Welcome to End the Seams, a podcast by Broken and Mended with your host, David Heflin.
Alright, well this is David Heflin.
I want to welcome all of you guys back to End the Seams.
I know it's been a while since I've been on here to share anything with you, but I'm
excited today because I got a special treat where I've got a couple of guys here.
It might get a little confusing in the conversation as both of them are named Jeremy.
If I need to differentiate, we've got Jeremy Harrison and Jeremy Wright, so I'll probably
just say Jeremy H or Jeremy W as we go forward.
But my connections with them are very different.
I've known Jeremy Harrison for many, many years, a couple of decades, and we're very
good friends and have known each other's stories both with chronic illness and many
other things for quite a while.
And Jeremy's wife, Holly, has been suffering from chronic illness and we'll have him talk
this about that in a little bit.
But did offer Jeremy Wright, who also has a wife who's suffering from chronic illness.
By the way, both Jeremy's are in ministry and so they've had that kind of dealing with
ministry along with dealing with a spouse with chronic illness.
And I haven't known Jeremy Wright for very long, known him maybe about a year.
We were just talking about that a moment ago.
They have enjoyed getting acquainted.
But I really wanted to have both of you here today and I appreciate you guys being here
because we really need to be able to, I think, bring attention to the fact that chronic illness
is not something that impacts only the person who's actually suffering with the disease
or the pain.
It's something that impacts everyone in the family.
And it does on many different levels.
I mean, I think it does in terms of how it impacts the way that you're living out your
married life and living out your family life.
But I think also you guys have probably experienced a burden for the suffering of your wives too
and wanted to help them and maybe at times have felt helpless.
I mean, I think that's something that chronic illness does to all of us.
It certainly doesn't leave any illusions of control.
So what I'll do is I kind of go through these questions guys.
I'll just probably alternate which one if I ask you to speak first, I'll let Jeremy
H. take the lead.
This is going to start with this first question.
But thank you both for being here.
And Jeremy, just give us a little background if you would to begin with describing nature
of your wife's chronic condition and just maybe how long she's been living with it.
How long you guys have been living with it?
Yeah.
Thank you, David.
Thank you for having us on.
Thank you for this ministry that touches so many people.
It's a bless our lives, I'm honored to be part of this podcast today.
So Holly's had chronic pain since I've known her and we met when she was 18 and she's
had that pain since she was really a child.
She thinks back to even age 10 or so.
She's had just some joint pain and muscle pain and we've seen many doctors, many specialists
spent much time, energy and money trying to get answers and usually not getting anything
definable and not a lot of remedies have helped.
Nothing I can do.
Massaging doesn't help in the things you try and she's tried gluten free diets and
other alternative ways to eat, to alleviate certain allergens and things like that.
And nothing usually helped.
And so it's been a long journey for her.
She's kind of now at the point in her early 40s of almost resignation to dealing with
pain the rest of her life.
Almost no hope anymore.
Maybe we had hope earlier.
Maybe we'll get an answer from somebody and it just seems like that's not coming for
us yet.
So we're kind of at a point in just how we manage this for her and make her life comfortable
and livable.
Well, thank you for that, Jeremy.
And I think even as long as I've known you, I didn't realize it went back that far.
So that was eye opening for me as well.
Jeremy, Devia, how about you and your situation with your wife, Alicia?
Yeah, absolutely.
We've been married since 2007.
And the first sign of symptoms was Thanksgiving 2019.
So yeah, kind of the opposite end of the spectrum.
We have kind of had to adjust and learn to live with disability that kind of popped up
unexpectedly.
Right?
And so we're three years in.
During this past year was kind of a monumental anniversary and with it falling around that
time, came with kind of the heaviness of some of the same things you mentioned, Jeremy,
just of the recognizing hopelessness in the sense of every neurologist, neurolgist, orthopedist,
rheumatologist, right, going through all the spectrum.
And we're still undiagnosed.
We're under the care now of a specialist at Vanderbilt, rheumatology.
So we're two visits in and we're waiting on a third.
Our last visit was first of December.
Our next one is less than a month out now, February or March 6th.
So we're just under a month from our next one.
But so far, we haven't been able to get any answers.
It's just what it's not, right?
It's not Lyme disease, it's not MS, it's not this particular thing.
So they're narrowing us down to complex regional pain syndrome or a form of fibromyalgia.
But the big picture for us lately has been that same thing.
Okay, let's adjust to this being what life looks like for the rest of our days.
And so coming through that same thing of looking for a place of confident hope in the right
now while we aren't sure of what's going to be coming ahead.
Sure.
That's hard.
That's a hard place to be in with the uncertain diagnosis.
