God’s Goodness in Every Season, Peg Arnold’s Story

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Hey friends, welcome to the Her God Story podcast where you will always hear a good story to encourage and inspire you in your walk with the Lord.

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I am so glad you tuned in. I'm your host, Jodie Chiricosta, ministry leader at Somebody Cares America and International, author and traveler on this journey with Jesus.

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Did you know you can download a free six-week devotional on Women of the Bible at hergodstory.org? God will use it in so many ways to minister to you.

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You can also get a 12-week devotional on Women of the Bible that makes a great gift for someone you might want to encourage.

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Just purchase it on our e-store at somebodycares.org for just $12 and all the proceeds will go to our Widow and Orphan Fund, so check them out.

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And I have a favor to ask. Would you rate this podcast on your favorite streaming platform or just click Rate the Show in our episode description that will help others find this podcast too.

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You know, King Solomon arguably was the wisest man who ever lived, and he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes.

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Now, a well-known portion of Ecclesiastes is chapter 3, verses 1 through 8, but it begins with the verse as rendered in the New Living Translation,

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For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.

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He goes on, of course, to list some of those things, because the seasons of our lives are always changing, and we should be willing to let God lead us differently in our different seasons,

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because each season brings something new, and God is at work in each one.

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Writer Jane Lee Logan said, When the winds of change blow, remember, sometimes what appears dead is simply preparing for a new season.

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And writer Mimic Murat Ilden implores us to love all the seasons, because every season has its own treasures.

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My guest, Peg Arnold, knows a thing or two about seasons of life.

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She's gone through a few and come out understanding that God is present in each one.

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Peg grew up in a large family as a preacher's kid.

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She has fought an eating disorder, grieved the loss of her parents,

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endured the challenges of unemployment, experienced infertility, but she has survived it all.

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As an author, speaker, dramatist, and counselor, Peg has shared God's faithfulness with thousands of people around the country, and she is here to share it with us today.

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Welcome, Peg.

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I am so excited to be here, Jody.

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Well, Peg, what was it like to grow up as a preacher's kid, and when did you start your own relationship with Jesus?

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Thank you for asking that.

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I grew up in a family of four children.

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I was the fourth out of five.

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My dad was a Methodist pastor, and we grew up praying and knowing the existence of God and loving God and knowing about the fruits of the spirit.

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But it was when my dad had an evangelist come to our church when I was 12 years old.

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And it was the first time I had heard about this personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

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I mean, I knew I believed in God and I believed that God was with me, but this personal relationship.

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And you know, when you first hear that and that thump in the middle of your chest is just going, and I knew I was supposed to go forward.

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I was, again, I was 12 or 13 years old sitting next to my girlfriend, and we looked at each other and said, are you going to go?

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If you go, I'll go.

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And because we both felt it.

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And so we walked together to the altar and we both gave our hearts to Jesus.

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And that was the beginning of my personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

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From there, I saw, I was always active in church and youth group, but as I got into high school, I went to campus life and campaigners, which is their Bible study and young life.

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I was active in all of those.

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But as a, as a pastor's kid, being honest with you, I kind of played two sides of the coin.

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I kind of played the, you know, doing what I should do on one side and getting enamored by the things of this life by being popular at school by going to parties and things like that.

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I, and always, always, you know, coming to God with a penitent heart, I know I shouldn't be doing this and still in that uncertain phase.

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One of the things when I went away to college, of course, those temptations got even greater in college.

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And I had made good friends with, I'd gone to a couple of Christian groups on campus with college and had also met a couple of Christians within my dorm.

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There was an RA within my dorm.

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She was a very strong Christian and she always asked me what I needed to have prayer for.

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And I came back from a party one week and night and, okay, I'm aging myself.

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It was not a post-it note on my door.

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It was, it was a little note taped with scotch tape and it said, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

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Acknowledge him and he will make your path straight Proverbs 3, 5 through 6.

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And the Holy Spirit just really convicted my heart with that.

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It's like you are not being true to yourself.

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And that started a journey.

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I would like to say to you, I was one of those people that said, okay, I'm going to make my decisions differently.

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But it was a slow working in a relationship with God and seeking him, but learning how do I integrate who I've created on one side of my life and then how do I integrate it with who God really wants me to be.

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And that's a journey for all of us.

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You know, I think we all struggle with who does God want us to be and then falling into the temptations of the world.

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So I'd say that season of my life was God wooing me and me kind of, if you picture that stretchy dowel with two people pulling on either end, going wooing me on one end and the world wooing me on the other and me having to make that choice.

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Well, that sounds very similar to my young adult life with growing in the Lord. I came to know the Lord when I was six years old, but those things of the world are very tempting when you're growing up.

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And, you know, I'm so grateful that we have, you know, that process of justification when we come to know Jesus Christ, we are right in his sight because of the blood of Jesus.

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But that doesn't mean that we are purely, totally sanctified. That is a process that God takes us to make us more like Jesus.

