Podcast

How do we Cling to God and Not Give Up? Linda Dillow Lorraine Pintus
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Unshakable Hope 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. I am so thankful you’re joining me today. If you are sitting in a place of overwhelm, struggling to hold on to hope and wondering how, and maybe if you’re gonna get through this place. I truly believe this conversation today will speak life and hope into your hopeless places. There are two women I admire so much that have mentored my heart in deep ways that are here with [00:01:00] me today.
Kelly: Their book, Hope for My Hurting Heart. The subtitle is Eight Heart Skills to Help You cling To God and Not Give Up. You guys, this book is deeply transformative. It includes so many stories and practical biblical examples. You’ll discover what it looks like to hold onto the one true hope in a real world where our hearts break and our dreams can shatter.
Kelly: I’m so honored to introduce my guest today. Linda Dillow is a bestselling author, respected bible teacher conference speaker. Her books include intimate issues. What’s it like to be married to me and Calm my anxious heart? I have read and studied that multiple times.
Kelly: She’s a mother to four, a grandmother to 10. She and her husband live in Colorado. On a personal note, she graciously, many years ago, endorsed my Bible study, courageous faith, and offered me much needed encouragement during a very stressful part of the process. [00:02:00] Lorraine Peintus Is an author and writing coach.
Kelly: In addition to writing many of her own books, she has co-authored three books with Linda and spoken with her at over 80 intimate issues week in conferences around the world. I have spoken to many people who have been deeply impacted by this book, this study, and their message. Lorraine and her husband live near Linda.
Kelly: And the two of them have shared a very special sister friendship for over 30 years. Lorraine was my writing coach for quite a while, and she and I have become dear friends and god has used her in tremendous ways to help me hear some of the deeper transformative truths that God really wanted to speak to my heart. I’m so thankful and so honored that both of you are taking the time to join me today and have this conversation.
Kelly: Woo-hoo. Welcome.
Linda: We’re so happy to be here.
Lorraine: We are, Kelly. It’ll be [00:03:00] fun.
Kelly: It will be. Now, I know that you guys, as I mentioned, you’ve been in ministry for so many years together. You’ve done so much traveling. But this was not really on your radar, this new book. So, Linda, why don’t you talk about that with us for a minute and then I’ll let Lorraine speak to that as well.
Linda: Kelly, I certainly did not wanna write this book, and I told God that, and I gave him probably as many excuses as Moses gave. I told him I was too old. I said, God, did you forget I have a traumatic brain injury? Did you forget that God? And I just said God. I can’t do this. It’s too personal. It’s too private.
Linda: I’m still hurting too much. And Lorraine and I are in a small group Bible study and there are three therapists in there, and they were kicking me, and Lorraine was kicking me and God was kicking me and they were all saying, Linda, you need to do this. And [00:04:00] then God brought Lorraine beside me and. Said, I’ll help you.
Linda: I mean, how can I say no? when my best friend says I’ll help. And basically the way a lot of the book was written, Kelly, is we sat at my dining room table and I cried and Lorraine pulled it outta me. God wanted it written.
Kelly: Yeah.
Linda: I’m so glad that I said yes to God and I’ve apologized to him for all of my excuses because, even today, I.
Linda: Some new things have come up that have been painful in our family. And as I was going through the book myself, God used it to minister to me. And I thought, wow, if I am a writer of the book. It’s my story and yet God uses it to minister to me. Hopefully he will use it to minister to
Kelly: others.
Kelly: Amen. I’m so glad that [00:05:00] your friends and Lorraine did not let you sit in your NO and I know you wouldn’t have stayed there very long. You have a sensitive heart to the Lord, and I can’t think of anyone better to come alongside you than Lorraine. What do you remember about that time?
Lorraine: Well, I, I think about that verse faithful is he who calls you, and he will also do it.
Lorraine: You know, if God has put a big thing on your heart, he will often bring the people alongside that. He needs to help you. You don’t have to do everything by yourself. He brings helpers and of course, Linda and I know each other so well. So, I knew she had a lot more to say about her life. There were a lot that people didn’t know about her, and I watch her live this.
Lorraine: You know, Kelly, I’ve watched you live this. I, I am, I’m a witness today of both you and Linda as women who have really lived out what they believe and lived out the biblical principles that [00:06:00] you both espouse. You, you don’t tell other people to do it and then not do it. You, you have both really. We, I’ve been on the floor crying with both of you.
