This is not the end only the beginning

This is Beth's Story where she talks to me about how she found the strength through the darkest time of her life  to find purpose and use this to help to help others. 


Links:

Anew creation: Finding meaning in the midst of tragedy

https://www.amazon.com/ANEW-Creation-Finding-Meaning-Tragedy-ebook/dp/B09RMT8D88

https://www.mitchellthorp.org/mitchells-story.html

https://www.mitchellthorp.org

https://m.facebook.com/mitchellthorpfoundation/videos/anew-creation-by-beth-thorp-link-in-biomitchellthorpfoundation-christian-saveach/361606572534533/

https://www.mitchellthorp.org/anew-creation-book.html

Music by:

 (Neffex - A year ago) 

 (Neffex - dont want to let myself go) 

Transcript

Beth: 0:00

Pain is part of everyone's world. It's, it's, it's hard to deal with. And when you go through something as hard as this or losing a loved one, or the tragedy of what's happening around the world and pain comes, and when it comes, it violates your love and trust.

AO: 0:17

Welcome to another episode of ChatAholic. Thank you again for joining me every time I say that I do genuinely mean it now. I'm so grateful to take up some of your time because I know how precious time is to people. So thank you. This episode, I am speaking to a lady called Beth Thorpe, and I'm just going to get to it and welcome Beth. Hi Beth. Thank you so much for joining me. And could you just explain, why did you want to do the podcast and why did you want to share your journey? Just a bit about you, whatever you are comfortable sharing

Beth: 0:57

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Sure. Well, I live in Southern beautiful Southern California and I just released a book titled a new creation, finding meaning in the midst of tragedy. It's our memoir. It's a beautiful story. It's an inspirational book, which we'll talk about in a minute. What's in that I wanted to do the podcast. I've been booked out and doing book signings now throughout the United States and and getting the book out and the message behind it. And that's why I'm here with you to share that, little bit of. insight of what a beautiful story this turned out to be. it's in memory of our son, Mitchell, which we'll get into a little bit and what, because I am a faith based woman and what God worked through us, my husband and my family, the beautiful thing that came out of it from the tragedy. so that's a little bit about me, my background, where I'm from, and, and I have another son who I love and two beautiful golden doodles, and we love to walk the beach with them here in California. And that's just me and I just wanna share a little bit about our story and it's really God's story through us. So we're a witness for him.

AO: 2:09

Okay. One thing that striked me, which is really what I wanted to ask you about, because I know that you are a wife and you are a mom, but other than being a wife and a mom, you are also doing these remarkable things. would you be able to tell me about the foundation, what it's called and what was the inspiration behind you setting up this amazing foundation? That's doing amazing things

Beth: 2:37

Absolutely. Well your right. Cuz the book did come after the foundation. Cuz I couldn't sing the fingerprints of God through it all until here we are. 13 years later, the foundation was my well, first of all, Mitchell was a beautiful boy. He was born. Healthy and whole, hardly ever went to the doctor for maybe occasional ear ache or whatever. But it wasn't until the age of 13, he came down with some mysterious conditions, severe headaches. We basically took him all over the nation for five years, looking for answers from. Different doctors in and outta hospitals, he was undiagnosed to his death, which still mystifies me to this day. Doctors still couldn't understand the cause. What was causing all his pain some people to this day now say to me that he, it sounds like his symptoms were similar to like a Lymes disease or things like that, that people can't. Diagnosed quickly. It doesn't show up well in tests, but then again, I might never know because on his death certificate it did say undetermined. So it was a five year, very hard, long grueling journey, I should say in getting him. An answer to what we were dealing with trying to ease his pain. It was like sand slipping through our fingers. Every time we tried something with different doctors, whether it was Western medicine or integrative medicine. Trying to give him some relief. At times we saw things helping, and then other times it didn't his symptoms, waxed and waned. As we did different therapies and were with different doctors. Ultimately he did pass symptoms, came on at 13. He ultimately passed five years later, undiagnosed in a hospital in Texas. And from that deepest pain, it was, it. We called in the book that chapter, our darkest night

AO: 4:25

it's a parent's worst nightmare.

