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Mourning God: Grieving Loss, Wrestling with God, and Finding Your Way Back to Life with Tiffany Stein! · Anchored by the Sword

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Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Anchor by the
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Sword podcast. I pray that today's episode will
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leave you encouraged and also challenged in your faith.
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And I pray that. You would take the stories that.
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Are talked about here today and share them with other people.
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Thank you so much for joining me and enjoy today's episode.
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Hey guys, welcome to this episode, the Anchor by the Store
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podcast. I am here today with Tiffany
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Stein. She had a book just come out
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called Morning God, Grieving loss, Wrestling with God and
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Finding Your Way back to Life. I'm interested in talking to her
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and learn all about her story. So thanks, Tiffany for joining
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me today. Oh, thank you, It's always a joy
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to meet new friends. Absolutely.
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Can you tell my listeners a little bit about yourself?
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Yes, well my name is Tiffany. I currently live in Austin, TX
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and in this season of life I am a fourth grade teacher at a
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Christian private school and so I get to disciple little 9 and
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10 year olds each day. My husband and I have been
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married 17 years. We have one child who is with
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the Lord and a living child is our five year old energetic and
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joyful daughter. My previous career I spent over
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a decade aid in church ministry, served as a women's pastor, and
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had the joy of just shepherding people as they come to know
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Christ and grow in Christ. I am a proud native Texan and
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I'm just excited to be with you today.
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Awesome. Well number one, I have actually
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done something this year. I'm mentoring 6th grade girls
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and I've never done that. And I'm used to boys because I
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have all nephews and my friends kids, you know, there's some
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daughters there, but I'm so used to boys that when I'm talking
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with these girls, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I remember being this
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age and how terrible middle school was, like these poor
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girls. Oh my gosh.
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But it's so crazy because, I mean, the stuff they're going
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through is stuff I couldn't have even imagined 3540 years ago,
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so. It's very true.
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It's a whole new ball game and I'm learning that it's not just
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me, you know, instructing or teaching them, they're also
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teaching me. So together we get to grow in
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Christ likeness. Absolutely.
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So let's talk about your personal freedom journey.
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Yes so grew up in a Christian home with very loving parents,
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but the church I grew up in was very focused on God as a holy,
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righteous and I would even say wrathful God.
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And so I I had a respect and a fear for God.
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I would not say I knew the personal love of God but around
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age 12 and just due to some personal life circumstances I
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felt my foundation fall from me and the church we had were
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attending had to find almost every aspect of our life.
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And suddenly I found myself questioning everything I thought
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I knew about who God was, who I am, what he asked of me.
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And that really led me on for most of high school, what I
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would call a season of spiritual depression and questioning who
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is God? Is he good?
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If he's this angry? Do I really want to know him?
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Things like that. And I tend to be a person who's
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very comfortable with facts and logic and black and white.
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And I kept praying as the studying wasn't working and
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getting all the library books out and researching different
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world religions and talking to people wasn't working.
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I was like, OK, forget the Timothy experience.
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I want to have a soul on the road of damask experience.
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Like just Lord, would you just impart to me that knowledge of
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who you are? And that didn't come either.
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I would say it was a very gradual awareness of God's love,
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and I had the joy of being baptized when I would.
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I was 18, but I would say I still have spent most of my
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adult life trying to walk in the freedom I have in Christ because
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of the church I grew up in. I tend to be to be a people
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pleaser, to desire to avoid disappointing others of
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conflict. I'm very hard on myself and so
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it is constantly a reorienting of this is not in my control.
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It is not all mine to fix. I am not some inherently flawed
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and broken. I am deeply loved by God and I
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know that. But now what does it look like
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to live out a place of love. So I would say, well, I
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definitely and am grateful for the struggle of those high
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school years and have come to have a personal relationship
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with the Lord and know him as a God of love is a continual
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asking of the Lord to sanctify me and to reveal what that
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freedom looks like when so often my default is just to fall back
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into works oriented righteousness.
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Yeah, well, thank you so much for sharing your story.
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And I went to specific churches when I was younger, the Church
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of my parents and then my grandparents.
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And it took quite a long time before I found a faith on my
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own. I was 16 and still I walked away
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when I was 20 and didn't go back for 14 years.
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So it's, it's one of those constant, you know, looking at
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your own faith. And I think that sometimes
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people think automatically, you say deconstruction, that they
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automatically think that that's a bad thing.
