is very one way.
He doesn't know my face, heknows my voice and he'll semi
respond to it.
But that love, like seeing,seeing the Imago Dei in Elon, I
think is what kind of pushes usforward to fight hard for him.
(37:03):
You know, and we adore him, heis the sweetest little guy.
He, he's probably my mostobedient child, 100, um, he's,
yeah, a delight.
But I think I think that issomething that we've learned in
having him is like oh, oh, love,love isn't always reciprocal.
(37:27):
Sometimes love is very one wayand it's kind of like a good
image of the way the fatherloves us, you know, way Christ
loves us.
It's like there's a lot of oneway love, um, that we don't
reciprocate back, that we don'treciprocate back Um, and yeah, I
(37:47):
think he's, he's kind of drawnus into that, that picture a
little bit more deeply.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
I love that.
I love that I.
That's super powerful.
I don't know that there's anyperson in my life that I could
say like I've had a one way lovetowards them.
Right, yeah.
There's always somethingreciprocal about them, right,
yeah, there's always somethingreciprocal about yeah, right,
right, how beautiful, though Ithink that unlocks a deeper
(38:13):
level of love, like you probablyknow how to love in a way
different way than I know how tolove, because you've done it
with no, without expectinganything back necessarily from
it.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
But, like.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
You do it daily, consistently.
You want to like.
You do it daily consistently.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
You want to like, and you do it because you want to,
not because you have to, andthat's, I think that's well, and
please hear me, elan ismagnetic, like he goes nowhere
without people being like youare amazing, we get, he's got
quite the following.
We've got this little facebookpage for him and people just
like they've never met himbefore and they already adore
him, you know.
So it's, it is both and he is.
(38:50):
He is a darling.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Yes yes, he is, but also yeah, sure, yeah, yes, but
also you are doing hard thingstoo, thank you.
How do you make time foryourself and for your marriage
with all the kids, so many kids?
Speaker 2 (39:08):
So many kids, so many of them More coming.
More, dear Lord.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
There's so many you have like neighbor kids that I
see you hauling around sometimes.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Oh my, goodness, it's a farm, do you have?
Speaker 1 (39:20):
chickens.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Do you have chickens?
I have chickens.
I have a dog, I have a cat.
If you want a dog or a cat, Iwill.
We just offloaded nine hens andtwo roosters.
How do you do it?
Six hens and two?
Speaker 1 (39:32):
roosters.
Okay, now really, how do you doall this?
Speaker 2 (39:36):
No, it's great fun.
I recommend chickens toeverybody.
They're so low maintenance andthey eat all of your kitchen
scraps.
They eat all of your uh kitchenscraps.
They're just like little garbagedisposals and they're like your
compost and they're snuggly.
There's one of our chickens no,please hear me, one of our
chickens is very snuggly.
Anytime cory comes home, shecomes running up on the deck.
Just put, just to him, not tothe rest of us, just him.
She'll come running up onto thedeck and like ask to be picked
(39:59):
up.
It is the trippiest thinganyway.
That is amazing, baby.
The chicken is um, just thebest.
Uh, yeah, no, I don't know it's.
I was very nice getting rid ofthe roosters to a kind farm, yes
, where they're living theirbest life, right, no one has
eaten them, nobody's eaten them.
They're very fine, it's okay.
All is good all is good.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
What was your question?
How do you take, how do youhave the time?
Oh sure care of yourself andyour marriage um yeah, I mean
there's a lot of factors there.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
I think cory and I are both homebodies so we do
like two things we work and wehave our kids and it's pretty
much it.
There's not like golf andshopping and things.
You know, like we're we're kindof just, we've kept things
pretty close to home, um, and Ithink we just cory and I
(40:56):
specifically like we just enjoyeach other's company, like he is
my best friend.
I tell him everything, he tellsme.
I think everything like we, wejust love to sit and talk to
each other, which really helps,like I want to spend time with
him Honestly, like part of God'simmense grace to us in this
(41:19):
move is we've gotten ourbackyard neighbors have become
like surrogate grandparents toand like nobody's replacing
their regular grandparentsplease hear me, but of course,
but gosh, they're the oneswatching my kids right now so I
can be here you know they loveelin, they ask for elin, they
ask for the other boys to comevisit.
(41:41):
You know, like so, we never hadthat.
In Illinois I had a young womanwho would nanny for me and she,
if she wasn't available, like I, I wasn't available.
You know, um, our cause, ourmoms were out of state in
Illinois too.
Sometimes my mom would drivedown from Wisconsin.
But, like so, I think I think,having those people in our life
(42:04):
who are fighting for us to havea date night, fighting for us to
go away, being creative aboutdate nights where it's not like
I have to leave the house and Ihave to do X, y, z, it's like,
well, maybe this week date nightis, put the kids to bed and we
have a glass of wine.
Well, had a glass of wine, aglass of water, a glass of water
(42:24):
, but the wine, but yeah, or youknow we'll, we'll do stuff like
that.
Try and be intentional.
The Fano has been super helpful.
Um, we recently have starteddoing screen-free nights with
the kids where it's like, okay,mondays and Wednesdays we're
screen-free.
(42:45):
So last night was Monday and wesat and Corey and Jojo played go
fish and I worked on thisbaby's quilt and Keller done a
quilt for every baby, yeah, whenyou sit and you pray over.
It's been so good.
It's been so good.
I'm getting better at quilting.
(43:05):
Keller's was pretty bad.
You've had four.
This is your fourth one.
This is my fourth quilt, so youknow it's still a B minus, but
you know we're makingimprovements.
So I was doing that and Kellerwas bopping around and Elin was
sitting by.
It was just really sweet familytime.
