WEBVTT
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Welcome to this unexpected life.
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To know him for ourselves.
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He loves us enough to say, Sandy, that thing right there that you think about me?
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That's not true.
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That thing right there that you think about yourself is not true.
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Let me show you what the truth is.
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A podcast for parents navigating the challenges of raising a child with disabilities or special needs.
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Here we share stories of hope, resilience, and messy faith to help you embrace your journey, work through grief, and thrive in your role.
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Whether you're just starting out or seeking encouragement to keep going, this is a space where your story matters.
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Join Carrie, your storytelling companion, as we explore the hope and healing found in Jesus Christ.
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One story at a time.
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Hello, friends.
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I'm so glad you're here.
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So in June, we kicked off the series There is Jesus.
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And if you've already heard this message, feel free to skip forward.
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But this month in July, we are continuing that series as we dive into people's stories, recognizing where God was in the middle of suffering, how he provided, and how his presence has brought comfort and healing.
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In the show notes of each of the episodes, there is a special link to a Spotify playlist I've created for you that has songs of worship around the topic of remembering, wrestling with all the emotions, and trusting God that He is present in all circumstances.
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Also, the podcast is now on YouTube.
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You can watch it and see the guests and yours truly on there.
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So feel free to find this Unexpected Life podcast on YouTube.
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For the month of August, I'm going to be taking a much needed sabbatical, and then we will be back in September for a series on caring for the caregiver.
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We'll be hearing from some licensed counselors, and you are not going to want to miss it.
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Hello there and welcome back to This Unexpected Life.
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So my guest today is Sandy Ramsey Travick.
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She and her husband of 35 years live in New Jersey and have three young adult children.
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She became a special needs mom, a caregiver, and an advocate 26 years ago after a childhood illness, left her son with multiple disabilities.
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Sandy believes God's promise that he has a good plan for all of his children.
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In her work as a certified professional coach, author, blogger, speaker, and Bible study teacher, Sandy seeks to encourage and empower other special needs parents who feel stuck and need help moving forward into God's good plan for them and their family.
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So I just have to share with you that this conversation with Sandy today was so encouraging to me, and I know it will be that for you.
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I always love talking to her.
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We connected last year through By the Brook with Becky Davidson.
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Her faith is encouraging.
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And today our conversation dove into discussing about asking God why.
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Why do these things happen?
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How faith doesn't always make it easy.
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Sometimes it is still a fight and dismantling our false beliefs.
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So enjoy this conversation with Sandy Ramsey Travick.
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Well, welcome to the podcast, Sandy.
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I'm so glad to have you here.
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We don't talk a lot, but every conversation I have with you, I always leave feeling so enriched.
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And so I'm expecting and looking forward to that today.
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Yes.
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And I feel the same way about you too.
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I wish our paths crossed a little bit more often than they do, for sure.
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Absolutely.
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So just for the listeners, could you give a quick overview who you are, where you're from, maybe an overview of your family, and then we'll dive into the unexpected pieces of your journey.
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Okay, I am a wife and mom.
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My husband and I have been married for 35 years.
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He's alone, Death.
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Look, if that doesn't prove that there's God, then there so 35 years.
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I have three young adult children, a 31-year-old, and uh 27-year-old twins.
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Um my 31-year-old daughter and my twin daughter and a son.
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My son is the one who has special needs.
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What else can it tell you about me?
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I am a certified professional coach.
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The Lord called me right before COVID to start ministering to parents of children with special needs, which I must tell you was not an assignment that I wanted.
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I did not.
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Made sense, but I didn't want it.
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Since then has shown me how to use my story to help people who feel stuck in their journeys to move forward into the good plans that God has for them.
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I've done some writing, some blogging.
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I'm able to have been able to write a book, some speaking.
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My husband and I have been able to mentor other couples who have a child with special needs.
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So such a blessing to be able to do that with him.
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I live in New Jersey.
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It's not a beautiful day here today.
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And what else can I tell you?
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That's me.
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I love that.
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35 years.
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You you got 10 years on Bruce and I.
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25 years is no small thing.
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This day and age.
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Yeah.
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Oh, no, that's beautiful.
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Well, thank you for sharing that.
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So could you go back and tell the listeners just a little bit about how your unexpected journey started?
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Okay.
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You know, we all have a plan for our lives.
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Even if we don't necessarily talk about it, we have this idea in the back of our minds about kind of the trajectory of our lives, the things that we want to see in our lives.
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Um, and I had that, you know, I'd kind of done all the things, gone to school, gotten the um degrees, gotten married, had started a corporate career, and so that was the trajectory I expected my life to be on.
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I had this experience that I've only had one time in my life when the Lord woke me up in the middle of the night and I heard him say audibly, Sandy, it will be a boy.
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And I'm kind of, what does that mean?
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I I I laid back down, he woke me up again, he said, Sandy, Sandy, it will be a boy.
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And so I knew it was God.
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I'd not had that experience with him before, but I knew it was him.
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And what that did for me was set the expectation that I would be having a boy and that this boy, there's going to be something incredible about his life.
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Because why else would God have awakened me in the middle of the night to tell me?
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Fast forward, my son was born, a twin, born 36 weeks, healthy, no issues.
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At 13 months, he contracted strep pneumococcal meningitis.
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Still don't know where, how he got it.
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It was a bacterial infection.
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Um, it shut his kidneys down, his brain filled with fluid, it left him with cerebral palsy, um, seizure disorder, put him in a coma.
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They told us that if he ever awakens from the coma, he would never walk again, he would never talk again, never be able to do all the things that he was already doing, and that he would be so profoundly disabled that we should consider institutionalizing him.
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So this is our baby boy.
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Long story short, he did wake up from the coma.
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God did that.
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And he's exceeded all the expectations that all the medical professionals had back then.
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However, he does have special needs.
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He does have some intellectual and cognitive disabilities, he does have cerebral palsy on one side of his body, he has speech delays, he has still medical issues.
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We he still takes anti-seizure medication.
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He's had to have two kidney transplants.
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And so God has enabled him to do so much more than what the doctors said, and yet we still live this life.
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We're still on this special needs journey.
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And I'll tell you, Carrie, that the day that we found out that Miles had meningitis, I was I raged it got to my what my husband tells me, because I don't remember that.
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How could you let this happen?
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Why would you tell me that I'm gonna have a boy if this is what the journey was gonna look like?
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Is this what you had in mind?
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You know, and so something that I think all of us as moms who have kids with greater needs, who love the Lord, right, who have a relationship with God, we have that question, how, why would you let this happen to our kids, Lord?
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And so yeah.
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So, what did that wrestling look like for you?
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And do you feel like it's still a part of the journey when something unexpected comes up?
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I still don't understand the why.
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And I have reconciled myself to the fact at this point that even if I did know why, I don't know if that would be enough.
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You know, I don't know if there's something that the Lord could tell me where I would think, well, of course.
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Right, right, yes, now I understand, but I have had so many experiences with God on this journey.
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I have learned to know him in ways that I don't know that I otherwise would have on this journey, that I trust him.
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I I love that question because there's a tension in there.
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I trust God.
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I believe he has the best for my son.
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Sometimes still the journey hurts me.
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Sometimes it hurts him.
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There's still a cost to it that I wish mostly that Miles didn't have to pay, that my family didn't have to pay, but I trust God in that.
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And so I don't know, I don't know if living in that tension is what it means to walk by faith.
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Probably.
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But I do I do live in that.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Well, and I you know, it's interesting that you said even if I understood the why, maybe it just wouldn't wouldn't matter because it it still requires faith.
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And I, you know, honestly, I don't know if I've ever thought about that before.
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Like even if we felt like we had some earthly understanding of why God allows these things to happen, or or works, you know, the working out in the world of the curse of sin on the earth for our good and for his glory.
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Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, if we actually got all the answers we wanted and felt like maybe we feel like we want, need, even deserve sometimes, would it really change our day-to-day choices and living living by faith?
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You know, what comes to mind, this is like, I don't know if this is like extreme, but what comes to mind is Job, you know, the first book, I guess, that was written in the Bible, and and God showed us, He showed us kind of the cosmic war that we're in.
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Would we understand that if God says, I've allowed all these things, because there's a cosmic battle going on, and I've chosen you, Gary, and I've chosen Toby to be my representatives in this battle.
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So you're gonna go through something.
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I don't even know if we have the capacity to wrap our minds around that.
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Yeah.
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Um, one, and the way I would always go back to God, you are sovereign, almighty God.
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You can do things all kinds of ways.
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Why this way?
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I just don't know that we have the capacity, or maybe that I have the capacity to understand that.
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Yeah.
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I mean, it reminds me of the verse that says, you know, your my ways are higher than your ways, my thoughts are higher than your thoughts, says the Lord.
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I think that's in Jeremiah.
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And and that's true.
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I think that's true for all of us.
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That it's so good to I think wrestle through this because like you said, it's the relationship with God is deeper when we wrestle instead of stuffing or even putting all these pat answers over things and sometimes even th truths of scripture that are true, but maybe sometimes it's just things we're saying in in our heads and we're not really believing in our heart until we wrestle with these questions.
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You know, I think it's easy to know what the word says, but the experiencing of what the word says can feel a little bit different than kind of the head knowledge of it.
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And it's in that wrestling, that kind of up close debating with God, getting to know God where the truth of the scripture comes to life for us.
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Yeah.
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You know, like I said, the and I know you understand this, this journey.
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I hope I can say this on a Christian podcast.
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Some parts of this journey have been hellish.
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Oh, yeah.
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I look back and think, I don't know how on earth we got through that.
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I don't know how Miles got through that, but it's in those hardest times when the only place for us where it felt like for us to go was to be flat on our faces before God.
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That's when we got to know him.
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That's when he helped us to kind of dismantle all the things that we thought we knew that were just not who he was, but kind of who we had made him out to be, so that we could see him and experience him for who he was and understand really, really, this is how I work.
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Yeah.
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We're looking over here for this.
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This, though, is how I work, how I've chosen to work in your circumstances, and that's what you need to understand.
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Yeah.
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So let's unpack that a little bit because this series, The Summer, is there with Jesus.
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And I I do feel like we miss him in suffering in specific situations because we are expecting him to show up a certain way.
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What are some of those expectations that you've had of him showing up and how did Jesus look differently?
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I still pray this way.
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God, there's here's the situation.
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I know that you are miracle-working, Almighty God.
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I want you to fix all of this miraculously.
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I want you to do that in such a way that we don't have to suffer because I feel like we've suffered enough.
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I pray that still, because I know he's able.
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I know he can.
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And so it will never be that you have not, because you've prayed not, Sandy.
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I'm praying for him to show up miraculously.
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And then I go to, but if it's not your will to do it that way, then your will be done and open my eyes to see where and how you're working in the circumstance.
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When Miles first got sick, I told you I was so angry with God because I expected him to have prevented all of this, um, and he didn't.
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So I had no expectation that he would show up at all.
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I was not looking for him to show up at all.
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And then he started showing up in, I guess, ways that I hadn't expected.
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Uh, for example, Miles was in a coma and he had been in a coma for a while, and his neurosurgeon said, We'll we'll put in a shunt to try to relieve some of the the um fluid that's on his brain, and if that works, then he may wake in from the coma.
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Put in the shunt, nothing happened.
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The neurosurgeon came back to us and said, Oh, so sorry.
