Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:58 — 33.8MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Android | RSS | More
We are back with Part Two of Kelly Hall’s story, talking about her journey as a military wife, a mom with 4 children, 3 of which are deaf. Find out what happened when the faith community told her it was wrong of her to get cochlear implants for her children. She continues to tell the many stories of God’s grace and provision through the struggles and the tears. Do not miss the inspiring conclusion to our conversation filled with Unshakable Hope.
Get to Know Kelly! I’m a wife, mom, Bible teacher, speaker, author, occasional blogger, and podcaster with a unique story enriched by our four children, three of whom have special needs. My husband, Lee and I, raised them in the constantly challenging world of Air Force military life. Our story evolves into an unexpected journey of chronic illnesses, medical treatments and ongoing caregiving. I am intimately familiar with the ache of unanswered prayers and experienced in the anguish of wrestling with the Lord through the weariness of long waits. If this is your story, I’m deeply and truly sorry, but I pray the Lord will encourage and comfort you through His Word, His presence and renew your hope through resources available here. My family’s deepest comfort is the unshakable hope we have through faith in Jesus Christ—through Jesus and Him alone, we have hope that holds us even when life shakes us.
website: kellyhall.org
The Unshakable Hope Podcast is available on your favorite podcast platform.
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!
Transcript:
Kelly Hall Part Two
[00:00:00] Welcome to the 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. [00:00:25] Now, here is Diana. [00:00:33] Hi, welcome back to the podcast. So now on to part two of our guest. From last week, we have Kelly Hall. She’s a speaker, a podcaster, a mother, a blogger, wife of a pilot in the Air Force. She has four children, three of which are deaf. I’m not going to review anything from the last episode. [00:00:58] Please go and listen [00:01:00] to part one if you have not heard Kelly so far because you will miss out on a lot of the important content about kelly and her family and As I promised she is incredible. I am so thankful for her friendship and that the lord brought us together And so we’re going to continue with her story today. [00:01:23] So I won’t delay any further. Enjoy the rest of the conversation with my friend Kelly Hall. [00:01:29] And so I looked to the Lord and I said. [00:01:33] I need you. And this was a really big thing for me to say, because I’m a physical therapist who thought I had all the answers, but for the first time in my life, I said, God, I need you. I desperately need you. I used to kind of roll my eyes when people would say, I need you. But God took me to the very end of myself. [00:01:54] So I surrendered and. God began to speak and he said, [00:02:00] Kelly, do you remember that promise I gave you the day Kayla was diagnosed? I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. That promise is for today. It’s for your whole family. I will give you grace to help you the moment you need it. You can trust me. [00:02:15] I will always be there for you. I’ll never leave. And so all this peace just is. Flooded my heart, but throughout the day, you know, I had to keep, the panic would rise. It wasn’t an instantaneous victory. Do you know what I mean? Yes. So I had to keep going back to God’s promises over and over. Obviously you had some anxiety. [00:02:35] Did you have any medical help that you could go to get you through some of this, or was that non existent back then? I think it was there, but I considered it, but I didn’t feel like I really needed it. I was not suffering from depression or anxiety on a regular basis at all. Okay. I had a moment of situational panic, but that wasn’t my norm, and so that [00:03:00] wasn’t something I had to do. [00:03:02] I did do that much later on 10, 15 years later, I did start taking an antidepressant. It was very helpful, but at this time, no. [00:03:10] I learned a huge lesson during that time. This was such a pivotal moment. You use that word a lot, right? Just times in your life when you pivot. From old ways of thinking to new ways of thinking. So I can just remember talking to Lee during this time and looking at my five year old whose speech was still unintelligible and just saying, what hope do we have for our twins? [00:03:33] How are they ever going to learn to talk? You know, I’ve worked so hard. I’m getting her therapy and I’m working every day to work on her language and to work on her speech. How is there any hope? And Lee just said, don’t you know God loves you? And I’m like, okay, that doesn’t help me at all. That is not speaking to my deep fear. [00:03:53] I just poured out my heart to God. [00:03:54] I told him everything I was afraid of and then I asked myself What do I know that’s true? [00:04:00] And I filled my heart. I declared it out loud God. I know you’re with me God, I know you have good plans for these girls. I know I can trust you. I know you’ll never leave me or forsake me. I know that