Latest / The Midlife Momma Podcast - Empty nest mom, Parenting adult children, Midlife transition, Christian mom / 234.The Grief No One Warned Empty Nest Moms About with Author Lisa Appelo

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234.The Grief No One Warned Empty Nest Moms About with Author Lisa Appelo · The Midlife Momma Podcast - Empty nest mom, Parenting adult children, Midlife transition, Christian mom

• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Christian parenting.
• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hey Mama, I'm Pamela Hinklman, certified emptiness coach and your listening to the mid-life Mama podcast.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: This show is for Christian moms navigating the emptiness, learning how to let go with grace, set healthy boundaries, reconnected marriage, and step confidently into their God-given purpose.
• 0:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Each week I'll coach you through this season with faith-filled encouragement, honest conversations, and practical tools that you can apply right away to your relationships and your life.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: If this episode encourages you, I'd be grateful if you leave a quick rating and review.
• 0:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: It helps other moms find the support they need.
• 0:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: You'll find the link in the show notes, and make sure you're following the podcast, and let's get started.
• 0:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you've ever wondered why your heart aches after your children leave home, even though they're doing exactly what you raised them to do, this conversation is for you.
• 1:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: The grief of the emptiness is real, yet it's often misunderstood because no one has died.
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a transition that changes your daily life, your identity, and the rhythm of your home.
• 1:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Today I'm joined by author, Lisa Applelow, to talk about her beautiful new book, God of Comfort.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Lisa knows grief and a deeply personal way.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: After losing her husband unexpectedly, she raised seven children while learning to lean on God's faithfulness through unimaginable loss.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: In this episode, we're exploring what God's comfort looks like during the quiet or grief of motherhood is our children grow up, move away, and begin building lives of their own.
• 1:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whether you've recently dropped a child off that college, you're adjusting to an empty house, or you're grieving another transition with your adult children, I pray this conversation reminds you that God is near.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: He sees every tear and his comfort is available for every season of motherhood.
• 1:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's jump into the conversation with Lisa.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, Pamela, good to be with you.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am so excited about this beautiful book.
• 2:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Friends, you are going to love this.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Every word is tender and helpful.
• 2:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So Lisa, I would love you to tell my listeners what your summer look like.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: what my summer looks like right now.
• 2:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's honestly, so I am not traveling at all, which feels so good because I've done a lot.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: My youngest graduated last year, my youngest of seven.
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh.
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I had really taken a year off of traveling or speaking.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And just to launch her wild, I'm a single mom.
• 2:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I was her one person who is cheering her.
• 2:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what she was out of is like, okay, Lord, whatever you have for me, and he opened the door.
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I have been traveling and feel so good to be home this summer.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's beautiful.
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So as a widow and a mother of seven, you've experienced profound grief alongside the many transitions of motherhood.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: What have those different kinds of loss taught you about God's comfort?
• 3:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, loss can really be a spectrum candidate.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: We can have the tragic losses like we have had in our family to really just deep disappointments.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: But at each of those, God is with us.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: He sees us, He understands, and sometimes I think, we chied ourselves for feeling all the emotions, especially if it's not loss of a person, if it's some other kind of form of grief, but God made us with emotions.
• 3:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: He made us to think and to do and to feel.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so our emotions are his very good idea.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: He gives us permission and invites us for they to bring those emotions to hands.
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think the number one thing of Lord Alot, the number one thing I would have to say is, to go to God with my two heavy emotions, my two heavy disappointment, my two heavy pain, my two heavy worry, all of those, and unburden my heart to him.
• 3:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's beautiful.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Mama, did you hear what she said?
• 4:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whenever we have a loss of any kind, it's too heavy, it's too hard, it's too difficult.
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: We are to run to God.
• 4:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: He never chides us about our emotions.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: He made us these emotional creatures.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you look at the feeling will, I think there's 170 options.
• 4:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: The way and the expression of the emotion were never tied in for, and that's beautiful.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: So let's jump into this topic of transitional grief.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Often transitional grief catches the mama of guard because no one has died and yet the ache is very real.
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: How would you define transitional grief and why do you think it's so easy for mothers to dismiss or minimize what they're feeling when their kids leave home?
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Transitional grief would be the ending of one season in our life and the dawning of another.
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And because we just have a bent, a human bent to what we already know where we've already been.
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have no idea what lies ahead.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so there's there's some worry there and fear and we just are certain we're not going to, it's not going to be as good as the chapter we left.
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I remember taking my first born to college and we went to his, he had three days of college orientation.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it was during the summer.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And now I had six other kids at home, but this was my first one.
