Death to Life podcast
A podcast that tells the stories of people that used to be one way, and now are completely different, and the thing that happened in between was Jesus.
Death to Life podcast
#222 Nancy Dodson: The Anatomy of Grief, A Mother's Journey Through Loss and Faith
Nancy Dodson shares her transformative journey from a legalistic faith upbringing to discovering God's true nature through devastating grief after her son's suicide. She vulnerably explores how trauma reshaped her understanding of God and why churches often fail those experiencing profound loss.
• Growing up in a performance-based religious environment where salvation depended on a five-step process
• Experiencing abuse, divorce, and church trauma while maintaining a facade of spiritual stability
• Losing her 17-year-old son Tyler to suicide in 2019, creating a clear "before and after" line in her life
• Finding the freedom to question, rage, and wrestle with God without fear of disappointing Him
• Discovering that many Christians are uncomfortable with raw grief and unanswerable questions
• Realizing she wasn't wrestling with God but with what she'd been taught God was
• Embracing the mystery of faith instead of needing formulas and explanations for everything
• Learning that churches often lack the capacity to properly support those experiencing traumatic grief
• Finding comfort in knowing she'll be reunited with Tyler and all pain will be healed
If you're wrestling with faith questions or experiencing grief, remember that God can handle your raw emotions and authentic doubts. As Nancy says, "Don't let go," because even when you can't feel God's presence, He's walking alongside you.
💰 DONATE & SUPPORT our Ministry: lovereality.org/give
👍 LIKE us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alovereality
📷 FOLLOW us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/riyoung31/
📚 LEARN more at our site: lovereality.org
Download the Love Reality app. Available in the App Store & Google Play.
The world doesn't think that the gospel can change your life, but we know that it can and that's why we want you to hear these stories, stories of transformation, stories of freedom, people getting free from sin and healed from sin because of Jesus. This is Death to Life.
Speaker 2:Didn't need to be reminded over and, over and, over and over and over what a big sinner I was. Again, that's not gospel, and so yeah, but that was 2018. And then the world ended in 2019. And then the world ended in 2019. Some people get really uncomfortable when I talk about my story and people get uncomfortable when I talk about my son, but I'm going to talk about my son.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Death of Life podcast. My name is Richard Young and today's episode is with Nancy. The algorithm hooked it up and we met Nancy a few years ago and I immediately saw her beautiful heart and she has been a blessing to our community and she's taught me a lot of things about what it is to grieve, and that's what this episode is all about. There's some really hard stuff in this episode about suicide, but I think that nancy's story and her wrestling with god with this will be edifying to all of us. So, once again, this story is probably not for tiny ears, but it blessed me so much and I think that you will be blessed as well. This is Nancy Dodson. Love you guys. Appreciate y'all. Buckle up, strap in. All right, where are we going to start, nancy?
Speaker 2:Well, that's a great question. Are you from Tennessee originally? I was born in Tennessee. I've lived several different places. My dad was a preacher. I did not grow up in the Adventist church but I did grow up in a probably fairly legalistic denomination, more evangelical Protestant, and so we moved a lot. I lived for a little while in Kentucky, a little while in Colorado and then predominantly Tennessee.
Speaker 1:So you were born down here. I feel like the accent isn't a Colorado accent.
Speaker 2:It is not a Colorado accent, no, no.
Speaker 1:How many different spots did you live in Tennessee?
Speaker 2:Born in Tennessee, mostly Nashville, for a while. After I got married, I lived in Memphis for a few years and then Fayetteville, Tennessee, which is 30 minutes from Huntsville, Alabama, and then two years ago moved up near Fall Creek Falls and that's where I am now.
Speaker 1:Love Fall Creek Falls. What neighborhood did you live in in Nashville?
Speaker 2:I actually grew up in the Antioch area in the 80s, so it was very different. I'm old, I am definitely on the senior end of the love reality group of people, so I grew up in that area in the 80s.
Speaker 1:Okay, so your dad was a preacher. What was he preaching?
Speaker 2:it was a very what you've got to do to be right with God type of theology is what I grew up with and I loved my dad and I idolized my dad. He was a good preacher, um, but we had, you know, a typical family of what was out there, was not what was really going on behind the scenes and grew up in a very verbally, emotionally, physically abusive home. And so when I was about 15, 16, my parents' marriage kind of imploded and all the secrets came out and all the drama. But as far as what I was taught theologically, it was very much a what you have to do to be right with God type of theology, and that's really carried well into my adulthood is what I've been taught.
Speaker 1:So you said, like the secrets came out, your dad, you loved your dad, you idolized him. He was a sincere guy trying to do well, but it it just, it just wasn't going well at home uh, I thought so.
Speaker 2:I thought so, but he was really good at putting up a front and it was just my mother was the the abusive one. My dad was the image guy. Uh, he was a good preacher, a charismatic preacher, um, but, and like I said, I idolized him and I always grew up kind of feeling like dad was the one that loved me and mom was the one that I had to kind of earn that that love and affection from. So, growing up feeling I had to. I had to earn it everything, whether it was my relationship with God, whether it was affection at home, having to really work for all of that.
Speaker 2:And my brother and I grew up both very over-responsible kind of people. We were very responsible for the emotional and wellbeing of everybody else in the home. So it was when dad, when everything kind of imploded in their marriage, dad left, and when dad left, he left, and so then in my, you know, adulthood, going away to college, I felt like it was my responsibility to save him and I was worried about his salvation. And that was on me. You know there was a lot of being taught to. It was your responsibility to bring people to the Lord and evangelize people and um save people. So that was a lot of our teaching as well. Is is feeling like I had this grand responsibility for everybody around me. Um, that's heavy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is Well also not feeling heard and seen yourself, because everybody else's needs was were significantly more important than yours.
Speaker 1:When your dad took off, did he take off from ministry as well? Was he just like? I'm done with all of this?
Speaker 2:He, he, he didn't do ministry for a while but then he, he did again. But he, he was really good at, uh, manipulating people and so while my brother and I knew the truth of what was going on, what had happened at home, um, he could kind of move on and get a different group of community and and kind of play the victim and get again put in positions of leadership and ministry, while kind of keeping us cut out of the picture. And we're talking married four times continually, being in different types of ministry, sending me cards telling me how much he prays for me and wants the Holy Spirit working in my life, while I know you don't have any credibility with me, dad, you can't. So it was just a lot of that tension there.
Speaker 1:At what point did so? You're growing up with a God who's it sounds like the God's pretty serious. Yes. And he wants you to get it together. And did it seem like it was hard to be lost, hard to be found, Like it was easy, but you just had to keep going after you were found? Is that what it seems like?
Speaker 2:Sort of you know, yeah, it was easy as long as you realized what you needed to do. If you could get that together then you would.
Speaker 1:What was that? What did you need to do?
Speaker 2:I grew up in the theology of what must I do to be saved? And that five-step process hear, believe, repent, believe, repent, confess, be buried with him in baptism and it all centered around what I do to be right with god what's the five steps.
Speaker 2:Say that again here believe, repent, confess, be buried with him in baptism. Boom, there you go. That's the five-step plan of salvation, okay, wow, which is all focused on what I do. Okay, and so that I wasn't afraid of a God sending me to hell, but I was very afraid of disappointing God and it was my responsibility to remain in that relationship with God. And so I had that sense of, you know, I never wanted to disappoint God, I never wanted to do anything wrong, because then he would be upset with me and that would put me not in relationship with him. So that, a lot of that burden of responsibility. I feel like I've said that a hundred times, but that's, that was the weight, the significance.
Speaker 1:So there's, I mean, there's, no mystery why you're worried about disappointing god. Right, that's what's preached, yes, and while good intentions are, you know, they're all right, you know, but they lead to, you know, whatever the intentions are, that you hearing, that will keep you on the straight and narrow, um, and you won't veer off and do anything stupid. But if you really consider that, that's not a heart transformation, right, that's a fear, and not fear like in the respecting of God and the honoring of God, but more of a afraid of God, yes, and that only can go so far. Right, absolutely, absolutely. So at what age were you like? You saw the wizard?
