What If Pain Is Where Faith Turns Real (Jennifer Massey)

A life that looks “on track” can still be one phone call away from a before-and-after. Jennifer Langford Massy joins us to share the story of selling everything, moving to the coast of Nicaragua, and discovering that a hidden fight with bipolar disorder and major depression was growing at the same time. When they returned to the States to get help, her husband died by suicide, and Jennifer found herself navigating a kind of grief that’s heavy, complicated, and often surrounded by stigma.

We talk candidly about suicide loss, mental health, and what it means to survive the first wave. Jennifer explains why she felt compelled to tell the truth publicly instead of staying silent, and how that choice became part of her healing and her ministry. We also get into practical grief support: counseling, boundaries when people flood you with advice, and why a grief playlist of worship music (and a few secular songs) can sometimes say what you can’t.

Jennifer also shares how writing became therapy through her “Jen Thoughts” posts and how she’s shaping years of reflections into a future book centered on what she calls the sacrament of grief. To close, we zoom out to purpose and rebuilding: her jewelry business, her heart for women who are sole providers, and a nonprofit vision called Soul Provider.

If you’ve been searching for honest conversations about grief, faith, suicide bereavement, and healing after loss, this one will meet you where you are. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review to help more people find these stories. What’s one practice that has helped you hold on to hope?

Transcript

Welcome And Set The Tone

SPEAKER_02 1:25

And I'm just trying to catch up with you now. So I know who you are. Let the world know who you are. Go ahead and speak on it.

Moving Abroad While Depression Grows

Returning Home And Sudden Loss

Faith And The Choice To Speak

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Oh my goodness. Well, you know, um I'm just a regular girl. I'm um I've got two kids. They're grown, which is crazy. One of them's married. Um, Jordan Fleed and then McCartney, who is about to be 20 and is finishing up the size therapy school. And so I am now this empty nester um that has a life that looks very different than what I planned a long time ago, which is funny because you know life rarely goes as we plan, but um we we still keep making plans anyway. Yeah. Um, so I'm gonna give you the short, the short a little backstory to uh what we want to talk about, which is um a few years ago, I would have said my life was like on this awesome track, super happily married, um because really involved in perks, um, business is going really great. And then my husband and I decided that we were gonna just follow this dream and pick up and move to a foreign country, and so we decided to move to um uh the coast of Nicaragua, and we spent 2016 basically selling everything we own and building a house there, and um picked up and moved January 2017 um with our daughter McCartney. Jordan had just graduated, so he was like doing his on his own thing and probably loving the fact that we were leaving the country. But um, oh goodness. So we moved to Nicaragua. It was great, um, beautiful, fantastic, fun adventure. But during that whole time there was this um this little not little, this huge, unexpected thing that was going on, which was my husband who had bipolar disorder and was in the middle of a depression. And it was the first depression that I had ever witnessed that he had, um major depression. And it just was getting worse and worse. And so um we decided we were coming back to the state for some business stuff in April, and we were basically just gonna do what we needed to do to get him help. Um and um as soon as we got back, we did go see his psychiatrist and make a plan, and unfortunately, a week after that visit, um he took his own life. So all of like life as I knew it, or life as we all knew it, just kind of came to a freaking halt. And um the last four years have looked very different, and it's been a very, very different journey for me and the kids.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

Well, very heavy, very, very heavy.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Yeah, yeah. It was definitely one of those things you never expect to happen to your family. Um and I don't know, Sean. Those are the moments that I say are like tidal wave moments, like the wave watches over you, and it's so powerful and so strong that it just knocks you off your feet and it you disorient you, and there is literally nothing you can do in that moment but just try to survive. Right. Just try to survive it.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

Wow. Yeah. Wow.

