S3 | Ep.7 Memorial Stones: Anchors of Faith & Hope | Jan Johnson

Join Brenda Savanhu in an inspiring conversation with Jan Johnson as they explore faith, resilience, and the power of memorial stones in navigating life's challenges. Discover how biblical stories and personal experiences reveal God's faithfulness in difficult seasons.

Guest Bio

Jan Johnson is an author and podcaster who has loved telling stories since childhood—she likes to say her writing career really began at age eight, when she created The Mud Pie Cook Book and later had her first book, The Little Red Man, bound by her dad. Today she continues that creative calling as a faith-based fiction author and as the host of two podcasts: Women of the Northwest: Ordinary Women Leading Extraordinary Lives and Just Talkin’ About Jesus, where she shares real people, real faith, and honest conversations about joys, sorrows, and just life in general with Jesus.

Connect with Jan:

Website | Buy Discovering Your Journey | Just Talkin' About Jesus Podcast | Instagram | Substack |  Facebook | YouTube

Chapters
01:45 Jan Johnson's Creative Journey and Faith Background
02:52 Discovering the Journey of Memorial Stones
03:40 Biblical Characters as Life Lessons
04:35 Ruth's Story: Grief, Change, and Trust
05:44 Personal Reflection: Marrying into a Different Faith
07:27 Jonah's Anger and Honest Conversations with God
08:44 Dealing with Daughter's Decision to Become a Nun
09:52 God's Faithfulness in Difficult Seasons
11:56 Wrestling with Faith and Tradition in Catholicism
14:58 Trusting God Amidst Circumstances
16:25 Family, Faith, and Life Changes
18:34 Dealing with Loss and Communication Challenges
20:35 Releasing Control and Trusting God's Plan
27:14 Joseph's Story: Faith, Patience, and God's Plan
29:00 Personal Testimony: Overcoming False Accusations
33:31 Trusting God in Long Seasons of Waiting
39:45 God's Faithfulness in Unexpected Ways
41:08 Legacy and the Power of Memorial Stones
43:16 Daily Habits for Remembering God's Faithfulness
44:06 Jan Johnson's Fiction Writing and Creative Projects
52:32 Final Words: Trusting God in All Circumstances
54:29 Closing Prayer and Blessing

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Aaron. Biggest thing is just keep trusting God. Whether you see he's working, you don't see, you know, that song Waymaker. You know in the background, he's working, you don't see it. He's working and his own time and in his own way. And you just gotta trust him, whether you see it or not. Just give it some time, and maybe it's a lot of time, whatever, but God's good and he loves you and he knows what you're going through. And just know that he's there for you.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Welcome to Remember God, a podcast where we practice remembering God in the midst of trials. Hi, I'm Brenda, and I help followers of Jesus recall God's miracles to successfully navigate current challenges. Welcome to Remember God, a podcast to practice remembering God in the midst of trials. If you're a follower of Jesus who's in a difficult season and finds yourself wanting to take control of the situation instead of trusting God, this is the place for you. This is where we will help you remember the places where God has shown up in the past, giving you the tools and strength to navigate through today's challenges. I'm Brenda Savannu, author of Memorial Stones, Writer, Coach, and your companion on the journey of remembering what God has done. And today I'm very excited to welcome our guest on the show, Jan Johnson. Jan is a new friend. She is also an author and a podcaster who has loved telling stories since childhood. She started her writing career at age eight when she wrote the Mud Pie Cookbook. Which are you gonna share some of those recipes, Jan, so that we can make those recipes? And then later, her first book was The Little Red Man Bound by Her Dad. Today she continues that creative calling as a faith-based fiction author, um, as well as devotionals. And she is the host of two podcasts: Women of the Northwest, Ordinary Women Leading Extraordinary Lives, and just talking about Jesus, where I was honored to be a guest in December. And Jan shares about real people, real faith, honest conversations about joy, sorrows, and life with Jesus in general. Welcome to the podcast, Jan. I'm so excited you're here. Thank you so much, Brenda. Gee, I sound wonderful, don't I? You are wonderful. What do you mean? Like that doesn't even that doesn't even do justice to who you are and all the things you've done. Gosh. Well, Jen, you know, that my podcast is about remembering God, and it's based on my book, Memorial Stones, which you've read, and I really appreciate that. And we found that we have something in common. Your devotional discovering your journey, and then my book, Memorial Stones, have common threads of like finding God in all of these different places. So I ordinarily don't do this, but I actually want to start with discovering your journey simply because of the similarities we have there. Like, what were the memorial stones that led you to writing this devotional?