And most people that have been through this, especially with autoimmune disease issues
and things like that, have dealt with kind of a hard to pin down kind of diagnosis.
But I feel for you in that and I hope you can get some answers.
I know each of those appointments then become kind of precious and even sacred moments where
they're hard.
Man, you got to want to try to get some answers and I know how important those are and how
each of those dates kind of loom on the calendar.
And that what's it called?
You said a chronic regional pain syndrome.
Yeah, complex regional pain.
Complex.
Yeah, that's an exceptionally painful disease.
Of course, fibromyalgia would be too.
So either way, feeling something very, you know, very difficult.
Let me stay with you for just a minute.
Here at Jeremy and, you know, since this is so new and I'm going to assume that suddenness
of it has kind of blindsided you, but as well as, you know, just the frustration of kind
of getting a diagnosis.
But I wanted you to kind of, if you could speak to maybe some of the initial changes
that you face, some of the, some of those early frustrations that this has brought
to you and marriage and family.
Maybe another way of wording it would be what impact the chronic illness have on you and
your marriage in the early days of the illness.
Even though you might consider yourself still early days, I mean, you're three years in
and you've been dealing with it for a bit now.
So how's that impact you guys?
Yeah, ours are set in progressively.
So initially it wasn't quite as intense as it has been in the last year and a half to
two years.
So initially it almost kind of snuck up as this thing that changes your life, but you
don't think it should.
And so you think, oh, this just dealing with this pain, maybe this physical therapy will
help, maybe the chiropractor will help, maybe, you know, this orthopedist can give me some
relief, but there's not really a recognition of how much of a toll it takes.
And so the initial inward struggle for us was just the reality of some of those things
that we can't do that we desperately want to.
So for her hospitality, it's just her gift, her joy, and we would have people in our home
every Sunday and multiple times through the week.
And then you face a new reality that says, I so desperately want to do that.
I just, I can't.
And so you budget all your spoons for a day, you spend all your time in the morning being
very careful all afternoon because you have something you want to go to at six o'clock
and then four o'clock rolls around and, you know, you just can't.
And so for us early on, grappling with the reality of grieving, right, that kind of loss
and realizing this is something that has been taken away from me, something I used to have
that I can no longer enjoy.
And so to process that grief early on was really tough.
And then just some of the uniqueness, we have been a part of this church family for 12 years
now and they've been amazing and super supportive.
And yet, you know, this is a really unique walk, right?
And especially early on and without a diagnosis, you're not saying something someone can relate
to.
You know, you're not saying I have cancer.
I have MS.
I have a category that someone understands and then can kind of sympathize with.
So just the disappointment with people.
And as much as, you know, we've had a great support system early on, some of those meaningful
relationships in our lives were strained and severed on account of our inability, right?
And because it's something you don't really see it, you know, for most of the last little
bit getting out on a Sunday morning when she's able is the only time she's out during the
week.
And so someone who just sees her on a Sunday goes, you know, I can tell she's in pain or
this is the conversation.
They don't really see all the work and the struggle and the things that go on behind
that.
So for us to learn and for our anthropology, our theology of man to kind of catch up with
reality and to realize people don't have a category for this, we can't expect them to
understand some of these difficulties.
And so we use the language now having processed it of baggage, right?
As someone asks, Hey, how are you doing?
You know, we think about it as I'm going to unload some stuff on you.
I'm going to hand you some really heavy things.
How am I doing?
I couldn't get out of bed yesterday.
Well, early on we expected them to like, Oh, please, let me carry that load for you.
And it took a while for us to realize not everyone's capable of doing that.
So dealing with and processing some of that disappointment and trying to grow in patience
and understanding for people that, you know, didn't have a category for sure.
I appreciate you sharing that point out, because that's not just something that the person
that's literally going through the symptoms is experiences, but both of you and having
to try to relate that to other people, what's going on and when do you relate something?
When do you, you know, sometimes you just want to say, Oh, I'm fine and go on like
everybody else.
You know, and so you're always kind of weighing that.
I know.
And you mentioned the spoon theory.
I think most of our listeners will be familiar with that, but if you do not, just Google
spoon theory.
And I forget the woman who came up with it.
It's the basic idea that you've got so many spoons a day and you choose where you're
going to spend them.
And when those spoons are gone, they're gone.
And so for someone with chronic illness, they may only be starting with five spoons
in a day, you know, whereas a person who's fully healthy might have 30, you know, so
to speak.
And then so by the time you've gotten up and gotten ready, you just, you spend a spoon.
If you had to go to work, well, you may spend the rest of those spoons and come home and
not be able to do anything else.
