June 11, 2025 • 41 mins
In this vulnerable and hope-filled episode of "Stuff God Never Said," host Audrey Cauthen shifts the spotlight onto her own journey, sharing a raw and personal testimony of navigating infertility, loss, and the powerful lies we often believe about God’s love. From growing up in a rule-heavy church environment to facing years of heartbreak through miscarriage, endometriosis, and the isolation of infertility, Audrey pulls back the curtain to reveal how persistent messages of unworthiness threatened to drown out God's truth in her life.
With honesty and courage, Audrey recounts the pivotal moments when she felt left out of God’s blessings—first as a little girl longing for spiritual gifts, and later as a wife yearning for motherhood. She walks us through the loneliness and grief of miscarriages, including her traumatic experience with an ectopic pregnancy, and the misguided advice and silence that so often surround these struggles. Through it all, Audrey discovers the relentless, redemptive love of a God who never asks us to earn His love and who shows up in the smallest details—including a tattoo and a miraculous pregnancy.
You’re Not Alone—And You’re Not Unworthy; Jesus Makes You Worthy!
Audrey’s story is a beacon to anyone who has ever questioned their value in God’s eyes or felt unworthy of good things. She reminds us that the lies we believe—whether from our upbringing, our culture, or our circumstances—are exactly the kinds of "stuff God never said." Instead, God’s truth is that you are deeply loved, seen, and worthy—not because of what you do, but because you are His child.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
Whether you are in a season of waiting, walking through loss, or just need to be reminded of who God really is, Audrey’s story will strengthen your faith and encourage you to seek the truth of what God really says. Don’t carry your pain alone—join us in this honest conversation and let’s fight the lies together.
Join the Community & Support the Mission: To partner with "Stuff God Never Said" through a one-time gift, episode sponsorship, or recurring donation, click here: Make Your Tax-Deductible Donation to "Stuff God Never Said"
Connect with Audrey and join the conversation: SUP@StuffGodNeverSaid.com
You’re not alone, you’re not forgotten, and you are always loved. Share this episode with someone who needs hope today, and don’t forget to subscribe for more real stories and truth-filled encouragement from "Stuff God Never Said."
#Infertility #Faith #Testimony #GodsLove #StuffGodNeverSaid #ChristianPodcast #Miscarriage #YouAreWorthy
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Faith and Spiritual Gifts Journey
04:20 Touched by the Spirit
09:35 Childhood Misunderstandings and Self-Worth
12:52 Chasing Fleeting Happiness
15:40 Overcoming Childhood Lies of Unworthiness
19:54 Finding Faith and Worthiness
21:38 Reconnecting Over Coffee
24:19 Breaking Pregnancy Taboo: Sharing Early
30:36 Overcoming Lies Through Faith
31:49 Unconditional Love and Life Lessons
35:33 Ectopic Pregnancy Emergency
38:46 "Challenging Misconceptions of God's Words"
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/stuff-god-never-said--6381256/support.
With honesty and courage, Audrey recounts the pivotal moments when she felt left out of God’s blessings—first as a little girl longing for spiritual gifts, and later as a wife yearning for motherhood. She walks us through the loneliness and grief of miscarriages, including her traumatic experience with an ectopic pregnancy, and the misguided advice and silence that so often surround these struggles. Through it all, Audrey discovers the relentless, redemptive love of a God who never asks us to earn His love and who shows up in the smallest details—including a tattoo and a miraculous pregnancy.
You’re Not Alone—And You’re Not Unworthy; Jesus Makes You Worthy!
Audrey’s story is a beacon to anyone who has ever questioned their value in God’s eyes or felt unworthy of good things. She reminds us that the lies we believe—whether from our upbringing, our culture, or our circumstances—are exactly the kinds of "stuff God never said." Instead, God’s truth is that you are deeply loved, seen, and worthy—not because of what you do, but because you are His child.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- The damaging effects of believing lies about God’s character and your worth
- The heartbreak and hidden grief of infertility and miscarriage
- The importance of healthy, loving community during seasons of loss
- The freedom found in embracing God’s unconditional love
- Practical encouragement for anyone walking through infertility, loneliness, or spiritual confusion
Whether you are in a season of waiting, walking through loss, or just need to be reminded of who God really is, Audrey’s story will strengthen your faith and encourage you to seek the truth of what God really says. Don’t carry your pain alone—join us in this honest conversation and let’s fight the lies together.
Join the Community & Support the Mission: To partner with "Stuff God Never Said" through a one-time gift, episode sponsorship, or recurring donation, click here: Make Your Tax-Deductible Donation to "Stuff God Never Said"
Connect with Audrey and join the conversation: SUP@StuffGodNeverSaid.com
You’re not alone, you’re not forgotten, and you are always loved. Share this episode with someone who needs hope today, and don’t forget to subscribe for more real stories and truth-filled encouragement from "Stuff God Never Said."
#Infertility #Faith #Testimony #GodsLove #StuffGodNeverSaid #ChristianPodcast #Miscarriage #YouAreWorthy
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Faith and Spiritual Gifts Journey
04:20 Touched by the Spirit
09:35 Childhood Misunderstandings and Self-Worth
12:52 Chasing Fleeting Happiness
15:40 Overcoming Childhood Lies of Unworthiness
19:54 Finding Faith and Worthiness
21:38 Reconnecting Over Coffee
24:19 Breaking Pregnancy Taboo: Sharing Early
30:36 Overcoming Lies Through Faith
31:49 Unconditional Love and Life Lessons
35:33 Ectopic Pregnancy Emergency
38:46 "Challenging Misconceptions of God's Words"
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/stuff-god-never-said--6381256/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
And then we were ready to start trying to have kids that message got louder and louder and louder
(00:06):
that you are not worthy of good things. God does not have the good things for you. He has them for
everyone else. You get infertility and you get loss and you get miscarriage and you get loneliness.
This might be the hardest part of the whole story.
Y'all welcome back. We're at season two of Stuff God Never Said and I am so excited. You're here
(00:30):
with us. Can you even like handle this studio update? It is so cool and I'm so excited to be
sharing today the heart behind Stuff God Never Said. I'm going to share a little bit of my testimony,
my story, why knowing what God never said and what he did say is so incredibly important.
(00:51):
Not just to me but for everybody. It's the entire basis of our faith to know who God is and what
he says. So let's go. If you are anything like me or your story is anything like mine and you
spent years of your life believing the wrong thing about God with your whole entire heart,
(01:13):
basing life decisions on that, then this story might be for you. I grew up in a church that was,
no, I don't want to say that. I don't want to make the church so bad. Sorry. Let me just get the my
bearings for a second. I grew up with a strong desire to please God. I really wanted to know him.
(01:38):
I was raised in a family with first generation Christian parents. They were radically saved by Jesus.
They were learning all the things as we were learning all the things. We had some great church
communities. We had lots of rules, lots of rules. Very black and white. We had evil and we had good
(02:05):
and there is no in between, which isn't necessarily wrong, but it was hard to navigate growing up for sure.
But I spent so many years believing wrong things about God, about his character, about who he is,
and how it was my job to earn his love. I would say that that did way more harm than good.
(02:33):
And I know now with every ounce of my being that that is not who God is. He is not a God who makes you earn
his love and makes you fight for the good things he has for you. He just wants you. He wants your heart. He
wants all of you. He wants your trust. He wants your your relationship first and foremost.