Writing As Therapy And Sharing Online

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Um, and and everybody has their story, and everybody has those moments that come in life. So my story is not unique in that respect. Um, but also I know a lot of people have been touched by suicide, um, especially these past few years or the past couple of years, um, during the pandemic, it's it's been a very a huge problem, a growing problem. And um, and it is a very different type of grief that you go through when you lose somebody to suicide. But um, I don't want to spend too much time on that, but I will say one thing that dictated the way we would walk forward is well, first of all, faith. We were thank goodness um that we already knew Jesus and already trusted God. And but the morning, I remember the morning after John died, um, I got up super early and everything was just still kind of a blur, and I was trying to figure out what to do next, you know? And I out of course of habit, I picked up my phone and I looked at Facebook and there were all these messages from people and I was like, Oh my goodness, like words out, I gotta say something. Um, and I don't know what to say, you know? And I just sat there in the staircase at my sister's house and I said, God, what do I do? How what do I say? How do I do this? And it was one of the most clear moments where I heard not a literal voice, but like a thought come in my head, well, you know it's the Holy Spirit because you didn't come up with this thought on your own, you know? And God said, Tell the truth. Don't be silent. And there's a lot of temptation around or because of the stigma of suicide, a lot of people keep it very hush-hush, or they don't talk about it openly and lead people to ask lots of questions and wonder. And this was just like a mandate to me from God is like, you have always been an out loud person, you've lived your whole life pretty much out loud, you know, and you're gonna do this part just as loud. You're gonna do this part out loud too. You're gonna walk through this journey of just open and transparent and tell the truth. So that's what I did.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

And um, that has kind of dictated um a lot of moments in um ministry, and what I've grown to be very passionate about the past few years is writing, which is never something I always liked writing, like you know, I enjoyed it in school and stuff, but I never wanted to be a writer or anything. But I started writing as I think more therapy for me. Like I just had this need to get whatever was inside to get it out, and so I just started writing. And um, what I noticed is that when I would write, and it would usually start in a place of being um like sadness or frustration or anger even, um, would just start from a hard place and I would start writing, is that while I was writing, the Holy Spirit was always just faithful to deliver a message of hope to me, and just to to that I would start to recall these truths and um and and I could lay out these truths, and and like I said, it was more for me. I was preaching to myself, it was therapy for me, but um the first time I did it, I just hit share, shared it on Facebook, and uh, you know, apparently a lot of people it resonated with a lot of people, and I I just realized that it was part of the journey for me was just to keep sharing those the hard parts, the good parts, you know, the and the way that God is faithful through all of it.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Well, that's is this is this where the birth of Jen's thoughts came in?

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Okay, yeah. So um uh Jen thoughts, that was just my that was that was because if your name is Jennifer, there are a million and more than a million, I'm sure Jennifer's out there. And so unless you snag your email address back in like whenever they first came out with AOL, there are none left. So Jen Thoughts was the closest I could get to Jennifer when I was picking my email address years ago. Um but it is funny because that's it kind of goes with um I kind of have to say everything I'm thinking. So the kids the kids always would tell me that I that I narrate everything I do. Like I just talk all day long. Anyway, um uh so I I started the blog and um honestly I don't I don't I quit posting in the actual blog spot. It was um wow, I can't even think of the name of it. Fires of sorrow, the fire of sorrow.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

And I the reason I quit posting there was because it uh just Facebook algorithms, it's harder to redirect people to another website or whatever. So I just ended up if I had something to say, I don't ever write, I don't ever sit down and go like, I'm gonna try to write something today. I just write whenever I have to, you know, basically. And um so that's kind of they've really just become long Facebook posts, and that's my way of blogging, more or less.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

So I'm just gonna take you back a little bit, I know, before everything happened, and uh and just bring up the old gen that I know about the finger that I found on the stage that has the soulful as an artist. Oh my god, where did you come from? I mean, I don't even know if you took vocal lessons or what happened. I don't know that I haven't heard anything that's soulful in uh since I was at home.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

So Oh wow, thanks.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

That's real talk. That's just I'm just completely like completely like real talk. So are you able to tell us like where did you get your soulful sound or the how that happened?

