The Joy That Cost Her Friendships (And She'd Choose It Again) Artwork

The Deep Water Show

The Deep Water Show is a podcast for women who want to encounter God’s presence in everyday life ... especially in seasons of healing, transition, and life’s pivot points.

Hosted by longtime friends Jackie McCown and Christi Eaton, this show is a shared table where honest conversations meet deep faith. We talk about marriage, motherhood, identity, grief, friendship, and the quiet work God is doing beneath the surface — often long before anything looks “fixed” or resolved. With Scripture as our anchor and real life as our context, each episode makes space for reflection, vulnerability, and spiritual recalibration.

We’re not here with formulas or perfect answers. We’re here to slow the pace, tell the truth, and notice how God meets us in the ordinary moments ... the kitchen sink, the carpool line, the hard conversations, the long middle seasons. Some episodes feature thoughtful guests who have navigated their own deep waters; others are simply Jackie and Christi pulling up chairs and talking honestly about what faith looks like when life doesn’t fit tidy categories.

The Deep Water Show is for women who are tired of striving, curious about what it means to live from presence rather than performance, and hungry for a faith that feels lived-in and real. If you’re navigating change, healing, or simply longing to feel less alone in your walk with God.

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The Deep Water Show

The Joy That Cost Her Friendships (And She'd Choose It Again)

May 05, 2026 • Jacquelynn McCown, Christi Eaton • Season 2 • Episode 8

0:00 | 20:17

What does it look like to be 80 years old, still making snow angels, still booking zip lines … still choosing joy when the world has told you you're wrong for it?

In this episode, Jackie sits down with her mom, Carol, for a conversation that starts at the surface and doesn't stay there. What looks like lightheartedness from the outside turns out to have been hard-won … tested by a husband's near-fatal heart attack, by seasons of real loss, and by the quiet cost of refusing to be bitter when the people around you needed you to be.

They talk about what it costs to stay joyful when people can't understand it … about cleaning as a spiritual practice and why a made bed matters more than you think … and about the kind of faith that doesn't explain itself. It just holds.

If you've ever been told you're not being realistic … if you're somewhere in the middle of something hard and trying to figure out how to breathe … this one's for you.

Proverbs 3. Trust in the Lord. Carpe diem.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Hey friend, and welcome back to another episode of the Deep Water Show. And today we have Mom in the house.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Hi, Jackie.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Hey, Mom. Thank you for stepping up and stepping into this space that is all things Jackie in the Deep Water.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

I'm glad to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

You know, Christy and I, when we do this, we always have these very easy transitions into what we're going to talk about. But I think with you, I just want to jump in. Okay, go for it. So one of my most joyful memories of you is not even a memory that I participated in, but it's this story of my then I think 78-year-old mom making snow angels. And who does that?

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Me. Yes, you. Tell me about that. Well, Jack, my husband, and I moved from Texas to Michigan. And winter came. And snow? Yes. Well, of course you have to make a snow angel. So I plopped down and made a snow angel.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

I I think, if I recall correctly, at least one of your brothers, who shall remain nameless, protect the names of the guilty and the innocent. Um, he had something to say about you, his big sister, making snow angels.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Well, he thought I was a little off my rocker, probably, because, you know, what if I couldn't have gotten up? And I did. Yes. But he thought I'd become a turtle if I couldn't get up.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Okay, I want to say there's some sibling humor in there, but you have always had this sense of joy and kind of, I'm gonna call it holy mischief because I know you're a very faithful woman, but um, there's always a level a lightheartedness to you in in going through life. Yes. Tell me how it is that you have always you've just never taken yourself or life too seriously. No, I haven't.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

It's easier that way, number one, but I just don't see being sad or unhappy or grumpy or whatever. I prefer to be happy and positive.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Okay, well, I get that because that's what I know of you, and um, I think that's part of what people get from me. So now they're getting a glimpse of where it at least a smidge of it came from from my mama. Um, but where did that come from for you? Like if I get that lightheartedness and joy of life from my mother, uh-huh, where did you get it from?

