Latest / True Comfort / Trauma, Tragedy, and Transcendent Hope - with Jennifer Defrates
Transcript
- Teasi Cannon (00:01) Hi, I'm TC and I want to welcome you to true comfort where it's our desire to live out 2nd Corinthians chapter 1 verses 3 and 4 which assure us that we have a God who comforts us in all our afflictions and encourage us to share the comfort that we've received with others who need it. And I want to thank my guest Jennifer DeFredes for being here today. Jennifer, it's so good to see you. Jennifer DeFrates (00:28) Good to see you too, T.C. Teasi Cannon (00:30) So Jennifer is a former high school teacher. And what did you teach Jennifer? Jennifer DeFrates (00:35) English and Social Studies. So I taught a variety of things. The first school I taught in was a rural school. So you kind of got thrown into the deep end. I taught like seven different subjects every year. Teasi Cannon (00:37) Okay. Wow. Wow. Well, and I taught middle school too. I taught for years too. I don't know if you knew that. I taught middle school though. and ⁓ thank you. ⁓ Jennifer DeFrates (00:55) okay. Well, there's a special place in heaven for you because I did a week in middle school and I thought, no, no, no, sophomores were my favorite age, I think. Teasi Cannon (01:05) Well, I think we all kind of pick and choose what we can tolerate and what we think is fun. And I don't know why I thought middle school kids were kind of cute. anyway, moving on about Jennifer. So she's a former high school teacher, a Christian blogger at Heaven Not Harvard, and also at The Mom Apologist. You also went to cross-examined Academy twice, which for the people who don't know that is a specialized ⁓ kind of course in public apologetics and apologetics ministries and growing in our understanding of how to reach more people with this amazing gift. ⁓ You've written for Mama Bear Apologetics and Cross Examined, and you have a passion for apologetics through discipleship. So ⁓ I love that. I also want to share just something from a more personal note of just what I appreciate about you. And you and I have not, we've met in person a couple times. but our friendship is really more online. We have kind of a social media friendship and you have encouraged me on many occasions, not only directly, but by your honesty and your transparency about your own journey in your posting. ⁓ I love that you stand for truth, but you also just really open wide your heart for people to see what real life is like. And I just, think that's so meaningful and encouraging in a real way. So thank you for that. Thank you for doing that for us. ⁓ Jennifer DeFrates (02:39) I would say the same is true of you and I think that's maybe what draws us to being friends is that we have this passion for seeing hurting people and sharing where God has spoken into the hurting places in our lives because that's what allows other people to see there is a hope, you know, there is a true comfort. So I love that you're doing this podcast for people because I think out of everything I see wrong in the world, Teasi Cannon (02:46) and Mm-hmm. Yes. Jennifer DeFrates (03:07) pain and suffering is probably the hardest for me. So being able to reach into those places for people is really powerful and important. So I'm really glad to be part of it. Teasi Cannon (03:10) Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I think it's not quite as comforting for us when we look at people that seem to have it all together. ⁓ But I think we also know nobody really does have it all together. So we might as well all just get honest and share what we're going through. ⁓ I wondered, so apologetics, I want to just briefly define it because I'm not, I'm sure there are people who are listening maybe for the first time, have never heard this word. Just simply, apologetics is the study of learning intentionally the reasons for what you believe, for what we believe, and especially with Christian apologetics, where we're learning evidence from multiple disciplines like science or history or philosophy to substantiate what we believe the Bible teaches and what the biblical worldview is all about. So what I'm wondering, Jennifer, how did you ever get interested in studying apologetics and ⁓ having a passion for it? Jennifer DeFrates (04:22) goes back to my husband's last deployment when he came home. He came home with lots of questions. He kind of found the atheist YouTube pit where it just cycles you into more more skeptical claims and he began to throw them at me. So we went through the adoption process with my daughter and it was at this time where God was really moving me from a Teasi Cannon (04:39) Mm. Jennifer DeFrates (04:50) Yeah, I'm kind of a Christian because I'm not Buddhist or something else. And transitioning me to I'm a Christ follower as opposed to like a cultural Christian. At the same time, my husband was going through all these really like skeptical claims and really kind of getting sucked into them. So as God was working through me and saying, hey, if you're going to be blogging and teaching people about me, you need to know who I am. Teasi Cannon (04:59) Hmm. Jennifer DeFrates (05:20) So I'm reading my Bible like I was on fire. I read it three times in 18 months, cover to cover. And it started changing the way I spoke and changing the things I watched and changing the jokes that I thought were funny, changing the way I parented. It started coming out of my mouth when I was explaining to my child why we do this or don't do that. And my husband would throw out these skeptical claims to me like, don't you know that there are more mistakes in the New Testament than there are words? Teasi Cannon (05:27) Wow. Jennifer DeFrates (05:52) What do you mean? I had no idea what he meant. I'd never heard that before. And I literally typed that into the search bar in Google. And of course, what came up first was J. Warner Wallace, Cold Case Christianity, because he addresses that claim specifically. And I had known there was something called apologetics