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Looks to uh like he's never gonna wake up from the coma, kind of, and that's kind of the reality.
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Meanwhile, there was another doctor, another radiologist who was not assigned to this case, who saw Miles' film and recognized our last name because our kids went to the same school.
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So we had no personal relationship with him, but he recognized the last name.
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He picked up the film, he looked at it and said, Oh, looks like there needs to be an adjustment right here for the shunt.
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He knows nothing about our story.
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All he noticed is that there's something amiss here.
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He goes to the neurosurgeon and says, If you make this adjustment, I think the shunt would work better.
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Then he comes to introduce himself to us.
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We find out, you know, we recognize him.
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Yes, he's our neighbor, our kids go to the same school, that we did not know that he was a devoted follower of Christ.
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Had no idea about that, no idea.
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The neurosurgeon goes in, makes the adjustment, the fluid starts to drain, Miles starts waking, he awakens from the coma.
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Look, some people might say, Oh, what a great coincidence.
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That's not a coincidence, that is only God.
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And so throughout the stay, he did those kinds of things, put the right doctors in the right place at the right time, made sure that we had the wisdom that we needed at the right time.
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He did those kinds of things.
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And Carrie, can I can I just say I prayed for Miles to be miraculously healed while he was at the hospital.
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God didn't do that, but he did all of these other things.
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I don't know why.
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I don't know why.
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I don't know why he chose to show up that way.
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Um, you know, my husband says it's because not only was he working in Miles's life, but he was growing us up.
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He was teaching us faith, teaching us how he worked.
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And he said, if he had healed Miles miraculously, we'd have said thank you, God, gone on about our lives, and still been the same people.
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And so I think God wants us to know that He is involved in every area of our lives if we let Him.
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And so I hope that answered the question.
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Look, I've already forgotten what the question was.
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No, that's that's beautiful.
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I think it's often that way for all of us that especially I think maybe if you have walked with the Lord for a longer time, there's this expectation that life's gonna be easy.
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Or or the one that I struggle with the most right now is like you said, I've already done a lot of suffering, and I really shouldn't have to deal with insurance again.
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Right.
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Right, right.
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Like I've been doing this for almost 20 years.
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Do I get a break from the caregiving and the fighting and the advocating and all of that?
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And you know, it's like we're a boat on the water and the next storm comes, and all of a sudden we're rocking and rolling all around and and looking and just trying to find where where Jesus is because we still have this these certain expectations about how our journey is gonna look and and gonna be how do you feel like now?
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Because I I don't know what your unexpected looks like now.
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I think it's a little calmer in with your son.
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How do you see Jesus showing up now just in the day-to-day grind of caregiving and having an adult young adult child with disabilities and special needs is a whole different ballgame than when they're younger?
00:21:09.200 --> 00:21:16.640
And and and it seems like there's a lot more active things that we can do to get them better and and do this therapy.
00:21:16.720 --> 00:21:18.480
And do you know what I'm talking about?
00:21:18.559 --> 00:21:30.000
Like I feel like now we there's less for us to uh to do necessarily or to feel like we're uh helping them move forward and grow.
00:21:30.240 --> 00:21:31.039
Does that make sense?
00:21:31.200 --> 00:21:31.680
I don't know.
00:21:31.920 --> 00:21:46.000
Yeah, I think for me, maybe it feels like there's less in general to be done, but I still feel like it's a lot.
00:21:46.319 --> 00:21:52.720
Yeah, and I still wonder every single day whether or not I'm making the right choices.
00:21:52.880 --> 00:21:56.240
You know, when they're younger, you homeschooled your son, right?
00:21:56.319 --> 00:21:58.480
Yeah, and so you don't have this experience.
00:21:58.640 --> 00:21:59.680
Miles went through the public.
00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:01.279
School system.
00:22:01.519 --> 00:22:06.079
And so there was a lot of the growth and stuff that was supposed to happen.
00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:09.279
The services happened in the school system.
00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:23.519
When he turned 21 and all those entitlements went away all at once, it was left to me, to us, to figure out how to build a life for this adult.
00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:26.640
Like how to build a life for him.
00:22:27.599 --> 00:22:35.599
How to figure out how to productively fill up 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
00:22:35.839 --> 00:22:36.160
Yeah.
00:22:36.480 --> 00:22:49.119
In a system, at least here, where his support coordinator told me, everybody knows that after the age of 21, that this population can no longer learn.
00:22:49.359 --> 00:22:57.119
And so that is the mindset of the system that we're supposed to be working through to build a life for him.
00:22:57.200 --> 00:23:03.359
So I'm already working at cross purposes with the system that's supposed to support him.
00:23:03.680 --> 00:23:32.559
Carrie, it's a lot of work, trying to find opportunities in the community, trying to understand how to get those opportunities paid for, which ones can be, what buckets of money are available, trying to continue with the therapeutic work that he still needs, even as an adult, finding speech therapists and occupational therapists and physical therapists for adults.
00:23:32.799 --> 00:23:42.559
Physical therapy, maybe not as much because adults need physical therapy, but finding those services for an adult who has special needs is a lot harder.
00:23:45.839 --> 00:23:54.000
And then making sure that I'm in sync with what God wants to do in Miles' life.
00:23:54.160 --> 00:24:04.640
One of the things that the Lord challenged me on not that very long ago was, Sandy, you talk a lot about believing that I have a plan for his life.
00:24:04.880 --> 00:24:06.960
But how much do you believe that?
00:24:07.200 --> 00:24:12.400
How much do your actions suggest that you believe that?
00:24:12.559 --> 00:24:21.200
Are you trying to push a plan forward that you've adopted from the world for his life?
00:24:21.680 --> 00:24:31.519
Or are you trusting that I have a plan and joining me in the things that I'm doing in Miles' life?
00:24:31.599 --> 00:24:34.400
Because the truth is I do have one.
00:24:35.039 --> 00:24:43.359
And that's hard because the world has things set up for adults who have disabilities, but not some other things.
00:24:43.519 --> 00:24:49.039
And so you just trying to figure out how to reconcile all of that with what God has for him.
00:24:49.119 --> 00:24:59.519
And so for Miles, what we have him doing today, and I reckon I say today because I recognize that that can change as we learn more about what God is doing, things can shift.
00:25:14.640 --> 00:25:17.920
And on two days a week, I am with him.
00:25:18.079 --> 00:25:22.400
The Lord told me, Sandy, don't forget, Miles is your assignment.
00:25:22.559 --> 00:25:24.400
He's your assignment.
00:25:24.880 --> 00:25:29.359
And so I take him to his therapies, he does piano lessons.
00:25:29.599 --> 00:25:39.599
We have found this organization that's run by and two Orthodox Jewish families to help adults with disabilities continue to learn and grow.
00:25:39.680 --> 00:25:42.559
So we go there once a week and we serve together.
00:25:42.720 --> 00:25:47.119
And so he gets to serve younger kids who have special needs.
00:25:47.200 --> 00:25:50.720
So he gets to kind of give back to the population where he came from.
00:25:50.960 --> 00:26:03.839
We've had people come in and out to be companions to him, still haven't found the exact right person, but still trying, and then trying to make sure that we disciple him.
00:26:04.160 --> 00:26:06.640
Miles, you're a child of God.
00:26:07.119 --> 00:26:08.799
God has good plans for your life.
00:26:08.880 --> 00:26:27.039
You're God's masterpiece, all the things to try to help him to become the man that God created him to be, and to continue, just like the rest of us are, to continue to become who God created us to be.
00:26:27.119 --> 00:26:30.000
Again, back to the reason that he was born.
00:26:30.079 --> 00:26:31.359
And that's what God said.
00:26:31.680 --> 00:26:37.680
My plan is the only one that will meet my, it's the reason that he was born.
00:26:37.759 --> 00:26:39.279
It's the reason he's here.
00:26:39.599 --> 00:26:48.240
My plan is the one that's gonna um help you and help him to kind of fulfill the plan that I have for his life.
00:26:48.400 --> 00:26:54.880
And so I don't feel like it's necessary, it's not easier.
00:26:55.039 --> 00:26:57.039
I feel like we're more seasoned.
00:26:58.000 --> 00:26:58.400
Sure.
00:26:58.640 --> 00:26:59.279
Yes.
00:27:00.400 --> 00:27:04.559
We still have things come up kind of like you said about the insurance.
00:27:04.640 --> 00:27:06.880
Um, I don't know if Toby has SSI yet.
00:27:07.039 --> 00:27:10.400
If you guys have SSI money in Ohio, yeah, we do.
00:27:10.640 --> 00:27:15.599
Well, I worked hard to get him that SSI money.
00:27:15.759 --> 00:27:22.720
And we had an audit recently, and I'd allowed the there's only but so much money he can have in that account.
00:27:22.880 --> 00:27:28.000
I let it get to be above that, and oh, it was a whole thing.
00:27:28.240 --> 00:27:32.400
It was, and I'm thinking, and they threatened to take it away.
00:27:32.480 --> 00:27:37.039
It's just like the truth of the matter is I don't care about your money.
00:27:37.119 --> 00:27:42.160
I care about the services, the services that um this makes available to him.
00:27:42.240 --> 00:28:01.920
And so I just feel like um there's that in thinking about where will he be when we're not here, when I'm not the one kind of on the front lines advocating and doing all the legwork, when it's his sisters who will have oversight for all of this.
00:28:02.079 --> 00:28:04.160
Lord, what does that plan look like?
00:28:04.480 --> 00:28:14.960
Right, it's no longer a thing that's far into the in the distant future, it's not, it's something that has to be planned for now, yeah.
00:28:15.119 --> 00:28:23.519
And so there's a different kind of heart-wrenching wrestle, yes, that that is.
00:28:23.680 --> 00:28:25.839
Yeah, you know, yes, God, you have a plan.
00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:27.839
Yeah, but whoa, I won't be here.
00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:31.599
So anyway, long-winded, but it's good.
00:28:31.920 --> 00:28:42.319
How do you feel like looking back and seeing God provide over and over and over these things that were not coincidences?
00:28:42.480 --> 00:28:50.480
How does looking back help you think about the future and trust that God's gonna be there in the future when you're not there?
00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:53.519
Well, I know he will.
00:28:53.839 --> 00:28:55.039
I know he will.
00:28:55.279 --> 00:29:02.960
Yeah, um, you know, there are times uh I mentioned this too, I think before we started recording.
00:29:03.039 --> 00:29:08.960
There are times when I look back and think to myself, how on earth did we do that?
00:29:09.279 --> 00:29:11.759
The things that were required, how did we do that?
00:29:11.920 --> 00:29:17.279
We're not medical professionals, we're not, you know, built disability experts.
00:29:17.519 --> 00:29:18.640
God, how did we do that?
00:29:18.799 --> 00:29:30.960
And I I look back in retrospect and I think that's what the grace of God looks like, to enable us to do the things that the truth of the matter is we could never do in our own strength.
00:29:31.039 --> 00:29:34.799
Yeah, even on our tippy toes, could not do it.
00:29:35.119 --> 00:29:41.279
And so, but at the time, what it felt like, it felt hard, but we were doing the thing.
00:29:41.440 --> 00:29:43.200
We're just doing it, we're doing it every day.
00:29:43.279 --> 00:29:50.160
We're getting up and we're doing, we're doing the thing because the grace of God, his power enabled us to do so.
