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Seasons of Loss and Monarchs of Hope · Paradox Podcast

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  Foreign.
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  Welcome. Welcome to the Paradox
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  podcast, where there are more than a pair of dogs.
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  In fact, this podcast features three different
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  doctors. Dr. Deborah Brazile, Dr.
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  Vince Johnson Jr. And me, Dr.
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  Deborah Woodson. In this journey,
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  we will examine spiritual concepts that appear to
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  be self contradictory, but actually they
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  uncover deeper underlying truths.
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  This means that many topics are on the
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  table. So buckle your seat belts, put your tray
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  table and your seats in the upright position because
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  this ride can get a little bumpy as
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  it may challenge your current intuitions.
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  For the more you know, the more you realize your knowledge is
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  limited. There is a whole world of knowledge waiting
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  for you to discover.
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  Foreign.
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  Welcome to part two of Seasons
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  Knowing how do you know when a season's over? How do you know it's time
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  to move on? How you know it's time to stay put?
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  Well, hopefully some of those questions will be addressed in
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  part two of Seasons the Knowing.
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  I started dating way too quickly and
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  it wasn't the best relationship.
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  Not, not a terrible person. It was just not.
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  It was not right for me.
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  And I lost my mom during this time, but 100%
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  grateful that she made it through my deceased husband
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  Marty's journey because she was, she was there for me.
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  And there weren't many people around that understood or
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  they thought I was exaggerating, which is a real terrible
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  thing to tell someone who's going through that.
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  So I lost my mom. Traumatizing. It is traumatizing.
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  Vince. And then I lost Marty's father
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  and then his sister. So that
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  family was kind of wiped out. And then
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  a cousin of mine, my favorite uncle, my mom's brother,
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  and then, you know, kind of against all odds, and I
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  was dating online, which I don't necessarily recommend, but, you know, I did find someone.
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  I got married, right? So that was, that was a huge blessing to find somebody
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  when you're older, you're not 25 anymore.
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  But then I lost two very,
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  very special people. The two that really helped me
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  through Marty's disease. They were friends of his and one
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  like my best buddy, you know, B. Joy,
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  who never, never got married. And, you know, we were totally platonic
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  and he was just, he was like my, my best girlfriend, but he was a
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  guy and he came down with Parkinson's and he did die with
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  dignity. And I'd never been in anything like that. And then
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  Charlie joined us, my other friend in Laguna,
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  and he said, do not ever ask me to do
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  this again. And I said, well, B. Joy wanted us there. And he said,
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  I will never do this again. It's Just too traumatizing. I'm like, okay.
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  Six months later, he died in a
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  snow. Well. And so. In a what?
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  A snow well. Do you know what that is? Oh, yeah, yeah. The snow
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  collects on the branches of the tree and it creates a
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  space around the base of the tree. And if you stay and
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  you fall in it, you can't get yourself out of it. You smother.
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  Yeah. You suffocate. And it's just. It's the end.
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  So, you know, I wonder many
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  times, like, why did I lose all of these people?
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  I've also lost girlfriends
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  recently. Not. Not because they
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  didn't want to hang around with me, but because life got busy.
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  So I feel like I have just been alone and
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  it's. It's been. I mean, I know God is in
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  control, so I'm not too much overthinking
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  it, which is powerful for me.
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  I'm in a blended marriage situation that's also not
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  easy. We won't go into that,
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  you know, but when you've got in there kids and all that, you know,
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  it is like, not something for. Let's just put it like that.
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  But I listened to Billy Graham, and I
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  love him, and my dad really loved him. And he was talking about,
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  oddly, he was talking about seasons, like before we decided to do this.
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  And he was talking about transformation and
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  being in the fire and beauty from ashes.
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  And it was really interesting because those words have been
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  spoken over me in a prophetic way. Years ago, when I was in
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  a kind of a charismatic Bible study, that was an interesting experience.
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  And so I look at that and, you know, you say,
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  well, what gives you hope? Right? If you're in. If you're in this and.
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  And yet life has been good in other ways, but it's just been
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  a lot of adversity that you kind of get used to. And then you feel
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  like this survival mode is normal as
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  opposed to thriving and refreshment and everything.
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  So I guess my take. What do you do? How does
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  that manifest where survival, mold is
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  normal? How did that manifest in your life? That's a great
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  question. And the way it manifests is
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  that your standards become very low.
