Hello, Hope Unlock listeners. Did you know I offer coaching? New Wings Coaching empowers women to rise up with new wings in their calling, communication, and connections through coaching, courses, and community. To hear more, please email me at Kristen, K-R-I-S-T-I-N, Kurtz, K-U-R-T-Z, at new N E W Wings, W-I-N-G-S, Coaching, C-O-A-C-H-I-N-G. And mention Hope Unlock to hear more about the discounted rate just for my Hope Unlock listeners. I also have a Facebook group called Women of Wonder Warriors Arise. Just check out the show notes for the link to access the group. And you can also access the show notes for my email address as well. Enjoy today's show. Welcome to the Hope Unlocked Podcast. I'm Kristen Kurtz, your host. I pray this episode is like a holy IV of hope for your soul. Please help me welcome Lori Ann Wood to the show. I connected with her through social media, which is a beautiful place to be. I know some people, you know, that have some adversions to social media, but it's been such a beautiful place to be connected to so many women around the world. And I would just love for you to just share a little bit about yourself and maybe how you came to even want to be on this podcast.
SPEAKER_02Oh Kristen, thank you for having me. It's I love what you're doing. I love the idea of just sharing stories because I think that is what, you know, that's kind of this cord that we form when we all tell our little strands of the story. It just forms this cord that really tethers us to our faith in a way that because otherwise we're just all sprawling around here by ourselves. So I love the idea. And like you said about social media, if you can find your people there, it can be a really uh blessed place to find people that you know that will stretch you and that will help you. So I am a I'm an empty nest mom. I have three grown adult children, and I just became a grandma in the last year. So that's a new thing for me. Um I, as you mentioned, I have a book that came out this year called Divine Detour. And it is, it's not something kind of like with your podcast, it's something I never really set out to do. I had taught business classes for at the college level for 20 something years. And I was at the end of my child rearing at home years. I still had one at home, and I just wasn't feeling well one day. And actually, it was one week. I it was one, it was Thanksgiving week. So I was doing all the mama things, you know, that we do, trying to get ready for the holiday. And I had kids coming home from college and I had still at home, and I just was kind of dragging. I was doing everything, but I just knew I wasn't, I wasn't right. And I put off going to the doctor and finally went on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and it was my family doctor who had delivered my babies and done all the things for me all the years. And he listened to my heart with a stethoscope, and he uh he sat back in his chair and he said, We're gonna get a chest x-ray, and if we're lucky, it's pneumonia. And I had no idea what how I would how many times I would reflect back on his statement. But we went down to the the x-ray lab, and what we found there was that I had a very enlarged heart and it was functioning at just six percent that day when I walked into his office. But I had no idea. I had no risk factors, I had no family history, I had low cholesterol, low blood pressure. I I was just so healthy. If I have listed all the things, like these are all the things I'm worried about ever happening to me in my lifetime, I don't think heart disease would have even been on the list. And and yet there I was. He direct admitted me into cardiac ICU and I stayed there for two weeks. And they didn't think I would leave the hospital. I was not allowed to take a shower, I was not allowed to get out of bed. I had defibrillator pads stuck to my chest and a crash cart right outside my door. And, you know, nurses that I'd never met would come in and tear up and leave. And it was just a surreal experience because I didn't feel that bad. And it kind of became uh apparent to us at some point in there that it was very serious. They started uh that well, they did let me go. Obviously, I did leave the hospital. And when I did, I had this life vest, which is an external defibrillator that you wear. And I I wore that for nine months, and I took and still take very high-powered medication. I was flown to uh Cleveland Clinic during that time, and I became my doctor's most critical patient there for a year and a half. But I went for about a year and a half and just kind of held on, and it was a miracle in itself that I was alive, but I just all the prayers were being offered. I had prayer chains and so much spiritual intervention, and I had been anointed at church and all the things we knew to do spiritually and physically, and yet nothing was happening. I wasn't getting any better. And so a strange thing happened about a year and a half. It was actually to the day, a a year, 16 months to the day that I got my diagnosis of heart failure. I came down with appendicitis. And I I remember going in thinking it was like a side effect of one of the medications I was taking, because I was taking a lot of medication. And they said, you need your appendix out, but no one, we don't know anyone that will do surgery on you with such a weak heart. And so they did an echocardiogram, which is how they measure the function of your heart. And at that point, instead of it reading at six percent, it was reading it near normal. And I I just I remember I kind of remember being wheeled into surgery, you know. I was getting my appendix out and going in for this routine surgery, and what I was thinking about at the time was I just got my life back. You know, I get the story. The story is a story of divine healing and answered prayer and God's provision. And I was ready to tell that story, and I did tell that story for a while, and then about three years ago, almost as out of the blue as it did the first time, my heart function dropped, and I found myself in active heart failure again. And since that time, I have dropped two more times in heart function. And what I have learned from a medical perspective is that heart failure is a chronic progressive disease. You know, for for most people, uh, through medications and devices and lifestyle changes, you can manage the symptoms. And for some people, those interventions can help slow the progression, but it ultimately only goes in one direction. And so as I'm processing that, that was, you know, a story in itself, but the real story and the part that I shared in the book is about what happened to my faith during that time. Because it was kind of a roller coaster with you know the physical part and and then with the spiritual part right along with it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, tell us a little bit more about so when was this first episode? When did that when did you hear about the six percent? Like how long ago was it?
