David Heflin (00:02)
We are glad you're joining us on In the Seams. On this episode, I got to have a conversation with Lauren Watts, who had a medically devastating teenage experience. I've not heard a whole lot that were as difficult as hers and all the just cataclysmic things that sort of happened to her health and just seemed to continue to just kind of add on, kind of a cascading ⁓ medical events. Now she's doing a lot better today.

She talks a little bit about that in her story. She still has struggles and she writes about all of these ups and downs on her sub stack. But the focus really is on helping people to move forward by processing and dealing with trauma that is often caused through the experiences of chronic illness, pain and disability. She came to realize later in her journey that she had not properly dealt with trauma that she had that even that she had trauma from the experiences of her.

chronic illness and disability that it caused for her. And really just robbed her of some of what is supposed to be some of the more enjoyable years of her life. But she's now a person who is wanting to help other people through what she's experienced, maybe to recognize and in some positive way engage that trauma in a way that helps a person move forward. And so,

With that in mind, she also shares about a type of therapy that was a huge catalyst to her improvement. For lack of a better word, as far as I know, it's just called brain rewiring. Rewiring, sorry. And she even said it in, well, she was talking about it. And I'm going to say it as well, that we're not offering medical advice, not endorsing any type of medicine or therapy. But we do always, when we have guests on this show, encourage people to share their stories.

And sometimes how someone was helped or got better might also be something that can help others who are still looking for answers on how to improve and regain some quality of life. And certainly brain rewiring was something that was helpful to Lauren in a pretty major way. And there's a type of therapy, a more technical term that helped Lauren. And I'll try to list that in the show notes as well.

or provide some helpful links to it. But most of all though, I just came away from the conversation amazed at Lauren's faithfulness through a traumatic adolescence that could have turned her away from God and bitterness. Instead, she drew nearer to God as she walked with her through, as he walked with her through her painful journey. So her testimony is now one to God's faithfulness, but also just a steadfast resolve to follow Jesus come what may.

And she has certainly stayed committed to that. And she talks about in this episode, this interview, of some of the ways in which she has been able to do that. And God has helped her through those ways. So I pray this interview blesses you wherever you happen to be on your journey. Enjoy the interview.



David Heflin (00:01.455)
Welcome back to In the Seams and I'm excited to have our guest with us today, Lauren Watt. And Lauren is a writer, maintains a very compelling and helpful sub stack, most of it focusing on her health journey and helping and blessing others that are dealing with chronic illness and chronic pain, which is of course what we're about with Broken and Mended as well. So it's a good match and opportunity for us to get to talk together. I also want to just say I've

interacted with Lauren through her work with the diamonds conference, which I think has been very valuable. And she, we were one of the sponsors of the conference last, last conference we had. forget what month I think March is on, right? Okay. Lauren, Lauren sugar, not at her head yet. So, anyway, when, when we had that, when we had that conference, she kind of helped us get our, graphics, together for that. I was very thankful for that. Lauren, I, mine was a mess and you.

made it look good. And so we appreciate your talents. We appreciate your service in this particular type of ministry and just want to welcome you to in the seams.

Lauren Watt (01:07.566)
Thank you so much. It's such an honor to be here.

David Heflin (01:11.181)
Yeah, well, we're so glad to have you and you know, wanted to know if you could just kind of share a little bit of your health journey. I know it goes back into your childhood and something that you still are dealing with today, although in a different way. Could you tell us a little bit about that story and maybe emphasize kind of what was your lowest point on that journey? And then just kind of let us know how you're doing today as well.

Lauren Watt (01:35.598)
So a lot of times I start my story at around age 14, but I'm actually going to backtrack further today. So when I was two, I was diagnosed with childhood apraxia of speech. So I didn't have things like chronic pain back then, but I had a very hard time learning how to talk. It would have been impossible to do something like this today. And so I went through very intense speech therapy until age 10.

And then I was released from that and kind of thought that I was going to have a normal teenage, teenage years. And things were fairly normal for a couple of years. But right before I turned 14, I became pretty ill. I started reacting to foods that had never bothered me before. And I was having allergy testing done and I was coming back negative and...

I had a really bad experience with an allergist who told me basically, you're crazy. You just have anxiety. You're not reacting to these foods. Even though I would literally throw up, have throat tightness, flush, break out in hives, sleep for a day and a half, all these crazy things after I would eat something. And I was really frustrated. It took quite a while to get diagnosis. By the time I got a diagnosis for that particular issue, I had developed a lot of other symptoms, but...

