Michele Cushatt on Building Resilience

You have been on the podcast multiple times. We got episode 66. I've been doing this for a minute. Episode 122. Episode 246. On episode 246, which was "Your Pain, God's Presence." Oh, yeah. And that was released in December of 2020. So definitely fresh on the heels of processing my mom. I mean, you're right. Your thing Even though who would want this to be their thing?

Wasn't my choice. I'd rather talk about donuts. I tell people all the time, I wish God made me the missionary of donuts.

That would have made me really happy. There are certain things I don't ever want to write about. And maybe if I went to Fiji and lived there for a year, God would have me write about Fiji.

Fiji. Can I come with you and be your assistant?

We should go there and assist each other. Listen, we don't need much. We don't need much. But just the coexistence of faith and suffering. Right. And that just being the reality of where you are. But I mean, I think that there— while that has been where you've planted and where you've written and a lot where you've spoken from, just your reality, you know, your work, which is so broad, but one of the specifics of that being your work as a coach to executives and C-level people, your work with Michael Hyatt and Co., you know, I told you, I think before, I would be listening to you and Michael Hyatt on the podcast. And when you weren't there anymore, my husband was like, "Where's Michelle?" And I was like, "You've been listening? Like, I'm listening. Like, you're listening?" He was like, "Yeah, Michael Hyatt was always with Michelle." But, you know, I just love him. You have been through these seasons, though, of while dealing with the coexistence of faith and suffering and grief. Not shrinking back from and holding, you know, in good stewardship, your, your, your gifting, your skill and your work of coaching and working with leaders, the work that you've done with Michael Hyatt and the work that you've done as an entrepreneur, the work that you did even before that with coaching people with presentations. I mean, there's this whole other part of Michelle that I haven't necessarily explored on the podcast. And the reason why I say that is because I think what I, what I would love to explore with you today is you have experienced great shifts. So many of those personal ones we've discussed, but you have done the— I work for a company, I work for myself, I work for a company, I work for myself. You have, through the work that you've done with executives, seen the shifts that many of them have had to make. Through the last few years, we've all been shifting because of COVID the changing in the workforce, the rising cost, how we're dealing with that, people being able to maintain their own mental health in a season where that was just hard to come by. And because you have this maturity, I mean, what I would love to really dive into is just the wisdom that you have given tumultuous seasons that we've we've been able to learn from you about, but managing to stay afloat. So whether it's 3 weeks out or 36 weeks out, somehow being able to get back to or get into this other side of your life and maintain some regularity and some rhythm there. Mm-hmm.

Um, right. What you're talking about is kind of somewhat this, um, skill of resilience. Which people think you either have it or you don't. And I say, baloney. You either allow your circumstances to develop it or you don't. But resilience isn't something you're born with. It's something you develop.

Well, and the part about resilience, I think, is we talk about it in a personal capacity, but that resilience has dividends in other places. You have invented and reinvented yourself multiple times through these seasons of difficulty. So that resilience, the payoff hasn't just been that Michelle is a stronger person. The payoff has also been that you bring, bring this experience and knowledge to the work that you do, you know, and how that impacts that. And so can you talk a little bit about resilience and how that has broad-reaching impact in different areas of your life?

Yeah. Yeah, totally. We can totally talk about that. Professionally speaking, and you mentioned how I have reinvented myself many times. And you only know a slice of my professional journey. So I may even go back further where I got my bachelor's degree in nursing. I have a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing. I'm a registered nurse. I still have an active license, even though I haven't practiced in 25 years. Like, don't ask me to save your life because it probably won't happen. But I still have an active license, and that's my degree. And then, you know, when I unexpectedly found myself a single mom back in 1997, '98 with a 1.5-year-old, I had to reinvent myself then. You know, I couldn't work 12-hour shifts with a child. And that was in the middle of a crisis, right? So what am I going to do professionally to literally be a sole provider with a child, a single mother? And I was living in a new state, had no family support. So what could I do that didn't require me to work, you know, 7 PM to 7 AM, you know, with a 1.5-year-old. And so that's when I actually went to work in the sales industry. I did computer networking sales and was an inside sales rep and eventually became an inside sales manager and got promoted very quickly. And, you know, so that kind of reinvention has happened after that. By the way, doing sales, I remarried, ended up leaving the corporate space to come home and be with my son and stepsons and became a piano teacher and built my own piano studio. So I did that. I know it's kind of crazy when you think about it, right? A nurse, an inside sales manager, a piano teacher, her own studio, built my own business with that. Eventually then started the writing and speaking, then training speakers, then coaching, then went back to corporate and worked as an executive in the coaching industry, leadership development industry. So I've had lots of success. So Part of what I've learned from these changes, by the way, many of which I did not choose. I think it's really important. It's not me just flitting from job to job. I'm your typical firstborn female, kind of stereotypical, where like everything is organized. I always have a plan. I check boxes. I want everything to be. Yes. See, you feel me?