SPEAKER_02That was in Thanksgiving week of 2015. And so it's you know, been about eight years ago now. And um I I for a long time, they don't know what caused my heart failure. It's I've been tested genetic, you know, gone through all of that in studies, and they have not found a genetic marker for that. Um, I like I said, I didn't have any lifestyle factors. Uh, so they suspect that it was probably a virus, uh, which in a very pre-COVID world, that was weird to say that a virus could harm your heart to that extent. And so that's that's their best guess. And they said it probably, you know, we probably won't ever know what happened exactly to my heart. And it won't really matter because they treat it the same either way. But I look back at that, I think, you know, boy, that hit me out of the blue. I didn't see that coming. But there were some sneaky symptoms that came in for many years ahead of that diagnosis that I just didn't recognize. Wow.
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, if you could tell us a little bit more about, you know, your faith during this time and even and now, you know, because obviously having this, you know, diagnosis, I can't imagine um, you know, being a mama and a grandma, and you know, just kind of tell us a little bit more about your journey and and even seeing him in the details as you're you know walking this out.
SPEAKER_02I I you know, I struggled at the beginning, to be honest with you, because I have been a Christian all my life. I my mother, I was raised by a mother that knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was real and he was active and working in her life. And then I married a man and he has the same spiritual DNA. He just knows that he knows that he knows. And so when I got this diagnosis and went through this prolonged period where I was having trouble praying, and the people that were praying on my behalf weren't getting any results, I came up with some questions and they they felt a little bit like I was uh, you know, straying away from my faith or that I was being kind of a fraud. And I was a little bit embarrassed to have those questions because, you know, we we raised our children in the church. We had been on uh summer mission trips teaching adult classes for 10 years in a row preceding my diagnosis. And we were just very active and a part of the local church, and I came up against some really basic questions and didn't really know what to do with them because I I wanted to, you know, I wanted to feel close to God, but I felt this distance and this, you know, this valley opening up between us. And part of that is because I I was kind of trying to protect God. I was trying to say, you know, I don't know what's gonna happen if this doesn't turn out well. And I don't know what that's gonna say about God. I don't know what that's gonna do to everyone else's faith that's praying for me. And I felt this responsibility. And so I sort of put my faith on a shelf and said, you know, it's kind of fragile. I'll I'll get back to it when my life comes back together. And that was the wrong thing to do. And I only did that for, you know, I did that for several months, but I finally did decide to go ahead and embrace those questions and wrestle them. And what I learned during that time really strengthened my faith, I think, in a way that, you know, just maybe avoiding the questions or maybe even not going through heart failure, I would not have at this point in my life come to faith in this way.
SPEAKER_00Well would you be open to sharing maybe at least one of the questions that you had? Because I'm I'm guessing there's some gals out here who are listening that have maybe had some of those questions and you know, maybe have shame or guilt or you know, what have you, those, you know, that lie that comes for people who have those honest questions. Would you be open to that? Sure.