from like my camp, camp from high school, but I didn't know that it was a whole thing. Teasi Cannon (06:10) Yeah. Jennifer DeFrates (06:21) Like it was one guy that had some scientific reasons why we could trust in God, but I remembered briefly from being 16 years old. So finding Cold Case Christianity really opened up kind of the whole world of apologetics to me. And at first though, I would read something and go back to my husband. And then he'd come up with another claim and I'd read something and I'd go back to my husband. And I was like, this is like spiritual whack-a-mole. This is not efficient. Teasi Cannon (06:36) Mm-hmm. Jennifer DeFrates (06:50) Like I need to understand kind of the whole framework of apologetics for myself so that when it comes to me I have an answer ready. Right? Isn't that what 1 Peter 3.15 says? Always be prepared to make a defense or to have an answer. And I wasn't prepared. So I started getting prepared. And one of the things I did was read every book I could get my hands on, which is how I would join launch teams. Teasi Cannon (06:59) Yes. Mm-hmm. Jennifer DeFrates (07:18) because being our one income family meant getting a free copy of a book was a great way. Being on the Team was a great way to get a free copy, right? So that's how I got on a lot of Launch Teams. And I got free copies of books, including Mama Bear Apologetic, which really took me down the rabbit hole. And I ended up being a guest contributor to their website for a couple of years. yeah, so that's how I got into Apologetic. Teasi Cannon (07:24) That is great. ⁓ That's awesome. I love it. it was a desire to answer someone you loved and to have good answers for someone you loved. And I know you're going to get more into that story talking about your journey with your husband. And that brings me to the heart of our conversation. So on each of these episodes, what I'm doing is I'm inviting a Christian apologist, someone who has found this desire, this wonderful gift from God. and has intentionally studied the evidence for their faith in order to have a more robust faith. And I'm inviting these guests to come in and share their hearts, to open up their hearts and share with us either a season of heartbreak, an experience of deep heartbreak or pain, or maybe an ongoing struggle. And then share with us how they find comfort in God's Word or the biblical worldview. And then... to substantiate our own faith by sharing how evidence comes to the rescue when they are tempted to doubt God's word, as we all are at times. And so my hope and my prayer is that as we listen, we will find out that we aren't alone, that we will grow in our own faith and walk away with more tools in our tool belt to... grow our own confidence in when we're doubting or when others that we love might be doubting as well. And so that is why I've invited Jennifer here. She has agreed to come in and open her heart for us and share with us a part of her life that is ongoing and also in the past, but also just a deep. a deep grief and I really appreciate you taking the time to do this Jennifer. So I'm gonna just kind of let you get start wherever you'd like to and we will just go from there. Jennifer DeFrates (09:45) kind hard to know where to start because it's all intertwined. Life isn't clean cut. ⁓ my husband served 20 years in the military and did multiple tours overseas. He did four in Iraq and came home with PTSD and TBI. So that's Traumatic Brain Injury. And Traumatic Brain Injury changes a person. In a lot of ways it's like dementia and I know that you are familiar with that where the person still themselves and yet not. It's like wearing a filter over your eyes like if you wear colored glasses everything looks pink. And you don't realize that the world's not really pink anymore because it becomes so familiar to look through those lenses and my husband's lenses were broken between the TBI and the PTSD. Teasi Cannon (10:31) Mm-hmm. Jennifer DeFrates (10:45) he was really struggling with a lot of mental health issues. It kind of came to a head in January of 2021 and he took his life in front of me. ⁓ There aren't words to express the horror, the trauma, the grief. Teasi Cannon (11:07) Hmm. Jennifer DeFrates (11:20) I had been praying for him so diligently. I had fasted. I had tried writing my prayers down for 365 days. Like I thought, what can I do, God, to show you how much I really am praying for this man and serving him? You know, on my blog, Heaven Not Harvard, that's where I write about parenting and marriage. And one of my favorite posts is about how my husband's dirty underwear. changed my heart for him because as some husbands will, he would manage to not get all of his laundry into the hamper every morning. Everything else would make it except for his underwear. And I would just get so frustrated over those silly underwear. And God really convicted me. Now this was in that period where I was reading the Bible like so diligently, like Matthew six. Don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing when you're serving others. And I was like, I should probably serve my family that way before I worry about serving the poor that way. So I had this idea of service. And the conviction of, it's better to live on the corner of a house top than with a nagging wife. ⁓ OK. I'll stop nagging him over the underwear. And then it was, well, why don't you just be grateful that he's not on my rack? Teasi Cannon (12:28) Mm. Jennifer DeFrates (12:48) And then be grateful he gets up at 3.30 in the morning. That's a ridiculous hour to be up and that's military life. So that he gets up in the morning to go provide for you. Teasi Cannon (12:58) Yeah. Jennifer DeFrates (13:03) you can let the underwear go. And it was this process of being grateful he wasn't in Iraq, stopping nagging, recognizing that I could serve him, and picking up the underwear and praying over them. So this was a process that God walked me through in really learning how to serve my husband in a way that was selfless and not drawing