Beth: 4:29

Right? No, it's like the worst nightmare anyone could ever go through. It's not something you wish on or hope for anyone. But with all that pain and it was five year journey for us, it of walking through it and also two year journey of healing and coming out of it before we could even begin the foundation. So it was really in 2000 he passed in 2008. I'm still grieving. We're all grieving in 2009, roughly that next year in my deepest pain, God spoke to my spirit. That's still small voice that he does and said, this is not the end. This is the beginning. And I kind of sat up and I. What do you mean by that? I didn't really know what he, when I heard that in my spirit and then my husband two days later, or so he was at the church, local church here, and he, he was a baseball player. So baseball runs thick in the book and my husband was a. Pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. So there was a lot of baseball. He taught the boys baseball. Mitchell was a really good athlete up until then. And he was coaching two boys in the community that had one family's boy had Hodgkin's lymphoma. The other had lymphoma, both families, middle class families, trying to struggle to make ends meet because one family member has to quit their job to stay by that child, obviously. Right. But those bills keep coming. Yeah. So we, he came home to me and said, God spoke to my spirit. We need to form a bridge or form a foundation to help many families going through what we went through. And I looked at him, I said, you wanna do what? And I couldn't. And then I realized what God said to me. I said, well, you know what? That must be what he's meant. This is not the end. This is the beginning. So that was at that moment. We formed the paperwork. We started the foundation, we got on our hands and knees pray to the Lord that he's the CEO of it. And he's gonna help us guide us along the way. And it's just beautiful. See how it, it has grown the mission of the Mitchell Thor foundation and his legacy is to support families with children, with life threatening illnesses, diseases, and disorders by providing financial, emotional, and resources to their desperate situation.

AO: 6:45

Can I just say that I live in, I live in the United Kingdom and we are so lucky to have the NHS and feel like the NHS seems to come up, seems to be a regular thing that comes up in the podcast on different episodes. And depending on who I'm speaking to reminds me of how lucky we are, because our healthcare system, the NHS is free. And also just do add, you don't receive any government funding towards the foundation. That's correct. Right.

Beth: 7:20

No, not at all. And families here in the United States, we don't have, like you have in England free healthcare. And a lot of these things, we have insurance to cover medical bills. Families do too to cover medical bills, but there are most families have when one family has to, one parent has to quit their job to stay by that child's bedside to care for them and advocate. Most families on average spend out of pocket six grand to 80,000, depending upon how much they're doing. Out of the network. It's not covered under insurance. This is what families face here. So it's, it's much harder. So we do allow our families to also set up fundraising pages on our platform. As well as to help raise funds. And this is even with good insurance. So a lot of things aren't always covered under insurance here especially when you get into integrative treatments, a lot of times conditions with Lymes disease. They don't recognize it as well. Here, all that type of medicines and therapies are not covered under insurance. So it's all that out of pocket expenses that take a toll on the families here.

AO: 8:30

Because I'm in the UK. I can't imagine you're want, you're waiting to find out what's wrong with your son, how you can help him. What can they do to make him better? So you've got all of that worry on your family unit, because it's not just on you, it was on your husband, your other child. And then on top of that, I know it's not about the money. It's never about the money, but on top of that, you do have a financial pressure. And actually most people, they can't afford that.

Beth: 9:11

They can't. And when the community here heard about our situation, when Mitchell was still alive, they, I had some very dear friends said, you know, we are going to start. We're gonna do a walkathon. You guys don't have to do anything. We just need to just show up and they advertise or they put it out in the paper. We had like 800 people show up people. I didn't even know doing a walkathon to help raise money to help us pay off our a hundred thousand dollars medical bill, even with good insurance on top of good insurance. And the community came together and we raised 70,000, which was amazing for us to help pay off. Put toward this medical bill, otherwise, like you said, we would've lost the house. Most families end up bankrupt. It's just the financial burden is what tears the families apart. And we have had a hundred percent success rate in keeping families together, not end in divorce or separation, cuz we know how important that family unit is. Cuz you cannot walk this walk without that and with the support of each other. So that is. How the foundation we knew we wanted to pay that forward till this day. We still hold. We now do a run walk, cuz everyone's into running. We till this day, we've just held our 13th annual. We call it our warrior spirit 5k run, walk and family festival. It's one of the most. Inspirational run walks here in the in our region that people love to come out to because they're running for such a higher purpose. And we bring out a lot of our families and children who are healthy enough to be there out on stage. And they, they just give their testimonies and just thank people for coming out and walking for Johnny or Susie. And, you know, these children are suffering. Oh, all kinds of things. So we kept the foundation non disease specific about 73%. I have cancer, but there's all types of other undiagnosed or issues with children. We, we left it that way because it's, it still affects the family unit, no matter what the diagnosis is. It's so.