SPEAKER_02You know, when you say that, it reminds me I started uh writing a little bit on my blog about these questions and had people reach out and say, you know, I started following you because I was worried about your health, but you know, you're writing about these faith questions now, and I don't have heart failure. I don't I don't even have any medical issue, but I, you know, have an estranged adult child, or um, I had a miscarriage, or I lost my job, and I'm on this detour. It's not the faith or the health detour that you're on, but it's a different detour, and I have the same questions. And so I knew then that those questions that I was asking were kind of universal, you know, they they apply to, I think they apply to everybody all the time, and and we have them in the back of our mind, but when we get pushed off on this detour, and like I said, mine was you know a health detour, but everyone has a detour of their own. And when they get off on that road they don't want to be on, and it's kind of bumpy and out of the way, and it's not very efficient. We those questions that we have in the back of our mind, they demand to be answered or at least examined. And so the questions that I had fell into these three overarching life questions. And those are the first one is a it's called what I call in the book a question of worry. It's is this life all there is? You know, is this is this it? Should I, you know, how do I handle loss and uncertainty and regret? Is this it? Um, and in the book, I examine that through 13 different essays in different ways about through my life how I have looked at uh that question, is this life all there is? And and then the second uh major grouping of questions is a question of doubt. And it's when we ask, is God always good? And we look at things like you know, resilience and vulnerability, and that one, I think if you were to Google faith questions, that one's gonna come up almost every time near the top. Is God always good? Because how can God all be good all the time when all these terrible things are happening to other people and to me? And so we really in the book dig into how that can play out and how we can still have faith and even a stronger faith in this world that's still broken. And then the third question is a question of control. And this might be the one that I struggled with most because you know, when you get off on a detour, if you've ever been driving somewhere and had a plan, you know, it mapped into your phone, and you get off on this detour, there's this distinctive loss of control. You you know, you're not in control of the plan anymore. And so I examined that in the last section of the book, and that was probably my most vulnerable part of the book because I just struggle with that because you know I like things to be the way they're supposed to be, and I like to fix them, and um it was tough to swallow. But the I think kind of the cool thing about those three questions is that after I had grouped them and people were validating and saying, Yeah, those are the three questions that keep popping up in my mind. I was uh I was in a a Bible study, and there was in the account of uh Jesus in the desert, uh, right before he began his public ministry. I've seen there a couple of times, but the this one in particular was in Matthew. And I realized that, you know, we call those the three temptations, but any temptation that we have is sort of uh an internal question that we ask ourselves like, should I do this? Is it worth it? What would happen if I did? And those questions or temptations that Jesus had were these same three questions that I had identified on my detour. And, you know, I was thinking about Jesus at that moment. He was ready to begin his public ministry. He he, I'm sure, you know, could see a plan where he would go and do all these things and probably didn't um the human part of him didn't understand why he was being diverted into the desert. And so he was on this little detour of his own. And so it started to make sense for me. And that's that's what I've been leaning into is is to really embrace those questions and um make them use them to strengthen your faith and use them to get closer to God. Because I I ran up against them and thought, ugh, this is messy, it feels hard. And so I just kind of went silent with God. And I think that's the point where a lot of people walk away from their faith entirely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So as you're, you know, as you're journeying, you know, kind of paralleling to the wilderness season, right? Um, what were some of the the tangible things that you did to press in to these questions? Um, obviously, I'm imagining part of that was writing. Um you have that authority. Um, but what were maybe some other things that, you know, maybe some gals that are listening and they're like, well, I don't know what to do with these questions. Like I am struggling. Um, people are praying over me. I'm just not seeing the fruit of, you know, even praying or pressing on. Um, you know, I've had moments like that too, as well. Even just this last weekend when I was coming home, just speaking of the GPS, I was in the boonies in the woods, and my my GPS just shut off because I didn't have any data or Wi-Fi. I was like, I have no idea where I'm going. But um he can always get us back on track. He always does, right? And uh yeah, I would just love to hear a little bit, maybe a little bit deeper part of that journey, if you'd be open to sharing with us. I know your book, I'm sure, goes way deep, but you know, if anything comes to mind that I'm always thinking about that woman who's sitting here listening right now, and she's like, Yeah, that worked for her, but what about me?