Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Each episode will feature a conversation between host Rebecca Harvin and foster/adoptive caregivers or members of the community who support foster care and adoption.
Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Jordan Whitmarsh: Learning to Live with Grief as a Part of Life
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Grief doesn’t wait for tidy timelines or perfect words. With our friend and adoptive mom Jordan Whitmarsh, we step straight into the deep end: living losses in foster care and adoption, the sudden shock of death, and the quieter goodbyes that linger with no clean ending. We get honest about the myth of “five stages,” why sorrow circles back, and what it takes to build a life that can hold both ache and joy without going numb.
Jordan shares the two paths she’s walked—numbing that “works” until it breaks you, and naming that hurts but heals. We talk EMDR and grief therapy, how hospice taught her to welcome help, and why the body keeps the score with brain fog, sensory overload, and zero margin for scratchy clothes or wrong coffee orders. Along the way, we trade real practices that stabilize the nervous system: simple meals on the porch, soft fabrics on hard days, a friend who folds laundry, worship that tells the truth, and nature that lets your breath deepen again.
Faith threads through this whole conversation, not as a shortcut around pain but as an anchor within it. We push back on spiritual bypassing and make space for lament, anger, and tears—because a God who weeps can meet us in hospital halls, long drives, and the after-hours where casseroles stop coming. For foster and adoptive families, we name grief at milestones and holidays and offer language for the both-and: celebrating firsts while honoring who’s missing.
If you or someone you love is carrying loss, you’ll find tools, companionship, and a kind voice that refuses clichés. Listen, share it with a friend who needs steady company, and if it helps you breathe a little easier, subscribe and leave a review so others can find their way here too.
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Welcome And Framing Grief In Adoption
SPEAKER_03Hey guys, thanks so much for joining us today on Behind the Curtain. I am your host, Rebecca Harvin, and this is where we have honest conversations about foster care and adoption. Today on the podcast, my friend and um previous podcaster with me is with me. Her name is Jordan Whitmarsh. She is an adoptive mom, a Haven mom, and has become a dear friend of mine. And we are going to have a conversation around a topic that we are both well acquainted with. Yes. As is pretty much everybody in the realm of foster care and adoption, and that is grief. So it might surprise you that we probably will laugh in this podcast and we probably will have moments of brevity and lightness, even as we talk about something hard. But I do want to prepare you that we are going to be open and very candid about how we experience grief in this realm and how we have created a life that um does a dance with it that encompasses it rather than pushing it away. So on that note, Jordan, welcome to the podcast.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. This is so fun. Yeah. Well, it's fun now. We're about to like dive in. Yeah. Yeah. It's fun right now until we get to the heavy.
SPEAKER_03Until we get to the heavy. But even then, you know, knowing each other and having a relationship, like that's one of the ways that we make it through grief.
Honesty, Friendship, And Naming The Hard
SPEAKER_01And so friendships and people who you can be honest with and like show up with your true self. Like that is, I think, so important because people ask us all the time, like, how are you doing? And you don't know what they want to hear. But if you have those couple of friends that you can say, like, hey, today is a really bad day. And then if you want to tell them more, you can. Like, you don't we don't always have to say we're fine. Like, we can say, like, hey, I'm having a bad day. Or maybe you say, like, I'm having a cloudy day with a chance of thunderstorms, like something like that. Like, you we I feel like the more that we're honest on how we're really truly doing, I think that's how people can love us and come around us and be with us. And it's hard to be honest about how you're feeling. I mean, like, that's not an easy thing to say. Like, for me, I've had a lot of actual deaths, but I've also had a lot of like living deaths or like changing a job. Like, I think people think grief is associated with like someone actually dying. And I don't think that's the case. I think yes, when someone dies, but I think you also have like big life changes, like you're grieving what was or what you thought would have been, like grieving a marriage or grieving, you know. Uh I've had a foster daughter who was in my life, and her kids call me grandmother. Like they were a part of our family, and then she chose just an abusive relationship. She's still living. I have no contact with her. And so I hold this like of missing her and this grief in my hand when really like an actual death. I because I've experienced eight deaths in my immediate family, that that is harder to hold than an actual person that isn't with me any longer.
SPEAKER_03Right. Yeah, I have more experience in living deaths. Yeah. Um, which is um I started working with that phrase years and years ago after um an adoption that we thought was gonna happen from Ethiopia, it didn't, and people would ask what it felt like, and I said it feels like a living miscarriage. Yeah. Like I had a miscarriage, but the child is still living, and also it's not really a miscarriage. Um so hard to like wrap my brain around it that those those words are what could help me, and then you know, years later, experience like more living deaths with um very close relationships, and so many times, and I would have people tell me death would actually be easier because you can make sense of this, you can make sense of death, you can make sense of like there's a finality to it.
SPEAKER_01Um you've gone to her funeral, like your brain knows, like, okay, this person is never coming back. I will never run into them at Publix, I will never like there, it's finality, yeah. But the living death, like I could run at any time at any time.
Living Deaths Versus Finality Of Loss
SPEAKER_03Um okay. Jumping in to our conversation about grief, and I I guess we kind of just like really well, what's the first thing? Well, you never know how to answer the question, how are you? Right? Yeah. Um, but you were 18 when grief really just like sideswiped your life. So really quick, tell us that. And I think that we touched on it in your last podcast, but touch on that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I started experiencing sudden death when I was 14. My grandfather, my grandfather died. And now that I've like kind of looked back, I can see my dad in a better light. I'll talk about that later. But I saw grief affecting my family, and I didn't even realize it until now, um, when my grandfather died of a heart attack, like just dropped dead. And then when I was 18, six days after I had my oldest son, Logan, my mom um had a cardiac arrhythmia and dropped dead in our house. And I had happened to be the only child home because I have two younger siblings, and I had just had a baby, so I'd been home. And so that is where I really started experience because I saw the EMTs do all the things to try and bring my mom back to life in my living room. And that's that is where I feel like I experienced like the beginning of like my grief journey. Like, I don't ever think I'll be off. I think uh grief is complex, and like you can hold grief even though I'm not stuck in my mom's death anymore. Like I'm not stuck in that grief. I still miss her. Like I still wish she was here. Like, and so I don't think you ever get over grief.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so the five stages of grief people think happen in a straight line. Yeah. So first misconception out of the gate. Grief does not happen in a straight line. Absolutely not. At Haven, we give people this like um image or to reference, and it's we do it in two different ways. One is where it's a line and it's bouncing back, it's kind of just creating this like tangle of knots. Um, and one is it's a it's still a line, but it kind of just shows like a different, like how you can circle back or how you can do this, whatever. I'm not describing it very well, but it's a it's a visual representation of what grief actually is. So the five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Yes. And um, I will never forget when I learned about that for the first time because I um it was at the first Haven retreat ever. We were talking about grief, and um the therapist asked where we were, and I said, Um, well, I think I'm kind of in bargaining, and I wholeheartedly reject acceptance. Amen. When you say a sentence like that to a therapist, if that therapist is worth their salt, they will say, Oh, we need to talk. Tell me why you wholeheartedly reject acceptance. And I said, Because I don't want it. Yeah, I liked who I was before this, I like being able to be the I don't want to have to not be the fun mom. I liked being the fun mom. I liked myself 18 months ago, and this is you know, 18 months into foster care. And I didn't like who I was anymore, and I could not accept who I was, but but the misconception that we're talking about though is this we think, oh, you're gonna go through this, you're gonna go through anger, denial, bitterness. Like a line.