SPEAKER_00 12:18

I don't know. I grew up in West Texas and like my parents were just about as country as you could get. Um my dad was a farmer, my mom was a teacher, but everybody was really musical. My mom, um my dad played guitar, bandeau, mandolin, whatever. Mom um played piano, she was a really great pianist, and we all had to take piano lessons, whether we wanted to or not. Um and I just loved to sing from like the time I was as long as I can remember. That's all I wanted to do. And I think that's that maybe the soul part just comes from listening to really great artists and being influenced um by that sound. And um and then just kind of you go as as a singer or as any type of musician probably, you spend some of your formative years mimicking or trying to sound like other people or um and then you realize that like you've got to get away from that and know what it is that you to know what you sound like because God created us all like completely unique, you know, individuals. So I um just I just kept studying music and singing and singing and singing and who knows, it's just what happened. I ended up getting a degree in vocal performance, which um I don't recommend if anybody's considering it. I mean, I rec getting a degree was great and studying music all the time was awesome, but it's not the most useful degree to have. But that's okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

That's real, that's real though. That's real. We need to speak on that because a lot of us out here are going to school and and we're doing degrees and stuff that we're probably not gonna be able to use in our life.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

So I mean that's well, it's true. I mean, there is a value of the whole college experience, and there's always value in studying and um you know self-improvement and working on your skills. And um, I remember Robert Emmett saying one time it was about um gathering keys. Like you may think, like, I'm never gonna use algebra or whatever, but if you learn it, now you've got that key. And so as you go through life, you never know which keys you're gonna need to open the next door. So the more keys you have the better. So I I don't I don't regret getting a degree in vocal performance, but I just probably wouldn't recommend it as you know that's the path that I took. And so um very few people that I know that got music degrees actually use them professionally.

A Book Idea And The Sacrament Of Grief

SPEAKER_02 15:19

Gotcha. I understand.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:21

So that's all. What would you say right now? What would you say right now is your your passion? Like, what's the passion right now?

SPEAKER_00 15:30

Well, I've always been um I've always loved business. Like just the whole entrepreneur thing has always appealed to me. So I've always had some kind of little business going on. And um I love designing jewelry. I love wearing jewelry, which is probably why I love designing it. But uh anyway, I love designing jewelry and I did that for many years, and that kind of keeps coming back to me as something I just keep doing. So I've kept up with the jewelry. Um I do some makeup artistry and I also do a little singing here and there whenever whenever anyone will let me. But I'm most passionate about writing now and kind of seeing where that goes.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Writing? Like are you writing? Writing. Are you writing songs? Are you writing blogs?

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Oh no, I'm sorry. No, writing, um I have um I did start working on a book. Um, but I just at first I was like, you know, does the world really need another book? We have so many books. Like, do I really have anything to say? Someone else hasn't already said. But then I realized that God gives us um unique um audiences who may need to hear just from your perspective because you've been through something that they can relate to, or there's something about you that speaks to them that maybe the next guy doesn't hit that, you know, same nerve or whatever. So um, so I'm just really I'm about to take a little uh sabbatical, a little trip. Um for a month. I'm gonna be in Colorado and I'm gonna be just focusing on writing and kind of gathering up all of the things that I've written over the past four years and those experiences and just kind of praying about it and seeing what you know what fixed. So um it's it will probably end up being some type of book, but I don't know whether that looks like um a devotional book or of random thoughts. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

So so it's in the it's in the works as of right now.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

It is in the works, and I can tell you this the theme, the the overwhelming theme of everything I've written the past four years is about the I'm gonna I call it the sacrament of grief. Like how this sacred experience of kind of diving into the pain is where you get to see God do his best work and that his promises are so true and so real. Um, and you really don't know that until you go through something that puts those promises to the test, you know? So um it in that respect, pain is a blessing. Not that we ever pray for it or that we want to go through those things or that I'd ever wish it on anyone, but it's just the miracle of how what God does is that He takes the worst, ugliest, grossest, like would never wish this on my worst enemy stuff, and turns it into like this just garden of blessings.