That's me.

Yeah, this is who we are. So for me to, like, I'm the kind of person that would have gotten a job and done it for 40 years, you know, 50 years till I retired. So these changes came about because of unexpected losses, layoffs, uh, changes in relationship, divorce, remarriage, you know, all of that kind of stuff. And I didn't have any choice. Right? So to some extent, I had to learn to be adaptable. And by the way, adaptable is not one of my top 5 strengths on the Strength Finders. It's probably in the bottom 10.

Now you make me want to go look because I know it's not in my top 5 and it doesn't sound like it's anywhere near there, actually.

I mean, us well-ordered Type A overachievers don't know how to spell the word adaptable, let alone live it. Right? So part of my journey with these unexpected changes was learning how to flex. And I've had to learn some adaptability. And I would say that's one characteristic of the benefits of these kind of life and career changes is I needed to learn the skill of adaptability because someday I was going to be a mom of— I'm a mom of 6 kids now. If motherhood is anything, it's a skill in being adaptable. Right? Learning to adapt to the needs of the kids in the different seasons. And so some of that was— I gained from all of those career changes. Another is learning to operate in different environments, different cultures, different industries with different personalities. And I would guess, you know, you have had different teams and people coming and going and all that. That's a skill that we can all learn. Life, right? How to deal with a lot of different people and different environments, being able to operate, and even the skill of being able to go into an environment and read the room fairly quickly, right? Because you've had to learn how to be able to adapt to new environments, changes all the time as a means of survival, but then hopefully ultimately thriving.

I think, you know, the thing for me, and I'm curious what you've seen, the thing for me is as a person of faith, I think I did not count on, because I have faith, how challenging And I think this goes back to that whole suffering thing, how challenging it would be to be resilient because you just think, "I'm gonna bounce off of either who I am or what I believe." And then there's this crisscross. So, you know, in the last 3, 4 years, we've all had to check in with who we thought we were, what we thought was the world was made of, and what we believe and what the intersection of all of that, all of that looks like. I'm curious, just in the work that you've done, and I want to talk some more too about how this is then influenced by faith. But even as you've talked to people who are leading organizations, what do you— resilience is great, hindsight 20/20. Meaning I saw it, I did it, I exhibited it. But going through it, building resilience can look a lot like, I have no idea what I'm doing. You know what I'm saying?

Or like, oh my gosh, I'm dying here, right?

Oh my gosh, I'm dying. Or this whole thing is going to blow up, or I want to burn the whole thing down. Like, that's what it looks like. So what have you found to be the most helpful for yourself or even for the people that you get an opportunity to work with, that in the moment where you're building it, in the through part, how, what, how to see the experience in the middle. Because looking back on it, it's great.

Yeah, hindsight.

Looking forward at it, it's like, I admire you. But when I'm going through it in the middle, What is a— what are some glasses? What are some ways to look at what is hard? What I don't know how to do? What my faith doesn't explain? How the bottom actually did fall out? The actual reality that we don't know how to do this or that we don't have people or that we do have to shut it down. Like, what are the glasses to look through that while you're building it so that you don't crumble?

Yeah, totally. Two things. One, I think there's two shifts that we need to make, okay? Shifts. The first would be a shift in belief. I think we believe at times falsely— this is bad theology— that if, you know, we read the verses about God is our refuge, God is our ever-present help, he will deliver us, we assume that means that if I'm in a pickle, if I'm in a hard place, that if I just pray enough and love God enough, he's gonna pluck me out of the pickle and make sure that I'm happy. Right? That there's this sense of when we're in a crisis, all I need to do is believe enough, look to him enough, and he's going to resolve my discomforts. Right? He is still a deliverer. He is a refuge. But he doesn't always deliver us from all harm. He delivers us in harm. That's the middle. So one, we have to basically, we have to correct our false belief that God is on the hook to make us comfortable.

Mm-hmm.

