Latest / Coffee and Bible Time Podcast / Overwhelmed & Grateful: Giving God Your Complex Emotions | Jillian Benfield

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Overwhelmed & Grateful: Giving God Your Complex Emotions | Jillian Benfield · Coffee and Bible Time Podcast

• 1:01
  Ellen Krause: At the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.
• 1:03
  Ellen Krause: Our goal is to help you delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living.
• 1:07
  Ellen Krause: Each week, we talk to subject matter experts who broaden your biblical understanding, encourage you in hard times and provide life-building tips to enhance your Christian walk.
• 1:18
  Ellen Krause: We are so glad you have joined us.
• 1:21
  Ellen Krause: Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.
• 1:28
  Ellen Krause: I'm Ellen, your host, and I'm so grateful that you are joining us today.
• 1:32
  Ellen Krause: You know, life rarely goes exactly as planned.
• 1:36
  Ellen Krause: In fact, sometimes it throws us curveballs that literally shake us to the core.
• 1:42
  Ellen Krause: Health challenges, seasons of grief or unexpected detours can leave us questioning everything, and yet somehow there can still be beauty in the midst of the mess.
• 1:55
  Ellen Krause: Our guest today, jillian Benfield, knows that tension well.
• 2:01
  Ellen Krause: Our guest today, jillian Benfield, knows that tension well.
• 2:05
  Ellen Krause: Jillian is a former journalist and news anchor who holds a degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Georgia.
• 2:09
  Ellen Krause: She's also a mom writer, disability advocate and someone who's walked through some deeply unexpected circumstances.
• 2:18
  Ellen Krause: And today we're diving into what it looks like to hold pain and gratitude in tension with one another, to thank God without suppressing our grief, and to grieve while holding space from gratitude.
• 2:34
  Ellen Krause: Jillian, welcome to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.
• 2:39
  Jillian Benfield: Thank you so much for having me.
• 2:40
  Jillian Benfield: As I told you earlier, this is my first one, so I'm just super excited to be here.
• 2:46
  Jillian Benfield: A little nervous, but I know that we're just going to chat like old friends.
• 2:50
  Ellen Krause: Exactly.
• 2:51
  Ellen Krause: Well, I can tell you after reading Overwhelmed and Grateful, this book just came exactly when I needed it, so I think it's going to hit a lot of people.
• 3:03
  Jillian Benfield: I'm so glad to hear that my goal was to write it in a way that it would apply to no matter what phase of life you're in, so thank you.
• 3:10
  Ellen Krause: Yes, absolutely.
• 3:12
  Ellen Krause: So we're here today to talk about this concept of and and you have the ampersand in the book and it's really the holding of multiple emotions together at the same time.
• 3:26
  Ellen Krause: So, as we dive in here, tell us a little bit about yourself and the circumstances that sparked your exploration of this topic.
• 3:36
  Jillian Benfield: Sure.
• 3:36
  Jillian Benfield: So my first book is called the Gift of the Unexpected, and that was about my second child's Down syndrome diagnosis and how that really upended everything.
• 3:47
  Jillian Benfield: It upended my world but also my worldview, my belief system, and I really had to deconstruct what I believed and reconstruct those beliefs based on disability being introduced into my life.
• 3:59
  Jillian Benfield: And so I had already gone through this very upending transformative process for a couple of years alongside my son Anderson, and then, when he was not quite two years old, I had a miscarriage and then got pregnant again and we thought all was well.
• 4:19
  Jillian Benfield: And then I went to a 14 week ultrasound and I told my husband not to come, because those are pretty typically, you know, there wasn't even supposed to be an ultrasound that day pretty uneventful, and this was my third child.
• 4:30
  Jillian Benfield: But when I got in there they couldn't find a heartbeat again.
• 4:34
  Jillian Benfield: Finally we got back to a room and this time his stomach was like almost double the size of his head and we knew something was wrong.
