Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / September 13, 2022 | Expresso - Kendall Heiniger

Transcript

September 13, 2022 | Expresso - Kendall Heiniger · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: So this is me and my husband Austin.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, before I start, you guys, fun fact, Connie and I went to the same elementary school.
• 0:08
  unknown: I know.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: They just tore it down this summer.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um sad day for us.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, back to that.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is me and my husband Austin on our wedding day.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: We had been together for over four years at this point, but we didn't want to be married in college, so we waited.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: And these are my children and my husband.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is at the Ark encounter.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just gonna leave that as my background for all of this.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um today I want to talk to you guys about my struggles with letting go of control and about how when I do let go of control, God brings my life such restful peace.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: I also hope to show you how when I don't let go, God glorifies my life anyway.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope when I'm finished speaking, my story will help you see that God is in complete control, even when we deny Him our love and attention.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was diagnosed with ADHD around the age of eight, and I felt extremely awkward through most of my primary years.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Only now, as a 36-year-old adult, I get to claim that for four more days, um, am I beginning to see how this extremely politicized disability has affected my life.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I had issues and I still have issues with processing and recall.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: I usually come across as ditzy or extremely blunt.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, I was and still am awkward.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: I have grown up hearing, yeah, I lost my spot.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I've grown up hearing many negative views about ADHD as a diagnosis in general.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: People saying it's overdiagnosed and that child just needs to exercise more.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't really understand what was wrong with me because of many of those statements.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was even once told that it all this meant was that I couldn't sit still and I needed to try harder.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: I can't sit still today.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mostly just thought that I wasn't a very smart person.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know it was the ADHD.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: But this wasn't just some overdiagnosed disability to me.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was real, and I've had to figure out how to live with it and survive it.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't, and it isn't fun sometimes.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: People with ADHD often feel that if someone laughs around them, that they are actually laughing at them.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And they often feel like they can't communicate well with others.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lonely place to be as a child, to accept that you are different.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, as one might imagine, I felt absolutely devastated three weeks ago when my son was diagnosed with the same disability.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: I remembered how many obstacles I had to overcome to keep up with my peers and how awkward I have always felt around others, even as an adult.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: I would be lying if I told you that I was not, and still kind of am, a complete wreck about this diagnosis.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: But then I remembered how God used my disability to protect me from so many other things and choices that I could have made in my life.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Part of being ADHD means that I have to over-engage in order to remember what I'm learning.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, that looked like asking a lot of questions.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: So by the time I got to high school and college, I was already programmed to question everything.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I made professors and teachers hold themselves accountable for the statements that they made.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Another characteristic of ADHD is loyalty.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: God used that in his favor, as I felt an extreme desire to defend God and would not only engage in intense conversations, but if I didn't know the answer, I had a strong drive to research it to satisfaction using both the Bible and science.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Gotta quit looking up.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: This all helped me grow in my knowledge and foundation of the Lord.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: So after a day or two of crying over my son's diagnosis, I remembered to pull out the Bible and fell to my knees, asking God to bring my son or to use my son to bring himself glory.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not through it.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: My son is not through it.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: We are just beginning, and we have many years to come.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I know as long as I remember to give it to God, he will help us.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: I also suffered from an eating disorder throughout most of my youth and into early adulthood.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Bulimia, anorexia, compulsive exercise, and of course distorted body image disorder are all part of my diagnosis.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: I can remember walking around seeing girls that I thought were fat who really weren't fat.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember praying to God and begging him over and over again to allow me to love myself as much as they appeared to love themselves.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Y'all, they could eat and smile.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't something I could do while eating.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that impressed me, and I wanted it.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to hate the way I looked, but I did.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't know how to change this perspective.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where I began to doubt God's mercy and grace.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted him to take this away from me, but I wasn't willing to let it go.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't figure out why God wouldn't just magically fix my mind, why I couldn't love myself for me.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: I believed he was real, and I hated him for not making me perfect, or at least altering my mind so that I couldn't see my imperfections.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was a slave to my own sin and I couldn't even see it.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: I began to turn away from God in this chapter of my life, and I turned towards others for love, power, and acceptance.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: To make long story short, I didn't feel like a fit anywhere, no matter what I did.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And there was nothing anyone could do about it.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: At 17, I was sick enough that I could no longer hide.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what I wanted at that time, except for the voices of the demons that tormented me to go away.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was hospitalized for over a month with a group of young women, most of whom didn't want to be there.