Speaker 2:was the man behind the curtain or Probably about 15-ish somewhere around there, when everything kind of came to light somewhere around there.
Speaker 1:When everything kind of came to light, did you think maybe God isn't like this?
Speaker 2:or did you think I don't like God? I needed to believe God wasn't like that. And so I went through a season of a lot of searching because I had you know, I had been, you know you're. You're seeing one thing, you're seeing things happen and then you're being told well, that's not really what happened, that's not really the truth, and words get manipulated and twisted. So I pulled out my Bible and started what does God say about this? What does God say about this? Because I needed to know what was right, what was the truth, and I can see seasons of my life, probably the hardest times of my life God revealing himself in different ways, based on what I needed at the time, in different ways based on what I needed at the time. And so parents officially divorced when I was about ending my senior year in high school. So I'm getting ready to go off to college, and so I found myself seeing God more as what a father should be, and I think it's because that's what I needed at the time.
Speaker 2:You know, I lost. I idolized my dad, so I kind of lost that, that anchor in my faith. I kind of looked at him as this giant of the faith and he's going to lead me to where I need to go. And then everything kind of crumbled and you see the, the idol fall, and I really felt God kind of revealing himself through those next few years as as father. So I I leaned into that. I didn't, I didn't want to, I didn't want to run away from him because then I'd be disappointing him and I knew God was God and I didn't want to upset God, I didn't want to run away from that. But I leaned into that, ok, god is father, because I needed, I needed to believe that that's not who God was.
Speaker 1:Wow, so how did that end up going then? What did you end up seeing?
Speaker 2:I really leaned into the scriptures that reference God as father, um, and there was a still a very me based faith, but I began to just see God in a bigger way, that way. So I think it worked out in in that sense, your way, that way. So I think it worked out in that sense. Even as I left college, I got married, my husband and I did youth ministry for I've lost count the number of years, maybe, I don't know, 12 to 15 years. We did youth ministry and loved teenagers and I wanted to be for them. What I didn't feel like I had.
Speaker 2:I remember when my parents were imploding and going to my youth minister and just kind of feeling lost and struggling, and he responded with just look to Jesus, nancy, just look to Jesus. And I remember thinking at 15, what does that mean? What? How does that help me, you know? And it just was a and there's going to be a theme here that we're especially going to get into these last few years of of, of quippy little theology statements that don't really have any any meat to them Um, so I wanted to be for these kids but I felt like I didn't have, you know.
Speaker 2:So I tried to and it it was. It was a gift of mine and I, I, I loved it and I loved young people and working with them, um, and and trying to help these, a lot of these kids that were going through a lot of the same things that I was going through, that I had gone through to see God in that bigger picture, as as father, and what that meant you know. As father, that means that that you have a share in the inheritance. As father, that means that you are, are part of the, the Royal family here.
Speaker 2:I wanted kids to see that and feel that.
Speaker 1:You had the heart. The heart was who God really is, that God loves us. But then, when it would get tough, you were having a hard time coming up with some of the answers that these kids wanted Sometimes.
Speaker 2:Sometimes kids want it, Sometimes, sometimes, but I, you know, again, in my youth and immaturity, and, and, and, in a faith that you know, if I can find the right scripture and find the right way to say it, then that's the, that's what you needed to hear, that's the that'll fix it and, um, that's that, that should. That should do it and not wrestling as much with some of the harder truths.
Speaker 1:Yet Isn't that? I feel like that's how I deal with things. When I'm just trying to fix something, like if my wife comes to me and she's not feeling good, I start asking questions Well well, what did you eat? Did you have enough water today? Oh, what did you? Or what are you thinking about? And and sometimes she's just like I don't need those questions, I don't need you to analyze me right now. Maybe I just need a hug, you know, maybe I just need you to be with me and I have to switch my mind over to.
Speaker 1:Not everything's here to be fixed. Sometimes we're here to just be with each other. But I think that we try to fix it sometimes because we're afraid if we don't fix it, someone's going to leave. They're not going to believe that God is who you know, especially like you're in youth ministry, you feel like this responsibility over these kids and you don't want them to have the wrong idea. But they can see through it a lot of the time. Most of the time, they can see through it where adults, like the adults, are. Now we're the wizards behind the curtain and we're just trying to make sure that you know, if we don't have all the answers, that they don't figure that out.
Speaker 2:Yes, and the heart's there On the head because we're it's so much of it is fear-based. We're so afraid of people's questions, we're afraid of the wrestling, we're afraid of the doubts. We got to have an answer of the doubts. We've got to have an answer. And again, I grew up in a faith tradition that there was an answer for every question, everything, and you just got to make sure that you study your Bible enough and read your Bible.
Speaker 1:And there you go. You must be Adventist. You said you weren't Adventist. Sounds like you're Adventist. It's very similar.
Speaker 2:I've learned a lot. There's a lot of similarity there.
Speaker 1:What if we don't know everything? What if?
Speaker 1:we don't know how it's going to end. To know that we don't yeah, to some people that's scary. I used to know, I used to know it all. Talk to me 10 years ago and I would have known it all, and now I don't know so much of it. There's one thing that I do know and that one thing that I do know, like I know that thing and that informs the rest of it, meaning yeah, I don't know, and it's okay, and it's okay, it's okay, but I don't have to fake you out. Yeah, okay, but I don't have to to fake you out or to to you know. So, yeah, doing the youth, loving on the kids um, life's going all right, keep going.
Speaker 2:Uh, it wasn't. Uh, we were in Memphis for two and a half years. It was a. Really I don't like Memphis. Do you like Memphis? I don't like Memphis.
Speaker 1:And that was a long time ago.
Speaker 2:I was just there for a week, a wedding a couple of weeks ago and I don't. I'm not a big fan of Memphis.
Speaker 1:Nothing good happens there. Our car got stolen there and my favorite stuffed animal was stolen from the car and I never got it back. And my mom was here this weekend and she was like don't remind me of that story, Cause she didn't let me go back to the car and get it. My brother had a job there. He lost his job. Richard, you need to let that go. No it's not, it is, it is not. I'm never letting it go, but yeah, just not a great town. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It was not. It was not a good experience. We were very young and very green and made a lot of mistakes. So it was a gift when we were able to leave and go from memphis to fayetteville, which was a small town, is a small town, um, and at the time that we got there it was a. It felt like a warm hug. People there were kind and supportive, so it was a good experience.
Speaker 2:For a while it was Again still faith-wise, very focused on what we got to do to be right with the Lord. We focused on what we got to do to be right with the Lord. But in our personal lives it was not great. We were very fortunate. We were able to build a house and start a family. Tyler was born in 2001 and Olivia was born in 2003. And then Kenny was getting.
Speaker 2:Kenny was my husband, kenny was was getting very burnout in ministry and we had he we had dreamed of of opening a coffee shop. But the truth of the matter is we were both very young. We got married and very mature, but we love the Lord. We made decisions together prayerfully. But you take somebody we both had a lot of demons from our past and families of origin and you take someone with some narcissistic tendencies and you combine them with someone who's a severe codependent and you've got the recipe for a disaster. And so, when it came time to leave ministry, that was probably the first time in our marriage that we were not making decisions prayerfully together, and and the coffee shop was not a success and we were in severe financial issues, nearly lost the house several times. So it was a very, very trying time.
Speaker 2:And finally, probably about the fall of 2008, I thought, okay, I think we've hit our breaking point. I think he's probably going to sell it. I even I remember the night we were sitting in the living room and I said let's sell the house, sell the shop. Let's move into a two bedroom apartment and just start, start all over, we'll figure it out. And, um, I went from him telling me that I was the most patient, loving wife uh that you know has has stood by him through all this to uh, about four months later, being told I was the worst wife that had ever existed and all of the problems were 100% my fault. And so I spent, and I want to clarify we are now in a good place. We have a good friendship, we've co-parented well together. There's a lot of things that happened have we've never really dealt with Um, but so I don't want to get into too many details that would dishonor that Um.
