Journey to Wholeness: Part 1 of the 'Outside of Sunday' Podcast Interview

Special Episode!  This episode is part 1 of an interview that I did with 'Outside of Sunday' podcast, enjoy!

"Today on the podcast we are hearing from Julie Colbeth, host of the 'Whispers of Grace' podcast. In this episode Julie shares candidly about the challenges she faced in Christian ministry, experiencing burnout, and the heart-wrenching loss of two babies through miscarriage. Throughout our conversation, Julie gracefully weaves together Biblical wisdom and her own testimony, pointing to the unwavering faithfulness of God who promises to be 'with us'."

If you prefer to watch the interview it is on the 'Outside of Sunday Podcast' YouTube Channel  Episode 57 - Healing from Christian Ministry Burnout & Multiple Miscarriages (youtube.com)

Be sure to check Christa's podcast out as well Outside of Sunday RSS Feed (buzzsprout.com)

Transcript

Julie: 0:00

Coming up on the Outside of Sunday podcast. I was so spent and so tired but I kept trying to do all the things so I eventually got to a point where I burnt out pretty bad and then I miscarried a second time. I was so pointedly angry at God and I don't think I could pinpoint that for a while I didn't realize that I was angry at him, but I was. I was like how could you let this happen? I had misplaced my hope and put it into a child instead of placing it into Christ. It's not? Put the pain away and look to Jesus and you're going to see the babies again and they're with him. It's not that this is terrible and it sucks and you know what. He knows that and he feels that with you and it's okay.

Christa: 0:41

Hey, you're listening to the Outside of Sunday podcast. Is your faith stuck on Sunday? Christianity was never meant to be constrained to a weekly church service. I'm Krista and I'm here to help and encourage you to live your faith outside of Sunday. All right, everyone, welcome to this episode of the podcast. Today I have with me the wonderful Julie Colbeth. Thank you so much, julie, for coming here all the way from Hamilton. I was going to say Te Awamutu, but no you're a.

Christa: 1:07

Hamilton girl I am. So, yes, welcome to the podcast. Could we maybe start by just hearing a little bit about who you are and also Whispers of Grace? Tell us a little bit about that.

Julie: 1:17

Yes, I am also a podcast person, which is so fun to be doing this with another podcaster.

Christa: 1:24

Yeah, I know, I'm so stoked, I love it.

Julie: 1:27

So, as probably most of you can tell, I'm not a Kiwi originally, but we do live here in Hamilton, new Zealand. We hope to stay forever, but I'm originally from New Jersey in the United States, about 30 minutes outside of New York City, so that is where I grew up, and my husband and I lived in Rotorua and now we live in Hamilton and we absolutely love it.

Christa: 1:51

I've been dying to talk to you actually about what made you come to New Zealand in the first place. But before we get to that, I'd really just love to hear about your walk with the Lord and how you actually first came to faith in Jesus.

Julie: 2:02

So I came to faith when I was very young. My dad is a pastor, and so I grew up in the church. I was there, you know, as the lights got flicked on in the morning and I fell asleep in the pews quite often, and I was there when the lights went off at the end of the day. Yeah, so that was my upbringing, was really in the church my whole life. So I think I had a head knowledge of Christ and I actually accepted him when I was probably five years old.

Christa: 2:29

I and.

Julie: 2:29

I have a very distinct memory of experiencing Jesus and just asking him to come into my heart as simple as it could be when I was that old. But I think my faith really became my own when I got to high school. Um, that's when I really rededicated and I got to a church where I was really learning about him, with a youth leader that was passionate for Christ and really living for him. So I think that was when I kind of came alive, so to speak. So I think that was when my passionate walk with Jesus really started was in high school.

Christa: 3:04

What actually got you to New Zealand? America is so far away. Did you have someone you knew in New Zealand like how did that all happen?

Julie: 3:11

yeah. So my husband and I, when we we got we met really young, got married really young. So when I say my husband and I, it's because our journey has been. We've been together since we're 16. Yes, we went to senior prom together and then we got married after that.