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Absolutely. But you know, coming to learn
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that your own faith and be able to walk with God on your own,
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not just because of what people tell you is something so life
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changing. And it doesn't make things
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easier. It just makes it so you can
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learn how to walk out different things when troubles come
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because they're going to come for all of us.
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Absolutely. I think when people start asking
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questions, we think it's a slippery slope from like, I
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believe in God too, I believe in nothing and I have completely
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turned from the Lord and I'm going to lead everyone away from
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the Lord, right? But if deconstruction is a scary
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word, I think of it as like a faith evaluation.
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If it cannot withstand trials and tests and questioning, then
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it isn't true. And some things do need to be
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constructed. Some of us have acquired false
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beliefs about God or the faith or what he requires of us.
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And that does involve A stripping away.
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And but I think the invitation in that is to remember that God
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is a God of love, of truth, and of justice, and that if he is
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cutting anything away, it is not designed to hurt you.
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It is designed to refine you and lead you into greater life.
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Amen. Absolutely.
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Whenever you walk through trials or just in daily life, what
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Bible verse or verses keep you anchored?
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Yes, well, in this current season of life, as I am getting
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to to push a book out into the world, if you will, it's been a
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three, three-year journey. I absolutely love 1st
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Corinthians 1 verses 3 through 4.
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And it is where Paul is talking about how it is his desire to
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share the comfort he has received from God with others.
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That has been kind of a mantra of mine for the past eight years
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since our son passed away. Other verses that come to mind
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are in Romans 12/15. Rejoice with those who rejoice,
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mourn with those who mourn. But the cry of my heart since
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our son passed away and has been Psalm 27, verses 13 through 14
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where David writes, I would have despaired had I not believed
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that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the
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living. Wait for the Lord, be strong,
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let your heart take courage, and wait for the Lord.
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And for me, that was an invitation, if you will, to take
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God at his word. Because I was despairing.
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And it seemed like David was saying the antidote to despair
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is not certainty. But there is a confidence that
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comes from seeing God's goodness, not just one day when
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Jesus returns, but today right here in the land of the living.
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And so I began to just pray like, Oh Lord, would you show me
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your goodness today in the land of the living?
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And that opened up a whole new season of walking with the Lord.
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So you talk about losing your son.
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Let's talk about your story. Yeah.
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So our first son, David, was born in 2018, and he had a
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congenital heart abnormality and spent all 53 days of his short
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life in the NICU. It was traumatic for my husband
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and I and we had not been prepared for that.
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We were not expecting that. And it was traumatic for our
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church because we were both pastors at the time.
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And so it was we were called to live out this grief very
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publicly. And not only were we sorting
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through the grief of losing our first born child, but we were
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also shepherding people who themselves were questioning who
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God is and his goodness. And they're like, we did all the
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right things. We fasted, we prayed, we, you
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know, sought the Lord and he still allowed your son to die.
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And, and for me actually, I mean, that was, it was, it was
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devastating, but that was not the hardest part.
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The Lord and his kindness a few years earlier had prepared me
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for a theodicy, if you will, the framework of suffering.
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And I had walked through the book of Job, I had read Tim
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Keller's Walking with God through Pain and Suffering.
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And so intellectually, I think I could come to grips with not why
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God allowed David to die, but that there is sin and evil and
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suffering and death and brokenness.
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What really made just the bottom fallout was about a month after
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David died, when I felt like God's just picked up his
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presence and walked out. We had felt so sustained, so
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loved, so cared for by the Lord, by the church, by the broader
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church community. We had seen God's fingerprints
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in hundreds of ways each day, which reminded me that while we
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were suffering, God was carrying carrying us.
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But then in the abandonment to feel like, OK, you allowed my
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son to die and now you're not even going to walk with me
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through the subsequent pain and suffering.
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Are are you even good? It wasn't an intellectual doubt.
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It was an experiential doubt because, and I was like, I don't
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think I can get through this if you are not good and if you are
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not with me. And so that propelled me into
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about six months where I just didn't sense the Lord's
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presence. And that is where the book came
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out of. All of us experience traumatic
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loss and grief, and I define grief as the loss of anything
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you weren't prepared to deal with.
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So it can be a divorce, a health diagnosis, the loss of a dream,
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a job and identity. And there are lots of resources
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and helps for that first degree of grief.
