Latest / Jennifer Rothschild Show / #5: Where Are You Now, God? with Tammy Trent

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#5: Where Are You Now, God? with Tammy Trent · Jennifer Rothschild Show

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I knew at that moment that somehow I wouldn't just survive,
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but I would overcome this.
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But I think it was in that moment, as she wrapped her arms around me,
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I felt the very presence of God breathing life into me,
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into my direction at that moment.
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And I think that's when I knew that I knew that this is going
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to be hard, Tammy, but keep, keep, keep the faith and keep trusting God,
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even when, when there are no answers, even when there is silence.
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When there are unanswered prayers, all the things that you're going to go
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through, not just this loss, but you have multitudes of things that you're going to
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face, and that things from your past that will also come up that you will face
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and wonder where God was in all of it.
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Welcome to the Jennifer Rothschild Show.
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This is where thoughtful people come to grow, and I'm so glad you are here because
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today, Tammy Trent, singer-songwriter, author, and
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my friend, is she is going to give you some really
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solid biblical insight, practical tools to help you ask the hard questions like,
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where are you now, God? Mm.
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We've all asked those kind of questions, but Tammy is going to guide us to name our
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hidden wounds, and she is gonna keep us rooted in the truth that
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you are never alone.
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Oh, we're going deep, but it's not gonna be heavy.
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It's gonna be delightful.
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So, settle in. And let's grow.
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Well, hey friends, I'm so glad you're here with me.
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I hope you've had a good week.
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But we're in October, and you know what this is called?
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Pumpkin Spice Month.
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You may be one of those women who love to go get your pumpkin spice from Starbucks.
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It's been out for a while, but now it's finally getting cool enough
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to drink it, as far as I'm concerned. But you know what?
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Surprisingly, I am not a pumpkin I'm not a pumpkin spice girl.
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I don't like to drink it.
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I like to eat it in my pie, and I like to smell it in my house with my candles.
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But I'm just such a purist when it comes to coffee that I don't
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drink pumpkin spice.
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But if you do, I hope you are enjoying one.
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But I don't know about you, one of my favorite things about fall is the clothes.
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Can we be honest?
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I've entered the age in life where I'm so hot that I have to wear sleeveless,
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but I don't like wearing sleeveless, you know, because like when I'm done
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waving, my arms aren't, you know what I'm saying?
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And so, I love it when it cools off and I get to wear long sleeves.
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It's just awesome.
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And it's also the time mostly when I'm on the road, which I've been on the road
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out getting to meet you guys, and it's just been a delight.
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And, you know, I was thinking about our conversation today with Tammy.
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She's gonna deal with some hard questions.
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And it's interesting, at most of my events, there's some kind of Q&A.
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And a while back, someone asked me a question,
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and I didn't know that my hubby, Dr. Phil, had recorded my response.
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And so, he just sent it to me.
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Just, you know, out of the blue, he said, hey, by the way, this is what you answered
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a question, which is helpful because I don't remember my answers often.
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And anyway, when I heard it, I thought, oh my goodness, this fits so perfectly
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for what we're talking about today.
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So let me just take you to one of my live events and you can hear
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that somebody asked me a question that's pretty relevant.
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So this one was about unanswered prayer. Here you go.
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And I think that's something that we as believers need to be very— we need to
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relax into the discomfort of that, that sometimes we literally don't know
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that God is answering us.
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We can know he hears us, but we may not know what his answer is.
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That's where faith comes in, because when we pray,
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it is about knowing that the object of our prayer, who is God,
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is faithful and hears us, and therefore we can not be as concerned
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about the outcome of the prayer.
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Okay, and I know that's hard, but I guess I want to make it super clear.
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I don't always know that God is answering me, at least in the way I'm expecting.
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But I do know he is faithful to answer.
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And I guess one of the things I would always go to is, first of all, the Word.
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If there's already an answer in the Word for what I've prayed about, well,
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if I don't feel like I'm hearing or feeling an answer, well,
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maybe it's because I have already received that answer in his Word.
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So I was going to go to his word first.
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That's one way to confirm what an answer may be or if I've received it.
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Secondly, I think praying in community— where 2 or 3
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are gathered, he is in our midst— when we pray in community,
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there can be the affirmation of a fellow believer that can help us understand
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perhaps if we have received an answer or if we have not.
