Stand Firm & Face Storms in Your Life with Ann Visser

Join host Ruth Hovsepian and special guest Ann Visser on a powerful and inspiring episode of "Stand Firm & Face Storms in Your Life." In this heartfelt conversation, Ann opens up about her personal battles with marital turmoil and her son's fight against depression. Through these experiences, she shares how her unwavering faith in Jesus Christ has been her cornerstone and lifeline.

Ruth and Ann dig into the lessons learned in the midst of life's tempests, the significance of communication, and the beauty of embracing our human limitations. They celebrate the victories over fear and anxiety and discuss the serene shores that await when we surrender our control to the divine.

Whether you're seeking comfort, looking to strengthen your faith, or just need a reminder of the peace that can be found in spirituality, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in and be uplifted by the power of faith and the peace it brings into our lives.

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Transcript

00:17 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Hey everyone, I'm Ruth Havsepian and welcome to the Out of the Darkness show. Do you ever wonder why God allows for terrible things to happen? Do you struggle with life's storms and question why God? Well, mr, is my guest and we are talking about standing firm and facing storms in our life. We live in a world today in which many are filled with anxiety from a lack of peace, from the various storms blowing across the landscapes of the world. Storms such as disease, political unrest, terrorism, the constant threat of nuclear war, riots, homelessness, bigotry, drought, starvation, financial woes, health issues and more threaten our peace of mind. However, during the storms of life, we have an anchor of hope that allows us to stand firm when turbulent winds are blowing. We are part of the kingdom that cannot be shaken. Welcome back, anne. 

01:22 - Ann Visser (Guest)
Thank you so much, Charu. Thank you for inviting me here to be here with you again on the Out of Darkness podcast. I'm so pleased to see you and I'm just delighted to be here with you and your audience. 

01:33 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
I'm so happy that you're here as well. As Christians, we often talk about standing firm in the face of life's storms. What does that mean to you, and how do you believe it applies to the challenges we all encounter in our lives? 

01:53 - Ann Visser (Guest)
Standing firm in adversity or challenge. For me, it means going through the whole gamut of emotions that comes with a storm, because it creates this uncertainty. Storms create uncertainty in our lives, right, and we're like okay, the way I used to do things it's not working anymore, and so I might need to find new ways to do things. If somebody is sick, you know we have to shift up and do things a little differently than we used to do things. If somebody's sick, you know we have to shift up and do things a little differently than we used to do them, and so for me, though, it means hanging firm to the rock that. He has been my rock since I was 15, ruth, and there is no other. I don't know any other way to do life. I don't know how people do storms without a faith in Jesus Christ. He's everything to me, and so standing firm in the midst of storms means hanging on to a dear life as he takes me through, through whatever it is that we're dealing with or going through, and along the way, I really believe that he teaches us lessons in the midst of those storms. Those lessons are good for the next one. They make me stronger and more resilient for the next storm that I face. 

03:15
As I shared with you in the last podcast, one of the reasons I do what I do is because our marriage crashed. We were passionately in love with each other when we married and then, about 10 years into our marriage, we just crashed and burned. And it all came to a pivotal conversation that I had with my husband in our farm truck, outside our favorite restaurant, and I just said to him I can't do this anymore. And he looked at me and said what do you mean? You can't do this anymore? And I said I can't do marriage like this anymore. This is not working. I'm so hurt. I was so hurt, ruth, and I just felt like a single mom. We had this busy life, firm life, and I just I didn't feel heard or listened to. And I come to find out that he was also suffering and he was not happy in our marriage either. And that pivotal conversation put us on a path, a personal growth path. We were already Christians, but we were missing some kind of adulting things. We were missing some tools and skills that we needed to be good in marriage together. 

04:26
But that crisis it taught me things I didn't know about my husband. It taught me things I didn't know about me. I had to learn skills I didn't have, and I didn't know how to communicate. I didn't know what was going on inside of me. I couldn't. If he had have said, how are you feeling? I would have looked at him like a deer in headlights because I didn't know. I didn't ever process my emotions, I just kind of did what I had to do and it was so busy I didn't even have time, and so there were skills that I needed, and going through that crisis prepared me for the next big crisis that we faced. 

