Ann Maree
Hello and welcome to another and the last of our summer series on the Safe to Hope  podcast. In June, I hosted Linda Sutherland and her mom, Donna Westcott, as they spoke about their experience at PCA GA that’s the Presbyterian Church of America denomination and their general assembly, which they hold every year, and they talked about the latest news resulting from that meeting as well things that leadership decided that impact the PCA denomination. The past two weeks, I interviewed board member, Julia Fillnow now a licensed counselor and her husband, Patrick, who is a medical physician, I interviewed them regarding the different roles several disciplines can play on a team approach to care in the local church for women in crisis. And we also talked about each of our own strengths and weaknesses. I brought the lay counseling or biblical counseling model to the table, and we just threw around some ideas about our training and how we approach different topics and people and care, and just how that might look as we’re complementing each other on a team. Today, I am beyond excited to introduce you to one of our newest staff members and the author of remember my affliction, Kimrey Dillon. Kimrey will be helping me out a bit as my assistant for a while, but as you will learn more about her in a few seconds, we have hopes for Kimrey participating at helper in Much bigger ways. For now, she’s also contributing to the content of our helper resources. And remember, my affliction is the first so big, warm welcome to Kimrey. And if you would say hi and please introduce yourself.

Kimrey
Hi. Thank you so much for having me. The summer lineup is a really hard act to follow. I’m still listening to Julia and Patrick’s podcast. Currently, the summer series really knocked it out of the park. Well done. Like you said, I get to curate content for help her, including an upcoming devotional, remember my afflictions, which I think next to safe to hope, has been our biggest project yet, professionally, I am three classes away from having a master’s in Biblical Studies from RTS, and then, like that wasn’t enough. I got a wild hair and decided to go to law school. So as of three days ago, I am a 1l at UGA Law. This might be the most controversial part of our whole podcast, but I get a football team for the first time, and a good one at that. So very pumped for football season. And sorry, not sorry to cause controversy with any Bama or Clemson fans,

Ann Maree
Yes, yes, our football team’s in the south, but it is exciting and it’s fun, and so I’m glad for you that you have that you have that experience, but also just really proud of you and how you I don’t know, juggle to very different but also very weighty types of coursework and theology and in law, but I am just super excited about what the end, the outcome of this is going to be for you, and hopefully with with us. Anyway, let’s talk about this resource, and I wish I had it to show our audience. We’re gonna get a sample soon, and hopefully maybe just do a little video of it, because it’s not only useful and rich with content, it is beautiful, thanks to our own Helen Weigt, who creates these lovely things for us, to provide for you. Anyway, Kimrey, why did you write Remember my Affliction?

Kimrey
So to be honest, it began as a devotional for myself, so I needed to preach the gospel to myself through a really hard season. In a year and a half period, the Lord brought two major crises, three minor crises, and then two of my grandparents also passed away, and it was just like the waves just kept coming and the hits just kept coming, and it there was a lot of betrayal involved, a lot of close relationships ended, and the grief was overwhelming. Every aspect of my life changed. Every aspect of my life was disrupted. The summer gas hit $5 a gallon. There was $7 in my bank account, and work was 30 minutes away. Housing was insecure throughout that whole period, and then I was still really running on adrenaline, and I was in constant fight or flight mode, and it was just unchartered water for me as a Christian, and the Christian community as a whole didn’t really know what to do with me. My church community didn’t really know what to do with me, concepts such as sexual harassment or abuse. Things were seen as woke in my church community, trauma responses were seen as sinful. I literally had a mentor tell me that I was sinning because I was anxious all the time. I looked crazy because in a lot of ways, I was, I mean, I describe it as I literally lost my brain, it just it went offline. So any encouragement that came was purely focused on eternity, um, which wasn’t wrong, but in the moment, I was wrestling with knowing whether or not God was with me today, and other questions were popping up too so were my emotions too big for Him. Was the suffering I was experiencing my fault? So through all of that, the Lord led me to lamentations, and the more I dug in, the more I began to realize that God’s not afraid of trauma, and God is not afraid to meet us in trauma, and He’s not judging our trauma responses. In fact, He does the opposite, and he expects them, and He invites us to bring them to Him. So, long story short, I wrote it for myself, and I’m so thankful the Lord kind of gave me that project, because it ended up changing my entire view of God.