I think I did this helpful language sometimes to be able to talk to the people.
Of course, that's how that theory came about.
I know the lady who came up with it was trying to explain her to her friend what was going
on and there was a bunch of spoons sitting on a table.
And so she pulled them out, you know, and she kind of coined that term.
She kind of owns the rights to that term or something like that.
But anyway, but it's a, it's a good illustration or a good metaphor to think about these things.
But yes, our relationships with other people, you know, that in trying to explain and relate
what is going to be helpful, but you know, you can't ever get it all across, you know,
it's always going to be a struggle to know how much to share.
And what about you, Jeremy H, what's, and yours again, as I look at it and thinking
about, well, let me ask you this, as you think about what we've already been talking about,
I want you to just kind of add to that.
But I do want to ask you specifically something because you mentioned your wife, this really
goes back into her teenage years, some of the struggles that she's had.
Was there a kind of a defining period of time where you guys kind of knew that it was escalating
or you knew you were going to have to do something to start addressing it with doctors?
Or is that just really just happened gradually over, over all, over a long period of time?
Yeah, it did seem to exacerbate after childbirth.
You know, for her, it was there in college and our earliest are dating and early marriage,
manageable, not debilitating on the daily life as far as that goes.
But something, especially after her second child, we have three.
After our second child, it seemed like her body really went into a different gear with
pain, joints, achiness, just really getting through each day a real battle.
You know, and with that comes the death of dreams.
The death of dreams of being an active mom with your kids, like getting down and playing
or going to basketball, like doing things on the bike that just, that aren't possible.
Or if she does that stuff, she pays doubly for it the next day and is really in a bad
place.
And the death of some of my dreams too.
I run, I love to run.
I've had dreams always of running with my girlfriend, my wife, and that's just not possible, you
know, to share those active lives together.
I kind of sometimes have, I guess, the equivalent of survivor's guilt for someone who's healthy
because I don't have pain.
I'm older than Holly by a few years and I'm actively active and grateful, but I feel guilty.
I would love to give some of that to her and take some of her pain onto myself so we could
share something together, but that's just not possible.
So I feel a bit guilty that I'm able to be active and she's, you know, in bed and hurting
in another layer too.
And this may force you out of a coming question.
So forgive me if I'm getting ahead.
It's okay.
I think, and Dave, you and I have talked about this before with our conversations in the
past.
The fact that the pain seems to have no purpose is so hard.
If we knew this pain had a greater meaning and was doing something better in the kingdom
and glorifying the Lord in some unique way, we could probably endure it and find some
deep motivation to kind of struggle through that, but it just seems so pointless and like,
why would you not take this away from this young woman?
Why would you not give this young woman?
No, we've prayed for healing.
We've anointed with oil.
We've seen all the things, all the allogists that Jeremy W mentioned.
We've done that.
We've been around that track many times and for Holly, just not seeing a purpose or a
greater reason for that pain is mentally just overwhelming.
I think if we had a reason to endure the pain and saw some good from it, it might be more
manageable that it just doesn't seem to have that purpose.
Sure.
And that's, I think if anyone else tries to speak into that, that's kind of thin ice,
you know what I mean?
Because that's something a person has to come into understanding in their own time and walk
with God, whether they can find purpose in it or not.
So that is a really, that is a real issue.
I think people are in different places about it and someone else may come to a realization
of some kind of purpose in it very early on in their journey and others may never really
feel that.
And I think in either case, of course, we're all, and I should mention that our audience,
I've already mentioned, you know, to our audience, you guys are in ministry and so I'm sure they
understand you guys are faithful Christians.
You know, I'm to Christ is sometimes all that we can do in those situations, you know, you
know, finding purpose is kind of a different, not say it's an unrelated activity, but it's
a different kind of a, it's just something that's very personal, you know,
It's a way to redeem the pain.
Yeah.
I appreciate you opening up about that.
I really do.
Let me talk about a little bit with our spouses in terms of, you know, differences in the
way we communicate, the way we process these things.
And I, because I don't know how this will be for you guys.
I know my wife and I are very different about this.
I'm a, I'm a very analytical person and I'm always thinking about things and outcomes
and possibilities and as part of the way I process things and I way back when I was having
to go to the Mayo Clinic, I think 2013 and there were some potential serious, maybe even
life threatening, you know, implications to what we were going there to find out about
myself.
And I needed to talk about that.
He, he couldn't talk about this for her.
He was like, well, we don't know that yet.
And therefore I really can't, I'm not, I'm not going to go there because for her, that
was just wasn't a very safe place, I guess, you know, scary to.
We've, I mean, we've talked about this and I've had, we've never gone a couple scouts.