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Yeah, so most things that I do are because they're God drops, right? Just like I'm not looking for anything, but God says, Oh, how about writing a Bible study this time? And that's what I wanted to be about. And so particularly that idea is that you everybody's got a journey that they're on. I don't know where in life you are. You've got some kind of journey with a whole bunch of pit stops along the way, good and bad. But to compare them to the characters of Ruth, Jonah, Joseph, and David. So I chose those stories, you know, of course, after prayer, but I I chose those stories because they're succinct stories. You know, they're they're they're a composite story that it's easy to be able to see the the things that each of those characters went through. And when you break it down, the things that those characters went through are the same things that we all go through still today. You know? So if you take with Ruth, um, you know, you've got grief in there because I mean heavy grief, husbands and kids and sons-in-laws and um whatever. And then um a move, which is also can be a grieving process of, you know, where am I going? Unsurety, where, you know, where is God taking me? And with Ruth, she changed, had to change her faith base. Right. You know, she was from Moab, so she wasn't a Christian. She, I mean, she wasn't, she wasn't one of the Jews that were there. And so to have the trust in somebody with like Naomi to follow her to somewhere else, you know. I mean, part of it, I guess if you're starving, you want to go where there's food.

unknown 5:04

Right.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

What's the motivation with that, you know? But and then I compared it to stories, each other things to stories in my own life. So with Ruth, I had been married originally with my husband Howard. He had a brain tumor. And so after he died, I had three kids and I was on my own. Um, ended up marrying my second husband and but he lived on a farm, which I had never done before, and his lifestyle was completely different than anything I had done before, which is like off the grid. So there were a lot of changes there. You know, all the spring water was yeah, had to be boiled. So if you were gonna drink anything, you had to do that. It was just a wood stove to keep things warm. A lot of details that were, you know, back when I married him, there was still an outhouse. So, um, and we combined families, so there was a huge, huge change of things. So I felt like I'd I'd I I'd given my my teaching career to come up here. I didn't know anybody that was up here. I was isolated because it was, you know, 20 minutes to drive to any place. But the bigger thing was that he was Catholic and I was not. And so to make that huge leap from one to the other, because he was insistent that we weren't gonna, you know, we weren't gonna do both things. We were gonna do his his way. Right. You know, and so to change from my kids too, that I'd raised in, you know, a Protestant background, you know, to there's all the things, you know, that go with that. That, you know, that was a a huge, huge, huge change. You know, a lot of things are just like Ruth. So that was a that was one of the yeah. So so you can see, you know, when you're looking at a biblical character, where was God in those things, you know, that they were going through? Where was he, you know, and how did he provide of course made everything work together for good. Right. Yeah. He's being in the line of Jesus. But to take those same things and then look at your own life. So we're where did those things happen? With uh Jonah, Jonah gets mad at God, and you know, because he doesn't want to do what God tells him to do. And he's like, What? Right? Do you have to be mad at me? And Jonah's, you know, stomps off, you know, and well, my getting mad at God was when um my youngest daughter, we ended up with kids all together. So my youngest daughter, who is the closest to us, and we call every single day, and just so they had the closest relationship with. So she decided to become a nun. And that threw me for a loop. It actually threw both of us for a loop, you know, because it's kind of like it's kind of like going in the service. You'd go where they tell you you don't have any contact for the first year, and it's like, and it was in Washington, DC instead of Oregon, and it was like, yeah, it was really rough. And I was mad at God. I mean, I was serious, like, what the heck going on here? And you know, out of my 10 kids, I only have a few that are believers, and she was part of them, you know. So to be able to share that faith with your daughter, you know, and have that close, close kind of a faith relationship and then have it cut off was like, huh, that's not the way things are supposed to be when I take an hour and I'm getting mad at God. He says, He says, Well, uh uh, what right do you have to be mad? And I said, Well, come on, man. I mean, you know, and he says, Didn't you pray for your kids to know me and doesn't know me? And it's like, yeah, but I mean, couldn't she know you and still be in Portland or still have contact or something, you know, or even get married and have kids, right? And he's gone, he says, yeah. And then half the time I'm ranting at him, and there's just silence. He's not even responding. It's like, I'm trying to have a conversation here. And as God does, he just listens. You're right, right. And then he finally says, I have things I need to do with her. It's like fine. How do you argue with that? And now it's been three years, and she is the most joyful I've ever seen her, and exactly where God's wanted her to be. It's just so, yeah. It's just really, truly where he she is supposed to be, you know.

SPEAKER_04 9:53

Right. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 9:58

And I don't know. I'll probably get mad at God again for something else. I don't know, but you know, that was as we do. As we do. That was a defining moment. It's definitely a defining moment. I can laugh about it now, but it was not. There were a lot of tears, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:15

That was pretty home. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Wow. Um, so I want to go back because I I want to ask some specific questions around both of these that you shared. So starting with your comparison to Ruth, you know, I was thinking, so Ruth, she lost her husband, you lost your husband. And then, you know, she got remarried, you got remarried, but there was her life completely changed, your life completely changed. And so you mentioned specifically, I want to go back to switching to Catholicism. How did you wrestle with that? And how did God show up for you there when you were going from Protestant to Catholic? What was that journey there?

