Anyway, I was sharing all this with Tonya over the phone, and as I shared my struggle, I could sense her leaning into this conversation. You see, SHE can relate! Though, I doubt she would ever put herself in a box labeled “lemon vehicle”, she sure could relate to how her feelings related to this analogy.

So, a little something that Tonya didn’t know was that I had already been praying for probably over a month about whether or not I should interview Tonya for this “lemon” episode. I felt a nudge that she was the girl for this job, BUT, I didn’t pursue her for it… instead, I worked hard at doing it myself because I was too insecure and unsure about asking.

Isn’t it a good thing that God had her call me RIGHT when I felt defeated about it, and right when I remembered that I needed HIM to do this whole podcast/blog thing? Isn’t it good that she chose to listen to my struggle, like a good friend? AND...isn’t it good that I finally invited her to be a guest on the Hope Layer Podcast?

Friend, she said “yes!”... actually she said, “I am TOTALLY up for the lemon conversation!! … I am SO on board with this and I will make whatever work!! … I’ve never heard of the ‘lemon perspective’ but it is right on and I wanna be used right where I am… fully, completely in full blown, unsexy lemon status (not lemonade yet!).

So, as it turns out, it was God’s idea to invite her to do this talk with me… if only, I would have trusted that a couple of months ago, and saved myself alot of unnecessary hustling!! But, that is a whole other conversation!

BECAUSE...today, I am sitting here at my table with my dear friend, Tonya Nagle!!

Hey Tonya, do you remember why we originally became friends??

I remember the first time we met because our daughters were friends, right? We met at school.

JEN-

Yes, we connected because our daughters wanted to hang out, so we ended up having a little lunch date. You came over with all of your kids, and all of my kids were there. That is when you and I became buddies, and I was like, “sure, my daughter can hang out at your house, but I think I should too, because we became friends, and I am so thankful for that!f

TONYA -

Well, I remember the first time I met you and Karis and Eden were hanging out with each other, and I thought, “Oh, I bet I would like to be her friend”.  

JEN - 

Yes, we were destined to be friends!!

So, you are a momma and a wife and I think it would be helpful if others know a bit about that home life of yours that you do so passionately.

We have four kids that we love to pieces. They are ages 17 down to 10 years old. They are the biggest joys of my life. And Adam and I have been married almost 21 years in March. It is one very hard love story, and I love him with all my heart. I am so thankful for what God is redeeming in all those relationships.

Now, before we get into Tonya’s heavy “lemon” stuff… I gotta tell you that this girl has a way of lighting up the room. She has a contagious joy that makes you want to laugh and be silly right along with her...and man, am I ever thankful for friends like her! 

She is a creative genius. She could totally be a professional singer, she makes up weird songs, she probably has multiple nicknames for their dog “Nora”... and if you want some good doses of goofy laughter mixed in with heavy authenticity then you should definitely consider following her on social media… she’s got two thing going…

https://www.instagram.com/so_fly_earrings/    https://www.instagram.com/beauty_lies_ahead/

TONYA-

“So Fly” is my little leather jewelry business that God just kind of started, I think three or four years ago now. It has just been fun. I never knew I wanted to make earrings for people, and I never knew how much I would love seeing them shine from ear to ear in something that makes them feel beautiful. So that’s been a fun little side hustle!

That is how I see “home”. It is authentic and it is hopeful. It doesn’t always feel beautiful or completely complete...today.  

Can you share why you resonate with this whole lemon idea?

TONYA - 

Well, I did love what you were saying on the phone that day. I related to it, but never heard it put that way. Knowing your restorable project, and knowing that you had visited the junk yard… I listened and I was like, “Yes, a lemon!”.. Then I was like, “Oh my word, I feel like a lemon”. There are people out there who feel like “lemons”.   

During our phone conversation, I had no idea that you might have me in mind for that. I was just thinking that we need to encourage the person who feels like they have been relegated to that lemon status. Nobody wants to be a lemon. It is a special tough thing feeling like a lemon.

JEN- 

Yes, to feel like you're behind the eight ball and you can’t get that thing right. From the outside you might look ok, and not because you're faking it, but your functional. Meanwhile, your insides are just this constant like black cloud that nags at you cause you feel like you can’t get it “right”. This thing won’t change inside of you.