Because that's not true. He doesn't owe us anything. In fact, Jesus, as we know, said, in this world you will have trouble. So God being our refuge, our helper, our deliverer does not mean that he will, every time we want him to, pluck us from pain and just make everything happy. That's not how this works. And thank heavens, because this is the second shift. If he plucked us from every difficulty, we would never develop any resilience muscles. The thing about resilience is, and this is the other shift, is a shift of perspective in the middle. The thing about resilience is the only way to have it is to be in circumstances that require it. In other words, the only way— I mean, we know this is true when we go work out at the gym. We go and we push against weights on the weight machines, or we get free weights and we make them heavier so we feel greater resistance. Because we know the greater the weight, the bigger the muscle, right? We develop those muscles. The only way to develop resilience and view resilience like a muscle, because it is, is to be in circumstances that are hard enough that when we push against it and persevere, we develop that muscle, right? So the second shift is not just a shift in an overall belief in God's role, in our difficulty, but a shift in our perspective on the value of the difficulty. So one of the things that was really helpful for me during all these changes, and I did not always do it well, just for the record, I've had plenty of days of throwing things at the wall because I'm like, this stinks. I hate this. This is dumb. But one of the biggest shifts for me is learning in the middle of the structure, telling, or the struggle to tell myself, this is an education. One of my favorite sayings that my counselor, believe it or not, helped me to see several years ago, many years ago, by the way, a big believer in good counseling. I think it's so valuable. Good coaching, good counseling. I think it's absolutely essential for those of us that want to grow. But one of the things she said is rather than looking at a hard situation and even my apparent inability to navigate it with grace and class, right, as we're going through hard times, sometimes we just do it sloppy. And she said, rather than beat yourself up for feeling weak or frustrated, or like you said, wanting to burn the whole thing down, why don't you reframe it and just tell yourself, I'm learning. And so I put those two words on the Post-it note and had them on my computer for the longest time. So that way, as I was going through something challenging professionally, personally, rather than view it as, hey, what's wrong? As we tend to view any kind of pain or discomfort as a symptom of something wrong. And when we think something is wrong, we panic. That's how our brain is wired up, is to look at challenges and pain as being something that needs to be diagnosed and fixed. But when we're in a place of suffering or challenge or whatever, as people of faith, the truth is God doesn't waste our suffering. He does not waste it. He can purpose. He talks about, you know, that bringing the valley of dry bones back to life, that, you know, he is going to resurrect all of that. He is a God of life, of renewal and resurrection. So even when we're in a hard place, there is still a God who has possibility on the side of us. So if I can sit in that place of discomfort and rather than go, what's wrong with me? Or what's wrong with this job? Or what's wrong with this person? Or what's wrong with whatever, this relationship, go, this is a classroom. It stinks. I mean, it totally is awful. I don't have to be happy about it. In fact, I can be in the fetal position and cry for a few hours if I want to. That's totally allowed and fair. But what is the muscle that this challenge makes possible? What is the education? What is it that I'm learning here? And then all of a sudden, it doesn't become a thing that you need to panic and run from or fix, but something that you can stay grounded in and learn from.

You know, this idea of a muscle, of course, is a language that we use all the time for developing faith. And faith is not stagnant and it's not still. And God does not want us to— he doesn't want to leave us where we started. He's always looking to, yes, conform us into the likeness of his Son. And we're not naturally that way. So that means we have to experience some things Um, I know that, um, your newest book, A Faith That Will Not Fail, talks about 10 practices that will help you build up your faith. So this is not the reactive building, like, life happened, I'm gonna look at what's happening that I can't control, um, I'm not losing, I'm learning, I'm gonna reframe this, this is an education, like, as a reactive, but actually a proactive approach too, that I want to build up my faith. Because listen, we can either go to therapy when something wrong happens to our body. That's one way to build ourselves up. The other way is to go to the gym just because we should, you know what I mean?

Yeah. And actually build the core strength that you need down the road.

And build the core strength that you're going to need. And so, you know, I think whether we're talking about resilience that's required because life has thrown us unexpected things or whether there is, like you said, core strength that we want to prepare for that makes rehab even in difficult situations easier. I'll never forget Priscilla said, you know, she had to have one of the lobes of her lungs removed because they found a mass that after they removed it, discovered was cancerous. She shared about that. But they said, you know, she was a gymnast. She was— she's always been very athletic. And they were talking about how she was going to have to build up her lung capacity after the surgery. And they wanted to see what her starting capacity was. Well, her starting capacity was, I think, something like 120%. So, with the removal of that lobe, with all the work that she's done, with all the work that she's done to live a healthy life and to be athletically driven with the things she enjoys doing and all these things. They said, "Well, the good news is, is that we're going to reduce you to 100%. Like, you have built what you needed. So, even when life comes and we have to remove something and you have to go through the rebuilding process, if you do the rehab work, you're going to be back to where you have just what you need. You're not really losing anything." And so, I think that's kind of what preparation for life looks like. It's proactively building up your faith. What made you— I mean, you do this work all the time. You live this, this resilience and faith and how to have the wrestling of your faith with the reality of your life. And then you spend your time from a business perspective coaching people who want encouragement, direction, guidance, your maturity. But then as a woman of faith, Here you are saying, "All right, I've told y'all in reverse what I've learned. Let me tell you what you need to do to prepare." Practices that can strengthen you in advance. What made you decide to do this work in this season?

