Podcast

Trusting God when our Children are in Crisis. CourtneyDoyle

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Unshakable Hope Podcast, where real life intersects redeeming love. I’m Kellie Hall, and this is where we wrestle through faith questions, such as how do I trust God’s heart when His ways and delays are breaking mine? We’ll hear from people just like you and me, who have experienced God’s faithfulness when life didn’t unfold as they expected.

My prayer is that God would renew our hope in His Word and His love through these conversations.

Kelly: Hey friends. I am so thankful. My guest today is Courtney Doyle.

This woman is someone who inspires me. I absolutely adore her.

Kelly: She’s the host of The Mom Show podcast with Courtney Doyle, where she authentically shares her faith, her own struggles in places where so many try to hide. And so she really does equip moms with the courage to throw off their masks and the expectations of motherhood so [00:01:00] that they can find their true identity in Christ alone.

Today we’re not only talking about how to trust God when our kids are in crisis, but But also how do we keep our marriage strong when a child is in crisis? But honestly, no matter where you are in your journey of life, I think the stories and the truths that Courtney will share with us today will help every single one of us walk deeper into freedom and faith. So Courtney, thank you so much for joining me today. Oh

Courtney: my gosh. Thank you. Wow. You make me sound.

Much better than I deserve, much better than I deserve. Thank you.

Kelly: I’m so glad you’re here. This, your story has inspired me so much, Courtney, and I love your podcast. But why don’t you start by just telling us about your family and please include the vast assortment of farm life you got going on in your back 40.

Courtney: Yes. So, my family, my husband and I, we’ve been married a lot of years. I think I’ve lost count. We’re at 30. Oh 31, 32. You know, you [00:02:00] should know these things, but you hit a certain number and then you’re like, it’s been a while. Yeah. It’s been a hot minute. And so we have six children that range from.

Early thirties to 12, soon to be 13. We’ve got it. We’ve got a wide gap there in our kiddos. So, my husband says we started early and we stayed late . And then as the children began to leave for school we already had We already had some dogs. I’ve always been an animal lover, dogs, cats, things like that.

And so we kind of laughed as they began to leave for college and the house got quieter and quieter. We got puppies. And so we currently have six dogs and two cats. We, a 13 year old has a dragon and a turtle. And then we moved out onto some land a couple of years ago. And of course, if you get land, well, then you need chickens.

And then one chicken, if you know anything about farm animals, Chickens, there’s a math related to chickens and when you get one, you get 20. And so we added to the chicken group and then [00:03:00] that led to goats. And so we have four goats and the goats then led to miniature Highland cows. And so we currently for mother’s day, my husband and my family gave me.

A newborn about a six week old Highland cow. And his name is Pequeno for little. And so we call him sweet pea or I do, and he’s bottle, he’s a bottle baby. So I’m living my best life with, you know, a little bitty cow and then a three year old who is actually pregnant. So we’re expecting another cow probably in the next four weeks.

And so, if you’re seeing me on video from the shirt up, I look really put together most days. And from the bottom down it’s leggings and rubber boots. And so maybe I’m having a crisis in my identity. I don’t know, but you know what? I’m living my best life. . I told you before we hit record, I think that the animals are cheaper than therapy.

My husband would maybe disagree, but they just bring a peace and a joy in [00:04:00] my life and in the family’s life. And it’s the things I never knew I needed being out here on the acreage. I’m so glad that God led me here at this time in my life.

 

Kelly: I love watching your videos of all your animals.

Courtney: It’s funny for me to run into people or like this past weekend, we were at the conference together and meet people that I haven’t met maybe in person. And they’re like, we love the cows or we love the goats. And I’m like, you know, like, I’m glad that my animals can entertain.

Kelly: That’s awesome.

Yeah, people need to go back and discover the snake that you found in your bathroom one time when you live in swamp country. So I grew up near where Courtney is in Texas and you see all kinds of critters and snakes. I mean, that’s just what you

do.

Courtney: It’s wild. I mean, I grew up in Louisiana, and whenever I was a kid, we had a camp and my parents would take us down to our camp and we would go looking for alligators. Like we had to seek out alligators in Louisiana. And, but I remember people used to always say [00:05:00] like, do you have alligators in your backyard?

Are they like crossing the street? Cause you live in Louisiana. And I’d be like, no, we have to seek out the alligators. And then I moved to Texas. And for the longest time we were in a master planned community. And so it’s like, you wouldn’t expect to see wildlife like that, but there were alligators all in our ponds around the master plan community.

Well, we had not been living here very long. And my husband went out to put the chickens up. And it was taking him a minute and I could see his flashlight and I got really worried. I was like, Oh goodness, did something happen? And I walked outside and said, Hey, what’s taken so long? Is everybody okay?

And he, all he said was get back inside. Well, of course I didn’t listen. That’s so silly. And so I grabbed a flashlight and I was like, what is it? And Kelly, it was an alligator. It had come from the pond behind us, I guess, climbed over our chain link fence into the, we have a a fenced off pasture area for the chickens and the goats.

