Ep. 1 – Heidi: I Was a Pastor’s Wife

Welcome to Faith Rehab — real talk about church hurt, healing, and rebuilding faith.

In this first episode, we share who we are and why this podcast exists. We come from different backgrounds and experiences, but we share a common thread: we’ve seen both the beauty of faith and the pain that can come from the church.

Faith Rehab was created to be a safe place—a space where people can be honest about spiritual disappointment, church hurt, doubt, and the process of rebuilding trust. This isn’t about tearing faith down. It’s about restoring it.

In this episode, you’ll hear a mix of lighthearted moments and real stories as we introduce ourselves and begin to unpack the heart behind this podcast. You’ll also hear part of Heidi’s story—glimpses into her upbringing, personality, and the experiences that have shaped her perspective on faith and life. It’s a mix of humor, honesty, and the kind of real-life moments that remind you we’re all just figuring this out as we go.

We’re laying the foundation for honest conversations that acknowledge the hard parts of church experiences while still holding onto hope for healing and growth.

We believe:

• Faith can survive questions
• Healing takes time
• Honesty is healthier than pretending

If you’ve ever felt hurt by the church, spiritually confused, burned out, or unsure where you belong—this space is for you.

We’re here to talk about what hurt, what’s helped, and where we’re headed.

Welcome to the conversation.

Faith Rehab is a podcast about church hurt, healing, and rebuilding faith.

We create a safe space for honest conversations about spiritual disappointment, doubt, and the process of finding hope again—without pretending or having all the answers.

Co-hosts: Steve McNitt, Heidi Brandt & CJ Mateo
 Produced by: CJ Mateo

Contact us at Faithrehabpodcast@gmail.com
— we’d love to hear your story.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right. Hey friends, guess what? We're starting a podcast. Yes. Which is uh maybe exciting, but I don't know. Because I was in uh Southern California a couple of weeks ago, and I was meeting with some family, and there was a uh one of the guys' former roommate was there, and he was one of those guys with a lot of opinions, and he's really funny, not obnoxious, but really funny. He's got a lot of opinions about stuff. We just started asking him stuff, and they said, Hey, buddy, you should start a podcast. And he looked straight at the guy and said, The day you start a podcast is the day you've given up on life. So here we are, friends. We're giving up on life and starting a podcast. Woo! Let's go. Sounds good. Let's go.

unknown 0:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

Welcome to Faith Rehab, real talk about church hurt, healing, and rebuilding faith. I'm Heidi. And when I was a little girl, the classiest woman I knew used to pick up her son who was in the third grade with me. She drove a Mercedes, a red Mercedes that was diesel. She wore driving gloves and smoked cigarettes. So it became my life's work to one day get a Mercedes. And I finally did that when I turned 40, like four years ago. I I bought a used Mercedes with a broken heart. And to honor her memory, I went and bought like the candy cigarettes, the fake cigarettes. And uh I drive around town smoking fake candy and gum cigarettes. Very nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

I mean, is it like I can quit anytime? You can get like a little bubble gum patch to put on if you need it.

SPEAKER_03 1:51

Right. Seriously, that's what I need. Like a nicotine gum patch to quit. Yeah. I like it.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Yeah, I'm picturing you flicking like little gum butts all over town.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

Or like really freaking people out and just like look at them while I'm smoking it. And when I'm done, just like eat eat it.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Yes. Do that, please, and report back next time. Yeah. Okay, my name is Steve McNitt. I'm a licensed clinical social worker. I've been a therapist for 30 years, but I'm not your therapist. Uh also I'm much older than these guys. And so I volunteered at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. And I got to meet one of my heroes of all time. I get goosebumps, even still talking about it. I got to meet Muhammad Ali. I got to shake his hand. I got to have a little conversation. It was one of the thrills of my lifetime.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

Wow. Like, Steve, I don't want to burst your bubble, but what if I told you that I know two other people who've met Mohammed Ali?

SPEAKER_00 2:50

So my special story is not that special as I was telling me that.

SPEAKER_03 2:54

Apparently, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Friends, church hurt comes in a lot of flavors, doesn't it? Thank you, Heidi, for undercutting me again. Of course. All right, CJ, what do you got?