• 4:43
  Jillian Benfield: And eventually, after week after week after week of doctor appointments, they diagnosed him with something called posterior urethral valves, which is a very serious and sometimes fatal condition.
• 4:54
  Jillian Benfield: It's a blockage in the urethra and it affects kidney development and lung development, and we knew we were in for a very rocky ride with this pregnancy.
• 5:03
  Jillian Benfield: And in the middle of this, at the time, my husband was military and so we were moving.
• 5:09
  Jillian Benfield: So we got this diagnosis and then we were moving to Texas.
• 5:12
  Jillian Benfield: Anyways, we got to San Antonio, where we were stationed, and realized we were going to have to deliver in Houston.
• 5:17
  Jillian Benfield: I was going to have to live away from my other two children at a Ronald McDonald house in order to give birth to him, and then we were in the NICU and had fetal intervention surgery and all of these things.
• 5:29
  Jillian Benfield: And we come to find out that he did not end up having a blockage in his urethra.
• 5:35
  Jillian Benfield: He had all of these symptoms, but when they went to go ablate the valves, there were none there.
• 5:40
  Jillian Benfield: And we thought we experienced and still believe we experienced this miracle.
• 5:45
  Jillian Benfield: And yet, even with that being said, he still had a very difficult first one to two years of life.
• 5:51
  Jillian Benfield: And so that's where I was when I discovered this concept of, and I had a toddler with a disability and associated medical illnesses that were coming along with that disability at the time, and I had this infant who was very sickly.
• 6:09
  Jillian Benfield: He had a nephrostomy too.
• 6:11
  Jillian Benfield: He had clubbed feet.
• 6:13
  Jillian Benfield: I had 18 specialists between the two boys at one point, oh my goodness, and I was drowning.
• 6:19
  Jillian Benfield: I mean it was just such a difficult time and yet I was grateful.
• 6:23
  Jillian Benfield: I was because it could have been so much worse, right.
• 6:25
  Jillian Benfield: And so I just felt this overwhelm.
• 6:28
  Jillian Benfield: I felt this overwhelm of emotions because I should have just been being grateful, right, Because he could have.
• 6:35
  Jillian Benfield: He could have died, he could have been way worse off, he could have had lung issues and he didn't.
• 6:39
  Jillian Benfield: And yet it was still so difficult what we were going through.
• 6:43
  Jillian Benfield: And that's when I came across this article by another author who had lost a child and it was a baby, and her brother ended up having another baby and her therapist asked her how she was doing with that and she said well, I'm really glad the baby's healthy, but I'm also still very sad about losing my baby.
• 7:07
  Jillian Benfield: And the therapist responded and you're really sad, you don't have to choose.
• 7:12
  Jillian Benfield: You can be really grateful that this nephew or niece, I can't remember, was born healthy and you are still allowed to be sad over your own loss.
• 7:25
  Jillian Benfield: And I was sitting in my grandmother's hand-me-down recliner feeding my infant with my toddler, watching Sesame Street and we had already been to two appointments that day and I just started crying and I realized that I could be both.
• 7:40
  Jillian Benfield: I could be sad over how hard my life was at that point and it was hard and I could also be grateful that the worst had not come to pass and that really started me on a journey of viewing life through an and lens, which has changed so much for me, both in times of complete turmoil, in times of rebuilding and in times like now where life is just kind of at a steady pace.
• 8:13
  Ellen Krause: Yes, I think there is something so freeing about that, to allow you to experience these multiple emotions at the same time and I just want to give you a little example.
• 8:28
  Ellen Krause: When I'm reading your story and at the same time, I'm experiencing my own sort of we're in a period of order where we knew things were expected, your children grow up, they get married, they move out and you become an empty nester and there is great joy in that experience of your children finding the love of their life and getting married and moving away perhaps.
• 8:58
  Ellen Krause: Yet at the same time, why am I so sad?
• 9:02
  Ellen Krause: Like I did have these very conflicting emotions, and you know understanding that it's okay to have both, like you're allowed, like one doesn't negate the other.