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And you're right, we all go through it.

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So, you know, I'm so grateful that he doesn't give up on us when we make those bad choices.

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Because when we come back with a penitent heart, he's there, he's saying, I know, I know you love me really. And I'm going to transform you. I'm going to renew your mind.

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And his grace is always there for us. And it's sufficient for anything, you know, covers, like you said, his blood covers anything that we have done in our past.

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And so he's there telling us we're worthy. And I think really our enamorment with the world is us questioning ourselves. Are we worthy?

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Yeah. Boy, that's that's profound. But you're right. Yes.

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Well, during those college years, you also met your husband. Share how that happened. And what were some of the things that were really important to you as you started that relationship?

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I meant, yeah, I met my husband, we were RAs in the same dorm. And so when you are a resident advisor within the dorms, you do rounds together and you start getting to know and they usually have a male and a female doing rounds together on duty.

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And so we ended up doing spending a lot of time together it when we were on duty and forming a friendship. And he was coming off of a relationship. So I ended up being his listening ear.

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And it was a it was a very open relationship in sharing a whole lot about ourselves with each other.

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And I found myself, it was one of those relationships that everyone knew how much we liked each other, kind of like a hallmark movie, you know how everybody knows that they, they, they are going to end up together but they're not admitting it to themselves and we were kind of like that.

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And I, and finally, when we admitted our feelings for each other. I also knew it was important for me to have a man who had the same faith as I did.

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And, and we had, we had gone to maybe church once or twice together on campus but we really hadn't talked about our faith. And we had one, one conversation.

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It was an interesting conversation because it wasn't the typical one that you would have.

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We were talking about an upcoming wedding of one of my siblings. And he says to me, well, if people get married, marriage is a relationship of three.

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And so I kind of played devil's advocate and I said, what do you mean three you've got the husband and wife who's going to intrude on that, hoping he would give the right answer kind of.

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And he said, because you can't do anything without Christ being the head of the household.

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And, and then we, he talked about it's like a triangle. And we're the two bottom corners and the closer we grow to Christ, the closer the couple grows together and at that point it opened the door for us to share our faith and he eventually asked me to marry him and we had a very

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wedding ceremony that was really centered on a foundation building it with Christ as a center.

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So of course you were excited to start a new life when your husband and one of the first things you did was move across country to Maryland.

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And you had grown up, not in Maryland.

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But that move, you know, even though is exciting to be a new bride that move was a really hard season in your life.

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Explain why and how you got through it.

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It was an unexpected hard season, Jodi.

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I was that new bride and everybody had grown up in Michigan.

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I had just finished getting married in a small town where back then if you got married in a small town, your picture was in the local newspaper, which is a written paper with pictures in it.

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And I everyone knew me in that town I had been teaching in that town and received a lot of affirmation in what God had me doing.

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I was volunteering and singing at a senior center is doing a lot of things that I felt God wanted me to do.

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And when I moved to Maryland, we lived in an apartment and he started a job where he worked six hours a day son up to sundown.

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And all of a sudden I'm in a new town. I don't know anybody.

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I am.

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I'm afraid to let people know how lonely I am because I'm this outgoing person and I shouldn't be lonely.

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I'm afraid to let people know that this is hard for me.

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I ended up getting a job I hated on only because my husband knew somebody so it wasn't on my own accolades or abilities.

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And I found myself kind of spiraling into depression only I wouldn't admit it to myself and I wouldn't admit it to anybody else.

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I was afraid if I told anybody who lived in Michigan they would say, well, see maybe you shouldn't have gotten married, you know, right out of college.

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Maybe you shouldn't have done this.

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And I was afraid of that kind of judgment so I didn't tell anybody and I ended up with an eating disorder.

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And at that time they didn't really know what eating disorders were or they weren't common knowledge out in public.

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But I was a full blown bulimic and I was binging and purging to the point that I was hiding it from my husband with makeup over my face covering blood broken blood vessels.

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I had, I had put my voice. I'm a singer. I had put my voice in danger because of the acids and things like that.

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So I was in that pattern and hiding it for at least a year to two years before I admitted it to my husband.

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It slowly started getting better as I ended up with a job in a private school and I started making connections.

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I joined a church. I started teaching in a private school.

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It was a Catholic school but I met some really committed Christians because they had a lot of lay teachers from all different faiths in this Catholic school.

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So beginning to get into a body of Christ where I was and and reconnecting with God in a real way on a personal basis as well as in a community basis.

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And I'm a firm believer that in our faith, yes, we have a one on one.

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We are responsible for our one on one relationship with Jesus Christ.

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But if we are not surrounding us with a body of Christ either praying for us, you know, for those in a mission field, they might only have prayers from a distance, but we have to be connected to a body of Christ somewhere.

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That's how he designed us and being an extrovert. That's even more how he designed me.

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So it was going through that and getting into teaching some Bible studies and I, I started teaching a Bible study on.

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It was a step forward Bible study and I thought I'd pretty much kind of conquered the binging and purging eating disorder on my own.