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But for me, what was so unsettling was that secondary
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grief, the loss of the God I thought I knew, the worldview,
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the foundation I had. And so it was almost a double
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grief of I'm not just grieving my son and motherhood.
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Now I am also grieving the one who is supposed to carry and
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sustain me. And so the the journey in the
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book is I get to I kind of act as a companion and walking with
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people through and grieving that loss, learning lament and that
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we can turn to look God and lament learning and how to
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wrestle with him that he desires are questions.
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And that if we're going to be angry about God, we can either
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ain't be a direct that anger towards God or away from God.
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And So what does it look like to be in relationship at
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counseling, if you will, with God and pour out your heart to
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him. And so the book is ultimately
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one of hope. We go from death to darkness,
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light to life, but it's not a quick fix book.
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It's not going to you read it and you're like, yeah, I'm no
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longer grieving and have all of my questions answered.
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I would say it is one resource of many that can just help you
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to sit with the pain and begin to process it and metabolize it,
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hopefully in a way that ultimately leads you to better
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understanding the God who draws near, who mourns with you, who
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wipes your tears, and who Himself is a man of sorrows.
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Amen. Absolutely.
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I'm so sorry you went through that.
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I have a whole section in my book on grief and loss because
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it is something that we all go through in one way or another,
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one thing or another. Like you said, it can be
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everything that we go through. There's a grief that happens.
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I've walked through my own grief, but through that, through
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that loss, I mean, there's, there's so many different ways
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I've seen people walk away from God.
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And the thing that drew me back to him was my personal
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infertility journey and also the loss of my grandmother.
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And so those two things actually brought me closer to God then
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driving me further like other things that had happened 14
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years prior, a church split and rejection and stuff.
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Then that took me away at least from the church and from God for
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for a time. But people think that they can't
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be mad at God or they can't like ask him questions, they can't
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yell and cursed and like, you know, all this kind of stuff.
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To him, it's like his shoulders carry this world, like his arm
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span is the entire world, like the universe.
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He he can handle whatever you can throw at him.
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So I think that that's something that's really important for
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people to understand that it's OK.
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Absolutely. Yeah, and not only does is it
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OK, he invites it. I mean, the Psalms are the
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prayer book of Israel and 1/3 of the Psalms are lament psalms,
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which I feel like we should do a better job teaching in our
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churches that lament is a normal part of the Christian life and
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that it. And that while God never causes
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evil, he can use evil for good. And the invitation in that
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lament in that morning, like you said, Gina, is to turn towards
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God and cry out to him as opposed to turning away and
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crying out about Him. Right.
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Well, that's why Genesis 5020 is one of my life versus that's
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that's been a life verse for quite a while.
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Knowing everything that I walked through.
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But lamenting is so good. And the other emotions and the
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other things that we experience are so good.
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I mean, it even says in Scripture to work out our faith
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with fear and trembling. And it's not general.
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It's not necessarily like having this, like you're afraid of God,
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right? It's that the things that you
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walk through, there's, there is fear in everything that we, that
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we do. You know, every time we take a
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step, every time something happens to us, we can have a
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fear of the unknown. But you know, he's like, just
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work with me because we'll get through this together.
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We're not, you're not meant to do it on your own.
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You're meant to do it with God, with those people in your lives,
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in your community, and wherever else He takes you.
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Absolutely. Amen.
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So let's talk about your experience with infertility.
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Yes. So the undercurrent of also
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grieving David was that I was a mother who no longer had a
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living child and to parent and took us a long time to get
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pregnant with David and it took us a long time to get pregnant
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after David with his sister. We in fact were told by
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fertility specialist that we had a 1% chance of conceiving
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naturally and we were genetically tested.
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David's abnormality was not anything genetically so it
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shouldn't happen again. This was just another
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coincidental thing that further added to the grief of every
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month praying and hoping that I was pregnant and that I would
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get the joy of not only carrying another child, beginning to take
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that child hospital. And so walking through the grief
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of losing David, but also knowing that I may never parent
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another child again and that my womb was empty and was also very
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deeply painful. And I would say that like you
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mentioned, Gina, it drove me to the Lord in a way that I had not
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experienced before because there was literally nothing I could do
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to make life spring forth in my womb.
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I think when the desire is so strong to bear and mother a
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living child and that is not coming to fruition.
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And obviously this effects different women differently and
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men and women differently. But for me as a female who had
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tastes in motherhood and had it ripped from her, then was
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processing through, we may never do it again.
