Harnessing Courage: Going Blind as a Teen & Finding Purpose with Author Laura Bratton

She was told as a child she’d “probably” lose her vision someday and then it started happening in high school, in waves, with no timeline and no roadmap. Laura Bratton joins us to tell the truth about what that kind of uncertainty does to your mind and heart, and how courage gets rebuilt when life won’t give you answers.

We talk about faith that becomes personal and relational, not just something you do on Sundays. Laura shares the prayer that carried her through the worst nights (“God, I can’t”), the anger and questions she had to voice out loud, and why God’s presence matters even when physical healing doesn’t come. We also go deep on gratitude as a real spiritual practice: not gratitude that covers up pain, but gratitude that helps you notice the small threads holding you together through grief, anxiety, and silence.

If you’re a parent, this conversation gets especially practical. Laura explains how her parents made accommodations without lowering standards, and how simple moments, like being expected to unload the dishwasher, quietly taught her dignity, resilience, and purpose. We also unpack joy as wholeness, the kind you can feel in a hard season when you learn to stay present and accept support.

Listen if you’re searching for purpose, overcoming adversity, building resilience, navigating disability, or trying to hold onto faith when life gets dark. If it helps you, please subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find it.

To connect with or purchase her book, Harnessing Courage go to Laura's website at: https://www.laurabratton.com/

To download a free chapter of host Sylvia Worsham's bestselling book, In Faith, I Thrive: Finding Joy Through God's Masterplan, purchase any of her products, or book a call with her, visit her website at www.sylviaworsham.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

If you've ever struggled with fear, doubt, or worry and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, Sylvia Warsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here's your host, Sylvia Warsham.

unknown 0:26

I've still got a lot of fun left.

A Childhood Diagnosis Without A Timeline

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Hey Lightbringers, it's Sylvia Warsham. Welcome to Release.reve Purpose. And today is Laura Bratton. And she's the author of Harnessing Courage that came out actually 10 years ago in 2016. But she's uh someone that is going to be sharing her story of being diagnosed with a very rare eye disorder as a child and then going completely blind as a teenager. So without further ado, Laura, thank you so much for joining us on Released Out Reveal Purpose. Absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity. Of course, of course. And it's been uh such a pleasure for me to read about your story because I think it's a uh a very courageous story. Um, as a children, you know, having these conversations with kids, I would imagine this was a very scary time for you and for your parents, uh, knowing that you will be going blind and to kind of prepare their child for that, for that chapter in her life. So to do tell us that amazing story of transformation.

SPEAKER_03 1:29

So, yes, it was incredibly scary for my parents, but at the same time, it wasn't as scary as it sounds now because we didn't know I would go blind as a teenager. So at nine, they said she she'll probably be 40 or 60. So we had no roadmap or guidance. There was no timeline that in six years she'll lose her sight or eight years, or there was absolutely no timeline. So my mindset as a nine-year-old was I can see now, so I guess I'm always gonna see, you know, just very in-the-moment practical. Obviously, my parents could emotionally understand and grasp the reality of this is a possibility, but even that, it was it's so incredibly rare that there was no guideline. For me, the scariness, the trauma, the emotional grief started as a teenager when I did lose a significant amount of sight. Because there was no more, oh yeah, if I you know I can see now I can always see. When I did lose a significant amount of sight, I couldn't, that wasn't my mindset anymore. Plus, I was a lot older being a teenager. So that's when the deep, deep, deep anxiety, depression, grief that I I can't even put into words how difficult it was. Because remember, I'm a teenager, so that's an incredibly hard time of life, even when things are going well. So I was a teenager going through all this emotional trauma of trying to adjust to life without sight.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Oh my goodness. I can't imagine. I can't. I I really can't. As a parent, how did your parents react? Like when they when you told them, I mean, how did it happen? Did it did you wake up and you just could not see, or did it happen at school? No, it wasn't like the movies, yeah.