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Well, I hope that helped you a little bit today, maybe, with what you're dealing
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with, because truly, we feel more peace
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and we have more freedom when we focus on the object of our prayer, who is God,
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not just the outcome, not just the outcome.
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All right, my friends, now it's time to get to our girl Tammy Trent.
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She's going to be talking about her book, which deals with a lot of questions.
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The main one is, where are you now, God?
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And you probably know Tammy because she has been Serving the Lord and people
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for more than 31 years.
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She got her first record deal in 1995.
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And over the years, she's been a TV host, a speaker.
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She's authored 3 books.
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And today we're gonna be talking about that latest book.
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Y'all, she is one of my favorite people ever.
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If you've never seen her live, you need to, because the girl can dance.
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All right, this conversation is gonna lift your heart and I hope deepen your faith.
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So let's grow.
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Well, I already told you guys I'm so happy to have Tammy.
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Tammy, just one of my dearest friends.
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And before I let her talk, I just— I, I— this is why I bragged about her off
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mic, um, because there's just so much I could say with you, Tammy.
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But you know you're one of my favorite people, and we have been able
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to serve together for years.
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And, uh, as I told my friends earlier, what that means to me is I get to see you
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on stage, off stage, on a bus, in a van, in an airport, and you're
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the same person every place. Oh, I love that.
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That means the world to me.
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And, and, you know, you just— and not only are you just the real deal spiritually,
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of course, you are just fun.
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You're just absolutely fun.
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So this conversation is gonna be that, but we are gonna start though
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with something that I can simply call unfun, okay?
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Because there are some people who don't yet know your story.
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And so, um, you had an experience with your husband
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Trent, and I wonder how much that situation caused you to ask
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the title of this new book, Where Are You, God?
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So can you— um, Where Are You Now, God?
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So can you kind of take us to that situation?
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Yeah, I mean, I think that for me, Jennifer, that, that's the foundation of
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my life is almost that the question and the answer that I searched for.
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And I think in the worst, deepest heartache, disappointment,
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unanswered prayers, unmet expectations, all of it came crashing down on me.
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And I have felt it through the years, pieces of it because of this huge one
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event in my life that I never saw coming.
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And I met this kid in my youth group when we were 15 years old and fell in love,
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dated 7 and a half years.
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I went off to Bible college and came back and married the love of my life.
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And we were married for 11 great, wonderful, fantastic, adventurous years.
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I was truly a lucky girl.
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I'm just gonna say it that way.
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I say blessed, I say lucky, all the things.
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I had it all with this guy. Yeah.
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I just felt love every single day.
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He covered me very, very well.
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And we started traveling in ministry full-time together as I signed record
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deal, and he started managing me.
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And, and I loved it because we were together all the time.
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And somehow we made it work.
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And it was 11 years into marriage, moved to Nashville.
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We built our first home here.
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We were in this home for 2 years.
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You know, those seasons where I think many of us probably hit at one point or
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another where we probably say, man, it can't get any better than this.
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Mm-hmm.
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Like everything feels like it's Just going well, all the pieces
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are falling into place.
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You can see the hand of God. It all makes sense.
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And I think that was a place that I was in.
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And, and yet I still had questions.
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And I remember being asked to go over to Jamaica on a missions trip.
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And the questions that I had was the season of also wondering,
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though, what's next?
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What does God have next for me? Is it music?
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Is it writing a book? Is it mission work?
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You know, kind of lots of questions of where are we supposed to be?
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But the biggest question I had was maybe it's starting a family.
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Hmm.
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And so I remember talking to about that after 11 years of marriage.
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And he agreed, like he was so ready, had been ready for a long time.
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So we add a maternity to our insurance, we took off on this trip to Jamaica.
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And I had no idea that everything, everything was about to shift.
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Everything was about to change in not only Trent's life, but also my life.
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And mine was the harder path because I remember waking up on September 11th
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from a really awful night on the 10th.
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Trent had gone scuba diving, freediving in the Blue Lagoon on the 10th,
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and he never returned.
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And a search began for him on the morning of September 11th until
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they recovered his body.
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And that was my path of trying to put together the pieces of my life after
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a shattering loss. Wow.
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And after I had all the questions of wondering and asking God, where are you?