attention to myself without saying anything. And it kind of became this running joke because I would look for secret things to do for him. So if his toothpaste was running low, I'd replace it with a fresh one or buy him a new razor. And the edge of the counter became like this secret thing. He would just slide things down to the edge and there'd be a new one that magically appeared. And it was just a way that I loved him. And... Teasi Cannon (13:46) It's very precious. Jennifer DeFrates (13:51) I thought ways to love him and of course I didn't do it perfectly and there are so many tays you could just wallow in the things I wish I'd done differently. Watching him die has given me PTSD. So now I get it. And I just think the irony of now I understand him in ways that I never did couldn't have, really. Until you have PTSD and you've Teasi Cannon (14:08) Yeah. Hmm. Jennifer DeFrates (14:20) realize that things trigger emotional and physical sensations unconsciously or subconsciously. Like you're not deliberately trying to be angry or frustrated or tense. It's just your entire body has reacted to something without even you thinking about it. So All of this to say that loving him had been such a focus. I had people all over the world praying for his salvation, praying for his emotional healing, his mental healing, his physical healing, know, 20 years in the military, his heart on your body, as well as your soul. This was the answer that I got. And I just, I laid in bed that night. We were at a neighbor's house and I'm holding my daughter and just trying to not sob loudly enough to keep her awake. and I'm really screaming inside my head, God, this was the answer? You know, I could have pictured a life where he had surrendered his life to Jesus and we ministered together and how beautiful that would have been. God, why wasn't that your answer for us? I don't get it. And in that moment, All of the things that I had been studying for him came back to my mind. The universe didn't create itself. The universe didn't design itself. We can't get life from non-life and Jesus walked out of the grave. And I thought, okay, if those four things are true, God, then you're real. And I can trust you with my life even though I don't feel like it right now. And I said, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. And I just prayed that a lot for the first few months probably. It was almost an everyday, sometimes minute to minute. How do I get through this? Teasi Cannon (16:37) Okay, Jennifer, I don't know if you're like me, but I don't always have the hardest time trusting that God exists. Sometimes I do, but usually it's more God's goodness that I'm having a hard time with. And I can imagine ⁓ after praying all those years and those specific prayers, having that be your answer, that it would have been, at least challenging right then to understand God's goodness. And I'm wondering, did you experience that? And if so, what comfort came to you from God's word or from others? How did you navigate that? Jennifer DeFrates (17:21) that I had a hard time trusting. You know, I could walk through, I call those my four pillars, because those are the things that held up my faith when it was challenged. But believing that God still was good and still loved me and still had good things planned for me in that moment was what I struggled to believe, what I struggled to trust. But, you know, Romans 8 28 promises us that all things work together for the good of those who are according to His purpose. And I know I'm called according to His purpose. I don't know what that means every day. I don't know what that means in eternity. Like between now and reaching eternity, I don't always know what His plans are for me, but I know I'm called to glorify Him. And that means that whatever happens to me is part of the plan. And I just kept asking God, show me how this is part of the plan. Show me your goodness. Show me why. Because I don't understand. You know, there's certain aspects of this that I still say, couldn't you have healed him? Couldn't you have? but God knows things I don't know. You know, one of the books I spent a lot of time in was Joe. And there was so much that Job didn't understand about what was going on. And when God finally does talk with Job, he's kind of like, you know, I don't remember seeing you when I set the boundaries of the ocean or hung the stars in the sky. Where were you? And I had to say, OK. Teasi Cannon (19:00) Mm-hmm. Jennifer DeFrates (19:09) I have to trust you and you have a plan without knowing all the details because you're God and I'm not. I haven't done a good job of being human sometimes. I would make a very terrible God. So I could just trust that if he's gonna work out things for good with people like Joseph who spent 20 years between being sold into slavery in Egypt becoming a slave, becoming a prisoner, to becoming the second command of Egypt. Like that was not a quick process. That was 20 years of wondering why God allowed this. And so it was obvious that it was to save the Hebrew people. So if God can work in a time frame, and I like to think about Jeremiah 2111, people love to claim that verse for themselves, but when we think about that passage, we think about verses 1 through 10 first, because we're supposed to read everything in context, right? God says, you're going to get taken to Babylon and you're going to live there for 70 years. Teasi Cannon (19:59) So if God can work in a time frame, and I like to think about Jeremiah 29 and 11, people love to claim that for themselves. But when we think about that passage, we think about... Right. ⁓ Jennifer DeFrates (20:27) you're going to build houses and get married and have children and some of you won't live to see my salvation. Like I'm coming. But not everybody got to see that. Like it was an eternal economy where God sees the whole stretch of time and everything fits in his perfect plan in a way that sometimes doesn't account for our little 80 to 100 year lifespan. Like we have a piece of the