(02:55):
And he is a good good father. And I want to tell everybody that. So it kind of started when I was about six
or seven years old. And I was like, okay, we talk about God a lot. I think I want him in my heart. So I
can so I can have the gifts too that he has for for everybody around me. We were part of a
(03:19):
Pentecostal church and and one of the big themes of that church was the gifts that God gives,
whether it's prayer language or being slain in the spirit or whatever thing. If you don't even
know what that is, Google it or don't, it's fine. But I will never forget that there was one Wednesday
(03:41):
night service that we were at. This was a defining moment for for my walk with the Lord as a child.
We were at a Wednesday night service. You go to church. Sunday morning, Friday night and Wednesday
night and any event yet any event there is you go to it. That's that's a big part of it. There's a
(04:02):
Wednesday night service and there was this guest speaker guy. And he had all the kids come forth.
I was probably seven years old at this time. He had all the kids come to the front and he said,
we're going to we're going to slay in the spirit, which is basically the Holy Spirit goes through
this guy's hand, I guess. And he touches you and then you fall back and you go to sleep for a minute
(04:25):
or you're like so overwhelmed by the spirit that you just pass out. And I was watching. I was up front
and I was like kind of nervous. But I was like, oh my gosh, this is all happening to everybody around
me. And I've seen the grownups do it and it's the kids turn. I felt really special and
important. And we were all up there. The whole kids class and and the guy, you know, is coming down
(04:49):
kid by kid and just like barely tapping them and they fall back and barely tapping them the next
one of they fall back. And it's my turn. And I'm like, I have no idea what this is going to feel like.
But it is going to be amazing. Like I've never been overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit before. I can't
wait to see it. I was like scared and excited. And and he taps my head and I don't fall back.
(05:10):
And I was like, wait, why didn't that work? And so he taps my head again and I didn't fall back.
And I was like, oh my gosh, my very first thought. I don't remember a whole lot about being seven
issues old. But I remember my first thought was what's wrong with me.
And he hit my head again and I didn't fall back and some guy behind me like pulled me back
(05:33):
to like sit down while everyone else was like and I just was I was humiliated. I was like,
something is wrong with me. Everyone else got this thing from God and I didn't get it. I was the only
kid that didn't fall down. I'm like, all these kids on this side of me and all these kids on this
side of me. And and I was like, and I remember going home and we did our bedtime prayers with my
(05:53):
parents. And I was like, I don't think God's in my heart because that didn't work. It worked on
everybody, but it didn't work on me. And you know, I remember them kind of comforting me and
they're like God, God works and and in different ways for everybody. And I don't remember exactly
what they said, but looking back, I know that they were they were they were new baby Christians too.
(06:16):
And they were they probably didn't have all the answers. No one has all the answers, but they didn't
they were doing their best. I know that I know that they were and I know they believed we had a good
God and they instilled that in me. And I am forever thankful for that. But I said, I remember that
night. I said, I want to pray again for Jesus to come in my heart, which for the record, I want to say
(06:41):
believing a little tiny spirit of Jesus was going into my heart as a kid. And he was either there
or he wasn't. And if he wasn't, then I didn't get his good gifts. I just had to pray for him to like,
I just just just please keep just every night. So from that night on every single night, I would
pray, please, please be in my heart. Please come in my heart so that I can have good things from you
(07:05):
so that you can know me and I can know you and I can be one of your kids. I want to be one of your kids.
And and I just pray to every night and I believed it. I kids because kids believe everything we
teach them. They believe what we have to say about pretty much everything. And so we need to tell them
(07:28):
the truth. They not only need to know what God didn't say. They need to know exactly what he did say.
And that is extremely important. That is a huge passion of mine is telling the truth to kids
about who Jesus is and who he isn't. So prayed, prayed, then summer camp came along, church summer camp.
(07:50):
My sister and I went and my dad came and there was again, there was a night. It was like a worship night
and a pause in the worship and they were like, okay, now we're all going to ask the Lord to
download in us a prayer language. Just ask him, you know, if you're his kid, he's going to give you
(08:11):
the things you ask for the whole other thing we'll get out to another time. But they said, just ask
ask for your prayer language and he'll just download this this this language that's just between you and him.
And I was like, okay, I'm going to ask him and I'm going to believe and I've been praying every night
that he's going to be in my heart and and he's going to happen. I'm going to get my prayer language.
(08:32):
And I prayed and I was like, I know you're going to do it because that's what everyone says that you do.
And everyone around me again, all the kids were speaking in their own little babble
prayer language and I didn't get one. And I was like, maybe I'm not, I must be doing something wrong.
(08:54):
What am I doing wrong that all these things that are from God are going to everyone else but not to me.
I must be doing something wrong and I and I dug in and I remember just that
that human nature that we all have, remember digging into how can I be better? How can I do better? How can I
(09:17):
you know, meet him where he's at? I have to do something like I need to impress him more
for him to like notice me like look at me dad, you know, and and so I focused on that. I was like, I'm
going to be good. I'm going to be better. I'm going to be nicer. I'm going to share my toys more.
Just that like innocence of a child that was just trying to earn her father's love and
(09:41):
that's never been what this is about. I just didn't understand that yet. The lie that I believed in my
childhood, both about myself and about God is that I was unworthy, that I was defective, that something
was wrong with me, that everybody else around me deserved the good things, the gifts. And I wasn't
(10:08):
called to that. I believed that from from the time I was seven years old. Fast forward to being
14 years old. Some more confusing messages about God that I got. My parents were getting divorced.
And I remember them telling me that God said it's okay. And by that point, I was a teenager. I already
(10:38):
had some natural rebellion in my little heart. And I was like, who is this God? Who doesn't just
withhold gifts? But he's supposed to be loving and the same yesterday, today and forever. But he says
(10:59):
things are bad. And then he says it's fine. And then he's like, but don't do that. But I give you permission
to do that. I just was I was so confused about the messages I had received from from people I trusted,
people I loved about God, about who God was, about what he said, about what he didn't say. I was
(11:20):
seeing a theme here. This is very, very important to put it simply. I just believed to the gossip I
had heard about Jesus. I believed all of it. And I was too angry to to put application to it. I didn't
take the time to study his word and try to figure it out. And I just decided that whatever like I
(11:46):
can't be loved by this guy, I'm never going to be good enough. He's inconsistent anyway. So I'm just
going to like do whatever I want and hope that he shows up one day because what is the difference?
What difference does it make? And that led me down a really painful path. I just was looking for love
(12:09):
from, you know, wrong people, the cool girls, the fun guys, the I love a fun time. I love having fun.
So that was that I just become my focus. How can I have fun and be loved? And when that doesn't work,
I'll try a different way. And it just led down a really painful lonely path. And I think that
(12:35):
that's probably true for a lot of us. It just whatever mistake was there to to be made. I made it. And
and all the while I truly did still love God, I fully believed he could not love me. And the longer I
stayed on the path of chasing the brief moment of happiness or the brief moment of peace or the
(13:00):
brief moment of relief from pain, the more that lie, sunken that like, well, now he can't love me.