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And figured I was into more healthy patterns and when I did this Bible study, it was 12 steps.

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And the Lord kind of revealed to me in those 12 steps that, no, he said, you are still living the patterns of it.

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Like you'll binge, but you just say, you know, we use the term pig out, you know, and you could do that because that's socially acceptable as I hold up air quotes.

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I would, but then I would exercise and exercise and exercise.

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So he revealed to me I was still in those unhealthy patterns and measuring my value by my and my worth by my physical appearance.

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And for women, I think that's always a struggle.

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I think it's taken me a long time to really, and I think we all fall back into it at different times, but it's not priority on my list.

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It's I, the Lord is teaching me valid value. The Lord is teaching me worth and him worth on my character on not my deez, but my relationship with him and the way his fruits flow through me.

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Yes.

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So you, you eventually did share that with your husband.

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How did that go when I shared it with him?

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And we actually were it was before I went into that Bible study, I shared it with him.

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And he was shocked.

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We were watching again, aging ourselves a 2020 show and they were doing a special on eating disorders.

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And they named it bulimia.

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And that was the first time I had a name for it.

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And I looked at my husband, I said, that's me.

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And he said, that's not you.

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And I started explaining to him what I had gone through.

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And this is probably two years into it.

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And I had hidden it that long.

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And that that changed it by just, you know, when we hide things, Jody, that allows the enemy to make them grow.

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Because it puts us in our head when we admit them and get some accountability, not only with the Lord, but with a brother or sister in Christ, that exposes it.

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And it gives strength.

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It gives you that armor of God to fight it.

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And I think by admitting it to my husband and him, loving me in spite of that.

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And now wanting to help me with it, not in a guilt way, but in a supportive, loving way helped me then admit and I stopped the actions.

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But as I said, I was still in the patterns until God revealed even deeper to me.

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So what were some of the things that you and your husband did early on that really helped you maintain that first, that firm foundation, you said, you know, when you got married, it was three of you, you and him and God.

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Yes, yes.

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And I think, you know, people can start that way.

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But unless there's some intentionality in maintaining God in the center, it's easy to drift.

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And how did you all, what did you do to be intentional and maintain that good foundation.

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So one of the things that we looked into was marriage ministries.

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And there was a marriage enrichment program that was around us.

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We were involved with Emmaus Walk, which is like a.

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It's a three day program that really focuses on putting your relationship right with Christ and giving your heart and then growing in Christ.

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We went on those separately, but also went to a marriage enrichment weekend and the marriage enrichment weekend gave us some foundational tools of continuing to grow as a marriage.

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And one thing I didn't say to you before is when we were RAs, we had.

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I would say a very wise dorm director who wanted to train his RAs with some listening skills.

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He wanted to equip us to be able to talk to our students that we had on our phone on our floors.

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So before we even got married, we had skills of reflective listening of active listening of being able to.

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Be attentive to each other when there was conflict.

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So we were equipped with some of those skills outside of our marriage, but we knew as we drew into conflict.

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We thought, oh, oh, this is probably where we need to be using those skills.

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And then the marriage enrichment weekend confirmed that yes, those are skills that are foundational.

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And I think a lot of times we'll do that. We just worked with a young couple, pre marital, and they both in their jobs, their counselors are in in people oriented jobs and they were learning these skills.

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I said, have you ever tried them with each other, reflective listening, active listening, attentiveness, some of those conflict resolution.

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And it was like an aha moment, kind of like it was with my husband and I and aha moment. Yeah, we should be using those with each other.

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And so as an early couple, we knew that our foundation was in Christ. We knew we had to attend church together.

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But then we joined some couples groups, some couples Bible studies and marriage enrichment, and then utilizing some of those communication skills that were foundational to us working through some of those hard conflicts.

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And the hard times. Yeah.

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And those really those skills and that foundation was really a saving grace for both of you.

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When you went through illness and infertility, share about that season and how you got through the rough time together.

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We got married at the ages of 2223, which is really young.

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But I always say that we kind of grew up together.

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And we thought we wanted children right away. So we thought, okay, let's be married for a few years and then start children and start our family.

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Not thinking that we would run into any issues. And so at 20, a little, about almost 25, we said, okay, let's I would like to get pregnant.

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And I went to the doctor and I had, I was part of the education system. So we had to have TB tests all the time.

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And I came back with a positive TB test. I worked in the DC area, Washington DC area.

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And they think I was exposed to TB through probably one of my students.

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And because we had a lot of international students in our school.

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But anyway, I had the positive test. And once you have a positive test, you have to go on this medication.

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I had some complications with it. You can't get pregnant when you're on the medication.

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So that delayed our desire to start a family.

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And they thought, okay, we can do this for a year.

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And we decided, again, to pour into our marriage to travel together and do some things that maybe we won't be able to do once we have children.

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And then, and then we, I got off the medication and I thought, okay, now I can get pregnant.

