[0:00:00] Emily: Hi there friend. Welcome to this week’s episode of the R. F. W. P. Hi Lois.
[0:00:07] Lois: Hi Emily, how you doing today?
[0:00:09] Emily: I’m doing great.
[0:00:10] Lois: Good, good. I’m excited to see you be across from you. I wish I was face to face with you. But I’ll take virtual.
[0:00:20] Emily: Yeah, we’ll take it since our last episode was two parts. It’s actually been a couple weeks since we recorded. That’s
[0:00:27] Lois: right. But don’t fear friend online. We do talk in between our recordings. We really are friends.
[0:00:38] Emily: So this week, do you have a micro joy?
[0:00:42] Lois: I do have a micro joy and I um a lot of people I’m sure know of the YOUversion bible app. Oh yeah. I want to say that Craig Rochelle and his crew started that. And um anyway, so I’ve used it for quite a while now. But during Covid they kind of turned it into a story like an instagram story basically where you find out what the verse of the day is. They kind of help you center and just be still for a minute before the Lord um read the verse and then It goes into like a two minute short lesson testimony and every day it’s somebody different. And I love that um men and women pastors and scholars and worship pastors and worship leaders and women in charge of ministries. And that’s really my micro joy because I’ve listened to it every morning and then read the devotional and fun. Yeah. And then something interesting this week. Not part of the micro joy, something that got my feathers stirred up a little bit. You know, I had feathers. Um I heard a clip this week that was sent to me. I think you heard it as well. But all of the RFP people recovering fundamentalists, which is not just I. F. B. There are recovering fundamentalists from um many different denominations, but we were called out from the pulpit and we were told that we were idiots. So anybody who’s a recovery fundamentalist apparently is an idiot.
[0:02:48] Emily: So let me get this straight. We’re stupider, trendy idiots,
[0:02:55] Lois: I think so. Stupid. Or trendy idiots. Yes.
[0:03:01] Emily: Here we go. Well, I’ll take I’ll take the trendy label because I think I fit now. You’re ready for my micro joy.
[0:03:08] Lois: So what’s your micro joy?
[0:03:10] Emily: I distressed my own jeans. I now am wearing holey jeans,
[0:03:15] Lois: Holey jeans. That means they’ve been sanctified. Congratulations.
[0:03:23] Emily: I am part of the trendy club now.
[0:03:27] Lois: I think that’s awesome. Okay, so wait a minute, you have to tell me. How did you distress them? How did you know to do that?
[0:03:33] Emily: Youtube University,
[0:03:35] Lois: Youtube Universities, my favorite. What did we do years ago? Oh, that’s right. You weren’t alive yet. I was. We didn’t have you to. Oh, so yeah, your micro joy. That’s cool, distressed jeans. How fun.
[0:03:56] Emily: Yeah. Super fun changing it up.
[0:03:58] Lois: Yeah, I’ll send you, I’ll send you a pair and you can distress mine and send them back to me. Maybe you should open an Etsy shop Among the other 9000 things you do on a regular basis.
[0:04:10] Emily: Sure I have to get better at it though.
[0:04:14] Lois: Oh, I don’t know. I think they look pretty good.
[0:04:18] Emily: It requires a little more patience.
[0:04:21] Lois: Wait a minute, wait a minute. No. Are they skinny jeans? They are. So now we have distressed skinny jeans.
[0:04:30] Emily: That’s right. You heard it here 1st?
[0:04:32] Lois: You really are stupid or aren’t you? Right.
[0:04:36] Emily: Right. The trend really doesn’t make any sense, but I’ll jump on it anyway.
[0:04:40] Lois: Yeah. Well actually, now apparently gen Z is telling us that skinny jeans are out and mom jeans and others are back in. I’m like, yeah, I don’t care how much mom jeans Go back in. I have too many nightmares from the 80s and the 90s. I’m not wearing mom jeans again.
[0:05:06] Emily: Yeah, just when I think I am getting trendy, it’s out. So I guess I’ll always be behind the trend.
[0:05:15] Lois: That’s okay. That’s okay.
[0:05:18] Emily: So before we get into this episode, I wanted to talk about our sponsor. Have you opened your scripture flips,
[0:05:26] Lois: scripture flips by Kendra? Did you know they’re celebrating? She’s celebrating five years of That’s incredible. It’s her anniversary. Happy anniversary, Kendra. Yeah.