Vision Loss And Teen Grief

SPEAKER_03 3:31

Some like dramatic moment. Um, so it was a series of over pretty much over my high school, this four years of high school, I would lose a lot of sight and then it was stabilized for a while. And then I would lose a lot of sight and it was stabilized for a while. And each point of stabilizing, we never knew, hey, maybe this is what it's gonna be for the next 30 years. So again, we didn't have that roadmap of knowing, okay, the end's gonna be in four years. So the gifts of my parents were what they taught me was to live in the present moment. Where I was overwhelmed with that future, oh my gosh, how we'll ever live, how we're gonna show high school, how we'll go to college, blah blah blah blah. They were saying, okay, let's just focus on today. And that strength came from their deep spirituality and their deep connection with God that became relational. So growing up in the Southeast, they did, but also I did. We were at church on Sunday mornings, you troop Sunday night, Wednesday, choir, handbells, you know, all the things you're always at church. It's a social thing. Faith and spirituality became a real personal connection in that deep time. Yeah, I bet so it was a that my parents were realizing, and I too was realizing I'm still a beloved child of God. Like they are still beloved children of God who they are, and as parents, we're not instantly not worthy or not enough because this trauma is happening. It's not that we didn't pray enough or we didn't have enough faith or they did something wrong as parents, and so this is you know, spirit punishing us. It was that unconditional presence that guided them and guided me and gave us the strength to navigate through each day. And I mean that very, very literal when I say each day.

Parenting With Purpose And Standards

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Oh I bet because so many people would turn away from him right in this dark chapter, right? They would blame him, right? So guide us on the vocabulary that your parents would use with you because on the language, because how we communicate with our children as they navigate dark chapters is really critical to the way they will take that and navigate on their own once they're off in college and elsewhere. So give us some idea or some tips, advice on this for parents navigating this.

SPEAKER_03 6:27

So I'm not saying this because this is the focus of your podcast. I would I would say this regardless. Purpose, purpose.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Wow.

Choice Suffering And Blaming God

SPEAKER_03 6:40

My parents, again, I promise I'm not just saying that to you, like I would say that to anyone else. They knew and believed at their core, like I said, that I was a beloved child of God, and I still had meaning and purpose and value in life. They both deeply believed that, and so they put that into action as they parented me. And the way that manifests on a very practical level, like when you say tips and advice, they didn't lower their standards for me. Yes, they made accommodations, of course, where accommodations needed to be made. But for example, again, being in the Southeast, we were a huge sports family, and so always going to college football games. My brother played football in college, so we were going to his games. They didn't just say, Oh, sweetie, you can't see the football game anymore. You know, you're gonna stay home with the babysitter or something, you know, and we're gonna go to the game and have fun in Tailgate and go to the game. They said, All right, let's go to Tailgate. Here's your radio. You know, literally, they're like, here you go, you know, now you can see the game like everyone else. I mean, literally, but you can hear it and be part of it, be part of the experience. So it was rather than saying, Oh, you can't do this anymore, it was you can because you're still a beloved creation. And I want to share a story that was doesn't sound like a tip or strategy now, but I it absolutely was once I realized it in hindsight, and it perfectly illustrates practically how parents can instill this this purpose, this standard that you still matter and you still have gifts in the world. So one night it was somewhere in that high school, towards the end of high school, seventh, I don't know if it was junior year or senior year, I'd lost the sympathy line of sight by this point. And my mom said, All right, Laura, it's time for you to unload the dishwasher. And I thought I had a brilliant plan in my teenage mind. Tell me if you think it's a good idea. I thought, oh, this is a great opportunity to use blindness as an excuse for what I don't want to do. Isn't that a good idea? Yeah, right? For a teenager, sure. Of course. In my 17 mind, that was brilliant. So I said, Oh mom, I can't unload the dishwasher. I'm going blind. Like she had no clue, right? And she's now a retired teacher, but at the time she was an elementary school teacher, and so in that teacher voice, she looked at me and she said, Laura, unload the dishwasher. And then she turned to wash it out of the kitchen. Okay. And at the exact same time, my dad's hearing all this and he didn't jump to our rescue. He just let it play out and he was doing his own thing. He didn't come and say, Oh, I'll get your brother-in-law the dishwasher, honey. He did nothing. So, of course, I unload the dishwasher mad, like they're the meanest parents in the planet, right? Like they're not giving me a free pass. What's wrong with them? What I realized is that that was the greatest gift they could have given me because it was teaching me we love you, we believe in you, so you need to love yourself and believe in yourself as well. Yeah. Yes, the civil wear might not perfectly be lined up in the civil war drawer, but that's not the point. The point is you matter enough and you're worthy enough to unload the dishwasher. And so we are instilling in you, you still matter, you still have purpose in this world, you just need accommodations. I share that to say it's and they'll I mean, you know, 30 years later, they never remember that story. We still laugh about all the time, but they have no clue, they don't even remember it happened. But the point is, that's how they navigated through this intense change was still teaching me and believing in me that again, that I mattered. So they weren't gonna coddle me and baby meaningful sorry for me, because then that's how I would feel myself. And that's how I would go through the world. So, my greatest advice to anyone, and not just parents, just humans in general, treat other people with the love and the respect and the value that we all have being beloved creations, yes, because we're all fearfully and wonderfully made. 100%.