• 9:15
  Ellen Krause: I think it's just a step towards healing and I know you talk a little bit more about that as well.
• 9:22
  Jillian Benfield: I think so too.
• 9:23
  Jillian Benfield: I think it is a step towards healing, because I think that we're in a culture, both on a large scale and also on a church scale as well, where we are often told to focus on the positive and, of course, you're happy for your children and their growth, and this is what's supposed to happen, and all these things are good things, and it's also sad that it's an ending and this transition that you're in and both of those things are allowed.
• 9:50
  Jillian Benfield: And when we downplay the hard things, we're not being honest with God, we're not being honest with ourselves, and then what ends up happening is we're not being honest with other people too, and we end up making other people feel more alone when their sad things are happening and we just try to shine a light on the good things that are happening.
• 10:14
  Jillian Benfield: They know good things are happening too, and maybe they do need somebody to help them see the light.
• 10:20
  Jillian Benfield: Sometimes it's also okay for us to be honest about our dark things.
• 10:27
  Jillian Benfield: I think that is healthy spiritually, mentally and physically.
• 10:33
  Ellen Krause: Yes, absolutely.
• 10:34
  Ellen Krause: You've really highlighted a lot of these different darkness and light.
• 10:42
  Ellen Krause: Highlighted a lot of these different darkness and light, difficult and beautiful from and to hope and trust, honesty and gratitude.
• 10:50
  Ellen Krause: There's so many of these that sort of bubbled up to the surface of the context in which you were talking about.
• 11:00
  Ellen Krause: Was there any particular example that's coming to mind in your life right now?
• 11:06
  Jillian Benfield: Yeah, I think now my youngest son, I have to say all of his medical issues have pretty much been resolved and he is very much living like a typical eight-year-old boy.
• 11:16
  Jillian Benfield: However, my middle son, who has Down syndrome, is a lesson, a constant lesson, in living in the and, for instance, right now we're going through an advocacy struggle with the school where we want them to allow him to go on a hybrid schedule where he would receive therapy that they don't offer twice a week at an outside clinic and school the other three days a week, and we think we have the law on our side and research on our side and all of these things.
• 11:44
  Jillian Benfield: And just one person at that meeting said no.
• 11:47
  Jillian Benfield: And so I would say, like my and right now is I am mad, I'm being honest, I'm angry, I'm disappointed, and I am also grateful that we have the resources to keep pursuing this, that I have the kind of job with flexibility, that I know that I can make this work somehow, some way I'm going to find a way.
• 12:13
  Jillian Benfield: And also, just in general for him, like parenting a child with a significant disability is the hardest thing I've ever done and it is also one of my greatest gifts.
• 12:24
  Jillian Benfield: That's just true, because of all the things that I have unlearned and learned and how I have transformed.
• 12:31
  Jillian Benfield: Alongside parenting him, I am living in a constant state of and and I think really for all of us we probably have that to some degree, but I see it the most through parenting my son with a disability, and for that I am very grateful of children with disabilities in that our church sponsored an event.
• 13:07
  Ellen Krause: It was a prom event for people with disabilities and it was like even into young adults and some adults actually, and there were a couple hundred people at this event.
• 13:17
  Ellen Krause: Every disabled person had a volunteer partner who spent the evening with them at dinner and then they had dancing and at the end of that night I said to myself these parents of disabled children are.
• 13:36
  Ellen Krause: It's unbelievably incredible to be walking that life with that child into adulthood and, like you said, it's ongoing right With other children who grow and develop into adulthood.
• 13:54
  Ellen Krause: There's a different transition that takes place and I was just in awe.
• 13:59
  Ellen Krause: I was like these people are incredible, the disabled people, parents.
• 14:05
  Ellen Krause: It was just such an awesome, awesome event.
• 14:09
  Jillian Benfield: Yeah, I think the trick there is.
• 14:11
  Jillian Benfield: There's always challenges with kids with disabilities, right, because there are societal barriers that they inevitably face and we face alongside them being their parents.
