September 5, 2023 • 48 mins
What happens when faith meets adversity? Meet Catherine Segars, an award-winning actress, playwright, author, speaker, podcaster and a strong advocate for motherhood. This episode takes you on Catherine's impactful journey of loss, grieving, and finding redemption after the loss of her unborn child. We delve deep into Catherine's article, 'Eight Steps to Find Redemption After Loss', and uncover the challenges she and her spouse faced while trying to have children later in life.
Catherine's story is not just about loss. It's about the fight, the faith, and the power of prayer that led her to redemption. She shares her righteous indignation following the loss of her unborn child and how, armed with scriptures as her weapon, she found strength to fight for her feast. Listen as Catherine details her friend's story who, after experiencing four late-term miscarriages, found hope through praying over scriptures and eventually gave birth to a healthy baby. It's a testament to the power of prayer and courageous faith.
In the latter part of the episode, Catherine delves into her journey of prayer and courage that eventually led to the birth of her daughter. She talks about how her family used praise during their fertility journey, celebrating a victory they had not yet received, emulating how ancient Israel sent worshipers to battle before the fight. Catherine’s story is an intimate exploration of loss, hope, courage, and redemption, and a testament to the power of prayer and faith. Don't miss this inspiring episode filled with hope, courage, and the power of redemption.
Find more about Catherine:
www.catherinesegars.com
Instagram: @catherinesegars
Facebook: Catherine Segars
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, what's up everybody?
Today is going to be awesome.
It's going to be awesome.
I got a new dear friend of mine.
Her name is Catherine Seegersand she's going to join us.
But you're gonna hear apowerful story.
A powerful story of what it'slike to hold on to faith All the
way through to the finish line,even when it gets hard.
(00:21):
She's gonna leave you with alot of powerful tips on how to
recover from a great lossActually, eight steps on how to
find redemption after a loss sopowerful.
But even in the end there's afree resource.
So you got to stick around tothe very end.
We're gonna give you a freeresource that she has made
(00:42):
available for you today.
And that's at the very end.
All that and more.
It's happening Right after this.
(01:04):
Welcome back to the WinWordsDon't Come Easy podcast.
I am Edie Howard, and it'salways good to.
If this is your first time tojoin, it's always good to meet
you.
I am excited today I have aspecial guest going to be
joining us shortly.
But this podcast is alwaysabout hope and I always want to
do my very best, whether it'ssomething that I am sharing or
(01:26):
whether it's a guest coming on,and today you are going to be
blessed by Catherine Seegers.
I do want to read her biobefore I bring her home, but
Catherine is an award-winningactress and playwright.
Turn stay at home.
Mom, turn author, speaker,podcaster and motherhood
apologist.
The homeschooling mama.
(01:46):
This homeschooling mama of fivehas a master's degree in
communications and, as a host ofthe audio life audios,
christian parent crazy world,which was named 2022's best kids
and family podcast by sparkmedia on CPC W, catherine
navigates through tough culturaland theological topics to help
(02:08):
parents establish a soundbiblical Foundation for their
children.
She is also an award-winningwriter Whose art, regular
articles on family, faith andculture reach hundreds of
thousands of readers oncrosswalk, I believe, bible
studies tools and Easy for me tosay, christian headlines.
(02:29):
You can find Catherine's workat wwwcatherineseegerscom.
So anyways, without further ado, now, this is really cool.
Welcome, catherine.
Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Thank you for having me, and it's an honor to be here
.
I'm so excited.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Well, I am excited too.
I feel like we're lifelongfriends I just minutes ago
actually, but it's so coolgetting to connect with you and
how God brings brings all of ustogether.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I am honored to have you and you actually wrote an
article recently and you're avery gifted writer.
I went back and read many ofyour articles, but there was one
recently that just reallyjumped out to me and I thought
we'd dive into that today, butit's.
I want to find the exact titlefor it.
But yes, eight steps to findredemption after loss and.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
I mean, whether you are going through loss right now
, whether this is somethingthat's gonna be for the future
for you.
You never really experiencedloss.
This is something that all ofus have to deal with at some
point or another, and so such apowerful, powerful topic.
So thank you for jumping on,first of all, but let me just
ask how are you doing and what'sthe latest going on with
(03:46):
Catherine Seegers?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Well, we're gearing up for another homeschooling
year.
We have five kids.
My husband and I do.
We just graduated our first.
We had a senior graduating anda kindergartner graduating the
same year.
That was fun.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Those pictures.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Those pictures are super cute.
So, yeah, we homeschooled sowe're trying to trying to get
back in the swing of things,taking a bit of a slew start.
So hopefully that's kind ofwhat's going on in our world,
trying to survive the heat.
Down here we live in Alabama.
It's been a hot one, so we'vebeen hitting three digits,
sometimes Some pretty muchlately, and it's it's been a
(04:21):
little bit, a little bit sweaty.
You don't know anything aboutthat.
In Texas, though, at least it'sa little drier.
I'll give you that.
A little bit more dry, hot heat, this humid heat can can get to
you.
But it's beautiful where welive.
I'm very, very grateful we liveOutside of Birmingham.
It's just luscious and greenand rolling hills and ponds, so
(04:44):
we're very blessed, even thoughit's hot.
Well, we'll get to the cooler,cooler months coming up here.
I hear they're ahead, that forsure.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Well, it's always good connecting with you and you
had, like I, mentioned thistopic.
I think it's very powerful.
In the very first point, when Iwas reading your article jumped
out at me Because it's it was apowerful scripture for me.
The smallest verse in the Bible, it's two words Jesus, well,
john 11, 35, but that that'sjust a piece.
(05:17):
I don't want to get ahead of it.
But it's number one, which isgrieved with your heavenly
father.
Why don't you dive into thatand tell us a little bit more
about what you mean there?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
well, just to give the cliff-notes version of the
loss that we went through.
We my husband and I we kind ofhad kids later in life.
I was very career-oriented.
You read my bio earlier.
I was all about.
I was an actor.
I spent a dozen years on thestage doing everything from
musicals to Shakespeare tocomedy improv, and that was okay
.
I just launched into this andrealize it's probably not the
(05:50):
clip notes.
I'll try.
But we started.
We started having our kidspretty late.
We had our first at 34.
I Was almost 34, and then wehad one like 37.
So we wrap.
Our third one came.
I was almost 39.
I turned 39 right after thatand I figured, okay, well, it's
probably time to close up shophere, move on to a little more
(06:14):
peaceful stage of life.
You know that didn't involve,you know, midnight feedings and
Naps diaper bags and high chairs, and you know applesauce across
face and so that was just kindof my line of thinking.
God has a way of you know.
Yeah, the best laid plans ofmice and men, so, yeah.
(06:37):
So when I was 42, I was leadinga woman's Bible study.
You know, I was thinking, youknow, I'm surrendered to the
Lord, he's Lord of my life.
And I started having thesedreams over and over and over
about a little boy and it kindof got obnoxious at a bit.
I'm like God, why do I keephaving these dreams?
And the Lord just reallyimpressed upon my heart that I
was done with our Family and hewasn't.
(06:57):
And I'm like, okay, god, I'mlike 42 at this point.
I, you know, I was about to goto my 20-year college reunion.
I mean 20 years.
Okay, most of my friends weregraduating than their kids from
high school.
And and I'm like, what do youmean?
And he's like he just Impressedon my heart, we had been very
(07:19):
much in control of our, ourfamily.
I guess you could say you cankind of figure out what that
means.
And we, so I was not reallyopen to this idea.
It's like, you know, but youcall me Lord of your life, do
you think you have a better planthan me?
And I was like about that?
No, I know it was one of thosebig ouches and I'm like okay,
here's the problem.
(07:40):
Yeah, I do.
If you, if you want me to goback to baby town in my 40s, I'm
thinking I probably do have abetter plan than you.
And clearly that's a problembecause you're God and I'm not.
So you know.
He really pressed in.
He said why do you call me Lordand I'm not Lord of your family
?
Wow, and then he got reallypersonal.
He's like why do you call meLord and I'm not Lord of your
womb?
(08:00):
Is there other parts of youthat I'm not Lord over?
And so it kind of it reallyWiped the spiritual legs out
from under me because I thought,I thought he was Lord and yet I
realized Very clearly that hewas not, because I had been very
much in control and I didn'treally pray about what he wanted
(08:21):
to do with our family and Ididn't have a heart to have
another child.
I wasn't interested in that,but I praised.
I prayed a wise prayer.
At this point I think the Lordmust have given it to me because
, yeah, it probably, I'm sure,didn't come from me.
But I'm like okay, lord, Idon't want to have another child
, but if you want me to changemy heart, change my heart, and I
(08:41):
did.
I freely offered my heart tohim and over the course of six
months I wrestled with this andyou, the Lord, brought me to
this place of.
I wasn't telling anybody,because I'm like that's just
crazy.
Who does that?
You know, I didn't want to bein a medical journal and my last
name is not Duggar.
So I'm like and I'm not acelebrity they always have
(09:03):
babies late in life and I'm likethis just doesn't make any
sense.
But I'm like, okay, god.
And finally I went to that 20year college reunion and on the
way home I'm sitting next to myhusband in the car.
We hear about all of herfriends who are graduating their
first kids.
I have a conversation with myhusband about having another
baby.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I want to know how that went first of all, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
It was very quiet from the driver's side.
He was driving and he was likeI think I could have probably
said, honey, I think God wantsus to be missionaries to the
planet Mars, and he would havebeen less shocked.
I mean, he was so surprised andI'm like Brian, just think
about it, just pray about it.
I don't know what else to say,other than God has really
(09:45):
convicted me that we never, gavehim this part of our lives and
maybe he doesn't want to doanything with it, but at least I
think we're supposed tosurrender.
So you go see what.
You go talk to him and see whathe says.
And I did something very wisethat I don't normally do as a
wife I shut my mouth about thistopic for like five, six weeks.
I didn't say a word and I justlet him pray about it.
(10:06):
And our pastor startedpreaching sermons like God wants
to do something amazing in herlife.
But it might seem crazy and allof this kind of like were you
there?
Were you a fly on the window inthe car?
And so I came back about sixweeks later and at this point,
andy, I have to tell you Godradically transformed my heart.
I went from not wanting anotherchild to wanting another child
(10:27):
worse than I'd ever wanted onein my life.
He did, he changed my heart towhere I wanted it more than
anything.
And so then my husband was like,yeah, the Lord's been speaking
the same thing to me, and I kidyou not, we had our pastors pray
over six weeks later, I'mpregnant with a little baby, oh
man.
That is an incredible story Iknow.
(10:47):
So and something odd happened.
It's kind of I'm trying to getto the cliff notes part of this.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Oh, you're good.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I started at this point, I started having dreams
of a little girl and I'm likewhat is that all about?