I've been to a counselor several times over the years and kind of talked about different
ways in which we could meet each other's needs in that regard because sometimes I do need
to talk about it.
I need, and I want to talk about it with her.
Just makes sense.
She's not opposed to me talking about the end of the moment stuff.
So I'm not, I want to be clear about that.
If I'm having a bad day and I need to talk, I mean, I'm just talking about those unknowns,
you know, and so we have found that we have kind of different ways of dealing with it
and different ways of communicating about it.
We've kind of had to learn to work, you know, through some of that.
If you guys had to discover any of that yourselves and again, I'll put back to actually Jeremy
H who will continue to continue on that thought and go to Jeremy right here.
Yeah, you know, we're different people.
Obviously, we have different ways of processing things and communicating.
I'm more the emotive thinker and feeler and I want to verbalize things and have that conversation.
Polly is a little more like you, David, and wants to kind of internalize process on her
own for a bit.
And when we share, it's usually not, you know, in the same kind of kind of heart language,
if you will.
And so I often will make a bid or an attempt to talk about it or how you do in babe, like,
have you been this week?
How's your pain?
You know, and some some days that's that's I'm just making it, you know, handling it,
you know, and just kind of a short curt.
That's the usual response and nothing too deep.
But when she does open up and when it has kind of built up enough that the pressure is to
the top, I mean, the emotions spill over for her and their tears and their questions and
there's, you know, emotions toward God that are all over the spectrum with with anger
and wanting an explanation, this feeling of unfairness.
There's been very tender moments that I really treasure as her husband.
And I just wish again, there were some answers that were able to offer in that situation.
Yeah, we, you know, so I just take that into advisement for myself and and don't pride
to too much, you know, kind of let her know that I'm always open and available.
Talk about it.
But kind of give her the chance to make the opening remark and make sure she's ready to
go there because it is it's even I as her husband can't fully understand what it's like
to go through each day with with just pain that you're just suffering through and trying
to manage.
You know, when when your best days are, yeah, it didn't hurt too bad.
I could get up and do a few things today when that's as good as it gets.
They day out with three kids and a wife as a wife and a husband, you know, a husband,
it just it gets challenging.
So I want to give her the first move in those situations.
Yeah, sense.
And by the way, so I don't think I mentioned earlier that you had three kids.
Jeremy W, you have kids.
We've got four, we've got 1310 and then five, almost six year old twins.
Goodness.
So yeah, your hands are full anyway.
You know, if everyone was healthy and going along smoothly, it's a it's a lot to process.
And so would you add anything to what Jeremy H said, Jeremy W about kind of communicating
with the wife and how you had to learn to adjust and all that stuff?
Yeah, I resonate a ton with that and sort of the same.
I from a different perspective, I'm the the one who feels less or emotes less or would
say, you know, not super in touch with emotional life in the past.
And so as these feelings hit, really the hard part for me was understanding and processing
and then living with my wife, you know, in an understanding way.
And so I can remember initially as a as a problem solver, as a fixer, I would say, okay,
well, here's a here's a need.
Here's a lack in our home.
Oh, I'll fill the gap.
Let's let's hire a babysitter.
Let's have someone help clean.
Like let's fill these things because I thought, oh, let me take this off of you.
Not realizing, well, hey, that's that's something I want to do.
And that's from her perspective.
I that's something it feels like I should be doing.
And my pinching for fixing was not the most helpful way to come into that piece of communication.
So it took me a while to learn, you know, hey, come at this from a more understanding
perspective and think a couple of tracks deeper than just, you know, solving the problem.
Good.
So it's a lot of wisdom.
We kind of have to pick up the hard way I know.
And, you know, and, but that empathetic listening is important.
And again, here, I'm kind of relating back now to you guys as a person who's dealing
with chronic chronic illnesses.
I think about my own relationship with my wife.
And that's kind of maybe back to kind of what I was getting at having to, you know, we had
to learn kind of how I need to communicate with her and be heard.
And at the same time, I had to also learn that what she needed to do because it was
impacting her life as well.
It impacts everything.
I mean, I don't even have in my kind of list of questions here anything about the financial
aspects and, you know, just, I mean, this is something that is a bulldozer to your life.
And like you said earlier, Jeremy H, about the kind of the life you envision and dream
about and, you know, lost dreams that are there.
I think both of you have touched on that and this is not the, not the life I thought I'd
be living either, you know, by the way, this isn't the ministry I thought I'd be doing,
you know, and so it's, it's, it's a, it's a hard one to accept or embrace.
But I appreciate you guys sharing a little bit.
I want to stay on the marriage topic, particularly in your relationship with your wife.