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, it's a hard place to be. And I think sometimes when we're longtime believers, we think we should have it all figured out and we think we should have all of these sort of safety nets in place. And then when we don't and we don't feel that, it's it's kind of disorienting. And and I think, you know, Satan gets in there and says, see, you know, I told you. And and that's the time when we really need to press in. But one of the things, probably, if I were to just isolate one big idea, it would be that there was that, you know, that initial period of time when I left the hospital after the first hospital stay. And you know, I would go back in every week to see my cardiologist, and he would say things like, You just keep on living. And what he meant was, I can't believe you're still here, but go, girl. And I it's kind of a weird place to be. And I thought, I don't know what's happening. And I I really cut God off. I really had this silent period in my faith where I just didn't talk to him. I just was like, I'm gonna lean into the doing what I can from a physical standpoint and a medical standpoint, and I don't know what to do with God at this point. And so what I ended up uh doing kind of by accident is Borrowing words from other people. And I think that's a key idea if you are in a time where it's just hard. You know, it's hard to uh believe, it's hard to find God. Sometimes you have to borrow words from other people in the short term. And we don't want to do this forever and live on this, but it can be a tether to holding on to your faith. And the ways that you can do that are there's so many ways. You can, you know, podcasts like this, where you're listening to other people share about their experience as a believer, is a great way to borrow words from other people. Um, reading books and blogs and articles from trusted Christian writers is a great way to do it. Um, you know, we do that. And I I at first I was doing that and feeling a little bit guilty about just not going straight to scripture, but my experience was that when you're really, really, really hurting, sometimes scripture can feel just too rich and too pointed. And sometimes we need to ease back into it. And that's what I did. You know, we we definitely want to get back into it on our own, but sometimes we just feel it just feels hard. And we can put it down and never pick it back up again, and we need a bridge. And and then the last way I think to borrow words is uh maybe one you wouldn't expect. But when I was at some of my lowest points, I can remember, you know, driving home from a doctor's appointment, getting really bad news and being at a stop sign and just, you know, a stoplight and just banging on the steering wheel and saying, I don't get it. I don't hear you, I don't know if you're there. And at that time, uh, I always have my radio turned to the contemporary Christian station that's local here. And I remember uh, you know, songs coming through at my most difficult times because they were saying things that I didn't even know I was feeling. And so I was borrowing their words to still stay connected to God, even though I was in that really, really dark place and it was hard. So I think to give yourself grace in that time when it's hard and borrow words from other people and just find a tether, just find some sort of lifeline, you know, whatever works in in your life, in your situation, to just stay connected to God because that's what he wants more than anything.
SPEAKER_00So good. I was gonna add, you know, worship music as one. If you didn't, I had a you were gonna say that. That's definitely been an anchor for me as well, you know, just even waking up in the morning and he'll he'll put a song in my heart in some of the hardest times that I've walked through. Um, you know, just periodically through these last 20 months that I've been walking through, um, you know, kind of leaving Egypt through the wilderness. And I know promised land's on the way. But there's been those moments where, you know, it's been definitely borrowed words. And I love how you even said that borrowed words, like that's very easy to remember. And it's like even just writing down different things that maybe somebody says to you, like in their prayer, like maybe somebody sends you a voice message with a prayer, and I've done that before where I've even recorded, like screen recorded on my phone and then tucked it away to be able to go back and listen to because when somebody else, it's almost like triage, right? So there's you have friends that are maybe, you know, they're they're in the promised land, and I'm I'm just using this as an example, but they're in the promised land, right? They're they've already like they're they're stable, and you're really needing triage, and to have those friends in your life that you trust and that you can go to and say, I don't know what's going on, not Job's friends, because Job's friends were a little hard to find. But to have even, you know, one or two trusted friends for sure. And if you don't have that, um, you know, I'm we'll we'll be praying over that for you because um at times it can be hard to stay connected to other people when you're in these moments because the enemy wants us to be isolated, right? Did you feel any of that? Like this draw of like trying to isolate you more than, or did you have more of a draw to like lean in to people?