When Faith Turns Relational

SPEAKER_01 11:36

And I've had these conversations with our older boy because he was like, Why was, you know, why was I born with X, Y, and Z? Right. And I'm like, honey, there are so many reasons that I could give you, but the truth is God doesn't create um anything bad, right? Right? There's also free will that we forget about. You know, there's free will that we forget about and we make choices sometimes, they are not the greatest choices, right? And sometimes those choices have biological consequences to them at times, not to say that you know, and and this could be generations and generations and generations ago. You don't know that, right? And um so, like for example, in my case, my dad uh, who like I had mentioned to you prior to the podcast, uh obviously graduated into heaven instead of like passed away. Uh almost two years ago in June on Father's Day, he made the choice to come to this country and say yes to going to Vietnam and putting himself in harm's way of agent orange. Now, when you get exposed to agent orange, there's a lot of ways that it changes your DNA before you even have children. And he was already married to my mom, but they hadn't had children yet. And a lot of those guys that weren't in those years ended up with all sorts of neurological deficiencies, and and their kids ended up with um not having like correct like some deformities, but right, biologically speaking. So I ended up with a ureter that like tubing up the size of a two-year-old, and my sister ended up with no kidney, and you know, my brother had major lung issues, you know. And you have to wonder if some of these things had played a role in our genetics, right? Um and so I always tell myself like, listen, I'm not going to blame my dad or blame God for it was a choice. We all make choices, we all make mistakes, and we're fallible, we're fallible human beings. But what I always find interesting, and maybe Laura, you can maybe pipe in here if you'd like, is how people are very quick to blame God, but they're very slow in giving him credit when things go right. I find that so crazy. You know, like when you're receiving all these blessings, nobody thinks of God. Everybody just thinks of him when things go south, like really bad. And um and being someone who has an enormous amount of faith, and it's because of my own journey of nearly dying, of of receiving miracles upon miracles on Easter Sunday morning, which I thought like God has a really strange sense of humor about these things, you know, and and and giving me like the the shift I needed to get out of a of a highly stressful, highly perfectioned achievement-driven corporate life to kind of just say pause and shift, you know. I find that for someone like you, kind of share with us how your faith progressed. Did it progress from that point on? Like after this teenage, like becoming blind, kind of guide us in your journey on how your faith either deepened or maybe had some detours along the way, did it?