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Yeah. Yeah. You know, with hindsight, I believe that God placed us in the church that we were in, which was a small Catholic church. And because in my fire lot I had Edwin women's ministries and I had done music and worship and just a lot of things that um that I had under my belt that were not evident in that Catholic Church. And in many of them, you know, whatever. It's more the basis of going to Mass is for communion. And that was a difficult thing for me because for them they believe that the host that Jesus is physically present in the host. And so for me to switch over and become Catholic, which is a year-long process, that means all that time I can't take communion. But it's not based on and I, you know, and so wrestling with I know so much more about the Bible than most of these people do. I know so much, my faith is so much stronger than a lot of these people are, and whatever, just like just trying to wrestle, wrap my mind around how, you know, and a lot of things because a lot of those things are wrapped into tradition, you know, tradition rather than just in the Bible, as generally what we believe, right? Right. Um on the good side of it, I learned because a lot of it is environmentally like the Old Testament, and and the temples and how everything is set up and the seasons and having different festivals and all of that kind of stuff. So I learned a lot on that aspect. But because I was in this church and it was small, I started a women's fellowship, which we met once a month. And so I taught them praise and worship songs and I did Bible studies with it. Um and I did that for 20 years, whatever, and then we started having two retreats a year, you know. And um and so I felt like God really placed me there for for them as much as for me. You know, to be able to balance out the two things, you know.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Yeah. It sounds like a lesson in humility as well.

SPEAKER_02 13:39

And I probably needed a lesson in humility.

SPEAKER_04 13:47

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

And interestingly, you know, when I married Ed Eigal, I mean, there was enough similarities. I mean, it's like you believed Jesus died, rose again, you know. I mean, there's enough basis, basic things that I can compare to that you can accept to do. But the knowledge of who God was was missing in a lot with my husband. He'd never read a Bible before, he'd never done anything. And so my prayer at that time, 36 years ago, was that God would really take him on a journey of of who he is and to be, and now he's leading Bible studies. Wow. I mean he's always been really involved, but now he's really digging in, you know, and partly I think because of my my nun daughter has gotten online, you know, like lots of YouTube teachings and whatever too that are whatever. So he's really, really deep in his faith.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

Yeah. That's amazing. So how did you um like how did you agree to say yes with those differences at the beginning?

SPEAKER_02 14:59

I think it's you don't know what you don't know. If I'd have a clue, I wouldn't have said yes. It's a lot, yeah. You know, we're finally at a point now that you know the kids are grown and whatever, to where I am I go to mass with him and then I go to my church afterwards.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Okay, okay. So yeah. Yeah, you know, I say say this a lot, uh, just in my own journey, is if God had given me the syllabus, I probably would have said no. Mm-hmm. But, you know, because you know, he was like, Come on, let's go. I was like, Yeah, but I didn't know what I was walking into. And then as I've been walking the journey, I'm like, oh man, this sucks. This is really hard. And then I I remember the words of Peter, where else would I go, Lord? You have the words of life. So even as difficult as it is, um, I'm still choosing to continue to walk with you. Right.

unknown 16:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Yeah, no, it's been combined in families, holy.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Yeah. So how many children did you have separately before you got married?

SPEAKER_02 16:09

I had three with Howard. It had two natural and two adopted. Of course, then you have all of that, and because of divorce, and they're going back and forth to Seattle to their moms and back and forth. So there was there's a lot of pick and order going on. And then we had three more together. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Yeah. And then all this you're doing with an outhouse.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Good, because at that time we had two bathrooms, one out and one in. Now we just have one. There's a whole bunch of stories in that too.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Yeah. Wow. That's amazing. So then now moving on to the story about Jonah and his anger and then your anger. I I heard in one of your podcast episodes where your daughter, Sister Mercy, is on, and you were just sharing about that anger that you had when you found out, or she shared that she was gonna go and be a nun and she wasn't gonna have a phone, and you weren't gonna be able to be in touch with her, and just all of that. So share how you wrestled through that anger with the Lord.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

Yeah, because part of it is, you know, I mean, honestly, projecting my anger just toward the system of it, you know, the Catholic system of the isolating and to do and all that, you know. Um, and it just it was hard because when she told me, she says, Well, you know, we'll still be able to communicate, you know, and it'll just look a little bit different and things like going, yeah, they told you a line, I think, because we couldn't call. If we tried to call, they wouldn't put us through to anything, you know. And then we'd write letters and we'd never hear back from her. And so she'd say, Well, finally, when we'd hear, she'd say, Well, I wrote the letters, whatever. Well, so they were just supposed to put their letters on the counter, and the mother was supposed to mail them, but she wouldn't mail them. They'd just be sitting there for months. That and so there wasn't any of that communication, and yeah, and eagirl, how are you holding up? Is this like working okay for you? I mean, you can't, there's no answers to anything, and there isn't any way to get through. So I felt really resentful, you know, that it was like that. And she was, of course, it was hard for her to tell me. She told her dad way months and months before she told me. And then when she finally did, it was like she got down on her knees, kind of like, This is what I'm gonna do, and this is what I'm gonna, you know, like yeah, yeah. But then since we've been there a couple of times, visited a couple of times, and it's when you walk in to the convent, and to the you start out in the first one for the first year with just a separate one, a junior, and then you go into another one. But it's it's like this whole feeling of joy from all the girls that are there. It's it's really something. And then part of it, I mean, I guess as far as reconciling and you know, over the big picture, but part of it is you don't have a job you're going to every day. You don't have a man in your life, which could be good and it could be not so good all the time. Right. You don't have a lot of responsibilities. I mean, you got your chores and those kind of things, and you're spending half your day, you know, doing theology and learning things, and the other half in praying and and community and stuff. And so it's like, I don't know, why wouldn't you be happy? Right. You don't worry about where your food's coming from or where everything is, whatever's donated is what you got, and you know, so a lot of the tears of the world are pretty slick, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Yeah, yeah. Wow. So I was thinking of you. So she gives you the news that she's going to become a nun. You wrestle with that, you release her and let her go, but then she's gone, and all the things you feared came true. You weren't able to talk to her, even though she thought you would be able to. You weren't receiving the letters. My question is, you got to that place of release, but then now it seems like things are worse than how you expected them to be. How did you wrestle with that with God?