00:29:50.400 --> 00:29:59.920
And I know that that's happened time and time again, even through the times that felt hard that God was in it.
00:30:00.240 --> 00:30:00.880
Yeah.
00:30:01.359 --> 00:30:13.119
And Miles' Last Transplant, it was hard, but God told us I'm in this and I'm fighting for Him, which which Carrie says that there's something that needs to be fought.
00:30:13.359 --> 00:30:13.680
Yes.
00:30:14.400 --> 00:30:18.160
I'm fighting, so there's a fight that's going on here.
00:30:18.480 --> 00:30:19.119
Yes.
00:30:19.519 --> 00:30:25.680
And knowing that God was fighting, I knew that we would come out victorious, it still doesn't take the heart of it away.
00:30:25.839 --> 00:30:26.079
Yeah.
00:30:26.160 --> 00:30:32.240
Um and so what I believe is that God will continue to show up in the same way.
00:30:32.480 --> 00:30:43.759
He will continue to show up in the same way, the same way he did for us when the mantle gets passed to my girls, that he will show up in the same way for them.
00:30:44.079 --> 00:30:49.920
And trying really hard to help them to understand that now.
00:30:50.400 --> 00:31:15.279
That yes, there will be natural resources that are available to you guys that we'll make available, but you must know that it's God who's gonna empower you to be able to be who Miles needs you to be at that time and continue to live the life, to walk out the plan that God has for your life, that He He won't drop the ball in that.
00:31:15.599 --> 00:31:16.799
Yeah, you know.
00:31:17.200 --> 00:31:30.400
You know, I was just reading, you know, I think it was when Joshua crossed the Jordan and they they have the Ebenezer, they have this the stones of remembrance.
00:31:31.279 --> 00:31:38.640
So I think so I looked up that word Ebenezer, and that word literally means a stone of help.
00:31:40.000 --> 00:32:06.160
And I think it's also related to when Moses was sitting on the stone, and I believe it's Aaron and her are holding up his arms as Joshua fighting the Amalekites and in Exodus, and I I do think that a lot of times we just we just forget that God is our stone of help.
00:32:06.720 --> 00:32:33.039
He is our Ebenezer, and then we've got to look back and see all these Ebenezers along the way that are paving a path of faith in our lives and trust to continue to get up and face the new day and the new challenges that come because they are and will be, I think, ever present and ever changing.
00:32:33.279 --> 00:32:34.960
Do you have any thoughts about that?
00:32:35.279 --> 00:32:42.559
Um, you know what when you said that, what came to mind, what my mind focused on was, and Joshua was fighting.
00:32:42.799 --> 00:32:49.839
You know, sometimes earlier in my faith, I felt like faith made things easy.
00:32:50.160 --> 00:32:56.880
Got a promise from God, standing on that promise, and it was kind of like smooth sailing.
00:32:57.039 --> 00:33:01.119
Um, but with the Israelites, God promised them a land.
00:33:01.759 --> 00:33:07.200
Every place your foot treads, I've already given it to you, it's already yours.
00:33:07.440 --> 00:33:09.279
Now go take possession.
00:33:09.599 --> 00:33:12.880
And taking possession meant there was a fight.
00:33:13.119 --> 00:33:16.880
And that's the part, I guess, that humbled me.
00:33:17.119 --> 00:33:22.079
Yes, is that there is a fight to this faith for real.
00:33:22.400 --> 00:33:38.960
And and it may not be kind of like with with guns and arrows and all what well they didn't have guns back then, but all the things it may not be a physical fight, but the fight of faith is real when everything that's coming against you says, why would you believe that?
00:33:39.200 --> 00:33:39.519
Yeah.
00:33:39.680 --> 00:33:42.880
That says you can't do that, you're not strong enough to do that.
00:33:43.039 --> 00:33:44.400
They're never gonna listen to you.
00:33:44.559 --> 00:33:48.000
That diagnosis they gave you about institutionalizing him.
00:33:48.319 --> 00:33:50.000
Why don't you just go ahead and do that?
00:33:50.160 --> 00:33:54.160
You're not equipped to take care of all of those things.
00:33:54.319 --> 00:33:56.880
You have to deal with that insurance one more time.
00:33:57.119 --> 00:33:59.519
Oh my gosh, I don't think you have it in you.
00:33:59.599 --> 00:34:02.240
Don't you want to just tell that person off whatever it is?
00:34:02.319 --> 00:34:06.559
Yes, it's a continuous fight.
00:34:06.799 --> 00:34:07.440
Yeah.
00:34:08.320 --> 00:34:17.199
Well, will I say that I am I have learned more how to lean on God in the fight?
00:34:17.360 --> 00:34:20.880
Kind of the weapons of our warfare that are not carnal.
00:34:21.199 --> 00:34:23.519
So the prayer and the fasting.
00:34:23.679 --> 00:34:41.280
One of the things that we learned when Miles was in the hospital in the first time was the power of fasting to kind of silence the noise so that we could hear from God, so that we could get his plans, his strategies for how to move forward.
00:34:41.599 --> 00:34:50.719
Worship, all of those things that God gives us are weapons for the battle that we find ourselves in.
00:34:50.880 --> 00:34:56.079
And so realizing that I guess the fight never ends, not on this side of glory.
00:34:57.519 --> 00:35:14.079
Um, you know, what I will say too is I have learned to believe that God is who he says he is, regardless of what my circumstances look like, that if he says that he is this, then he's that.
00:35:14.239 --> 00:35:22.480
If my life is not lining up with that yet, that does not change the fact, the truth, that this is who he is.
00:35:22.559 --> 00:35:32.960
And so I continue when things look like they're going sideways, particularly with Miles' health, I continue leaning into God, but you're a healer.
00:35:33.199 --> 00:35:33.679
Yes.
00:35:33.920 --> 00:35:43.679
This doesn't look like it, but that's who you are, and so that's who I'm praying to, that's what I'm believing you for, whatever that looks like in this circumstance.
00:35:43.920 --> 00:35:44.639
Yeah, yeah.
00:35:44.880 --> 00:35:55.840
Yeah, and it's so good because I think I mean, one of the things that you kind of are talking about is just that battle in our minds for the lies that we believe, the false beliefs.
00:35:55.920 --> 00:36:03.199
And I do think that this far into the journey, it a lot of times it's I don't deserve this.
00:36:03.599 --> 00:36:07.679
I've already been through so much, and I don't deserve this.
00:36:07.920 --> 00:36:12.159
And I love how you said faith doesn't mean it's easy.
00:36:14.159 --> 00:36:15.199
Absolutely.
00:36:16.159 --> 00:36:20.239
I think we often forget that we are in a spiritual battle.
00:36:20.400 --> 00:36:22.800
You and I talked about this before we got on.
00:36:23.280 --> 00:36:40.079
That we are in a spiritual battle, and that doesn't mean that we should be afraid, but it does mean that we have to equip ourselves with the things that you mentioned prayer and worship and remembrance and and knowing who God is.
00:36:40.239 --> 00:36:47.280
I was struck this morning that we have to know the character of God before we can trust him.
00:36:49.760 --> 00:36:53.199
We have to know his character before we can trust him.
00:36:53.440 --> 00:36:55.440
You know, you have to know a person, right?
00:36:55.599 --> 00:37:00.159
You have to know who who they are before you can trust him.
00:37:00.719 --> 00:37:05.840
And I'm so thankful that God we can trust him from the get-go, right?
00:37:05.920 --> 00:37:11.840
Like if we can trust him for our salvation, we can trust him for everything else that comes after.
00:37:12.000 --> 00:37:15.440
And I think that's where we try to pick up the control, right?
00:37:15.519 --> 00:37:21.119
It's like, okay, you can handle my salvation, but the rest of it, I gotta handle.
00:37:22.079 --> 00:37:23.039
Don't you think?
00:37:23.840 --> 00:37:31.599
I think that was one of the biggest things that God had to work out of me was this idea, God, I got this.
00:37:31.840 --> 00:37:33.039
I know how to do this.
00:37:33.199 --> 00:37:37.519
I am capable, I'm resourceful, I can do these things.
00:37:37.760 --> 00:37:51.039
I sometimes think that in his great mercy, he helps us to see really, really, what we are so incapable of apart from him.
00:37:52.079 --> 00:37:54.320
I and I'm so grateful for that.
00:37:54.559 --> 00:38:09.760
I told you that at the beginning of this journey with Miles, I was so angry with uh the Lord that I really didn't expect him to show up for Miles because, as far as I was concerned, it's your fault that he's in this in this predicament in the first place.
00:38:09.920 --> 00:38:14.400
If you were not going to prevent it, surely you're not gonna do anything else about it.
00:38:14.800 --> 00:38:23.840
I loved that even with that perspective that my heart was in that place, he chose to show up anyway.
00:38:24.079 --> 00:38:30.800
He chose to show up anyway to show me who he really is, to dismantle all those lies.
00:38:30.880 --> 00:38:35.760
It's kind of like with Adam and Eve in the garden when they rejected God.
00:38:36.239 --> 00:38:44.559
They lived in a perfect place and they rejected God, and he still came for them, he still covered them.
00:38:44.800 --> 00:38:49.360
And so I think that he does that for us in his mercy.
00:38:49.599 --> 00:39:07.920
He understands why we think the way we do, we feel the way we do, and he goes to work showing us him, giving us the opportunity to know him, not know about him from other people, but to know him for ourselves.
00:39:08.159 --> 00:39:14.400
He loves us enough to say, Sandy, that thing right there that you think about me, that's not true.
00:39:14.639 --> 00:39:20.800
That thing right there that you think about yourself is not true.
00:39:20.960 --> 00:39:22.960
Let me show you what the truth is.
00:39:23.199 --> 00:39:30.639
There was a time in this journey when the Lord finally came to me and said, Sandy, it's time for you to forgive me.
00:39:31.119 --> 00:39:44.079
Not because he had done anything wrong, but because the place I was holding him in my heart was getting in the way of us being able to move forward in our relationship.
00:39:44.480 --> 00:39:47.599
And so he loves us that much.
00:39:47.840 --> 00:39:50.320
Yes, yes, absolutely.
00:39:50.559 --> 00:39:55.199
And he doesn't hold that against us when we have those feelings.
00:39:55.360 --> 00:39:56.639
It's just so beautiful.
00:39:57.840 --> 00:39:59.599
I want to ask you this one last question.
00:39:59.760 --> 00:40:11.039
So let's say look back, you know, 20 years or so, somebody's at the beginning of the journey, what is one truth that you would want them to hold on to?
00:40:14.480 --> 00:40:16.079
That God is with them in it.
00:40:18.800 --> 00:40:23.440
We serve a God who knows the end from the beginning.
00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:36.559
And so, as much of a surprise as these diagnoses, these journeys, as unexpected as they may be to us, they are not unexpected for him.
00:40:37.199 --> 00:40:37.519
Yes.
00:40:38.079 --> 00:40:44.400
I believe Scripture says, uh, Ephesians 2.10, I love that verse.
00:40:44.480 --> 00:40:53.760
It says, we are God's workmanship, his masterpiece, created anew in Christ Jesus to do the good works he's prepared for us long ago.
00:40:54.079 --> 00:41:12.320
And so the plans that God has for our lives, that he prepared long ago, before you and I were even a thought, a whisper, and I think that he puts provision in place for us for all of the things that are going to happen in our lives.