SPEAKER_03 15:24

So it absolutely did. And the way I'll answer that again, I hope we didn't play, you know, I didn't play any of this. That will also tie into what you said about, you know, people blame God but not give God credit when things go well. So for me, my faith, like I said, it became relational, not just something we do. Okay. Because my initial reaction it was not God why or angry God, it was God I can't. I don't know if you know, but I just want to let you know this is too hard, this is too much, I can't. And I cried that, I prayed that. I I mean, literally, that was my mindset mantra. That was my every breath. I mean, I literally screamed that, cried that. Not well, I've screamed out of my head, like falling asleep at night during the day. This was my 24-7 mindset in prayer. God, I can't. Finally, over a series just of small moments of people's actions, just like that silverware story, just constant small moments that we say are insignificant and don't even really like think about or consider spiritual, led me to realize oh, I can do this if I depend on the strength of spirit. Yeah, I can do this if I depend on the strength of spirit that comes through those daily actions of my family, friends, community, complete strangers. So for me, my faith journey was not blaming God, it was, I just want to let you know this, I I can't do this. Is this too much? And I'll make it very, very clear. There wasn't one magical moment that I woke up and said, Okay, God, now I have the strength. Let's go. It was just through a series of small events that led up to that. And yes, of course, there's always the resentment. Like I remember calling uh mentor from church one night, one Sunday night, and saying, I am so angry. And she's like, Okay, what's going on? I said, Why are all these people who are blind? Why do they get healed in the Bible and I'm not healed? And thankfully, her answer is like what you said, your son. She just said, Laura, I don't know, but what I can tell you is my support is with you.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:02

And it was like, that was like, okay, I'm good to go. Bye, I have good weeks. It was like that was all I needed. I just needed someone to sit with me and say, I don't have the answers either, but I know God's presence is with us.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

And let's be thankful for it because when you're thankful, that shifts everything for you.

SPEAKER_03 18:23

That shifts everything. And that's what I wanted to touch on and what you talked about earlier about people, you know, they blame God for absolutely everything, the weather, everything. But then they don't give credit. But also they let me just give an example and then I'll make it clear. So many people would say to my family, you know, to me individually, to my parents individually, to my brother, you know, I know, like, you know, Laura's not healed physically, and so you're just how can you have faith? You're so disappointed in God, you're so angry at God. God's not a good God. And again, all of our answers kind of individually. We'd have like a collective family meeting on this. It was just we truly felt all this individually. We're thankful for God's love with us. Yes, of course, we would want my physical healing the next moment. That that would be absolutely wonderful, but that hasn't happened, and so that doesn't mean God is evil or God is bad or God is not with us. So, so I say that to share. It's like when we don't get what we want, we think God's wrong. Rather than stepping back and realizing the thankfulness of God's presence with us, even in the darkest hours of suffering and the darkest, deepest, deepest moments.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Yes. And I would add that it's in those dark times that he is the closest. That's when I have felt him the closest.

SPEAKER_03 19:56

Yes, because we're paying attention the most.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Because we are very focused on him and we are praying to him and we are asking him. And but there's times that even in that darkness, there is silence. Yes, yes. Tell me how you've navigated that silence.

SPEAKER_03 20:18

Lots of tears, and and I say that I don't say that like jokingly, flippantly, like I say that to say, in those silence, I want to give people permission that that I wish I'd given myself in those silence, just to have the courage to sit and cry and say, Oh my gosh, is this silent? This is absolutely horrible, and sit there and acknowledge it's horrible rather than jumping to, but God is good, God is faithful, God is good all the time. Just sit in that silence and then just to reach out, to have the strength with and love ourselves enough to reach out. Is it walking outside and feeling the sunshine? Is it seeing or hearing the birds? Is it calling that one friend? Is it playing that one one song that always just gives us comfort? So for me, in that silence, it's acknowledging the depth of that pain. And then once I acknowledge the depth of that pain, taking one step to reach out for support.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Okay. And then and I asked that very curiously because I myself navigated through a dark chapter recently, and there was silence. And it was definitely at one point, because I'm very relational with him, it was physically painful not to have him near me. Literally, literally painful not to have him near me. And I begged him. I said, I don't know what you're doing. Are you refining me? Are you putting me through the fire to refine these elements that are still? Not wanting to come to the surface. Is that what's going on here? And at one point I heard a voice that said, Why do you continue striving for my love? You don't need to strive for for my love. You already have it. You already have it. Quit striving. You've been doing the stri I want your heart. That's what I'm after. Why are you striving for your husband's love? You have his love. Quit doing that. You don't need to do that anymore. Your father's gone. Your daddy's gone. He's with me. Why are you doing this to yourself? And it was in that moment that I this was back in November of last year. And it was just like I sat there and I was like speechless.