Julie: 3:28

I'll show you pictures when we're done. Um, yeah, so we got married young and went to Bible college, um in Italy, in California and Hungary, and one of the teachers that we had there, um, came to New Zealand and started a Bible college here. So we kind of like loosely stayed in touch with them, but always kind of watched you know what they were doing and saw that they had started a Bible college here in New Zealand, and I've always been a great admirer of this amazing country.

Julie: 3:56

And all the way from my little corner in New Jersey. It was like I want to make it to New Zealand one day. It was just like I always wanted to be here and so it just seemed like such a great opportunity. Like here was somebody that we knew doing a ministry that we loved, so we prayed about it and um ended up here and worked at the Bible school. So that's originally what brought us to New Zealand. And then when we landed, new Zealand felt like home so fast. And it's crazy because even after like a month of living in New Zealand, it just felt like where we were meant to be. It felt like home more than New Jersey honestly ever had.

Christa: 4:32

Wow.

Julie: 4:33

Yeah, it was wild, like God, just it was like, it was like just coming home.

Christa: 4:38

Wow, yeah, this is where you're meant to be.

Julie: 4:41

Yeah.

Christa: 4:44

So something that I really love about whispers of grace, the podcast that you do, is how grounded it is in the word of God. So I was wondering if you could just share about a little bit about why that is so important to you, why biblically sound teaching and also just like being rooted in the word is so important.

Julie: 5:03

Yeah, I think it's really easy as Christians because we're global right. There's Christians all over the whole world. So as we grow, we're so impacted by our families of origin, our cultures, our church culture. There's so many things that feed into who we are and I think faith plays out differently based on where you are in the world very often. But the one thing that kind of grounds us foundationally and holds us together is the word, because the word is the same wherever you go. So I think it's very easy to kind of lose your way if you can't, if you don't, stick very closely to the words of Christ in the Bible.

Julie: 5:42

because we're people, we can very so easily follow our own trails and get distracted with our own ideas or really base truth on our own personal experiences, what we've seen and what we've experienced, what people that we know have experienced and what they've seen, and that it just tends to get us so off track, you know, and I think that is why the word is so, so important, because it's what holds us to the absolute truth of Christ, it's what corrects us, I think, when our culture or family of origin or experiences take us off track it's always the word that brings us back to Christ, because only Jesus has those words of life.

Julie: 6:21

Like I don't have them, you know we don't have those words of life. Like I don't have them, you know we don't. We don't have those words of life, but he does. So if we can stay close to the word and let it be a part of everything that we do, then we'll be closer to Christ, we'll be grounded and rooted. So that's kind of my. My heart and ambition is to stay as close to the word as I can.

Christa: 6:51

Yeah, that's so good and it's the word of God that changes us. And like we were just having we were just having a little cup of tea and a drink earlier, talking about how, um, that is I mean, like that is what changes you. Like you could go to the word with a certain leaning towards believing a certain thing, right or wrongly, but if you go to the word, that is what will tell you the truth, like am I actually right or am I actually just going off of what I want to be true and what I want to be right? But yeah, it's the word of God that keeps us on that right trick.

Julie: 7:13

Yeah, absolutely and I think not picking and choosing, like what verses and chapters or books even that we will accept from and some we won't, because I've met a lot of Christians that, like they'll only read the New Testament or they'll only read this or that, and it's so dangerous because God has inspired the Bible cover to cover. And if we can't absorb that whole counsel of God, then we're missing pieces of who he is, because something that I've been thinking about a lot lately is how the Old Testament God revealed himself.

Julie: 7:43

And sometimes New Testament, you know, this dispensation of grace under Jesus almost seems different. It seems like how did these two people, how are they still the same God? But they absolutely are, but it's just different counsels of God. So I feel like there's so much wisdom in just being cover to cover in your Bible you know, like not being legalistic about it, but hearing that whole council is so valuable in our lives.

