Welcome to In The Seams, a podcast by Broken and Mended with your host, David Heffler.
Well, welcome everyone back to In The Seams.
I've been away for a little while, had a hip surgery a little over a month ago.
For the most part, that's gone real well.
I appreciate any of you out there that knew about that and were praying for my recovery.
I certainly would love to pray for anyone that I can and would continue to cover your
prayers.
I'm glad though to kind of get back into In The Seams and I wanted to especially before
Thanksgiving.
I've just been thinking a lot about Thanksgiving and how that, how our view of that can be
impacted by chronic pain and chronic illness and what it might look like for us to still
be thankful even in the midst of pain.
I've got a guest with us here today.
I'm excited to have Timothy Gunnels and I'll call him Tim during our conversation.
Tim and I have kind of got acquainted over social media and then have had opportunity
to interact outside of that forum.
We have some similar stories, we're both in ministry and both dealing with chronic pain
and chronic illness.
Tim, I'm glad to have you.
I wanted to say too that one of the goals I've had is I noticed for my first four, five,
six guests, whatever it was I had on this podcast, they were all women.
It is easier to get women to talk about these issues and I think it would be really healthy
for men to be able to speak to these issues too.
I think a lot of times there's this attitude of, oh, if you're a man, you're not going
to talk about your pain, you're not going to talk about your pain.
I'm going to tell you, well, there's a lot of people that need to talk about that.
So really glad to have you and you are a, I don't have all your biographical information
down in terms of, I know you said you're teaching at Ambridge University and you're also in ministry.
Are you preaching regularly Tim or what is your ministry like?
I am not preaching regularly right now, but I'm actually looking into getting back into
that because I can teach and preach at the same time.
Right now I'm an associate professor of Bible leadership and ministry at Ambridge University.
Teach undergrad through doctoral programs and I love it.
I enjoy that.
I work with a lot of folks in ministry and been doing a lot of church coaching and coaching
and consulting the last several years and I got out of the preaching side because I was
taking care of my parents full time.
My mom has a frontal temporal dementia and they lived with us for about five and a half
years, but had to leave and move in with another sibling because of my health issues.
So that definitely comes into play there, but I'm feeling better enough.
I'll get to that later that I feel like I can get back into the pulpit and do some more
work alongside my teaching.
That's good.
I'm glad that you are feeling like you've improved enough to consider that.
I know from our previous conversation, I know you'll get into it in a moment that you were
in a pretty debilitating state not that long ago.
That's the thing with our connection, both with the ministry but also with this chronic
illness and that's what has helped us to develop a relationship, which I'm very thankful for.
I'm wondering if you could, for our audience though, you could share a summary of what
you've been through and where you are today with that struggle and how you got there.
I'll try to get quickly to the current main issue with psoriatic arthritis, but in my
20s, I had a lot of gastrointestinal issues, ended up having some surgery to take care
of just intense, you know, GERD, hernia situation and that would keep me up at night.
I went through a period where I was having intense back pain for like a year and a half
and I had night sweats.
This was all in my 20s.
They never could quite figure that out.
I think it was the beginning.
I think the back pain was actually the beginning of the arthritis and nobody really looked
into that.
They just assumed at my age, I probably injured my back, but I'd be going through doors and
it was just like I would just fold over.
I would just sort of crumble and so I went through that and I had knee issues and ankle
issues and shoulder issues and they just always were sort of explained away in different
things and that went on for years and the gastrointestinal stuff kind of kept going.
I had my gallbladder out not long after that.
It was kind of in my late 30s.
I developed gastroparesis, which is a delayed stomach emptying, which keeps you, well, it
actually gives you some pretty good stomach pain.
You feel like you still have your gallbladder.
I had my gallbladder out because it hurt and I feel like you still had it, but I'd have
nausea and bloating.
I still have some of that, not nearly like I did thankfully, but all that was basically
– doctors would say, we got to get this under control.
Your problem has some other health issues.
I don't think that contributed to my intensification of my arthritis, but it certainly didn't
help or take away from it.
Anyway, I just fast forward a little bit.
Got out of full-time preaching to work with Amherst University full-time.
I was out in Arizona and my parents were in South Carolina pretty far apart geographically.
My mom, we knew she had symptoms of dementia, didn't know exactly what was going on, but
my dad has some health issues.
They're both in their – well, they were in their mid-70s then, but they're both
in their 80s now, early 80s, but he couldn't take care of her.
That was never his ability to do anything around the house.
He was the outside the house guy and mom was getting lost driving, all kinds of stuff.