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In this?
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Where are You now, right now, in the middle of my pain?
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And that began my journey to try to find God in the worst moment of my life.
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Oh, okay. There's just so much here, Tammy.
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And because I know you well, and I know your story well,
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there's a couple of things I want to clarify as we continue to unpack
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the question, where are You, God? Where are You now?
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Because I know you received some unique answers to that question, even in the
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midst of your most difficult heartache.
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But I also know we've got some very keen listeners.
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Okay.
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And they're going, wait a minute, her name's Tammy Trent and
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her husband's name is Trent. Was he Trent Trent?
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Yes.
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So why don't you just clarify that before we move on?
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Okay. So many questions, my friend.
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So many questions.
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We've lost a few people already going, Trent Trent, what a stupid name.
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So yeah, when I signed my first record deal in 1995,
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I took Trent's first name as my last name.
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Together, we were Tammy and Trent Lenderink.
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But on the platform, I became Tammy Trent.
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And I loved it because truly, even God knowing how important that would
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be to me all these years later, that— Yeah.
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This incredible man who changed the heart of a girl, who influenced me,
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who spoke life into my spirit, who was the greatest spiritual covering
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this side of heaven for me, that he would always be somehow a part
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of this testimony in this ministry of my life that I have chosen to continue
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walking hand in hand with God.
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It's been a hard road.
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It has been nothing close to easy. It's been very hard.
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But I think, Jen, one of the miracles that began to happen for me
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standing on the edge of the water that day, knowing that everything was
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going to shift and change, is somehow, somehow I had enough in me to know that
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That Trent was now somehow a part of my future, not my past.
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And so, if I really believed in all the things that I'd been speaking about,
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if I really believed in all the things I'd been taught, all the things I had studied,
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all the things that I truly believed, then it, for me, came to that
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moment, like future, heaven. Yeah.
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Is heaven real? Is God real?
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Is everything I've ever learned and studied, the promises of God,
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Are they for real?
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Do they work for me or do they not work for me?
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And I think at that moment, I knew that it would be a very hard road,
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but that somehow, if I kept choosing faith,
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I would find some of the answers that my heart was longing to know.
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Because, you know, when you ask a question like that, you're overseas,
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and you did mention September 11th, and we can't forget what
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happened on that September 11th.
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So you're stranded in Jamaica, you've lost your husband.
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All you have is God.
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And I can only imagine the sheer— just the way your soul would have
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been totally torn and shattered. Yeah.
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And so I think it's interesting, and we're going to talk about some of the
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ways that we know the presence of God is with us, because that's what
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you deal with in your book.
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But I think there's something that happened in a hotel room in Jamaica.
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Your father-in-law had just arrived, but your father-in-law went back to the
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Blue Lagoon to see where he lost his son.
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You're just alone in a Hilton hotel, and you're crying.
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And I believe God answered that question, where are you now, God,
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through someone else. Can you give— take us to that scene?
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Yeah, it might have been one of the first times that I asked that question
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in the most serious way.
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I was in a bathroom and just, you know, curled up with my blankets
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and just weeping and crying.
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And as I tell you the story now, I always, even every time I tell it,
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I can go right back to that moment, right back to that place of just crying
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out to God, asking Him where He is.
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Like, do you see me?
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Do you see this girl?
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Are you there? Um, can you pick me up?
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Do you see the disappointment?
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Do you see the brokenness?
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Um, if you're there, could you send me someone to hold me?
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And I remember feeling something coming over my spirit, and I knew it was,
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was Holy Spirit saying, move, move, move.
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And so I got up and I just started to move, not even knowing
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exactly what it meant. But that's the point.
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Sometimes you just have to respond. And so I responded.
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And I moved and I moved and I made my way over to this opening in a doorway.
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It was the adjoining room that I was sharing with my father-in-law.
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And I looked in and I saw this beautiful Jamaican woman standing there
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in a Hilton housekeeping outfit.
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And I remember looking at her and just saying, can you
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come in and just make my bed?
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Could you just come in and make my bed?
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And it had come right after I had prayed to God, one,
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to send me someone if you're real, all the things, send me somebody, right?
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Right.
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So here I'm asking her to come in and she looks at me and says,
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I could hear you crying, and I've been trying to get to you.