SPEAKER_02 20:35

I think I had just had to sit back and rest and keep going back to God saying I've got things I need to do with her. When really giving it over to him because because I truly believe that's what he told me, you know. Really that's and he did.

SPEAKER_04 20:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

And he couldn't do those things with me in the way.

SPEAKER_04 20:59

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:01

Or even her dad.

SPEAKER_04 21:02

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Like that. So so I think even if she had um been accepted into an order in Portland, which was closer, but if we'd have been in her life there too, I think we'd have been in the way of what she wanted to do with her. So I think part of that is that release and just going, Okay, God, you're bigger than this, you're bigger than me, you know how I feel, but you know I'm gonna get over it. You know, really just kind of kind of kind of uh hands open to him and just saying, All right, I'm gonna let you do this.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Yeah, yeah. So your memorial stone that you kept going back to was God saying, I've got things that I need to do with with your daughter. And what right do you have to be mad?

SPEAKER_02 21:53

You know, and I guess really think about it. Maybe I should be thinking. Of but other kids that I'm holding on to thinking they need to have their lives a certain way or not do. Because maybe I'm standing in the way of what God's doing with them. I don't know. Wow. That's a thought.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

That yeah. Like, where else might I be in the way? Yeah. One of the lines I highlighted in your book on page 11, it says, Paths can be chosen, created by circumstances, motivated by our beliefs or the influences of others. And so, you know, it sounds like for your daughter, her path was motivated by her belief of you what she wanted to do and what she felt the Lord was choosing for her. But for you, that wasn't necessarily your choice. It was your circumstance.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

Right. That's true. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I guess maybe, you know, truly to to think about it is like how much of that maybe it's when you're in relationship with somebody else and trying to figure it out. It's like how much of it is it's supposed to be our way because it's us.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

Yeah. Instead of really stepping back to see what God's gonna do with them, you know, when instead of just being tight fisted and you know.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Yeah, yeah. I was invited to speak on a call this morning, a prayer call this morning. And one of the things I shared was that recently I've had to learn how to release my expectations because I was expecting God to show up in a specific way based on the promises he had given me. And then when he wasn't showing up that way, I was extremely disappointed and even to the point of anger. You were mad at God? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. But and and I think though it's a good thing to be mad at God because I used to be the person who would suppress my emotions. And it was actually God who challenged me to release them, no matter how angry I was at him, to just release that, because not releasing that was creating a pressure cooker. And I was very works-based, very performance-based, like, well, if I do these things, if I don't get mad at God, if I do these things, then he's gonna show up in the way that I want him to show up. And that's not true. And so, you know, even in just having the freedom to express my anger um has been really good for me. And of course, right, like not in like a disrespectful way and not in a blaspheming way, but just like I'm really angry about this. I expected this to show up this way. This is what I wanted, but this is what you're doing, and I don't like it.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

And God has broad shoulders.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

You know, it's okay to get mad at God. It's just it's okay to to do that because, you know, I mean, we're just kids. Right. We're just just like little kids, you know, like arms crossed and stop on our feet and say, no, this is how it was supposed to be. You know, even look at, you know, as you're saying that, even look at when Jesus came, he didn't show up like they thought he was gonna be.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

He was not the Messiah they thought he was gonna be, and they got angry.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

You know, because he didn't do it the way they thought he should.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Yeah, yeah. They thought he was gonna ride in on this powerful stallion and his armor and his sword and just like take everybody down. And here he comes on a on a donkey. What? From Nazareth. Yeah. This carpenter.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

Like, what are you doing? Who are you anyway? You're not really. That's not that's not the way it's supposed to be. Right?

SPEAKER_00 26:06

My gosh. Yeah. So no, I can appreciate, I can appreciate your being angry. Um, and I appreciate that you were frank in your conversations with God. I think if if I remember correctly, in the podcast I heard, I think you were taking a walk with something, and then the Lord was like, What right do you have to be mad?

