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Denise Bender: Faith, Community, and Godwinks · Why I Believe

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome back to the Why I Believe podcast.
• 0:04
  I am your host, Michelle Von Ruden.
• 0:05
  And today I have with me Denise Spender out of Wisconsin.
• 0:09
  Denise, how are you doing today?
• 0:11
  I'm doing great.
• 0:12
  How are you?
• 0:13
  I'm doing well.
• 0:14
  Thank you so much for asking.
• 0:16
  Denise, I've known you for a few years.
• 0:19
  You are a busy woman.
• 0:21
  I want to know, can you give us an introduction into you and how you incorporate faith into your life every day?
• 0:28
  Well, a brief introduction to me is I've been married for 43 years um and I have three grown sons and um they're now starting to have girlfriends and one just got married.
• 0:45
  ah So maybe one day we'll have grandchildren.
• 0:49
  I don't know.
• 0:50
  They live their own lives.
• 0:51
  ah And I keep very, very busy or my
• 0:58
  Schedule is abundant with a small business that I run and have been um aligned with for 21 years.
• 1:07
  It's in the food and beverage industry.
• 1:09
  And then um I also run a networking group, which you are a part of, Polk and a Powerhouse.
• 1:16
  And that's how we met.
• 1:19
  And how do I allow my faith to intersect with my businesses?
• 1:27
  um
• 1:29
  Yeah, your business and everyday life.
• 1:31
  Yeah, it's basically I've never
• 1:38
  I've never hidden my faith um and am always if someone needs a prayer, I'm happy to do that for them.
• 1:50
  One of my favorite sayings is, I'll throw up some prayers for you.
• 1:55
  And that kind of tells people where I'm at.
• 1:58
  And...
• 1:58
  oh
• 2:03
  So, and I do truly try to find something to love in everyone, which I think is what the book tells us to do and what Jesus did.
• 2:18
  And yeah.
• 2:21
  Wonderful.
• 2:21
  I love that.
• 2:22
  Now when we were talking earlier, you told me this amazing story about your aunt who was diagnosed with breast cancer and survived.
• 2:29
  Can you dive into those details?
• 2:31
  Because I know the time period played a whole lot of and played into a lot.
• 2:35
  Yeah, I was probably late teens, maybe even in high school.
• 2:41
  I was very close to her.
• 2:43
  uh She is my mother's sister or was my mother's sister and um I was very close to their family.
• 2:53
  And so my cousins felt more like brothers and sisters than they did cousins.
• 2:59
  Even though I only got to see them maybe once or twice a year, they lived in Canada and we lived in Minnesota.
• 3:07
  And I used to stay with them.
• 3:09
  So my aunt was always kind of like a matriarch figure.
• 3:13
  She was the um the oldest of all the children in her family.
• 3:20
  So she was older than my mother and.
• 3:27
  12345.
• 3:29
  wow, okay.
• 3:30
  Yeah, five children.
• 3:32
  And interestingly enough, father, my mother's father and um my aunt's father, same man, actually came from a family of 21 children.
• 3:49
  Yeah, that was a long time ago.
• 3:51
  He fought, I believe, in World War I and um
• 3:57
  in the Canadian army.
• 4:01
  yeah, anyway, so lots of multiples.
• 4:04
  think there was twin, a couple sets of twins, maybe even three sets of twins, and then there were triplets.
• 4:09
  So, and back then you had a lot of children simply because they needed to work on a farm, right?
• 4:16
  So I'm not sure how warm of a man he was, but anyway, they didn't seem to have a lot of faith.
• 4:21
  My mother was never very, I mean, they were raised Catholic.
• 4:27
  And uh I think what molded her faith was, uh and she went away from the Catholic Church um simply because she got divorced in the early 60s and was no longer welcome in the church.
• 4:43
  However, a young priest came and visited her.
• 4:47
  So she would have been in her uh early 30s and um kind of made a pass at her.
• 4:56
  which was not, yeah.
• 4:59
  So after that, she was like, she didn't want to have anything to do with the Catholic Church, but she knew children needed to be raised something.
• 5:07
  You have to give them a foundation of what to believe in, and then they can take it from there.