God, like one baby in your 40s,you can kind of pass off as
well.
Well, that happened.
Two seems to seem a little likepurposeful and crazy.
You know, people are going tostart wondering what's wrong
with it.
But when I was holding my son,my fourth child his name was
(11:16):
Weston when I was holding him inmy hands and I looked at this
human being who I knew would nothave existed had I not said yes
to the Lord, cause he didn't.
He wasn't going to force it onus.
You know.
We could make choices to.
You know, prevent that fromhappening.
I'm not talking about, you know, I'm very, very pro-life, fyi
just.
But we could.
You know, we didn't have to beopen to that opportunity.
(11:37):
So I was holding him, I wasjust overwhelmed.
I'm like God, I never want tosay no to you again.
You do know what's best.
I would have said no to this.
And yet this little miracle,this life, and, oh my gosh, he's
so amazing, he's the cutest kid, such a blessing.
I said I never want to say noagain and I kept having these
dreams of a baby girl.
And so I'm like, lord, what doyou want to do here?
(11:59):
And so I was.
I'm like, okay, let's just dothis thing If you want to do it.
I don't want to be 45 andpregnant, let's just, let's get
her done.
I'm like let's.
That was my thinking.
And so, anyway, what ended uphappening?
I went through the season whereI'm like we get to the place
where I'm like I'm gonna be 45.
And so I must not have heardGod right.
(12:20):
And so what ended up happeningwas we found out we were
expecting.
It was November of 2015.
And it was a very, it was anextremely supernatural journey.
I keep having these dreams.
At the beginning of the month,I had a dream, before I even
knew I was pregnant, that I wasin a doctor's office and I was
(12:42):
holding a tiny embryo in myhands.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Oh man.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
And I woke up with this, just feeling that a child
that small in my hand couldn'tbe alive.
And my husband was with me inthe dream and it was just kind
of.
And then we found out we wereexpecting.
And then, on Thanksgiving day2015, I had a dream that morning
.
We had just found out we werehaving a baby.
We were getting all excited.
We were gonna tell the parentsand put the sonogram picture
(13:09):
under the tree.
I had a dream that we hadordered a bunch of baby items in
the mail and they came and theywere all broken and I didn't
wanna pay full price for them,but I had to anyways.
That was my dream.
And right before Thanksgivingdinner, I start having a
miscarriage and I had to go andsit.
Nobody even knew I was pregnant.
(13:29):
I had to tell everybody I'mpregnant and I think I'm having
a miscarriage, all in the samesentence.
Oh, wow.
It was an early thing.
We didn't.
I know I'm not trying tocompare it to what people I know
people who have lost babiesmuch later and lost children,
and certainly your testimony,which you just shared on my
podcast, is there are peoplethat go through a lot worse, but
(13:53):
I'm like God, I thought youpromised this to me and yet I've
lost this child.
And so that's when I started towalk through this process of
loss and redemption, and thevery first thing he showed me
was the step you mentioned wasthat we need to grieve with our
heavenly father when we gothrough a loss, because Jesus
(14:14):
came to offer life.
It's the enemy that comes tosteal, kill and destroy.
So if you've lost something, ifsomething's been stolen from
you whether it's health, orwhether it's a child, or whether
it's a job or a mission or adream that the Lord has given
you and it's been stolen fromyou that you have a right, you
need to grieve over that andit's okay to be.
(14:36):
It's not okay.
It's necessary, it's absolutelynecessary to take that time.
And the scripture verse youmentioned is John 11, 35.
It's the shortest verse in allthe Bible.
Jesus wept and what's amazingabout this?
If you know the story.
He showed up on the scene whereLazarus is dead.
Everybody's weeping and heknows what's about to happen.
(14:58):
He's about to raise Lazarusfrom the dead, right?
Why?
If it were me, I'd be like youguys you're not gonna believe
what's about to happen.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
And I was like so you're gonna be would you like
two sisters who weren't veryhappy with him at the moment?
Speaker 2 (15:16):
So like why does he take the moment to do this?
It's so curious, isn't it?
Why would he do that?
He knows he's about to raisehim from the dead and yet he
takes the time to grieve.
So I think what God wants us toknow, and whatever loss we have
, he has a redemption planned.
But we do need to go throughthis process and grieve with our
(15:38):
heavenly Father.
He invites us to come into thislament with him and so many of
the Psalms.
That's such a great place tocamp out when you're going
through something like this andunderstanding our heavenly
Father's heart towards us andpouring out your heart to him.
The scripture says that.
(15:59):
I think it's Psalm 62, fivethrough eight or somewhere in
there.
I think it's pour out yourheart to him, all my people, for
God is our rescue and I justlove the Psalms.
So take the time.
Take the time to grieve withGod, recognizing that he's there
with you and he has a plan toredeem it.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
That is so good.
I almost missed the wholebeginning of that and I should
have set you up better, becauseyou can read the story before we
jumped into the grieving part.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, I wanted you to understand what we were
grieving through and what theloss was For sure.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
And then you're exactly right.
The Psalms are so good forencouragement through no matter
what you're facing.
There's so much to gain fromthere.
Well, your second point youtalk about in the article that I
thought just was so brilliant.
But you talk about realize andI went through this myself,
through my story but realize youhave a right to be angry.
And I think so many times andwe still respect the Lord.
(17:02):
We respect God, that he'ssovereign.
I know I did when I wentthrough it, but there's still.
You're still human.
He understands, he knows you'rea human and you're dealing with
emotions and anger isn't amotion by love.
That why don't you explain moreabout that, that you have the
right to be angry?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah, because, like I was saying earlier, that the
enemy has come to still kill anddestroy and when he's done that
we have a right to a right tobe angry about that.
That's okay.
But we have to direct our angerin the right direction.
Right reason Not towards nottowards God, but towards the
enemy, and as too often wedirect it towards God.
(17:41):
Why did you allow this?
Why didn't he prevent this?
And those are legitimatequestions to ask.
I think that's perfectly.
My experience is he doesn'toften answer good and ask Maybe
I'll answer you, but you knowthe why.
Sometimes we don't know in life.
Sometimes we get you know.
(18:03):
We'll see the beauty, and thebeauty from the ashes.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
But anger is just a natural and justified response
to our loss.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
To hurt yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, we have to target that at the one who
deserves it, the one who stolefrom us, the author of death,
not the author of life.
And so it's okay to berighteously indignant at that,
and it was interesting.
As I was praying through thisprocess, I felt the Lord just
give me the green light for thatand say you have to walk
through that and get throughthat and make sure it's
(18:35):
channeled in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Right yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
And that kind of fuels your passion to see
redemption fulfilled.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
And so even going back to John 11, I love that so
much.
But even Mary and Martha, theyboth asked the exact same
question because they were allclose.
They were all close to Jesus,so that's why I relate to that
chapter so much.
I was like, don't you care?
If you'd have been here, mybrother wouldn't have died.
I see them asking the question.
(19:05):
So I understand.
But then at the same time, Ihear you Don't lose focus.
Designate it to the.
Designate your anger to theright source and not to God.
Number three, which I thoughtwas great you have to choose to
fight.
It is a choice.
Choose to fight for redemption.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
You do.
It is a choice and I think weall know people in life who kind
of get wallow and the hardshipand the suffering and the loss
and I'm not blaming anybody orcasting stones, they're you know
what you know your familieswalk through was much harder and
longer than what.
Then you know we walk throughin this instant and other
(19:51):
families I've seen go throughthat.
I don't mean to patronizeanybody who's going through
serious loss, but we have to, wehave to make it.
You know, redemption is achoice.
We cooperate with God to see itfully fulfilled.
And God gave me like youprobably figured out by now my
dream.
I'm a dreamer and you know hedid that in both testaments,
(20:14):
with both Joseph's and lots ofother people, and I don't think
God has changed hiscommunication patterns
personally.
But I had, I had a reallypoignant dream.
It was a few days after we lostthe baby, which, by the way, we
named her Hope.
I named the one, we the child.
We lost hope.
So I had this dream that I wastraveling through Iraq and Iran.
(20:36):
Just a little me, I'm kind ofpetite, blonde, white chick.
I think I would stand out thereif I were there, especially
without a burqa.
So I, but I was actually inthis, this field, and there was
an enemy compound in front of me.
I could see the dark windowsand I knew that the enemy was
there, and I had no cover, noplace to run, no place to hide.
(20:59):
Suddenly, though, a tableappeared before me, and it was
ah, there was this compartmentunderneath the table, and it
opened up, and I hid in there,and when the threat had passed,
I was able to get out, and Istood beside the table, and I
woke up skype, and I immediatelythought of Psalm 23, which says
you prepare a table before mein the presence of my enemies.
(21:22):
And it was such a beautifulrepresentation of that.
This table appeared right inthe presence of my enemies, but
I love what the New LivingTranslation says.
It says you prepare a feast forme in the presence of my
enemies.
And I realized, okay, god, Isee the table, but there was no
feast on it.
And that was the determinationwithin me that started to well
(21:43):
up.
I'm like, okay, okay, you stolesomething from me, satan, and
now I'm demanding my feast.
God has given me a table and Iwant my feast on it, and you're
gonna watch me eat it and you'regonna regret the day you ever
stole that from me.
And it just that's what thatrighteous indignation fueled in
(22:03):
me, because it was angry not atGod.
God's my partner for redemption.
I was angry at the enemy of whathe had stolen, and so I was
determined.
It put this determinationinside of me, and that's what I
see so much in your testimonytoo is that you have a feast,
you have a table with a feast.
Is it hard?
Yes, it's hard, but look whatthe enemy is watching you eat
(22:24):
with this podcast and with yourbook.
I mean, come on, I know that'swhat I'm saying.
It's awesome.
You have a feast here and hecontinues to supply a feast, and
every person you share yourtestimony with is eating of that
feast, and the enemy is likeyou know, and so regretting what
he stole.
But because God has turned itaround and my life versus Romans
(22:47):
417,.
He is the God who brings lifefrom the dead and calls things
that or not, as though they were.
So, yeah, does it look likedeath happened in my womb?
Yeah, it did.
It did, but I'm like you'regonna produce life.
I said that last thing thathappens in this womb of mine
that's getting pretty old rightnow is not gonna be death, it's
gonna be life.
And so that's what I determined.
I determined that I was gonnachoose to fight for my feast and
(23:09):
receive my redemption.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Katherine, I'm loving this.
I forgot the podcast for asecond.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
He just said it that was good stuff.
I can do that.
I am good stuff, I am known todo that.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
I love it, I love your heart and I love your
passion for this.
And so number four is great,and just in the short time that
I've got to know you, I know youhave a lot of weapons, but it's
the number four that's gatheryour weapons.
