Carrie, Amy, and Sara answer listener’s questions in this episode. Questions like, “How do you make good decisions regarding your child’s health?” and “What’s the appropriate amount of information you give when answering someone’s question about your child?” We have learned some real lessons over the years through trial and error and want to share with you some practical advice from our experiences.\
Eps. 163
Date: April 9, 2024
Key Moments:
[3:45] Choosing who you speak to about the hard things
[15:44] Advocating for privacy and understanding in healthcare
[21:54] Ask for more time to make decisions
[35:08] Life’s changes and feeling jealous of others
Resources:
A Blessing for the Gift of Doubt
Ep 143: God’s Faithfulness in the Midst of Daily Suffering
Sara’s Wedge Boots
If you enjoyed the show:
Carrie, Amy, and Sara answer listener’s questions in this episode. Questions like, “How do you make good decisions regarding your child’s health?” and “What’s the appropriate amount of information you give when answering someone’s question about your child?” We have learned some real lessons over the years through trial and error and want to share with you some practical advice from our experiences.\
Eps. 163
Date: April 9, 2024
Key Moments:
[3:45] Choosing who you speak to about the hard things
[15:44] Advocating for privacy and understanding in healthcare
[21:54] Ask for more time to make decisions
[35:08] Life’s changes and feeling jealous of others
Resources:
A Blessing for the Gift of Doubt
Ep 143: God’s Faithfulness in the Midst of Daily Suffering
Sara’s Wedge Boots
If you enjoyed the show:
Welcome to Take Heart, a podcast about creating space for connection, hope, and joy as a mom to a child with disabilities or special needs. We want you to feel connected and encouraged as we navigate this messy, emotional, and joy-filled life together. Hi, I'm Amy Brown, and I'm here with Carrie and Sarah. You're listening to episode 163, and today we're talking about answering your questions.
Amy Brown:
We love it when you reach out with questions, but I realize that sometimes they are hard to ask. We get hindered by shame or isolation, assuming nobody will understand it. We don't want to tell our whole story. We assume that we should know everything already. I know for me, I often get questions about residential treatment. Moms reach out to me and say, I need to make this decision. They have a lot of shame and guilt around it. They don't know where to start. And whenever I get those questions, I take a moment and pray for that person because I know how hard it was to send that email.
So you guys have permission to ask us questions. Send us any questions you have!When we reach out to others, it helps us feel less alone. It keeps us from overthinking and perseverating about a problem, which always leads to more anxiety, and it gives us clarity. So with that being said, let's just dive in with our first question.
The first question is, how do I talk about my child's disability to others and also to my child? Now, before we answer, we have talked several times on this podcast about dumb things people say. So we're not gonna do that today because we've covered it. And I don't think that's the nature of this question. I feel like this question is, how do I talk to my friend, my pastor, my child's teacher, parents of my friend's child? Those are the people in our lives who want an answer and that we want to share with, but we don't always necessarily know how to talk about it. And then we can also answer how you talk to your child. So who wants to go first?
Sara Clime:
I would say in both instances, I feel that being age-appropriate works. So when you talk to your child, be age-appropriate. When you're talking to others, keep your child's age in mind as well. And what I mean by that is, well, when I'm talking to my son, so he has a, his is degenerative and terminal. We can use those terms now. We don't a lot because I mean, I don't remind my husband and my other child that we're all terminal. When he was younger, those never came into play. And it wasn't because we were lying. It was just because he didn't understand. It's kind of like, you're not gonna talk with a five-year-old, mostly, you know? Like, so why would you have this talk with a second-grader or a third-grader? And that was how we handled it.
When he asked questions, we were completely honest. We didn't want him to ever think that we wouldn't give him the big picture. And we kept his well-being in mind and not our comfort. And that is really hard because I spent a lot of time not wanting to talk about the terminal side of it because I felt if I said it or if I talked about it, then we would all start living that way.