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It was a very unique sorrow. And I will never forget the day
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that I finally was able to come to grips with it.
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And I can go back to my prayer journal and see that day where I
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was like, OK, Lord, this is completely and utterly in your
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hands. And should you choose not to
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give us another child, it is not my will, but I think I will be
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able to live through it. So that's a little bit of our
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infertility journey. The surprising and miraculous
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thing is that on the day we went in to do an IUI, we found out we
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were already pregnant naturally. And so that was just God's
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abundant and overwhelming grace and love.
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And I, I am not going to connect the dots and say that because I
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was able to release, you know, that God was withholding a child
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until I could release it to him. And then he gave us a child
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because God is not punitive and doesn't work like that.
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But every time I see Emma, Ruth, David's little sister, I just
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look at her and I think both of my babies are gifts of God, and
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I treasure them and they are miracles of God's goodness.
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And yet, even if God had not given us another child, and my
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testimony would still be that God is good.
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Yeah, that infertility is something that is such a hard
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journey to walk through. And I mean, I've been very
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fortunate through this podcast, I've been able to develop some
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healing of my own because of talking with other people who
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will walk through it and knowing that I'm not alone.
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And in that has helped, I've been able to help others realize
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that they're not alone. And that's the chapter in the
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book that I wrote about grief and loss was about my
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infertility journey, about, you know, I've had to process it as
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it was happening because, you know, I'm having all these
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physical problems. And then to have to have a
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partial hysterectomy in 2014 after having an ablation and
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things were not, they were not fixed.
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Like I was still in pain. And then the hysterectomy
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happened. And you know, especially being a
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Christian woman, it's really you have a dichotomy of feelings at
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that moment because for me, I felt relief that I was no longer
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in pain, joy because certain parts of my life were over.
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You're not living in that uncertainty, in that tension of
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weak cycles. What's going to happen?
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Right. And the painful periods in the,
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you know, all that stuff. I didn't have to live through
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that anymore. But then there was also sadness
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because, you know, Hannah lamented to the Lord to have a
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have a child and she ended up pregnant and gave her child to
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the Lord. Like you were just talking
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about, well-being a Christian woman to hear that story and
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then to hear the be fruitful and multiply and all those kind of
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things. I mean that that could have and
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it did 'cause me anger for quite a while because, you know, other
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people were like, well, you believe in God, you should get
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pregnant. Where is that correlated in the
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Bible, right? Absolutely.
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There is 0 correlation of that. And so I had to process it as it
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was happening through my own feelings and my own things and
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all that. And my husband, it took him a
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long time to be even begin to process it because I believe
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that, you know, men and women are created differently and men
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sometimes don't mourn at that time.
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They do years later. Like my husband didn't even
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start it until like 10 years later.
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And it was just kind of like the the end of the reality of that
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for him. We process things very
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differently. Even if we've already processed,
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things will come up that'll make us think about it again.
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Yes. Like it was really hard for me
22:19
to walk through it. And my brother and his wife have
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5 voice between the two of them. She had two from her previous
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marriage and then she had four with the marriage from my with
22:30
my brother. And so to see them keep having
22:33
kids and I couldn't have any. And I mean, that's that's a real
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thing. And you went through that before
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you were pregnant both times. I'm sure where you see all these
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things happening for other people and you're like, really
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OK. But yeah, going to the baby
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showers, here are the announcements and it's that
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tension of I am excited for you and sorrowful for me and, and,
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and sometimes there's the guilt of like, well, don't let your
23:04
joy intrude. I advice there, OK, You just see
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my pain. And then sometimes you feel bad
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'cause you're the person who's it's really hard to engage in
23:11
that baby shower. And you, like my sister, I found
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out three weeks after David died that she was expecting her first
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child. And I work so hard to
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intentionally enter into that season and celebrate with her.
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And I am grateful for the hard work I did.
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But in some ways, I think I was unrealistic of the expectations
23:35
of myself. And it's OK to say, like, I love
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you and I am for you, but this is just really painful and I
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need some space. And it's not a reflection of
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you. Exactly.
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And I think that's the thing we, you talk about the people
23:48
pleasing, we just get so used to people pleasing and we want
23:52
everybody to be OK, even if we're not.
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Yes. And I had to put up some very
23:57
strict boundaries several years ago.
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And one of them because I was going to a smaller church at the
24:04
time when I was going to Omega church, it wasn't that big of a
24:06
deal because I could hide, like on Mother's Day, I could hide
24:09
somewhere. I could do what I need to do, go
24:11
flat and just do what I was going to do and be done.