AO: 11:09

In your book I'm just going to mention, there are stories and pictures of some children who have been so lucky to receive the help from the foundation. And I have to say when I was reading it. And I was looking at the pictures. It genuinely filled my heart with warmth because it was really, really lovely to actually see them, see what they looked like, see how they'd grown. It's just really heartwarming. So I'm just saying to people in the book, there are pictures and some of the stories of the children and the families, that the foundation is helping.

Beth: 11:50

Yes. And that's just a small fraction of them. And just, it's just amazing what came of the tragedy. And I think we were just obedient servants to hear God's voice. It really was a God given vision because prior to this, I was in the fashion industry. My husband was in the fitness industry and it literally, when we went through our healing and we talk about pain, I mean it pain is part of everyone's world. It's, it's, it's hard to deal with. And when you go through something as hard as this or losing a loved one, or the tragedy of what's happening around the world and pain comes, and when it comes, it violates your love and trust. So people because of human nature, the way we are we're we usually respond by either blaming shaming, controlling it, or we escape it. And that means we either pass the blame to someone else. In our case, it came to a healing session of forgiving doctors who couldn't find answers. To our son, forgiving family members who said things that they shouldn't have said, you know, all that, that gets harbored when you're dealing with pain. And that shame of just not wanting to be seen, but God doesn't want you to carry that. God does not want you to carry it all. He all, he took it to the cross for us, all controlling. It means we wanna take control over the situation in our own strength. And you just can. It just can't heal that way. And people who escape it through drugs and alcohol, it's not the healthy way to escape and numb pain. There are more fruitful ways to deal with pain.

AO: 13:35

Throughout the years, you must have asked so many times why, why did this happen to your family? I know that God is a very. Important part of your life, religion is very important to you, but did you ever feel as though he'd forsaken you and your family and Mitchell or no, you, you didn't.

Beth: 14:05

Well, you know, we have such a strong faith and we've always walked in that faith. And I knew we had people praying over us people, pastors coming to the home and laying hands on Mitchell and we're we had so much prayer. But yet we weren't getting to the root cause of Mitchell's situation. And I was always praying to God for that. And there was a time where I felt, yes, it tested our faith. No question. It was testing our marriage. It was testing our faith. It was testing everything. We're literally when we came home from the hospital, When he was in the hospital, UCLA here for 30 days, a you're so exhausted. It was at my point of my wits end. I fell to my knees, wailing, wailing, and I just felt like what the mother Mary must have felt like I was just wailing and I had to surrender my son again, giving up that control. I was like, where are you? God, why aren't you answering? Yeah, I felt as though he abandoned us, but ultimately then when I look back on it now, I know he didn't, he was providing people along the way, but when you're walking in the thick of it, and you're not seeing the answers you want right away, you know, people think, what did I do, God, did I step out of your favour? What did I do? Is none of that. That's a wrong ideology. God is always there. We just, I continue to pray. There were people all around me, praying. and I really, it came to the point I had to surrender. God was waiting for me to surrender my son and I was my husband and I were just holding on like two pit bulls, not letting go of our boy, trying to help him. And ultimately when I surrendered him, I, I couldn't do it anymore. Cuz you know, as moms, it was heartbreaking cuz we were supposed to make things better, right. For our kids. And when we couldn't make it better, I said, I can't make this better. I had to totally surrender him. And I told Mitchell even when he was with us alive and we'd sit out in the backyard, I'd see butterflies flying around. And in my heart, I said, you know, Mitchell, I said, one day is God is gonna heal you. But in my mind, I thought it was here on earth, but God had a different plan. He had to take him home to heal him. It wasn't the way we wanted it. But ultimately in the end, God had to take him home to heal him. And we talk about that in the book and just the beautiful signs and God was showing us along the way. And Mitchell speaking to us beyond the veil of heaven only with spiritual eyes. Can you see those things that are meant specifically for you to see that's the beauty of how God works?