Linda: Kelly, I guess we need to get , on the floor and cry together. Yeah.
Lorraine: You know, it’s out of this deep place of groaning and moaning that God brings deep ministry, and I’ve seen that in both your lives.
Kelly: Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that’s so true. And you know, and that’s what I think about this book. When you describe the depth, what I thought when I read it was, it’s not a how to book, even though it does give practical examples as much as a me too book, like it’s handing us biblical truths out of deep heartache, out of true stories.
Kelly: Y’all bring in so many examples of different women and, and how very, very, very practically in the deepest sorrows and stresses of their lives, they can cling to God and walk through sorrow without [00:07:00] giving up on him. They have proven that the word of God is true.
Kelly: They have proven that he can be their strength in these places. So I would love to hear from both of you. I’d love to hear personal stories and what heart skills the Lord has helped empower you through. Linda, would you like to start
Linda: i’ll start with the beginning of the book because I was sinking. I was sinking when both of my daughters. Had been diagnosed with cancer and we were in the middle of COVID. And I was sliding down a slide and it wasn’t going to a good place because it was scouting, starting with doubt and despair, and it was headed right down to the pit of depression.
Linda: And I. Walked around the house and said, God, I can’t go here. And I was worshiping and I was praying, but I [00:08:00] just still was not in a good place. And I said, God, what do you want me to do? God spoke to me and said, you need to put a stake in the ground. And what I did. As God spoke to me was I wrote a Declaration of Hope because I knew if I didn’t put this stake in the ground and have a declaration of hope that I was gonna continue down that slide because every day there was news that was not good about my daughters and my mama’s heart was breaking.
Linda: So I got a yellow pad and I wrote out my Declaration of Hope and there were three things on it. And the first thing was, God, don’t waste my pain. If I have to go through this, then I ask that you be glorified through it. Just don’t waste it. Be [00:09:00] glorified. And the second thing was, father, would you use this?
Linda: To build in me perseverance and character and hope like you promised in Romans five. Yeah, all those things in my life. And the third thing I wrote was Father comfort me. God of all comfort, comfort me so that I will know your comfort and I’ll be able to comfort others as he promises in Second Corinthians one.
Linda: I put that stake in the ground and I said, okay, this is my Declaration of Hope. And that kept me from going down that slide. I clung to that. And so the first, the first heart skill in the book with the first chapter on Hope is that we encourage the women to write their own declaration of Hope, and it won’t be like mine because they’re an [00:10:00] individual.
Linda: Their situation is different and God will lead them. How to write their own declaration of hope that will give them the encouragement and keep them from going down that slide, just like my Declaration of Hope did me.
Kelly: Yes. That’s so beautiful. And you give many other examples from women about their own declarations of hope because it’s kind of hard to figure out, well, what is the thing that anchors me to God’s heart?
Kelly: And I think that’s a question we can ask when we’re writing that declaration. What is the truth about God that’s most important to me? Or what is the truth about walking through suffering that I most need to know? And you know, the one thing that comforted my husband’s. And my heart over the past 39 years, 38 years.
Kelly: Is that one that you started with? God, you don’t waste our pain. Yeah, because even though he doesn’t tell us why, he always speaks to the purpose. You’re gonna see my [00:11:00] glory. You’re gonna see my goodness. And that’s a promise. That’s beautiful, Kelly. Thank you.
Lorraine: Declaration of Hope is Proverbs three, five and six.
Lorraine: Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Don’t lean on your understanding and in all your ways acknowledge him. So I think I have gone through my house sometimes in times of deep grief where I’m preaching to myself, and I will walk around and say it out loud, because often we just get under the pile and we’re so discouraged.
Lorraine: I just say, Lorraine, trust in the Lord with not part of your heart, all your heart. Stop leaning on your own understanding. Trust him, acknowledge him in every way. So as I declare that, because that’s part of the beauty of this heart skill, you speak it out loud and when you speak it, it causes your spirit to almost rise up and believe it.
Kelly: It really does. It is so powerful. Lorraine, I just wanna add, she’s quite the preacher, [00:12:00] isn’t she? Linda? She’s for sure. I love being there when she is declaring the word of God over the darkness, because God’s word speaks! Well I love your example of walking through the house and declaring what’s true.
