Ep. 192 Kathy Izard - Learning to Trust the Whisper

You know what it’s like. There is a stirring inside. A whisper that tells you which direction to head in. I’ve heard it. I’ve followed it and amazing things have happened. Someone else that has trusted the whisper is Kathy Izard. In this conversation, we focus on listening to and trusting God's whispers to follow one's life path and calling. Kathy shares her personal journey of hearing God's call to address homelessness in her community through founding a housing program. She discusses how communities can come together through a "housing first" approach to help the homeless population. Kathy emphasizes surrendering to God's plan and trusting that he will work through you, despite feelings of being unqualified or unexpected difficulties. So listen for your own whispers from God and have faith to follow where it leads. Join us as we learn to trust the whisper.

Kathy Izard is an award-winning author, a national speaker and retreat leader, and an advocate for housing and mental health services in Charlotte, North Carolina. She co-led the citywide effort to build Moore Place, Charlotte's first permanent, supportive housing for people experiencing chronic homelessness, and was instrumental in establishing HopeWay, Charlotte's first residential mental health treatment center. She wrote about her efforts in her memoir The Hundred Story Home, which received a 2017 Christopher Award for inspirational nonfiction.

Kathy's Book:
Trust the Whisper

Kathy's Recommendation:
The Amen Effect

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Transcript

Kathy Izard: 0:00

Everyone felt that it was uncomfortable, unexpected, inconvenient. It was not what they were planning to do with their lives and they felt completely unqualified to do what it was asking. Yet at the same time, that whisper was so insistent that people had to find a listen. And I think that was a common theme from Caroline Bundy in Birmingham, Alabama, who knew nothing about building a shelter for teens, to Molly painter in Raleigh, North Carolina, who had a whisper to do something like more place and ended up raising $27 million to build kings Ridge, which opens this fall for over 100 individuals and families to Caroline Hart in Avery County, North Carolina, who had a whisper to adopt for children. And she did. So all of those people. We're not planning for that to be their life plan, but it became their life path. And I think we're more open to these other ideas if we're willing to listen, listen, I think the life path in front of us that God has for us is just bigger and more than we can ever imagine.

Joshua Johnson: 1:24

Hello, and welcome to the shifting culture podcasts in which we have conversations about the culture we create, and the impact we can make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host, Joshua Johnson. Did you know our show is powered by you the listener, if you want to support the work that we do get early access to episodes, Episode guides and more go to patreon.com/shifting culture to become a monthly patron so that we can continue in this important work. And don't forget to hit the Follow button on your favorite podcast app to be notified when new episodes come out each week, and go leave a rating and review. It's easy. It only takes a second and it helps us find new listeners to the show. Just go to the Show page on the app that you're using right now and hit five stars. It really is that easy. Thank you so much. You know what else would help us out? share this podcast with your friends, your family, your network, tell them how much you enjoy it and let them know that they should be listening as well. If you're new here, welcome. If you want to dig deeper find us on social media at shifting culture podcast where I post video clips and quotes and interact with all of you. Previous guests on the show have included why she had tam Mandy Smith and Jamie Winship. You could go back listen to those episodes and more. But today's guest is Kathy Izzard. Kathy Izzard is an award winning author and national speaker and retreat leader and an advocate for housing and mental health services in Charlotte, North Carolina. She co led the citywide efforts to build more place Charlotte's first permanent supportive housing for people experiencing chronic homelessness and was instrumental in establishing hope way, Charlotte's first residential mental health treatment center. She wrote about her efforts in her memoir The 100 storey home, which received a 2017 Christopher award for inspirational nonfiction. Her latest book is trust the Whisper you know what it's like? There's a stirring inside a whisper that tells you which direction to go in. I've heard it. I followed it and amazing things have happened. Someone else that has trusted the Whisper is Kathy Izzard. In this conversation we focus on listening to and trusting God's whispers to follow one's path and calling Kathy shares her personal journey of hearing God's call to address homelessness in her community through founding a housing program. She discusses how communities can come together through a housing first approach to help the homeless population. Kathy emphasizes surrender surrendering to God's plan and trusting that he will work through you despite feelings of being unqualified or unexpected difficulties. So listen for your own whispers from God and have faith to follow where it leads. Join us as we learn to trust the Whisper. Here's my conversation with Kathy Izzard. Kathy, welcome to shifting culture really excited to have you on. Thanks for joining me.

Kathy Izard: 4:17

Thanks, Josh. I'm

Joshua Johnson: 4:18

so excited to be here. And I'm excited to get into the Whisperer to figure out what is God saying to you? Where is he leading? And how do we follow those promptings to see something transform in our lives and to see something incredible? How did you trust the Whisper? What was your story of actually then following the promptings of God? To start something?