05:06
That next big crisis was that our son at 15, he attempted suicide and he went into a very deep depression and it was kind of like a perfect storm for him. Multiple things had happened in his life that created that storm, and walking with him through that storm, I was a little bit a little bit a little bit prepared for that because of what had happened in our marriage and because we were stronger together. We were able to stand with him together and I really felt like a team working with our son at that time. We couldn't have done it, we couldn't have walked through that storm without having gone through the crisis ourselves, and so each crisis has given more lessons. It's also taught me that I can't control the outcome, and that storm in particular. 

06:05
With our son, I listened over and over and over again to a song by. I think it was casting crowns I can't stop the rain from falling down on you, but I will love you, and I just had to release him to the Lord and do what I could to love him and support him. But I knew that if he wanted to, at any time, it would be done, and I didn't have any power to control that. And I knew that I needed to lean into the Father for that to take us through that time and that season. And that's a powerful lesson to learn that you know there is a God and it's not me lesson to learn that you know there is a God and it's not me, you know it's. 

06:57 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
It's. It's interesting because you know you professed your, your, your faith, at 15, you walked that down and I hear from people whether let's start with those that are not walking with the Lord and they're on their own and they're struggling. I always wonder where they find the strength and how they manage, because, as a Christian, we are promised the strength to be able to go through it. The Bible nowhere in the Bible does it, you know, make the promise that we will not encounter difficulties in life. And we see that right, we see that in our churches, we see that in our own lives. But what it does promise is and you said it so well are the tools that we need to be able to deal with it. And I love that. And I think one of the things that you said is so important that if we have the right tools, we can deal with what is put in front of us and be able to fix that. And the same thing is with life lessons If we, if we take something that happens to us and instead of dwelling on what happened and woe is me kind of deal is, take that, learn, grow and be able to face the next situation that comes to us. But I also want to make sure that people understand that we're not I, and I'll speak for myself. I am not saying that we shouldn't mourn when we should mourn and we shouldn't be sad or angry, you know, if something unjust is happening to someone. But I think it's also. 

08:50
It's interesting when, before I started my journey with the Lord, you know, and had my own faith journey not the faith of my parents or my family I dealt with things differently. It was the woe is me kind of a deal. Now I have a very different attitude. I may be walking through something difficult, but I still have peace. It is the oddest and weirdest feeling and I really proclaim that that is what the Lord gives. It's not me being strong or anything like that. It's really the Holy Spirit being with me on a day-to-day basis. 

09:35
And I too have had to let go of some things that I've cried over. You know a situation with children and one of my children and I've had to cry and I've cried many tears about it. But I have a piece about it in a weird way and I cannot explain it I pray over my children, all three of them equally, and I know that there is my Lord and Savior looking after them. If I love them, he loves them more than I even could possibly fathom. So that's what I want people to understand. That's what I want people to understand is that a relationship with our Lord and Savior gives you the extra that you need to deal with. You know, I gave a plethora of things that's happening out there. 

10:41 - Ann Visser (Guest)
Yeah, yes, I really think that that piece he brought, like that piece, is the piece that passes all understanding. And I see that in my clients over and over again, ruth, when I'm working with them, and I work with Christian women typically so they already have a faith and I can see them walking through the hardest, hardest things and yet there's a strength and there's a beauty about them. There's a, there's a courage in the midst of the messy, messy, messy stuff and and yet there's this peace that passes all understanding that it is. It is inexplicable, like it's in it's unexplainable, explainable um, how life could be so messy and yet they could be so courageous and so full of peace and beauty. It is. 

11:33
I feel like such a blessed woman to be. I feel like a fly on the wall sometimes, you know, as God is working in the room with someone and like I just feel like the most privileged person on the planet to be able to witness somebody's growth journey as they're going through really hard things, but they just they get more beautiful and they become stronger and more resilient and they, they do amazing things in the midst of crisis and challenges and it's just such a beautiful thing to witness in the midst of those challenges. 

12:18 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Yeah, and I think also that you know there are some practical tools that we can take on and use, and some of it is stay away from electronics, you know, don't be bombarded with the news all the time, because what is news? You rarely hear anything. Uh, you know that will be refreshing and you know, and give you encouragement. Typically you hear news that is, you know, bad news, and I think that that becomes all-consuming. 

12:55
And I think that over this, you know, the last few years, especially with the pandemic that we had around the world with this, the pandemic that we had around the world, that did a number on people, because I don't think people were prepared to deal with the onslaught of news and pessimism and the negativity that was out there and the isolation that was out there. So, everything that was happening then do the opposite, do not isolate yourself right, have communion, have fellowship, have friends and family that are there to support you as well. I think we just need to be prepared for it. As you said, learn new tools, have those tools handy to help you out. 