And it had [00:06:00] climbed over into that. It wasn’t huge, but I’d say it was about four or five feet. And it couldn’t get out of that fenced in area because it had climbed over the fence and he had closed up the animals and he had that head, we wear a headlamp and he had that headlamp. And when he turned, he, the eyes were glowing.

Wow. It was an alligator. And I’m like, okay, so all of these years, and now I do have alligators in my backyard. All of these critters can stay outside, but the one in the bathroom, There’s a little bit of a setback. I’m not going to lie. I would rather not have snakes in my home. That’s for sure.

Okay. We’re going to move off the animal.

Yeah, I know. I can talk about them all day,

Kelly: but I love hearing about all that. I really want you to share with us how your podcast came to be, but my understanding, just what I know about your story is To know that part, we have to go back into an earlier part of your story.

Would you mind just sort of breaking [00:07:00] us into what your family has been through?

Courtney: Sure. And so, you know, we all have stories, right? And our story, my story, my personal story started. In high school, and I didn’t realize that it was a story that God was creating. I had no idea because I didn’t know any better.

I remember being in my 20s. I had just really come to the realization that though I knew a lot about God. I didn’t know God. I was raised in a very religious home. Church every Sunday. There was no question about that. My mom was very devoted to prayer and you know, she had been raised by nuns in Catholic school and so, but she had a housekeeper.

Havana was another grandmother to me. I mean, she was in our home all the time. She helped my mom and she also helped my grandmother and my great grandmother when they were [00:08:00] older in age and needed help. But really what Havana was, is she was a spiritual mentor. And so anytime I came home from school and I didn’t feel well or whatever, Havana was going to lay hands on me.

Havana was going to pray over me. Anything big that happened in our life. You know, my mom was like, well, we need to call Havana because Havana is going to pray for us. And she did, but what she taught me, what I witnessed Havana doing all the time was opening the word of God. She never prayed without opening her Bible and man, it was tattered and it was falling apart, but she could quote scripture.

She knew the Lord in such a personal and intimate way. That even young me who really was quite comfortable in my life. My, I was the baby of four, my dad owned a business and so life was good. But we would have to go pick Havana up. From her government housing and we’d have to bring her home. And she lived very minimal means in this house, she had eight children.

Her husband was deceased really [00:09:00] early. And so she was a single mom and at a young age, Kelly, I knew Havana had something that was different and was special and I didn’t know how to materialize that in my life at that time. I just now looking back, I’m like, wow, just her example and her prayer life.

I knew that God was doing something in my life. And so in my twenties, whenever I knew that I had been called to some sort of ministry, I remember looking at a friend of mine and saying, I don’t have a testimony though. I had no idea that God had been building a testimony in my life. And so fast forward.

And in 2005, we had five children at the time we lost our home to a hurricane and I would say that was really the thing that Was the most devastating in our lives and in our marriage at the time, because when you lose the home and you have five children, and it was a hurricane that came just weeks after another hurricane.

Well, [00:10:00] Katrina, the first hurricane had wiped out my husband’s offices. He had multiple around Louisiana, the state of Louisiana. And then now here comes Rita. And it wipes out our local office and our home and he’s in sales. And so here we’ve got five children and and life is just, turned upside down.

How do you rebuild? How do you survive when all of the offices are gone? When you’ve got to take care of your family? Because now we’re homeless and we’ve got to figure this out. And Oh, by the way, you know, you’ve got this, the city of new Orleans that has been wiped out. And now the city of late Charles, everybody’s homeless.

Everybody’s in desperate … situations shortly after that it took us 2 years to get back home and shortly in the midst of that. Our son began having some struggles. He began hanging out with the, you know, quote unquote, wrong crowd. And we began to battle this drug usage and criminal behavior and things like [00:11:00] that with him.

For more information visit www. FEMA. gov And here we are 16 years later, and it has been an ongoing battle with him. And so, you know, he’s the oldest of six. We had another child once we got to Texas, you know, I could say that he’s the only child I’ve had any problems with and to date that has been the most devastating, the addiction has been the most devastating.

We had subsequent incarcerations but. I realized several years ago that I was playing a role. That’s where the mask came from of masking the reality of things that were happening in our lives. And what brought me to my knees on that is. I could hide it so well. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. And so to the outside world, everything appeared fine and people would see [00:12:00] our family.

And there’s one picture in particular, it’s actually the cover art for my podcast. And it was taken in 2017. And the thing about that picture that is so powerful and why I chose it is because there were so many masks. Being worn in that picture when we took that picture as a family. And then when I posted it, because it is quite lovely, you would maybe look at it and think, Oh, wow.

They’re matching outfits are fantastic. Right. I did such a good job as a mom picking the color coordination and everybody looking so beautiful. And And people started commenting, gosh, your family’s so perfect. Everybody is so happy. Wow. Y’all have it all together. And really what God showed me through that picture is that the outside world, because I was good at wearing masks, looks at us and thinks, wow, everything’s perfect.