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I quickly learned that I had actually been funneling every single emotion through starvation and exercise.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: I had no clue how to stop, no clue how to process any interaction, negative or positive.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Another woman, whom I remember fondly, once read a poem to me that she had written.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: She called her eating disorder sin and told it that God is by her side and will help her conquer it.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was the first time I had been forced to see this part of my life a sin.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Before that, I viewed gluttony as a sin and justified my starvation and self-destruction as a way of serving God.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Without recognizing it, I had finally seen that the feelings inside of me were actually demons.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: They were demons in disguise, existing in a world that no longer believes.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: I had been told that I had a disease and that this wasn't my fault.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't necessarily my fault, but it was definitely my sin.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: I had to commit to God in new ways.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: I prayed for new things.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to give this to God every day of my life, because I will never see myself the way others do.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I accept that.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: But every single day I ask God to let me see myself the way my husband sees me, the way my friends see me.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because if I just look in the mirror without his filter, I can't see myself.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: So now looking back at it, I am so glad that God used my eating disorder to protect me from my own vanity and from falling to the idols of this world.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: I had aspired to be a model and an actress.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'd had a few jobs.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think I thought people would adore me if I was glamorous.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: This might sound devastating to some to think that dreams and prayers don't come true.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: But as I stand in a grocery store checkout line and glance over at a tabloid, I am so grateful not to be famous or living some posh lifestyle in the public eye, being judged by everyone.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't want to be trapped like I was in my youth, with so many per persons envious of me and me never actually being able to love myself, or more importantly, living a life that I could never reconcile with God.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure if I'm explaining all of this right, but God's plan for us is so much greater than what we can possibly imagine for ourselves.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: He knows better than we where to find happiness and contentment.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: He can take our darkest moments and he will use them to glorify his name.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: This, of course, is a more recent revelation for me.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: I had mostly just grown to accept that I would never know why God allowed me to go down this path.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I am finding that the more I let go and let God, the more he reveals to me in his perfect timing.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: While I have spent a majority of my life loving God, I never really believed he was in control.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Even as my husband and I started our family, I trusted the science that God provided, not his power.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: So with each new child we brought into this world, I became more and more confident that God was not in control of my fertility and that it was just science in motion.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: I kept hearing women say things like, we'll have another when God wills it, or God will give us another child in his own time.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: These statements both terrified and intrigued me.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: With each statement, I prayed to God to take control over mine and my husband's decisions as he had others.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't sure if we should have more kids or not, and I just wanted to live out his plan.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: You see, my four pregnancies happened rather quickly, and I believe if I tried for a fifth pregnancy, it would just happen.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I didn't doubt it.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: If we tried for one last child, we would get pregnant.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: We could possibly have another miscarriage as we did with our first, but we would definitely get pregnant.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: To my own heartbreak, we never got pregnant.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I began to have many other odd problems.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Hair loss, memory loss, headaches, increased anxious episodes, no menstrual cycle at the age of 33.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: My PCP told me that I was aging and put me on SSRIs, which made it worse.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: And when I told them the meds were doing nothing and refused to take anything else for depression, which I knew I didn't have, they told me I was in my 30s and to get used to it.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I requested a specialist who almost immediately diagnosed me with hypothyroidism.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was then told it would take about six months for my body to regulate on the medication and I would be able to get pregnant.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: She saw no reason otherwise.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: But here I go, relying on the science of it all instead of trusting faithfully in God's plan.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And after six months, I was still struggling, and the doctor put me on ovulation drugs.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: My body just needed a jump start, she thought.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the meds didn't work, and I was referred on to a reproductive endocrinologist.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, neither my husband nor I were comfortable with AI or IVF, but we ran all the tests.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: I had a minor uterine surgery and took multiple medications, both oral and injections.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: I know so many women who have gotten pregnant this way, so once again I assumed this would take a couple months and we would be expecting a new bundle of joy into our lives.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Once again, this didn't happen.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, when the test came back, we learned that it would be very unlikely that we will ever have another child.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: My heart broke, and it is still a little bit broken.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: My first thought was that I must be the world's worst mother for God to have given me three children and then closed my womb.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: I began to doubt myself as a mother and as a wife.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was particularly downtrodden.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Many women kept telling me I should be grateful for the three that I already have, and I was.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I was struggling with so many secret thoughts and emotions, and their words let me know that I wasn't welcome to have those thoughts or emotions.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: I also wanted to be happy for other women who were pregnant, and I was happy for them in my own way.