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Hey, I'm CJ Mateo, uh, aka BMI2 High. Uh, fun fact about me, I I'm part of a small group uh with my church friends, and I think half of us are on CPAPs. Wait, what?

SPEAKER_03 3:19

Is that weird? Wait, wait, what describe to our listeners what a CPAP is?

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Sleep apnea is a serious disability, and I have it, and a CPAP helps me stay alive while I sleep. What does it look like? It's like uh like if you're on your deathbed and you have like a little mask on top of your face.

SPEAKER_03 3:39

Yeah. Okay, so half of you wear these things.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Yeah, it's not a requirement or anything.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Like you don't, you're not wearing it now.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

No, I took it off and I woke up and I came here.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

So you wear it when you're sleeping. Yeah, it's great. How are you in a small group with like 90-year-olds? What are we talking about?

SPEAKER_03 3:56

Yeah, no, I think it gets funnier if you share like issues one could have when a small group decides to go and did have a a camp that we wanted to go camping together, and an issue was where how do we power our CPAPs?

SPEAKER_01 4:11

So we were thinking, do we do we share a tent and like make it like a hospital tent with a bunch of CPAPs connected to one power source? Um, we ended up staying in separate tents, but we were all plugged into my friend's car, which he had to keep on all night just to keep us alive. It's pretty good. You had to run the car the whole night. Yeah, it was so obnoxious for the other campers, but I'm still here. Still here, well rested. Happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

That's a good story. That is fantastic. And um, we are brought to you today by CPAPs of the world. CPAPs are us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

Add it up.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

This is Faith Rehab. Yes, our podcast. Our mission statement is that we exist to bring comfort and community to those who have been hurt by the imperfections of the church. And as somebody who has been around the church for probably close to 67 years, or as the kids would say, six seven lots of people we know, including all of us, have been hurt by the church in some way. And so we decided to start this podcast. And so I'm gonna throw it to you guys. Why is it? What are we what are we hoping to do here?

SPEAKER_03 5:30

I think we want to create a space where people can come and share without judgment their experiences in the church and the ways that they've been disappointed. And, you know, as I've been thinking about it, I even have to own the ways that I've done some of the hurt and some of the disappointing that we're all a part of this messy group of people that are trying to work their way towards I don't know, holiness or something. And we just we step on each other sometimes on the way. And so, how can we talk about that and and what hurt us and what's helped and and where are we headed, whether that's a different church or no church at all? We're we're just here to normalize it a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Yeah, I love the way you said normalize it because it's anybody who's gone through any of that kind of hurt, it can be isolating. We have so much in common with each other, and there's so many of us out there that have been hurt in some way, shape, or form. Did you want to add to that, CJ? Yeah, I think by the way, for our listeners, I'm sorry to cut you off, CJ, but CJ has told us he never wants to speak. So every time we throw it to him, he is not happy, but he is happy because he had a lot and he has a lot of really great stuff to say. Thanks, Steve. Did you want to add to any of that, CJ?

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Yeah, no. Well what you guys said, I think we just need more people talking about these things because I feel like some people are like, oh, it's a church issue, we shouldn't talk about it, it might hurt the church, but really everyone's going through it, might as well bring it to light and just work on it. And um, hopefully in our conversations with each other and if we bring guests on, you just hear more of church trauma and how to fix it.

SPEAKER_03 7:12

Yeah, you know what I'm thinking is like sometimes when you're part of a church community, you feel like you have to protect it and not name the thing that's hurting and getting in the way of real relationship with God and with each other. And I think that this isn't about protecting God or the church. This is about naming what is real and what hurts so that we can get better and do this better. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

So some of the things we want to do is create a safe space. One of the things I know we don't want to do is create a space where people are just bleeding all over each other with the church hurt, the unprocessed part of it. Um, if you want to um hear horrible things or bad things about the church, you can do that on just about every way to communicate with people. There's front lots of friends and family that have crappy things to say about church and Christians and whatnot. And I don't think we're gonna try to do that. No, wanted to do this because we wanted to have some real talk, like we're not protecting anybody but ourselves and and um but also that we wanted to be able to share the hurt and the process, kind of not just what's hurt, but what's helped, and even where are you headed? If we can create a safe space where people feel free to talk about the hurt, we also hope that people are gonna get help in the what do I do with that?

unknown 8:39

Right.