00:41:12.480 --> 00:41:26.800
The things that he's got, the hard things that he's going to allow to happen, because he knows, I believe, that they can be part of the good works, the things that we do to contribute to the welfare of other people.
00:41:27.119 --> 00:41:35.360
He allows those things so that we can do those, the preparation for those, everything that we need.
00:41:35.679 --> 00:41:51.119
I know that part of that preparation is dismantling the limiting beliefs, helping us to know the truth of who he is, the truth of how he created us, the power that we have in his word and in prayer.
00:41:51.280 --> 00:41:54.320
All of that, I believe, is part of the equipping.
00:41:54.559 --> 00:42:14.719
And so to recognize that God is in it with you, to know he understands it, the whole situation, understands you, your response, everything that is going on with your child and what they will experience better than we ever could.
00:42:15.199 --> 00:42:16.960
Better than we ever could.
00:42:17.599 --> 00:42:19.119
I would say this too.
00:42:19.280 --> 00:42:24.960
Um, one of the things I learned kind of in this journey with Miles, because I wanted him to know God.
00:42:25.039 --> 00:42:29.199
And I'm like, Lord, with the cognitive issues and stuff, how's he gonna know you?
00:42:29.440 --> 00:42:42.159
That God has made it such that every one of our kids, regardless of what their diagnoses are, he has built in them the capacity, the ability to know him for themselves.
00:42:42.400 --> 00:42:56.239
And so I trust, I believe that the things that I can't minister to Miles' heart, the ways that I cannot comfort him, the things that I just don't understand, that God takes care of that.
00:42:56.320 --> 00:42:56.480
Yeah.
00:42:56.639 --> 00:43:04.000
That when he's in a place where he's afraid and I can't be there, I can't minister to it, that God is taking care of that.
00:43:04.159 --> 00:43:04.480
Yeah.
00:43:04.800 --> 00:43:16.000
And so it can feel so, it can feel like a hard thing to do, especially when you have that thought, God, you could have prevented this.
00:43:16.159 --> 00:43:31.599
If he didn't, there's a reason why he didn't that we may not ever understand, but trust that he's going to be as good and as faithful and as loving and as present as if it didn't happen.
00:43:31.840 --> 00:43:32.320
Yeah.
00:43:32.559 --> 00:43:32.960
Yeah.
00:43:33.119 --> 00:43:33.440
Yeah.
00:43:33.599 --> 00:43:34.880
Oh, that's such a good word.
00:43:35.039 --> 00:43:35.440
Thank you.
00:43:35.679 --> 00:43:36.800
That was so good.
00:43:37.039 --> 00:43:38.960
So, where can the listeners find you?
00:43:39.039 --> 00:43:40.559
And tell a little bit about your book.
00:43:40.719 --> 00:43:46.480
Your book, um, When Dreams Are Disrupted, was came out into the world, was birthed into the world last year.
00:43:46.639 --> 00:43:48.079
It's a fabulous book.
00:43:48.159 --> 00:43:50.960
So just share a little bit where listeners can find you.
00:43:51.039 --> 00:43:54.239
I'll put everything in the show notes so this is easy to access.
00:43:54.719 --> 00:43:58.400
Website undisabledlives.org.
00:43:58.559 --> 00:43:59.760
Um, I'm only on Instagram.
00:44:00.480 --> 00:44:01.840
It's hard to keep up with social media.
00:44:01.920 --> 00:44:02.960
I don't know if people do it.
00:44:03.119 --> 00:44:03.920
Oh my gosh.
00:44:04.239 --> 00:44:07.760
At undisabled underscore lives.
00:44:08.159 --> 00:44:15.760
My book right now is on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, and some other smaller booksellers, but I would look on Amazon.
00:44:16.159 --> 00:44:21.599
You know, it really just is a testimony of who God is when your dreams are disrupted.
00:44:21.679 --> 00:44:26.719
So it's a book about God to understand how He works in those times.
00:44:26.880 --> 00:44:28.320
You know, can I say one more thing?
00:44:28.559 --> 00:44:29.440
Yeah, absolutely.
00:44:29.760 --> 00:44:34.559
Carrie, to the to the mom who feels like she's spiraling.
00:44:34.880 --> 00:44:37.280
Like, God, where are you in all of this?
00:44:37.440 --> 00:44:50.559
You know, one of the things that God reminded me recently, and so this is 26 years in the journey, is that He's if we know Christ, He's in us always.
00:44:50.719 --> 00:44:51.599
He's just right here.
00:44:51.840 --> 00:44:53.360
We don't have to look out here.
00:44:53.679 --> 00:44:54.639
God, where are you?
00:44:54.960 --> 00:44:56.239
He's just right here.
00:44:56.559 --> 00:45:10.000
And He I was still having my quiet time with Him, but I was so wrought up on the inside that I was having a hard time connecting, and I could feel that.
00:45:11.360 --> 00:45:17.679
And so I brought that to him, and he immediately brought to mind a worship song.
00:45:17.840 --> 00:45:30.000
The song is called Nothing Else, but the the lyrics of the song talk about going back to the beginning when it was just the only thing it's about is me and you, Jesus.
00:45:30.239 --> 00:45:32.239
It's not about the things I need from you.
00:45:32.320 --> 00:45:34.480
You don't have to, you don't owe me anything.
00:45:34.719 --> 00:45:38.320
All I want to do is sit at your feet and be with you.
00:45:38.480 --> 00:45:42.559
And so help to make the this the distractions fall away.
00:45:42.800 --> 00:45:46.159
Forgive me even for being distracted by those things.
00:45:46.320 --> 00:45:51.440
There's like a little bit of repentance in it, but it just goes back to the to the simple thing.
00:45:51.599 --> 00:45:54.639
Just be still, be with me, because I'm with you.
00:45:54.800 --> 00:45:59.840
And if you're still with me, that me this on the inside of you, you'll connect.
00:45:59.920 --> 00:46:02.079
You won't have to look around because I'm right here.
00:46:02.320 --> 00:46:02.480
Yeah.
00:46:02.639 --> 00:46:06.000
All I need you to do is to be quiet, to be still, be quiet.
00:46:06.559 --> 00:46:10.400
And you're with the only desire of just be with me.
00:46:10.719 --> 00:46:11.679
Be with me.
00:46:12.159 --> 00:46:12.480
Yeah.
00:46:14.079 --> 00:46:14.400
Yeah.
00:46:14.800 --> 00:46:15.760
That's so good.
00:46:15.920 --> 00:46:16.800
That's so good.
00:46:17.119 --> 00:46:18.880
Well, on that note, we'll wrap up.
00:46:19.039 --> 00:46:20.719
Thank you, Sandy, for being here.
00:46:20.880 --> 00:46:25.679
This has been as much for me as it will be for those who are listening.
00:46:25.920 --> 00:46:33.199
I always just gain so much wisdom and grace and enriching uh thoughts from you.
00:46:33.280 --> 00:46:39.119
And because I know I know they're grounded in the Word of God and I know they're grounded in the truth of Scripture.
00:46:39.360 --> 00:46:40.880
So thank you for being here.
00:46:41.440 --> 00:46:41.840
So much.
00:46:41.920 --> 00:46:43.119
I've enjoyed this so much.
00:46:43.199 --> 00:46:44.239
Thank you, Carrie.
00:46:46.960 --> 00:46:54.079
If you have enjoyed this podcast, would you do Carrie a favor and hit the subscribe button to where you listen to podcasts?
00:46:54.400 --> 00:46:56.239
Also, leave a review.
00:46:56.480 --> 00:47:00.000
This helps the podcast to become more visible to others.
00:47:00.239 --> 00:47:10.800
If you would like to share your story on the podcast, visit Carrie's website, carrympolt.com backslash podcast, and fill out the form.
00:47:11.039 --> 00:47:14.960
You can find Carrie online on Facebook and Instagram.
00:47:15.119 --> 00:47:19.199
And on her Substack page at CM Holt.
00:47:19.920 --> 00:47:24.000
Thank you for joining us today on this unexpected life podcast.
00:47:24.320 --> 00:47:28.880
Real stories, real hope in this unexpected journey.
00:00:00.239 --> 00:00:02.640
Welcome to this unexpected life.
00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:05.200
To know him for ourselves.
00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:09.919
He loves us enough to say, Sandy, that thing right there that you think about me?
00:00:10.480 --> 00:00:11.759
That's not true.
00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:16.399
That thing right there that you think about yourself is not true.
00:00:16.640 --> 00:00:18.800
Let me show you what the truth is.
00:00:19.600 --> 00:00:26.480
A podcast for parents navigating the challenges of raising a child with disabilities or special needs.
00:00:26.719 --> 00:00:37.359
Here we share stories of hope, resilience, and messy faith to help you embrace your journey, work through grief, and thrive in your role.
00:00:37.679 --> 00:00:45.920
Whether you're just starting out or seeking encouragement to keep going, this is a space where your story matters.
00:00:46.159 --> 00:00:54.399
Join Carrie, your storytelling companion, as we explore the hope and healing found in Jesus Christ.
00:00:54.719 --> 00:00:56.640
One story at a time.
00:00:58.799 --> 00:00:59.840
Hello, friends.
00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:01.600
I'm so glad you're here.
00:01:01.840 --> 00:01:05.040
So in June, we kicked off the series There is Jesus.
00:01:05.200 --> 00:01:08.159
And if you've already heard this message, feel free to skip forward.
00:01:08.400 --> 00:01:20.959
But this month in July, we are continuing that series as we dive into people's stories, recognizing where God was in the middle of suffering, how he provided, and how his presence has brought comfort and healing.
00:01:21.359 --> 00:01:36.079
In the show notes of each of the episodes, there is a special link to a Spotify playlist I've created for you that has songs of worship around the topic of remembering, wrestling with all the emotions, and trusting God that He is present in all circumstances.
00:01:36.480 --> 00:01:39.280
Also, the podcast is now on YouTube.
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You can watch it and see the guests and yours truly on there.
00:01:43.840 --> 00:01:47.840
So feel free to find this Unexpected Life podcast on YouTube.
00:01:48.079 --> 00:01:56.239
For the month of August, I'm going to be taking a much needed sabbatical, and then we will be back in September for a series on caring for the caregiver.
00:01:56.480 --> 00:02:00.799
We'll be hearing from some licensed counselors, and you are not going to want to miss it.
00:02:01.200 --> 00:02:04.879
Hello there and welcome back to This Unexpected Life.
00:02:05.120 --> 00:02:08.159
So my guest today is Sandy Ramsey Travick.
00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:13.840
She and her husband of 35 years live in New Jersey and have three young adult children.
00:02:14.080 --> 00:02:23.439
She became a special needs mom, a caregiver, and an advocate 26 years ago after a childhood illness, left her son with multiple disabilities.
00:02:23.759 --> 00:02:28.879
Sandy believes God's promise that he has a good plan for all of his children.
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In her work as a certified professional coach, author, blogger, speaker, and Bible study teacher, Sandy seeks to encourage and empower other special needs parents who feel stuck and need help moving forward into God's good plan for them and their family.
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So I just have to share with you that this conversation with Sandy today was so encouraging to me, and I know it will be that for you.
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I always love talking to her.
00:02:52.639 --> 00:02:56.319
We connected last year through By the Brook with Becky Davidson.
00:02:56.479 --> 00:02:57.759
Her faith is encouraging.