SPEAKER_01Like yeah, like one, two, three, four, five. Here we go. Boom. And yeah, we're done, we're healed, and everything's good.
SPEAKER_03Praise Jesus.
Jordan’s Story: Sudden Loss And Aftershocks
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah. No more grief.
SPEAKER_03And so tell me.
SPEAKER_01That is not the case. And so I would say, my mom dying. I I'll say that I've done grief with Jesus and without Jesus. Um, when I was 18, I was a new mom, I was still a senior in high school. Like I had I had younger brothers and sisters. My dad, like, I don't even know how we the only way that we survived that year after my mom died was because I had a baby. And now I can say that at almost 45. I always thought my teen pregnancy was like this horrible thing. And now I know that like if we wouldn't have had Logan, and I don't like to put that on my son that like he was our saving grace because he wasn't, but he was to a certain extent, because babies do so much the first year. Like, we would have not had joy in our house. I don't even know if I'd be sitting here, to be very honest. Um, because losing my mom the way that we did, it changed all of us. I mean, grief changes you.
SPEAKER_03Grief changes the very fabric of your DNA.
SPEAKER_01Grief changes you. And so after my mom died, I was so young. I just became a new mom. I was graduating high, like two months after my mom died. I walked across the stage with a three-month-old baby, like our two and a half month-old baby. Like, and you want your mom in the crowd there, like no one is gonna be able to replace that. And so when my mom died, I really try to do the straight and narrow for a year because I was like breastfeeding, and I was like, Oh, I'll be this perfect little and I just put it in a box and act like it didn't happen. I was like, I've got to be the strong one to be able to survive. So my dad can function and we can like pay the bills and my brother and sister. And so, and then I really didn't I didn't really deal with my mom's death. Um, I chose after I quit breastfeeding Logan, I just decided that drugs and alcohol were and sex were the thing that I wanted to do. And so I went down this like rabbit hole for a couple of years, really off of the deep end, um, because I wasn't dealing with my grief.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's one of the ways that people do grief, right? Grief feels horrible. Yep. And so if we can avoid those feelings and at all cost and numb it however we can, there are things that are actually like it works to numb. It doesn't work long term, it's very destructive to numb. But there's a reason people turn towards numbing behaviors. Yeah, they work, yeah, yeah.
Myths Of The Five Stages Of Grief
Numbing, Addiction, And Survival Modes
Stacked Losses And Faith In Suffering
SPEAKER_01I mean, I've my dad turned to alcohol and like I mean, it it'll be 27 years in April this coming year that my mom died. And he picked up alcohol and hasn't put it down. Yeah, and it has damaged relationships, and like that's a whole I mean that's grief too, like grieving my dad, who my dad was before my mom died, right? And now who he is and who he has been for the last 26 years is not a father. And so I then started getting in counseling when I was like 25. I also in between there have lost two uncles. Um, for some reason, on my dad's side of the family, everyone just likes to suddenly die, which is not like I'm not laughing, but like it's the pattern, it's the pattern. And so I've had two, my my dad has had two brothers that passed away. And like with my dad, like his dad, my mom, his two brothers, like I can see how his grief has like stacked up on each other and has caused him to just fall into this, like not dealing with it and numbing the pain. Um, I think when we numb the pain that we miss out on the joy that God has for us in this like new thing that he's creating, as crazy as that sounds to say that he's creating a new thing in such sadness and sorrow. But like, I feel like God does his best work in the midst of suffering and sorrow, and I can come out like so my grandmother just passed away. So I've had two uncles, both my in-laws have died pretty tragically a couple of years ago, back to back, pretty close. And then um, the most recent one that I've experienced was my mom's mom, Nanol, um, who she got cancer and passed away within the night in 90 days. And I got the privilege, my family got the privilege for her to like come live with us while she went home to be with Jesus. And I in those 90 days, like some people have asked me, like, is sudden death better than like a lawn, like knowing that you're saying goodbye. I've I don't think I've ever had anticip anticipatory grief. Yes, thank you, thank you. Um I never had experienced that, even though I feel like I know grief, like it's been with me since I was 14 and has really, and then at 18 really stuck with me. Like when my mom died, I would say that it was pretty pivotal, like and changed the trajectory of my life, really. Um and so with my grandmother, this last it's been almost a year, we're coming up on a year. Um, and so I we got to walk her home, she got to live with us with hospice, and it was so beautiful, but really so hard. And I think what the beauty was is that there was like I allowed people in. I allow one thing that God said to me when I got Nan all got her diagnosis was look up or you'll miss out. And if anyone uh asks you to help, you say yes. And I think those two things really shaped what those 90 days looked like because I did do those things. I was present, I allowed people, I mean, we didn't really cook. I think I cooked two meals in 90 days. Like I would just get gift cards randomly, or like we would have dinner on our porch and had no idea who it was from. Like, um, people came over and cleaned all these, and it was so beautiful. And I think, like when I said at the beginning, like we don't allow people to come in, like when they say, How are you? Like during that time when people would ask me, I would be like, I'm a mess. Like, here's what's hard, here's what I need. And I've kind of moved away from that, and I'm like, no, I need to get back to that because that's important. That's how people can love us in our mess, is when we allow them to come in. And like, I don't, I'm very, I'm not, I wouldn't say in private. Like, if you know me, like you're gonna know who I am. I like listening to stories, I'll tell you my story. Like, I'm not ashamed of any of that. Sometimes it can feel like we're exposed and like open when we ask people for help. And that is not true. Like, it is such a gift to other people to be able to serve you when we're in crisis or whatever it may be. That is a gift to that person. And so I'm kind of on a tangent about asking for help, but just ask like if you're in a season of grief or even just a hard season, you've got two trusted friends at least. Maybe you have one trusted friend that you can be honest with and just say, Life is real shitty right now, and this sucks, and I need help with meals, cleaning, getting my kids, whatever it may be, whatever you need in that season. Like, I would just encourage you to be honest. I think if I haven't been honest in this season, like even this last year, so I would say that Nanol's death has rocked me. And I'm processing this with my therapist, that Nanal's death has rocked me more than my mom's death. And I and I'm struggling. I, you know, it's my mom and my grandmother, like in what I've come to know is like I had my mom zero to 18. I some memories I don't have because I don't like remember when I was a baby and all that. With my grandmother, she stepped in immediately. She watched Logan for me so I could finish school. She