Podcast

God’s Rescue From Despair to Hope. Sara Cormany

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Unshakable whole podcast, where real life intersects redeeming love. I’m Kelly 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 mind? 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 prayers, that God would renew our hope and his word and his love through these conversations.

Kelly: Hey friends. Welcome to the podcast. I’m so glad you’re here.

I wanted to tell you something I’ve never said before. I don’t host this podcast because I like to hear myself talk. In fact, the very opposite is true about me. But God has called me to do this, and I believe it’s because he has rescued my heart in weary places. Through other people’s stories, through stories in the Bible, through [00:01:00] solid biblical teaching and books that present how to walk through suffering in a way that brings honor and glory to God.

Kelly: And so I’m just passionate about bringing these kind of things to you, and I pray that God would use every single podcast to increase your hope in him in your own faith journey. And that you would fall more in love with Jesus along the way. My heart in every one of these podcasts is to highlight the faithfulness of God and to broadcast the truth that he truly is worthy of our utmost trust.

If you’re just joining these podcasts, I’d love to have you check out the highlight reel on Spotify, which contains a dozen or so of some of the inspiring stories in Bible teaching from the first 70 episodes. You can check the show notes for a link to that. Also, you’ll see a link for the Hope for the Weary collection, which includes prayers and scriptures that help

anchor us to God’s heart of love and truth when we [00:02:00] are weary. Well, Sarah Cormany is my guest today, and she is someone who is intimately acquainted with following Jesus through her own hard story. She is a wife, a mom to four. She’s an award-winning author and speaker who has a passion for helping others tell their stories, and she lives that out As a coach at Redemption Press.

She’s written a beautiful 40 day Devo entitled Even When experiencing God’s Presence during Difficult Days. her message of hope fits so beautifully with the theme of this podcast. I just couldn’t wait to have her on. Sarah writes, we often believe that hard and good are mutually exclusive, but the truth is.

They can be perfect partners in my own lives, the most beautiful things have been grown in hard ground. So good. Sarah, my friend, thank you for joining me today.

Sarah: It is an absolute honor to be here with you, and I just love [00:03:00] you, and the more time I spend with you, the more I love you. So thank you for even just giving me the chance to spend a little time with you today.

Kelly: Hmm. Sara. That’s so sweet. Thank you. I I know you’re just such a busy mom and I know you have sick kids, and yet you are so sweet to join me today anyway, you are busy with work and you balance all that beautifully. But I’m wondering what you do to draw close to God when you’re weary or to cultivate joy in those places where you feel like you need some rest.

Sarah: Now, this may sound a little cheesy.

One of the most restful things for me to do is spend time with those that I love and those that God is placed in my path. My kids, my husband to love recklessly and. I think sometimes we think of those things spending time with people that you .Love as being holy. When [00:04:00] it’s like Disneyland, you know, the, the, the things that the world sees as quality time.

But I have found that that time can be discovered sitting by a hospital bed. Sitting next to a kid who’s crying and just needs your presence holding your husband’s hand. Those moments of love, remind me. I think so keenly of God’s love for me.

Kelly: So good. Sarah, thank you for sharing that. I’ve never had anyone answer the question like that.

I appreciate it. You’ve experienced a lot of loss along the way, and you’ve also experienced quite a bit of God’s healing You continue to live in a story that is unresolved and one that you don’t fully even understand. I’m wondering if you could just take us into your story so we could get a glimpse of some of the challenges you’ve watched through that the Lord has met you in.

Sarah: Of course, of course. So when I was born, I think, and you, [00:05:00] I didn’t mean for you to go back that your story, but I think this is important. When I was born, I think that there was some. Something innate in my spirit of I wanted to do everything myself. I wanted to work my way, I think, into not just God’s favor, but work my way into.

Feeling as though I was worthy of his love. And that really continued into my early adulthood. And the thing that kind of stopped me in my tracks was in 2002, I started having health problems and began this kind of horribly, wonderfully awful kind of dance with chronic illness. And it was that moment of.

Hey, guess what? It’s not gonna be perfect. And hey, guess what? I’m still gonna be here for you. And there’s still gonna be [00:06:00] beauty here, even in the imperfection. And I think that lesson has been a lifelong one. I think it will continue as I move towards home, but that really has been the instrument, the thread of God’s teaching through the course of my life.

But I think I. The moment where I turned to the page to kind of work my way back to his goodness was in 2011. I’d had my third baby four months earlier and I had a stroke. I. And it was that moment where illness went from life impacting to life threatening.

