What God Was Doing While I Felt Lost

Some turning points whisper before they roar.

Psychotherapist and author Julie Christensen shares the deeply personal story of helping her son through a mental health crisis—when clinical knowledge collided with the raw reality of being a parent. From resisting involuntary hospitalization to creating safety at home and leaning on faith and community, Julie opens up about the quiet, daily work of protecting someone you love.

Together we explore the difference between belief, faith, and trust—and how tiny moments of progress can become lifelines in the wilderness.

This episode offers honest insight, practical tools, and hope for anyone supporting a loved one through mental health struggles.

Transcript

Framing The Wilderness

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Welcome to Between the Prayer and the Promise. This is a space where we talk about the middle, the stretching, the waiting, the seasons that don't look like the promise yet. And today we're diving deep into the concept of the wilderness. Not a vacation, not a detour, but the true wilderness, the kind that strips you bare, only to reveal who was there all along. Isaiah 43 and 18 through 19 reminds us forget the former things, do not dwell on the past. See, I'm doing a new thing. Now it springs up. Do you not perceive it? I'm making a way in the wilderness. You know, that verse is a beautiful quote, but it's a whole nother thing to believe it when you have to cling to it yourself.

Introducing Julie And Her Story

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Today's episode is called The Wilderness Was Not Wasted, because sometimes the darkest seasons of our life become the very place that God does his most profound work. And I am honored, I'm so honored to have our guest here today, Julie Christensen, a psychotherapist, a speaker, leadership consultant, best-selling author, creator of Anger Solution Method, and the founder of Leverage You. For nearly three decades, Julie has helped thousands of people master their emotions and heal from trauma. But today, it's not all about her professional work. We are going to talk to the mother, the woman who had to pray her own son back from the edge. Okay, let me get Julie on. Here we go. Hi, Julie. Welcome to Between the Prayer and the Promise. I'm so happy to have you here. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Thank you so much for having me on.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

Yes, and you know what? We like to dive right on in. And um, okay, let's see.

The Night Urgency Took Over

SPEAKER_02 2:46

I'm gonna start off with asking you right away when your son had his mental break back in 2015 and he was arrested. What was your very first emotion that hit you as a mother and someone who has to help others manage and regulate their own emotions as a living?

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Yeah, great question. Honestly, even before the arrest came, I would say he was arrested in June. And I would say as early as Easter of that year, I knew something was wrong. You know, that mother's instinct. And so we had already been in prayer for him, you know, um, quite fervently, because there were some telltale signs at Easter that said, something's not right here. There's, you know, he's not behaving like himself. And uh then uh the opportunity came for him to move out of his place. And I said, you know, don't bother looking for another place, just come home. Because again, I I felt there was something happening, wasn't really sure what. And uh then, you know, things started to unravel a little bit. The girlfriend sent us some information which was useful, and uh we started actually working towards interventions. But when the break finally came, uh again, the first thing I felt was urgency. I just felt urgency. I needed to get to where he was. And I just I rallied my family. I said to my husband, you stay home and you stay by the phone. And I got my two other kids, and we got in the car and we hightailed it to where he was. And it took us probably about an hour to get to him. Um, and by the time we got there, he had already been arrested and taken into custody. So, you know, if I think if I had listened to my instincts a little bit sooner, we might have been able to get to him before the police got to him. Um but he actually, you know, he just he sat there and waited for the police to come. He didn't try to evade them, nothing. He just, you know, he he just sat there and and someone said, I've called the police, and he said, Okay. And he just sat there and he waited. I think at that point he just was feeling so defeated. And he knew that he hadn't, he hadn't acted in his right mind. So he was like, Let me just, you know, I'll just wait here for them to come get me, kind of thing. Uh but yeah, that urgency, I'll never forget it. It was just like it's almost like the urgency when you have to push, you know, when you're giving birth, it's very similar to that. It was just I needed to get to him, and and that car couldn't drive fast enough for us to for us to get there.

