Episode #48: You Need More Than God

These posts were written beginning in December of 2024. However, I am posting them years back so that they are not at the top of my Blog, and if you want to read them, you need to go "find them!" :)
 

This article will break down Episode #48 on The Place You Find Yourself podcast. This episode is entitled: Episode #48: You Need More Than God.

This episode really jumped out at me because, truly, it's part of my journey. My whole life I really believed that if I did things according to a formula, I would have success. And I honestly believed all I needed was God.

Don't get me wrong. This is not about not believing in God. This is not about thinking He isn't enough. But it is about realizing that God designed us to need people.

Please take a moment to jump over and read the following essay by Sam Jolman: "You Need More than God".

"It's a common struggle I think most of us feel at some point in relationship with God. That God just isn't enough. Somehow we have this sense that God should be enough for us. That if we loved him enough or prayed enough or spent enough time with him, somehow he'll be enough for our hearts needs. This is God we're taking about after all."

The thing is: God gave Adam a helper! God decided that He (GOD) was not enough!

That message hit me HARD.

All my life, I've been thinking "God is all I need." But it isn't true! God designed us for community.

In the midst of the worst of my breakdown, I started picturing myself just laying there with my head on Jesus' lap. I would just lay on my bed or in the grass in the front yard (when I could get there) and picture him doing this:

"I can't tell you how often I hear clients tell me they want God to hug them or hold them or talk to them. I have the same heartache. I've wept out of these same sentiments. In some of my greatest pain, what has popped out of my heart has been. 'I just want you to hold me.'"

This essay really spoke to me. It's okay to need more than God. That is OKAY! God gave us people. He designed us to need people? Do you have people? You don't need a lot of people. But you NEED people!

"Just to be clear, we need God too. We need God more than we need anything else. But we don't need only God. We need a whole lot of other things. Of course it all comes from God. It all points to God. But it's not all God. And that's by design."

Episode #100: No Cure For Being Human

These posts were written beginning in December of 2024. However, I am posting them years back so that they are not at the top of my Blog, and if you want to read them, you need to go "find them!" :)

When I choose an episode of Adam Young's podcast to listen to, it often takes me two solid listens to get the gist of what they are talking about and really digest it all. In the episode entitled:  "No Cure for Being Human", Kate Bowler discusses her most recent NYTimes Best Seller: Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved. And her most recent book is entitled:

No Cure for Being Human.

I wasn't sure what to make about the titles of either of these books, but here is what I have learned over the last year: 

LIFE SOMETIMES SUCKS!

THERE IS NO MAGIC FORMULA FOR IT TO NOT SUCK!

YOU NEED PEOPLE TO STAND ALONGSIDE YOU IN THE SUCK!

THERE CAN BE BEAUTY AMIDST THE SUCK!

And this is exactly what Kate is getting at in her book. Diagnosed with colon cancer in her 30's, Kate realized as she left the hospital, not sure how long she had to live, that what she wanted was a blueprint for how to live. Kate had already written a book on the history of the prosperity gospel. She had written a book on this which had dominated much of her 20's entitled: Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel.

The irony of Kate now released from the hospital desiring a blueprint for life is that the one thing the prosperity gospel does offer is a supposed blueprint. We crave this as humans. We want to know how we can live well. The prosperity gospel doesn't exist outside of Western America, and it tells you that if you do things the way they are supposed to be done, you will get the result that you want. 

IT IS BULL CRAP. IT ISN'T TRUE. 

Please don't read what I am writing and think that my faith has been altered whatsoever. I, honestly, have a better relationship with Jesus Christ than I have ever had in my whole life. But in the midst of that I have come to realize that THIS LIFE INCLUDES SUFFERING. Period. Full stop. That's it. It sucks sometimes. For no reason whatsoever. 

When I dealt with infertility I searched for a reason. There had to be a reason. Because if there wasn't a reason, then I had done something wrong to cause this evil beast to latch itself to my body. I had to find PURPOSE IN THE PAIN. 

But the truth is, there may not be purpose. You may just be John the Baptist and your head is suddenly on a platter. This may be the truth of it all. 

And, that is OKAY! Because this Earth is not our home. Heaven is our home!

A blueprint, Kate explained in the podcast, prevents you from having to take your disappointments to God. Kate had been sold a vision of faith that looked and sounded a lot like certainty. People are full of cultural formulas for success in our faith. 

"God has a plan."