[0:05:40] Emily: So all of our listeners Get 20 off of any order. So if you guys are looking at Tiffany who won or give away or you’re looking at us and uh, wants them for yourself, Maybe you can get yourself some for a late Mother’s Day present, or you can get some for a friend who needs some encouragement. Or you guys can grab a bundle together, something like that.
[0:06:08] Lois: Or you could be one of those people that’s insanely organized and do early christmas shopping before christmas in july. That’s also
[0:06:21] Emily: so guys, all of our listeners Get 20 off. You can go to the link below in the show notes or the link in our bio on our social media and grab that, enter your email address and she’ll send you the code and you can go to the website, see all the deals she’s running right now for five years anniversary and all the things,
[0:06:46] Lois: all the things, all the things. Yeah,
[0:06:49] Emily: awesome. So for today’s episode, I get to interview Lois when we started out, she got to interview me over on the RFP. If you miss that, you can go back to episode zero. We posted on the R. F. W. P. Two.
[0:07:06] Lois: Yeah, that’s when we were like totally jealous that the guys and everybody else and josh Tyson, the whole crew were in Vegas and we were not right. Major fomo. Yeah.
[0:07:26] Emily: As Lois and I are getting to know each other more. We just want to take the time to go over the last like three years of Lois’s journey and story and go take a deep dive I guess on that as we um get to know each other better.
[0:07:48] Lois: Yeah. And we’re going to do it in front of thousands of people. There you go. So welcome to our intimate conversation about the last three years Of our lives. So I think I’ve told um our listeners before Emily that um my husband, I’ve been married for almost 32 years and we have four grown kids. Two boys, two girls. We have a son in law, we have a daughter in law. God, it’s just been really, really good to us by blessing us in that way. Um, but several years ago I’m such a people person. So when I say this to people, they’re like, what are you talking about? But several years ago I just started asking the Lord to help me to love. Well, mm, I asked him to help me to love people. Well Because we were in ministry for 26 years and you know when you’re on staff and you’re also one of the pastors wives. um, sometimes people are easily love and sometimes they’re not. I’m sure there, well I know there are times where I am not so easily loved, but I just really wanted to love people. Well I wanted to um, I don’t know, maybe expand gift of mercy and just learn more about grace and I really started praying about that little did I know that God was going to allow a season in our lives um to help me learn how to love people better to love people well, so be careful what you pray for. Um one of the verses that um I have read All my life since I can remember is in Ecclesiastes. Chapter three verse 1 says for everything, there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. And you guys know how that passage goes. There’s a time to be born and a time to die. There’s a time to rejoice the time for dancing, a time for sorrow and I know that verse, I knew that verse 3.5 years ago but I didn’t know really what that verse could portray. So each one of these things, Emily, that has taken place in the last three years, honestly could be an episode in and of themselves. So, and we obviously don’t have time for that tonight. Um, so I’m just gonna basically bullet point. It’s not month to month, but it’s pretty close. Okay. And um, and in my doing so, um, we all have a story, right? And we all go through different seasons and I would never ever, ever want to minimize anybody else’s story. I think when we start to compare, well, I’ve walked through this, well, I’ve walked through that we um, we don’t legitimize somebody’s pain and what they’ve walked through. So I know there are others that have walked through things much deeper. Um, but this is this is our story.
[0:11:45] Emily: And if you can’t relate to all of it and talking to the listener, you don’t have to feel like your pain isn’t as legitimate or discount what you’ve walked through just because somebody else has had it worse. That’s that’s a lie. Like, what you’ve gone through, like you said, we’re not comparing, Right, This is your story,
[0:12:11] Lois: right? Right. So I’m really just kind of, kind of bullet points, you know, Um, already read Ecclesiastes 3 1 and we talked about for everything. There’s a season. We just didn’t anticipate our quote unquote season to be as long as it was.
[0:12:28] Emily: Sure. Yeah.