And. Because of my [00:13:00] own insecurities, I wore those masks, my own unwillingness to be vulnerable and honest about the trials and the struggles that we were having. In addition to masking the reality, I was masking what Jesus was doing in our family and he didn’t ask to be invited to my masquerade ball.

And. And so during that time, and our son, one of our son’s incarcerations, I was tasked to write for a publication and I was praying and I was like, you know, God, just show me what you want me to write about. I don’t feel equipped. And he led me to Psalm 107 and I’m going to read it. It says, give thanks to the Lord for he is good.

His love endures forever, but it’s this verse, let the redeemed of the Lord. Say this those he redeemed from the hand of the foe and in other translations It says let the redeemed of the lord tell their story Yeah, and if you go further into that scripture, it talks about how they cry out to the lord They’re [00:14:00] unsettled and he rescues them And they cry out to the lord and they’re in darkness and it was in verse 10 It says some sat in darkness in the deepest gloom prisoners suffering in iron chains And when I read that It just took my breath away because then 13 says it cried, they cried out to the Lord in their trouble and he saved them from their distress.

He brought them out of darkness and the deepest gloom and he broke away their chains. And I realized you don’t have to be incarcerated to be in chains. Amen. And that was the moment that I realized, let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story. I’m hiding my story when I hide behind the masks. Yeah.

And so God led me to write about it and then led me to start a podcast where I am encouraging others. Let’s unmask the lies that we believe and as moms. Let’s realize that our identity is rooted in who Christ says we are. [00:15:00] It’s not rooted in whether we’ve done a good job or maybe a poor job. I mean, look, I am no perfect mom by any stretch of the imagination.

I fail regularly, but I was also losing myself. As a young mom to the successes and failures of my Children. And so what was happening is I was walking a tightrope. If I am, if my identity is wrapped up in the successes of my Children, they’ve done well, they’ve got a great grade point average.

They’ve made the team. They’ve gone to college. They’ve got a great job, whatever it may be. If I let my identity is Solely ride in the successes of my children. Well, then I’m falling into a pretty deep pit of pride. Look at me. Yeah, it’s all about me. I did a great job as a mom. Well, if your mom and you haven’t faced anything devastating with a child like we have, well now guess what?

This grade point average wasn’t great. But, you know, maybe we barely got him out of high school. Now he’s addicted to drugs. He’s incarcerated. [00:16:00] Look at how I failed him as a mother. Well, now I’m in a really deep pit of despair and neither one of those pits are places that God wants us. He wants us rooted in him.

And so that was where the masquerade of motherhood was born. And that is really my passion is women finding their identity in Christ. First. Amen. I just have to say this when you know him, Kelly. Personally for you, then you’re a whole lot more willing to trust him with your children.

Kelly: Yes, this is so powerful.

I want to spend a lot of time talking about this. I, and one of the things that I would say is because early on, we had four kids really close together. Our twins were the third pregnancy and all three of our girls, our oldest and our twins. Have they’re [00:17:00] profoundly deaf and they have other special needs.

And so because of their deafness, you know, there were a lot of deficits, a lot of language delays, a lot of learning disabilities, so none of the things that people write about in their Christmas letters, like apply desk. And so early on, I was like, I’m just going to make these Christmas letters. Full of the truth of our family, full of fun and laughter.

I’m going to tell the truth and we’re just going to live in the joy of this story. And I’m so thankful. That was sort of my rebel heart just saying, I’m not going to play this game. My kids don’t measure up and I’m not going to live in the shame of their disabilities. I’m not going to live in that shame.

And so the, one of the ways I rebelled against it was writing Christmas letters that people would say. I can’t wait to read your Christmas letter first because it’s just so full of adventure and joy. And I can’t even believe all the things that happened in your family in one year, but it had nothing to do with the [00:18:00] accomplishments,

Courtney: the

Kelly: external accomplishments of our kids.

Courtney: And it is, it’s so hard, you know, and it’s funny that you mentioned Christmas letters, because whenever my kids were younger before we had Canva and all of these really great things. I mean, even before what is it? A Vista print or, you know, those places that you can print Christmas cards really easily.

I created our own Christmas cards. I would take pictures of the kids. I’d put it on paper. I’d, Run Xerox copies on really nice paper. I would fold it a certain way. I mean, I hand crafted our Christmas cards. I mean, you know, older me is like, gosh, how did you have time to do that? When you had five kids at home?

Cause now I’m Marvel sometimes at younger me, like, man, you had a lot of energy but it was crafty and I love to be crafty and I would create these cards and, you know, there came a time, Kelly, that our Christmas cards have been incomplete for too many years. For me to count at this point.

And I quit making Christmas cards and I [00:19:00] quit making them because of that very reason, because how do you explain we’re not complete? We are complete when we’re eight. We’re not complete as seven. And so it was so hard to receive Christmas cards from others and look at that and think, I mean, though, I love that, but.