SPEAKER_03 8:39

Yeah, I mean, I think we have to be really careful to not name denominations, to not name churches, to not name pastors, to not name the people who have hurt us, and and not again because we're trying to protect anybody, but because sometimes when you take the name out of things, it becomes even more relatable. It's not about that church or that person, it's about the problems that get in the way of us really finding truth and meaning through the bad experiences.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Yeah. One of the other things that I know we want to do is we probably like I've been uh a teacher and a therapist for my whole career. And because oftentimes I'm talking about things that are confidential, I don't want to use real names. So I've created a character named Jimmy Schnitzel. And um, Jimmy Schnitzel, if you ever talk with him, he actually has a Chicago accent.

SPEAKER_03 9:32

So I like that.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

If everybody, if ever you hear me talking about Jimmy and you're wondering who Jimmy is, that is the name that will be spoken. So um, so let's get into it. Heidi, you pulled the short straw, you get to go first. Yeah, so that you can kind of get to know us a little bit and why we're doing this. We wanted to make it real personal. So I'm gonna Heidi has volunteered to go first. We're gonna kind of do her origin story today. Mine'll be next episode. If CJ's still with us, we'll do the uh the one after that. He's already shaking his head, and and I think right now he's currently writing a resignation letter. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 10:11

Um Dear Diary today on a three up. Heidi hurt my feelings.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

What am I gonna do about it, Steve? Um, Heidi, there was a conversation that kind of got the ball rolling. And let's talk a little bit about why you want to do this podcast and and how it is not just a goal, but also it's personal.

SPEAKER_03 10:33

Yeah, thank you, Steve. And in the spirit of full disclosure, I think that what's also beautiful about this is that it's ongoing. I haven't come up with any real solutions yet in terms of my church shirt, other than knowing I just need to show up where I am authentically and that I can still learn and be used. And so I'm still in process. But um probably, I don't know, nine months ago over the summer, I was set up on a blind friend date, which I've never had before. But in my professional career, I'm a uh public speaker, corporate trainer, extraordinaire. I speak all over the world. I speak all over the world to different groups about uh words that we're not allowed to talk about, like diversity, equity, and inclusion, teaching, uh resilience, and connecting skills to people in their professional lives. And I was doing work for a pharmaceutical company, and I had a really wonderful uh neuroscientist in my class, and he months, years later sent me an email and said, I really want you to meet my wife. And, you know, she's got this really uh beautiful backstory. And she lived in South Africa, moved to England. She's a psychotherapist and has this incredible body of work that she brought to the school systems in England, teaching resilience and adaptability to students and staff. And her and her husband moved to the US and she was told, your credit, your credentials mean nothing here. Like you're gonna have to go back to school. Can you imagine? Like, oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

We don't want that crappy South African therapy here. Come on, crazy.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

Well, I just I felt so so when I met her, I wanted to know like, why are you connecting with me? And she said, you know, my husband thought maybe the work that you do is something that would be interesting to me. And she's just a really lovely, authentic person. I'm drawn to real people. And you could tell right out of the gate, she was just a lovely real person. And she decided to go back to school and she didn't know me. I mean, this was the first time we met for coffee. She didn't know my background. All she knew is what I did professionally. And she said, Yeah. So I went back to school. And when I was writing my thesis, I wrote it on pastors' wives. And she had this beautiful South African accent. And so I thought maybe I wasn't understanding her correctly. And I said, I'm sorry, what? And she goes, pastors' wives, like the lived experiences of pastors' wives. And I started crying because what she didn't know is that I had been in ministry for 20 plus years and was married to a pastor and was a pastor's wife. And I'm using that in past tense because he and I went through a divorce. And I just thought, wow, like what did that mean? And she said, Well, you know, like so many people don't ask pastors' wives what their lived experience is, they just have these expectations and um and they're some of them are like flourishing and some of them are floundering.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

The fact that she noticed that, I mean, she's never been a pastor's wife, I don't think, but the fact that she noticed that it's kind of like shining a light in a dark corner and going, what's over there? And yes, when she shined it at you, it was like, I'm here, I'm part of this.

