Parenting Isn’t Hard, It’s “My Son Thinks Teslas Fly” Hard with Jenn Orenstein

We walk with Jenn through the decade-long journey of parenting a son in prison, the toll it took on her faith and marriage, and the gritty, practical work of preparing for his return home. Honest, tender, and useful, this conversation turns pain into a roadmap for others.

• borrowing faith from community during crisis
• marriage strain and choosing openness
• “get your house in order” as a guiding practice
• therapy, forgiveness and preparing a healed home
• reentry realities from tech shock to daily autonomy
• brothers, lost years and starting from here
• writing a practical guide for families
• launching Rise and Ascend to walk with others
• trust over understanding as a daily choice

To learn more about The Rise and Ascend Foundation and the Family Guide to Reintegration email Mike Orenstein at mikeo@riseandascend.org.

Shoreline Church | Austin, TX
Their support helps make this happen. If you're looking for a church, they might be the one for you!

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Transcript

Framing A Hard Conversation

Piet Van Waarde 0:00

Hello, friends. My name is Pete Van Ward. I'm your host for Sidewalk Conversations, and I am so glad that you've joined us again. I am thrilled with a guest that we've had before. She is a pod favorite, and so I'm I'm looking forward to introducing her to you. But before I do, I just want to like introduce our conversation by saying that parenting is a challenge. Like, I know we all know that, especially if you are a parent. But uh one of the statements I've heard is that when your kids are doing great, there's no greater joy. But when your kids are struggling, the parents feel it as deeply. And today we're just going to have an honest conversation with my guest about the harder side of parenting. And my hope is that as she tells her story and talks about what she and her husband walked through and how they walked through it, that you might hear the voice of the Spirit through this conversation. That if you find yourself in a similar place where you're struggling or where you're going through a hard season, I just want you to know that we've been praying as we go into this conversation that God would use it for good. Because I can tell you, there's probably a part of my guest's heart that doesn't want to have this conversation. It's hard. She even pulled out a Kleenex and says, I think I may cry. So I'm very grateful for her willingness to go all the way there. And I think you will very much appreciate it too. So let's dive in. The church that I attend presently and where I had an opportunity to serve on staff, they've been very generous with the foundation, and the foundation supports this podcast. And so every month they make a contribution. And if you are looking for a church in the Austin area, or if you are actually looking for a church and you do that online, I would encourage you to check out shoreline.org. They are uh a great church, they have a uh plenty of ministries, it's a larger church, so they have all kinds of opportunities. And I I say thank you to them. And if that's something that you need in your life right now, I'd encourage you to check it out. All right, so now let me introduce you to my guest, Jen Orstein. Hi. Yeah, we were talking before we got on. This was like, this is your third or fourth time?

SPEAKER_01 2:45

I think this is three.

Piet Van Waarde 2:46

Yeah, so thank you for coming back again. It's always a very insightful conversation.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

I'm so thrilled to be here.

Piet Van Waarde 2:55

Jen is also my uh executive assistant with the foundation work. And uh, if you happen to pick up our newsletter that we've been doing together, she is always on the uh one of the articles features on that uh newsletter. So thank you for all the work we get to do together.

The Day Everything Fell Apart

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Yes, so much fun. I love getting to do it with you. So yes. Yes.

Piet Van Waarde 3:16

All right, so we're going to be diving into a um uh let's just say a challenging topic. You know, as I said in the introduction, when when your kids are doing great, there's no greater joy. But when your kids are struggling, that's that's really hard to watch. And there are all kinds of questions that um kind of come up in your own mind, like what did we do? You know, like all that.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Yeah.

Piet Van Waarde 3:42

And uh and so we're gonna talk about your son who uh was incarcerated, has been incarcerated for how long now?

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Uh just shy of 10 years.

Piet Van Waarde 3:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Yeah.

Piet Van Waarde 3:54

And so, you know, I'm trying to imagine there can be no greater heartache than having to, you know, walk through that experience. And he's getting ready to come home.

SPEAKER_03 4:04

He is. Oh my goodness.

Piet Van Waarde 4:08

So there's uh there's some joy and some some challenge with that too, of course. But I I I want to just ask, first of all, just a like a broader question. How have you done with all this? Like how how has God met you in this? How like just wherever you want to take that question? How what has been your your way of survival, let's say, through this season?

