Julia
Hi, Safe to Hope, family. Welcome to a brand new season of Safe to Hope. I’m Julia, a board member at Help[H]er, and today’s episode is a little bit different, not just because I’m here, but because we’re introducing this season in a different way and giving you a chance to hear from Ann Maree and our newest storyteller, Carya. We’re thrilled to have all of us together in studio. Welcome both of you. 

Ann Maree
Well, thank you. 

Carya
Thank you. 

Julia
This season, we want to approach Carya’s story with special care—not just for her, but for you, our listeners. Some of the topics we’ll discuss throughout the season are sensitive and maybe triggering, and we want to make sure everyone feels supported. Parts of the story will be difficult to hear, but we believe in shining light on the darkest places where evil tries to hide, and at the same time, we are committed to honoring our sisters’ experiences and sharing her story with propriety and care. Our goal is to be honest without sensationalizing, we work hard to create a process that’s thoughtful, that’s ethical and healing for both our storytellers and our listeners. 

Carya’s journey involves experiences that aren’t often discussed—topics such as childhood sexual abuse, sex trafficking and ritualistic abuse. So if at any point this season feels too heavy for you, that’s okay. We hope today’s episode will give you a chance to at least still get to hear from our storyteller and meet her and giving you a 30,000-foot perspective on what’s ahead—helping you decide really if this season is the right fit for you. 

There’s a lot of work that happens behind the scenes to produce a season of storytelling as a ministry, and particularly through Ann Maree’s work, we prioritize the storyteller’s experience every step of the way. This includes behind the scenes conversations, guided processes to help the storyteller reflect on her journey, a lot of check ins, much prayer and intentional measures to make sure she feels cared for. At the end of this process. We also like to hear from our storytellers about what the experience was like for them. That’s something you don’t typically get to hear but today, we’re starting this season by sharing that part of the process. So in a way, we’re beginning at the end—with a conversation about how Ann Maree and Carya navigated this journey together.

And before we dive in, I just want to take a moment Carya, just to say how proud we are of you. It takes incredible investment and even much more courage to not only live through the experience you face, but to share them—and then to share them again. It’s not an easy or simple process, and we certainly don’t take that lightly. So we just want to say thank you for entrusting us with parts of your story. Now I’m curious just to hear from you—what brought you to this moment, and why did you choose to share your journey with us?

Carya
Thanks for those questions and your kind comments. I’ve long wondered if there was something that God wanted me to do with my story. There was some way that that he would have me not just keep it to myself, but allow others into it, if there was some purpose behind that, and that feels like a strange thing to be wondering, but it’s just been a reality for many years for me—that I’ve had this sense that there was something. 

So I’ve kind of been thinking about that for a long time, wondering what that might look like. Is that just being willing to share that story in conversation with people? Is it sharing it more broadly in some way. And through a series of connections, I got connected to Ann Maree, and I was initially just talking to her about that question— what would it look like for me in some way, to share my story in some fashion? I really enjoy writing, and so I’ve wondered about, is there a way that I should be writing this? 

So that was the conversation I initially had. And then when Ann Maree told me about the podcast, it just felt sort of like just an immediate, obvious thing to me—like, Oh, I’m supposed to do this and so that makes me feel like it’s a little bit like a calling. I’m a little bit hesitant to say that word and imply, I don’t know something more grandiose than I should be, but my sense is just simply that the Lord wants me to do something with this and, and I feel like I’m supposed to, and, and so when it comes to the point of doing it. It does just feel that way, like, Oh, I just, I’m supposed to do this. I need to do this. And so in that sense, I want to, but the wanting isn’t like, Ooh, I’m really excited about doing this. I hope that makes sense, that distinction.

Julia
Yeah. I mean, I think your perspective and your journey is essential. It’s certainly not grandiose to say that you have felt the leading of the Spirit to speak. And I just want to say that we need to listen to survivor stories. There’s many people that I admire in this work who speak about survivors and victims as being modern day prophets. And I know that there’s probably some resistance or reluctance in you to to name that, but we see that in you, and we see that in the ways that you have been able to tell your story, I think, similar to profits, you were born into very difficult circumstances, and you faced unique challenges and obstacles because of what you experienced that most do not encounter, and you’ve witnessed things that others prefer to ignore or they simply do not see. 

You’re willing to speak uncomfortable truths. You’re willing to confront a variety of injustices and call them what they are, and call people too. In that way, we need to listen. And as I said before, most profits are reluctant, and they do so with much fear and trembling. And again, I just want to affirm how much courage and bravery it’s taken you to be faithful and answer the call of what God has put on your heart. 

So this is a question maybe for both of you, or either of you. Why do you think this particular story is essential for us as a church universal to hear?

Ann Maree
Well, at the risk of repeating ourselves over and over, but I think it’s important. This story is a concentrated story. Certainly we might—we don’t always run into people like Carya who have this particular experience, but it is a lesson in abuse. It’s a lesson in evil. It’s a lesson in understanding the person who has witnessed, lived, experienced, tried to heal from and if we can learn from Carya, I think the crossover to shepherding the people in your / my particular situation, whether it’s counseling or the church, is is going to be like enlightened, I guess. But one of our experts said this as well, and that is, it’s not as uncommon as you think. Counselors I’ve heard from licensed, certified social workers, therapists are hearing this. It’s a story they hear probably more frequently than you want to know. And so what would you do if you were a leader in an institution and ran into somebody who came into your office with something similar in their story. You know, would you just farm it out? How would you, as the church, embrace this person, come alongside this person, and minister to their needs? I mean, it’s great to refer to a professional, but we also have to be there too. We have to walk alongside too. So, yeah, I could keep talking, but I’ll let Carya say something.

Carya
So yeah, I would just like to start by kind of making the same point that you were just making, Ann Maree, that I think that my experience is perhaps unusual, but it is more common than we want to think. And for me, in particular, one thing that’s been challenging and painful in my own healing process has been feeling like nobody talks about or knows about the kinds of things that I experienced. And so even though I know that there are many others who have, I sort of feel alone and like it’s impossible for others to receive this. And so I think part of why I think it’s important for the church to hear stories like this is to just even open up a framework for people that this kind of stuff exists. And it’s not just a one off. It’s very likely in your congregation or someone that you. know, so that just feels really important to me.