It turned out I had mast cell activision syndrome. So mast cell activision syndrome is kind of confusing, but it acts like an allergy, even though it's not technically an allergy. It's like this histamine issue. So I was very limited on what I could eat because of that. With the mast cell activision syndrome, it got to the point that I had like 20 safe foods. And when I say foods, I'm talking about things like apples and cinnamon.

Not things like hamburgers and pizza. I'm talking about like raw ingredients. And I would react to smells. So my parents could eat things like tomatoes, but I couldn't eat that. I couldn't eat things like beef. Even if I touched beef, I would break out in hives. So my parents had to cook their food outside. It got to that point. We had what we called our outdoor kitchen with base heaters outside because it was a year-round thing in the dead of winter. That's where they had to cook.

David Heflin (03:29.007)
Okay.

Lauren Watt (03:58.51)
and so I was very limited on food, but about four or five months after the mast cell stuff started, I got a urinary tract infection. And that's where all these other things started to come out, like chronic pain and hair loss. And, before I like get fatigued after I had an episode where I was exposed to trigger food, now it was like a constant fatigue and I had a constant headache.

and I was just getting new symptoms every week and trying to figure out what was going on. And I was diagnosed with tick-borne infections. And so that was my primary diagnosis for quite a few years. Doctors kind of saw that as a root cause for the other labels like POTS and even hypermobility syndrome. And so I went through a lot of treatment for tick-borne infection and

Some things kind of got better, but a lot of things got worse. I developed really bad light and sound sensitivity to the point that I had to wear earplugs and earmuffs in the house and sunglasses. I couldn't even tolerate hearing my parents talk to me. They had to whisper. And I had to cover my window up with cardboard just because least a little bit of light would trigger this really bad migraine. At least a of noise would trigger a really bad migraine and it would last for hours.

Um, so I, I knew I rather it be a dark, quiet room than have really bad pain all the time. Um, so I had that, I had things like bloating, I was just really disabled. Um, but slowly like the lay-ins and outs of the tibia started to, to let up. I would say the, um, lowest point emotionally and physically was in 2018. I was running out of options for treating the mast cell activation syndrome. So,

A lot of times they'll give you things like antihistamines or herbal supplements or tell you to take these different stabilizing medications to try to calm that part of your immune system down. And none of it was working for me. And so as a last ditch effort, sometimes people use chemotherapy to try to control this condition. And so I went on oral chemotherapy and that also did not work. It made me very sick. Like my skin started.

Lauren Watt (06:24.974)
peeling and all sorts of places. I got really weak. I started bleeding internally. And we had to stop that. At that point, was just kind of like you're untreatable at this point and kind of just kept taking supplements and stuff that I could tolerate, like medications I could tolerate that kind of reduced pain, sort of thing. But we weren't actively treating any condition. That was my lowest point. And I was also

David Heflin (06:49.871)
I

Lauren Watt (06:54.626)
depressed at that point, to be honest, understandably. I kind of would cry every morning just because it's like, I don't want to keep living this way. And my favorite time of the day was bedtime, even though I was in bed all the time, like when I could finally fall asleep. And I had insomnia, even though I was so tired of insomnia, I had to sleep for a few hours and then same cycle. But anyways, I was like that for

David Heflin (07:00.207)
Hmm.

Lauren Watt (07:22.766)
probably a good six months or more. No, it was more like a year, more like a year. And then we started to figure out some endocrine problems and I got on some hormones and started to improve. I could sit up and die a little bit more. Doesn't sound like much, but that was kind of a big one for me. And I could start to eat some more foods while stabilizing my hormones.

and went back onto some treatment for the tick-borne illness stuff and made some progress but then kind of kind of plateaued and then I got COVID and then backtracked again. So that's where I came to realize that I had a lot of trauma from all of this and I started nervous system work to recover from trauma and that is where I had a pretty big turnaround and I think we'll get to that later.

David Heflin (08:05.272)
David Heflin (08:22.243)
Yeah, we will, for sure.