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Yeah. So as I was sort of preparing to talk today, you know, looking back now, 10 years down the road, it's it's so much easier now to put purpose to the story, but there was genuine heartache and struggle at the beginning.

Piet Van Waarde 4:53

I can only imagine.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Yeah, yeah. So I my intention is not to over-spiritualize it today, because it's easy now, easier now to do that looking back. But um, when all of this initially happened almost 10 years ago, it genuinely felt like our our life had been burned to the ground.

SPEAKER_03 5:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

You know, and we were living a thriving, happy life. And suddenly it just felt like wasteland. Like everything just it was devastating at a level that I think only very few things in life can be.

Piet Van Waarde 5:25

Right. Yeah.

Borrowing Faith From Community

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Um, just like universally devastating, career-wise, fan family-wise, uh, financially. Um, it was just the impact of it was it was wild. It was wild. So when you use the word survival, it very much felt like that. Yeah. At the beginning, this like true like gritty, like clawing to survive. I remember feeling that way at the beginning. And um how we got through it, I mean, I could probably talk about just that for quite some time, but the I think there were a couple key components that sort of saved us.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Um, one was community. We were already plugged in and deeply connected to uh obviously family, extended family, but also in within the church body. Um, we were just we just had this amazing community that surrounded us and came around us. And and you know, there were some that walked away too. Yeah. And I think that's real.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Um, you know, um, but there were there were precious friends that stayed by our side. And in that season we were hopeless. Um, it was a faith crisis like I've probably never experienced.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Not in that God doesn't exist, but I don't trust him now.

SPEAKER_03 6:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

I he's not who I thought he was, right? Kind of a feeling.

SPEAKER_03 6:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

But we were surrounded by people who had all of the hope and all of the faith. And we literally just borrowed that from people. We just, you know, they just spoke faith and hope over us. And when we didn't have any, they gave us all they had.

Piet Van Waarde 7:11

You know, we we always make that statement about community that you need to develop it when the need isn't great.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Yes.

Piet Van Waarde 7:19

So that when it is, you have it.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

So true.

Piet Van Waarde 7:22

When when when it's like when your life crashes and you don't have community, you don't have the energy to give yourself to reaching out to people.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Right.

Piet Van Waarde 7:34

It's it's gotta be present already, or you're not gonna have it when you need it most.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Right.

Piet Van Waarde 7:40

And I, you know, I feel like if there's a message right off the start, it's like, you know, um we we say it in church a lot, and it sounds so cliche, and it's like, you know, we need one another and we bear one another's all the you know, all the things. But it really is so vital because everybody has one of these at some point in their life. It may not be you know what you walk through, yeah, but it could be cancer, it could be a financial disaster, it you know, it could be a loss of a loved one. I mean, just all the things. And so, yeah, thank you for, you know, again, expressing how important that is in the context of of life.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Yeah, it was truly invaluable to us in that season. I don't know that we would have made it. The very, very first thing we did when he was arrested was call on our community. And um, and they, you know, there's not a lot. It's not even like they come to the table with this vast well of wisdom or anything.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

But just presence.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Just to sit there in the shock and the grief and just be near.

Piet Van Waarde 8:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Gosh, that was priceless.

Piet Van Waarde 8:51

I imagine.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Yeah, it was everything. It was everything.

Marriage Under Extreme Strain

Piet Van Waarde 8:54

Now when and you may have other things, but we'll we'll come back to this question because I'm I'm thinking this is pretty closely related. Um, when when I've read statistics about like what happens in marriage when one of the kids have an experience like what your son did, that it it not only takes a toll on you individually, but as a couple, it's just brutal. And and a lot of times marriages don't make it.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Yeah.

Piet Van Waarde 9:20

So were there some things strategically that you guys did to kind of hold you together in the midst of all that?