puzzle we don't have even the framework like in our just ourselves we are so part of his plan that if I think about my life is supposed to be this perfect hallmark movie existence I miss what God's doing with my life because I'm expecting it to be about me and it's not it's supposed to be about him Teasi Cannon (21:13) Yeah, I ⁓ you know time and time again the the crux of the comfort that comes as Christians is that eternal worldview. It is that entire biblical metanarrative you know where we've got creation fall redemption and then recreation where we all know that as bad as it gets this side of heaven this isn't the end of the story but can you just imagine like think about if you didn't have that, some of the other like worldviews or ideologies that are out there for people, naturalism or even the transcendental religions, like think of how would you feel if you had a naturalistic, like an atheist perspective on life when you walking through what you walked through with your husband? Jennifer DeFrates (22:21) even just thinking about that is so depressing. Like I cannot imagine facing the things that I faced without the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. Teasi Cannon (22:26) Yeah. Jennifer DeFrates (22:36) if I subscribe to a religion that believes in reincarnation. Great, I have to do this over again. Teasi Cannon (22:42) Yeah, right. Until you do it right. Right. It's all up to you. Like you got to do it again. Yeah. Jennifer DeFrates (22:44) Ugh. Right, you know, some sort of bizarre groundhog day, But you don't get to keep a lot of your memories. You just have to hope you do it better the next time. Yeah, that sounds cheery. Or naturalism, there's nothing. This has no purpose, this has no meaning. There is nothing good that comes from it. You just suffer to your death. Teasi Cannon (22:58) Right. Right. Right, you just had the luck of the draw. There's no rhyme or reason to it. your precious husband just, you know, that was just the card he drew. that's cruel. It's not only hopeless, it's a cruel solution. It's a cruel box top. I see it like life just threw you a bunch of puzzle pieces that were hard, really hard. And your psyche and your soul, I'm sure even to this day, still has to search for where those pieces go. Where do the pieces go? And you take those pieces to the biblical box top. What the Bible teaches, what God says, what Jesus substantiated and demonstrated, ⁓ that's the box top for you and for me. And I know that there are people that probably think, well, you know, that's just a crutch or that's just pie in the sky thinking that there's going to be this great buy and buy or, you know, it's a way of not dealing with the reality of things. But that is where the evidence comes to the rescue. because it is sometimes tempting to think, am I just a fool? Am I making up something? Is my mind making up something comfortable because I don't have the strength to face the sad realities? you might not have ever thought, that, but I'm sure you face many lies because you walk through something horrific. but you're still walking out the grief and the loss. And that's another heart. Those are heartbreaks upon heartbreak upon heartbreak. What does that look like on the daily for you? Jennifer DeFrates (24:59) You know, it's not just me going through this grief. Teasi Cannon (25:02) Mm-hmm. Jennifer DeFrates (25:03) Obviously it's his friends and his extended family, but my daughter, the daughter that we shared, she's 15. Like this is still fresh. Teasi Cannon (25:06) But my daughter... Yeah. Was she around when he died? Okay, was she aware or she was asleep or? Okay, sorry. Jennifer DeFrates (25:17) So she was in the next room. No, she was aware. that's the hardest part for me is remembering the moment of having to go get her and cover her face and carry her out of the house so that she didn't see him. That is, out of all the memories of that night, her screaming at God, please don't let him die. Please don't let him die. Teasi Cannon (25:30) Mm-hmm. Jennifer DeFrates (25:48) That's the one that breaks my heart. ⁓ because I don't want her face to be shaken and shattered. And she doesn't have the depth of maturity and wisdom because she's 15 and I'm 53. Living is part of that maturing process that she just hasn't done yet. So a lot of it is still very fresh to her. It's still very painful. Teasi Cannon (26:24) Are you able sorry go ahead Jennifer DeFrates (26:25) And watching her struggle with, is God so good? Does God still love me? Realizing that in some ways both of us have walked kind of tense. Like what's the next thing that's gonna just knock the wind out of us? And feeling like, okay God, we've gotta really trust you. That even when the next thing comes, because the next thing will come. Teasi Cannon (26:53) Mm-hmm. ⁓ Jennifer DeFrates (26:54) For me it was my dad's death. So my dad had dementia and went missing because he walked out of his facility and they couldn't find him. That grief was horrifying. not knowing and then the knowing that they he had literally was minutes from where he got dropped off by a well-meaning Good Samaritan who thought he was helping somebody get a ride and they couldn't find him and feeling like it was that close, you know? So that was painful and traumatizing. ⁓ I was in a car accident a couple years ago that was Teasi Cannon (27:08) Yeah. And they couldn't find it. feeling like it was that close, you know? Jennifer DeFrates (27:37) I ended up with almost no injuries, but it was, it looked like it was going to be fatal. I thought I was going to die. ⁓ Teasi Cannon (27:37) I ended up. Wow. Jennifer DeFrates (27:48) So we know that the next thing is coming. There's always going to be that moment. You turn too soon, you don't break fast enough, the slippery road when your daughter's riding home from Bible study with a friend. Like, you can't guarantee the safety of the people you love. You can't guarantee that the roof won't collapse because a tree fell on it. Like, there's always going to be the