I can tell you know scripture,you know it Forward and
backwards, because I've heardyou quote it.
It just comes out of you whichis beautiful, and so that's what
you talked about in yourarticle about gathering weapons.
(23:41):
So number four yeah, explainthat a little bit more for those
who haven't got to read it yet.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Our greatest weapon is the word of God and our
prayers that come from our mouth.
And there's nothing more potentor powerful than when we pray
verbatim.
What the word of God is?
It's like unadulterated, it'slike espresso.
It doesn't have filler in it,it's not watered down, there's
no saccharine or sweetener orwhatever.
It's just straight up, potentword of God.
(24:07):
And when we pray that and, andy, I didn't always know the word
of God like this how did I learnit?
How did you learn it?
Well, you went through the fire, right.
Yeah, come on and so I'm likewhat I did.
I had this friend she had hadfour.
I didn't even know, I thoughtshe had only had one.
She was pregnant with a child.
She had lost a little oneearlier that year named Rosie.
(24:27):
She was like at 22 weeks, mygoodness you know, just heart
wrenching.
She knew this child and feltthis child and had a miscarriage
very late.
But at the time she waspregnant with this baby named
Joseph and right at the end I'mlike how in the world did you
have the faith to believe forthat?
And turns out she had not hadone miscarriage earlier, she had
(24:49):
had four in a row, like fourlate term miscarriages in a row.
I said, how did you end up herewith Joseph, healthy, whole,
about to be born?
And she said that these womenat her church had given her this
list of scriptures and there'ssome scriptures I have listed on
.
I have a lot of script, list ofscriptures to pray, because
that's what I believe verystrongly and is just praying the
(25:10):
word of God.
So this list of scriptures topray if you've had loss or a
miscarriage, and I also havescriptures to pray over prodigal
children or over your kids orwhatever, and so I believe very
strongly in that and there arefree resources on my website.
But so she I said, like, get methose scriptures.
So I got them and my husbandand I and I added a bunch of
(25:30):
other scriptures the Lord gaveme to those and we started
praying them over my body everyday, just speaking the word of
God over my body.
I'm 44 years old and at thispoint I turned 45, okay, and
just to say that it did not lookvery hopeful.
I mean, I'm like paramountapostle, almost metaposal, and
(25:50):
it just did not look like thatwas gonna happen and the natural
and you know so many amazingthings happened.
I remember going to see my OBand I'm sitting in the office 45
, I was almost 45 at this pointsurrounded by 20 something
pregnant girls.
I'm like you're an idiot.
This thoughts are going.
What do you think you're doing?
(26:11):
I pulled out my scriptures, Iprayed through my scriptures and
the faith started to build up.
I go back into the actualexamining room.
I hear in the next office thissound.
If you've ever had a child orbeen in an OB office, you know
what that is.
It's the heartbeat monitor fromthe next room with her and her
healthy baby.
And I'm sitting here with anempty wound almost 45 years old.
(26:32):
You're an idiot.
These thoughts going through myhead.
Who do you think you are?
It's the enemy's voice.
What do I do?
I pulled out my scriptures.
I pray through my scripturesand my faith builds a little bit
.
So those were my weapons.
My husband and I committed toevery single day it was like
four pages of scripture, prayingthem over my body.
It didn't matter if it was 1 am, 2 am, sometimes it was close
(26:55):
to three by the time we gotaround to it, if we had a late
night with the other kids.
We prayed those scriptures overmy body every single day and
just committed to that.
We were warring in the spirit.
That was actually.
I preempted you.
The next Number five is praylike a crazy woman.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Pray like a crazy woman.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yeah, if you're not a woman, don't do that.
Pray like a crazy man or pray Iused to like to say pray like a
Benedictine monk.
That's what we did.
We just prayed like crazy everysingle day.
So that's.
I'm sorry, I don't wanna.
If you have any thoughts onthat last point, no, you're good
, Don't keep going.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Yeah, thank you, all right.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
So pray like a, just have this commitment.
And this is a tough one becauseI think some people get
distracted in prayer and I dotoo.
You start this is somethingI've said on my podcast before
Prayer warriors aren't born,they are formed every time.
Nobody is born with thisdiscipline.
Start with five minutes, startwith 10 minutes, start with you
(27:59):
know, and if you've gotscriptures, it kind of gives you
an outline.
So it's not, it's not as hard,you just like.
For example, I'm pray over mykids and one of the verses I
love to pray is create in myoldest child, for example,
create an afton, a clean heart,renew a right spirit within her.
Do not cast her away from yourpresence, lord.
Do not take your Holy spiritfrom her.
Restore to her the joy of hersalvation, your salvation, and
(28:21):
renew a right spirit within her.
So you take the scriptures andyou can personalize them and
just pray them over yoursituation.
And so we started doing thatevery day and we would do that
for about 30 minutes every day,praying for one thing, one thing
only.
Well, I mean we prayed for otherstuff in addition to that, but
I mean we would commit about 30minutes a day to this and we
(28:43):
just continued in prayer andafter six months it still hadn't
happened to me.
I was starting to get a littleweary, I was starting to be
discouraged and I went to theLord and I felt the Lord told us
to double down, pray twice aslong, twice as hard.
So we up to prayer to about anhour a day.
We were praying for this onething and I know that sounds
discouraging to some people outthere You're like I could never
(29:05):
do that.
I didn't think I could eitherand I don't.
I'm not gonna lie to you andsay I pray like that every day
now.
But during that battle, duringthat war, during this small
window of time, I felt like Ihad left for my womb to produce
the life that he had promisedthis little girl.
I felt like he had promised wedid, we prayed like that every
single day.
(29:26):
We prayed for about an hour aday at the six month mark and
yeah, it was interesting andthat's why I know scripture so
well, because you pray thoseverses every single day.
You start to, they get down inyour spirit and you learn them
and they become a part of thefabric of who you are and they
produce life.
They produce life.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
I think that is so good.
I've done that my whole life aswell, making it personal, cause
it's one thing to read it, butthen when you put your name in
the scripture, or your child'sname or whoever, it brings
totally new meaning toeverything.
I love doing that too, even the23rd song, which is one of my
favorite passages.
It's just, it's beautiful whenyou do that.
So, and thank you for sharingall this.
(30:08):
This is so good.
It starts with.
It's just like working out oranything you do in life.
It's not easy.
The hardest part is starting,and then you're I can do five
minutes.
Well, I can do 10 minutes.
The next day, I can do 30minutes.
You just keep going and you getstronger.
Your faith.
Muscle builds, just like anyother muscle builds.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
I love that when he runs a marathon at first they
run a mile, so build yourself upto the mile and then go from
there.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
So number six, which I'm assuming might be the
hardest Maybe not, I don't knowbut after you've done all these
other things, maybe it's easy tobe courageous.
But number six, you talk aboutbeing courageous.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, yeah, you would think you would be courageous,
you would think that I had builtup all of this spending all
this time in prayer, buthonestly, I'm 45 at this point
and I'm pretty discouraged and Iremember the Lord Came to me.
This is, this is kind ofinteresting.
So my husband and I areagreeing for this and I I had a
few friends that I told about it, some women in my Bible study
(31:10):
that were kind of praying forthis, but I hadn't told my other
kids, I had not told you know,we, the four other kids, and
they, they didn't know.
I think my oldest might haveknown that we had had a loss,
that we had lost a baby that wenamed hope, but the the other
kids didn't even know.
We didn't bring them in on thejourney.
And I felt the Lord press inand say Be courageous, tell your
(31:32):
kids and bite them in on thejourney, and I'm like no that's
a whole other level, right, it'sone thing, After you wait to
after the babies here and thenyou say oh, we did, but no, so
this is still.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Hey this is what we're praying for.
This is the truth.
That's what that is.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Well it is, and I I was trying to talk God out of it
.
I'm like telling him why thisis a bad idea.
It could scar their faith,courage them and all this stuff,
and he's like no, you'regetting this all wrong.
They are spectators and youguys are on the field playing
this game of faith.
Hey, get them on the field thenwhen there's a victory, they
took part in it.
Right, they were part of thevictory and they get to
(32:14):
experience the answer to prayer.
And and I was still kind oftrepidation about it, but we did
we sat the kids down and wetold them about it and then we
invited them in to pray with usevery day.
We didn't do the whole hourlong With them every day.
That might have been a bit,they weren't quite ready for
that, but we did.
We started playing with themevery day for for their sister
to come.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Wow, so cool.
I love that part.
That is a huge step of beingcourageous and you could invite.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Okay, well, just one more thing on that.
Just ask the Lord how can yoube courageous in this?
Who might he want to blessthrough this journey of being
able to join you in prayer forsomething, for the redemption?
And let me just add this in,redemption looks different for
everybody.
I've known people who have lostkids, who the redemption looked
like a ministry that came outof it, or people who have had a
(33:06):
tremendous loss.
It's not.
I kind of skipped this step, butI believe very strongly, as I
you know, when I, when we losthope and I was praying about it,
the Lord said yes, I havepromised you this child, I
promise you this child, butyou're going to have to fight
for her.
And that was the redemption hewanted to supply.
Redemption could be an adoption, redemption could be, like I
(33:28):
said, a ministry.
It could be any number ofthings.
It doesn't have to look likeagain, but the important thing
is that you hear from the Lordwhat that redemption is to pray
for.
And so we felt very strongly, Ifelt very strongly that this
was what he wanted to do, and sothat's what we persevered in
prayer for.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Wow.
So number seven uh, talks aboutpraise through to the finish
line.
Uh, dive in on that topic.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Well, my husband came to me at this point.
So we're like seven, eightmonths into this journey and,
like I said, I know it soundslike I'm some mighty prayer
warrior of faith praying an houra day, but I'm honestly a
little ticked at this point.
I'm like God, do you see, I'mnot even going to be 45 and
pregnant at this point.
I'm going to be 47.
(34:18):
I mean, I was, I wasn't going,I was rapidly approaching the
date where I would be 46 andpregnant and I was just like, I
was kind of ticked.
I was like Lord, why is thistaking so long?
What's the deal?
And my husband comes to me oneday and he says I hear God
telling us to praise him for thevictory.
Wow, and you think, mightywoman of God, that I am?
(34:40):
Yes, husband, oh, one who is sowise, such wisdom.
Yes, yes, let's do thattogether right now.
Let us praise that.
No, that was not my response.
My response was I did not feellike praising the Lord.
I did not want to.
This did not come naturally tome, but I got down on my knees
(35:04):
and I sought the Lord and I knewthat my husband was right.
Nothing, and this, if nothingelse, this is an amazing thing
that you can think of whenyou're praising the Lord in the
midst of your battle for victory.