SPEAKER_02 26:25

Kind of stopped me in my tracks as I'm like working it out.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Oh my gosh. And and we think we've got it. We think we know what's best, and he's like, Yeah, baby girl or baby boy. It's not, that's not the case.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

But isn't it great that we have some hindsight, you know, that you can look a few years later and just see where God has taken things and what he's done with it, you know. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. I the beauty in the story of Joseph. Heck, look at how many things that looked like they were bad and awful and whatever. And God was turning him into a leader to save the world, you know.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

I'm glad you brought up Joseph because that's what I was gonna ask you next was about Joseph and your life comparison to him, because he's mentioned in your book as well.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

So many things with Joseph, goodness, you know. First of all, the dysfunctional family, which I had for sure, and he had for sure, and they're you know, throwing him in a pit and doing, you know, I mean, what's the whole hierarchy there and who's who's who's gonna allow this to happen? And I mean, there were like five different parents in those situations, uh the moms in there, you know. So you can imagine the battle of the families and the who's who in the zoo, and right?

SPEAKER_04 27:55

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 27:57

But all the way along, you know, everything that God did with him, he throws him in the pit. Well, it was a dry pit. He could have drowned in there, you know. That could have been the end of the story. Okay, that was a short story. No, you know, the Midianites buy him and take him to Potiphar and everything's great. And and he had leadership skills all the way through, you know, or or he wouldn't have been put in leadership roles. Right. And even in jail, he was in a a leadership role. Yeah. You know, so everything God used there, even the dreams, you know, that he started out with that, you know, made him mad to begin with. And at the end, it's like, oh, kind of humbled him. Right. Wasn't so great. But the wrongly accused, too. My story in the wrongly accused was one with my um my granddaughter during COVID. It was just at the start of COVID, and she was nine. And her dad kidnapped her, accused my daughter of sexually abusing her. No. And he's super narcissistic, and his wife is just wacko. I mean, there aren't even words for how. She's really off the rails. So because it was COVID, then she wasn't going to school. They isolated her from her friends, they have, you know, wouldn't let her have any contact with any of my family or any of his either. Um, and then they brainwashed her into believing that she'd been sexually abused since she was three. Wow. And so, you know, first of all, even just how you wrap your mind around how does that even happen? Brainwashing. How does that even a thing or whatever? But but just uh all of a sudden cut off no contact, and there's no, so my daughter doesn't have any contact, she didn't have any contact, she lost her job, she lost just uh she was working at jail doing the intake, which was just ugly and giving her nightmares. And then she had to start reading, reading all the in-depth reports of the criminal reports, and so she was having night terrors and things. But anyway, she lost her job at the jail, and of course there's no lawyers, you can't get hold of anybody to during COVID, the whole thing was just, and then it's every day. Well, this is gonna this isn't gonna last that long. This is, you know, it's just a mistake. There's some kind of misunderstanding, whatever, but and she's six hours away from me, so it's not like I could be down there every day. Right. Anyway, it w it that was that indeed, out of everything I've ever done, had gone through that whole wrongly accused of her being wrongly accused, and whatever, after a six-hour psychosexual about, there wasn't any indication that she'd ever abused her daughter. There was nothing physical, granddaughter that she abused, and yet they're able to do that. And it's like, how can this happen? Where is where are the people who are supposed to be really protecting things, you know?

SPEAKER_04 31:06

Right.

SPEAKER_02 31:06

And because it was it was the message of abuse, then when she's going to the counselors, then they're going, oh, we need to jump on this. So three counselors are jumping on and then treating her like she's been abused.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

So they're reinforcing this lie.

SPEAKER_02 31:21

And reinforce the whole lie of it. So then finally, five years later, the court vindicated my daughter, and she could have seen her, but by this time now, my granddaughter doesn't want to have anything to do with her because she believes a lie. And there's like a Stockholm syndrome, you know, where you where you identify with your captor. Right. And so the stepmom has this hold on her that's just like, I don't know. It's just so there, it's like, okay, God, somehow in this big picture. I don't know. I don't know, you know, and they're Mormon, and there's all of that too. And it's just like, okay, God, I gotta believe somehow. Are you right in her testimony? Are you doing what's gonna, you know, what's happening here? So that, you know, that was my story to relate to Joseph being when Potifyr's wife tried to wrongly accused him.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

So your daughter, is she a believer, or like how did she get through this?

SPEAKER_02 32:26

That's you know, I would and my I have a one of my really close friends, kind of has been second mom to her down there over the years and grew up with her anyway, who's very faith, faithful. Um we'd just be clinging on to scriptures and saying to her or whatever, but then she ended up with a partner who grew up in a Christian home and now he's the other side. So it's like so she's kind of poo-pooed all of that and what I don't know. I don't know how she's she's she's she's still not a happy person, you know, as far as that goes. And I mean there's always that hole in your heart. It's like, where is this person? And if I ever see her again, is she even gonna Yeah want to you know, because yeah, it's this vision of this little girl that comes running and grandma, you know, or mom or you know, but not. And so then it's like, okay, God, why didn't you want my daughter to raise her daughter? You know? Why why did you set that up, you know?

SPEAKER_04 33:30

The Yeah, any any answers on that? No.