you love them more than I do. [00:04:14] And I know that nothing is impossible with you. That was really what gave me hope and anchored me to God’s goodness for the hardest times in my life. [00:04:23] I wanted to go back to what Lee said, because he said something that is true. Don’t you know, God loves you, but to you, it was the wrong thing to say. I mean, explain that a little bit. Are there things that you shouldn’t say, or was there something he could have said that would have been more helpful at that time? [00:04:45] That is such a good question. I love that question. Yes. I love that. I’m so glad you asked it. So what he said was true. And what was going through my mind was not, really, that’s not true. You’re not helping me. It was really, I know [00:05:00] that’s true. [00:05:00] I was so confused. So I just went to be by myself cause I knew I needed to talk to God about that. God, I know you love me. Why is that not easing my fear? And I discovered that the reason it couldn’t reach down into that place of fear was because I really needed to express the fear to God. [00:05:19] I really needed to tell him the truth about what I was scared of. Like, I’m scared, God, that you don’t care enough to take care of us. Really. That’s what was at the very root of it. I’m scared that your love is not big enough to really take care of the girls in the way they need to be cared for. [00:05:39] And so I doubted the goodness of God. His heart of love. What are you so afraid of? That’s such a powerful question to ask ourselves. If God’s love is not comforting you, well, a lot of times it can be trauma, but it can also be just fear. [00:05:56] That’s what I loved about Job, is that he just laid it out all [00:06:00] on the table. He was honest. He wasn’t putting on some mask and pretending. I never did that before. Through most of my Christian life. I figured, well, God already reads my mind anyway, why do I have to say out loud what my questions are, what my doubts are and how inadequate I am without Him. [00:06:18] And that’s why I appreciated Job and you said that so eloquently, so simply. We can be honest and transparent with the Lord. Just, just let it all out. He can handle it. Right. Right. But you know, Diana, I didn’t grow up in a church where people did that. Yeah, I didn’t either. It was later in life that I finally had permission to tell God the truth. You talk about this a lot when you talk about the Bible characters, you talk about the trauma and the things they did wrong. [00:06:49] And that the fact that this happened in the Bible does not mean God is approving of it. This was horrible. That was something I had to learn along the way. These [00:07:00] people were very flawed, and we can name their flaws, and we can say what they did was wrong and sinful and betrayal and abusive. [00:07:08] And, we can also tell God the truth. So when I started reading the Psalms and really studying David’s prayers. That helped me too. I’m like, man, this dude, he tells God the truth. He just lays it out. He doesn’t care how bad it sounds, you know? Also, the other thing that helped me, Diana was reading books, reading stories of people that had, like Joni Erickson Tada, you know, she told the truth about how hard it was and how God rescued her from deep depression and disappointment and loss. [00:07:39] Those kind of books and the Psalms, started giving me permission to tell God the truth and be honest about my struggles, but it didn’t happen until later. Yeah. You and me both. Yeah. [00:07:52] I’d love to just talk to you about another miraculous way God met me during the hardest time of my life. Yeah, bring it. [00:08:00] Okay. This is one of my favorites. It was Lee’s favorite story too. So when I had to move to St. Louis, lee could not move there for 17 months. I was there with four little kids by myself in a place where I didn’t have any support. [00:08:14] He lived about five hours away. He was going to an Air Force school. So he could actually come home on the weekend. So he’d be there for about a day and a half. Before he had to go back. So he would help me grocery shop and things like that, and do errands. [00:08:28] I had to move there so that the girls could get cochlear implants. And so all three of our girls had surgeries while I was there, and they were going to a special school so they could learn to talk. [00:08:40] And if they got sick in the middle of the night, I’d have to wake them all up and go get medicine. Or one time I did call a neighbor and I said, can you come over and just sit in the house while I go get medicine? And she goes, oh my gosh, I will just go get it. [00:08:55] I will bring it. I cannot believe all you have to deal with. So, you know, [00:09:00] there were just so many things that were super hard. And I didn’t know anyone at first, except from the school for the deaf. I met them, but they weren’t my friends. They weren’t my close confidants. [00:09:12] And I was visiting churches, but I didn’t have a church home. One day after I dropped all my kids off at school and David was in a little preschool, I had a little bit of time by myself and it was freezing in St. Louis called the Midwest. I mean, why does anyone live