Kathy Izard: 4:42

I would say that the Whisper started probably long before I ever wanted to listen and I was ignoring it for a very long time. But the first time that whisper became something I could not ignore, happened in the place that had kind of become my church. I was you know, we took our girls, I have four daughters, we would take them to church. But really what the place for me that was the most soulful each week was the soup kitchen. And once a month, we would volunteer the soup kitchen, I would take my girls and try and teach them about this idea of service and giving back. And because I was a volunteer at the soup kitchen, I had this amazing experience with an author actually, Denver Moore, maybe some of you have read same kind of different as me. And he was someone who was 30 years homeless. And we brought him to town because he'd written this really impactful books and kind of different as me and we were doing a fundraiser for our soup kitchen. And I was lucky enough to tour him in the soup kitchen. And he asked me for questions that day that changed my life forever. That began whisper and I was giving him the tour. And I was expecting him to say what an amazing job we were doing in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is where I live at the soup kitchen helping people experiencing homelessness. We weren't just soup, we had health services and got people's IDs, we did art, soccer gardening, it was a really full service ministry that we had. And I was waiting for Denver to say that we were doing such an amazing job. And he did not he was just as I took him on this tour, which was wildly uncomfortable. He was saying absolutely positively nothing. And it seems like the more I say it, the less he thought I was actually talking. He just wanted me I think so stop talking. And we got to the end of our tour. And that's finally when he asked his first question. We were standing there the stairs of the soup kitchen and he said, Can we go upstairs now? And I said, Well, there's nothing up there. There's just offices. And he said, Well, where are the beds? And I said, You weren't listening on my tour. We're a soup kitchen or a day ministry, we are going out of shelter. And he said, Do you mean to tell me, you do all this good in the day. And you lock them out to the bed at night. And frankly, I'd I'd been volunteering for 10 years for 10 years, I'd been going down there for 10 years, I thought I was helping and doing something. For 10 years, I knew that we opened our gates at 830. I knew we close them at 430. And I had never once asked myself what happened in between? He says, does that make any sense to you? I said no. And he said, Are you going to do something about it? And that was my moment, right? I could never unsee what I had seen that day I could never go back and serve soup and pretending pretend that it was enough or even close to enough. And so it started this whisper that's with Denver's question, are you going to do something about it? Do something about it? Which makes no sense. I was a graphic designer, I was a mom of four What did I know? What could I do about changing homeless or doing anything but I ended up quitting my job because that whisper was so insistent I couldn't help it. And I stuck to once later I started working for that soup kitchen and we ended up starting a housing program for people experiencing homelessness, I became the director of that program. And within four years, we had raised$10 million and built our own apartment community for chronically homeless men and women. That program gone on to launch other housing efforts in Charlotte and we've now housed 1000s of people in Charlotte that began with the Whisper Denver started that became a collective whisper that we as a community needed to do more.

Joshua Johnson: 8:33

So what does that then look like that you hear something? You go, Okay, now, I can't unsee this. I can't unsee? What happens to these people at night? And why are we locking them out at night? And then Denver saying you should do something about this? What are you going to do about this? How then does that move into something next? How do we take that first step to address something we know that we're being moved into?

Kathy Izard: 9:04

Yes, I think the first step became with learning more, what did it even mean? What were what did that, you know, what were we talking about where we talking about bunk beds, where we talk about shelters. And so I started reading about it and learning about it. And there was already kind of a movement going someone who was the assistant director of the soup kitchen, Liz claesson, Kelly had written an op ed piece about housing first. And that housing first was a philosophy that was happening already in bigger cities across the country, that you didn't just tell someone well, as soon as you're clean and sober and make all of these marks then we will provide housing, you say just by virtue of the fact that you're a human being you deserve to be housed and let's start there. And so we started I started learning about these programs and realizing there was something already happening. And there was a lot of ways to do it. You could build your own apartments you could master Lisa departments there were, you know, when you get into the nitty gritty Yes, there was so much to learn. But I think it starts with being willing to take one step, to learn something, learn the next step, meet someone who's doing that work, and seeing how that might end up translating to your community and what you could do about it. So I certainly in 2008, when I started that job as the director of homeless to homes, I knew nothing. I was so raw, I just had a passion that we should do something more, and we should do something better, and started connecting with people who felt the same way. And together, I think we became a force for good. And I think that can happen anywhere on any issue. Yeah.

Joshua Johnson: 10:41

What have you said, together, we became a force for good. And a lot of times. I think when I hear a whisper, I think of my role. How do we move from just my role and what I want to do to bring in a community together to help tackle something?