SPEAKER_03 14:13

Right. Yes, but like I haven't, I did not think about it until that moment. How would my experience have been different? If at some point someone would have asked me, What is this like for you, Heidi? My gosh, like you know, I had four little kids. We lived in a two-bedroom house with no basement and two dogs and one car because my ex-husband went to India and decided like we needed to live a simpler life. And I just was so lonely and exhausted and showing up for everybody else, and also very image focused. Like, as long as I look the part and play the part, then no one's gonna know on the inside that I'm drowning, and so I don't know, like just to hear someone, Steve. I like the way you put it like shine the light in the dark corners, it almost gave me permission to step into that light. And so, you know, when I thought about this podcast, I just thought, who else needs to come out of the dark corners? And not because we're shaming people into dark corners, although that happens too, but because sometimes we put ourselves there because we feel like, you know what, I don't fit the cookie cutter image of what a pastor's wife looks like.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

I have a confession to make. I've never been a pastor's wife. I know that makes you awkward thing, but um give us some examples. Like, so I don't know what this means. I mean, what are some things that people, even good-hearted, loving, warm, God-honoring people did to you with you uh that were sort of like hurtful, sort of isolating, sort of put you in a bad spot?

SPEAKER_03 16:07

Yeah, I one thing that stands out in particular is that uh my professional life is brings me so much meaning and joy. I love what I get to do professionally. And when uh Josh, my that's my ex-husband's name, when he was we won't use names, and there it is. Um, but I asked his permission, so it's okay. The pastor's wife, the the pastor's wife at the time said to me, You work. And I said, Yeah, of course I work. And she she really gave me the impression that that was not a common or acceptable thing in their church, you know, that my ministry needed to be partnership with my husband and to the children and not have anything to do outside of that. And I looked at her and I said, Well, am I getting paid? You know, like I'm not on the payroll. Right. Why am I gonna you take the time to so that pressure was like right out of the gate?

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Yeah, wow, that must have been just like mind-boggling. I mean, it almost like she was speaking another language, even just hearing you tell the story, she's like saying, We only speak French here, and you're going, I don't know French.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

Yes, I and I I I relate to that seeing my mom. I'm a pastor's kid, and my mom was a full-time nurse. Not only a full-time work nurse, she worked two nursing jobs and was a pastor's wife too. And hearing you, I'm like, what was her experience like with that burden of having to work three jobs, you know, two nursing jobs and uh being a wife and supporting a pastor? So yeah, I'm sure a lot of people relate.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Yeah, I mean that that's just a a strange kind of pressure. So let us carve inside the brain of Heidi. What are some things that you wish you could have done that you just knew the pressure of being the pastor's wife would not allow it?

SPEAKER_03 18:09

The biggest thing has been uh uh really carving out my own faith. I would go to Bible studies and attend small groups and just felt very different in terms of my thinking around my faith. I had questions, I had doubts. I read things that were considered controversial, and not because I was going off the deep end, but because I think that that our understanding of our faith in God is a lot more complicated than it's sometimes presented to us in the church in these nice, neat little packaged, you know, offerings. And um, so I wish that I had the freedom to have conversations that were real and show up at a gay pride parade and not feel like I was gonna get my you know face chewed out for for supporting a community of people that I love and care for deeply. And I wanted to be able to show up with my kids and my kids be barefoot and messy because it took everything in me to get out the door with four kids under the age of, you know, eight. Um, I wanted to be able to walk through the foyer and say hello to people, but not get stopped to hear all the hard things that people were going through. Like I wanted to just worship and have the opportunity to worship next to my husband. I could tell you in, I don't know, the near 20 years of ministry we did together, I could count on one hand the amount of times we we stood together and worshipped together because we were always in two different places in the church. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:49