Ann Maree
Yeah. And just to top that off, counselors have to listen to these stories. And pastors are shepherds. They’re people, caregivers, like a counselor and so and I’m talking about pastors, lay counselors in the church both. We need to hear it too, as hard as it might be, and we’ll talk about that too, but it’s important. It’s important work.

Julia
Yeah, when you come across these kinds of topics or labels, it can feel other and different, and I think it’s therefore easier for people to push away or to push out of sight, out of mind, like this doesn’t apply to me, or I can’t understand it. But to your point, Ann Maree, you said that her story is a concentrated form of what we see in personal relationships and in systems and abuse is abuse is abuse. So I’m wondering maybe specifics that you could pull out that you’ve identified, like lessons and abuse and evil

Ann Maree
Generally, you mean? Yeah, I mean, when I would listen, particularly in the workshops with Carya, you know, I’m, I’m attuned as an advocate to hear patterns. And I was astounded, I guess, to hear the patterns in your story, Carya, because, you know, I was expecting some like concepts or dynamics that I would have never thought of, because it’s such an evil, such a huge evil. But then you were speaking, and I’m hearing a domestic abuse situation, or I’m hearing a sexual assault situation, of course, and I’m hearing the same patterns. It’s like there was a, I think it was a Guardian article by Jess Hill several years back, called “It’s like they go to abuse school.”

Julia
Yes. 

Ann Maree
I only thought of domestic abuse, because that’s what she was addressing, but it’s like all perpetrators go to some sort of school. And somebody had said, I don’t know, I may have read it somewhere that Satan has no new material and so just to know and the… no i I’m thinking faster than I’m talking… to know it but it demystified spiritual, ritualistic, cultish abuse for me.

Julia
Yeah, evil’s been at this for a very long time, and evil has perfected this, and yet it’s not creative and new. I think evil is limited and what it can do and be because it can only take what God has created and turn and morph it into something twisted. Ann Maree, I’d love to learn a little bit more from you about what you picked up this season. As we know, abuse is rarely confined to just one type. It spans multiple forms within a relationship or system. And this season in particular, we touched on a variety of abuses and violations. As I said before, through your conversations, what stood out to you the most and maybe, what did you learn from walking alongside her story?

Ann Maree
Well, I knew nothing about DID (Dissociative identity disorder). I’ll tell you that now I feel like I have, at least it feels like I opened a book about DID. Not that I know much about it at all, but I started like, if this is the right word, like cataloging all of the cases in my history of when I’ve counseled or I’ve discipled, or when I’ve just simply sat and listened to somebody and thought, you know, were they shattered? Were they shattering? Maybe, yeah, that wouldn’t be the right word, because it happens early. But what was, I, guess, what I’m saying is, was I witnessing their shattering while I was talking to them? And so that was one of the questions I had for one of our experts, is, how do you know, if you’re discussing with, you know, the person or a part that might have shown up? So DID. I have to say I was surprised at the level of evil in humanity, and I think a lot of us in the church, in the Christian realm, would say the same thing, even though we’re taught and especially. In my denominational background, total depravity. And why wouldn’t I think just how depraved people might be? You know, why do I think that once you get into the church building, that goes away? And so maybe that would be another add on is it happens in our churches. And I challenged. I was working with a church who wants to put a structure together, praise God for a response to abuse and how they will handle it. And I’m like, how would you handle it if you found out that there was satanic abuse happening in your church… happening? And they were like, you know, blank stares, blown away, like, what? And so that’s where I came from, too. I’m not far behind in just, I don’t, I don’t mean to, like, make this so casual that it’s like, blase to people when they hear it, that there’s abuse like this happening. But I also want to normalize it. I’ve told Carya that it’s this is normal. What’s not normal is how we present ourselves on Sunday morning.

Julia
Yeah, why do you think we miss evil?

Ann Maree
I’ll let Carya answer.

Carya
I don’t I don’t know, but the thing that comes first to mind is we just don’t want it to be that way, and it’s too painful to actually live in a world grapple with a reality that is as bad as it can be, and denial is a powerful force, and so it’s, whether we’re doing it consciously or subconsciously, we can we can more easily live in the world if we choose to not see and believe how bad it can really be. And so I think that one of the reasons at least that we miss evil is because we’re essentially trying to protect ourselves from it, from the pain, from the sense of hopelessness or despair that might come if we acknowledge really how bad something is. And it’s just, it’s sort of like a way of self medicating without any actual, you know, drug or alcohol or anything. But you’re just, you’re kind of numbing yourself by by not believing.

Ann Maree
Yeah, I think it was Dr Gingrich that said we’re afraid of it. It is frightening. But also one of our… and I think, very prolific experts… Lynn put more feet on that statement and saying, “Well, you know, but Jesus has what I need, if you know, heaven forbid something horrible happens to me or my family, and He will give me that when I need it in abundance, and He will be with me.” And so, you know, we forget to add that to the equation of it’s scary. Yes, it’s scary, but God, yeah.

Carya
Just going off that a little bit as well. I once heard a recording from Jim Wilder, whom I know that you will, that you’ve gotten to talk to Ann Maree, that we, by nature, avoid pain, like pain is something that we don’t want to be in. And I think that seeing real evil hurts, whether whether it’s a hurt that you’re experiencing directly or indirectly. But if I can see that evil is really out there, it just hurts. It hurts too much to actually know it, to see it, to feel it. And so I think that’s a piece of it as well, and that instead of kind of living in the place where we can go to Jesus for the help that we need within that we’d rather just not see.

Julia
Yeah, and by nature, evil wants to hide. It’s deceptive. It covers. It denies its own existence and wants you to believe the same thing, and I appreciated in your storytelling experience, because I was reading your account before we met and before you recorded your episodes. And so as I was reading, I was I was just struck by how, how specifically you see evil that most of us don’t, and therefore the goodness of God. And at one point you also took us back to Genesis 3, and I think that is really important for us to continue to go back to. To parts of the Scripture, and especially Genesis, to look at evil, to expose it, and to see what evil does, what their tactics are. In the description of Genesis 3, the serpent comes in low and slow and he devises a plan to subversively undermine God and sort of like the first instance of DARVO, Deny, Attack, Reverse, Victim, Offender. And Satan flips the script, and there’s a confusion of identities, right? Where Satan attributes his own personal characteristics to who God is. So he’s calling God evil, where evil itself is evil. God is good, but there was confusion, there was deception, and it wasn’t overt. I think sometimes we perceive evil as as a certain way, that it’ll come and I think you reflected this in your story. It we think it’s, it comes in costume, that it’s it’s big and it’s scary and it’ll be easily identified, and that’s what evil wants us to believe. But in reality, and your story in particular, there was some obvious natures of it, but it was, it kind of slipped in like a serpent, and in other circumstances. So I think the way you incorporated the nature of evil into your story, for me personally, was just very eye opening. 