Kathy Izard: 11:02

You know, it's interesting, Joshua, I was so scared about this idea. When Denver said that to me, I really, I didn't, I didn't really know what he was asking. And I certainly had no idea what I was going to be answering. But before I dropped him back off after this very wild experience with him, he looked at me and he said, You don't have to be scared. Nice. I said, What do you mean? And he said, the people who are going to help you, they already know they're coming. And he got out of my car. And it has taken me years to understand exactly what he meant. But I think what he meant and he already know, was that when we have a whisper, we're not the only ones. We all have a call that's patiently waiting and whispering for us. And we probably come here with something already imprinted on our hearts. And we just need to listen, so does everyone else. And so when you start putting your whisper together with someone else's, that is what happened in this effort, I had a whisper to do something, I ended up meeting an architect, he really was drawn to this idea. The director of the soup kitchen at the time, Dale mullinax, was feeling very called to do something he's a former Baptist preacher. So he definitely felt a call. throughout every time we needed something, we really just started asking people, Hey, do you know someone who does this? Do you know someone who could be a part of this effort to be this key piece, and all of those key pieces came together? It felt miraculous, but at the same time, I guess it was kind of a predictable miracle that we were all working for good. And I do think those whispers do call us to things that are larger than ourselves. And I do think when you're working for good in this Holy Spirit kind of way. Anything is possible.

Joshua Johnson: 12:57

Yeah, I have a banner in my home. That was a gift by my wife's sister for our wedding. It's our one of our favorite quotes. It says the great stories go to those who don't give into fear. And that's, you know, if he told you don't be afraid, the beginning, Scripture over and over, tells us Do not be afraid God will be with you. Right? I'll be with you. It's one of the most common phrases in Scripture. How do we not give into fear when we start to hear whispers and start to step into the things that God has for us?

Kathy Izard: 13:34

It's a really great question. I think one, one idea is is not to look up too hard, right? If I had looked up to imagine that I was going to be in charge of a $10 million capital campaign to build a construction building be in charge of an apartment community, I'm sure I would have looked down, close my eyes and rolled over and gone back to sleep, right. But I was already fully awake to this dream. And I didn't know that I when I quit my job to go work for the soup kitchen. All I knew was I was going to be director of a small pilot program with 13 people. And I just had to figure out this one little piece. And that led to being in relationship and close proximity to people experiencing the problem. I got to really know people who had been on the streets for 20 years, 10 years. And their stories changed my story. It changed what I was willing to do. And it it changed my fear factor. Because really, how hard was it to to ask people to help for good versus how hard it was to be sleeping on the street. Right? My my piece of that story was fairly easy. I was asking for money. I was working every day to try and make this dream a reality. And I would go home to my bed and go to sleep in my home. And we were working for good for hundreds of people. All who are waiting, waiting, waiting under a bridge in a tent in the woods for us to make good on our promise. So I think the the fear changed when I became in relationship with people, and it changes what you're willing to do about the problem. Like if you're if your neighbor's house burned down, you would you would rush over there you would do anything to help them there was there's probably nothing you wouldn't consider to help them do that. And I think if we can look at our communities like that is everyone truly is our neighbor? And what are we willing to do about it, that will really transform your fear and transform how you're going to get up every day to solve that problem?

Joshua Johnson: 15:42

So as you started to solve this problem, and you're, you've trusted this and you're you're walking in it, how does it start to impact the lives around you? What are as Is there a story or to have an impact that happens when we say yes to the whisper and walk into?

Kathy Izard: 16:02

Well, I think in this specific case, certainly the people that we housed, had enormous impact. I think of my friend Eugene Coleman, I ended up writing a children's book about his story called a good night for Mr. Coleman. He was someone who had been homeless almost 20 years on the streets. And I think we like to think that some people, maybe they they never worked, or they were lazy or something, you know, some people believe they deserve to be homeless or be experiencing homelessness. And in Coleman's case, he had everything that we had, he had an apartment, he had a job, he was a supervisor, a curtain factory, his life was completely as one would expect. And he got injured on the job a back injury, and ended up having a surgery that didn't go well. And that became he lost his job. So he lost his income, he lost his apartment, he never imagined he would be homeless, he lost all hope. He's someone who didn't have a safety net family to pick them up. And he really was isolated for more than 20 years on the streets. And he was one of the first people we housed in our pilot program. And I think the biggest transformation was Coleman was willing to come into rooms where people who were afraid of this type of housing, who weren't wanting it in their neighborhood, who tried to break this into us, and then the others who are not housed. And Coleman would come in and tell his story, and change the perception of what people imagined homelessness to be. So I think, by housing Coleman, he ended up transforming so many other people's lives about what they thought about this problem. And I don't think that we would have been able to raise that $10 million, or build a building that now houses 120 people whose lives have been changed in the ripple effect off of all those if his single story had been different. And if he hadn't been that person who wasn't afraid to come into the room and challenge what you might think,

Joshua Johnson: 18:10

as you've been working in the space and you worked in this homelessness space, what have you learned about how cities can tackle homelessness in their area? How can we start to solve this issue?