• 5:12
  So she found a Lutheran church not far from our house and took me there for Sunday school.
• 5:22
  And I did the Sunday school thing.
• 5:24
  And then they,
• 5:26
  the confirmation.
• 5:27
  ah I always had to walk and when we went to church ourselves, ah she oftentimes would not accompany me.
• 5:36
  I would have to go by myself.
• 5:37
  So it is what it is, right?
• 5:41
  And then I had friends who were Catholic and so they were very ingrained in their faith, but Catholic faith tends to be more rote uh memorization, whereas uh
• 5:52
  The Lutheran faith was more, it was less rote to me as far as repeating scripture and that kind of thing.
• 5:59
  m Yeah.
• 6:03
  um And then um anyway, so I always had faith.
• 6:12
  And then when my aunt was diagnosed, so I'd been confirmed.
• 6:17
  And when my aunt was diagnosed with cancer, uh
• 6:20
  that would have been in the uh late 60s, very early 70s, probably very early 70s.
• 6:29
  So back then, ah breast cancer diagnosis was ah extremely, ah survival was rare.
• 6:37
  ah It was very, ah I mean, they took everything.
• 6:43
  she like, you know, they took lymph nodes under her arm, they took her breasts, everything, it was very radical.
• 6:50
  And then I believe there was lots of chemo.
• 6:53
  I was not in on all of that, but I do know that when my mother got the diagnosis, she was sad and of course, you know, started to cry.
• 7:06
  But I do remember praying that if you were to save my aunt, I would believe in you for the rest of my life.
• 7:15
  Because when you're a teenager, those are the kinds of things that you pray for, right?
• 7:19
  Right?
• 7:21
  And I think that's true for adults too.
• 7:23
  Right?
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  If you're going through something traumatic, you're like, whatever you need, God, I save them and I will be forever yours.
• 7:28
  Yeah, yeah.
• 7:30
  And um so she survived that.
• 7:32
  She passed, surpassed the five-year cancer mark.
• 7:36
  And that was, um that was miraculous because back then oftentimes people did not make that marker.
• 7:46
  And um then when 10 years passed, it was like, great.
• 7:50
  So she would have been in her
• 7:53
  Let's see, so if I was a teenager, my mother would have been in her 40s, so then Auntie Margaret would have been probably in her late 40s, early 50s when the diagnosis came down.
• 8:07
  And she lived an entirely full life and finally died, I think it was at 93 or 94 from natural causes.
• 8:17
  She did not die of cancer.
• 8:19
  So it was...
• 8:23
  It was kind of unheard of back then.
• 8:25
  There were a lot of reoccurrences that would happen and all of that kind of thing.
• 8:30
  And so, um yeah, and kind of when that, when she hit that five-year mark, I would have been probably 20 and fell away from the church for a little bit.
• 8:43
  Because after you get confirmed and you don't have to no longer go through all the confirmation classes and you don't have to be there.
• 8:50
  um
• 8:52
  then I, and finding a faith family is something that you need to try.
• 9:00
  And um so when my husband and I got married and then we started to have children, um I knew that I wanted to give them a base for their spiritual upbringing.
• 9:14
  So, and because I knew what the Lutheran faith was and I was confirmed in the Lutheran faith, I was,
• 9:20
  That's the church I looked to.
• 9:25
  And so all of our children were baptized in the Lutheran churches, whether it be when we lived in Minnesota, I think the first one and the second one were done in the same church.
• 9:33
  And then we were transferred here to Wisconsin and I had to find my own new faith family, right?
• 9:41
  I had a mentor when I was, um just after I got married, a woman that I worked with and she was
• 9:48
  Back then, a lot of people were born again Christians, right?
• 9:52
  So she had found the Lord.
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  And ah so she very much ran her business that way.
• 9:58
  And I worked for her.
• 10:00
  So oftentimes there were prayers said uh for people if you were going through a lot of things.
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  And ah when we ah when I was pregnant with my second child, I had gestational diabetes.
• 10:14
  And I remember her.
• 10:16
  So I had to prick my finger.
• 10:18
  Two or three times, you know, before I ate, after I ate.
• 10:21
  I mean, it was the whole thing, right?
• 10:23
  After a while, your fingers get dry, or your hands are dry.