Wearing Mom, Therapist, And Faith Hats

SPEAKER_02 5:50

So for the people in whatever part of your story you feel comfortable sharing um with your profession and the fact that you help so many people and that you're living out um the fact of what you do professionally, and then also what you believe. Um, how was that um living in what what what your son was going through? And and if you don't mind share what it is that your son was going through, how were you able to show up professionally um in your professional hat and then your hat as a woman of faith? And then how were you able to wear that all at the same time and still also wear the hat of a mother and and all of that?

SPEAKER_00 6:38

I I'll be honest, I didn't wear them all at the same time. It was it was really, really difficult. And you know, God, even when things are going horrible in your life, God has a sense of humor. And while we were going through that really dark time and struggling, like struggling so much, every client who showed up, I apologize, every client who showed up in my in my practice was a mom my age with a kid around his age going through very similar things. And some days I couldn't go to work. Some days I I just thought I don't I don't know how to help these women when I am failing. And that's really how I felt as a mom at the time. I felt like I was failing as a mother because I was watching my child unravel and I couldn't help him. I did, I mean, I I was helping him, but at the time I felt incredibly helpless because we just want to fix it, right? I wanted to make it better. And I I could not do that for him. And uh I just I some days I felt so incredibly helpless that I thought I can't go to work and lie to anybody today, right? I can't go to work and tell them it's gonna be okay when I feel like my world is falling apart. And uh so, you know, there were some days that I did go to work and I held women and I told them it's not their fault, all the while thinking somehow that what's happening to me is my fault. You know, I knew I knew that on the logical side of my brain, I knew that it wasn't my fault. But when you're a mom, there's I wrote a book about this entire experience. The book is called Um It Is Well, A Study of Motherhood in Times of Crisis. And I got a whole chapter in there on mom guilt because it's so real. You know, we feel guilty about everything from the from the first time the child felt falls off the changing table or something, you know, because we turned our back for one second and it chose that moment to roll over to all the little things that happen with our child. The first time our child gets sick, the first time they get an ear infection, you know, the first time they try to walk and they fall down. We we just feel guilty about everything. And that doesn't stop when our kids get older. Sometimes it gets worse. And uh the mom guilt was very, very real for me. Uh, and I would I would argue it was real for my husband as well. I didn't go through that alone. Um and every mom that came

Prayer Without Control

SPEAKER_00 9:30

into my practice was feeling the same way. What did I do wrong? How could how could this have happened when I did all these things for my child? You know, like we we we struggle with that. Uh, but yeah, some days I was able to wear the hat of mom and therapist and woman of faith all at the same time. But on the days when I went to work, I tried to leave my mom hat at home. Because if I didn't, I wouldn't make it through the day. Um and sometimes, well, most of the time when I was with my son, I left my therapist hat somewhere else because number one, it would be unethical for me to do therapy on my son. But number two, he didn't want to hear it. He didn't need me to be a therapist. He needed me to be his mom. And so that's what I did. I had to separate those parts of myself depending on where we, you know, where we were at and what we were doing. And then, of course, the woman of faith spent most of her time on the bedroom floor with her husband, bawling and and crying out to God and asking him to intervene. You know, I couldn't take her to work unless the women I was seeing were also women of faith who wanted that aspect included in their therapy. And sometimes my son was open to me praying with him, and sometimes he just wasn't. So we just had to, we just had to follow his lead until he was stable enough for us to do more in that regard. I hope that answers the question.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

Yes, yes. So um I just want to talk a little bit about the faith piece. Was there any point when you thought, God, this is not what I pray for? This isn't the story I pray for, what's going on?