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And today our conversation dove into discussing about asking God why.
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Why do these things happen?
00:03:04.479 --> 00:03:06.639
How faith doesn't always make it easy.
00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:11.919
Sometimes it is still a fight and dismantling our false beliefs.
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So enjoy this conversation with Sandy Ramsey Travick.
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Well, welcome to the podcast, Sandy.
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I'm so glad to have you here.
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We don't talk a lot, but every conversation I have with you, I always leave feeling so enriched.
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And so I'm expecting and looking forward to that today.
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Yes.
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And I feel the same way about you too.
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I wish our paths crossed a little bit more often than they do, for sure.
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Absolutely.
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So just for the listeners, could you give a quick overview who you are, where you're from, maybe an overview of your family, and then we'll dive into the unexpected pieces of your journey.
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Okay, I am a wife and mom.
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My husband and I have been married for 35 years.
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He's alone, Death.
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Look, if that doesn't prove that there's God, then there so 35 years.
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I have three young adult children, a 31-year-old, and uh 27-year-old twins.
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Um my 31-year-old daughter and my twin daughter and a son.
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My son is the one who has special needs.
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What else can it tell you about me?
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I am a certified professional coach.
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The Lord called me right before COVID to start ministering to parents of children with special needs, which I must tell you was not an assignment that I wanted.
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I did not.
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Made sense, but I didn't want it.
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Since then has shown me how to use my story to help people who feel stuck in their journeys to move forward into the good plans that God has for them.
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I've done some writing, some blogging.
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I'm able to have been able to write a book, some speaking.
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My husband and I have been able to mentor other couples who have a child with special needs.
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So such a blessing to be able to do that with him.
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I live in New Jersey.
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It's not a beautiful day here today.
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And what else can I tell you?
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That's me.
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I love that.
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35 years.
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You you got 10 years on Bruce and I.
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25 years is no small thing.
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This day and age.
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Yeah.
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Oh, no, that's beautiful.
00:05:39.439 --> 00:05:41.279
Well, thank you for sharing that.
00:05:41.680 --> 00:05:47.439
So could you go back and tell the listeners just a little bit about how your unexpected journey started?
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Okay.
00:05:48.480 --> 00:05:51.519
You know, we all have a plan for our lives.
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Even if we don't necessarily talk about it, we have this idea in the back of our minds about kind of the trajectory of our lives, the things that we want to see in our lives.
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Um, and I had that, you know, I'd kind of done all the things, gone to school, gotten the um degrees, gotten married, had started a corporate career, and so that was the trajectory I expected my life to be on.
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I had this experience that I've only had one time in my life when the Lord woke me up in the middle of the night and I heard him say audibly, Sandy, it will be a boy.
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And I'm kind of, what does that mean?
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I I I laid back down, he woke me up again, he said, Sandy, Sandy, it will be a boy.
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And so I knew it was God.
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I'd not had that experience with him before, but I knew it was him.
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And what that did for me was set the expectation that I would be having a boy and that this boy, there's going to be something incredible about his life.
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Because why else would God have awakened me in the middle of the night to tell me?
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Fast forward, my son was born, a twin, born 36 weeks, healthy, no issues.
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At 13 months, he contracted strep pneumococcal meningitis.
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Still don't know where, how he got it.
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It was a bacterial infection.
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Um, it shut his kidneys down, his brain filled with fluid, it left him with cerebral palsy, um, seizure disorder, put him in a coma.
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They told us that if he ever awakens from the coma, he would never walk again, he would never talk again, never be able to do all the things that he was already doing, and that he would be so profoundly disabled that we should consider institutionalizing him.
00:07:49.439 --> 00:07:51.360
So this is our baby boy.
00:07:51.680 --> 00:07:55.439
Long story short, he did wake up from the coma.
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God did that.
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And he's exceeded all the expectations that all the medical professionals had back then.
00:08:03.839 --> 00:08:06.240
However, he does have special needs.
00:08:06.399 --> 00:08:17.920
He does have some intellectual and cognitive disabilities, he does have cerebral palsy on one side of his body, he has speech delays, he has still medical issues.
00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:20.800
We he still takes anti-seizure medication.
00:08:20.959 --> 00:08:23.519
He's had to have two kidney transplants.
00:08:23.600 --> 00:08:34.240
And so God has enabled him to do so much more than what the doctors said, and yet we still live this life.
00:08:34.399 --> 00:08:38.080
We're still on this special needs journey.
00:08:38.320 --> 00:08:50.080
And I'll tell you, Carrie, that the day that we found out that Miles had meningitis, I was I raged it got to my what my husband tells me, because I don't remember that.
00:08:50.320 --> 00:08:52.159
How could you let this happen?
00:08:52.320 --> 00:08:58.240
Why would you tell me that I'm gonna have a boy if this is what the journey was gonna look like?
00:08:58.399 --> 00:08:59.919
Is this what you had in mind?
00:09:00.320 --> 00:09:18.480
You know, and so something that I think all of us as moms who have kids with greater needs, who love the Lord, right, who have a relationship with God, we have that question, how, why would you let this happen to our kids, Lord?
00:09:18.639 --> 00:09:19.679
And so yeah.
00:09:20.480 --> 00:09:23.360
So, what did that wrestling look like for you?
00:09:23.440 --> 00:09:29.759
And do you feel like it's still a part of the journey when something unexpected comes up?
00:09:31.120 --> 00:09:33.360
I still don't understand the why.
00:09:33.679 --> 00:09:42.799
And I have reconciled myself to the fact at this point that even if I did know why, I don't know if that would be enough.
00:09:44.879 --> 00:09:50.480
You know, I don't know if there's something that the Lord could tell me where I would think, well, of course.
00:09:50.879 --> 00:10:01.840
Right, right, yes, now I understand, but I have had so many experiences with God on this journey.
00:10:02.240 --> 00:10:15.279
I have learned to know him in ways that I don't know that I otherwise would have on this journey, that I trust him.
00:10:15.759 --> 00:10:19.440
I I love that question because there's a tension in there.
00:10:19.600 --> 00:10:20.720
I trust God.
00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:23.440
I believe he has the best for my son.
00:10:23.759 --> 00:10:27.279
Sometimes still the journey hurts me.
00:10:27.440 --> 00:10:29.039
Sometimes it hurts him.
00:10:29.360 --> 00:10:39.679
There's still a cost to it that I wish mostly that Miles didn't have to pay, that my family didn't have to pay, but I trust God in that.
00:10:40.159 --> 00:10:47.279
And so I don't know, I don't know if living in that tension is what it means to walk by faith.
00:10:48.240 --> 00:10:48.960
Probably.
00:10:50.159 --> 00:10:53.279
But I do I do live in that.
00:10:53.519 --> 00:10:53.919
Yeah.
00:10:54.159 --> 00:10:54.480
Yeah.
00:10:54.720 --> 00:10:55.200
Yeah.
00:10:55.519 --> 00:11:09.759
Well, and I you know, it's interesting that you said even if I understood the why, maybe it just wouldn't wouldn't matter because it it still requires faith.
00:11:10.320 --> 00:11:13.519
And I, you know, honestly, I don't know if I've ever thought about that before.
00:11:13.600 --> 00:11:32.399
Like even if we felt like we had some earthly understanding of why God allows these things to happen, or or works, you know, the working out in the world of the curse of sin on the earth for our good and for his glory.
00:11:33.919 --> 00:11:50.320
Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, if we actually got all the answers we wanted and felt like maybe we feel like we want, need, even deserve sometimes, would it really change our day-to-day choices and living living by faith?
00:11:51.440 --> 00:12:09.279
You know, what comes to mind, this is like, I don't know if this is like extreme, but what comes to mind is Job, you know, the first book, I guess, that was written in the Bible, and and God showed us, He showed us kind of the cosmic war that we're in.
00:12:09.759 --> 00:12:21.120
Would we understand that if God says, I've allowed all these things, because there's a cosmic battle going on, and I've chosen you, Gary, and I've chosen Toby to be my representatives in this battle.
00:12:21.200 --> 00:12:22.720
So you're gonna go through something.
00:12:22.879 --> 00:12:28.000
I don't even know if we have the capacity to wrap our minds around that.
00:12:28.159 --> 00:12:28.399
Yeah.
00:12:28.559 --> 00:12:36.960
Um, one, and the way I would always go back to God, you are sovereign, almighty God.
00:12:37.200 --> 00:12:39.360
You can do things all kinds of ways.
00:12:39.679 --> 00:12:40.559
Why this way?
00:12:40.720 --> 00:12:46.879
I just don't know that we have the capacity, or maybe that I have the capacity to understand that.
00:12:47.200 --> 00:12:47.679
Yeah.
00:12:48.159 --> 00:12:55.360
I mean, it reminds me of the verse that says, you know, your my ways are higher than your ways, my thoughts are higher than your thoughts, says the Lord.
00:12:55.440 --> 00:12:56.720
I think that's in Jeremiah.
00:12:56.879 --> 00:12:58.240
And and that's true.
00:12:58.399 --> 00:13:00.159
I think that's true for all of us.
00:13:00.320 --> 00:13:30.799
That it's so good to I think wrestle through this because like you said, it's the relationship with God is deeper when we wrestle instead of stuffing or even putting all these pat answers over things and sometimes even th truths of scripture that are true, but maybe sometimes it's just things we're saying in in our heads and we're not really believing in our heart until we wrestle with these questions.
00:13:32.639 --> 00:13:44.799
You know, I think it's easy to know what the word says, but the experiencing of what the word says can feel a little bit different than kind of the head knowledge of it.
00:13:45.360 --> 00:13:58.240
And it's in that wrestling, that kind of up close debating with God, getting to know God where the truth of the scripture comes to life for us.
00:13:58.720 --> 00:13:59.039
Yeah.
00:14:00.480 --> 00:14:04.159
You know, like I said, the and I know you understand this, this journey.
00:14:04.320 --> 00:14:06.399
I hope I can say this on a Christian podcast.
00:14:06.559 --> 00:14:08.480
Some parts of this journey have been hellish.
00:14:08.799 --> 00:14:09.039
Oh, yeah.
00:14:10.240 --> 00:14:13.759
I look back and think, I don't know how on earth we got through that.
00:14:13.919 --> 00:14:27.200
I don't know how Miles got through that, but it's in those hardest times when the only place for us where it felt like for us to go was to be flat on our faces before God.
00:14:27.279 --> 00:14:29.200
That's when we got to know him.
00:14:29.919 --> 00:14:49.919
That's when he helped us to kind of dismantle all the things that we thought we knew that were just not who he was, but kind of who we had made him out to be, so that we could see him and experience him for who he was and understand really, really, this is how I work.
00:14:50.080 --> 00:14:50.320
Yeah.
00:14:50.480 --> 00:14:52.240
We're looking over here for this.
00:14:52.559 --> 00:15:00.320
This, though, is how I work, how I've chosen to work in your circumstances, and that's what you need to understand.
00:15:00.559 --> 00:15:00.960
Yeah.
00:15:01.679 --> 00:15:06.559
So let's unpack that a little bit because this series, The Summer, is there with Jesus.
00:15:07.600 --> 00:15:19.679
And I I do feel like we miss him in suffering in specific situations because we are expecting him to show up a certain way.
00:15:19.840 --> 00:15:26.320
What are some of those expectations that you've had of him showing up and how did Jesus look differently?