• 10:29
  And I was working in a graphics firm and I remember having done that and after I ate and then I had to go handle some artwork and my finger hadn't stopped bleeding and I got blood
• 10:42
  on the artwork.
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  And I was probably a good...
• 10:46
  eight months pregnant.
• 10:48
  I was, you know, pretty big, pretty miserable.
• 10:52
  I'd had enough.
• 10:55
  And I remember her, I went, my God, look at now I've got this on here.
• 11:00
  And I just started almost having a meltdown.
• 11:02
  I go now they're flooding.
• 11:05
  my God.
• 11:06
  And so she just said, let's stop for a minute.
• 11:08
  So right there in the middle of the graphics department.
• 11:12
  She like grabbed my hand and she said a prayer over my baby and to give me patience and strength.
• 11:20
  It was very calming.
• 11:22
  So that kind of, that was something new to me because I yet hadn't really found my faith family.
• 11:30
  So then when her and I, we stayed in touch.
• 11:36
  and my husband and I were transferred to Wisconsin, I still stayed in touch with her and she, ah so we would get together maybe once a year or something like that.
• 11:49
  And I started to interview churches so that I could um figure out where we're gonna take our kids, where they were gonna start their faith journey because by this time one of them
• 12:00
  was in kindergarten um and my other one was 18 months old.
• 12:06
  um I called a couple of churches that were Lutheran.
• 12:11
  They were different synods than I had been aware of.
• 12:15
  And so um one of them didn't look very bribe.
• 12:19
  And I knew I was going to be bringing my husband to the church.
• 12:23
  And I knew a lot of these places were running.
• 12:28
  You would go to church and then you would go to Sunday school.
• 12:31
  weren't running in them.
• 12:33
  together and so you were at church for two hours and I was thinking there's no way my husband's gonna want to go sit in church for two hours right?
• 12:41
  So I was looking specifically for programming where you would put your children in Sunday school and then we would go to church and you pick them up after and called a couple
• 12:53
  churches and no one bothered to get back to me other than this one church and he
• 13:02
  he's introduced himself and he goes, well, let me tell you a little bit about our church.
• 13:08
  He goes, our demographics are this, this and this.
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  And so we have services that are not only appeal to our older generation, but we also run a contemporary service.
• 13:23
  you know, the demographics for specific contemporaries in this age group is country Western music.
• 13:32
  And so we have a country band that comes in and they do more of that.
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  And when the pastor said demographics, he was speaking my language because I had worked in advertising for so many years.
• 13:45
  I was like, well, yeah, I kind of like this.
• 13:47
  So we gave it a try.
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  And that was the place that we have now been worshipping at for 30 years.
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  We became members.
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  Our children were all confirmed through that.
• 13:58
  uh
• 14:00
  Shortly after, probably maybe five years after my mentor from the business, the woman who had prayed with me, her and I had lunch and she said, so how are you doing?
• 14:15
  And she goes, did you find a church?
• 14:16
  And I said, yeah, I did, you know, and I really enjoy it.
• 14:19
  And I started to volunteer there.
• 14:22
  So I helped, I was on their decorating team for, I don't know, I think 15.
• 14:28
  18 years, I don't know, it was a long time.
• 14:31
  And so I really got immersed in it and got to know a lot of the people.
• 14:35
  And she said, you know, when you left, I prayed that you would find your faith family and you would be good at it, you know, and you would find a home there.
• 14:46
  And I was like, well, your prayers worked.
• 14:50
  So, yeah.
• 14:52
  You know, I think it's so awesome.
• 14:54
  So a lot of times in workplaces, we're told to keep religion and politics out of the workplace.
• 15:00
  But she just brought it right there, right on the floor uh and prayed with you.
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  And I think that's so awesome because so often we have to be this person at work, this person at home, this person here, this person there.
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  And you were just allowed to be you.
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  And she was allowed to be her.
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  Right.
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  And I think it's.
• 15:17
  We're in so much better alignment with ourselves and our faith and our world and we're at peace when we can be fully authentically who we want to be.
• 15:26
  Right.
• 15:27
  And that's exactly the way I run my networking group.
• 15:30
  It's like, you know, I don't hide it.