Carya
The thing that comes to mind, as you’re saying all that, is that in Genesis 3, when we first meet or encounter the serpent in Scripture, which leads to the first time that humans sinned. What we don’t learn until later in the Bible is that at that point, the serpent, Satan has already had a breach with God, and so the serpent is coming into that encounter, already hating God and already wanting to do everything that he can to essentially work against God, but to kind of flush out what you were just saying. He doesn’t then show up in the garden looking evil like we now think of snakes as being often, you know, snakes sort of feel creepy or maybe as a symbol of something bad to many of us, but at that point there’s, there’s no history there. So the serpent doesn’t look evil to Adam and Eve, he just looks like another creature, and he doesn’t come in cursing God and saying all these horrible things. He comes in really subtly and asks a question that plants a question, you know, a seed of doubt in the mind of Eve and Adam, who’s there, even though we don’t hear his voice at that point in the story. So I think, I think that’s part of what I find so kind of painful and maddening about my story and about the way the church often works, is that we don’t… we just don’t realize how things that look only maybe just slightly off, like the serpent asks a question about God. That kind of questions God. It’s not a huge red flag, but it’s, it is a little bit of an indication that there’s something wrong there. And instead of Adam and Eve hearing that question and saying, “Whoa, this is a huge problem.” They kind of get sucked in. And I think the church so often functions in a similar way where we see something that maybe just seems a wee bit not quite right, but we don’t take seriously the evil that might be there, whether the person intends it or not, we don’t take seriously that what Satan wants to do is steal, kill and destroy. He hates God, therefore he hates us, and we should take it seriously. I mean, imagine if Adam and Eve had actually responded with seriousness to the way the serpent asked the question. Imagine if churches responded seriously to things that seem like just maybe a little bit off, like there’s so much good happening, but there’s just this little problem over here.

Ann Maree
Yeah, I’m in, I’m in the audience here, girls, so yeah, and I’m thinking too this episode comes out before any of the stories. And so the listener, I think that was a helpful framing from both of you, for when you do hear her story, when you hear Carya’s story, you will catch like, “oh yeah, subtlety”. I love that you said “low and slow.” That’s a huge, I think, pattern to keep your eyes open for because and when you said it, I’m like, “Oh yeah, that was all over your story, Carya.” so I got nothing for you.

Julia
I love talking about theology, so thank you for bearing with me there, talking a little bit more about the storytelling process within the right context, telling your story can be incredibly healing. It’s really important for us to do it in the right way. I think there’s this false notion out there that survivors and victims just need to say the thing or get it out or tell their story and they’ll be fine. And that’s not always the case when you tell your story, especially in a straight narrative form, it can often be re traumatizing for the storyteller and to the listener, and therefore unhealthy and non productive, but in the right context, telling your story does help you as a storyteller to understand and if you’re able to retell your story and understand the impact and frame it in the context of what God is doing, then it can be healing. And just some of my reflections as I was reading your account we had spoken before, not too long ago, just about the fact that I wasn’t surprised necessarily by the facts of what happened to you, and you mentioned to me that that was really helpful to hear. The reason why I’m not surprised is because I know often what happens in these accounts, because abuse is abuse is abuse and evil has a playbook. There are certain symptoms, there are certain actions taken against a victim. So I was not surprised. 30% statistically, 30% of clinicians will encounter this within 10 years of their work. When I say “this”, I mean satanic ritualistic abuse. It’s also a worldwide phenomenon that has spanned human’s existence, as far as we know, as far as the Bible tells us to it’s in all 50 states, and there are pockets in the United States where there are kind of hot spots of this activity. So I was not surprised, and I think that provided you a level of comfort. 

Carya
Yeah, very much. So I mean, we just had this conversation last night, and when you said that, it just it feels so helpful to me, because, as I said to you, then obviously I know my own story. I know through my counselor of others with a similar story, and I know from what I saw in my own experience, that there are others. So I know that there’s quite a lot of it out there, and yet I just don’t hear anyone talk about it. And so to hear someone else that I didn’t know say, “Yeah, I knew that this stuff existed and I kind of saw it coming,” it helps me feel less alone.

Ann Maree
Yeah, I want to go back to where you started to, Julia, just listening to the new podcasts that are coming out and just appreciating some that are going carefully into this territory. I did not know how to do that honestly. I think one of our first storytellers was my education and how to approach this type of storytelling. But Carya, oh my goodness, this was my, you know, this is my grad school for caregiving, and so I don’t want to mystify. I mean, we’ve been talking about demystifying. I don’t want to mystify the process of listening to somebody’s story or being available to bear witness to them. It’s not a science, and that’s exactly the point. It’s a right brain activity, it’s a relationship activity, it’s an experience activity, as we’ve heard from so many experts in this field who are listening to these stories, that the client, the care recipient, was their their teacher, and that’s how I feel, like it’s important to enter into these spaces as a learner. If you’re the listener, you’re the learner. Yeah, it’s there. You can’t take a class on this, on this stuff. But just jumping back even further, where you asked, What did I learn? I learned what you just said that this is happening, and it’s happening in a very concentrated way in certain areas. And I never thought of it before, but clinicians hear it on a daily basis, and you know what? That’s another thing to bring up for our audience is, how do you care for the clinician in your in your membership, who spends five days, 30% of their five days, listening to horrible circumstances, carrying a burden for the person they’re caring for. So we’re not even just talking about the situation, the circumstances, the victims, the survivors, but also the caregivers. When we’re thinking about being careful with our audience. I’m saying to a pastor, be careful with your audience. You know?

Julia
I know that the process of storytelling can work on both sides of the equation, both, you know, for you, the storyteller who is working through the content and the impact and the consequences of what has happened and their current life too, but it also works on the listener as well. So what did you, Ann Maree, learn maybe more specifically about yourself through this process.