Nothing irritates the enemyworse than seeing you praise God
when you're at your lowest andwhen you're discouraged and when
it doesn't look like it's goingto happen.
(35:25):
Because I'm like 45 and it doesnot look like this is going to
happen right, and I'm praisingGod for this and I'm not telling
people to be.
You know, I know people whohave thought God was going to do
all sorts of things or whatever.
I've really sensed the Lord wasleading us to do this, and so
(35:45):
we started praising God for avictory that we didn't have yet,
and I think that wasn't easy todo, but we started doing it as
a family.
As a family we did, and sothat's what I encourage people
to do that you got to keeppraising the Lord through the
battle, and that's what you know.
(36:07):
When you think about ancientIsrael, they sent the worshipers
out first, right.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
First, yeah, before the fight yeah, you get to
praise them.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Okay, I'm armed with a song here, and but that's what
we did, and yeah, so get yourpraise on in the middle of the
battle in the middle of it inorder to press through to
victory.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
There's so many, so many times throughout scripture.
You see that even in you knowthe prisons and the people where
they're supposed to be, youknow, depressed, or they're
praising God, they find them allin silence.
Jesus amen, so cool.
So then the last point here ofthese eight anyways, is press
through to victory.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
So Explain that a little bit for us.
Well, this was a hard one too,in the sense that you just don't
know how long, how long do youhave to press through and you
get discouraged.
And so what I encouraged peopleto do, and what I did in this
time, was just surround yourselfwith stories of people who have
had victories like this, likemy friend, mary Carol, who had
(37:13):
her child I was looking at herlittle baby Joseph after four
late term miscarriages, and babyJoseph was healthy and whole,
and so we just kept pressingthrough.
In the way God wrote this story, I mean, if Hollywood did this,
they would have said well, youmade that up, I'm not kidding, I
say the same thing about ourstory all the time, Like believe
(37:34):
this, even if I said it to you,I know.
It just was on the day.
So I was really down.
I was teaching VBS at churchand it was really discouraged
because it was the weak.
Hope was due.
She was like due on, I think itwas on a Thursday or something,
and so it was the week she wasdue.
(37:56):
The day before she was due I'dbeen having dreams that week
that were very disturbing.
But the day she was due I got upand because I was on a
progesterone supplement orsomething just to help with
things, I didn't do anyfertility drugs.
(38:16):
It was just normal stuff thatwomen take prenatal and while
they're pregnant.
So I was like I was scheduledto go off of it and except, if
you're pregnant, you're notsupposed to do it.
And so I was like, oh, let mejust take a pregnancy test.
Day hope was due, the day Itook a pregnancy test.
And, by the way, when I tookthe pregnancy test with hope, it
(38:38):
was kind of a faint line.
It was a little bit faint.
This one was and it was.
It was very early.
I shouldn't I mean I probablyshouldn't have been able to tell
it was something like I don'tknow like 26, 27 days.
I mean big fat positive.
Took another test, big fatpositive on the day that hope
(39:00):
was due.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
I'm like, are you?
Speaker 2 (39:02):
kidding me.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Like no.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
God, that's how God did it, and we continued with
the prayer because it was noteasy getting to that finish line
.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
I was 45,.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
I started having an abruption at 26 weeks.
I was in and out of thehospital for the last trimester.
I spent the whole last month inthe hospital and then, the day
that we had her name, the childis a little girl, just like the
Lord had promised.
Evangeline Faith is her name.
(39:33):
The day Evangeline Faith cameinto the world, we were trying
to get a little bit later, butwe we managed to get from 26
weeks to 36 weeks with anabruption.
I mean an abruption is when theplacenta tears away from the
uterine wall.
It's very dangerous.
The mother can die, the babycan die.
We were both was very, veryhigh risk, so that's why they
(39:55):
pulled me into the hospital.
I had to stay there for thelast month.
Even then, there are times whenwomen can even be in the
hospital and it can happen.
It can happen so quickly andI'm not going to lie.
It's like it looked like anepisode of CSI and my hospital
room that day it was a bloody,awful mess and they got me in
(40:15):
and we didn't have hours, we hadminutes to spare.
But I'm telling you this wasamazing.
That child was perfect, yeah,perfect.
Not a scratch on her head,nothing unhealthy.
She was a perfectly healthy babyfrom a 46 year old almost, yeah
, 45, 40, 45 year old egg, andso, yeah, she was amazing and
(40:38):
God was totally faithful.
It was a rough ride, though,and I know, I know, without
doubt you know that thatmountain of prayer that we
prayed every single day over mybody and over her was necessary
in order for her to get here ahealthy and whole, and she's now
six years old, evangeline faith, and she's perfectly healthy
and whole, and she's been such ablessing to our family.
(41:00):
We're so grateful.
But, yeah, that's how the Lordwrote that story, that's how
that happened and that's how Ilearned to be a prayer warrior.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
There you go, you learn and you learn.
There's some of your darkest,darkest trials, through the
hardest times, where you learnso much about who you truly are,
and then who God really is.
He doesn't leave you, hedoesn't forsake you.
He's there.
So cool.
What an amazing story.
I had no idea all that you guyshad went through.
(41:27):
For us so much and I didn't eventell you this on the podcast.
But many who have read the bookhave heard this story.
But it was about five yearsafter Peyton's birth.
They had did all these becausethey were going back and forth.
Was it genetic?
Was there something thathappened during the birthing
process?
What happened?
And even my wife was asked.
(41:47):
She was happy to have the oldAndy back.
She was scared If we tried tohave another baby, what happens?
What would, would you be able toget?
I had said all the right thingsbut I don't truly know what
would have happened.
And then we find out we'rehaving a baby and we're so
thrilled, so excited and we wentto and we did like you
(42:11):
mentioned in the article.
You didn't even have a time toto present it or tell anyone yet
.
Well, we did the first thingfirst.
We didn't know better to waituntil until we were further
along to after the firsttrimester, I believe, is when
they say you should.
So we blasted it on socialmedia we're having a baby, we're
so excited and, sure enough, wewent to the first doctor's
(42:32):
appointment and they couldn'tfind the heartbeat.
And that was just such anotheryou know, kick me while we're
down kind of moment for us.
But yet we knew what God hadalready brought us out of.
And once, wild same doctor, wewent to a specialist.
He was high risk pregnancybecause of Peyton's you know
(42:52):
thing.
So he was this amazing doctor,and he said you know what, you
can always try again.
You never know.
But we we're not even thinkingabout that moment.
Three months later to the day,we're in the same doctor's
office, exact same room where wegot the bad news.
This time he sent us up again,just like the last time, to
another specialist, Cause hesaid I want my buddy to to see
(43:14):
what I'm seeing this time.
And so, seeing one heartbeat,there's a two heartbeats, and so
we find out we're having twins.
And that's just how good God'sfaithfulness is for all of it.
And so I thank you for sharingyour story today, I thank you
for coming on and sharing allthe heartaches.
But, yeah, how you found thepower of prayer, how you found
(43:34):
the power of scripture throughall of it, how you found God's
faithfulness through all of it,how you heard from the Lord and
you stuck to that.
Cause sometimes we hear, andit's easy for us to say I think
I might've missed her, God, it'seasier for the devil to plant
that in your ear.
Are you sure you heard thatRight, Maybe?
Maybe he didn't say that youwere having a girl.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
I had those moments too, wow.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
But, yeah, you held on to the faith and you were
courageous and I love that.
What a beautiful story.
Well, thanks for sharing.
How can people find you?
I shared it at the verybeginning, but how can they find
your website?
How can they find you, eitheron social media or, if they want
to connect with you, how canpeople connect with Catherine?
Speaker 2 (44:16):
Yes, one final thought, just the connection
between the names there justoccurred to me while you were
talking.
I have a child named Hope andshe lives in heaven, and all of
our hope lives in heaven,because that's where our hope
resides.
But faith lives here on earthwith us, and I have a child
named Faith here, and that'swhat one book I want to do one
day is Hope and Faith, the storyof these two sisters because,
(44:39):
yeah, faith, evangelism, faithwouldn't have existed if it
weren't for Hope.
She was the one who I mean veryliterally the sister Hope, but
also the idea of Hope, so Ithink that's just such a
beautiful connection gave mewith their names.
But you can find more about me.
My go-to place would beCatherineseagr'scom, and you can
(45:00):
check me out on Instagram, atat Catherine Seagr's or
Catherine Seagr's speaker.
On Facebook.
My podcast is called ChristianParent Crazy World.
It's housed at Life Audio, butyou can find it anywhere.
You get your podcast iHeart,spotify, whatever.
Just look up Christian ParentCrazy World and check me out
there.
I would love that.
And I have one more thing thatthe scriptures that I mentioned.
(45:22):
I do house those on my website,along with some other scripture
lists as well, to pray overchildren, pray over protocols,
pray over conception and thingslike that.
The same scriptures I use.
I house there.
It's not anything we do, butthe scripture is what has the
power, and so if you'reinterested in getting a free
copy of those, you can justsubscribe at my website at
(45:44):
Catherineseagr'scom.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Awesome.
We will make that available aswell in the show nuts and I will
present that here when we whenI wrap this up here in a few
minutes as well.
But thank you for making thatavailable and that is so
powerful.
I cannot stress enough thepower of God's word.
It's what we need, it's how welive, it is the bread it's the
bread of life.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Living an act goes sharper than any double edged
sword.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
And how, how, I don't know how anyone, because so
many people ask, and I'm surethey ask you as well with your
story how in the world did youmake it through or how did you
do it?
How would we do it without thescripture, without the word of
God?
I don't know how anyone could.
So thank you so much.
Yeah, thank you for sharing andI'm going to push as many as I
can to your podcast as well.
(46:29):
It's been so nice getting to toknow you over the last couple
of podcasts between mine andbetween yours.
But thank you for sharing andit's you know we'll have to have
you back on another time to getsome updates for what's going
on with your world.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
I would love that back at you.
That would be great.
It's been such an honor.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
Thank you so much.
God bless you.
Wow, wasn't that incredible.
I love man.
I love hearing how God isfaithful through everybody's
story, and you know what he'sfaithful to you as well.
Maybe you're in the midst ofthe trial right now and it's
hard to see where hisfaithfulness is.
That's what faith is all aboutHold on to his faith.
And he, while Catherine justshared so many amazing points,
(47:13):
but the one that jumped out tome mainly was about about
scripture, about holding on tohis faith or his word, and and
she even gave it place aresource, a free resource for
you, through her website,catherineseekerscom.
If you would go, you can finddaily scriptures to pray over
(47:33):
yourself, through your trials,through whatever you're facing
right now.
It will be so powerful anduplifting for you.
So, again, that'sCatherineseekerscom.