We basically moved back partly because I really wanted to work with the university.
That was a good thing to do, and I love it.
Also, I needed to be closer to my parents.
Then we came into understanding that they were going to have to be taken care of and
just family situations.
I'm the youngest.
Even though we have four kids, it was just better for my wife and I to take them in.
So we still had a house here in East Tennessee where I lived.
I was able to work remotely, still work remotely, thankfully.
Really thankful when the pandemic hit, and everybody was working remotely because I
was already doing that.
So that was a nice deal.
So we tried to – we were going to move them into the current house we had.
Couldn't do that, so we sold it.
Got another house, added onto it, kind of out in the country.
We moved my parents in, it was way more intense than we ever imagined.
My mom was much worse than we realized.
Fronto Temple Dementia, she's had it well over 10 years, and you can live to 22 years
with it.
That's what they say, but it's not like Alzheimer's.
It's not just a memory thing.
It's a behavioral thing.
It's not ability to make any kind of decisions that make sense.
So it was just this constant stress, and my dad's health problems caused him to fall
pretty frequently.
And probably about three – I guess it was about three years into having them.
I started Guide Up.
I was already having trouble with my thumbs and wrist and pinky fingers, sort of that
thing that you think about.
Some toe issues, I had a doctor say, well, you probably just have gout, because my grandmother
had gout.
Maybe she probably had psoriatic arthritis.
But that was a long time ago when they didn't know what to diagnose or how to diagnose anything.
So you started having some problems, but then one morning I get up, and I really can't
get up.
I wake up, but I can't really get up.
So it was all I could do to get out of bed.
Our bathroom and our master bedroom is probably six feet from the side of the bed that I sleep
on.
And I felt like I was in shackles or in walking in quicksand or something.
I mean, it was just – it was pretty scary to be honest with you.
Sure.
I'm like, what is going on?
So I knew at that point, I thought, well, maybe this will go away tomorrow, but it didn't.
It just intensified.
So I got ahold of my general practitioner who I knew very well or I know very well, and
I said, hey, I'm having some issues.
So they got me squeezed in, got in.
Of course, the first thing to do is put you on steroids, which helped with the stiffness,
but it didn't do much else.
So then they put me on hydroxychloroquine, and then – oh, you got to go to a rheumatologist.
It took eight and a half months to get into a rheumatologist.
Well, anybody that deals with arthritis, autoimmune disease, know the quicker you can get into
the specialist, the better.
And so I was delayed in that.
I just continued to get worse.
And when I finally got the diagnosis, and part of it was because my brother also has
a sore arthritis, he doesn't – it's not as intense for him, but I'm not going to
minimize his struggle with it.
But I basically got to where I was just sitting on the couch, slumped over.
The fatigue just got so intense, I couldn't drive.
I couldn't pick up my – she's seven now, but my five-year-old daughter, she could climb
in my lap.
I was bracing everything I could put on, back braces, shoulder braces.
I had compression sleeves on everything.
I've got two drawers full of braces and compression sleeves.
I had to keep going bigger and stronger on the knee braces, to the point I got those – what
I call the offensive linemen knee braces, just so I could get around the house, just
so I could make it through the day.
Wow.
You know, my wife would say, you know, are you dying?
I mean, she was serious about it.
I said, I feel like I'm dying.
I said, the truth is, I feel like I'm dying, but I can't die.
That makes any sense.
I think it makes sense for the people who go through chronic pain.
It's like –
Exactly.
Maybe I want to, but the truth is, I don't want to.
I want to get better.
I want to be able to be involved with my family.
So I got so bad.
One of my siblings, who's older than me and his wife's a nurse, she said, I'm going
to retire from what I'm doing in nursing.
We don't have anybody home anymore.
We're going to bring them into our house.
And so they moved to another part of Tennessee, which is a blessing.
And because stress is so much a part of chronic pain and can cause flares, and basically people
say, well, how often do you have flares?
Well, the truth was, I was in a flare, an intense flare for over two years.
There was no – I had no relief at all, and it just got worse and worse.
So I gained weight.
The doctor said, don't even try to exercise.
I tried to do things.
They'd say, well, try swimming.
You know, you use your wrist, you use your ankle.
I mean, there's not much – so it was like I tried everything I could think of that you
could exercise.
So develop diabetes, too.
You know, just sort of piles on.
But my parents, you know, they left.
It did take a lot of stress off, but the pain, the sickness, it didn't go away.
It was here.
It's here to stay.
So fast forward.
I don't know.
I got to medicine number nine.
And I do a weekly shot of enrol now, and I do think enrol is helping.