May I ask why you felt like the “lemon”?

 So, I will be 45 years old in a month, and I never went to counseling until I was 36. That was way too long to wait, but it was sort of out of necessity though. My husband and I had moved around alot. We were in the ministry, and didn’t make alot of money. At one point we lived in such a rural area that the closest counselor lived a full 2 hours away. So, really, I went to counseling as soon as I could.  

But, what I did learn is that your 30’s is typically when your childhood trauma tends to surface. It has something to do with emotional and psychological development. If you have alot of trauma or maybe acute trauma from childhood, it can tend to sort of sit dormant. Also, because of the trauma, you are in a bit of a fog. It's kind of like getting too much electricity and everything just sort of shorts out. That is kind of what our heart and mind can do. It is too much. We can’t sort through it, and so it has a way of sort of landing on your head and you just all the sudden short out and you don’t know why. That is part of the “lemon” status. It takes lemon-like things to get you to that point. So that is kind of what had happened to me.  

I remember by the time I had my fourth baby… well, before I had kids, I would say I was in a bit of an emotional fog. I didn’t know what I thought or felt about alot of things. I didn’t even know that I didn’t know. So, with each child I felt like my heart, mind and psyche even was awakening to what it is like to fully live and fully feel. By the time I had my fourth baby, I was thawing out! It really feels like frostbite. Your mind and emotions are waking up to how you really feel, and to what has happened to you...and it throbs! Feeling again actually hurts terribly. I started crying all the time and I didn’t know why. But, it was at that moment or during that season that I started to acknowledge that this traumatic life that I had for the first 18 years, literally, was now in me and following me around, sort of. I realized that this wasn’t something that I could just close the book on and have a chapter of. This wasn’t something that I could jump on another road and have another journey. This was my journey and this was me and there was no easy fix. There was no changing it. It was what it was!   

I learned in counseling and alot of reading about trauma, that a classic response is to want to package it up, put a lid on it, set it in a corner and not think about it anymore. It is so painful. Because if you try to look at it, tear it apart and examine it, it can actually shipwreck your ability to live day to day. It is so hard there aren’t adequate words for it. There isn’t a good description for it. I defies explanation. Nothing could be validating enough. There are no words that do it justice. There is no jumping into another story. There is no forgetting it and putting it behind. 

Then, with each consecutive baby that I had, and the longer that I was married, the more I realized that those first 18 years were deeply affecting me day to day, and it wasn’t anything that I readily understood, and it wasn’t anything that I could make go away. I was squarely in the middle of what Beth Moore talks about… a pit. You can get thrown into a pit… (the pit is suffering, it is the thing that you can’t get out of on your own) … you can jump in the pit by accident, or you can slip in. I had been thrown in and I could not get out. And that is the lemon status. Here I am in a pit. A bit of a wreck below the surface and I can’t do anything about it. I can’t fix it.     

So we can understand you, and so we can understand how you got to this point of saying, “this is my life, these are my insides”. Can you share a little bit of your backstory with us?

TONYA-

Yes, but to be honest, it has taken me this long to be able to talk about it, without bawling my whole way through it. But, what I can say, is that as a kid I always knew something was wrong. I knew that something wasn’t right. I was afraid, I was jittery and nervous alot of the time. There was alot of heavy physical contact coming my way… head to toe.    

I was being physically abused. I was being emotionally abused. I was being psychologically abused as a child, from as little as I can remember. This all registered with me through sheer confusion. I always just thought, “what’s wrong?”. I always tried to run away…. Always, always, from as young back as I have memory of, trying to figure out a way out. If I packed my lunch box full of apples and I walked as far as I could in one day, could I get far enough, could I make it? Would I find another family? I also would feel guilty wishing that one or both of my parents would pass away. I thought that that would solve all my problems, but I felt bad about that. I felt terrible about wanting that, but I realized later as an adult, that that was my way of trying to cope. Like, if I could just get this taken care of then I would be able to survive.   

Do you think it was a way of looking for hope? Like, “life could be better if ____” . Almost like a fantasy, right?

TONYA - 

Yes, and also a way of trying to make sense of it. I couldn’t make sense of it, but if I could just get rid of it, then I would be ok.   