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  Your standards for work, for relationships, for your
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  life, for your purpose, they get dumbed down because
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  you're just trying to make it through and
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  you kind of lose your mojo. That's how. That's what it looks
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  like. So, you know what I'm hoping is that
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  this really. I want to go to the next season.
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  Like, I'm ready now. I want some refreshment
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  that doesn't mean that I won't have ups and downs and everything will
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  be fabulous. Well, the way it manifests in me
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  is almost like a cat that has been trying to put in
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  water, where I'm like, okay, okay, okay, okay.
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  So what's going to be the next thing you know?
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  So I'm, I'm looking around like, okay, it's a beautiful day,
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  but what's going to happen next? You know? Oh, exactly,
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  Exactly. Yeah, yeah. You're looking for
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  the other shoe to drop, and so it makes you.
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  I think I spoke probably almost every time we
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  meet. I talk about my hypervigilance and I would have been
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  the one who survived the saber tooth tiger, you know, in the village.
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  But I'm constantly on the
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  lookout for bad things,
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  things that can happen,
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  you know, Even when I go to outdoor facilities,
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  I'm scanning the rooftop, you know, is there a sniper up there?
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  I mean, this is not normal,
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  you know. Do you do that, Deborah? Do you do that? Do you
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  get. I mean, because I. Because I carry my gun.
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  Well, that, that's probably why I carry my
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  gun, you know, Because, Because I would think there could be
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  a sniper, but. Well, I mean, no, I. Mine is more intellectual,
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  emotional, where I'm. Because I have a
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  son that has real bad post traumatic stress. And we'll talk about that
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  sometimes later because he was shocked. And so when a voice raises
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  in my house, I'm like, hyper vigilant, you know,
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  I would stop what I'm doing, and I'm not really paying attention to
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  what I'm doing because I'm listening, you know, because he goes through these phases where
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  he has anger, you know. Sure. You know, so that's
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  the way. But I probably would feel that way, too. That's probably why
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  I carry my gun. But, you know, that's funny,
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  because I started. I started carrying a gun after
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  my. My children had had three very critical accidents.
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  Then I started carrying a gun.
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  So, you know, and got a concealed permit.
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  Yeah. Because I was afraid. Okay, so what's
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  next here? You know, a shooter, a sniper? I mean,
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  so. Yeah, yeah. So. And, and, and you
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  forgot to mention something because remember, you must be celebrating
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  your new. Your new marriage. And remember
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  the news you got about your husband? Oh, yeah, okay.
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  All right, that's true. I left that part out. I forgot. So my.
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  When I got married or
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  in the months leading up to getting married,
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  my husband had got a phone call and
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  he had cancer. And it was just a little
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  growth on a lung. And I thought, surely God
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  is Not going to take this husband away. And Deborah, I know,
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  specifically prayed for that. She's like, okay, Deborah's had enough.
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  Please don't let this. This happens. And she's
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  done. So he went into surgery three
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  days after our wedding, and he's fine. I mean,
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  he really is fine. And that was such an answered prayer. So thank
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  you for that. But then I had a health scare,
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  and it wasn't. It wasn't a.
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  It was more. Yeah,
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  but you know what? It wasn't a tabernacle prayer. It was ugly. Like,
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  what are you doing? You can't do this church.
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  And God is so he can handle your anger.
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  Because I was angry.
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  Yeah, for sure.
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  So it just, you know, we've had a lot of
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  things thrown at us, and we haven't even been married three years.
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  And it's health stuff.
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  It's blended family stuff. His father passed.
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  His mother is 90.
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  So we've had to navigate that. And I've
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  already been through that with my parents. And I've seen so many
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  people pass and spoken at so many memorials. I would say in the
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  past seven years that I feel like, well, I'm equipped
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  to do it right. I can. I can do this.
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  But it's sometimes, Deborah, I feel like I just.
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  And next week's going to be great because we will get into this and Vince
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  will talk about that a little bit later. But it's getting your. Your mind
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  right, you know, getting your thoughts right and your heart. Your heart
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  right. Because the heart is really. That's right. More.
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  I think it's several thousand times more magnified than
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  our thoughts, something like that. And so
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  it's getting both of those things lined up. So that's right.
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  Move onward. And you can transition.
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  Because sometimes we're just an enemy to ourselves
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  and God helping us to go forward very
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  much so. That kind of feels like where the two become one. The mind and
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  the heart have to be in sync, but continue on.
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  Yeah, That's a miraculous story. Yeah.
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  So that's been my experience with seasons.