brought him up to me on my lunch break, so I'd breastfeed my son in the school parking lot. She moved in with us weeks after her own daughter died to care for us. And so I had Nana from 18 until 44. Those are pivotal, pivotal years in adulthood that you need your mom or you need, you know, a motherly figure. And Nanaw was that for me. Um, and so I have really struggled this last year losing her. Um and I'm really grateful. I have an EMDR therapist. I'm in grief therapy. Um, I'm also, I'm gonna plug Grief Share, it's a national organization. It's you can Google it, they have all over classes, it's a beautiful program. It's a week, it's 12 weeks, and they walk you through grief in this most incredible way, and you hear stories from other people who've lost people. Um, and it's just and so with NANAL's death, I feel like my grief has been so large. And I think this time around with Jesus, like I am not choosing drugs, alcohol, and sex. I'm choosing to lean into healing, into being whole, figuring out what is life like now. With my grief with Nanol, it's been very large, so large that I decided to take six weeks off of work because I I couldn't like grief makes you have memory loss, it gives you foggy brain. I would want to lay in my bed all day. No motivation, all these things. And I have two kids at home. I have four kids total, but I have two kids at home. I have a job, I have a husband, I have two dogs. Like I have I still have to function. And after losing Nanol this last year, I feel like I've been functioning maybe at 5% and just surviving. And so what I've started doing is EMDR therapy, which has been really helpful. Grief therapy. Nanol went through hospice, and hospice offers free grief counseling for 13 months after your loved one dies in hospice, and it's such a gift. Um, and so I've gotten free grief therapy once a month through hospice, and this lady is such a gym, and I'm so grateful that this is like services that they offer. And I'm the only one in my family member that's taking advantage of it. I think the importance of being able to talk out with someone, especially professional, about your grief and how you're truly feeling, because sometimes we won't tell our friends the honest truth, but I can go into a therapy office and say the honest truth if I don't have a friend who I can say that honest truth to. And so I just so this time around with Nano with grief, I just feel like I've been grippling at like, how do I even go on? Like, I don't want to accept it. I don't want to accept it. Like, this is crap. Like, I thought she wanted to live till 90. She died at 88. Like, I thought I had a couple more years with her. Um, and so it this losing Nana has been really hard, but also really beautiful because I've allowed people to love me. And I didn't allow people to love me when my mom died. Because when my mom died, I was like, I'm the oldest, I'm the oldest, I'm the first granddaughter.
SPEAKER_03I have to take care of. Yes. I can't be taken care of. I have to take care of.
Anticipatory Grief And Hospice Lessons
SPEAKER_01Yes. So I assumed my mom's role when my mom died. And that's a whole nother thing. But with Nana, I feel like I'm in a better place, grounded specifically with my relationship with Jesus, but also grounded in who I am. And so, like at 18, 18-year-old Jordan, oh, I have no idea. My frontal lib wasn't developed. Like, I had no idea. But now at 44, I am confident in who I am. And I know that it's not a sign of weakness. And it took me a long time to get there to ask for help or to allow people to come in. I mean, I allowed Dawn from Haven to come in, I tell a story all the time, to come and fold. Like, I don't even know. She was there for like four hours. I don't even know. I just was like, and she went upstairs and folded so much laundry, did all my laundry and cleaned the upstairs of my house. And Nanol was not good. And I just remember Dawn walking in. Um and Nanal wasn't having a good day. Like when someone dies of cancer, and it's towards the end, it is horrific. Nanol held on for nine days without any food or water. And I remember Dawn walking in, and there was something peaceful about my house during that time. And I remember Dawn walking in, and she gave me a hug, and she was like, Okay, I'm gonna go upstairs. And she was like so soft-spoken and just a gentle presence about her, and she's like, I'm not gonna be in the way. Let me know if I'm too loud. Like she just showed up and showed up for to fold some laundry, and it was like the biggest gift, and so I think grief is so hard, it is so hard, and it will be with me forever. This is not something that, like, yes, there are six signs of healing that you know that you're like you're healing from your grief, and that is accepting, dealing with your emotions, adjusting, addressing questions, continuing, and sharing comfort. Though so, like when I kind of feel those, like I know those in my brain, I'm like, okay, I am gonna be okay, but I still can hold grief in one hand and I can trust the Lord in the other, and I can hold those two together, and there's nothing wrong with that. Just like we hold joy and sorrow are any other two emotions. Like I can trust Jesus and still miss my grandmother. I think the one thing that I would want to give people advice about is like when people don't know how to do death. People don't know how to do it. Like when my mom died, we were very involved in a local church, like very involved, like we were there all the time, like maybe too much. We're core families in this church, and about two weeks after my mom died, everyone except like one family, like abandoned my dad. Like my dad needed the most support, and the church gets it wrong all the time, and they miss the mark with my dad. Like our church family, all we've known our whole lives, and they couldn't handle my mom dying. Well, if you can't handle it, how do you think we're feeling? Right, and so I would say move towards people in their grief, like just move towards them. And the best thing that you can do is just sit with them. Like sometimes you don't even have to say anything. And please do not say they'll they want you to be happy. Please do not say that. PSA, please do not say that. If you say that to me, watch out, watch out. Um because that's not helpful. Like, I know that Nanal and my mom and like my granddad and my pop, like I know that they would want me to be happy. But it's okay for me to be sad too. Like, sad that like my mom only got to meet one of her grandkids who was only five six days old. Like, my son does not none of our kids, none of my siblings' kids don't know who my mom is. My girls are five and six, and we live next door to Nanaw, and so sh we were a part of our everyday life. And even grief with children has been that's a whole nother ball game, but just like just sitting, just be you don't even have to do anything, just show up for people. I think what happens with grief is someone dies, and a living death is worse because people don't know. Like, yeah, you don't know, and so like for you to express about feeling like a miscarriage, like you would have had to let people in at that time to know, and then they could have served you, you know, like you would have had to say those things, and people would have been like, Well, that's weird, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I think I um yeah, it was hard. It that one was was oh, it was excruciating, but there was also so much goodness in the story, and it was so hard to hold both of them at the same time. Um It's so hard living with living deaths, it's like because people have opinions, yeah, right?
SPEAKER_01Oh, you shouldn't be worried about that, that doesn't matter, like just get over it.