• 5:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I couldn't believe it when we got to the university.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: They split us up.
• 5:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: He'd went one way the three days.
• 5:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I went a whole week.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was eating lunch with strangers.
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I expected this was going to be our experience together.
• 5:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I remember not wanting to eat lunch with strangers and going to my car after sitting through those first orientation sessions and I called my husband and I could not even get the words out.
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was doing these in full of you could not even speak and I had this image of this was my first little bird flashing and light would never be like this again and one by one my life was now going to letting go.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And man, I grieved it hard.
• 6:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, I will tell you, I still have to at home.
• 6:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: They have graduated high school.
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: They are launching differently than their other siblings.
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that transitional grief though.
• 6:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was the
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: These seven would never be under the roof.
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: It would be very rare that we all be under the roof again.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: But then we have to what I have learned is that God has goodness for us and his goodness does not stop and start.
• 6:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not more in one season and less in another.
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is not more from one person and less for us.
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is an infinite amount of goodness.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's so good.
• 6:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: We may not sense it may be a troubling or difficult season, but that could is there and if we will look for it, then we will
• 6:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a matter of what we focus on.
• 6:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's so important to grieve the change.
• 6:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's okay.
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Take a little time, though.
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Remember when you walked into the home and their bedroom was empty, you were like, oh my gosh.
• 7:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you walked by the bedroom.
• 7:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had a buy kid and I thought it would get easier, but still with number five.
• 7:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she was so independent, so capable.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I did really good, but just letting her do her thing and her dad slept the refrigerator up three flights of stairs in the 100 degree weather.
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: But she got her little dorm room set and her little plants were placed.
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it looks so cute.
• 7:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she was like, okay guys, I'm good.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: She was bad that we were sad, and we got in the car, and we drove that three hours home, and we said, wow, our nest is officially empty.
• 7:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: We do this was common, everybody knows it's coming, and yet we still face it with a little sense of loss.
• 7:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I wanted the name that says don't cry because over something like laugh or rejoice at it and I say no you will cry it's okay to cry then it's oh that's part of processing it is to actually cry that this is over me did like it and you loved that season.
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: and God will have more.
• 8:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: But you can cry and then move fully trusting into the next season.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: The problem comes when you get stuck there.
• 8:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you get stuck there for more than a few weeks, a couple months max, then you need to reach out to someone and say, I'm not handling this well, I'm not processing seeing this well.
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: So let's talk about the mom who feels ashamed of her
• 8:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Our emotions are not signs that we're doing it wrong.
• 8:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: There are signals that something in our life has gone wrong or has changed, and it is normal as we talked about early.
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or it's normal for God to give us these emotions in order to process loss.
• 8:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: And emotions really give life full color.
• 9:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: If we did not have a life of emotions, we would not have the joy, but we would also not have the sadness.
• 9:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: It would be like tasting a sandwich just had two slices of white bread.
• 9:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: no good that that good mustard that rich cheese that you put on it the things that make life so good.
• 9:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I would say to to get rid of this chain kicked back to the curb that is not from the Lord.
• 9:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: That is that is either your own expectations of what you should be doing or somebody else is imposing that on you cultural expectations or it's the enemy.
• 9:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And just take your emotions to the Lord.
• 9:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: you might be relieved.
• 9:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: You might be relieved that your child is even.
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you might feel shame for that because your friends are crying.
• 9:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was a tough senior year.
• 9:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was a relationship.
• 9:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And your relationship is actually going to flourish more after your child gets wings.
• 9:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's okay too.
• 9:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I would just encourage that mom to be honest with the Lord.
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: She doesn't have to fake that she's fine or that she's got to all put together.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Be honest with the Lord.
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Bring those emotions to hand.
• 10:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Our emotions are not just safe.
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's God.
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: They are safe.
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's what God.
• 10:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And honestly, somebody will never be around you.
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: You may even understand all that's in your heart.
• 10:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: You may not even.
• 10:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: We may not even understand until it like surfaces.
• 10:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: But God understands it.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: He made us and so he knows best how to compromise and walk us through this.
• 10:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hey Mama, if your house feels too quiet and your heart feels too heavy after launching your child, I've created a guide just for you.
• 10:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's called journaling through transitional grief, a gentle, faith-filled resource to help you process the deep of motions of letting go.
• 10:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Inside you'll find six reflection questions that will help you name your feelings,
• 10:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: invite God into the grief and experience his comfort in the middle of change.
• 10:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Remember, transitional grief is only a season and God is leading you toward peace, purpose, and joy.