Wow, you’re complete and we’re not and I don’t even know how to create a Christmas card and send to people. And it’s not because I didn’t want people to know our story, maybe for years I didn’t. And now I’m well past that, but it also felt so dishonoring to him. Yeah. You know? And so it’s a balance between how do I honor him as still very much part of our family?

He’s just been a missing piece. Yeah. For a minute.

Kelly: Right. Well, I want to talk about that, about the the process for you of how God moved you from a place where you were feeling a lot of guilt, fear, and shame about your [00:20:00] kids, about your future and your identity was wrapped up in your kids. Tell me some of the ways God broke you free of that.

Courtney: Yeah.

You know, it was it was several years ago.

I don’t even remember the year now. And, I’d gotten a call on Valentine’s day that he was incarcerated and we weren’t sure what the sentence would look like, how long it would be. And I just remember feeling so alone. Like it’s one thing when your kids failed the math test, right? And you can call little Susie down the road’s mom and say, Hey, how’d she do on the math test?

And y’all can really talk about it. And what can we do? It’s another thing when your child’s incarcerated. It’s not like you have a plethora of friends that can say, Oh, we get it. We see you. And so I felt so alone and I would lay in bed at night because, you know, and at night is when my mind races like crazy.

I can keep myself busy during the day. And I would lay there and I would just pray. And I would say, God, I’m so alone. Nobody gets this. I have nobody to talk to. Please send [00:21:00] me somebody, anybody that can relate. And he very quickly answered. And he was like, well, Why don’t you look in scripture , in scripture, where do I even begin?

And of course his response was in the beginning. And so I was like, I can do that. And so that’s what I did. I opened scripture and I began to look at. Let’s just use Eve, for instance, that because that’s in the beginning, I began to look at Eve, not through the lens of Eve, the woman who of course was so tempted and willing to fall to the serpent’s lies.

But let’s look at Eve, the mom and immediately I saw her through a different lens because now I’m like, wait a minute. So the first mom didn’t have perfect kids. That was. That was enlightening to me. Not that I didn’t know that I knew that, but God opened it in a different manner for me to be able to look at [00:22:00] her and understand.

Man, she felt desperate. She didn’t have all the right answers. You know, she even wrestled with God whenever, there were questions about, well, wait, what happened here? And then, look at his offering, Lord it’s just as good as his brothers. Defending her kids, which gosh, we do that, right?

But God they did everything right. Why would they fall into a substance or a situation or whatever. And she wrestled with that. And so that was when I began to search all throughout scripture. These moms and how God showed me, they’re no different than you. Wow. Like they get it and they’ve been there.

And as I searched, you know, I, of course, I think Mary may be, My favorite and not because I can identify with Mary as being the mother of Jesus. Lord knows I can’t, but here’s what I can identify for. She fought for him when he was little. She worried about him when he was a teenager. She fussed at him [00:23:00] when he broke her heart.

When she couldn’t find him, you know, she went back for him. And so I think about when you think about Mary and knowing fully, did she know? You know, and there’s that song, Mary, did you know? And so I wrestle with, did she know that he was fully God? I don’t know, Kelly, because if she did, when he was lost in the temple, why?

And they’re on their path home. Why didn’t she say, Oh, don’t worry guys. He’s God. He knows how to get home. No, she went back. She went back and she looked for him and she busted him. And, you know, why did you make us worry? So, and he’s like, I’m in my father’s house. What are you worried about?

And so that right there. That statement right there. What are you worried about? If you know Christ, if you know him personally and you know how good he is and you believe him and you trust him, what are you worried about?

Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve thought about that story so many times, Courtney, where what you see is this process of [00:24:00] surrender, right?

I mean, we come into this parenthood journey and God says, I’ve got your kids. I’m completely in charge. I’m sovereign. You can trust me, but it is a process. Yes. Of learning how to surrender each step of the journey to his, into his hands. And when our heart is breaking, it’s so difficult. And

when your heart is breaking, just want to understand a little bit of this process. I know you were grieving, but to grieve properly, you had to honestly pay attention to the places where you felt ashamed of your story, where you felt guilty. You felt like it was maybe your fault.

Can you just talk about some of the lies that you had to get out of your heart as you processed your family story?

Courtney: Sure. You know, when this story started with him, I was probably at that stage of my life. That was the closest I was to God. Like that was the most I was in Bible studies. I mean, if the church doors opened, we were [00:25:00] there as a family.

And so it was very interesting to me that for the first time in my very young Christian walk I mean, I just wanted scripture. Like if I just want to learn more, I want to learn more. And now all of a sudden this was happening. And I remember saying to God, if this Christian thing looks like this, I don’t want it.

If I’m opening a door to the enemy’s lies. And in his attacks on my family, because at this point, Kelly I was all in on Jesus. I was all in on teaching scripture and like, how do I learn more so that I can teach more? Like I knew that’s what he had called me to. And then all of a sudden these things are happening in our family.

And I was like, nevermind. I’m going to go back to a Sunday morning, show up to church, check the box, go have some lunch, call it a day. Kind of a religion and I tried that for a minute because I thought it was safer and But because this is [00:26:00] how much God loves me. He just kept pulling me back and pulling me back like no, this isn’t You’re not supposed to run from me.