Kelly: Mm. And

Sarah: so now, it wasn’t just that I had to trust him with my days and how those days went, but I had to trust him with time and I had to trust him.

With [00:07:00] moment by moment knowing if I’m going to be able to stay here or not. And that really, I think, changed for me being somebody who was trained as a speaker in communication, coaching kiddos in that same area, to now be in a place where, and again, people are gonna listen to this and be like, what was wrong with you?

But I think it was just so unusual for me not to be able to depend on my training, on my ability. But three weeks after I received the stroke diagnosis, I was working in a ministry where they asked me to speak at the last minute, and I got up there and I was every public speaking nightmare. You can possibly imagine.

And I got off that stage and I called my husband and I said, I’m never doing this again.

Kelly: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Never. And that’s when I started writing because it became a [00:08:00] safe place, a place where I could write my heart and know it would come out. And God just gently brought me back, not only to his goodness, but also back.

To what he trained me to do, but in a place where I could understand fear, a place where I could understand weakness because that has made me a far better teacher than I could have ever been otherwise.

Kelly: Wow. Wow. That is so powerful. So, just to understand a little bit more of your journey, I just wanna clarify a few things.

Oh, of course. So you have some type of autoimmune illness, which is not the focus of our conversation. But it was what caused you suddenly not to be able to do everything your own way. So when you would read Proverbs three, five and six, trust in the Lord with all your heart, don’t lean on your own.

Understanding what you heard was lean on your own understanding [00:09:00] and trust God for, you know, the extras.

Sarah: And so absolutely,

Kelly: it kind of sounds like God brought you to the very end of yourself and exposed just your deepest weakness and fear. in the illness and having a stroke at such a young age, I mean, that’s very difficult and very, very frightening.

But I wanna say that as God led you into writing, you are truly one of the. Most beautiful gifted writers that I know truly. And so I am grateful that God brought you into that space. So grateful. I would love for you to talk about some of the tender ways that God met you in those places.

Sarah: Absolutely. I, I think that, I probably told this story before and I don’t know, it’s.

Tendencies that I think whenever I’m interviewed, I have to tell a different story, but as I, I was thinking about this particular question. This is [00:10:00] the story. Okay, this is just the story and I’ve told it before, but it is one that’s in the book, but has continued past just that moment in time in such a beautiful way. First Corinthians 13, 13, and now these three remain faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love and in all ways, in all my weakness. That is something that God has shown me so pointedly and the story is. Is just the absolute best. So in 2014, I was expecting our miracle Maddie baby.

She was a baby born after miscarriage septic infection that almost took my life. And so in every way we were expectant. But six weeks before she was born, my sweet daddy went home to Jesus. He died of a massive brain aneurysm. It was. [00:11:00] Mercifully quick for him. Mm-hmm. But it was painfully quick for us.

And one of the things about my dad is he was a healer through and through. He was a physician, but one of the ways in his later years that I saw this so beautifully was with plants. Like he wasn’t the kind of garden, he wasn’t the kind of gardener that was like Better homes and gardens. Yeah. He was the.

Kind of gardener that would go to like Home Depot and find the saddest looking plant he possibly could and then just nurture it back to life and back to beauty. And even though I was his daughter, , he kept thinking, oh, here, I’m gonna bring her these beautiful plants that I’ve nursed back to health.

But I killed them all. I mean every single one of them. So my very first Mother’s Day, he brought me the Stadel and I’m like, dad, you don’t understand. I’m gonna plant this. [00:12:00] It’s not, it’s not gonna die. You literally cannot kill it. It’s gonna come back every year. And every year he would nurture it, come back.

And with my kiddos, that was one of the things they remember doing with him is watering the plants with pops. Well, after he died, I completely forgot about the daffodil and I was outside doing something with the kids, and all of a sudden I had this panic of, oh. Dad daffodil, I killed it. And you know, , this is what’s crazy, Kelly is I went back to the spot where he planted it and there it was just starting to bloom.

And it was this reminder through the madness that, Hey Sarah, I’m still here. I’m still here. In your grief, I’m still here in your loss. I’m still here in your brokenness. I thought, Sarah, this isn’t for you. My mom’s and Dad’s anniversary would’ve been there, I think 40th was coming up, and so I was able to bring my [00:13:00] mom flowers from my daddy on their first anniversary where he was in heaven, and I’m telling you, I know.

Isn’t that crazy? Every single year since they’ve bloomed. Pretty much right on schedule. Like here’s the thread that blows me away, and I think it shows the remaining piece of love. This year, I took my oldest to college on the East coast. I live on the Midwest. It’s so rude. I’m like, how can my baby be this far away from me?