Lauren Watt (08:23.224)
But so where I am now, I'm able to work 20 hours a week, sometimes more, sometimes a little less, but I work from home remotely. I actually do podcast editing, which is kind of cool. I do like a lot of administrative and marketing stuff for a client. I have my own business. I can go to church sometimes, not every Sunday, but least a couple of times a month and I can get out a little bit. Now that I'm working a job, I have to kind of pace myself a little bit more with...

with outings or going to events that I can get out and I can exercise. And I am living a much, much improved life, which I'm very thankful for.

David Heflin (09:01.999)
That's great. Yeah. Well, I know part of your story because I, you you gave me some places where I could read up on you a little bit and it was helpful. But you have a very unique story in that you didn't graduate high school until you were 23. Is that right? Last year. OK, so your recent high school graduate. And congrats on finishing that. And then also, you know, finding work in, I think, a very competitive field.

Lauren Watt (09:19.714)
That's right. That was last year. Yes.

David Heflin (09:31.663)
So obviously, you're very gifted in some ways and that God has led you into some opportunities. So I'm glad for that. But I am curious about these unique situations in life like graduating when you're 23. How has God used that to teach you something about Him? And even more specifically, to help you follow Jesus? Like how has it helped you grow in your reliance and discipleship of following Jesus?

And going through some of these struggles that, you know, pretty much what? 9999 out of 10,000 people don't have to go through. So could you speak to that a little bit?

Lauren Watt (10:14.222)
Yeah, so it's confusing when you're going through all of this. I had a lot of questions. Keep in mind that this all started when I was 14. So even though I accepted Christ as a young age, I was still a young Christian. And I had to wrestle a lot with what I believed. But the one thing I've learned is that you have to go to scripture and

believe what it says, even if it doesn't always feel true. And so I turned to Romans 8 quite a bit and it talks about God loving us, even in all these different circumstances. And I would always put in, God's love can't separate me even though I'm sick. So it might sound counterintuitive, but I think the main thing I find about God's character is his love, because I've had to be so focused on that.

and so focused on the love he showed on the cross, even when I didn't like, was seeing his love that much on a daily basis of my circumstances.

David Heflin (11:24.495)
All right. Well, thank you. Yeah, that's a helpful perspective. It's something that anchors us in something deeper, someone deeper than just our circumstances, like you say. And Romans 8 is a great chapter. I once did a sermon series, probably something like eight sermons just based on Romans 8. There's so much there. So certainly encourage our listeners to go and spend some time reading Romans 8 and seeing how that speaks to you.

Lauren Watt (11:55.17)
I would say that it probably explains the Gospel best in one chapter out of all the chapters in scripture.

David Heflin (11:55.257)
On your-

David Heflin (12:01.581)
Yeah, I think I agree with that. It's a remarkable chapter for sure.

Lauren Watt (12:06.336)
But the second half of your question was about how it's helped me to follow Jesus. No, that's fine. Yeah. And I would say the way it's helped me follow Jesus is learning to be more compassionate. There's a lot of things that Jesus calls us to do, like run away from sin and be self-sacrificial. But I feel like for me,

David Heflin (12:12.338)
yeah, yeah, sorry, yeah, speak to that please.

Lauren Watt (12:33.078)
I'm a lot more aware of people who have illness. I really didn't realize there was such a large group of people who were homebound and young people who had illness before I became that person. And so it's helped me to grow my compassion and to know how to encourage those people because I've gone through something similar to what they've gone through.

David Heflin (12:58.639)
Yeah, yeah. Thank you for sharing that. And Andres, our producer, put Romans 8 37 as a good verse for us to recall, knowing all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loves us. And of course, that's just one little sample of a really awesome, awesome chapter. But I really appreciate your emphasis on compassion. You know, Jesus was a very compassionate person and often talks about that in the scripture that he was

used or that he was moved by compassion and there's a word that it's kind of a visceral word, know, comes from the, you know, the gut, you know, that he was just moved so deeply when he saw people that are hurting. And I know for myself too, that I probably thought I was compassionate before I started doing chronic illness, but really in hindsight, I don't think I was that much. And it has helped me in that way as well. It's made me a lot more of a

compassionate person and that is part of being a disciple of Jesus for sure. So thank you for sharing that. I did want to talk about your your substack and more generally your writing, how God has used your writing to bless others. And I know you've received some important feedback from people early on in that journey that gave you confidence to kind of head into that, lean into that even more. I'm so glad that that did take place.

And most of this, as I understand, I know you've written for some other publications, but most of this seems to kind of be connected to your substack. And so what can people expect to discover there if they go visit it?