I also never had the strength to talk about it. Because what I know now, that I didn’t know back then, was that people that don’t come from abuse places, don’t understand why kids can’t talk about it. Well, you can’t talk about it, because for one thing it is your norm. You have nothing else to compare it to. Also, you are already unsafe, and if you talk about it, you risk taking what is almost unbearable now, and making it fully unbearable and then you can’t live your day to day life.    

Abuse, by its definition overrides what you think and feel. So, if that is constantly being overridden, then you don’t have the tools to stand up and say, “this hurts, this isn’t right, and I think this is affecting me really poorly”. It is not that won’t be well received, its that that won’t even be an option. That is something that isn’t even in your universe. Your universe is all about how do I dodge, how do I survive, how do I try to keep my sanity. How do I get that together and get out of here. That is all you can think about.

JEN- 

Especially as a child. You need to find ways to survive. And I wonder if God in His kindness and His grace doesn’t allow some of this stuff to come out in our 30’s. When we are more equipped to go reality... right?

TONYA-

Absolutely, it is a bit of a mercy that those things are kind of layered in, and you start peeling them back. It is gracious, because God gives you what you are able to process. I couldn’t process what was really going on, so God gave it to me in doses. Now, there is alot of pain with that though. There is alot of confusion. I spent so many years with, when a situation said “jump”, I tried to jump higher, and soon I realized that I will never be able to jump high enough. That was exhausting and confusing. Then, there was a grief left when I finally realized at about 19 years old. It was the last time that I was literally punched in my home. I was home on spring break from college. I had decided to call a friend that I had been told that I could not contact because she had left our church when our church split. But, I was homeschooled and was really excited about college and I got this rare surge of courage while home on spring break. I thought to myself, “I am 19 years old, and I am going to call my friend”... so I did. While I was still on the phone with her, I was being punched and told to get off the phone.

JEN-

So, it was too risky, too much might blow up if you shared. Besides, with all the confusion and pain, articulating your situation, or putting things into words, seemed like a hurdle that you couldn’t manage to do. So, you had years of a sort of “stuckness”.

TONYA-

So at 19 when I snuck out of the house to talk to this family member who was a christian counselor… when I did that, it was such a good start, but I sure did have alot to uncover. It took another decade or two to really unpack what was happening and the dynamics I was dealing with.  

I finally realized that I needed to put a little distance because they never answered the phone when I called. They didn’t put an effort towards the relationship, yet still continuing to throw mud, to distort, to be abusive in other ways. I finally realized that I was never going to heal if I didn’t get a little safety for my soul. After much prayer and scripture reading, I felt like God was giving me the green light to put some distance there so that I could heal.  

I was 28 years old when I put some distance between myself and that unsafe person. It was probably the best thing that I could have done. It enabled me to heal as best I could. I devoured every parenting book that I could, I devoured every marriage book that I could.. But it never made up for the relational loss of never experiencing a positive attachment, nor a positive relational experience my entire life.   

My one parent who was totally unsafe to me my whole life, and I knew that they were. You could almost say that if this one person was a tornado and if I was running from them in a field, then my other parent would have been the rain. I didn’t fully unpack until my 40’s that the other parent had been nicely standing by letting things happen. They had been just as destructive, just as disorientating and I didn’t fully realize it. They were the rain, and when you are running from a tornado you don’t even think about the rain until you get inside and you’re safe, but you’re soaking wet. Then you look outside and see that there is lightning too. So my safe-ish parent who really wasn’t ever safe, who didn’t take care of me, didn’t provide for me… I felt like an orphan by the time I got out of college. 

This all made sense to me last year when my safe-ish parent ended up going to jail. I finally realized that I was stuck in a scenario where I was never going to be seen and heard accurately, never going to be loved for who I really was. I was never going to have the truth told to me or about me. This all had such a profound impact on me, because what that does to you is create such a break of attachment. You have trouble attaching to your husband. When you have been lied to your whole life, and then now have a fight with your husband where at one point he says one thing and then later in the fight he says another and it doesn’t add up to me, then I am thrown into a tailspin. Also, when my children were small and they would lie to me, I would have all this backlog in my head of what they could be, and I would want to deal fairly with them, but I almost didn’t know how. I almost didn’t know what typical childlike behavior looks like. I was treated with such suspicion and fault finding, and really projection and distortion that I almost didn’t know how to read average childlike behavior.  