"Just trust God ..."

We are told that faith or positivity are this glue that will make everything bearable. But what do you replace it with when you realize it doesn't work? 

"Tumors budded and spread across my colon and liver without my consent and here I am. I feel a spark of horror, and each time I remember it, I come undone." NO CURE FOR BEING HUMAN

This is what happens to ALL of us. Someone dies. You lose your job. You are infertile. And suddenly the story we have told ourselves falls apart. But it is always something. Something happens and we come undone. Something will unravel us. 

What if suddenly you can't say there will be enough for you? What if your dreams can't come true? What if you can no longer cherish your ambitions?

Whatever it is that causes you to come undone, you cannot prevent that day from coming. And even if it doesn't happen to you, it will happen to someone you love. And everything you thought you believed comes collapsing in a heap on the floor. 

A pastor must go and talk to grieving parents of a child who has just died. And he finds himself saying to God: "Don't make me go out there and lie for you again." No math that we are aware of will make severe tragedy add up. The life of someone who has suffered greatly means that "their life is an invitation to you to engage reality in a deeper way."

Kate's cancer forced her to deal with some things inside of her heart that she needed to hold up to the light. What is the story here? Where is the wisdom? Put down the weights.

"Everybody pretends that you only die once, but that is not true. You can die to a thousand possible futures in the course of a stupid life."NO CURE FOR BEING HUMAN

Adam's podcast is about how trauma upends our stories. Trauma causes death. Multiple deaths. In the midst of that trauma we NEED people. Both Adam and Kate detail how important community is as we traverse the hard stuff. Physical touch is integral. When we are touched, we can suddenly feel human again.

When I was in the worst of my infertility treatments and preparing for IVF Transfer #4, I remember my doctor, Dr. Coddington, rubbing my arm. It made me feel like a human! It made me feel he cared! It was truly one of the tenderest gestures I have ever recalled feeling.

Bucket lists. Fantasy retirement stories. We only get ONE chance at life and it very well may be determined by things they weren't aren't choosing. How unfair is THAT?

This goes against the prosperity gospel. And it goes against the American/Western society version of life which tells us that You can do anything! I mean our culture says we just need to work hard. Hustle. Even telling women they are in charge of family planning and fertility. We are told that life is what we make of it. 

And then it isn't. 

We are one second away from the house of cards just simply crumbling down. 

Oh to be durable and not feel like life might end or be destroyed at anytime. 

But the reality is ... it might!

We end up feeling like failure when the story we are told, doesn't hold. We honestly feel like we should be able to conquer everything. Our inner world. Our outer world. EVERYTHING!

Why do you think so many people in America believe we need to conquer our own inner world? For people with trauma, this will be impossible. You will never arrive. 

Why do some people make it and some people don't? We want a reason for this! The truth is, we, religiously believe that our mind is a thought machine. That's how we figure out who winners are. Winners can exhibit all the emotional pieces. Our minds are solvable and they work backwards into our bodies. 

Choose Joy.

Get your attitude right.

Put your mind to it. 

When you get cancer, you learn the life lessons, and you become a more spiritual personal, and you have a can-do attitude, and then everyone can refer to you as the person who has done it. 

(That was facetious if you couldn't gather it.)

But Kate's books are saying this didn't happen that way for her. And instead of there being something wrong with her, there is something wrong with the cultural "norm" which is this is how is it supposed to be.

Why are there martyrs? 

Why did nearly everyone who followed Christ died for the cause?

They suffered!

And yet somehow OUR Christian church (and our Western society outside of the church as well) believes there should be NO SUFFERING and if there are sufferings, something is wrong with YOU!

What formula are you failing to follow?!

The world is not fair. Getting cancer isn't fair. And it isn't HER FAULT for getting cancer. She did nothing wrong. Nothing spiritually will change the fact that she has cancer. 

"We find it especially difficult to talk about anything chronic, meaning any kind of pain, emotional or physical that abides and lives with us constantly. The sustaining myth of the American Dream rests on a hardy "can do" spirit surmounting all obstacles, but not all problems can be overcome. So often we are defined by the troubles we live with rather than the things we conquer." NO CURE FOR BEING HUMAN

A crisis invites a lot of people in. There are a lot of people who have the ability to show up at that moment. It is because people love you that they are not able to understand the pain of what you are facing. It makes it very hard for people to live in that reality for a long period of time. They want your pain to end because it is painful for them to watch you in that pain. 