SPEAKER_03 22:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Like I had continuously been striving and striving because I did not feel worthy of love. Because it was the way that I strove with my own father. Yeah. And I thought I had healed that. And I clearly had not. And I sat with it. Like you said, it's just like sitting with it, but it was so physically painful.

SPEAKER_03 23:17

I'm so glad you thank you for saying that. Because yeah, no, seriously, because it is physical pain. It sucked. It just stopped to be in that. It does. And that that shows the strength of just your self-love and your self-compassion just to sit with that physical pain. Yeah. You know, and the other part I want to highlight for again to give permission when you're in those dark moments, that silence, like you're describing, like I'm describing, it's not a weakness of our faith. No. It doesn't mean we're less of a person.

Gratitude As A Daily Anchor

SPEAKER_01 23:55

No, it's training, actually. Right. It's it's something that he he kept pointing me towards Paul's books and writings in the New Testament. And at one point, I started to have like a I always have notebooks around me because I'm a writer. So, and these random thoughts and downloads from him always come at the craziest times. So I'm always like someone that carries around a pencil because I love pencils. I like to reframe my thoughts. If I start to speak in the negative, I like to reframe it in the positive. That's just my own crazy way of doing things. And um and what I found was he was pointing me to be as grateful as Paul was, modeling in the New Testament, despite the storms, despite the trials and the tribulations, and just kind of saying, if Paul can do it, why can't you? I've chosen you, you're one of my chosen few to advance my kingdom. You're held at a different standard. I want you to understand it. And it's like, because you see things that others don't, and you hear things because you hear me and you channel me, and I come through you. So I'm gonna hold you at a different standard than someone that doesn't have this relationship with me. But it's a blessing to be a chosen view, and I was like, okay, well, that's a different perspective I hadn't even considered. But it I started to read more and more and to really understand. If I were to sit in Paul's shoes, like this guy wrote the New Testament from the Roman prison, half the half the New Testament was written in the Roman prison. What must have it felt like for him to write such beautiful words and logical um arguments for Christ's love and for Christian households and the way he just wrote? It it amazes me that he could have such gratitude for that gratitude.

Why She Wrote Harnessing Courage

SPEAKER_03 26:06

Yes. And that's that has been my strength. That has been a cornerstone is that gratitude again, not for the circumstances, but for God's presence with us through it all, in the good, in the bad, in the silence, in the noisy, in the chaos, in the peace, in all of it. And that's truly that's what I live by every single day is that gratitude. I mean, that is the truly that is the cornerstone of my faith and the strength that I lean on every single day. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

Do tell us um about harnessing courage, because I know it's been 10 years, but you have been speaking about the book. What what is the story, the the greatest story you ever remember writing as you were writing the manuscript of Harnessing Courage? What was your favorite story?

SPEAKER_03 27:00

So, well, first I'll talk about like why I wrote it, and then my favorite story. So the reason, again, I'm not saying this because it's your podcast, the reason I wrote it was purpose, purpose, purpose.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Okay.