00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:29.600
I still pray this way.
00:15:30.639 --> 00:15:33.519
God, there's here's the situation.
00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:38.159
I know that you are miracle-working, Almighty God.
00:15:38.480 --> 00:15:42.799
I want you to fix all of this miraculously.
00:15:45.440 --> 00:15:51.279
I want you to do that in such a way that we don't have to suffer because I feel like we've suffered enough.
00:15:51.519 --> 00:15:54.480
I pray that still, because I know he's able.
00:15:54.720 --> 00:15:55.759
I know he can.
00:15:55.919 --> 00:16:00.799
And so it will never be that you have not, because you've prayed not, Sandy.
00:16:00.960 --> 00:16:04.559
I'm praying for him to show up miraculously.
00:16:04.799 --> 00:16:19.679
And then I go to, but if it's not your will to do it that way, then your will be done and open my eyes to see where and how you're working in the circumstance.
00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:29.919
When Miles first got sick, I told you I was so angry with God because I expected him to have prevented all of this, um, and he didn't.
00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:34.080
So I had no expectation that he would show up at all.
00:16:34.399 --> 00:16:38.000
I was not looking for him to show up at all.
00:16:38.240 --> 00:16:43.840
And then he started showing up in, I guess, ways that I hadn't expected.
00:16:44.720 --> 00:17:06.160
Uh, for example, Miles was in a coma and he had been in a coma for a while, and his neurosurgeon said, We'll we'll put in a shunt to try to relieve some of the the um fluid that's on his brain, and if that works, then he may wake in from the coma.
00:17:06.640 --> 00:17:09.519
Put in the shunt, nothing happened.
00:17:09.680 --> 00:17:13.200
The neurosurgeon came back to us and said, Oh, so sorry.
00:17:13.440 --> 00:17:19.519
Looks to uh like he's never gonna wake up from the coma, kind of, and that's kind of the reality.
00:17:19.759 --> 00:17:31.680
Meanwhile, there was another doctor, another radiologist who was not assigned to this case, who saw Miles' film and recognized our last name because our kids went to the same school.
00:17:31.839 --> 00:17:36.720
So we had no personal relationship with him, but he recognized the last name.
00:17:36.880 --> 00:17:42.960
He picked up the film, he looked at it and said, Oh, looks like there needs to be an adjustment right here for the shunt.
00:17:43.119 --> 00:17:44.880
He knows nothing about our story.
00:17:45.119 --> 00:17:47.839
All he noticed is that there's something amiss here.
00:17:48.079 --> 00:17:53.759
He goes to the neurosurgeon and says, If you make this adjustment, I think the shunt would work better.
00:17:54.240 --> 00:17:56.880
Then he comes to introduce himself to us.
00:17:57.039 --> 00:17:59.920
We find out, you know, we recognize him.
00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:05.759
Yes, he's our neighbor, our kids go to the same school, that we did not know that he was a devoted follower of Christ.
00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:08.799
Had no idea about that, no idea.
00:18:09.039 --> 00:18:16.319
The neurosurgeon goes in, makes the adjustment, the fluid starts to drain, Miles starts waking, he awakens from the coma.
00:18:16.480 --> 00:18:19.359
Look, some people might say, Oh, what a great coincidence.
00:18:19.519 --> 00:18:22.559
That's not a coincidence, that is only God.
00:18:24.799 --> 00:18:38.640
And so throughout the stay, he did those kinds of things, put the right doctors in the right place at the right time, made sure that we had the wisdom that we needed at the right time.
00:18:38.799 --> 00:18:40.160
He did those kinds of things.
00:18:40.319 --> 00:18:48.720
And Carrie, can I can I just say I prayed for Miles to be miraculously healed while he was at the hospital.
00:18:49.039 --> 00:18:53.920
God didn't do that, but he did all of these other things.
00:18:54.240 --> 00:18:55.519
I don't know why.
00:18:55.759 --> 00:18:56.720
I don't know why.
00:18:56.880 --> 00:19:00.559
I don't know why he chose to show up that way.
00:19:00.880 --> 00:19:09.359
Um, you know, my husband says it's because not only was he working in Miles's life, but he was growing us up.
00:19:09.599 --> 00:19:13.759
He was teaching us faith, teaching us how he worked.
00:19:13.920 --> 00:19:22.720
And he said, if he had healed Miles miraculously, we'd have said thank you, God, gone on about our lives, and still been the same people.
00:19:23.200 --> 00:19:36.480
And so I think God wants us to know that He is involved in every area of our lives if we let Him.
00:19:36.640 --> 00:19:38.400
And so I hope that answered the question.
00:19:38.480 --> 00:19:40.880
Look, I've already forgotten what the question was.
00:19:41.200 --> 00:19:43.279
No, that's that's beautiful.
00:19:44.240 --> 00:19:54.880
I think it's often that way for all of us that especially I think maybe if you have walked with the Lord for a longer time, there's this expectation that life's gonna be easy.
00:19:55.200 --> 00:20:07.359
Or or the one that I struggle with the most right now is like you said, I've already done a lot of suffering, and I really shouldn't have to deal with insurance again.
00:20:07.599 --> 00:20:08.079
Right.
00:20:08.240 --> 00:20:08.880
Right, right.
00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:12.079
Like I've been doing this for almost 20 years.
00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:19.839
Do I get a break from the caregiving and the fighting and the advocating and all of that?
00:20:20.079 --> 00:20:45.039
And you know, it's like we're a boat on the water and the next storm comes, and all of a sudden we're rocking and rolling all around and and looking and just trying to find where where Jesus is because we still have this these certain expectations about how our journey is gonna look and and gonna be how do you feel like now?
00:20:45.279 --> 00:20:48.079
Because I I don't know what your unexpected looks like now.
00:20:48.160 --> 00:20:52.160
I think it's a little calmer in with your son.
00:20:53.039 --> 00:21:09.039
How do you see Jesus showing up now just in the day-to-day grind of caregiving and having an adult young adult child with disabilities and special needs is a whole different ballgame than when they're younger?
00:21:09.200 --> 00:21:16.640
And and and it seems like there's a lot more active things that we can do to get them better and and do this therapy.
00:21:16.720 --> 00:21:18.480
And do you know what I'm talking about?
00:21:18.559 --> 00:21:30.000
Like I feel like now we there's less for us to uh to do necessarily or to feel like we're uh helping them move forward and grow.
00:21:30.240 --> 00:21:31.039
Does that make sense?
00:21:31.200 --> 00:21:31.680
I don't know.
00:21:31.920 --> 00:21:46.000
Yeah, I think for me, maybe it feels like there's less in general to be done, but I still feel like it's a lot.
00:21:46.319 --> 00:21:52.720
Yeah, and I still wonder every single day whether or not I'm making the right choices.
00:21:52.880 --> 00:21:56.240
You know, when they're younger, you homeschooled your son, right?
00:21:56.319 --> 00:21:58.480
Yeah, and so you don't have this experience.
00:21:58.640 --> 00:21:59.680
Miles went through the public.
00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:01.279
School system.
00:22:01.519 --> 00:22:06.079
And so there was a lot of the growth and stuff that was supposed to happen.
00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:09.279
The services happened in the school system.
00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:23.519
When he turned 21 and all those entitlements went away all at once, it was left to me, to us, to figure out how to build a life for this adult.
00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:26.640
Like how to build a life for him.
00:22:27.599 --> 00:22:35.599
How to figure out how to productively fill up 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
00:22:35.839 --> 00:22:36.160
Yeah.
00:22:36.480 --> 00:22:49.119
In a system, at least here, where his support coordinator told me, everybody knows that after the age of 21, that this population can no longer learn.
00:22:49.359 --> 00:22:57.119
And so that is the mindset of the system that we're supposed to be working through to build a life for him.
00:22:57.200 --> 00:23:03.359
So I'm already working at cross purposes with the system that's supposed to support him.
00:23:03.680 --> 00:23:32.559
Carrie, it's a lot of work, trying to find opportunities in the community, trying to understand how to get those opportunities paid for, which ones can be, what buckets of money are available, trying to continue with the therapeutic work that he still needs, even as an adult, finding speech therapists and occupational therapists and physical therapists for adults.
00:23:32.799 --> 00:23:42.559
Physical therapy, maybe not as much because adults need physical therapy, but finding those services for an adult who has special needs is a lot harder.
00:23:45.839 --> 00:23:54.000
And then making sure that I'm in sync with what God wants to do in Miles' life.
00:23:54.160 --> 00:24:04.640
One of the things that the Lord challenged me on not that very long ago was, Sandy, you talk a lot about believing that I have a plan for his life.
00:24:04.880 --> 00:24:06.960
But how much do you believe that?
00:24:07.200 --> 00:24:12.400
How much do your actions suggest that you believe that?
00:24:12.559 --> 00:24:21.200
Are you trying to push a plan forward that you've adopted from the world for his life?
00:24:21.680 --> 00:24:31.519
Or are you trusting that I have a plan and joining me in the things that I'm doing in Miles' life?
00:24:31.599 --> 00:24:34.400
Because the truth is I do have one.
00:24:35.039 --> 00:24:43.359
And that's hard because the world has things set up for adults who have disabilities, but not some other things.
00:24:43.519 --> 00:24:49.039
And so you just trying to figure out how to reconcile all of that with what God has for him.
00:24:49.119 --> 00:24:59.519
And so for Miles, what we have him doing today, and I reckon I say today because I recognize that that can change as we learn more about what God is doing, things can shift.
00:25:14.640 --> 00:25:17.920
And on two days a week, I am with him.
00:25:18.079 --> 00:25:22.400
The Lord told me, Sandy, don't forget, Miles is your assignment.
00:25:22.559 --> 00:25:24.400
He's your assignment.
00:25:24.880 --> 00:25:29.359
And so I take him to his therapies, he does piano lessons.
00:25:29.599 --> 00:25:39.599
We have found this organization that's run by and two Orthodox Jewish families to help adults with disabilities continue to learn and grow.
00:25:39.680 --> 00:25:42.559
So we go there once a week and we serve together.
00:25:42.720 --> 00:25:47.119
And so he gets to serve younger kids who have special needs.
00:25:47.200 --> 00:25:50.720
So he gets to kind of give back to the population where he came from.
00:25:50.960 --> 00:26:03.839
We've had people come in and out to be companions to him, still haven't found the exact right person, but still trying, and then trying to make sure that we disciple him.
00:26:04.160 --> 00:26:06.640
Miles, you're a child of God.
00:26:07.119 --> 00:26:08.799
God has good plans for your life.
00:26:08.880 --> 00:26:27.039
You're God's masterpiece, all the things to try to help him to become the man that God created him to be, and to continue, just like the rest of us are, to continue to become who God created us to be.
00:26:27.119 --> 00:26:30.000
Again, back to the reason that he was born.
00:26:30.079 --> 00:26:31.359
And that's what God said.
00:26:31.680 --> 00:26:37.680
My plan is the only one that will meet my, it's the reason that he was born.
00:26:37.759 --> 00:26:39.279
It's the reason he's here.
00:26:39.599 --> 00:26:48.240
My plan is the one that's gonna um help you and help him to kind of fulfill the plan that I have for his life.
00:26:48.400 --> 00:26:54.880
And so I don't feel like it's necessary, it's not easier.
00:26:55.039 --> 00:26:57.039
I feel like we're more seasoned.