Ann Maree
You know, I kept ignoring this question when I was going to think about the questions you were asking. So I’m going to have to just answer the cuff on that one, I think. And this is going to sound more self focused than other focused. So, yeah, give grace to the responder. Self-Care has always been difficult for me. I don’t naturally take care of myself in my caregiving role, and so I did find the importance of that, for, if I was going to spend time listening to horrific details, then I’m going to have to find a way to mediate what I’ve heard with the God I know because there is a danger of just disbelief that that God would allow this. I think Carya has told her story in such a beautiful way that she has come to a place of glorious relationship with the Lord, even in spite of everything. And I follow her lead in looking for those things. “Jesus is My Captain.” I think was just, is still mind blowing to me. I have that picture etched in my brain. So self care was one thing I learned that I am the person in the in the pew who were directing this conversation to with what that means, I guess, is naive, fearful. Don’t want to face evil. Don’t want to accept that this kind of evil exists. At one point in my counseling career, I had a client who had her own horrific experience, and walked with her through that, and at the end of it, she actually thanked God for it, because without it, she would not have had the relationship that she currently has. And that’s humbling, you know, I can sit back and be like the rich…not the rich man the parable like, Thank God I’m not like them. I can easily be grateful and appreciative to the Lord and praise him, because I haven’t had that experience, but I also don’t have him the way my dear friends in my counseling relationships do. I think probably the biggest learning, and it just ties back to what I said a moment ago, is I could have lost God. I could have easily lost God, and I had to make ways to make sure didn’t happen. I thought, I mean, I’ve had a rich relationship with the Lord since I was young, and I thought it was strong enough to withhold or withstand hearing a story like this, and I was kind of rocked.

Julia
Every time we tell our story, we make more sense of it and see more of God and more of ourselves. So you know, there perhaps have been parts that you’ve shared with other people, or in a different way, this storytelling process, was there anything that was new or different for you?

Carya
So that’s another big question. A few scattered thoughts. One is that I’ve, I think for most of my journey, my instinct has been to keep my story pretty much inside myself to… when I do need to talk about it, to talk about it as little and as euphemistically as I can. And so I think that the process of working on this, and knowing that it would eventually go out to an audience. Working on this required me to put language to it, which I had done in my own internal working on things, but not to share and doing that in a way that is hard to describe, but it kind of forced me, or enabled me, maybe is a better word, enabled me to see the story in a different way. So obviously I knew the story, but to narrate it, to put it together. There were parts of it that hit me harder than I thought they would, because there were parts that I knew really well and that I’ve done a lot of work on, but there was something about just kind of saying it in a coherent fashion. And so I don’t know if this is like what you were driving at exactly, but I think that there were some ways in which some of what I learned oddly is how bad my own story was, which is really funny to say, because I knew that already, but I feel like I didn’t see it, like I saw it in new ways. An analogy that I used just that came to mind at some point in the process, is, I’m assuming that most people listening have had an eye exam at some point. And there’s that point when you’re in the chair and the doctor is having you look through the lenses, and he starts asking you, which one is better. So it’s like, which is better, one or two, and then he’ll switch something, and then two or three, and then he’ll switch something again. And it goes for a long time, and usually somewhere in that process, you hit the point where you can see you think perfectly fine through the first one, but then he switches it, and it’s just a little bit better. It’s like you didn’t realize that there was anything wrong with the first one, but then when you get that, that new lens that he’s offering, you see more clearly or more sharply, or maybe there was a little bit of fuzz that you didn’t notice was there with the first one, and now it’s gone. And I felt like that a lot during this process that I was like writing about and then narrating things that I knew and that I had thought a lot about, but the process of doing it here, it was kind of like God was shifting the lens… was 2 better, but now you can see it differently.

Julia
I think most trauma survivors need to tell their story over and over and over again, and we need to be okay to give them the space to do that, and the patience and the curiosity I’ve heard before, it takes about 50 t repetitions to tell your story in order for it to make sense to you, and I think that’s helpful for us as listeners to understand as we do bear with that the person’s heart is changing and their mind is changing over time, and that is a healthy healing process. It doesn’t mean that they’re stuck in their story necessarily. It doesn’t mean that they just need to move on because they’re trapped, or they’re not thinking about it the right way. But it, it’s sort of like there’s this huge clump of clay, and it requires this, kneading and remodeling over time. And if we can be a type of listener that can be with them in the process, I guess that’s what I would encourage all of us to to seek to do, is to know that this is a long term process, and it’s not going to resolve right away, and it’s not going to make sense right away, and each adaptation and each new understanding of the story is actually a beautiful part of the process.

Carya
That’s just really helpful to hear. And it kind of makes me realize, again, in a deeper way, I tend to want to not let my story out, which is something I talked to Ann Maree quite a bit about. I fear and feel that all that can happen if I share my story is that it will hurt other people. And so even though I feel the need to be seen in it and to be able to process it, I also feel like I can’t and shouldn’t talk about it. And so I don’t hear you saying like, “now I should just talk about it all the time”, but it’s just helpful to hear that the repetitions are actually needed everything about me. Just wants to stuff it all inside. So thank you.

Ann Maree
Yeah, and going back way back to one of our first couple episodes, first with Darby Strickland, and then with Melissa Affolter talking about storytelling. And I’ve just been listening again to the Bible Project about story, the content of Scripture. And you know, this is not news, but just a reminder that the greatest genre in Scripture is narrative. And so God knows, we learn via storytelling. We learn by telling our own stories, and we learn by hearing stories. And then even the other genres of Scripture are embedded in the stories. And so we can’t neglect to see the importance of, you know, what we’re asking our audience to do. And you know what? There was some really hard stuff in Scripture to read, and we’ve, we’ve spoken about that in some of the episodes, so I won’t repeat myself, but I avoid certain parts of Scripture. It’s not always easy. You know, I think about that as a listener to this story. Yeah, Scripture isn’t sensational, either, and so either it says, but yeah, I just wanted to piggyback on the importance of the repetitive nature of listening and telling our stories. And again, just to demystify the necessity of the telling of the story, it happens regularly, not at my age anymore, but when I was in my childbearing years, and we would go to a gathering, or, you know, whatever, even in church, all the young women who were in having children would stand around and tell their birth stories, which, in a way, is kind of traumatic. It’s frightening for sure, because you don’t know what’s going to happen going into it, and sometimes it’s frightening when it happens for some women. But anyway, it’s just you remind everybody that we do this all the time in life. And so I don’t ever want to, you know, I, if Carya wanted to tell me her story again, I would welcome it. And if she wanted, yeah, we’ve talked about this with, like, writing it now, and if she wanted to add more details to it, you know, it would be hard, but I want to welcome that and so yeah.