SPEAKER_01 9:27

I can't say that we were super strategic about it, honestly, but what I can say is that um Mike, my husband, made some very clear decisions right at the start that were um crucial in the way that we navigated the next almost 10 years of our life. Um, I wanted to crawl in a hole, to be honest, and never come out. I didn't want to talk about what we were going through. I honestly um there's so much, it's so taboo, right? Yeah. Like there's so much surrounding Especially Christian community, right? Right. Having a child incarcerated and in all of the circumstances surrounding this particular situation that were just really um difficult to talk openly about. But Mike said from the start, this is something that we're gonna navigate openly. Um, and people are gonna get to see us walk through this journey, which um was terrifying. And um, you know, there were members of our family that absolutely disagreed with that decision, but that was how he wanted to do it. Uh, second, he both of us heard from God so clearly right at the beginning. Um, his the word that he heard was get your house in order. And um that was wild. Yeah. So that Mike's like, this is what I heard God say to me clearer than maybe anything I've ever heard God say. And so we're gonna do that. We're gonna get our house in order, whatever that needs to look like, whatever needs to happen. So there's a lot of intention right then, um, which I think he really needed to drive him forward in a healthy way in the process. I needed like soul care, right? So the thing the Lord said to me almost, almost like the very first day, but it had to be within the first couple of weeks, was that he was rescuing him.

unknown 11:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

That he was rescuing Chris. And he said, you know, whatever this might feel like to you, however, just or unjust or um right or wrong the situation feels, never forget that I rescued him.

unknown 11:38

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

And I've asked the Lord many, many times in the years since then, from what did we rescue him from? And was there no other way to make this happen? Because this feels like the last possible avenue that he could have chosen. Um, but this was how God chose to rescue him, and I have leaned on that word so many times.

Piet Van Waarde 12:03

Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

So those two things that the Lord spoke to us right at the beginning, and then Mike's clear intention that we were gonna walk this road forward, that we were gonna get our house in order, whatever that meant.

Piet Van Waarde 12:15

And and what like when you say that, what were what were some of the things that practically happened as a result of that? Get your house in order.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Um I think that we uh, you know, a lot of it was was sort of, I don't want to say spiritual, but a lot of it was spiritual where we just kind of like, what are we doing with our lives? How are we spending our time? Um, you know, where is God taking us? And then, you know, we still had uh one of our sons at home at that time. He was only 17. And um, and so there was a lot of what is he doing with his life? How are we and I think we didn't walk that road. I just want to say we didn't walk that road perfectly.

SPEAKER_03 12:56

Right, right.

A Clear Word: Get Your House In Order

SPEAKER_01 12:59

So in case he's ever on your podcast, we were not perfect in that moment, but um but it opened our eyes to some things that I think we were taking for granted and some things that we were maybe not taking seriously enough. And you know, what God had for us, the purpose he had for us in our marriage, in our family. Um, and a lot of that would be revealed over the next 10 years. But um, you know, we looked up the statistic last night, actually, Mike and I did about marriages, and I think it's up somewhere in the 80%. Yeah, don't make it through something like this. And I think that God just sustained us. Yeah. But there was a whole lot of submission to God's will and purpose along the way that right now, like talking about it is easy. At the time, it was brutal.

Piet Van Waarde 13:52

I can imagine.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

The last thing you want to submit to is your son being incarcerated, like, and God having a purpose in that. Because, like, at the time, like, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_03 14:01

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

I remember one um evening we were sitting on our bed. It had to have been within the first month of his arrest, and we were deeply grieving, both of us just weeping. And um, and the phone rang, and it was a friend of ours, and he said, I just I just felt like I needed to check in on you guys. How are you? And we were like, dude, we're wrecked.

SPEAKER_03 14:26

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

Like we're at the bottom. It can't go lower than this where we are right now. And and he said, he said, Okay, well, um, I just want you to know so many people are watching and they're waiting for you to find hope and find a way forward in this. And I remember being so angry at that because I was like, I don't care.

SPEAKER_03 14:49

Yes, right.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

I I honestly I don't care who needs us to find hope.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

I just want my son back.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

And I remember even in that moment, even though I knew like that was a clear word from the Lord, yeah. Like there are people who need you to find hope so that they can grab hold of hope in their life and find a way forward. And the only way that's gonna happen for them is if you can figure it out right now in real time, as raw as real as it gets in front of them and give them some light at the end of their own tunnel. Yeah. And um, and at the time I was angry, but um, but I knew also that God was saying, like, hey, there's something happening here.