Counseling And Healing Through Worship

SPEAKER_02 19:02

Right. That's uh I I don't like like you say you don't wish the the worst on the on your worst enemy. Uh right. But God has you through that season. And that's what's what's cool about you and listening to you and listening to the story of the awareness that to create online. There's a lot of people that go to this, you know, and still focused on the mental health part of what's happening with it. And they don't really sometimes they know where to go to, sometimes they don't. So I think with you, what you're doing is awesome. And you create the book and you have the thoughts and you have the outlet and the platform for you know making awareness there so people can be more open. And I think that's that's that's the biggest part. I think that's the first step. It's to do it. You know, um I'm very a lot of people wouldn't think like it's a lot of strength. Uh to speak about um the awareness. So how does how were you feeling at the time? Like you you said you had peace and you were able to speak about what happened. Um were you able to like I guess sit down and and counsel within yourself, or you did you did you seek therapy afterwards, or how did that work out?

Sean On Loss And Holding Peace

SPEAKER_00 20:45

I did. Um I have a really great counselor that I've been to, you know, off and on for years, and um so I saw him when I did now I was also traveling back and forth to Nicaragua, so I wasn't here all the time, but um and the kids saw him and they needed to. I honestly for me it's funny, the first thing people do, and it's because they don't know what to do, nobody knows what to do. Um, but it I got a lot of books. People gave me a lot of books. I didn't want to read a book. I didn't want to read a book about what to do with my grief. It was kind of like there's almost a like, don't tell me how to do this, you know? Um but I did start reading a book that made an enormous difference, right? At first it was called Imagine Heaven. And it just gave me a lot of comfort and allowed me to um a little more um what's the word? Oh not imagination. but not imagination as though it's not real, but like to to really picture the things I was thinking about anyway. Um that's a great book. But honestly, I didn't read a lot of like books on grief. I did a lot of worshiping. Songs are what ministered to me more than anything. Um I had my grief playlist and I had um which I laugh at but it's a re it's a good thing. It's a real thing and like I highly recommend that. Anyway like songs that speak to you that give you hope songs that will let you you know cry your eyes out but but you walk away with a feeling with with hope. You know that was that was it. And I I said at one point that you know we spent so much time and I'm so thankful that we did but worshiping in the good time. And what you don't realize is that when you do that it's like all of that hope is being stored up. It's like being stored up in the cellar of your soul. And so when you are completely distraught and nothing in life is okay and you don't you literally just don't know what to do, what to do next it's like the Holy Spirit goes and gets these jars of hope from the cellar and brings them up and like cracks them open and like it just it's it's just amazing how those things revisit you. And so worship was super healing for me and not just worship songs but there were secular songs too that um really allowed me to to put some words to what I was feeling you know.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

And that's really helpful.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

No I think that's it's it's uh awesome uh to do that honestly and and for me you know I lost my father in 2020 uh so that you know he was like my everything to go to uh you know with advice and everything and um for some reason you know at his funeral um my brothers they were trying to comfort me because I'm the youngest guy I have two brothers one sister and they all they're all breaking down everybody's breaking down at the funeral and for some reason I'm holding myself together because I have peace. And I think that is within the strength of the Lord that helped me to be able to speak um at my father's funeral and be able to and be able to do that um in a way where I'm not people can understand me and and way that I can handle death. I can handle death a lot better than I thought I did. I thought I could I can say that you know and and I that's why I say I can I can see where you get your strength from because um it that's what it takes. It takes that relationship um and the understanding of about death and understanding about where you are when it comes down to it. I'm experiencing experiencing it myself personally I'm just when I'm speaking about my father I want to speak about everything. And and it came out it came out in a way where people understood where it's like you know what my dad was a great great man of God you know he he took care of of his family he took care of what he could you know um of course you got some some areas where it's like yeah you know everything is drink but everything could fall at the same time um so I kept it 100 I kept it real and everybody understood because it's like the fishing cubs and things like that. I mean it's awesome to have this life and have this purpose um in life so my dad left life with a purpose and that was his whole point of doing that. So I guess you you know in in the way that you you explain to me or in the way that I can hear it is that you guys uh experience things together that you always would cherish and always remember and you can always go back to and that's why you celebrate what you celebrate regardless.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