You’re supposed to run to me. And so as things continue to happen, and I continue to find myself flat on my face, I have a prayer closet and I would put up things that I was praying for on note cards and scripture that would come to mind. And I would put it in on those, this wall in my closet.

And I remember getting down on my knees and just saying, no, like I, I don’t want to do this. Why me? Why us? And yeah. And God saying, why not?

And that was again, when he showed me an image of Mary and it just is sealed in my mind of. She didn’t want that. Right. She wouldn’t have asked for that. If she could have stopped the trajectory of what was going to happen to Jesus on that cross, you cannot convince me otherwise that as a mother, she wouldn’t have [00:27:00] said, yeah, you know what, God, you picked the wrong boy, not mine.

And so I had an image of her standing on the side of the road of him walking, carrying that cross to Calvary. And. And her being a complete bystander in his life. And she was a bystander because God’s plan was greater than hers. And when he showed me that image of what if Courtney, my plan is greater for your son than yours.

That was when I began to realize. I have to surrender him fully to you. And man, it was a tug of war. Don’t get it wrong. This was not a moment in the closet where I was like, praise you, Lord. I surrender my son to you. No, absolutely not. I was like giving back to me and you leave, you know, not him.

And then I realized over time and over wrestling and, you know, look, I’m going to be real honest. I’ve had some really angry wrestling with God, like leave him alone. I’ve had some eye opening experiences with him. Had a moment in the closet where I was [00:28:00] like, I give up. I can’t fight this anymore.

And God’s saying, get up. You are not fighting this. We are fighting this and his story is greater and his purpose is greater. Do you trust me? And so every time something has happened with Christian since that moment, I have to go back to do. I trust him. Yeah. And the bottom line is, I do. I do. Yes.

And so I have to trust him with my children and I may not like it, but gosh, Kelly, my kids can’t, they can’t ride on the coattails of mom’s faith and mom’s hope and mom’s trust in Jesus. Unfortunately, they got to figure it out themselves. And so And I want that for them. I want them to know him, love him, depend on him, have hope in him the way I do.

And that may mean that their story is going to be hard for a little bit. And I have to trust that [00:29:00] God’s purpose is greater. It’s greater.

Kelly: What you shared is so powerful just now. And so I want to just. Kind of repeat what you said. What you’re talking about is a open handed surrender. God, I trust you with my kids, even when my heart is breaking, even when what you’ve allowed, it doesn’t make any sense to me, but what I hear you saying is there was a moment in your life or a process in your life of saying, I’m going to stop manipulating the story.

I’m going to stop trying to control everybody’s story. And I am going to just. Step back and rest in God’s love. And I’m going to say something and I just want to get your take on this. So one of the things I feel like happens is that. The more securely we rest in God’s love, the more we’re aware of how incomprehensible and how lavish and extravagant God’s love is for us and for our families, that it’s in that [00:30:00] place that we’re finally able to surrender the weight of this outcome.

The thing that’s breaking your heart. And we’re finally able to say, okay, now I think I really can let go because I know how much you love me and I know how much you love them. And it’s just not a question anymore about

Courtney: that. Right. I did some work for my own personal story and one of the questions that I came across was, where was Jesus in my own story?

And I began to look at that and really think about it. Like where were you in those moments? And that’s a story for another day and a testimony for another time. But when I realized, Oh, you weren’t oblivious to this, you were right there. I began to also then see that in my children’s story, in my son’s story, it didn’t matter where he was.

If I couldn’t be there with him, protecting him, Jesus was. And so I began to have [00:31:00] visions and imagine that if he were homeless, which we have experienced that he wasn’t homeless alone. Jesus was there. If he was incarcerated, sitting in a prison cell on a bunk, Jesus was there. And so I also began to look at his story and my story and life in general, from a perspective of what if To even if, and so it shifted for me because me, mom, Courtney, manipulator, controller, type A, we’re going to check the boxes, we’re going to wear matching outfits, right?

We’re going to look a certain way. We’re going to mask the reality of what’s happening, lives very much in a what if mindset, this anxious mindset of what if he goes to jail? What if he dies on the street? What if I could name a million what ifs for my other five children too. Yeah. What if this happens?

And God very gently cause he’s so gentle with me cause [00:32:00] I’m stubborn. He’s like, even if he goes to jail, even if what does the end of the story look like, Courtney, even if, and I had to begin to, I had to begin to look. At our lives, his story, our story from an even if perspective from an eternal perspective.

You know what? Even if He knows the Lord. He met him in the fourth grade. Christian is the reason our entire family was saved. Wow. Even if Christian’s life has mattered and has changed other lives because now you’ve got an entire family, the rest of us, the seven of us, we’ve got a niece, a brother in law, other peeps, people who have come to know the Lord because Christian had a divine encounter with Jesus in the fourth grade.