Speaker 2:But I spent the majority of 2009, um fighting for my marriage and he was done, and so I I, you know I did everything that I could to try to get him to want to work it out. Sure, and he was done, and so by 2010, we were divorced and, you know, I guess the kids were I don't know eight and six, and I found myself in single motherhood, and so I was working three jobs to keep the roof over our heads. I felt like I needed to keep as much stability for them as possible, so I worked to keep us in the house and I I stayed at the church where we had done ministry. Kenny had left and um I stayed there, and I stayed there for the kids because I thought that that was what they needed. Looking back, my biggest regret was not leaving that church, because it was not a healthy place for us.
Speaker 2:I had been. I stayed involved with the youth group. You know my son was in that kind of middle school age where he was going to be coming up into youth group soon. I stayed working with the teens and wanted them to have that stability, but it was. I was very branded with the Scarlet D and you know, when you hear divorcee from the pulpit, lumped with a list with the alcoholic and the adulterer and the homosexual, that sticks with you and that happened on multiple occasions. And so, even though these are people that knew that I fought for my marriage and I wanted it to work out, I fought for my marriage and I wanted it to work out there was still a lot of shame in divorce in this, in this place, and so it was a tough, a tough path there.
Speaker 1:I remember, not too long ago, someone I would have had worked with back at my first job. She had been divorced, my boss had been divorced and I was just newly married. And I stars in my eyes. I thought everything you know, I thought John Lennon had it. All you need is love. You know that we're just going to figure this out. And I remember my boss saying to me't know what real life was like, I didn't know what kind of deception we can all be under, and and I and I, I judge people and I feel now, I feel, you know, after seeing what I've seen and then understanding what I've understood, um, how hurtful that was. If I would have had that attitude. I hope nobody knew that that I would judge them that way. Yeah, and I just needed to learn, I just needed understanding, I needed to get a revelation of God's love, yeah, and so these people at your church God love them. They didn't understand.
Speaker 2:They did. And there was I mean, there was a significant number of people there who had been divorced. But you know, when I was going through, you know, the divorce process, I had two different people set the book of Hosea in front of me, and what people don't realize is the book of Hosea is not about marriage me. And what people don't realize is the book of Hosea is not about marriage, um, but it was very the again, the over-responsibility. It was my job to not let go and I, you know, I was looking at potential financial ruin, I was looking at complete spiritual damage to my family, and then you've got the guilt over. Well, you can't give up on your husband. Well, I wasn't giving up on my husband, he gave up on me, but yet it was still my job to fix it.
Speaker 1:And so it was just a lot of um, a lot of guilt there, a lot of uh, a lot of shame there, and and so, yeah, so if, if it's all about trying to get right with God through the years, was it a roller coaster where you write with God sometimes and then I'm not right with God because of this and I'm right with God again. And how did you judge your heart towards all that?
Speaker 2:Oh, it was. You know, I've definitely judged my heart. I wanted to be everything that I was supposed to be and I wanted my kids to have everything they was supposed to be, and I wanted my kids to have everything they were supposed to be. And then, you know, but, but it was definitely a feeling, it was definitely a rollercoaster of of I'm okay and I'm not okay, and I'm okay and I'm not okay, and then then, okay, well, if I, then I just need to, I need to pray and I need to fast, I need to get focused again, and all of that, and just the constant, you know, um rollercoaster of all that. And in the middle of that, you know, single mom dating well, that was the rollercoaster, and those were never successful relationships that I praise the Lord never ended up in remarriage, because it would have been a disaster. Um, but you know, trying to navigate that, um, while being making sure that my kids were the priority, and so it was just, it was just a lot of crazy. And then I'm going to throw another, uh, little curve ball in there.
Speaker 2:In the middle of that, um, in the middle of all this, I was targeted by a predator from our church. Um, he was and and and, truthfully, he was a very mentally ill person that at the time we did not know Um, but he targeted me. Uh, single mom, small kids. I was looking for people to to pour into my kids' lives, cause that's what they needed to pour into my kids' lives, because that's what they needed and he jumped right on that. And next thing I know he's professed his love for me and gone off on a complete psychotic break and disappeared over the weekend, and so we were afraid and that right there, that was 2011,. I believe that should have been the point that I say I'm not coming back again, not because, you know, I'm not trying to deflect or anything, but I was not protected. What the priority in that situation became? We need to protect his family because they're they were very prominent family in the community and they're embarrassed prominent family in the community and they're embarrassed. And so I felt again very dismissed. I was afraid. I remained afraid.
Speaker 2:He comes back to church. You know you go, you follow the altar, call, you confess your sin and ask forgiveness and everybody says, okay, we're good and I'm expected to just continue to come to church and see him. You know, leading prayer or serving communion and I'm supposed to just be okay. And if I said, look, I'm afraid, oh, you're overreacting, everything's fine. Well, it's not fine. It wasn't fine and I didn't feel safe for years and ultimately, a few years later, he was killed in a very violent confrontation with police while he was having a psychotic break. And it was horrible, it was all for everybody involved.
Speaker 2:But I felt very vulnerable and not protected and not heard and seen. That I was. You know I was. I felt very targeted by a predator and left unprotected.
Speaker 2:And that, combined with several other things that happened, things that were said about me, to me in very flippant ways by leadership of the church, to me in very flippant ways, by leadership of the church, I should have said and again, you know this is, you know how churches are. They say, well, we're family, we're family, we're family, they're part of the family of God. And family doesn't leave. You're right, family doesn't leave and walk away.
Speaker 2:But when you speak up and say that you're hurting and the response that you get is well, richard, you've just misunderstood. You don't really realize what's going on. You've just misunderstood what's happened. You're dismissed. Your feelings, your experience is pushed aside.
Speaker 2:I should have left for the sake of the kids, but again, I felt like they needed the stability, they needed to stay with their youth group and I could have kept them in youth group. Ultimately I did, by 2018, I had started attending visiting other churches while staying involved in youth group, keeping the kids involved in youth group, because I could no longer and the theology was I was just poking holes in it. I could see, you know, like you've referenced the man behind the wizard, I could see that if everything, if everything comes down to, if me being right with God comes down to what I do, I'm screwed. I'm screwed because that that I'm, I I am, don't have the capability to be right with God, and so I was wrestling with with that through the probably you know the last several years, you know before, before 2019, which is the crux of it.
Speaker 1:That was the main theological difference is how we get salvation or right standing with God. Yes, yeah. Did they say? That they believed in righteousness by faith, but what they practiced was not that, or did they not even say they believed that we were righteous by Jesus's faithfulness.
Speaker 2:No, they said that, they said that, but but you know, there was a lot of you know in in Bible classes and teachings. You know, you, you had to to pray right and pray the right thing and and make sure you're hearing from God and and and keeping yourself pure so that you can remain in relationship with God. And I wrestled with that a lot, to the point of realizing okay, this cannot be about what I do, this can only be about what Christ has already done, and I have to stand on that. And people would you know, yes, but no, no, no, no, there's no but there's no. But so make sure that you're praying right, so make sure you're going to church, so make sure you're not sending little S's sin.
Speaker 1:No, there's no, but give me an example, just for curiosity sake. What were the little S's that that seemed like the cause? In my background it's. It would be like how we honor certain days or diets that people would trip out about. Is it similar with your background?
Speaker 2:Um well, I did not grow up in a church that honored the Sabbath trip out about. Is it similar with your background? I did not grow up in a church that honored the Sabbath. You know, like Adventists do, but you know you don't want to, you don't drink and if you do drink it's a little drink and nobody knows, and you don't get drunk. You know, as long as you can have a little bit of whiskey for when you have a cold, but that stays in the back of your cabinet, nobody talks about it. But you don't drink, you don't cuss, you don't go out on Saturday nights with your girlfriends, you definitely don't have sex outside of marriage. And all of these, you know, these were these. We don't um.
Speaker 2:And so there was a lot of especially teaching with youth, which I did so long. You know, every now and then you get the, the, the, the unwed mother who shows up to church. Yeah, what do you do? And I remember I had a sweet, sweet little girl I'm still close with her today and she was living in rebellion. She knew it and ended up pregnant and so she comes back to church and she's very repentant and trying to, you know, get, get her life back together and one of the older ladies at church, um, came up to me and said you really need to talk her into going forward on Sunday morning to answer the altar call. And I said why? And she said well, everybody, you know we want to support her, but we just need to know that we can do that. And I said she doesn't need to go forward so that everybody's okay with her pregnancy by.
