Latest / HAVE FAITH LET IT BEGIN® / Trusting God in the Unchosen Journey with Special Guest: Stephanie Franklin-Suber’s

Transcript

Trusting God in the Unchosen Journey with Special Guest: Stephanie Franklin-Suber’s · HAVE FAITH LET IT BEGIN®

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Welcome to Half-Faith, Let It Begin. This is Ariel Santana.
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Can you believe I'm seven years old already? I'm old enough now to introduce my dad.
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Ladies and gentlemen, your host, my dad, Angel Santana.
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Two thousand came and the spark was lit. A testimony raw, it wouldn't quit.
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It's mother's voice, a guiding thread.
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Hello, everyone, and welcome to Have Faith, Let It Begin. I am your host, Angel Santana.
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This podcast is where we share real stories, real journeys, and the power of
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faith at work in our lives.
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Whether you're on your way to work or taking a quiet moment for yourself,
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I am grateful you're here with us today.
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Today's episode is truly special. Truly special because today's conversation
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is a deeply personal one where we're going to be talking about something many of us face,
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but don't always talk about openly.
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How do you trust God when you're walking through health?
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Journey in your faith that you didn't choose.
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When the diagnosis comes, when life shifts, when the road ahead feels uncertain,
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where does faith meet us in that moment?
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It's truly an honor to welcome Stephanie L.
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Franklin-Suber, a distinguished leader, a trailblazer, and a recipient of the
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2025 Distinguished Alumni Award from Springside.
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Stephanie has spent over five decades breaking barriers and empowering others
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in both law and government.
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She made history as the first African-American female partner at Shenatter,
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Harris, Siegel, and Lewis LLP, And she served as the youngest woman appointed at Mayor Ed Reynolds'.
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Cabinet as the city solicitor of Philadelphia, the city's chief legal officer.
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Her career has been marked by excellence, leadership, and deep commitment to equity.
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And she has begun and recognized nationally for her contributions,
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including being named one of the NAACP's 100 Influential Women in Philadelphia
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and honored as a Diverse Attorney of the Year by the Legal Intelligencer.
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Wow. Wow, there's a long history here, guys, but you know what?
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It has to be told because her work has extended into leadership roles with the
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America Bar Association, the National Bar Association, and numerous civic and
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professional organizations.
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So beyond her professionalism and achievements, Stephanie has remained deeply
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connected to her roots, continuing to give back to Springside community that
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helped shape her voice and her values.
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Her life stands as a powerful example of,
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purpose and the impact at staying aground in who you are.
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Stephanie, it is truly my honor to have you here with us today,
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and welcome to Have Faith Let It Begin. How are you?
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Oh, Angel, thank you so much for that gracious, undeserved introduction.
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I feel so welcome. You are such a wonderful host, and I'm excited to meet you.
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I'm such a fan of your podcast. Thank you so much.
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Well, listen, I'm not going to waste any of our listeners' time because I've
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been promoting that you're coming.
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Let us get started with a very, really open question. I'd like you to take us back for a moment.
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When you were in the earlier influences that shaped, what were the earlier influences
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that shaped your sense of purpose and direction?
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Well, right now, I live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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I am a wife, married 43 years to my high school sweetheart, Brashard.
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And we have a wonderful son, Michael, who is 39 years old.
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And I grew up in a church-going family.
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And so I have always, throughout my life, known about God. But through my journey,
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I have learned to trust God.
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And those are two very different things.
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I'm a certified Christian health coach, a cancer conqueror, and a cardiac arrest survivor.
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And now I have transitioned, because of my health and faith journey,
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into faith and health ministry.
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I'm the founder and president of Rebuild Your Temple, God's Way.
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And I'm also the author of a new Signature Faith and Health collection, five books.
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So my ministry, my coaching, my books were inspired by my 20-year faith and health journey.
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Through cancer, years of chronic illness, and a sudden cardiac arrest,
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my lived experience reshaped my understanding of faith and health and stewardship
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of life that God has entrusted to us.
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And through each season of suffering, God showed me He cares about every part
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of us, our physical health, our emotional health, our mindset, our spiritual health.
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So my story is one of God lovingly redirecting my life through each season of suffering.
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I went from striving to control outcomes to learning how to trust God in the middle of uncertainty.
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And what began as a personal journey of survival became a life of surrender
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and ultimately stewardship and service.