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But then when you're actually in front of a lot of people in a
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smaller amount of people, and people are saying Happy Mother's
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Day and that takes a stab every time you heard it.
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And then they'll say something like, OK, stand up if you're a
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mom. There's another one.
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And I finally got to a point, my best friend, her mom died.
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She was very, very close to her mom.
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I've lost my mom and grandma as well.
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So we every Mother's Day, we don't go to church, we put our
24:44
boundary up. We're like, we cannot do this.
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And so we go shopping, we go, we go to the outlets and we just
24:53
spend a whole day away from everyone.
24:55
And you know, whether some people would think that's
24:58
avoidance, but to us it's not. It's a way to work out the
25:03
things that we need to work out, but also not have things put
25:06
into our faces. Yes, yes, and I and I mean, I
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think that is part of the healing journey like you've
25:13
said, Gina, is that I don't know that we ever fully arrive.
25:16
I mean, yes, can God like divinely ZAP away the grief and
25:20
sorrow? Yes, but the the more natural
25:22
process we see in Scripture and then the testimony of Christians
25:25
is that it is a very slow progression of sanctification.
25:30
And like you said, you think like, Oh, I dealt with that.
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And then there's something that comes up and you're like, Oh,
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it's an onion. There's a deeper layer and a
25:36
deeper layer. And it doesn't mean you failed
25:39
or not engaged in the grief journey.
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It just means that it's a deep pain.
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And that with each, I guess, revelation, if you will, of
25:47
another hurt or trigger, it's another invitation to mourn with
25:51
the God who mourns with us. I mean, I am so encouraged by
25:55
the story of Jesus with Mary and Martha and Lazarus in John 11
25:59
because if Jesus would not have wept at the tomb of his friend,
26:05
he wouldn't have been fully human.
26:07
I mean, this did he know that he was about to raise him against a
26:10
new life and there would be a party and that that, you know,
26:13
the mourners would suddenly turn to dancers and singers?
26:16
Yes. But like, no, he wept because
26:18
death and grief and sorrow and pain and loss is the rupture of
26:22
life and of relational connection that the Lord created
26:25
us for. And so, so instead of condemning
26:28
others or ourselves and going, oh, shame on me, I'm not where I
26:31
thought I should be, It's like, no, we are human and this is an
26:35
invitation to process it with the Lord yet again.
26:38
Absolutely. And through watching The Chosen
26:42
and through like my own thoughts with with the whole Lazarus and
26:46
all that story, like you can see so many reasons why Jesus wept
26:50
at that exact moment. If you really sit down and think
26:53
about it, that he has created these relationships with these
26:58
men and women and he knew it was coming to an end here on earth.
27:03
So and he knew that by raising Lazarus, that would be it.
27:07
That would be the final thing that people were like, OK,
27:09
that's it, he's a heretic and that he knew that he was going
27:12
to die when he did that. So it's and his mother crying
27:17
for his mother. And just like all of the things,
27:20
it really, the more you look at it, the more you think about it
27:23
and the more you process that it's just he does feel so much
27:29
more human to us then, you know, he's, he's 100% God, He's 100%
27:35
human. And so that moment I know it's,
27:40
it really affects me as well because it's like those two
27:43
little words. The shortest verse in the Bible
27:46
carries so much weight and so much freedom at the same time.
27:52
Amen. So in closing, we'll talk about
27:56
something that a lot of people want to say and a lot of people
28:00
go to we all do it is the Christian cliches and the quick
28:05
fix words. You I'm sure we have all heard
28:09
it all. We have said it all and we have
28:11
said it to avoid further conversation to like.
28:15
So let's let's talk about that in closing and how the church
28:19
can help to address those and not just want to shoot off the
28:23
few words. Yes, yes, I I am so thankful.
28:27
Well, actually in the hospital with David, the book by Kate
28:31
Bowler, everything happens for reasons and then the subtitle
28:35
and other lies I've loved like, yes, so life giving to me
28:38
because she just has this list of quite honestly, BS that
28:42
people say and they put a Christian veneer on it and it's
28:45
not helpful. We think it is in the moment,
28:48
but actually what it does is it truncates people's grief.
28:51
And it's like me saying, well, Gina, everything happens for a
28:53
reason. I mean, look, God has grown you
28:55
through that season of infertility.
