37: ‘Divine Detours’ in Life

hello and welcome to what's this story we're an inquisitive bunch of hosts from the what's the story team on a mission to uncover stories about faith and courage from everyday people and to help us do just that we get the privilege to chat with amazing guests and delve into their faith Journey the hurdles they've overcome and the life lessons they have learned along the way now if you enjoy our podcast don't forget to subscribe and sign up for our newsletter on our website which is what's the storypodcast.com it's your direct line too the latest episodes and detailed show notes and they all get delivered straight to your inbox and the best part it's absolutely free what's the story is brought to you by crowd church we understand that stepping into a traditional Church might not be everybody's cup of tea and that's where crowd church steps in providing a digital Sanctuary a safe space to explore the Christian faith where you can engage in meaningful conversations rather than just simply spectating so whether you are new to the Christian faith or are in search of a new church family we invite you to visit us at www.crowd.church and if you've got any questions just drop us an email at hello crowd.church we're here to help and we're genuinely love to connect with you and now without further Ado let's meet your host and our very special guest for today hi there raimana Kettle and I'm part of the crowd Church team I'm in one of the regular hosts here at what's the story podcast I stay joined by Laurie Anne wood who is an award-winning writer a heart failure Survivor and our guest for today's show now after discovering a serious heart condition almost too late lorian um now writes to encourage others to embrace deep Faith questions and embrace the Divine detours in their own lives lorianne's first book Divine detour the pathy never choose can lead to the faith you've always wanted was published earlier this year by Cross River media and is available on Amazon to buy now so lorianne thank you so much for coming on our podcast today welcome thank you Anna it's great to be here oh it's fabulous to have you um first of all can I just say before we go any further that that is such an awesome title for a book I really like it it's just so inspiring thank you well I'm I'm probably like probably like our books I think we we went through several iterations but the yeah the the subtitle changed a couple times so I I like it too but it didn't start out to be that so it's nice to land there as a as a fellow writer I totally understand that um but yeah it's a powerful title and I can't wait to dive into that stuff more and him more about uh that whole idea of divine detours and all of that in a minute I know a story but I guess we should start from the top and start at the beginning of your story because not all of our listeners today might be as familiar with it as we are so can you start by telling us just a little bit about yourself where you live what you do where your background is and kind of also how you first started out in this journey of faith so I am in Bentonville Arkansas which is really in just the middle of the United States and I didn't grow up in Arkansas but I grew up in the middle of the United States in on a wheat farm in Kansas and I have really always known about God I when I think about my faith Journey it really began earlier than my earliest memory probably I don't remember a time when I didn't believe in God I grew up in church um I you know knew about God as soon as I knew about my family really and I raised my children in the church and we were active in the leadership at church and still are and we taught adult classes on mission trips for 10 Summers and there was just a lot of buy-in and a lot of commitment and that was the basis for where I was and then something happened right at the end of coincidentally those 10 Summers on that mission trip that really rattled my faith and made me step back for a minute and do some questioning and some digging yeah so tell us a little bit more about the challenges then tell us like what was it around your faith what what's the challenge you've had to overcome and kind of yeah tell us a bit more about that what was the next stage of your journey yes well this was about it's it's coming up on eight years ago I had kids at home I was a my background is that I am a tax accountant I taught at the University level for many many years and I we were getting ready for Thanksgiving here and it's a week where my older kids that were in college would be coming home and I was doing everything I thought I should be doing to get ready for that and I just I wasn't feeling well I just kind of felt sluggish and I felt fatigued but I wasn't like completely you know laying flat out on the floor or anything like that I just thought you know I'm not myself and so I went to the convenient care which is just a place you can go for a quick results or a quick resolution to Common problem I thought I had the flu or I thought maybe I had pneumonia so I was really in trouble and uh I I did that a couple of times that week and I never got any better and finally I went to my family doctor and he immediately listened to my heart with a stethoscope and he said we're going to get a chest x-ray and if we're lucky it's pneumonia and I remember being extremely caught off guard by that because I had never been in the hospital other than for childbirth and I just didn't have any intersection with the medical system at all so when he said that I'm starting to go through in my mind you know I cancer was always a concern but when he showed me the X-ray from my heart it was an extremely enlarged heart and it was actually dysfunctioning at six percent that day when I was in my doctor's office but I didn't know because I had no family history and I had no risk factors for lifestyle indicators that I might have a heart problem and so that was something that really shocked me but even then when I got that diagnosis and it was you know the prognosis wasn't good I still felt like it was going to resolve itself and that I was going to get back to my normal life because I had just always been such a healthy person and what I didn't know was that the doctors were thinking I wouldn't leave the hospital I spent 14 days in intensive care that first trip and the doctors weren't thinking I would leave the hospital and then I did and when I left I wore an external defibrillator vest it's called a life vest and it just can deliver a shock to Your Heart Like A any kind of external defibrillator can do and I wore that around 24 hours a day and I I wore that for about nine months because they kept thinking you know I'm not going to leave the hospital and then they said okay with the numbers that you have you probably have about six months and then when I went past six months they said you know plan on no more than five years and that whole time I'm thinking this is going to you know this is going to be a temporary condition but I was flown to Cleveland Clinic which is our top heart hospital and I became my doctor's most critical patient there for a year and a half and all that time I just wasn't getting any better they were doing everything that they do for what my diagnosis was which is heart failure and short of a