00:26:58.000 --> 00:26:58.400
Sure.
00:26:58.640 --> 00:26:59.279
Yes.
00:27:00.400 --> 00:27:04.559
We still have things come up kind of like you said about the insurance.
00:27:04.640 --> 00:27:06.880
Um, I don't know if Toby has SSI yet.
00:27:07.039 --> 00:27:10.400
If you guys have SSI money in Ohio, yeah, we do.
00:27:10.640 --> 00:27:15.599
Well, I worked hard to get him that SSI money.
00:27:15.759 --> 00:27:22.720
And we had an audit recently, and I'd allowed the there's only but so much money he can have in that account.
00:27:22.880 --> 00:27:28.000
I let it get to be above that, and oh, it was a whole thing.
00:27:28.240 --> 00:27:32.400
It was, and I'm thinking, and they threatened to take it away.
00:27:32.480 --> 00:27:37.039
It's just like the truth of the matter is I don't care about your money.
00:27:37.119 --> 00:27:42.160
I care about the services, the services that um this makes available to him.
00:27:42.240 --> 00:28:01.920
And so I just feel like um there's that in thinking about where will he be when we're not here, when I'm not the one kind of on the front lines advocating and doing all the legwork, when it's his sisters who will have oversight for all of this.
00:28:02.079 --> 00:28:04.160
Lord, what does that plan look like?
00:28:04.480 --> 00:28:14.960
Right, it's no longer a thing that's far into the in the distant future, it's not, it's something that has to be planned for now, yeah.
00:28:15.119 --> 00:28:23.519
And so there's a different kind of heart-wrenching wrestle, yes, that that is.
00:28:23.680 --> 00:28:25.839
Yeah, you know, yes, God, you have a plan.
00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:27.839
Yeah, but whoa, I won't be here.
00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:31.599
So anyway, long-winded, but it's good.
00:28:31.920 --> 00:28:42.319
How do you feel like looking back and seeing God provide over and over and over these things that were not coincidences?
00:28:42.480 --> 00:28:50.480
How does looking back help you think about the future and trust that God's gonna be there in the future when you're not there?
00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:53.519
Well, I know he will.
00:28:53.839 --> 00:28:55.039
I know he will.
00:28:55.279 --> 00:29:02.960
Yeah, um, you know, there are times uh I mentioned this too, I think before we started recording.
00:29:03.039 --> 00:29:08.960
There are times when I look back and think to myself, how on earth did we do that?
00:29:09.279 --> 00:29:11.759
The things that were required, how did we do that?
00:29:11.920 --> 00:29:17.279
We're not medical professionals, we're not, you know, built disability experts.
00:29:17.519 --> 00:29:18.640
God, how did we do that?
00:29:18.799 --> 00:29:30.960
And I I look back in retrospect and I think that's what the grace of God looks like, to enable us to do the things that the truth of the matter is we could never do in our own strength.
00:29:31.039 --> 00:29:34.799
Yeah, even on our tippy toes, could not do it.
00:29:35.119 --> 00:29:41.279
And so, but at the time, what it felt like, it felt hard, but we were doing the thing.
00:29:41.440 --> 00:29:43.200
We're just doing it, we're doing it every day.
00:29:43.279 --> 00:29:50.160
We're getting up and we're doing, we're doing the thing because the grace of God, his power enabled us to do so.
00:29:50.400 --> 00:29:59.920
And I know that that's happened time and time again, even through the times that felt hard that God was in it.
00:30:00.240 --> 00:30:00.880
Yeah.
00:30:01.359 --> 00:30:13.119
And Miles' Last Transplant, it was hard, but God told us I'm in this and I'm fighting for Him, which which Carrie says that there's something that needs to be fought.
00:30:13.359 --> 00:30:13.680
Yes.
00:30:14.400 --> 00:30:18.160
I'm fighting, so there's a fight that's going on here.
00:30:18.480 --> 00:30:19.119
Yes.
00:30:19.519 --> 00:30:25.680
And knowing that God was fighting, I knew that we would come out victorious, it still doesn't take the heart of it away.
00:30:25.839 --> 00:30:26.079
Yeah.
00:30:26.160 --> 00:30:32.240
Um and so what I believe is that God will continue to show up in the same way.
00:30:32.480 --> 00:30:43.759
He will continue to show up in the same way, the same way he did for us when the mantle gets passed to my girls, that he will show up in the same way for them.
00:30:44.079 --> 00:30:49.920
And trying really hard to help them to understand that now.
00:30:50.400 --> 00:31:15.279
That yes, there will be natural resources that are available to you guys that we'll make available, but you must know that it's God who's gonna empower you to be able to be who Miles needs you to be at that time and continue to live the life, to walk out the plan that God has for your life, that He He won't drop the ball in that.
00:31:15.599 --> 00:31:16.799
Yeah, you know.
00:31:17.200 --> 00:31:30.400
You know, I was just reading, you know, I think it was when Joshua crossed the Jordan and they they have the Ebenezer, they have this the stones of remembrance.
00:31:31.279 --> 00:31:38.640
So I think so I looked up that word Ebenezer, and that word literally means a stone of help.
00:31:40.000 --> 00:32:06.160
And I think it's also related to when Moses was sitting on the stone, and I believe it's Aaron and her are holding up his arms as Joshua fighting the Amalekites and in Exodus, and I I do think that a lot of times we just we just forget that God is our stone of help.
00:32:06.720 --> 00:32:33.039
He is our Ebenezer, and then we've got to look back and see all these Ebenezers along the way that are paving a path of faith in our lives and trust to continue to get up and face the new day and the new challenges that come because they are and will be, I think, ever present and ever changing.
00:32:33.279 --> 00:32:34.960
Do you have any thoughts about that?
00:32:35.279 --> 00:32:42.559
Um, you know what when you said that, what came to mind, what my mind focused on was, and Joshua was fighting.
00:32:42.799 --> 00:32:49.839
You know, sometimes earlier in my faith, I felt like faith made things easy.
00:32:50.160 --> 00:32:56.880
Got a promise from God, standing on that promise, and it was kind of like smooth sailing.
00:32:57.039 --> 00:33:01.119
Um, but with the Israelites, God promised them a land.
00:33:01.759 --> 00:33:07.200
Every place your foot treads, I've already given it to you, it's already yours.
00:33:07.440 --> 00:33:09.279
Now go take possession.
00:33:09.599 --> 00:33:12.880
And taking possession meant there was a fight.
00:33:13.119 --> 00:33:16.880
And that's the part, I guess, that humbled me.
00:33:17.119 --> 00:33:22.079
Yes, is that there is a fight to this faith for real.
00:33:22.400 --> 00:33:38.960
And and it may not be kind of like with with guns and arrows and all what well they didn't have guns back then, but all the things it may not be a physical fight, but the fight of faith is real when everything that's coming against you says, why would you believe that?
00:33:39.200 --> 00:33:39.519
Yeah.
00:33:39.680 --> 00:33:42.880
That says you can't do that, you're not strong enough to do that.
00:33:43.039 --> 00:33:44.400
They're never gonna listen to you.
00:33:44.559 --> 00:33:48.000
That diagnosis they gave you about institutionalizing him.
00:33:48.319 --> 00:33:50.000
Why don't you just go ahead and do that?
00:33:50.160 --> 00:33:54.160
You're not equipped to take care of all of those things.
00:33:54.319 --> 00:33:56.880
You have to deal with that insurance one more time.
00:33:57.119 --> 00:33:59.519
Oh my gosh, I don't think you have it in you.
00:33:59.599 --> 00:34:02.240
Don't you want to just tell that person off whatever it is?
00:34:02.319 --> 00:34:06.559
Yes, it's a continuous fight.
00:34:06.799 --> 00:34:07.440
Yeah.
00:34:08.320 --> 00:34:17.199
Well, will I say that I am I have learned more how to lean on God in the fight?
00:34:17.360 --> 00:34:20.880
Kind of the weapons of our warfare that are not carnal.
00:34:21.199 --> 00:34:23.519
So the prayer and the fasting.
00:34:23.679 --> 00:34:41.280
One of the things that we learned when Miles was in the hospital in the first time was the power of fasting to kind of silence the noise so that we could hear from God, so that we could get his plans, his strategies for how to move forward.
00:34:41.599 --> 00:34:50.719
Worship, all of those things that God gives us are weapons for the battle that we find ourselves in.
00:34:50.880 --> 00:34:56.079
And so realizing that I guess the fight never ends, not on this side of glory.
00:34:57.519 --> 00:35:14.079
Um, you know, what I will say too is I have learned to believe that God is who he says he is, regardless of what my circumstances look like, that if he says that he is this, then he's that.
00:35:14.239 --> 00:35:22.480
If my life is not lining up with that yet, that does not change the fact, the truth, that this is who he is.
00:35:22.559 --> 00:35:32.960
And so I continue when things look like they're going sideways, particularly with Miles' health, I continue leaning into God, but you're a healer.
00:35:33.199 --> 00:35:33.679
Yes.
00:35:33.920 --> 00:35:43.679
This doesn't look like it, but that's who you are, and so that's who I'm praying to, that's what I'm believing you for, whatever that looks like in this circumstance.
00:35:43.920 --> 00:35:44.639
Yeah, yeah.
00:35:44.880 --> 00:35:55.840
Yeah, and it's so good because I think I mean, one of the things that you kind of are talking about is just that battle in our minds for the lies that we believe, the false beliefs.
00:35:55.920 --> 00:36:03.199
And I do think that this far into the journey, it a lot of times it's I don't deserve this.
00:36:03.599 --> 00:36:07.679
I've already been through so much, and I don't deserve this.
00:36:07.920 --> 00:36:12.159
And I love how you said faith doesn't mean it's easy.
00:36:14.159 --> 00:36:15.199
Absolutely.
00:36:16.159 --> 00:36:20.239
I think we often forget that we are in a spiritual battle.
00:36:20.400 --> 00:36:22.800
You and I talked about this before we got on.
00:36:23.280 --> 00:36:40.079
That we are in a spiritual battle, and that doesn't mean that we should be afraid, but it does mean that we have to equip ourselves with the things that you mentioned prayer and worship and remembrance and and knowing who God is.
00:36:40.239 --> 00:36:47.280
I was struck this morning that we have to know the character of God before we can trust him.
00:36:49.760 --> 00:36:53.199
We have to know his character before we can trust him.
00:36:53.440 --> 00:36:55.440
You know, you have to know a person, right?
00:36:55.599 --> 00:37:00.159
You have to know who who they are before you can trust him.
00:37:00.719 --> 00:37:05.840
And I'm so thankful that God we can trust him from the get-go, right?
00:37:05.920 --> 00:37:11.840
Like if we can trust him for our salvation, we can trust him for everything else that comes after.
00:37:12.000 --> 00:37:15.440
And I think that's where we try to pick up the control, right?
00:37:15.519 --> 00:37:21.119
It's like, okay, you can handle my salvation, but the rest of it, I gotta handle.
00:37:22.079 --> 00:37:23.039
Don't you think?
00:37:23.840 --> 00:37:31.599
I think that was one of the biggest things that God had to work out of me was this idea, God, I got this.
00:37:31.840 --> 00:37:33.039
I know how to do this.
00:37:33.199 --> 00:37:37.519
I am capable, I'm resourceful, I can do these things.