Speaker 2:God to make a public confession and but this pressure of, well, but if she'll go forward, then we all feel okay about supporting her, but if she doesn't go forward, then we don't really know that she's really sorry and it's that it was that kind of thing of you know. Well, we, we definitely are going to, are going to, you know, judge people who have an abortion, but we're definitely not going to show open support to the unwed mother who comes to church. We can't have both ways. You can't have it both ways. You've got to find the way to love people wherever they are, whatever they're going through, and we had to find the right way to do that.
Speaker 1:I had a friend of mine who had been a friend with for many, many years and she called me one day and she told me that she was pregnant, like and it was exciting news, and I knew she wasn't married. And I'm sitting there on the phone and I'm like, what do I do? How do I handle this? And this is, I know, the gospel, you know, and I just said congratulations and I wanted to be a part of her life. Yes.
Speaker 1:Like I didn't want to alienate her and while I thought you know this, thought you know this, this is problematic in a few different ways. Um, there's no way she's going to receive that from me right now. So why would I even want to go there? I want to show her that I love her and that that she can count on me. Yeah, and then in the future, if something? Because, like you said, she knew she was living in rebellion. So many people know, but they just want to test, like am I actually loved or is this thing that I did which I kind of know it was a mistake Is this thing enough to break off our relationship? Because if it is, I don't want anything to do with you because they know, yeah, and how do we handle that?
Speaker 2:Because they know, yeah. And so how do we handle that? Do we trust the Holy Spirit? Because you having the insight to say I can't say something right now that's not going to be well received. That's the Holy Spirit speaking to you. This is not the time. You also trust that in time, the Holy Spirit is working in her life to lead where she needs to be. That doesn't mean that sometimes we don't need correction. If I'm living in rebellion and I don't care and I'm claiming to be a Christian, maybe I need to be corrected. Maybe someone needs to come and say, hey, we need to, we need to talk. But the the need that we feel so many times to be the Holy spirit to somebody else and make sure we say the right thing and get you right on the right path, and not trust that the Holy spirit is working in your life. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Again, it doesn't mean that I'm going to sit and turn a blind eye to, you know, open rebellion or things like that, but I can't be the Holy Spirit in your life.
Speaker 1:It's not what we know. It's what we can communicate in love, yes, and so if I know that's not going to like, do I just need to get off the hook from God and be like well, I told them God, so you can't be mad at me. I held up my I'm a watchman on the wall I held up my end of the bargain and so we're trying to get us OK, or do we actually care about these people? Right? Do we actually love these people?
Speaker 1:And one of my favorite pastors, this couple who was living together, not married, came up to him and they're like pastor, what do we do? You know, we've got caught up in this thing. And the pastor was like you know what? You guys really just need to understand that God loves you, like you really need to understand his love. And they were like okay, so then you say we shouldn't be living together. It's like I didn't say that. I said you really need to understand how much God loves you, he knows. And understanding all of that, like that's the thing that puts integrity into you, your safety, your salvation. When you look and see what he has done, that's the thing that puts something different in you. And it isn't the. You know, I'm afraid I'm going to burn in hell. Yeah, that's not enough it doesn't work.
Speaker 2:No, it's not being being told you're right or wrong. It's not enough. It's not enough, it's not.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, man, this thing with the church, I'm so sorry to hear that. Um, like I said, good intentions. Yeah. Yeah, that, but it doesn't, doesn't happen. So you eventually left that area, you left that church or a few more years there.
Speaker 2:Um, I started visiting elsewhere in probably 2018. Um, and my kids were teenagers in, you know, in youth group. Um, again, we were still involved in youth group, still doing youth, youth things. Um, I was still helping with that. But as far as the, the corporate worship, I, I, I felt that I needed to be elsewhere and most of the time, the kids went with me. Um, because, um, Um, because, um, uh, 2018 was just pivotal.
Speaker 2:There was a sermon series that was being done on, um, strong families, and the recurring message was uh, strong families come from strong marriages. All year long and, like I said, we had a pretty significant number of people at this church that had been through divorce and, um, it was a conversation that that happened often after, uh, after church, the kids and I would be talking about it and it just it didn't land well on us because, you know, we were, we were striving to to live for the Lord and remain strong and pray together, and all of that, and later in that year, Tyler, my son, volunteered to speak one Sunday night I don't know. Every so often the teenage boys would lead service, and so he offered to speak and he it was a beautiful. I've shared it on Instagram. I don't know if you've seen it, but it was a wonderful lesson because it spoke to how God can work regardless of those circumstances. Um, and he shared, you know, experiences with his dad and with us, and it was well received by several of the people at the church who had been through divorce, because it had just landed all year a lot.
Speaker 2:Like you know, it doesn't matter how badly you've sinned, God still loves you Again, Scarlet D, for being divorced, and I didn't need to be reminded over and over and over and over and over what a big sinner I was Again. That's not gospel. Sinner I was Again, that's not gospel. And so, yeah, but that was 2018. And then the world ended in 2019. Some people get really uncomfortable when I talk about my story and people get uncomfortable when I talk about my son, but I'm gonna talk about my son.
Speaker 1:I'm not needed to know and understand everything.
Speaker 2:Tyler loves God, but I remember at one point he spent a couple hundred dollars of his own money on books. He studied the Book of Enoch, he studied Bonhoeffer, he wanted to understand all of it and he could be quite argumentative. He could be a bit of a bully to his younger sister, as often older siblings are. But one thing Tyler was not was someone who struggled with depression, which is one, one of the one of the many factors that makes this a very lonely place to be. But in February of 2019, my son died by suicide and it was a huge shock. We did not see it coming and, um, it was.
Speaker 2:The way that I describe it to people is like somebody sets off an atomic bomb in your life and yet you have to then set up camp and live in that for the rest of your life. And so it was a. It was, it was a shock, and his own words were I'm not depressed, but Tyler needed to know. He needed to know and to understand, and Tyler's Tyler was wired very differently. He saw the world very differently, Potentially had some undiagnosed Aspects of autism that you know in retrospect, and lots of therapy on my part, I'm learning that, um, there was a lot, a lot there, but it was. It was a. You know people talk about this. It's a clear place in your life of before and after. Clear place in your life of before and after, and that's the day for me is that, and for my daughter and and and her dad, um, it was very much a clear before and after, right there.
Speaker 1:Um, what was his if you said? He said he wasn't depressed. It was just some weird reasoning that you couldn't understand and have been racking your brain to try to understand it since then.
Speaker 2:I think I mean in some ways yes, he, he needed to know God and he was not willing to wait. Interesting, interesting.
Speaker 2:And he had so many questions about the world and the universe and the way God works, and I remember that he could be so argumentative, he could argue about anything. We have these people that could just argue about anything. And he and I argued one night it was probably just a few minutes, a few months before he left, um, because I was saying that, you know, I, I pray for God to put people in his life and work in his life. And he said, mom, god, it doesn't work that way. And I said, well, I'm never going to stop praying for, you know, god to work in your life and provide you with opportunities and people. And he said, mom, that's free will is free will, you know. And so we were kind of debating this whole how does God work and how does prayer work? And I was, you know, digging my heels in that I was right, and he was digging his heels in that he was right, but he was searching.
Speaker 1:And he did not. He wasn't angry or anything. He just was like going after something that he believed.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes. And so when people talk about suicide, you know it always comes back to mental health and awareness and all this, which is good, sure, but it doesn't fit our experience. And so it wasn't, you know, undiagnosed depression that we missed the sense of hopelessness, was not it? It was a I don't want to go through the motions of going to college and getting a career and doing a job. He wanted more than this, and was not, you know you know, he didn't have any idea that he was dropping the bomb.
Speaker 2:Oh, he had no idea, you know, that, doesn't that doesn't keep me from being angry with him, right? But you know, kids Brains are not fully developed to what 23, 25?