Lauren Watt (14:38.816)
Yeah, so I have been chronically ill for 10 years. But a lot of ways now, more of someone who's navigating health issues and like, perpetual illness where I wake up feeling blue-like and tired and icky every day. And what I've noticed is that a lot of people quit writing at that point. lot of people quit writing when they're able to go back into more normal life activities. And I can understand that, but I feel like it's really important to keep writing.

David Heflin (15:03.832)
Right.

Lauren Watt (15:09.07)
And so I have been writing somewhat publicly since age 16. I started out on a Caring Bridge page that went on to a GoFundMe. And actually it was my mom's doctor started reading it and he was like, you need to tell your daughter to start a blog. So then I officially started a blog. But for a number of reasons, I switched to Substack last fall. So on my Substack, I really try to show what it's like.

to move forward and rebuild your life after you've gone through something so hard. Because again, there's a lot of people writing about the day to day life in the really hard thing, but not so much about overcoming it and what life looks like now. So you can expect to see a lot of that sort of stuff and also a lot about trauma, that's something I'm very passionate about. Because I realized eventually that this was a traumatic experience that was something.

very hard for me to admit. was like, Christians shouldn't, Sean Christians who memorize hundreds of verses like myself should not endure trauma, should not get depressed. But that is part of my story. So that's kind of what I explored there. I kind of have a tagline that I explore faith, trauma, and chronic illness and how they intersect.

David Heflin (16:24.919)
Okay. Yeah. That's important. I'm sure a lot of our listeners be able to, you know, relate to that. I did want to ask, because on your sub-stat, well, actually, let me hold off on that. We'll come back to the brain rewiring. I do want to get to that here in a little bit and how that's helped you. That's a big part of your story.

But I did want to kind of come back to something in relation to God's character that you said in a written interview. And this is a direct quote, so I'm quoting you to you. We can choose to focus on everything that is going wrong, or we can choose to focus on God's character in our blessings. And I like the conciseness of that. I think we would all admit that it's a little bit easier said than done.

So what I want to ask you is when we feel like everything that's going wrong in our life is overwhelming us, when it just seems like it's just cascading on us and kind of like you've talked about in your own story, how can we find our way back to focusing on God's character and our blessings? How can we recenter that when we just feel overwhelmed by all the negative?

Lauren Watt (17:37.976)
Yeah, I think the first thing to realize is that God gave us the ability to choose what we focus on. And so we don't have to focus on what's going wrong. We can focus on what's going right. And so for me, a big part of that has been gratitude journaling, looking for things every day, different things every day, that I will physically write down in a notebook. And that

really has trained my mind to look for something every day that God has provided. I would also say memorizing verses has been very helpful to me about who God is. Romans 8 is a great passage to memorize. I used to have it memorized. I need to refresh my memory on that one. I have also found music to be very helpful. So just look for a Christian playlist online.

Listen to hymns. Hymns have so many rich truths about who God is and that can really help reorient ourselves. And praise music too. just sometimes the hymns have more more about who God is in my personal experience I found that. And then to the extent that you can surround yourself with people who are godly who will help point you to what's good in your life. Sometimes you might not see it yourself and sometimes obviously when you're homebound you can't go to church. That was my situation for eight years.

But find online communities, find Broken Mended, Diamonds Conference, connect with people, and they can help you in that.

David Heflin (19:13.519)
Yeah, absolutely. So just kind of recapping just a few of the things you mentioned there. I'm saying this for our readers sake, because you gave a lot of great advice, you know, practicing gratitude, journaling. You mentioned sort of trying to write down something you're thankful for daily and how that can just help you stay, you know, grateful for what God has given us. Memorizing verses.

I heard something about that on another podcast actually recently and it was about the late Dallas Willard and he was someone that encouraged memorizing scripture and a lot of times when people hear that their first reaction can be kind of negative because it seems overwhelming but it can be overwhelming in the sense that if you don't feel like you're very good at memorizing stuff and

But Dallas Willard's approach to that was that you didn't focus on it as a performance or you had to have it exactly right. You were just trying to internalize the scriptures, reading them enough that they become a part of you. And that's helpful to me because I struggle with kind of the more rote memorization. But I may be able to find that podcast and put it in the show notes. But.

Lauren Watt (20:26.658)
be great.