Wow. And so I started looking at. Our lives from a, even if perspective, not a what if. And when I start spiraling [00:33:00] down that, what if rabbit hole, God reminds me, let’s go back to even if I’m still good, I still love there. You will still be reunited in heaven one day. And you were not meant for this world.

You were meant for greater things in eternity. And so that’s, that has helped. me not feel so manipulative and let go of some of the things that I’m trying to control and take off the masks. Right.

Kelly: That is so powerful. And what I hear you saying is you stop being so hyper vigilant. When we have trauma in our life, our temptation is I got to step in, I got to control this.

And so then we’re just like with our arms extended, trying to put our hands in every single situation to prevent the what ifs. One of the things that God showed me in a really dangerous situation, my husband was in, he was deployed in the Middle East. He’s an F 16 pilot. There was a terrorist bomb that exploded and he was in the [00:34:00] second apartment building from where that went off.

And what God said to me, he was fine. And we saw the hand of God in so many different situations. Powerful ways, but 18 servicemen and women were killed. It was very heartbreaking and they would not send these men and women back home. And God just kept saying, Kelly, my sovereign hand of protection extends into your home and around the globe.

Do you think he’s any more safe in your house? than he is around the world. I am bigger than this. I am bigger than this. And what you shared is so powerful to remember that his sovereign hand of protection and love and pursuit of your son’s heart extends into a prison cell. Oh yeah.

Courtney: Oh yeah. Absolutely.

And you know, I think that We recently spoke with him a couple of weeks ago because he is out of prison right now and he is 15 months sober [00:35:00] and we sat down with him two weeks ago. We haven’t had a, haven’t seen him in person in three years. And I’m going to interrupt

Kelly: you just to say, Hallelujah.

Thank you, God. I’m so grateful to hear this. I did.

Courtney: Yes, it is. It is really good news. And I hold his story. That’s his story. And so again, I want to honor his story because it’s his to tell. And I believe with 100 percent certainty that God will use this story and in his time. And when Christian is ready to tell his version of it, I’m just telling the story from a mom’s perspective, right?

What it felt like, but when I sat down with him and we talked, he sees. The hand of God. He, you know, he’s like, mom, I see the circumstances that led to his latest incarceration. It was one thing after another, you know, just so happened. We just had a [00:36:00] Carol Kent teach us on the just so happens, you know, it just so happened.

And then sitting in that prison cell and being witness to what others are going through and realizing life can continue. Like it is, or something has to radically change. And I think that’s, again, that’s not isolated to the incarcerated, right? Life. Needs to radically change for so many people.

And that only happens whenever you step back and you look at the sovereignty of God. And when you recognize him in your life and you go, Oh, it wasn’t just so happened. This was God’s divine hand and workmanship in our lives. And, you know, like you said, the control and the protection, it was very easy as a young mom.

And when the other kids were young to really wrap my arms around, Christian, right? I’m going to protect you. I’m going to save you. I’m going to I’m going to stop this. And it wasn’t until some of the kids got older that I began to [00:37:00] realize I’m so busy doing this with Christian that I need to do this.

I have to spread my arms because I have to be a barrier at this point for the other children. I have to protect them. And I can’t keep trying to save him. I can’t save him. Kelly. Yeah, only God can do that. And at the end of the day, I can’t save any of them. And if I’ve learned anything through this difficult season with Christian is that.

They’re not mine. They’re not mine. And though it feels good for my own pride and my own ego to say they’re mine and I can control them and they’re going to do all the great things, man, they’re not mine. They’re his. And he just loaned them to me. And my number one goal is not to protect, not to dress them in matching clothes, not to control their lives.

My number one priority is to make sure those kids know Jesus. Amen. And I’ve got to make sure that’s my focus. Our 12 year old just got back from camp on Sunday, actually, and he gets [00:38:00] really homesick. And so we were talking about it and he said, I don’t like worship mom. And I was like, Oh, we love some worship music in this house and in our cars.

And I said, what do you mean? And he goes, because he goes, mom, he’s they do all the songs we listened to at home and in the car. And he said, so it makes me miss home. Oh, and I thought, thank you, Lord, for letting me see that even those silly worship songs that moms listening to in the car matter, they matter because.

For a 12 year old to say, they remind me of home shows me, okay, I may not do it all right, but every now and then I may be doing a little something right. And if it’s just worship music I’m putting Jesus in front of my children all the time.

Kelly: Amen. One of the things I want to go back to that you said is you talked about the fact that only God Can rescue a heart only [00:39:00] God.

I mean, you’re doing all you can to love the people. We are doing all we can to love people in our circle of influence too. But only Jesus rescues the hearts. Only he knows how to speak to our kids in a way they can hear him. And right now what’s being released on my podcast is how to pray through a crisis and the one that’s coming out next week.

Is Second Chronicles 20 where I have camped out with the Lord when my family was in crisis and just said, everything is impossible. All the odds are stacked against us. We have no hope except you. Except you, you need to show up in this place and it gives us so much confidence to know that we are not responsible for the outcome and we’re not responsible for rescuing.