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Then she said, could I just come in and hold you?
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Oh!
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It was an instant answer to my prayer, Jen, because it was specifically
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the thing I also asked. Not just, are you real?
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But, would you send me somebody to hold me?
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And here she was saying, can I just come in and hold you?
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I don't know what's happened to you, but I know it's deep.
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I can see it. I can feel it.
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It's deep. Have you lost somebody?
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And so, I went on to tell her, I have. I have.
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And so, she began to pray over me.
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And I knew at that moment that somehow I wouldn't just survive,
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but I would overcome this.
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But I think it was in that moment, as she wrapped her arms around me,
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I felt the very presence of God breathing life into me,
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into my direction at that moment.
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And I think that's when I knew that I knew that this is going to be
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hard, Tammy, but keep—Yeah.
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Keep the faith and keep trusting God, even when there are no answers,
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even when there is silence.
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When there are unanswered prayers, all the things that you're going to go
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through, not just this loss, but you have multitudes of things that you're going to
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face, and things from your past that will also come up that you will face and
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wonder where God was in all of it.
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Well, what a beautiful picture.
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And I don't want us to miss that you asked specifically.
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You know, when you're asking God, reveal Your presence to me,
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show me You're here, help me to deal with these unanswered
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questions, even right this minute, you are very specific in your request,
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and He showed His presence, to be strong by specifically responding.
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And he can do that for all of us.
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But you mentioned in that moment, these beautiful Jamaican arms are
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surrounding you, and you know, it's not just the loss right now,
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but it's the loss I'm about to live for the next decades.
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Yes. Okay.
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So here you are decades later, and you've dealt with grief.
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You probably still do.
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I mean, I can't imagine you wouldn't.
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So how do we grieve and at the same time, release the life
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that we hoped we would have?
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Like, how do we balance that tension?
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That's the million-dollar question, right? I think we all have that.
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How, how do I balance this tension?
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So, this book for me, let me start with this,
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it really was birthed out of that place.
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Like, if anybody, you know, as you and I are out ministering
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weekend after weekend to hundreds of thousands of especially women,
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we talk to them a lot.
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We hear What they have to say, the questions they have when they say,
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pray for me, if they send us an email.
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So, I thought for one moment, like, I'm not the only one going
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through all of this stuff, right? So, there's a lot of us.
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So, if you've ever whispered, God, where are you?
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In the middle of heartbreak, disappointment, loss, unanswered prayers,
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this is the book I wrote for them, not just my story.
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So, it's kind of evolved past my story of grief, and it went deeper into,
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now, how can I help somebody else? Amen.
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Because if they don't have the answers.
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They have to be able to know where God is in the middle of those questions.
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You don't have to have all the answers, but you do need to know where God
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is when life doesn't make sense. Yeah.
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So, for me, Jen, it was sitting down writing this book.
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I went back— the first chapter, I went back and dove into trauma in my
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life when I was a little girl, and how it affected my life,
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my relationships, because I thought of so many women that are probably in the
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in the heartbreak that they've carried of trauma or shame, have probably cried
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out to God, where were you when this?
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Where were you when that? Yeah.
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And trying to find the presence of God.
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And so, I dug into those kinds of questions, whether it was
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the unmet expectations, the shame, the divorce, the health,
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the cancer scares, like all of those things I have faced
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since even losing Trent or watched my family go through things.
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I had a lot of moments where I asked God, where are you?
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And then let me now dig into the Word.
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And so, if I can find your fingerprint through Hagar's story,
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through Naomi and Ruth, through the woman at the well,
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through Mary and Martha, through the woman with the issue of blood,
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how about the guys on the road to Emmaus, or Moses, or Joseph being thrown
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in the pit by his brothers?
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How did he— how did he come through that rejection?
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some of us face and we don't know how to get through that.
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What about Saul, who became Paul?
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So I dove into all of these different topics.
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So not just my story of loss anymore, but, but let me go deeper.
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Yeah.
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Let me go deeper and share with you maybe years later where I sat in my study
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one night writing this book and I looked at my bookshelves
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and I saw a bunch of children's books that Trent and I had been collecting
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since the beginning of our marriage.
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And all of a sudden, Jen, it hit me all these years later what I've
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been carrying still in the unmet expectation of what should have been,
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what could have been, but didn't happen in my life.
