Hope in a Hopeless Time 🌞

Join us as we discuss finding "Hope in a Hopeless Time" as requested by our regular listener, Aaron.

This season we push the depths of our relationship even further. Tackling the difficult conversations that we fear may separate us.

Tina, a conservative christian woman and Bonnie Violet, a trans gender queer drag queen have an anti-cancel culture conversation. While many family members are choosing to no longer speak, we have chosen to sit at the table and engage in difficult conversation to find peace and restoration.

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Transcript

[Music] is [Music]
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[Music]
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will be [Music]
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wow it's monday hey everybody it's tina frank um welcome welcome to splintered
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grace i am a mature conservative christian here to have another conversation
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with the beautiful bonnie violet thanks for joining us it's actually thursday
0:53
is it thursday oh my god i don't know
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and hi everyone i'm bonnie violet i'm a transgender queer spiritual drag artist and digital chaplain uh your daughter's
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on hi shirley hey charlie how's it going glad you could join us thanks everyone who joined us today
1:18
i'd love for you to say hello for knowing what day of the week it is oh and aaron's here hey erin how's it
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going so great to um see you on here we were talking about the topic that you
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suggested at the end of our last episode um on hope and hopelessness and so we
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titled today's hope in a hopeless time and so we're going to talk a little bit about
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um i guess hopelessness experiencing hopelessness how do you cope with
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hopelessness maybe how do we get out of hopelessness and um
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you know kind of go from there how do you cope with hopelessness so um
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aaron says awesome thank you nothing for the topic
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i know you and i we were chit chatting but and we were like so who's gonna start this out and then yeah i don't think we actually like figured that out
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huh we didn't how's your week been marcus
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marcus says hello hey marcus it's good to hear from you so glad you could join us oh and look and
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then there's liz hey liz and uh charlize says this is a great
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topic so i know you um for folks i am reading the comments uh
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just partially so that tina doesn't have to deal with glasses and the light in
2:39
her eyes and the reflection and all that stuff so it's not me just it's not me just
2:45
hogging up space that's funny yeah the reflection in my glasses from the lighting just it bugs
2:51
me sometimes so i appreciate you doing that yeah it's no problem [Music]
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so if i'm squinting or whatever that's what's happening right
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anyway i had a fabulous week this week um i got to spend some time with some friends i've made my first sushi ever
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and it turned out edible it was awesome um i feel like it's one of those things i've always wanted to do but i was kind
3:17
of intimidated to do and so that was a lot of fun i had to spend time with my grandkids this week
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which was amazing i got to see my two of my daughters this week also amazing i
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love to hang out with my kids and grandkids so i've had a really good week
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that sounds like a really great week yeah yeah a really great week i've had a pretty good week
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yeah yeah how was yours it's been pretty good week for me you know i'm in portland um i've
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been connecting with some folks going to some drag shows and meeting up with folks for like at the
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bars or the shows and then like um i know i said that twice but um and then i'm working on actually i
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was able to secure a venue with one of my friends so i'm gonna be hosting an in-person drag and spirituality um event
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um in a bar which will be my first bar venue um set to happen in like the next
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three to four weeks so i'm currently like doing casting calls and promoting for for that event as well and i know last
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week we talked about um we talked last week was prayer right yeah i think last week was prayer or at
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least in the last couple of weeks prayer meditation yes prayers yeah yeah thoughts and prayers
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yes and so yeah um i i do have a friend who's very near and dear to me who has been um
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in dealing with covid um this week um and so um folks who do prayer pray or
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light candles like i do if you want to say a little prayer for my friend that i won't name um but um
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that would be really great yeah and gosh you know i know probably two or three people right now
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that are struggling with with that so yeah prayers prayers would be amazing
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yeah it's a you know and for a lot of folks they're not um you know like when i was exposed last week it was with
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somebody who didn't have a lot of symptoms this particular friend is dealing with some