13:56 - Ann Visser (Guest)
I think it's really important to I like to call it some people call it self care, I like to call it soul care. Yeah, so, and limiting and limiting what comes into my body, whether it's through my eyes, or that's really important for my soul. I know that when I take in too much negativity, of course positivity is my number one strength as well. 

14:20
So when I take in too much negativity it really does a number on my soul, and so I really need to be watchful on that too. I also think it's really important to watch our own thoughts. Whether we're in crisis or not, we can create the crisis within our own minds. I know if my husband is late coming home for supper, I can have him dead and buried before he walks through the door, and so sometimes the crisis is in my own head. So I think it's really important to watch our thoughts and watch where those thoughts are going. I think that it's important to have a mindset of not all crisis is not all bad, and to look for the good in the midst of the challenges. Not that we expect it to be Pollyanna all happy and good the full range of emotions, absolutely and feel the feelings, but I think it's important to recognize that and even look for. Okay, god, what are you doing here and what are you doing inside of me in the midst of this crisis that I can't do anything about? But you're doing the work inside of me that I need to pay attention to. There are things you want to teach me that I need to know. 

15:32
I remember when our son was going through his crisis. He gives me permission to share. I think it's really important to get permission from your family to share those stories. By the way, anyway, watching him go through that, I had had friends that went through depression before, but I had never experienced it so closely before and it gave me a whole new empathy. It gave me this deep, rich goodness. 

15:58
I know where you are, I feel what you're feeling, know where you are, like I. I feel I feel what you're feeling, uh, because I I understand. Like holding your son and having him say I hate this world and I don't want to be here and just holding him while he cried, like there is something so beautiful that happened in that moment and I thought about my friends that I love so dearly and how much she had suffered, even more than I had known, because I hadn't walked as close with her through that time. And so the good that came out of that, ruth, was this empathy that I have for people who are struggling and who are suffering and to care about that. And I couldn't have gotten it had I not walked with him so closely through that time and become a negative Nelly and fall into depression. 

17:06 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
And I know I suffered with depression quite a bit going through my divorce and after my divorce, and part of that manifested through my addictions, because I was looking for a way out and my way out was acting out through alcohol and sex and pornography. So I understand that Now being on the other side, healing, having sobriety for nine years Congratulations by the way. 

17:37 - Ann Visser (Guest)
Thank you, thank you. 

17:39 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
I know, I yeah, I celebrate that every day, because I know how I wake up, I know how I feel inside and and that depression has lifted, and I, though, have to catch myself, because the tendency is that Satan, the closer you get to the Lord, satan starts to you know, I have this image in my head the closer you get to the Lord, satan starts to get angry and panic and wants to pull you back, and I'll get visuals in my brain of the past, of things that I was involved in or did or participated in, and I feel myself going into that depression. But I have the right tools. I know that I'm walking with the Lord. I know that I've been washed by the blood of you know, my Lord and Savior, and that the Holy Spirit is with me. How wonderful and amazing is this, this God that we have that has given us all of these amazing tools right to use. You know the Holy Spirit walking with us every day. 

18:59
And and it I'm able to step out of it because I know what, how to do it. And an image comes to my mind, and that is when jesus was sleeping on the boat and the storm hit. And you know, here are these men in the storm and and they weren't like newbies, they were, they knew what to do, right, they had I'm sure they had been through other storms. But they shook him and woke him up and his reaction was kind of like why I'm sleeping, I'm tired, why are you waking me up? And he calmed the storm. And that's what that's us. 

19:51
We're on that boat and that storm is brewing and we panic and we wake him up. And do we need to wake him up? No, he knows the storm we're in. You know, hang on to him. Hang on to him for dear life, that's all I can say. Right, he's your lifesaver. You know that that would. Yeah, it's the lifesaver, right, and I think that's what it is. That's what we need, to excuse me. We need to just look at and and take and be prepared for it. I don't think we can deal with a storm in the middle of the storm. We need to be prepared for those storms that come. And how do we prepare for those storms? Well, by getting into the word of God, knowing that he's there, knowing his promises and having a prayer life that we lean into. 