[0:12:30] Lois: So things happened before November of 2017, but I’m going to start with that time. And In 2017, a um Transition had taken place at our church about a year earlier, and the place where we served for 16 years, Bobby and I were fired from no explanation. You’re just like, done. Yeah. Most people did not know. So you’re just done. You’re done. And you can’t compete with us. So you can’t start a church. You can’t do this, you can’t do that. And and you need to sign this and you’re not allowed to read a resignation letter. But if you want to write one, then we’ll read it for you. If we think it’s okay when the Yeah. So that started, I don’t want to say started the ball rolling that, but that began the a small snowball maybe. Mhm. December bobby got extremely sick from a root canal and was hospitalized with sepsis. Very dangerous. All right. Then, in january, out of nowhere, bobby had a grand mal seizure and stopped breathing in the middle of the night. Two times 911 The whole thing through that situation in that episode because of the neurologists that visited the hospital, began to have a conversation also with our, with one of our daughters and through testing. Um she was diagnosed with a form of epilepsy as well called medial temporal sclerosis.
[0:14:36] Emily: Okay.
[0:14:37] Lois: Yeah, basically, just I want, I don’t want to say narrowing, but all these years, her growing up, which he would kind of space out for a minute or whatever and and you know, when it was kind of the cool thing for middle school girls to kind of act silly and like, wait, what? You know, we thought that’s what she was doing and honestly, she was having absence seizures. So we found that out in february. Um then in March Of 2018, my husband’s first birth father passed away suddenly, he had started a relationship with him about 30 years prior. We found him when we were 29 years old and a whole new family and world of family opened up um which was amazing. Um in May full time income went away completely because the quote unquote sabbatical time was over and the severance pay was over. Um And then in july our our son, our youngest son sustained a couple of different injuries that were hospital visits and we’ll go into those details. Uh huh. And then in September of 2018, my father died suddenly. My sweet daddy. Um I still miss him yesterday. I was walking through the house and just he came across my mind, I was like, oh man, I wish I had just called that and talk to him. Um I don’t care how old you are, when you lose your daddy. It’s if you’ve had a good relationship with your dad, it’s yeah, it’s tough. Um november, we went to be with my mom since it was her first thanksgiving without our dad. And um unbeknownst to us, there was a carbon monoxide leak in the house significant enough to render our youngest son unresponsive.
[0:17:03] Emily: No way.
[0:17:05] Lois: When you, when you have this big football player in your life And your 17 year old becomes unresponsive on the floor of the bathroom and goes limp in your arms. I’m calling 911. one of the scariest things that in it of itself, the entire family was hospitalized and the firefighters told the rest of our family that was not in the house. Um that if if Macaulay had not um gotten that ill that night, that when they came to the house the next morning, it’s hard for me to even say this, but that um none of us would have, none of us would have survived the night. That’s how high the levels were in the house.
[0:18:03] Emily: Okay, wow.
[0:18:05] Lois: Um Yeah, and then um
[0:18:09] Emily: at this point you’re a year in, right,
[0:18:11] Lois: we’re a year again and we’re in a hospital in Chattanooga. All of us except for our oldest son and daughter in law. All of our kids. Macaulay’s at a different hospital than us because he was 17. So I’m like he’s collapsed in my arms and yet he’s going to a different hospital from his mom and the rest of his family. And so my two daughters, my husband, one of the boyfriends and myself while I’m in the hospital, I contracted this fun little disease called C. Diff, which is, yeah,
[0:18:51] Emily: I’ve had a family member had
[0:18:52] Lois: that. It’s very highly contagious and an elderly people. It’s um about 14,000 people a year die from c diff. Mm. Um and took some medicine. It returned in january february. It got worse in March. I was hospitalist. Mm. Okay. So we’re a year and a half in Yeah, I’m hospitalized for several days. Um And then sent home with medication. Get better for a little while. Um And then end up back in the hospital in May and within about the first eight hours that I was in the hospital was in extreme pain and not from the seed if I thought maybe I was having an appendicitis attack and actually I was in the midst of developing blood clot. Oh. Um and I won’t go into where the blood clot was, but just needless to say in that in the medical journals, they kind of talk about it in articles that kind of talk about it being a unicorn. Like it’s just it’s pretty rare that it happens. So then you go on blood thinners and all that, all this stuff, so just all this stuff is going on, it’s continuing to happen. And then in july of that year, our youngest son, the one that we almost lost november the year before. He was in a car x away from us, like, hours away from us with a friend. Uh and, you know, had to go to the hospital and just just one thing after another.
[0:20:56] Emily: Yeah. At what point did you say I’m done?
[0:21:00] Lois: Um Like, was it
[0:21:01] Emily: at the beginning?