Christa: 8:09

Yeah, and I think a lot of the times we can think I just want to, I just want Jesus, like I don't want you know the God of the old Testament, if you know what I mean.

Christa: 8:16

But Jesus is the God of the old Testament, if you know what I mean. But Jesus is the God of the old Testament and he's the Holy spirit. So we can't just say I'll just have Jesus and I won't have. You know, like God is more complex than just the. You know the God man, jesus. You know God in the flesh, and Jesus is in the Old Testament. Like through and through every book of the Old Testament, you can find this foreshadowing of Jesus. Like all of these, you know, I don't know.

Julie: 8:47

The Christophanies. I was going to say I saw you going there, you saw my mouth there.

Christa: 8:51

I was like, is this too deep?

Christa: 8:53

You know, christophanies and stuff like that, the appearances of Christ in the Old Testament, and once you start, I think that is a big key to getting like in love almost with the Old Testament is just searching through and finding these moments where you're like there is Jesus or here is a prophecy that was fulfilled in the New Testament, and I absolutely adore that and that is my favorite thing to do when I'm pouring through the Old Testament is to see the fulfillment in the new and to see Jesus in those words.

Julie: 9:23

Absolutely. I too. I get like so excited about talking about all that.

Christa: 9:27

It's beautiful, so fun.

Julie: 9:29

And I think the other important aspect of it, which is maybe a bit harder, is looking with clear eyes at the difficult things about God that we maybe don't understand, like his wrath or the fact that, like entire cities were just decimated, he's like take them all out.

Christa: 9:45

You're like well, how could that be God and I?

Julie: 9:47

think if we don't have, if we don't have the faith in our big God to be able to sit in those uncomfortable moments and allow him to reveal truth to us it's kind of like you just don't want to look at pieces of it because you maybe don't have all the answers, and I think a lot of us run away from it.

Julie: 10:05

I know I have but I'm like I don't really understand that, I'm not going to look at it. But God is so big and he's so good and he's given us the tools that we've needed to understand him. So I am fully confident that even the difficult things in scripture can be meditated on and we don't have to fear them, because I think the world loves to weaponize them. Right and be like God of the old Testament did this or did that, and we can feel intimidated. But if you allow God to speak that truth to you and sit in, how uncomfortable you might feel. It's amazing the things that the Lord can reveal and draw out which will change your perspective, change your life, like, and we get to know more of who he is. That's, that's the beauty of it, you know.

Christa: 10:46

Yeah, and also like there is that whole. I think that comes from a lot like cancel culture you know, like here is something that I don't understand and that seems horrible, and I can't comprehend how the goodness of God is in that. So that's it, god. You're canceled.

Christa: 11:02

And I'm not going to actually just trust that. Maybe I don't understand quite what's happening there, or maybe I don't have the fullness of what God has. I mean, like God knows everything, I don't know everything. I wasn't there, I didn't know what those people were doing. The evil practices that they were participating in and things like that. I don't know the greater picture of what God was doing. And so, yeah, just skipping over, cancel culture and actually just taking that time to trust and sit like you say and wait and see what the Lord will do and reveal to you through his word.

Julie: 11:35

Yeah, yeah for sure, and allowing him to adjust our perspective, instead of coming in, like we said, with a set perspective when it's like God, you have to fit into this box and God's like I made the box, like I'm way outside the box you know, but I think it's easier for us to quantify him Like we want to put you in a space that we can understand and he's constantly going to push those boundaries because we cannot fathom who he is.

Julie: 12:00

But as people we love to just keep trying to contain him and we just can't you know we can't. Yeah, absolutely not.

Christa: 12:05

I'm like one day my mind will be like I'll be in heaven and then like maybe then I'll have like a full understanding of the complexity of God. But right now I just have a little bite, you know, so take what we get. Okay, so you served in church for many years. How many years were you serving in church? Oh, I don't know the tally. A lot of years, a lot of years, let's just say more than a decade two decades.