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And one month went by, two months went by, and they, you can't see an infertility doctor until you've got through a whole year.

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And we went through a whole year and I read every book and was taking my temperature and started seeing an infertility doctor.

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And we went through all the tests and found out that I was, I did not ovulate on a regular basis.

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And so I needed to be on a drug. And so we're now, we wanted children two and a half years ago at this point.

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And I wanted to, I wanted to try this medication, but I was scared to try the medication and we were praying about it.

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And I was taking my temperature.

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And right before I took the prescription to the drugstore, and they said, well, we don't have this on hand, we'll have to order it.

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And I went home and I looked at my temperature the next two days and it all of a sudden looked like the charts in my infertility book that said, if it looks like this, you could be pregnant.

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So I started getting excited and a long story short is I was pregnant.

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But having that faith, you know, when you are, when you're in the wait time, and you go through whether it's illness or waiting for something that you really want.

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When you're in that wait time, it feels like you're in the valley.

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And just like in Psalm 23, it says, but even in the valley, God is with us.

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And it God is with us in the wait. And that's, it was in that period of my time that I learned how to pray the Psalms.

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David, his lamenting. I, I never read it anywhere. It was something the Holy Spirit revealed to me.

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I was looking for the words to pray because I was lamenting not being where I wanted to be.

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So, so started praying the Psalms there as well.

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I do that often, actually, I really, I personalize the Psalms and, you know, and so many, so many of the people, even in the Bible did, you know, if you look at you look, they went back and also use the Psalms in their meditations and prayers.

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So you were working full time when you got pregnant and you had to decide if you were going to continue working or stay at home.

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What, what factors played into your decision and how did it turn out?

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I was working full time. Everybody said, well, of course you're not going to be a stay at home mom. And they said it with disdain, you know, and so I thought, well, I thought I was going to be a stay at home mom.

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And so I decided I would stay home for 18 months because I could have my teaching job afterwards.

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And then I was trying with, well, maybe I won't go back, but I got an offer of a part time job.

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And I thought, oh, this is the best of both worlds. And to tell you the truth, I really didn't pray about it.

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I just thought that's extra money would be good.

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And a woman said, I'd be happy to watch your baby for you. And so we found, we found daycare for my daughter.

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She was about 1820 months when I went back part time.

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And I, and I thought, oh, this, this works out great.

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Well, God had another plan for me. Let's put it that way.

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That year I ended up in October near the beginning of the school year with such great abdominal pain.

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I could not move. I was rushed into the hospital.

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My husband took me into the emergency room.

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They did a sonogram found out that I was actually pregnant, but it was ectopic and outside the uterus.

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And so that sends you through a whole, you know, it's one thing to have, need surgery, but then it's a pregnancy.

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You're losing a pregnancy. It was a whole lot of emotional and physical, just a physical challenge.

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And, and when I came back, I could not work. I didn't go back to work until January after the Christmas holidays.

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This was the end of October. So I was home that whole six weeks until Christmas break.

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It changed everything. And then in that process, God did, and we did pray about it.

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We were in a townhouse and our dream house kind of came available and we knew the people moving and they asked us if we wanted to buy their house.

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And we said, absolutely. It was a two story colonial with a two car garage.

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And we just thought it, you know, God's provision was there for us.

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So I ended up off of the surgery, healing from the surgery, going back to work and then moving into a new house.

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So unpacking a whole house with a baby and then unpacking plus working and they increased my hours at the school.

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It ended up being, I call it the most challenging year I had ever been.

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And I looked at God in all of this and I said, you didn't want me to go back to work. Did you?

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You wanted me to stay at home. And I realized that I never really prayed about whether I should go back to work or not.

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And so I believe, I don't believe God send things, send things into our life, but I believe he teaches us lessons through adversity.

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If we have our eyes open, if we don't have our eyes open, we can just sit and say poor me.

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But if we have our eyes open, God can teach us lessons through adversity. And one of the things that he wanted to teach me through this was,

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I would like you to stay home with your children. And so that began, I finished the school year, became pregnant with our second child.

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And I stayed home for 10 years with our kids, was able to be part of Bible studies when I was working at home.

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I was part of mom's groups. It was a sweet season for us.

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That's good. So during that time, what do you think God was doing in your life?

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He was he, you know, I mean, of course you were being a mom, but God doesn't waste any opportunities.

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He was working in a lot of different ways.

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And as I said, we are part of the Samaeus program and he had me doing more teaching and leading groups than just being a part of groups.

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And as he put me into those leadership and teaching course, that's what my background is teaching.

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He also had surrounded me with friends that supported me.

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One of the things I walked through the emptiness, I was a young mom with young kids in school, and he had me walking through the emptiness stage with two very good friends.

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And one of them, one of them, I lost a cancer, which was really, really difficult saying goodbye to that friend.

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And the other friend, as she was entering the empty nest, it was, you know, she was kind of sharing with me how hard that season was for her.