[0:21:04] Lois: Um I think, I think probably when bobby had his grand mal seizure in january of the, you know, the previous year, um I think I was done then because he stopped breathing um during that, and he’s never had that type of a seizure before, so we didn’t know what we were dealing with, and I’m sure that there are others who gone through something similar, but when you literally think that your spouse is dying in front of you, I can’t really actually explain it. Well, um it it changes everything. Yeah, so maybe and and other things that took place during, during that time and since then, but that’s kind of the bullet points, you know, and I’m not I’m not laughing because I’m um because I’m tell us about the things that have happened, it’s just that um when I when we were going through this and we would post, I would post something about it, asked people to pray or this or that, you know, I would get these direct messages like, seriously, like, when is it going to stop? And I wouldn’t message back, like, seriously, if you can find that out for me, that would be awesome.
[0:22:42] Emily: Right? Yeah. What did, what got you through this? Was it pretty, It’s ugly. Mhm.
[0:22:55] Lois: Such a loaded question. Um None of it was pretty right. None of it was pretty. There were there were some bright spots. I’m not going to wrap everything up in a bow, but I’ll just put it this way God was definitely revealing a part of his character to us and during all of this mhm Not, not to say that I was angry, but I just think, I don’t know, probably people’s prayers got us through it because at times there wasn’t a whole lot of praying coming for me. So I was angry. Right?
[0:23:48] Emily: What did you, what would you say you’ve learned through it? Like was it? And what have you let go of because of it? Is there anything that you don’t do anymore?
[0:24:03] Lois: Mm I don’t give cliche pat answers to people who are walking through pain. Yeah, I wanted to learn how to love people well. And as a minister family. Ministry family, there was always that feeling like you had to have the answers for people walking through things. Because people, I don’t know why we do this either. Like pastors don’t have like this extra connection to God than you do. Mm hmm. You know Holy Spirit, the holy Spirit. Right? And he we all have that. So, but I think just feeling like you had to have answers and then it’s not like we hadn’t gone through any pain in that many years of ministry and life, but not like 2.5 years. Just full on about every other month. Something happening. There’s things like I said, I didn’t even tell you that happened in our oldest daughter and son in law’s life and surgeries and traumatic multiple breaking of bones, you know because of of the brittleness of her bones, because of her Crohn’s disease and just just so many things. So right, I learned that’s that’s one of the things not to give pat answers to somebody’s pain. Yeah, that’s one of them
[0:25:49] Emily: letting people sit in the, in the grief and the questions without having to say, oh, but you know, God is trustworthy, like, because at that moment we’re learning is God trustworthy, Can I trust
[0:26:06] Lois: him? It’s a crisis of belief. Yeah. You know, Henry Blackerby wrote, experiencing God years ago and that was the first time I heard the terminology, a crisis of belief and I arrogantly sat in the bible study and we’re like, well I haven’t had a crisis of belief. Well I hadn’t been through crisis to question whether or not I believed that God was who he says he was.
[0:26:40] Emily: So what do you do now when you’re sitting with someone in that heart space, giving them the space and just being with them? I
[0:26:52] Lois: think I would like to say that I have grown in my listening skills instead of feeling like I had to quote, preach somebody through their pain and and just listen about a year and a half ago, I watched a short video and I can’t recall her name, but she talks about and she’s written a book. I’ll have to look it up, but she talks about how that we as believers. We don’t lament, well we don’t lament well because we’re always trying to fix each other, we’re always trying to get to the other side and it’s not like you should stay in that forever, but we do need to learn how to limit well, there’s an entire book of the bible on lamenting
[0:27:55] Emily: and I don’t think we’re very familiar with that book, it’s one of those books that makes us not really sure what’s going on in it and we read past it quickly when lament is something to be felt and sat in next to someone. Yes, we can lament ourselves and that’s healthy but also sitting in in lament with others.