Julia
What I would consider to be the two most scandalous from a human, finite perspective, the two most scandalous parts of scripture where God said is not good for man to be alone, and Jesus had to leave. It was far better for him to leave so that we would have the Holy Spirit with us. And I think about that in the storytelling process as a listener, that it is not good for our sister to be alone. And also she has the Holy Spirit within her that is teaching me, and I have the Holy Spirit within me that hopefully is helping her and showing her more of Christ. Now that’s not to say if you get triggered at times, you can opt out, you can pause, you can stop. But just to hone in on the point that this storytelling experience in our lives, for one another and for ourselves is essential. It’s so important. As a listener, from my perspective and my reflections, as I was reading your account, one of the things that helped me through the harder parts was to know that there was a rescue, because you’re here with us. And so I was looking for that, and I was waiting for that, and I was anticipating it, and I was expectant. So I was sort of asking these questions, like, I wonder where, where God took this. I wonder what he did with this. I knew that the church for you had been weaponized. The church had been your perpetrator in many ways. And so in my mind, I’m like, “Well, God’s not going to use the church as an institution to save her, to rescue her.” He’s got to send somebody. He’s going to send one of his children in and that, I don’t want to ruin it for the audience, but just like that, that sort of curiosity, that wondering, kept me in your story and looking for the good. I also think it was really impactful for me to see that for most believers, we understand, in part, our sin, and we understand that we have been saved from hell, but we don’t fully realize what we’ve been rescued from. For you, though that’s not the case. You lived in Sheol. You’ve seen the demonic up close, and you have felt the weight of what God pulled you out of. So as I was listening to the story, that’s also what I was reminding myself of. I think that makes your story so important for all of us too, that God went into living hell to rescue you, which we know is true in Scripture, obviously, but in your story now, that is what happened, and I think your story is going to give hope to people who feel trapped in their own hell, in their own darkness, and feel like they’re too far gone, whatever that may look like. So as a listener, if you choose to engage in her story, that might be some things that will help encourage you and to look for. So there may be some who listen to this podcast who have experienced their own kind of abuse and Carya, what would you say to those people about this process?

Carya
I think probably the first thing that I would say is is a reiteration of something I said earlier, but just to emphasize it, that for me, despite the fact that God has sent people into my life who have walked alongside me, listeners will hear more about this later. So God has been really, really kind to me in that way. But even so, the thing that I struggle probably the most deeply with is feeling very, very alone in my story, in my life. And I think it’s because I feel like I’m carrying around this kind of whole set of awful experiences, this whole kind of like world that I live in that I can’t share with others. And my understanding is that that is a common feeling for survivors, that no matter what this what, no matter what the specifics of the abuse are, you feel like you’re alone in it. You feel like you’re carrying it by yourself, and that there’s kind of this world that you’re living in that you can’t let other people into. And so I’m still in that place. It’s not like the experience of telling the story has just sort of flipped the switch on that, and now I don’t feel that way anymore, or struggle with that, but I do think it’s an important part of of sharing, of why it’s important to share, and I think it’s also important to emphasize that there’s lots of different ways to share your story. It doesn’t have to be on a podcast. It doesn’t have to be with people that you don’t know. In fact, I would, I would probably suggest that unless you have a clear sense that the Lord is asking you to do that you shouldn’t, but you should find people to share it with, people who are trusted, ideally, people who can listen to it more than once, if needed, and probably more than one person that’s probably been a part of my own struggle is that I do have one amazing friend who has listened to me deeply and well and repetitively. And I need that desperately, but I need more than that, and I am tempted to feel guilty that I need more than that, but I don’t think that I should. So it’s important. I think the other thing that I would say is that it is really tricky to share your story, because you need to figure out what you need in doing that. But I do think that there’s, I’m trying to figure out kind of where this line is, but I think that there’s, there needs to be an awareness of the person that you’re sharing the story with, and are they going to handle it well, vis-à-vis, but also, are they in a place where they can receive it without being harmed? And I don’t, I don’t think that there’s an obligation on the storyteller to know all those answers or figure all that out, but I think it’s just a tricky place to to try to occupy. I don’t know. I’d be curious if either of you have any thoughts on that. I have one other thought on this, but I think I’ll pause in case one of you wants to jump in on that point.

Ann Maree
Thoughts on knowing the person that you’re telling the story to?

Carya
On the need to be careful to not harm the person that you’re telling the story to, but also that the survivor shouldn’t be totally loaded with that responsibility.

Ann Maree
No. And so I would go off of that and say, yeah, as a listener, I’m hugely responsible. There have been podcasts I’ve heard where I would not have accepted that storyteller, because I don’t think they would benefit, in the end, from telling their whole story, and that’s not to say they can’t talk about it or whatever. I just think there’s time and a place for each stage in the storytelling process. One of the things we taught in Theology of Story I was, well, actually, just because of the nature of the class, the student only had 10 minutes to tell a story, and so conversely, we’re talking about a full year here, but you can safely, I think, start that way and just pulling out a segment of your story that could only take, you know, an elevator ride to say, and sit with it and wrap your brain around it. See how your body reacts to it. Be careful with it. Be careful with yourself in that process. And that does include who you’re telling it to. You don’t want to tell it to the people in the elevator. You need to have some level of trust that that person, okay, I’m thinking faster than I’m talking that that person is going to handle with care. So you know, just the vision of having a pet in your hands, a delicate pet in your hands, and handing it off to somebody else or a baby for goodness sake, what would you do? How would you do that? And our stories are like our babies, and they are embedded in us, and they can be nurturing and they can be depleting. And, yeah, I don’t know if there’s any science behind all of them, but that’s just what I’m thinking. Because of the experience that we had in this one, in this particular season.

Carya
Yeah, I would add to that too, just to say specifically to survivors, if you’re thinking about sharing your story in any kind of a context, that it’s really important to remember that you can always say more later. So it’s probably wise, as you’re beginning, to share with someone, to not dump the whole truck right at first. Partly that’s a way of testing how they’re going to respond and how you feel about how they respond. It’s also a way of testing how you feel about what you just did. And so I think there can be this feeling of you’re starting to share, and there’s a little bit of a relief and maybe even catharsis in doing that. And then it feels like I’ll just sort of keep going and say everything. And there may be context in which that’s right, or that’s how the Lord’s leading, but just remember, you can always say more later, but once you’ve said it, you can’t unsay it.