Kathy Izard: 18:25

Yeah, because it is, it's happening everywhere. It's in cities big and small. But it's particularly happening in cities that are successful. And when I say successful, places that are drawing people from everywhere for opportunity. And what that does, unintentionally is housing product prices rise really dramatically in a short period of time. So as everyone's coming in and getting housing, it's pushing down pushing down, people who are on the margins is pushing rents up, up, up. So what happens is we unintentionally with success of our cities create larger affordable housing programs, which then provide larger homeless problems. So cities are addressing it in all kinds of ways. The way we built this more place is called permanent supportive housing. And what that means is people it's not just housing, hey, here's a key to an apartment Have a nice life. It's for people who've been experiencing long term homelessness, and it comes with case management and wraparound services, to help people be successful in housing. So permanent supportive housing is really one way we have to have enough shelters to keep people off the streets. That's another way there has to be a whole continuum of care in a community that starts with having shelter, emergency shelter, than having some sort of a traditional transitional housing so people can get out of the shelters, and then long term solutions for people who have mental, physical intellectual disabilities who are not going to be able to get jobs and pull themselves up by their bootstraps and, and go on. So it really is a continuum of care that has to be in effect in communities to to keep people housed and safe and provide hope and healing for all. That,

Joshua Johnson: 20:19

that seems like it takes a lot of collaboration and work. How do we stop being our own little silo and work together to help others?

Kathy Izard: 20:31

Well, I think it starts with recognizing that we're kind of only as strong in cities and communities as our as our weakest, right? And really, if we start judging our communities on how we care for the weakest among us and make that a priority. I know in our own city, we had no problem raising millions of dollars for the NFL stadium or the NBA stadium or those sorts of efforts, right. But then when it comes to saying, oh, we need affordable housing for people's like, well, there's not enough money in the budget. So we really have to maybe transform what we think makes makes a great city. And I think we've seen in some cities that really have not kept up with the need enough people spilling onto the streets. And in you see the distress, it causes downtown's and communities. And hopefully that flips our perception on what we think a good city is, hopefully we think a good city doesn't just have an NBA team and an NFL team that also has housing for all, it has hurt for all. And I will say that we raised this money in the worst of times, we launched this capital campaign in 2000 Hate, which there could not have been a worse time, right? If you can raise money for housing in the great economic crisis. I think you could raise money at any time. But I remember a minister at the time, very powerfully giving a charge to the community, we were doing a press conference talking about more places that we wanted to build it. And his church was giving a transformational gift of a quarter of million dollar store capital campaign. And he asked if he could speak and he came to the press conference. And he acknowledged all that Charlotte had lost in this time, we have two big banks and everyone had lost jobs and lost stocks, and the city was really hurting. And he said, We can live in a city that has lost jobs, we can live in a city that is in financial crisis, we cannot live in a city that has lost heart. And we must do what we can for the least among us. And it was very powerful. And we had over 70 congregations contribute as well, because of his church's leadership and the way they did outreach to the program.

Joshua Johnson: 22:42

Hmm, it's so good to be able to see other people join in and say we have to do this. And it does take a whole community to do this together. So as you started, then to speak about what what happened. You wrote about it. And you talked about trusting the Whisper. And people came up to you and said, Hey, I have this whisper in my own life. And you started to write people's stories down. What was that? Like when people started to come up to you? And say, I have this whisper. I have this story. How did you start to perceive what people were saying about the Whisper?

Kathy Izard: 23:25

Yeah, I think so the last chapter in the 100 story, Homeless Trust The Whisper. Because I felt like if I wrote these stories down, there must be at least 10 people who were feeling unqualified and uncomfortable that they were being called to do something. And if my book could give them faith and courage for their leap of faith, that was the point of the book, but I never considered myself an author. I certainly wasn't a speaker. And I started being asked to go to churches even out of town to talk about this message. And I the first one i i went to out of town was in Birmingham, Alabama. And I was shook feeling like such an impostor getting off the plane going Ottawa. You know, I'm a mom. I know. I'm like, Yes, I wrote a book. But what did they want me to talk about? I'm not a preacher. I don't know what I'm going to talk about. And when I got there, there was a woman saying, I'm so glad you're here. I read your book, and I can't stop thinking about it. Because I have a whisper. I have a whisper that I'm supposed to do something for runaway and homeless teens. And there's this problem in Birmingham, where these kids come from all over a state that's very poor. And they're running away from bad circumstances from trauma from unsupportive homes, bad parenting bad situations, and they ride the bus to Birmingham hoping for like a new life and new promise. And she said the problem is sex traffickers hang around the bus station. And they prey on these kids because they know no one. And when they get off the bus that sex traffickers beat friend them and then lure them in to unknowingly this life of sex trafficking. And she'd say The situation it's It's so terrible, but the solution is so simple. And I thought, what's the solution? And she said, we build the shelter right next to the bus station. So that way, when we, when they get off the bus station, we're the first person they meet and not the sex traffickers. And I had to think I was like, well, that's, that's brilliant. Like it is. It's complicated, but it's brilliant. And she says, I even have a name for it. It's called the Weigh Station. So I started meeting people. That was Caroline Bundy and Caroline Allah in Birmingham, Alabama. And I was thinking, What a great story, right that she's hearing this whisper that she's committed to doing something about it. And there were several other people like her, I started collecting the stories and writing them down. But then I realized, well, it's only going to be a good story of if they lifted like if it becomes too hard, and they're like, dang, that was a good idea. But that's too hard. I can't do that. So I started writing it seven years ago, then this new book, trust the Whisper. But I realized I had to wait. I had to see where people going to do it. And three years ago, I started realizing they are Caroline Bundy raised $5 million. And the Weigh Station is open today in Birmingham, Alabama, you know, helping teens get on with their lives once they arrived. So