Joy As Wholeness In Hard Times

SPEAKER_03 27:14

So as I described my experience through the whole adjusting of blindness, and still even now, 30 years later, as 41-year-old living every day in a sighted world, like, yes, I'm adjusted, but that's still not easy. That's still really, really difficult every single day. It's been a support around me that empowers me forward. So, because of that support, I wanted to also be that support in the world. So I didn't want to just say, oh, that's great for me. Well, y'all, y'all have a nice life out there, right? I wanted to say, hey, let me be that support to someone else. And so that was the passion, that was the purpose behind the book. The the reason that I do the speaking, do the coaching was all because I want to empower people just as I was empowered with with that just that strength and just that daily strength. Honestly, it's really, really, really, really, really hard to pick out my favorite story because there's so much ups and downs as I shared the book. There's so many difficult moments. I'm like, oh gosh, I actually forgot that happened. You know, I forgot how bad that was, right? That was really, really hard. And they're also, but um, just the main theme, it wasn't just one particular story, but it was one, just the theme of joy. And what I mean by joy is not, oh, let me show these joyful moments, these joyful situations. Rather, the thread of joy that yes, this has been really, really, really hard. Yet there has been this incredible thread of just people's support, the spirit support that has created this sense of just peace, this sense of I'm comfortable in my own skin. Not because it's easy, but because I'm just I'm just peaceful, and so that constant thread of just joy and peace that is a gift that I can't accurately put into words.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

No, because the joy that we're talking about is not the joy of this world, right? That's why it gets it's not very obvious to the human eye unless you look closely, right? It's the joy that we feel when sitting still having a coffee chat with God in the morning, and we feel our heart fill with joy at the at a memory he just gave us. Like for example, I was bawling the other day. I mean, just I mean seriously, like a deep cry. Because I watched this video, I can't remember this lady, but she's a Christian, and she was talking about how her stepfather just yearned for him to claim her as his, right? And that's what that longing I had with my father. Was he proud of me? Was because it was such a difficult relationship with my dad growing up, and the point of this is uh in that moment of like grief comes this thought of but he was there, he was proud of you, honey. You know, and then here comes the review because it's the way the Holy Spirit kind of guides me into like the reality and the presence. He gave me this whole review of times in my life when my father was proud of me, and in that moment my heart just filled with such joy. It was now they were tears of joy and not tears of like of devastation, right? Uh, or joy when I in a moment that I have I'm sitting outside my in my outside in my pergola, for example, and my daughter is chasing grasshoppers around, and then the sun just like gleams off her head, and I just I capture that moment of joy. Yeah, that is not the joy of this world. The joy of this world, people would think, oh, laughing, joking, having a great time, and that's what they consider joy to be. And for us that have a relationship with him, we have seen a different side of joy that is this peace and this wholeness. Wholeness, that's the perfect word. That is like this wholeness of the perfect moment. And I didn't know this. I mean, I was thinking a Bible study, and the lady giving the Terry Lee Cobble, who does the Bible recap, she said, Do you guys realize that the word perfect in the Bible doesn't mean what it means for us here in the world? It means whole in the in the original language. And I'm like, oh my goodness, well, no wonder, you know, sometimes we hear to be perfect in the Bible, and we're thinking perfection based on the fallen world's perspective of it, but then what it actually means is wholeness, wholeness, yeah, and that's what joyous is like to feel this wholeness of the perfect moment that he's just like giving you. Yes, it was like Grace Myers in a video I caught not too long ago saying, Don't you ever see the gifts that God gives you daily? Right, right, stop just wants to give you so much, and we forget that, and we just don't notice it. We don't notice it because we just go, go, go, like conundrum of everyday life, and it's like pausing for presents, which I loved what your father, like your parents' um lesson, like how they guided you was like, let's just enjoy today, the present moment. The present moment is the best moment to enjoy, but we don't know what's gonna happen, right? Let's enjoy today. And I remember telling, like guiding my mom as my father received his terminal diagnosis. I said, let's just take advantage of today, mama. Let's just enjoy his stages as they come. Like every stage has joys attached to it. Right. And then even at the end, there's a there's a completion of completion of the journey, right? There's a yeah, there's a peace to it that now we know he's his soul is somewhere where it's complete. He's no longer in pain, you know, and and that gives you a sense of peace and wholeness, right? And that's why in the day he passed away, I could write his obituary, I could write what I was gonna talk about in his celebration of life. I had the the right mind frame for it because I had released all of that to God, and just I I can't control that. It's coming whether I want it or not. It's kind of like you're blindness, it's gonna come. Right. I just don't know when. When but I want to give this to you because this is this is what's blocking me right now. I can't be in the present moment. I can't do the podcasting, and I can't write the book, and I can't finish these things carrying all this. I I can't. I can't do this on my strength, right? I need your strength. I I am praying for mental, emotional, physical strength from you. Yeah, I I beg you, I can't do this by myself. Yeah, and where does it just come supernaturally? It like uh it appears out of nowhere, and it's because we have submitted our worries to him, we have surrendered it completely at his feet and said, Here you go, here you go. That's yours. Yeah, can't do that.