Speaker 1:Hopefully 41. I'm hopefully getting there soon. I don't know.
Speaker 2:And he was 17. So I truly believe he had no concept of what he was doing to our family and our community, because it was big.
Speaker 1:Obviously it was big.
Speaker 2:And so then, yeah, after that, and for the first time in my life, allowed myself to feel whatever I was feeling, regardless of how that made anybody else feel. I didn't care. I didn't care if other people were uncomfortable with my questions. I was rageful, I was angry and I questioned, and I did not care if that made you uncomfortable, because if I was not Job responding with the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. I was not responding that way. I was what the crap, god? You know, I was very, very, all of my for probably two years. Anytime I tried to pray, it ended up in me screaming at God. Up in me screaming at God, and you know people were expecting me to. You know, respond with this very quiet. You know faith, and I did not. I was angry, I was angry.
Speaker 1:It sounds like you'd been doing it up to that point. It sounds like when the church leaders were like, nah, that's not it that you'd, you'd, you'd, you'd had enough, it seemed like yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I, I just I brought my very real and I and I had people for a while probably still people who think I'm lost because I I've, I've landed at a place very different than where I started. Um and um, my prayers are different, my faith is different, um, I am different. But you know, we all know those people that you know I teach a communication class so I hear a lot of students, you know, to give tribute speeches about their grandparents and they'll say things like it doesn't matter what you know my grandmother went through, she always kept her faith in God. Or you see people go through a hard time and they say you know, well, I just I have to. I lean into God is good, and that's just. I have to remind myself where I was.
Speaker 2:God did not feel good, nothing felt good, and it didn't help me for people to put very quippy or out of context scripture band-aids on my bleeding artery and for me, I had to wrestle that out with God and I was very fortunate to have a Christian therapist. He's a minister, but I could bring my very raw, very real questions and we would talk it out together. Um, and I wanted, I wanted to talk to someone of faith I didn't want to talk to, to a secular therapist Cause I knew they would. They could very easily be like, oh yeah, that's just all a bunch of baloney. I didn't want that, but I also didn't want the very surface level, easy answers. God is good and and you know all the little happy scriptures that that just kind of you know well, you know what is the scripture that says? You know, draw near to God and he'll draw near to you. And James 4. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I thought, ok, well, I didn't go. People say, well, if you don't feel close to God, you know he's not the one who moved. And I would say I didn't move either. I didn't do this, but I felt very alone. Um, I can say when I went through my divorce I had never felt closer to God ever than I did then. It was a horrible time, it was an awful time, but I felt just this powerful moving of the Holy Spirit and the comfort and the provision, just the sense of peace that I knew God was going to take care of us.
Speaker 2:When Tyler left, god no longer felt close. And I know faith is not about our feelings, but it was so weird to me how, why did God feel so close during my divorce? But during the worst possible thing that I could ever imagine going through, he was nowhere to be found and it felt like he walked out that door with my son that day and was gone. I remember it could have been that day. It could have been a couple of days later. I don't remember. Ptsd does that to you? I don't. There's a lot of fuzziness, but I remember walking outside and looking up at the sky and saying, god, I will never ask you for anything, ever again. I was so angry that he allowed that to happen and it sent me on a trajectory of questioning and wrestling and asking I could poke holes in everything everybody tried to say to me to make me feel better. I was poking holes in it because it just it. I was mad. Yeah, what if?
Speaker 1:what if we're not supposed to feel better in that moment? What if we're not supposed to suppress anything? Did you find that god was okay with your anger? Did you find that he could take it?
Speaker 2:yes, and for me, again grateful for my therapist who encouraged me to be real, that my authentic emotion is what God is wanting from me, because anything else felt fake and I knew God's going to be able to see through it. If I'm trying to fake it, if I'm trying to say the right thing and look pious and faith-filled, what the whole time I'm angry and struggling. God knows that that's fake and I hit that point very early on. God knows that that's fake and I hit that point very early on. I hit that point of if God is who he says he is, then he can handle my raw emotion because he's either God of all of it or he's God of none of it. And if he's God and he's Lord of the universe, he can handle little Nancy's anger. He really can. And so I was very raw with it.
Speaker 2:Like I said, probably the first couple of years, every time I tried to pray it ended in me just screaming at God. And then I hit a point where I thought I'm tired of screaming at you, so I just didn't pray, pray. And then, probably about three years ago, I took a little solo trip, me and the dog, and got away kind of unplugged for a weekend A lot of hiking, a lot of quiet time, and in my mind I said I'm calling a truce, god, I'm not going to argue with you this weekend, let's just be and started the process of realizing that I don't think I was wrestling with God as much as I was wrestling with what?
Speaker 2:I had been taught God was, you know, really faulty theology which led me to that place of okay, what do I believe and?
Speaker 1:still give me an example of that, like who was the God that you were fighting? That doesn't exist.
Speaker 2:The God that says if you pray the right thing and you live the right way, everything will work out.
Speaker 1:Santa. You were praying to Santa then.
Speaker 2:And you know, the implication of that is well, nancy, you shouldn't pray enough. Well, richard, nobody prayed for their children more than I did, richard, nobody prayed for their children more than I did. I'm talking face in the carpet. 2 am tears pouring, praying outside their bedrooms, kind of prayer for years post-divorce, for this to happen. And so the idea and here's the truth, truth Once the swarm of people kind of died down and the funeral happened, and you know, four days after Tyler left, it rained and rained and rained and it flooded.
Speaker 2:It was interesting. But once all that kind of died down, I lost most of my friends and I know much of it, and I had people telling me this. My experience and my raw emotion made people really uncomfortable and I know there were people who knew me well enough to know that I prayed and I leaned on that scripture that said you know, god's strength is made perfect in my weakness. I trusted that he was going to fill in the gaps where I fell short, where the kid's dad fell short, and so then for this to happen was just so how dare you not fill in where I fall short, god? And so all of that kind of belief of it just doesn't make any sense, say to me you know, oh well, I just, I just know.
Speaker 2:When I prayed and God intervened at my workplace, well, I'm glad God intervened at your workplace but didn't stop my child from taking his own life, okay, I'm glad God helped you find your keys. And when people I've had people say you know that God saved them from suicide, well, I'm glad God saved you from suicide, but not my child, but not my child. And so I wrestled with a lot of that. Just exactly how involved is God in our daily life? And I don't know the answer to that. But I'm like you mentioned at the beginning, I'm okay now with not having the answers.
Speaker 1:So, as I consider the different stages of grieving, I said, oh, it's kind of a stupid question. Of course, I don't think that there is something that could be grieved more than a loss of a child, and I was thinking that it's almost like we're trying to understand something that isn't meant to ever be understood.
Speaker 2:I remember you saying that in the Bible class one night. It was a game changer for me. How so? I don't remember how it came up what we're talking about, but you said we were never created to understand death. It's not how God created us. And you know I had been trying to make sense of all of this and growing up in a faith tradition that there's a formula for everything and you do two plus two equals four and follow the formula and everything works out the way it's supposed to. And if it doesn't, then obviously you screwed up somewhere so you need to fix it. I'm trying to make sense of this, and when you said we were never created to understand death, it was like a light bulb went off. Because no wonder it it. It hurts, it makes no sense. We wrestle with that because we're not supposed to understand it.
Speaker 1:Jonathan said this thing to me one time. My grandma passed this last year. She was 99. Tyler made it to 17. Which one is more offensive to god? And you think about it, they're the equal amount of offensive. What's 17 compared to eternity? What's 99 compared to eternity? Yeah, you know, we think of someone passing young compared to eternity. Yeah, you know, we think of someone passing young. 99 is young when it comes to eternity, 17 is young when it comes to eternity. Tyler was created to live forever. Goodness and mercy be chasing him for the rest of his days. The same with my grandmother.