Joshua Johnson: 26:16

amazing. So what was a common theme that you found as you wrote these stories down and people hearing this whisper and started putting those things into practice?

Kathy Izard: 26:29

I think a common theme was everyone felt that it was uncomfortable, unexpected, inconvenient, it was not what they were planning to do with their lives, and they felt completely unqualified to do what it was asking. Yet at the same time, that whisper was so insistent that people had to find a listen. And I think that was a common theme from Caroline Bundy in Birmingham, Alabama, who knew nothing about building a shelter for teens, to Molly painter in Raleigh, North Carolina, who had a whisper to do something like more place and ended up raising $27 million to build kings Ridge, which opens this fall for over 100 individuals and families to Caroline Hart and Avery County, North Carolina, who had a whisper to adopt for children. And she did. So all of those people were not planning for that to be their life plan. But it became their life path. And I think we're more open to these other ideas if we're willing to lose. Listen, I think the life path in front of us, that God has for us is just bigger and more than we can ever imagine. It

Joshua Johnson: 27:42

is pretty amazing. But then there are all sorts of different setbacks. There are are things in our lives that that happen that are unexpected. To us. There's grief and suffering, and loss. And there's, there's difficulties. Yes. How do we start to deal with the life that happens and the unexpected difficulties that come across our path? And continue to trust the Whisperer?

Kathy Izard: 28:12

Yeah, I had a very up close and personal brush with all this in 2013, right after more place opened. I was thinking I was just, I was feeling like I'd really found a faith path. I feeling like I was listening, I was feeling like I was in flow with my life and God and, and spirituality. And then my husband had a very unexpected heart attack, not because he has heart disease. But we found out he had a rare disease in he almost died, his life was saved that day in 2013. But our life really changed because of this rare disease and what it meant. And over the last, what's been 10 years now, he was not supposed to live more than three, but he's still here. But in those first three years, there was a lot of darkness a lot of you know, why us you know, gosh, I thought I listened to this whisper and did your work. So So why are we now suffering in this way, and it took a lot of reflection and understanding. I wrote another book about that that's called the last ordinary hour but kind of realizing just like the title there, they're all there are no ordinary hours every day is a gift and we have this one chance in life to get up every day and and see what we can do in this world. And that God is not just there on the grand opening days of more place and then the sunshine and then the happiness of this work. He was alongside us every single day that we were in the hospital and recovering from open heart surgery. And some of the darker times too and I think really it was in the darker times for me that I got a very a much deeper faith in believing that there that there is This guy that's holding us and we are under this canopy of blessings and grace, if we will just look up I recognize it.

Joshua Johnson: 30:08

We that's, that's so hard. This is such a difficult, difficult time. We love inspiration. And we love, you know, faith to be able to do something spectacular, that we didn't think was possible. But we don't often, like the the every day,

Unknown: 30:31

it's a lot harder,

Joshua Johnson: 30:32

it's a lot harder.

Kathy Izard: 30:33

Getting the ribbon on something amazing is a lot more fun than just waking up every morning or waking up every morning in a hospital and fit and wondering if someone's gonna make it through the day. Yeah.

Joshua Johnson: 30:45

How is God's voice evident in those those difficult times? And hot, like if somebody is out there listening, and they're in this suffering these this grief? Place? What, what is their hope? In the midst of that?

Kathy Izard: 31:08

Well, I think for us, it was a it was a reframing for me. I mean, at one point, I was like, Oh, my gosh, she's had three heart attacks, and he's tired. And he has all of these medical conditions. And it's not what we expected for our life. And, and then I flipped it and said, well, but he's alive. And he's living. And if that doctor had not been on call that day, to save his life, we wouldn't be here. I mean, God is in the miracle of the surgeon who shows up and in the nurse who shows a kindness, and in the friend who drops off food at your house, and we are the you know, hands and feet, for each other in the world. So no matter what you are going through, you know, an unexpected divorce or death, that diagnosis you didn't want. God is there with you in those small little things that you might expect. I don't think it was a coincidence that that surgeon was on call that day, when people have looked at my husband's films and said, no one should have been able to save his life that day, right? So I think, in the quiet and in the suffering, just try to find moments of gratitude and light each day, until you can walk all the way out of that dark tunnel is is probably the best advice I can get.