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And so today, I help others to restore their bodies, renew their souls.
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Realign their spirits by understanding how God designed us in His image.
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Body, soul, and spirit, to live as whole, integrated beings.
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We are fearfully and wonderfully made by him.
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He wants each of us to be healthy and whole so that we can serve him and we
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can walk in the fullness of the abundant life that Christ died for us to have.
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So when I reflect on my journey, I have loved God deeply and been committed
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to serving Him faithfully for most of my life, based on my upbringing,
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regular church attendance.
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Sunday school, and then as a wife, a mother, an elder in my church, an attorney.
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I carried all of those roles with a strong sense of responsibility and obligation,
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but I was also very driven, an overachiever, as you could tell,
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a perfectionist, people pleaser.
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And at that time in my life, I believed that perfectionism was a badge of honor
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and that pushing through challenges was a sign of strength.
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I approached life with a mindset of perseverance.
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Externally, I performed well for quite some time. But internally,
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I was living a life of constant striving, chronic stress, and pressure.
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Pressure to perform, to meet expectations, to do everything well.
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Even when the pressure wasn't coming from others, I imposed pressure on myself.
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I was my own worst critic.
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And over time, I began to ignore the signals my body, my soul,
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and my spirit were sending me.
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I believed that slowing down was not an option, but I was disconnected for what
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was happening beneath the surface.
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I equated depletion with faithfulness. and exhaustion with endurance.
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So I fought through fatigue. I overrode my body's signals.
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And honestly, I approached my health the same way.
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I was trying to fix, manage, improve physical symptoms in my own understanding
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instead of trying to understand what my body,
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my soul, in my spirit were communicating.
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I knew I wasn't well, and then everything changed.
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God stepped in and redirected my life and changed my understanding of faith and health.
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So my journey began in 2006.
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I was doing extremely well in my career.
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Partner in a major law firm. I had gotten that corner office.
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I was 48 years old, and I was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer.
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And the doctors gave me a grim prognosis, possibly five years to live.
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Now, because my mother had died of cancer at age 49, it felt like family history
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was about to repeat itself. the cancer diagnosis was a brutal, brutal wake-up call.
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And it forced me to confront not only my own mortality, but the harsh reality
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that I had avoided for years.
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In faithfully serving everyone else, I had neglected my own self-care,
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leaving me vulnerable to disease.
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And that season of suffering forced me to slow down and to turn to God in a
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deeper and more intimate way than I ever had before.
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I could not accept that there was no hope for me.
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I knew God was my hope. His word says so.
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I believed that he could do what medicine could not do.
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But I also realized that my health was not separate from my faith.
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You know, sometimes we put church over here and our health over here,
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going to the gym and our diet and all of that. But,
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they are deeply intertwined. I learned how to trust God in a profoundly personal way.
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I stood on his promises in the healing scriptures. By his stripes, I am healed.
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I will live and not die and declare the works of the Lord.
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During the painful chemotherapy treatments, I meditated on his word.
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The price for my healing had been paid for by the 39 stripes that Christ endured
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for me before his crucifixion.
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I stayed in constant prayer, constant conversation with my Creator.
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I did not want my son to live his life without a mother the way that I had.
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I had to surrender my cancer journey to God.
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My faith deepened in that season, and I saw God's faithfulness in new and different ways.
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And against all medical odds, Angel, I am here today, by God's grace,
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alive and 20 years cancer-free.
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But my journey didn't end with remission.
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I expected my life to return to normal, but it did not.
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What followed were years of chronic illness and complications and ongoing health
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challenges, my body had been ravaged by the cancer surgery,
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the side effects of the intensive treatments, and healing just unfolded slowly, unpredictably.
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I had survived cancer, but I knew that I still was not well.
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But instead of slowing down, I continued to push forward, I tried to return
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to my family obligations, my countless church activities, my high-stress career.
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And the more I pushed, the more my body said no, and the more the striving impeded my recovery.
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My body was signaling that something deeper needed to change, but I refused to listen.
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And then the ground crumbled beneath my feet.
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In 2012, I lost my youngest sister suddenly. We were so close.
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And then just a month later, her husband took his own life.
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He could not see a future without her.
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And that level of grief and guilt, you know, what did I miss? What didn't I see?
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It just shattered my soul. I didn't understand at that time how deeply that
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emotional trauma would impact my physical health.
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I internalized the grief.
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I suppressed it, the guilt, the pain.