It was kind of putting my head in the sand and that's okay. I think I needed it to grieve and heal for a while, but I would say it was age-appropriate. And then the second is, and I think it goes both ways as well as watch how you speak, watch what you speak. So I learned very quickly that even though I was feeling very lost and upset and sad and all of the emotions, speaking that way to everybody, made it sound like we were living this Greek tragedy. Like it was like this huge tragedy and that's how people started to talk to us in. I didn't want us to be a tragedy. So we take out certain terminology when we talk to other people, including our son, we don't say, he's suffering with Duchenne, or he's bound by a wheelchair. And before I go any further, what I say and don't say works for my family. This might not work for you. So find what works for you and always defer to your child.
My son's old enough now where I'm like, do you like this term? Do you not like this term? And when he says yes or no, I will, I've even changed the website accordingly because I'm doing this for him. Again, it's really, it really depends on you as well. You're part of this whole scenario. So, I don't know how to say this.
You watch who you speak to as well when you are telling the deep things to. I have had people that are very close to me try to hijack my pain. What I mean by that, it's like, oh, well, my friend Sarah has an unspoken prayer request, and then people start coming to me and asking me about whatever. I'm like, I told you that in confidence. I don't want other people to know about that or whatever. So.I don't want other people to know about certain issues that are private to him. So, I don't know. It is.
Carrie Holt:
I feel like this is so tricky because it is when I was thinking about this question, first of all, like, I want our listeners to hear that everybody has a different comfort level, every story is so different, and we're all still working through this. It's not like we have the answers, you know, like, I feel like this is always evolving and changing. I was looking at how Jesus responded to questions and I love how it's like people who were honestly curious and cared were the people that he took the time to interact with. Do you know what I mean? If somebody was just being combative or, you know, it's like he treated them differently than those who came to him with honest questions. So I feel like using that kind of as a model when you're talking about it with other people. And Sarah, I was laughing because when you were talking about, you know, having the talk with like a five-year-old, I heard an analogy once about how, you know, when you raise your kids and you talk to them about puberty and the birds and the bees, they're like a sponge and you don't want to take a bucket and dump the entire bucket on the sponge, you know, you don't want to drown it. So it's little pieces here and there. And I feel like we've
tried to do a similar thing, look at what's developmentally appropriate for our son and talk to him about his disability in that way, and also ask further questions, because sometimes you don't know what they're really asking. You know, you do that, like, when your kid comes to you and they say, "'Mom, you know, what's puberty?' And like, well, where did you hear that? What context was that coming from?
I'm learning to do that with our son too is like, okay, what are you actually asking? So sometimes asking further questions to them when they're talking to you, being completely honest, but also finding out, do you wanna know the whole thing or are you just asking a tiny piece of this? You know, I think is really important.
Sara::
Yeah, because I think there's a difference between voyeurism and curiosity. And I think when you were talking to other people, I think maybe part of this is, I don't, I don't think this was the intention of the question, but always keep in mind, you have every right to say, you know, that's actually pretty personal. Um, I had someone ask me about, um, you know what, just some very personal issues.
And I looked at that other person and I said, would you ask another 16-year-old's parent that? It was so outlandish. It was very personal. And she just kind of looked, she goes, oh my gosh, no. And then she never really talked to me again, but you know what, that's fine. Because I mean, you made me uncomfortable, I made you uncomfortable, that's okay. And I think that's another thing too, is that you're gonna make mistakes with this. I've made mistakes, I've opened up to the wrong people about things like I could come to you guys and just say, oh my gosh, his heart rate decreased. It is, this sucks, and cry and whatever. And I would know that you guys would not take it the wrong way where some people, I was calling an Oreo information sandwich. Some people need, they need the truth sandwich between the good.
You know what I mean? Like it's, you know, instead of the heart rate decrease, like, oh, we got to go to Cincinnati. It's such a beautiful city. His heart rate decreased. Oh, and he is in such a good place. He is so, some people need that. Um, some people aren't okay with just scraping off the good stuff out of the Orea, you know what I mean? Like they need the whole cookie. And that's the way I always think about it too. And I think over time your discernment will get better. But even 11 years into this, I'm like, man, well, that's gonna come back to bite me when you share certain things. So I think first understanding that you're gonna be wrong, sometimes you're gonna make mistakes with it, but just to do your best and try to discern. I would say.