Yeah, I spend a lot of time talking about, you know, pretty heavy stuff. Again, this is not what I would choose. I'm actually someone who really enjoys humor and laughter. So if I had my selection of a topic, I would've picked something, you know, like, circus clowns or something, something a lot happier. So this is a pretty heavy topic, but with this particular book, what I wanted to do is— this idea of faith and suffering is so big and it feels so impossible. And when we're in a place where we're either in pain or we know that it may come down the road, we don't even know where to start. So there— and what happens is, is whether you have a whole lifetime legacy of faith, like you grew up in a faith environment, or whether you're brand new to it, it feels so big and it feels hard to wrap your mind around it. I mean, this is like, is there a God and does he care about us? And all of that kind of stuff. So my point with this book was, how can I break down what has helped me the most? Because I've done a lot of things that didn't help. How do I break down what has helped me over the last 30 years of consecutive losses and suffering and challenges? The challenges into something that is accessible for even a person who knows little or nothing about the Bible, make it accessible, but also easily digestible. You know what, if somebody is in a crisis, so whether your, you know, life is fine right now, the crisis hasn't hit, or in the middle of it, you need something you can reach for. You don't want to have to work for a lifeline. If you are drowning in the ocean, you need somebody to throw you a raft. You don't need to have to work reaching it, right? And so my idea with this was, how can I make it good theology as bite-sized and accessible as possible for the person that just needs to know that there is a God who loves them, sees them, and that they can trust?

So, you know, practices sounds like work.

Yeah, it does. I know, right? I used to be a piano teacher, so practice was like the worst thing in the world. Nobody wants to practice.

Well, here's the thing. I will tell you this. I literally— today is Wednesday, the week that we're recording this. On Monday, there's a guy that's been tuning my piano for 20 years. I asked him about 6 years ago, did he do lessons? I was thinking about it for my boys. And he said, well, I do, but I really like to work with students who want to learn. Yeah. And so it's typically older students who've kind of maxed out on the typical piano lesson or It's adults who had it and they want to get back to it.

Yeah.

Well, at the time, my son was the one I was going to make do it. He wasn't his ideal student, but I thought maybe I should take lessons. So that was last year. So my first lesson was this past Monday. Now I took piano from 5 to 15, and then beyond that, I think another couple of years. But I was always frustrated because I could read a Bach two-part invention. You know, put a classical piece, sheet music, a hymnal, no problem. But I really wanted to be able to play what I could hear. And I really struggled to find a teacher who could teach me that. Long story short, we had a 2-hour lesson. His process is immersion, 2 hours twice a week. Like I got time for that, Michelle. Like I got time for that. 2 hours twice a week for 3 to 4 weeks. Because he's like, the worst thing that can happen to someone who wants to learn is loss. And from week to week in our lesson, it's going to take us so much longer to establish the basic principles.

Yeah, yeah. That's actually really smart.

Okay. Yeah. For him too. I'm writing big checks.

I bet you are.

But here's the thing. Here's the thing. When I left that lesson on Monday, he said to me, he was, he got more and more intense as our lesson went on. And then at the end, he smiled a couple of times. And when I got up, he said, this is going to be fun. And I said, really? He said, listen, I went through with you, with your background and with your want to. I went through with you what I— what it typically takes me 3 lessons to get through with people. You want to learn, you have the foundation, and you just caught on really quick. And I took that book home with me. I've already sat down at the piano a couple of times because I don't want to forget. What he showed me. I, I want the information. Practice is not a problem when you understand the beauty of what you're getting. Like, I know that his promise to me is if I'll do the work, that dots that didn't connect to me before— I did the circle of fifths in theory, I did it. But at 12, who cares about the circle of fifths in your theory book? You know, okay, but As a 50-year-old, I'm like, do you mean the circle of fifths will actually teach me to be able to transpose anything in any key if I understand it? Teach me your way. So now practicing has a different connotation for me because I understand I need to know it. I understand the muscle I'm building, and I know the pain of living without the knowledge.

Yeah.

And I want the knowledge to support me. Right. So this idea of practicing is only a problem when you don't believe that practicing delivers a promise, that there'll be something I can hold on to later. And you know that on the backside, you know, you know that on the backside. Here are 10 things I'm going to make accessible. Because if you'll practice these things, maybe on the front end, you don't have to work so hard to have the beauty of the promise on the back end.