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i mean there are symptoms that i'm not like i'm nervous to hear that they're going through um but uh i'm sure that
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i'm sure it'll all go well but um you know it's just one of those things
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yeah yeah you got to keep hope right yes these are wonderful
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yeah yeah we're gonna do that way to move it well this into this is these are the times you know and
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when it's when things like this are are happening to the people that we care about
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and then even more so when it's happening to us so so yeah so we got to we got to keep
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the hope i heard an interesting story this week do you mind if i share oh go for it
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i was in a bible study group with a group of women here in my community and
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one of the ladies is new i haven't i don't know her very well beautiful beautiful woman but she was
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sharing how she had become a christian or started going to
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church and those are two different things but i guess it was starting to go into church because she was saying that she was
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feeling pretty hopeless she was in a relationship an abusive relationship she had been
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married for 21 years to this person they had adopted two children and so they were trying to
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she was trying to raise these children in this environment and she was that person that always put on the happy face
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so people around her had no idea the hopelessness she felt the challenge and the struggle that she and her kids were
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going through and she had her husband had gotten a job transfer i
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think she said and she had moved to a totally another state so she figured okay we can start over
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um and she was hoping that some of the things that she was experiencing would go away and they did not but she had a
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young lady move in next to her that got relocated because of hurricane katrina
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so this lady moved in right next door to her and every day she came over to
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this woman's house to say something positive to her to encourage her and to invite
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her to church and she says it was so funny she said because every day i would see her she
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was always happy and bubbly this lady lost two homes she lost a business she had gone through this horrible
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experience in in um texas was a texas with katrina
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and had to totally move she had nothing but the clothes on her back essentially when she moved to this place
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and she was just the most positive person and she says for 10 years she did that she knocked on her door
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almost every day said something positive to her and invited her to church and she said i was even to the point where i
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said stop inviting me to church i'm not going to church i'm not interested in any of that just stop it um but the lady every
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every time she would always just finagle it in a little bit because they were friends and they hung out together but
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she just wasn't interested in that and it was so funny finally one that one day she pushed her um
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she was found the strength to get divorced and she said she think it was because this lady kept showing up with
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this big old smile and these words of hope for her every single day she went through a divorce and nobody knew what
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was happening until the divorce and so it was like wow a big wow
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and so when that in that moment after that she finally said look this is lady when she said you go to church with me
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she's like you know what i think i'm ready she says i made it out of this i can't believe i made it out of this she
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says i must have had um god on my side because he sent an angel every single day to not give up on me to carry my
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hope and to can make sure that i always had a word of hope in my life every day
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and i thought that was just such a powerful testimony of how um people have
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the ability to encourage people with hope even when they're in these devastating
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and this lady had no idea what she was going through yeah yeah they were they were neighbors they were friends she had
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no idea what she was going through yeah it's like that saying that where they say you don't know what you don't know what people are going through and it's
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it's so isn't it kind of surprising how like hopelessness is such a um
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i don't want to label it as like no i don't want to label it but i'm going to say it's a pretty um
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strong maybe feeling that it's really intense at least i feel like when i've
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experienced hopelessness it's been very um yeah just a very intense kind of feeling
