Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:24 — 23.3MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Android | RSS | More
Part Two!
As a trauma survivor, and current minister who helps women overcome obstacles to faith, I’m passionate about the message that God has put on my heart: in our deepest darkness, we find the greatest light through His Spirit.
Over the past 20 years, I’ve gone through a profound inner transformation, which culminated after ‘listening to my pain’ with God, in my first book of my trilogy on facing and overcoming trauma, “Treasures of Darkness: Facing the Pain and Finding the Light.”
During the last 11 years, I’ve been ministering to women in the online space, with a special focus on addressing trauma pain and fostering faith in the Word and Spirit of Christ.
I’m interested in talking about the theme of “In your weakness is My Strength” – how we can embrace our human weaknesses through trauma, in faith in Christ, and become Children of God through total trust in the love of God the Father.
Link Tree
Website: https://dswministries.org
Email: diana@dswministries.org
Social media links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DSW-Ministries-230135337033879
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DswMinistries
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxgIpWVQCmjqog0PMK4khDw/playlists
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dswministries/
Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Google Podcasts, Pandora, Stitcher, Listen Notes
Keep in touch with me! Email subscribe to get my handpicked list of the best resources for abuse survivors! https://thoughtful-composer-4268.ck.page #abuse #trauma
Mentoring https://youtu.be/WWgkERpkIoY
An easy way to help my ministry:
A donation link:
Affiliate links:
Can’t travel to The Holy Land right now? The next best thing is Walking The Bible Lands! Get a free video sample of the Bible lands here!
https://www.walkingthebiblelands.com/a/18410/hN8u6LQP
Get one free month of Blubrry podcast hosting with the promotional code: FAITHFUL
http://create.blubrry.com/resources/podcast-media-hosting/?code=FAITHFUL
Get quality podcast guests and interviews from PodMatch! Get paid to be a host! Sign up below:
https://podmatch.com/signup/faithful
Visit my friends at the Heal Thrive Dream Boutique for some cool T-shirts, jewelry and other merch! Simply share the discount code we created just for you and receive a 10% discount on your order!
DIANA98825
Bible Study Notebook From Karen Robinson! Check it out!
Karen Robinson’s Trauma Coaching
https://dswministries–htd.thrivecart.com/healingfromtraumatogether/
Free Healing Coaching Intensive
https://dswministries–htd.thrivecart.com/healingfromtraumatogether/64d8efa94c8de/
Marina Carrier Part Two
[00:00:00] We are back this week with my guest, Marina Carrier, and if you haven’t listened to the first episode of her story, please do that first. This is a part two series of her story. And we talked about many topics, including her childhood abuse, her mother not wanting her and wanting to abort her as an illegitimate child, and her continued abuse throughout her life from her husband to being rejected by the monastery community that she wanted to join, but she was not allowed to. [00:00:42] And then she talks about how God took her through her life. She recognized how much grace that God has given her. So that is next on the Wounds of the Faithful podcast. [00:00:56] Welcome to the [00:01:00] Wounds of the Faithful podcast, brought to you by DSW Ministries. Your host is singer, songwriter, speaker, and domestic violence advocate, Diana Winkler. She is passionate about helping survivors in the church heal from domestic violence and abuse and trauma. This podcast is not a substitute for professional counseling or qualified medical help. [00:01:22] Now, here is Diana. [00:01:24] , hello, everybody. God bless you. Thanks for being here. And as we stated in the introduction, we’ve got part two of our delightful guest, Marina Carrier. And I’m so glad to know her and meet her. It’s nice to meet new friends. From around the world. And so those of you from Scotland or the UK I hope that you’re enjoying this interview with her. [00:01:57] Now, one thing that we talked [00:02:00] more about off the air that she didn’t mention in her. recorded interview is that [00:02:07] she mentioned she got married and that he had a temper. she did share with me that her husband cheated on her and that’s what led to the end of the marriage. She also adopted a son, an eight year old son, and She had told me that this son that they adopted was very broken and she tried to give her son all of the love that he could get, but it was