Now he definitely can't love me. Now like for sure, there's no chance. Like if he didn't love me when
I was good, he definitely not gonna let me want I'm bad. And I was stuck there. I was stuck there for
way too long. I was just filling my time with whatever would fill my time and feel as good as
(13:26):
possible. That was that was the goal. Just feel as good as possible. If I couldn't be redeemed,
if I couldn't be loved, I would feel good. One way or the other was going to happen. So obviously
that led into lots of rebellion. And if you haven't picked up on this fact by now, I was a fairly
opinionated loudmouth rebellious child. And those things can totally work for the kingdom or they
(13:54):
can absolutely work against you and destroy your life, which led to many severed relationships and
heartbreak and confusion and chaos that was that was not necessary in my life. And that even
included my parents. That relationship was really rocky to the point where I had left home. And I just
(14:17):
could not not say everything I was thinking all the time to everyone. And that's just not wisdom.
The Bible speaks very clearly many times against doing that. So don't do that.
But I didn't I didn't know that. So I just was like, someone needs to say it. That was like my tagline.
(14:39):
Someone needs to say it. So I'll say it, which funny enough, someone compared me the other day to
to Peter, which I kind of took as a compliment. And but what they said was kind of cute. And I also
was like, wow, I need to work on that still. They said, you know, you're kind of like Peter where
he would always say something that needed to be said. But he also would say something if it didn't
(15:00):
need to be said. And I was like, valid, I'll I'll bring that to the Lord. Thank you. But needless to say,
having so much anger and hurt in my heart with that level of vocalness. It just wasn't a good
combination. And it brought a lot of mess and a lot of pain. So yeah, so there was there was a time
(15:25):
where my relationship with my parents had been severed. And it was really hard. And it kind of added
even to that to that message that I received that you are not good enough. You are not worthy
enough of this and that and that was I absolutely have a huge part in that. And it's just a lie that
(15:46):
I had believed from childhood that I was not worthy of love. And I think that lie had that lie not
already been there. Things would have looked really, really, really different in my life.
So I early in college moved in with a really great, sweet loving family who saw what a mess
(16:10):
my life was and what a mess I was and how I could not navigate up from down and left from right.
And they were like, we can help you. And they were actually my youth pastors. So they had they had
known me. They had known my family and and they took me in. They are amazing, gracious family and
(16:32):
out pastors of an incredible church. And their focus was the mission field. At the time, they had a
Bible study and and I joined that and I had always had a place in my heart for missions. And so I was a
little kid. I was drawn to Africa. I would watch those. What was it? Bob Hope, the Bob Hope
(16:56):
commercials with the kids with the flies on their faces. And I was like, I have to go there. I have
to go there. Like I always knew I had to go. I would cry as a as a kid. I mean, like that's where I
belong. I have to go there. And so I don't think that was a mistake that that got aligned that
(17:17):
calling in my heart that was on my life from the time he knit me together in my mother's womb.
And brought that family closer and closer to me. And I do feel like that was really the beginning
point of his redemptive love just chasing fiercely after his little loss of lamb.
He's so good and he's so kind. So from there, I went to college for a couple years and I was like,
(17:45):
this is just not for me. And so I went to the mission field in my late teens, early 20s,
where I had experienced so much beauty and enjoy in people who had nothing and people who were broken,
even more broken than I was. And I saw the power of the real true God moving and miraculous ways
(18:16):
for so many years. The things that I saw, the things I got to experience, they were not all fantastic.
They were very, very hard things about being in the mission field.
I just, I saw so much and I got to experience a whole lot about life and the whole world, not just
(18:39):
our American Christianity in the Bible belt at that. And it was just a wild experience in all aspects.
Good, bad, ugly, hard, beautiful, redeeming, definitely added to brokenness. There were times
in countries where I did experience abuse and I was in really scary situations and God showed up
(19:04):
every time. Yeah, we can talk more about that another time. I feel like that's its own podcast episode.
My season of ministry work through the mission field was it was heavy and it was beautiful. And I was
absolutely still holding that lie that I believed with all my heart that I was not worthy of love
because I just wasn't worthy of love and I had to earn it. And I don't think I ever would have
(19:31):
been able to put words to it at the time, but looking back, I know that I thought if I could connect
with my heavenly Father doing his work with him for him, then he would meet me there. And he would
be like, now, now I love you. Now I see you. Now you're worthy. I did believe that. I don't think I knew
(19:54):
I believed that, but I did believe that while he was giving me example after example after example
of how he loves me, how he loves his kids. I was getting to watch through this new lens of people who
had nothing to give him, glorifying him and praising his name and having miracles happen. And you know,
(20:20):
watching limbs grow back. And crazy stuff like they can't do anything. And he's showing up for them.
Why is it any different for me? So those seeds of healing and those moments of him meeting me right
where I am, we're starting to come to the surface and starting to be visible to me where I'm like, okay,
(20:42):
maybe, maybe, maybe I am worthy. Maybe he does love me. It's time for a fun part now.
So I had come home recently from Nepal. And one of the things that I experienced time and time and
time again was being a missionary in a culture different than mine. And people assuming I was a doctor
(21:04):
or nurse or some kind of medical person and they would hand me someone like a sick baby and be like,
help. And I'm like, I'm just white. I'm not a doctor. I don't know how to help you.
And so I came home and a dear friend of mine. He was my best friend in middle school.
He was a parent. He had been a paramedic for several years by this point. This is like 2000,
(21:25):
2013, 2014. He had been a paramedic. His dad was a director of a college of EMS.
And I was like, you know what, I just need some real quick life-saving medical training. I'm back in
the country for a few months, but I can extend it so that I can know how to do something when someone
hands me a sick baby or like kid with their arm hanging off or something crazy. I need something.
(21:51):
So we met. I reached out to Cody, my friend Cody, and we met for coffee. And he was such a good friend of mine
from middle school. We went to different high schools, so we kind of lost touch a little bit because
it was pretty social media. So if you were on different sides of town, you weren't, you just weren't
in each other's lives anymore. So when I reached out to him, he was like, oh my gosh, so good to hear
(22:15):
from you. Yeah, let's get coffee. We got coffee. And I was like, here's what I do now. And I need
medical training. Do you think I could go to EMT school? What's that look like? And he was like, yeah,
that's cool. Anyway, like, how's your life? You're really pretty. And I was like, and you got muscles,
sir. And it was so good. We sat there at coffee. We talked for three hours about Jesus and what he
(22:42):
had done in our lives. And four months later, we were married. And that's how my husband and I reconnected.
It was the best. Marriage was so unique going from thinking I was getting coffee with a guy so I could
leave the country again to ending up marrying him in a very short amount of time. Total plot twist from
(23:06):
what I would have guessed. And it was awesome. And it was hard because I was the world's most
independent female. And then I was married. And I had to like tell someone what I was doing. And like,
think about how I spent money. And that was just weird. But it was so good. So refining. So refining.
(23:35):
Those early days of marriage are really sweet when you're just trying to figure out this new life
together. But yeah, so we had a sweet, sweet couple of years in the sweet little house in the country.
And then we were ready to start trying to have kids. And this might be the hardest part of the whole
(24:04):
story. Couple years into marriage, we started to try to have some babies. And it did not work well at all.
You know, if you ever want to say, oh, you don't tell anyone when you're trying so it can be a surprise
and then once you're pregnant, you don't tell them over like 12 weeks because you could lose a baby.
(24:28):
That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard, by the way, if that's like a rule you're trying to follow.
If it works for you, great. But that rule made my life so much harder than it ever needed to be
for good two years because I was walking the infertility and miscarriage journey completely alone
with a husband who was as clueless about it as I was. So I'm just going to put that out there. But
(24:55):
long story short, we had, I have endometriosis and I had always had a really hard time with
girl things and all that. But so we knew it might take some time, but we had no idea that it would be
as difficult as it was. I had a miscarriage really early in pregnancy or really early in marriage.