That's absolutely true. I mean, when, when you want it bad enough, It doesn't feel like work.

Yeah.

Right. When you want it bad enough, it doesn't feel like work. The other thing I wanna mention about the practices here, and this is really important because I think at times we have boiled down this faith journey into you need to memorize the whole entire Bible and you need to pray for 3 hours a day.

And if you don't do that, I can't, I can't let my kids hear that because I made them all— well, all of them have memorized the whole book of James, and then they've said, why did you— they're all traumatized.

Actually, the book of James is a good one. And it's not that there's not value in memorizing the Bible, okay? So I've memorized different sections of the Bible, believe in it. I also believe in prayer, all of that kind of stuff. So that's not what I'm saying. But to somebody who's in the place of extreme suffering, telling them to memorize the Bible is not necessarily the best way to support them in that place. That is a— you're basically using a legalistic approach to offer compassion to a suffering person. It doesn't work. Right? So when I talk about practices here, truly, these practices are less about doing and more about being.

Love that.

Okay, so this is really important when it comes to these faith practices. It's less about checking boxes and more about developing the way of being in your faith with your relationship with God as you walk through these hard things. That feels very different than us scrambling after getting tasks done. That's not what this is about. So it's less about doing, it's more about being, which to me that is comforting. I want to learn how— it's kind of like that whole saying about it's not enough to just know about God, you need to know God. And that's what this is. It's not just to sit there and go study and know about him. It's a way of being. And these practices help us to engage with him, engage with our faith that really soars us up. To be resilient when the world falls apart.

What do you now know about God that 20 years ago you, you didn't know, or didn't know as deeply and with as much assurance as you know now?

Boy, you just asking that question, big old lump in my throat. This is a big deal. And so for those of you listening, I want you to hear this. I now know that God is kind. I did not know that. I grew up being afraid of God, being afraid that I would disappoint him, he would get angry with me, that he would punish me. For so long, I thought that my hard circumstances were evidence of God's displeasure with me. And the more that I have done these practices myself, but quite honestly, really, read the word to get clear on who God says he is, rather than believing what I had grown to believe about him, I realized that God is kind. And he's not just kind generally, he's kind to me. Um, that he feels kindness and tenderness and mercy toward me. Um, you know, I— there's so many verses that talk about that. But like, for example, as Jesus is getting ready to leave the disciples, he knows he's going, you know, this in John 14. Um, he's going to— I believe it's 14— he's going to leave the disciples, and, you know, he's talking about the Holy Spirit coming. But he looks at his disciples who are heartbroken. They're like, we can't bear to do this life without you, Jesus. And he looks at them, says, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Is that an angry, you know, vindictive punitive God. I mean, yes, he is holy and just and righteous, but he is also kind and tender and full of mercy and abounding with faithfulness and compassion through all generations. I mean, that is our God. And coming to see him, and again, that practice of seeing him that way and sitting in that, you know, sitting in a place of being about the kindness of God. I think it's Romans, it says, and do you forget that it's his kindness that leads through repentance. It's His kindness. That radically changes how we view our pain and suffering when we realize that God by nature is kind. I mean, that just blows my mind.

It is hard for us initially, I think, to assume that God can be kind if life is not kind to us, because we see things as coming through his fingers. And so if he didn't cause it, even if he allowed it, you know, it's the question of all time: how could a good God allow bad things to happen to people, especially good people? Um, I call them kisses from heaven.

Um, I kind of want to throw a throat punch at the kisses, just so you know, because that, that sounds lovely, but I kind of want to throat punch it. But go ahead.

Well, the kisses from heaven are the things that only he knows that I would know are his love notes to me. Despite— the best way I can describe it is me being in the hospital a few years ago, 5 years ago, and my mother coming to sit with me. There was nothing to do. We were watching TV, and I just kept telling her, "Mom, go home." Like, "I'm not doing anything. It's fine." And she said, "No, I'm here. I'm staying. End of discussion." But as she— when she would come back and forth, she would leave, she would kiss me on the cheek. She, when she would come, she might bring me a treat or she made me some soup. She'd bring that in. There were these little, it didn't change my hospital stay. It didn't change the healing time. Nope. It didn't change.

It didn't pluck you out of the hospital and—

It didn't pluck me out of it. But it did give me the little light of her love for me despite the circumstances. And one of my favorite things actually are when, despite the circumstances, God gives me kisses from heaven. I see you. I know you're here. I know that you would like these 20 things, but nobody knows about this one thing. And I'm going to give you that. You know, those things.