Christa: 12:31

Oh, two, yeah, Okay. So two decades at least. You served in church, and what did serving look like for you? What were you doing?

Julie: 12:38

So I started out when I was a teenager. Just go into youth group and then you know leading the youth ministry, being just a youth leader, praying with kids, doing Bible studies.

Julie: 12:54

You know doing street witnessing, teaching kids how to street witness, how to talk to somebody about their faith, and then doing mission trips to different parts of the world. Uh, and then it evolved. My husband and I went to Bible college and I ran up you know groups and things when I was in school. And then after that, just in the church, I honestly it was like small church, you kind of do everything right. So kids ministry I've always been involved with worship ministry, um, but my heart has always been for teaching, for teaching the word of God. So I've been doing that with women for a long time. That's definitely been like the heart of it, but it overflows into so many other things.

Christa: 13:28

Definitely does so. Was there a point when I mean what I'm trying to understand from you is you had 20 plus years serving in church, and serving in church is not necessarily a small thing and it can take up a lot of our personal lives and our time, and not always that that's a bad thing. But was there a point where the busyness of like serving in church became overwhelming or became too much for you?

Julie: 14:04

Yeah, I think naturally I'm the type of person that tends to take on more and I can function really well, or I thought I could for a while, and then I got married and then I had one kid, and then I had two, and then I had three, and then I had four, and you know, life kind of it grows Right, and I think I kept the same mentality that I had when I was single or young married in the way that I did ministry for a long time where you know I'd be nursing a baby and teaching a Bible study or like nursing a

Julie: 14:34

baby, dealing with another kid, like you know, doing sound check, yeah All those things, and it just kept. I think I kept up with it for quite some time and I think it's because it's my passion too. So it was like this is what I really want to do, is be present and be available. But yeah, as time went on and as my family started to go through difficulties and walk through hard things, like I shared with you earlier, I had two miscarriages that were back to back that really threw me spiritually and physically, and in the midst, I mean, I was homeschooling. I had three kids, I think.

Julie: 15:11

I don't remember how old they were, but they were all little. I think probably like six, four and two or something like they were. They were little. And then my stomach started hurting all the time and then I was in the in and out of the hospital and I got diagnosed with ulcers and I had postpartum depression and it was like a lot of the physical trials started to pack on on top of the fact that I was a homeschooling mom, on top of the fact that I had a husband who worked 50 hours outside of the home as an arborist doing such a physically demanding job and was exhausted and also pastoring full time and I was running the women's ministry and doing all the things.

Christa: 15:53

Yeah, Wow, Wow. And so that was kind of the point where you're just like this isn't working or what. What happened?

Julie: 16:00

Yeah, so I it was. For me, it was a slow fade because I think my pride, which was hidden under so many layers of good intentions, wouldn't allow me to submit. It was like, no like, but this is what I want to do, this is what I'm called to do, this is what brings me joy and glorifies God. Like this can't be something that falls away.

Julie: 16:24

In my head. It just didn't make sense that I would be doing less of what I knew I was called to do. But in the process I realized that I was really not neglecting my children, but they weren't getting the best parts of me because I was so busy doing so many things. Nobody got the best parts of me. It was like all these little bits that were shared out to a thousand things and all of it was like I didn't like who I really was, like I was so spent and so tired and so short on patience, so short on, you know, memory and so many things. But I kept trying to do all the things, yeah, yeah. So I eventually got to a point where I I burnt out pretty bad.

Christa: 17:07

And was that that was back in America? Yeah, that all happened, wow. So just to kind of frame where you were in this point of your life, so you had lived in New Zealand for how many months Was it like a year and a half. It was like a year and a half, yeah, a year and a half, and then you went back to the States is?

Julie: 17:26

what I understand.

Christa: 17:27

And then that is where you and your husband were pastoring a church and that's when it just got overloaded. Is that when that all happened?