• 15:33
  don't broadcast it, but I don't hide it either.
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  So, and I've always lived my life that way.
• 15:39
  So, yeah.
• 15:41
  Yeah, that's awesome.
• 15:42
  Another key thing I think you talked about is like finding your church family.
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  Who are those people within the church that you can count on and who are those people that you build community with?
• 15:52
  Right, because as a business woman and I'm a business woman too, right, we build communities to have those people who are not necessarily always like minded, right, but
• 16:01
  always like hearted.
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  And I think that's really key.
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  And we can find those because there's gonna be bad apples.
• 16:08
  Obviously your ah family ran into a bad apple at the Catholic church, right?
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  We're going to have bad apples in every industry and everywhere we go.
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  And we can't judge a book by one person.
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  Right.
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  And I think that's so key because God tells us to love thy neighbor.
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  It doesn't say love your neighbor if it follows this check mark, right?
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  If it checks all the boxes, it says love your neighbor.
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  Right.
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  Because God himself is love.
• 16:35
  Yeah.
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  Right, it's not us, uh we're not the judge, right?
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  We just love.
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  And that comes out in your communities, it comes out in the places that we spend our time in, and I really love that.
• 16:49
  One of the things that you and I had talked about a little bit were some Godwinks.
• 16:53
  So explain to, for those of you who are listening who may not know what a Godwink is, Denise, would you like to fill them in?
• 17:00
  And then give us a couple of examples that you've experienced in your life of some Godwinks.
• 17:04
  Well, it's just one of those things where like, okay, so you don't leave the house on time, you're running late.
• 17:17
  You've lost your shoe or maybe you've come downstairs, you're dressed in the dark, you put on two different pairs of shoes and you get downstairs and you're rushing around and
• 17:26
  you're like, damn it, I've got the wrong, I got two different pairs of shoes on.
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  So you have to go back upstairs.
• 17:34
  and you have to do something or someone calls or someone stops you in your tracks and you're late.
• 17:44
  So you end up at your destination where you're supposed to be, what you're later than what you were supposed to be.
• 17:52
  And what you find out is that prior to you arriving on scene or passing a specific road or something that there had been an accident there.
• 18:03
  And so
• 18:04
  your lateness meant that you missed being involved in that accident.
• 18:11
  I mean, that's happened so many times for me as I've been going through things or even the people that you are most connected with and it happening to them or...
• 18:29
  I'm trying to think if there's a specific reason, but I know my best friends and I, talk about it all the time.
• 18:35
  know, there's a Godwink, you know, or meeting someone that you don't know why that person was put in front of you and you don't find out about it until you've, until months later
• 18:50
  of why they were put in your path.
• 18:54
  And
• 18:55
  And that's what I always feel like the people that are brought into my life, you know, there's that saying, people are brought into your life for a reason and a season.
• 19:04
  I always think there's a reason.
• 19:06
  And then it's like, either what am I supposed to learn from this person or what's this person gonna bring me to?
• 19:13
  ah So, yeah, so that's, and sometimes people come in and you go, I don't know why this person is here.
• 19:22
  And then, you know, there's kind of a winky-winky.
• 19:26
  And then you're like, okay, now I know I got to this person in my place.
• 19:30
  I'm either supposed to learn this or I'm supposed to help teach them this or that.
• 19:36
  And that's kind of what we call it.
• 19:40
  So.
• 19:41
  Yeah, and I love how you say that, you know, it's a God wink.
• 19:44
  And I've experienced that before.
• 19:48
  When I was younger, my parents and I were going to go on a trip and we get five minutes out of the house and I realized I forgot something and we're going to be gone for days.
• 19:56
  Like this wasn't just a quick, you know, 30 minute drive.
• 20:00
  No, we were going to a different state, eight, 10 hours away.
• 20:03
  And I was like, oh no, I forgot this.
• 20:05
  We need to turn around and go get it.
• 20:07
  And we did.
• 20:09
  And so the whole time frame was about 20 minutes that we were between running back and coming to where we were.
• 20:14
  And just a little bit down the road, we got stuck in traffic and we had found out within that time frame, there was a really bad fatal car accident.