Piet Van Waarde 15:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Yeah.

Piet Van Waarde 15:40

Oh my gosh. Um Well, I I would just also add, um, as an observer in this last season, so I've I've been a part of your guy's life for six years. Actually, seven years. I just we just passed seven years. Um one of the things I've noticed is that you've been very intentional on the marriage front too. Uh so I think, you know, again, as an observer, it's been more like I've watched you say, look, we're we're not gonna take for granted that this is gonna work. We we yes, we're people of faith, yes, we're committed to one another, but this is really hard. And so we're gonna invest ourselves in resources and in community and in seminars and all the all the stuff that makes for you know supporting a marriage. And uh and I've I respected that because there is a sense in which you know you could have leaned in on, well, we know the Lord and we're committed to each other, but you you did that wasn't just enough. Like you said, no, we're gonna, we're gonna totally dive in, we're gonna make sure that we make it. Yeah. It's so respected.

Choosing Openness Over Secrecy

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Yeah, I think there really are only two roads you could probably take moving forward from an a life event like that. You either you either get in that position where you're like, God, I don't I honestly don't trust you that much right now, and I don't have any idea what you're doing with the situation. But I'm gonna I'm gonna try. Yeah. Or you just go the other direction, right? Right prior, not right prior, but at some point prior to all of this happening, I had done a Bible study on Esther, and you know, there's that scripture that says for such a time as this. And when she's talking with her um uncle, I think it was, and and he says, you know, make your choice, and if you don't, God will raise up another in your place. And I remember when I did that study, I was like, oh like if not me, somebody else will do the thing. Yeah. And that I think has been something that I've kept in my mind all along this way. Like, if I don't do this, God will raise somebody else to do this thing. And I don't want to miss what He has.

Piet Van Waarde 18:01

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Even though I'm I would like it another way, but even though I don't understand it and I don't necessarily I wouldn't choose this road even now, looking back. Take me back 10 years, I wouldn't be like, Yeah, let's do that. I know everything God's gonna do. I still wouldn't be like, Yeah, let's do that.

Piet Van Waarde 18:20

No, right.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

But I also don't want to miss it.

Piet Van Waarde 18:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

It's yeah.

Piet Van Waarde 18:24

So now you're on the other end. Yeah. Uh he texted uh to our little group uh a hundred days.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

A hundred days, 98 days today, yes.

Piet Van Waarde 18:37

Um and you know, we've had other conversations where you've let me know that it, yeah, it's exciting and it's you know, like, wow, it's fine to hear. But there's also a transition that you're preparing your home for because it's gonna change a lot of things again uh for you and Mike, for your sons, and all of that. So talk a little bit about that process. Like you've been again very proactive about like, hey, let's prepare our home. Maybe this is all part of that same word that God gave Mike. Um, but talk about that. What what have you been doing? Why is that important? What are some of the uh unsettledness that may have been part of all this?

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Yeah, for sure. It's wild because when he left, when he was arrested, he was in our house one day. He was living with us at the time. So he's in our house one day and gone the next, and now we were 98 days away from him not being in our home one day and home the next.

Piet Van Waarde 19:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

So dramatic.

Piet Van Waarde 19:41

Yeah, yeah, to say the least.

Preparing For Reentry At Home

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Yeah. About a year ago, the Lord said to me, um He said, Do whatever it you need to do to make sure that He comes home to a whole and healed house and family. And at the time I was like, I'm good. This is just a year ago. You know, and and he was like, check your heart. And so for me personally, there has been a lot of working through any residual bitterness, unforgiveness. Um, I've been in therapy for probably 15 months now, 16 months, something like that. Um, just talking through everything that happened, everything that I felt about it, all of the complexities of it, and just finding peace in it all and being able to lay it all to rest because Chris doesn't need to come home to a a family that's still struggling with things that happened 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_03 20:42

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

So um that was that has been part of the last year. And then there's also just the practical aspects of he was 22 when he left and he's coming home as a 31-year-old man, which, you know, if he had just say been in another country for the last 10 years, that would be one thing, but he's been isolated from the world for 10 years. So um the world is sort of frozen for him as it was 10 years ago. There's things he can't grasp or comprehend technology-wise, um, even just socially, you know.