there? So I’m wrapped in my coat and my scarf and I’m on the couch and I’m praying. [00:09:36] I just said, I’m lonely. God, I feel better after talking to you, but I wish I had another, a person with skin on, you know, that I could actually talk to. Again, I didn’t want to call my family or make them feel like they needed to rescue me. [00:09:50] I just said, I went through kind of a mental list of people I could call, but I didn’t think anyone could handle me with all my emotions. So I said, God, if you want [00:10:00] someone to call, you’re going to just have to tell them to call me. And so I was about to leave the house to go get some comfort food and make myself feel better. [00:10:08] And suddenly the phone rang and I picked it up and this woman on the other end was a woman I had just met at a church we had visited about a month before. And she said to me, Kelly, God has been telling me to call you for 3 days and I just kept putting him off and saying, no, what am I going to do? I don’t know how to help her. [00:10:28] That day, so she called me right at the moment that I needed the phone call. So miraculous. We talked for about 45 minutes, and she really helped me process a lot of stuff I was going through. Plus, You’re not going to believe this. [00:10:44] She and her husband also had four kids, three of them profoundly deaf. They had moved to St. Louis for the same reason I had. And they had also been in the military, but they had gotten out, so they still lived there. Wow! Yeah, so when I would go to churches, I would just I [00:11:00] just feel like my story is too overwhelming. [00:11:01] Nobody gets it. Nobody gets me. I don’t even want to try to help them comprehend how enormous our weird story is, but she was someone who really got it. And I hung up the phone and I just fell to my knees and started sobbing because I just thought, God, can’t believe you loved me enough to arrange a phone call when I needed it the most. [00:11:22] That’s a great story. I love that. So how are things as they grew up. Became teenagers, became young adults. I mean, it must’ve been some challenges and transitions there. It got harder as they got older because when your kids are really little, you know, kids just play together. They don’t care, but as they got older, that’s where you started to see the division. [00:11:47] They could hear, but in a group, they couldn’t hear anything, you had to be looking at them. They still needed to lip read. And so there were language delays. They were socially delayed. There were [00:12:00] issues and you move every two years. And so as you, they get older, you already have clicks established in middle school. [00:12:08] And in high school and in churches. And so our girls just experienced. Years and years of rejection, of woundedness, of not being accepted, not being understood, of being judged. That really hurts a mama’s heart when you see your kids struggling so much. [00:12:27] Both the two older kids were going to graduate from college. The two youngers were going to graduate from high school and they already had 40 hours of college under their belt because they’d done dual credit stuff. So this is a year of celebration, but it wasn’t a year of celebration. [00:12:45] It was one huge loss and disappointment after another. So huge rejections, emotional issues for one daughter and an anxiety disorder that was very pronounced and became debilitating for another [00:13:00] daughter. She had panic attacks. They suddenly became much worse. She even had a hard time leaving the house. [00:13:08] Another daughter was neurologically impacted, had three concussions and was starting to suffer from some severe things that were almost close to seizure. So something awful was happening in my house and I did not understand it. So I was getting really depressed and upset and hurt. I was very involved in ministry too. I had written a Bible study, traveling and speaking. I was the head of women’s ministry. I taught Bible studies , so I stayed in the word, but God was speaking to me and saying, I really want to talk to you about that place in your heart. And he was talking about this wound in my heart where I was so deeply hurt by all the things he had allowed in my girl’s lives. [00:13:49] I decided to open up Matthew 11, 28 through 30, but it was in the message. So do you care if I read it to you? Go right ahead. Okay. So it says, are you [00:14:00] tired, worn out, burned out on religion? Come to me, get away with me, and you’ll recover your life. [00:14:06] I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me. Watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. Love that. And then it goes on to say, I won’t lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn how to live [00:14:28] and so I want to tell you what God did there. The Holy Spirit was Speaking to me and here’s what I just love so much about the Lord. He did not say to me, Kelly, you need to suck it up. Buttercup, you know, get over yourself. You need to just pull yourself up by your bootstraps. [00:14:47] You need to pray more. You need to read the Bible more. You need to just get over yourself. He told me he validated my grief and just said, you need to grieve