He’s the one who does it. The battle is the Lord’s and he is pursuing our kids. In ways we can’t even believe if he would open our eyes to see it, we would be just [00:40:00] humbled on our knees going. Thank you, God. You’ve got for sure. Yeah. I mean,

Courtney: look, Kelly, if I could cry this addiction away, it would have been gone.

Yeah. If I could have screamed it away, if I could have paid for it to go away, I’ve done all the things.

Kelly: Yeah.

Courtney: I’ve done all the things. And at the end of the day, Prayer has what has been my sustaining hope and rock really because and this goes back to Havana. I remember her sitting down and her telling me one time as a young girl, I was right out of high school.

And she said, Courtney, if you can say nothing, just say the name of Jesus.

Kelly: Oh yeah.

Courtney: If nothing will come out, just say the name of Jesus. And there has been plenty of times where I’m like, I don’t even know what to pray. I’m prayed out, Lord, I’ve asked for this and you haven’t answered that prayer. And I’ve asked for that.

And stop this addiction, stop this, stop that, you know, protect him, all of the things. And sometimes I just don’t even know what to pray. And [00:41:00] so that stuck with me that even when you don’t know what to pray, if you just say the name of Jesus that’s prayer enough because he sees and he knows and he’s present.

And so that was really another one of those surrendering moments where I realized I’ve done all the right things, done all the right things that a mom and a dad should do to protect a child or to save a child from addiction. But it wasn’t about me saving him, right? It’s not. I’m not his savior.

Kelly: I love the freedom.

You just described that. We don’t have to pray the solution. We don’t have to tell God what to do. We don’t have to explain the situation to him in the deepest sorrow. We can just hold it up to him and to say this, you see it, I give it to you, I need you. Jesus. That’s a powerful prayer. Jesus. Yeah.

Amen. As we close, I wanted you to answer one other question, and then I’m going to have you talk about something specific on your podcast, which I think is so cool. So, [00:42:00] how did you and your husband stay on the same team in this conflict? Each of you surely had different opinions on how to handle these situations and different ways of processing your grief.

How did you two stay on that same team instead of ending up opposed to each other?

Courtney: Oh, gosh. You know, I think God was been so good to our marriage. I, you know, I look back at the hurricane that I mentioned earlier and how that just really ripped the rug out from under us financially and physically that just our security.

And we realized in that moment that we just had each other, like, how are we going to get through this and be strong and be united for our children? And so we had those testings early on. Like we have to come to an agreement that it’s me and you. And so we both very much believe that like God is the head of our household.

And when it comes to our children, we have to be united and sure. We have had our struggles where I have said, no, I think we should do this. And he has said, [00:43:00] I think we should do that. And then we find a meeting ground or how can we honor each other’s wishes, but not.

Go in separate ways. Like, how do we do this together and not be pulled apart by it? And there’s been plenty of struggles that we’ve sat down and just thought, man, is it us together? Lord, like, did we bring on this chaos because we’re together, but that’s the enemy, right? That’s what he wants to do.

He wants to divide our family. And the last thing our family needed with an older son who was battling what he was battling and five other kids who were watching it. Really over my dead body was I going to let the enemy have a foothold in my marriage and my husband feels the same way. And so it was like, look, if we have to get away and we have to just battle this thing out between us, we’ve got to come to common ground.

Where is God in our marriage? And how are we going to stand united and not let any of this divide us? And so it’s been a fighting for. Our relationship. I had a sweet friend one [00:44:00] time. Tell me in a conflict with my husband. She said, you need to quit looking at your marriage. Like you’re sitting across from each other in a booth in a restaurant battling.

You are not across from each other. You were side by side and the enemy is across from you. Y’all are battling this together. And that visual of anytime there’s conflict or anytime there’s something difficult, how do we get back to where we’re on the same side of the booth? And we realized we’re not fighting each other.

We’re fighting an enemy who very much wants to separate and destroy our family. And we’re not gonna, we’re not gonna let that happen. And in some of that, Kelly, we’ve had to force alone time for just the two of us when it’s really hard to leave and we don’t want to leave when things are in turmoil and we feel like we can’t leave.

We’ve tried to be very purposeful our entire marriage of date nights, time away and telling the kids, Hey, we need our time away. Because at the end of the day, it’s just me and him. It is ultimately going to be me and him. These kids are going to grow up and they’re going to [00:45:00] leave and we’re going to have the animals, but we have each other.

And that’s what God joined together. We are not going to let. anyone separate. We’re not going to let addiction separate. We’re not going to let a hurricane separate. It’s God knew what he was doing when he put Scott in my life. And and he has shown me over and over again in, in Scott does a wonderful job of protecting and honoring me as mom.

And he knows he’s very aware that his experience and his feelings with Christian are drastically different than mine. And so I think also respecting each other’s place. I’m more emotional. He’s more stoic. Being able to respect that and understand that has gone a long way as well.

Kelly: Powerful.