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The dream that didn't happen.
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The voices of children filling this home in this hallway, every hallway in my home.
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It didn't happen for me.
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So even in my studies, I started writing that chapter on unmet expectations.
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I was kind of faced with a lot of things and even some more grief and
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letting go and facing things.
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So, I think for me, I just kind of thought about every woman
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that feels like she just doesn't have answers.
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And what— I don't think the book for me was like, I'm not going to sit
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here and fix everything for you.
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I don't think I'm going to be able to do that.
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No. I'm not a counselor.
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I'm not a therapist.
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That'd be fantastic, or even a Bible teacher.
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But I do know that if you do not know the presence of God, if you do not know the
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voice of God, if you do not know the character of God,
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you will fall deeper and deeper into a pit that will be harder and harder
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to get out of eventually.
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So, your greatest investment that I think you'll make,
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anybody will make, in your life, in your home,
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in your finances, in your career, is maybe in strengthening your faith
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before the next storm comes. Yes.
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Yes.
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Isn't that just a beautiful daily investment?
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It's a daily investment.
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And you know, when you even kind of ticked through all those people in Scripture,
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and how women experience this and that.
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I mean, what you're describing is loss, difficulty, trauma.
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It's universal. Yes.
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It might have a different label for everybody, but it's
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universal, the feelings.
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And one of them that you even mentioned very specifically was rejection.
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Okay.
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And in your book, you write about rejection.
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And I think it's interesting because you say that God can use rejection
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as protection.
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Yes. Or redirection.
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Okay. Yes.
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Explain what that looks like. Oh my goodness.
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So for me, uh, rejection, protection to redirection.
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So those are good.
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I think we've all faced rejection.
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I think we're all going to continue to face rejection.
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But I think for me, even in that chapter, was how can I give people the tools?
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How can we actually have some moments to pause,
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to reflect, to journal some things that have affected your life,
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maybe some rejection either in your past or that you're facing now.
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That's one big thing I do throughout the book.
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Like, let's take some moments to think about this.
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I'll even ignite some questions and some thoughts in case people feel stuck and
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like, I don't even know where to start. Yeah.
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I'll help them go back and revisit and, and like dig up a little bit because
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I want them to find breakthrough.
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I want them to find healing.
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I want them to find answers, and I want them to know God's presence.
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So for me, rejection was always sort of based around
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music because I signed that record deal in '95, and I've had different deals here and
22:23
there, you know, different booking agents.
22:25
And, you know, one day you wake up and you no longer have a booking agent,
22:28
you no longer have a record deal, and no one's told you, but somehow you found it.
22:32
You know, all the things where you're like, what in the world is going on?
22:35
Or relationships where you've thought you were the best of friends, the closest of
22:42
working buddies, and then all of a sudden something happens, something triggered.
22:45
Then there's betrayal.
22:47
Then there's abandonment.
22:48
Then there's misunderstandings, there's rejection.
22:51
And sometimes you're in the middle of those moments and you're trying to
22:54
figure it out and the hurt runs deep.
22:57
And sometimes you will carry that into season after season after season unless
23:01
you try to find God in the middle of it and find some answers.
23:05
So, for me, I can take a step back from a lot of that
23:09
rejection in my life, which started beyond music.
23:11
I mean, it started when I was a teenager, you know, and even I think before that.
23:15
Sure. I think we all have those moments.
23:17
But I think for me, once I'm able to step out of that,
23:20
breathe a little bit, sometimes it has taken months or even
23:23
years to get out of a situation to look back and then see the hand of God and see,
23:27
oh my goodness, I can see how you protected me, Father.
23:31
Yeah. Like, your plans are always good.
23:34
They're always good.
23:35
Man's plans aren't always good for us, but God's plans are good.
23:38
So, he will redeem, he will restore.
23:39
So, if you stay in it, you try to find him,
23:41
You will ultimately find God's protection even wrapped around
23:45
rejection in your life.
23:46
And then in that protection, in time, when he saw that I was ready,
23:51
I think as I processed through a lot of things, I could see him redirecting.
23:55
So I'll take you in that chapter through a personal story to give you, I think,
24:00
a moment to go, okay, I believe her. Okay.
24:01
I think I'll lean in now and listen because I think, okay, I get,
24:04
I get where she's coming from.