SPEAKER_02How was that? You know, I yeah, it it's hard. It was uh you know, I talked about not getting any answer to prayer for you know a year and a half, and I I there was a time where I was like, I don't want to go to church because I don't want to bring up to everybody, oh yeah, we've been praying and nothing's happening, or she's getting worse and our prayers aren't working. And I felt like I need to be protecting their faith a little bit. And so I it was it there was a time where you it I did pull in and I I wanted to just you know hunker down and wait until the problem went away. But what you know, what I found was you know, when you have this community that surrounds you, they're pouring into you. And even when you don't have anything to give back at that moment, you don't have anything, they're still pouring into you because I had a, you know, one of my things that I kept from those early days was a framed prayer chain where people were praying for me around the clock. I have the time that they prayed and their name, and I still have it. And, you know, if you're the person praying, you're thinking it's not a big deal. You know, I have an alarm on my phone and it says pray for Lori, and I do. And but to look at that all together and to know that people were praying for me like that was just huge to me. And it it's it told me that if they believe that much, then I need to hang in there. Their belief, you know, I I could feel that they were believing and I could too. And so, you know, there was a story I have to tell you. There was an older lady who had a child that lived overseas, and she said, uh, you know, he doesn't call very often. And he called me the other day, and it was hard because of the time difference, and so they had a lot of trouble connecting. And she saw his number come up on her phone, and she said, I didn't answer it because I had committed to pray for you at that time, and I wasn't gonna break that commitment for anything. I just I remember her telling me that, and I got really choked up because I thought, I don't know if I would be that committed, but she is so committed and so all in on this that it helps me. And so I think we can when you're not in the hard place and you're one of the people that are providing that community. Sometimes it's easy to think that little piece doesn't matter, but it matters so much. And taken all together, it it can just, you know, weave this safety net that you just don't see when it's just a single person.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, I mean, just even going back to that safety net, you didn't feel like he was even providing you a safety net, but you had community that was, in essence, coming around you and um just loving on you. And I just love how you still hang on to that. Is there, I'm just curious, and this is kind of a side question, was there like a program or a website or something that your community used to create this prayer chain? Or was it like, do you know what I'm saying? Was it just uh people emailing you? What did that look like? Because that might be something that somebody might want to utilize even with their church.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've been a part of some of those where you know, you have like a sign-up genius or uh some of those that are online. It's you know, if you've ever volunteered for to bring a meal or you know, soccer snacks or whatever, you can use that for prayer chains as well. But the one that I had was just completely old school. It was just a friend of mine who uh, you know, shoulder tapped enough people, and then those people would shoulder tap someone else. And so it just kind of got to be this group of people that knew me. And uh, my friend just typed out on a sheet of paper, this is who we're praying for, and this is the time, you know, this is who's praying for you, and this is the time that they're praying. And she just left it to them to be responsible enough, you know, to pray at that time. But it was just as simple as, you know, calling a few people and saying, Will you pray? What time would you like to pray? And will you ask a few more people and let me know what time they want to pray? And so it, you know, it can be, I think, as um techy or as simple as you want it to be. But um, you know, it the funny thing is, is that I'm like this on stuff I said on my phone. I forget to take it off, but I still have people, and especially since my heart failure's taking a dip um recently, I still have people that will send me a screenshot of their phone that says pray for Lori, because the reminder pops up for them after, you know, eight years. And so that's incredible when you think about it, because they are they're still doing it.
SPEAKER_00Oh gosh. You have such a beautiful community. I mean, yeah, it's incredible. So as you're as you're walking this out now, um, can you just tell us a little bit more? You know, you can look back to the start of this journey and um like what does your faith look like now? What is what does your hope look like now? You know, the the podcast is called Hope Unlocked. And what what keys might you want to share um with us that you're you know using for your journey today as you keep moving forward in your vehicle?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think one of the things is that I one of the major things is that I spent a lot of time trying to write my route and trying to get back off the G tour. And I spent a lot of days and hours and um energy trying to figure out how I can get back on that road that I used to be on, that main road. And I went off this D tour. And it hit me, you know, several years into this, that I think the D tour is the main route now. And the thing is that God had something more for me than this predictable life that I had planned for myself that I couldn't have known about. You know, I mentioned that I had taught college courses for many years. And after I got heart failure, I I couldn't stand up and you know do a two or three hour lecture. I just didn't have the energy or the breath support. And so I I found though that I could type, sit down, and I could type all day long. And so I started writing, and it eventually became this book that I never would have taken the time to do in a safer, healthier life. And I I look back on, you know, there's a lot of doors that have been closed on this detour, and that's what happens on detours. You get doors that close. And we all have some that we can identify in our own lives, but those doors they test your faith, but they also help give us focus about, you know, what what we should be doing and you know what's best for us to be doing. So, you know, God can shut some doors in your life for protection or redirection. And He is trying to eliminate distractions and trying to hone you. And and I've really leaned into that idea because I fought it for a long time. I thought my main goal in life is to get back to that road that I was on before. And realizing that those closed doors were closed for a reason has really helped me, you know, look for new opportunities and look for new, you know, things that God wants me to be involved in at this point.