And yeah it makes sense to me now but I mean yeah you know I'm saying a lot of it will a lot of it can start to make sense down the road. It doesn't make sense in the moment or you know we can look back and see a lot of things and see the way God carried us or the times that he gave us strength that we shouldn't have had strength or and but we don't always feel it in the moment.

Learning To Pray Out Loud

SPEAKER_02 26:50

No definitely not and I I I didn't have people come at me with books but you know but I did I did shut I did shut down some phone calls. I only want to talk to certain people um yeah yeah you know I mean and so I I get that um because you get bombarded um with everybody flooding your social media phone calls uh when it comes down to that because I mean I get it you know they have love for us uh they have love for what we was going through um but honestly I think we need to kind of work it out ourselves uh find that peace uh find some peace you know within whatever you could find your peace into whatever that may be like for me it is music too yours is music um and that's why I'm I'm excited for you about this writing because I know this book um that you are coming up with it's cooking up you know in the pot and everything's stirring up and uh I'm excited for you on this journey for sure thank you yeah that's that's that's gonna be something else man I I just I know it is it's gonna be cool I I would like you know to to talk to you because you're uh in a way you're you're business minded your business focused is outstanding and um I want to make I want to make um this you know podcast into a brand one day you know and if you have any advice for me you know I'll be open to hear it if you have any I mean it it could be at a later time it didn't have to be now but I but if you do um do you have oh good since I'm fresh out of advice at this program it's all good I just I you know I just throw those things out so uh after all the things that you've done what is your greatest accomplishment at this point oh my goodness I knew you were gonna ask me that and I was dreading it um greatest accomplishment that's a such a hard one I really I honestly I don't even know how to answer it um I could tell you I don't think I guess in terms of like accomplishment but um I could tell you some of my um best moment I remember um this is this is kind of speaks to to what I want to do as I'm shuddering over here wanting to be a speaker um I never wanted to I hated speaking in front of people just detected and I would be happy to sing and give me a big old stage and a big old crowd and I could sing and that's fine.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

I was not nervous well but I might be nervous but but I I didn't mind it. But speaking just absolutely terrified me and um one time and and praying out loud that was another thing I did not do. I guess I was always nervous I was gonna say something stupid or you know I don't know forget somebody's name or I don't do it. I just didn't want to do it. And so uh one Sunday at church um I had John in the pray team this is after John died maybe about six months I think about six months after and um Pastor Ed came up and he was speaking and he asked the pray team to kind of stay put and he starts talking I had given him permission to like if he ever needed to reference my story or talk about Sean or whatever that he had my permission to do that. So he starts talking about um how I lost my husband to suicide and then he asked is anybody there and it's a huge church so was there anybody going through something that they just didn't know how they were going to you know get through it how they were going to take the next step and of course there were lots of people that felt that way and he said he looked back at me and he said Jennifer could you pray for these people well what am I gonna do? Say no I never did so I was like okay Lord it was a great moment because literally I had no confidence in any of my own skills like I couldn't say like yeah sure I got this like it was a 100% like Holy Spirit moment if there were any words that were gonna come out of my mouth that made any sense it was going to be oh God so I did I did and you know it was horrible and and it was it was amazing because it was one of those like you know you didn't do that on your own you know right and Ed had no idea that he was asking me to do something that would terrify me. He had no idea you know um but it was the reason I say it was a great moment is because it just showed me like how if God wants to put words in your mouth I mean if he could make a donkey talk like he could make you talk and if he has something for me to say then I'm not gonna get in his way. And so it kind of it gave me some excitement and some hope for um that there might be um a message here that he has for me to deliver and I'm excited about doing that.