Ann Maree
Yeah, you’re you’re describing a pattern that we hear so often from women, mostly who have been traumatized, secondarily, I guess, in their church context, after they’ve revealed or reported abuse. I mean, this is I hate to say this, but this is not unusual, so I appreciate that you’re articulating that piece of it, because it leads then into this resource, and you say it changed your entire view of God. And I’m so grateful too that God did that without human intervention, even He just led you to His word but tell me. Tell me why you say it changed your entire view of Him.

Kimrey
In some ways, the second round of trauma by people’s responses, was worse, maybe even in some ways, than the original or whatever the original was, it just heightened it. And when your church community responds in certain ways, you get it in your head that that’s how God’s responding to you as well. And so, like you said, just His kindness and taking me directly to his word, circumnavigating all humans and just seeping me in His Word, He taught me that logically, if we believe that Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit, then the conclusion is that Lamentations is God’s gift of us. So the Psalter, we call it, right? God’s prayer book. It’s God’s prayer book to us to know how to talk to Him. Well, Lamentations is the same way for us, very specific context, I would argue, Lamentations is probably the clearest and most vivid example of the devastating impacts that the Fall has on our everyday life, which really sets us up to see our desperate need for Jesus. The realities portrayed in Lamentations are why Jesus came to rescue ruined sinners. So Lamentations teaches us that God a recognizes what the Fall has done to us. He recognizes our own sinfulness, He recognizes the consequences of our own sin, but then B, he also recognizes the reality that other people’s sin can also have devastating consequences in our own lives, and those two things are tension and Lamentations is full of tension. So one of the things I learned is that God Himself holds tension. One of the things, one of the tensions that really stood out to me was we can both recognize and repent of our sin on one hand, while on the other hand, still asking God to act justly towards those who sinned against us in their poor and sinful response. I also learned, really in Lamentations 3 that God has a category for those who are blameless and yet still suffer because of sin in the world. There are other places in Scripture that teaches this Job, Jesus, Joseph, and then finally, the Lord taught me that He is not afraid of trauma responses, even if the church is. He designed our bodies to respond in a certain way. He’s our Creator. And as a result, His desire is for us to invite Him into that pain. And that’s kind of where the title for this came from. In Lamentations 3, the poet calls on God to remember his afflictions. And so um. As our Creator and as the one who made our bodies to respond in this way, He’s calling on us to invite him to remember our afflictions, which is just a really cool and new way of looking at it for myself.

Ann Maree
Yeah, you’re bringing up some really important points, things that we may have touched on in other podcasts, or even in podcasts that are coming up. And just for simplicity sake, defining trauma as anything that overwhelms the systems for response. And so that could be physically, your body can manifest like you said, God created it with these emotions for a reason. So we have fear as a warning system, anxiety points us to something else, and so in those ways, if they get overwhelmed, they’re not responding in kind, if you will. So you don’t need to be threatened or in danger to have this similar response in your being, in your entire being, in your body, your mind, your heart, your soul, that kind of mimics what happened in the original fear, in the original overwhelming circumstances. And so we just want to make that clear. It’s just, it’s a bodily, and I’m talking whole person body response to things that overwhelm anyway, that kind of went off on a rabbit trail. Can you? Can you just give us maybe an example or a sneak peek of what you just described there?

Kimrey
Absolutely, so going back to the theme of God invites us to invite Him into our pain. I think the structure of Lamentations itself teaches us something in that regard. The poet basically says the same thing for five chapters straight, and not once does God tell the author of Lamentations to just get over it. He doesn’t look at the first chapter. He doesn’t look at this poet who’s sitting in the ruins of Jerusalem writing about his pain and say, okay, you’ve told it to me once, like now, get up and move on. But instead, He allows the author to bring the same situation to Him, over and over and over again. Like I said, there’s five chapters, and the structure of the chapters follows the Hebrew alphabet. And in chapter three, it follows the Hebrew alphabet like three times. And so we see the author of Lamentations, really, about seven times go through the same scenario. And this is a common trauma response. It was very present in my own story. I needed to tell the same story over and over and over again because I was processing different aspects of it. It’s kind of like a rock that you’re turning over or a diamond you’re turning over to see all the different aspects of it. And that’s what the author of Lamentations is doing, and it’s exactly what God is asking of him, and by default, what God asked of us.