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and it's it's amazing how that stuff how somebody can be going through that and the people around don't know
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because that's been a lot of my experience too i think a part of the way you cope with hopelessness is that you you
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know you put on a good face you show up anyway um and you try to push push your
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way through i mean i think that's yeah one strategy i think it could probably be debatable
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about whether or not that's like the greatest strategy um i would probably i
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mean i think that's probably part of what a lot of us experience and i hate labeling our experience as bad or wrong
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ever but in talking about this um episode and talking about like how is it that um i
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find hope in a hopeless time and i think one of the biggest things was talking with someone else about it you
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know like going to someone that um someone that i care about someone that i
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trust maybe even a mentor or someone maybe a spiritual leader and and and
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sharing with them kind of what's going on with me you know i always feel like um you know we're only as sick
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as our secrets and um even even you know things like you know hopelessness is not one of those um
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i think they're not one of those feelings or those experiences that um it's highly stigmatized and it's not uh
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an experience that we want to go through but i think it's a very common at least from what i hear i agree
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i don't know anyone that's gotten away with not experiencing hopelessness
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and i think there's a lot of things that can trigger hopelessness you know we're all we're all different so based on
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where we're at in our life the life experience that we have to the point and i think things can just trigger
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hopelessness because you could be like on point doing life enjoying everything that's
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happening then all of a sudden this thing comes from left field and all of a sudden you feel hopeless right and i
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and and it's amazing to me how devastating it can be and what kind of rabbit trails that can lead you down you
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know that moment of hopelessness can take you down to some really dark places if you let it
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and so it's really important like you said to reach out to someone um i can't imagine
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not having someone that i could reach out to but if you can't um know that there's always a [Music]
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i believe that there's a god that's always willing to listen and and to guide you know
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prayer is an amazing thing that can help re re reset you and help you to find those that
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those moments and those times of hope yeah hopelessness and it's so easy to say
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when we're not in the hopelessness to say talk to someone about it and because we all know that it that's like the most
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difficult time for us to like you know to really like do you know to do that to talk with
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someone else about that but i think hopelessness like most of our emotions or most of the things that we experience
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you know that that's information um so i feel like there's some sort of message
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that is trying to get to me you know and sometimes i feel like that can come from my body that could be coming from my
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mental health you know it could be coming from a lot of different places and it might be a little wonky but it's
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still coming at me and now i can be like okay i have these i have this hopelessness and i
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how do i like what is it trying to tell me um are there uh changes i need to make
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in my life are there relationships i need to get out of are there jobs i needed are there jobs i need to look for
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are there do i need to move or you know and and the other thing i wanted to bring up too which we won't
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spend a lot i don't think necessarily talking about but like mental health you know and we're not mental health you
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know providers we talk more about the spiritual stuff and sometimes to me i think it's hard to
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know if um what we're dealing with is spiritual or mental there is a distinction but i think
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they're often they often come together and so i think maybe one of the people to talk to is also a mental health provider if
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you're able to access that sort of service service so they can help assess to see if there's something
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more chemically going on or something that's more i think physiological
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you know like it's not in our mind not in our mind and our spirit but kind of in our body in some way um chemically
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and that there might be some sort of way that because sometimes it might just be
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you know just a little you know you're dealing with some depression that is you know showing up as um