SPEAKER_00Well, it sounds like you're on the free way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I was thinking about that as I was traveling home actually this this weekend. I'm like, I'm on the free way. Yeah, that's good. You know, the roads that we travel on, um the detours, the the U-turns, the um all the little adventures, like I like to call them adventures, like wild adventures with God, because some of these things like we couldn't make this up. And um, as you continue to pour out, you know, the words that you know other people gave you words to cling to, now you're giving words that others can cling to because of your journey. And um remind is this your first book? Is this the first one?
SPEAKER_02Yes, it is. It is my first book, and um it was you know a culmination of so many things that I never thought would would happen. And I think that's kind of the beauty of it, is it's it's just been this thing that I've just been uh blessed to be, you know, stewarding through all the channels, but it has has taken on its own life, and it's it's great to see that because in those hard times when you know when I wasn't even talking to God, when you know, it was hard, hard months, and I I couldn't have foreseen that anything would ever come out of this other than a physical healing. And when I didn't get that, I thought for sure, you know, this is this is a bad ending to this story. And I think sometimes we limit God to what he can do with a story because we have this one way that we think it should end.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that that is like a whole word right there. My goodness. So just if you wouldn't mind, just you know, for anybody who's maybe has a story in them, they feel like they're called to write. Um, just in a in a quick snippet, like how did how did you go about even getting into that process? Like, where did you maybe testify a little bit to how that all came to be? Did you think you would have to write a book? Like was it in like when you were you know 20 as a child? Anything going back that you could look at and say, Yeah, I actually think I wanted to write a book when I was younger.
SPEAKER_02Right. You know, I it's funny, and I think a lot of people can say this that I did felt like I had a book inside me, but I didn't think I was an expert at anything. And I can remember, you know, looking through the years, I think, oh, I wonder if I should write a book about uh how to throw children's birthday parties or how to vacation on the cheap, or you know, what am I an expert at? And so I never wrote anything other than, you know, I I enjoyed writing smaller things, and it was just always something that was a little bit a part of who I was, but never did anything too much about it. And um, because I was waiting to be an expert. And I think sometimes we do that. We think, uh, I'm gonna wait until I have the answers to write a book. And what this book I think proved is that you don't have to have the answers, you you need to lean into your own experience and your own, you know, journey, and and God will do with it what he wants to, because the way physically that this happened is I a friend of mine dropped a notebook by my ICU room when I was first in the hospital. And I think she meant for me to write down, you know, like doctor's instructions or notes for the children who are at home, or you know, a number of things like that. And what I ended up doing was in in the middle of the night when they would come in and you know, take my vitals and all the things that they were doing, and they would wake me up, I would be back thinking and frustrated. And I started to write in that notebook all these questions to God about why this is happening, what's going on, are you gonna fix this? And I just started pouring out sort of some angsty stuff, honestly. And I thought at that time that um I'll just throw that away or I'll burn that. But it's you know, it feels good at the time. And we got out of the hospital, and my husband, we were watching all of this take place. And you know, I at first they gave me, they said, go home and you know, a few you might have a few weeks, and then they said six months, and then they said maybe you'll live five years. And at some point in there, my husband said, We need to be writing this down. And he said, Are you writing all this down? And I said, I'm not. I said, because I don't want to relive this, I want this to resolve and go on. And so he kept after me to write stuff down, write it down, write it down. And so I started writing it down. And that's when I just started, you know, blogging a little bit about my health. And then when that stalled out, I started writing about these faith questions and writing articles when I could and reaching out to other people who were writing in the similar space, and um it just kind of grew from there, but it was something that uh you know I couldn't have when I started writing it. I didn't, I really never expected to revisit it. And I I ended up using uh a little bit of it in the book, and each essay I relayed it back to part of my heart failure story through a journal entry that I made at the time. And um that you know, I didn't want the whole book to be really that raw, but it was helpful, I think, in the book to have those little pieces that were showing that deep emotion at the time.