• 11:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can grab your free copy at the link in the show notes.
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, let's get back to our conversation.
• 11:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I would love for you to share.
• 11:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love the title of your book, God of comfort.
• 11:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so in a practical way, what did that look like for you and your seasons of loss?
• 11:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then what can that look like for moms who are listening?
• 11:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: This book grew out of a deep season and unexpected season of loss for us.
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I had launched that first son and I remember thinking, Lane, on my pillow thinking, I just
• 11:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that summer he came home from college, life was busy.
• 11:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have four-year-old six-year-old twins, teens all the way up to keep my oldest this night, teen.
• 11:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I went to bed, happily married, not perfectly married.
• 11:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: We've had struggles and tests of our faith and parenting struggles.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Financial issues we had to work through.
• 12:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: But happily married in that season to my high school sweetheart and I woke up the next morning and went out.
• 12:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: With no signs, no symptoms.
• 12:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: He had a cardiac arrest on the pillow next to mine and we did all the things.
• 12:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: We did the CPR called ambulance taken but they told me in the hospital.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that room you never want to go in, that they had worked on him for over two hours, and they had never been able to revive him.
• 12:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so there was a single mom of seven.
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 12:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what I found was that God meets us in every place of pain.
• 12:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Greve, whether you are grieving a child going off to college, whether you're grieving a child who's making decisions that you did not see coming in, were not part of how you raised them, whether you see a child suffering, bar children can suffer and there are things that we can't fix for them.
• 12:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: We can only walk with them.
• 12:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Whatever it is, even in your own life, if there's a chronic illness, it helps you not that keep you from parenting the way you wanted or a marriage situation, just some any ways we can come to grace, that God that it's more than sadness, it's some layers of emotion.
• 13:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Usually there are secondary losses, loss of friendships, loss of life, the way we wanted, loss of a future that we thought we were not.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: There are rich rights that we're processing, there is fear that we're processing, there is loneliness, and that season, even if you have a house full of people, and if you have a stable marriage, your spouse may not understand it, and so you feel alone in a lot of what you're feeling.
• 13:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: In every one of those places, God is not just your comfort, but he meets you there in the book.
• 13:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Really points to his facets of character.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: So God who goes with us, God who goes before us, God who bottles my tears.
• 13:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: All these ways that God is for us.
• 13:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: in our great.
• 13:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's beautiful.
• 13:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's the crux of it is just turning to him.
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: No matter what level you're at, no matter what you're feeling, God is so ready and willing to meet us with such compassion, such tenderness, such
• 14:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: just warmth, I think compassion, you know what I found too is that his comfort is very practical, his help is very practical and personal.
• 14:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I realized that to the extent of the idea when I was utterly dependent on him for it.
• 14:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes that practicality is a friend showing up or a text can be at the right time or an invitation to join somebody for something or something delivered into your mailbox, but God is, and sometimes it's just so personal, it's a prayer.
• 14:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: something that would mean anything to anybody else.
• 14:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if you were to share it, it just says that I have an impact.
• 14:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: God, all you in that moment and knows exactly how to minister particularly to your heart.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he is like that he is so personal.
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: So grief has a way of revealing what our hearts have been holding onto.
• 15:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to know what have you learned about identity, surrender, and trusting God when he asks us to loosen our grip on the people we love
• 15:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Ooh, well, last, always involves a change in identity.
• 15:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And for me, when I went from married to single, and that was a huge change.
• 15:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Some people aren't going to go from PTA mom and showing up at the school doing all the things in band mom, to empty nest mom.
• 15:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that is a huge change in identity, and that's part of what we're having to process.
• 15:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: What I found is that while my role may change, my earthly role may change the purpose, God has planned the foundations of the world do not change.
• 15:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 15:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's not wasted.
• 15:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: All of the we did.
• 15:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: That sees what we did.
• 15:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you set your career side, if you set things aside that you wanted to do, that is not wasted time.
• 15:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: God.
• 15:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: it will use all of those seasons for the next thing that he brings you to.
• 15:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it is a process and we do have to go to him and really root ourselves in being his daughter.
• 16:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right?
• 16:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: That never changes.
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: We are his daughter.
• 16:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And while everything around this may change,
• 16:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: the purpose as he has for us, and our identity and harm does not change.
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's so good.
• 16:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I like to say that motherhood, mothering, being a mom was just one role we play in this grand scheme of life.
• 16:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: and God has so much good apart from that and the lessons that we learned and the activities that we did all point us to the future and what he has for us.
• 16:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's, you're so right, it's not wasted, but being a mom is just one role and God has even more after our kids are grown.