I think we're back, Jeremy W, for the start, answer about a significant challenge you face
in your marriage.
You know, so I'm talking about just directly relationship between husband and wife and
then, but I want to know if there's something on the other side of that, is there's some
way that you've learned to grow as a couple?
Yeah, by God's grace, we've, we're just very similar and complementary.
We're very people, complimentary people.
So we've, we've just really had a happy, happy marriage and, and we've been talking just
in recent weeks of, and the, the joy that's ours by God's kindness in the midst of this,
even while, you know, so many unanswered questions and things I still don't understand
and how to take good care of her well.
I'll mention when I was sharing with someone today, you know, our girl's birthday, their
six birthdays coming up at the end of this month and I need to make the cupcakes for
their birthday party because I don't want her to think through that and have to worry
about that and do that kind of thing.
And so we made some practice cupcakes last night and there's a reality there in which
she really wants to be doing that.
And I want to take that off of her in a sense where she doesn't feel like she has to, that
the family's cared for and loved, but it's really hard.
The difficult thing is escaping that tension of her feeling the, the guilt, you know, of
not being able to do what she wants to do while her trusting me that I really do want
to do this, right?
I'm, I'm joyfully here.
One of the things that, that I caught pretty early on in starting to listen to other folks
who, who have been wrestling with this for longer jumped in a non-Christian Facebook support
group and just saw the despair and difficulty and so many people who would say, I can't
believe that people are still putting up with me.
I'm so heavy on them.
I'm such a burden.
It's heartbreaking.
And I just, I thought, okay, I never want her to feel that.
Let me do everything I can.
But the complexities of, you know, it's, it's inescapable, right?
I do a lot to make up for the, her, her abilities.
And so how we wrestle through that tension and how we live in that.
And so as I, I saw that question, I just wrote significant challenge like Monday, Tuesday,
right?
And I stay right every, every day is its own fresh set of, you know, of challenges and
intentions, but.
It's, it's, it's, it's with Y, huh?
Yeah, exactly.
Man, that's, that's, that's heavy though.
That, that feeling that sometimes you feel when you're the person suffering, you're
burdening others and you guys are, you guys are good husbands to your wives going through
this, I don't know that I deal with a, a lot of, a lot of people who have been, even
been abandoned by their spouse because of chronic illness.
The one time when they needed their spouses hand by them, so the opposite of what you
guys are doing, trying to alleviate the burden and want them to know you're not a burden.
You know, you're my wife.
And as a powerful testimony to the love of Christ, Jeremy H, you have any thing you'd
like to add?
Yeah.
I appreciate those thoughts to Jeremy W. You know, we made promises in our wedding ceremony,
right?
And take us in health and we don't get to choose what's coming in the future.
I made those promises to my wife 20 years ago and she didn't choose this pain, but I
still choose her and I choose her today.
I'll choose her tomorrow and every tomorrow that I'm given.
We'd love the pain to go away and be taken and thrown into the abyss away from her, but
that has not yet happened.
And when a marriage has any kind of conflict, couples have a decision to turn away or turn
toward each other.
And if there's any, you know, positive thing about this pain that Holly has carried so
long is that we have chosen to turn toward each other and face it together and hold it
together and grieve it together and cry about it together.
You know, I will not turn away or un-choose her.
And so whether it's this issue or another issue, you know, with Christ as a center,
when you turn together toward each other and he's in the middle, you find your help there.
It doesn't make it necessarily easier as far as what she's feeling, but it gives a layer
of commitment and loyalty.
You know, because like you said, people have been abandoned and left.
I didn't sign up for this, so I'm out, you know.
But in fact, we did sign up for it for either sickness or health.
And so it can be for some a test of devotion and faithfulness to that marriage vow.
Because when you're standing on a stage in your early 20s, you know, you think, yeah,
we got the rest of our lives together to grow and be healthy, you know, and we've had to,
you know, consider, you know, housing floor plans that would allow for a wheelchair.
And here we are, you know, we're not there yet, but we know that, okay, this may be in
the future, you know, at a certain point.
So anyway, turning toward each other with Christ in the middle is where you find the
help and at least the ability to come together and walk the path and it's all there to get
the love you share.
Yeah.
And we may have already spoken to this next question.
And so, but if you want to add anything, we'll give you an opportunity because we've talked,
I think naturally on and off throughout this conversation about how it's impacted a relationship
with God individually.
And as a couple, there's two kind of two different ways to think about that question.
And you know, before I kind of hand that back over to you, Jeremy H, I, you know, I just
want to say that based on what you said earlier about sometimes the struggle is real.
I mean, it's, it's raw, you know, and you're in the midst of it.