24:05
I can totally connect and resonate with her vulnerability, her honesty.
24:10
I don't wrap a bow around any of it. I put it all out there.
24:13
Yeah.
24:14
But then I'll align it with a biblical story.
24:17
And that's the one for me about Joseph.
24:19
I mean, he faced a lot of rejection from his own
24:22
family that threw him into a pit, sold him into slavery, false accusations,
24:31
imprisonment, and forgotten is what he felt.
24:33
And I think so many of us can feel that way too, when we go through rejection and
24:37
feeling totally forgotten and deeply hurt.
24:40
But even every wound had the potential in even Joseph's life to make him bitter.
24:47
But Joseph chose to trust God through it all.
24:51
And I think that's the thing for me with preparation, preparing
24:54
me for something greater.
24:55
If I trust God, there's, there's always going to be redemption in it.
24:59
God redeemed every painful chapter in Joseph's life, and he's done it for me
25:04
too, using the very wounds that could have destroyed my life.
25:09
He used it for good, and He prepared me through some of this rejection in my life.
25:14
He prepared me and He used it, prepared me for my calling and my position.
25:19
And it's exactly where He wants to meet other people as well.
25:22
Like, you can't just give up. God's got more.
25:24
He always has more.
25:25
He always has better.
25:28
Yeah.
25:28
Gosh.
25:29
And because I've watched your life, I -- what would be called maybe,
25:33
or experienced as rejection in your life.
25:35
I can't imagine any different story for you because of how
25:40
the Lord has used it in your life and used it for others.
25:43
And that's the thing too, Tammy, because God is a redeemer,
25:46
He redeems every sorrow, every heartache.
25:49
So it's not just, well, I love Tammy so much, I'm going
25:51
to work this out for her good.
25:52
But no, I'm going to work it out through her for others' good also.
25:56
Yes.
25:57
I mean, that gives us such deep sense of purpose.
25:59
But, and I, and I think we need that too, because -- so in your story,
26:04
my story with blindness, many who are listening right now,
26:07
they got their stories, right?
26:08
And loss, I always describe it as a sentence that does not end with a period.
26:15
It ends with an ellipsis. You know what I mean?
26:16
Like, it doesn't end is the point.
26:18
It just goes on and on, and it's hard, and it takes endurance.
26:24
Mm-hmm. And I have seen endurance in your life.
26:26
So I would like to know what you think the biggest stumbling blocks to endurance are,
26:32
and Then like, how can we overcome them?
26:35
Gosh, Jen, I mean, I think endurance is hard.
26:39
It takes a lot of us to stay in it, to stay in a fight, to stay in purpose,
26:45
to stay in wonderment, to stay in adventure, like just to stay,
26:51
just to stay.
26:52
Sometimes we have felt, or I have felt, and I've heard many that have said it'd
26:56
just be easier for me to walk away. Yeah.
26:58
Right.
26:59
Just be easier for me just to say, give up.
27:01
Yeah.
27:01
Just to give up because I can't take it anymore.
27:03
Yeah.
27:04
I can't take the hurt. I can't take the pain.
27:06
And my prayer for them at that moment too, thinking about endurance,
27:11
is just stick with it, stay with it.
27:14
Pray for that encounter, that personal encounter with God,
27:17
because once you have it, it transforms everything.
27:21
Like, you have to endure well.
27:23
And I think for me in this book, it's probably chapter 9 on
27:26
endurance and finishing well. Yeah.
27:29
And it's probably, Jen, one of my favorite chapters.
27:32
Honestly, I'm so glad I saved the best for last.
27:35
It's one of my One of my personal stories in, in this chapter is
27:39
one of the most hilarious stories I've ever told
27:43
about an experience that I had on learning to endure in the Spartan Race that I had
27:48
to take part in with 2 of my other girlfriends.
27:52
And it was enormous challenges and obstacles and running and throwing
27:58
darts and arrows and leaping around things and climbing up you know,
28:03
cargo-netted 20-foot walls.
28:06
I mean, swimming under dunk tanks and not knowing if you'd come
28:09
up on the other side. It was unbelievable.
28:11
And I was scared out of my mind, and I wanted to back out and thought,
28:16
there's no way I can do this. No way.