Letting People Help And Asking For Support
SPEAKER_03Just get over it, or well, that's not right with some like in a different situation. That's not right. And I'm like, yeah, I know that it's not right, or um however people experience it around you, it they people all when you let people in, that's one of the reasons why people stay away, and it's one of the hard things about letting people in is that then they also in the sharing in your grief, you're opening up this window of um their opinions about your grief. Yeah, right. And and at the beginning of foster care for us, foster care was our our first two years were excruciating. Yeah, I mean, just intense on every level, like 12 out of 10 intensity, yeah. And it made our life very hard. Yeah. So of course, the people who love me look at how hard our life is, realize that we're choosing this, and then feel like they can say, Well, you should stop. Walk away from this. Call call the state, have the state come pick up their kids. Like, why are you choosing this hard thing? And I didn't need them to say that. No, I needed them to sit with me. I needed them to sit with me. I needed them to say, This is hard, and I see you. Yeah, and you are choosing this hard thing on because God calls us, because God called me here, but also like for the sake of somebody who didn't ask for this hard thing to happen in their life. Like these sweet babies, these sweet babies that are in our house that didn't ask for this, and I see that it I see what it's costing you. Yeah, and it hurts me that it's costing you this much. But I also want you to know that I'm so proud of you that you're willing to pay this. Like, you know, like I how like there are so many other things that you can say then you should quit. Yeah. Right. Or you should get over it. And I think when you were talking about like the the church, I mean, we could talk for a very long time about how the church gets it wrong and also sometimes how the church gets it right. Yeah. And and you never c you kind of never know what you're gonna get from the bag of tricks. Yeah. You kind of know. You know, you're like, uh, is this happy?
SPEAKER_01What I've what I've seen like with the deaths that I've experienced is that people will bring food for about two weeks.
SPEAKER_03And then their life goes back to normal.
SPEAKER_01Then their life goes back to normal. But what I think people don't realize is that like I'm starting a new normal. That's correct. I'm starting with something.
SPEAKER_03When my friends have experienced um death or loss or whatever, I know that people people know how to show up with a casserole.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and then your your fridge is so overstocked.
SPEAKER_03And it's overwhelming and all of that stuff. I travel after.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I am like, hey, I if it's okay with you, I'm not gonna be at the funeral. I'm gonna wait for six weeks. Yep. And I'm gonna come then because that's when you're gonna need me. That is the best in your in your house. That's when you're gonna need me to just either to distract you, to help you pack, to help you like whatever.
SPEAKER_01I mean, because what I think people don't think about, especially with like an actual death, is that like well, shock is the first thing.
SPEAKER_03And then you've got to pack up their whole life. That is correct. And you have to process all of that stuff, and you have to. This is the our neighbor gave us brought flowers on the last day of a placement one time. And she had this like whole little care package, and I was like, Her name is Megan, and I said, Megan, what is thank you so much. Like she had pizza delivered to her house.
SPEAKER_00Oh, what a gift.
SPEAKER_03It was it was, yeah. So much so that years later, I'm on a podcast talking about it. What a gift! Yeah, and I was like, Thank you so much, and she goes, The first days and the last days are the hardest, right? Your family's gonna experience a significant amount of pain, and I want you to know that we're here. That is beautiful, it was beautiful, it was beautiful.
SPEAKER_01I mean, you she saw you, yes, she saw you in your hurt, she saw you in your pain, yes, and she said, Hey, I I got you.
SPEAKER_03Yes, and I you know, we're talking today about grief, living deaths, actual deaths, foster care adoption, like, and I just want to I want to say out loud, like, grief is grief, is grief, is grief. Yeah. And to compare or to say, well, I didn't experience it that bad. So I don't get to experience these feelings, these emotions that are associated with grief, would be to do yourself a disservice.
SPEAKER_01A hundred percent.
SPEAKER_03Or to say, and I've not ever actually seen people who experience deep grief ever minimize somebody else's seemingly minor grief unless they're like, I scratched myself with a pencil and being persecuted. We will be we're the first in line to be like the what did you say?
SPEAKER_01Hold on. Do you have do you have an hour? Let me sit down. I'm gonna tell you.
Therapy, EMDR, And Structured Healing
SPEAKER_03Yes, no. I'm gonna need you to stop talking. Like, don't ever, and I hope, I hope that you guys can hear behind the tone in my voice. Do not ever come at me with a sentence like that because I will look at you as if you are the dumbest person on the face of the planet because my life is actually hard. Yep. Not because Starbucks got my order wrong. Now, I say that, and I'm also gonna say that on a day that is very hard, there was a day, Jordan. I cannot believe, I cannot believe I'm gonna tell this. Oh, I can't wait to hear it. This is gonna be good.
SPEAKER_02It's gonna be good. I've had those days.
SPEAKER_03There was a day. And we my family has been in a season of grief. My marriage has been in a season of grief. Like we are, um, it's it is no You're in a hard season.
SPEAKER_01It's no secret. We're in a hard season.
SPEAKER_03And there are days. Okay, so I come in and my coworkers can um they can feel my energy sometimes from the parking lot because the walls are thin, they can hear the way that my door shuts, they can hear the like so they already know. Sometimes they're already passing looks at each other before I walk in. But on this particular morning, and they love this story. Okay, on this particular morning, I had been up since I want to say like four or five o'clock in the past. Absolutely not. That's a bad start immediately. Fighting with Brad.
SPEAKER_01Oh no.
SPEAKER_03And then the kids wake up, and then it's a bad morning with the kids, and then it's this, and then it's this. And you know, one of my things, and we'll I want to get into I have a couple questions that I really want to get into, but um, one of my things is like control what you can control on a day like this when your life feels wildly out of control in a season of- you have control, yeah. Like it is, I do this, I say this in order to remind myself that I do have agency, I do have control. I couldn't control this horrible thing over here, but I can control my response to it. I can control, like, and and so it's kind of like a spiritual practice, if you will. Yeah, one that I can take too far. But but it is a spiritual practice, okay. Also, on days like this, one of the things that I know now about my body is that my nervous system goes off the rails. And so where I already have some sensory processing uh things things, little fun tricks, yeah, and little little fun um opinions that my body has about the sensory world around me, on a day like this, that is it is very, very high. And I have a lot of sensory needs. Yep. And I can't, and I have a lot of sensory intolerances. So I say this to say, I got dressed for work because I well, while I would live in sweats in this season, one of my coworkers has taught me through through how she lives and how she um goes about her day that like actually getting dressed on these really hard days is really much better for my mental health than to like live in my sweats. Yeah. Okay. Did I also go to La Napolera the other day in sweats and almost house slippers? Yeah, damn right I did. Yes, you did. Yes, you did, a whole queen. Did I? Did I? Never mind. Okay. So in general, I try to get dressed, but on these days, I wear like the most sensory-friendly clothes that I have.