And it's not like we're sitting here talking from a standpoint of resolution, you know,
we, we're all okay with this, you know, spiritually now and everything.
And I think that's going to be make it more relatable to honestly to those who are listening
because man, that's, that's, people are all over, all over the place on this, you know,
and so, but let me just, let me just let you open up on it for a minute and speak about
how this has impacted your walk with God in a new way, either as you reflect on it individually
or as a couple.
Yeah, good question, David.
Thank you.
Yeah, certainly it's been a matter of a faith and doubt and, you know, why her as a father
of three kids, if one of my kids were hurting and I could fix that with a thought or an
action, why would I not do that?
If one of my children has something that I could alleviate, I would, I would rush, I
would do everything I could to, to rectify that situation.
And so it, the frustration of how long, oh Lord, will we pound up on your door and why
would you not want to take this pain away from your daughter?
Why would you not want to alleviate this, this burden she carries, you know, minute
by minute, day by day.
And so that can lead to frustration, anger, despair on the part of, you know, praying
the same prayer over and over, you know, having the same request, you know, and I know Luke
18 and the widow who continued to go to the King and I prayed through that parable with
the holiday who had done that.
And so it is a challenge as, you know, kind of watching and being a companion to this
suffering that I know God has the power to heal, right?
We know he can still do these things.
So just the wondering, you know, why not Lord?
And that's a real point of tension for me as I relate to God and praying for her.
And as I said, we kind of eventually reach a point of, well, I guess you're not doing
this for us.
I guess we're just going to live with this.
That what the plan is, I guess this is where we are because we've, how long, you know,
is this a test of our faithfulness and prayer?
Do we keep praying for two more decades about this and maybe when she's in her sixties, she'll
be pain free.
I don't know.
Maybe that's in the cars, but that's just that's a lot to carry for her and for us together.
So
I think that anything you'd want to add, Jeremy W.
Yeah, similar.
Yeah, I feel like it's driven our practice and our theology to their natural ends in
a sense of, you know, with this starting at the end of 2019, the first kind of COVID lockdown
period.
And then, you know, all the uncertainty as that started unfolding at the first part of
that year.
I can remember days where she's just in bed, can't get up, can't move.
And I would consistently say, maybe this isn't normal, right?
This is not, this is not how this is going to be forever.
We need to know that everything around us is really abnormal right now.
And in that moment, we would, we cling to resurrection hope, right?
We have new creation hope.
All things are going to be made new.
This is not my forever.
And yet we're facing it with the hope of like, okay, but, but Lord, in light of that, would
you make me, would you, would you bring that hope to today?
Like right now?
Like I know that in the end things are going to be great, but also I'm 36 and I would really,
you know, like to, to live in that hope as we wait for that day.
And so, you know, people will do kind of a word of the year thing.
We've had, we've had words of survival, right?
Hope and rejoicing.
So we know that we have this confident expectation of joy and we know that that hope is fixed.
We know that it's immovable.
We know that it's ours in adoption in Jesus Christ.
And yet we really need that hope to invade right now, right?
And so for that reason, we're rejoicing.
And I mean, I think one good evidence of God's grace in the midst of this is it's, it's robbed
us of false senses of security and caused us to be really grateful for all of the things
we do have, not just spiritual realities, but children home.
Like it's, it's, it's increased our gratitude for things as we realize, hey, I don't, I
don't deserve this.
I didn't earn this.
I am given all of this by grace.
And so, and that's a, that's a, that joy or as a fruit of the spirit, right?
That rejoicing.
And so we've tried to drill down into those two things.
Give me confident hope.
And as you do, cause me to, to live in joy, right?
Even in the midst of right now, God's been kind to do that.
Cause I listened to both of you guys talk, one thought that occurs to me is that it may
be in some ways.
I mean, I understand the one that's going through it, the one that's doing the most
suffering, certainly physically, you know, but it's harder.
Well, I got, I can relate to this this way.
Okay.
My son now has a chronic illness and Jeremy knows in my, you know, he's 16 for managing
pretty well.
Last year was tough.
This year has been better.
I could tell you that it was more difficult for me to see him go through that than it
was for me to try and push through what I was going through at any time during the last
11, 12 years that I've been dealing with this, you know?
And so it's because you want to, you guys have got alluded to it.
You know, you want to take it, at least be able to share it with him somehow.
So, you know, so such a chronic illness is one of the most humbling experiences that
you know, anybody can go through and vote for everybody.
Yeah.
There was one night, David, I laid hands on Holly and asked God to transfer her pain
to me.
I just wanted to take it.
I want to take some, all of it, like give this to me because you just, you want to rescue
and help so bad.