S E G A R Scom.
Such a powerful andinspirational story.
Love it, love it so much.
So thank you guys for tuning in.
Please, please, share thisepisode with somebody who needs
(47:58):
to hear this today.
What a powerful, powerful story, and there are so many people I
know God was laying somebody onyour heart who needs to hear
this story for you.
So, so please share this withsomeone.
Let it be a blessing to them.
And if it is a blessing to you,please leave a five star review
for me so others can find thishope and find this podcast and
(48:20):
as well.
If you haven't heard or got thebook yet, go to AndyHowardcom.
You can get the book there oryou can go to Amazon.
It's available there when wordsdon't come easy.
Thanks again, my friends, godbless.
Hey, what's up everybody?
Today is going to be awesome.
It's going to be awesome.
I got a new dear friend of mine.
Her name is Catherine Seegersand she's going to join us.
But you're gonna hear apowerful story.
A powerful story of what it'slike to hold on to faith All the
way through to the finish line,even when it gets hard.
(00:21):
She's gonna leave you with alot of powerful tips on how to
recover from a great lossActually, eight steps on how to
find redemption after a loss sopowerful.
But even in the end there's afree resource.
So you got to stick around tothe very end.
We're gonna give you a freeresource that she has made
(00:42):
available for you today.
And that's at the very end.
All that and more.
It's happening Right after this.
(01:04):
Welcome back to the WinWordsDon't Come Easy podcast.
I am Edie Howard, and it'salways good to.
If this is your first time tojoin, it's always good to meet
you.
I am excited today I have aspecial guest going to be
joining us shortly.
But this podcast is alwaysabout hope and I always want to
do my very best, whether it'ssomething that I am sharing or
(01:26):
whether it's a guest coming on,and today you are going to be
blessed by Catherine Seegers.
I do want to read her biobefore I bring her home, but
Catherine is an award-winningactress and playwright.
Turn stay at home.
Mom, turn author, speaker,podcaster and motherhood
apologist.
The homeschooling mama.
(01:46):
This homeschooling mama of fivehas a master's degree in
communications and, as a host ofthe audio life audios,
christian parent crazy world,which was named 2022's best kids
and family podcast by sparkmedia on CPC W, catherine
navigates through tough culturaland theological topics to help
(02:08):
parents establish a soundbiblical Foundation for their
children.
She is also an award-winningwriter Whose art, regular
articles on family, faith andculture reach hundreds of
thousands of readers oncrosswalk, I believe, bible
studies tools and Easy for me tosay, christian headlines.
(02:29):
You can find Catherine's workat wwwcatherineseegerscom.
So anyways, without further ado, now, this is really cool.
Welcome, catherine.
Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Thank you for having me, and it's an honor to be here
.
I'm so excited.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Well, I am excited too.
I feel like we're lifelongfriends I just minutes ago
actually, but it's so coolgetting to connect with you and
how God brings brings all of ustogether.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I am honored to have you and you actually wrote an
article recently and you're avery gifted writer.
I went back and read many ofyour articles, but there was one
recently that just reallyjumped out to me and I thought
we'd dive into that today, butit's.
I want to find the exact titlefor it.
But yes, eight steps to findredemption after loss and.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
I mean, whether you are going through loss right now
, whether this is somethingthat's gonna be for the future
for you.
You never really experiencedloss.
This is something that all ofus have to deal with at some
point or another, and so such apowerful, powerful topic.
So thank you for jumping on,first of all, but let me just
ask how are you doing and what'sthe latest going on with
(03:46):
Catherine Seegers?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Well, we're gearing up for another homeschooling
year.
We have five kids.
My husband and I do.
We just graduated our first.
We had a senior graduating anda kindergartner graduating the
same year.
That was fun.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Those pictures.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Those pictures are super cute.
So, yeah, we homeschooled sowe're trying to trying to get
back in the swing of things,taking a bit of a slew start.
So hopefully that's kind ofwhat's going on in our world,
trying to survive the heat.
Down here we live in Alabama.
It's been a hot one, so we'vebeen hitting three digits,
sometimes Some pretty muchlately, and it's it's been a
(04:21):
little bit, a little bit sweaty.
You don't know anything aboutthat.
In Texas, though, at least it'sa little drier.
I'll give you that.
A little bit more dry, hot heat, this humid heat can can get to
you.
But it's beautiful where welive.
I'm very, very grateful we liveOutside of Birmingham.
It's just luscious and greenand rolling hills and ponds, so
(04:44):
we're very blessed, even thoughit's hot.
Well, we'll get to the cooler,cooler months coming up here.
I hear they're ahead, that forsure.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Well, it's always good connecting with you and you
had, like I, mentioned thistopic.
I think it's very powerful.
In the very first point, when Iwas reading your article jumped
out at me Because it's it was apowerful scripture for me.
The smallest verse in the Bible, it's two words Jesus, well,
john 11, 35, but that that'sjust a piece.
(05:17):
I don't want to get ahead of it.
But it's number one, which isgrieved with your heavenly
father.
Why don't you dive into thatand tell us a little bit more
about what you mean there?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
well, just to give the cliff-notes version of the
loss that we went through.
We my husband and I we kind ofhad kids later in life.
I was very career-oriented.
You read my bio earlier.
I was all about.
I was an actor.
I spent a dozen years on thestage doing everything from
musicals to Shakespeare tocomedy improv, and that was okay
.
I just launched into this andrealize it's probably not the
(05:50):
clip notes.
I'll try.
But we started.
We started having our kidspretty late.
We had our first at 34.
I Was almost 34, and then wehad one like 37.
So we wrap.
Our third one came.
I was almost 39.
I turned 39 right after thatand I figured, okay, well, it's
probably time to close up shophere, move on to a little more
(06:14):
peaceful stage of life.
You know that didn't involve,you know, midnight feedings and
Naps diaper bags and high chairs, and you know applesauce across
face and so that was just kindof my line of thinking.
God has a way of you know.
Yeah, the best laid plans ofmice and men, so, yeah.
(06:37):
So when I was 42, I was leadinga woman's Bible study.
You know, I was thinking, youknow, I'm surrendered to the
Lord, he's Lord of my life.
And I started having thesedreams over and over and over
about a little boy and it kindof got obnoxious at a bit.
I'm like God, why do I keephaving these dreams?
And the Lord just reallyimpressed upon my heart that I
was done with our Family and hewasn't.
(06:57):
And I'm like, okay, god, I'mlike 42 at this point.
I, you know, I was about to goto my 20-year college reunion.
I mean 20 years.
Okay, most of my friends weregraduating than their kids from
high school.
And and I'm like, what do youmean?
And he's like he just Impressedon my heart, we had been very
(07:19):
much in control of our, ourfamily.
I guess you could say you cankind of figure out what that
means.
And we, so I was not reallyopen to this idea.
It's like, you know, but youcall me Lord of your life, do
you think you have a better planthan me?
And I was like about that?
No, I know it was one of thosebig ouches and I'm like okay,
here's the problem.
(07:40):
Yeah, I do.
If you, if you want me to goback to baby town in my 40s, I'm
thinking I probably do have abetter plan than you.
And clearly that's a problembecause you're God and I'm not.
So you know.
He really pressed in.
He said why do you call me Lordand I'm not Lord of your family
?
Wow, and then he got reallypersonal.
He's like why do you call meLord and I'm not Lord of your
womb?
(08:00):
Is there other parts of youthat I'm not Lord over?
And so it kind of it reallyWiped the spiritual legs out
from under me because I thought,I thought he was Lord and yet I
realized Very clearly that hewas not, because I had been very
much in control and I didn'treally pray about what he wanted
(08:21):
to do with our family and Ididn't have a heart to have
another child.
I wasn't interested in that,but I praised.
I prayed a wise prayer.
At this point I think the Lordmust have given it to me because
, yeah, it probably, I'm sure,didn't come from me.
But I'm like okay, lord, Idon't want to have another child
, but if you want me to changemy heart, change my heart, and I
(08:41):
did.
I freely offered my heart tohim and over the course of six
months I wrestled with this andyou, the Lord, brought me to
this place of.
I wasn't telling anybody,because I'm like that's just
crazy.
Who does that?
You know, I didn't want to bein a medical journal and my last
name is not Duggar.
So I'm like and I'm not acelebrity they always have
(09:03):
babies late in life and I'm likethis just doesn't make any
sense.
But I'm like, okay, god.
And finally I went to that 20year college reunion and on the
way home I'm sitting next to myhusband in the car.
We hear about all of herfriends who are graduating their
first kids.
I have a conversation with myhusband about having another
baby.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I want to know how that went first of all, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
It was very quiet from the driver's side.
He was driving and he was likeI think I could have probably
said, honey, I think God wantsus to be missionaries to the
planet Mars, and he would havebeen less shocked.
I mean, he was so surprised andI'm like Brian, just think
about it, just pray about it.
I don't know what else to say,other than God has really
(09:45):
convicted me that we never, gavehim this part of our lives and
maybe he doesn't want to doanything with it, but at least I
think we're supposed tosurrender.
So you go see what.
You go talk to him and see whathe says.
And I did something very wisethat I don't normally do as a
wife I shut my mouth about thistopic for like five, six weeks.
I didn't say a word and I justlet him pray about it.
(10:06):
And our pastor startedpreaching sermons like God wants
to do something amazing in herlife.
But it might seem crazy and allof this kind of like were you
there?
Were you a fly on the window inthe car?
And so I came back about sixweeks later and at this point,
andy, I have to tell you Godradically transformed my heart.
I went from not wanting anotherchild to wanting another child
(10:27):
worse than I'd ever wanted onein my life.
He did, he changed my heart towhere I wanted it more than
anything.
And so then my husband was like,yeah, the Lord's been speaking
the same thing to me, and I kidyou not, we had our pastors pray
over six weeks later, I'mpregnant with a little baby, oh
man.
That is an incredible story Iknow.
(10:47):
So and something odd happened.
It's kind of I'm trying to getto the cliff notes part of this.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Oh, you're good.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I started at this point, I started having dreams
of a little girl and I'm likewhat is that all about?
God, like one baby in your 40s,you can kind of pass off as
well.
Well, that happened.
Two seems to seem a little likepurposeful and crazy.
You know, people are going tostart wondering what's wrong
with it.
But when I was holding my son,my fourth child his name was
(11:16):
Weston when I was holding him inmy hands and I looked at this
human being who I knew would nothave existed had I not said yes
to the Lord, cause he didn't.
He wasn't going to force it onus.
You know.
We could make choices to.
You know, prevent that fromhappening.
I'm not talking about, you know, I'm very, very pro-life, fyi
just.
But we could.
You know, we didn't have to beopen to that opportunity.