(25:17):
Like a few weeks in a marriage, we had experienced a miscarriage and that was hard.
I was very tired and unexpected and scary. But then when we were actively trying again, it
was so lonely. It was so lonely. So by this point, we were in our mid to late 20s.
(25:42):
And in the south, by the time you're in your mid to late 20s, most people around you have high
schoolers, just get married and start popping them out at like 18. So we just felt really like, where
do we belong? We don't have kids yet. We're pushing 30. Didn't have much of a community and it just
(26:04):
was hard. And on top of it, I was holding that to myself because the rule, which why I chose to
follow this rule when I never followed rules was beyond me. But I did. I thought that's what you
did. So I was just like experiencing like intense loneliness and like not talking about the thing that
(26:24):
mattered most to me and trying to navigate marriage and an intimacy and marriage through this
very disconnecting period of time. It was just so hard and lonely. And on top of that,
that message got louder and louder and louder that you are not worthy of good things.
(26:46):
God does not have the good things for you. He has them for everyone else. You get infertility and you
get loss and you get miscarriage and you get loneliness. And I held to that. And I wish more than anything
that I had invited loving community into that season so that they could be speaking against those
lies and praying against those lies and and walking with me. But that's not what I did
(27:12):
because you're not supposed to. Anyway, actually, I want to tell this story really quick. So it's
actually about this time too. I had had this idea. I went on a mission trip before I had kids.
It was in the thick of infertility. And I was like, we're going to Northern Africa. It was a
Muslim country. It was one of my favorite places in the world. Maybe my favorite place in the world
(27:36):
went on this trip, got introduced to this missionary. She was an older and a missionary from a long time ago.
She was in the 1800s named Lilia Strater. She was amazing. And she had basically given up her dreams
of becoming an artist to move to Africa by boat, say you buy her family forever and move to Africa
(28:01):
to start an orphanage for Muslim kids. And so I was like reading some of her work and she had this
incredible art. She was really, really good at flowers. Well, I saw that and I was like, I'm going
to get Lilia Strater's flowers tattooed on my shoulder. But you're not supposed to. If you think
you're going to be pregnant or you could be pregnant or whatever, so you're not supposed to get
(28:23):
tattooed. So I didn't. So I put it off and put it off and put it off and put it off. And finally,
after several years of putting it off, I was like, I'm just going to get this tattoo that Lilia
Strater did because I'm so sick of waiting and I'm so sick of just sitting here and doing nothing
and like putting off dreams that are like really important to me because I might be pregnant.
(28:48):
I was like, I'm just going to get the tattoo. So I made an appointment. It was like three or four
months out or something and I brought the art and I was like, this is what I want. And he was like,
agree pregnant and I was like, no, I'm not pregnant. And so he does the tattoo and this is 2017,
and 2017, he does the tattoo and I'm obsessed with it. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, look at my tattoo. It's
(29:12):
so cool. And the next day I wake up and I was like, okay, I'm about to start my period. I'm just
going to go ahead and take a pregnancy test because that's what I did every month forever. And I
would you believe it was pregnant with my daughter whose name is Lilia's after the artist in the
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missionary. So I just want to encourage you that God is, dude, he is in every single little detail
and he knows your story and he knows your kids' stories and he is with you and he is for you just
like he is for me. And I still to this day have to tell myself that I still have to remind myself.
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That you are worthy. God does love you. You don't have to earn it. That is if I am just being
really honest right now, like every day I wake up and I have to fight that feeling of unworthiness,
that feeling of less than that feeling of, okay, what needs to be done to be loved. Not just in my
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relationship with my God with God, but even with my husband and with my friends and with, I really,
really struggle with that just because the Lord is healing me does not mean that the enemy stops
attacking. He has healed me. He has restored me. He has brought me life. He has answered prayers.
And I have to stay ready to fight the enemy who will remind me of that one message. I have been
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told by him my whole entire life that you are not worthy of good things because that is a straight
up lie from the pit of hell in Jesus name. Amen. The redemption I think to some of that lie that I
believed so I held onto that lie so tight my entire life that I'm not worthy of being his kid. I don't
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think that I would have really understood the vast importance of what it means to be someone's kid
if he didn't allow me too long so much and grieve so much over the desire for having a child.
And then when I met my child, both of my children, the amount of awe struck that I what I had no
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words for it. And I was like, if this is how God feels about me and supposedly more like I need to
shut my mouth. I need to stop believing this lie because I there is nothing in this world that could
stop me from loving and giving this precious child every good thing. Even if it's a hard thing,
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every good thing that she needs ever because of my love for her and she can do nothing for me.
Not only can she do nothing for me, she talks back to me and she has a little rebellious,
spicy attitude that I don't know where she got from and she does all the things that I thought made
me unworthy and they actually only make her more worthy of everything of everything I could ever give
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her. It's so good. He used my most broken, my most broken, my most lonely, my most sad and ugly
seasons to show me how worthy I am of his love. And that is kindness. He allowed me to walk through
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infertility not just once but twice because he knew that I would forget so quickly. So after Lillius
was born, we were like so smitten. We wanted so many more kids, so many more babies. It was so
so beautiful that season of parenthood and newborn and the baby and watching them do everything
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for the first time and experiencing the world around them. And so pretty quickly we were like,
hey, that took forever. Maybe let's maybe start sooner this time and see if we want to, you know,
a gap is in a cute how we try to plan our lives. If we want like a two year gap, then maybe let's
start trying it around six months. Well, six months when Lillius was six months old, I got pregnant
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the first time. And I was like, oh, what is this life? Like the Lord healed me and I'm like,
I can have babies and this is so great. And so we shared the news with our family and I no longer
wait 12 weeks ever just in case anyone at home is wondering. So we pretty much shared right away. And
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everyone was so excited, you know, because they're towards the end of
longing for our first baby. We started to tell people like this is what this is what we're walking
through. And this is some really hard stuff. And so the second time around we shared and everyone
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was like, this is so good. God's healed you. We're so grateful. And we were so celebratory. So
so I had a six month old and we were going to have two way under two and it was going to be amazing.
And at about 12 weeks, there it was just the perfect storm of things that had gone wrong. I
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went in, I tried to go in for an ultrasound a few weeks prior, but my I switched doctors and the
new patient appointment wasn't available for a couple extra weeks, but they were like since you
just had a baby, you're probably fine. So we'll just get you in at that 12 13 week mark. And I was
like, that's fine. Everything's going good. Well, one morning I woke up and I was experiencing a
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little bit of bleeding and something just fell off my shoulder hurt really bad, the really,
really bad. And I was like, I something's wrong. Something is wrong. So I went to any doctor that would
take me. I was like, I don't I'm not a patient. I don't have I'm not I don't have an established doctor
(35:31):
right now. Between doctors, would you please can I just come in for an ultrasound, you know, in 12 weeks
pregnant and and something feels off. And they were like, yeah, come on in and we'll get you an ultrasound.