Family And Community As Lifelines

SPEAKER_02 32:51

That is the greatest moment actually you know it it is it's a good it's a great accomplishment too because not everyone not everyone knows or have the courage to be able to speak in front of a lot of people and it's kind of put on the spot almost and he's like oh no thoughts no thoughts let's Holy Spirit leave period yeah you know I mean yeah and just go. And that and that's the way it goes man and you know it's never going to be rehearsed never so it's what it is you know and and I think God had you at that right m at that right moment at the right time and uh it was your season for that and that's how that went down for sure. How important how important is how important is family and community to your growth now at this point?

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Oh my goodness family is I am so blessed. I have most awesome family my parents and and I know it's unusual I'm 50 so it's unusual to be my age and still have both of your parents living but my parents are 88 and 85 and they are still just like trucking along they're so cute and um healthy and just um you know real for 85 and 88 they're awesome but they are the most supportive wonderful people and my sisters um I have two sisters that live close by and my sister Laurie I spent a lot of time in her house and she just like I would not have made it through I I don't know how I would have made it through those first few weeks for sure without her but um we have a great extended family and then of course Jordan and McCartney are just amazing wonderful people and and going through that together um was hard but also helpful. I it's okay I want to say this as a mom it was really hard because I didn't feel like I was a good mom at that time in my life because I didn't even know what to do with myself. So it was like how can I possibly help these kids that I love so much go through their grief when I'm struggling to go through mine. So that's why and there were probably times that I was not a good mom um but I I did my best you know and they had tons of grace for me but that's why it's so important that we had such a great community and such wonderful um friends and family from church and other people that were around us supporting us and praying and just encouraging and um yeah community I don't know how people would I don't know how you would get through something like that without it honestly yeah I agree.

SPEAKER_02 35:40

That's we need that I think we all do. So that's that's just part of our DNA and we were definitely created for community.

Jewelry Business And A Nonprofit Vision

SPEAKER_00 35:50

Yes I mean look at God is three there's God Jesus and the Holy Spirit and when he created us in his image he created us to be relational beings you know yeah we're that's how we're made so what would you say as far as like at I guess at this point with your design what would be the vision uh at this point for that and the next steps for I'm sorry for the Jen Mounty design yes um so right now I'm trying to I'm working on a website um because basically I've just been selling on Facebook and I sell to a few retail stores and stuff like that but um I really want the jewelry business to end up funding a um a nonprofit my goal is to start a nonprofit called soul provider um and for basically to help women who are soul providers in their home so it's and I say soul provider instead of single mom or whatever because being a soul provider can look like a lot of different things. It could be that you know you have no spouse or maybe you have a spouse who's just disabled or um imprisoned or you know just for whatever reason a woman who finds herself in that position of being the sole provider in her home. And there are a lot of different not just financial struggles but um lots of different challenges that come with that role and I've had some experience um in the past being a single mom who was divorced and then um I married John and we had this great life and then I was a single mom who was widowed and so I know the different challenges that are there and God's really just given me a a heart for people in that same situation.

SPEAKER_02 37:33

And um so that's what I want is for the jory business to ultimately and I have some kind of grand plans around what that looks like um right now I'm just um designing and making stuff working on my website about to launch that maybe while I'm in Colorado we'll see what happens how ambitious I am yes but all of it sounds like awesome plan and I I know that you're gonna follow through with this tell them where they can find you and where they can get your merch.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

Okay well you can find me on Facebook right now and my my um profile is public because all the writing and stuff that I do I want them to be available to for anybody to read and that's Jennifer Langford Massy and then I have a business page that is Jennifer Massie designs and makeup and that's it.

SPEAKER_02 38:29

That is all and uh you heard it here this is the makeup podcast