(11:37):
So I was holding him, I wasjust overwhelmed.
I'm like God, I never want tosay no to you again.
You do know what's best.
I would have said no to this.
And yet this little miracle,this life, and, oh my gosh, he's
so amazing, he's the cutest kid, such a blessing.
I said I never want to say noagain and I kept having these
dreams of a baby girl.
And so I'm like, lord, what doyou want to do here?
(11:59):
And so I was.
I'm like, okay, let's just dothis thing If you want to do it.
I don't want to be 45 andpregnant, let's just, let's get
her done.
I'm like let's.
That was my thinking.
And so, anyway, what ended uphappening?
I went through the season whereI'm like we get to the place
where I'm like I'm gonna be 45.
And so I must not have heardGod right.
(12:20):
And so what ended up happeningwas we found out we were
expecting.
It was November of 2015.
And it was a very, it was anextremely supernatural journey.
I keep having these dreams.
At the beginning of the month,I had a dream, before I even
knew I was pregnant, that I wasin a doctor's office and I was
(12:42):
holding a tiny embryo in myhands.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Oh man.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
And I woke up with this, just feeling that a child
that small in my hand couldn'tbe alive.
And my husband was with me inthe dream and it was just kind
of.
And then we found out we wereexpecting.
And then, on Thanksgiving day2015, I had a dream that morning
.
We had just found out we werehaving a baby.
We were getting all excited.
We were gonna tell the parentsand put the sonogram picture
(13:09):
under the tree.
I had a dream that we hadordered a bunch of baby items in
the mail and they came and theywere all broken and I didn't
wanna pay full price for them,but I had to anyways.
That was my dream.
And right before Thanksgivingdinner, I start having a
miscarriage and I had to go andsit.
Nobody even knew I was pregnant.
(13:29):
I had to tell everybody I'mpregnant and I think I'm having
a miscarriage, all in the samesentence.
Oh, wow.
It was an early thing.
We didn't.
I know I'm not trying tocompare it to what people I know
people who have lost babiesmuch later and lost children,
and certainly your testimony,which you just shared on my
podcast, is there are peoplethat go through a lot worse, but
(13:53):
I'm like God, I thought youpromised this to me and yet I've
lost this child.
And so that's when I started towalk through this process of
loss and redemption, and thevery first thing he showed me
was the step you mentioned wasthat we need to grieve with our
heavenly father when we gothrough a loss, because Jesus
(14:14):
came to offer life.
It's the enemy that comes tosteal, kill and destroy.
So if you've lost something, ifsomething's been stolen from
you whether it's health, orwhether it's a child, or whether
it's a job or a mission or adream that the Lord has given
you and it's been stolen fromyou that you have a right, you
need to grieve over that andit's okay to be.
(14:36):
It's not okay.
It's necessary, it's absolutelynecessary to take that time.
And the scripture verse youmentioned is John 11, 35.
It's the shortest verse in allthe Bible.
Jesus wept and what's amazingabout this?
If you know the story.
He showed up on the scene whereLazarus is dead.
Everybody's weeping and heknows what's about to happen.
(14:58):
He's about to raise Lazarusfrom the dead, right?
Why?
If it were me, I'd be like youguys you're not gonna believe
what's about to happen.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
And I was like so you're gonna be would you like
two sisters who weren't veryhappy with him at the moment?
Speaker 2 (15:16):
So like why does he take the moment to do this?
It's so curious, isn't it?
Why would he do that?
He knows he's about to raisehim from the dead and yet he
takes the time to grieve.
So I think what God wants us toknow, and whatever loss we have
, he has a redemption planned.
But we do need to go throughthis process and grieve with our
(15:38):
heavenly Father.
He invites us to come into thislament with him and so many of
the Psalms.
That's such a great place tocamp out when you're going
through something like this andunderstanding our heavenly
Father's heart towards us andpouring out your heart to him.
The scripture says that.
(15:59):
I think it's Psalm 62, fivethrough eight or somewhere in
there.
I think it's pour out yourheart to him, all my people, for
God is our rescue and I justlove the Psalms.
So take the time.
Take the time to grieve withGod, recognizing that he's there
with you and he has a plan toredeem it.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
That is so good.
I almost missed the wholebeginning of that and I should
have set you up better, becauseyou can read the story before we
jumped into the grieving part.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, I wanted you to understand what we were
grieving through and what theloss was For sure.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
And then you're exactly right.
The Psalms are so good forencouragement through no matter
what you're facing.
There's so much to gain fromthere.
Well, your second point youtalk about in the article that I
thought just was so brilliant.
But you talk about realize andI went through this myself,
through my story but realize youhave a right to be angry.
And I think so many times andwe still respect the Lord.
(17:02):
We respect God, that he'ssovereign.
I know I did when I wentthrough it, but there's still.
You're still human.
He understands, he knows you'rea human and you're dealing with
emotions and anger isn't amotion by love.
That why don't you explain moreabout that, that you have the
right to be angry?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah, because, like I was saying earlier, that the
enemy has come to still kill anddestroy and when he's done that
we have a right to a right tobe angry about that.
That's okay.
But we have to direct our angerin the right direction.
Right reason Not towards nottowards God, but towards the
enemy, and as too often wedirect it towards God.
(17:41):
Why did you allow this?
Why didn't he prevent this?
And those are legitimatequestions to ask.
I think that's perfectly.
My experience is he doesn'toften answer good and ask Maybe
I'll answer you, but you knowthe why.
Sometimes we don't know in life.
Sometimes we get you know.
(18:03):
We'll see the beauty, and thebeauty from the ashes.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
But anger is just a natural and justified response
to our loss.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
To hurt yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, we have to target that at the one who
deserves it, the one who stolefrom us, the author of death,
not the author of life.
And so it's okay to berighteously indignant at that,
and it was interesting.
As I was praying through thisprocess, I felt the Lord just
give me the green light for thatand say you have to walk
through that and get throughthat and make sure it's
(18:35):
channeled in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Right yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
And that kind of fuels your passion to see
redemption fulfilled.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
And so even going back to John 11, I love that so
much.
But even Mary and Martha, theyboth asked the exact same
question because they were allclose.
They were all close to Jesus,so that's why I relate to that
chapter so much.
I was like, don't you care?
If you'd have been here, mybrother wouldn't have died.
I see them asking the question.
(19:05):
So I understand.
But then at the same time, Ihear you Don't lose focus.
Designate it to the.
Designate your anger to theright source and not to God.
Number three, which I thoughtwas great you have to choose to
fight.
It is a choice.
Choose to fight for redemption.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
You do.
It is a choice and I think weall know people in life who kind
of get wallow and the hardshipand the suffering and the loss
and I'm not blaming anybody orcasting stones, they're you know
what you know your familieswalk through was much harder and
longer than what.
Then you know we walk throughin this instant and other
(19:51):
families I've seen go throughthat.
I don't mean to patronizeanybody who's going through
serious loss, but we have to, wehave to make it.
You know, redemption is achoice.
We cooperate with God to see itfully fulfilled.
And God gave me like youprobably figured out by now my
dream.
I'm a dreamer and you know hedid that in both testaments,
(20:14):
with both Joseph's and lots ofother people, and I don't think
God has changed hiscommunication patterns
personally.
But I had, I had a reallypoignant dream.
It was a few days after we lostthe baby, which, by the way, we
named her Hope.
I named the one, we the child.
We lost hope.
So I had this dream that I wastraveling through Iraq and Iran.
(20:36):
Just a little me, I'm kind ofpetite, blonde, white chick.
I think I would stand out thereif I were there, especially
without a burqa.
So I, but I was actually inthis, this field, and there was
an enemy compound in front of me.
I could see the dark windowsand I knew that the enemy was
there, and I had no cover, noplace to run, no place to hide.
(20:59):
Suddenly, though, a tableappeared before me, and it was
ah, there was this compartmentunderneath the table, and it
opened up, and I hid in there,and when the threat had passed,
I was able to get out, and Istood beside the table, and I
woke up skype, and I immediatelythought of Psalm 23, which says
you prepare a table before mein the presence of my enemies.
(21:22):
And it was such a beautifulrepresentation of that.
This table appeared right inthe presence of my enemies, but
I love what the New LivingTranslation says.
It says you prepare a feast forme in the presence of my
enemies.
And I realized, okay, god, Isee the table, but there was no
feast on it.
And that was the determinationwithin me that started to well
(21:43):
up.
I'm like, okay, okay, you stolesomething from me, satan, and
now I'm demanding my feast.
God has given me a table and Iwant my feast on it, and you're
gonna watch me eat it and you'regonna regret the day you ever
stole that from me.
And it just that's what thatrighteous indignation fueled in
(22:03):
me, because it was angry not atGod.
God's my partner for redemption.
I was angry at the enemy of whathe had stolen, and so I was
determined.
It put this determinationinside of me, and that's what I
see so much in your testimonytoo is that you have a feast,
you have a table with a feast.
Is it hard?
Yes, it's hard, but look whatthe enemy is watching you eat
(22:24):
with this podcast and with yourbook.
I mean, come on, I know that'swhat I'm saying.
It's awesome.
You have a feast here and hecontinues to supply a feast, and
every person you share yourtestimony with is eating of that
feast, and the enemy is likeyou know, and so regretting what
he stole.
But because God has turned itaround and my life versus Romans
(22:47):
417,.
He is the God who brings lifefrom the dead and calls things
that or not, as though they were.
So, yeah, does it look likedeath happened in my womb?
Yeah, it did.
It did, but I'm like you'regonna produce life.
I said that last thing thathappens in this womb of mine
that's getting pretty old rightnow is not gonna be death, it's
gonna be life.
And so that's what I determined.
I determined that I was gonnachoose to fight for my feast and
(23:09):
receive my redemption.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Katherine, I'm loving this.
I forgot the podcast for asecond.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
He just said it that was good stuff.
I can do that.
I am good stuff, I am known todo that.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
I love it, I love your heart and I love your
passion for this.
And so number four is great,and just in the short time that
I've got to know you, I know youhave a lot of weapons, but it's
the number four that's gatheryour weapons.
I can tell you know scripture,you know it Forward and
backwards, because I've heardyou quote it.
It just comes out of you whichis beautiful, and so that's what
you talked about in yourarticle about gathering weapons.
(23:41):
So number four yeah, explainthat a little bit more for those
who haven't got to read it yet.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Our greatest weapon is the word of God and our
prayers that come from our mouth.
And there's nothing more potentor powerful than when we pray
verbatim.
What the word of God is?
It's like unadulterated, it'slike espresso.
It doesn't have filler in it,it's not watered down, there's
no saccharine or sweetener orwhatever.
It's just straight up, potentword of God.