I love the visual your friend gave you. I think early on, and we don’t, I don’t take any credit for this. Like this was just a grace of God, a kindness of God. When we, my husband and I were walking through things that if you looked [00:46:00] at a list of things that should destroy a marriage, we had all the top five things, you know, but early on, we would just look at each other.

This is how I describe it. We would meet each other’s gaze across the landscape of our loss and just look in each other’s eyes and say, you’re my favorite. And it just reminded us we’re on the same team. These the troubles in our life. are not opposing us. We’re together opposing them fighting for victory for our family.

And so I love that. Thank you for sharing what you shared. I want us to close our time together, Courtney. Oh, it’s been so much fun. Please tell our listeners about this beautiful series that you were taking people through on your podcast. .

Courtney: Yes. So, as a podcaster, you know, you’re praying like, okay, God, where are we going with this?

And so for a couple of years now, I’ve done the unmasking series and I have had such generous guests come on and say, Hey, this is the mask I’m hiding behind lies, fear, shame, guilt, you name it. [00:47:00] These women have come on and said, this is what I have unmasked or I’m working on unmasking. And so I was, as I was praying, like, Lord, do we continue with.

This series of unmasking. Where do you want me to go? I started having people reach out. And I’ve had this in the past, but it was just a very short amount of time. All of a sudden I had a flood of moms reaching out to me saying, can I talk to you? Can I come sit with you? And they would come sit in my living room and there they would say, Help! My child is, and they would share with me what their child was going through.

And Kelly, in a lot of the situations I had not experienced that. And so the whole time they’re talking, I’m praying like, God, what? What did you send this mom to me for? Like, what do you want me to share? This has to come from you, Lord, because I can’t identify. And then I would share with them what I felt like the Lord had placed on my heart for them.

And what it was, is it was the Lord placing on my heart that, you know what? There are moms out there, lots of moms, probably every mom that is saying, help my child is, and that [00:48:00] is your next series, Courtney. And so I, you know, I started looking for moms and mom started coming to me and I, you know, share your story.

And so we have tackled things from help. My child is battling anxiety or depression or an eating disorder or gender identification or suicidal ideations. I mean, the stories have been. Incredible. And it is all God’s leading. I just sit there and say, tell me your story, because what I want to do, Kelly, more than anything, and it’s the reason why I’m so passionate about the unmasking is because I lived for so long masked.

But the more I tell my story, the more I’m honest and open and vulnerable. And I show people what Jesus has done. In my story and in our family story, then other people can feel the way I felt when I finally opened that word. And I thought, Oh my gosh, Eve. Oh my gosh, Mary. Oh my gosh, Sarah. Oh my gosh, Rahab.[00:49:00]

Like all of these moms in scripture that became my friends.

So whenever I was desperate for friendship and God led me to scripture, He also led me to build the community That you couldn’t find. And I just want to continue to show moms that even in the hard stories, even in the things we didn’t plan for God is there and he is aware. And he can see you through it. And so that’s my goal with this season is I want other moms to feel seen and I want them to understand they’re not alone, you’re not alone. And so that is my goal is to build the community of moms who see each other, understand each other and can lead each other to Jesus and trust in him.

Kelly: That’s so powerful. Oh, love it.

Courtney: Thank you..

what’s even cooler about that is some of these stories, of course, because they’re about other children, they, the children have been open, you know, we talked in May about suicidal ideations.

[00:50:00] And what was so cool about that month is every 1 of those kids that those moms told a story about their kid approved it and wanted it to be told. Wow. It’s. It’s losing it’s taking the foothold that Satan has over our secrets and saying, yeah, you don’t have any place here with these secrets because secrets make you sick, Kelly.

And when we take our stories that are hard and in the secret places and we put them in a jar, I imagine I’m putting them in a jar and you put that lid on really tight, like you’re canning figs or something and you boil it and you’re like, okay, it is sealed. It is on a shelf and we are not sharing it.

You sealed Satan in that jar. Wow. And he is going to just stay in that secret place. And I’m like no, we’re not going to stay in secret because the minute we speak it, it loses its power. When we take it from darkness into light, he loses his power. And if that is what this podcast will help moms [00:51:00] do and their kids who have experienced those things.

Satan loses his grip on it.

Kelly: Yes. That’s why I said your podcast leads people into freedom. You set them free as they tell the truth about their story and they are able to identify with other people in their hard stories.

So for my listeners, you can find Courtney at Courtney Doyle ministries. com. I’ll put a link in the show notes and look for her on the mom show podcast with Courtney Doyle.

Check her out. You’ll come to love her as much as I do.

Courtney: You’re so sweet.

Kelly: Thanks for being here.

Courtney: Thanks for having me. It’s always a pleasure when I get to talk with you.

Kelly: Oh, me too.

If you were encouraged in your faith today, it’d be great if you’d help get the word out by subscribing, sharing with a friend or leaving a review. I’d love to hear from you. You can reach out through my website, kellyhall. org and pick up some free resources while you’re there. Thanks for listening to the Unshakable Hope [00:52:00] Podcast.