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hopelessness and maybe if you're able to treat that depression um the hopelessness could
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be less i don't know you know like again i'm not yeah i'm not like i'm not telling people what to do but i know that i've
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benefited from being on antidepressants and you know praying to god and
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having a strong spiritual like connection with god did not does not necessarily stop me from being deal
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from experiencing depression [Music] you know like and so i think it's at
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least for me you know i have to call out all the troops i have to call it all the troops yeah yeah
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aaron has a comment um aaron says um it's so important that people know
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that reaching out to a mental health provider is not a weakness i agree i agree i agree
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yep i agree yep and i and i think that's also like um charlie also says mental health is
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key but the question i have maybe for you or um maybe for the the uh the
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listeners is like um in response to what aaron is saying um about reaching out to health
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providers is not a weakness i guess part of it is is how do we receive um that message how do we receive
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when we get word from somebody that they're experiencing hopelessness is there something you could
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rip off that well i know how i i like to respond
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uh to those folks well i always try to encourage them first because sometimes i think when we're in
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the middle of hopelessness at least i've been when i've experienced feeling hopeless i've forgotten
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who i am and because if i can lose sight of that then i think i can start to believe
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negative things even if they're not true about myself no matter if someone says them to me or even not i just kind of
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think them in my head that someone has a thought about me that's probably not even true
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and so the first thing i try to do is to encourage someone and remind them that they're amazing remind them that they're
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they have a purpose remind them that they were created in a beautiful image you know
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remind them that they're um powerful and and bold and have the ability to
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uh be whoever they want to be so i always try to start with the place of encouragement
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um and based on how they respond and how we interact at that point we'll
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determine that my next steps and then i try to stay connected as much as they'll allow me to
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another thing i've learned is if someone comes to me a lot of times they're not as open
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and i don't know if it's because they're been hurt before and so a lot of times it'll
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mean that i may have to be intentional about a little bit of a pursuit so that they're not just left to drift
17:14
somewhere i think that's a problem we have a conversation and we encourage them and
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and we feel like the conversation went well but then when they don't reach out to us again we don't follow up and so i try to make
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it a point um to be intentional about that you know how are you doing today you know i just
17:33
checking in so that's that's my best starting point i think when i'm talking
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to someone who's expressed that to me and then of course i pray for them every single day
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yeah yeah yeah well yeah i think i think sometimes in the past i've also sometimes i think one
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thing to kind of remember too um is that you're like my job isn't to
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fix them in that moment and i can't fix them and i think when i can recognize that then i don't get nervous about
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hearing that information from someone and and not knowing what to do with it you know sometimes it is just about holding space for them
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it's just about listening to them you know if you know somebody well enough you might be able to
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point to certain things or know how to respond to them because you know you've they've spoken with you
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about their hopelessness before in the past um but so i think there's not like one size
18:27
fits all but i think oftentimes it is it's like well i'm gonna listen um norm try to normalize the
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you know i don't it's like it's so hard because you need a lot i feel like you need to let people have their own experience with it
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um so like if you generalize it too much then it can feel like you're dismissing
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uh my experience because it's what everyone else has so i think it's a fine line and
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oftentimes you know it's about trying to hold space and and asking maybe if there's something
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you can do you know like what is it that i could do for you to help you during this time and then
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whatever it is that they ask you to do to do that you know whether it's they they might ask you to pray for them they