[0:28:23] Lois: But I think part of that awareness, how do I word this? I think you have to peel off the layers of things that were taught or maybe not specifically taught but definitely portrayed as being taught in the church, you know, I’ve said this before, it’s nothing profound. People were upset a year ago when everybody had to start wearing masks and then when people got to come back into churches with their masks on, you know, and people come complaining about having to wear a mask and our rights and all these things and I don’t know, I don’t want to get on um the yea or nay of the political sides of those things but I will say this like you know, honestly it may not have been material on our face, but in the church we’ve been wearing masks on sunday mornings for years because it’s so true because we were taught best foot forward, dress your best, don’t let anybody see you, you know, we can’t let people see the real us
[0:29:47] Emily: well and it’s this fear of letting people see our mistakes because we’ve found our value in what people think about us, we found our value in how people view us and what, what image were presenting rather than I am intrinsically value, valuable and jesus has proved that so in the church we all have this like security and I have value and I don’t have to prove my worth,
[0:30:21] Lois: but in the church also, and we’ve gone through church hurt majorly. So, you know, and that’s not the only time we’ve been hurt in church, but that was massive. 3.5 years ago, you talk about your intrinsic value because of who you are in christ. But we didn’t want people to see the real US. Because people’s judgmentalism devalued us. Mm made us feel like and I don’t just mean us I mean, across the board, across the body of christ, across denominations, you know, people have been devalued by being judged and so so we put on for we put on for years, authenticity, transparency, genuineness. Those are beautiful things. And those are healthy things.
[0:31:32] Emily: But we can actually know each other and sit together. And that might mean our ministries are smaller. Our personal ministry circles are smaller because we’re really genuinely getting to know a group of people, a small, actually close knit family where we can be raw and real and ourselves
[0:31:54] Lois: With. I think that was another part of the lament and the grief for us Emily was because we had been in this church family for 16 years. Mhm. And we raised our kids there, you know, our two oldest had already gone on to other places to other ministries living elsewhere, but our two youngest, they were, they were on the worship team, singing, leading worship, playing guitar. They know what we went through as an entire family and all of that. You have this close knit community. I mean, we’re talking lifelong friends and you feel like all of that has been ripped out of your life. It’s not that you’re just not on staff at a church anymore, it’s that literally people that you have been in the room when they’re babies are born or they have held you in grieved with you over something. Or you have had those transparent conversations over coffee that our marriage is struggling. Or I mean, you’re talking community and all of the sudden that was gone and we felt like we were in no man’s land, where do we belong?
[0:33:21] Emily: And then everything else continues to fall down on
[0:33:25] Lois: you
[0:33:26] Emily: where you feel like this, you don’t have that community anymore for the next 2.5 years of things that you’re walking through
[0:33:33] Lois: and then you kind of do have the community. But then there’s a part of you that’s and this is going to be really candid. And I I mhm. Not trying to hurt anybody’s feelings. But I’m sure others have walked through this. Then you get angry because you’ve lost the community and they still have each other, but you’re no longer a part of that. Mm hmm. You know? Right. But I think through, we did start attending another church and we sat, we just sat, of course we didn’t start attending right away. Mm That’s good, bobby was like, I, I needed to sit in worship music ministers to me, just like reading through the psalms ministers to me and and I needed to sit in worship. And I sat in worship and I bawled like a baby bobby didn’t come to worship. He didn’t, he’s like, I can’t like I just, he’d been preaching every sunday for four years and then all of the sudden nothing like he’s done. Oh man.
[0:34:58] Emily: So I asked you what you let go of through this.
[0:35:04] Lois: And did I actually answer that cliff? You did. You said you
[0:35:09] Emily: you no longer give pat or cliche answers.
[0:35:13] Lois: Try not to, I’m sure every once in a while something slips.
[0:35:18] Emily: Yeah, I was learning about spiritual bypassing recently and man, if you heard that term,
[0:35:24] Lois: I have not.
[0:35:26] Emily: So it really encompasses a lot of things, but in short it’s those cliche answers that discount people’s pain, like especially if uh, member of the congregation brings up to someone else and says they see this issue here and they’re given an answer like you just need to pray about it or you are just being too sensitive or God will work it all out when we actually need to be taking action. It’s bypassing the action with some christians
[0:35:59] Lois: Language. You just need to remember Romans 8 28.