SPEAKER_00 11:34

I'm gonna say no. I'm gonna say no. I I I don't I don't remember a lot of that time, to be really honest with you, because it was it was all so emotionally charged. Um but I I remember praying to God and saying, you know what, these are not my children, they're yours. These are your kids. You loaned them to me. And not even a month after those babies, my my sons are twins. Um, so after, you know, not even a month after they were born, I dedicated them back to the Lord. So I said to him, These are your babies. You loaned them to me, but they belong to you. And I need you to fix this because I don't know what I'm doing, and

Praying Over His Room And Things

SPEAKER_00 12:25

you know, I don't know if anything we're doing is working. So I just I just gave it to God and I still pray that prayer over my kids. Yeah, you know, these are these are your kids. I just prayed it this morning. God, these kids are your kids, and I need you to take care of them. My one son is a police officer, the other one who went through the mental health challenges drives for a living. So they're on the highways, they're they're out in their cars all the time. And I was just like, God, you keep my baby safe when they're on the road because you know, they're yours. And you said that you would, you know, give the angels charge over them to keep them in all their ways. So I'm counting on you to do that, right? And uh I sometimes I have very stern conversations with God.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

So you're saying that that's a really good piece because I think sometimes we want to have control, if that's the word I want to use, over things that we don't have control over, yeah. Even down to our children, like especially when they're hurting or when something's going on, we want to be able to fix it. We want to be able to help, we want to control things that's that are out of our control. So, what are some things that people can do to release? And I know one thing you said is you you dedicated back. You you verbally said, I give them back to you. What are some other things that you've done that maybe could help other people to to kind of release that control? I'll give you things.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Yeah, I'll give you one of the one of the pieces of advice that that a senior woman in my home church gave me. She said, Julie, any opportunity you have, go in his room and pray over everything. I still do that. I still do that for the one who lives at home. When he's, you know, and and there was a time, and I haven't gotten into the details because it's my son's story, right? And I want to respect my son's story. Uh, but there was a time when during this period where he was so dregulated that we had to intervene in in some very uh significant ways. And this made him very angry with me. And and the reason that he started to escalate was it wasn't us, but we didn't know how to help him. So, you know, we had to call the police, we had people in the house and that sort of thing. Um, and so for about a little over a month, my son wouldn't speak to me. And on the surface, that doesn't feel like such a big thing, except for that this child and I have a very unique bond. We have a similar sense of humor. Um, he's funny and witty, and he, you know, he doesn't need too long to think about a punchline, like he should be a comedian or something. And during this period of time, he was so shut down. There wasn't any of that left in him. He was just this very flat, um, unanimated. It was like my son's spirit had left his body and just left him with a shell. It was really weird. And he wouldn't speak to me. And uh, so I would go into his room and I would put his medication in a glass of water down, and he would look at me and he would say, get out. And those were the only two words my son spoke to me for over a month. And I'll tell you something that broke my heart. Even now, talking about it, just like it kills me because that's not the relationship that we have come up with, right? And he was 21 at this time, so we had a lot of years of history of him and I just joking and bantering and having a lot of fun together. And that hurt me so, so much. Um,

Hypervigilance And Safety At Home

SPEAKER_00 16:20

and I just I just had to do what she said because I couldn't talk to him. He wouldn't allow me to talk to him. And so every day when he left the room to go get food or he left the room to go get a shower, I would go in his room and I'd pray over everything. Okay, pray over his pillow where he lays his head to sleep. I would pray over his stuff. I'd pray over his phone, his radio, anything like whatever he was listening to. I didn't know. But I just prayed, you know, God, let the things that are coming into his mind right now, let them be things that edify him, that don't, you know, don't allow demonic access to him, you know, like just praying over the space, purifying the space in the spirit, all that kind of stuff. And sometimes we do these things for our kids. Sometimes we do them for us. And sometimes it's a little bit of both. I feel like that was something that I felt I could control. I could go in and I could pray over his things. And it's not that I'm trying to control it, it's that by praying about it and praying over his things, pleading the blood over all of his stuff, over his thoughts, over the things he was listening to, the content he was consuming, all those sorts of things. What that did was it gave me a piece to trust that God was in control moving forward. Right. Uh, so again, I still do that. When my son, my the other twin went off to be a police officer, I gave him a prayer cloth. I still have one. This one's for the other one that lives at home. Um, I gave him a prayer cloth and I said, This has been prayed over. You carry this in your wallet and you take it with you everywhere you go. You go to work, you take that with you, and he keeps it in his wallet. Um, and so, you know, I don't have access to the other one to pray over him all the time, like I do the one that lives at home. So I feel like that is probably the biggest single thing that I did because up until that point that uh this senior lady called and gave me this advice, I was literally like I was I was having heart palpitations, chest pains, my stomach was upset all the time. I couldn't sleep. It was, I was in a really, really bad place. Um, and when and it's not that I wasn't praying, right? I want to make that clear. I was praying, I was seeking God. I was, you know, I was listening to uplifting