Joshua Johnson: 32:25

That's good. That's really good. So as you started to write these stories of other people hearing the Whisper going in there, what was that a story that made you sit back and go, this is pretty amazing. This is really cool.

Kathy Izard: 32:41

There were there were several of them. I think one of my favorites was a woman who was at a small book talk. And I was talking about homelessness in Denver, kind of telling the story that I started with this podcast today. And she was on the front row and she burst into tears. And she left. And I thought well, I don't know what I said that made her so upset. I but I think I we need to be talking. And so I found her after the talk. And I said, you know, is there something you know, that you want to talk about? And she said, You know, I've been hearing this whisper for a while and I haven't wanted to listen, but I think I was supposed to hear you today I am a twin. And it's about to be my 45th birthday. And I haven't seen my twin in over 20 years. And I just know that I need to find her. Before our birthday. I can't spend another birthday not knowing what happened to her. And it turned out that her twin was homeless in North Carolina. And because of the resources that people I know, I ended up being able to connect her with some people. And they found her her twin sister, whose name was Ali, and they reunited and had this amazing, you know, their lives they've she's been housed now. And it was just a really feel good story. But it turned out there was a God dot connection between this woman who had been experiencing homelessness, and in Raleigh and another story in the book and I think I said that Molly painter had raised $27 million to build kings ridge. Well, it turned out she'd been volunteering in the shelter and she was very profoundly impacted by some of the women that she'd met. And she gotten into deep relationship with some of the women they become friends. They she would walk with them and really get to know their stories. And it turns out that one of the women who had the most profound effect on her was the reason she wanted to build this housing. It turned out to be Ellie. And so now they're all connected. This stranger in North Carolina in Charlotte, who needed to find her twin sister and this woman in Raleigh, North Carolina hundreds of miles away, who was already in friendship and with this friend now all coming together, and this whisper to build housing is happening because of at all

Joshua Johnson: 35:00

Wow, that's incredible. That's amazing that all those God connections that are made and things step forward. That's awesome. I love

Kathy Izard: 35:12

that story keeps going. So get the book truck whisperer, because there's more God that's on that book that. Yeah, it's too too complicated for this. That's why I had to write them down because it does feel a little bit unbelievable. But I think these whispers lead us to ourselves to each other to God into our own true story in in the most remarkable ways when we pay attention.

Joshua Johnson: 35:35

Other you in your story, in the story you just shared about finding the twin and a couple others talking about how the Whisper almost gets too loud to ignore. How do we start to determine the voice of God in the in the quiet in the small in the in the Whisper so that we could start to take some steps and say Yes, listen to his voice say yes, and start to obey right away, and not wait for it to come with a with a sledgehammer over you and saying you can't ignore it anymore?

Kathy Izard: 36:12

Yeah, I don't know. I think the Whisper is like a muscle that you have to lift in practice and lift weights. And I don't think the Whisper is always about building buildings, or, you know, these ginormous things. I think the Whisper can be as small as, hey, check in on your friend she needs you, you know, or, Hey, have you have you, you know, call that person or, Hey, writer a note is it's like a thought that isn't your thought. But it just keeps coming to you. And I think in a loud and busy world. It is hard to listen, right? So I personally, I start a morning practice. In the dark in the quiet when I get up, I don't turn on any lights, I calm and I sit in a certain chair. And I do some writing and reflection and journaling each morning. And sometimes the whispers come up and that sometimes that happens in the afternoon when I'm in the park, taking a walk. But just making space for quiet in their busy busy world. And making that a daily practice. I think you can exercise that muscle. So when it turns out, you got that thought, hey, you should check on your neighbor. And it turns out, they'd fallen and they needed some help. And you could provide some help. And you think, Wow, if I had listened to that, that wouldn't have happened and you start to get confidence. It's like, Hmm, maybe there's a reason I'm hearing these smaller voices. So by the time you get to something huge, like hey, you should quit your job and build a building that gets a little easier to trust that whisper and answer because you have courage for the leap of faith. But I I think we get small. And I'm nudges. God nudges all the time. And you know, those are easy to ignore. Oh, I'm busy. I can't check on my neighbor or Oh, alright, the Note next week. So I think we miss some opportunities to flex that muscle on practice. But being quiet each day finding connection, some sort of spiritual daily practice, I think really helps in in listening and exercising the muscle. While

Joshua Johnson: 38:08

that's, it's kind of hard to to exercise the muscle. Is it okay to fail? Is it okay to have a nudge and go? It's wrong. It was not a good whisper. It was it was so weird.

Kathy Izard: 38:24

I think whispers that are meant for us. They're gonna keep coming. Right? You remember the part where I said I've been down at the Urban Ministry Center serving soup for 10 years. So how often do you think my whisper was banging, clanging telling me to do this? I had been looking to change careers for I don't know, at least a year. And my husband kept saying, Well what about that soup kitchen thing? Like you seem pretty happy down there. Like why don't you go do something over there? And I literally would say to him No, that's not no that's not for me. That's not what I'm going to do. Homelessness is an unsolvable problem. Not my whisper not what I'm doing right 10 years so is it okay to ignore whispers Yeah, but I think they're coming for you anyway, so just keep on ignoring it. And you know, it'll hit you over the head someday. If it's yours, right. It was your winter it's coming for you anyway.