20:46 - Ann Visser (Guest)
I cannot imagine it any other way. I wholeheartedly agree and letting the word of God speak to us and shape us on the inside. I really believe that God is shaping us on the inside and not letting fear rule the day. Fear comes and goes rule the day, fear comes and goes. But I think it's important to catch those thoughts, those fearful thoughts, and to be able to kind of wrestle them to the ground. And I think we have more control over our thoughts than we know, that we have more power, that God has given us power. He's given us brains to think, and I think that it's really important to catch those thoughts. And if I could give your, your audience, an exercise that I love to use, I love to sit in my thinking chair and ask God questions and then just journal out what I hear him say. He says my sheep hear my voice. And here are some of the questions. 

21:38
When I have a recurring fodder, I'm I know this is fear. I am struggling here. I can't manage this fear. I'm afraid that this is going to happen in the future. And, lord, what's happening? What are you doing? I take that thought to him and I go. Is this thought true? Is this thought true? And then I ask myself well, what does God say about this thought? And then the third question I like to ask well, what would my best friend have to say about this thought? And then the third question I like to ask well, what would my best friend have to say about this thought? Because I don't know about you, ruth, but I'm often kinder to my best friend than I actually am to myself, and so I can see it clear when I think about what she might say to me. And she loves me, she's so good to me, and it's easy to think about what she would say to me, and it's often wiser than what. 

22:24 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
I would say to myself I think we're very harsh on ourselves. 

22:27 - Ann Visser (Guest)
Yes, yeah, and the last question I like to ask is like okay, Lord, how can I reframe this thought? 

22:33
How can I reframe this thought to make it helpful, to make it true, so that I can think on this thought that is true and right and good. And so those, those questions are incredibly helpful to kind of redirect me into a better path with the Lord, so that I'm not walking down that path of fear, because if I don't do something to interrupt or disrupt my fear, I can carry that through for a good day, a good week. So I thought I need to disrupt it somehow and these questions and sitting with the Lord and asking him these questions really helps me to be able to redirect those thoughts and start thinking about what is right and true. So one of the things I used to I noticed this thought was a recurring thought, ruth. 

23:22
I would wake up every morning and I would think about what I had to do. I have to do this, I have to go there, I have to do this, I have to see this person. And I could feel anxiety rising up inside of me and I thought, okay, lord, how could I reframe this thought? And he gave me the simple word I get to. So now, whenever I catch myself, I have to, I have to. No, I get to as soon as I say I get to see this person, I get to do this today, I can feel joy rising up inside of me because God has given me this day to use for the fullest. I get to see Ruth today, and so I just I sense that peace within by reframing that thought in such a simple word, such a simple way to reframe, so that I don't go down that path of feeling anxious. 

24:17 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Yeah, I'm with you. I'm the. I do that at night when I'm going to bed. I will lay in bed and I'll go through a list of things I need to do to the next in the next 24 hours when I wake up. And I've caught myself doing that and losing sleep because the list gets bigger and bigger. So my, my little tool has been to get a piece of paper at the end of my day and to write down everything that needs to be done the next day. 

24:52
I do a brain dump and I have found that doing a brain dump, I sleep better. It was phenomenal, because now I go to bed not worried I'm getting older and my brain will not keep things. It's like a sieve. I think of something I need to do, I walk out of the room and I'm like what was I going to go? Because I have too many things I want to do. 

25:20
Right, I know we blame it on age, but you know, all joking aside, I think we've become a society that has so much to do, that has so much to do that as I'm walking out the door, out of the side of my eye, I see something and I do it. So by the time I do walk out of the room, I forgotten why I was walking out of the room. So I've come to the realization that's a huge stress on me. Right, I have a lot of balls. I want to juggle, I want to do so much. I'm so excited in this new you know, this new place that I'm in serving the Lord. 

25:55
I don't want to forget what's important. So, you know, I have the list, the running list, and at night I do do a brain dump for the next day. So I have little notepads, I write it. But the other thing that I have found that works for me really well and is I have blocked off time on my calendar and that time is non negotiable except for emergencies and family, but that that time for me is my alone time with the Lord. So it's my prayer time, praying for people I have given my word to to pray for, and those that do not know I'm praying for them. And a time to get into the word of God and make it my own, because I realized that just doing a devotional is not enough for me anymore. 

26:56 - Ann Visser (Guest)
I'm. 