And it was the beginning of the worst day of my life. I did the ultrasound and they were like, are
you sure you're pregnant? I was like, I'm very sure I've gotten blood work. I've taken lots of tests and
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saw the whatever levels double in 48 hours and all the things. And they were like, we just don't
we don't see a baby in there. And so they did one more scan and they found that the baby,
baby boy was in my tube and couldn't make it to my uterus and I was rushed to emergency surgery where
(36:20):
my life was saved. His was not and it was just all one big blur and it was really hard. And at the same
time, while holding grief and fighting that you deserve this mentality, you you're not worthy of
good things. Of course, your baby's dying. While fighting that in the name of Jesus, he gave me so much
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peace and so much joy. I remember talking to the nurses carrying me into surgery or pushing me into
surgery. I remember talking to them about Jesus and they were like, are you okay? And I was like, I'm
honestly really good. I honestly like, I know that God's going to use this and do you know Jesus?
And let's talk about like what he's done and who he is. And they were like, okay, has anyone given
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you drugs yet? And I was like, no, they haven't. Like, this is the Lord. We're probably half the Lord,
half shock or half shock and completely the Lord. But his hand was his hand was was with me and then
you know, my husband and I walked through that really hard season really publicly with our entire
community and it was so different than the other losses that we had experienced. We were surrounded.
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We were people brought us meals and gave gifts and and showed up and prayed with us and just sat
with us and I was like, this is this is such a better way to grief than to lock yourself in a room and
cry and tell yourself you're dumb for being sad, which is what I did before. So we got through that
and then you know, the Lord, the Lord just he showed up and I'm so thankful. But we thought, okay,
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well, that was so easy to get pregnant. We'll just try again when my body is healed up and and it
didn't take for another three years and it was unable to get pregnant for another three years. I had
one more miscarriage between that in that time. In man, was it was it a battle to to allow the Lord
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to speak to me and not let the enemies voice creep in. But then we got our second miracle girl
in 2022 and let me tell you what I make this morbid joke all the time, but it's also it's funny
because it's accurate. I always say only the strongest could survive my uterus because both of my
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girls are so fierce and so funny and so full of life and completely unfiltered at all times and I
just am so grateful that the Lord saw us fit to be their parents because it is just the biggest answered
prayer and I cannot believe the good things that he has had for me in this life. So the reason all of this
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is being shared with you today. The reason for stuff God never said is because we all have our version
of believing stuff God never said, believing what he said to us about us, about himself. We all there's
a version of this that we all carry and we all live with and that is not what God has for us. He has
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so much more for us than the thing that God never said. So the heart behind this podcast is that it's
that we would seek His words and His truth over the lies and the enemy spits at us and even the other
people spit at us. As we were walking through infertility we had once we started kind of telling people
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what we were walking through we had so many people say such wrong things, such wrong things. One of
my favorites that I heard the absolute most was just stop thinking about it. You're stressing yourself
out too much to let your body get pregnant. You just stop thinking about it. Okay, no. God never said
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that. He did not say that. But time and time again there was there was there was there was lies to be
combatted from others and from the enemy. My heart for this for this podcast for this ministry is that
whatever is being thrown at you will be fought with the truth of who God is and what He says.
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If you want to join us by partnering through a one-time donation, sponsoring an episode or monthly
donation you can click in the show notes and find a donate button and you will be part of our team.
Thank you so much.
And then we were ready to start trying to have kids that message got louder and louder and louder
(00:06):
that you are not worthy of good things. God does not have the good things for you. He has them for
everyone else. You get infertility and you get loss and you get miscarriage and you get loneliness.
This might be the hardest part of the whole story.
Y'all welcome back. We're at season two of Stuff God Never Said and I am so excited. You're here
(00:30):
with us. Can you even like handle this studio update? It is so cool and I'm so excited to be
sharing today the heart behind Stuff God Never Said. I'm going to share a little bit of my testimony,
my story, why knowing what God never said and what he did say is so incredibly important.
(00:51):
Not just to me but for everybody. It's the entire basis of our faith to know who God is and what
he says. So let's go. If you are anything like me or your story is anything like mine and you
spent years of your life believing the wrong thing about God with your whole entire heart,
(01:13):
basing life decisions on that, then this story might be for you. I grew up in a church that was,
no, I don't want to say that. I don't want to make the church so bad. Sorry. Let me just get the my
bearings for a second. I grew up with a strong desire to please God. I really wanted to know him.
(01:38):
I was raised in a family with first generation Christian parents. They were radically saved by Jesus.
They were learning all the things as we were learning all the things. We had some great church
communities. We had lots of rules, lots of rules. Very black and white. We had evil and we had good
(02:05):
and there is no in between, which isn't necessarily wrong, but it was hard to navigate growing up for sure.
But I spent so many years believing wrong things about God, about his character, about who he is,
and how it was my job to earn his love. I would say that that did way more harm than good.
(02:33):
And I know now with every ounce of my being that that is not who God is. He is not a God who makes you earn
his love and makes you fight for the good things he has for you. He just wants you. He wants your heart. He
wants all of you. He wants your trust. He wants your your relationship first and foremost.
(02:55):
And he is a good good father. And I want to tell everybody that. So it kind of started when I was about six
or seven years old. And I was like, okay, we talk about God a lot. I think I want him in my heart. So I
can so I can have the gifts too that he has for for everybody around me. We were part of a
(03:19):
Pentecostal church and and one of the big themes of that church was the gifts that God gives,
whether it's prayer language or being slain in the spirit or whatever thing. If you don't even
know what that is, Google it or don't, it's fine. But I will never forget that there was one Wednesday
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night service that we were at. This was a defining moment for for my walk with the Lord as a child.
We were at a Wednesday night service. You go to church. Sunday morning, Friday night and Wednesday
night and any event yet any event there is you go to it. That's that's a big part of it. There's a
(04:02):
Wednesday night service and there was this guest speaker guy. And he had all the kids come forth.
I was probably seven years old at this time. He had all the kids come to the front and he said,
we're going to we're going to slay in the spirit, which is basically the Holy Spirit goes through
this guy's hand, I guess. And he touches you and then you fall back and you go to sleep for a minute
(04:25):
or you're like so overwhelmed by the spirit that you just pass out. And I was watching. I was up front
and I was like kind of nervous. But I was like, oh my gosh, this is all happening to everybody around
me. And I've seen the grownups do it and it's the kids turn. I felt really special and
important. And we were all up there. The whole kids class and and the guy, you know, is coming down
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kid by kid and just like barely tapping them and they fall back and barely tapping them the next
one of they fall back. And it's my turn. And I'm like, I have no idea what this is going to feel like.
But it is going to be amazing. Like I've never been overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit before. I can't
wait to see it. I was like scared and excited. And and he taps my head and I don't fall back.
(05:10):
And I was like, wait, why didn't that work? And so he taps my head again and I didn't fall back.
And I was like, oh my gosh, my very first thought. I don't remember a whole lot about being seven
issues old. But I remember my first thought was what's wrong with me.
And he hit my head again and I didn't fall back and some guy behind me like pulled me back
(05:33):
to like sit down while everyone else was like and I just was I was humiliated. I was like,
something is wrong with me. Everyone else got this thing from God and I didn't get it. I was the only
kid that didn't fall down. I'm like, all these kids on this side of me and all these kids on this
side of me. And and I was like, and I remember going home and we did our bedtime prayers with my
(05:53):
parents. And I was like, I don't think God's in my heart because that didn't work. It worked on
everybody, but it didn't work on me. And you know, I remember them kind of comforting me and
they're like God, God works and and in different ways for everybody. And I don't remember exactly
what they said, but looking back, I know that they were they were they were new baby Christians too.