(24:07):
And when we pray that and, andy, I didn't always know the word
of God like this how did I learnit?
How did you learn it?
Well, you went through the fire, right.
Yeah, come on and so I'm likewhat I did.
I had this friend she had hadfour.
I didn't even know, I thoughtshe had only had one.
She was pregnant with a child.
She had lost a little oneearlier that year named Rosie.
(24:27):
She was like at 22 weeks, mygoodness you know, just heart
wrenching.
She knew this child and feltthis child and had a miscarriage
very late.
But at the time she waspregnant with this baby named
Joseph and right at the end I'mlike how in the world did you
have the faith to believe forthat?
And turns out she had not hadone miscarriage earlier, she had
(24:49):
had four in a row, like fourlate term miscarriages in a row.
I said, how did you end up herewith Joseph, healthy, whole,
about to be born?
And she said that these womenat her church had given her this
list of scriptures and there'ssome scriptures I have listed on
.
I have a lot of script, list ofscriptures to pray, because
that's what I believe verystrongly and is just praying the
(25:10):
word of God.
So this list of scriptures topray if you've had loss or a
miscarriage, and I also havescriptures to pray over prodigal
children or over your kids orwhatever, and so I believe very
strongly in that and there arefree resources on my website.
But so she I said, like, get methose scriptures.
So I got them and my husbandand I and I added a bunch of
(25:30):
other scriptures the Lord gaveme to those and we started
praying them over my body everyday, just speaking the word of
God over my body.
I'm 44 years old and at thispoint I turned 45, okay, and
just to say that it did not lookvery hopeful.
I mean, I'm like paramountapostle, almost metaposal, and
(25:50):
it just did not look like thatwas gonna happen and the natural
and you know so many amazingthings happened.
I remember going to see my OBand I'm sitting in the office 45
, I was almost 45 at this pointsurrounded by 20 something
pregnant girls.
I'm like you're an idiot.
This thoughts are going.
What do you think you're doing?
(26:11):
I pulled out my scriptures, Iprayed through my scriptures and
the faith started to build up.
I go back into the actualexamining room.
I hear in the next office thissound.
If you've ever had a child orbeen in an OB office, you know
what that is.
It's the heartbeat monitor fromthe next room with her and her
healthy baby.
And I'm sitting here with anempty wound almost 45 years old.
(26:32):
You're an idiot.
These thoughts going through myhead.
Who do you think you are?
It's the enemy's voice.
What do I do?
I pulled out my scriptures.
I pray through my scripturesand my faith builds a little bit
.
So those were my weapons.
My husband and I committed toevery single day it was like
four pages of scripture, prayingthem over my body.
It didn't matter if it was 1 am, 2 am, sometimes it was close
(26:55):
to three by the time we gotaround to it, if we had a late
night with the other kids.
We prayed those scriptures overmy body every single day and
just committed to that.
We were warring in the spirit.
That was actually.
I preempted you.
The next Number five is praylike a crazy woman.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Pray like a crazy woman.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yeah, if you're not a woman, don't do that.
Pray like a crazy man or pray Iused to like to say pray like a
Benedictine monk.
That's what we did.
We just prayed like crazy everysingle day.
So that's.
I'm sorry, I don't wanna.
If you have any thoughts onthat last point, no, you're good
, Don't keep going.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Yeah, thank you, all right.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
So pray like a, just have this commitment.
And this is a tough one becauseI think some people get
distracted in prayer and I dotoo.
You start this is somethingI've said on my podcast before
Prayer warriors aren't born,they are formed every time.
Nobody is born with thisdiscipline.
Start with five minutes, startwith 10 minutes, start with you
(27:59):
know, and if you've gotscriptures, it kind of gives you
an outline.
So it's not, it's not as hard,you just like.
For example, I'm pray over mykids and one of the verses I
love to pray is create in myoldest child, for example,
create an afton, a clean heart,renew a right spirit within her.
Do not cast her away from yourpresence, lord.
Do not take your Holy spiritfrom her.
Restore to her the joy of hersalvation, your salvation, and
(28:21):
renew a right spirit within her.
So you take the scriptures andyou can personalize them and
just pray them over yoursituation.
And so we started doing thatevery day and we would do that
for about 30 minutes every day,praying for one thing, one thing
only.
Well, I mean we prayed for otherstuff in addition to that, but
I mean we would commit about 30minutes a day to this and we
(28:43):
just continued in prayer andafter six months it still hadn't
happened to me.
I was starting to get a littleweary, I was starting to be
discouraged and I went to theLord and I felt the Lord told us
to double down, pray twice aslong, twice as hard.
So we up to prayer to about anhour a day.
We were praying for this onething and I know that sounds
discouraging to some people outthere You're like I could never
(29:05):
do that.
I didn't think I could eitherand I don't.
I'm not gonna lie to you andsay I pray like that every day
now.
But during that battle, duringthat war, during this small
window of time, I felt like Ihad left for my womb to produce
the life that he had promisedthis little girl.
I felt like he had promised wedid, we prayed like that every
single day.
(29:26):
We prayed for about an hour aday at the six month mark and
yeah, it was interesting andthat's why I know scripture so
well, because you pray thoseverses every single day.
You start to, they get down inyour spirit and you learn them
and they become a part of thefabric of who you are and they
produce life.
They produce life.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
I think that is so good.
I've done that my whole life aswell, making it personal, cause
it's one thing to read it, butthen when you put your name in
the scripture, or your child'sname or whoever, it brings
totally new meaning toeverything.
I love doing that too, even the23rd song, which is one of my
favorite passages.
It's just, it's beautiful whenyou do that.
So, and thank you for sharingall this.
(30:08):
This is so good.
It starts with.
It's just like working out oranything you do in life.
It's not easy.
The hardest part is starting,and then you're I can do five
minutes.
Well, I can do 10 minutes.
The next day, I can do 30minutes.
You just keep going and you getstronger.
Your faith.
Muscle builds, just like anyother muscle builds.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
I love that when he runs a marathon at first they
run a mile, so build yourself upto the mile and then go from
there.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
So number six, which I'm assuming might be the
hardest Maybe not, I don't knowbut after you've done all these
other things, maybe it's easy tobe courageous.
But number six, you talk aboutbeing courageous.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, yeah, you would think you would be courageous,
you would think that I had builtup all of this spending all
this time in prayer, buthonestly, I'm 45 at this point
and I'm pretty discouraged and Iremember the Lord Came to me.
This is, this is kind ofinteresting.
So my husband and I areagreeing for this and I I had a
few friends that I told about it, some women in my Bible study
(31:10):
that were kind of praying forthis, but I hadn't told my other
kids, I had not told you know,we, the four other kids, and
they, they didn't know.
I think my oldest might haveknown that we had had a loss,
that we had lost a baby that wenamed hope, but the the other
kids didn't even know.
We didn't bring them in on thejourney.
And I felt the Lord press inand say Be courageous, tell your
(31:32):
kids and bite them in on thejourney, and I'm like no that's
a whole other level, right, it'sone thing, After you wait to
after the babies here and thenyou say oh, we did, but no, so
this is still.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Hey this is what we're praying for.
This is the truth.
That's what that is.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Well it is, and I I was trying to talk God out of it
.
I'm like telling him why thisis a bad idea.
It could scar their faith,courage them and all this stuff,
and he's like no, you'regetting this all wrong.
They are spectators and youguys are on the field playing
this game of faith.
Hey, get them on the field thenwhen there's a victory, they
took part in it.
Right, they were part of thevictory and they get to
(32:14):
experience the answer to prayer.
And and I was still kind oftrepidation about it, but we did
we sat the kids down and wetold them about it and then we
invited them in to pray with usevery day.
We didn't do the whole hourlong With them every day.
That might have been a bit,they weren't quite ready for
that, but we did.
We started playing with themevery day for for their sister
to come.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Wow, so cool.
I love that part.
That is a huge step of beingcourageous and you could invite.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Okay, well, just one more thing on that.
Just ask the Lord how can yoube courageous in this?
Who might he want to blessthrough this journey of being
able to join you in prayer forsomething, for the redemption?
And let me just add this in,redemption looks different for
everybody.
I've known people who have lostkids, who the redemption looked
like a ministry that came outof it, or people who have had a
(33:06):
tremendous loss.
It's not.
I kind of skipped this step, butI believe very strongly, as I
you know, when I, when we losthope and I was praying about it,
the Lord said yes, I havepromised you this child, I
promise you this child, butyou're going to have to fight
for her.
And that was the redemption hewanted to supply.
Redemption could be an adoption, redemption could be, like I
(33:28):
said, a ministry.
It could be any number ofthings.
It doesn't have to look likeagain, but the important thing
is that you hear from the Lordwhat that redemption is to pray
for.
And so we felt very strongly, Ifelt very strongly that this
was what he wanted to do, and sothat's what we persevered in
prayer for.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Wow.
So number seven uh, talks aboutpraise through to the finish
line.
Uh, dive in on that topic.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Well, my husband came to me at this point.
So we're like seven, eightmonths into this journey and,
like I said, I know it soundslike I'm some mighty prayer
warrior of faith praying an houra day, but I'm honestly a
little ticked at this point.
I'm like God, do you see, I'mnot even going to be 45 and
pregnant at this point.
I'm going to be 47.
(34:18):
I mean, I was, I wasn't going,I was rapidly approaching the
date where I would be 46 andpregnant and I was just like, I
was kind of ticked.
I was like Lord, why is thistaking so long?
What's the deal?
And my husband comes to me oneday and he says I hear God
telling us to praise him for thevictory.
Wow, and you think, mightywoman of God, that I am?
(34:40):
Yes, husband, oh, one who is sowise, such wisdom.
Yes, yes, let's do thattogether right now.
Let us praise that.
No, that was not my response.
My response was I did not feellike praising the Lord.
I did not want to.
This did not come naturally tome, but I got down on my knees
(35:04):
and I sought the Lord and I knewthat my husband was right.
Nothing, and this, if nothingelse, this is an amazing thing
that you can think of whenyou're praising the Lord in the
midst of your battle for victory.
Nothing irritates the enemyworse than seeing you praise God
when you're at your lowest andwhen you're discouraged and when
it doesn't look like it's goingto happen.
(35:25):
Because I'm like 45 and it doesnot look like this is going to
happen right, and I'm praisingGod for this and I'm not telling
people to be.
You know, I know people whohave thought God was going to do
all sorts of things or whatever.
I've really sensed the Lord wasleading us to do this, and so
(35:45):
we started praising God for avictory that we didn't have yet,
and I think that wasn't easy todo, but we started doing it as
a family.
As a family we did, and sothat's what I encourage people
to do that you got to keeppraising the Lord through the
battle, and that's what you know.