Piet Van Waarde 21:15

So um that's it just it became clear to me when you you said the other day, well, we're gonna have to be careful on a car ride because he hasn't been in a car and his stomach gets upset.

unknown 21:26

Yeah.

Piet Van Waarde 21:28

That's right. I mean, like all the just like simple little things that we're just taking for granted, these are all gonna be new and different.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Right. I mean, right, right. Yeah, we just got a phone for him from my father-in-law who had an extra phone, and he's like, I would like to gift this. It's brand new. I'd like to gift this to Chris. And so we we went to Denver and picked that up while we were there. And um, and so I told him, Hey, we have a phone for you ready for you when you get home. And he's like, Send me a picture, because he doesn't even know like what they look like or what their functionality is. He asks us all the time, we have a Tesla. And so we're always telling him, like, hey, it does this now. So when he calls, he's like, Is it flying yet? And it sounds absurd, but that's how technology sounds to him right now is it's just absurd what technology is right now because he has no frame of reference for it. And um so there's that part of it. There's, you know, there's the reality that he has been institutionalized for 10 years and has been told what to do every minute of every day. And um, so being in a place where he has freedom to take a shower when he wants to, to eat when he chooses um to leave his room. You know, these are things that he has not done in 10 years. And so there's a there's a lot of of um, there's a lot to consider. You know, we obviously uh my husband and I have stayed in very close contact with him over the last 10 years. And um, now that he's moved a little closer, we see him once a month. So, but those are two hour blocks.

Piet Van Waarde 23:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

So to actually live with him will be a different experience entirely. And who is this man that's coming home and what are his habits? And and also the same for him with us, right? Right. Um, yeah, you know, with his brothers. He doesn't know those men. You know, I mentioned earlier that Gabe was 17 when he left. He's 26 now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's lived a lot of adult life. You know, he's graduated high school and he started a business and he's traveled the world, and and our other son Caleb has had a whole military career while Chris has been incarcerated that that Chris didn't get to experience or be part of. And so um, I don't know. You know, we think of like there's a lot of catching up to do, and I don't know to what extent that's actually possible.

Piet Van Waarde 24:02

Right, right.

Technology, Freedom, And Daily Life Resets

SPEAKER_01 24:03

And at what point you just choose we start here.

Piet Van Waarde 24:06

Yeah, let's move forward from this point and move forward with who we are now.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Because he can't go back and experience those things. So and that's it.

Piet Van Waarde 24:15

God's grace to you and all of that, and to your family. And again, I just like so appreciative of your going vulnerable and sharing with us because I can only imagine that there are people who are listening who may be going through something similar. It's like, ugh, it's so helpful. This person gets it.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Piet Van Waarde 24:34

Um you're also working on a book now, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:37

I am.

Piet Van Waarde 24:38

So uh which I think, if I remember right, has something to do with like your navigating this whole experience and and and even preparing for coming home because I remember one of the things you told me is like uh there is no there is no book on how to prepare for this and how to deal with uh all the things. So so there's practical sides to it, there's the emotional, there's the spiritual, there's the relational. So talk to me a little bit about what that book looks like and what you're kind of working on.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Yeah. So we um when we learned, when we learned that he was coming home, of course, first thing Mike is a is a big researcher. He researches even after he's purchased things, he researches them after the fact just to make sure like he got the best of the best. It's his thing, it's his way. Love that. So when we learned that he was gonna come home, we started researching, okay, what's out there, what are the resources out there? Uh, how can we educate ourselves about what that experience is gonna feel like, be like? And there was nothing.

SPEAKER_03 25:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

There was really nothing. There was um no resources. There are organizations that you can connect to here and there um that I'm sure are helpful and are doing great work, but um I just felt like why you know t the the um well America as a whole has more incarcerated individuals than any other um westernized country in the world. And then Texas, I think, is in the top two or three in America. So the number of incarcerated individuals is is massive.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

And yet there's nothing. I mean, people are going through this, even though nobody wants to talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

You know, there the numbers of people going through this are astronomical. So it was wild to me that there was really nothing out there. And again, I think it's part of that, it's a very uncomfortable thing.