with all the losses you’ve [00:15:00] experienced. You need to spend some time acknowledging the deep disappointments that you have faced, the dreams that have not been realized, the dreams that may never be realized, and you need to, spend some time with me in that space. [00:15:17] It didn’t happen all at once, I grieved in places that were too deep for words. But God’s got me. He’s holding me. Yes, I’m walking through losses that have wounded me. [00:15:28] They really wounded me too deep for words and it’s really too much, it’s too much to see my girls suffer as much as they have suffered. But God’s got me and as God kept walking me through this process. [00:15:42] God finally helped me find words for the deepest grief in my heart, my deep wound, and this is what they are. God, when my heart reads the story of my girls lives, what I see is neglect. I don’t see the care of a good shepherd, and I know it’s not true. [00:16:00] I know you are the good shepherd, but I need you to help me see their lives differently, because I can’t see it any other way, except That they have been neglected and they have suffered all their lives. [00:16:11] And it just hurts me beyond belief. I am deeply offended that you would allow such a piling on of hardship. And that I think was, that is my deepest wound that God did not wait until they were okay. Before he allowed more suffering. Later, Diana, we would find out that our girls suffered from chronic Lyme disease, which is a horrendous disease from the pit of hell. [00:16:37] That’s what I say. It affects everybody differently. It’s very hard to treat. It’s very difficult to understand. So that became a long journey where my girls even. Two of them now live with me. One of them is in bed, and I am a part time caregiver. But God healed my heart. During that time, I was deeply offended, but I never have been again. And he [00:17:00] used a story from scripture, we all know this story. The story of Lazarus. He was dead. Jesus received news. His best friends, Lazarus, Mary and Martha. Mary and Martha are saying, Jesus, the man you love, who’s like a brother to you, he’s sick. Come, please come and heal him. And the Bible says, Jesus loved them and he waited. I read that and I was so stunned. [00:17:26] The Holy Spirit just said to me, through that story, I love. Your girls. I love them. And right now, I am waiting. I’m waiting to heal them. And I fully believe one day that healing is coming for all of them. And that, breakthrough is on the horizon. I even sense that now. That it’s happening now. But God was just speaking to me and saying, My delays Do not indicate my disappearance and my delays do not diminish my power that is at work on their behalf and my delays are not [00:18:00] a sign that I don’t love you. [00:18:02] So that was huge and he healed my heart and he began to open my eyes to see his goodness in daily ways and I have never ever again gone back to that place of being so offended at God. I [00:18:14] think we have all been there and offended at God. And we, of course, talk about abuse, and you mentioned naming it, and we have to do that too. we have to name the abuse and recognize it. Name the rape, name the child abuse, name the gaslighting, the manipulation. You have to put names to it and recognize it for what it is before we can heal from it. [00:18:41] And I like what you said, that God validated you, what you said. We hear it all the time. You just need to pray more. You need to read your Bible more. No, you just need to rest in the Lord. He’s validated us. That is so powerful. Yeah. I think so many people needed to hear that [00:19:00] today. [00:19:00] You don’t have to do more. You just rest in him. Yeah. [00:19:04] And I remember when we had lunch together and you brought me into the world of your daughter’s deafness. And you mentioned that they don’t fit into the deaf community and they don’t fit into the hearing community. And that was very profound. I never thought of it that way. And I started doing, transcripts and [00:19:28] words on the screen because of your girls. I wanted the hearing community and the deaf community to, get this content that I was. can you elaborate a little bit more about their struggle with not really belonging in one or the other? [00:19:44] Yeah. It’s really interesting. There is a division in the deaf culture, where some people think that you should not put cochlear implants on your children, that they should never have cochlear implants. And, that they should all learn sign language. And [00:20:00] If they don’t learn sign language and you put cochlear implants on them, you’re really robbing them of their Deaf culture. [00:20:06] Sometimes I’ve had people say to me, your girls are capital D Deaf and you should not try to make them into you. And I would say, Oh, that is not at all what I’m doing. We’ve just been praying and God is leading us. And this is the path he led us on. But one of my daughters, she [00:20:22] tried to be a part of a deaf group where they were doing primarily sign language and so she was learning sign and she thought they’d be really accepting of her and they weren’t and it didn’t really work out. They were really impatient with her. They