Ann Maree
Yeah, you’re emphasizing God’s patience in sitting with us in our stories. I love that picture of, yeah, go ahead, tell me again. Instead of, could you just get up and get over it? Yeah. So that’s a beautiful picture. And I love too, that you’re kind of taking a step out and over and looking down at Lamentations and seeing the connections of the not only the repetitiveness, but also that the grounding exercises that you talk about. And that’s just a hint for somebody, for the audience, we’re not going to tell you much more about that. So, and I wondered this before I picked it up. But why did you I know? No, I know the answer, but let me ask anyway, why did you tie Lamentations to Advent?

Kimrey
So when I started writing the devotional for myself, it was December, and it was Christmas, and Christmas, just frankly, added insult to injury, not to give away too much information, but through this situation, ended up losing a lot of immediate family. And so Christmas revolves around family. And so how do you have this juxtaposition? How do you handle the juxtaposition between a season that’s supposed to be joyous, and the sorrow that invades every aspect of not only your day, but also this whole season. And so this was another area where I just had to reckon with the Lord and to reconcile that my situation was precisely the whole purpose of Advent, that Christ incarnate truly is with us like He came to be with us. He came to be our Emmanuel, and He came to rule as far as the curses found and my crisis and your crisis, they fall under that umbrella, and that Advent really was my only hope. My only hope that God was with me in my sorrow was the fact that Jesus became incarnate. Christmas became the whole reason I could count on God to be with me in crisis.

Ann Maree
And I would say, too, that was my experience, the God with us, Emmanuel. Aspect of this study, when I went through it, I mentioned on the cover, I think it is, that I didn’t know I was in my my own healing process, but I didn’t know how much I needed that gentle touch and through this resource. And I think because, you know, you’ve tied this lament to God with us, it was literally like feeling God in His presence with me as I was, as I was going through the study. So, yeah, beautifully done.

Kimrey
Another thing I would like to add is as you read through Lamentations, you get the sense that the Old Covenant has been broken because of Israel’s sin, and God has exercised the due curses on Israel that he promised, right? He said, obedience, – blessing; disobedience – curse, and the curses come upon them. And you see sitting there in the ruin the author going like, has God forsaken us? Are we done for? And in a sense, the author of Lamentations is looking forward to the Messiah as his only hope. And so, like the author of Lamentations, we know, we know Christmas is coming. And for us, we know Jesus came, and now we’re looking forward to his second coming. We’re we’re really looking forward towards the second advent. But there is that shared theme of we are longing for Messiah because we are sinful, we are sinned against, and there is no hope if God doesn’t come to us.

Ann Maree
Yeah, you’re drawing a beautiful picture again, just the Christ-child. Picture of Him coming for us is enough. I don’t know it added to the book, though. It added to the journal, but I was wondering, what you heard, what I took away, what what would be one thing that you hope, hope other people walk away with from this devotional?

Kimrey
I love how you highlighted God’s nearness, and really, that’s our comfort, and so I think that’s the thing I long for other people to experience the same comfort that I was comforted with. There’s a great Christmas hymn speaking of Christmas based on Isaiah 41 called Comfort, Comfort You, My People. And it’s God calling His people to take comfort in Him, His kindness, His nearness, His expectations for us in suffering. And so that would really if someone read it and worked through the workbook and walked away going, God was with me, and that transforms their relationship with the Lord that’s that’s the goal, that’s dream come true, and abuse is isolating, and unless it’s a road you’ve walked, you don’t sometimes, always get it, and even if you have walked it, every situation is different. Every personality is different. I know I’ve had friends who their response is sadness and grief, my response tends to be anger. And so while we may have similar stories, our… the way we processed it was just different. And so that can feel very lonely. But the whole goal the devotion, is to show that God gets it and He gets it a because He’s creator, but B, He gets it because He took on flesh and he faced lifelong oppression and ultimately death. Hebrews says He became like us in every way, and abuse is not excluded from that category. So even if no other human being can relate to you in the crisis. God Himself can both because He’s creator, but also because He became man

Ann Maree
Amen, yep. So we’re talking a lot about abuse, of course, because this is a resource that grew out of your own experience. So we’re talking about abuse survivors, victims, etc. Are they your target audience?