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might ask you to can you check in with me you know yeah can we call every morning and
19:16
or maybe get coffee once a week or you know like whatever you know those sorts of things also might be ways to ask um
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i don't know a ways to be in conversation with somebody who is experiencing um i think
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i think you really hit a a target there something that i think we think we're doing
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but we're not always doing and i catch myself doing this all the time and and i
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is listening i want to listen i have a desire to listen but sometimes
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i don't always listen i i hear what you're saying and i'm so busy trying to figure out what i'm going to say in return
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that i don't really hear what you're saying you know what i mean and so i think being able to listen to
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someone to truly listen to them and hear their heart in a hopeless situation i think that
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gives you the opportunity then to um encourage them or go to that next space where you were just talking about
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you know can we stay connected is there anything that i can do for you but i think i know
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some of the times when i'm feeling hopeless and and i think hopeless can be in different levels in our in our lives
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i'll give you an example i um lost a dear friend recently
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and um i struggled just like people do when they lose people that are close to them
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and i didn't feel like there was anyone i could call i i called and talked to
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i tried to reach out but all they did was compare my situation to a situation that they had
20:46
experienced and that was the end of the conversation there was no
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i don't know connection point i guess is the best way and and it's like okay so
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i was like all right this is i'm not going to let this get me going down uh what was me kind of a thing because
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that's not what it was about i just wanted i just wanted to share a moment with someone
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so that happened when i got to the yeah when i got into the memorial service and and that was an amazing time i just
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i don't know and you know the people that are close to you that that knew what you're going through
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and that didn't take the time to check in on you yeah so you know there's different levels of hopelessness
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and i'm i'm learning that no matter how much or where we're at we're gonna have those
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moments but really being able to learn to be a good listener
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when the people around you are having those moments i think can give us an opportunity to help
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them to not go down those rabbit holes and get lost in that hopelessness you know because like there's a lot of
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choices that i could have made in any of those situations i could choose to be frustrated with those people i could
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choose to think well you don't love me you didn't even bother to reach out to me you know what i mean um but i i i'm not going to do those
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things because i know those people love me so i think there's uh the key in all this
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i'm sorry i took the long story down to is listening and being sensitive to
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the people around us i think that can be very helpful thank you for sharing that with us and
22:27
oh i hope so you know yeah thank you for sharing that my heart
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goes out to you and i was like where was i what did i what was i doing
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um gotta check check myself but i know that wasn't what it was about so i don't want to take away but it certainly was
22:45
not yeah um so aaron had mentioned i think it's important to know listening to and being
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present with someone is the most important thing and fixing the situation for them is
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often not possible that's true and charlie also add added it took me a
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while to admit that to myself that yeah yeah
23:09
[Music] yes yeah and hopelessness i mean i think that also kind of what comes up with
23:15
what you uh mentioned too it's like how do you i guess we talked to us about
23:22
hopelessness being um not noticeable but oftentimes i think
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hopelessness isn't seen um so maybe there are i mean i don't know if
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there are like um indicators um you know i think part of it is just
23:38
knowing people enough well enough to know um maybe asking more questions around
23:44
certain situations could kind of help check in on some of that stuff because i think sometimes people just aren't going to
23:52
you know offer it up yeah and i think i think i mean people are living their lives
23:57
you know aren't we all and we're just we talk about how um how we want to be productive or or
24:04
fruitful in our lives and i think sometimes in that fruitfulness we sometimes aren't aware
24:10
of what's happening around us you know and i and i think and we i we want to we give them the the
24:17
moment that we've scheduled or the moment that you know whatever but after that there's not a second thought and
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i'm not saying that's wrong i'm just saying that as we're as we're doing life i think we need to i don't know just be