SPEAKER_02 33:36

Um so that was in well, what 2019? Yeah. So she has turned 16.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

Okay, and and yeah, so you haven't seen or heard from her in years.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

Yeah. And of everything I've ever gone through, that's the hardest.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Yeah, that's a difficult thing. I'm so sorry to hear that for you, for your daughter. Yeah, um, and for your granddaughter. This, you know, these relationships that she's this time that she's missing in these relationships.

SPEAKER_04 34:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

Yeah. Yeah. So I'll be praying for healing and reconciliation for everyone involved. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:17

I just don't feel I feel like it's I feel like here's it just God's right in their testimony. At some point, she's kind of come to the other side of it and realized, like, wait a minute, whoa, wait, this doesn't make sense, you know.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

She ended up uh her other grandma. She's I don't I don't know if she's ever gone to church, maybe a little bit, I don't know, something. But that's God's not in her life as far as that goes. Um but she's told her, you know, I don't I don't ever remember my mom doing these things, whatever, but Leah says true, so it must have happened, you know. So there's not so I think there's at some point in her life, I just think she's gonna put two and two together and figure out that something wacko really happened, you know, and that hopefully with our prayers, God grabs hold of her and says, Yep, okay, this is why, because I wanted to change your life into somebody that could be sharing your testimony, you know. Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

Yeah, absolutely. Wow. Yeah, and like Joseph, right? I mean, was it 17 years? Yeah, it's a long time. Like, um, I I would be interested in asking him when I get to heaven, how did you you survive those 17 years? And then also in a land where um they weren't believers, they didn't have the same belief as him. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Um I'm grateful that you shared that because it's very real. And we, even as believers, right, we have present-day difficulties, right? We have present-day things that we're like, Lord, why, why, why is this happening? Why are you allowing this to happen? Why haven't you, you know, brought reconciliation? Why haven't you revealed the truth, you know, all of the things, all the questions that we have? So thank you for um sharing that.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

I just a bottom line, you just have to trust God. You just have to trust God because you believe that he knows, you believe that he cares, you believe he's got him in his hands. You just have to trust that what he's doing is somehow gonna make sense at some point.

SPEAKER_00 36:44

Yeah. What examples do you have of that where you've trusted um and it's been it looked like an impossible circumstance like this, but then you've seen um him come through.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

Well, I think my first husband to begin with, you know, when he had the brain tumors, it's like, oh, it's gonna, where is this gonna go? Uh, how's this actually gonna work out to be in a single parent or whatever? But I wouldn't at this point have traded, I didn't I wouldn't have traded that time for anything because it was such a rich, rich time with God of waiting and experiencing and expecting and seeing how he was moving, that even though he wasn't being healed, God was healing his spirit and moving him into such a rich relationship with him that it was uh I wouldn't have ever traded that. He left he left his spiritual journal after he died. And I thought, you know, of course you don't read it when they're alive. Right. But it was all about what God was doing in his life, you know, and and his understanding of, you know, uh, oh, now I can't, you know, after he had after he had surgery to try and remove it, they didn't find it, and it left it paralyzed on his right side. He was um he was 35 when this started, 36, and uh died when he was 38. So I mean, for a young guy, you know, to try and figure out your life, you can't work anymore, you can't drive anymore, you can't do, you know, all these things that you had been able to do. And yet it was like, okay, how do you want to use me, Lord? Because I know you can still abuse me. Yeah. And he ended up writing words of encouragement to people and cards and things because he could do that. And right, you know.

SPEAKER_00 38:42

Yeah, there was someone, it was on one of your podcasts, I forget the gentleman's name. It might have been Marty's husband. John. Who mentioned that was it, did he have cancer? Yeah, he had throat cancer. And he said he misses that time because he was the closest to Jesus at that time. Yeah. And that now he so he gets distracted with things and with life. But it really struck me that he said he misses that because that's where he was the closest with Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 39:17

Yeah, and if there's a stone to be had, that's your stone, really. When you were in the midst of something that you don't see the end or see how it's gonna work together. And here's a very cool story. So I wrote a memoir about him and uh history, and so I wanted to do a um an audio with it. My youngest son, who was three at the time when his dad died, does voiceover.

unknown 39:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:45

So I asked him to come up from California and do his dad's voice. Well, they didn't really know his dad, and he'd only been at church maybe a handful of times since he left high school, right? So he comes up and he's reading his channel, and there's places in it that I think truly they like it's almost like John Patrice. It's like these he called it the fourth dimension of just what God was revealing to him and stuff. And my son had a moment, just like just stopped. And we'd been going, he'd been going to church with me for those three weeks while he was here. And he goes, My life is true. And then we started watching The Chosen together, which of course that makes it so real, right? Right. So it was a couple of weeks after he went back home, and again, another little god drop, but guy he says, he says, You realize that Howard was able to evangelize his son 35 years later?

SPEAKER_00 40:45

That's a memorial stone, isn't it? It just gave me shivers. So, you know, to your point of holding on to the joy even in the midst of difficulty, as you were going through that difficult season, and even the children, right? They lost their father. But then who knew that all of these years later, yeah, he would evangelize his own son through his words that he had written in that journal. Just it's isn't it like, well, who who would have thunk it?