Waiting For Small Signs Of Return

SPEAKER_00 18:50

music, I was doing all the things. My husband and I were agreeing together in prayer. People were praying from my home church, people in the church that are that uh in the city we live in now, but I didn't have peace. Right? I didn't have peace. So it wasn't until I got into that practice of saying, this is something I can do, right? This is something I know that I can do. I can sneak into his room when he's not looking, I can pray over all his stuff, I can pray over his car keys, I can pray, you know, I can pray over all these things. Um, and I can cover everything that that is in his world, cover that with the blood. Um and when I know it's covered in the blood, then I don't have to, I don't have to lose sleep over it. Right, right. And I'm talking, just to give people context, I'm talking about for probably I want to say at least six months, we hid all the knives in the house. We hit all the sharp things. I have I take medication for blood pressure that if you take enough of it, it will stop your heart. The medications were hidden, his medications were hidden. He only got his medications when I dispensed them to him. He didn't know where they were in the house, right? It was that level of hypervigilance. Um, and sometimes we had people sleep over in the house. My son-in-law, my pastor people were coming and staying in the house with us to make sure that he didn't harm himself or harm anybody else. So it was very serious. Um, and I had no peace until I started praying for him in that way.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

So, how did you trust God in that? That's a long period of time when you weren't seeing immediate change.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Yeah. Well, the the I mean the the time period where it was really intense, I would say, would be from about June to September. And then I think a couple of things happened. Prayer was working. He started to accept some of the things that he had been struggling with a little

Emotional Survival And Tiny Miracles

SPEAKER_00 21:10

bit. We had a lot of support, a lot of really good support. Um, and I think his medication started to kick in. Uh, and so I again I made a strategic move. And uh at one of the times when I went in to give him his medication, he was ordering me out of his room. I just I very quietly said to him, you know, I missed the days where you and I could just talk to each other. I didn't ask him for anything, I didn't lecture him, I just put it out there so that he knew that I was missing the baby that he was. I call him my baby, he's 30-something years old now, but he's still my baby. But you know, I miss the, I miss the the person you used to be. And I just let him sit with that. And then I actually had to go away for work. I went away for a week. And And when I came back from that trip, he came in the door, saw me sitting there, and said, Hi, mom. And I thought, oh, first two words that don't sound like get out. And I thought, maybe, maybe he's coming back to me a little bit. And so again, I didn't push it. I wasn't like, oh my gosh, you're talking to me. I didn't make a fuss. I just said hi. And I I let him find his way back. I didn't want to pressure him because I felt like if I pressured him, he would disappear again.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

Wow. That is a lot. Um, I want to um thank you for sharing. I want to dig into this a little bit for um people listening. Um sorry, I forgot to cut my ringer off. Um, especially mothers that um may be dealing with some emotional um situations right now. What does emotional survival look like before the healing begins? So, like they can kind of see that they're on their way. What are some things that they can look look forward to?

SPEAKER_00 23:20

I think it's gonna be different for everyone. Some things that may be signs for you is that you have a little bit more clarity of thought. You're not so foggy, not so confused. Um, it's easier to make decisions. You may find that you get an extra hour of sleep without an interruption. Um, I know for me, two years after this all started, I slept with one eye open. You know, if he left the house, I didn't, I didn't fully settle until he came in. And if he was coming in at two o'clock in the morning, that meant I was up until two o'clock in the morning, just listening for that back door to open, knowing that he was home and that he was safe. Um so it may be that. It may be that you just you start to develop trust again that that um things will be okay with your child. You know, one of the things that I write about in the book is this differentiation we make or we should make between belief, faith, and trust, right?