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Well, I got it growing up. I mean, I had it, it just matured. And I think that being from the family I was from, it was there.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

But as I got older, I it just developed more.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

So this nature versus nurture idea is that you were naturally part of a family, and then your makeup as an individual, lighthearted, happy, joyful, fun-loving, gosh, all the times at the cottage, I know that we have sassy, fun-loving people in your family. Um, but in addition to that, you've chosen to grow that part of yourself over the years. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Was there ever a season where that joy got hard to hold?

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Yes. It was when uh Jack had a heart attack at 32. So Jack is my dad. Oh, Jack is her dad. Yes. And uh I was a young mother and a young wife. Okay, and it was like, okay, I'm gonna have to take over here a little bit, um, maybe a lot. And the um heart attack he had could have been called a widowmaker, but it didn't. But that's where it started that I had to be a little stronger.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

And holding the the joy of that became a challenge.

unknown 4:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

In that, yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Maintaining this perspective, this filter of finding joy, finding the positive. You that is a hallmark of you. And I'm wondering if there was ever a time where choosing to be joyful, choosing to find the silver lining, where where it cost you something, where you took a hit from someone else or from the world by choosing to remain positive.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Well, maybe a little bit.

unknown 5:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Um, there were times where I chose to be a little more positive, looking ahead, and people didn't see that. They didn't understand it.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

So maybe some judgment, if I'm hearing you right, where you were choosing to be hopeful and positive, and they maybe looked at you with a little side eye, thinking, what the heck, woman, do you not understand what's going on? Oh, absolutely. Did it uh cost you relationships?

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Instance? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Where people wanted to just be ugly and nasty and grumpy, and you said I just can't stay there with you, and yes, wow.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

I got criticized for it. That is a whole nother level of choosing, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Because it's easy to say, well, just just look for the bright side, just look for the positive. And you know, God, God works everything for the good of those who loves him. And those are all really easy words to say, and I'm mocking the tone of it because so often people want to just glaze over stuff and make it this, you know, kind of silly, trite, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that you would have lost friendships and relationships because people couldn't see the goodness of God in you. That is wow. Sorry for the big long pauses today. Uh, this is something I did not know about my mom, and I'm a little, I'm a little wide-eyed right now. I I have always known you to be a formidable woman, and I've always known you to be someone that brings the joy to the party, but I never knew that people walked away from you as a result.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

They felt I wasn't being realistic, but my faith helped me on that part.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

So is it one of those moments where we read in the Bible like the peace of the Lord that passes all understanding? Absolutely. The joy of the Lord within you passed all understanding, and you just you pressed into that when the world didn't get it. Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Well, I have a lot a lot of other questions written down, but I'm having to pivot here a little bit. So in that room, in that room where the weight of people saying, You are you're just you're wrong. I don't get it. I don't understand what you're seeing, and I can't go there with you, in the room where you're 32 and your husband has a heart attack that should have killed him. Thanks be to God it did not. When you're in the room where your daughter is diagnosed with MS, when you're in the room of whatever these really unbearable weighted moments are, most people would break, most people would cry, and maybe you cry behind closed doors when it's just you and God, but how do you bring that laughter, the the true lightness, the true silver lining of the moment? How do you bring that in a space when most women would cry?

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Well, it doesn't mean I didn't cry. Yes. But and this may sound a little silly, but I clean. You clean, clean, which may be a whole nother subject, but that's where I'm doing mindless work, and I can think through what's going on in my life. I can think about answers to the questions I have about what's going on in my life, or maybe I've already got those answers, and I just need to tuck those away for a while and clean. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

I I want to say there's some profound deep water in here about Jackie and a clean home and some kind of, you know, I don't know. But what I do know is that part of the rules of Carol growing up, one of those, well, two of those were you make your bed every day. Yes. And then the other one was once I had a home of my own with my husband and then children, was you can have clean dishes drying on the counter, but never a sink full or a counter covered in dirty dishes. Right. So I hear this thread of cleanliness being a grounding space for you. Yes. Tell me more. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

So for example, I flew down here to visit with you.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Well, I cleaned my apartment, I did all the dishes. Well, their dishwasher did, but yes, I I washed all my clothes, I dusted, I did everything. So when I go back, I have my haven, my resting place, my peaceful place.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

I don't have to worry about it.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

But being so this notion of making your bed every day and keeping a tidy kitchen contributes to when you've when you've been out in the world, yes, and you've come back to your space, yes, you have a restful space to be. Yes. Exactly. Literal rest, but then also a space where you can rest in God if unlike now where we're having a girls' week and it's great, but you want to, you know, trips are great, girls' weeks are great, but everybody at the end of it wants to go back home and and breathe their own air.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

So it's not saying anything negative about our time together that you want to have a beautiful, clean, tidy space to return. And in the chaos of the world, when you're entering a season or a moment that feels like it could break you, if you have this orderly, calm space, it can offer you safe haven.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Or what about restoration?