But when we visited the college. When we went back in the summer to show dad where her dorm would be when we took her to drop her off. When I went to go visit every single time, Kelly, there was a daffodil that we would find, and the last time I was there, it was too cold. There shouldn’t have been a daffodil, but they’re in the midst just of this dark ground.

Was one [00:14:00] single daffodil a reminder of God’s love. That is how he cares for us. That is how he recklessly loves us and what has spoken to me so beautifully, day after day.

Kelly: Beautiful. That just gave me chills. I love the personal expressions of God’s love, and I just wanna encourage our listeners too, if you need to hear from God, if you are walking through a dark time, just cry out to him and ask him to speak to the deepest need of your heart.

Just tell him, I need you. I need you. And the Bible encourages us throughout the Psalms that you can cry out and God will respond to your cries. He loves us so much. I’m so sorry for the loss of your dad. I’m so grateful for that beautiful expression of God’s. Love

Sarah: you know. It also has taught me, even in my own fear of maybe not being here for certain things I know if I love well, it’ll [00:15:00] stay behind. And that’s also another beautiful lesson that even though it was gutting, my daddy taught me in his loss.

Kelly: Very powerful. Thank you. Well, I know that you also found beauty in a shared struggle with your daughter.

It’s so hard to see your loved one suffer. Oh my goodness. Especially a child. I know that I’ve just said to the Lord, would you please not let that happen to them? Just put it on me. Just put it on me. I know you as a mama, you feel exactly the same way, but God just met y’all there in such a sweet way.

I wonder if you could just talk about I want you to protect her, but just talk about how God met y’all.

Sarah: Sure. And you’re so spot on. We as moms just there are heart walking outside of our body. Yeah. And every time they hurt. We hurt and so. I think one of the things, as I’ve watched my kids grow, you know, the longer they live the more challenges that they’re gonna face.

But I think, especially as I’ve [00:16:00] watched my daughter that I tell a story in the book about she and I, but also even my other babies about. There’s something sacred about that physical illness piece because I understand it and I know the struggle and I know how deeply it hurts, but I think it’s also been this beautiful piece of.

Understanding one another. Mm-hmm. And also understanding a father’s love because in walking my babies, walking her through those times in their lives, I know. A father reaches tenderly down because I know even in my own limited human capacity, how much I want to and how much I give in order to make sure they know they’re loved

and that I’m

here.

Kelly: Yes. Oh, that’s so good. I wanna read what you wrote in that [00:17:00] chapter or that one day of the Devo, “because in suffering we can tangibly feel him bend down hands to our faces. Forehead to forehead if only to whisper. I’m so sorry, love, but I’m right here and I will carry this with you.” love the fact one of the greatest promises in the Bible is that God is with us and we do and can experience his presence.

And that’s what your de is all about. We can experience his presence all the time and in those places of deep pain as well. But I love that picture of Jesus’ cupping your his, your face in his hands. It is just so sweet and I know that’s what he does for us as well.

Yeah. Well, I find so much comfort in Exodus 1414. That’s during the parting of the Red Sea, and Israelites are scared to death. I, I love looking in the Bible for places where people are scared to death because I can relate. That’s true. Me too. Me [00:18:00] too. So there’s this one place where they’re scared to death because they left the promised land that the Egyptian Army’s coming and God’s holding back the Egyptian army.

But the Red Sea is right in front of them. And God tells Moses, the Lord will fight for you. Tell the people the Lord will fight for you, and you only have to be silent or to be still. And so it’s this, it’s this invitation to just settle down in his presence and trust that God is fighting for you. I know that you, Sarah, held onto that truth with all your might while your husband was in the hospital during Covid.

Tell us about that.

Sarah: So I think that the interesting thing about that journey for people who were chronically ill, especially people who are immune suppressed,

beginning all this. , nobody had any idea what we were facing. It was like, please just don’t get this. Okay, I will do my best. So I think for us as a family, it was always the [00:19:00] expectation, we’ve gotta keep mom safe, we’ve gotta make sure she’s okay. Never in our wildest dreams did we anticipate that my husband would be the one who would get Covid and end up in the hospital.

We got to the point where we were doing end of life decisions. He actually said goodbye to the kids because the doctor said, we’re looking at ventilation.

Kelly: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: You know, during that time period there was, you couldn’t really advocate because you weren’t there. And it was just this very unsettled feeling of I’ll drop something off at the front desk for the person who has loved me through chronic illness for so many years and has been right there in the midst of it.