SPEAKER_02 41:19

Did you even think that all those years ago? You know, and then and Howard had named him his middle name Evan for evangelist. And it's like, yeah, okay, right, we'll see about that. But but now, so now we're we have a phone call every day, uh, a Zoom, FaceTime, and we read the Bible together every day. Wow. And he's questioning things, and how does it work out? And what is this and what about that? And this is perspective, things is really not being a believer for all these years, you know, of how that, but it's like he's 100% in. Wow. And taking on his charge of being an evangelist. Yeah. Wow. That's amazing. So I guess, you know, if you're talking about how do you know that how can you depend on trusting God, that's why who would think 35, six, so I don't know, 35 years later to to have that happen. And like that's a lot of that's a lot of years, yeah, of not expecting or thinking anything like that would happen, but God's got this, you know?

SPEAKER_00 42:23

Yeah. And hence the importance of memorial stones, right? Because you have mapping our paths in your book. And so I'm imagining as you're mapping your path, like that is a significant moment. Um, and that even after you're gone, your great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren can see this thread and how the Lord weaved it in your lives, in your family.

SPEAKER_04 42:50

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:55

And even with that thought, you know, I mean, how many of us have grandmas that prayed for us? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

Yeah, that we probably have no clue about. So, Jen, on a daily basis, how are you remembering God's faithfulness? What do you do you use any particular tools, rhythms, habits?

SPEAKER_02 43:16

I think the biggest thing is doing my podcast interviews and listening to people and their stories, because it just keeps reinforcing who God is all the way through. There's all these buttons. This is where I was at. I didn't think I was gonna God came through and was faithful. And when you just keep hearing that and sharing them over and over. And then once you share them and you see the responses of people and how they identify those things, it's just like that just keeps me going. It's uh amazing.

SPEAKER_00 43:53

Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. So as we're starting to wrap up, I also want to talk about. some of the fun projects you do. So your fiction writing. Tell tell us about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 44:06

Oh, I I wrote the memoir and that was brutal. You know, because it's kind of at first I didn't know how to write. I mean it took me a long time to figure out exactly how to do that, you know, and but also because you have to bring up all these things and then and you know part of it, I have to admit, part of it almost was like almost felt like I was having an affair. Because I was so into my first husband's story, you know, that I was almost living this dual life thing. Yeah. You know, hadn't even thought about that. Yeah, that is yeah it was weird. It was weird. Anyway, and then I wanted to do something fun. My nurse daughter, sister Mercy, was none daughter was a a nurse at a large cost hospital. And she worked on this really crazy patient store floor. So on our way home every morning she called, keep herself awake and tell me these crazy stories and I said and she had this cohort of a few friends whatever that she was nursing with. And so I said how about if we write a romance let's do a medical romance and we'll include some of these crazy patient stories. And at that time, you know, she was thinking maybe she'd like to be in a romance and she well you've seen her so you know she's a lot of life a lot of fun and silly and a lot of a lot of life. So so but so we I ended up writing three stories with that that which were in a series. So there was the first one which I kind of based on her as a character you know just trying to find somebody gets mixed up with the wrong kind of guy and enabled him and whatever gets out of that and then she ends up with the guy she's supposed to be with who works as a uh a nonprofit that I kind of based on we have a lot of kids with uh sponsored kids through Unbound. And so I kind of based that his story on you know that whatever. So they get together. Then her roommate is the next story and she's has a brother that had Batten disease and died from that and then her mom dies from cancer. So she's just caught in the middle of all of this grief and kind of her dad doesn't feel doesn't feel like she has a relationship with him. So she wants to kind of um you know is wrestling with that you know who he where's her place with him and whatever. And and then he started a foundation for a baton foundation but the researcher she ends up with the researcher and he's had kind of an abusive father and drug addicted and whatever. So there's kind of wrestling his wrestling with uh forgiveness and trying to find his relationship. So it's kind of a two dad type of thing there. And then the third one I did they saw a girl that lives locally here who was an abortion survivor. So when she was an adult I'd known her since I knew her parents from way back like 40 years ago you know when when they decided to adopt and so but she is as an adult she was looking at her own two kids and just go out and just oh I love my kids so much I wish I could find my mom and let her just say thank you to her for giving me life. And then she asked her parents first about you know what they would think about doing that and they looked at each other and just went maybe we should talk so then they ended up telling her that she was an abortion survivor and so I had long talks with Amy just about just all of her feelings of what was that like and and then trying to search and then actually finding her mom and trying to do you know just the the whole story. So this story is based on her story. Uh yeah yeah so that's the third story with that and then there's a a cute little hallmarky Christmas one romance and then of course my my romance daughter becomes a nun so my latest book that's just out is called Nuns with Guns another way the God just drops a ton going oh that sounds interesting let's see about that yeah that sounds like fun I um am always looking for new fiction authors I'm definitely gonna be reading it's just it's a comedy it's just a a whole comedy and then it actually this first the first chapter when I told when I told her that do we have a few minutes or none? Yeah yeah yeah we do okay all right so we went back to DC and we're sitting at the table for dinner and I tell I drop that news next book Nans with guns and she goes mom you can't do that and I go oh yeah I can then she turns to her the gal next to her and says okay tell her what happened so they're in DC and super hot summer you know they're take the van to like a rescue mission to do drop off some stuff. So they're sitting most of them are back in the van because they're waiting for the driver to get back in and they've got the side door open and it's just super hot. So there are people watching you know homeless people going by and one of these guys walks by with bunny slippers and so they go oh that's interesting. Next thing you know he's looking over their shoulder and he sees a cop there's a cop following him and so a few steps looking over his shoulder going up then he finally he runs up a few cars ahead and ducks between the two runs back to their driver seat gets into the car the van followed by the cop trying to steal their van and the cop is wrestling I couldn't make this up the is wrestling the keys from him finally says everybody out just let him go so he takes off in the van and then one of the sisters says man I left the cell phone in the van and she says you know a cell phone's a pretty big deal because there's like 30 of them and like three cell phones. So you lose a cell phone you're it's the not a good thing. So she calls the cell phone and somebody answers and she says so are you driving a gray van and he goes no but somebody from a gray van tossed this out the window so I picked it up he says a year ago I would have sold this for drugs six months ago I'd have just sold it for for money but I'm feeling pretty nice. I'll bring it back to you why so he brings it back and it you know turns out that uh um bunny slippers ends up the van and lamps on its side and flat tires and all that stuff but they do end up getting a new van as some of the parishioners got together and bought him a new van but um so anyway then I had to have this backstory who's bunny slippers and what's the story here so I got a bunch of uh ex-cons who are living in the house behind the convent and then there's an attached basement where they find a dead body so I don't think uh what's with the dead body and then these ex cons are connected to another gang and there's a heist and there's a you know and then there's a bunch of brother Ben has taken on a bunch of Ukrainian kids to keep them safe from the war and so they get involved in there and there's a kidnapping and it sounds like fun.