SPEAKER_01Like a maxi dress or something like that.
Small Triggers, Big Waves, And Nervous Systems
SPEAKER_03Yeah, on this particular day, it's a jumpsuit. Okay. So much setup for this story. I put on the wrong underwear to wear with this jumpsuit. And I'm taking the kids to um to their school, and this underwear is driving. I can see it.
SPEAKER_02I like it's in my mind right now.
SPEAKER_03Up the wall. And I'm like, control what you can control. I can go to Target and I can buy new underwear. I don't have to wear this all day long. I go to Target. I buy underwear. I change in the bathroom at I start walking to my car, and damn if I didn't buy the wrong underwear. So you gotta go back in. No, because you can't return. Like, what am I gonna do? Return an open worn pack of underwear. I'm not going to get away a different pair. I'm just screwed. I get to work, and I, the way that I walk in had to have been a cloud storm of It's probably like a tornado, something the Tasmanian devil. My coworkers turn around and look at me, and I like, I'm pretty sure I slammed the front door because there wasn't therapy, like how I just I close it forcefully, and they were like, what is going on? And I was like, my underwear, it's the wrong underwear. He like lost it over underwear. Yes, that's what will happen. That's what will happen. Yes. So when I so I I I say all of that to say, like, don't come and say to me that Starbucks got my order wrong, and so I'm experiencing an attack from the enemy. But also, there are days when if Starbucks gets your order wrong, it is the thing you cannot handle. Yeah, it's a thing that can break you, it is the thing that can break me. And that day, it it underwear broke me. I couldn't, I was like, I'm I'm so far past the line of like what I can do and not do today. Um, and you know, one of the beautiful things about working at Haven is that kind of we become the people that we served then in that moment. And so the office kind of wraps around me. Yeah. And they put enough support around me until I could get my head back up out of the water. And then we went back on our day and we went to work, and it was a beautiful thing. And that's what we need is it was a beautiful, beautiful thing, but all of that to say, such a long story about it's the small things really can, and then you feel crazy. Yeah, you feel really crazy when it's something as simple as like I stubbed my toe and I'm a balling mess on the ground.
SPEAKER_01I remember when I was 25, I had a bank teller tell me happy birthday when I dropped a check off. It was like, I think it was my actual birthday, and I vividly remember in the drive-thru, and the lady said happy birthday, and I was turning 25, and I lost it. Lost it. All she was doing was being nice. But that like set something off of me, like I'm 25 without my mom.
SPEAKER_03Like my mom can't tell me happy birthday.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, 100%. Okay. Now that we've done story time, I want to ask um one of the things, one of the images that I love. My friend, his name is Dr. Vernon Berger, and he is his work is around lament. Um, and which makes he tells us a joke about like he's like, you know, I'm the life of the party. And it's actually why um Vern, his wife Amber, and I are such good friends, is because it's like you guys can hang in the deep end. Yeah. Like you don't run away from the hard.
SPEAKER_01No, that's I think that's what what the gift that like all these deaths have given me in this grief is that I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid to jump in the deep end with someone. Like you're walking through something hard. My therapist will say that I'm moving towards the trauma because that's what my body likes. But I'm I'm But I would say we're we are actually softer.
SPEAKER_03Yes. And we're not afraid.
SPEAKER_01No, and I'm not afraid for someone to say some really hard things.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_01And I can hold it for them.
SPEAKER_03Right. So he talks about like personifying our emotions. Like when we have really hard emotions, he talks about um, he has this beautiful poem that he talks about like sitting on his back porch drinking lemonade with these hard emotions and and welcoming them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
Lament, Personifying Emotions, And Anger
SPEAKER_03So much of the healing work that that I have done has been around welcoming emotions and being present and knowing, like, you know, uh I know if I'm disassociated or not, but if I can feel my body and if I can, if I can name the emotion that I'm feeling. When I'm disassociated, I can't, yeah, I can't name it. Right. And so um, when I'm disassociated, I am like an expert level disassociated. Uh my therapist, I've said this on the podcast before, but our marriage counselor said I had very sophisticated Indicated levels of disassociation. And I should be proud of that. No, I'm just kidding. You're like, thank you. That was a compliment, right? And I said, Thank you so much. It took me 43 years to get this good. And I made a joke about it, which only serves to like I use humor and I have all of these things, right? But he personifies his hard emotions and he invites them to his back porch. And so I want to take a little bit of time and and see what that looks like for you. Yeah. Like, what does grief, if grief were a person for you, what would they look like?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So for me, this go-around, anger has been a big one and really like deep sadness. Like deep sadness where like I can't get out of bed.
SPEAKER_03Um that's my second question is what what other emotions come with it? So you just skipped the first question and went straight to the second.
SPEAKER_01So like anger is a big one for me right now, and really just like I don't care, like if that even makes sense. Like I just, I'm like, okay, whatever. Like my house is messy, like, and I don't care. Like, I just don't care. And so I think if I was like, I'm imagining in my brain like sadness the from inside out, but also like connected with anger, like split in half, yeah, but also like sadness is holding like a teddy bear and a lovey because she just doesn't know what else to do.
SPEAKER_03But like she's underneath a blanket, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And that's what it felt. It's it's felt and also like a just a heaviness. Like, I just think I'm really I was really angry at God after my mom died. I walked away from the Lord for I think 11 years. I was so mad at God. The way that my mom died was horrific. And I had to witness it. It is I mean, I right now, like as I'm talking about, like I'm there in my mind. I'm not stuck anymore. I think that's another thing about grief is like we have to you can't stay stuck, you have to move through your pain, whether you want to or not. You have to.
SPEAKER_03You know, one of the things that has helped me with that because the because it feels so overwhelming, is I started having this mental picture of an anchor in the sea and a wave coming. Like I started to understand that emotions, feelings are waves and that they come, they move through our bodies, and then they go. They come to give us information to tell us something.
SPEAKER_01Well, and we need to honor that. Like I heard something saying that like if we just if we're feeling anger, any kind of emotion, but if we're feeling anger, to let your body feel that anger about what it is for like a minute, the anger runs through your body and then it kind of dissipates because you allowed it to run through your body and not just push it to the side and put it in a box.