didn’t want her there. And so that just continually happens in a [00:20:38] hearing world, you often meet at restaurants that are loud and you’re in groups. Even at church, it’s loud and people are in groups and that’s just never worked for them. It doesn’t work. They can’t. And it was so sweet because at our church, one of my daughters, she wanted to be a part of a Bible study. [00:20:57] And because our church is so sensitive to people with [00:21:00] special needs, one of the ladies just said, I’ll just go to your house. And I’ll do Bible study with you once a week. And that was years ago. And she ended up being the matron of honor, in her wedding and still does Bible study with her by phone by FaceTime, you know, all these years later. [00:21:17] So people can make space, but our girls have experienced a lot of loss. And my oldest daughter is still just trying to find a community that accepts her. she does have good friends, who see her. And I’m so deeply thankful for that, but they’re not here where we live. [00:21:33] Your daughters, sound the way that you’ve described them, they love the Lord and they’re godly young ladies. And yeah, even in the midst of their suffering, they still love the Lord. Yeah. Anytime I have a bad day, I’m like, I need to quit whining. Cause [00:21:52] yeah, they inspire me. Their stories inspire me so much. Thank you. Now we have talked [00:22:00] about spiritual abuse before because that was primarily what my abuse was. In the churches that I was a part of. They would twist, the word of God and twist [00:22:11] what God supposedly said and, being the Holy Spirit for me. You had shared some of that too with me that you had suffered so much from, the faith community that should be supporting you. And they would say terrible things about your children or you. What’s that crazy story you told me that, Oh, God told me to tell you this. [00:22:33] And you’re like, what? Yeah. So, in our churches, I mean, people were well meaning. Okay. But they just were not able to understand our girls. I don’t mean understand their words. They just couldn’t understand where they were coming from. [00:22:48] So there was just a lot of rejection. Okay, so I don’t blame them, but it was just hard for them. Okay. That was just a fact. But the story you’re talking about happened one time a long time ago when I [00:23:00] was speaking at a women’s retreat at a different church. And this woman said to me, gosh, I, God has spoken to me and I need to tell somebody here something. [00:23:09] So would you just pray for me? And I said, Oh sure. Yes. I’ll pray for you. You know, I was doing the speaker thing. I’m praying for these new women. So after the whole retreat was over, I prayed over people that needed prayer. She waited till everybody was done. [00:23:23] And then she came in at the end and she said, God told me a word. I have a word for you. And I’m like, Oh my goodness. So, I just prayed. God, if there’s anything true in here you want me to hear, I just want to have an open mind. So she sat down and said, sort of what I have said to you already. [00:23:41] She said, you are trying to make your girls into you. It’s just very obvious that you did not accept them as they are. I did your bible study, and you would talk about trying to teach them to talk. So you were trying to make them like you instead of making them capital D Deaf. These are the people God created them [00:24:00] to be capital D Deaf. [00:24:01] And so God just wants you to change that part of your behavior. That was very offensive. And I said. Um, okay, I hear what you’re saying, but I just have to say to you that if what you’re saying is true, then what you’re telling me is I have walked in willful disobedience to the Lord all these years. [00:24:20] My husband and I have prayed, we have sought the Lord’s face, we have leaned into God, we have prayed and prayed and prayed for God to direct us and we have had to make some very difficult decisions because we don’t know anybody else who has lived the life that we live and we needed God to direct our paths and we have obeyed everything he has revealed to us and so after I said that she said, but God has told me that your girls need to be in ministry to the deaf. [00:24:50] That is a community that really needs to come to know Jesus and they are called to minister to the deaf. And I said, well, if that is the case, then I know [00:25:00] God will tell them that that is what he has called them to do. And so. I just prayed for her and apparently all she needed was to be heard. But gosh, it was so upsetting for me to me about 3 hours to recover from her accusations. [00:25:13] But eventually, you know, I was able to just let it go. I was able to just surrender it to the Lord. And, thankfully, God has really protected me from that happening. That is, really the biggest time. It happened. The only other time was when, St. Louis, [00:25:27] Post Dispatch wrote up a big full page story about our family because the twins and my oldest daughter had received cochlear implants there and the twins received it on the same day. So it was just a big news story. That was in the paper. We just told our story. It was, [00:25:43] pretty cool