I can remember a few choice people who sat with me in person or on the phone in the depths of my 2024 refinement. They listened to me sob as the depression and anxiety threatened to destroy me. 

What a gift.

Kate said that she lost most people that were close to her as she transitioned from CRISIS to CHRONIC. No one wants to remain near someone who is dealing with the possibility of death all the time. It is hard to sit with people in their pain. 

But you can. You just need to not try to fix it. JUST BE PRESENT WITH THE PEOPLE IN THE SUCK!

There is also another attitude people have that says, "You are not supposed to be that needy." You have blown up your own life and you have blown up the lives of the people around you. How dare you?

"When I finished sifting through all the clinical trial data, I had nothing to do but survive the feeling that some pain is for no reason at all. It became clearer than ever that life is not a series of choices. So often the experiences that define us are the ones that we didn't pick: cancer, betrayal, miscarriage, job loss, mental illness. So often the experiences that affect our stories so deeply are ones we did not pick. Life is not merely a series of choices." NO CURE FOR BEING HUMAN

When we go into labor, something is coming at the end. 

But some of our pain might not really amount to anything. Pain may just be a waste. 

Powerlessness. 

Really? 

Could it all be just because we live in a sinful world!?

YES!

In the midst of this hardness, never forget

WE

NEED

OTHERS!

"For people with trauma, if only we can find someone who will walk faithfully and kindly with us in the healing process, healing is possible. What is so painful for many people is that they can't find someone who will be with them in the thick of their pain." Adam Young

Are you being held by smart, kind, choice-empowering people?  Are you yelling into the void knowing that someone is hearing you? 

Hope is so tricky. If it is not certainty, than what is it? 

Someday there won't be cancer and fear for our kids or parents who lose their memory or people who leave us. This is the wonderful and strange way that Christians get to live in time. We aren't living in a time where there is an invisible formula that we must have failed if we are suffering. We are living with heaven coming someday.

12 in 12 Begins

These posts were written beginning in December of 2024. However, I am posting them years back so that they are not at the top of my Blog, and if you want to read them, you need to go "find them!" :)

 

 

On Saturday, January 4, I began an amazing conference series. Throughout all of 2025, on the first Saturday of every month, I will meet with eight other women here in Greeneville for an online conference. 

It is honestly hard to put into words what these sessions will be about and what all this actually means. If you have not deal with "healing work" in your life after suffering "trauma," it may not make sense to you. (Honestly, those words I put in quotes are quite cringy to me. It really isn't nearly as cringy as that makes it sound). "Trigger" is another word that feels cringy. I think this is because society has warped what these really mean.

Here's how I would summarize what this conference is about. Through my counselor and through the PODCAST: The Place We Find Ourselves, I have gotten involved in something called "Story Work." 

What ... is .... story work?

Well in short, it surrounds this overarching theme:

We believe true healing and restoration occurs when we courageously step into our stories of pain and harm.

The idea is that you don't have to just live/accept/deal with with your past. And, in truth, saying to yourself "What's the point? It's in the past?" may work for some people, but for the majority, it does not. 

Adam Young's work dovetails off of the work of Dr. Dan Allender. You can visit his website here. 

Dr. Dan Allender is a pioneer of a unique and innovative approach to trauma and abuse therapy. For over 30 years, the Allender Theory has brought healing and transformation to hundreds of thousands of lives by bridging the story of the gospel and the stories of trauma and abuse that mark so many.

In other words: 

The Allender Center trains people to listen and work through narratives of harm–both their own stories and the stories of others–to foster truth, goodness, and beauty in all of their relationships.

If you are dealing with depression, anxiety, or obsessive thoughts, worry, relationship-breakdown, anger, etc., I want to tell you what I wish someone had told me the first time I saw depression when I was 17:

THERE

IS

A

REASON!!!!

If you ignore what is happening to you: decreasing patience as you age, vices that you can't get away from, frustrations that seem to be getting worse, etc., you will NOT GET BETTER.

I truly hate to say it that bluntly, but it's true. These behaviors are seeping out of you. Do you want to live this way your whole life? 

The point of engaging your past is so that you can live in the present!

Here are the common objections to engage your story:

1.LOOKING AT YOUR STORY IS SELFISH: The truth is that research has shown that people that engage their story, have increased levels of compassion and empathy. People with a high capacity for and practice of self-reflection (how they are in the world and how they have come to be in the world), have an increased ability to empathize with others. In other words, practicing reflecting on your story will give you increased compassion. 