David Heflin (20:30.275)
Let's see. OK, we got a Dallas Willard quote here from our producer. Let's see what he says. A Bible memorization is absolutely fundamental to spiritual formation. If I had to choose between all the disciplines of spiritual life, I would choose Bible memorization because it is fundamental way of filling our minds with what it needs. And that's that's powerful. If you're not familiar with Dallas Willard saying this for our listeners, you know, he's he's one of the more impactful writers of our time in terms of

discipleship and what it really means to follow Jesus. He's not easy to read. It took me four times before I finally got through the divine conspiracy, but it was well worth it. And his ideas have stuck with me. And so if he says Bible memorization is the most fundamental to spiritual formation, I think that's something that I want to be aware of and try to implement or integrate with my life. And so you also mentioned music, you mentioned the hymns.

I find it so interesting, know, sometimes if I had to say it, ones I enjoy sometimes singing the most might be the more the praise newer contemporary songs. And yet the ones I find myself kind of humming or singing to myself throughout the day, they're always the hymns. They just kind of so deeply, you know, ingrained in my, from my childhood. And like you said, they say so many great and wonderful things about God and truthful things.

Lauren Watt (21:56.238)
And I want just add as a resource, there is a worship band. Their name is Sons of Korah, and they are doing a very unique project of putting the songs to music. And so I have found that very helpful to memorize because music just works better to get things into my brain. So that's a great thing to check out.

David Heflin (22:19.555)
Yeah, good point. Thank you so much for saying that. You know, we're talking a little bit about redirecting our mind on a spiritual level, you know, and kind of when it seems so everything seems so negative, how we might kind of refocus and re-center. But I want to talk about that too in relation to your own health journey and the impact that that's made on your life. So I read a little bit on your sub stack about the brain rewiring and it was actually when

Sarah Willoughby first reached out to me about you being on our podcast. And so then I did a little Googling about, you know, one of the very specific type of therapy, which I can't remember right now, but I'm sure you'll be able to, to enlighten us here in a moment. But I really don't still don't understand or I don't know what's involved. And I'm sure a lot of our listeners would feel the same way. And if you could shed some light on what's involved with that and how it's helped you, I think, I think it would just be helpful.

for people to understand that. So yeah, could you do that for us?

Lauren Watt (23:21.998)
Sure, I was very confused by brain rewiring as well. So I first heard the concept, I believe in 2017, and I did not try it until 2023. So you're not alone in that. It's kind of confusing and I will do my best to explain it. But basically, people, scientists used to believe that the brain did not change after childhood, but we now know that our brains are constantly changing.

David Heflin (23:39.097)
Thank you.

Lauren Watt (23:52.846)
And they change, it's easier to change your brain when you're a child, it's harder to change when you're an adult, but they still change. And they're constantly changing. So even in the midst of this conversation, our brain has changed a little bit. And so the idea is that when you have something positive that happens, your brain changes. And also when you have something negative that happens, the wiring of your brain also changes. And so I had a lot of negative experiences, obviously.

and I had a lot of trauma and my brain had experienced a dark side of neuroplasticity where it changed in a negative way. And so my nervous system was constantly in a state of dorsal vagal shutdown or fight flight. So like in dorsal vagal shutdown you have extreme exhaustion, fatigue, and you kind of just shut down to this numbness, emotional numbness state. In fight and flight you're kind of

kind of more activated, a lot of people can relate to that feeling. But anyways, I was in those two states a lot, kind of shifting back and forth. And also I had a lot of symptoms like chronic pain and chronic nausea, even things like chronic fevers. And so the brain retraining, the idea is that you calm your nervous system down because I basically kind of had something similar to PTSD. It's like you have something that really hard that happens and it's passed, but you're

brain is still reacting like it's there. And so I had to train myself out of that. And the way I trained myself out of that is a few things. I had to set boundaries in some unhealthy relationships, things that would like put me back into an unhealthy nervous system state. I also had to do a lot of visualization. So with visualization, the brain...

of responds the same way as it would if something was physically happening. And so by using visualization, I was able to just upcoming my nervous system down, also redirecting negative thoughts and like not focusing on the pain I was having because that kind of makes the connection stronger in your brain. So like I'm having pain in my knee and I'm writing about it like a lot and telling you, my knee hurts so bad. It kind of like signals to your brain and makes that pain even stronger.

Lauren Watt (26:20.91)
So it kind of sounded weird to me. But even in scripture it talks about renewing your mind. And I went through a couple programs. This is not medical advice, but I did the Sarah Jackson program. She is a Christian who really helps people rewire their nervous system. And I did the dynamic neuro retraining system. And those two programs combined really helped turn me around.