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And God kind of laid it on my heart that, okay, as your kids are in school all day, I would like to develop you in new ways.

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And so one of the ways he called me is to, I prayed about it with my husband because he was calling me to go back to work part time, hopefully to balance now with my kids schedule, but also to go back to school and get a master's in counseling.

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And that would impact our life, not just, not just in those early years, it had long term impact that I didn't know about, and it was part of God's plan for me to eventually work full time.

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We'll get into that.

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But, but also it had impact of I was able to get a part time job four days a week during the hours that my kids were at school, because I was a counselor so it balanced very well with our season, but it also grew me as a person.

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So that I could, I had something going on as I went into those empty nest years.

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Yeah, and you know that career as a as a counselor, you mentioned it kind of prepared you for some hard times ahead.

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Tell us about that. Tell us about those hard times.

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So the hard times hit I had been working part time for several years and my daughter, we're now up to graduation of my daughter.

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And during her senior year, you know how the freight train can come and hit your household, my husband came home and said, reorganization in his company and he lost his job.

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I was only working part time. And when that happens, you think, okay, we've got others, there's severance will be able to get through this. And that wasn't the plan. He was still out of a job after the severance wore out.

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My part time job was the was what was able to let us keep our house. So we weren't in. We weren't in danger of that we did have savings that we started living off of.

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But we entered that Christmas season. It happened in the spring time. And we thought, certainly, you know, by the end of summer, certainly, you know, by the end of by the sea by the holidays and we went into the holidays and he still had no job and found ourselves.

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The recipients of donations, which was very humbling, a very hard time. But I have to say there's a lot that our family learned during that was both our kids and us.

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We learned how much we live in a consumer society that wants to make a sea wants as needs. And we had to establish a lot of new rhythms that helped us to not have those such as just, you know, going shopping, going shopping can make those wants appear as need.

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Well, it's on sale. I'll use it eventually and can make things appear as needs. And so it was really humbling and my husband and I were on our knees and praying for direction.

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And it was about a year before he was able to get his job back in that time.

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Yeah, so that was a really tough season. You know, you learn to trust God in that new way. And really trusting God was critical because the tough seasons weren't over were they.

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No, they weren't. You know, you think you threw it you think you threw the one storm. I think, you know, like, like, Florida just went through the one hurricane, you think, okay, I've survived that hurricane, and then another one comes, you know, and this one, this one.

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I was glad that we had our faith. We had our body of Christ for this next storm, because I, it was one that neither of us expected. Our kids were both graduating our daughter from college and our son from high school.

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So if you think of graduation season just being a sweet season, and it was going to be the season where all of our, our folks were going to my mom and dad and Rick's mom and dad, my parents lived in Michigan, his parents lived in California, we lived in Maryland.

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And all coming we're going to be together, which we had maybe done two times in our marriage. So this was a big, I call them legacy moments, and we're going to get that legacy picture, you know, with the kids and both sets of grandparents.

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And so we went through the graduation of my daughter and my parents were there and all her cousins were there. My in-laws weren't able to come to that, but it was celebratory. And as we drove from Michigan back to Maryland, I'm sending out the invitations for my son's graduation and planning a graduation party in Baccalaureate.

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And I get home and it's about a week later my dad calls me and he said, I just have some news to share with you. And I said, oh, and my dad's been a heart patient most since he was 59.

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But he had just seen his cardiologists and he had two blockages. And this is not new to my dad and our family, but the only time Cleveland Clinic could see him was the week of my son's graduation.

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So he said, your mom and I aren't going to be able to come. And I said, and I knew he was where he needed to be, but my heart was broken that they weren't going to be able to share in that moment with us.

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And so, so, you know, I obviously held my dad in prayer knew that he and my mom and dad were there, but I was, you know, I was kind of having my own little pity party and grieving for myself.

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And, and so now we are preparing for at least my husband's parents are coming. And so we are excited about getting them from the airport and the phone rang.

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And I'm in, I'm out in the back sunroom doing my devotions and I hear my husband answer the phone. And he says, yes.

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Yeah. How is she doing? Thank you. Goodbye.

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And I thought, okay, and I walked out and I said, what just happened? And he said, my dad had a massive heart attack and did not survive.

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He was 70 years old. And that was just like, some people call it turn the page, some people call it hit by a freight train. It was our last expectation.

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The joy of picking them up from the airport.

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And then suddenly turned to this massive grief and massive loss. And I remember calling my school and just not going in that day there was just no way I could and then we were looking at, okay, now what do we do.

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It's a week away from my son's graduation.

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It was obvious I had to put my husband on a plane because he needed to be with his mom and his siblings. That's where he needed to be. It was a divide and conquer kind of thing. And so now we're looking at when and we all know when you look at last minute airlines

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and they're at $500 $600. And that's not something we keep a slush fund for and a very good friend of ours called us up and said, I know we can't change what happened, but we can give you our airline points.

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And we remember make a reservation and get Rick on that plane. And that was one of the biggest gifts that was like pennies from heaven it was God's provision through the body of Christ for us.