Belief, Faith, And Trust

SPEAKER_00 24:34

You know, we can believe in God but not believe that he cares about us. Right. We can believe in God and believe that he cares about us, but not believe that he will do the thing we need him to do. So there's levels, right? So we start a belief and then we move up to faith. So I believe there is a God and I have faith in him. But trust is us taking the step, right? Trust is when God says, I have you at the edge of a cliff and I want you to step off. And I need you to trust that my hand will be there to catch you when you do. A lot of people are like, Well, God, you know, I believe you're real, and I believe I believe that you know that you can do all things, but I'm gonna stay right here. I'm gonna stay right here because I'm not stepping off of nothing unless I see that there's a bridge. But but that trust, a lot of people say faith is the bridge. Actually, trust is the bridge. Because when you when you fully trust someone, you will do the thing that they ask you to do, or you will act in a way that demonstrates your faith in them, right? That's why the Bible says faith without works is dead. Because we can we can have faith that everything will turn out, but if we're still out there trying to fix everything ourselves, then how much do we trust God to fix it for us? Right. So I think that's important. Um, yeah, I don't know. I mean, like I said, I think it's different for everyone. Um I I think one of the things that you can do though to help that journey along is to document the tiny miracles. But never in my life would I have thought that my child saying hi, mom to me would be a miracle, but that day it was.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

Right. The the first day he laughed like his old laughter and it wasn't forced, that was a tiny miracle. Right. The for every day that he got up and took a shower was a tiny miracle because depressed people don't take care of themselves, they don't clean their bodies, right? So for every day that he got up and got food, every day that he, every time that he got up and said, I'm gonna take a shower, every day that he didn't destroy something in his room, right? Those were all tiny miracles. And so we just added up those little things until we saw that there was consistent improvement over time. And um, as he improved, we never ever said, Hey, did you notice that you've showered five days in a row? No, we just we acknowledged it silently and we continued on um just giving him the room that he needed to heal without feeling like he was under a magnifying glass.

SPEAKER_02 27:45

Yeah. So how did your professional work help you with this journey? And then also, how has your journey helped you now with your professional work?

SPEAKER_00 28:00

Yeah, yeah, definitely those two things are intertwined.

Advocacy Inside The Mental Health System

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Um, I I think the the biggest thing was for me as a professional, knowing what to expect with the mental health system helped a lot because there were things that could have happened that I was able to intervene and say no, because I'm a mental health professional, and that garnered me some respect. So, for example, excuse me, for example, when we first uh took him to the hospital, uh, they wanted to in Canada or in Ontario, they call it uh a form. It used to be a form one, I forget what they call it now, what number it is, but they would form you. And if you're formed, that means that you are involuntarily admitted to the mental health ward. And I was against it, number one, because we had to stop in a hospital. He got arrested in a city about an hour away from where we live. The hospital where we took him was about 45 minutes away from where we live. And so I did not want him being that far away from home. I didn't think that was a good setup. He would have no support there. Um, and also he had just been incarcerated overnight. He'd never been locked up before. And we had just gotten him out, and these people were saying we're gonna lock him up again. And I was like, No, you're not. No way. Right. And I fought for him to be released to us because I said, I'm a mental health worker. I've been doing this for you know 25 years. I'm pretty sure I know what I'm doing, and I know what resources are available in my community, and I want this kid to be where he's loved, right? I don't want him to be someplace where, and I mean, the mental health ward is not fun. It's a it's a metal bed that's bolted to the floor, it's a metal sink that's bolted to the wall. Everything is bolted. There are no mattresses, there are no sheets, there's like, no, no, they were not gonna do that to my son. So we we made arrangements based on my advocacy that I think worked in his favor. Um, I I knew people in the community that I trust. So I was able to get him one-on-one psychotherapy with someone that I, you know, in my community who is a man faith-based, that I know is a good therapist. So I connected him there. Um, so I think in terms of advocacy and being able to pull from the resources in my community, I think being a professional helped me really well in that regard. As a mom, it didn't help me one lick. And that is the honest truth. Like, you know, being a mom overrides everything you know. And when your children are in trouble, the mama bear comes out and it's full fight or flight. It's honest to God, just panic