(06:16):
And they were they probably didn't have all the answers. No one has all the answers, but they didn't
they were doing their best. I know that I know that they were and I know they believed we had a good
God and they instilled that in me. And I am forever thankful for that. But I said, I remember that
night. I said, I want to pray again for Jesus to come in my heart, which for the record, I want to say
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believing a little tiny spirit of Jesus was going into my heart as a kid. And he was either there
or he wasn't. And if he wasn't, then I didn't get his good gifts. I just had to pray for him to like,
I just just just please keep just every night. So from that night on every single night, I would
pray, please, please be in my heart. Please come in my heart so that I can have good things from you
(07:05):
so that you can know me and I can know you and I can be one of your kids. I want to be one of your kids.
And and I just pray to every night and I believed it. I kids because kids believe everything we
teach them. They believe what we have to say about pretty much everything. And so we need to tell them
(07:28):
the truth. They not only need to know what God didn't say. They need to know exactly what he did say.
And that is extremely important. That is a huge passion of mine is telling the truth to kids
about who Jesus is and who he isn't. So prayed, prayed, then summer camp came along, church summer camp.
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My sister and I went and my dad came and there was again, there was a night. It was like a worship night
and a pause in the worship and they were like, okay, now we're all going to ask the Lord to
download in us a prayer language. Just ask him, you know, if you're his kid, he's going to give you
(08:11):
the things you ask for the whole other thing we'll get out to another time. But they said, just ask
ask for your prayer language and he'll just download this this this language that's just between you and him.
And I was like, okay, I'm going to ask him and I'm going to believe and I've been praying every night
that he's going to be in my heart and and he's going to happen. I'm going to get my prayer language.
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And I prayed and I was like, I know you're going to do it because that's what everyone says that you do.
And everyone around me again, all the kids were speaking in their own little babble
prayer language and I didn't get one. And I was like, maybe I'm not, I must be doing something wrong.
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What am I doing wrong that all these things that are from God are going to everyone else but not to me.
I must be doing something wrong and I and I dug in and I remember just that
that human nature that we all have, remember digging into how can I be better? How can I do better? How can I
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you know, meet him where he's at? I have to do something like I need to impress him more
for him to like notice me like look at me dad, you know, and and so I focused on that. I was like, I'm
going to be good. I'm going to be better. I'm going to be nicer. I'm going to share my toys more.
Just that like innocence of a child that was just trying to earn her father's love and
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that's never been what this is about. I just didn't understand that yet. The lie that I believed in my
childhood, both about myself and about God is that I was unworthy, that I was defective, that something
was wrong with me, that everybody else around me deserved the good things, the gifts. And I wasn't
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called to that. I believed that from from the time I was seven years old. Fast forward to being
14 years old. Some more confusing messages about God that I got. My parents were getting divorced.
And I remember them telling me that God said it's okay. And by that point, I was a teenager. I already
(10:38):
had some natural rebellion in my little heart. And I was like, who is this God? Who doesn't just
withhold gifts? But he's supposed to be loving and the same yesterday, today and forever. But he says
(10:59):
things are bad. And then he says it's fine. And then he's like, but don't do that. But I give you permission
to do that. I just was I was so confused about the messages I had received from from people I trusted,
people I loved about God, about who God was, about what he said, about what he didn't say. I was
(11:20):
seeing a theme here. This is very, very important to put it simply. I just believed to the gossip I
had heard about Jesus. I believed all of it. And I was too angry to to put application to it. I didn't
take the time to study his word and try to figure it out. And I just decided that whatever like I
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can't be loved by this guy, I'm never going to be good enough. He's inconsistent anyway. So I'm just
going to like do whatever I want and hope that he shows up one day because what is the difference?
What difference does it make? And that led me down a really painful path. I just was looking for love
(12:09):
from, you know, wrong people, the cool girls, the fun guys, the I love a fun time. I love having fun.
So that was that I just become my focus. How can I have fun and be loved? And when that doesn't work,
I'll try a different way. And it just led down a really painful lonely path. And I think that
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that's probably true for a lot of us. It just whatever mistake was there to to be made. I made it. And
and all the while I truly did still love God, I fully believed he could not love me. And the longer I
stayed on the path of chasing the brief moment of happiness or the brief moment of peace or the
(13:00):
brief moment of relief from pain, the more that lie, sunken that like, well, now he can't love me.
Now he definitely can't love me. Now like for sure, there's no chance. Like if he didn't love me when
I was good, he definitely not gonna let me want I'm bad. And I was stuck there. I was stuck there for
way too long. I was just filling my time with whatever would fill my time and feel as good as
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possible. That was that was the goal. Just feel as good as possible. If I couldn't be redeemed,
if I couldn't be loved, I would feel good. One way or the other was going to happen. So obviously
that led into lots of rebellion. And if you haven't picked up on this fact by now, I was a fairly
opinionated loudmouth rebellious child. And those things can totally work for the kingdom or they
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can absolutely work against you and destroy your life, which led to many severed relationships and
heartbreak and confusion and chaos that was that was not necessary in my life. And that even
included my parents. That relationship was really rocky to the point where I had left home. And I just
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could not not say everything I was thinking all the time to everyone. And that's just not wisdom.
The Bible speaks very clearly many times against doing that. So don't do that.
But I didn't I didn't know that. So I just was like, someone needs to say it. That was like my tagline.
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Someone needs to say it. So I'll say it, which funny enough, someone compared me the other day to
to Peter, which I kind of took as a compliment. And but what they said was kind of cute. And I also
was like, wow, I need to work on that still. They said, you know, you're kind of like Peter where
he would always say something that needed to be said. But he also would say something if it didn't
(15:00):
need to be said. And I was like, valid, I'll I'll bring that to the Lord. Thank you. But needless to say,
having so much anger and hurt in my heart with that level of vocalness. It just wasn't a good
combination. And it brought a lot of mess and a lot of pain. So yeah, so there was there was a time
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where my relationship with my parents had been severed. And it was really hard. And it kind of added
even to that to that message that I received that you are not good enough. You are not worthy
enough of this and that and that was I absolutely have a huge part in that. And it's just a lie that
(15:46):
I had believed from childhood that I was not worthy of love. And I think that lie had that lie not
already been there. Things would have looked really, really, really different in my life.
So I early in college moved in with a really great, sweet loving family who saw what a mess
(16:10):
my life was and what a mess I was and how I could not navigate up from down and left from right.
And they were like, we can help you. And they were actually my youth pastors. So they had they had
known me. They had known my family and and they took me in. They are amazing, gracious family and
(16:32):
out pastors of an incredible church. And their focus was the mission field. At the time, they had a
Bible study and and I joined that and I had always had a place in my heart for missions. And so I was a
little kid. I was drawn to Africa. I would watch those. What was it? Bob Hope, the Bob Hope
(16:56):
commercials with the kids with the flies on their faces. And I was like, I have to go there. I have
to go there. Like I always knew I had to go. I would cry as a as a kid. I mean, like that's where I
belong. I have to go there. And so I don't think that was a mistake that that got aligned that
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calling in my heart that was on my life from the time he knit me together in my mother's womb.
And brought that family closer and closer to me. And I do feel like that was really the beginning
point of his redemptive love just chasing fiercely after his little loss of lamb.
He's so good and he's so kind. So from there, I went to college for a couple years and I was like,
(17:45):
this is just not for me. And so I went to the mission field in my late teens, early 20s,
where I had experienced so much beauty and enjoy in people who had nothing and people who were broken,
even more broken than I was. And I saw the power of the real true God moving and miraculous ways
(18:16):
for so many years. The things that I saw, the things I got to experience, they were not all fantastic.