You know, that's what is so— and I've had many of those. I'll give you a couple examples in a second. But what's so powerful about those kisses from heaven is that if he had delivered them in a state of ease and comfort, if you were just happy, you would have missed it. It wouldn't have had any power. The power of those moments comes from the reality of the existent pain.

That's correct.

The power of those comes because of the suffering that you're in. So what if You know, in that part of what God wants you to know, the truth that he wants you to know that's even greater than the reality of your suffering is his kindness and tenderness and affection for you. And he needs you to know that truth is even bigger and more powerful. Like, that truth is more transformative than your circumstance. Like, you take that with you, right? But the only way for that message to really hit with us is for it to come in those moments where it feels dark. It's kind of like We don't see the value or the light of a single candle in a lit room. We only see it when the lights are off.

Yeah.

Now, it's hard. It doesn't change the reality of the difficulty. I've had— you and I talked previously, but this has been an extraordinarily difficult year for me personally for a number of reasons, and most of which are private. Uh, but even over the last couple months, several weeks, there have been so many instances where, um, God has, like you said, in the middle of this hard circumstance, made it abundantly clear: I see you, I'm with you. Um, I had one particular day, I had a very important, important appointment. This is not medical related, by the way, for those who are listening, but it was really intense and a lot of grief and heartache around it. And literally while I was in the appointment, I got texts from two different friends that I haven't talked to in years who said, I don't know why I was standing in my kitchen and God prompted me to pray for you. I just felt like I needed to let you know. Um, there's no way they would have known. I haven't even seen them, you know, I haven't talked to them. They have no idea. And I've had other instances like that where it, it's like so apparent to me. And in those moments, the wave of of God's reality and the wave of his tenderness, like his individual tenderness with me, is almost overpowering. It's so real. And even though my circumstances don't change, I can't deny that. And for whatever reason, it's just enough to help me keep going a little bit longer.

You know, I've heard so many people, um, talk show hosts, um, uh, Kirk Thompson in his book The Soul of Shame, uh, talk about reading that right now, by the way. Oh, I get to interview him tomorrow.

Yeah, it's a good—

I mean, it's a great book. I think anytime you can marry the truth of scripture with the truth of logic and science so that we go right thinking does not disagree with scripture. We just discover in other ways how God already said it. Um, but this idea that God is always looking for us, and he started that in the garden when they were hiding themselves. He always— this idea that people want to be seen, they want to know that someone is looking for them, they want to know that they are, um, not invisible. And God meets that core need. Despite all the things that are happening in your life, I see you.

I see you.

I see you. I know who you are. I, I know how to make sure that you know that what just happened was me. I, I know how to take the thing you didn't ask for, that you didn't say out loud, that you were holding out hope for or had given up hope on. And I know how to bring that forward so that you know my eyes are on you. Despite all the things you wish I'd change or the things you wish had not happened, I'm here. And he's been doing that since the beginning of time. Who are you hiding from? Why are you covering up? Why?

Like, yeah, you know, that verse in there in Genesis talks, you know, he asked out, you know, where are you? It's not like he didn't know. He knew where they were. They didn't know where they were. And so he was reflecting back to them what they needed to see. And even that is kind, by the way, right? Him saying, where are you? It was a, do you know where you are?

Do you know where you are?

Right?

That's it. I'm curious. You've got You know, we talked about your book that details 10 practices to build up your faith. So, A Faith That Will Not Fail, 10 practices that build up your faith. If you had to pick one— hmm.

Oh, don't make me. It's like picking a favorite color.

Don't do this. Well, maybe let me make it easier. If you had to say, and I don't know I don't know if you wrote them in the order like building blocks, because maybe that would answer the question for me. But if you had to say I could— I had to pick one. If someone feels like they can only do one, 10 is too much. Where life is, it's so hard. I read it, it encouraged me, but I don't even have the bandwidth to walk through these 10. I'm only going to do one. What is the one practice practice for yourself, or if you would say it for someone else, the one practice that is the first one? Because maybe it's not the hardest one, maybe it's not the biggest one, maybe it's the easiest one, maybe it's the step that's the easiest to take, however you want to think about that. But what is the practice that comes to mind?

Yeah, I, you know, as you were talking, I was trying to— I really think I'm going to go back to the one that's actually the first one in the book, which I even wrote about it saying that it's kind of an inauspicious place to begin because it's the practice of lament. And that doesn't sound very fun.

Who wants to do that?

I know, exactly. Who wants to do that, right? I don't feel like lamenting, thank you very much. You know, there— and this is— I think we as a church have done a really poor job of this, by the way. Because we have the hope of the gospel, we have put an unnecessary burden on people's backs to be positive all the time because God is good.

Okay?