And feeling very alone in that. I would sit alone in the back. And uh it just people are curious. You know, we live in a culture that's obsessed with celebrities and influencers. And when you're part of a larger church, I think there's a curiosity that kind of goes with the family. And um I just wanted to be me. And I am tattooed, I am liberal, I swear, I smoke fake cigarettes. Like, and I'm okay with me. And I think that people were were this is gonna sound strange. I don't think that people weren't okay with me. They weren't okay that I was okay being me. That was more of their conundrum. Like, wait a minute, like you don't belong to this group and you're okay with that.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

And I'd be like, girl, no, yeah, and like celebrities, it's very interesting when celebrities fall. And I think you're like, maybe they put that pressure on let's let's pick, let's pick on this couple and see where the flaws are.

SPEAKER_03 20:53

Yes, and then in a church, it's like I would have these get togethers with other women, and you know, we went into ministry very, very young, and there were so many hard and terrible, awful things that people were going through. We had no equipment to be the people on the other side of car accidents, diagnoses, death, kid death, uh, failed adoptions, infertility, all these people that we loved and cared for that were a part of our community who were in a lot of pain. We would get together to just connect. And it ended up being like, we're just gonna sit in each other's pain stories and then we're gonna pray. And there were some women who would pray out loud about me and what I wasn't doing right and how I wasn't showing up through their prayer.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Don't do that. Wow. If that was you, don't do that. Don't do that again, please. Like, stop. Yes, stop it.

SPEAKER_03 21:53

It was and I remember thinking like, This is not okay. Is anyone else feeling like this is not okay?

SPEAKER_00 21:59

I do.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

It was just so wild. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

How big of a church was it?

SPEAKER_03 22:03

I think there were about 1200 people.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Of those 1200 people, how many people knew you as Heidi and how many people knew the role?

SPEAKER_02 22:13

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Well, well, I'll just I'll make the second one easy. Everybody knows the role. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

And they all have some kind of expectation about what's supposed to happen in that role. But how many people knew you as really Heidi?

SPEAKER_03 22:27

I had one friend who really knew me.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

I'm just going to talk to our listeners for a second. Friends, this is the most common ministry story there is. Your pastors, your pastor's kids, your pastor's wives, your ministry leaders are lonely and the expectations we put on them are so surreal that we paint them into a corner and hope they survive. And when they don't, then we're shocked. And friends, I'm just telling you, if you've ever felt that, boy, Heidi has done such a great job of explaining that. But if you've ever felt that, that is so unfortunately normal. And if you've never felt that, I promise you, people sitting around you are. And I'm sad about that. And it's part of the reason I want to be involved in this project. But um wow, Heidi, one out of 1200. That that breaks my heart.

SPEAKER_03 23:28

And even that was like I would kind of present parts of myself to her and see, like, how does this feel? You know, and then okay, she accepted that. Now I'm just gonna like say this thing. You know, like I just felt like it wasn't even this full-on, we trust each other right away. We were friends from the start, and it took years for her to really learn me and and for me to feel safe in that.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Shout out to your friend. Come on, girl. Nice job. So every now and then I drop little nuggets that I think are important. You may not, but I think one of the hard things about ministry is the pressure other people put on us, like the ones who are worried about your tattoos or if you go to a gay pride parade, and then the pressure we put on ourselves that I'm in this role, and this role is expected to do certain things. And you know, for you, I can't even imagine because anything that you did that stepped over a line affected your husband's job. Like they can't fire you, but they could fire him because of you. Like that's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

Yes. And I thought, you know, we have these friends in our small group. Of all of them, in the years that we knew each other, I'd never been to any of their places of work, you know. So to invite your closest friends into your marriage, your workspace, your community, your uh outreach, like all those things, it's like it, and I want to highlight something that you're not saying, Steve, but what I'm hearing you say is the the duplicity in it or the duality. I don't know what the right word would be, but I think anytime I ever came across fake was because I probably was trying to figure out how do I show up as myself. Yeah, but then how do I show up? Like if I ever felt inauthentic, it was because I was caught between wanting to be me and loved and known and seen, not only inside of the church, but even by my husband, who was so devoted to the church and was called to this and wired for this. And I never felt that like I'm like still waiting for the phone call. Like God, where are you at? I'm showing up, but I don't feel called to this, you know.

unknown 25:50

Right.