Kelly: And I have done that so many times and I do agree with you that there is something that happens in your brain. I mean, neuroscience is now validating that, but when you’re using your voice and you’re hearing it with your ears and you’re declaring it with power, then you begin to believe.
Kelly: It’s really true for me. For you right now, today. You know, one of the things you shared in your book that was so fascinating to me was the history of lament. We know how important it is to lament. We see it in scripture. We know it frees us from being trapped in places of being disappointed [00:13:00] and full of fear. But the history you shared was fascinating.
Linda: You know, I was fascinated too, Kelly just. Some of the history about the Protestant Reformation – of course the reformers did so much good. Yeah. But in doing so much good, maybe they got a couple things wrong.
Linda: And one of the things they didn’t get exactly right was that they just taught people to be stoic and to hide their emotions. If we look at the Christian Church today, what do we do? I’m going to say if someone dies, but I think it’s with all pain. If someone gets divorced, if you lose your job, but if a child dies or if your husband dies, we have a memorial service and then we go back to work. And if we say to a Christian woman, well, how are you doing? She feels like she needs [00:14:00] to say, well, I’m doing okay, or I’m doing fine, and. There is nothing built into our faith that shows us how to lament.
Linda: If a child dies in a Jewish faith, the close family has a prescribed way to grieve for a year. Wow. Built into their faith for every Memorial Day, a birthday. There’s a week of grieving.
Kelly: Yeah.
Linda: The first week, and then there’s a celebration after a year.
Linda: It’s like we have forgotten. In the Christian faith that grieving is important and teaching people to grieve properly and to acknowledge that it’s important and that lament really is worship in a minor key. We, Americans, we wanna worship, but we wanna worship joyfully. But David, Jeremiah, they did a lot of [00:15:00] worshiping.
Linda: , And what I tried to do in the book was to show them how they can write their own lament to God and express what they’re really feeling from their heart. That we can be honest with God. We don’t have to hide our feelings. We don’t have to hide anything. I wrote a little lament to God,
Linda: God, I hurt all over… why did my two daughters get cancer and I didn’t. I would rather have cancer. We need to be honest with God. We need to get all of the emotion out. There are some laments written by moms whose children were walking in the wrong direction in the book, they are just so heartfelt, but many moms will be able to identify with them, one of the moms said, God, do you have cotton in your ears? I’m yelling at [00:16:00] you. Can you not hear me?.
Lorraine: That’s one of the things that I really like about this book is the practical, the very practical things we can do. Like when Kelly, you know a lot about loss and grief. You’ve been through it yourself and you know when that, that wave. Of grief hits you and all of a sudden you find yourself flat on the beach knocked over by a wave of grief with, with sand in your mouth and you, you feel like you can’t even get up because you have so much sorrow and so many things roiling around in here.
Lorraine: And that’s part of what we were doing in the book, is to give these very practical heart skills, practical ways to help you release these very, the deep angst that we feel.
Kelly: Mm. Yes. I just couldn’t believe that there was a time when Lament was accepted in the culture and then it became unacceptable where it was deemed unspiritual or unfaithful to express your fears, your doubts, [00:17:00] your sorrow to the Lord.
Kelly: I had no idea about that. And. That really affected the church that I grew up in. I mean, I could read in David’s Psalms laments, but I wasn’t around anybody who told the truth about the struggles that they were experiencing. So the lament portion is so helpful. And Linda, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind just speaking a little bit more about the cancer journey and walking through that with your girls.
Kelly: Do you mind,
Linda: it was just very painful, Kelly, because we lived in Colorado and one of our daughters was in California with pancreatic and liver cancer, and our other daughter was in New Jersey. And if you remember, travel was not real easy during COVID, we were told. With our, with our daughter in New Jersey we were all ready to [00:18:00] fly to be with her when she was going to go through chemo and the bags were packed and, and at nine o’clock at night, right before we were to leave at four in the morning, the next morning, her.
Linda: Husband called and said, I just hate to tell you this, but the doctor has said, even if you get on the plane and fly to New Jersey, you will not be allowed in the house because a quarantine has been put on the house. And your daughter, Robin is in quarantine. And I said, were her parents, her three children are.