Yes, he is good. But as I wrote in this book, and I remind myself all the time, before Jesus came out of a tomb, he grieved in the garden. Okay? Before Easter Sunday happened, there was Good Friday and Silent Saturday. And we so You know, and the truth is God is good. We do have the hope of the promised land. We do. That all of that is true. But if we neglect the grief that we experience, or even neglect the state of our world, the reality of the fact that, you know, things are kind of a hot mess, then the gospel stops having any relevance to people who don't know Jesus yet, right? If we aren't willing to acknowledge reality, it actually cheapens our worship. You know, it talks about— the Bible talks about a sacrifice of praise. You know, this idea of that we do not grieve as those without hope. We need to do a better job, I think all of us, of allowing ourselves to actually acknowledge the broken state of our condition.

Right?

The only people who need a savior are the people who need saving.

Yeah.

Right? And so this idea of practicing lament, especially for those who are like, "I am so buried right now. I don't have time to do anything else." Well, maybe you just need to give yourself permission to acknowledge that this life didn't turn out quite like you thought it would, or this relationship didn't turn out like you thought it would, or this child, or this job, or this, you know, whatever, that it's not quite what you hoped for, and just tell the truth about it. Lament is taking that reality and telling the truth about it to the God who already knows. That's what lament is.

Lament is, "Where are you?" Yes, yes, exactly.

You know, I, I have a great quote. I don't have it in front of me right now in the book that N.T. Wright shared, but talking about, you know, as Christians, we sometimes think that we always have to have the answer, but lament acknowledges that we don't always have the answer and that's okay. But we know the one who does. And this practice of being honest and telling the truth actually makes us far more approachable and real to people who are searching for God.

So let me ask you this. Um, the power of life and death is in the tongue. And while there is— I agree, toxic positivity is real— where for you is the line between honesty, lament, and clearly stating to the best of my ability where I am, and beating the horse dead and sending myself into a spiral of of all the things that are wrong in my life. And the reason why I ask this is because I have not been as good of a journal— journaling person in the last 20 years of my life. I've been busy raising kids, and that was not a practice that I've done it, but I haven't done it like every day like I did it when I was in high school. But when I look back at some of my journal entries, I realized that it was an overflow of the worst days of my life. And I was like, I don't want the things that I've written about to only be, you know, my coming to Jesus about where I'm at and being honest about how I feel and telling the truth about what is happening in my life to only be the practice of recording and remembering the hard things. Yeah. So, honesty is great, but where does lament start running into an incorrect— or maybe a better word would be an unhealthy, uh, rehearsal of what's not right.

And this is an excellent point, by the way. Uh, Timothy Keller, on his podcast, he talks about this a lot, about learning to preach to yourself, right? So when you're in that hard place, sometimes you do have to stop and go, but I'm going to preach to myself some truth. A great example of this, by the way, the Bible is filled with lamentation that practice of lament. In fact, we have a whole entire book of the Bible called Lamentations. It's about lament. And Lamentations has a great example of this, and I won't go through the whole thing, but the first 2 and a half chapters, 1, 2, and the first part of 3, is nothing but complaints. And it's pretty like, we're like, dude, you've had a really bad day. And, uh, but it's really important to see the turn, how he turns the corner in Lamentations. So I'm, I'm starting at chapter 3, verse 19. That he says, I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. I say to myself— do you hear him preaching to himself? I say to myself, The Lord is my portion, therefore I will wait for him. This is this practice of acknowledging reality, right? A brutal acknowledgement of reality while still maintaining hope. In the secular world, if you've ever read Jim Collins' book Good to Great, he talks about the Stockdale Paradox. And if you read the story of James Stockdale, a Navy, I believe a Navy, naval pilot that was shot down, but he said that he survived being a POW because the ones who made it were the ones who were able to ruthlessly face the facts of their reality, the fact that they were imprisoned, while simultaneously never giving up hope that they would be victorious in the end. That's a secular book, but it has, as you talked earlier, spiritual implications. That's what Lamentations is doing. It's saying, this is the brutal facts of our reality, yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. And, you know, this practice of lament doesn't mean you just sit around and feel sorry for yourself forever. You face the brutal facts of reality. These are the reality of the losses. And yet what is also real is the fact that we have a God who has promised to redeem everything that's been lost, that he has promised that there is a day coming when there will be no more tears, no more crying, no more sadness, that he will make all things new. And so we recall that to mind, we preach it to ourselves, and that's the source of our hope.