• 16:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's phenomenal.
• 16:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's amazing and it's a gift.
• 16:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we're not done on the end of the mother and not.
• 16:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: It changes.
• 16:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: It looks different.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, may not get a vote anymore or in the school when they're making a decision.
• 16:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's a real awakening.
• 17:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 17:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: But your kids always want to home to come home to you.
• 17:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Always want to come home and know that you are their cheerleader.
• 17:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: You are one of their primary cheerleaders in life.
• 17:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: You believe in them that you will root for them.
• 17:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And let me tell you they're going to walk through suffering.
• 17:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: They win.
• 17:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 17:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they need a place to land that has wisdom.
• 17:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: but also has love.
• 17:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I say not with my adult kids.
• 17:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
• 17:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
• 17:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to be a safe place for my kids to land.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even when we disagree, even when they're not walking with the Lord, I'm going to love them.
• 17:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to love them and love them.
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you could sit across the table from the mom who just dropped her youngest child off that college and she's crying all the way home, what would you want her to know about this season?
• 17:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have a mom in mind, a friend of mine who is dropping her youngest son in a few months to college up to his dream school.
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's done an amazing job.
• 18:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: He just could not have done better in high schools.
• 18:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so he seems ready, but she's going to come home to a house with two dogs, right?
• 18:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 18:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And even her marriage has changed in the last few years.
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think I would tell her that this is a great time to really
• 18:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: use the time that she has to explore her relationship with the Lord to just lean and to him even more to just maybe do that step up that time and the word that she never had before because she was always up and now the house for cardboard or whatever and to let the Lord really make this a rich season and how much it will look different for her but it can be such a season where she's able to give and pour out in a different way.
• 18:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it doesn't have to happen at once.
• 18:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: She doesn't have to sign up for all would say, don't sign up for all the committees right at once.
• 18:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Take a break and keep your tired.
• 18:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Be your tight.
• 18:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you will fill your time, you know, but let him leave because he will lead you to something or someone or some way that you can continue to pour out.
• 19:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
• 19:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's beautiful.
• 19:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for joining me today, Lisa.
• 19:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Could you please tell my listeners where they can find your online work and your new book, God of comfort.
• 19:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so you can find me at Lisa Appelo 2P's 1L pretty much everywhere online and Instagram Facebook and then if they want to learn about the book they can go to godofcomfortbook.com and they'll find all the information there.
• 19:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: wonderful.
• 19:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I will leave those links in the show notes.
• 19:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wasn't that such a comforting conversation?
• 19:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hope Lisa's words reminded you that your grief isn't something to hide or rush through.
• 19:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's an invitation to draw closer to God who promises to be near to the broken hearted and faithful through every transition.
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: The same God who carried you to the years of raising children.
• 19:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well faithfully carry you through this season too.
• 19:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here's your coaching tip of the week.
• 19:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: In each episode, I will give you one actionable step to improve your life.
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Remember, you can't change everything, but you can take one step to be better.
• 20:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: This week, I just want you to take some time and sit with God in your grief.
• 20:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: and just pour it out and allow him to comfort him and be on the lookout for the very personal ways that he meets you and he sees you by what he presents in your life.
• 20:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're finding this season especially difficult and you'd like someone to walk alongside you, I'd love to invite you to apply for one-on-one coaching.
• 20:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: You will find all the details in the show notes and till next time, remember that letting go doesn't mean letting love go.
• 20:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: God is faithfully leading you and your adult children and you can trust him with every step.
• 20:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Grace and Peace Mama, you've got this and God's got you.
• 20:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for spending time with me on the Midlife Mama podcast.
• 20:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: My hope is that you leave each episode feeling encouraged, grounded and clearer.
• 21:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Clearer about what you're feeling, what God may be stirring in you and how to move forward in the season of the empty nest.
• 21:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Through these conversations,
• 21:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Helping you name what's happening beneath the surface, challenging the thoughts that keep you stuck and take intentional steps toward peace and confidence as a midlife mom.
• 21:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're ready to go deeper and want personalized coaching support, I invite you to apply for coaching.
• 21:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Coaching is a focused one-on-one space where we work together to gain clarity, process emotions, and discern what God is calling you to in this next chapter.
• 21:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: You'll find the application linked in the show notes, and let's stay connected.
• 21:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can find me on Instagram at P-Hinklman, that's P-H-E-M-K-E-L-M-A-N, or on Facebook at Pamela-Hinklman, Empty Nest Coach.
• 21:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to figure out the season alone, Mama.
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Support and direction are possible, and I'm here when you're ready.