and it was fun, but then a letter to the editor came out and this man just reamed us and said, we are abusive to our children. Our children should be taken away from us and giving them cochlear implants is abusive. And again, [00:26:00] we’re robbing them of their culture. [00:26:02] And I have never been dismissive. I had so many Deaf friends who only communicated through sign language, and I learned sign language and became pretty darn good at it. And they were my friends too, so I was never divisive like that. I didn’t understand those accusations, but there are just some people, [00:26:22] who are on extreme ends of the spectrum and accused and we’re really unkind, but I just had to keep going back to the Lord and saying not even to them, but to even to Christians. Our story didn’t make sense. Our choice to get cochlear implants for our girls and go to school so that they could learn to talk caused my husband to have to be apart from our family. [00:26:44] And other people would say to us that, families should never be apart. And I would say. I know this is hard, but this is how God has led us. And so we’re trusting God to be sufficient and meet all of our needs in this space. Unfortunately, that’s how [00:27:00] the world sees the church as a bunch of busy bodies that have nothing better to do than to butt into your business about something they know nothing about. [00:27:08] They don’t know you or your story. They just, see the surface of it and they, think it’s their job to come and tell you what to do with your life. That’s I saw a little bit of that, but I will say for the most part, we have had wonderful experiences in the churches, except, for our girls. Middle school kids were really hurtful. [00:27:29] High school kids are really hurtful. Even though they love the Lord and, they have a close relationship with him for the most part. They really don’t fit into churches. My one daughter loves to take care of kids in churches, but the services they need real time captioning. [00:27:44] Um, so there are just some things that are hard for them, but of all, but I’ve seen so much love in our church right now that I think one of my daughters is she’s praying about starting to come. So there’s just a lot of, yeah, so much healing is happening [00:28:00] in their hearts. And I, so I don’t want to criticize, too much, but we’ve just suffered along the way with just those certain people, they’re everywhere. [00:28:08] Yeah. I think we have a really great, healthy church that we’re part of. I just don’t understand the concept of. It’s wrong for you to give them cochlear implants. Because they’d be isolated even more than they are now. And we, we both wear glasses. We have dentures. You probably know, people that lost limbs in the war, they get prosthetic limbs, they learn how to use them. So does that mean, we can’t use any of those things? Yes, they’re artificial, but God’s given us those things as gifts to make our lives a little more bearable, get through life. [00:28:45] But it’s no different if somebody’s blind. I had LASIK surgery because without my No, these are just reading glasses, but, from the seventh grade, I had bottle caps and I had LASIK surgery, [00:29:00] 2008 and, I can see without glasses or contacts. [00:29:03] What’s the difference? So I could never understand that. Well, you were attacked like that. And not everybody is like that. Of course, I said, it’s just parts of the community that are more extreme. I really think it’s changing because cochlear implants have improved so much and there’s more of them. [00:29:20] And now there’s more schools teaching deaf children to speak. And so I think it’s because Becoming more commonplace. And I think that culture is shifting. But this was 36 years ago when my first daughter was diagnosed. So it was different then. There is a lot that’s improving in that regard. [00:29:37] I, and I love sign language and our girls have learned some sign language and I just wish there wasn’t any division anywhere, you know, Christ prays in John 17 for unity among believers, but, I just wish so much there was unity everywhere you look. Of course, that’s what our hearts long for. [00:29:56] And one day when Jesus comes, there will be unity. Right now, there’s [00:30:00] division. Amen. I would love to just close with my favorite verse and my favorite prayer. If you don’t mind, I have them up on my wall. Absolutely. I would love to hear that. So my favorite verse, I’ve already read it to y’all once. It was, the Lord himself goes before you and will be with you. [00:30:19] He’ll never leave you or forsake you. So don’t be afraid and don’t be discouraged. And I have it written on a big, big sign in one of my rooms. And then next to it, Because I’m this person that’s always asking the Lord, well, what does that mean exactly? What does that mean when my heart is breaking? What does that mean when life is stressful? [00:30:36] And so after I kind of wrote down all these things that God had done, like splitting the sea, like slaying giants, like walking on water, I put together a prayer that kind of stuck all these miracles together. And so on the other side, I have this written. Thank you, Lord, that you are with