Ann Maree
Thank you for just saying that, because I sensed that when you were writing and we were doing the workshops, and then when you were telling your story, I sense that’s what you were doing. Thank you. I mean, you were caring for me in the process, that’s huge. It makes me tear up. Is, yeah, I sensed it, and so I’m grateful that I have proof now.

Carya
Thanks. Just one other comment on this, on on thinking about sharing. Your story. I have not shared my story in its fullness, in I mean, I haven’t even done it here on this podcast, but this is the fullest version that I’ve shared outside of this one particular friendship that I referred to, but I have shared little bits of it in other contexts. And one of the things that I have found in that is that very often, by choosing to share, I make space for other people to be vulnerable about something or to seek out help, not even necessarily from me. And again, that’s not an obligation that the survivor is, you know, required to take on or that’s how they should be thinking. But I do think it’s kind of a beautiful thing about sharing stories, is that it can be a way to serve others well and and again, just make that space. And I found that to be surprising, like I’ll say something and then someone will say something to me and follow it up with, “I’ve never said that to anyone outside my own family”, and even if it doesn’t become a whole big sharing, maybe it’s just that one or two sentence exchange, but I think that that is probably something that makes God smile, and hopefully that’s good for them.

Julia
I think the most beautiful part of the process that you guys have been through, and me and my own level, is that the relational component that has been so healing, it wasn’t just the storytelling itself. And even though there was a level of trust that you had with Ann Maree, there was still a struggle after you shared something very vulnerable, and if that’s okay, for me to share, for you to to chime in on, is giving parts of that to her challenged you, and in your relationship with yourself and in your relationship with her, hopefully grew you, but just because there was a level of trust didn’t mean that it was easy.

Carya
Yeah, that’s definitely right. And it’s it’s no reflection on and you like, it’s not something that someone could have done something about to make it be different. I think it’s a natural and good thing. But it was, even if it was, even if it wasn’t fully calculated ahead of time, it was at each step. Is it safe to share this? Is Ann Maree safe? Am I now? Am I still safe after I’ve shared? It? Is this good for both of us or not? And then when the answers are yes, okay, then we can take another step, and then we can take another step. 

Ann Maree
Yeah, and I didn’t answer before when you asked about that, the onus being on the person who’s telling their story, and there is a responsibility for the listener. And I honestly don’t know why I would have done any of the things that I did do, even thinking through the way we’ve structured the season, except to say that I was completely dependent on the Lord for the carefulness that I needed to take with both you and our audience. And so it would be something that would come to come to my mind randomly. I think we should, or you would do that as well. What about, and I think you know this trying to pat, pat, pat myself on the back. It’s just listening to our storyteller, tellers, you know, over and over in this podcast, Safe to Hope. podcast has has helped be the education for what does carefulness look like? What does it make look like to make a place like a podcast feel safe or a workshop, the writing part? How do you make that feel safe, that feels like it’s really out there as a goal? How do you do it? And so it’s, it’s walking just closely with the Lord and letting him direct your path, maybe even in the middle of the recording or in the middle of the workshop. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m just brainstorming. 

Julia
So Ann Maree, question, back to you, were there specific measures you put in place to help this be the safest process possible for both you and for her?

Ann Maree
I asked a lot of questions. I think, yeah, in particular for this story, I was concerned about her safety for Carya’s safety in multiple ways, not simply physical or, you know, emotional, and although those things yes, for sure, so you know, seeing where she was at, making sure I could contact someone. If I was concerned and and do it kind of a check in and see if that person who was closer to her than I am can help kind of be a sounding board. We asked a multitude of counselors for their input, including Julia, our board member and Lisa Menchinger, another one to read. We included a pastor, friends, those who knew the story, some who didn’t, watch for those reactions, I think, listened to them, and if they had input into having heard it, not being able to hear it, we took that into account. Sometimes we landed on our first reaction to, oh my gosh. We can’t include that. We’ve got to take it out then and then. Sometimes we went, No, that’s information, but it’s not necessarily a showstopper, so to speak. We just need to put some parameters in place to make sure that everyone who needs to be cared for in the ways that we can think of will be cared for. So the commercial is one thing that we’re going to be putting in there some timestamps to be able to step out. The commercial is more well, it’s like a self-care type commercial. You’ll hear it during the series, but it’s a breather during this, during the story episodes, and again, like giving agency to our listener, even so that they don’t have to push through to things that they shouldn’t possibly be listening to. I don’t know. What else did we do? Do you remember? I think, I think even just spreading out the entire season for a year was one of the first things that we did, telling this story slow was very important to me, and then including more experts in a variety of ways. And you’ll see that throughout the season. It’s not just counseling experts, although those are there, and they’re very important, but one of our experts is the dear friend who was part of the rescue, and I think she’s one of our key experts. And then including like Julia and myself, and also Dr Heather Evans and just talking about how to listen to the stories, you know, plugging those pieces in.

Carya
One thing that I think was also a really key part of what helped the process itself, like feel doable and safe for me, was the way that you have it set up, which is that the episodes, the storytelling episodes, are scripted, and there’s an invitation to the storyteller to fully script it, so to write it out completely and read it. And listeners will probably be able to tell that I’m reading it and like there’s sort of the obvious level on which it meant that I wasn’t blindsided by any questions that certainly was helpful and felt safe. But also there’s just a lot of things that I shared in the story that if I had been trying to do it off the cuff, I’m not sure that I would have been able to get the words out. It possibly would have been really, really triggering in the moment to try to speak to them. And then I would have also had to wrestle afterwards with, I wish I hadn’t said that, or is it good that I said that, or I don’t, you know, all those things. And by having it be this process of writing it out, scripting it, it enabled me to tell more of the story than I probably would have otherwise, which I think was important, but it also gave me just total agency over it, and meant that I didn’t end up with some version of buyer’s remorse, like I said this thing. And now I really wish I hadn’t, and I realized that if I had said that to you, we could have worked on doing something about that, but it just still even spared that process of, I regret it. Should I? Should I pull it or not? What do I do? You know, it’s just all of that’s happening ahead of time. 