Piet Van Waarde 26:32

Yeah. You know, it's out there, somebody else is being that it's not my world. Yeah.

Brothers, Lost Years, And New Beginnings

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Right, right. And yet Jesus talks so clearly about visiting those who are in prison and all of that stuff. So um so we I we just made this sort of, and I I think I've talked to you about previous podcasts. We've talked about how we just like choose something without thinking of like, is that risky? Is that should we? We're just like, you know what we should totally do is we should write a book as we're living this about what it's been like to go through this reintegration process to prepare our hearts, our homes, our children, our extended family for the return of our son. Um, and then also add in there really practical resources. So organizations, um halfway houses, anything, any resource we could find that might offer something to somebody who's or a family, particularly families.

SPEAKER_03 27:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Um, you know, this idea of what is it gonna be like to have somebody come back home again? And how do I ready my house? How do I ready my children? How do I ready myself? You know, how do we ready our marriage? You know, we're in sort of the empty nest and we're getting ready to have a child come home again who, you know, is gonna need a re-education on the world. And so that is the purpose of the book is to um to put some of this down in a in a way that would be resourceful, helpful. Um, I think that it there it's very lonely in this world of incarceration. And I we just desperately want people to know that A, you're not alone, B, it's survivable. And there are options available to you to help you get through this. Yeah. So concurrently to that, we created a 501c3 organization called the Rise and Ascend Foundation. And um, and we are our purpose is for Mike and I to sort of adopt a family or two at a time who's preparing for one of their loved ones to come home and walk through those last few months with them in that journey side by side and just support them, encourage them, beautiful, resource them to the best of our ability, and um create something good out of the hard that we've walked through.

Piet Van Waarde 29:01

It's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

So yeah.

Writing The Missing Guidebook

Piet Van Waarde 29:03

You know, I I I've I've referenced this a number of times, and I keep coming back to it myself. Um early in my ministry, uh, I was I think I was a pastor at this church for two or three years, and we were starting a new service. Uh, so we had like services on the weekend, and we had we're trying this midweek service where I'm communion and stuff. And there were, you know, we were already stretched with the resources of people serving on the weekends. And so myself and this other college uh gal, great singer, I was a like average guitar player, but the two of us led worship at this, at this little midweek service, communion service. And I still remember one time we were having a conversation after the service, and I don't remember exactly what it was about, but it prompted this conversation where she said, You know, I just wish pastors and Christian leaders would talk about the struggle as they're having it. She said, It's just so easy, and I've heard so many pastors they'll go through a really hard thing, nobody knows they're going through a hard thing, and then they'll come to the end of it and they'll just say, Oh, you know, we were doing this thing, and we were really struggling, and these scriptures were helpful, and then and then just kind of move on.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

Yeah.

Piet Van Waarde 30:16

And it just feels so simplified and so sanitized and cleaned up with a bow. And and it was like, and I I that's not helpful, but if I can watch somebody walk through the hardest stuff of life and see how they do it, that would be really helpful. Yeah. And I I don't know, I cannot tell you how many times, like even with the cancer journey and some of the other things that we dealt with, that conversation has come back to mind.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

Yeah.

Piet Van Waarde 30:46

Like there's a gift that you give people when you talk about or write about um what you're experiencing as you're experiencing it.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Yeah.

Piet Van Waarde 30:56

And so I commend you for it. Because it's not the easier way to go.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

No.

Piet Van Waarde 31:01

Because it's it it requires vulnerability. It requires like when you're doing it, you're not as confident that what you're doing is right.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

Right. Because we haven't even done it yet.

Piet Van Waarde 31:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

You know what I mean?

Piet Van Waarde 31:13

Right. And so you're gonna like start, stop, do the oh, that wasn't helpful.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

That actually didn't work. That should not be in the book.

Piet Van Waarde 31:22

Uh so I I just I so commend you for it. And I I really I can imagine people watching are thinking, oh, I can't wait for that book to come out. When are you thinking it might be Are you like giving yourself an end date where you're gonna say, hey, we're gonna write about this much of the experience and then kind of get it out there?