Amy:
When you guys were talking, especially you, Sarah, I was thinking the word terminal is such a heavy word that like everything else is cleared out of your brain and it misses who TJ really is. I didn't really think about that till you said that there are certain terms that maybe we just don't use because then nobody can hear anything else. They can't know who he is. And, um, I really appreciate you saying that uh, you know, for our situation,
It's a bit tricky because when you come into a situation when a child that comes from trauma You have to be careful what you tell people because it's not Your story to tell right like let's say for example You had a child that came from severe abuse sexual physical and they're acting out at school or church, Some people need to know that but not everybody needs to know it because that child's gonna grow up and half the church is gonna know something. So it's so tricky. So one of my pieces of advice that I give moms is, I understand you wanna say that because your child is so out of control, you need to come up with something. And not that you're making stuff up, but like you wanna justify why they're behaving in such a negative manner, mainly because most of the judgment is put on you as a parent. So, part of me would want to have this PowerPoint presentation. Here's all the things that happened to her, or here's all the substance that she was exposed to. Here's what happened in the orphanage. But that was not 100% my story to tell. So that is a very, very tricky needle to thread. So my advice is don't overshare to justify behavior. And that's gonna take you getting a really tough skin because we want to justify it. Like, this isn't my parenting, this is this. We also wanna be very honoring talking about birth parents because that's important. And people want to center on the failings or shortcomings of a birth parent to also justify behavior. Other people want to do that. So I would suggest, as you guys said, just be careful who you talk to. Sometimes I would say to people, I had a pretty good sense of who was safe and not, and I wasn't always right. I would love to talk more to you about this. If you want to let's have coffee. And most people did want to. So that told me that's not somebody that I need to talk to.
Sara:
That's a really good point. That is a really good idea. Because a lot of people are like, oh no, I was just looking for juicy details. My husband and I call it just verbal vomit because he came back from Lowe's one time and he was like, I saw so and so. He asked me how I was doing and 30 minutes later he was like a deer in headlight. It was just after such a really hard point in our lives. And so we've just learned to say fine. And there are people in your life that'll be like. I know how are you doing if they really want to know. Yeah, ask him for coffee. They'll be like, nope, not.
Amy:
Yeah, I did not want to know that much. Yeah. So that's really important. And then talking to a child who comes from trauma, is also tricky because you have to be age-appropriate. Um, I remember our child crying and being upset. Like, why is my brain this way? And all I said was certain things changed your brain that you had no control over. Um, she did not need to know all the nitty gritty, um, of what happened. She didn't at that point because I wanted to honor her birth mom. Regardless of the choices her birth mom made, I'm going to honor her. And so I think that's important too that we have to watch our wording with our kids that come from trauma. All of us know that there are things we're all working through that happened to us as kids that we weren't ready to work through at our at 10 or eight.
Sara:
Amen. Yeah. Or 40 or 49.
Amy:
So having all that out, and like you use the analogy of the sponge, I think of the analogy, I think it's Cory Ten Boom, there's some analogy about carrying the heavy suitcases. Her dad carried, the suitcases because they were too heavy for her. And that's too heavy to put on a child that this happened to you, this happened to you, this happened to you. They're already carrying that trauma in their body, their brains can't make that connection.
Carrie:
Right. I have found that with Toby too, just real quick, like, there are certain things about several of his medical background he doesn't remember, like mentally. I know his body remembers the body holds the body keeps a score. I totally believe that. But there are times that like I might even be relating a story to a nurse to try to catch them up kind of and where he's at. And I'm realizing I need to be careful speaking about this in front of him because that was a super traumatic thing and he doesn't remember it yet. I need to be here when he needs to process it later, but I also need to be careful how much I'm revealing in front of him.
Amy:
That just reminds me to tell moms, okay, that you have to ask a psychiatrist, “Can you have my child leave the room because I need to talk to you privately?” You know, all the concerns that we have about behavior and all the, that's okay to ask that. It's okay to say to your pediatrician, I need to talk to you privately. I need to step outside the room, whether it's a physical thing or a behavioral thing. Well, I had to tell a nurse several times I needed to speak to the doctor privately. And she gave me a hard time about it. And I had to stand my ground. And I'm a nurse myself and, I was already mad on behalf of my profession, that she was not being caring and kind. So I think once again, sometimes we have to educate medical people also about. our child or the psychiatrist at school who's the expert, I have to educate them and talk about my child. And that can be intimidating because they're professionals, but that's okay too because nobody knows your child like you know your child. And in that situation, it's a little bit of a tangent from what we're talking about, but really it's still how to talk about your child's diagnosis. You are the expert on your child and only you know what's going on.