24:30
more sensitive to those i call those promptings of the holy spirit you know if the holy spirit prompts me
24:35
or puts someone on my on my heart is how i like to say it i try to stop what i'm doing and text
24:42
that person if i know they communicate via text a lot of my friends are older so they don't all text so sometimes i'll
24:48
send them an email or i'll write them a card or phone call make a phone call yeah
24:54
yeah make a phone call so i have to be honest that's usually not the first thing on my list depending on what i'm doing if um but i i try to
25:02
do that i try to be more intentional about that and i appreciate it when people do that to me when i'll get a little note just thinking about you
25:07
today that just like that brings me hope i feel like oh i feel a little special right now
25:12
you know that someone would think about me and then just send me a little note and i know that just seems silly
25:18
but it's just really i don't know it's an awareness factor i think that we have because
25:24
i'm a very upbeat person i'm very hopeful i have a lot of joy in my life
25:29
i i am intentional about staying positive but i do have those little moments of of
25:36
hopelessness and if i'm not careful with those like i said i can go down a rabbit hole and i think having a conversation
25:43
like this so that we can all be a little more aware of those things people have experienced hopelessness at
25:49
different levels and and you know it's not always just devastating
25:54
whatever although there's a lot of that out there we need to be um open to speak life into those people
26:00
and to encourage them and help them to get their needs met and and find that place of hope
26:06
but it's at all different levels and especially with all the things that have been happening over the last few years
26:13
charlie was saying i have a rule i reach out to people a day to check in
26:19
yeah that's a great role which i know is a really common practice in recovery you know it's like and when
26:25
we get into early recovery it's like call somebody every day you know sometimes you have your mentor or it's like call other people that are going
26:32
through a similar program so it's like but in those situations you know
26:37
that you're going through something right and you kind of have the support and stuff um so it can be difficult i think that's also
26:43
why though like we we pray and we have these habits so that when things happen
26:50
um yeah you know like people know us um we're not showing up for things that we normally show up for or we call two
26:57
people a day and you know and then we're like automatically kind of put in a position
27:02
to kind of share what's going on with us um maybe when we wouldn't have you know to
27:08
begin with yeah that's good yeah it's such a weird balance of like
27:13
how do you show up for people and their hopelessness knowing you can't fix it but i think that's the
27:19
way it feels like with a lot of things that we do it's like when it comes down to it we don't have a lot of power over
27:25
what happens um you're right and yet we still
27:30
attempt to take good action um in the hopes of
27:37
having a positive result you know um but the results we really have to give up to i mean i think that's what
27:43
that's where it go the god is where that goes right yeah yep that's true i don't know what to do with it and i don't know
27:49
how it happens or why it happens so it's like that's yours god yeah and and my goodness that's what
27:55
i've learned to do over the years you know i find a lot of hope in the pages of my bible you know if i'm having a tough day if
28:01
you know you ever just wake up you're just a little off you just feel like you're i don't know in a funk or a little off those are the
28:08
days i really try to grab some extra time to read my bible because i know if that little offness can send
28:15
me in a totally weird direction if i let it
28:20
charlie says it's important to have a standing rapport so people know you care all the time not
28:27
just in a hard moment so they reach out when they are struggling as well yeah i think that can be
28:33
um that makes me think of too how sometimes we don't reach out to people because we think they're struggling worse than
28:39
we are or yeah um or i think um like they're also going through it so
28:44
let's say there was a loss and multiple people are impacted by it within our circle you know it's like we can't share
28:51
how much it's hurting us because we need to be there for other people who are hurting more maybe just because they
28:57
were a little bit closer to that person or they're responding in a in a more
29:03
dramatic or visible way um that we kind of push our things aside
29:08
um or don't feel like we um get to you know share what our experience is well and somehow it like
29:14
takes away from their experience which there's enough experience to go around
29:20
for everybody for all of us right yeah for sure aaron says sadly some people just can be
29:28
present with someone's sadly some people just can be present with someone's hopelessness without
29:34
trying to tell them what they need to do or trying to fix them
29:40
i think that maybe it can be present um yeah but either way i think we
29:46
we get it i always you know it's funny i like i'm the one reading and i feel like i'm the one who struggles reading uh
29:52
what's there or at least comprehending it while i read it maybe is what happens i don't know
29:58
i can't i'll put my glasses on i'm just gonna have a glare in my face oh it's all good yeah aaron says uh
30:03
can't be sorry yeah or can't be and then sorry
30:09
yes all good right right so a little bit of levity there yeah
30:16
yeah yeah um uh kayla just popped on
30:22
hello caleb hi kayla kayla might have been there the whole time she's just saying hello now yeah or maybe she just
30:29
popped in who knows it's good to see you either way yes yes we are we are talking about hope
30:37
in a hopeless time um and yeah go ahead tina were you going to
30:42
say something not real i just you know for just going to define my hope
30:47
for me it's my salvation and my my faith in jesus that's where i find hope when when i'm
30:53
really to get to that point where i'm like circling the drain that's where i like put my
31:00
hands and feet out on the sides and say nope i've got i've got a promise that
31:05
says that this is not for me yeah i have hope that this is all going to work out
31:10
um the way it's supposed to because i was created for something significant and with the purpose and
31:17
that's not just for me that's for every single one of us and i just have to remind myself