Joshua Johnson: 39:17

And sometimes it takes people that were unfamiliar with to to hear it some people like your husband saying a What about that? What about the soup kitchen? What about a homeless as you know, because it's familiar it's the everyday Yeah, how do we look for unfamiliar voices and how do we start to listen to unfamiliar voices in this process?

Kathy Izard: 39:43

Well, I think these these quiet callings are you know, they're hard to hear but I when I've, I do I do coaching with women now I run sometimes little with what's your whisper retreat? And I always ask the question, what breaks your heart? Because I think what breaks you Her heart is different than what breaks my heart. So thinking about those things that you, you think why someone should do something about that? And then ask yourself, Oh, well, maybe that's me, maybe maybe I should do something about that. So I think things that get your attention in a way, they don't get someone else's, you know, if you're looking at the, you know, the refugee crisis, or the immigration crisis, and you grew up in a border city, and that imprints on you, that affects you so much differently than someone who grew up in the Midwest, and they, they won't have a relationship to that. I think all of our experiences all of our, what we went through, really change what we're willing to do something about it. And it has to do with what's imprinted in our heart. And what ultimately, I think our purpose here is about,

Joshua Johnson: 40:51

you know, I'll just give you a little, little story from my life. As I, I was living in South Korea, I was teaching and working for a church and I got to this place where I was in my late 20s. I was trying to figure out how to work for God for a long time. And I was like, Hey, God, aren't I doing great things for you? And then I remember this time in my, in my life, where I started, I broke down, I got on my knees in this small little dorm room that I was in, in our school. And I started to weep and cry. And so he said that, Okay, God, I'm kind of tired of just trying to figure it out on my own to work for you. I'm going to do whatever you say, like and so as soon as I said, you're really my Lord. And you just tell me, I'll say, Yes, I started to hear this strange whisper of working with Arab Muslims was my future. And I'm in South Korea, there are no Arab Muslims. There's nobody around. So it wasn't even a circumstance. It wasn't that I was. I was seeing it my every day. I mean, I started reading books about Arab Muslims just randomly. There's all sorts of things. Six months later, I was on eHarmony. And I met my wife, who's my wife now, but I messaged her, and she, the first thing she said to me, was, hey, I want to live and work in the Middle East. If you're not up for that, we don't even have to talk. I was like, why for a dating? Yeah. I know that. God's been speaking to me about this. I've been hearing this, this whisper for a long time for about six months. And so it took me about a week to respond to my wife, because I'm saying, Okay, God, am I really saying yes to the things that you have actually put in my heart, my actually going to do this? And so I said, and so I responded, I said, Yes, I'm up for that. Let's talk. And so we had about six months of friendship and chatting online, met her in person. And then we ended up moving to the Middle East's working with Syrian refugees. But that was that put me on a trajectory of being open to the Whisper. Yeah, I wasn't open to the Whisper before. What are ways that we can start to be open? I

Kathy Izard: 43:20

think that is such a great point. And that moment of you being on your knees, and the moment of surrender, and then everything kind of opening past that. And I can remember a moment when, I mean, I wasn't talking about this, are we really even recognizing what was happening? My life is a call or whisper. And I was thinking of it as a career change. I was making a career change, you know, and then my, my job, my career was to make this building happen. But at one point, it became so overwhelming, it was so clear in 2008, to raise $10 million was really almost a folly, right? Like, we were just going to have to put our, our, our dream away and go home. And I remember a point, one night, after many sleepless nights, realizing, okay, this, this just isn't going to happen. And realizing my real mistake had been to think it was all about me to think it was about my effort. It was that it was, oh, I'm going to single handedly build this building. And I remember in at night, just, you know, kind of crying into Marcos just saying, I, I want this to happen so bad for the Colemans of the world for all the people who are on the street tonight. I really want this to happen, but there is no way it's gonna happen if it's just about me, to Okay, God, whatever this is, if this is a call on my life, I accept but, you know, I will show up, but you got to show off. So let's, uh, let's go. And, and that's probably when when things turn around. I tell a story in the book about a woman who was hearing this crazy call to do something with a women's prison ministry and with furniture which was like, What am I supposed to do decorate the women's jail cells, like, just make no sense. And she said, she got so frustrated with it, that she remembers one day when she said, Okay, God, like whatever this is either get it out of my head, or let's get on with it. And she goes to church literally that day for her Bible study. And there's a woman in the hall that says, This woman's name was Jackie Craig, and she goes, Okay, Jackie, I have a lamp and a toaster. Do you have anyone who needs it? And Jackie says, Oh, my gosh, in that moment, I knew there was a woman getting out of prison, and she needed anything. She didn't even have a can opener. So yes, I know someone who needs that. And she turned that moment of the whisper and the lamp in the toaster into North Carolina's largest nonprofit that has furnishings for people coming out of homelessness, incarceration and disaster relief. And it's the most amazing nonprofit called the Green tear project. But it started with Okay, God, just get out of my head, or let's get on with it, and a lamp and a toaster. So I think surrender is a good part of whispers Yes,