It's the only one that really has ever helped.
And I went from pain levels of seven to nine to sometimes what I thought was 12, you know,
just to where I'm at.
You know, my worst is more like a five now, and that's like the most intense.
And so I'll take that.
Oh, yeah.
To be honest with you, I mean, most days I'm at probably a two.
But I went from over 30 joints involved, plus my spine, just hurting all the time and just
intense to most of the time now I'm at five or six joints that are hurting.
It's hurting today pretty good weather.
You know, it's it's in the 30s here.
You know, it's a little humid.
We've had some some moisture, so we won't get into all that.
But you know, but I did, I had the chance to go to Mexico to do some umbilical cords,
stem cell therapy, specifically targeted toward my knees and my hips and my shoulders.
So I did some IV therapy to help overall, but my knees, my shoulders, my hips are far
better because of that.
I'm thankful for it.
I have regained between the medicine between lots of prayers.
I believe God's involved more than anything, the stem cell treatments.
I'm able to function again.
I'm not always in pain.
I have some bad nights.
I have some bad days, but it's not 24 hours a day.
And so I'm very thankful for where I am at this point.
But my primary diagnosis is psoriatic arthritis and then kind of all the stuff that you can
have with psoriatic arthritis, all the complications I get to get, get to have that too, including
the spinal spondylitis is really what I what I have with that.
So your story touches on so many different themes that I think our listeners be able
to relate to in various different ways from everything from the struggle to find diagnosis
to having to deal with what's the more urgent health need, but ignoring some other things
that are troubling in the background.
But then the need to be able to take care of aging parents while your own medical conditioning
is getting worse.
And flip side of that, wanting to be able to hold and play with your own kids.
I mean, I think these are, and then of course, the various medicines and treatments to try
to find what works.
And these, these are things that a lot of people, probably most people are listening
to this can can relate to at different stages in their own, their own journey.
And so I appreciate you sharing that I you mentioned God, of course, and I know you're
a strong believer.
And that's been a big part of what your life is about.
And I wanted to ask you then how this, this struggle, including the when you were at the
bottom into where you're now at least functional, you know, how has that impacted your relationship
with God?
And have you learned anything in regards to your relationship with God or about God himself
during this time?
Well, I never doubted that God cared that I hurt.
I'm keenly aware of pain and struggle and trial.
I've been through other struggles and trials of depression, anxiety, burnout, you know,
different health issues.
Just from a one standpoint, my level of compassion toward other people has just intense, it means
just to increase so much.
I think that's made me a, I think that's.
I'll say this, I think it helps me in my living out the greatest commands to love my neighbor
as myself.
I think that that has been just very beneficial.
I've had some pretty dark moments.
I've never given up on God, never given up on my relationship with God, but I've just
sat outside on my front steps or I've been lying in my bed when I couldn't go to sleep.
And I've just said, you know, Lord have mercy on me, Lord have mercy on me.
Just have mercy on me.
Just let me go to sleep.
Yeah.
You know, just let me get some rest.
I'm not asking for healing tonight.
I'm not asking you to take this pain away.
I just want to get some sleep.
And probably one of the worst times I had, I had agreed to do a wedding.
But in a couple of states over, and it was probably, I'd agreed to do it and it was like
six weeks after I started having the problem of walking and just the intensification of
the pain.
And I was going to drive down myself and my wife, we had to make arrangements to have
somebody come watch our children, our younger children, because older children weren't able
to do it.
And my wife drove me down, rented a car and drove and I just, I basically turned away
from her and cried most of the time on the way down there and prayed.
And I prayed.
And, but what's interesting about it, David is, and I teach spiritual disciplines, I think
you might get into that, but Bible reading and prayer, I just came to enjoy it more.
And I thought I couldn't enjoy it more.
I thought that it's not something I could enjoy any more than I did.
But sometimes I would read Psalms of Lament, but a lot of times on my worst days, I just
turned over to some of those Psalms of praise.
And I found myself praising God more.
And probably one of the biggest things is the stripping away of anything that seems
unnecessary or unneeded in my life.
People ask me what I want for a birthday or Christmas and I literally couldn't think of
anything like I don't, I don't want anything.
I can't think of things I want.
Right.
The only thing that I would want would be things that might make life a little easier,
just things that might accommodate me a little bit more.
Or good coffee.
I love good coffee.
You know, like that.
But just the stripping away, just the constant conversation with God.
But it wasn't just about my pain and it's not just about my pain.
It was for other people.
You know, just I would read, you know, I hear somebody else struggling.