• 20:24
  And ever since then, I really try to remember when I'm running late for something and the car in front of me is driving very slow that, OK, this car is driving slow for a reason.
• 20:34
  I don't need to be where I'm at.
• 20:36
  I need to just be patient.
• 20:39
  Trust in the Lord that I'm going to get to where I need to be in one piece because of that.
• 20:45
  Right.
• 20:46
  And I think if we haven't experienced it, it's hard to do that.
• 20:48
  And I mean, I am not perfect.
• 20:50
  There are days where I'm like, why aren't you driving faster and like figuring out when I can safely pass.
• 20:55
  But there's other days I was like, no, you know what?
• 20:57
  This is right where I need to be.
• 20:58
  And I lean into it.
• 21:00
  I take it and I show up five minutes late because I just get that feeling that says, no, this is right where you're supposed to be.
• 21:07
  And also if you breathe deep when that happens, it's like it gives you time to take a breath because you're kind of in this mode and you bring it down and then it, so it's like
• 21:22
  God going, hey girl, slow down.
• 21:27
  Well, yeah, and I think we're, you know, in this day and age, and I'm guilty of it, and I'm sure, you know, there's so many people that are going to be listening to us that are,
• 21:35
  we are so good at just being busy, it's so hard to slow down.
• 21:39
  It's hard to take that moment and say, nope, we're in the right place.
• 21:42
  This is why we're here.
• 21:43
  m
• 21:46
  So for anyone who's listening who hasn't discovered their faith and they're thinking about different, maybe different churches, maybe different denominations, what would be your
• 21:57
  best advice to let's say mothers who are getting ready?
• 22:01
  Cause you know, you talked about bringing your kids and wanting to have that faith, which is totally different from, I was raised as a Christian, but we didn't go to church.
• 22:09
  So totally different from mine.
• 22:10
  So what would you say to a young mom who might be listening to this podcast, who's trying to find her footing?
• 22:16
  How do you help that within finding your footing as faith-based mom?
• 22:24
  Well, number one, it's about community.
• 22:27
  So, and the church is a community.
• 22:30
  It's not a building.
• 22:31
  It's not a faith.
• 22:32
  It's a community that you're building.
• 22:35
  So you need to find, and your children need a ground work of what to believe.
• 22:43
  Because faith is nothing but hope.
• 22:47
  And if you don't have hope, then you are hopeless.
• 22:50
  And especially in times like these,
• 22:54
  it's what keeps me going is that I have faith and I have hope that things are going to get better and there can be change.
• 23:04
  And so those are the things that you need to instill in your children so that they can see that.
• 23:10
  Because if you're wandering around hopeless or faithless, then what are you teaching your children?
• 23:20
  That there is no hope, there is no faith.
• 23:23
  It doesn't even have to do with afterlife or anything like that.
• 23:26
  It's just about believing in something bigger than you are that is going to help get you through.
• 23:35
  Yeah.
• 23:36
  Sometimes my children are like, mom, I'm just so optimistic.
• 23:41
  And it's like, well, what other choice do we have?
• 23:45
  We don't.
• 23:47
  So they've been given that ground to base their faith on.
• 23:52
  course they're not real active right now, very similar to my own experience and but I'm assuming that when they have children that will come back around again.
• 24:03
  So.
• 24:05
  Yeah, it's funny.
• 24:07
  It's interesting how it kind of goes in those waves.
• 24:09
  Right.
• 24:10
  But for you, I think one of the things I want to point out here is that God is forgiving.
• 24:15
  Right.
• 24:15
  You said, please save my aunt and I will be forever yours.
• 24:19
  And you stepped away physically.
• 24:21
  I don't know how you set the way emotionally, right, because there's that emotional tie to.
• 24:25
  But he forgave you and let you right back in.
• 24:29
  Right.
• 24:30
  because that's what he does.
• 24:32
  Yeah.
• 24:33
  Yeah.
• 24:33
  love.
• 24:34
  You're gonna screw up.
• 24:35
  This is not something that you can just be like, okay, I believe in God.
• 24:39
  I'm gonna be perfect.
• 24:40
  It doesn't work that way.
• 24:42
  And he already knew, he already knew that I was going to fall away from the church and he knew I would come back because he knows all those things because he made me, right?