I realized that I did not have that relational equity in my soul to draw from to be able to navigate the very nuanced, everyday situations that were foreign to me.    

JEN-

And, we can give grace to others when we acknowledge that we don’t know their story. We don’t know why they have this “tick” or this struggle…

TONYA-

Part of my healing journey was the Lord showing me how both my parents got to be where they are. Now I don’t see them as one dimensional perpetrators if you will. I see them as hurting people who were hurting me. I also see that they had alot of hard things that they also didn’t know how to dance through. Now, where their personal responsibility comes and where they just did the best that they could and it was what it was. Whether they couldn’t be helped or wouldn’t be helped, I have no idea where that line is. But, I have grace for how they got there. The struggle was really pretty darn hard for them too. They are people too. Even my dad in jail right now, is not as simple as the man who did what he did to get convicted. He is not that simple and easy to define. There was a big part of him that was a good dad. There was a big part of my mom that really wanted to be a good mom. That is all true, as well as the tangled mess that I got caught up in. 

A book in the Bible called Ecclesiastes, in chapter 7 verse 18 of the Message paraphrase, it says “It's best to stay in touch with both sides of an issue”. Or in NASB; “It is good that you grasp one thing and also not let go of the other”. To some degree, you didn’t have the ability to do that as a child, but some of the maturity that you have now as an almost 45 year old woman, to be able to look at both sides of the matter. To be able to look at the “ouch, this side is painful and wrong”, and “hey they are a real person with real hurts”. You are able to do that because you are looking at the whole truth. You aren’t stuffing, nagating, and ignoring the hard, nasty and ugly stuff, and you are not throwing them under the bus either. To be able to do that, helps you. It is a gift for you for some of those moments when functioning seems a little bit harder than other days.

TONYA -

 I honestly can’t even take credit for it. In the same way that Jesus told stories in order to help people see the truth because maybe if He just said it out right to people then maybe they couldn’t really see it. In the same way, I think those stories protected the people that maybe couldn’t hear the truth, or understand, or possibly weren’t ready for it. In the same way, I felt like He gradually let me see this, and in that way, I could handle it. In that way I could hold both.       

I am ready and willing to let God work. If He says, “I know that it doesn’t seem like it Tonya, but today, in the light of not seeing anything really hopeful, I want you to call on me.”. I am ready for all of that, because I feel like that is how God writes stories.

JEN-

“But today”. You said, “but today”. “Today, God”. I think there is so much power in “but today”. If I close my eyes and see all the heaviness, but today. This is how we can function, with the “but today”. Tomorrow has enough worries of its own.

In Psalms 119 it says, “Your Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path”. And from my experience, that little lamp is lit by pressing into God, getting to know Him, having a relationship with Him. And His lamp typically only lights one step at a time. I really think that is how you become a survivor not a victim. It is by God lighting your one step at a time, because we don’t know how to do alot of these hard things. We don’t know how to do life with dysfunction inside of us, or how to deal with the gangrenous thing… BUT… I do know the baby step that God is lighting in front of me. I can say, “God, give me today. Tell me how to do, today”.

TONYA-

Absolutely, that is the beautiful part. I will say that we all want that we all want that pipeline, we want that IV, just download into my veins! … but, it wasn’t like that. It is a journey, a meandering one sometimes. I remember in Bible college someone shared with me “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” from Job 13:15. I knew that is what I had to do. I could see that bad things happen to good people. I might not have deserved this, but I was going to try to trust God. There were times in my life that it was more of a white knuckling. It is kind of like those labor pains that we are trying not to fight, but we are. But I am muddling and I am making it through. There were alot of years like that too, but we are trying. Just like labor.. We almost can’t hardly not fight labor pains…. The cringing of our toes! Remember that, did you have that?!! Hahaha!!

JEN-

I don’t know!! Was I even aware of my toes at that point?!! Hahaha

TONYA-

You just do, when you're in pain!