And when you've done everything that you can do and seeing all the doctors and your back
where you started, maybe even worse, you just, I mean, you want to help because you love
this person and you're watching them live this life that can't get above second, third
gear.
And that prayer was not answered.
I didn't get that pain, obviously, but I would take it in a heartbeat, you know, if
it meant she didn't have it.
I think any, you know, I'm sure Jeremy W, the same thing, any loving spouse would want
to share that burden if not take it on completely to say, you know what, let's carry this together.
But I can't carry the physical pain, you know, but I can carry you and help carry our family
in the ways I can.
And I'm not some here.
I'm just some guy like I feel very, very blessed to be Holly's husband.
I feel very fortunate that she said yes to me and that we still get to live these 20 plus
years together.
But yeah, it's, it's, it is the hardest thing about our lives is her pain.
Yeah, I, this is on a lot of no, but I did catch the, I don't know if it was intense
or not, but you made a subtle board of the rings reference.
You know, I can't, I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you.
Sure.
It's just, it's just a massive punch.
I can't call this an opportunity to point that out.
So, but that's gotta be right.
It's gotta be right.
If that's the case then.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Well, it's a question of ones I kind of wrote out ahead of time.
I really was interested in what you guys would say about this.
So if you were advising a couple who just, I just had received diagnosis and let me even
rephrase that since we just learned earlier, Jim, you don't, you guys only have a diagnosis.
So let's just say you're advising a couple that has gone through something similar that
you've been through, you know, you're several years ahead of them, in other words, and they're
just finding out they're having to deal with this and there may not be a quick resolution.
Is there any advice that you would offer them that you wish you would have known?
And we'll start with Jeremy W.
Yeah, I can remember summer of 2021.
So that's a year and a half in.
I think I gained a reputation at the YMCA as the weeping pastor.
I would take my boys up and let them swim and I would sit poolside and read Esther Smith
and K.J. Ramsey and David Paulson and I would go, oh man, they've been where we're at.
And we were a year and a half in and hadn't made that connection with real people in our
life yet.
And so finding the tribe, finding the resources, finding broken and mended, finding Christian
trauma counseling network, finding some of those support groups and things like that
that are out there were just it was tremendous for us.
Friends locally that we connected with and just sitting down.
We've again got a great network, we've got other pastors in the area that love us.
But if you haven't, you know, if you haven't had a taste of it, right, you don't, it's
hard to, it's hard to understand.
And so looking for support among the empathetic, right, the folks who have been there finding
that.
So while you're, we needed early on to be more patient with the people in our circle who
didn't understand and who didn't get it.
I feel like for the first year and a half we were in the dark that there was a community
out there.
Right.
So looking for that community online locally and trying to plug into it.
And Jeremy H, we know that you, you've got an appointment to get it too, but let me let
you have last word on that.
And Jeremy W and I will land the plane after when you have to depart.
But yeah.
Well, I love that bit about community.
It's so key to have people with whom to share the journey, solidarity, unity, understanding,
et cetera.
I had a couple things to that, to find something to be grateful for in each day, to cultivate
that, that gratitude can, can help that joy stay afloat.
I think as joy can get drowned and get submerged and hope can get kind of bowled over by the
tidal wave of pain.
So finding little things sold onto each day to give thanks for.
And then as far as the advice along with that, for the one who has the illness or the pain
that I notice is find things that energize their spirit every day.
Find ways or activities or places or music or sites or sounds or something that gives
their soul some energy because they are, they're dog paddling inside.
I mean, the physical struggle is one thing, but within that is the mental, emotional,
spiritual battle they're facing as well.
Well, Jeremy, that leaves us kind of, you know, bring us to a close and we're, we're
kind of coming to that point.
I appreciate being able to stay just a few extra minutes here.
Absolutely.
I want to ask, you kind of hit on this a little bit and why you answered that question, but
what you wish existed or was more widely available to support not only those with chronic illness,
but also loved ones with chronic illness.
Is there anything in your journey that you, I mean, you've been able to find some community
that's good.
I remember early on when I was going through, I wasn't able to for a while, you know, as
part of the reason why I created broken amended because you didn't feel like there was a whole
lot out out there that was actually doing support groups, you know, I mean, there was some written
materials and that kind of stuff.
But what does some wish existed or you discovered earlier on or something like, you know, something
like that?
Yeah, that's kind of the challenge too is, is the easy answer is support and support
groups and folks who are minded to kind of walk alongside.
The challenge of that is, I mean, I think about someone like Jeremy and getting to know
his story and hearing that, man, I've been so encouraged in the last few minutes and
like, oh man, I want to regularly keep up.
Okay, great.