28:18
But the story goes on to tell you different moments and also how God kept
28:21
speaking to me with all these different obstacles.
28:24
And He would keep showing up when I was like, I can't do it.
28:26
And then my friends, the community, doing life together.
28:29
that would pull me over an obstacle or cheer me on,
28:32
all the things to the very end of jumping over this fire just to
28:36
get to the other side.
28:37
And sometimes we have to in life jump over a fire to get to the other side.
28:42
Sometimes we have to go through the fire to get to the other side.
28:47
And endurance is messy.
28:49
Endurance is muddy.
28:51
Endurance is exhausting. Mm-hmm.
28:53
It's hard, but the rewards to finish well.
28:57
Greater than anything we will ever hear this side of heaven when we see Jesus
29:01
face to face and he says, well done. Oh yeah.
29:03
You did it. You did it, Jen.
29:05
You, you carried every bit of this and you did it the best you could.
29:10
And he says, you did it well, Tammy. You did it well.
29:12
It wasn't perfect, but you did it well. Why?
29:14
Because you stayed. You endured.
29:16
Yeah.
29:17
And I think that to me, as I align it with the life of Paul and everything he went
29:21
through, you know, he was one of the greatest
29:23
missionaries the world had ever known.
29:26
The transformation of his life was unbelievable.
29:29
That encounter that he had with Jesus, that changed everything.
29:33
But he endured a lot of suffering.
29:36
He endured persecution, imprisonment, beatings, shipwrecks.
29:39
I mean, it went on.
29:40
The countless setbacks in his life, as you know, many of us probably know.
29:44
But I also wrote these stories for those that don't know the details.
29:48
You know, I write it very cinematically in this book to like bring these—
29:51
Mm-hmm. Pages to life.
29:52
But through it all, God strengthened his faith,
29:56
providing everything that he needed to overcome and to endure.
30:00
And I think that's the story of endurance.
30:02
If God did it for Paul, he'll do it for you.
30:06
If he did it then, he'll do it now.
30:07
He's not a God who disappears.
30:09
He's a God who draws near.
30:11
He's not a God who abandons.
30:13
He's actually God that draws near, and he's near to the brokenhearted,
30:17
and he's He saves those whose spirits have been crushed.
30:20
I think the thing about endurance, Tammy, that we miss is that it should be hard.
30:26
It feels hard because it is hard.
30:28
And so, what you just described is hard, and there's not an easy formula to make
30:33
something that is inherently hard not hard.
30:35
And so, therefore, you're surrounded by your community who cheers you on.
30:40
Paul is exercising faith, and that faith fuels the endurance,
30:44
and then he has the endurance to have more faith.
30:48
It's just— quitting is never an option.
30:51
And I'm so glad, my sister, uh, that you haven't.
30:55
And so we'll get to our— It's not been easy, Jen.
30:57
As you know, it's not been easy.
30:58
I mean, there's days I'm like, I, I just— I'm out.
31:01
I'm out today. And I, I weep on my couch.
31:03
I mean, just the other day— every day, Jen, I feel like I've got something,
31:07
some little thing around the house that if Trent were here, he, he could do
31:11
it and I wouldn't have to do it.
31:12
But I've got to try to figure it out, and I'm muddy, I'm dirty, I'm sweaty,
31:15
I'm— my wrists are hurting because I don't have enough strength to
31:18
turn this or to pull that. Absolutely.
31:20
And I just, you know, and I'm— I'll fall to the ground and weep.
31:23
I'm kind of like, I wear my heart on my sleeve kind of girl.
31:25
And I'm just like, God, why?
31:28
Like, why? Why so much?
31:30
I don't need another challenge.
31:32
I don't need another test.
31:34
I'm tired. Where are you?
31:36
Like, I'm tired of this.
31:38
And I can't help but to think that many people have asked that same question.
31:43
Many people are carrying the same kind of stuff where they just want— they want
31:48
to know that they know that they know.
31:49
And so, for me, Jen, I was like, I've got to write a book,
31:53
not just about those moments because they're all real,
31:55
but how can I write moments to help them in each chapter to slow down
32:01
and to create moments of a personal encounter that they can now have with God?
32:06
God, how can I guide them?