Stability Isn’t “Over It”: Tools And Setbacks
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And so I started having this picture of this this anger or anchor, anchor in the ocean and a wave coming, and I would be clinging to like the the buoy on the top. Um like you know, one of those like tower buoys? I know what you're talking about. I know exactly what you're talking about this day, like no wake or nothing. Yeah. It would be like on the on the tower buoy, and I would be holding on to it, and I would picture the wave like crashing over, and I would go, you just have to hold on. Yeah, the wave will like come back, right? Vern, um when he per personifies this emotion, when he when he has them like solidly there in his mind, he says, Um, and in this case we would say anger, yeah, right? Anger, what's troubling you today? Yeah. Anger is always a secondary emotion. We know this, it's covering fear or sadness. Yeah. And um he would say, anger, what's or grief, what's troubling you today? Or loneliness, what's troubling you today, or shame, yeah, what's troubling you today. And then he writes and he lets shame talk and he stops when it says something good. He's like, your emotions are always trying to protect you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's how God designed us.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and so it's just kind of this like we have to honor. I feel like we don't have to honor good mental health, is actually just accepting the reality, not numbing it. Yes, feeling what you're feeling. Like that is one of the things, like hard days can be hard. People are asking me right now, like, how are you doing? And the thing that I know how to answer is I feel like I am fractured and I am being held together. I have felt fractured in other seasons of my life, and I have felt unlike unhinged in the like I have felt just absolutely like shattered in pieces on the ground. Like, how will this even be put back together? There's no way. And now it's like, no, this is this is hard specifically, like as we're recording this, my family is going through hell that I would never choose. And there's goodness and there's kindness and there's joys, and like there's all of this stuff, right? Um, but I answer it like I feel shattered, and I also feel held together externally and also internally. Like I've done the work necessary to be able to feel the hard emotions and not be shattered in pieces on the ground. Yeah. It doesn't make the day less hard. No. It doesn't, and I think that that's another misconception of like if we are have good mental health or if we have healed enough or if we have like whatever we're over it. We're over it. And like all of a sudden, our days are sunshine and rainbows and unicorns and butterflies. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. Life is hard. Not true. Yeah. We are not undone when like like good mental health is I'm stable here.
SPEAKER_01I can handle this. I can handle this.
SPEAKER_03I have enough confidence.
SPEAKER_01I have the tools. Like my AMDR therapists have the last five weeks, we really or the last six weeks we really concentrated on my grief. And I I would I I said to someone, like, I don't feel stuck in my grief. Like my grief will always be with me, but I don't feel stuck in like where I felt stuck before, like I couldn't move through it because the pain was so hard. But that doesn't mean my birthday is Friday. And last night at Grief Share, I was so overcome with emotion because I just was like, this is the first birthday. And I texted my best friend and I said, I cried so much last night at Grief Share. I was like, I thought I was like healing, like I thought, like, and she texted me back and she was like, You are healing, you have done the work, you're still gonna have hard days. That's what I need people to say. And so just because like I maybe tell you that I'm unstuck for my grief doesn't mean that it's not there. Like it is, it is, I think grief is grief is something that will always be a part of my blood, I guess you would say.
SPEAKER_03Um I think that that's what anybody who experiences grief says, though. Like it is it's human nature to want a hard thing to go quickly and to go away, right? The DSM5 has this new um category and it's called like complex grief syndrome. And it says it says if you experience grief about a situation for longer than six months, you're experiencing complex grief is the definition.
SPEAKER_01Hello, me. Is there a picture of me in there?
Complex, Layered Grief In Foster And Adoptive Life
SPEAKER_03Well, it's just, you know, when when Vernon was talking about that at a session at CAFO, I I was sitting there and he was like, guys, like if a child who's been removed from their parents experiences grief for more than six months, they're gonna be they're experiencing complex grief. He's like, you don't he, I mean he like wholeheartedly disagrees with the city. Yeah, that's that's crap. As do I, but it's like, no, we need to we need to understand that like life-changing grief changes the fabric, right? Like there is there's versions of us that don't exist anymore. There, it's complicated, yeah, it's multi-layered, it's not just the grief of Nana dying, it's not just the grief that's associated with like there's a child in your home whose biological mother doesn't get to experience their first day of the children.
SPEAKER_01Like, or at Christmas, like Christmas adoption is all of the things, right?
SPEAKER_03Like, there's not a first day of school that I don't experience grief.
SPEAKER_01Birthdays with my youngest daughter, it's birthdays, holidays, mother's day.
SPEAKER_03Like we watched our youngest take his first step, and at the time we were fostering, not we had not adopted, those were not my first steps. Yeah, those were his biological mother's first step, and she missed them. And the grief that I experienced watching him knowing that his biological mother doesn't get to watch this. The grief as a mother that I experience for her, the grief as a mother that I experience for him, the grief as a mother that I experience for my own self. It's so layered. Yep. It's so layered, it's so complicated and it doesn't go away. No. There's not there's not a time when it goes away. There's not a day.
SPEAKER_01And I think especially with adoption, like I that I mean, like every, you know, at a sk program or they play sports, or like I mean, that will be forever.
SPEAKER_03Um grandparents' day at school.
SPEAKER_01Oh, don't even get me started. I've already had a meeting with the PTA and a meeting with the principal about my.
SPEAKER_03I've had a kid who's already skipped grandparents' day at school, and that's that's my biological son. Yeah. Even harder. Yeah, because we sat around a table the other day and they were like, Who are my grandparents?
SPEAKER_01Uh well, and it I mean, I know for me, like the only living grandparent left has an addiction, and so there are boundaries with that. But like, how do you tell young kids? Yeah, it's just it's hard.
SPEAKER_03And so I think I want like I want to say and to say wholeheartedly that to live and experience grief makes you normal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yep. To and honor it, like onor yourself, honor your body. Yes, honor your body. I am so grateful for my mind and my body most recently. Like, I've been thanking my body more. Yes, because I don't think we thank our bodies enough. Like it has held me and is is um experience in healing, like our bodies, our brains were made for healing. It is like it is made for healing, made for wholeness.
SPEAKER_03And the and we can honor it in lots of ways, right? Like the it took me a lot of years in therapy to even understand what my nervous system was doing on really heavy days. I didn't have words for that before. Yeah. Um, I I'm telling you on those days, I can't handle a necklace. Like I can't, like, like I go into my closet and the thought of wearing clothes feels offensive.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
Honoring Bodies, Sensory Care, And Daily Practices
SPEAKER_03And but you have to go to work. You have we have to wear clothes, right? One of the ways that I honor my body is I have purchased clothes that are elastic, like that are that feel good, that feel good on my body specifically for those days. I also wear other days, right? So that they're not just like Rebecca's sad clothes. Yeah. But but so that on those days, I know that there is something in my closet that I can reach I can reach for that looks cute, is wearable in public. Yeah, it feels like you don't look like a bum or homeless. Yes. But do you see what I'm saying? Lord, it's like when you don't shy away from your grief, yes, when you don't numb it out, and it's way be I feel like it's it's a beautiful path. It's a beautiful path of of I have a okay, when you were talking about numbing it out, I wanted to interrupt and I didn't, and I'm glad that I didn't, but I wanted, and you were like, I'm I'm pressing into Jesus, like I'm pressing into healing, I'm pressing into you. I will not have done our lives justice if I do not say out loud that there is also a way to use Jesus in religion to numb your pain. Yeah. There is a faith that is deep and wide and good and rooted in all and goodness and truth that can face grief. Yes, yep. And there is faith that says that grief is bad. Yeah. And that if we really love Jesus, we wouldn't be sad. We wouldn't be sad. And if we really love Jesus, we would trust him in all things. And if we really love like in and all of these shoulds that happen that deny the human experience and use spiritual out spirituality to bypass grief. And I want to take a moment and say that that is also numbing. Yes, that is numbing. It is it is it might be worse. Yep. It's not gonna be as overt as like a cocaine addiction. Yeah. But but you are using God Himself.