Kimrey
They are, for sure. Yeah, it’s strategically set up to be a counseling resource. It doesn’t have to be used in that context by any means, but we designed it to be a 30 day devotional, so that it’s long enough to help form habits, but it’s also short enough to keep a client engaged. There are specific aspects that are tailored for abuse survivors. One, the readings are short. They’re bites I call them bite sized, and I can remember having zero mental capacity, so I needed something to be accessible. Another aspect is it’s really there’s so much freedom inherent in the design. You can take as much time as you need. So if you need 30 days, go for it. If you need 60, slow it down. If you’re a type A oldest child, overachiever and you want to knock it out in a week, that option is also available, and it can really be done as many times as you need it. There’s also freedom in whether or not it’s used in a group setting or by an individual. It’s really designed to be versatile, and the type of abuse is non specific, which I think is an important component. We recognize that there are lots of different types of abuse that occur, the context of Lamentations itself is a war zone, and we hear every day, war zones can vary in size from geopolitical all the way down to the war going on in your house. And so whatever war you are facing or recovering from, God has comfort for you, and He invites you through His Word to remember His promise to be with us. So speaking of promises, Ann Maree, I want to ask you a question. Do you want to introduce the Festivals of Remembrance series?

Ann Maree
It would be my pleasure.

Kimrey
So for context, Remember my Afflictions. Is just the first volume in this series. So there is so much more to come, and Ann Maree can cast her vision for it.

Ann Maree
Yeah. So originally, and some of you may remember this, I started the year by investigating the Scriptures to see what God tells us that He wants us to remember. I found, well, first of all, you, you know this too, or have heard this, probably that remember is the most oft repeated command in Scripture. And we were talking about memory and Theology of Story One, and how important it is to remember well, to remember accurately. And so I just thought, wonder what God wants us to remember. And I thought I’d find, you know, a few passages here and there. And I found a Bible instead. And so that is really how the idea was born. I started thinking about the festivals of remembrance that the Jewish nation celebrated, if you will. Even though some of those festivals were not necessarily, you know, happy, happy, rah, rah. A lot of them were painful memories, but God called His people to remember them. And while Christ has fulfilled all of these festivals for Christians, we do still celebrate a festival of remembrance every time we take communion. So it’s not that the Old Testament, saints of old had to do a lot of remembering, and that was something that God called them to do, and now, as Christians, we’ve got Christ, we don’t have to anymore. Remembering is a privilege. I often say this because it boggles my mind. I’m not really good at philosophy, but we can remember the future. God has given us a way to remember the future, by way of His promises, and then also in doing so, even in doing that, we are confirmed, because throughout the Scripture, God proves that He is faithful to what He has promised. And so we can remember them, we can remember those promises, and then we can look forward to them. I think that’s very unique to Christianity, to Christ followers, that we can do that, and it’s a promise of hope that is so, like I said, unique to us. I just thought that’s something we really need resources for. To keep celebrating, and especially as Kimrey is talking about abuse survivors and victims whose hope is just really either gone or suffering greatly, I think the remembering exercises can help. They really can help. And so when I first saw Kimrey’s unfinished work, I thought, no, no, we’ve got to start here. And so that’s why this one is, Remember my Afflictions, we start there. Because, as Kimrey has said, that God is just as interested, He is just as, I guess, passionate about hearing from us as we are to hear from Him, although, you know, we need it more, I think, than He needs to hear from us. But still, it doesn’t mean He doesn’t want to hear from us. And so we’re starting here with this particular type of remembrance, and also the advent part of it, as kimry also talked about the hard, hard, hardness of being a sufferer while everybody else is saying it’s the most wonderful time of the year. Yeah. So going forward, we’re going to have more Remember journals probably around the 30 day average of size. And for the same reason, you can slow it down, or you can overachieve, or you could do whatever you want, and when we get an actual physical copy, I’ll be excited to show you all. We’ll have pictures or videos or something, because it’s really a beautiful book, and not just a useful book, it’s it’s a journal, but it’s also Kimrey’s story, and it’s a devotional pointing us towards God, but it’s also beauty, which is so important to recognize when we’ve suffered. Anyway, that’s the series.