Julie: 17:36

Yeah, so we were in Rotorua working at a Bible school and then we went back to pastor our church, which was wonderful, but it wasn't a church that could support us full time. So my husband was working 50 hours a week, we were still having babies and um, trying to resettle our life because we moved across the globe again. So trying to like do simple things like you know, buy vehicles and buy dishes for your house, like get resettled. Yeah, so that was for sure. When it started to happen was when we were like full on in that moment and it wasn't immediate. I want to say the first two or three years we were okay and then it was like the tail end that we really started to just kind of decline.

Christa: 18:18

Okay, and what? What was your husband feeling at that time? Like, did he notice that that was happening with you and how did he kind of handle that?

Julie: 18:26

Yeah, he noticed when I, when I had my second miscarriage, physically I was just decimated for a while, okay, and I never quite recovered mentally I didn't really I didn't have the words to say like what was happening inside me. But now I look back and I had, I definitely had depression and I had a lot of other physical symptoms happening too. So he he recognized like you're not okay, you need to take a break, and that really helped me. He kind of gave me permission, you know, like to take a break, to take a step down. So I did, I stepped back, I stepped out of a lot of the things that I was doing, um, but it turned out that I was. I was almost too far gone at that point, like those couple of steps back weren't enough to breathe the life back into me that needed. Because what I really, what I realized now looking back is that it it was the busyness, but what was worse is that I had kind of become hollow.

Christa: 19:23

Wow.

Julie: 19:24

I had really become hollowed out where the spirit of God was not alive and active, in, in my heart and now I can look back and realize that the decline really happened, was my time with Jesus just wasn't there Like it was. I was still, you know, like maybe whipping through some scriptures and praying in my head for things I was doing, but the intimacy with Christ just was not there. And my cup was just empty and I kept trying to pour out from an empty cup. You know and that just it wasn't working.

Christa: 19:53

It reminds me of. I don't know what verse this is, but in the Bible it talks about be filled and be being filled.

Christa: 19:59

You know, like that, constantly filling, and you know, even when you're saying you're struggling with patience, you know that is something that the Lord will help us with. If we have a full cup, if we're receiving from the Holy Spirit, and you know, and he's filling us up. But if you've got an empty cup, you know how are you going to be patient with your children. If you've got any of the cup, you know how are you going to be patient with your children, how are you going to be gentle, you know, instead of having that quick answer or that quick um thing with your kids? So, yeah, I'm not so. It's so hard, though, because you're literally going through one of the most terrible situations that a mother, a wife, someone could ever go through.

Julie: 20:35

So gosh yeah it's could ever go through. So gosh, yeah it's. You know what I think I've learned, too about the slide? Is that, for me, what I know now when I'm getting overloaded? One of the things that I've learned to look out for is my love for people, because it's something that God has naturally given me. I really genuinely just love people, but when I was burning out, I didn't. I saw people as like, almost with the price tag of how difficult it's going to be to deal with you. You know, like someone calling me or needing help. It was almost just. It was that it wasn't like, oh, like, I'm emphasizing, yeah, it was just like and what do you need? You know those days when you're just spent with your kids and you hear that knock on the door and you're like what? Yeah?

Christa: 21:22

or you're just driving to school. You're like nobody talk, just nobody say anything like you're just done.

Julie: 21:26

You have no empathy left. That was how I functioned for so long, because I was just so spent, yeah, so it's actually become a good indicator for me now where my heart is at like yeah do I still love people? Am I still do I still have God's heart for them? Or is it kind of just a drain to think like what, what are you going to need from me today? Like this is a sad fact, but it's just true that we get there sometimes you know, oh yeah, absolutely.

Christa: 21:51

So what happened after that? Like how did you get out of that place of just, I suppose, being at the bottom in terms of, like, your level of being able to give out your passion for service? I don't, how did you recover from that?

Julie: 22:06

Yeah, so I pulled back from everything, I stopped. This was all kind of before, right before COVID came to. So God was gracious and also ruthless in the way that he dealt with us, because all of those difficult seasons kind of coalesced into one.