• 14:21
  Jillian Benfield: And you know, there's these Instagram accounts and such that only focus on the shiny parts of disability, and then there's other Instagram accounts that only complain about being a parent with a disability, right and like.
• 14:33
  Jillian Benfield: Neither of those are helpful.
• 14:36
  Jillian Benfield: In my eyes, it's finding that honesty of those struggles and also's an aging parent that we're taking care of.
• 15:05
  Jillian Benfield: Maybe it's becoming an empty nester, maybe it is a strained relationship with someone, maybe we've been betrayed by someone.
• 15:13
  Jillian Benfield: Everybody you know has something difficult in their lives, whether it's in the forefront of their lives right now, or maybe it's taking a background seat at the moment.
• 15:21
  Jillian Benfield: But we all have struggles.
• 15:23
  Jillian Benfield: And how do we move forward with those struggles?
• 15:26
  Jillian Benfield: While not totally succumbing to the struggle, but also not ignoring the struggle and therefore ignoring our real heart and our real emotions and therefore ignoring other people's real struggles too?
• 15:40
  Jillian Benfield: And I think the way we move forward in life where we can be alive to it all, is through an and lens the discussion of this topic around three phases.
• 16:00
  Ellen Krause: So order, disorder and reorder.
• 16:03
  Ellen Krause: Tell us a little bit about these concepts and how you came to use them.
• 16:16
  Jillian Benfield: Yeah.
• 16:16
  Jillian Benfield: So probably the most influential book definitely the top three, for sure that I've ever read for me and my spiritual life was Walter Brueggemann's the Spirituality of the Psalms.
• 16:21
  Jillian Benfield: And I read that book while we were living in Texas, while I was in the space that we talked about earlier, with a very sick infant and an also sickly toddler, as well as a four-year-old, typically developing daughter who had her own needs and everything.
• 16:38
  Jillian Benfield: And so I came across this book that just gave me such permission through the Psalms that said the Psalms really teach us how to be in relationship with God.
• 16:50
  Jillian Benfield: Over half of them are laments, and that was so eyeopening to me, because those aren't the Psalms that we're focused on in church or if you have a devotional there's, you don't see, you know they're not front and center.
• 17:03
  Jillian Benfield: These Psalms that are lamenting and demanding justice from God and are it can be angry.
• 17:10
  Jillian Benfield: And so through that book, walter Brueggemann says that we are all in a phase of either orientation, disorientation or reorientation, and I renamed that order disorder reorder for my book.
• 17:23
  Jillian Benfield: And order is a place where things are just kind of humming along.
• 17:27
  Jillian Benfield: I would say for most of us we spend most of our lives in a place of order.
• 17:31
  Jillian Benfield: That's where we are right now, where we have struggles in our lives, but our lives have not been turned upside down.
• 17:38
  Jillian Benfield: We're not in an upside down phase right now.
• 17:40
  Jillian Benfield: Life is just kind of steady.
• 17:42
  Jillian Benfield: That's order.
• 17:43
  Jillian Benfield: Disorder is when that big, unexpected event comes into your life or maybe it is an expected event, maybe like a death of a parent or something but nobody can quite prepare for the grief that comes with even events that are expected.
• 17:59
  Jillian Benfield: That's disorder.
• 18:00
  Jillian Benfield: And reorder is when we are reacquainted with the goodness of God and how God has brought forth new life out of that seemingly dead situation.
• 18:13
  Jillian Benfield: So that's how I structured the book.
• 18:16
  Jillian Benfield: It's like how can we practice this honesty that we see in the Psalms, no matter what phase of life we are in?
• 18:25
  Jillian Benfield: And although the Psalms are such a radical act of honesty and often filled with lament, they're also so very full of hope and also so very full of joy and so very full of praise.
• 18:40
  Jillian Benfield: Maybe not every single one, but often, like Psalm 13 is probably my favorite passage in the Bible.
• 18:45
  Jillian Benfield: It starts with how long, lord, will you forget me forever?