I want to reach out to them and I did a lot more intercessory prayer.
It seems or I have, then it seems that I prayed for myself.
And I think that was, that's a beautiful part of this.
And I think you've got to find something to be thankful for and see that's beautiful.
But I don't know.
I just, I didn't see a need for much else, but just to live life, be in relationship
with God, care for my family, realizing my family was my primary ministry and understanding
that the pain I was going through was affecting them.
And so how could I manage that?
But all that tied into my relationship with God and trying to help people.
So, you know, I've been studying and actually preached recently on Jesus is teaching on
prayer.
And one of the things, especially in the sermon on the Mount, he's emphasizing is really
the character of the father throughout the whole thing.
And the reason why we don't have to pray like, you know, the pagans who, you know, babbling
on with some kind of cadence, not the word I'm looking for, like a spell or something,
you know, and incantation is the word I was trying to think of, you know, or of course,
like the some of the Jewish authorities, maybe some of the Pharisees and some others that
like to be seen when they were doing their, the religious things.
And Jesus, of course, says that, well, they got the reward.
And that's what they were looking for us, what they got, you know.
But the idea that our father knows what we need before we even ask is just such a encouraging
thought.
And so when we say that, we have mercy on me that that is a prayer in its fullness, you
know, even though it's a one sentence prayer, you know, and, and I've taken to saying the
Lord's prayer, you know, growing up, we didn't do this in our, in our both in churches,
Christ, and, you know, we typically don't say, you know, set prayers in most church
Christ settings, but I, I've taken to saying the Lord's prayer daily.
And one of the reasons I do that is because it decenters myself for the reign and will
of God.
And then even as we get to the part where we're praying for our daily bread, our forgiveness
of sins, you notice pronouns, of course, they're being plural, you know, that even then it's
not just about me, it's about others.
So I really appreciated your emphasis there, how it's taught you to be empathetic or it's
giving you greater empathy as well, along with the idea of intercession, you know, that
you find yourself praying for others more, even in the midst of your own, your own pain.
Yeah, I did want to talk about spiritual disciplines, we kind of halfway into it, you know, with
that, you know, but I know that that has been a particular emphasis for you and your teaching.
This is so something that you have focused on throughout your life.
And, you know, and I'm wondering, because you talked about this, we have a support group
that you were in, and shared your story with us there.
And we talked at some, we were talking that night, our topic was on spiritual disciplines
and how can those of us in chronic pain and chronic illness, practice them in a way that
is still helpful.
So not giving up on them, but also having, having a maybe a view of grace as we sometimes
struggle in our pain to, to practice those.
Yeah, I'd like to know maybe some of your insights with that and how it's impacted your
practice of spiritual disciplines.
Well, the primary spiritual disciplines that I teach and talk about, and I teach, talk
about a lot of them, but my dissertation, I focused on what I call the disciplines of
the greatest commands, and I chose solitude, hospitality, contemplative or meditative Bible
reading and prayer.
And those are all things that somebody in chronic pain can, can do.
The solitude part, I used to go places to do solitude, I had particular places to go.
I'm trying to get back into that, but when you can't drive, you can't even walk good
or something that's a little more difficult.
So what I ended up doing was really, I live on a couple of acres.
And so we've got deer and we've got trees around their house and I can see what's called
star mountain over here in East Tennessee from my front porch, just kind of the tip
of it, see it better than the winter time when leaves are off the trees, but I would
just go sit on the porch or I'd go sit in the chair in the back.
And even though it wasn't where I could go, I would just sit there and be still with God
and I try to still do that.
And hospitality, usually you think of doing something for someone and you have them in
your home or you take care of a need or something.
I actually had to learn to accept hospitality during this time to accept people calling
up and saying, we're going to bring dinner.
We're going to come do this.
We're going to come do that.
One of the ladies that did that a lot for us, unfortunately died about a year ago.
She was a very fabulously wealthy woman.
No idea how wealthy, but I mean extremely wealthy, but you wouldn't know it.
She just drove a minivan and didn't dress like she did.
But she would just about once a month, she would just call my wife up and say, I'm going
to bring you pizza.
What kind of pizza do you want?
She offered to my wife wouldn't let her do it, but she offered to come get all our sheets
and wash them and our towels and all this stuff.
And I've always liked to offer hospitality.
I've always liked to do for other people and having to let people do that.
It's the discipline of humility really that goes along with that, but you can be hospitable
to people by reaching out to them if they're hurting.
If you can visit great.
If you can do something nice for them.
But, you know, practicing that it's a way of showing love for other people.