David Heflin (26:51.929)
Yeah, and that's had a direct impact on this large improvement that you've had since you were at a very low point previously. Is that right? OK. Well, we will try to link some of that. Yeah, go ahead. Something else?

Lauren Watt (27:02.764)
Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Lauren Watt (27:09.806)
Yeah, I was actually going to say, I, I now have my own business, but, um, my client is a neurosurgeon. And, um, my client is all into the neuroscience of all of us. And he has a podcast where he dives into this every week. Um, so it's a Dr. Lee Warren podcast and it's very helpful. He comes out as a McChristian perspective. He's not so much focused on using it to recover from chronic illness, but people, everyday people who are just like stressed about work or something.

they can train themselves to focus on other things and live a happier and healthier life.

David Heflin (27:49.273)
Well, you I'm intrigued about this idea you mentioned sometimes too, that we talk about or focus on the pain. kind of makes that connection, you know, greater. And so that's, it's a difficult balance, right? Because on the one hand, we want people to be honest about how they're feeling. in fact, in Broken Amendment, we're trying to create safe spaces where they can express that and they can tell us if they're having a bad day and they can tell us that looking for that affirmation from, from people that understand. And

Lauren Watt (28:02.637)
day.

David Heflin (28:17.419)
yet we certainly don't want to be doing something that's going to actually make the pain worse. Something that might could help us understand how we could kind of navigate that tension is really the practice of lament because I know with lament that we are crying out to God, we're being honest with God, but still it's focusing on God more than

Like you said, how bad my knee hurts or how bad my back hurts or you know, whatever it might be and I bring it up because you've written some about lament and it's important in helping us stay connected to God. And so, by the way, this is something we talk about a lot on this podcast and we're always trying to get people to understand that lament is an important part of the Christian experience. Unfortunately, it's been edited out of most worship services.

And I think some people trying to bring attention to fact that this is something that God's people need both individually and corporately. And so it's something I always appreciate when someone brings up the importance of lament. So I want to know how it's helped you and what advice would you give to someone who is a novice at lament?

Lauren Watt (29:35.586)
Yeah, I was a novice at LeMint when I came to it. I can do it quite unexpectedly. I was in a low point of my journey and I was able to listen to some solo piano music by David Neveil if I kept the volume down real low. And he had a piece called Psalm 77. It's like, hmm, I wonder what that psalm's all about. And I googled it and it's like, this is a dark psalm.

so the psalmist is crying out like, God, why have you forgotten me? Like my hand is touched out during the night without wearing ing and you were, you were ignoring me. and so it starts out that way, but then it ends hopeful. He's remembering all of God's past faithfulness, like helping the Israelites cross the Red Sea. And so that's how I came to lament. I read that psalm and just kind of made it my own and I actually memorized it.

And I would just like repeat those lines over and over again. But it always ended on a hopeful note to me because I got that emotion out and then I was able to see God's faithfulness again. And I think lament is very important because it's a way to stay connected to God when he doesn't feel there, doesn't feel near. Tim Keller has an excellent sermon on Psalm 88 and he basically

reassures you that it's not wrong to come to God angry. In fact, Satan wants you just to ignore God completely. But when you're coming to God with your anger or with your grief, it's still way of staying connected to him. And so it's really important.

David Heflin (31:11.192)
Right.

David Heflin (31:20.589)
Yeah, Well, yeah, thanks. And, you know, people pointed out a lot, you know, that God knows already how you're feeling. If you're feeling angry and you think you're going to hide that anger from Him, that is really not going to happen anyway. Yeah. So might as well bring it to God and let God meet us in that. And, yeah, so appreciate you mentioning a couple of Psalms there. Psalm 77 was the big one for you, And then you mentioned Psalm 88, Tim Keller's sermon and so

Lauren Watt (31:33.902)
It's not gonna work.

Lauren Watt (31:40.387)
Yes.

Lauren Watt (31:45.815)
Yes.