When Professional Knowledge Isn’t Enough

SPEAKER_00 31:12

and rage and all the things. And it's like, I remember there, I remember telling a friend that um I loved this kid so much, and I was so worried for him. Uh, but I was also so angry at him that I wanted to hug him and I wanted to punch him in the face. And I know that sounds so so opposite, but the reality was like I just wanted to shake him, you know, and and as if shaking him would bring him back to himself. Uh, but there's all of that. And I I think perhaps not denying those feelings, being honest about them, helped me. Um, because I I told him at one point, I said, I am watching you unravel and I don't know what to do. Like with all my experience, I don't know how to help you. And I I felt so helpless in that, right? Um, and I think he gets it now. He didn't get it then, but he understands it now. Uh, how that helplessness just takes over. Yeah, I I was I was not able to apply my years of experience to our personal situation very much outside of just knowing who else I could turn to because I knew I couldn't do it myself. Now, uh the other side of that question, in terms of how it serves me now, um, the empathy that I have for parents who are going through similar situations with their kids has probably multiplied like a hundred times. Um, because I've I've walked through it as a therapist with other parents, but having gone through it myself, when a mom comes in and she's talking about her symptoms, you know, the heart palpitations and the chest pains and the high blood pressure and needing medication and anxiety, crippling anxiety, all of these things, I get it. You know, I get it on a level where that I didn't understand it before. Before it was clinical knowledge and expertise, and now it's lived experience. So it's different. I have a new level of empathy for the people that I serve.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

Yes, and so we're saying that the the wilderness is not wasted. And so what do you feel that who do you feel Julie is today that she wasn't before? Why do you feel that this experience was

Why The Wilderness Was Not Wasted

SPEAKER_02 34:02

yours to experience and it wasn't wasted?

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Well, I guess I'll start by saying that I don't believe that any experience God allows us to go through is wasted. I I've always believed that it is our responsibility to discover what God wants us to learn from whatever we're going through. So whether it's a financial issue, a mental health issue, a physical health problem, relationship problem, whatever it is, I believe there's something that God wants us to learn from that experience because he knows what's happening, he knows what's going to happen in the future, and we don't. Right. So whatever's happening now must be to prepare me for something that's coming later. Otherwise, why is this happening? Right. Maybe it's happening because he wants me to evolve and to change and to adapt, or maybe it's so that my son can have more empathy for people. And there's stories I could tell about how God showed us that early in the days before he was even completely healed. Um, but I I believe that who I am now is someone who definitely trusts God a lot more. I definitely trust him a lot more. Um I have I I don't even know what the word is to explain it, uh, except to say that I feel like for all of the things that he's brought us through and how he has, you know, preserved my son and his mental health up until this point, I don't take it for granted. That's I guess that's the other part of it, is that I don't take the blessings of God for granted, like maybe I used to. Um I look for the tiny miracles every day. I'm conscious, consciously looking for them. I acknowledge them when I see them. In the morning when I get up, I give God thanks. At night when I go to bed, I give God thanks. You know, like it's I think there's more um consistency in my relationship with God than perhaps there was prior to this. Yeah, I don't know if that answers the question, but yeah, it did.

SPEAKER_02 36:43

Thank you. If there's someone's listening right now and they're in the middle of their own wilderness, maybe it could be

Leaning Into Pain And Seeking Support

SPEAKER_02 36:50

with their child, it could be in their marriage, it could be with the diagnosis, it could be with anything. What would you, what advice or what words would you want to leave with them?

SPEAKER_00 37:03

Lean, I'd give a couple of things. Number one, I would say lean in to the discomfort of whatever you're going through. As painful as that is, lean into it. And when I say lean to lean into it, I I mean don't go for the quick fix. Don't rush too fast to what looks like an easy solution. Because oftentimes the easy solution, it doesn't actually solve the problem, it just complicates it. But leaning into the pain and discomfort of that means that you allow yourself to feel all the things. Allow yourself to feel all the things. Don't shame yourself because you feel guilty or because you feel angry or because you feel love and anger at the same time. You know, like you are going to experience a range of emotions. Allow yourself to feel them and talk to God about them because he already knows you're feeling them, but he likes it when we talk to him. So, you know, talk to him about them. Uh, and try to feel what you feel without judgment of yourself or anybody else. I think to if you're mad at God, then tell him that too. Right? Like there are lots of people in the Bible who were not happy with God and they just told him so. And he didn't strike them down, right? He asked them questions like, What are you doing here, Elijah?