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And so instead of driving to the same airport to take to pick up my husband's parents I was driving him to go and be with his family. I came back. And now I was doing preparing for the open house without Rick there without any grandparents there.

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And my daughter and son and I went to baccalaureate. And I wasn't prepared for this Jody. I took out the envelope just thinking nothing of it. I was entering in and grief hits you in waves it smacks you in waves it smacks you in your senses with smells with songs, unexpectedly, and they blind sight you.

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And this time I opened up an envelope and in it were eight tickets. And there's three of us there.

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And just that wave of what the loss has been in our family just overwhelmed me. And yet I'm trying to bury it and swallow it because I want to be joyful for my son. And, you know, it was just a really hard, hard time.

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So we went through the open house. And now it is the day before the graduation and my husband calls up and says, my mom knows that three of us have high school graduates. He wants she wants us to all leave and celebrate graduation with our kids.

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And she's going to have the memorial for dad after all the graduations are over. She doesn't want to interrupt on that. So he came on a plane home. We're going to make that day as joyful as we could, even though there was a cloud of sadness and grief over our household.

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And so we, we, I was making breakfast and making my son's favorite foods and the phone rings. Okay, I got the news with my dad through the phone. I got the news of Brixtad through the phone.

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I didn't think a thing when the phone rings and my husband answers it upstairs so I didn't hear any of the conversation. And he comes downstairs and I looked at his face.

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I said, well, who was that? And he said it was my boss. And I said, Oh, what's your boss call about? He said that they reorganized and have my car and my computer and all my work things ready for them to pick up tomorrow.

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Another freight train hit. And I, I looked, I said, Did he know it was your son's graduation? He goes, No, I didn't tell him. Did he know your dad just died?

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He said, Oh yeah. He said, by the way, sorry about your dad. Not only did he get fired from a job he'd been in for over six years over the phone.

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But sorry about your dad. And I just grabbed my husband. I would like to say that I quoted scripture right then, but I grabbed my husband and we danced in the kitchen and I said, Ben me break me anyway you want you long as you love me.

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It's all right. And we cried and we sang and we praise God that we had each other and we knew that God had us for it wasn't fear at that point. It was surrender at that point for us.

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Yeah, it was surrender. And it's a good thing that was surrender because that wasn't the end of it.

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No, it wasn't because though the good thing about that is it gave my husband time to go out and help his mom. And he had been praying for ways to witness to his family he got chances to witness and really reestablish some relationships with his siblings.

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But in that next three months, my mom got the diagnosis of Alzheimer's which then started started an eight year journey for our family. And I call Alzheimer's the disease of many goodbyes.

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And, and that started a new journey for us in that, in that season. Yeah, was hard hard season, but God was good God, God brought us through. Yeah, you are grieving you are husband was looking for a job again your kids were starting new.

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Empty nest, all of it was hitting all at once and you know I had that. I had that.

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Remember I talked back when I was a young mom how God was preparing me for this empty nest. I didn't know there was going to be all the challenge around it.

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But then he also had me in a job where I was counseling, and he had me starting in a speaking ministry at that time as well so he was, he was equipping me for new things I always say just like Ecclesiastes every season has joys and sorrows to it.

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And so he was equipping me for walking into more seasons of challenges, but he was giving me opportunities to share his faithfulness and his goodness with others, both through teaching at my job and teaching at churches as well.

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Yeah, and you know I think a lot of a lot of well, most of us go through a season, you know, of life that's called kind of the sandwich generation. Yeah, and watching parents age. Yeah, and still raising kids.

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Yeah, and you know even when our children are young adults, even though we're not involved in their daily life, necessarily, they still have parenting needs, different kinds.

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And I think how to navigate that new relationship that changing from the parenting of guiding every step and wanting to guide every step to walking next to and being available when they ask you and you know learning when to open our mouths and not open our

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mouths. And I think that's also something I think I constantly learn. I think we all do. I think we all do. I think we all put our foot in our mouth more often than we'd like. Right, right. Exactly.

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And as my mom went into that illness, then we started going through the season of our kids now starting to get married. And so in five years we had my daughter get married, my son get married, my daughter have her first

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children, they were twins. And this is all in the deterioration of saying goodbye to my mom. We did get one picture of my mom holding one of the twins. We had to lay her she was a she was pretty she had Parkinson's with Alzheimer's

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at the end of her life. She was nonverbal and pretty much quadriplegic. So we we have a picture of him placed in her arms. And it was about

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three months later that she passed away. And we were able to be there with her when she passed away. And then so I had the joy of two marriages. And then I walked right into the season of losing my mom one year, my dad the next

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year, and Rick's mom the 15 months later. So it's like this high joy of fun and marriages and grandchildren, all as you said that sandwich, that sandwich generation where you're between. But then the piece of bread starts getting ripped off.

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And that's what I felt like the three remaining parents ripped off and it was one each of the school years. I went through three school years in a row of having to leave for for a readment leave.