[0:36:04] Emily: Exactly, yeah. Or you’re just being too attracted to the world if you weren’t so this or that this wouldn’t be happening. The, it’s really a form of spiritual abuse. But I’m not saying that that’s what, but it’s easy to do that when we see other people hurting. But that’s what you said. You let go of and I want to ask you what you held on to
[0:36:31] Lois: mm you want the good, the bad and the ugly or you want the sweet stuff for a long time. I held on to anger and I know that’s probably not question you were actually asking. But honestly for a while I held on to anger and questioning and the what ifs and the oh my gosh, are you serious? Something else is happening. So our counselor or therapist, she she talks about it about a pathway in your brain and it’s got grass and there are flowers there and everything. But you keep walking on that path and you walk it to where it’s so beaten down that there’s like not even any grass left on that path, it’s just dirt and rocks now. And you have to force yourself to turn and and walk on a new path. You have to give yourself time and guidelines within your lamenting about things or within your anger or within. And so I’ve learned a lot about that and about how to readjust, but I think as far as holding on to think, holding on to the healthy things or something that got us through, I’ll put it this way when you’ve when you’ve administered to people for so many years and you believe this and I do believe it and then you end up in a crisis of belief yourself. I think it’s in not no, I don’t think I believe it’s in those moments that even though you don’t feel it, even though you may be doubting it and you’re struggling with the belief because of all of these things that have happened, Not my belief in God. I don’t I know that I never questioned that during this time, but I know some people do and that’s okay as long as you know, Lord willing healthy people come around you and can help you walk through that. But but I guess what I’m trying to say is during that time when when I wasn’t feeling it um when I was doubting when I was struggling, it was then that I had to force myself to go back to the things that I knew to be true about God. Even if I didn’t feel in the moment that those things were true about him, I had to hold on to what I knew to be true. Does that make sense? Yeah.
[0:39:44] Emily: Because all of the things you’ve been taught, not all of them seemed true right then. No,
[0:39:53] Lois: Or or or you start going backwards and you going, what did we do wrong? You know, what do we do wrong? Are um, you know what, what lesson have we not learned? What is he trying to teach us what? And you go to all those legal, not legalistic, but you go to all those um, I don’t know what to call him, but just all all of that thought process of like working out your own righteousness. Like what am I not doing right or what is he displeased with me about? Or all those unhealthy thought processes. Mhm
[0:40:35] Emily: Sure. So running back to not only what’s true about God, but it’s also true about you. He is faithful and he is true and you you know you’re digging through that like he doesn’t seem faithful and true and you know wrestling with that at the same time saying he says I am chosen. I am not forsaken. He’s near me. He is with me. I am his and his mind and reminding yourself that this isn’t a punishment from him. This isn’t your fault. It’s life. Yeah.
[0:41:14] Lois: Yeah. I remember hearing the title of a book years ago actually never read it. But um, so I’m not endorsing it. I’m just mentioning the title of the book when bad things happen to good people. The way that I was raised was when bad things happen, somebody has done something wrong. I don’t believe that. Sure. I don’t believe that. But I’ll tell you when you start walking through month after month after month after month of we’re not just talking little things. We’re talking major things continue to happen. I didn’t even tell you that Like three months prior to are being fired, an aunt and uncle moved into our area and we hadn’t had family lived near us for over 20 years. And it’s one of my favorite aunts that I love to just sit and listen to her because she just is so filled with grace and so knowledgeable and ministered um for so many years to women just phenomenal. She was here a month. We were at their house on sunday for a surprise birthday party for bobby and just a few days later she was gone. We sat in the I. C. U. For four days. So when you have these things happen month after month after month. Mhm. Your brain does go back to, what did I do wrong? What is are we being punished? Are we you know what lesson didn’t I learn And that’s not a whole lot of fun to sit in. Yeah,
[0:43:08] Emily: we’ve talked about it a little bit, but where do you think you are now? Are you still in this chapter or is it is it
[0:43:18] Lois: over? I hope it’s over. I think this book has had enough chapters um, for a sequel and I’m kind of done. Yeah. No,
[0:43:31] Emily: no kidding.
[0:43:33] Lois: I will say because of our therapy and counseling, I think I’m finally at a place where I’m not waiting for the, for the other shoe to drop again because the other shoe dropped continually for so long. Um, but beginning to dream again, beginning to hope again and I’m still a little skittish. Honestly.
[0:44:07] Emily: Sure. Yeah.
[0:44:08] Lois: But something I read um a few years ago from an author and I just kind of wrote it down or what I could remember of it and retweet it. So I it’s not an exact quote, but sometimes when we’re in the midst of a trial or a valley in our life, we focus on just making it through, okay? So I’m going to insert right here. It’s so true. Like if I could just get past this, you know, can we just get to the next thing will be better, you know? Um just making it through, we focus on being on the other side of it and we lose sight of the fact that God may be revealing something of his character to us in the midst of it. And if we aren’t careful, we’ll miss the beauty of the reveal.
[0:45:13] Emily: I needed to hear that tonight.