(36:07):
When you think about ancientIsrael, they sent the worshipers
out first, right.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
First, yeah, before the fight yeah, you get to
praise them.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Okay, I'm armed with a song here, and but that's what
we did, and yeah, so get yourpraise on in the middle of the
battle in the middle of it inorder to press through to
victory.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
There's so many, so many times throughout scripture.
You see that even in you knowthe prisons and the people where
they're supposed to be, youknow, depressed, or they're
praising God, they find them allin silence.
Jesus amen, so cool.
So then the last point here ofthese eight anyways, is press
through to victory.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
So Explain that a little bit for us.
Well, this was a hard one too,in the sense that you just don't
know how long, how long do youhave to press through and you
get discouraged.
And so what I encouraged peopleto do, and what I did in this
time, was just surround yourselfwith stories of people who have
had victories like this, likemy friend, mary Carol, who had
(37:13):
her child I was looking at herlittle baby Joseph after four
late term miscarriages, and babyJoseph was healthy and whole,
and so we just kept pressingthrough.
In the way God wrote this story, I mean, if Hollywood did this,
they would have said well, youmade that up, I'm not kidding, I
say the same thing about ourstory all the time, Like believe
(37:34):
this, even if I said it to you,I know.
It just was on the day.
So I was really down.
I was teaching VBS at churchand it was really discouraged
because it was the weak.
Hope was due.
She was like due on, I think itwas on a Thursday or something,
and so it was the week she wasdue.
(37:56):
The day before she was due I'dbeen having dreams that week
that were very disturbing.
But the day she was due I got upand because I was on a
progesterone supplement orsomething just to help with
things, I didn't do anyfertility drugs.
(38:16):
It was just normal stuff thatwomen take prenatal and while
they're pregnant.
So I was like I was scheduledto go off of it and except, if
you're pregnant, you're notsupposed to do it.
And so I was like, oh, let mejust take a pregnancy test.
Day hope was due, the day Itook a pregnancy test.
And, by the way, when I tookthe pregnancy test with hope, it
(38:38):
was kind of a faint line.
It was a little bit faint.
This one was and it was.
It was very early.
I shouldn't I mean I probablyshouldn't have been able to tell
it was something like I don'tknow like 26, 27 days.
I mean big fat positive.
Took another test, big fatpositive on the day that hope
(39:00):
was due.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
I'm like, are you?
Speaker 2 (39:02):
kidding me.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Like no.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
God, that's how God did it, and we continued with
the prayer because it was noteasy getting to that finish line
.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
I was 45,.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
I started having an abruption at 26 weeks.
I was in and out of thehospital for the last trimester.
I spent the whole last month inthe hospital and then, the day
that we had her name, the childis a little girl, just like the
Lord had promised.
Evangeline Faith is her name.
(39:33):
The day Evangeline Faith cameinto the world, we were trying
to get a little bit later, butwe we managed to get from 26
weeks to 36 weeks with anabruption.
I mean an abruption is when theplacenta tears away from the
uterine wall.
It's very dangerous.
The mother can die, the babycan die.
We were both was very, veryhigh risk, so that's why they
(39:55):
pulled me into the hospital.
I had to stay there for thelast month.
Even then, there are times whenwomen can even be in the
hospital and it can happen.
It can happen so quickly andI'm not going to lie.
It's like it looked like anepisode of CSI and my hospital
room that day it was a bloody,awful mess and they got me in
(40:15):
and we didn't have hours, we hadminutes to spare.
But I'm telling you this wasamazing.
That child was perfect, yeah,perfect.
Not a scratch on her head,nothing unhealthy.
She was a perfectly healthy babyfrom a 46 year old almost, yeah
, 45, 40, 45 year old egg, andso, yeah, she was amazing and
(40:38):
God was totally faithful.
It was a rough ride, though,and I know, I know, without
doubt you know that thatmountain of prayer that we
prayed every single day over mybody and over her was necessary
in order for her to get here ahealthy and whole, and she's now
six years old, evangeline faith, and she's perfectly healthy
and whole, and she's been such ablessing to our family.
(41:00):
We're so grateful.
But, yeah, that's how the Lordwrote that story, that's how
that happened and that's how Ilearned to be a prayer warrior.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
There you go, you learn and you learn.
There's some of your darkest,darkest trials, through the
hardest times, where you learnso much about who you truly are,
and then who God really is.
He doesn't leave you, hedoesn't forsake you.
He's there.
So cool.
What an amazing story.
I had no idea all that you guyshad went through.
(41:27):
For us so much and I didn't eventell you this on the podcast.
But many who have read the bookhave heard this story.
But it was about five yearsafter Peyton's birth.
They had did all these becausethey were going back and forth.
Was it genetic?
Was there something thathappened during the birthing
process?
What happened?
And even my wife was asked.
(41:47):
She was happy to have the oldAndy back.
She was scared If we tried tohave another baby, what happens?
What would, would you be able toget?
I had said all the right thingsbut I don't truly know what
would have happened.
And then we find out we'rehaving a baby and we're so
thrilled, so excited and we wentto and we did like you
(42:11):
mentioned in the article.
You didn't even have a time toto present it or tell anyone yet
.
Well, we did the first thingfirst.
We didn't know better to waituntil until we were further
along to after the firsttrimester, I believe, is when
they say you should.
So we blasted it on socialmedia we're having a baby, we're
so excited and, sure enough, wewent to the first doctor's
(42:32):
appointment and they couldn'tfind the heartbeat.
And that was just such anotheryou know, kick me while we're
down kind of moment for us.
But yet we knew what God hadalready brought us out of.
And once, wild same doctor, wewent to a specialist.
He was high risk pregnancybecause of Peyton's you know
(42:52):
thing.
So he was this amazing doctor,and he said you know what, you
can always try again.
You never know.
But we we're not even thinkingabout that moment.
Three months later to the day,we're in the same doctor's
office, exact same room where wegot the bad news.
This time he sent us up again,just like the last time, to
another specialist, Cause hesaid I want my buddy to to see
(43:14):
what I'm seeing this time.
And so, seeing one heartbeat,there's a two heartbeats, and so
we find out we're having twins.
And that's just how good God'sfaithfulness is for all of it.
And so I thank you for sharingyour story today, I thank you
for coming on and sharing allthe heartaches.
But, yeah, how you found thepower of prayer, how you found
(43:34):
the power of scripture throughall of it, how you found God's
faithfulness through all of it,how you heard from the Lord and
you stuck to that.
Cause sometimes we hear, andit's easy for us to say I think
I might've missed her, God, it'seasier for the devil to plant
that in your ear.
Are you sure you heard thatRight, Maybe?
Maybe he didn't say that youwere having a girl.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
I had those moments too, wow.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
But, yeah, you held on to the faith and you were
courageous and I love that.
What a beautiful story.
Well, thanks for sharing.
How can people find you?
I shared it at the verybeginning, but how can they find
your website?
How can they find you, eitheron social media or, if they want
to connect with you, how canpeople connect with Catherine?
Speaker 2 (44:16):
Yes, one final thought, just the connection
between the names there justoccurred to me while you were
talking.
I have a child named Hope andshe lives in heaven, and all of
our hope lives in heaven,because that's where our hope
resides.
But faith lives here on earthwith us, and I have a child
named Faith here, and that'swhat one book I want to do one
day is Hope and Faith, the storyof these two sisters because,
(44:39):
yeah, faith, evangelism, faithwouldn't have existed if it
weren't for Hope.
She was the one who I mean veryliterally the sister Hope, but
also the idea of Hope, so Ithink that's just such a
beautiful connection gave mewith their names.
But you can find more about me.
My go-to place would beCatherineseagr'scom, and you can
(45:00):
check me out on Instagram, atat Catherine Seagr's or
Catherine Seagr's speaker.
On Facebook.
My podcast is called ChristianParent Crazy World.
It's housed at Life Audio, butyou can find it anywhere.
You get your podcast iHeart,spotify, whatever.
Just look up Christian ParentCrazy World and check me out
there.
I would love that.
And I have one more thing thatthe scriptures that I mentioned.
(45:22):
I do house those on my website,along with some other scripture
lists as well, to pray overchildren, pray over protocols,
pray over conception and thingslike that.
The same scriptures I use.
I house there.
It's not anything we do, butthe scripture is what has the
power, and so if you'reinterested in getting a free
copy of those, you can justsubscribe at my website at
(45:44):
Catherineseagr'scom.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Awesome.
We will make that available aswell in the show nuts and I will
present that here when we whenI wrap this up here in a few
minutes as well.
But thank you for making thatavailable and that is so
powerful.
I cannot stress enough thepower of God's word.
It's what we need, it's how welive, it is the bread it's the
bread of life.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Living an act goes sharper than any double edged
sword.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
And how, how, I don't know how anyone, because so
many people ask, and I'm surethey ask you as well with your
story how in the world did youmake it through or how did you
do it?
How would we do it without thescripture, without the word of
God?
I don't know how anyone could.
So thank you so much.
Yeah, thank you for sharing andI'm going to push as many as I
can to your podcast as well.
(46:29):
It's been so nice getting to toknow you over the last couple
of podcasts between mine andbetween yours.
But thank you for sharing andit's you know we'll have to have
you back on another time to getsome updates for what's going
on with your world.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
I would love that back at you.
That would be great.
It's been such an honor.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
Thank you so much.
God bless you.
Wow, wasn't that incredible.
I love man.
I love hearing how God isfaithful through everybody's
story, and you know what he'sfaithful to you as well.
Maybe you're in the midst ofthe trial right now and it's
hard to see where hisfaithfulness is.
That's what faith is all aboutHold on to his faith.
And he, while Catherine justshared so many amazing points,
(47:13):
but the one that jumped out tome mainly was about about
scripture, about holding on tohis faith or his word, and and
she even gave it place aresource, a free resource for
you, through her website,catherineseekerscom.
If you would go, you can finddaily scriptures to pray over
(47:33):
yourself, through your trials,through whatever you're facing
right now.
It will be so powerful anduplifting for you.
So, again, that'sCatherineseekerscom.
S E G A R Scom.
Such a powerful andinspirational story.
Love it, love it so much.
So thank you guys for tuning in.
Please, please, share thisepisode with somebody who needs
(47:58):
to hear this today.
What a powerful, powerful story, and there are so many people I
know God was laying somebody onyour heart who needs to hear
this story for you.
So, so please share this withsomeone.
Let it be a blessing to them.
And if it is a blessing to you,please leave a five star review
for me so others can find thishope and find this podcast and
(48:20):
as well.
If you haven't heard or got thebook yet, go to AndyHowardcom.
You can get the book there oryou can go to Amazon.
It's available there when wordsdon't come easy.
Thanks again, my friends, godbless.
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