And there's a lot of ways you get into that.
I don't have time, but contemplated Bible reading.
Yeah, I'll read the Bible through.
Maybe I have not done it this year.
I didn't.
Well, I didn't do it last year.
I haven't done it this year, but normally, excuse me, I just haven't done it this year.
Normally I read the Bible entirely through every year, but contemplated Bible reading
or meditated Bible reading, doing something like Lectio Divina where you're, you look
at it as divine reading, you're looking to be transformed rather than just for some knowledge.
Not right.
And this is a very difficult for those of us in ministry.
We're always looking to what can I teach next?
What do I do with this to teach other people instead of being transformed by it?
And you know, it's taking something like the Lord's prayer and savoring it, savoring
every word, reading it out loud, praying before you read it, you know, reading it out loud
and then letting that Lord's prayer guide a prayer for you.
And I do that a lot with the Lord's prayer.
I do it with Psalm one, I do it with Psalm 20.
I do it with different Psalms.
I do it with different passages.
So that is very comforting to me to not only be reading, but also combine it with prayer
and then prayer, getting in different postures, praying just prayers of Thanksgiving or just
prayers of confession or just prayer of lament.
There are times that you know, chronic pain, especially I just have to tell God, I hurt
so bad.
I just don't want to hurt this bad anymore.
Just help me not to hurt so bad.
But I would, I think my prayers started changing from let me not hurt so bad for me, but let
me not hurt so bad so I can do things for other people.
Yeah.
I can do things for you.
Because when I am doing things for other people, I feel better and give me the strength
to be able to do that.
So those are particular ones, but the other one is simplicity and I have continued to
practice this, getting rid of things, but not just getting rid of possessions, clearing
the calendar a little more.
You know, really thinking about before you make a commitment to do something or get involved
with something.
Really thinking is this going to, is this going to, I'm not saying even think about benefiting
me, but is it what's the, you know, what's the power behind this?
Yeah.
What kind of impact can I have?
Is this going to take away from something else I need to be more involved with?
Being more in the moment with my children, with my family, being much more in the moment
in worship.
Kind of all that goes along with simplicity to me.
So I know that was kind of a rush through.
No, it's good.
I mean, and I'll kind of follow up on a couple of things you said, just because I think we
can draw a few of those things out just to again, really get our listeners to think about
some ways that they can stay engaged with God, because this isn't about you checking
a box or performing or this is about God's grace and getting to, getting to just abide
in his presence, you know, and so we need these spiritual disciplines are given to us
for blessing and, and they can be challenging sometimes when we're hurting.
And so I think all the things you said were, you know, very helpful.
Oh yeah, I was just going to talk about simplicity for a minute.
You know, we have a lesson in our, our leader guide and also our participant guide for our
groups that basically is just, I can't remember exactly what it's titled, but something like
learning to say yes and no, you know, kind of going back to Jesus is teaching on that,
you know that yes, yes, and you know, exactly.
And being okay with saying no sometimes, even if people are going to misinterpret or misunderstand
that, that you know that this is something I need to say no to is, is good and, and it
will preserve us in a way that we can do the things that really matter.
So yeah, I really appreciate you saying that and, and reminding us to the different places
we can go for to prayers is, is so important because I think sometimes we feel like we
have to invent every single prayer out of thin air, you know, and, and sometimes that's
really hard to do, especially when again, your mind is just so saturated with hurting
and you know, of course, we know the famous passage in Romans eight where, you know, it
talks about the Holy Spirit interceding for us and those, those utterances or groans or
however it says it there.
But just being reminded about the Psalms and going and praying some of those Psalms, the
Lord's prayer and expanding on it and these, I think can just be so, so healthy.
I'm doing something right now and I'm doing it with a friend and I'm going to give him
credit because he initiated it.
But, you know, we're reading through Isaiah a chapter at a time and when we do it, we're
opening up our prayer journal and every day picking one passage from our reading and
writing it out and then writing a brief prayer.
It's not a long prayer.
You know, it's just something that, you know, God helped me with, you know, this or whatever
it might be.
And yeah, it works, you know, and it helps and it's not about, you know, I think sometimes
we get this idea that, well, you got to go and pray for three hours straight, you know,
and afford to be in effect to prayer or something.
And I was thinking specifically about a famous quote from Martin Luther when I said that,
you know, where he said something along the lines of I'm so busy today, I've got to spend
at least three hours in prayer, you know, and I think at one point I used to take that
as inspirational and maybe it was, you know, for him, I actually see it as that's not all
that helpful of a illustration for me today, you know, because I'm probably not going to
go and sit out somewhere for three hours and pray.