Julie: 22:23

There's a convergence, yes, the convergence, but it was a beautiful convergence because it forced us to really look at like what you're doing is not sustainable. And guess what? I'm going to stop it all now. So it was kind of God's grace that we were cut off because we needed to be. And I definitely burnt out before my husband did Like his story is kind of his own, but for me I burnt out and pulled out of everything. I was like honey, I can't. I just can't run any of it.

Julie: 22:51

And all the people in our church knew it wasn't like it was a hidden thing. They all saw we told them like, pray for us, Like we're overloaded, we're stressed, Like and they honestly, they were so wonderful in holding us up and praying for us and being present and helping, Like they were, they were the most wonderful people. But man cannot supply like the lack of God, and that was what it was. It was like there was a lack of God inside of me. So I pulled back from everything.

Julie: 23:16

I started seeing a Christian counselor who was fantastic and I know people maybe have different ideas about that but she had wisdom from God that I needed. So I started seeing her two or three times a week, honestly, at the beginning because it was like I need someone that I can be raw and honest with, say all the things and she knows what to do with it. Because, like I had shared with friends and they were like that's, we're so sorry, like we will bring you meals like we'll help out your kids like and they were wonderful, but it's like we.

Julie: 23:47

I needed a trained hand there's a limit.

Christa: 23:49

There's a limit like friendship is a great thing, but there is a limit in terms of, like how much we can help and if there is a serious issue going on there, like I wouldn't know, like counsel for someone going through that necessarily there are, I suppose, people who are trained for that and who do have the wisdom, um, and that's well. What does it say in the bible?

Julie: 24:10

you know many counselors, you know yeah, lots of wisdom, lots of wisdom many counselors. So that's kind of what helped you kind of get a handle on she she was incredible because one I'm a verbal processor so I need to talk to figure things out anyway. And at that point, especially when you're in ministry, anybody that's ever going to watch or listen to this and then has been in ministry, has been a pastor's kid or a pastor's wife or held any title. It's so awkward because who do you talk to?

Christa: 24:37

Yeah.

Julie: 24:38

Like, who do you, who do you, who are you raw with and say all the messy, terrible things that you can't just you know? So she was that safe place where I could just say all the things. And it was. It was every level of my life. It was like, physically, my body was in crisis, like, emotionally, my emotions were a disaster, and spiritually, like I was in crisis spiritually because I'm like God, like I have faithfully served you my whole life and I have given you everything. Like how is it possible that I'm here?

Julie: 25:08

Like you haven't kept your word and I felt so abandoned by the Lord and I needed to be able to say that to someone and not have everybody, like you know or just not know how to handle it like who's equipped. Who's equipped and ready to hear that if you have it, walk through it yeah so yeah, a counselor, that a safe place where she was rooted and grounded in the word, was such a good place because I could say all the messy things and she wasn't shocked yeah and she could give me a really good practical ways to start working it out and processing and really understanding where I was with the first part of it you know.

Christa: 25:42

So how did that affect then? Like can you expand on where your walk with the Lord was at that moment?

Julie: 25:48

Yeah, it was very dry and it was much more of commitment instead of intimacy, like, like I said. That said, all of the most important parts were hollowed out of it. It was more like I had just become a Pharisee. I'd become this legalistic person that looked like I had things to get on the outside. I'm the pastor's kid, I'm the pastor's wife, I do the right things because I love God, but that love was just dry.

Julie: 26:15

So my relationship with God was really not a relationship at all anymore. If I'm honest, looking back, it was really based on head knowledge of things that I knew and I could easily pass on to anyone that asked. But my, my relationship with him was so lacking and it a lot of it was because I blamed him. I was like how is it possible that you let me have two miscarriages? How is it possible that I'm at this point of burnout? And I blamed him. I was like how is it possible that you let me have two miscarriages? How is it possible that I'm at this point of burnout? And I blamed him for a lot of it. So there was distance that I had put there that I hadn't even realized until I started to sort it out. And as I had the time, because the world stopped with.