Ann Maree
Yeah, you’re making me think of more things too. And thank you for saying that. I know it’s hard to hear a scripted kind of podcast, although I think Carya did a fabulous job with this season, I think it’s really important for a storyteller, especially with this kind of story, I think all the way to scheduling, we were careful scheduling and that because, of course, there has to be that kind of buffer between can’t do it every day, but also to give Carya the opportunity to meet with a trusted friend or a professional or somebody that she could process what she just did and how it was impacting her physically, mentally and spiritually afterwards. And so part of that slowness was for that reason, even scheduling our workshops. And so I’ve run into this before, and Carya had the same desire, and that was to get through it and be done, which I’m sad to say, we weren’t able to do for her. We had to drag it out. I get the feeling of wanting just to get it over with. But that pressure of getting it done is so significantly harmful, both in the storytelling and then also what it does to you, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually afterwards. So yeah, was thinking about that that when you were talking.

Carya
Yeah, another thing that I did that’s closely related to that is that after our first recording session, I had decided to take the full day off because I figured that I would probably be really tired, and I tend to be able to be really on, and so I didn’t feel it while we were recording, but then later that day, I crashed. And my intention after that had been for subsequent recording sessions to take a half day, you know, to record in the early morning and then take the rest of the morning off and then get back to work in the afternoon. And after that first one, I realized that’s just a terrible idea. And so each time we recorded, I took the full day off, and I was in a position to be able to do that. But there, I mean, there were two pieces of that I was in the position in in so far as like, I had the PTO available to me to take time off, but my work was also very pressing and overwhelming. So even though I had the time available to take off, it was a sacrifice to take the time off in terms of getting work done. But I just think it was really, really important. I’m exceptionally good at running over myself, and that was one way that I mostly was careful to not do that, and I think that was a key point.

Ann Maree
And just to make this more practical for some of the listeners who don’t necessarily do podcasts, we’re just describing the process in such a way that to enlighten somebody who would be a listener and a storyteller, how, how to carefully approach whether you’ve got a mic in front of you or not. And also, we had a prayer team. We had several people praying on both our sides, for us, for the story, for what to share, what not to share.

Julia
Yeah, we knew as a ministry that when you start to unveil evil, there’s always a payback. And so we are very intentional, just for for you, Carya, and for for us to be prayerful for, yeah, just the Lord’s protection. And I also appreciate you highlighting that after you disclose or share something with other people, you usually feel the impact afterwards, and that’s okay. It’s helpful for us to know as caregivers or if we are going forward or coming forward to tell our story or to disclose that, it’s really difficult, and sometimes our bodies feel it afterwards. A lot of times, if I’m doing deeper work with my clients or doing EMDR, I prepare them like take the rest of the day off and for the next 48 hours, it’s okay for you to feel exhausted. It doesn’t mean that you’ve done anything wrong or that you made a wrong choice. It’s just part of it’s part of the process, and be prepared for that. 

So as we begin to wrap up, I know we want to guard your privacy, but I would love to hear from you a little bit more about where you are in your process now.

Carya
Yeah, the last or the second to last storytelling episode will go kind of in depth into the story of how I got free of everything. So I won’t spill too many beans here, but I do think that it’s worth pointing out at this point that I’m okay, and part of the reason to make that point so explicit is that we realize that you’re listening to this before you’re hearing all the rest of the episodes. But if you do listen through them, you may come to a point of wondering if I’m okay, and I am. So where I am now is I’m working a job that I love, I’m in a healthy church that is doing a lot of things well, and I’ve got trusted community there. I’m living in a home that God told me to move to that was very unexpected and I’m also, at the same time, still really actively working on healing from all this stuff. I’m still in counseling, and there’s lots of things about this that are still hard. So the “I’m okay” does not mean it’s as though this didn’t happen, or even I worked on this and I got it all fixed up, and now I’m just back to life, as though this had never been. That’s a fantasy, I think. But I have a good relationship with God, and I think I said this in that episode that you’ll hear later in the season, but I’m glad for the life that I have. And Julia, earlier, you were saying something about living in Sheol and I’ve often been drawn to passages, mostly in the Psalms, I think, where the psalmist talks about walking before the Lord in the land of the living. And I think that one way I could kind of summarize where I am now is that there were long stretches of my life where I would read that promise, you know, I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. And my reaction would be, I don’t even really want that. I just want to be done with life. I just want to be out. It’s too much, it’s too hard. And I would say that where I am now is I’m walking before the Lord in the land of the living, and I’m glad. Another big piece of this that I also just kind of want to touch on. I don’t know how universal this will be for other survivors, but it’s been a struggle for me is that I’ve done a lot of healing work. I’ve done a lot of processing of my own story and experience, but there are still big pieces of that work that even this far in I feel like I don’t know how to do, and one of those that’s been really top of mind recently, I think, probably as a result of working on this podcast, is the necessity for grief and lament. I feel like that’s something that I feel the need for really strongly, to not just say this is what happened to me, but to say and it hurt, and this is the way that it hurt, and this is the way that it’s still hard. And I don’t know what all the reasons for it are, but I’m not good at doing that. I don’t know how to do that. I instinctively try to shut it down when it comes, even though I also know that it’s needed, and then I especially don’t know how to do it with others. I don’t know how to let others into my grief, to share it with me. And so if anybody knows how to fix that, I’d love to hear.

Ann Maree
We talked about this. And I’m you know, with Carya, here it is, what does that look like? You know, we talk, we use it in our tagline for the podcast. “All suffering is loss”, and loss needs to be grieved. And now I’m going to start crying, because we’re just actually recording this at a very delicate time in my family’s life where grieving is happening, and so I’m picturing that actually, you know, what does end of life grieving look like for most people, it looks like this for us in the storytelling process, I think too, it’s a lot of silence for human touch, if acceptable, hugs, I know right now, what I’m trying to actively do is watch the people who need, who are closest to the situation, who need to grieve. How are they processing it? And it’s going to be unique. I think each time this is a grief for you, Carya, that’s different than a different grief in the process, whatever that might have been like, loss of location, loss of job, loss of PhD, things like that. Now we’re talking about you vulnerably placing yourself out there in front of our listeners. What does grieving look like in that? And also couple it with I just told my story, and how did people receive it? And so we’re still thinking, what does that look like? One of the things that comes to my mind, and I don’t know how, how our audience, some of our audience, would like this or not like it, but I think God is expanding our borders as a community, with the internet, with the social media, our our local church. I love still to say I love the local church, but I think more so now I love the community that God has been just kind of laying in front of me that we have a lot in common, not everything, obviously, but we do have a lot in common, and that gives us an immediate bond. And so storytellers, I always say at the end of it, at the end of our series, it’s a bittersweet ending, because we’ve become friends, you know, hopefully we’ll stay friends, and then just trying to, in the listening process, connect the person to God, you know, to Jesus to we said this before, and I know this was a question I think you’re going to ask at some point. But if Scripture tells us God will never leave us, and Jesus says, I am always with you. What does that look like, practically? How do we look for Him? I think back two years ago when I was reading Henry Nouwen then I got into a denomination that didn’t read Henry Nouwen and now I’m reading Henry again. Henri, oh, excuse me, I’ve never heard that. I’m sure that’s right, but I’ve never heard that. And just the meditative state in each other’s presence, it’s not just something that you do in your devotions. So I’m going to just circle back to my first answer. There’s a lot of silence.