a very rocky road for her. [00:02:40] But he is now 53 with four children of his own and so God has blessed him. Anyway, I’m not going to give her bio again because I gave it on part one. You’ve already met her, already love her, I’m [00:03:00] sure, but we’re going to just jump right back into this conversation that I had with Marina. So here’s part two. [00:03:10] Enjoy. [00:03:11] So I think one of the things that you liked about, one of the things I said before, when I first started on this, facing the pain journey, I knew that God was calling me to go in. Well, I didn’t want to go in. Why go in? I’ve been through all that before. I didn’t want to go through that pain again. [00:03:30] So I said to the Lord, you’ll have to give me a reason that my inner being accepts, because at the moment I can’t force it and I can’t just go in. I need your grace. Anyway, it came to me, I don’t know, the next day or something like that. If we’ve got a wound and it’s healed on the outside, but actually in the depths, it’s still causing trouble, we need to go into a hospital and have the…[00:04:00] [00:04:00] The wound opened up and healed. And of course, with our, trauma, with PTSD, with all the abuse, we’ve got childish thinking that still leads us astray. We’ve got connections, that are not right. We’ve got false ideas about our responsibility. All of these things. need to be purified and clarified through the Holy Spirit. [00:04:32] I’m sure Diana could give you good examples because, empowerment over abuse and the empowerment comes through recognizing these trauma brain thinkings. [00:04:48] And, if any of you have ever ever done any abuse training, not training, but, understanding abuse abuse is when the mind simply cannot cope with it, [00:05:00] cannot make sense of it. Of course not. We’re made for love. We’re made for righteousness. We’re made for right relationships. [00:05:08] How can the brain deal with things when we’re totally overpowered, or deceived, or all the things that the deceiver does? He’s a robber and a thief. That’s not God. That’s not what we’re made for. So the trauma, we have to face it, but we’re not facing it alone. Ever. As long as you don’t try and do it in your own strength. [00:05:37] Amen. I just love it. Last October time. I was praying one Sunday morning and the Lord said to me, I want to give you a new heart. And I always surrender my will, and I said, Lord, you have my will over to you, because I can’t make it happen, neither can you, but we can pray that we’re willing for him to make it happen.[00:06:00] [00:06:00] So on the way to church, I suddenly had this bitter, oh really, it was like a knife. in, in my mind. I’ve learned over, well, the books spell out this journey, but I learned to pray blessings on my enemy, even if they’re in me. I didn’t argue, I just prayed blessings on this thing. Nothing happened, so I prayed again. [00:06:21] I think I prayed three times with that. It was a very intense and powerful, bitter, Thought. And after the third blessing, it melted into pain. And then I knew I needed to confess my sin, that I had tried to deal with that pain, whatever it was. You don’t have to be absolutely in control, my lovelies. You just need to know… [00:06:44] God’s way. And I prayed blessings on it, asked for forgiveness for not taking the pain to the Lord. And by the time I got to church, my heart was aflame and I just wanted to surrender totally [00:07:00] to the Lord. Came to my seat. And I just wanted to be wholly His. This is the problem in not being able to be in a monastery. It’s difficult in the world to feel that you’re wholly God’s. I said, Lord, your will be done. [00:07:13] And there was nowhere I could actually go and move to in that church. It was, there was no practical opening, so to speak. I just followed what I knew I had to do, which was to go and… Because of the travel and expensive petrol, whenever I was in Edinburgh, I used to do my pastoral visits. So there was a person who had mental health problems and I was going to have a coffee with her in a coffee bar. [00:07:38] And then I was going to see my friend who had been sick for a long time, was getting more and more old. And I was going to see her. When I got to see her power of attorney was there. I’m not going to go into all the details, but I said, how is she? And he said, well, I managed to get morning carers, but we still got no afternoon carers, but she’s quite depressed. And I found myself saying, well, I [00:08:00] had wondered. whether it would be helpful for me to offer to move in and be a companion. I can’t care because of this shoulder. [00:08:09] At that time it was, I couldn’t move it even still that time. And I said, but I’d be