They were very, very hard things about being in the mission field.
I just, I saw so much and I got to experience a whole lot about life and the whole world, not just
(18:39):
our American Christianity in the Bible belt at that. And it was just a wild experience in all aspects.
Good, bad, ugly, hard, beautiful, redeeming, definitely added to brokenness. There were times
in countries where I did experience abuse and I was in really scary situations and God showed up
(19:04):
every time. Yeah, we can talk more about that another time. I feel like that's its own podcast episode.
My season of ministry work through the mission field was it was heavy and it was beautiful. And I was
absolutely still holding that lie that I believed with all my heart that I was not worthy of love
because I just wasn't worthy of love and I had to earn it. And I don't think I ever would have
(19:31):
been able to put words to it at the time, but looking back, I know that I thought if I could connect
with my heavenly Father doing his work with him for him, then he would meet me there. And he would
be like, now, now I love you. Now I see you. Now you're worthy. I did believe that. I don't think I knew
(19:54):
I believed that, but I did believe that while he was giving me example after example after example
of how he loves me, how he loves his kids. I was getting to watch through this new lens of people who
had nothing to give him, glorifying him and praising his name and having miracles happen. And you know,
(20:20):
watching limbs grow back. And crazy stuff like they can't do anything. And he's showing up for them.
Why is it any different for me? So those seeds of healing and those moments of him meeting me right
where I am, we're starting to come to the surface and starting to be visible to me where I'm like, okay,
(20:42):
maybe, maybe, maybe I am worthy. Maybe he does love me. It's time for a fun part now.
So I had come home recently from Nepal. And one of the things that I experienced time and time and
time again was being a missionary in a culture different than mine. And people assuming I was a doctor
(21:04):
or nurse or some kind of medical person and they would hand me someone like a sick baby and be like,
help. And I'm like, I'm just white. I'm not a doctor. I don't know how to help you.
And so I came home and a dear friend of mine. He was my best friend in middle school.
He was a parent. He had been a paramedic for several years by this point. This is like 2000,
(21:25):
2013, 2014. He had been a paramedic. His dad was a director of a college of EMS.
And I was like, you know what, I just need some real quick life-saving medical training. I'm back in
the country for a few months, but I can extend it so that I can know how to do something when someone
hands me a sick baby or like kid with their arm hanging off or something crazy. I need something.
(21:51):
So we met. I reached out to Cody, my friend Cody, and we met for coffee. And he was such a good friend of mine
from middle school. We went to different high schools, so we kind of lost touch a little bit because
it was pretty social media. So if you were on different sides of town, you weren't, you just weren't
in each other's lives anymore. So when I reached out to him, he was like, oh my gosh, so good to hear
(22:15):
from you. Yeah, let's get coffee. We got coffee. And I was like, here's what I do now. And I need
medical training. Do you think I could go to EMT school? What's that look like? And he was like, yeah,
that's cool. Anyway, like, how's your life? You're really pretty. And I was like, and you got muscles,
sir. And it was so good. We sat there at coffee. We talked for three hours about Jesus and what he
(22:42):
had done in our lives. And four months later, we were married. And that's how my husband and I reconnected.
It was the best. Marriage was so unique going from thinking I was getting coffee with a guy so I could
leave the country again to ending up marrying him in a very short amount of time. Total plot twist from
(23:06):
what I would have guessed. And it was awesome. And it was hard because I was the world's most
independent female. And then I was married. And I had to like tell someone what I was doing. And like,
think about how I spent money. And that was just weird. But it was so good. So refining. So refining.
(23:35):
Those early days of marriage are really sweet when you're just trying to figure out this new life
together. But yeah, so we had a sweet, sweet couple of years in the sweet little house in the country.
And then we were ready to start trying to have kids. And this might be the hardest part of the whole
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story. Couple years into marriage, we started to try to have some babies. And it did not work well at all.
You know, if you ever want to say, oh, you don't tell anyone when you're trying so it can be a surprise
and then once you're pregnant, you don't tell them over like 12 weeks because you could lose a baby.
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That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard, by the way, if that's like a rule you're trying to follow.
If it works for you, great. But that rule made my life so much harder than it ever needed to be
for good two years because I was walking the infertility and miscarriage journey completely alone
with a husband who was as clueless about it as I was. So I'm just going to put that out there. But
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long story short, we had, I have endometriosis and I had always had a really hard time with
girl things and all that. But so we knew it might take some time, but we had no idea that it would be
as difficult as it was. I had a miscarriage really early in pregnancy or really early in marriage.
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Like a few weeks in a marriage, we had experienced a miscarriage and that was hard.
I was very tired and unexpected and scary. But then when we were actively trying again, it
was so lonely. It was so lonely. So by this point, we were in our mid to late 20s.
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And in the south, by the time you're in your mid to late 20s, most people around you have high
schoolers, just get married and start popping them out at like 18. So we just felt really like, where
do we belong? We don't have kids yet. We're pushing 30. Didn't have much of a community and it just
(26:04):
was hard. And on top of it, I was holding that to myself because the rule, which why I chose to
follow this rule when I never followed rules was beyond me. But I did. I thought that's what you
did. So I was just like experiencing like intense loneliness and like not talking about the thing that
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mattered most to me and trying to navigate marriage and an intimacy and marriage through this
very disconnecting period of time. It was just so hard and lonely. And on top of that,
that message got louder and louder and louder that you are not worthy of good things.
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God does not have the good things for you. He has them for everyone else. You get infertility and you
get loss and you get miscarriage and you get loneliness. And I held to that. And I wish more than anything
that I had invited loving community into that season so that they could be speaking against those
lies and praying against those lies and and walking with me. But that's not what I did
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because you're not supposed to. Anyway, actually, I want to tell this story really quick. So it's
actually about this time too. I had had this idea. I went on a mission trip before I had kids.
It was in the thick of infertility. And I was like, we're going to Northern Africa. It was a
Muslim country. It was one of my favorite places in the world. Maybe my favorite place in the world
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went on this trip, got introduced to this missionary. She was an older and a missionary from a long time ago.
She was in the 1800s named Lilia Strater. She was amazing. And she had basically given up her dreams
of becoming an artist to move to Africa by boat, say you buy her family forever and move to Africa
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to start an orphanage for Muslim kids. And so I was like reading some of her work and she had this
incredible art. She was really, really good at flowers. Well, I saw that and I was like, I'm going
to get Lilia Strater's flowers tattooed on my shoulder. But you're not supposed to. If you think
you're going to be pregnant or you could be pregnant or whatever, so you're not supposed to get
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tattooed. So I didn't. So I put it off and put it off and put it off and put it off. And finally,
after several years of putting it off, I was like, I'm just going to get this tattoo that Lilia
Strater did because I'm so sick of waiting and I'm so sick of just sitting here and doing nothing
and like putting off dreams that are like really important to me because I might be pregnant.
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I was like, I'm just going to get the tattoo. So I made an appointment. It was like three or four
months out or something and I brought the art and I was like, this is what I want. And he was like,
agree pregnant and I was like, no, I'm not pregnant. And so he does the tattoo and this is 2017,
and 2017, he does the tattoo and I'm obsessed with it. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, look at my tattoo. It's
(29:12):
so cool. And the next day I wake up and I was like, okay, I'm about to start my period. I'm just
going to go ahead and take a pregnancy test because that's what I did every month forever. And I
would you believe it was pregnant with my daughter whose name is Lilia's after the artist in the
(29:35):
missionary. So I just want to encourage you that God is, dude, he is in every single little detail
and he knows your story and he knows your kids' stories and he is with you and he is for you just
like he is for me. And I still to this day have to tell myself that I still have to remind myself.