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  I have been seeing butterflies lately, which is a good sign.
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  I'm kind of the butterfly girl, as you can see here.
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  And they're special to me for reasons we'll talk
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  about later, but I've been seeing a lot of them lately.
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  Large ones that are in front of my face. Like, look at me, look at
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  me. Yeah, the monarch. And that's usually a symbol of the monarch.
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  You know, that's interesting because every time I go
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  out on my back and I see. And I see the Monarch. I think
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  of my mother because she loved butterflies. And I took her before
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  she passed. I took her down to Mexico because the
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  monarchs, they. They migrate, you know, And I took her down when they were
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  migrating. And the cab driver's like, senor,
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  get down. Get down. Because she was up on the cliff. Yeah.
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  And every time I see a butterfly, it's like. It's like it
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  touches my heart. Like my. My mom, you know,
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  is in heaven. And, you know, God just gives me a little signal
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  that, you know, everything's gonna be okay. Right? And every morning, there's a big,
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  big, beautiful yellow monarch that comes out.
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  It's almost like he waits for me because I go out every morning with my
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  cup of coffee and sit in the back, and here he comes every
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  morning. So it's actually pretty neat. So,
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  Vince, what is your sweet mama experience with seasons as you move through?
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  Yeah, that's my sweet mom.
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  Yes. Yeah, that's. That's beautiful. You know,
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  so. So. Okay, so I'm.
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  I want to. I just. I'm going to start with a Psalms 1:3.
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  And it's. It's this oxymoron in this statement in this scripture.
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  He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth
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  forth his fruit in his season. Mm.
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  I want to talk about a few things here, because first
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  of all, bring forth his fruit in
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  his season. Okay? Now I'm.
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  I'm gonna. I have to point something out, because I kind of. I kind of
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  did some research on the scripture many, many years ago,
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  and only female trees make
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  fruit, honey. So we're going to talk about that at some point.
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  Okay. Because that's the oxymoron. Yes. Yeah.
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  Yeah. That's. That's why we don't have any. Any fruit trees, because they're all male,
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  and there's a reason for that. But that's a whole thing. That's a whole nother
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  show. But the oxymoron of that tree
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  itself and being a female and male. Now we'll put that
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  to the side. My experience with
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  seasons.
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  Moving on, knowing when a season is done.
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  It was a little. Multiple times in my. Many, many times in my
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  life. One in particular time, it had to do with a tree.
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  Okay. So I went through men's
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  rights of passage, right. You know,
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  every culture and tribe, society, has a men's
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  rights of passage that they put their boys through to transfer
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  from boyhood into manhood. And when
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  I did mine, I was 51. Wow.
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  Let that sink in. Right? I was 51 years old. When I, when I went
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  through this and actually ahead of the curve.
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  Yeah, I, I, I had an Afro cultist cult back then.
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  Right. And so for
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  me at 50 ish to go through a men's rite
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  of passage, it had, it stung,
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  it hurt. Not the normal type of hurt
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  that I saw the other young men around me going through,
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  which is normal. Right. From boyhood to
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  manhood. But that transfer from that one season to
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  a next season, knowing that that season should have probably have happened a very,
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  very long time ago. So here I am as this adult man going
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  through some things that should have been dealt with a whole long
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  time ago. But I'm dealing with it now. Okay, thank God I'm dealing with
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  it now. So I'm dealing with that.
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  And at one point there's this tribalism
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  things that we go through. I signed an NDA because you can't talk about it
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  but just know I was in the middle of Nash,
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  Tennessee force at about 1:30 in the
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  morning and they intentionally got us out there and got lost.
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  Oh, okay. All I had was off
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  in the distance was hearing some shotguns and some, a bunch of shooting
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  going on and yeah,
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  I was hearing stuff. You know, I'm from Colorado so there's some things I'm used
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  to. Right. But in Colorado, where, you know, we have mountains here and
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  you can actually see the moon. That's right. You get a little something in
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  Tennessee you're not seeing anything. That's true.
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  There's nothing you can see. So anyway. Well, I hope you gleaned
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  some knowledge in part two of Seasons Knowing.
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  Tune in next time when Dr. Vince continues
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  his story about being in the backwoods of Tennessee
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  in the pitch dark with no moon.
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  Hopefully the preceding conversations inspired you to think
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  deeper about your current beliefs. Tune in next time as we'll continue our
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  journey through your self contradictory thoughts. God bless everybody.
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  Sam.