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What was your foundation in the Lord in that time I mean what was the, you know, oftentimes the Lord gives us an anchor to hold on to my foundation that he gave me in that time.

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You know, in this started probably I should have said it back when we went through the, the unemployment was Jeremiah 2911. And that's what I first started with in the unemployment.

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The Lord has plans for each of us plans to prosper not to harm us plans to give us a hope and a future. That's what I leaned on when we were going through unemployment.

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As I started going through the season of loss, I saw the value in verses 12 and 13. And if we seek him with our whole heart, he sees us. And if we pray to him, he hears our prayers.

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And so it's just that was a foundation to know that his faithfulness, no matter what we were going to go through his faithfulness was there in every single moment.

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But now you're in a new season. And you, you had a transition that you didn't necessarily want initially. So tell us about the transition and what God has you doing now.

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Yeah, so we were, we were living in Maryland and now in instead of the sandwich generation, my husband and I are the top slice of bread is what I say, you know, because we've got our kids and they've got their kids.

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But I am, I, I felt like God was always saying to me when you leave your full time counseling education job, I'm going to put you in full time ministry.

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And within two years, this around 2015 within two years, both of my kids ended up in Colorado from Maryland to Colorado. We have lived, we had lived in the house for 32 years raised our kids in that house.

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Our roots were deep in Colorado.

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And so I, I, yeah, oh, sorry, our roots were deep in Maryland. Thank you.

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And so I was questioning the Lord, like you're moving the kids and I, my husband said, should we move, I'm ready to move. And I said, well, you know, my ministry is more out here on the East Coast.

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Nobody knows me in Colorado. I said, why don't we just get a condo or get an Airbnb. We'll go back and forth.

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I'm, I'm bargaining all these different ways we can work out our trips to Colorado and seeing our kids.

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And I'm out on a walk and, and just questioning the Lord, you know, you've moved both kids out there. There's they have families. We want to be a part of their family.

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How do we do this Lord? Why, you know, why can't, why would you even think of moving me to Colorado?

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And he said to me, what makes you think I don't have things prepared for you in Colorado?

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Talk about a dagger to my heart, because I realized I said to him, I said, forgive me, Lord, I have made you way too small.

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There's a song that said, I have made you too small in my heart. Lord, forgive me.

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And then it goes on to say, be magnified, oh Lord. And, and I just, I knew at that point that God wanted us to leave our home in Maryland and move to Colorado.

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Now I'm not going to say I went just, oh, okay, here's, you know, I'm all in.

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I knew that's where I needed to go, but I literally had fear. I felt like I was jumping off a cliff and I could not see the bottom of the valley, but I had to totally trust in the Lord.

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And at that point he gave me Joshua one nine, be strong and courageous, do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for the Lord is with you wherever you go.

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And even in that story with Joshua, he talks about going before him.

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And so my prayers were God went before us. And so we did, we took the, we made the huge move from a house of 32 year.

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I felt like I was being a transplanted oak tree, you know, you have to rip out the roots and I liked the soil in Maryland and, you know, the soil in Maryland.

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And in Colorado is rocky and dry and, you know, but God's goodness revealed every step of the way.

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He just constant revealed and still to this day, we've been out here now seven years and God has revealed both in my ministry, how he's gone before us with where he put our house with our church with our kids with our family with our friends.

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It has been just that constant reassurance. See, I knew this would happen. It's like God.

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And so my husband and I will constantly say, God knew this was going to happen. God knew this was going to happen.

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I wouldn't have met you, Jody, if I wasn't out in Colorado.

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That's right.

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You know, it's like God, God goes before us. And I'm always realizing how much bigger he is than I could ever even ask thinker.

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Yeah, so he has you speaking all throughout Colorado and other parts of the West.

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Yes, he does.

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He had you write a devotional.

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Yes. And I got in a, I had a bad ski accident, water ski accident, put me in a wheelchair for six weeks and through that, God brought a friend into my life who said, didn't you tell me you wanted to get a book written.

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And I said, well, I have devotions.

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And so, and that was a God designed friendship.

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So I wrote this devotional devotions for the distracted heart. Does that tell you who I am in my personality.

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But it's, it's available on Amazon, but it was a whole God thing. I have to give him the glory for getting that written and published because it was through my friend Michelle that I was able to get that done.

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And then, and then I've just, I have a new book coming out to equip speakers and writers with using visual aids, the importance of using visual aids with scriptures, and that will be published in 2025.

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So, do you have a title for that one yet.

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That one is making your message memorable captivating your creative ideas to captivate your audience.

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That's a great title.

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Yeah.

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And you know, a scripture that's become a real favorite of mine the last few years is Psalm 2723, which the new living translation reads, the Lord directs the steps of the godly he delights in every detail of our lives.

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I love that.

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Yeah, I mean, I just, you know, and I see as you moved kind of from this season of grief, that the Lord delighted as he took you to Colorado and opened up just so many opportunities for you and made the way.