• 18:49
  Jillian Benfield: How long will you hide your face from me?
• 18:51
  Jillian Benfield: And then it ends after going through the lament it ends in, but I trust in your unfailing love that you are good to me, you know.
• 19:00
  Jillian Benfield: So I think that the Psalms are such a lesson in, and they're such a lesson in being radically honest with God and also being completely alive to the goodness of God at the same time, and I think that's how we are called to live.
• 19:19
  Jillian Benfield: I think we are called to be alive to it all.
• 19:25
  Ellen Krause: Absolutely, and sometimes we feel guilty about that, which I think that's what I love about that you're actually talking about it so that we can realize.
• 19:35
  Ellen Krause: No, we don't have to feel guilty for having this mixed set of emotions, and the Psalms are just.
• 19:44
  Ellen Krause: You know, that was a Psalm of David and he himself went through so many different trials and expressed his anger, sadness, all these different things, but in the end, like you said, he always looped back around and said but you, Lord, I will trust.
• 20:03
  Jillian Benfield: Right.
• 20:03
  Jillian Benfield: I think the goodness of God is always somehow, some way at work, even in our darkest moments and even when we can't see it, and that's okay if we can't see it at the time.
• 20:16
  Jillian Benfield: It's just knowing that somehow God is working beneath the surface in ways we cannot see, because God is the God of resurrection and will bring new life out of dead things.
• 20:28
  Jillian Benfield: And if we can hold on to that in our darkest moments, knowing that God has there's no depth that he has not been to, I think that we can grieve and hold on to hope that somehow goodness will be seen, be made from this situation.
• 20:46
  Ellen Krause: Absolutely, and in the book you give wonderful scripture references to how Jesus himself experienced these very same things.
• 20:55
  Ellen Krause: Well, for people who are listening today, if they could take away just one thing from this conversation about overwhelmed and grateful, what would you want it to be?
• 21:08
  Jillian Benfield: I would say that we are meant to be full humans.
• 21:14
  Jillian Benfield: We are meant to be alive to everything.
• 21:17
  Jillian Benfield: If we only lean into the dark things, then we become hardened and cynical.
• 21:22
  Jillian Benfield: And if we only lean into the light things, if we end up gaslighting other people and also ourselves into thinking that no life is great, then we lose our humanity, we lose our ability to connect with God in a real deep way and we lose our ability to connect with God in a real deep way and we lose our ability to connect with others.
• 21:41
  Jillian Benfield: So what I would leave people with is that the and way of life is the life that we are called to live.
• 21:50
  Jillian Benfield: We are supposed to acknowledge the darkness and we are supposed to also keep our eyes open to the light in and out of every single day.
• 22:02
  Jillian Benfield: And if we can just make that shift of maybe for me, I pray my and every morning before I start work.
• 22:09
  Jillian Benfield: So I tell God what is paining me, what is angering me, what is frustrating me, disappointing me, and I tell God how I am grateful for whatever it is that day.
• 22:21
  Jillian Benfield: Sometimes it's connected to that first thing, like the example I gave you earlier where the advocacy thing with my son.
• 22:28
  Jillian Benfield: Sometimes it's connected, and sometimes I can't find the light in that situation, and yet I can still be thankful for how the river in my backyard is sparkling that morning and seeing God in it, and so if I could leave people with anything, it's just that I think that we're supposed to hold the darkness and we're supposed to also keep our eyes open to the light, and I think if we do that, we become more honest and more grateful and the transformed people we're supposed to be.
• 22:59
  Jillian Benfield: I think healing requires gratitude, and we are on a healing path that lasts our whole life, and so, if we can be honest and grateful, I think that's the path forward toward Jesus and toward a more full life.
• 23:15
  Ellen Krause: Absolutely.
• 23:15
  Ellen Krause: I was thinking, you know, as you were talking there, just that, how incredible it is that God put you with your son to be the advocate that he needs in that situation, and we'll be praying that it works out and we'll also be able to impact other children going forward that might be in the same circumstances.