And it did feel a little bit like, what do I do? How, how do I. And that, that thought of just be still, I’ve got him. I’ve got [00:20:00] you. Literally the day after he spoke to the kids and we made all the end of life decisions. He had a turn. He was never placed on a ventilator. He walked, walked Kelly out of that hospital five days later.

Wow. It was. In every way miraculous.

Kelly: Mm.

Sarah: But we still have had to trust God with his health. He’s had lingering things that have happened afterwards. But I think, you know, as we, as we age, as we are given the gift of more time, we also are given the gift of more suffering.

Thank God, even on the days where I feel like caregiving is beyond my capacity, I thank God for the ability to understand what I have been given nearly our entire married life because there is such, there is [00:21:00] such sweetness there. To understand that love and to understand once again, that I trusted God with me.

Had sort of trusted God with my kids, still working on that, but I’d never really had to trust God with my husband. Mm. I always thought he’d be there. I always thought, you know, I was the, the person who needed caring for, he was the caregiver, and in many ways that has switched. Many ways, and I can’t speak to how many ways, but that was, that was a moment where I just thought, I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know how to do this because all the ways that he has loved me, well, I can’t do those things, so what do I do? And I had to trust that God had the raging sea in front of me, and he was behind me and beside me and before me, and he had it.

Kelly: Wow, so good. Sarah [00:22:00] mentioned earlier that it was appropriate, we were talking about love today because the day we’re recording, this is on Valentine’s Day and she’s wearing this beautiful red shirt and adorable earrings and so the story of love you just shared is really the love that we are called to walk in and to receive.

We love because he first loved us and the love that you’re talking about, your husband poured out on you and you poured out on him is out of the overflow of God’s love for us, and that’s such a beautiful example of what that can look like. I had no idea that he was still dealing with the aftermath of all of this, and I’m so grateful.

God protected you from getting covid while you were there. Well, Sarah, we read in Isaiah 40 31. But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength and then God, then God goes on to explain what that can look like.

He says they will soar on wings like eagles. They’ll run and not grow weary. They’ll walk and not [00:23:00] faint. Know that you have experienced the Lord’s strength in your weakness, and so I’m wondering if you can talk to us about how you accessed that strength and how you experienced it.

Sarah: Like most things, there have been many ways that God has worked out out in my life, but I think going back to my mama hood journey, you know when you have small children and your body doesn’t work right, it is.

I mean, it literally is a hot mess. There is. There is none of this trying to make it look beautiful and perfect. And I think that has been such an exercise of that piece, especially when they were little and Mo Mama Hood is physically intensive and you’re moving a million directions.

You’re trying to make sure nobody gets run over by a car or it. It’s so physical that we just sort [00:24:00] of boasted just in being who we are. About our weakness and as I’ve, as I’ve grown and they’ve grown, and I think as moms we, we kind of shift from this place where we start as storytellers and we tell the funny stories and we tell all the things that, you know, where they pooped in the middle of Target or because it’s funny and we can, and then there’s the shift.

Where we become story keepers and it’s their story to tell and we hold that space and we hold it sacredly. Mm-hmm. But I am learning even in that sacred, quiet there is. Such truth, and we were never meant to show the world this perfect person or social media worthy, where everything looks a certain way.

We were to bring our weakness and our messiness and offer it [00:25:00] daily for the cause of Jesus.

We can flip the script from, it has to look perfect, but instead it’s a sacred offering of messiness, just changes things and our definition of strength changes and we can boast more freely and assuredly knowing that that’s where our strength truly lies.

Kelly: Mm. Yes. And you’re alluding to what Paul said in two Corinthians 12, nine and 10, when he had asked the Lord to remove his weakness or the thorn in his flesh. And God said, my grace is sufficient for you. And then Paul has this shift like you’re talking about, where he said, oh, well then I will boast all the more gladly in all of my weaknesses in all of my failures, because that’s where I see your strength and your power being perfected through me. It, it opens the door for God’s power to work in our lives. So I know you’ve [00:26:00] experienced that in many, many, many ways. Mm-hmm. So today, or this month is actually the one year anniversary after Even When was released.

I’m wondering if you could just speak to the question of, does the message of even when hold true now, even a year later in your life?

Sarah: So I often laugh that I am never, ever in my whole entire life ever going to write a book on parenting because I know that, you know, we can do our best and it can all fall apart. So I, I have never been one in that camp and I’m, I feel very much this profound responsibility and I think.