Linda: Being schooled at home because the school is closed and we wanna help. He said, I know and we need you to help. But the doctor said, you will not be allowed to come in the house. No one is allowed to [00:19:00] come in the house. And so Kelly, I did what any self-respecting mother would do. I went and sat by the suitcases and cried.
Linda: I wept until there were no more tears. Hmm. My daughter needed me and. There was no way that we could get to her.
Kelly: Yeah. I can’t even imagine. Can’t. And
Linda: so, and you know, a couple weeks later she had a horrible reaction to chemo and was taken by ambulance to Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York and that begin a horrible.
Linda: Series of events where her blood levels tanked. There’s, it is just, was a nightmare from that time on. Yeah. And and yet there could be no one in the hospital with her. I mean, COVID was a hard time, it was lonely time. You were always alone. And, but she was, [00:20:00] she got better and she was able to fly out to meet me in Arizona where her sister was having treatment, and we were there with her together. And then she was able to take care of her sister the last six weeks of her life because her sister went to be with the Lord. And, there’s been a lot of pain in our family.
Linda: It’s not easy to sit around the bed and watch your daughter die. It’s the wrong order of life. Yeah. It’s just the wrong order of life. And I think that probably the one thing I’ve learned through the cancer journey with my daughters is, it goes back to a commitment I made probably 30, 35 years ago when one day I said to God, God, I’m through asking why you’re God and I’m not.[00:21:00]
Linda: And, I know I can understand you and that I’m just supposed to trust you. And there were so many questions. Both my daughters ate only organic food. They were so, in fact, my daughter, who now is in heaven, her body was so pure that at the hospital they said, we have never seen a body this pure. Wow.
Linda: So why did she get liver and pancreatic cancer?
Linda: I have no answers. And it doesn’t make sense.
Kelly: No.
Linda: And so I have to leave that with God and is, it’s.
Linda: There’s something God wants us to do besides ask why. Of course Jesus ask. Why Habakkuk ask, why? We can ask our wives, [00:22:00] but we, we need to move to a place of changing it to how, how God. Can this glorify you? How God do you wanna use this in my life? And how God are you going to use this to teach me more about you?
Linda: And what do you have for me to learn about you? And how are you gonna turn this around so other people are going to learn about you and be comforted?
Kelly: Yeah.
Linda: But. Kelly, I think that often Christians think well then there won’t be pain if we trust. Well, you and I know that there’s still a lot of pain.
Linda: I mean mm-hmm. Pain hurts and it hurts when the children that you love so much are in pain. It hurts to watch your daughter die. And, so I learned a lot about clinging to God and I [00:23:00] learned a lot about walking with him and clinging to him and trusting him.
Kelly: That is so beautiful.
Kelly: Thank you for taking the time to speak specifically to some of your prayers, to some of the questions, because I know there’s so many listeners who have those same questions, like, this doesn’t make sense. Why are you allowing this? It’s so heartbreaking it’s so difficult to sort through the truth that God is able.
Kelly: He loves me and why isn’t he rescuing me in a way that makes sense to me, and I think that’s why my podcast is framed around that question. How do we trust your heart, God, when your ways and delays are breaking ours. And Lorraine, I know that you have dealt with some difficult questions as well in your life.
Kelly: Would you mind speaking to those and focusing on those who have some really hard questions about maybe a death that totally didn’t make sense, or the timing of something [00:24:00] that they knew God could have intervened in? That’s very painful.
Lorraine: Yeah, well my, my father was killed in a plane crash when I was seven years old, and I think I always wanted a father.
Lorraine: I longed for a father and I praised God that somehow through my teenage years, even though I wasn’t raised in a Christian home. Somehow I had this calling from God, this desire to know him because he was called Father. I began to know him as father, and that was a very healing thing. And.
Lorraine: Memorizing scripture has been very helpful because one of my favorite scriptures is that God doesn’t think like we do. In Isaiah 55, he says, you know, his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. His ways are higher than our ways. I cannot begin to comprehend the magnificent plans he has, the way he is weaving things together.
Lorraine: I can get caught up in the moment and [00:25:00] challenge those moments, but I have. Learn to trust that my heavenly father has my best interest at heart, that he is weaving things for good. His ways are just so much higher than mine, and how often I can look back on my life and, and go, wow, God. How did you do that?