[0:45:16] Lois: I’m still working through that. I’m holding on to the belief of that. You know, earlier you said something about what did you hold on to? And the first thing I said was my anger, but a good thing, good thing I’m getting ready to say in the middle of all of this, the Lord has continued to teach me how to love people well. And he has also really Rayfield, his goodness. And I know that sounds counterintuitive but he is he has been faithful in the midst of all of this and he’s been he’s been good. And you know when I used to say that cliche God is good all the time and all the time. God is good. You know, mm hmm. And then you’ve got people that are hurting like really, really hurting and they’re sitting there going, you have no idea what I’ve been dealing with and you’re going to sit here and tell me that God is good. So I think, you know, we go back to that what we know to be true about him, even if we’re not feeling it, But one of the songs that just has ministered to me majorly, of course, it’s really all the songs, I have to be honest because I’m a so true, I love all kinds of music, but you know, I’m all about some Maverick city right now, but, but literally one of the songs that Ministered to me and it was actually one of the first songs that when I felt like I could get to a place of serving again, I was actually scheduled to lead this one in worship and I’m like, how am I going to sing this song? And it’s a song by jenn johnson, the goodness of God. It was like, can I sing this song
[0:47:25] Emily: without weeping
[0:47:27] Lois: without weeping or, and at some point it was like, can I sing this song doo, I do I believe this. And so that was a crisis of belief and the more that song ministered to me, I was like, I do believe this. And I love the part of the song that says and all my life, you have been faithful and all my life, you have been so, so good. With every breath that I am able, I will sing of the goodness of God doesn’t mean it always feels good. It doesn’t mean that that we’re not going to walk. I hope that this book is closed and you know, There are no more chapters in this one. But he is good. Even when I don’t feel that.
[0:48:30] Emily: Oh, that reminds me of way maker. Even when I can’t feel it, you’re working. Even when I can’t see it, you’re working. You never stop. You never stop. You never stop working,
[0:48:43] Lois: right? We just saying that on sunday and I was not on worship team I was able to be in the congregation and man just powerful. Yeah.
[0:49:01] Emily: Are those both of those are on your worship playlist aren’t
[0:49:04] Lois: they? They absolutely are. Along with uh a growing list of more. Yeah I
[0:49:14] Emily: Think you and I both have like 50 on there so
[0:49:19] Lois: Wait 50 On Where?
[0:49:23] Emily: 50 on each of our playlist that we have shared with you all. So if you go to our website this is our hub Justin has updated our website and there are some really fun features. You gotta go check it out. We have our bios on there so you can read a little bit about us and links to our social media and our worship
[0:49:47] Lois: playlists awesome shout out to just a night for putting all of this together.
[0:49:54] Emily: M. V. P.
[0:49:55] Lois: Yeah it’s so cool
[0:49:59] Emily: it’s awesome. So make sure you guys go check it out. And also we would love it if you would take a minute to leave us a rating and a review.
[0:50:10] Lois: So tell me because you’re a digital native and I’m a digital immigrant, what is the purpose or how does it help to have rating and reviews?
[0:50:24] Emily: It’s something with the algorithm for podcast
[0:50:28] Lois: algebra algorithm. Okay I got you.
[0:50:33] Emily: Uh if you rate and review the podcast, people who listen to podcasts that are similar will get this one suggested to them
[0:50:45] Lois: awesome. It
[0:50:46] Emily: helps other people hear this message and be encouraged with what we’re saying, right?
[0:50:54] Lois: Yeah and I love that and it’s not so that you and I can be heard by a bunch of more people. It’s because I really believe the scripture that says that God’s word will not return void and if it reaches one more person and it helps them come back to the Lord or just be able to walk through a difficult time knowing that God is good and he’s walking with them then it’s worth it. Right?
[0:51:30] Emily: Yes, it really is
[0:51:33] Lois: guys. Thanks for taking the time to listen to today’s episode and thank you for um just kind of letting me sit in a space with Emily and share a little bit of our journey for the last three years. And also we would love to hear from you. And the best way to reach out to us is through our email account and Emily, I believe if I remember correctly, it’s hello at sister seeker dot com.
[0:52:05] Emily: That’s right. So send us a line, let us see, get to know your story and then go check out the website and our worship playlist.
[0:52:17] Lois: Yeah. And just know that while you’re listening to that music, we are worshipping right along with.
[0:52:22] Emily: That’s right. Have a great week friend.
[0:52:26] Lois: Yeah, I have a great week, guys, and we’ll see you next week.