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Restoration as well. Because, you know, we've been pretty busy. So you can rest, I can rest.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

In those moments when not just resting after fun, but in those moments where life has been really, really hard. What's actually going on inside your head and your heart that allows you to find moments of joy for yourself or to share with others?

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Well, um, I'm gonna say, you know, I can go home, I can meditate, I can pray, I can just rejoice in the fact that I had that opportunity to do okay. I'm not talking about the easy fun stuff though, mom.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

When life is hard, yes, when you're in a room with another woman or another person and life is breaking them hard, or you're in a space where life by any other means or measure would break a woman. How is it, what is going on inside your head and heart in that moment that you're not broken?

SPEAKER_02 13:50

My faith. That's a pretty good uh example. That's the way it is for me.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

That's the way it is. There it is, mic drop. That's the way it is. Uh part of being the way it is for you is that you're you're a very adventuresome woman. Yes. You have this global sense of wonder that defies age. Literally, the woman went zip lining two years ago and did like a 10 zipline course. And uh I think at least one of the boys has asked if you would go skydiving. Yes. And you said, well, sure, but you've had a double cornea replacement. So they're not really cooperating with rapid decelerization. And okay, so no skydiving. Nonetheless, this is indicative of the spirit of adventure within you. Yes. As a woman coming up on 60, not soon, but soon, I look up to you as this great example, not just as my mom, but as a woman that is ahead of me in life. And I think of this expectation that when you reach a certain age, you should just be settled.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

You should be serious.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

And I like maybe joy becomes undignified at some point. I don't know. But in my head, there is this okay, well, you're gonna get to be here, and then you're gonna need to do this thing, but you can't do that anymore. That is not you, that is not the example you set. I want you to tell me how, because I want to be the 80-year-old who goes ziplining and mountain climbing and makes snow angels. How do you get whatever it is within you? How do you get it? How do you keep it? How do you grow it?

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Well, to start with, before Jack passed, he was like, you go and do all the things that we were gonna do. But he couldn't. So I'm fulfilling that dream. Plus, yeah, God has physically given me the fun-loving person I am, yes, and the um what do I want to say, the adventurous soul that I have. And he I just feel that it's important to be able to fulfill the things that I can do rather than just sit home and be a little old lady. Be that little old lady. I can't.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

So I don't know that you and I have ever talked about this either. Lots of new topics today. See what happens in the deep water? Yes. God equips us and gifts us, yes, each of us individually, with talents and strengths. And is there a part of your faith that compels you to enjoy the life he's given you?

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Absolutely. I think that I think I've been blessed with that ability. What would you say to what would you say to the 30-year-old that's listening right now?

SPEAKER_01 17:46

You're you're 80, mom. You are the most beautiful, wise, loving, joyable, energetic, enthusiastic woman I know. And you've got a 30-year-old looking up at you saying, tell me, tell me, tell me how your faith has guided you to be the person you are and seek the joy and the adventure. Give her one nugget today.

SPEAKER_02 18:15

No pressure, no pressure.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

I think you have to listen to your heart and pray to God that all the adventurous things he's gonna allow you to do is blessed by him that you can do those things. I I also look at Proverbs uh three. Okay. And it says trust in the Lord.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

I'm trusted.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

You're throwing caution to the wind in all of your life and just trusting that it's all gonna be good. Well, it might not be, but yes, I am. I don't think you're being flippant, though. No, I'm not being flippant at all. For example, I know that when you go hiking, you walk with walking sticks and you climb high stairs and you hold onto the railing. So I don't want anyone to think we're just saying be ridiculous and do whatever. No, no, no. But you're saying God has given me the spirit of adventure. Yeah. And if he's gonna give me the opportunity, I'm gonna seize it.