All of us do when we put pen to paper, we wanna believe that what is true today will also be true tomorrow. And I will tell you again, I can’t tell you details, but I can tell you that this year, since even when [00:27:00] birth out into the world, has probably been the hardest of our lives together. And really Kelly, there have been moments where I’m like, even when I throw this down, the.

Is a, I think, indicator of just where we are in suffering right now, and I think that’s okay. That’s also something that God is big enough for when even the things that we know to be true and are part of his character, we get frustrated and angry in our own humanness. But there was a moment a couple weeks ago where.

I picked up the book for another reason. Somebody wanted me to send it to them, and I just had this, and it probably was the Holy Spirit prompting me. Okay. I want you to just take a second. Want you to sit down and I want you to read, and you know what, and this is probably where I will get emotional.

In that moment, I realized as [00:28:00] much as I wrote, even when, for anybody who needed to be reminded of God’s presence, I began writing because I needed to know that God was good in the midst of my suffering was just as much for me this year. In this time, in this hard stuff, for me to know that I could trust him, even in my wanting to throw it down the hall moments, because he has been good, because I have seen it over the landscape of almost 20 plus years, even when things got really, really, really hard and that.

Is something I’m so grateful for that I know that what’s in that little book is unchanging because it speaks to a good God, even in hard things.

Kelly: Oh, absolutely. Yes, it really does. It highlights God’s character over and over and over, and it helps us remember [00:29:00] and rehearse all the ways that God has been faithful to us.

And when we rehearse a story, we actually get to sit in again. Sit in it again, just like you did with that touching story of when you were so broken hearted, but, and so frustrated. But then you read some of the words that you wrote and you realized. Still true. Still true. And I’m so grateful that God worked that out in you and worked it in.

He worked it in deeply first.

Sarah: He knew I would need it. Yes.

Kelly: Well, I do wanna say that I think that parenting does just kind of beat the idea of writing a parenting book right out of all of us. I always joke that my oldest daughter, you know, two years into that, and I was like, I’ll never, never write a parenting book, but I’ll come alongside young moms and be empathetic.

Sarah: Oh yes. Oh yes. It’s not for the faint of heart. It’s not. No. And that’s why we [00:30:00] have each other, right?

Absolutely. Oh my goodness. I’m so thankful.

Kelly: Well, I love the truth that when you and this is what I was alluding to a minute ago, that when you rehearse the story and you actually sit in it again.

It’s as if your brain is reliving it. And so you’re just building new pathways in your brain of the truth of how deeply, how very, very deeply you’re loved. And so it’s really important and hopeful for all of us just to rehearse the ways that we’ve experienced God’s faithfulness, the way we see his faithfulness in the Bible and the way we see is faithfulness in other people’s stories.

It’s so beautiful. So I’m wondering what encouragement you wanna just offer to listeners. We’re at the end of our time, so some of our listeners walk through hard stories, like as we all do. So I’m wondering what kind of encouragement you would like to just hand to them today.

Sarah: I always go back to the moments where I am by myself in the middle of the hard thing, and that lie that I think [00:31:00] we all too often hold onto that we’re alone in this struggle. Mm-hmm. I think that’s the biggest thing I would say to who is ever listening to this. You are not alone. Mm-hmm. And God loves you so recklessly and so beautifully that he designed. Other people so they could sit beside you and love you through this and say, I know this is hard, but God is faithful, God is good, and in this moment I’m not gonna tell you how it’s gonna work out.

Kelly: I’m not gonna give you Christianese platitudes. I’m simply gonna sit here with you in the brokenness and be here so you know you’re not alone.

Oh, absolutely. He’s always with us. One of the most beautiful things about enjoying life with God who is always with us, is that he also speaks to us, and the Bible tells us in John 10 that we can know his voice. I’m so deeply [00:32:00] grateful that God knows how to speak to us in a way we can hear him and he knows how to speak to the deepest needs of our heart.

Kelly: Sarah, I wanted you to close us with one of your prayers at the end of the one of your Devo days. So this is from Devo 31. I love that each title is actually a declaration about who God is. Even when we have so very little to offer, he still chooses us and I’m wondering if you could close us with the prayer at the end of that day.

Sarah: Absolutely. Father, may we find you under every hurt we carry.

May we seek your face when the pain feels too heavy to bear alone. And may we remember the choice Jesus made so we could have the hope of forever with you. Amen.

Kelly: Amen. Sarah, thank you so much for joining us today.

Sarah: Aw. Thank you for having me. It’s been a delight.

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 [00:33:00] hear from you. You can reach out through my website, kelly hall.org and pick up some free resources while you’re there. Thanks for listening to the Unshakeable Hope podcast.