Julie: 26:54

COVID and as I had the space, it was so hard and uncomfortable to sit in that and I realized how I had been avoiding so much of those hard questions, how much I had been avoiding even saying those things to God because I was felt like it was wrong or bad, Like you just need to be faithful and keep pushing on and all of these things. But I needed to get to a place where I could be honest with him again and say you've hurt me and here's how, and then realize he hadn't hurt me, it was me. It was me and my improper perspective and expectations and I hollowed myself out. It was not God's doing, but I put it on him, I blamed it on him and then I wouldn't let him come near or heal me. So it took a lot of time for me to really sort things out. I am much like a relationship with a friend who maybe you know, says something about you behind your back and you feel like you can't trust them again.

Julie: 27:50

I mean, it wasn't that with God, because he's perfect but it was very similar and it took it took years to kind of draw that relationship back together and sort out all the bad theology that had been in my heart, All those little cracks that had become chasms and slowly swallowed me.

Christa: 28:08

Wow, I just want to sit with that for a moment because I'm just wanting to see where we're going to go next. Where are we going to go next? I'd really like I mean this wasn't I didn't intend for this to happen in the podcast, but could we talk a little bit about the miscarriages and how you actually healed and reconciled that with you and God? Like how did you come to that point? I mean I feel like you've briefly just kind of said that you realized your perspective was wrong, but I mean it's such there could be listeners right now who have gone through miscarriages themselves and they're in the same place that you were thinking why has God done this to me? Why has God let me down in this way? What may be something that you might say for them, someone going through that right now?

Julie: 28:55

So my miscarriages were back to back. I had three healthy kids, little medical things that happened with them, but essentially three healthy pregnancies. And then I had two miscarriages back to back um, one at 12 weeks and then my second one was at 16 weeks. So I was just shocked. I was because I hadn't experienced it and I had three kids running around. I was so surprised.

Julie: 29:20

So the first time that I miscarried it just knocked the wind out of me. It like knocked my feet out from under me and my kids knew and watching them grieve their baby brother or sister was awful. And and then like helping, like my church, to grieve, like to all the people that are around you that are grieving, and you are grieving and nobody knows what to say or do. And you don't know what to say or do, Like people are like how can I help? And you're like I don't know, it's just terrible.

Julie: 29:48

So that was awful and I think the Lord met me and I really I consoled myself by saying, like the things that I've walked through I'm going to use to encourage others, and God's allowed me to walk through this so I can encourage other people that have walked through it. And I kind of got through the first one that way and then I miscarried a second time and that baby that I carried I got pregnant.

Julie: 30:12

I found out that I was pregnant on Easter morning with that child and I felt like it was the Lord saying I'm the resurrection in life, easter morning with that child and I felt like it was the Lord saying I'm the resurrection in life and he was like restoring what we had lost and I and I took all of it and then we lost that baby and I just felt I was so pointedly angry at God and I don't think I could pinpoint that for a while I didn't realize that I was angry at him, but I was. I was like how could you let this happen? And it was. It was really years before I could even say that and make peace with it.

Julie: 30:43

But as I started to realize what I had done, the Lord was so gracious in showing me that, even with this baby, with it being on and the resurrection in life like a child, is not the resurrection in life, your family is not the resurrection in life. Your ministry, your whole existence is not life or resurrection. It's me and again I had made this like slight error, this tiny crack that had become a chasm, where it's like I took this promise that God made about him and I made it to me. Where it's like I took this promise that God made about him and I made it to me, and I had misplaced my hope and put it into a child instead of placing it into Christ. So that was the first thing that I had to, like really reckon with is, wow, lord, somehow I made the second child be something, some redeeming process that would redeem your name to me, which, like God, god helped me. Like that.

Julie: 31:42

All this wickedness was inside of me. But I feel like the only way that we're going to be able to talk about these things is if we're honest. Yeah, so that was just where my heart was and God had to slowly show me like how my perspective of death and his perspective of death is nothing because he's outside of time. How my perspective?