Carrie::
And that's just that they don't know your situation, your family history, your details,
Amy:
Yeah. All right, well, I think we answered that, hopefully. Probably not. All right, question number two. This is another good question. How do I make decisions, whether it's about care or treatment? I feel paralyzed that I will make the wrong decision, and there are so many choices coming my way.
Carrie:
So I'll take this one first because I feel like there have been a couple of things throughout our journey where I missed things or I chose to wait on a certain surgery because I was very afraid of that surgery. There was a lot of stigma around it or a lot of just, you know. fear in the world of spina bifida, there are just a couple of surgeries where our kids typically need them, but there's just a lot of fear, and rightfully so because it's dealing with intricate parts of the body. But I will say first of all, I mean, I know this is a given, but I just want to say it again, it's just to pray for wisdom because God knows you, God knows your child, God chose your child for you and he will equip you with what you need. I think secondly too, is just to have a lot of grace for yourself because you are probably going to make wrong choices or what in the moment or later might seem like, oh, I really should have done that. Like there's a surgery that we put off for a really long time that probably caused some issues with our son.
And sometimes I can look back and when you look back hindsight's, you know, often 2020, maybe not always, but often that you can say and you can beat yourself up beat yourself up over it. And I'm just learning that like we're broken people, we're not perfect. We're not going to always make good choices, right choices, or maybe there's somewhere in between, you know, maybe it's the gray area. It's kind of good sometimes or, you know, you just don't know. And I feel like the Lord is just often saying, I've got this. I've got this covered. And the other thing too, just lastly, I'll just say this, I don't take everybody's answers is, I think it is really important to talk to other parents that you might trust who are in a similar situation when you can find them. Sometimes that requires vulnerability. Sometimes that's difficult, but there have been a couple of mom friends that I've had through the years that I was talking to one today about a situation we're going through, that her son's been through a similar surgery. And you just kind of compare notes. And I think that's how you educate yourself a little bit. And obviously, you don't want it to be like squirrel, you should go that way, but sometimes it can give you some insight into, oh, I probably should call the doctor. I should ask about this medication because it actually might help. Anyway, that's just, that's my two cents. But biggest of all is don't beat yourself up.
Sara:
Yeah, I would say that would be my first one is knowing that you're going to make mistakes. And I think I said that in the last question too. I think that's a recurring theme you cannot put this on this. These expectations on yourself it just can't you cannot always be right. You can't always know what to do. And
like in my son's situation, really the only treatment for him is clinical trials. And it's either going to do nothing, it might expedite his life expectancy or you know, it might help. So my husband and I have always said, like with us, and I know this doesn't won't ring true for anyone who's a single parent, that maybe find somebody else like you said, Carrie, a friend, a trusted advisor, a mentor, somebody that you can say, I need help working through this decision, not that you're asking somebody else's permission. And my husband and I don't ask each other's permission, but we talk it through, we talk about everything. And there have been times where, and we even talk about, is this feasible for our lifestyle. Can I drive three hours every week to something, even if it might help my son, is it going, what are the repercussions on this end of things? You know, so, cause it's not always about your child's health, it's not always about their education or whatever, it sometimes about the bigger picture as well. And those are really hard decisions, but I would just trust your gut. There is just something about moms and caregivers like that. We just have those. And there are emergency decisions that you have no time to think about. And sometimes you just have to make a decision. And it's like, okay, God, just burning bush. Show it to me, nope, okay, well, here we go. And you make the decision with the information that you have and it might be right, it might be wrong. But then some of them can be prolonged and you can say, like Amy, like you said, you have the right to say, can you leave the room? You have the right to say, I don't have enough information or I'm not knowledgeable enough on this at this moment. Can I have some time? And ask them, when do you need my answer by? When does this need to happen?