Lorraine: How did you, how did you make all of this work together actually for good when it seemed so tragic at the time,
Kelly: Wow. beautiful, I so needed to rehearse those truths you just shared. It just boggles my mind how God so compassionately steps into our brokenness and brings healing and goodness, and I love how he so powerfully drew you to himself as father after the profound loss of losing your dad at a young age.
Lorraine: Yeah.
Kelly: So you guys, I want us to talk about how we endure in our stories that are hard and long. So we’re gonna look at James one and then Linda, I’m gonna have you share this [00:26:00] amazing story from the book that blew me away. But first of all, let me read James one.
Kelly: Consider it pure joy. My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know the testing of your faith produces perseverance. So, Linda, why don’t you talk to us about that?
Linda: Lorraine and I had fun with James. One because, if you just read the beginning, it doesn’t make any sense because he says Count it all joy.
Linda: When you have many trials and, alright, who wants to count it? Joy, and. Some of the other translations even say things like, consider it a gift
Linda: When you encounter lots of trials and it’s very strong in the Greek language. It’s almost like you’re jumping up and down. It’s that kind of, you know, , it’s really count it a joyful thing that, that, your two daughters have cancer. [00:27:00] No, no, . No, I’m not going to do that. This is just not a good thing. But he goes on to say in the next verses why we can count it. Count it, joy when we encounter, hard situations and even as I’m saying this, I’m thinking of my friends because I have many friends in Ukraine, many precious women who for years
Linda: are involved in this horrible war and whose husbands are fighting and whose children are afraid at night with bombs. And it goes on and on and on. Well, , how can anything like this be good? How does a war that just goes on and affects everything? And one of my friends there said to me. That the teenagers, what, what they wanted to know in youth group was how do you learn to live without a father?
Kelly: Mm.
Linda: Because they expected that they would all [00:28:00] be without fathers. Wow. So there’s just so much pain all over the world. So how can James one even apply? And he goes on in the rest of James to explain, and he says. That when you encounter these trials and when you persevere and Lorraine, what do we call that word?
Linda: Persevere.
Lorraine: I can’t remember.
Linda: We called it our love hate word. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It was our love hate word because our spirit loves it because we know it’s good for us, but. Our flesh doesn’t like it because who wants to persevere through trials? Who wants to keep putting one foot in front of the other and trusting God?
Linda: During really hard times. So Lorraine said, Linda, that’s our love hate word. [00:29:00] It brings. To something really good because he said, if you will persevere, if you will endure through this trial and not give up, that you are going to come out whole and complete.
Linda: You’re gonna come out mature, lacking nothing. You’re gonna, in other words, you’re gonna be, come out much more like Jesus Christ.
Kelly: Yes.
Linda: And that’s why it’s our love, hate word that none of us want to walk through. A hard trial, losing a father at age seven or having. Children with hardships like you have deep hardships or with cancer or a husband with pornography or.
Linda: Many of the women listening, I’m sure Kelly are going through very difficult things and they don’t know how to handle them, and, and the [00:30:00] thought of putting one foot in front of the other and keeping their eyes up, looking at God and trusting him. Sounds very hard and, and enduring and persevering, and yet God says, if you will, persevere.
Linda: If you will endure. It is so worth it because at the end. You will be complete and lacking nothing. Amen. You’re gonna be so mature that you’re not even gonna recognize yourself. That’s right. So, that’s what we. Have our eyes on and we love that thought and we can say, God, then I will really even rejoice in my trials because I realize that there’s something good that can come out of it.
Kelly: Yes, yes. In some ways, when you read it, especially if you’re in the deep heartache that you’ve described so much [00:31:00] of. These words can seem to mock you because I think part of it we have to remember is that even when he’s saying, consider it pure joy, he is also saying,
Kelly: this pain will not be wasted. He sees every piece of it, and so often the first thing he invites us to do is to grieve and to process through the deep, deep sorrow that has imprisoned our heart. We have to walk through that and I can remember times where I was absolutely paralyzed by sorrow.
Kelly: I’m so grateful that he is a God who knows how to speak to us who gets into our messes and heals those deep, deep broken places,. Amen. Then help us set our eyes on him.
Kelly: But the word you spoke endurance. That is a word that for me describes all of my heroes of faith. It describes you two. It describes all my favorite people.