28:57
So aren't you grateful? And, and what it does, it feels
29:00
like it. It says that you don't have
29:03
permission to grieve and lament. And so first of all, I will say
29:06
it until the day I die. Let us not glorify death, evil,
29:11
pain or suffering. It is not good and God can
29:14
redeem it and he often does use it for our good and his glory,
29:18
but that doesn't make it good or OK.
29:22
I have a joke that like if it's sold at Hobby Lobby on a pillow,
29:26
please don't say it to me. It's really not helpful and I
29:31
think it comes from a good place of we don't want others to hurt.
29:36
And also for most of us, if you have not personally walked
29:40
through traumatic loss, I think we as a society are
29:43
uncomfortable entering into the pain of others.
29:45
We think we have somewhat of God complex.
29:47
We think it's our responsibility to help heal or fix or or it's
29:51
OK. And especially in Christian
29:54
subculture, we feel like we have to skip the lament and get
29:57
straight to. But God is sovereign and he is
29:59
good. And I would really love to see
30:03
our churches teach more about normalizing lament, about not
30:07
just singing anthem praise songs, but also songs of lament
30:11
where this is not OK and this is not good.
30:14
And yet, God, we will trust you, You know, would you make your
30:16
face to shine upon us? I would love to see more people
30:20
trained in the ministry of presence.
30:24
I love that in the book of Job, Job's friends sat with him for a
30:27
week in silence. And that was the best part of
30:30
what they did. They just came and sat with him.
30:34
They didn't try to explain it away, to question him, to give
30:39
him, you know, a 5 tip article on how to confess your sins so
30:43
that God will heal you. They were just present to his
30:46
pain. And I think as you were saying,
30:49
Gina, and as I've deeply felt, traumatic loss of any kind is
30:53
deeply isolating. You feel somehow broken off from
30:56
the rest of the humanity and that it is just you and your
30:59
pain and it is consuming you. And in the church, we often have
31:04
this idea that, like, I can't show up unless I have it
31:07
together. If you want to stuff all the
31:08
pain and put my cloak on of respectability.
31:13
And the people that drew near weren't necessarily the people I
31:17
invited, but it was the people who drew near that matter most.
31:21
Because they said, like, I will sit with you and I will stare
31:24
and death in the face. And I'm going to be OK if my
31:27
pastor is sitting here undone, unweeping, if she's raging at
31:32
God, if she is silent. And it's nothing to say they
31:37
just were the ministry of presence with me and in looking
31:42
back and for that 6 to 9 month period when I could not feel or
31:47
sense or see got it all. I can look back and see that God
31:51
made himself known through his corporate body, through the
31:55
church, through community. And so I would, I would invite
32:00
people if their friend or loved one is suffering, to pray
32:03
thoughtfully before they try to offer any sort of theological
32:09
words of encouragement. That doesn't mean obviously that
32:12
Scripture doesn't have a place, but it's not something you slap
32:15
on. Grief is very nuanced.
32:17
And to truncate the grief and lament and get shortcutted to
32:22
the joy is not true. As you and I both know, life is
32:26
joy and sorrow. It's not one or the other.
32:29
It's not as you grow into faith, you become more joyful and less
32:32
sorrowful. Well, the disciples were men of
32:34
sorrow. Jesus was a man of sorrow.
32:37
We are whole bodied people, all of the emotions are welcome and
32:41
so I think I would just invite people to prayerfully think
32:44
through what does this person need?
32:47
Do they need a meal? Do they need their dog walk?
32:49
Do they need me to just sit with them?
32:51
Do they need me to remember their loved ones anniversary and
32:54
text them on that day? Do they need a card on Mother's
32:58
Day that says I see you and I'm so sorry this day sucks.
33:03
I think we need to take away the Christianese and be OK with
33:07
saying that death sucks. Life at times sucks.
33:11
Call it out because people in pain have a very low tolerance
33:16
for BS and if you try to sugarcoat it your help is not
33:20
going to be received well. Yeah, absolutely.
33:24
I know we want to say the right things or we don't know what to
33:27
say. And sometimes it's just best not
33:30
to say anything. If you know the person and they
33:33
are a hug person, yes. How come and sit.
33:36
You know, I walk through a really hard time with one of my
33:40
best friends when her husband died and you know, her and I
33:46
actually got closer, like we, you know, we were close already.