But there's very many ways that we can effectively and meaningfully engage in prayer and contemplative
reading, you know, in simplicity and solitude.
So thank you very much for that.
I want to kind of piggyback off of that to talk about Thanksgiving for a moment.
Of course, the holiday itself is upon us.
I'm not sure when will this will be live, but probably before I'm certain that John will
get it done here before Thanksgiving.
So it'll be people might be listening to it though before or after either way.
I want to talk about scripture that gives me pause sometimes, you know, because the way
that it's worded doesn't say like the other ones, it's got a parallel or one very similar
over in Thessalonians that says be thankful in all circumstances.
I can do that.
I mean, I can find something to be thankful for in all circumstances.
Ephesians 5 20 actually says a little bit more directly when it's talking about being
filled with the spirit and part of being filled by the spirit is giving thanks always for
everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And so that's a little more challenging.
And I don't think Paul is saying I even though grammatically it seems to say this, I don't
think Paul is really saying that you got to thank God for some terrible thing that happened
to you.
I think he probably does go more to the idea of the Thessalonians passage, giving thanks
in every all circumstances.
But still I want to ask, you know, when pain dominates, how can we remain thankful?
And what advice do you have for hurting people out there that might not be filling the spirit
of Thanksgiving too much this year?
How do we how do we handle this?
How do we maintain a thankful posture with God and everything we're going through?
Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is being honest with God.
And one of the reasons I love the Psalms and I love, yeah, yeah, I'm the weird guy that
likes lamentations.
You know, to read about your mind.
I'm not saying I love lamentations, but I appreciate lamentations.
And Jesus, even Jesus, and when I teach on prayer, I remind people of Jesus praying in
the garden.
Jesus was not looking forward to hurting.
No, he wasn't looking forward all they wouldn't look forward to the spiritual, the mental,
the physical, the emotional, all that.
God created us.
He knows us more than we know ourselves.
He designed our bodies.
He doesn't want us to hurt.
He doesn't want us to have pain anymore.
I mean, we have a promise of that, right?
As Christians, yeah, but we could read throughout scripture of people who hurt.
Yes.
And who also can become or have become sort of spiritual heroes to us.
One of the things with me is I want my children to see me still thanking God for what he does
and how he cares for us.
And so every night when we pray as a family, that's one of the things I always include
is thanking God for how he takes care of us and provides for us because, you know, if
you are still around to hear this, then God's still providing for you.
You know, you haven't been through something you can't handle.
If you can hear this, if you can talk to people, if you can pray, you're actually able to handle
it.
It's not pretty.
It's not fun.
I can't.
I don't know that I've ever thanked God for my pain, but I have thanked him for being
able to still feel it.
You know, to be alive, to be with my children, to be with my wife.
I'm thankful to be in a situation where, you know, I'm okay.
You know, we're okay financially.
One of the things that I just do and I recommend on a regular basis is to tell yourself the
truth.
Be honest with God and tell him when you're hurting, but also be thankful for him providing
for you and giving you the strength.
I just pray for strength.
I think everybody listening to this probably prays for strength pretty regularly, but also
pray to be a blessing for other people and thank God when you have that opportunity.
But the other thing is, is being honest with yourself.
Tell yourself the truth that life isn't over.
There are still parts of life you can enjoy.
You can find things to appreciate.
You may actually enjoy looking at a flower or smelling a flower or laughter or some significant
scripture or a conversation with somebody or something.
You may appreciate that far more now when you're in pain.
But tell yourself the truth.
List out your blessings.
Count your blessings.
There's something to that.
When we let the devil tell us that we're worthless now because we hurt, I'll be honest.
I've been through those days where I just feel worthless.
I'm no use to anybody anymore.
But that's not true.
Talking to God about it, he reminds us that we're not worthless and that we are worth
something.
We can be thankful for that relationship with him and that he is with us in the pain and
he gives us the strength.
One of the things I think I noticed about my pain levels is I was able to learn to tolerate
a lot more than I thought.
I think sometimes the level of pain goes down a little bit when you've been in it for a
long time and you can kind of handle it a little bit better.
I thank God for even the ability to manage it some days without having to take some serious
pain meds or something that is going to knock me out.
I'm thankful for that.
There's a lot to be thankful for.
I think it's a pretty cynical and dead end if we get into a point where we think that
there's nothing to be thankful for.
Another thing I think one of the reasons broken and mended exists is to help rescue people
from that cliff that you don't want to go off of.