Anyway, God gave me good counselors, though I probably went too late. I didn’t go until I was headlong into PTSD type emotional symptoms. I was told that that was normal, that in your 30’s childhood trauma tends to really come out because your kind of at that point of psychological development that you can actually handle what has happened. You can handle the weight of it. That certainly happened to me. I had about a whole decade where I just cried all the time. I think the friends that I made in that era probably thought I was an emotional wreck… but that hadn’t been me the first 30 years. The Lord gave me precious nuggets all along the way, but it came in the form of a long lingering journey that probably looked like long hard labor. On many days I had to learn to just hold it. I had to trust that God was doing something good that I just could not see.

JEN- 

By “hold it”, do you sort of mean, “let it”?  

TONYA-

Yes, I let it, now. It took a long time. I had to parse apart what was my sin problem and what wasn’t, and I had some things to face. I was not a perfect person, nor wife, and I had to ask, “what is my part?”. I had to brutally look at that, and also brutally look at what wasn’t mine to own.  

If I don’t name it, then I can’t grieve it, and it is kind of invalidating.

JEN-

Right, and also, if you can’t name it, then you can’t forgive it. You had to name it.

TONYA-

Yes, I had to name it. This also gave me grace for others. If I don’t name the hard stuff in me, then I can’t give you grace either.  

JEN- 

Wouldn’t you say that taking lack of forgiveness out of the equation makes the weight a little lighter?   

So, you had to face your junk and the junk that had been dumped on you.

TONYA- 

Yes, had to face it, had to name it. I had to become comfortable with that “lemon status”, or whatever that was, whatever I was calling it.... I had to accept that I was going to be misunderstood. I still have a responsibility to guard my heart to what God is trying to do. I needed to become comfortable with accepting that I might be in a “lemon” situation. I became comfortable with more labor pains, of being mis-understood. …

Thankfully God has had me on this journey long enough, and I am able to embrace my “lemon” status. I don’t hate it because I see that I am still a good “car”. I still have a purpose here, I don’t like it, but I still have one. I get to trust God and follow Him. I can trust that He is doing something bigger right now that I can’t see, and that is ok.   

One nugget was learning to be comfortable with the labor. Another nugget was letting God give me those truths little by little. And then the nugget of getting comfortable with the “lemon” status that had been placed on me that I didn’t want, but I didn’t need to fight. I don’t need to hate and become bitter toward it. 

JEN-

Is that surrender?

TONYA-

Very much! Also, just really clinging to the goodness of God. I love the new praise song, “The goodness of God that chases me”. It is so so good!
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvSuGyJQ6oM

 So, I can do the next right thing. I can still make good choices.  

I just got done reading the story of Elisha and Elijah with my daughter. Those of us who follow Christ might remember that he was a prophet, he was providing bad news to bad people who didn’t want to hear it. So, he was fine for awhile, but after some time he got really tired of it. This one time he delivered bad news to a very evil king and queen and the queen threatened his life. So the prophet Elijah ran away… wait, was it Elijah or Elisha??? … I always get those two mixed up!! (hahaha) Anyway, whichever one it was, he gave up and wanted to die. Then God sent food and rest. Although He didn’t change that he was still God’s prophet. Basically, God was saying, “I know that this isn’t fun, and I know you hate it, but you are still the one that I want to deliver this message… to do this thing.”   

So, anyways!! We just need to cling to the goodness of God when He is asking us to face scary people that might kill us if we follow Him and do what He asks. But, He is asking us nonetheless.

JEN-

Whoever it was, Elijah or Elisha…God was so gentle with him when he was saying, “I am at my capacity! I can’t do this! I’m done! When we reach our moment where we are talking to God, or ourselves or the dog, or whatever… and we are saying, “I can’t do this!” Isn’t it so nice that His character would do what He did. He gives nourishment while we are sulking or whatever. He is not saying, “oh, just stop sulking!”. Rather, He is saying, “do you need some nourishment while you are down here?” Now, Elijah had to choose to receive that food. 

TONYA-

I think He was really gracious. God was pretty gracious to Job too. By the end of the book of Job, God kind of put him in his spot and basically said, “now remember, Job, I am still God”. I think God does both. I think He does what He did with Elijah (or Elisha?!!), and says, “here is some food and you need a nap”. Maybe the next day God had the conversation with him and said, “but I’m still God and I’m going to ask you to do this”.    