willing, to do that. And, do my work, but be there. And he said, well, I think that’s a good idea. And then, actually said something that was very comforting to me. He said, well, we’d have to make the whole of the upstairs yours. [00:08:27] Which I found very comforting that somebody was thinking about my needs. And he said, well, look, why don’t you mention it to Jean. Anyway, cutting a long story short, with the blessing of my spiritual father, who said give it a week’s trial so that she can say no if she doesn’t want me there. [00:08:41] Anyway, I moved in November 9th or something. And. Eight days later, he came to bless the house and she said, yes, I do want Marina here and I moved in. I was just there to help her die. I didn’t realize how quick it was going to be. I didn’t know that her [00:09:00] dear Chinese friend who had been a student living with her had been praying for somebody to, to be with her. [00:09:07] But that’s what happened. And so I can see how, God moved me and I gave up the flat he’d given me as a gift. It was right by the sea, right, almost in the sea at high tide. And I loved it. Absolutely adored it. And I started my three books there, but by God’s grace. I moved, I gave up that flat. [00:09:30] He promised that there would be another flat for me, and there was. She died, in fact, just before Christmas. God can do anything if we’re willing. I’m willing to bet that the woman was so grateful that you were there with her in her last days. She was. She was so blessed by your presence. [00:09:49] being there and comforting her. [00:09:50] then, in her last week, she was actually in hospital and oh, and when the priest came to bless the house, we were both crossing ourselves and she’s [00:10:00] not used to that at all. And she said, what are you doing? And I just explained that it was about the name of the father. [00:10:08] The Son and the Holy Spirit, so it’s the gift of God coming down into our hearts, and serving, and, the Holy Spirit being present with us. And I said, for me, Jean, it just confirms for me that I’m surrendering myself to Him, and I’m assured that He is with me. That’s what it does for me. [00:10:28] I’m not sure about Father, Bishop Raphael, but this is what it does for me. And it always does. And one of the nights, one of the days in the hospital, and I had to go because I just realized I couldn’t do 24 hours. I was too old. And so I was doing days by then. And and I said, Jean, I’m going to have to go. [00:10:49] God is with you. And the first time I’d ever seen her do it, and she did this. And she signed herself. And I was so [00:11:00] assured. that he was with her. I always knew, she always, prayed for God. She always lived for God. She served for God. It was wonderful at her funeral, all the people who had loved her and been blessed by her and served by her. [00:11:15] She just loved the Lord and he wanted her loved at the end. And for me, it [00:11:21] was such a blessing to be able to love somebody so intimately. I wasn’t doing the caring. The caring man, it was actually a man who was coming, but he was a, there were two men actually, and they were… wonderful with her, absolutely beautiful with her. So they were caring and all I did was get everything ready for her at night. [00:11:41] I couldn’t lift anything. I could hardly move the shoulder at that time. So I couldn’t do the caring except in loving her and making sure she got her food and, and just loving her. And being a gentle spirit with her. And I had to actually say, [00:12:00] because she’d been a woman of authority and she could be very, straight and tell you what to do. [00:12:07] I knew I couldn’t take it. And very early on, God gave me grace to say, Jean, God never tells me what to do. He asks me. He gives me free will. And I wonder if you could do that too? Isn’t that a beautiful way of saying it? Oh yeah, perfect. Who else could give me those words? You put it very well, yeah, and she was touched by it. She was, when she was tired at the night, and I didn’t care then, generally speaking, she knew that she needed to be alive in Christ for those things too. And, she was such a woman of grace. And I’m just completing a cross in my garden, which is going to be a flower bed, cross shaped. [00:12:51] And in the middle I’m going to put a, she always gave me a plant. for the garden, because I was a nomad. I didn’t [00:13:00] belong anywhere, and I moved to lots of different places at various times, and she always gave me a plant for my garden. Now, I want to talk about your books and how you got called to write. Well, I thought I was going to become a nun. And I’d have this sort of involvement with giving. a church, um, that had been in the