Speaker 1:And so when we see that cut short, obviously when we think of a little child, you know we're like, oh, this isn't fair and this isn't right, and it's so offensive. And it seems way more offensive because we think of 99. Well, they got 99 years, um, but as I'm I was joking with somebody the other day. I was I'm like I'm 41, I've, I've lived, I've lived at least a third of my life now. And they're like what? What are you talking? It's a joke, I'm not gonna live 120. But at the same time, at 41, I don't feel like this is long enough to be half of my life and it isn't. And 17 is not long enough and 99 is not long enough. It is all an offense to God and the justice of God that, while we mourn right now, it's not over. Yeah, it's not. It can't be, it can't be.
Speaker 1:And someone messaged me, I think it was Saturday night, a young person, and they said I'm trying to convince, or they sent me like a reel about somebody talking about suicide and how God deals with suicide.
Speaker 1:And it used to be that everyone, just it was cut and dry with how God dealt with suicide. But praise the Lord that the character of God is being able to shine more and more and people are going away from that, that horrible thing that wrecks people, that God, oh, they're, they're, they're lost or whatever. And they asked me do you believe this? Do you believe that God? And I was like, of course, like God is love, like if you were, like, if you were, let's say, mentally unhealthy and you made this stupid error in because you were emotionally or whatever, or if you didn't understand, like if there was some neurodivergent, whatever, and God's like no, I wouldn't serve a God like that, but that's not who God is. God is going to replenish what was lost and we can still. We can lament right. We can understand that it feels terrible right now and that if it didn't feel terrible, then God isn't God, because he didn't create us for this thing. Yeah Is what I'm pretty much trying to say yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Okay, we're going to take a really quick break from the episode. I was on a Bible study the other night and a guy has joined that has been seeing some of my posts from Facebook and now he's been joining the Bible study and he sent me a message afterwards saying that he was sorry if he had offended me when he was commenting on Facebook. But now he is seeing the gospel and he is so happy that he's been able to come to our Bible studies. Man, that warmed my heart so much. It's such a privilege to be able to host Bible studies, to be able to minister to people, to be able to love people, and we are able to do that because of people like you donating and keeping this gospel message going out there.
Speaker 1:We're dedicated to it, we want to keep preaching it and so we thank you guys for partnering with us and donating from your hearts. If you feel inclined, you can go to wwwloverealityorg and partner with us. We love seeing lives changed by receiving this truth. We love seeing lives changed by receiving this truth. So loverealityorg slash give. Let's get back into the episode. So you went and on this retreat that you went on something, your heart was opening up a tad more.
Speaker 2:A little bit. I was less. I mean, I'm still. You know, I still struggle with anger and all of the emotion that comes with it. Some days are better than others, and a lot of it has to do with how many ridiculous things I have to deal with that other people say and do you?
Speaker 1:don't just give them the bless their heart? They don't know anything. Give them the old Southern bless your heart.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I do, and sometimes I I don't. Sometimes I come home and I look at my daughter and I go God bless us all and that's just. She knows where I'm going, where my mind is on that, Because she has to hear it too. But I just realized that I wasn't necessarily wrestling with God as much as who I had been taught God was, and so I began to really kind of just think about that. Somewhere along there, I'm sure, the algorithm found me and I stumbled on a Justin Koo post that made me go. Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 2:You know what he's saying is making some sense. And you know, finding myself in some of these Bible classes and Internet church hearing Truly for the first time, on a consistent basis, hearing, you know, this is this is all and only about what God has done, and and that just was was powerful to me. Um, still struggling with feeling God was absent. Um, and last year I was listening to a podcast. I was driving home and I, you know, live up and up the mountain. This is probably not the best time to listen to something that's going to make you cry, but I'm listening to this podcast.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you've ever listened to the nothing is wasted podcast, but I cannot remember for the life of me the guy that was talking. But I cannot remember for the life of me the guy that was talking. But he was talking about the dark night of the soul referenced by St John of the Cross, and he's explaining it, and I just started to sob because that sounded exactly like what I had been purpose. For this reason, or you know, maybe you know, whatever, I don't, I don't know. Again, I'm not going to. For the first time in my life, I'm the first one to say I don't know the answer, because I don't. I don't think we're supposed to know all the answers. I don't think we're supposed to know all the answers and I have fully embraced the mystery of God and I know I've had people that get uncomfortable with that. They think I'm some kind of Christian mystic. I'm not.
Speaker 1:I'm just simply saying that's not the worst thing to be called, by the way.
Speaker 2:It's not. It's not the worst thing to be called, by the way. It's not, it's not. But if we were supposed to understand God, then God wouldn't be God. Of course.
Speaker 2:And you know, if God was big enough to handle my anger and my questions and my rage and all of that and I believe that he is then I'm okay with not understanding God and how God works all the time. And I actually get a little peeved when people think they can explain everything away, they can theologize everything and I just think were we really created to be able to understand all of that, and why are we not okay with that mystery? Sometimes I don't know how God works. My prayers have completely changed. I don't ask God to do things like I used to. God, do this. God be with this. Like you know, I don't ask God to be with my daughter anymore, because that's like asking God to do something he's incapable of not doing. And while we're at it, god, can water please be wet? God can't not be with my daughter. It's who he is. So I don't ask God to be with me. Be with do that. I thank him. I try to to surrender. Much of my prayer became more contemplative prayer than me asking God or pleading with God for things, because, again, maybe God does work that way, but maybe he doesn't, and I am okay with. I don't know.
Speaker 2:I can tell you the number of times that I have prayed things that did not work out. I had, within a few days of Tyler leaving, a friend of mine from high school well-meaning, sweet, christ-loving friend messaged me and said something to the effect of I just know that every prayer I prayed in the Lord's will he is faithful to. And I said how can you say that to me right now, my son is gone? Say that to me right now, my son is gone. And I, you know, are you telling me that it was not in God's will for Tyler to still be here? It didn't make any sense. I was poking holes in all of it and I I mean, I don't know how God works. I'm not going to claim that I've got all those answers.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to claim that I've got all those answers I get. A really great friend of mine lives. Life by God is an equation, like if I do this and then I learn this because he showed me this thing that I learn here and then I do this, then this thing will be the result, and the end result is always him getting married. He wants to get married so bad and so and I was on the phone with him yesterday and he's just like breaking it down. He's like, oh, I thought when I showed up to this spot in my life, god would bring me a wife, and now I realized that I needed to learn this. So now he's going to bring me a wife and I'm like, bro, stop, you already made the mistake with the first idea that God was going to give you a wife If you filled out this, this and this, and now you're just kicking the can down the road to now he's going to give you the what about?
Speaker 1:Like God loves you and he wants you to live with wisdom and move with discernment and shine and love people? Yes, like what? What if it's not? Like there are certainly ways to live that will bring pain, like we ought not to live in sin. But they're like, I don't have a plan, like for Tyler, did you have this plan for his life? No, you just loved him with your whole heart. He was your heart, walking outside of your body. Like you just loved him, you just wanted him to be happy and you're going to get. That's not over. But you didn't have. Oh, he's going to be an astronaut or he's going to be a PE teacher or he's going to you just loved him, yeah, pe teacher or he's going to you just loved him, yeah, and that's something.
Speaker 2:I wrestled with people a lot. I even I would, I would argue with people online, richard. I was so angry I've had to apologize to people, but I've even I've even gotten into discussions with, with, with people in in this group, not necessarily arguments but, just with what did?
Speaker 2:what do you mean when you say God's plan? And that was one of the first questions I came out with. Where in the world does it say in the Bible that God has a plan for our life? And if you come at me with Jeremiah 29, 11, I'm all going to stop you right there, and people would you know they were ready to jump into my DMs until I said that and they're like I don't have any other answer. Well, jeremiah 29, 11 is not to us. It's for us, sure, but it was not written to us and that's it. We're in the middle of a thunderstorm and I just lost my life.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're good, I still see you.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I struggled with that whole God's plan business because so many people bank on that and they want to make sure they're in God's plan and I'm like, okay, but if you're telling me that, I'm here to tell you that, looking back at my life and the amount of abandonment I've been through and I've been abandoned by everybody I have ever loved, except for my daughter, and there's that part of in the back of my mind that just waits for her to decide one day she's done too, because everybody else has. You know, I've even felt abandoned by God. So was that God's plan? Because that's a really stinky plan.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't like that plan at all and for someone who's trying to serve God, that doesn't make any sense and we don't have any scriptural basis for that. We think we do, but we don't. Like you said, god does not have a set plan, for this is what you're supposed to do and you want to make sure you don't go outside of God's plan. God's plan is that we love him and we believe in the one that he sent. That's the plan.