31:22
sometimes and i'm reminded in the pages of the bible as i've told
31:27
who i am how i was created why i was created so yeah and and i guess another one of
31:34
those things when it's like when you're in the dark when you're in in the midst of it all it's sometimes hard to
31:40
to go there you know what i mean um but yeah that's like you said at the end
31:47
of the day we can't we can't save someone else we
31:52
can't we can't take away the hopelessness we can come alongside and we can encourage and empower and then
31:58
walk through them through what they're going through but at the end of the day they have to find their hope
32:04
and and you know that that hope comes i think from knowing who you are
32:10
for every person i've ever met that's lost hope it's they've lost sight of their significance
32:16
and and their significance for all we're all significant we're all created for a purpose and and
32:23
i think sometimes i can remind um people of that but then that i have to choose to understand that you're
32:29
right no matter what's happening in this craziness in this moment i am significant and i'm choosing
32:36
to lean on um hopefully in my case god or i encourage people lean on god i'm not
32:42
doing that i'm gonna understand who i am and i'm gonna move forward so so yeah
32:49
uh kayla offered up uh that there is sometimes a lot of guilt in not being able to help them find hope
32:57
yeah but i think yeah the heart and i think that's it is hard but again it's just
33:03
like like with any any relationship i say this often not like i'm some relationship guru um but because i
33:11
learned this from like my ex was just you know whenever you're in a relationship or you're struggling with
33:17
how to show up in a relationship are like responses to want to focus on that
33:22
relationship um when i think the best thing for me to do is actually to focus on me
33:28
um so that i can just bring my best self into that situation and sometimes i'm still going to fall short or whatever
33:35
but maybe i can feel a little bit better because um you know i i know that i did my best i
33:40
guess um i think sometimes we begin to feel that guilt or that concern when we think like oh well maybe there was this
33:46
one thing i maybe i did have the intuition to call but i didn't or and that's and that's not our response like
33:52
it's not our responsibility this is you know what i mean like it's not our fault that yeah whatever happens because we
33:58
don't listen to those sorts of things but i think when we don't and then maybe something happens or
34:03
you learn something's a lot more severe than what you thought then you think like oh i should have known or that was
34:08
the indicator and then like that's where the guilt and and everything can just kind of you know build up inside us
34:15
well yeah it's because of that guilt i think that that hopelessness can become contagious
34:21
and and that's why we need to be grounded ourselves um so that we can just and again we're
34:27
not gonna take them out of their hopelessness that's their decision to make right but we can speak that life into them and that significance into
34:33
them so they have the tools to grab hold on to um and cur and you know hopelessness is
34:40
something that maybe we hopped you know i remember when in being in helping you know helping fields as like kind of doing
34:46
social work or whatever is and even in recovery it's it's like don't allow people the dignity
34:53
of their own experience um absolutely like don't rob them from you know you can't really but like i
35:00
think we try and i don't think that's our intention but i think right we often do
35:06
aaron aaron says encouragement is so important for me i think it's the most important thing we
35:13
can do for someone experiencing hopelessness yeah i agree it's been my experience as well erin
35:20
one of the things that um i feel like in thinking about uh maybe preparation you know i think
35:26
hopeless is gonna hopelessness is gonna happen um you know period sometimes regardless
35:32
of what we're doing but one of the things like when you're talking about like reaching to god and stuff that can
35:37
be really difficult and those can be the times when sometimes we don't see god at all
35:42
or we don't nothing makes sense and i think it's helpful that when we are in a better place
35:48
i'm more well spaced or we're not in that hopelessness to kind of look back in times that we were experiencing
35:55
hopelessness and try to see where god was at work where god was at play was god you know
36:02
for me like in early recovery god came in the form of like the queers and the
36:08
the drug addicts and the whatever who showed up for me and helped me to recover you know those were the hands of
36:14
god that was god the god that i come to know and understand today was at work
36:19
um at that time and in that moment and so i think if we're able to kind of like
36:24
begin to see our hopelessness different in the past and it can kind of change it and
36:30
hopefully when we're going through our hopelessness now it might be something that we can
36:36
deal with hopefully um you know we might be able to approach it with a little bit more faith
36:42
um or hope because we've seen over and over and over and over that when i was in this moment when
36:48
i felt this way um this was still happening and the you
36:54
know the hard part is that this too shall pass which again is a hard thing to
37:00
uh accept when you're going through it um right right kayla has a couple comments sorry
37:06
okay yeah i love all the love love love all the interaction kayla says i think i
37:12
needed to hear the dignity comment comment that hit home kayla also says i think in the flesh we
37:19
struggle because sometimes we can't see what god was doing until after the storm
37:24
whereas in the spirit we are supposed to walk in faith yep that's that's why i think why we have to be mindful
37:31
of what we're trying to do and what we're trying to create or what we think is best right
37:38
yeah aaron says yeah i agree i often feel abandoned by god in the midst of my
37:45
hopelessness so looking back on times god has been there for me in the past is a good
37:50
reminder again it's one of those things like if you can right if you can
37:56
pull it from the past which can be so hard to do when you're in that in that space
38:01
it is hard you know there's lots of um stories in the bible about that one do
38:06
you mind if i just share a little tina version of a story so there's a um i don't know if you guys
38:13
know i'm an old testament girl and um in this story of abraham
38:18