I've done that in IEPs for my son's school. When do you need this information? Because it's really not gonna make this big of a difference here in a couple of weeks. And then I go back and said, there was one specific instance, and I went back and said, okay, this is what we've decided to do. This is what we want. This is what we feel our son needs. And here's why. And I said why we felt that he needed it. And they ended up having a better solution. So sometimes, again, is...
working maybe as a team with whomever you need to tell that decision to is say, here's what we want, here's what we need, and here's why.
Amy:
First of all, Carrie, you said, find somebody you can talk to. And I would add that WebMD is not the person you should talk to because, you can get into a rabbit hole, which I personally think is my way of not dealing with making a decision different solution as well, but I don't think there's anything that's going to help all the decisions that we have to make.
Carrie:
Right. And I remember, so just from a medical standpoint, there was one time when we had to decide whether we were going to move Toby’s shunt from one side of his brain to the other side. It was a huge decision. And the doctors hate me, but I will say to them, if this was your child, what would you do? And like, but honestly, there are times that I feel like it is appropriate.
Now, sometimes they're gonna evade the question, you know? You can do that in school too. You can do it with psychologists, you know? If this was your child, what course of action would you take? And again, they might be vague or they might say different things, but it is a little different when you can like throw the ball back in their court and you don't feel like it's all on you, that this is a team approach to your child.
Sara:
Yeah, yeah. And I can also say to come up with a plan B and C and D because, you know, plan A might not work out. Plan A, you might make all these decisions and you've got it all covered and insurance or the school's budget or whatever, or you can't find a therapist that you want for your child or whatever, whatever happens. Always have a plan B if you can. I've come in loaded with plans B, C, and D. Sometimes it just makes me feel better having it. Hoping that plan A works out, but yeah.
Amy:
I'm listening to you guys and I kind of want to piggyback on a couple of things you are over researching. And that just makes me more anxious and not as calm as I need to be and clear-headed to move into a decision. So find a few sources and don't let yourself, I know that's hard, go down that rabbit hole. There are emergencies, but for the most part, we have time to make a decision. Most things aren't an emergency, and most things aren't that black and white, especially in the realm of behavioral stuff. There's no straight-up, this is the amount of insulin you give for this blood sugar situation in a behavioral situation. So it's really easy to think, everything is resting on this one decision. And I'm so grateful that my husband, who sometimes is too chill in my opinion, will say, we're gonna make this decision with what we know now. This is the best we know, and we're gonna move forward. And if it ends up being the wrong decision, we will reroute it. But this is what we have now, because I tend to wanna have everything in front of me, and then I overthink it. And so everything's not an emergency. We have time to make those decisions.
Reach out to people, but not everybody, and don't go down a whole huge rabbit trail of research. And I also was thinking about this question yesterday, and I have a friend who writes for Substack, and I'll link this article. He just got a diagnosis he was unhappy with, and he was talking about overthinking his diagnosis, and he said this, he wrote, first of all, I have to realize I'm not God. What I want to focus on
When I want to focus on that I am not God, I do a lot to try to be God. I try to control what is out of my control. I try to control people and situations. I remind myself that I am not God, therefore I am held by God. My days look different. He says it's exhausting to try to be God. We are meant to care, and I love this quote from him, and I will link this. We are meant to care for people, and sometimes we are the answers to their prayers, but we are not the ones who set the path of the prayer being answered.
And we can thank God for that. I think as moms, we have so much on us. Everybody looks to us to know all the things, including our husbands. So, you know, we've all been at the hospital and our husband's looking blankly. So we're not God. And I know we know that, but sometimes we act as if we are. And I think it's just important to remember that you have time to take a minute. Get yourself in a space. That's not. stressful and really just think through and pray through what is the next thing. And I think you said this Sarah, we can trust our guts because I think God gives us those, that intuition. And then I also want to add, as you said, Carrie i, you make decisions that maybe weren't the best. It's really hard when you have kids with behavioral problems and you read about another kid that's doing just great. And you look back and go, oh, what treatment did they do? Maybe I should have done that. And that never leads to peace.