00:37:37.760 --> 00:37:51.039
I sometimes think that in his great mercy, he helps us to see really, really, what we are so incapable of apart from him.
00:37:52.079 --> 00:37:54.320
I and I'm so grateful for that.
00:37:54.559 --> 00:38:09.760
I told you that at the beginning of this journey with Miles, I was so angry with uh the Lord that I really didn't expect him to show up for Miles because, as far as I was concerned, it's your fault that he's in this in this predicament in the first place.
00:38:09.920 --> 00:38:14.400
If you were not going to prevent it, surely you're not gonna do anything else about it.
00:38:14.800 --> 00:38:23.840
I loved that even with that perspective that my heart was in that place, he chose to show up anyway.
00:38:24.079 --> 00:38:30.800
He chose to show up anyway to show me who he really is, to dismantle all those lies.
00:38:30.880 --> 00:38:35.760
It's kind of like with Adam and Eve in the garden when they rejected God.
00:38:36.239 --> 00:38:44.559
They lived in a perfect place and they rejected God, and he still came for them, he still covered them.
00:38:44.800 --> 00:38:49.360
And so I think that he does that for us in his mercy.
00:38:49.599 --> 00:39:07.920
He understands why we think the way we do, we feel the way we do, and he goes to work showing us him, giving us the opportunity to know him, not know about him from other people, but to know him for ourselves.
00:39:08.159 --> 00:39:14.400
He loves us enough to say, Sandy, that thing right there that you think about me, that's not true.
00:39:14.639 --> 00:39:20.800
That thing right there that you think about yourself is not true.
00:39:20.960 --> 00:39:22.960
Let me show you what the truth is.
00:39:23.199 --> 00:39:30.639
There was a time in this journey when the Lord finally came to me and said, Sandy, it's time for you to forgive me.
00:39:31.119 --> 00:39:44.079
Not because he had done anything wrong, but because the place I was holding him in my heart was getting in the way of us being able to move forward in our relationship.
00:39:44.480 --> 00:39:47.599
And so he loves us that much.
00:39:47.840 --> 00:39:50.320
Yes, yes, absolutely.
00:39:50.559 --> 00:39:55.199
And he doesn't hold that against us when we have those feelings.
00:39:55.360 --> 00:39:56.639
It's just so beautiful.
00:39:57.840 --> 00:39:59.599
I want to ask you this one last question.
00:39:59.760 --> 00:40:11.039
So let's say look back, you know, 20 years or so, somebody's at the beginning of the journey, what is one truth that you would want them to hold on to?
00:40:14.480 --> 00:40:16.079
That God is with them in it.
00:40:18.800 --> 00:40:23.440
We serve a God who knows the end from the beginning.
00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:36.559
And so, as much of a surprise as these diagnoses, these journeys, as unexpected as they may be to us, they are not unexpected for him.
00:40:37.199 --> 00:40:37.519
Yes.
00:40:38.079 --> 00:40:44.400
I believe Scripture says, uh, Ephesians 2.10, I love that verse.
00:40:44.480 --> 00:40:53.760
It says, we are God's workmanship, his masterpiece, created anew in Christ Jesus to do the good works he's prepared for us long ago.
00:40:54.079 --> 00:41:12.320
And so the plans that God has for our lives, that he prepared long ago, before you and I were even a thought, a whisper, and I think that he puts provision in place for us for all of the things that are going to happen in our lives.
00:41:12.480 --> 00:41:26.800
The things that he's got, the hard things that he's going to allow to happen, because he knows, I believe, that they can be part of the good works, the things that we do to contribute to the welfare of other people.
00:41:27.119 --> 00:41:35.360
He allows those things so that we can do those, the preparation for those, everything that we need.
00:41:35.679 --> 00:41:51.119
I know that part of that preparation is dismantling the limiting beliefs, helping us to know the truth of who he is, the truth of how he created us, the power that we have in his word and in prayer.
00:41:51.280 --> 00:41:54.320
All of that, I believe, is part of the equipping.
00:41:54.559 --> 00:42:14.719
And so to recognize that God is in it with you, to know he understands it, the whole situation, understands you, your response, everything that is going on with your child and what they will experience better than we ever could.
00:42:15.199 --> 00:42:16.960
Better than we ever could.
00:42:17.599 --> 00:42:19.119
I would say this too.
00:42:19.280 --> 00:42:24.960
Um, one of the things I learned kind of in this journey with Miles, because I wanted him to know God.
00:42:25.039 --> 00:42:29.199
And I'm like, Lord, with the cognitive issues and stuff, how's he gonna know you?
00:42:29.440 --> 00:42:42.159
That God has made it such that every one of our kids, regardless of what their diagnoses are, he has built in them the capacity, the ability to know him for themselves.
00:42:42.400 --> 00:42:56.239
And so I trust, I believe that the things that I can't minister to Miles' heart, the ways that I cannot comfort him, the things that I just don't understand, that God takes care of that.
00:42:56.320 --> 00:42:56.480
Yeah.
00:42:56.639 --> 00:43:04.000
That when he's in a place where he's afraid and I can't be there, I can't minister to it, that God is taking care of that.
00:43:04.159 --> 00:43:04.480
Yeah.
00:43:04.800 --> 00:43:16.000
And so it can feel so, it can feel like a hard thing to do, especially when you have that thought, God, you could have prevented this.
00:43:16.159 --> 00:43:31.599
If he didn't, there's a reason why he didn't that we may not ever understand, but trust that he's going to be as good and as faithful and as loving and as present as if it didn't happen.
00:43:31.840 --> 00:43:32.320
Yeah.
00:43:32.559 --> 00:43:32.960
Yeah.
00:43:33.119 --> 00:43:33.440
Yeah.
00:43:33.599 --> 00:43:34.880
Oh, that's such a good word.
00:43:35.039 --> 00:43:35.440
Thank you.
00:43:35.679 --> 00:43:36.800
That was so good.
00:43:37.039 --> 00:43:38.960
So, where can the listeners find you?
00:43:39.039 --> 00:43:40.559
And tell a little bit about your book.
00:43:40.719 --> 00:43:46.480
Your book, um, When Dreams Are Disrupted, was came out into the world, was birthed into the world last year.
00:43:46.639 --> 00:43:48.079
It's a fabulous book.
00:43:48.159 --> 00:43:50.960
So just share a little bit where listeners can find you.
00:43:51.039 --> 00:43:54.239
I'll put everything in the show notes so this is easy to access.
00:43:54.719 --> 00:43:58.400
Website undisabledlives.org.
00:43:58.559 --> 00:43:59.760
Um, I'm only on Instagram.
00:44:00.480 --> 00:44:01.840
It's hard to keep up with social media.
00:44:01.920 --> 00:44:02.960
I don't know if people do it.
00:44:03.119 --> 00:44:03.920
Oh my gosh.
00:44:04.239 --> 00:44:07.760
At undisabled underscore lives.
00:44:08.159 --> 00:44:15.760
My book right now is on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, and some other smaller booksellers, but I would look on Amazon.
00:44:16.159 --> 00:44:21.599
You know, it really just is a testimony of who God is when your dreams are disrupted.
00:44:21.679 --> 00:44:26.719
So it's a book about God to understand how He works in those times.
00:44:26.880 --> 00:44:28.320
You know, can I say one more thing?
00:44:28.559 --> 00:44:29.440
Yeah, absolutely.
00:44:29.760 --> 00:44:34.559
Carrie, to the to the mom who feels like she's spiraling.
00:44:34.880 --> 00:44:37.280
Like, God, where are you in all of this?
00:44:37.440 --> 00:44:50.559
You know, one of the things that God reminded me recently, and so this is 26 years in the journey, is that He's if we know Christ, He's in us always.
00:44:50.719 --> 00:44:51.599
He's just right here.
00:44:51.840 --> 00:44:53.360
We don't have to look out here.
00:44:53.679 --> 00:44:54.639
God, where are you?
00:44:54.960 --> 00:44:56.239
He's just right here.
00:44:56.559 --> 00:45:10.000
And He I was still having my quiet time with Him, but I was so wrought up on the inside that I was having a hard time connecting, and I could feel that.
00:45:11.360 --> 00:45:17.679
And so I brought that to him, and he immediately brought to mind a worship song.
00:45:17.840 --> 00:45:30.000
The song is called Nothing Else, but the the lyrics of the song talk about going back to the beginning when it was just the only thing it's about is me and you, Jesus.
00:45:30.239 --> 00:45:32.239
It's not about the things I need from you.
00:45:32.320 --> 00:45:34.480
You don't have to, you don't owe me anything.
00:45:34.719 --> 00:45:38.320
All I want to do is sit at your feet and be with you.
00:45:38.480 --> 00:45:42.559
And so help to make the this the distractions fall away.
00:45:42.800 --> 00:45:46.159
Forgive me even for being distracted by those things.
00:45:46.320 --> 00:45:51.440
There's like a little bit of repentance in it, but it just goes back to the to the simple thing.
00:45:51.599 --> 00:45:54.639
Just be still, be with me, because I'm with you.
00:45:54.800 --> 00:45:59.840
And if you're still with me, that me this on the inside of you, you'll connect.
00:45:59.920 --> 00:46:02.079
You won't have to look around because I'm right here.
00:46:02.320 --> 00:46:02.480
Yeah.
00:46:02.639 --> 00:46:06.000
All I need you to do is to be quiet, to be still, be quiet.
00:46:06.559 --> 00:46:10.400
And you're with the only desire of just be with me.
00:46:10.719 --> 00:46:11.679
Be with me.
00:46:12.159 --> 00:46:12.480
Yeah.
00:46:14.079 --> 00:46:14.400
Yeah.
00:46:14.800 --> 00:46:15.760
That's so good.
00:46:15.920 --> 00:46:16.800
That's so good.
00:46:17.119 --> 00:46:18.880
Well, on that note, we'll wrap up.
00:46:19.039 --> 00:46:20.719
Thank you, Sandy, for being here.
00:46:20.880 --> 00:46:25.679
This has been as much for me as it will be for those who are listening.
00:46:25.920 --> 00:46:33.199
I always just gain so much wisdom and grace and enriching uh thoughts from you.
00:46:33.280 --> 00:46:39.119
And because I know I know they're grounded in the Word of God and I know they're grounded in the truth of Scripture.
00:46:39.360 --> 00:46:40.880
So thank you for being here.
00:46:41.440 --> 00:46:41.840
So much.
00:46:41.920 --> 00:46:43.119
I've enjoyed this so much.
00:46:43.199 --> 00:46:44.239
Thank you, Carrie.
00:46:46.960 --> 00:46:54.079
If you have enjoyed this podcast, would you do Carrie a favor and hit the subscribe button to where you listen to podcasts?
00:46:54.400 --> 00:46:56.239
Also, leave a review.
00:46:56.480 --> 00:47:00.000
This helps the podcast to become more visible to others.
00:47:00.239 --> 00:47:10.800
If you would like to share your story on the podcast, visit Carrie's website, carrympolt.com backslash podcast, and fill out the form.
00:47:11.039 --> 00:47:14.960
You can find Carrie online on Facebook and Instagram.
00:47:15.119 --> 00:47:19.199
And on her Substack page at CM Holt.
00:47:19.920 --> 00:47:24.000
Thank you for joining us today on this unexpected life podcast.
00:47:24.320 --> 00:47:28.880
Real stories, real hope in this unexpected journey.