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And over time, my body began to reflect what my soul had not processed and released.
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So inflammation around my heart forced me into long-term disability,
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and I had to give up my law career.
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A long season of chronic illness followed, and that's when I began to understand this.
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Your body carries what your soul does not release.
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And just when I thought I had turned the corner.
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I was reaching stability in my health.
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In 2019, the pandemic hit, and that triggered uncontrollable emotional eating.
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In the isolation, in the fear, in the depression, I gained 60 pounds in just
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a few months, using food to fill unmet emotional needs.
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My thoughts were consumed by negative self-talk.
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Negative body image, self-condemnation, shame.
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My spirit was crushed, empty.
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I spiraled out of control physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually.
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And in that dark pit of hopelessness, because I truly was hopeless,
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God met me again and began to shift something in me.
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And it became clear to me that the condition of my body was reflecting the condition of my spirit.
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And what was draining my spirit was draining my body.
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So by 2020, my questions started to change.
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I had trusted God with my cancer journey. I mean, that's a big God thing, right, Cancer?
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But was I trusting him completely with my entire journey, whether it was weight gain or grief or fear?
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You know, it was about surrender.
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All my life, I was striving in
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my own strength to be the perfect wife and mother and church member and attorney
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and always looking in my own understanding for the right pill or treatment to
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erase the pain of grief and sorrow.
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And I was constantly searching for that perfect diet and exercise program to
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fix myself instead of fully surrendering all of me to him,
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all of my broken body, all of my wounded mind, will, emotions,
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all of my weary spirit.
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And I began to learn how to surrender differently.
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I began to anchor my faith, my
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health, my life in him, and to embrace my identity as his beloved child.
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I began to truly believe, believe that Christ died so that I could live,
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not just survive, but live and have life in abundance and to the full and overflowing.
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And God lovingly, after I retired, redirected my path into Christian health
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coaching. And I founded Rebuild Your Temple God's Way in 2023.
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But my true turning point angel was in 2025.
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My heart stopped suddenly.
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By God's grace, I was in my doctor's office at the time.
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Had I been anywhere else, I would not be here with you today.
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I survived 50 minutes, five zero minutes of CPR.
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The doctor's entire staff worked on me continuously for 50 minutes.
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And then I had extensive thoracic surgery to repair. They did such a wonderful job.
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Repair broken ribs and punctured and collapsed lungs and all kinds of complications.
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That moment, though, was not just another, another medical crisis.
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It was another divine redirection. That moment stripped away my physical health again.
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My emotional health and mindset were turbulent again.
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My spiritual health was fragile again.
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My life was fully, completely in God's hands. and in that stillness.
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I recognized that I had veered off course.
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I had reverted to old patterns of striving and a stressful lifestyle.
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In my passion to help others achieve
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health and wholeness, I had started neglecting my own health again.
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And again, my merciful God lovingly stepped in. And that moment moved me from
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a life of striving to a life of surrender.
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I had no choice but to trust God with every part of my life.
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And with all of me, body, soul, and spirit, I had to stop completely, surrender fully.
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And in the process, he showed me new ways to serve him.
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And I am now celebrating one year cardiac arrest survivorship.
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My husband said he didn't know when it happened whether he was planning for
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a funeral or planning for me to come home.
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So, when I was first diagnosed with cancer, I believed my healing would be immediate.
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All the beautiful stories of Christ healing in the Bible.
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I prayed fervently. I meditated on the promises in God's Word.
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I believed God would restore me quickly, but that's not what happened.
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Healing unfolded slowly, over years and not moments.
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Then came chronic illness. later cardiac arrest, and in each season of suffering,
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I was forced to confront something very real that we don't like to admit.
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I could not control the outcome.
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Only God could.
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Trusting God is not trusting Him to do what I expect, what I pray for,
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what I plan for in my timing.
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It's trusting that He is in control.
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It's trusting His love for me.
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It's trusting His divine plan and purpose for my life and that it's good.
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It's trusting His will.
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His way, his timing. It's trusting his character.
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When life unfolds differently than I would choose, that he is still good,
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that he is still faithful,
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that he is still sovereign, even when healing is prolonged.
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God is still present in the process, not just in the miracle.
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So my faith matured in the uncertainty of my journey, not because everything
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made sense, but because I came to know Him more deeply in the middle of it.
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And for me, faith was the foundation of the transformation process.