I do think, and that's kind of to that point as it relates to a support group, when you've
got people around you that have been through similar things, it helps put things in perspective,
not because we're diminishing what we're going through, but rather that we were reminded that
we're not unique in the sense that we're the only ones who have ever suffered.
I think it's important to know that because sometimes when we're hurting really bad, we
can get pretty narrow in our view of the world and pretty focused on ourselves, understandably.
When we hear and we're around other people that are suffering too, I think that helps.
Even your discussion there about the Bible and the characters in the Bible who suffered
and well, not the least of which was, I know it wasn't chronic pain, but Jesus, you did
mention the course in Garden of Gethsemane and then the cross subsequent cross, he suffered
more than anyone willingly for us.
But I even think about apostle Paul and all his sufferings and maybe even had a chronic
condition of some kind.
I think he probably had more than one.
And so, yeah, we're not alone and certainly not alone because God is with us.
You recently shared your story in our group, our main broken amended support group and
wanted to ask you and this is a little bit of a, you know, kind of I'm making a plug
for the support group course, you know, and I want to know kind of what it was like for
you to share a story and maybe what would you say would be the benefit of people interacting
with one another in a support group like that?
I knew I needed a support group and I looked for something in my immediate area for a while
and couldn't find anything that fit, you know, not, if it fit, it wasn't, it didn't have
any spiritual component to it.
And I knew I didn't want to really participate in something that just practiced a secular
approach to dealing with pain because I just don't think that's healthy or correct.
But I really didn't, I knew that you were doing something.
I knew broken amended was around, but I didn't really, I think I didn't understand that there
was a way to participate from where I was, you know, where I am here in Tennessee.
And so when you gave me opportunity to do that and share my story, yeah, some of it
was about sharing my story, but from a pretty selfish perspective, I just wanted to be around
other people that could understand.
And when I got through that meeting with you all, I went out to my wife and I broke down
and cried on her for a while.
And it was not a, it wasn't a sad cry.
It was like a relief that there were people who were Christians who were dedicated disciples
of Jesus Christ who hurt like me and they care that I hurt because they understand because
I don't know, just haven't, I haven't felt that support from a lot of folks.
And I don't think that's been some malicious thing.
I think it's more of a lack of sympathy, lack of, not a lack, I hate to say lack of sympathy,
lack of understanding.
And they're not equipped to be able to deeply understand it.
Yeah.
Right.
And one of the problems with chronic pain is you can't always see it on somebody, especially
if you're, okay, if you're like me, you try to sort of buck up and put on a better face,
you know, to make people, especially around my kids want to feel better, but I, but I
also couldn't a lot of times I couldn't do that.
But it is interesting.
I have one, one friend here locally who has rheumatoid arthritis.
She doesn't go to church with me.
She doesn't approach it from a Christian perspective.
And, but I see her, she's connected to some stuff my son's involved with.
And so she's very empathetic and she'll ask me and then she noticed I was doing a lot
better and she said, you know, don't take this wrong way, but you look great.
You know, you look like you're, you know, you're not all bound up with all those races
and all that stuff.
Um, that doesn't mean I'm never putting them on.
And I do, like I said, I got some on today, but, um, just being able to drive my son to
where he needs to be is a big deal.
But just having people understand and not only having people understand, but being able
to show compassion for somebody else that's dealing with what you're dealing with that.
I don't even know how to put that into words necessarily.
It's like, Hey, they get me.
I get them.
And that's, that's a, that's a pretty amazing thing.
You know, they're just, they're just aren't that many people that get it.
Right.
And, uh, understand it.
And so you need it.
I need it.
We need an outlet to just share together, pray together, encourage each other.
Uh, it's, it's very uplifting.
Well thank you for saying that and you know, I would want to, because I'm sure you're right.
I'm sure when people hear about this and then we hear we're located in Northwest Oklahoma
and they're like, well, what good is that going to do me?
You know, uh, well, there's a lot of ways.
I mean, obviously like the podcast or blog posts and other resources, I mean, there,
those things are available to anyone at brokenamended.org for when you check that out.
Um, but there are ways to participate in the group itself.
You're well, anyone is welcome from anywhere in the world to join our main group, which
is, uh, right now on first Tuesdays of the month at seven o'clock.
Um, and you can reach out through the website.
If you want to get more information there, there's a contact form where you can, you
can contact me that way.
That's the easiest way to do it.
And I can get you the details and get you the zoom link.
Um, you know, or you can be invited to the Facebook group and you can participate, you
know, through the, you know, the chat feature on Facebook.
The zoom is better.