SPEAKER_03 35:25

Trust the trust, yeah. Yeah, no, you perfectly describe the joy and the wholeness and just the gratitude in all situations is not a fake, like I'm just praise God, all you want to cover up my pain.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

Holding that very clear, like we're not saying deny your pain, we're saying in the midst of pain, feel the pain and and trust what's there, yeah, and and learn from it because sometimes our pain points to something in us that needs to be recognized so that you can move past it.

unknown 36:04

Right.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Yeah, so if it so if it is showing up, it's like saying thank you, even to the patterns of behavior, even to the triggers, even to whatever's showing up, and saying thank you for showing me that there's something left for me to resolve between myself and God. God let him reveal to me what is actually going on, which is that whole why are you achieving my love? You know, like you have it. I gave it to you when I sent my son to die.

SPEAKER_03 36:38

Yes. Or yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

Yes, you already have it.

SPEAKER_03 36:41

You already have it.

Final Encouragement And How To Connect

SPEAKER_01 36:42

Quit doing this. I don't want this from you. So any last words of encouragement and and how do we reach you, uh, Laura, if we wanted to work with you.

SPEAKER_03 36:53

Yeah, so my last words are use gratitude as your strength, knowing that you're worth it. And again, I want to make it very clear, it's not gratitude covering up the pain, the tears, the physical pain, the emotional pain, the silence. It's even those moments, recognizing what are the threads that are holding you together. Is it that, like I said, moment of sunshine or bird, or that friend that you call, or that song that you listen to that brings comfort? Just knowing that you're worthy, even in those pain moments. And to connect, to reach out. I would love to hear how gratitude has has touched you, has held you, supported you. All the contact information can be found on my website. And what is that? It's lorbraton.com, has all the resources on the book, the speaking, the coaching, connecting. It's all it's all there.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

That's awesome. It's like me, CeliaWorsham.com. It's like you want to buy my books, you want to put me as a speaker, whatever you want to be on my podcast, you can. There's so many links on there, so that's awesome. I'm I'm happy you were on the show. Thank you for being on Laura. And for the listeners who released that reveal purpose, remember Matthew 514, to be the light, be this bright, shiny light, just like Laura was a light today, despite her darkness, and I mean that literally, despite her darkness, she has the biggest, brightest light around her. And she has used that that journey to to not give up and to stay present and to enjoy today, because today is all we have, right? We that's what we have is to enjoy today. So have a wonderful week. Stay safe, love y'all. Bye now.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

So that's it for today's episode of Release Doubt Reveal Purpose. Head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review back on iTunes. We'll win a chance the grand prize drawing back to win a twenty-five thousand dollar private VIP day with Sylvia Worsham herself. Be sure to head on over to release out reveal purposepodcast.com and pick up a free copy of Sylvia's gift and join us on the next episode.