SPEAKER_01Well, it then Jesus was fully human and he wept when his friend died. He experienced grief. He experienced grief. There's this song that's called The Son of Suffering, yes, that held me during my grandmother's cancer because it in there it says there's a God who weeps and there's a God who bleeds. Yes, and that is so true. And God wants us to come with our whole selves, and so like my real I am a relationship of a religion. My prayer life, the probably the last seven months, have kind of been people would probably be offended the way that I talk to God.
SPEAKER_03Well, this is how I learned about lament. Yeah, is because I was talking to God a certain way. And then then Vernon, I went to his workshop on lament and it changed my life because I felt so. There's something freeing.
SPEAKER_01So like I can take my Jesus isn't God, Jesus is not afraid of my full whole self. Every single emotion that that he wants that.
SPEAKER_03I have a um, I created this playlist at the beginning of um in the middle of the summer when when things I thought were already bad and then they started taking a turn for worse. I I created this playlist and it's called shit storm worship.
SPEAKER_02But that's maybe I need to win those. I did mine just says worship and I just always press it. That is great.
SPEAKER_04That's called shit storm.
SPEAKER_02Because I'm like, it's worship for when you're in the middle of a shoe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because that can change your like it can help.
SPEAKER_03Every single song on here is about like it's either about the goodness of God or his ability to raise the dead.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Because it is what I need to hear right now, and I need to be like anchored in the middle of that stuff, right? In the last, you know, um nine days, my we've had to drive back and forth to Gainesville for some medical procedures, which um, if you're listening to this, not in Jacksonville, Gainesville is from our house to parking and being in the spot in the hospital that we need to be at, it's two hours. Oh my gosh. So, and then whatever the infusion time is, so the medicine time that that that my family member is in the ch in the chair in the medical speak um can range from two hours to uh Monday it was five hours.
SPEAKER_01And no, that's crazy.
Spiritual Bypassing Versus Anchored Faith
SPEAKER_03That's that's not the longest day. The longest day we were there was 11 hours. Like it's it has been, it has been That's insane. It has Jordan, it has been so so so so so hard. It has been because in a like then it's the two hours there, it's the two hours back. It's the five kids who are missing their mom and dad, and and are um, and when we're home, we are deeply engaged with the kid that is going through these infusions that um had every side effect that you could possibly get, and the the most like like so like severe. I don't want to say the most my mom brain wants to say the most severe. I understand that medically he was not the most severe that these doctors see, but I also know what I saw, yeah. And that like IV pain medication didn't touch it. That's so hard to watch. It's so it was so hard to watch, and and and it's and to be with, right? It's um and then all the other five kids are the full hot full. They're on a hundred, they're not even worried about yeah, no, no, they are like I I think they are worried about it, and it's coming out in phone calls from school every single day. It wasn't a day last week that we did not get so much sense more than one phone call from our four little school. And when I I can't even say it on air, what was said.
SPEAKER_01Like I can't even That makes sense though.
SPEAKER_03They're little bodies, they're little minds, oh yeah, worried about their brother, worried about their brother, missing their mom and dad, missing like all of all routines are out of whack. And I am here to tell you that there's not I mean, until Sunday and Monday, I needed to like roll the windows down and play 90s country and just like let it all out. Let it all out. Because sometimes that is also worship, like it's also like okay, I need joy.
SPEAKER_01Yep. And you have to choose joy sometimes, like you have to choose joy. I've had I've had to choose joy, and sometimes that's hard. But if not, like I would be in bed still.
SPEAKER_03Like on Sunday, but Zoe and I looked at each other and I was like, I I know that I have to get to water, that water is life-giving to me. And so I was like, Do you want to go to the beach? Do you want to go kayaking? And she was like, Oh, let's go kayaking. And this is one of the days where we drive up, um, it's like 45 minutes outside of town, and sound this beautiful road right along that side of the ocean. Like it's what Florida should look like. And we go kayaking for an hour and a half, and Zoe and I, both of our bodies just relaxed. It's almost like a deep breath. It was a deep breath. It was a deep breath. And then it was like, okay, how can we go find some more? How can we find more joy? How can we go? Okay, let's do this. And it wasn't that I ended the day feeling joyful. Yeah, the day before had been an absolute mess. There was no way that I was getting up to like unhinged joy that day, right? But I wasn't in the depths of despair either. Yeah. And like choosing, and I could have been. Yeah. I mean, we always have a choice. I could have been. The day before, that Saturday was a nightmare of a day. Yeah. For multiple reasons that didn't have to be, by the way. It didn't have to like, people could have chosen a different day to pile their crap on top, right? But they didn't, they chose that day. And so it's like I could choose, and it's having this knowledge, like, I can choose, Joy. I get a choice. Yes, I have a choice. This is why I talk about controlling things that you can control, anyhow.
SPEAKER_01I tell my kids all the time, I'm like, we you can only control you on a good day. You cannot control how your sister's gonna react, how I'm gonna react, how your friends are gonna react. You can only control you.
Finding Goodness In The Desert And Daily Joy
SPEAKER_03If our kids can grow up and not be as codependent as I grew up to be, that would that would be so great. Um I was saying all of that though to say, like, in my car, it has been this shit storm worship playlist. Like it has been this, like in the background and on the and on the hard things. Like, this is what this is the difference between using Jesus to spiritually by. Past grief and and knowing who he is and what he promises and that anchor, like that faith anchoring it. Because in the middle of the hardest things, in the middle of the hardest conversations, in the middle of the hardest moments in the hospital, in the middle of all of it, in the back of my brain is the running chorus. Christ is my firm foundation, my rock on which I stand. Yeah. When everything else is broken, it my hope is in him. I know joy and chaos. Yeah. I know peace that makes no sense. Like, and it's just, it is either my brain is picking this up and and do it like it's it's reaching for it because I'm listening to it all the time. Yep. Sometimes I put it there. Sometimes I'm in a I'm experiencing a situation and I go, hey, Christ is my and I just start singing it in the background while I'm fully present. And Jordan, sometimes it's being sung over me. Yeah. Sometimes I didn't put it there in my brain. It's being sung over me in the middle of the hardest conversations that I have had in my lifetime. Yeah. They've happened in the last month, and I and in the background is Christ is my firm foundation. And I just want I have not always had that in the grief. Same. I've not always had access like I have it right now. And I and if you're listening to this and you've been a Christian for all of your life, and what we're talking about still doesn't make any sense. I just want you to know that it is possible and that I have been a Christian for all of my life. Same. And I have experienced grief in multiple ways. And I have experienced like high levels and low levels and and all of it. And and this is different because it's the first time that I've been walking through a desert that I could feel the presence of God in the same time.