We're always trying to get people, people are shy, you know, and they sometimes won't
get on there.
Um, but I'm happy to have people participate on whatever level they're comfortable participating
with.
Uh, in addition, uh, and I know, uh, Tim, this is probably a future conversation for
us as well, but you know, we're trying to encourage people to consider, do they got
a group of friends or a group of people they want to minister to in their local setting
where they can pull together people, uh, and provide both online and in person, you know,
contact because, uh, truth is a lot of people are in situations where they, you know, not
able to go and get to an in person meeting.
And so from the very beginning, you talked about using online stuff, you know, before
it was trendy because of COVID.
We were, we were the same.
We were, we were doing zoom before a lot of people knew what zoom was.
And we had people that that was the only way they could participate and they, and they,
that was the only way we weren't streaming our church services yet either.
So for them, it became a lifeline back to the church that they had not had maybe in
some cases for decades.
Um, that all of a sudden they felt connected to, like you said, a group of disciples, uh,
people were struggling with the same thing.
And so that, that can be very powerful.
So yeah, I'll mention those things.
Um, you know, Tim, as we wrap up, is there anything on the horizon for you that, um,
you know, kind of what's next in your journey?
And, uh, I've got a daughter about to, my oldest daughter's about to graduate from college
and move back home for a little while.
She's starting a, uh, uh, as going to be an ICU nurse.
So that's kind of my next thing.
Just family related.
Yeah.
Um, looking, uh, for more ways to minister to other people, uh, as I feel a little bit
better, uh, learning to, uh, manage my pain when it comes up in, in healthy ways.
One thing I will mention is I just recently became part of a research study through the
Cleveland clinic, uh, dealing with people with psoriatic arthritis specifically.
And it's not a, it's not a medicine study.
It's actually, uh, like a E coaching, uh, study related to lifestyle, um, changes, uh,
stress reduction, uh, sleep, uh, diet and exercise.
And you got a coach that just have started that.
Okay.
And it's a 12 week study.
So it's called immune strength.
Um, so that on my, on my disease size, that side, that's what's going on there.
Yeah.
And I'm very, very hopeful that that content will help me, uh, you know, learn some things.
And so I'm hoping it helps other people.
That's the main reason I enrolled.
Yeah.
I was going to say, I mean, you might learn some really great things that you can share
with us in that too.
So, and that's what I'm hopeful for, uh, especially as I try to, to, uh, come on board here with
broken and mended as a volunteer and helping, um, and helping other people like me.
It gives me a lot of encouragement and strength.
And so if I learn more things, I'm a researcher.
I'm a studier.
I'm a, uh, I try to experience things to help other people.
I want to be able to do that.
Sure.
That's awesome.
And, you know, so thankful to have had you on the podcast today and, uh, looking forward
to being connected, going forward and, and just very thankful for your, uh, thanks for
having me and thank you for all you do.
And praying, praying for you as you yourself, uh, experience chronic pain and, uh, feeling.
And I, you know, it's kind of strange, you know, cause you go through those phases, uh,
and maybe, maybe your phase of feeling better will be, uh, just a new place where you'll
be able to maintain for a long time.
I, I have been through phases like that and, and other phases that were very unpleasant
and everything in between.
And, you know, so either way, you know, I think we need each other.
We need God and, you know, and it's, it gives purpose to suffering to have God with us,
you know, and he, cause he's the one that can redeem it.
Uh, it's just suffering for no reason, you know, and I, but I believe that God has got
to redeem to purpose in it.
So yes, thank you for, for being with us.
We'll wrap it up here as we're actually coming up, uh, uh, one of the, one of the longer
conversations we had on broken, which is good.
I think, um, but I want to say that, um, uh, probably in the future, man, I mean, between
Christmas or Thanksgiving and Christmas, I'm going to have a couple of guys on here talking
about, uh, their role as a supporter of someone in both of their spouses or chronic pain and
chronic illness.
I want to speak to that community a little bit too.
Um, and both of those guys are willing to talk about that cause they have, well, they've
been through it and there's a whole different side of it when it comes to, uh, and in this
case, the spouse, uh, that goes through that.
So, um, hopefully that'll be interesting to people as well.
And so if you're listening, uh, you know, which I guess if you just heard me say that
you are listening, uh, but want to just, uh, again, encourage you to check out the website.
You can also find past podcast episodes there on the website, but that's also available
in all the other places you find your podcast.
Uh, and so we'll sign off until next time and just, uh, hope that, uh, God is with each
of you as you go on this journey through the struggle.
Amen.
Thank you.