32:08
not just to read, but to reflect on their own journey, just like I do with mine
32:13
every day, but to talk with God and consider how each truth,
32:19
God meets them, each heartache, each disappointment,
32:22
he will meet them right there.
32:24
And it's— he's going to walk them into little places of peace and clarity.
32:30
Mm-hmm.
32:30
And I'll hold their hand the whole way through, but so does God.
32:33
He's such a real God.
32:35
And I think my whole thing was, I've got to show them—
32:39
anybody reading this book, I've got to be able to lead them and
32:42
guide them in the best way that I can.
32:43
So, when they close this book, Jen, they go, man, I just— I didn't know I was
32:47
gonna find the answer that I needed, but I think I did.
32:50
And I think for me, the answer for me, Jen—
32:52
Hmm.
32:53
Through endurance, through rejection, through cancer scares,
32:57
through unmet expectation, through loss, through trauma and shame.
33:02
was that God was the God who saw me.
33:05
He's a God who still sees me.
33:08
He's a God who uses my wounds to fulfill his greater purpose.
33:11
Yeah.
33:12
He's the God who gives strength to endure.
33:15
He's the God whose delays have purpose in your life.
33:19
He's the God who draws near, not away, when you reach for him in faith.
33:25
He's a God who walks beside you through it all, even When everything in you wants to
33:31
quit, he is the God who redeems, and he is the God who restores and
33:36
is still working in your life today.
33:40
Hallelujah, he is.
33:42
All right, Tammy, I know that God is going to fulfill that
33:45
desire of why you wrote the book, because I got to read it
33:49
and I've endorsed it, and it is a companionship
33:53
for the one who has a question And the one who maybe just needs a friend
33:57
to walk with while they're walking through something.
33:59
So, so let's suppose
34:02
you're able to sit at coffee with someone right now,
34:04
and you're handing them your book and saying, here, let this
34:08
be part of your journey.
34:09
But before I say goodbye, this is your last question, Demi.
34:14
I want you to imagine that you just reach over and you hold their hand
34:18
just like God has held yours.
34:20
What would you say to them right now who are— they're asking the question,
34:25
where are you now, God? What would you say?
34:28
Every one of us will eventually ask, if you haven't
34:33
already, will ask, where are you now, God?
34:38
In the middle of my pain, my heartache, my disappointment, my unmet expectations.
34:45
I don't know what you're going through right now, but it's just
34:48
seeing you in this coffee shop.
34:50
I felt led to come over and just give you this book because God loves you
34:55
more than you could ever imagine.
34:57
And I don't know where your faith level is today.
35:02
I don't know if you're trusting God for something or
35:05
if you just kind of gave up on trust.
35:08
I don't know what promises broke you, but I just felt led to come over here and
35:12
give you this book because the question isn't if you'll ask it.
35:18
It's when you'll ask it.
35:20
So my prayer today for you as I give you this book
35:24
is that it will help you discover what I learned myself, that God has
35:29
never left and he'll never leave you.
35:33
Even when you can't see him, he's already at work
35:37
in your life right now.
35:46
Ooh, that was some good insight. And can we be honest?
35:49
It's not like Tammy said, if you will ask, it is when you will ask,
35:55
because we all have those moments when we ask those hard questions.
35:58
But the answer to the, where are you now, God, is always the same.
36:02
He's with you.
36:03
He is with you. He's never left you and he never will.
36:07
But you know, Tammy made it clear that the main thing is that if you never ask him,
36:12
You may never get the answer.
36:14
So ask, because he's with you. Ask him.
36:16
He's with you. He is near.
36:18
I'm telling you, good stuff, wasn't it?
36:20
So you need to go to the show notes so that you can get her book,
36:23
you can read a transcript. And you know what?
36:25
I'm also going to have a link there to some of my books and Bible studies,
36:28
because I also dive into these hard questions.
36:30
In fact, one of the books is called God Is Just Not Fair.
36:33
Sometime I will unpack that title for you.
36:36
But I deal with 6 big questions of faith. And we've all got 'em.
36:39
So, maybe that'll also be a blessing to you, too.
36:43
All right, my friend.
36:45
I hope that until next week, you just enjoy your people,
36:50
your days, the Lord, his presence, and maybe even, maybe even a pumpkin spice.
36:56
But just keep thinking, keep growing, my friend.
36:58
I'll see you next week.