Carya
Yeah, and I want to pick up on that, because I think that some of what I feel the need for, and that I think that the church and Christians often struggle to do, is to sit both in literal silence, but also to sit in the sadness and not have to move too quickly to the hope, and I think it’s important to talk about the hope and to point one another to Jesus and to remember that. But I’m not good at letting myself do this alone, and I haven’t really learned how to experience doing it with others, to just sit and acknowledge together, what is there, what is wrong, and to not just have to say this is wrong, but look Jesus. Yes, look Jesus. But also Jesus was the man of sorrows. And the psalmists spend so much time articulating the sadness that they’re in. I think we need to learn how to do that. So if, if I may be so bold, I would sort of say that as a encouragement to listeners to to be deliberate about sitting with and in the pain that others are experiencing that you know and not feel like you have to fix it right away. 

Ann Maree
Yeah, the weep with those who weep is sitting in sackcloth and ashes with one another. We’ve lost that art for sure.

Julia
And Scripture tells us that all creation groans, and it groans because it knows that it’s not right and that it’s broken. And do think that the more that we grow in our faith and our spiritual walk and seeing Jesus for who he is and the world for what it is, the more we will weep and the more we will grieve, and so it’s a beautiful offering that we give to the Lord to be able to sit and that it’s almost like your body’s like proclaiming truth when you can grieve to close Carya, I’m curious to know how you uniquely see Jesus when people share their testimonies, it seems that the Lord reveals himself to each of us in ways that speak almost directly to our personal stories and often what we’ve been through and certain aspects of his character can come into sharper focus. I’m curious to know how you have come to know and experience and see Jesus in light of your journey?

Carya
Yeah, I could spend a really long time answering this question, you know, have lots to say, but the thing that most just immediately comes to my mind is that Jesus is incredibly gentle. And I don’t just mean that that he’s like meek and mild, but that he is far more willing to be patient and slow and and handle me with gentleness than I ever am about myself. In “Jesus is My Captain”, which we aired earlier, one of the big things that I talked about in that and that I learned through the experience that I was describing there is that Jesus often calls us into places that are hard. And that alleviating our current difficulties is not always the first thing that he is doing. And that might sound like Jesus is a task master, is cruel and uncaring. And I think that the way that I see Jesus is really the opposite. I see him as someone who is surprising, who’s doing surprising things, and often that surprisingness is calling us into things that are hard, but he is so incredibly gentle there and views us much like I think good parents view and love little, little children that need protection and care. So I feel like I’m just barely scratching the surface, but that’s, that’s probably the, the kind of strongest or most immediate thing. Whenever I think of Jesus, I think, Oh, he’s so gentle, but it’s a really strong, gentle.

Julia
Ann Maree, same question to you, any reflections on how you’ve seen Jesus?

Ann Maree
Well, I kind of touched on it when I said I was struggling with, meditating what happened in the story, with who God is. And so that actually propelled me toward looking for Jesus. I had to and in the unique ways, I think, Julia, you just mentioned it’s unique to persons. The way I feel like he meets me is in circumstances like something will happen. And I don’t mean to say it’s like something catastrophic, or anything like the heavens open. It’s just, you know, something happened in everyday life and when, and if I have the time to meditate on it, I realize, oh, wait, that was God. He was showing me his face. And of course, you know, Jesus is the image of God, and that gives me, kind of an anchor to go on. And so we’re, like, connected to the story and to our podcast, even called Safe, to Hope. Hope is a person and hope is future, but it’s the it’s the only kind of future thing that we live in today, and I don’t know how, not only to listen to devastation and harm and bear burdens for the person you’re listening to unless, like Peter, your eyes are fixed on Him, otherwise you will sink, and that’s how I feel, if my eyes are not like lock set on him. So you know that means studying who he is, of course, left brain activity, but also right brain activity of sensing those God moments when what he what happened. You knew could have only been God. You know, sometimes it’s a song, and I was just thinking, and I think maybe he’ll tack it on at the end, but there is a beautiful lament, song about all creation, groans. So drawing lament into what I just spoke of also brings me to like Jesus’ feet, I think a man of sorrows. 

Julia
So those are all the questions that I have for the two of you today. Thank you so much for joining us. And I just want to speak to you, Carya and to first of all say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” The Lord is proud and honored. And you coming forward and speaking truth, and I know many people will be blessed because of it. At the beginning, I talked about prophets, and I love to, I love to weave this into my work with people who have survived atrocities. I love to give them a word from a prophet or revelation or the Psalms. Those are usually my go to scriptures, because it it seems to minister to them in a different way. And as you were talking about your healing process coming in stages, and you being not done yet, I was reflecting on Ezekiel 37 where the hand of the Lord, just like the call to you that you felt from God, was upon him, just as it was upon you, so the hand of the Lord was upon him, and he was brought out by the Spirit of the Lord into the valley of dry bones. And the Spirit of the Lord was walking with Him, going back and forth over this valley. And it says in this passage that the bones were very, very dry. There was death, there was hopelessness, there was despair. And God in Ezekiel ended up having this conversation back and forth. The nearness of the lord was, was that close where there are things having this conversation, and the Lord was telling him to see that these bones could live, to prophecy over them. And he was giving him a vision of what it could look like. And the Lord asked him, can these bones live? And he said, Sovereign Lord, only you know. He knew his smallness. He knew that he didn’t have power to make this these bones come alive. And as he was prophesying, these bones came together. They were rattling and layer by layer, piece by piece, they were recreated. The first the bones came together, then the sinews, then the skin, and then finally, the breath. And that’s my encouragement to you is you are not done. You are in process, just as all of us are. The Lord is near to you and I see in your story and in our interactions together, that he is knitting you together, piece by piece, and he is faithful to do so.