SPEAKER_03 25:51

Yeah, how do you live in those two spaces? How do you live? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

I you know what I think you're on to something because I know there are people, and I'm not a pastor on staff at any church right now, but um, but I know people, there's two in particular that every single time I said hi to this one particular person, I would say, Hey Jimmy, see I'm using that word, Jimmy. So his name is Jimmy. Yes, yes. How's it going? And he would say, every single time, same answer. Well, you know, I got the devil on the run. Every single time. Now, first of all, I don't think so. And second of all, you're not telling me anything real. So we can be church friends and we can say hi and I'm happy to dap him up and hug him and all that. But um, but if he's afraid to be real inside the place that's supposed to be the realist, that's a rough spot. And um, he's not on staff, he's just a personer, you're right.

SPEAKER_03 26:57

Um you know, yeah, go ahead, CJ. CJ's talking.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

And I'm thinking about like church staff too, how they have that pressure of like, I can't share what's really going behind the scenes because this is God's supposed to be in all this. And if if the non-staffed person sees that there's something wrong, then like maybe God's not here. I'm out of here, you know? That pressure for staff people to not be able to share what's really like hurting them, and they just have to keep it within the staff. It's so tough. So much pressure on them and and pastors' wives. And I see how my mom went through that too.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:34

No, no vulnerability. I had to take this class that you write out your narrative and you use sticky notes to separate the people who are the people in your life that inspired you? What were the events that were life-changing? And I remember trying to be so careful in what I shared and looking over at the woman who was working on hers next to me, and I could see abortion and cocaine, and just being jealous that she could be so honest with her story. And I had to curate this, like, and who's that serving? Like, nobody is learning how to be real when the pastor's wife is like, you know, I grew up in a Christian school, which is true, but my story was not perfect at all. But the fear of judgment was kept me quiet, I think. And then you would meet people who would say, But we want your story, we want you to be real. And I'd think, like, but do you? Because the moment I'm real, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Can you handle it?

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Yeah, be real. But if you can sugarcoat it, that'd be great. You know what's great as you talk about that? I think the gospels were written in a way that if you read them in a certain way, they show the knucklehead stuff that the disciples did. Like, hey, Jesus, all these people are hungry. We should send them home. No, no, you feed them. I can't feed them. Oh, we got fish, I'll take care of it. Don't worry about it. Yeah, you know, or Peter walking on water, and then did they have to mention that he fell in?

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Yeah, but he was real, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Yeah, you know, in in John's gospel, he talks about him running to the um to the tomb after Jesus resurrected, and John says, I arrived first. He's bragging about beating Peter in a foot race on the way to the like, come on, these guys are knuckleheads, right? And so why can't we be real? I mean, Jesus even sort of made fun of them. Peter's like, you know, you can never wash my feet. Get behind me, Satan. He called his disciple Satan. Come on. Um, and so why can't we be real? But that's the pressure of the church and the pressure of the role where where you go, yeah. I mean, I feel the pressure so much. I can look at that lady's note and be jealous that she gets to be real. And then I gotta write, you know, I had a rough day, I got a hangnail, and you know, please pray for me. And um, that's that's so unfair to you and so unfair to all of us, right? And so Heidi, I want to kind of wrap this up a little bit because you know, we're sort of in this model where we go, what's helped and where are you headed? So see if you can give us a little bit of uh you started with the what's helped, I don't or where are you headed? I don't know because I'm not done with my journey. I appreciate that, but give us a minute or two on on uh kind of what's helped and where are you headed.