26:56 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
I'm, it wasn't, it wasn't, I wasn't growing enough on a devotional. So I need that time and that sets me up. That chunk of time every day sets me up in such a different mind frame, because how can I begrudge things in my life when I've just been in the presence of the Lord? So that's been my way of dealing with things and I found that when I start my day, if I don't start my day that way, for whatever reason, I feel it the rest of the day, in the sense that I dwell on things too much more I've got that negative kind of idea. Like you said, I have to do this. No, I love that, I get to do this. And and that's the difference you know and I don't want to talk about just you know this, the faith based, you know the spiritual thing, because someone may say, oh well, you know I, I don't understand that, I don't get that. I want people to see concrete reasons you know, like how to do things you need to. 

28:15
Yeah, I think we're wired differently. You know, some of us are wired to be a lot more optimistic. Some of us are wired to worry about things. And can we rewire things? I'll speak for myself. I know that I have been able to again not by my strength, but by the strength that was given to me by the Lord and I have been able to rewire my brain. I don't worry as much and sometimes maybe I should worry more about it what people think about me and what people are saying about me, when I'm confident that this is what and where God wants me to be. 

28:57 - Ann Visser (Guest)
Boy Ruth. Dr Caroline Leaf speaks about that rewiring of the brain. She says that thoughts are real, physical things. They occupy mental real estate up here. 

29:07
But moment by moment, every day, you are changing the structure of your brain through your thinking, through the thoughts that we think. So she says that when we hope it's an activity of the mind that changes the structure of the brain in a positive and normal direction, that's really encouraging that we can actually change the structure of our brain by the thoughts that we think. So then every thought that we think is changed. 

29:31
That's interesting to think about how that thought is actually changing the brains and when you think about fear, when it comes to fear, because when we're in crisis or hard times or trouble, fear is like next door. It's like knocking on the door. It wants to burst the door down Like it's just. It's an uninvited guest often. But I think that you and I, we can control our thoughts more than we know and that God has given us that power to be able to make different choices. I noticed that when I catch my thoughts, I can I have a better day. 

30:07 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
And. 

30:08 - Ann Visser (Guest)
I also noticed that trying to control the things that I can't control creates more anxiety, and I actually learned this from my farmer husband and watching him, because there's so much in a farmer's life that is outside his control, like weather is such a major challenge for us, it's completely something we don't have any say over. I often tease him because he's praying for rain and the tourists are praying for sun and I'm like I don't know who's going to win here. You know, but imagine if, day after day, you don't have any rain in your crop. You know your crop needs a good inch of rain every week in order to do well, right, but it doesn't rain. And you pray for rain and it doesn't come. And now you see it's dry and dusty and you have nearly 2000 acres of potatoes and they're just wilting under the sun. They're just thirsty for rain, right. But I've learned from him that letting go of what you can't control is incredibly freeing. To be able to manage. Fear that, so that it doesn't actually immobilize us, that the opposite, I'd say, of that is then faith, you know, believing that there's somebody higher than us and then he has our hand, regardless of what the outcome looks like. He has control and he will take care of us. It might not be how we want, but he has our lives in his hands. 

31:34
So I like to do this like kind of wheels of responsibility. It helps me understand oh, I have control over this and I don't have control over this. So I do two wheels. One of the wheels is what I have control over and I write inside of that wheel. And I noticed, I have control over my attitude, my thoughts, my actions, the words I say to my husband and my kids, the choices I make today, whether I offer forgiveness to somebody or not, whether I choose to trust somebody All of those things I have control over. And then I like to write what do I not have control over here, lord? And it's so helpful, ruth, because then I just give it back to him. 

32:17
It's like this weight that we carry around, like I think that I'm God and I can actually determine what's going to happen with the weather. It's a huge weight that we can't handle. It's not ours to carry, and so then I love to pray and just take that weight off my shoulders, put it at the foot of the cross. Okay, lord, this is your business, this is you, this is your stuff, not mine. I can't carry it, it's too heavy, and give it to him. It helps me to feel free that, okay, it's in good hands, it's not nowhere, it's in good hands. It's not nowhere, it is in good hands, because if it was in my hands it would not be in good hands, because I'm not the ruler of the universe. I don't know how this goes, but he does, and so that exercise really helps me to feel that anxiety lift and that fear and that weight off my shoulders and feel that peace that we talked about earlier that passes all understanding. Amen. 

33:18 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Thank you so much. It has been a pleasure Anne. 

33:23 - Ann Visser (Guest)
It's always a joy to meet with you, Ruth, anytime. Thank you.