AO: 16:48

In the book. It feels as though I know you did mention. Not wavering in your beliefs, but sometimes you were angry and I was reading it and I wondered would she have been able to have the strength to get through this? If it wasn't for your faith, did that give you the, the inner strength to embark on a new journey

Beth: 17:16

not without faith because here's the thing with faith, faith. Doesn't always take you out of the problem. Faith takes you through the problem and faith doesn't always take away the pain, but faith gives you the ability to handle. The pain and faith. Doesn't always take you out of the storm and storms and chaos of life, but faith helps calm the storm in the midst of it. So that is the beauty of having faith and faith is so important to God. He, he writes to it so many times in the Bible. It's important. It pleases God that you have faith. And I think. Because of our strong faith and he knows my character and my husband, he gave us because of his grace. He spoke those words to us that this was not the end. This is beginning. And we're gonna take your story and what Mitchell had to go through and help many literally now thousands of children and families who are suffering. So now we have been able to go in through the community. We've given back over 2.6 million dollars and counting back into the community to helping families and children who are fighting for their tomorrows. So that, like I said, I could not have done it without the faith, because if you know, we are mind, body and spirit, right. And we need to exercise all. To be of sound mind to be, like I said, the suicide rate is up so much here and people and mental illness is so outta control here with, without God you live without hope. And when you have no hope. When people, that's why they take their lives. They're helpless. They don't have nothing to look forward to. They see nothing but darkness and that's not how God wants us all to live.

AO: 19:20

Spoke to my sister-in-law, and told her that I was speaking to you because she's very religious. And I said, I don't know I had mixed emotions because I was reading your book and initially it was lovely. Are you, it was, it was lovely because you had all of these pictures of Mitchell as a child of Mitchell growing up Mitchell and his animals. And then as you went through the book, you. Well, you took me on a journey where I then saw his condition deteriorate and it was, it was very up and down. Different emotions. I started with, this is sweet. This is so lovely. And then the more you get into the book, the further along you go with you during Mitchell's journey. I thought, oh, and my sister-in-law said to me, when I explained that to her, she said, no, because no, he's now with God. And when she's no longer on earth, she will be with her son again. And her saying that. It actually gave me some comfort. So I thought to myself, after speaking to her for I'm going to ask Beth, if that gives her comfort. If that's. What gives her comfort. So. I guess I just wanted to ask, is that basically what you believe?

Beth: 21:02

Yes, it does. And you know, when why I know people have a hard time understanding of God exists. It was after his passing those signs that he was showing us. And that's so prevalent in the book about the walking stick, you know, that that's why it was named a new creation. And I don't know if I should spill the beans cause I want people to read the book and buy the book.

AO: 21:25

I did try my best. Reduce the amount that I spill the beans about the content of the book. It's just speaking to you. I couldn't help, but ask questions. But everyone. buy the book. I will leave a link to the book and. And a link to the Mitchell foundation in the show notes. So please click on those and have a look. But I do really encourage everyone to read the book. I'm going to stop ruining it for everyone now

Beth: 22:00

yes, you will have to buy it to read why it was titled a new creation. And it was just to give the, your audience. It's how Mitchell was trying so desperately to speak to us. And couldn't at the time, and this was his way to communicate with us beyond the veil of heaven. It was astonishing, astonishing, and I just, I knew in my spirit and Mitchell, would've known, I would've known what that meant. And so, and it did, it just hit me to the core and other signs of butterflies when we'd walk the beautiful nature path down here by my home and walking with the dogs and butterflies were flying all around us. And one literally just landed on my husband's right shoulder and stayed there. And I told my husband, stop. You need to stop. Be still. The butterflies were just landing and land. And then one on my finger. And it was like, Mitchell was showing me that I'm just, and whether it was God's spirit or whatnot, but I just came up in my spirit. Oh, Mitchell's free. He's free as a butterfly. And he's just landed on my husband's right shoulder where I said, honey, do you know. Realize that that was the shoulder you used to have to lift Mitchell up on and put him over your shoulder to carry him to bed all the time. And he just landed on your right shoulder. And the butterfly was just sitting there. It was astonishing. And it, again, it was for signs for us to see that God was giving us visual signs and he does this. Specifically, not just for me. He does it for everyone who walks with him. God loves everyone and he wants to speak to you and he wants to live in you. And he wants to show you the way, but you have to have spiritual eyes. To see it. And you have to open your heart to let God in. He's a gentleman. If you don't invite him in, you know, that's why people have hardened hearts, they say, so it's, it's, it's important to God that those that seek and knock the door will be open. And I will come in.