• 24:51
  So he knows I'm a little off color at times and he knows I'm Piquant and you know, you know, but that's the way he's like, yeah, you go girl.
• 25:01
  Because that's way he
• 25:03
  and knowing all that, he still answered your prayers.
• 25:07
  He still saved your aunt, knowing, like you said, knowing that you were not gonna be perfect and you were gonna screw this up and you were gonna have to come back and you're
• 25:15
  gonna have to ask for forgiveness, right?
• 25:17
  ah So good, so good, yeah.
• 25:20
  and it's just, it's calming.
• 25:22
  It's, it, yeah.
• 25:27
  Sorry, I'm running out of words.
• 25:30
  you're right because there is a different level of peace with that comes with being a believer and walking out as a disciple and following Christ.
• 25:41
  There is a different type of peace that comes to your life when you fully commit.
• 25:46
  And I think that's key though, is that you have to make that choice.
• 25:50
  Right?
• 25:50
  So you said you grew up in faith, you left, but you made that choice to come back.
• 25:55
  Right.
• 25:55
  And I've talked to him.
• 25:56
  a faith family that uh suited me and my personality and accepted me for whom I was.
• 26:05
  And it was the kind of church.
• 26:06
  And you have to interview churches.
• 26:08
  mean, you have to go.
• 26:11
  You have to visit.
• 26:12
  You have to see if it's your vibe.
• 26:13
  mean, you don't want to go to church where there's, if you're in your 20s and there's 700 old people, that's not a fun, that's not where you should
• 26:24
  probably belong and if you're not experiencing the music and it's not speaking to you and get a bad vibe, know, not everybody's everybody's vibe.
• 26:34
  So you have to, you know, find the right pastor, the right priest or any of that.
• 26:41
  And you have to figure that out yourself.
• 26:43
  That's a journey you have to take on your own.
• 26:46
  So, and visiting churches can do that.
• 26:49
  So, and then find the one that you love.
• 26:52
  So.
• 26:52
  And maybe it's a Baptist church where they sing and clap and cool.
• 26:58
  that's then, yeah, God is God is God, right?
• 27:03
  Yeah.
• 27:03
  And you know, I think you hit up, right?
• 27:05
  So you have to find your community.
• 27:07
  You have to find your place.
• 27:09
  And there are plenty of churches all around, multiple denominations, multiple churches and multiple denominations, right?
• 27:16
  And it's finding your place, right?
• 27:18
  So we go to a church that's 20 minutes away from where we live.
• 27:22
  But that church works for us and we love it and it's part of our faith, right?
• 27:27
  So we're Catholic and it's a Catholic church and there's
• 27:30
  tons of Catholic churches within a half hour radius of our house.
• 27:34
  But you find the one that works for you because that's where you're going to build that community.
• 27:39
  That's where you're to have those relationships.
• 27:41
  That's where you're going to be open to even having conversations about how do we just bring people together to God.
• 27:47
  Right.
• 27:47
  And that's what this whole podcast is about.
• 27:49
  It's not about which denomination is better than the other.
• 27:52
  It's not about this.
• 27:53
  It's all about it's what it is.
• 27:54
  It's the whole purpose behind this is to lead people to God.
• 27:57
  Because he is so good, he is so good, and you know that.
• 28:02
  Yeah.
• 28:02
  know, there's all kinds of religions too.
• 28:06
  So some worship the same God and some don't.
• 28:10
  But as long as they've got a higher power and a higher being, you know, uh it's all good.
• 28:17
  It's all good.
• 28:18
  There's room for more than one.
• 28:19
  Yeah.
• 28:21
  God is good, yes.
• 28:23
  Well thank you so much Denise for being here, I truly appreciate it.
• 28:28
  Do you have any final?
• 28:29
  It was painless.
• 28:31
  Yes, yes this is painless.
• 28:34
  You're my second podcast that I've ever been on.
• 28:37
  So, yeah.
• 28:39
  you.
• 28:39
  I feel blessed that you're here to us today.
• 28:41
  Well, I feel blessed that you let me join you.
• 28:48
  All right, well thank you, Denise.
• 28:49
  All right, everyone, I hope you all have a blessed day.
• 28:53
  Thank you.