next thing. Teasi Cannon (27:48) So we know that the next thing is coming. There's always going to be that moment. You turn too soon, you don't break fast enough. The slippery road when your daughter's riding home from Bible study with a friend. You can't guarantee the safety of the people you love. You can't guarantee that. Jennifer DeFrates (28:16) And I think we both are trying to like wrap our heads around what does it look like to trust God when we know the next thing that's going to crush us is out there. Like bad things happen. This part of living in a fallen world, how do we walk faithfully knowing that those things are coming and leaning on God to give us strength so that we're prepared, so that we have an answer even in the midst of the hurricane. Teasi Cannon (28:25) without it. Bad things happen. It's part of living in a fallen world. How do we walk faithfully knowing that those things are coming and leaning on God to give us strength so that we're prepared, so that we have an answer. I can't help but think about how God prepared you as you were walking through just kind of trying to navigate some of your husband's questions ⁓ and getting you on the road of. Digging deeply to find out why you can trust that like how do you have a faith? How can I have a faith that can hold on through the reality of knowing hard things have happened and still will happen and Though you slay me yet. I will praise you. You know you are being prepared Even then and so I'm wondering How does that look with your daughter? Do you find opportunity to comfort her? with God's Word and then substantiate that with some of the things you've learned? that seem to comfort her at all? Jennifer DeFrates (29:40) say so. one of the blessings of my husband's military service is that his military benefits have allowed me to stay home. So I've been able to stay home with her and continue to homeschool. So we have time that we can take to have conversations. We have a homeschool co-op that we belong to and I teach an apologetic class. So she's been a part of that apologetic class for the last several years. Teasi Cannon (29:49) is great. Yeah. ⁓ Jennifer DeFrates (30:09) and she knows some of the material so well she kind of rolled her eyes like I've already heard you say that mom. You know, but when she came to me one day and she's like I don't know if I believe in God and I said well where did the universe come from? Why don't you go investigate that and if you come up with a better answer than God let me know because I've looked and I can't find one. And I know Alisa talked with you about that the other day and discussed with you Teasi Cannon (30:16) Mm-hmm you know, because I've looked and I can't find them. And I know Alisa talked with you about that the other day and discussed with you Jennifer DeFrates (30:38) Like all of the good reasons we have to believe that the universe came from a creator that's faceless and timeless and immaterial Teasi Cannon (30:38) all of the good reasons we have to believe that the universe came from a creator that's faithless and timeless and immaterial. Jennifer DeFrates (30:46) and how powerful knowing that is. You know, the teacher in me always wants to go back to the foundation. What's the base thing that we can know? Well, things don't create themselves. And then we look at things like the design of the universe. And it's overwhelming. Even Christopher Hitchens said this was one of the best Teasi Cannon (30:49) Right ⁓ Jennifer DeFrates (31:08) argument for Christianity and he's a renowned atheist, he was before he passed and he was saying that this was the argument out of all the arguments that kind of pushed him closer. I don't think he ever came close to faith but that was the one that he thought was the best argument. It's because it's so overwhelming. Teasi Cannon (31:23) Yeah, I don't think so. Yeah. Yeah, the intricate design and the beautiful design. There's evidence of beauty everywhere. There's evidence of intentionality, purpose. ⁓ Yeah, I'm with you. It's and that's easy to see. It is like Romans, ⁓ I forget exactly where in Romans, but it's like even all creation testifies to God's power and his glory and majesty. mean, there's many, many things we can know about God with the naked eye. If we set aside... our desire to be our own God. And that's really what it boils down to. If you want to see God, you will. If you want to be God, you won't see him. And you know, so that's what that's the way I say it. That plain because there's only two options. Either there is a creator or I'm the boss. And I really like knowing I have a creator, even with the pieces that I don't fully understand. And even with the pieces that, ⁓ like Greg Kockel says, even with its loose ends, the biblical worldview makes the most sense out of life, Jesus promised that this life would have hardship, that we would have tribulation, but that he overcame the world. And I think we just expect to see it all tied up in a neat little bow right now. And his plans and his timeframe is just not ours. A day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. You know, I think we struggle with that, but I love knowing we see so many examples in God's word. of how okay he is with our struggles. Like he's not shaming us over it and he's done enough to show us that he loves us in the midst of it, which I'm sure, you know, I'm preaching to the choir, but I love that. you and your daughter have this time together. God's given you this ability to be with her so often as you walk through this and that he equipped you and is still equipping you to be able to have an answer for the hope that lies within you for yourself and for her. Which I mean does it happen almost on a daily basis that you need to rely on this? Jennifer DeFrates (34:00) Well, I need to rely on God for every moment. ⁓ There are certainly days though that it feels more like I'm clinging both hands with a white-knuckle grip. ⁓ Teasi Cannon (34:03) Right. Yeah. Jennifer DeFrates (34:15) There are days that it's very