Kelly: My circumstances are not gonna have the louder voice. God’s gonna have the loudest voice because I know who he [00:32:00] is. I know he’s the victor. I know his word is true.
Lorraine: And you know, Kelly, sometimes it’s hard to have all that rallying in ourselves. To a friend, a a mature friend, a trusted friend. I mean, how many times, I don’t know Linda, how many times we would call one another, and if the other one was down it, sometimes it took the faith or the.
Lorraine: Courage or the energy that that other person had to help lift us up, because sometimes we’re just at the lowest of low places. We need one another. We need to reach out to our mature friends who will love us and pray for us.
Kelly: That’s such a powerful point. Yes.
Kelly: So helpful to have a truth teller in our lives. There’s another story you guys , so it is the story of Doug and Crystal.
Kelly: They were missionaries in Alaska. Yeah. I want you to share the story, but then I wanna read the words that they spoke as they looked back over all they went through.
Linda: they’re dear friends of mine and [00:33:00] they.
Linda: Are amazing people because they’ve done just what we’ve been talking about. They’ve endured and in a very, very hard situation. They were missionaries in , I call it a cowboy camp. I mean, they had horses up in Alaska and they had four boys . I mean, what a fun place for these boys to grow up.
Linda: They were in this little small school , and , it was a discipleship camp, and he was told. That he had some kind of a problem in his brain and that it had been there since birth, but it was not going to be a problem and they could fix it with an operation.
Linda: Wouldn’t be a big deal. So he had the operation, and guess what? It wasn’t quite as easy as they thought. And after the operation, he couldn’t talk, he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t eat, basically. He couldn’t [00:34:00] move, he couldn’t do anything, but his brain was fine. He could think.
Linda: And so he was trapped in this body that couldn’t move, and the only thing he could move was the index finger of his right hand. Wow. And they spent a couple years going from place to place trying to figure out if there was anybody to help, and finally realized there wasn’t. And they built a home in Kansas and.
Linda: Crystal became his 24 7 nurse, the life they had was gone. Their boys who had known nothing but the wild outdoors in Alaska had a totally different life. So their whole world was cracked apart . Crystal became a nurse. She feeds him through his stomach every two hours.
Linda: There’s some kind of setup that she gets him into a wheelchair. Kelly, I cannot tell you how I respect this woman. I met her at [00:35:00] a I was speaking to missionary women. And someone arranged for him to be taken care of so she could get away and she was there. And what a woman. I spent time with her and that began a relationship.
Linda: But she has created a life for this man. How many women do you think would’ve walked away?
Linda: Or just barely put up with it. But he’s read through the, he’s listened to the bible 22 times. She wheels him to a certain area every morning where he listens to the Bible and then she wheels his wheelchair to another area where he prays for people for an hour and a half in the morning.
Linda: And with one finger. He writes books. He’s written eight little books punching one key on the computer.
Kelly: Wow. Stunning.
Linda: I called her within the last year, and she was so excited. She said, Linda, you won’t believe what God’s done.
Linda: Doug and I [00:36:00] are speaking at women’s retreats now, and I just said. How do you speak at women’s retreats? Doug can’t speak. He can’t speak at all, and she said, well, I speak, and then when it’s time for Doug to speak, I put on a cowboy hat so they know it’s him speaking and he’s in the back of the room in the wheelchair with a cowboy hat on.
Kelly: That is amazing. Well, I wanna read just a little bit of what both of them wrote. You asked them, you know, what would you say to people who want to know how you got through or what you’ve learned? And Crystal says, during those years where we lived as missionaries in Alaska, I felt like we were in the game.
Kelly: The God has been helping us see that. In Alaska, we were only on the sidelines. Preparing for the game. Now we’re in the game. And then Doug writes, as my physical world has grown smaller, God has gotten bigger, we try to fit God into our lives rather than make our lives fit into God. [00:37:00] It’s not about us, it’s about God.
Kelly: That is truly inspiring, amazing. And contains a theology of suffering that I have not grasped.
Linda: Yeah, me too. I’ve learned so much from them.
Kelly: I am so amazed by their story. I just wanna see if we can take it a little bit deeper. how can we take what they lived out and apply it to our own lives in our hard stories?