You know, I think that I remember when my mother said to me, um, I don't know what hard thing was happening in my life at the time, but she said, yeah, it's just been a part of your story to have to deal with hard things. But I remember when you were a little girl, and we would— we were marked by how determined and perseverant you were. And now seeing your life, the good things and the hard things, I see why he made you that way, um, that he wired into your DNA the stuff that you would need. It didn't make the hard stuff easier, but he wired you to, to, you know, it's like, it's like the, the movie, um, oh, my brain just died. Neo, The Matrix.

Oh yeah.

And there's a scene where, uh, Trinity needs to fly a helicopter and she says like, download the program. Program, right? It's not that there haven't been moments where God has to download the program. Like, as much as he's given me to be able to navigate the matrix that I'm in, there are lots of moments where I'm like, download the program. Like, I don't know how to handle this. But there is a base level. And I think for all of us, we have this base level based on our design and the power of the Spirit working in us. But, but then there are those things that, like it or not, they're a part of our story. And he gave us everything we needed the day we were born to bring us to a certain point. And even if we need to download additional programming from the word, from prayer, from encouragement, from friends. Yeah, he's given us what we— yeah, he's given us what we need to navigate the hard stuff. I don't, you know, And I know that you've probably heard this said a million different ways, and you probably wanted to punch some people in their throat, but it is very clear to me. It is very clear to me that not only by design and by experience, not only by training and development, not only by the reinvention of yourself over and over again because of the things in life that you did not choose, um, that you have— you, you are, you represent, um, this combination of who God built you to be and the programs that along the way you've had to download to have an incredible, incredible level of strength, power, wisdom that doesn't just impact me as a woman who loves Jesus and who wants to walk through whatever life circumstances bring my way, but it impacts down the pipeline. Because even in your work with executives and leaders of companies, how they learn to be, that gets translated as they lead and as they mentor and as they bring other people. I mean, And the overflow in your books and in your writing of who you were designed to be and what God has given you through life. And who would have chosen this except— it is what it is. But the impact is just ridiculous in the best way. And the thing is, for me, Michelle, I believe you. See, there are people—— and this does not take anything away from them, but they may have the same information with the same scripture, with not the same but a similar difficult life story. And their delivery is for some, but your delivery is for me because you're gonna level with me, tell me like it is. You're gonna talk spiritually but also talk straight. You know, you're not gonna say with this soft, meek voice, and there's nothing wrong with that, you know, "I'm just— whatever the cup of suffering is that the Lord has for me, you know, I've just made peace." You're gonna be like, "This sucks!" You know what I mean? Like, "This sucks!" You know? "I would never have chosen this." However, the truth that you speak through the lens of your reality and your very real voice, Mm-hmm. Um, the fact that you keep talking with a tongue that isn't all the way there, that you, um, keep doing what God has asked you to do, it makes it actually— and you mentioned the word earlier when you were writing this book— accessible, easily digestible, that there is good theology in the midst of a storyline that isn't always good. And I'll never forget, in our last conversation, you said this to me. You know, I was talking about the lament I feel with my mom's passing. You said, "Remember the cross and how Jesus himself didn't wanna do it." He knew it was before him. And he asked God, "Is there another way?" And if that was his story, why would our story be bereft of suffering, and I don't want to do it. And even that, you saying to me, I mean, I believe you. So I just want to— every time we talk, I am riveted beyond belief for myself, for the people who listen, because of the truth, the accessible truth that you deliver. But the truth is the truth, and I've heard it before, but hearing it through you helps me to know that we talked about one practice, whatever the other 9 are, and I have the book, so I know, but whatever the other 9 are, that they are going to be easily accessible and digestible, whether I'm on the back end of needing to practice these or on the front end and wanting to prepare and build core strength. And I just want to thank you for your yielding to not just learning how to live with God through the seasons, but sharing what you've learned in the process.

Thank you, Chrystal Hurst. I love you dearly. What I want to— on that, I want to just say one tiny little thing because this is so important for those who are listening. I'm so grateful at your kind words and all of that. What I want to make sure is clear is I'm nobody special. That means everybody who's listening who is in their hard place right now The same is true for you. This is so critical. It's not because I'm special or whatever. God does this for anybody who just sits and turns to him and says, you know, like the criminal on the cross, Jesus, remember me. Well, guess what? He remembers you. And whatever hard place you're in right now, that right there is a classroom for something. It's not good, it's not fun, it's not fair. I get all of that, but that right there is a classroom for some kind of incredible mission, purpose, message, comfort that you can bring other people on the other side of it and even in the middle of it. And it's not only for set people, it's for every single one of us that follows Jesus, that he, you know, he takes it and says, okay, I'm not gonna waste it. He wastes nothing.

And aren't we glad? Nothing. Aren't we glad? Thanks so much. Thank you, Pam. I'm so grateful.