me and for me and all your sea splitting, wonder working, giant slaying, water walking, sun [00:31:00] stopping, obstacle demolishing, mountain moving, death defying power and love at all times. [00:31:07] Boom! I like to declare that out loud and that helps me. [00:31:12] Love that. I’m going to put that on my wall too. [00:31:18] Yeah. I wanted to end with, your podcast for the listeners. You had so many challenges to get it started and you almost didn’t want to go through with it or you were going to give up. And I’m so glad that you pushed through and we kept working on the challenges that we had and you’re up and running and. [00:31:43] I’ve already told you this. I am so blessed when I listen every week and you have wonderful guests and you’re a great interviewer and, you hear the grace and the truth in each of the episodes. And [00:32:00] so you guys really need to listen to her podcast if you’ve enjoyed this conversation with Kelly. [00:32:06] and then do you think we can invite them to, the Bible study? Yeah, we do our, Bible study on Zoom. And so you don’t have to be a member of our church. Red Mountain, if you don’t live in the Phoenix metro area, the services are online too from our church, but do you want to study God’s word and discover the treasures and the riches of his grace and be around, wonderful sisters in Christ? [00:32:35] I have never been a part of a Bible study like ours, where we’re all free to be honest with each other and bring our, our struggles and our doubts and disappointments and our, well, what about this Bible passage? I don’t understand this and why is that in the Bible? And we, we work through those things and I just love being a part of the group. [00:32:58] Absolutely. And I’d love to [00:33:00] have your listeners come to my website, kellyhall. org. And, if you subscribe, you will get a plethora of downloadable PDFs that you can print off and they’re actually just bookmarks because, I have taken all the things that have encouraged me, statements from my Bible study I wrote, and from just prayers that I prayed that have helped me and encouraged me. [00:33:23] for listening. Even the one I just read, and you can print them off either in black and white or color. And so that’s there to encourage people. I have some encouraging Hope for the Weary passages, on the website. And then the podcast, of course, you can connect to it there. But one thing I love about the podcast is the tagline the Lord gave me is where real life intersects redeeming love. [00:33:47] And we just seek to answer the questions. How do we trust God’s heart when his ways and delays are breaking ours? I mentioned, you know, our story is still not resolved. So I love having stories that [00:34:00] aren’t wrapped up with a neat pretty red bow. I love just handing hope. To people who are just weary of the pile of ongoing disappointment. [00:34:08] So I’d love to have your listeners join me there. And I just want to say too, I love your podcast. I’m so thankful for your ministry. I’m so, so encouraged by all the different people that you have on your podcast and how you delve into these areas of trauma and abuse and walk people through to places of healing. [00:34:30] And so thank you for the work you do in that realm. We were recording this the week of Thanksgiving and so I’m thankful for you, Kelly, for your friendship and your love and just blessed that the Lord brought us together as friends. Me too, and I’m so thankful for your encouragement, getting this podcast off the ground too. [00:34:51] Absolutely. I if you could pray for our audience. Whatever they’re going through right [00:35:00] now. And God knows, Amen. Yeah. Father, I just thank you so much that [00:35:05] you draw near to the brokenhearted and those who are crushed in spirit and Lord, I know that some of the listeners have spirits that are just weary from the onslaught and the heaviness of life and who are still trying to heal from trauma and, uh, from the unfairness. And father, maybe there are those who are struggling with forgiveness or bitterness or just feeling like nope. [00:35:31] I just pray, Father, that you would just move in close the way you do to those whose hearts are broken, and that you would lift the weight, the heaviness off of their chest so that they can sense your love and your hope in this place of pain. [00:35:51] I pray that you would help each person listening. To feel your comfort and to have the courage if they need. [00:35:56] That every one of these listeners would sense your help, your [00:36:00] strength and your hand lifting them up out of the deepest pits. You are real. You are right here, right now, kind of God. And we thank you. We trust you in Jesus mighty name. We pray. Amen. Amen. [00:36:15] Thank you so much for the prayer and for being on the show. I love you, sister. Thank you. Thank you. I never get that right. I’m trying to do the heart with my hands. I love you. Thank you so much for having me. [00:36:30] [00:36:30] Thank you for listening to the 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 DSWMinistries. org where you’ll find our blog along with our Facebook, Twitter, and our YouTube channel links. Hope to see you next week!