David Heflin (31:48.985)
We'll do our best try to link all this stuff in the show notes. And you've given us a lot of good things to think about, a lot of different resources that have been a blessing to you, and a lot of good reminders of spiritual practices that can help us in our darkest days. sometimes I think when we're feeling really low, the natural reaction, and therefore the one that Satan can exploit, is to pull away from God and to pull away from people.

in our lives. And so you've really mentioned a lot of great ways for us not to do that and to stay connected to God. And I did want to, as we get ready to wrap up our conversation, I always like to ask people, you if you've worked on a lot of things, you've already given a lot to the community of hurting people, but are there any other things that you're working on or anything else you would want to share?

Lauren Watt (32:45.998)
Yeah. So personal projects that are public at this point is really just my substack. I'm very careful about what I write. I'm only 24, and so I recognize that there's a lot of wisdom that comes from life experience. And yes, I have gone through a lot of life experience, but I really try to think about is this true? Is this right? Is this a good perspective before I get published? So.

To be honest, I normally only write once a month for that reason because I really try to think critically about what I put out there and make it good. But you can continue to expect that. I expect I will be on Subject for years to come. That's really my only personal project, but I am involved with other projects. So I am on Diamonds, as David mentioned, I'm the Sponsorship Coordinator, and I can't say too much about upcoming projects, but...

I am working with Sarah on things that are exciting. And then for my job that's paid, I'm a virtual assistant. And like I said, my client, I'm blessed to have a client that provides me a solid 20 hours every week. So I don't have to always be looking for new jobs. That client is a neurosurgeon and he's very passionate about trauma and faith and how it interlinks.

And so I am helping him with a lot of projects and that's really fun for me because it's my passion. And also I get to use my skill set in helping people with their marketing and administrative stuff. So that's what keeps me busy.

David Heflin (34:24.687)
Sounds like a really good fit. Maybe we could certainly, not maybe, but we could certainly see the hand of God in bringing you guys together in that way. So thank you for sharing that. Any favorite books or anything that has been a blessing to you?

Lauren Watt (34:26.819)
Yeah.

Lauren Watt (34:43.98)
Yeah, I really like Hope When It Hurts by Sarah Walton and Christian Wetherall. I read that book when I was bedbound and it was so gospel focused and I just really appreciated it. I also read David Tripp's New Mercies, New Morning Mercies every day. That's not chronic illness focused, but I find it very encouraging, just gospel focused things that

we all wrestle with. Because to be honest, whether or not you have a chronic illness, a lot of people wrestle with the same feelings at some point. So I find that book very helpful.

David Heflin (35:26.201)
Yeah, it's Paul Tripp or Paul David Tripp, think is, I always see things that he, I guess we'll still use the word tweet because I don't know how to say, you know, with a new X. But yeah, but it's always so encouraging in an environment where so many people are posting such negative stuff all the time. His is always helpful and reminding me of God's grace and his

Lauren Watt (35:38.358)
Yes. No. X. That was really good.

David Heflin (35:54.669)
and how he welcomes us into his presence. I have not read what you're talking about, but it sounds like it could be a helpful, meaningful book for people. So we'll put that in the show notes as well. Well, Lauren, we thank you so much for being on In the Sames. It's been an edifying conversation, I know for me. And so I know it will be for our listeners as well.

We certainly wish you the best in your continued endeavors and writing, in particular your sub stack, but also your work with diamonds and your work with your client and your business. it's been a, that's been really good to hear that that's all happening in your life. And we appreciate that you've used what has been very painful for you to be a blessing to others. So thank you very much.

Lauren Watt (36:44.226)
Thank you so much for having me. It's been a great conversation. I appreciate your ministry and your encouragement.

David Heflin (36:50.659)
Well, thank you. on, for our listeners, just we'll say you can go to our website at broken and mended.org there. The podcast is there. If, if you're listening to this or already found it, but, the podcast is also on the website and putting an occasional blog post, Lauren, I'm a little bit like you. I, basically we do one podcast and one blog post a month at this point.

Because we have a lot of other things going on, but I feel like we want to make sure when we do it, it's good quality. And so we don't try to be prolific in everything we're putting out there, but there are definitely helpful resources there, brokenmini.org. If you are in a position and it's to bless our ministry financially, there's a way to do that as well. But most importantly, I think for the people that are listening to this that are hurting.

Lauren Watt (37:24.002)
Yes.

David Heflin (37:43.311)
that there are opportunities to connect with meaningful community through our support groups. Some of our social media stuff like our Facebook group is available, but also we really want to encourage people to seek out how we can help one another through the different support groups that Broken and Mended has. So thanks for being with us and we'll see you next time on In the Seams.