33:49
But then when he died, she's like, there's only a couple of
33:52
people that have stayed and you're one of them.
33:54
Yes, after I turned 40, I lost some of the ability to tolerate
33:59
bull and to knots and to, I don't have time or energy to
34:04
wait. Yes, yes, because I'm in my 40s
34:07
now. Like I don't have it.
34:08
Like I, I, I lost some of my tact when I turned 40, but I, I
34:14
just, I'm, I'll just sit there and be like, this whole
34:17
situation sucks. Like you were married to a
34:22
wonderful man, you had two children with him, 4 from his
34:25
previous, and now you are a single mom working every day
34:31
just to make sure that your kids are fed and that you are not
34:36
losing your Jesus every 5 seconds.
34:39
Like it sucks and when you need to vent call me.
34:45
And I feel I haven't been able to see her in like 5 weeks
34:47
because I, I've seen her once in five weeks because I had
34:50
surgery. So I'm like, gotta get over
34:53
there. Like, you know, it, it is the
34:56
present, it's the, it's the being there, it's the not.
35:00
And when they, if they start cussing and stuff, don't correct
35:02
them. Yeah, let let them say what they
35:05
need to say. Because if you correct them,
35:08
then they're just going to look at you and be like, you know,
35:10
the doors right behind you, you can go today.
35:13
Like just let people be and do what they need to be and do and
35:19
pray for them. Yes.
35:22
And whether you pray out loud with them or you're praying in
35:26
your car on your way home from being with them and on the way
35:29
to them, just yeah, like you said, don't put, don't put a
35:34
Band-Aid on a bullet hole like it does not work.
35:37
So, yeah, don't set a timeline for when they need to be over it
35:41
exactly. Because for so many things, you
35:45
know, it's like, well, we had the funeral or we brought you
35:47
the casserole or you already had the surgery, like you should be
35:51
over it by now. And people go back to their
35:53
normal life. But that grieving person, that
35:55
that person who lost something precious to them, life is not
35:58
the same after that. And those friends who have been
36:02
OK with my mess and not asked me to button it up, if you will,
36:07
when I'm around them, have proved to be some of the truest
36:10
expressions of of God's love to me.
36:15
Of the true God, not of the God I thought I knew growing up.
36:17
Because they invite me to come as I am.
36:21
They receive me and they show me God's love, even if it's not
36:25
with words, but but with their very presence.
36:28
And so it has helped redefine for me that love looks like
36:32
showing up and being present. It doesn't look like fixing
36:36
their pain because that is not in our power.
36:39
Of course, we can pray, we can be an encouragement, we can be a
36:42
support, but we are not the Lord.
36:45
And when we put ourselves in that position, we're
36:48
automatically going to disappoint our friend and then
36:50
we're going to feel like a failure ourself.
36:53
So I think when we can rightly know what our role is in walking
36:56
with those who are suffering, and then what the Lord's role
36:58
is, there is a greater freedom in that.
37:02
Amen. Amen.
37:03
And that is a perfect way to end today's conversation, Tiffany.
37:08
I have enjoyed it so much and I really think that people are
37:12
going to not only be blessed, but also might feel a few
37:15
pinches to learn how to handle things differently and to learn
37:23
more about themselves and also more about God.
37:26
So where can people find you and where can they get a copy of
37:29
your book? Yes.
37:30
And well, thank you. Well, the book is available
37:32
wherever books are sold, Barnes and Noble, Amazon,
37:35
Books-a-million, Christian Book, and the publisher NAV Press
37:39
right now is offering it for 20% off.
37:42
And then I have a personal website, tiffanystein.com, where
37:45
I have additional resources that supplement the book.
37:49
So like reflection exercises, spiritual formation worksheets
37:53
and discussion questions. And and also my links to
37:56
Facebook and Instagram are there as well.
37:59
I love that. I'll put I'll put all that in
38:01
the show notes today. Tiffany, thank you for coming on
38:04
today and you guys, I will talk to you next episode.
38:07
Be blessed and be a blessing. Thank you so much for joining me
38:12
for this episode, the Anchor by the Sword podcast.
38:14
I pray that the story that you heard today will encourage your
38:18
faith, challenge your faith, and also help you as you walk in
38:22
your daily life. If this episode has done that,
38:24
please feel free to leave a five star rating and review wherever
38:29
you listen to this podcast so that others can find it and grow
38:32
as well. Have a blessed week and I'll
38:34
talk to you next episode.