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That you are worthy. God does love you. You don't have to earn it. That is if I am just being
really honest right now, like every day I wake up and I have to fight that feeling of unworthiness,
that feeling of less than that feeling of, okay, what needs to be done to be loved. Not just in my
(30:17):
relationship with my God with God, but even with my husband and with my friends and with, I really,
really struggle with that just because the Lord is healing me does not mean that the enemy stops
attacking. He has healed me. He has restored me. He has brought me life. He has answered prayers.
And I have to stay ready to fight the enemy who will remind me of that one message. I have been
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told by him my whole entire life that you are not worthy of good things because that is a straight
up lie from the pit of hell in Jesus name. Amen. The redemption I think to some of that lie that I
believed so I held onto that lie so tight my entire life that I'm not worthy of being his kid. I don't
(31:06):
think that I would have really understood the vast importance of what it means to be someone's kid
if he didn't allow me too long so much and grieve so much over the desire for having a child.
And then when I met my child, both of my children, the amount of awe struck that I what I had no
(31:35):
words for it. And I was like, if this is how God feels about me and supposedly more like I need to
shut my mouth. I need to stop believing this lie because I there is nothing in this world that could
stop me from loving and giving this precious child every good thing. Even if it's a hard thing,
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every good thing that she needs ever because of my love for her and she can do nothing for me.
Not only can she do nothing for me, she talks back to me and she has a little rebellious,
spicy attitude that I don't know where she got from and she does all the things that I thought made
me unworthy and they actually only make her more worthy of everything of everything I could ever give
(32:32):
her. It's so good. He used my most broken, my most broken, my most lonely, my most sad and ugly
seasons to show me how worthy I am of his love. And that is kindness. He allowed me to walk through
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infertility not just once but twice because he knew that I would forget so quickly. So after Lillius
was born, we were like so smitten. We wanted so many more kids, so many more babies. It was so
so beautiful that season of parenthood and newborn and the baby and watching them do everything
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for the first time and experiencing the world around them. And so pretty quickly we were like,
hey, that took forever. Maybe let's maybe start sooner this time and see if we want to, you know,
a gap is in a cute how we try to plan our lives. If we want like a two year gap, then maybe let's
start trying it around six months. Well, six months when Lillius was six months old, I got pregnant
(33:40):
the first time. And I was like, oh, what is this life? Like the Lord healed me and I'm like,
I can have babies and this is so great. And so we shared the news with our family and I no longer
wait 12 weeks ever just in case anyone at home is wondering. So we pretty much shared right away. And
(34:03):
everyone was so excited, you know, because they're towards the end of
longing for our first baby. We started to tell people like this is what this is what we're walking
through. And this is some really hard stuff. And so the second time around we shared and everyone
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was like, this is so good. God's healed you. We're so grateful. And we were so celebratory. So
so I had a six month old and we were going to have two way under two and it was going to be amazing.
And at about 12 weeks, there it was just the perfect storm of things that had gone wrong. I
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went in, I tried to go in for an ultrasound a few weeks prior, but my I switched doctors and the
new patient appointment wasn't available for a couple extra weeks, but they were like since you
just had a baby, you're probably fine. So we'll just get you in at that 12 13 week mark. And I was
like, that's fine. Everything's going good. Well, one morning I woke up and I was experiencing a
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little bit of bleeding and something just fell off my shoulder hurt really bad, the really,
really bad. And I was like, I something's wrong. Something is wrong. So I went to any doctor that would
take me. I was like, I don't I'm not a patient. I don't have I'm not I don't have an established doctor
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right now. Between doctors, would you please can I just come in for an ultrasound, you know, in 12 weeks
pregnant and and something feels off. And they were like, yeah, come on in and we'll get you an ultrasound.
And it was the beginning of the worst day of my life. I did the ultrasound and they were like, are
you sure you're pregnant? I was like, I'm very sure I've gotten blood work. I've taken lots of tests and
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saw the whatever levels double in 48 hours and all the things. And they were like, we just don't
we don't see a baby in there. And so they did one more scan and they found that the baby,
baby boy was in my tube and couldn't make it to my uterus and I was rushed to emergency surgery where
(36:20):
my life was saved. His was not and it was just all one big blur and it was really hard. And at the same
time, while holding grief and fighting that you deserve this mentality, you you're not worthy of
good things. Of course, your baby's dying. While fighting that in the name of Jesus, he gave me so much
(36:48):
peace and so much joy. I remember talking to the nurses carrying me into surgery or pushing me into
surgery. I remember talking to them about Jesus and they were like, are you okay? And I was like, I'm
honestly really good. I honestly like, I know that God's going to use this and do you know Jesus?
And let's talk about like what he's done and who he is. And they were like, okay, has anyone given
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you drugs yet? And I was like, no, they haven't. Like, this is the Lord. We're probably half the Lord,
half shock or half shock and completely the Lord. But his hand was his hand was was with me and then
you know, my husband and I walked through that really hard season really publicly with our entire
community and it was so different than the other losses that we had experienced. We were surrounded.
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We were people brought us meals and gave gifts and and showed up and prayed with us and just sat
with us and I was like, this is this is such a better way to grief than to lock yourself in a room and
cry and tell yourself you're dumb for being sad, which is what I did before. So we got through that
and then you know, the Lord, the Lord just he showed up and I'm so thankful. But we thought, okay,
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well, that was so easy to get pregnant. We'll just try again when my body is healed up and and it
didn't take for another three years and it was unable to get pregnant for another three years. I had
one more miscarriage between that in that time. In man, was it was it a battle to to allow the Lord
(38:27):
to speak to me and not let the enemies voice creep in. But then we got our second miracle girl
in 2022 and let me tell you what I make this morbid joke all the time, but it's also it's funny
because it's accurate. I always say only the strongest could survive my uterus because both of my
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girls are so fierce and so funny and so full of life and completely unfiltered at all times and I
just am so grateful that the Lord saw us fit to be their parents because it is just the biggest answered
prayer and I cannot believe the good things that he has had for me in this life. So the reason all of this
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is being shared with you today. The reason for stuff God never said is because we all have our version
of believing stuff God never said, believing what he said to us about us, about himself. We all there's
a version of this that we all carry and we all live with and that is not what God has for us. He has
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so much more for us than the thing that God never said. So the heart behind this podcast is that it's
that we would seek His words and His truth over the lies and the enemy spits at us and even the other
people spit at us. As we were walking through infertility we had once we started kind of telling people
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what we were walking through we had so many people say such wrong things, such wrong things. One of
my favorites that I heard the absolute most was just stop thinking about it. You're stressing yourself
out too much to let your body get pregnant. You just stop thinking about it. Okay, no. God never said
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that. He did not say that. But time and time again there was there was there was there was lies to be
combatted from others and from the enemy. My heart for this for this podcast for this ministry is that
whatever is being thrown at you will be fought with the truth of who God is and what He says.
(40:53):
If you want to join us by partnering through a one-time donation, sponsoring an episode or monthly
donation you can click in the show notes and find a donate button and you will be part of our team.
Thank you so much.
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