present as far as the pain. And I have prayed many prayers to God of just groaning. You know, I don't know what to pray, I don't know what to ask for. I don't know how to help my daughter sometimes with the pain. Because she understands all these truths as well as she can for her age. She can quote them to me. That doesn't bring her dad back. Teasi Cannon (34:40) Yeah. Right. Jennifer DeFrates (34:47) and Grease is one of the hardest emotions to deal with, I think, as human beings. Because it's an emptiness. Anger, you can do something with it. Passion, you can do something with it. Grease is just this hole where love and passion and a relationship used to be. So it's an emptiness. And man, we do not like emptiness as human beings. We love to fill that emptiness. Teasi Cannon (34:55) Yeah. Right. ⁓ Right. Jennifer DeFrates (35:19) with alcohol or drugs or relationships or staying busy. You know, and I've had to surrender that, ⁓ being busy. Like choosing more carefully what I'm allowing to keep me busy so that it's not distracting me from dealing with my grief. Because the grief is going to take a long time. It may take the rest of my life. You know, but God has been faithful in so many little ways. Teasi Cannon (35:23) I've had to surrender that being busy. Choosing more carefully what I'm allowing to be busy. Jennifer DeFrates (35:47) that I know he's still good and I know he still loves me. It was a tiny little thing, but a few months after my husband passed away, I was starting to think about my daughter's birthday. And I had gone on a walk and as I do every morning, usually I listen to a podcast. So I've got my earbuds in and I'm walking along and this morning I just thought God say, just hang out with me today. Okay. So we just had a chat and I just prayed my whole walk and I wasn't thinking about anything intentional. Like I didn't start, like I have a mission I want to pray about a certain thing. I was just talking with God and I thought. I don't want my daughter to think her childhood ended because her dad died. You know, in those first couple months, the government's not always real quick to give you the benefits that you are supposed to get. They give you mounds of paperwork and when you lose your spouse, there's something called widow's fog. And trying to think clearly enough to fill out the paperwork and file it. if you get it wrong and they deny your claim, you know, would have changed everything for us. We might have lost our home. I might have had Teasi Cannon (37:05) Yeah. ⁓ Jennifer DeFrates (37:09) to go back to work, you know, all sorts of things. Because you don't put the right birth date on the right form in the right box and they just, nope, sorry. So I didn't know where the money was coming from. I didn't know how we would survive. I certainly didn't have money for a birthday party. And I all of a I felt this pressure, Lord, you know, I would love to be able to give her birthday party. And I know it's a silly thing, and it's not really all that important in the grand scheme of the universe. But if I could have the money to throw her birthday party... That'd be pretty special. And that was the beginning of my walk. So I prayed for the next hour and came home. Didn't think much of it until my Venmo app sent me little message that a friend had sent me a pretty decent size of money. And I thought, ⁓ what was that for? Because she said, happy birthday. I was like, that's too much. She said, no, God told me to pay for her birthday. Teasi Cannon (38:12) She said no, God told me to pay for her birthday. Jennifer DeFrates (38:16) I didn't tell anyone. I hadn't even thought about it. Teasi Cannon (38:16) I didn't tell anyone. I didn't even thought about it. Yeah. There's no way that. Jennifer DeFrates (38:22) There's no way that that was anything but the Lord answering my prayer. Teasi Cannon (38:26) Right. Jennifer DeFrates (38:28) And so many little things like that, from trees that fell just shy of doing any real damage to my house, holes in my roof that were nail pops and not significant damage, that were fixed with a hammer and a little bit of tar, you know? God has provided and protected in so many ways. He hasn't always been easy, and He hasn't smoothed everything over. But when He's shown up, Teasi Cannon (38:46) Mm-hmm. ⁓ But when you showed up Jennifer DeFrates (38:57) in ways that were undeniable answers to prayer, it's like a little reminder that He's walking this with me. I am not alone. In that the way that I walk through the challenges, Teasi Cannon (38:57) in ways that were undeniable, answers to prayer, it's like a little reminder that he's walking this with me. I am not alone. Yeah. In that the way that I walked through the. Jennifer DeFrates (39:12) from sharing the gospel with the guy that came to install my table, or encouraging another believer who came to replace the compressor on my fridge, you know, God is in and Teasi Cannon (39:13) sharing the gospel with the guy that came to install my table or encouraging another believer who came to replace the compressor on my fridge. know, God is in Jennifer DeFrates (39:26) every single one of those moments. And I have seen that over time and time again, that God is in the moment where I'm feeling like, I don't know how I'm going to get through this next whatever has gone wrong. Teasi Cannon (39:26) every single one of those moments. And I have seen that over time and time again, that God is in the moment where I'm feeling like, I don't know how I'm going to get through this next whatever has gone wrong. Jennifer DeFrates (39:42) And yet I do. And in the process, while my dad was missing, I shared the gospel with the police officers that were looking for him. I said, you need to get Jay Warner Wallace's book, Cold Case Christianity. Teasi Cannon (39:42) Wow. ⁓ Jennifer DeFrates (39:56) That'd be great for you as a police officer and those kind of things. I took advantage of every single possible moment to glorify God because I know that's how God works. Like he uses us to