SPEAKER_00Wow, that is that's a whole key for somebody, it even for me too. Like you're you're speaking to me as well. So thank you. Yeah. Because he's calling, I know he's calling many of us to do like I was saying to you before we started, is I just feel like a lot of us are in kind of a year of the stretch, like where he's calling us to do things that maybe don't feel like something we would plan to do. Yeah, for for myself, using my voice in different ways, you know, putting this podcast out there, like um writing. I know eventually I have a book in me. I know a lot of women have books in them, but they just don't, they don't even know to where to start, they don't feel equipped, they don't feel like it's like you said, it's not ready, it's not perfect. All those lines that come. And I I really believe what you're sharing here, and just the fact that your husband, you know, came alongside you and was like spurring you on, kind of as a like a book midwife in a way. Yeah, yeah. You know, keep keep writing, keep writing. Um, so it's it's so beautiful to have those people in your corner that just remind you of like almost that like what did God call you to do, right? What is it to do? So gosh, thank you so much. Is there anything else that you would want to just impart to the women here listening today? Um, and then would you be open to just praying over them as well?
SPEAKER_02Sure. Yeah. I if anyone's interested and they're in that hard place where they're not, you know, they don't feel like they can talk to God and they're sort of giving him the silent treatment. I took all the experience and um angsty time and digging around that I did, and I made a there's a I have a PDF that I'd love to give anyone that would if it would help anyone in a hard time. And they can anyone can download that free um from my website, and that's laurannewood.com slash hope. It's called Five Prayers and Promises When You Can't Talk to God. So I just I'd love to share that with anybody where they find themselves in that time because I so get it that it's hard and you just need to cling and you just need to find that way to stay stay connected.
SPEAKER_00And I'll put that link in the show notes as well for um easy access for our listeners today, too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Would you be open to praying over the gals today as well?
SPEAKER_02Sure. I'd love to. Father God, thank you so much for words that can speak into our hearts, even when our hearts are broken and they seem almost beyond repair. We thank you that you find a way to uh keep pursuing us as you have done throughout history, Lord. And we just we just thank you so much for uh your nature in doing that. And we thank you that there are people listening who have stories to share, who have uh hard things that they've been through. And and I just ask, Lord, that that one person who we can reach in our own way, whatever that way is, that you would make them known to us and use us as an avenue of hope, use us as an avenue of uh spiritual survival, Lord. You know how hard life can get in this world, and we just uh need each other. We need to share hope, we need to find ways to cultivate it. And we thank you for all you've done and for mostly for your son and for sending him and in him we have ultimate hope. And we ask it through Jesus' name, amen.
SPEAKER_00Amen. Thank you, sweetie. And Lori, so just generously has offered to give a copy of her audiobook. Um, so what we're gonna do is have if you are seeing this on Instagram, if you're seeing this on Facebook, uh leave a comment. Um, you can also leave a comment on um, like I have a my Facebook group. You can leave a comment if you heard in my Facebook group. And then I will be picking a winner randomly, and I will reach out to you and let you know, and then Lori will contact you to get you that um copy of the audiobook. So thank you to her for uh providing Divine Detour to a winner, but honestly, like just get a copy of the book anyways, because the paperback is out now, and um the audiobook will be great for you to you can get both, right? Yeah, why not? Um but again, I believe this is definitely I'm gonna get the book for sure. Um, but one that's one you're just gonna want to hold on to. I I can already see that, and then just spread spread the message here. If you know somebody who needs to hear this today, um feel free to pass it on. Okay. Um, so thank you, Lori, again. Um, as I like to say, the reason part of the reason the tagline for this podcast is that brave voices set others free. And I believe that you are doing that today. And I'm going to close with our anchoring verse. It is, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. And that's Romans 15, 13. So thank you so much for being on today. And um, anything that just mentioned here will be in the show notes, ways you can contact Loranne, and um, I'll be back next week. Thanks for being on today. Thanks, Kristen.