I think in our christian culture, we sometimes give this impression that everything will have a happy ending. I don’t believe it always does. Now, in eternity..yes, absolutely, everything will be redeemed, and… there are parts of my story here that are redeemed and continue to be redeemed. But, I don’t believe that all of it will be ok. There are parts of me that are broken that will not be fully restored until heaven. It is possible that they are redeemed as much as possible while here. And, they are more beautiful than they would be if God had not touched me. God might not fix it all at the moment. He might not pull back all the layers, but He will give me what I need for that day. I only have today, and I am doing what God has put into my lap today. I am hopefully living as redemptive as I can with that, while also knowing that I am still only human. I am still going to run off to the wilderness and need a meal and a nap once in awhile, and God has got that!  

JEN-

Something you keep saying is, “and that’s ok”. I wonder why we are “ok”, because of something that I read in 2 Timothy 4:17. It talks about how everyone was against someone (Paul or Timothy) “but the Lord stood with him and strengthened him”. That is why he is ok.

 We don’t always feel that, see that, or intellectually know that, but Tonya, you are able to look back right now in a hindsight place. You see the “both/and”. You see both sides of a matter, and you see that you can be “ok”.  

Maybe someone is listening and they need hope. This podcast is called “hope layer” because as we have had to let God un-peel layers you have discovered hope. You have even been able to sit here and say, “It can be ok”. But it came out of un-peeling those layers and going deeper and harder and harder until you actually saw the deep and beautiful layer of hope underneath.    

 BUT...through my own wrestling, and through your wrestling, we've found it helpful to get to know God… the “God of hope” (Romans 15:13), the “God who restores” (Psalm 23:3) , “The God who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion” (Psalm 103:4), The God “who gives and takes away”(Job 1:21)... He is the God who we KNOW could EASILY fix that thing… but maybe He hasn’t… 

So, we are left to give up, be angry or maybe be curious… 

In our curiosity we can ask if that hard spot is there for a reason? Is that wound, that set back, that “handi-cap”, that hurdle, that thorn there for a purpose?

While that “defect” leaves you feeling like you have less purpose, and less ability to function...could it be that your “defect” is actually there to give you a greater purpose?

I hear ya, or maybe some of you… you might be thinking, “well that's ANNOYING! Maybe I don’t want that greater purpose, I just want this hard thing to go away!!”... and then rises up your other “defect”...right?!! Ugh!

This way of thinking isn’t easy and this hard thing in your life is so defeating, AND.. I know that it is true that God sees us. He saw you Tonya, as that little girl. He saw you as the 19 year old, the 28 year old and the almost 45 year old. And, He sees the person who is listening. He cares, and He wants to be the strength in your weak thing. He wants to make you run like you’ve never run before.  

That weak “defect” of yours doesn’t freak God out. It doesn’t overwhelm Him or discourage Him. He is NOT the insurance company or the car owner that says…”not worth it” and deems us a “lemon”.  

Rather...He wants us to thrive. And MAYBE HE will have us thrive by healing that broken spot, or there is a chance that He wants you to feel how He can cause us to operate with such a special functionality even WITH our limp. 

You’re defect doesn’t hinder God or discourage Him.

The God of hope has life and purpose for you even WITH your broken parts.  

Hang in there...tell Him what it is that is STILL defeating you. Tell him how you are sick of it knocking you down.

And likely she was just doing her best to get by, until one day while doing a typical task of fetching water from the town’s well, she met another man.

This man, was Jesus. 

 

It appears that a short conversation started between Jesus and this woman while they were by the town’s well. Jesus took the opportunity to kindly let her know that HE could give her SO MUCH more than just water from this well.. If SHE KNEW WHO HE WAS...THEN she would be asking HIM for “LIVING WATER”. The kind of “water” that would give her an overflowing life inside of her soul. Something that she likely didn’t even know that she was longing for.

Jesus said to her, in John 4:10.. ““If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water.”

She was the broken woman..the “lemon”...the “outcast”...the “struggling to get by”... she was misunderstood and in a cycle of unhealthy lifestyle stuff. And HE was the generous One. He was the ONE who could give her a new life from her brokenness… and in that moment, that day, HE did! He changed her trajectory.

The woman left Jesus and the well with such an eagerness to tell her village about her discovery, that she actually forgot her jar!  

I guess well water wasn’t so important at that moment. She discovered that her greater need was the living water that Jesus gave her.