We make our best decisions, and we parent best when we're in a space of trust and peace. So just pay attention to what takes you out of that zone around this decision-making.
Sara:
Yeah, and I would I would add to that too, Amy, because there are times where, you know, you will compare yourself to others. And there are times when people compare you to them as well. Because, like you said, you see other children doing well. For what my son has, he's doing remarkably well for his age, I have actually had parents in the community, the Duchenne muscular dystrophy and it's not the whole community. So no, I don't want emails or comments about this because the majority of people are great. But I have had several ask me, are you sure he has Duchenne? Like, no, this isn't a joyride. Like he's just doing better. And so you might be on both sides of the spectrum. You might see other parents that whose children are doing really well or other caregivers that they're, you know, the people they're caring for doing really well, or your child might be doing a lot better and you might feel like you're not welcome in that community. The majority of my mentors aren't even moms who have children with Duchenne or even muscular dystrophy completely. I'm like, you know, Carrie and I both have children with medical issues and we will talk and it's not even remotely the same diagnosis but at least I have somebody that knows what it's like to be in that medical decision. So find your tribe, but sometimes you have multiple tribes. Sometimes there are just certain tribes for certain things. So don't get into the comparison either way. I think that was a good point, Amy, is you just on either extreme, it's not gonna be helpful.
Carrie:
Yeah, and try not to be led by fear. I think that's one thing that I've learned through the years is making decisions out of fear, or refusing to make decisions out of fear can also, I think, trusting as you said, Amy, about, you know, God holds us, He holds our children, and He is sovereign, and we can let go of the fear, we can let go of the control and trust him.
Amy:
One other thing I would add is that as you guys are talking, I was thinking about the question I get sometimes like, but what if I'm not doing enough? It's okay not to do everything that's recommended. That really is, especially in the behavioral world. Like, you know, it's okay to say, I can't do all the things you asked me to do and to notice your own limitations. I think I see, um, moms in my realm that throw everything at it, give it their hundred and 50% and I'm not saying necessarily that's a bad thing. I'm saying that this is the long haul. And so when, when treatments and therapies and suggestions come to you, you have to do what's sustainable and fits in your life. If you're a mom of six, as opposed to a mom of one, that's a different dynamic, right? Like you can't give all your energy to that one. So I just think that's important to remember that, you know, if you're going to therapy every week and the kid is refusing to, well, maybe you don't need to go every week. That's okay. And I think we feel like we have to do it all to be a good mom. So permit yourself to even take that into your discernment process. Not only what should I do, but what is sustainable for my family and the rest of my family.
Amy:
Okay. Question three, this person wrote contentment eludes me. I am so jealous of others' lives, which makes me feel guilty. I want to read something Sarah wrote in our book, we have a chapter called Comparison to Contentment and I think this fits with this. Um, Sarah's talking about somebody she saw and they think in the grocery store parking lot that had it all together and Sarah didn't.
Sara:
It was a Kohl's parking lot. I will never forget it.
Amy:
Okay, okay, so we're gonna skip that. I'm gonna tell you what you wrote once you resolved all your feelings. You said, “Later that evening my little family of four sat down to play board games. We laughed and enjoyed each other and I realized that jealousy had kept me focused on what we didn't have and not on what God had already provided. I immediately felt a wave of guilt over that jealousy, guilt that I wasn't giving my life enough credit and I was jealous of what someone else had.
That's the thing about comparison. It rarely visits you alone. Comparison travels with friends like jealousy, anger, bitterness, and shame.”
That was a great sentence, and this is what this reader is saying. I feel guilty, I feel shame, that I don't have contentment. So, how do we deal with this content? And we talked about comparison earlier, but this is a hard one. I feel this one in my gut.
Carrie:
I feel like it's never dealt with. Yes. It comes in cycles, don't you think?
Yeah, we have moments where it's just, it's so easy to look. So I'll tell this quick story. I have a couple of friends who are, their kids are launching and they're getting rid of their mom minivans. And it's like, that's really cool. You get to have your little SUV or your little car. And I'm over here and I'm probably going to drive a van with a lift for the rest of my life. And I was pretty jealous and really discontent with that. And it's hard. It's, it's something I'm still struggling with, but I think the key for me is I have to grieve that.