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Faith shifted me from striving to surrender, from control to trust, from pressure to peace.
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And that's when my true healing began in body, soul, and spirit.
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Wow. I mean, you know,
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you prepare for a podcast,
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right and you prepare to hear a story and then you hear the story and like all
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of you that are listening this morning i'm listening with you and there are so many journeys in life,
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we never sign up for nobody wakes up and says god give me the hard road give
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me the diagnosis gave me the struggle that changes everything.
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And yet, here we are, walking through things we didn't choose.
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Carrying weight we didn't ask for, trying to make sense of a story that feels
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like it shifted overnight.
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And if we're being honest with each other, this is where faith gets tested.
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Because it's easy to trust God when everything is going well.
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It's easy to say God is good when life feels good.
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But what about when your body starts changing?
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When the doctor's report comes back different? When your strength isn't what it used to be?
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When you do what you do or what do you do actually when life,
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as you know it, no longer looks the same, right?
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I've come to realize myself, just like you did, Stephanie, is that trusting
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God in those moments is not automatic.
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It's not something that you just wake up and feel.
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It's something you choose. Sometimes every single day.
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Some days that trust looks strong. Others days looks like holding on by a thread.
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But here's the reality. We just heard an amazing story.
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And throughout it all, Stephanie kept coming back.
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She kept coming back to God. and she realized that God is not absent in the
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journey that you didn't choose.
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He doesn't step away when things got hard.
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He didn't step away when things got harder. He didn't say, come back when you're stronger.
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No, he met you right there in the uncertainty, in the fear, in the questions
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you didn't have the answers to.
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And sometimes trusting God doesn't mean understanding the journey.
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It means not letting go of him in it.
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It means saying, God, I don't get this, but I'm still here. I don't understand
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this, but I'm still holding on.
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And maybe that's what real faith looks like. It's not perfect.
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It's not polished, but present.
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So still showing up, still believing, even if it's quiet.
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Because even when Stephanie was in the journey that you didn't choose,
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you realized that God is still walking with you.
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And that was enough for you then.
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That was enough for you today and now
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hearing your story and allowing our listeners to be introduced by you stephanie
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sharing your journey about your passion to helping heal others through your
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story and a prayer and faith makes me realize that there is hope in the world,
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So I want to close out with you by saying, please, let's not make this a one and done situation.
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Please come back on this show so that you can share more in depth about your
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journey so that we can help others who are probably dealing with this right now and are saying, wow,
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how can I read more about her journey?
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How can I share with her and let her know what this has done for me?
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We're going to put links in her description, our description page.
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We're going to give her all the feedback.
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We're going to encourage our listeners to know that she's not gone forever. She'll be back.
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We're officially welcoming her back. But I want to say to you this,
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honestly, you know, we spoke very, very quickly offline and we met for the first
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time face to face for maybe five minutes. Okay.
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But Stephanie, thank you. Thank you for sharing your journey.
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Thank you for sharing this journey with us today. Because your story is not
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only the one strength and perseverance, but it's one for purpose.
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It's one that will describe to others through your faith, your honesty,
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your willingness to speak about your health journey,
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and the fact that you're going to be helping others and have been and will continue
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on helping others find healing in their own lives.
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What stands out most is how you've allowed God to use your story,
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not just for yourself, but for others who have maybe struggling.
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Searching, or trying to hold on.
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It's your passion to uplift.
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It's your passion to encourage.
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It's your passion to remind people that faith still matters,
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even in the hardest days of our lives.
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And that is truly powerful through prayer, through faith, through your testimony.
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Stephanie, you're making a difference. And for that, I am eternally grateful.
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So let us come together and pray and close out today in prayer. Heavenly Father.
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We know that you do not do things by accident. You bring people together at
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the right place, at the right time, for a purpose.
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We are given gifts, we are given treasures, and we are given a talent.
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We're so grateful that our talents and her gratefulness of her joy and her love
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for you was able to be heard today.
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We continue to lift up in prayer her family. We pray and know that her sister
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is watching down and saying, that's my sister.
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And she can do all things by the grace of God.
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We remember all of your family members out there, half faith family,
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that remember that we are not alone.
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So walk today, walk with God because he loves you.
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He believes in you and he is never going to leave your side. May God be with you.
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May he shine his light upon you and grant each and every single one of you peace
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on earth and never forget, have faith, let it begin. Thank you for being here.