I've got zero margin in my life.
And so the caretakers that we want to put in those positions to, you know, lead support
groups and care for folks are relatively maximized, right?
And their capabilities.
So somebody smarter than me needs to come up with a good strategy for putting that out
there.
And the flip side of that too is with not just inability for folks to be able to get
out or meet, but kind of like broken and mended does like, here's an online option.
Here's a zoom.
Here's a, here's a time when it might be convenient.
Here's a morning or evening and, you know, finding a flexible option for people that
some of whom can work.
Some can't.
And some have kids in school.
Our most free time is eight to three every day where we can kind of get the most done
because three of our four are in school.
And that's usually when other people are less available, right?
Right.
And so just the unique dynamic of this kind of situation of life says, man, we, we all
need a support network, but it's difficult to be involved in one because we're all very
busy just making these ends meet.
Yeah, that is a, and that's a challenge that I wouldn't fully prepare for when I got into
trying to find people to lead broken and mended support groups.
Because obviously I wanted people that could empathize, you know, because they, they had
experience with it and knew the need for that kind of community, but finding people that
had enough energy and health to be able to carry that forward as, you know, has been
a challenge.
Also the timing of, you talked about where, you know, I've, we did something too late.
We could lose a lot of people that, you know, would be, they hurt a lot more at night, you
know, isn't too early.
Well, then you lose your crowd that still, still is going to work or school and that
kind of stuff.
We are slowly working around to solutions to that.
Like tonight we're starting a new support group.
It's actually kind of in mind for some people out on the West Coast.
We actually have someone from Tennessee, but we're starting at 630 Pacific time in order
because they said, Hey, you guys are meeting much too early for us.
We're still at work.
And so we started a group just for those guys in mind and trying to build around that.
So as we kind of figure out what those particulars are, I think we're trying to build around
that, you know, as we, as we learn, but I'm in the same boat with the resources and kind
of margin and, you know, how do I, you know, just kind of think it out loud about this
now that, you know, how do I kind of get some help doing, you know, doing that, you know,
and I'm, that's things we're wrestling with and we've raised enough money to hire some
help and that kind of stuff.
But I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit.
My point is that's a challenge for all of us that where's the margin to invest in what's
important and invest in what we really want to do and see happen.
So hopefully over time, God will give us wisdom in that as we continue to grow and learn.
I think particularly about broken and men, but it can apply in any sort of industry that's
trying to reach out and connect and support people that are going through this.
I think I know for me, I appreciate anyone that's trying to reach out and do something
positive for that community.
You mentioned Esther Smith.
Most people in this ministry are very familiar with her and some of the books that she's
done and the ministry she has.
I was wondering, you mentioned a couple of other authors too, which I wasn't as familiar
with.
Do you remember what you said?
Yeah, KJ Ramsey and I'm the name of the book is escaping me now.
Oh, mercy.
It was in that season and I'm not going to remember it, so I shouldn't try any more.
But the other one was, I'm probably botching the name on this, I believe it's Christian
trauma counseling, which I think is maybe that Esther Smith's a part of, but they're
hosting an online support group on Fridays and Kate Brooks has been leading that.
She and her wife Nate is soon to be, I think this is public counseling professor at Southeastern
Seminary as they transition from reformed.
And there's just been a tremendous community for Alicia, I think for the last six or seven
months, she's been a part of that.
And same kind of thing.
So they're meeting on a Friday at one o'clock.
Yeah.
Whoever can make it can make it.
But I think that's somewhere between eight and 10 folks who have jumped into that and
just been able to form some good friendship.
So yeah, finding that was really helpful.
There's a ton of other resources out there that have been really helpful that of course
I'll blank on right now, but Esther's the first one we found.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know she's been tremendously helpful to me and I know a ton of other people who
have this struggle.
Of course, she herself has the struggle of chronic illness.
So thankfully she is able to continue and do the things that she does despite that and
be a blessing to people.
Well, Jeremy, coming up on about 50 minutes and I need to bring it to a close here pretty
soon, but is there anything else you'd want to add that we didn't cover?
No, you nailed it.
I was setting you up with that last one for the softball on that new group that you started
for the earlier time.
So you hit it out of the park.
Yeah.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate you.
I appreciate you being with us and my thanks to both of you.
I'm seeing maybe Jeremy H will listen to this playback at some point with maybe with Holly
and others and they're great both both of you being with me and I think this will be
a blessing to others as they listen to it.
And I think all our listeners on in the seams and I hope that this has been a blessing to
you and look forward to being back with you the next time.
And so I'll give a shout out to John Shields, who is the editor of this episode.
So, we appreciate the work he's doing.