SPEAKER_03 30:45

Yeah, I can't even speak to when I was in the church what helped was being in my position, I knew a lot about what was happening with the people in the church because my husband would come home and share the different struggles that families were going through or individuals were facing. And I would sit in the back of the church when I allowed myself to really just be there and to not worry about what anybody was thinking or or saying. And I would look at all the people in the congregation, all the people on the stage, and think God knows every single person's history and struggles, and he loves them unconditionally. And if he's looking at all of them with that through that lens of unconditional love, there is no condemnation. In other words, we are not condemned because of our imperfections, we are loved. He looks at me with that same grace, and that helped me then in in that time of my life. But most recently, I have a very, very beautiful co-parenting relationship with my ex-husband. And he and I have been able to process through a lot of this stuff together on the other side of this, and he's still in ministry, he's a pastor at a different church now. And he invited me to his Christmas Eve service this last Christmas, which was really special because I was able to go with my four sons, and it was it wasn't intimidating, it wasn't, I just got to be me. Like I didn't have to be anybody but myself. And I was he was introducing me to people on the staff, he was introducing me to people in the congregation, he was introducing me, he was bored. It was like, what is this? And one of his board members pulled me aside and he said, Thank you for being here. And I said, Of course, I wanted to be here with my boys. And he said, No, if you knew how many divorced families were in this congregation, for them to see what this could look like, this is not wasted on us.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 33:01

And it was just this beautiful reminder that when we're willing to show up in the hard and do the necessary work of vulnerability and dealing with shame. Um that then it's not about me anymore. It's just about like God using me as me, which is probably how it should have been from the beginning without expectation. And I think what's helped is knowing that there are pockets of safe people and that I'm a safe person. And that if I carry that with me, then it doesn't matter what happens to me or who's around me. I know who I am. I'm a beloved child of God. And that gives me the freedom to, I don't know, freedom to what? What what am I thinking? Just to be myself.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

You can be met there. Because you know, in the audience of one, in the audience of just God, he loves you and he accepts you just as you are. And what a beautiful scene that that is. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing your whole story. That was fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

Good job, Heidi.

SPEAKER_03 34:23

Yeah, thank you.

unknown 34:33

Okay, all right, right.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

Hey, welcome back. Heidi has done such a great job of sharing her story, and it's been kind of heavy, deep, and real, and I just appreciate that. But we're also gonna tap into her humorous side, which as you listen, you're gonna find she's hilarious. And so, um, Heidi, tell us a story, would you?

SPEAKER_03 34:55

Yeah, okay. Uh, one of my favorite church stories that really makes me laugh is when I just had my fourth son. I was nursing him at the time, and a woman who I really loved in our church died from cancer, and I really wanted to go to her funeral. And so it was a cold winter day in the Chicagoland area, and I put on like black slacks and a black nursing tank top, and then like wrapped my baby to my body in this thing called a Moby wrap, which is this like, I don't know, like a Jedi would wear it to go out to battle. It's just this very long Jedi mom. Yes, it's this long sheet that I would have to watch YouTube videos on how to even put it around my body. But it was like this bohemian, like, I'm just gonna carry my baby into the church and go to this funeral. And when I got there, the matriarch of our church, who I really, really liked a lot. She spent a lot of time with me. She insisted that she take the baby. She said, Heidi, like you need to, and which is beautiful. It's what I've been longing for, right? Like, someone finds me. Yeah, they want to help me so that I can go and participate in this service. And I'm like, okay, so I'm trying to like pull the baby out of the wrap. And because I'm in a nursing tank top underneath it, and she goes, Give me the blanket. And I'm like, Well, it's not a blanket, it's like a wrap. And she started taking it off of me, like one of those Victorian movies where like the bodice comes off of a woman, and there I am with my giant jugs out to the casket itself, and everyone's crying, which is just irritating even more. So I went and participated in this funeral, and everyone was so modestly dressed. And here comes the pastor's wife looking like she just got a boob job without the baby. It was so I was just like, you know what?

SPEAKER_00 36:54

This is me.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

Here I am, here I am, Lord.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Here I am, yeah. And in all my realness, here it is.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

Seriously, because the the baby was part of your outfit, and yeah, the baby was a part of my outfit. Took off your outfit.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

Yes, uh man. Really defrocked you right there.

unknown 37:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

Well, that's uh I don't know how we top that. Heidi, why don't you send us out?

SPEAKER_03 37:23

Thank you for listening. I hope that you come back to listen for more. And we love having these conversations, and for you to be a part of it just feels like a real gift. Yes. And be blessed. Be blessed, everyone.