Speaker 1:That's the will of God, right, that's the will of God.
Speaker 2:And and the scripture tells us, Paul tells us his divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness. I can ask God to provide and to do, but I have been given, through the power of the Spirit, the ability to make decisions and to do things in accordance with how God would want me to do it. I don't have to pray for some divine sign over everything that I'm embarking upon.
Speaker 1:You know, for the immature, that's scary for the immature, like and God bless this friend of mine, he, he's immature, he doesn't want the idea of God's plan being like an open, open like you go and love, because that's too scary for him. He wants God, but then what when he realizes, like this is actually not bringing him happiness, it's actually not going well to the mature person. And you've been matured by life, and this is another thing that God never wanted us to know, that he didn't want us to get matured by life, that we didn't weren't supposed to have the knowledge of good and also evil. And yet you have been matured by life. And so you can see, yeah, this isn't worse, this isn't like if God has A, b and C and I'm all the way down to triple Z, you know like, maybe that's not how God works. Maybe God's plan was to send his son from the beginning because this whole thing had to be redeemed, and so his son redeemed it and thus redeemed us. And so, while we're at the beginning, we're at the very beginning and this whole thing is going to get worked out, but as of right now, his plan is just for us to receive it, and even then there still is a place for goodness and mercy to follow us the rest of our days, and there's also extreme lament.
Speaker 1:God Jesus was the happiest man to ever walk the world, and he was also a man of extreme, extreme sorrow. Can we have both of them? I think so, yeah, so, as you are finding out this new paradigm of God and I think it's interesting because I heard someone the other day say that love reality describes God to be more loving than he actually is and that blew my mind. But I'm hearing your story, you run across some of our stuff and it's resonating with you, and the main idea was that God had done this whole thing and ours was a response. How did that hit you?
Speaker 2:It was a breath of fresh air because I, I, I kind of gotten there in my, in my. I was already kind of getting there before Tyler left, thinking this if this all comes down to what I do again, then I'm, I'm screwed because I I can't do it. You know I cannot do this and and. But I was still. I was still um, in that place of because I'm a dirty rotten sinner, I can't do it, um. So I was kind of I was in that place of this has got to be about what, what God has done.
Speaker 2:And I had even had a couple of conversations with some young people who, who would say things to me like you know. Well, I know I need to, I need to be working on my relationship with God, and I was like no, no, you don't, you need to accept that God already did it. And this is not about you working on this relationship, it's about you accepting what God has already done. But the freedom from sin thing was eye-opening for me and realizing that I'm not a dirty rotten sinner, I'm not a. How is it? You know, I'm not a sinner yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, I've heard that a lot too, and I think, you know, I think that some people say that because they don't want people to think they're saying they're perfect because they're a Christian. And other people say it because it's kind of a lazy way to cover up well, I make mistakes, so we're all sinners, said by grace. And then when you say to people but you're not, they don't like you, but you're not though, well, anytime I had said it to someone and you're not they don't like you.
Speaker 2:Well, anytime I had said it to someone, it hasn't been a lot. They don't take offense. They look at me with complete confusion Like what? But you're not though, you are free. You are like you are victorious, yeah, because Christ did it. And they kind of look at you like okay, you know, I can tell they're thinking about it. You know it's something people don't hear enough because we keep repeating we, you know churches keep repeating that we're all sinners saved by grace, and you know we're all turds covered in snow. And you know, no, keep repeating that we're all sinners saved by grace, and you know we're all turds covered in snow.
Speaker 2:And you know, no, you're a new creation, you're brand new.
Speaker 2:Set free and from the bondage, not just the bondage of sin, but the bondage of the lies that you believe, you know. That was another eye opener for me was I was listening to somebody you know, I've been reading a lot of books and listening to podcasts and things because I'm just learning and growing and someone said if you keep saying the telling the same story over and over again, it's because you are, you've believed a lie that you're trying to get out, you know, kind of break free from. And I thought well, okay, I tend to over explain and I tend to keep saying things over and over and over, telling my story over and over and over again, because I feel like I'm not being heard and I'm not being seen by people. So I keep trying to say it Again. I need you to let me know that I'm heard, I need you to let me know that you see me and it hit me. I keep telling the same thing over and over again, because I have believed the lie.
Speaker 2:I believe that I wasn't worth sticking it out for. I believe that I wasn't worth listening to and being heard and being seen, and that was a game changer as well that helped me break free from that need to constantly tell the same thing over and over again in hopes that somebody will hear it.
Speaker 1:What were you wanting people to know about you?
Speaker 2:I wanted people to care. I wanted people to listen to me. I wanted you know, like I said, I felt so abandoned by so many. And then, when I lost my son, I lost almost all of my friends. One of my very closest friends said to me months, months, months later I had not heard from her and she said, nancy, I wanted to reach out to you. I just didn't have the strength and I thought, well, what I heard in that statement was being your friend is too hard. You know, people didn't want to sit with my questions. People were not comfortable with my grief. People needed me to get over it so that they could go back to their life. My grief. People needed me to get over it so that they could go back to their life.
Speaker 2:But then, when I would show up to things, my presence makes people uncomfortable. I used to be the one that I would come into an event or an activity and I would make other people feel comfortable. I would reach out. I was an extrovert and I had no shame when it came to acting silly in front of teenagers. I can do that all day long If that can make people feel comfortable and welcome.
Speaker 2:And then I come in and I'm a pariah. No one wants me there. People don't speak to me, people look through me, walk past me and realize nobody wants me around and so feeling again unheard, unseen, unloved, dismissed. That I've had that. I wanted somebody to show me that they care, that they that they listened, that they that they would, were willing to sit in the uncomfortable of whatever my grief, my questions, whatever and the realization that somewhere deep down I I had bought the lie that I wasn't worth listening to. I remember um, probably it's sitting in that good good one time, realizing that the only the only weapon in the enemy's arsenal is is lies, it's deceit, it's not good. You realize that that's powerful. That's. The only weapon he's got is to get us to buy a lie.
Speaker 1:So two things can be true at the same time. Right, you are worthy of being heard. Number one and then number two. Just because people aren't doing it doesn't mean that they should. People should listen, and maybe you've heard me tell this story. But God blessed me through my cowardice. He showed me something. I had, a friend of mine, something I had a friend of mine. Her brother ended up killing himself, and the funeral was on a day that I was even going to be in town.
Speaker 1:I didn't live in town but I was going to be in town and I didn't go to the funeral and one of the main reasons I didn't go was because I was like these friends of yours. I was afraid I didn't know what to say and I used an excuse I was, I went to a football game instead and a month or two later I ran into the father who's now a great friend of mine and we were talking and just, you know, shooting the breeze, talking sports, and I walked away and then I said, no, I like the guilt from my cowardice kind of showed up and I went back over to him and I said hey, you know what I just wanted to say. You know, I wasn't able to make it to the funeral and I know your son and I know what happened and I just want to say I'm so sorry. And immediately he started crying and gave me a huge hug and I said I didn't know if I should say something. And he said this to me and I'll never forget it and I kind of live by it now. He said Richard, always say something, always say something. And so I've tried to make an effort when I saw you on our stuff, and it didn't take too long until I was looking at your Instagram and I saw you know what had happened and my heart's breaking for you. Uh, I just want you to know that you're you're valued, you're a person. I care and I'm so sorry I don't have all of the answers we can.