It's kind of a beautiful story, right? AND MAYBE that is going to be your story too! It IS POSSIBLE! Talk to this abundant and generous God, tell Him your struggles. Let Him know your desires, and GET TO KNOW HIM. He said that if she knew Him, then she would know what to ask for. 

God’s answer wasn’t what Paul was asking for though. God said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Well, if you're anything like me, that is not the answer you are hoping for. But, Paul was eventually able to accept this. Kind of like what I am hearing from Tonya today, there is some acceptance. She is able to have a posture of surrender to this hard thing. Paul was able to eventually say, “Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” He surrendered it, he knew the God that he was giving His request to, and he trusted HIM.

I’ve gotta read this to you from John 4:7-10 from a paraphrase called “The Message”. Paul says, 

“Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,

My grace is enough; it’s all you need.

My strength comes into its own in your weakness.

Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.”

Wow….

And, friends, as I sit here with a friend I want to communicate that we cannot do this stuff alone. We need friends. We need community. Sometimes we need professional help. Also, this book “When God Weeps” sounds like a helpful resource. Tonya brought along another book here.

TONYA-

Yes, this book is called, “The Body Keeps The Score. The brain, mind and body, in the healing of trauma.” By Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748

 If “When God Weeps” is about the spiritual part of suffering, then “The Body Keeps the Score” is about the physical part. That is a very valid part of it. I had a stroke at the age of 41. There was no good reason. I had every possible test done and they could not figure out why my body had just suddenly stroked. This happened before I read “The Body Keeps the Score”, but ironically a perfect stranger gave this book to my husband, so we decided that it was time to read it. My husband read it before I did and he was so moved by it that he went to Bessel van der Kolk’s conference in Boston. Adam went to a whole entire conference on just trauma because he has seen first hand its deep effect on me. You can’t fake it with the people that you live with. When there was no physical reason for me to have a stroke, we read this book and realized that there was a very strong correlation to what I was saying my whole life. Alot of people, early on wanted to say that I was lying or exaggerating, but then my body told the truth. I just think that that is another good reason to always pull back the layers and let God give us His truth. He will give us truth in our body and our spirit, because He made both. So, yes, I highly recommend this book, because if nothing else “lemonhood” will disorient you into thinking that you are abnormal. That there is something wrong with you, when there is actually nothing wrong with you.  

Very cool. I did not read that book, and I didn’t ask Tonya to bring it, but I think I want to get it and read it. What you just described speaks to something that I am personally passionate about and that is taking care of our bodies the best we can, and the best we know how. I believe it is important to understand that when you are undergoing stress, or peeling back layers of difficult stuff that it is so valuable to take care of your body during that time.  

This is also an area that I find helpful to have someone walk alongside me. I can’t navigate this on my own. I don’t know how to, nor am I educated to. I see a professional holistic practitioner and she is supporting the Hope Layer podcast because she is passionate about what I am doing. She also believes that it is heart, body, mind and soul to get well and to understand why we are not well. So, if you are needing help trying to figure some of this stuff out, then go to www.beautifulhealingjourney.com/hopelayer. Use that link and Dr. Rhonda will give you $25 off your first visit with her. I can’t highly recommend her enough, I see her myself.  

We also talked about community earlier, and I have the privilege of saying this as I sit here with my friend. If you are feeling like that “thorn in the flesh” person, or like that woman at the well who was just seeking to figure out the right question to even ask. Then, walk in community, don’t do this life alone. I recommend my friend Meagan who I have so much respect for and have learned so much from. Meagan is a professional therapist who is supporting Hope Layer. So, if you are seeking professional counseling and need someone safe to talk to, then email Meagan@takeheartcounseling.com and just mention the “Hope Layer” podcast in your email. When you schedule your first appointment she will give you a $25 discount. This is great because you want to find out she is a right fit for you.   

It is not a surprise that my friend Tonya and I kept on talking and talking, because our little coffee dates go long too… and I really love it! It is so good to have you Tonya as my friend. Thank you so much for believing in what God has placed inside of me. And thank you for doing your personal hard work to be where you are today. You inspire me and I know that you inspire others as well.  

Thank you so much for all of you who joined Tonya and I here… we sure do hope that you discover the deep and beautiful layer of hope in your own story!