he his nephew lot has just gotten taken away
38:24
um by marauders and he had to take his servants and his folks and go in and
38:29
save his nephew come out of all that he did all that and he's in his tent and he's
38:36
crying out to god and complaining and saying oh my gosh this has been a horrible thing and i'm not even going to
38:41
have an heir because at this point sarah hadn't been had had a child and what is all this
38:48
even about i don't even understand what this is all about and it was i when i read that passage
38:53
i'm like yeah what is this even all about none of this stuff that was i thought was going to happen for my life
38:59
was going to happen and then the next next passage says and god said to abraham come out of your
39:05
tent and abraham stepped out of the tent and he looked up and god reiterated to him
39:11
the promise he put on his heart that he would have descendants that would outnumber the stars
39:17
and as i was reading that i'm like okay there's something here for me and then i realized abraham had to step out from under his
39:23
circumstance which was his tent so that god could reiterate to him the
39:29
moment and the promise that he put in his heart and i realized that tent for abraham
39:35
represented all that hopelessness that he had because back in that day if you didn't
39:40
have heirs it didn't matter what else you had you had to have heirs and god had promised him years and years
39:46
before when sarah was in her prime that they were going to have descendants
39:52
and so here he is kind of hanging out with lot thinking well maybe it's lot you know maybe it's whatever he's my
39:57
family i'm gonna do whatever i'm even gonna pull him out of this crazy situation i told him not to get himself
40:02
into and so here he is in this weakest moment i don't have any sons the only
40:08
kid that i have that's even close to being a relative i had to go out and do all this stuff for so here i am i'm
40:13
getting old and guys said come on out of there come on out of there and let me reiterate to
40:19
you what it is that i have for you in this moment and and that little paraphrase of that story because it's
40:24
like chapters um it it it refreshes me sometimes when i'm
40:30
really having a hard time when my business closed during covet yeah yeah i'm like what the heck my whole
40:35
livelihood just like i woke up one day and it was gone it's like uh
40:42
what is that all about yeah yeah it's like what if something else is true right
40:47
what if something else is going on uh kayla says oh tina that is good i
40:53
need the faith of joseph
41:00
yeah or we i think you know like i mean rihanna she found love in a hopeless
41:05
place so maybe reaching for love could uh help is that a song i don't think i've
41:11
heard that but i think you're right you tell me about it yes it's a it's a rihanna song it's a lyric a song that
41:16
rihanna sings she found love in a hopeless place so i fell in love in a hopeless place
41:22
every day his name is jesus right well and um um aaron is laughing out loud with a
41:29
crying emoji uh kayla as well yeah
41:35
um yes love in a hopeless place yeah well we are
41:40
right about at our 45-minute mark so um i want to thank everyone for joining
41:46
us this week and thank you so much aaron for the topic it was really good um yeah really great led for a great
41:53
conversation um this weekend thank you for sharing you know for bringing that up to us um
41:58
yeah yeah in whatever vulnerability that might have taken to put in the comments that
42:04
during the episode um but i think it made for a really great conversation for folks who are new
42:10
to this um i just putting out you're either listening to us on a podcast wherever you listen to podcasts at
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splinteredgrace but we also go live on facebook youtube and twitch every
42:21
thursday at 5 30 pm not monday not monday but thursday at 5 30 pm uh
42:28
pacific standard time so if you'd like to join us live you know if you're listening you're hearing all these rad people who are you know sharing with us
42:36
their thoughts and their questions and if you'd like to participate um the more the merrier so do um reach out to us if
42:43
you're listening to this or watching this after the fact feel free to reach out to us you can direct message us you can make comments
42:50
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42:56
from you and we love that you join us each week and even if you don't ever tell us that you're listening keep doing it we are
43:03
yeah we're happy that you're here yeah if you are on facebook they have this thing there where you click the bell if
43:09
you make sure you want to click the bell because just because you follow us and like us doesn't mean you're going to get a notification so click that bell
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um and they'll let you know every time we go live i know that's all the logistical stuff well some of it
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but if you'd like to right yeah if you'd like to support uh splinter splinter grace in another way um we do
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vinmo or patreon all that fun stuff you can just check out the links in the description if you want to get involved
43:42
with the podcast in some form or another we're also exploring potentially having guests
43:48
so if you think you might like to be a guest let us know let us know your thoughts and ideas of what it that conversation
43:55
might look like or if you think there's someone else um we should consider um guest having guests for
44:01
where i know i'm like going on but i'm like we we're hoping to do that maybe because in the month of november
44:07
uh tina and i are actually going to be in the same space and so
44:12
i know like i'm excited about that um so i'm excited that we would be able to
44:18
so we're thinking during that four weeks that maybe we'll have some like some guests or just do things a little bit
44:24
different yeah um thanks for all the hearts from everyone charlie erin
44:30
um and herding cats for you um it's great to see you on here
44:35
um and kayla um says aaron matthew you should be a guest i think that's a great
44:40
idea um so um tina do you want to actually now for sure like say goodbye for us
44:49
you guys are awesome i just thank you for allowing us this opportunity to have a conversation uh together and then with
44:56
you guys when you chime in it just makes our day we are better because of you guys thanks for joining
45:02
us log in with us again next week bye-bye
45:08
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