Sara:
Mm-hmm. And not feel guilty about it, because I feel that, Carrie, on a cellular level, because you... At least for me, then I immediately feel like, oh, but God, don't take away my van, because if I don't have my van, then I don't need it, and that means he's no longer with me. And it's like I have to put this caveat to God at the end of it, of please don't take him, which is ridiculous when you think about it. I know better.
Okay, sometimes not quite the van, but I want these wedge ankle boots, wedges. That's it. They're not even stilettos, they're wedges. Yet I know with every fiber of my being that I will be able to wear them maybe once. And that is if the three of us travel somewhere. But they're not wrestling with wheelchairs and...and transferring children kind of footwear. But man, I want them. And I ordered them online. I tried them on, they were so cute. And I'm strutting around, my husband's like, oh, those are really cute. And then all of a sudden I'm like, I walked off and started crying alone because I knew they weren't practical. And should I pay money for these boots? And then I got to the point where other people my age wouldn't even have to think twice about it. They're boots. for crying out loud. It's not the end, but it's still something that you have to go through, you have to deal with. It's not, it doesn't make you vain. It doesn't make you, yeah, it might make you a little emotional for a while, but it doesn't make you a bad person to want the little sporty car, knowing full well that that's not what life is about. You don't have to put a caveat at the end of that, like, or any, I don't know. But we're struggling with this right now with TJ because he graduated high school and all of his friends went to college and maybe some didn't and they're out in the workforce or whatever and he just fell, over Christmas and he's in bed 24 hours a day and it's just I'm really struggling with the life that we have right now of what to do where to go what not to do and just wishing that I had the freedom that I even had two months ago, or that my friends have. Like, they're empty nesters now, and they are going here and going there, just going out to dinner. And I'm like, it's like an act of Congress for my husband and I to go to dinner
Amy:
And they're going to dinner in cute wedge boots.
Sara :
And they're going in sporty cars. They're getting their wedge boots. They're getting in their little sporty cars. They're not in an accessible van. And they're going to a restaurant where their child, it doesn't even matter if their child will eat it or can't eat it. They just get to go.
Carrie:
No minivans. None.
Amy:
This is so normal and okay to feel this way. And we could say like little platitudes, like make a gratitude journal. And that's not a bad thing, but we won't get there if we don't name it. And that is what we, with any of our emotions, have to name it and grieve it. As Carrie said, lament, tell God, I don't like that I can't do this thing or that this is my life. This makes me mad.
Um, that's okay to feel all those things. And I think we tend to say things like, I wish I had this, you know, we compare the other way. I shouldn't be complaining because we have this idea that God's going to punish us for whatever our faulty theology is about God's love. We think those things. So I think it's so important to name. Um, I think it's a totally normal thing to feel this way. I think that we can take it to God. And eventually, we do see the things about our life that bring us joy. But we won't see them if we don't name it.
Carrie:
Yeah. And I think you're right, Amy. And I love how you said, what is our faulty theology about God's love? I think that's where I'm getting a little teary talking about it because this has been a place where I've been camped out with my counselor for about a year what do we believe? Like, do we believe that God only loves us or if we did all the right things, God wouldn't allow this to happen to us.
And I think that's in our heads, we can say, I know God loves us, but we're not always feeling it in our hearts. And sometimes it takes digging deep into some roots of our story to reroute those neural pathways in our brain that are believing something. And just going back to scripture and really looking at the Psalms. I think the Psalms are just such a, place of, I think it's Psalm 72, the Psalm of lament, like, and lamenting this and sitting in it and being okay with even sitting in the ashes for a little while of naming all of these losses and God, I'm not okay with this. And He's going to meet you where you're at.