SPEAKER_00 51:27

I cannot wait to read this it's super fun.

SPEAKER_02 51:30

It's super fun. But you know the thing that's interesting is you know when I've written the romances like I don't want them to be preachy. I hate preachy books. You know don't have a chapter in there where somebody's gonna give them the whole salvation you know whatever you just want to have real real people right with real people real life right yeah but with the writing from a nun perspective and stuff is so easy because even if you weren't saved you would just expect a nun to say certain things. Right? You know about God. Yeah yeah and so in some sense it was easier to do that kind of you know I'm just gonna say there's some redemption at the ends.

SPEAKER_00 52:11

Yeah I'm considering doing some fiction writing so you have to be my uh yeah you have to be my mentor in that all right Jan so what what would you like the audience to know so if you don't mind sharing that and about your work your books your podcast and then if you could close us in prayer I would appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 52:33

Well biggest thing is just keep trusting God. Whether you see he's working you don't see you know that song Waymaker even in the background he's working you don't see it. He's working on his own time and in his own way and you just gotta trust him whether you see it or not just give it some time and maybe it's a lot of time whatever but God's good and he loves you and he knows what you're going through and just just know that he's there for you.

SPEAKER_00 53:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:06

And my website is janjohnson.com my podcast is just talking about Jesus and I just interview all kinds of people just with their face stories and sometimes topics and whatever I'm also on Substack so I can give you the links for those as well. And I'll put the um yeah you can find my books on my website as well.

SPEAKER_00 53:29

They're on Amazon too but then both yeah and I'll make sure to put your website your Substack um everything in the show notes so that um any listeners who want to connect with you can do so easily.

SPEAKER_02 53:41

And also you know if somebody's interested in the Bible study um I would be willing to sit in on some Zooms with your groups too to you know get you started on it and uh see how that is. Yeah that would be great.

SPEAKER_00 53:55

Yeah yeah awesome friends you know opportunity too Brennan I appreciate yeah no I'm so glad you said yes I've I've enjoyed getting to know you over the last few months so this has been fun.

SPEAKER_02 54:08

Yeah yeah okay well Lord we come to you in thanksgiving and joyful um being able to be in your presence Lord talking about you there isn't anything better than talking about you and just seeing your perspective and fucking out what great things that you've done the stones that you've set and set up for each of us the hard places Lord we thank you for the hard places because in the hard places we find you and we thank you that you do have a plan for our lives and that we do fit into it just guide us and help us to see along the way give us little God winks along the day to remind us that you're there and forgive us if we are not looking to you for our answers. We just praise you and we thank you in Jesus' name amen.

SPEAKER_00 54:59

Amen thank you Jen if this episode resonated with you there are two things I'd like you to consider. Number one, rate and review the show. This will help other listeners find the show and get the same inspiration and encouragement you got from it. And number two I would love for you to share this episode with someone you love and someone you think could benefit from hearing this particular episode. Also if you would like to connect with me outside of this podcast you can find everything related to me on my website brendasavanu.com there you can find my social media links if you'd like to follow you can find a link to sign up for an email so that you can get weekly encouragement to your inbox and you can find information about my book and coaching sessions. So friends thank you again so much for listening to this episode and thank you for considering sharing it with your friends. See you next time