Kelly: Lorraine, do you wanna talk about that?
Lorraine: why don’t you tell her about the hiding place? Oh, okay. This was David.
Lorraine: David was faced with a very hard, challenging situation. He. He came back, he and his army of like 600 men came back and the, their wives were gone, their homes were burned down. Everything was gone. And David is there, and the men were in such deep sorrow and deep mourning and wailing that they were ready to stone [00:38:00] David.
Lorraine: I mean, they were picking up the stones and, and David was fearing for his life. But then there’s a, there’s a pause there and it says. That David stopped and he encouraged himself in the Lord. And this is one of the things Linda and I talked about. How do we teach women? How do you encourage yourself in the Lord?
Lorraine: And what does that look like? Well, what happened to David in that moment? When all his men were around him, ready to stone him and kill him? He did a couple things. He went to what we call his hiding place. He had a place inside himself, a place where he could very quickly go to commune with God and re receive strength and wisdom.
Lorraine: But if you also read about David, you will see that he had a physical hiding place. He had a, he had. Clefts in the rock. He went to different places in nature he went to. So how do we encourage ourselves in the Lord? We have to have a hiding [00:39:00] place, and we have to know how to get to that hiding place very quickly because there are times where just like David’s faced with this horrible trial where he’s about to lose his life, I mean, everything looks so terrible.
Lorraine: He encouraged and strengthened himself in the Lord, and then he spoke some words and because of what he spoke, his men, instead of stoning him and killing him, turned around and followed him, and they went and they rescued all of the, their wives, the all the possessions. In fact, they lost nothing. This is one of the things that we wanted to talk to women about.
Lorraine: How do you encourage yourself in the Lord when you are really down, when you just can’t see anything good? When your heart is breaking, how can you get the encouragement and strength you need to learn how to go to that hiding place. And it’s two places. It’s a physical destination. A physical place you go where you’re alone with God and you just sit with him and you soak up the [00:40:00] presence of the Lord and you let his love fill you.
Lorraine: But it’s also a spiritual destination. It’s a place where you go where there’s complete union between you and God because this is what refreshes you and encourages you, and strengthens you. It’s the presence of the Lord. It’s His Holy Spirit in you. So that was one of the heart skills in the chapter on encouragement, finding your heart hiding place and understanding that your hiding place is both a physical location and a spiritual destination.
Kelly: Mm. That is so powerful. Thanks for describing that for us.
Kelly: If you guys have anything, any thoughts that you wanna le lead people with, Linda, I’ll start with you.
Linda: God is your father and he loves you. If you are in pain right now or suffering, he wants to wrap the warm blanket of his presence around [00:41:00] you and comfort you. He’s the God of all comfort and the God of all mercy, and he wants to comfort you in your trial and so clinging to him. And trust him. He is your Abba. He is your father, and he loves you more than you can ever imagine.
Kelly: Linda, thank you so much. And what about you, Lorraine? What would you like to leave us with?
Lorraine: I think that second chapter on love, you know, we talk in there about not just loving others. That is an important thing, but how we first have to receive the love of God and we need to literally open up our hearts and our minds and allow God to pour that love into us. It’s not just thinking and knowing intellectually about the love it’s experiencing it.
Lorraine: And in that chapter, we, each one of the women talk about how they personally experience the love of [00:42:00] God. And it’s very different for each one of us. And you’ve gotta find that way. How do you open up and truly receive the love of God to strengthen and encourage you so that you can then pour it back out and love others.
Kelly: I’m so glad you brought that up. That was one of my favorite chapters in the whole book, and we didn’t really spend too much time on that. But the Christian life is a receiving life. The key is to be able to receive God’s love when we passed from this life to the next. We want people to say about us. She was someone who loved God, but more than that, she allowed God to love her.
Kelly: Yeah.
Kelly: The book is Hope for My Hurting Heart. Eight Heart Skills to Help You Cling To God and Not Give Up.
Kelly: Well, thank you, Linda. Thank you, Lorraine. This has been a delight and a blessing.
Lorraine: It’s great to be with you, Kelly. Really.
Linda: Thank you, Kelly.
If you were encouraged in your faith today, it’d be great if [00:43:00] 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, kelly hall.org and pick up some free resources while you’re there. Thanks for listening to the Unshakeable Hope podcast.