Sara:
Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. And I think if you're sitting there thinking, yeah, but God's not going to care about my wedge boots, or God's not going to care because I've thought of that too about the van. I'm like, I don't want to drive this forever. It's so frustrating. And then I think, oh, my gosh, but there are people out there that don't even have transportation and they have to take public transportation. We're and I kid you not, when I was thinking about the boots, I immediately went this shows what generation I was brought up in because it was always about there are starving people in Ethiopia. So eat what you have on your table. Or if I would say I don't have shoes, you know, I don't like these shoes. Some people don't have shoes. It's always like people. And I actually thought there were people out there that don't have shoes. My son went on a mission trip and was talking about, that they were walking around this trash dump without shoes. And that's what came into my head. And I immediately thought, well, I'm not going to pray about this. It's not about wedge boots. I mean, it is a little bit. It really was. It really was a little bit about the wedge boots. But it was about the feelings and the grieving and there's a bigger picture. And I guarantee you if you take just using my example if you take that wedge boot scenario to God and say, God, I want to be able to wear cute shoes. This is unfair. He's going to hand you something back something bigger than the wedge boots. So to say God's not gonna care about that, that is too little, he has too many things going on, is discounting the greatness of our God and how big he truly is. He does care about all of those little things that we think are little things. If it's hurting our hearts and if it's keeping us from being who he wants us to be, then he wants us to come to him with it. And then he'll sort it out and give you something back that's greater.
Amy:
That's a good word I really can't add to any of that. You guys had a lot of good wisdom and I just, it's a hard one. It's just a hard one. But as we continue to take it to God and name it and know that he cares about those little things, that is so important. And you're right, Carrie, that we have very faulty narratives about God. In grad school, we heard a quote and I think it was Tozer that said, that what we believe about God is the most important thing about us.
My first thought was, well, what's really what we do for God? And like, no, it's what we believe about God. And then I started thinking, wow, I have some faulty narratives from my upbringing that I always have to be the good girl. I always have to do all these, you know, like I just am learning to lean into being the beloved. And I talked about that in an earlier podcast, like how do we be faithful? We remember that we are the beloved and I will link to that one. But, I think we can get caught up in thinking that wedge shoes don't matter.
When they do. They do, Sarah. I feel like I need to come drive to you, and take you to dinner, but that's like nine hours away.
Sara:
Can you get in a sports car, go put Carrie up, and then drive to me? Then we'll all go to dinner with wedge boots in the sporty car.Amy:
That sounds like a good plan.
Carrie:
Yes. Well, and it's funny, Amy, that you say that because I've been camped out in Ephesians 3 about how Paul prays for the people to understand and have their roots down deep in God's love, to understand the height and the length. And I think that's, I think our lives, as we grow into truly understanding that we are God's beloved. It changes. It changes the narratives. It changes how we live. It changes how we think. It changes how we treat other people. But we're not convinced. A lot of times we're not convinced that we're His beloved.
Sara :
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think that's really what it boils down to, is understanding that. Because you can go on and you can even go on and Google and you can Google contentment or whatever. We even have exercises in our books. I have one that I walk through whenever I'm struggling with jealousy or comparison. But ultimately it is understanding that you are God's beloved, taking it to him, and grieving what is what's on your heart. And that's the first step. So we could sit here and say, okay, well we have this little cute acronym for how to walk through it and your gratitude and not saying there's anything wrong with that. It works, but only if you're willing to name it trust God, and lean into it.
Amy:
Yeah. Well, thank you ladies. You have wisdom as always. And we're struggling through these questions as always. Um, I want to end with a blessing by Kate Bowler and it's just part of it. It's for when you have doubts. And, um, I thought it was a good way to end this podcast talking about questions we have. So I'm going to end with that.
Blessed are we remembering that you, God hold all things together.
You're the invisible scaffolding that supports us, the canopy of love that protects us in the present, the stable pillars sunk deep into our past, and the dove that flies confidently toward the future, bearing for us the peace we would never have attained for ourselves. Blessed are we settling into the truth that there are things that we can't know, settling into the humility that knows this one thing, that we are of the earth and you are our God. Notice this day what you do know and trust.
Thank God for it and leave the rest.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Are there emotions you're trying to navigate and would like to hear us talk more about specifically? Was there something specific you would like to take away from this episode? As always, we love your feedback and would love to hear from you. Please find us on Instagram at Take Heart Special Moms, email us, or leave a comment on our website, take If you haven't had a chance to check out our book, you can find it at your favorite online retailers and you can find links to those retailers at our website.