SPEAKER_01That's what I was trying to say earlier. Like this grief feels different. This with Nanol's passing feels different. Every other desert.
SPEAKER_03I've not felt him in the desert. I experience him. I experience the goodness of God in the desert. Like I and and kind of like I have to go backwards. Yeah. And I have to look afterwards and kind of like when I'm out of it, go, okay, show me where you were. Show me how you show me how you showed up. Yeah. And this one, it's like, he's like, sweetie, it's you and me, kid. And I'm not gonna leave you for a second. Not that he leaves us before, but but that I'm gonna let you feel me. Yeah. Here. Which is so beautiful. I'm gonna let you feel me. I I was sitting in my sister's backyard yesterday and I was so overwhelmed. Brynn says, you know, it God prepares a table for us. It's a verse in Psalms that I will prepare a table for you in the presence of your enemies. And obviously now it's like metaphorical enemies, right? Brynn says, When God cooks, he always makes dessert. You can look for the dessert. Yeah. And I sat in my sister's backyard yesterday. We're on we're on day nine. And I was like, there's dessert everywhere. There's goodness everywhere. Both things can coexist.
SPEAKER_01We just miss it if we're not aware.
SPEAKER_03If we're not aware, we're hyper focused on what is not right, right? Because our brains are wired for survival. And so survival means fix the things that are broken. But if we can pull back and we can say what is good here, in the middle of all of this, there is goodness. You know, I mean, I Mr. Rogers says, like, right, like he says, like his mom told him, when bad things happen, look for the look for the people who are running towards, look for the healers, look for the helpers. They ex it exists everywhere. Yep. Both in in disastrous situations, but also just in in every day.
SPEAKER_01Every day.
SPEAKER_03And it wouldn't be fair to have a conversation about grief and miss the goodness and the richness that happen because of it. I we are, I it is a lesson that I'm hoping to teach my son today. Yeah. That when we let people into our stories, when we let people into our griefs, when we let people into the hard parts of our life.
SPEAKER_01That we want to usually shield away and not be able to do that.
SPEAKER_03That we want to pretend like, nope, everything's okay. We're good. Yeah. I'm fine. Blessed and highly favored. In fact. Yeah. And like when you actually say, hey, I can't, I can't do this one by myself. Yeah. There's a reason we have relationships. Then you, then you get to watch people make magic.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And it's really cool because they get to like you're gifting them a gift. Like, and you don't even, we don't even realize like they're able to serve you like as your friend. Like it's it's you're it's you're allowing them to love you.
Choosing Joy, Nature, And Regulating Together
SPEAKER_03But it also is like this would this only happens in these moments. It's uh you mentioned Inside Out the other day, and we can end on this. It's like that scene because she only wants joy. Joy, like joy wants to always be at the control panel, right? And she finally sees sadness for who sadness is and how sadness is calls people that she loves. Yeah, and she's like, wait, it's because you were in that moment. It's because I lost the hockey game and was sad that people came and found me in that tree, and that we got to celebrate our relationship together, right? It's like letting it doesn't change in inside out, they still lost the hockey game in our life. We're still in the middle of it.
SPEAKER_01I've said to people, like, I would love, I mean, like that season with Nanaw, like sometimes I'm like, it was so holy and so beautiful that I would almost choose to go back there, which is crazy to say.
SPEAKER_03It's crazy to say.
SPEAKER_01It was so holy and like I've never experienced anything like I did in that 90 days.
SPEAKER_03The things that I learned about God after the first in the middle of the first true desert season of my life when when absolute trauma entered my life in a day when I was 25. The things I learned about God on the aftermath and who I became on the aftermath, I've said such similar things, and I would never choose to experience that day again.
SPEAKER_01No, yeah, no, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I would never choose to experience what happened to me ever again.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I would protect my kids from that with my very life. Yeah. And also tattooed on my foot is the promise of God in that season.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03It is why when I say to people like, the thing that I know more than anything is that God is good. Yeah. Those are the most expensive words of my faith. Yep. And it's the same here. I wouldn't wish what is happening to my kid. I'm so mad about what is happening to my kid. I'm so mad. I don't think it's fair, I don't think it's right, I don't think it's good. And what is also true is that we get to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Yeah. And that for as long as my kid has to live with the things that he's gonna have to live with, he will also experience the goodness of God.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's those both. It's the both is, I mean, it always, I feel like, goes back to the both.
SPEAKER_03And we can't talk about there, it's a it's a incomplete conversation if we're only talking about the hard parts of grief, if we do not also say, but here is where. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Here's where God, here's where people showed up. Here's where I saw God face to face.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. This is where I met, this is where I met him. It's why, right? Like it's it's the literal, like it's the heartbeat of the scriptures is to go towards the broken and the vulnerable and the lost and the like go towards the orphan and the widow and and and we move like you were hungry, and I was hungry and you fed me, I was naked and you clothed me. I was in prison and you came to visit me. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me in. And it's because that's where God is. Like we keep wanting him to be in the church pew or we keep wanting him to No, he's right here in our mess.
SPEAKER_01He's in the middle of the mess. In the middle of the heart, in the middle of like, I mean, driving like Jesus meets us everywhere.
SPEAKER_03Well, I'm about to go cry my eyes out. So, um, and I'm about to go experience the goodness of God. Yes, you are like crazy ways that I can't wait to share with the world. We're gonna skip the lightning round, except for this one question. Okay. What is bringing you joy right now?
SPEAKER_01I knew you were gonna ask me this, so I was like thinking about it. I think that my adult son Logan is bringing me a ton of joy. I got to, um, while I was off work, I got to kind of have some dates with him. And he's 26, and he like I think it's just a beautiful picture of redemption for me from the Lord. Like my teen pregnancy, I thought was awful. And just like, he's just a good kid. Nana and I called him the gentle giant, and that's so true. And so he's bringing me a ton of joy.
SPEAKER_03I love that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay. Okay, thanks for being here.
SPEAKER_03Thanks for talking about grief.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, anytime.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, okay.