(43:26):
So, yeah, just keeping oursphere small, keeping few irons
in the fire I think has beenreally helpful for us to juggle
the chickens and the chickensand the kids and the jobs and
the things you know.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
And the dog and the cat.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Well, we might just, if you want, again very
cheerfully give you the dog andthe cat you are looking to
offload.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense Like do less things
better and what's moreimportant than your family yeah.
It's been really helpful In allof this.
Have you ever doubted that Godexisted?
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Oh, not existed, maybe his kindness for sure.
There've been times where I'mlike, what are we even doing
here?
Like, but I think he he'll letme have my tantrum, you know,
like punch a wall, kick a floor,like he'll let me scream my
things and then he'll usher mevery kindly back into his grace,
(44:33):
very kindly back into hisgoodness In some way.
It is rarely him fixing the bigugly thing that I'm screaming
about, but he'll meet me againin that periphery, in the things
surrounding that, saying I've,I've cared for everything around
you.
Trust me with the big hairything too.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
Do you ever still have that like vision or
anticipation or longing of, likeGod, what's next?
I'll move.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Like, let's just move .
Elizabeth Elliott and I werejust caught through the world.
Um, I do.
I did actually this last summer.
I was, you know, my youngest iscoming up on four on preschool.
I've got you know, my older twoare in full-time school.
(45:30):
I was, you know, I'm anaccountant by trade.
So I was like man, I'd love todo something else.
And so I was like God, what doyou want to do with me?
What's next?
Like, will I start writingabout Elan?
Will I start doing you know?
(45:51):
Know, like, what do you wantfor me?
So, like, seems to be a thing,I know, I know I keep being like
god, I'm gonna do these bigthings for you.
And then, like, like kids, yeah, but I think I think he ushered
me very tenderly back intomotherhood, you know.
I think I was ready to move onto the next stage, where my kids
were a little bit moreindependent, and he was like
nope.
I'm going to keep you verysquarely in in this sphere with
(46:11):
a very new baby, elin'sfunctionally a six month old,
you know.
But I think my kids are stilllittle and they do still need me
and this has been him kind ofgently redirecting me and I
still get to do fun stuff likethis where, like, I get to um um
, talk about Elin and like,hopefully encourage other other
families that are walkingthrough things a similar story,
(46:34):
um, but in this next season I'mnot going to be working anymore,
just going to be mom and I'm.
I'm actually excited about thatnow.
I think last summer me was likeI will write and I will do
things and, yeah, I'm excitedfor this next season of just
being mom.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
I love that.
Yeah.
What are the key things youwould tell someone listening who
is also parenting with adifficult situation like a
special needs child?
They feel overwhelmed, tired,unheard.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Does.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
God, see me.
What would you say to thatperson?
Speaker 2 (47:14):
I would say I'm so sorry, the same thing that
somebody said to me I'm so sorrythat you're part of this club.
There are a lot of amazingpeople in the club but nobody
wants to be here.
There are a lot of amazingpeople in the club but nobody
wants to be here.
I think it's really easy inthis sphere to go like racing
(47:36):
ahead and I know people alwayssay take it one day at a time.
But genuinely, we get grace fortoday.
We don't get grace for threeyears from now.
Take today, live in today, makedecisions for today.
We don't get grace for threeyears from now.
Take today, live in today, makedecisions for today.
(47:56):
Um, I think where I get the mostexistential or angry or
agitated is when I'm likerunning into all the different
hypotheticals, like, what ifthis happens?
What if this happens?
What if he can't?
What if he won't?
What if they don't?
Um, and I don't need to bemaking those decisions.
I don't need to be goingthrough those emotional
exercises of like, what ifs?
(48:17):
I need to deal with what is andI need to stay there now, like,
please hear me, you need to.
There are things you do need toplan in advance for and you do
need to like, actually, you know, figure out what school you're
going to go to and things, butgiving those those things down
the road, any emotional energybefore they actually exist, I
(48:38):
think, is what drains people inthis world.
Living in that fear, living inthe unknowns.
So, just remembering to keepyourself emotionally in today,
and only today, and to rememberthat I think a lot of times,
(48:59):
especially in the West, we arepromised a very different bill
of goods than what God actuallypromises.
I think a lot of times we comeinto this going like God is for
me and therefore he's going todo what I want him to do and
therefore things are going to gowell for me.
And sometimes that is true,things do go well for us and
(49:21):
things are good and it's becauseof his goodness and kindness.
But sometimes he walks usthrough dark, dark seasons.
Um, and that is very much partof the Christian story, it is
not just from mountaintop tomountaintop.
(49:41):
There's a lot of valley time, um, and remembering that, like his
, his goodness goes with us.
It doesn't save us from things,it goes with us.
His presence is what matters.
Um, yeah, that's.
I think that's what I wouldencourage people with.
And find people, find peoplewho are walking it with you,
(50:03):
like I think that this communityhas always been so welcoming to
me, like I found people onInstagram, cause those were the
only people walking throughstuff like this that I could
find and those relationshipshave actually turned out to be
really healing.
They, they get it.
Yeah, yeah, don't do it alone.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Yeah, a hundred percent yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
I just always love talking to you.
Yeah, this is fun.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
I always go away from it Like I have learned so much
and laughed so hard, and I thinkthe combination is what makes
you such a wonderful person.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
Brian I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
Yeah, I appreciate it .
I think it's really thisepisode, I believe, is really
going to help a lot of peoplewho need it.
And I appreciate that.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
I think it's really thisepisode, I believe, is really
going to help a lot of peoplewho need it.
And I appreciate you sharing,being vulnerable, being open,
seeing hope in the situation andwanting to share that with
others.
So, thank you.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
Yeah, thanks for having me Appreciate it.
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