hands of a different church, a different denomination to the Orthodox Church. [00:13:30] But it clearly, I was the instrument to get the passage, but I thought I was going to become a nun because it was part of what I’d wanted. And then it all fell apart, and the French monastery said no. The abbess said, no, this is not doing you any good. Get out. So there I was left in this turmoil and cutting long story short, I was offered a cottage down in Wales and I knew I had to go and [00:14:00] Eventually, it turned out that what God wanted to do was to help me listen to my pain. [00:14:06] And that’s what he did. I had lots of confirmation, including a priest who said, gave me exact word that God had given me two years before about, going and writing with this saint who is dead now, but he was a recluse. And God wanted me to become a recluse and listen in my heart. I started writing in uh, November, probably about 11 years ago. [00:14:33] Because it was November 2012. And he brought, enabled me, because I was really living in dereliction in one cottages, And hardly any… internet connection. That was only if I went outside and walked around the car park opposite, or to try and find connection. [00:14:52] I listened every morning, and as part of my prayers, and At the end of that time, I’d [00:15:00] come to such a sense of greater integration. And this is the most important thing. We need to remember, whilst we’re divided, we’re not whole. And we need wholeness to be holy. Holy without wholeness is self righteousness and pride and vainglory, we need integration with Him. in here. And he also then led me onto service. He told me exactly what to do. I was not doing anything without his word, without his guidance, without his grace taking me and carrying me. It was beautiful. It was hard. But it was probably the most beautiful thing I ever did. [00:15:48] And I remember sitting outside this tiny, it didn’t have a garden, it just had pebbles. Tiny little thing. I remember sitting outside that one day and I felt such [00:16:00] peace. But I had to go, I actually went back to Edinburgh. It was beautiful. I’d never had that sort of peace. Never had that sense of being with myself, with God. [00:16:13] It was awesome. This is what God offers us. We don’t have to be afraid ever of our pain if we’re doing it with him. And in this book that emerged, so all the poetry, because it came out as poetry, that I wrote, turned two years, three years later, during COVID, into this book. The beginning forms of it, and I’ve written the book to Dear Reader, to all those who have suffered trauma, and who need to hear what God was doing, and hear the mistakes I was still doing. [00:16:50] God said, I want you to write it, warts and all, so he didn’t allow me to sift out the bits that people might judge. No, because he doesn’t.[00:17:00] He gently guided me. Or there’d be a sort of silence at the other end of the phone, so to speak. And then I’d say, all right, okay, you want me to forgive? You want me to go with you and bear this? [00:17:15] And it was awesome. So that was the book one. But as I started to write this, when I, by then I’d moved from this parish that I was working in, I was living back in Scotland, and I sat down. Because he always tells me somehow that I would need to sit with him in a pen and he said this is book one. Oh, and then he gave me the titles of the others. [00:17:41] So the second one was Your Will Be Done and the third was Children of God and those were finished, that was finished just after Jean died. This was finished when I’d moved to the flat I’m in now. that God gave me. The mystery of [00:18:00] this, and this, Children of God is called conformed to the life giving cross in joy and hope in eternal life. [00:18:09] iT’s not this life, it’s not our worldly goodies and whatever that are our aim. It’s that freedom within to live and love and forgive and bless. But we love ourselves, my dear ones. in Christ. Don’t hate ourselves anymore. So I go from that woman who hated herself and her inner being. Hated her vulnerability. [00:18:41] Hated her losses. Her pride. She just hated herself. I don’t feel like that now. But it’s not a worldly sense of loving myself. It’s knowing that I can love and am loved by God the Father. It was such a joy [00:19:00] to meet Diana and to talk with her. I wouldn’t have loved that before. I couldn’t have done it. [00:19:05] Could you, Diana, before? No. You really dealt with your things? No. Good. [00:19:11] This is the invitation. Is it loss to love? No. [00:19:16] You are starting another book, you said, before we hit the record button. That sounds exciting. Well, he released something in me that had not been used. Like, I