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I couldn't help but wonder why them and not me.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: On top of all that was going on with my body and my lack of fertility, COVID happened.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: My kids were virtually learning, and my husband relapsed in his alcoholism.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: For those of you who don't know what it's like to live with an alcoholic, it feels much like being cheated on.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: They create stories and blow off events all so they can get to their next drink.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: They will say anything to justify their behavior as long as they can drink.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Promises broken, games missed, supper left untouched.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: None of it mattered as long as they got that drink.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: By the time he left for a 28-day rehabilitation program, I was lost and alone.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Embarrassed to talk to people, afraid I would break down in tears if I opened up at all, or that they wouldn't want to be my friend or let their children play with mine.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I can remember begging my closest friends in desperation to pray for me.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was too bitter and too angry at God to pray for myself.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that their prayers carried me.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: I tuned in to church on Sundays, and that was it for a while.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: I knew God loved me.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: I knew he sent his son for me, but I hadn't asked him to make that sacrifice, and I didn't want it at the time.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was so confused and frustrated, and always alone, but never alone.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: I had three boys at home with a daddy that they couldn't visit, and we had to zoom in for an education that was wasting everyone's time.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: I threw myself into teaching them, making extra lesson plans to keep them from falling behind, the standard.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that my house had ever been so clean, and I have no memory of playing on my phone or watching TV that month.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: I worked myself sun up to sun down, both literally and metaphorically.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I fell into bed, completely exhausted at the end of each day.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: When I did begin to pray again, it was on my own terms.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to know why this was all happening to me.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hadn't my childhood issues been enough?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: I began researching jobs so that I could leave my husband.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't that I didn't love him.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: I just didn't want to be lied to anymore.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: I felt hurt and broken.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was lonely.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember thinking that I would be much happier on my own, doing everything my way.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: I also remember hating how much my children love the man that in his alcoholism had ignored me and wounded my pride so much.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted him to hurt, I wanted him to grovel.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And most of all, at that time, I didn't want God to make his eternal forgiveness so easy for him.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: But God, in his infinite wisdom, protected my marriage from my own anger and my husband's alcoholism.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was a stay-at-home mom, and I didn't have the ability to support my children on my own.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now it amazes me to think that God knew me so well that before there was any sign of trouble, he laid on my heart a desire to stay home with my children, putting me in a position to rely on my husband in a way that most women today could never comprehend, in a way I didn't fully comprehend until I was faced with it.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: There is no doubt in my mind that if I had been working a well-paying job, I would have taken the out and left.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not proud of that.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: But God forced me to honor my vows, no matter my mood, as I had always prayed he would.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I am so grateful that he did.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: I love that man I married so much.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: And God is so good to bring healing to both of us.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And on the other side of this extremely painful mess, I can tell you it was worth the work.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: I have never been happier in my marriage than I am today standing before you.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: You see, I married a man who didn't hide his face from God.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: I married a man who wanted to serve and honor the Lord, a man who knew he needed help.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: And God laid a desire in my husband's heart to accept that.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: And he knew he couldn't do it on his own.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: My amazing husband began working a program of recovery, and he stayed calm, cool, and collected with my every lash out.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: This program he worked prepared him for my anger, and my husband kept pushing me to work my own program.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: The first time I walked through those Al-Anon doors, I was clinging to my anger.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was my only defense mechanism.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: But the men and women in that room spoke feelings aloud that I had never been brave enough to voice.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: How did they know what I was thinking?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: They made me feel normal, but they didn't justify my anger.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: They held me responsible for it in ways that no one else could, helping me learn how to manage it and encouraging me to turn to my God for my own peace.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: I remembered that the only peace worth having is in the knowledge of salvation.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: TBC offered soon after that a Bible study by Lisa Turkhurst called Forgiving What You Can't Forget.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: This Bible study helped guide me back to a place of relying on God like I hadn't in many months.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: I stopped fighting him, and I did the work he asked of me.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: As for the infertility, I cannot imagine going through all of that pregnant or with a newborn.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: My husband needed time to heal, and so did I.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: We needed to rebuild our relationship on a sober foundation and the relationship with the three amazing children that God had already given us.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know that I might not ever have another child, but I'm at peace knowing that God took this opportunity to show me just how much he loves me.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: He gave me exactly what I could handle.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And even though it is painful to not get what I want, he revealed to me that he is in control of my life, answering prayers in ways that I could never imagine, and bringing all things together for his glory.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.