Kimrey
Yay. I’m so excited. I cannot wait. The rest of them come down the line.

Ann Maree  Yep. And so this too, is our inauguration into publishing our arm called [H]ub. We got our first ISBN today for this book, our ISBN so that we can sell it, which made us official, and we are excited to even look down the lane and see you know, the possibilities of publishing for Help[H]er and the voices that we’ve already heard that we might now hear again, maybe in written format, like Kimrey. But anyway, excitement galore here. Anyway, thanks.

Kimrey
I’ve heard someone say, I heard someone say one time to teach is to learn something twice. 

Kimrey
Yes, and I would say that’s so true for me when it comes to writing. To write is to learn it twice, and I need to learn it twice, so it’s just as much as an opportunity for me and a celebration for me for this opportunity with [H]ub as it is for anyone else.

Ann Maree
Yeah, I agree. I write to know what I think. I write to learn. I teach to learn. You know, most of the stuff I’ve put myself in front of to teach, I had to learn quickly first. So, yeah, yeah, some great opportunities here for that, for that type of learning, loving, writing, teaching for women. So thank you, Kimrey, thanks for introducing this new resource. Thank you for writing it. Thank you for being interested in the Help[H]er ministry and joining with us. We are excited to watch you grow and how God’s going to use you, because I can tell you, God’s going to use you even more so well.

Kimrey
Thank you so much for having me. I was an overzealous, half-baked seminary student, when I was like, “Hey, I have this half written thing that I’m not sure it’s worth finishing,” and you carved out time on your busy schedule to look at it, and said, “Yes, girl, go for it. Keep running.” So I’m so thankful for you and for Helen. This never would have happened without Helen.

Ann Maree
Helen. Yes. Helen is behind the scenes Wonder Woman.

Kimrey
She is. She took something useful and made it beautiful. And I, like you said, beauty is just such a key component, I think of not letting darkness win.

Ann Maree
Yes, yes, this proves it for sure. All right. Well, that’s all for today. Or I’ve said this before about it. Keep throwing new series in, but this is the last week of summer, so we’re not going to do any more of the summer series. September 10, we begin our storyteller series. I’ve said this in a previous podcast. I’ll say it again, though we are beyond excited to be able to offer to our audience the story of a reconciled domestic abuse marriage and the incredible experts that are going to participate in speaking to that situation. Chris Moles, Tabitha Westbrook, Greg Wilson, and, of course, Darby Strickland. And so tune in on September 10 to hear the first part of that story. That’ll be from the the wife, the woman Renee, and then we’ll have, we’ll have the expert after that. So.

Kimrey
Great! And then September 30 is when the devotional comes out. That’s right, so September is a big month for us.

Ann Maree
Yes, I’m sorry. I should have announced that. And you can pre order it today at helper dot help in the store. And while you’re in the store, pick up a decal for your Stanley Cup or a hat, because they’re really great. And actually, the journals are beautiful too. Okay, all kinds of things. Go shopping. 

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Safe to Hope is a production of HelpHer. Our Executive Producer is Ann Maree Goudzwaard. Safe to Hope is written and mixed by Ann Maree and edited by Ann Maree and Helen Weigt. Music is Waterfall and is licensed by Pixabay. We hope you enjoyed this episode in the Safe To Hope podcast series. 

Safe To Hope is one of the resources offered through the ministry of HelpHer, a 501C3 that provides training and resources for those ministering in one-another care and advocacy for women in crisis in Christian institutions. Your donations make it possible for HelpHer to serve as they navigate these crises. All donations are tax deductible. If you’d be interested in partnering financially with the ministry, go to help her dot help and click the give link in the menu. If you’d like more information or would like to speak to someone about ministry goals or advocacy needs, go to HelpHer.help. That’s help her dot help.

[disclaimer]

We value and respect conversations with all our guests. Opinions, viewpoints, and convictions may differ so we encourage our listeners to practice discernment. As well, guests do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of HelpHer. It is our hope that this podcast is a platform for hearing and learning rather than causing division or strife.

Please note, abuse situations have common patterns of behavior, responses, and environments. Any familiarity construed by the listener is of their own opinion and interpretation. Our podcast does not accuse individuals or organizations.

The podcast is for informational purposes and is not a substitute for professional care, diagnosis, or treatment.

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