Julie: 32:02

of death and his perspective of death is nothing because he's outside of time. Yeah, and I know we know those things Like when people die. It's so hard for us because it's what we can see and feel and it's tangible.

Julie: 32:10

And Jesus felt that grief. You know, when Lazarus died, he wept and I think it's because he saw how much death was going to affect us. He never created death. He never wanted us to be apart from him. This was not his plan. So him viewing the corruption of sin in the world broke his heart and I think that's why he wept at the tomb and that's why it's okay for us to weep when we lose things.

Julie: 32:32

This is not. We were not created for this. Children are not meant to die. Like god wants to keep all of us healthy and whole, like that is his desire. But we don't live in a world that allows that, because it is corrupted by sin. But in the process of living in this messy, broken, sinful world, the Lord just showed me it's going to always be like this, like this is not a fluke. The fact that you lost this baby and are experiencing this pain is, honestly, is just going to be what the rest of your life is like in seasons. You are going to keep experiencing death, you're going to keep experiencing pain, you're going to keep experiencing loss and disappointment because this world is broken, and the sooner that we can accept that as commonplace and not see pain as the exception to the rule, but almost see joy as the exception to the rule.

Julie: 33:28

I feel like the simpler it is to walk through it, because when we can look at Christ and realize that he is the resurrection in life and he is the thing that sustains us through all of it, through whatever life throws at us, then we can get through. And it's not going to be easy, it's still painful and it hurts and I still. Just yesterday I was crying in my car thinking about those two children in heaven with Jesus, and it was still breaking my heart, like it still is a heartbreaking thing. But I have hope, you know, and it's that kind of hope that I can cling to. And it's not, it's not put the pain away and look at Jesus and you know you're going to see the babies again and they're with him. It's not that, it's. This is terrible.

Christa: 34:08

Yeah.

Julie: 34:09

And it sucks and it and you know what. He knows that and he feels that with you and it's okay.

Christa: 34:13

Yeah, yeah.

Julie: 34:14

I think that is probably the biggest things that I took took away from it is to learn to walk with Jesus through the valleys, which is maybe where it connects, like even with the burnout and with losing these kids. It was like you will walk through pain and loss. You will, and you're going to decide if you're going to do it with me or without me. Yeah, and through that whole process, and because those miscarriages and the burnout process were so interwoven with us, it was a really big part of the stories connect.

Julie: 34:50

It was God really teaching me what it was like to go through pain in an honest way but also go through it with him holding his hand, realizing that it's okay when I feel devastated and exhausted, realizing that it's okay when I feel devastated and exhausted and all of those things, like that's acceptable because you've walked through terrible things, but knowing that God is there, that he's so present and that he desires good things even in the midst of the pain. So I think that for me was like the redemption process of it is like walking through it, processing it, reading the right books, talking to the right people, doing all of those things God healing and restoring and reminding me of who he is, because that sweetness and intimacy that I was lacking is the only thing that could bring me out of those seasons, and the way that he restored his relationship to me has been just so night and day from what it used to be.

Christa: 35:46

Coming up next week on the Outside of Sunday podcast.

Julie: 35:49

Even emotions that we feel as Christians, that we feel like are off limits. You know, like, oh, if I'm feeling worried like the Bible says to be anxious for nothing, so like just put away my anxiety, or if I'm feeling angry, if I'm feeling I feel like that's another big thing, that's telling you that there's something happening inside of you that you're not addressing.

Christa: 36:06

What advice would you have for someone who is, say, like yourself, very passionate about the Lord, loves serving. That's where you find your joy, but you're also feeling like you might be in that place of burnout.

Julie: 36:18

You're the only wife to your husband. He doesn't have another one. If you have children, your children only have one mom. They don't have another mom. There can be another employee, there can be another counselor, there can be another teacher, there can be another worship leader, there can be. Many other people can fill those roles, but there's a certain roles that nobody else can fill.

Christa: 36:36

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