Speaker 1:I can mourn with you, but I'm going to air on the side of you saying Richard, how dare you, rather than Richard, five years down the Richard, how dare you, rather than Richard, five years down the line, how come you didn't say anything to me? I'm going to err on that side and if I make a mistake, I'm going to make that mistake in love and apologize and say oh, nancy, I can understand how I said. That is wrong. Thank you for showing me that that's offensive. Help me here to say it differently Because we, because we got to care, we got to care for our people. This is what it's about, and churches are lousy at grief. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they're lousy with traumatic grief. Again, because we need we need to fix it, we need an answer for it and we need people to get over it so that we can all move on. And I think that's one of the reasons I lost a lot of the friends that I lost Is because I had a lot of big questions and people were not okay with my questions and me. Questioning things made people question things and I would, you know, a lot of people would much rather stay in their very comfortable theology, Um, which I, I mean, I, I understand that, Sure, but when someone that you claim to love is is broken and destroyed and you're not there, um, you know, I, I kept telling people, when you don't speak to me, you're reinforcing that sense of I did something wrong. You know that, that, uh, survivors of suicide already blame themselves. So when suicide prevention campaigns say suicide is preventable, um, and that makes survivors feel more guilty, and then you come and show up and people don't speak to you and they, they shut down from you. That makes them feel even more guilty, and churches should be the last place that happens. But I lost, you know, and that one day I lost my child, I lost my community, I lost my ministry, I lost my calling, I lost everything in that one day and had to again set up camp in the aftermath of an atomic bomb. Um that you know.
Speaker 2:I have a handful of people that I can say with deep gratitude that they've walked with me, Um, and I'm very, very grateful for those people. It's very few, but I'm very grateful for those people. But churches don't know how to deal with grief and how to respond, and I've had a lot of people I didn't know what to say so I didn't say anything. You hit the nail on the head say something. The worst thing in the world you can do is say nothing and do nothing. And I share a lot on my social media. I am not active. I joined Facebook to be part of the Love Reality group. That was it. I don't like Facebook. It's the worst.
Speaker 1:It's the only reason I'm on there To put off my crazy things.
Speaker 2:I had deleted it years ago. It's funny because Chris Wetmore friended me and I think I had two friends and I messaged. I said I know you're going to think I'm nuts, but I don't do Facebook, so he was. It was funny but at the time, and then all my neighbors back here found me, but anyway it's, that's why I joined it.
Speaker 2:But I share on Instagram and I share a lot about grief and a lot about faith and I have, you know, I went through a long time of feeling very resentful because I felt like I mean, I'm having to educate everybody on how to be there for me and I shouldn't have to do that. But I have had people say to me that they're grateful for what I've shared because they've learned a lot on how to be there for somebody else. And I've had other friends who've who've been through trauma, who see me put a voice to things that they feel, and so you know, I I try to share, not out of being angry, but just in a hey, just a reminder your grieving friend is still grieving. And here's some things to remember.
Speaker 1:I'm going to take a risk right now of saying something that you probably know. But, nancy, you are an amazing mom. You were an amazing mom, an amazing mom. You were an amazing mom. You will always be an amazing mom.
Speaker 1:Hearing this story I've not heard your whole story All of it shows this that you're a faithful woman of God and you've been going after it the whole time and that's a gift from God, and so if you've ever believed, you know I don't know, Tyler, I've seen the videos you've posted. I've seen some of the things. What a sweet kid, right, that's what it looks like. Just a sweetheart of a kid.
Speaker 1:And then this tragedy just a sweetheart of a kid and then this tragedy um, no, anything that would say less than that. Like because you've had the heart of god the whole time, you've had the mind of christ maybe you didn't know it, maybe through love, reality, you, you're kind of grabbing onto that more. Yeah, I am the righteousness of god and christ, but your heart has always been there and you love that kid Like nobody could. Another mother couldn't have loved that kid more, and so I know you know that, but I'm going to say it anyway. Thank you, and yeah, I've seen you in our community and I've I think I asked you to come on here two years ago, probably.
Speaker 2:I don't think so.
Speaker 1:Are you sure? I mean, I think I did. I think we were talking, I know, at first you were still wrestling with some of the stuff. Well, and then later on I thought, cause I know, I've, I've been wanting to have the story, yeah, because I think I just see you and you're a city on a hill and that's, I think, the tragedy. While we don't wish it on anybody and we don't wish it on ourselves, we shine brighter when you're here and you're like, yeah, I wrestled with god and god is still good. That shines brighter than joel osteen in his mega church like that.
Speaker 2:just that shines brighter to me well, I can thank you first of all for saying, saying those. Those are very kind things and I appreciate that. I was drawn to people who had been through awful things and had wrestled with God, more than I was drawn to people who felt like they held firm no matter what. And I'd read Benita Reisner's memoir and I forgot the name of it, but it's a great book as well that if I could say one thing to somebody who is struggling with doubt and questions, um, because that's what I needed. I needed to talk to people who who had absolutely questioned and I had so many people showing up with all the answers, um, and that I didn't. I didn't need all your answers. I needed, I needed to wrestle it out and I wanted to hear from people who had also wrestled it out.
Speaker 2:If I could say anything to anybody is that when you find yourself with all those questions and wrestling and feeling like God is absent and that you're alone, don't let go. If I could say that is just don't let, because I hit a point where I thought I don't know if I'm going to be able to hold on. I don't know, but I did, I held on, and it's not because of what I did. It's because God, in his mercy has walked alongside me, even on those times that I didn't feel it and couldn't see it, that it's okay to question and it's okay to bring your authentic emotion to God, because he's big enough to handle it, because he's God, and that's what makes it beautiful and mysterious, and bigger than we could imagine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just hold on. Yeah, you know, I don't know what you believe about what happens when somebody dies, but there's this scene that Paul describes in 1 Thessalonians 4, where a trumpet will sound and then those who are alive will meet up with those who have passed and they'll meet up in the air. And after doing this podcast for a few years, I'm collecting stories. I think I'm going to be real busy flying around because I want to see it. Yeah, um, and I get emotional in funerals, but not for the same reason. I'd certainly, you know, if I know the person. I'll miss them there, you know.
Speaker 1:But the emotion comes from me when I think of the song no more night. I don't. I don't know if you've ever heard no more night by David Phelps Well, he didn't write it. I don't know if you've ever heard no More Night by David Phelps Well, he didn't write it, but he sings it crazy. And just this idea that we will see our loved ones soon. And so I got another one on my list. I want to see you see Tyler in the sky. Like, just thinking about that makes me want to cry right now that that is what's going to happen.
Speaker 2:It is, it is and we, it's a.
Speaker 2:You develop a little bit of dark humor in your family when you go through stuff and and um, it's a, it's a, it's a running, you know joke between my daughter and me and and Kenny as well, that you know I have every intention of slapping Tyler across the fence If I got to shove Jesus out of the way, do it Okay, cause I'm mad at him.
Speaker 2:Um, and I get him first, cause I'm the mama, yeah, um, but yeah it, it will be a, um, it will be a beautiful thing, because the number of times I have cried that you know this is not redeemable, this is not redeemable. And I think, well, on that day, cause I have, like anybody who who wants to adhere to the theology, that Tyler has lost. You think whatever you want, but I don't want to hear it. I know Tyler is with the Lord and I know that I am going to see him again and all of the pain and all of the heartache will be healed and we will be made new. And I know that I may know nothing else, but I know that and I know that I may know nothing else, but I know that it's really going to happen.
Speaker 1:you know it is. It's not like this thing that we're wishing for. Hope is not that we wish. It will happen, as the same as the sun is going to rise tomorrow. You will see, tyler, we'll see all of our loved ones and you know, all this waiting feels like it's taking a long time, and then when it happens, we'll realize oh, it wasn't that bad. You know, it does feel like a long time right now.
Speaker 1:yeah, it does, but, um, it will all be made worth it and we will live with God forever. Yeah, and so you know what Paul said it this way. He said if the resurrection didn't happen, we're to be pitied, right, yeah, like, if it is, if Jesus didn't resurrect from the dead, then we're fools and people should feel bad for us fools and people should feel bad for us. But if he did and 500 people saw him, then then this thing is going to happen and so I am excited for it. And, uh, in the meantime and in between time, I hear you sharing your story. I see you on Instagram, I see you as a part of our community and your good works. I've seen them and they glorify our Father in heaven. So, thank you Nancy, thank you Richard, thank you for sharing your story.
Speaker 2:Thank you.