SPEAKER_01 38:39

Right?

SPEAKER_00 38:40

What are you doing in here? Or Jonah, why are you so upset? Right? Moses, why are you striking that rock when I told you to speak to it? Like he just God gives us a model of how we can again show that love to our children by being patient, by being curious, by asking us questions, by inviting us into conversation with him. So I think if you're struggling, if you're struggling with your faith, if you're struggling with trust, if you're if you're mad at God because he allowed this thing to happen, talk to him about it. But you got to be ready for him to talk back and to hear what he has to say and to answer the questions that he asks you, because he's gonna ask you some questions. Uh, so you got to be ready to have that conversation with him. And I think to seek out support, either through your community, community resources, through your church, your family, whoever you feel will be supportive without judgment for you in that moment, seek out those supports because you're gonna need them.

SPEAKER_02 39:50

That was beautiful. I'm always surprised how fast this time goes. I can't believe we're at the end. So um, these are my final two questions. The first question is Is there anything else that I didn't ask but you want to share

You Are Not Alone + How To Connect

SPEAKER_02 40:04

with us? Please do so right now. And then the last question is if people want to connect with you, please share with how we can connect with you.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

If there's anything I could share that I haven't already, um it is this that you are not alone in what you're going through. You are not the first mom to go through a crisis with your kids, and you won't be the last. And too often we women, we keep these things, we keep our crises to ourselves because of shame, because of embarrassment, and because we feel like no one will understand. When in fact, if you just talk to a few people, right? Six degrees of separation, you talk to six people, one of them at least will say, you know what, I went through something very similar. And they'll have supports for you. So I don't think we should just word vomit to everybody and anybody, but I do believe that there is a community of women out there who have been where you are and would happily support you if they knew that you needed that support. So reach out for that. Uh, and then if people want to find me, um, you can certainly find me through my website, www.angersolution.com. And I do have a five-day emotional mastery challenge, which just looks, you know, it's a real, it's quick and dirty, where you just go in and each day approaches emotional mastery from a different perspective. One day is about parenting, one is about emotional mastery at work, one is about grief, and it just looks at all of these different aspects and gives you something to focus on very briefly for that five-day period. And joining that five-day challenge will invite you also into my community on school. And when you join that community on school, there are a host of other webinars, courses, and of course, a growing community that you can be a part of. So if you're wanting to connect with other women of faith who have been through similar experiences, then this is this is where I'm building that is through my school community. So the five-day challenge is your is your doorway into that. And again, it's absolutely free. There's no obligation.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

Wow, thank you so much, Julie. I appreciate you sharing your heart, sharing your story, and sharing your journey today. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 42:43

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 42:45

All righty. So thank you all. I am so grateful that you joined us today. I hope

Closing Prayer And Blessing

SPEAKER_02 42:52

that you all got something great out of the conversation. And of course, we are going to close with prayer. So, Lord, we just want to thank you. We want to thank you that the wilderness is never wasted. Thank you, Lord, that when we feel broken, you are rebuilding. Restore what fear tried to steal from us. Remind us, remind us that we're not alone. For every mother listening, for every person that's listening that is carrying something that's too heavy. Remind us that you are our strength, Father God, Lord. Remind us that you are making a way, that there is a path, and that you see us, Father God, Lord. Remind us that we are not forgotten and that you know us. You know us by name. If anybody's broken, begin to rebuild them right now. You know how they feel, Father God, Lord, and you're beginning something new. And it's in Jesus' name that we pray. And for those that are listening, remember if you're Between a prayer and a promise? Guess what? God is right in the middle. He is closer than you think. Thank you for joining us today. For between a prayer and a promise.