glorify him in the worst possible moment because that's when people really see that our God is real and that he is powerful and that he is present and active. Teasi Cannon (40:20) Yeah. ⁓ Jennifer DeFrates (40:28) Sorry, just get chills sometimes talking about the ways that God has loved us. Even when we've struggled, even when it's been gut wrenching. I think I almost dislocated my jaw from screaming and crying those first few weeks because it... You forget and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, he's gone. You know, that feeling in the morning where you for a moment... you forget they're not there. The first three weeks, I think I felt that almost every time I turned around. And a lot of prayers were, God, I don't know how to feel this broken and be functional. And God surrounded me with people that walked alongside me as the hands and feet of Christ in ways that I couldn't have managed. You know, my family dropped everything and Teasi Cannon (40:59) The first three weeks I think I felt that almost every time I turned around. That's beautiful. Wow. ⁓ Jennifer DeFrates (41:28) and I was not alone for six weeks. My Bible study group came when I did not have any help after my family left and just showed up. But what was interesting was I wasn't even attending that Bible study yet. I knew the wife of the couple because she and I had taught a marriage class together at our Protestant Women of the Chapel and she said, is what we do. So they're part of a ministry called Cadence International. and they partner with the military, so they have kind of missionaries to each military base. And they showed up for me when I didn't even really know them and brought five or six soldiers and they just started doing my yard work. You know, for a few sandwiches and some iced tea, they were there. Just because I was a Christian and I was a widow that needed love. And those kind of things that God has done for me. Teasi Cannon (42:22) Wow, that's beautiful. ⁓ Jennifer DeFrates (42:29) Remind me of his goodness on days that I don't see it, days that I don't feel it, on days it doesn't feel tangible. I hold those things and go, but I know it is. Teasi Cannon (42:35) Yeah. Yes, Teasi Cannon (42:41) So when you didn't feel it, what your head knew came to the rescue and your community came to the rescue and God has shown up providentially, which is such a wonderful encouragement. I just want to know, like I'm asking all of my guests this, when you are most tempted to doubt it all, What is the line of evidence, your very first one that your brain kind of goes right to when you're tempted to doubt? Jennifer DeFrates (43:17) I probably lean on what I call my four pillars, like all four of them, because I think together that's like a cohesive argument. But Christianity really rests on the historicity of the resurrection. You know, the rest of it points to a God. Like we know that that God is faceless and timeless and immaterial. I look at the size of the moon and the distance between the earth and the moon, and the moon to the sun is almost the same. Teasi Cannon (43:29) Yeah. Jennifer DeFrates (43:46) and that's why we have solar eclipses. Like this is the only place in the entire universe that has a solar eclipse. Like that's amazing. But that still doesn't quite get us to a God that's personal and acquainted with suffering. Jesus does that. So I look at the minimal facts argument, know, Gary Habermas has made that argument famous. But we know historically that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate Teasi Cannon (43:54) Mm. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ But we know all historically that Jesus was crucified under Pontus Pilate Jennifer DeFrates (44:14) during the reign of Tiberius Caesar. Teasi Cannon (44:14) during the reign of Tiberius. Jennifer DeFrates (44:17) We know that that's historical fact. We know that his disciples saw him alive and their lives were radically changed because of it. We know that Paul's life was radically changed from seeing the risen Jesus and his brother James was radically changed. And then the bonus fact that only 80 % of scholars believe that the tomb was empty. So when you look at that, Teasi Cannon (44:42) Are they? Yeah. Jennifer DeFrates (44:44) He had 400 scholars that he talked to, and he only included the facts that were 90 % or better. So that's the fact that he was crucified, the disciples being changed, James believing, and Paul being changed. Those four facts are his main minimal facts. Only 80 % believe the tomb was empty, but that's pretty good odds. I would take that. Teasi Cannon (44:51) That's fact that... ⁓ Right. ⁓ Right. And there's never been a body found and there's no other explanation for it. So yeah, that's ⁓ Jennifer DeFrates (45:14) And then you look at some of the new data that's coming out about the Shroud of Torrens and the fact that we can't explain how that happened. There's no brush strokes, there's no paint. Technologically, we can't repeat it. We can't even guess at how it happened other than some sort of nuclear explosion from the inside out. Teasi Cannon (45:19) Yes. Mm-hmm. ⁓ Yeah, I crazy. Yeah. Mm-hmm Jennifer DeFrates (45:42) And it only penetrated a couple microns into the fabric. Otherwise it would have burned up the fabric. And the blood type matches a Semitic man. The pollen matches Jerusalem. The marks match the biblical account. The blood ⁓ from the side was post-mortem blood versus blood from when he was alive. Like they can test all it. You put that with the empty tomb with Teasi Cannon (45:48) That's so crazy. Yeah. ⁓ Jennifer DeFrates (46:11) The dramatic life changes. Being attached to the military, you know that people are trained to withstand torture in order to keep secrets. And they don't do it well. The question's not if you're gonna break it, when will you break? How much can you take before you give up the top secret information that you're holding? And none of the disciples recanted? Not one? Teasi Cannon (46:22) Right. Yeah, wow. Never. Yeah. Yeah. Jennifer