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Really pretty the transition pretty easy.

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Wasn't it compared to my move from Michigan to Maryland. Absolutely.

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Yeah, and moving can be, you know, it can take years and years and years to develop those deep relationships, but the Lord had some ready for you that the connections that that made that transition.

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As you look back over all the seasons that God brought you through his faith just what thread of truth.

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Has he woven in your life.

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There is nothing that surprises God.

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We are surprised.

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And we question him and our questions don't surprise him.

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But that no matter what we're going through, he repurposes one of the things I say is, you know, when life is broken, God takes those broken pieces and he recreates.

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A new normal.

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And, and that's what he does.

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He is, he's the God of new life.

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He is God.

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He has got of healing.

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He has got of strength.

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He has got of direction.

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There's his faithfulness is has been so prevalent throughout my life.

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And I can see him walking as I look back.

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And I look at the Israelites, you know, how they grumbled.

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And I think they would forget to look back at his faithfulness.

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And I think we can fall into that same trap.

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We can look at our circumstances and be upset with our circumstances.

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But if we look back and see his faithfulness, we know he's not going to leave us even when things are falling apart.

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Yeah.

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But in a good way. Yeah.

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I love how you say he creates a new normal for us.

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But in a good way, you know, so many of us, yeah, so many of us look back at, you know, maybe the COVID years and everybody was saying, oh, we have a new normal now.

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And it was, you know, kind of a bad connotation.

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And it's more than when God creates a new normal.

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It's always better.

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Yeah.

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So as we close, Peg, would you share about a woman in the Bible?

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His story is inspired and encouraged or taught you something.

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Martha from the I was that that story with her and Jesus kind of saying you're distracted about, you know, all the unnecessary details.

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I can get distracted in this world.

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But also when you go to the story of Martha with Lazarus, she is the one to run out and greet the Lord before Mary.

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And she is the one to say, oh, Lord, if you were here, my brother would be alive.

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But all you need to do see her faith had changed and grow.

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And she said, all you need to do is say the word and and whatever you say will come true.

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So I see growth in Martha from that first encounter to that encounter with with Jesus and her brother Lazarus.

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And and I would pray that God sees that same growth in me because yes, I can still get distracted.

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But I know his faithfulness.

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I know he is true to his word and that when I pray to him, he will answer me.

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And yeah, sometimes he's going to say no, sometimes he's going to say maybe sometimes he's going to say yes.

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But every no has a reason. Every maybe has a reason and every yes has a reason.

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And it's up to me to stay connected to him and pray in the spirit.

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So I know that I am seeking his will for me.

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Amen. You know, Psalm one one through four in the New Living Translation says, oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand with sinners or join in with mockers.

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But they delight in the law of the Lord meditating on it day and night.

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They are like trees planted along the riverbank bearing fruit each season.

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Their leaves never wither and they prosper in all they do.

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Like peg, all of us go through difficult seasons in life mixed with joy and pain and challenges and learning and so much more.

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But you know, when we lean into God's word and seek him, we can bear fruit and every one of them.

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Peg, would you take a moment and pray for our listeners?

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Father God, we come to you and I pray for the ones listening right now who may be in that hard season.

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Lord, I would just ask would you reveal yourself to them, open their eyes to have them see your faithfulness and your strength and your comfort.

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Father, if they are weeping, would you hold them and have them feel your arms around them?

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Father, if they are estranged in a relationship and their heart is hurting because of the loss, would you give them wisdom and insights and ways to see your faithfulness in every single step?

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Father, if they are in need of healing, we know that you are the great healer.

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We also know that ultimate healing sometimes is not here on this earth.

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So whatever path they are following, Lord, we would ask for your wisdom, your comfort and your presence to be with them.

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And Lord, for those that are in the season of rejoicing, may they feel your prayer, may they be able to praise you and rejoice in you.

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And no matter what season they are in, Lord, have them feel that that delight that you have in each one of them.

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You not only love them, but you delight in who they are and what they are becoming.

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And we lift this up in your son's name. Amen.

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Amen.

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Well, thank you for tuning in.

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Check out the show notes at hergodstory.org for scriptures and other information we talked about. And remember to get your free six-week devotional on Women of the Bible there.

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Also, would you consider donating to our Witte-Wenorfen Fund, which is a way you can respond to James 1.27, which says to care for widows and orphans in their distress.

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Together, we're doing that. You can do a donation at hergodstory.org.

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We'd also love to pray with you on our 24-7 prayer and text line.

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So give us a call or text anytime at 855-459-CARE or email us at somebodycares.org.

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And now, dear friends, I speak a blessing over you from Psalm 112, 1-4.

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May you who fear the Lord be blessed.

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Those who find great delight in his commands.

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May your children be mighty in the land.

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May the generation of the upright be blessed.

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May wealth and riches be in your houses and your righteousness endure forever.

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Even in darkness may light dawn on you for you are upright, for you who are gracious and compassionate and righteous.