SPEAKER_01 31:38

I mean, I would love to have as much of as we can of it written by the time he comes home, so that when at least of this part of it, you know, the things that we did, um, family counseling that we've gone through. I think there's something to be said, and I know you didn't ask me this question.

SPEAKER_03 31:57

No, go ahead.

Building The Rise And Ascend Foundation

SPEAKER_01 31:58

But there's something to be said to allowing your family to experience it in whatever way they're experiencing it in. Yeah. Um, our family counselor told us there was no righteous road to walk this path that you've been on. He's like, There's no prescription for how you go through something like this. It's only the path that takes you from point A to point B in the healthiest, whollest way possible. And he's like, if you look at it in that light, you've been successful. Yeah. You know, our family is whole and healthy, and allowing our other sons to say, you know, I'm actually not all that confident about how it's gonna be for him to come home or how I feel about that. They haven't spoken to him since it's probably been eight years. It's just not something that they've found a way to navigate. But there's no right or wrong. Again, it's their experience to experience. And um and so I think there's something to be said for just writing it down the way that it happened. Even when mistakes were made, you know, our story has been anything but sanitized.

Piet Van Waarde 33:10

You know, there were a lot seriously, are they ever like we can make it sound that way, but in reality, we all know.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

That's why I said at the beginning, like looking back, it's easy to spiritualize it now. But if walking it every day for 10 years, it was not that.

SPEAKER_02 33:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

There was God was there. Yeah. And and I want to be so clear about that. God has I prayed at the beginning, God, do something so big with this that people talk about it. If I'm honest, it was a selfish prayer. I really wanted him to be home by now. But God had other bigger, bigger things than I was dreaming in mind for it. And I think this book and the foundation are part of that.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

And, you know, I want people to know that it's survivable and that God can do really astounding things with really heartbreaking situations.

Piet Van Waarde 34:06

Yeah, yeah. I'm absolutely convinced of that with you. All right. Um, I want to ask one last question. I uh periodically like to ask our guests, you know, like if there's because we've walked through a couple of different phases of this whole journey that you've been in and and kind of hit it from various angles, but maybe there's something that's still uh like a remaining word of advice. Like I'm thinking perhaps there's somebody who is right now where you were 10 years ago. And uh you know, what would you say to them? So is there like a closing like thought that you would you would share? No pressure.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Um well, obviously get community. If you don't have community, get community. But also, um I keep coming back to the same scripture over and over again. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and don't lean on your own understanding. And if I were to talk to ten-year-ago Jen or anybody who might be at the beginning of this journey, sorry, I would say trust. It's gonna be hard. And the Bible tells us that in this world you will have trouble, but take hard. So don't be surprised. It's gonna be hard, but trust. Get away from your own understanding about it and lean into that God can do something because he can, he will. And that path is gonna be so much better than choosing the other road. Yeah.

Leading While Still In The Struggle

Piet Van Waarde 36:00

Thank you, my friend. You are amazing to me. I have uh loved getting a chance to not just work with you in the church setting and now more personally with the foundation, but um, you know, there's a a kind of approach that you have to your walk with God that inspires me and uh makes me want to like I wanna I wanna walk like Jen walks and how Mike walks uh through the uh the hardships of life. And I I pray that there's a rich reward for you too, because that's that is the other part of the story. You know, the Lord says, you know, when the there's that day that's gonna come where we hear, well done, good and faithful servant, you know. And one of the things I find myself thinking about is like we ought not just hear that at the end of our lives. Like there ought to be places in between when we have survived something and done something well, where the affirmation of the spirit, but also maybe some people who've watched the journey say, you know, well done. You guys have done well. Uh and so I want to affirm you in that way and thank you for your candor and honesty and openness today. It's just been beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

Thank you so much. I um I feel like it's a story worth telling. And, you know, it's not over yet. Yeah. There's there's good things ahead.

Piet Van Waarde 37:32

Amen. Well, and thank you for joining us uh for this conversation. I am confident that you found it as meaningful as I did. And uh we will put some things in the notes today about where you can uh find uh the foundation that Mike and Jen have talked about, and uh and maybe the name of the book. We'll find out when that's coming, and we'll put all that in the notes. And uh thank you for joining us, and uh, we look forward to another upcoming sidebook conversation.