think it’s to do with my initiative. Permission from him to live. Wow, that’s profound. Yeah, and I, the book that I started writing yesterday may change, but it’s about a sacrifice of praise. [00:19:47] And then, the subtitle is A Reluctant Convert. [00:19:51] Because we have to bring the Thomas to him. Yeah? Does that sound familiar to you, Diana? Amen. You haven’t the [00:20:00] title yet. Well, That’s the concept, but the title of the book. Well, that, that’s sort of what I wrote down yesterday. But I feel integrated. [00:20:10] Well, as long as God keeps giving you the words and what to say, you’re going to keep writing books for him. Yeah, and there’s so much. People are so afraid. They’re afraid of the division within them. They’re afraid of life. They’re afraid of trust. Today, I spoke to somebody and said, listen, I believe the Lord has invited me to create a exhibition on the creation so that we paintings But I just suddenly thought, maybe, you and the choir could be part of the opening, because it was a service at this little chapel that is part of this complex I live in. [00:20:50] And I said, what a wonderful idea. This is a man who hardly knew me. [00:20:55] He said, find out if it’s possible, find out the dates, and we’ll get started. [00:21:00] That’s what happens, isn’t it? That’s right. tO God be the glory. Dear ones, remember. Jesus says, let your light shine, don’t give up, keep praying, keep waiting, but keep trusting and let him deal with all the darkness, bring it to him, feel the pain, as I did and I felt the pain again, and he said, I want you to embrace all your broken bits to my heart. [00:21:33] And forgive yourself. And then these things kept emerging. So I was doing artwork on Sunday, Saturday, and writing and and some work in the garden. So you’re not dead yet. I love what you say, sister. And we are sisters in Christ. We are. We are, Diana. We are sisters in Christ. It’s been so delightful to meet you. [00:21:59] I don’t think I would have [00:22:00] been able to meet you if I didn’t have this podcast. That’s my favorite part of doing this is I meet wonderful people like you who Have all this grace and truth to share with the listeners. So I will definitely have to come and visit you if I go to Scotland someday. [00:22:19] Yes! Do! Do! Lord willing. I’ve got a, even, although I’ve got somebody living in my spare room, but I have a couch. I don’t know if my husband will fit on that couch. He’s 6’1 Oh, yes, he will. He will. It’s a double one. And it’s really comfortable. [00:22:39] Well, we’ll definitely when we start traveling again, we’ll have to come out and we’ll know somebody in Scotland when we come visit. Yeah. And I will put in the show notes your books and where can the listeners get a copy of your books? Well, they’re available on Amazon. Tell us all the titles. Right, so it’s [00:23:00] Treasures of Darkness, Facing the Pain, and Finding the Light by Marina Carrier. That’s this one. That’s the first one. Yeah, the second one is Your Will Be Done, and this is Beyond Powerlessness Fear. This is when we get stuck. [00:23:19] in authority positions, and we’re longing to serve in Christ, but things are not quite right. [00:23:28] And then your third book. [00:23:31] And the third book is Children of God. Children of God, conformed to the life giving cross in joy and hope in eternal life. It’s mystery. Great titles. And they’re all available on Amazon. Go and get your copies. And so we’re going to bless one another before we go here. [00:23:55] So we’ll, we can do the sign of the cross together. How’s that? [00:24:00] Yeah. Yeah. Ready? Now we, in the Orthodox Church, you go from right to left. In the Catholic Church, you go from left to right. But we believe that, we’re the strong right arm is serving the weakness. So that’s why we do it that way. [00:24:13] Okay, well that’s nice. Okay. Yeah in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Amen it’s been a joy and thank you very much. And I’ve been praying all week for those who will hear. [00:24:33] And I continue to pray for all those broken hearts that need his love. Amen. And don’t be afraid to keep praying and asking. That’s right. His love is beyond our comprehension. Thank you so much for being on the show. Just loved our conversation. Thank you very much for being a very good host. [00:24:56] God bless you. [00:24:57] Thank you for listening to the [00:25:00] Wounds of the Faithful podcast. If this episode has been helpful to you, please hit the subscribe button and tell a friend. You can connect with us at DSW Ministries dot org, where you’ll find our blog along with our Facebook, Twitter, and our YouTube channel links. Hope to see you next week!