• 23:41
  Ellen Krause: Thank you for just being willing to share those examples with us.
• 23:46
  Ellen Krause: Jillian, how can listeners find out more information about your incredible book and the work that you do?
• 23:55
  Jillian Benfield: Yeah, so I have a website, jillianbenfieldcom.
• 23:58
  Jillian Benfield: I am on Facebook at Jillian Benfield and Instagram at Jillian Benfield blog, and my book is available for 30% off plus free shipping If you order directly from Baker books.
• 24:10
  Jillian Benfield: It's actually 40% off for presale, but I don't know when this will air, and then it's also available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
• 24:17
  Jillian Benfield: So yeah, that's about it.
• 24:20
  Ellen Krause: Oh, wonderful, All right.
• 24:22
  Ellen Krause: Before we go, I have to ask you our favorite questions here for guests what Bible is your go-to Bible and what translation is it?
• 24:31
  Jillian Benfield: I would say the translation would be NSRV, also NIV, also NIV, and the Bible app.
• 24:40
  Jillian Benfield: I do subscribe to YouVersion, the premium app, because I like to read the commentaries alongside scripture, especially when I'm writing, but I've found that to be for a while.
• 24:54
  Jillian Benfield: I went to seminary.
• 24:55
  Jillian Benfield: I'm not going to seminary anymore.
• 24:58
  Jillian Benfield: I realized I couldn't add that into being a mom and a writer and everything.
• 25:01
  Jillian Benfield: But it allows me to get better context and that's probably my favorite tool that I use.
• 25:08
  Ellen Krause: Okay, awesome.
• 25:09
  Ellen Krause: How about Bible journaling?
• 25:11
  Ellen Krause: Do you have any favorite Bible journaling supplies?
• 25:16
  Jillian Benfield: I don't.
• 25:17
  Jillian Benfield: I think, because I write so much as it is day to day that I don't also journal, but I do start my morning.
• 25:24
  Jillian Benfield: I just I heard on a podcast that people like one of the top 10 things people love to talk about is their routine.
• 25:31
  Jillian Benfield: So I'm just going to tell you my morning routine and maybe you can get something out of it.
• 25:35
  Jillian Benfield: So if you have a two story house, this has been a game changer for me.
• 25:39
  Jillian Benfield: We put like a little bar cart in our room with a coffee machine and I wake up and I go directly to the coffee machine and make myself coffee and then I get back into bed, which is delightful.
• 25:51
  Jillian Benfield: It's such a nice way to start the day and I start that with my Bible reading and I kind of I don't stick, I kind of jump around at whatever I'm using, whether it's a devotional or a book of common prayer, but that's how I start my day while drinking my coffee, which is perfect for your podcast.
• 26:12
  Jillian Benfield: Maybe you need to get coffee and get back into bed.
• 26:15
  Jillian Benfield: I also start super early though.
• 26:19
  Jillian Benfield: So just for context, just because I like to work out before the kids get up and everything, so that's why I get back into bed, because it's very early when I wake up.
• 26:28
  Ellen Krause: Wow, I love that.
• 26:30
  Ellen Krause: That is such a fun tip.
• 26:31
  Ellen Krause: Thank you so much.
• 26:32
  Ellen Krause: Yeah, yeah, well, we appreciate you so much joining us today.
• 26:37
  Ellen Krause: It's been such a treat and just so encouraging for learning how to hold these messy, difficult feelings and circumstances honestly and faithfully before God and being grateful so to our listeners.
• 26:57
  Ellen Krause: If this conversation resonated with you, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Jillian's book Overwhelmed and Grateful and learning more about her writing and advocacy at her website.
• 27:10
  Ellen Krause: We will have all of those links in our show notes and if today's episode has encouraged you, would you please consider leaving a review and sharing it with a friend.
• 27:21
  Ellen Krause: It really helps support our work.
• 27:23
  Ellen Krause: Thanks again for being with us and we'll see you next time at the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.
• 27:28
  Ellen Krause: Thank you.