Joshua Johnson: 46:06

you have to surrender, to surrender to say, Okay, I could listen to the Whisper. And I could then act and actually go and do it. Because a lot of us, I think our identity is always pent up into what we do. And a lot of those and how it goes, yeah, all of that. And then when so surrender actually says that it really isn't about me anymore. It's not. And so that's, that's the crucial aspect, I think could have of moving forward into crypto, right? Yes. And to this,

Kathy Izard: 46:42

you need to write a chapter in the back of trust the Whisper called surrender. Joshua,

Joshua Johnson: 46:48

there you go. There you go. And surrender. Yes. So what else did you find? So as we found just now, in this conversation, surrender is really important that it's going to be too loud to ignore, we are going to have to move forward. And that when you say, Okay, God, you could show off, he's going to start to do things and then connect the dots. Because it all of this is way too big. We have to start small. Is there any thing else that you found, as you're writing these stories, collecting these things? Well,

Kathy Izard: 47:21

I think for some of these people, and in my own life, you want to start on this new life path, you think you know where it's going. And just when you're coming around some corner, and you think you know exactly where this is leading, it takes another bend in the road, and it keeps on going. So I think, in my own I thought, I used to think, oh, this was about more place. And, and it turned out more places. I'm not even sure we were on the 10 line of 10 yard line of the whole football field, right? Because after that there was writing and building more plays helped me with another project in Charlotte called Hookway, where we built a mental health treatment center, and meeting people through that. And I never wanted to speak or write or teach. And guess what now I'm speaking, writing and teaching. But if you'd asked me 17 years ago, like hey, I, you know, you're gonna write five books and help with these two projects, and then write and speak and teach about it. I feel like I know, know that that's just not what I'm going to be doing. So I think recognizing that these whispers and the surrender ultimately lead to lives that are so much bigger than we can imagine. In in so many better ways than what we would plan for ourselves. So.

Joshua Johnson: 48:39

So as as people pick up this book, trust the whisper, what is your hope? What would you love for them to get from us?

Kathy Izard: 48:47

My hope is that they read in the stories, how everyone listened to a whisper. And that led to just, you know, remarkable stories and God dot connections. And it inspires people to listen for their own whispered and inspires them to trust that whisper, and they connect their own god dots. And it leads to, you know, better lives for themselves and their communities. And I hope you know, from the title of your podcast, shifting culture, I hope we start to really have a quieter world where we aren't listening to the loudest voice, but we're listening to those quiet whispers of our soul because I think they take us to who we're truly meant to be. Amen.

Joshua Johnson: 49:29

That's so good. Kathy, if you could go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give?

Kathy Izard: 49:35

I would say don't even imagine that you can control or plan anything I would say. I would say surrender way sooner is I would say I would say it is not about you. You think it is it's really not

Joshua Johnson: 49:51

so good. Anything you've been reading or watching lately, you could recommend.

Kathy Izard: 49:55

I just read a book called The Amen effect and I love Love, love that book. And it has a little kind of tangential to this whole God doubt effect but how we can show up for each other in community and belonging and I just thought it was a really beautiful book.

Joshua Johnson: 50:12

So how can people connect with you go out and get this book? Where would you like to point people to?

Kathy Izard: 50:19

Um, well my website is Kathy is her.com I'm on Instagram at Kathy Izzard CLT for Charlotte. So Kathy, Izzard CLT. And the book is available for preorder now on Amazon it comes or wherever books are sold, so support your local bookstore. But it comes out on June 11.

Joshua Johnson: 50:38

Kathy, this is a fantastic conversation, I'm really excited that people will be able to start to trust the whisper in their own life, that they could start to recognize what it is and say yes, and surrender and move forward. It was really inspiring to hear your story. And that you actually were able to do this well, and step in and say God, you have to start to do something here. And you see the collaboration that takes place, and the the god dots that take place in these areas where we didn't know that we could raise this money, we didn't know that this, this person that is experiencing homelessness will be connected over into this other side. And there's a bigger story here that they're telling. And so I just say thank you for this. And I just pray that people will trust the whisper in their own life and say yes to that. Surrender what God is saying, Go here, take care of your neighbor. Go make that phone call that you haven't made for a while, that they would trust that they would take those steps and then they would say that as these small things happen. Big things and big stories will take place. So thank you for this conversation. Kathy was great.

Kathy Izard: 51:54

I love talking with you.