2. I DON'T WANT TO BLAME MY PARENTS: (or whoever harmed you): There is a difference between BLAMING someone (posture of contempt) and NAMING (saying what happened.) Most people, as they go into therapy, work very hard to DEFEND their parents. Blame is about a posture of contempt toward another person. It's a posture of accusation. You know what it is like when someone is blaming you for something. Compare that to someone who is naming something (that may be hard to hear) but it is TRUE about you. If you want to LOVE YOUR PARENTS well, you must NAME what has been and is true of the nature of how you relate to your parents and how your parents relate to you. And that endeavor is in no way synonymous with blaming them. 

3. MY PARENTS DID THE BEST THEY COULD: Adam hears this most from Christian parents. From non-Christians it would make more sense. But, according to the Bible, NO ONE does the best they can. Everyone is a sinner. In other words, your parents have harmed you. That harm has been intentional. And it doesn't make them an awful person. It just makes them a sinner. We don't want to look at how deeply they hurt us. But if it is the truth that sets us free, then we gain nothing by closing our eyes to what has been true of our relationship to them. Have you put language to the primary ways that people who harmed you, harmed you? YOU NEED TO DO THIS IN ORDER TO HEAL!!!

WENDI WILL/HAS HARMED HER OWN CHILDREN, AND I WILL BE HERE WHEN THEY WORK THROUGH THE WOUNDS THAT HAVE COME ABOUT FROM THE ERRORS I COMMITTED.

The people we will sin against the most are our spouse and our children. We will harm them and we will intentionally do so. Naming, HOW you have been harmed is about 70% of the battle. When and where are you excusing your parents? We will ALL DO THIS!

4. WHAT IS THE POINT OF DWELLING ON THE PAST? "The past isn't dead. It isn't even past." William Faulkner. If you think your past is in the past, you don't understand how the brain is built and how the brain functions. Whenever you have an experience in the present, the very first thing your brain does, is it filters that experience through all of your past experiences. No one experiences reality as it truly is in the present. That notion is a fiction based on a misunderstanding of how the brain really works. YOU SEE MORE OF WHAT YOU'VE ALREADY SEEN!

GOD HEALS INCURABLE WOUNDS!

From Adam's Podcast website, I read the following:

It turns out that the practice of reflecting on the story of your life actually promotes healing in your brain. There are two reasons for this:

• Brain health is a function of the degree to which all parts of your brain are connected with one another.
•  The process of reflecting on your story, sharing your story with another, and hearing another’s reaction to your story connects neural networks that were previously separated.

In other words, the key to healing is connecting. Engaging the core stories of your life heals your brain by connecting regions that were previously not well connected.

When you experience harm, your thoughts about the experience become disconnected from the overwhelming emotions you had. Literally. The neurons holding your thoughts (stored in your left brain) become disconnected from the neurons holding your feelings (stored in the right brain).

Telling the story of the experience requires that your brain link your
thoughts about the story (left brain) with your feelings about the story (right brain). 

If you are able to tell your story while remaining connected to your emotions, then the neural networks in the left part of your brain will link up with the neural networks in the right part of your brain.
This is very healing. 

It leads to what neuroscientists call integration, and what the Bible calls SHALOM.

Telling your story not only leads to left-right integration, but it can lead to “top-down” integration. “Top” refers to the portion of your brain that is behind your forehead—your cortical brain. “Bottom” refers to the portion of your brain that is lower and deeper—your limbic brain. The limbic brain triggers your fight-flight response and your shutting down response.

When you begin to reflect on harmful parts of your story—stories that hold shame, fear, or rage—your limbic brain reacts and you enter a state of fight-flight or a state of shutting down.

Do I Really Have to Tell It To Another Person?

The short answer is Yes! Yes! Yes! If you are able to stay with the story in the presence of another person, two things happen (which are both very good for your brain).

• First, the other person’s limbic brain regulates yours—which is to say, their limbic brain soothes and calms yours.
•  Second, as a result of their attunement and soothing, your cortical brain (top) forms connections and linkages with your limbic brain (bottom).

In other words, the presence of an attuned listener leads to changes in your brain.

Your brain develops neural pathways that connect your cortical brain to your limbic brain. This is very healing because these pathways enable you to self-regulate when you become overwhelmed by fear, shame, or rage.