DeFrates (46:41) None of them even said, well, maybe I didn't see. They held onto that belief with all that they had. They went from hiding in a room scared to show their faces for being associated with Jesus to being bold proclaimers of the gospel that went all throughout the Middle East into Europe, into Asia, Africa, and they were willing to die. Many of them did. Teasi Cannon (46:48) Right. Yeah, they didn't benefit from it. They didn't get wealth or the chicks or any of the things that people would lie for today. They never recanted and they didn't gain anything except for the cause of Christ. And I think that is huge evidence for us today. I'm with you on that. Thank you, Jennifer, for... for sharing everything that you've gone through, which I know is just not even everything, but for opening your heart to us today, to walking us through what some of your process looks like when trying to find comfort and where you find it. I know this is an ongoing process, but I'm so thankful that you and your daughter have the hope. that Jesus came to bring us and that it is well-substantiated. It's not fluff. It's not empty promises because walking through that kind of pain, don't need... to think that it was for nothing and you don't need to think you could have done it better or that you should have done something different or that you need to be the hero of your own story or any of the other messages that we might hear. You need a savior and you need a healer and you need a God that loves you and comforts you through it and that's what you have and that's what we all have. So, yeah, yes. Jennifer DeFrates (48:30) Can I ask something? One of the things I want to equip people with is what is the tool that I'm like literally walking out every day? Staying in the works. I cannot tell you how important that is. I read through the Bible a minimum of one time every year now. Last year I read through it three times because I committed to too many reading through the Bible plans with friends. That was a little bit much. Teasi Cannon (48:39) Yeah. Great. Yeah. Jennifer DeFrates (49:00) when you are in the word that much. I know I can't always tell you like which chapter and verse that verses, but the words come. The Holy Spirit prompts them when I'm in that moment and I'm struggling with something, a story comes to mind or a passage comes to mind. Teasi Cannon (49:07) Mm-hmm. Right. Jennifer DeFrates (49:18) That is the Holy Spirit equipping me. That is the Holy Spirit walking with me daily. And I cannot underestimate the power of being in the scripture has for me or my daughter. We read through the Bible together now that she's old enough to follow along. So every morning, that's how we start our day is while taking care of the critters, because we've got critters. And then we read our Bible as we eat breakfast. And we talk about what we're learning and what we see about God. Teasi Cannon (49:33) it. ⁓ Jennifer DeFrates (49:48) What's convicting us? Ask questions about who is Joseph? Is he the good guy? Was he a good king? What does it mean by asheruples? Like all those kind of questions, but when you fill your heart with the scriptures, that's what comes out. You know, when somebody says like, what caused coffee to spill when we bumped you? Well, she bumped me. No, what caused coffee to spill is because that's what was in your cup. Teasi Cannon (49:54) Right. Yeah. ⁓ Yeah. Jennifer DeFrates (50:16) So what's your cup? And my cup isn't always perfect because I'm still human, I'm still flawed, I'm still hurting, I'm still healing. But when I my cup with God's Word and God's truths and God's promises, when I do get jostled by life, that's what comes out. One of the funniest stories, I say funny, but I had dislocated my hip. I had multiple hip surgeries that did not go well. And I dislocated my hip. Teasi Cannon (50:29) Mm-hmm. Jennifer DeFrates (50:46) and I'm in the emergency room and they've given me the cocktail that kind of knocks you out for a couple minutes so they can put it back in without you dying from pain. And apparently I shouted, Jesus loves you and wants to forgive you of your sins. Right? I think that was the nicest thing anyone had ever screamed while having their hips reduced. But I thought, how funny that God has put this Teasi Cannon (50:50) Oh wow. Yikes. Ouch. Wow. That's the word be it in you. That's for sure. Yeah. I bet. Wow. Jennifer DeFrates (51:15) in me. That was the thing I wanted to share in a moment that I was in excruciating pain. Teasi Cannon (51:16) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jennifer DeFrates (51:25) Because it's so important. You know, that's when we are real with each other. And when we lead people to true comfort in God and not these false promises of having the perfect life, well then you'll be happy. I don't know anyone who's happy with the perfect life. You're always looking for something else. What's the next thing I should be doing? What's the next step? The next thing I should buy? Nothing stays perfect or new or good forever. Teasi Cannon (51:28) Mm-hmm. Yeah. right? No. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. ⁓ Jennifer DeFrates (51:54) that piece of furniture that you just had to have gets a scratch in it, the glass breaks, you know, only Jesus is eternal and if we place our hope in anything else, it falls short. Teasi Cannon (52:00) Yeah, yep. Yeah, you're right. Well, Jennifer, thank you so much for being with me and for sharing with all of us. And I will make sure to put information in the show notes on how people can find you and where you're writing and where they can find you online. And I just want to thank you for listening, all of you. If anything that you have heard has been encouraging to you or if you know someone who could use some substantial substantive comfort and encouragement, I would love it if you would share this with them. And then if you could subscribe so that you don't miss a single moment of true comfort. Thank you so much for being with us.