AO: 24:00

People find adversity and hardship. Difficult and I don't know. Some people believe and other people don't. I spoke to my friend recently we had a whole conversation about religion. What he believes as a Christian. And he said, God and Jesus' are love. And I looked at him and I thought, do you know what? That's actually a really nice way to put it. And it doesn't matter what anyone else believes or what I think. The fact that that's what he believes. I just thought that was lovely. But i do think people find it difficult

Beth: 24:48

oh, yes, no, not everyone is. We're all uniquely made. Right? We're all uniquely made. This was never on our radar. Obviously, when. Became a beautiful, happy couple and beautiful two children. The furthest thing from our mind that anything like this could possibly ever happen. Right. And life has a way for many of us that throws of throws us curve balls. I have to use baseball analogy. Cause my husband's and it's how do we handle the curve balls in life? It's just like in. We all have it. We can't escape it. So to me and I have to give my own personal testimony for me, it was my faith in God. And that carried us through.

AO: 25:39

I'm just going to say, when I got to the end of the book. Ultimately what I got from. I don't know who, if you. Disagree with this. I've got a lot of things from the book. But the main message. I got was. It was a story of a mother's love. A mother's love for. Her son. Unconditionally. And. It was just. It was very heartfelt.

Beth: 26:11

Yeah. You know, that's so true because even at Mitchell's funeral, I mean, we had 1500 plus people in this church. I mean, it was packed people. We never even knew I had a mother. The, it was two hours procession people wanting to come up and just meet us and tell us their condolences. I had a mother wailing in front of me crying and I'm comforting her. And she said to me, you make me wanna be a better mother. And she's wailing in front of me. And I thought, wow, wow, Lord, if you brought this woman here to meet me and change her then. Let your work be done in her because that's right. It is really about my love for my son. And it was a labor of love and my editor did a beautiful job, not taking away my voice throughout the book. And she let me express it and it was beautiful. She was also a wonderful writer. Who wrote the book? The impossible that went into a book called movie called the breakthrough another faith-based movie, but she worked really well with me because I told her this is a very tender story. And I had to be very, I wanted to get with the right person who would understand this very tender story and Bring it to life. So people say it's an easy read. There are lots of pictures after every chapter. So it's almost like a movie in a sense as you read it and it'll be a take you on a rollercoaster ride of emotions, but it's also ultimately the end, the beautiful thing that came out of it.

AO: 27:40

It is actually an easy read. You're completely right. But you're also right in the. Just so people know it will take you through various emotions. It's a lovely story. But S. It's not a story. Someone's real life. And it happened

Beth: 28:01

thank you.

AO: 28:02

no, thank you.

Beth: 28:03

Thank you for reading it. And I hope it touched your spirit

AO: 28:06

I wanted to too. Give me a better. Insight into the person that I was going to be speaking to. And i enjoyed reading the book so thank you for writing it

Beth: 28:20

yes. So people can get the book online, wherever books are stole Amazon, wherever, or you can go to my website@newcreation.org, and I can personally sign you a copy and mail it to you. But other than that, anywhere where books are sold right now, it just got released really the end of June worldwide. And so here we are, I'm on this book tour and been. Doing book signings now here in the states and getting it out there to the world. So thank you for sharing it. Thank you.

AO: 28:51

No, thank you.

Beth: 28:53

Thank you. Have a blessed day.

AO: 28:55

you too.

Beth: 28:56

Bye.

AO: 28:57

Thank you for listening to another episode of ChatAholic. Thank you so much for listening to Beth's story and her journey. I'm going to put the links said this during the show, but I'm going to put the links to Beth's book, a new creation and Beth's social media links also. And the website for the foundation. Mitchell's foundation. And depending on where you are, you can, I got a copy from Amazon. So you can get a copy from Amazon. Directly on your Kindle. If you have a Kindle. Because Amazon apparently is still doing Kindles. And Kindle books. Because reading is important. Anyhoo thank you. And please join me on my next episode. I'm going to be speaking to a really good friend of mine called Steve and we're going to be, well, I'm not going to be saying anything. Steve is, I probably will say something because I can't help myself. But Steve will be discussing in a nutshell his childhood and i guess that's it