transplant they were doing everything they could and I just wasn't getting any better and so I started to question that idea that oh this is just going to go away because it wasn't going away and I had people praying for me around the clock I had 24-hour prayer chains that I still have those where those precious people were waking up at night you know pray for me and care packages and cards and flowers and all the things I had that was and I had wonderful medical care but nothing was happening and it started to get to be a long time you know after about a year and a half but if anything happened then I came down with appendicitis about a year and a half after my heart failure diagnosis and no one wanted to take my appendix out because my heart was so weak and doctors did an echocardiogram which is the test they do to determine how how strong your heart is and they found that my heart was functioning at near normal wow and I was shocked maybe it's more shocked then than I was when I first heard the diagnosis because there it was at normal and that was a that was a great day I remember feeling like I I had my life back that I had a second lease on life and I thought I get the story I understand what my story is it's this you know answered prayer and God's provision and Divine Healing and this is a great story and I'm gonna tell this story and then about three years ago my heart function dropped and I was in active heart failure again and that's kind of where I've been the last couple of I probably the last six months to a year I've had I've taken two more dips down as far as my heart function and so you know I'm learning to adapt to that it's it's really a chronic progressive disease it it once you damage your heart muscle there's really not anything they can do other than support it they can't the heart doesn't regenerate new tissue so I'm learning how to deal with that and manage the fact that it really only goes in One Direction even though you can have some spikes up like I was having at that one point it's really going in One Direction and so the medical part of the story was interesting enough but what really I think is the story that maybe people can relate to that don't have anything wrong with them health-wise is that as I was going through this my faith was on a journey right along with my health and so that's really the big story about what was happening all those months sure sure that's I mean that is like a really shocking diagnosis to be confronted with and you weren't that old really when it happened you know you don't think of people kind of you know at that kind of age kind of having Hots that were like you know that week do you generally and yeah to cut for it to kind of come out of nowhere and you are living a normal healthy life before that it's yeah I can imagine how shocking that is and then yeah I I love what you say about kind of like you sort of thought you were on a certain sort of healing path with God and that was kind of part of the story but it wasn't the whole thing and yeah so often it's true for all of us isn't it that we can kind of think we know where God's taking us but actually we don't really none of us know for sure and we can kind of write or expect the story to go the way we want it to go but actually that often has nothing to do with the way God's actually taking us and yeah and I I love that and so tell us a little bit more about kind of yeah what happened next and how it how it impacted your faith and your life and kind of how you process some of that um I started to as I as I was going through this and I kind of got to the end of it and then I was back in heart failure I was you know I was keeping a journal just mostly for the medical side and then that turned into a Blog and I started just when nothing medically was happening all those months I didn't have anything to blog about so I started to really be a little bit transparent about the faith questions that I had and I started to realize that people were resonating with the fact that their lives weren't going exactly like they had hoped or planned and they were on a detour but it was a different detour but it was still a detour and and they were having some of the same questions that I was having and at first I don't know if it's you know my training or my personality or just where we are in society but at first when I had these questions it felt like a weakness it felt like the value is in knowing the answers and I am at this you know deep point of my faith where I've known about God my whole life and I've got some really basic questions and I was a little bit embarrassed and I was a little bit you know I felt like it meant that I I really wasn't ever a True Believer that I I never got it and so but what I learned in starting to explore these questions is that questions are more like you know Frederick beekner says it's the ants in the pants of faith is is what questions and doubt is but you know it's kind of like for me it's kind of like having this grain of sand in your shoe and you really can't you can go on with that you can keep walking with that grain of sand in your shoe but there's a little bit of you that's always thinking about that grain of sand and you're thinking Hmm I wish that wasn't there I wish I could do something about it and and once you get it resolved you can continue on and it doesn't mean you won't get another grain of sand in your shoe on down the on down the path but it's something that we need to address and so what I had to really reframe I guess in my life is that these questions that I had were you know something that instead of being a point of weakness they were actually a point of strength because I was saying I'm gonna I'm gonna ask God about these I'm gonna get up every day and we're going to talk about them because the only alternative I had was to take this fragile faith that I had built and try to protect it and not question it and put it away and then when my life was back on the main road and everything was going great I'll get my faith back down and we'll use it again but what I shouldn't have been doing that and once I decided you know God and I had too much history I just couldn't leave him on the shelf and when I said I'm going to get you down and I'm going to wrestle with it I'm going to question and I'm gonna dig in I was back in the game with God I was talking to him again because when I put him on the shelf that was really a silent period in my life in in my faith life with God because I was like I don't know what you're doing and it doesn't make sense and I'm just gonna kind of turn away from it for a while that was a hard time because I was really shutting him out you know and I think anybody that had teenagers or been a teenager knows that when you shut the parent out when you slam that bedroom door and walk away that's the worst okay just open that door and say what you have to say but don't just shut it and walk away and that's what I was doing I was being this angsty child that was shutting the door so I got it down and wrestled with it and I started having this conversation with god and I started he was top of mind when I would wake up in the morning because I'd be like oh yeah we've we still need to resolve this I don't know the the really cool thing that I learned and it was much later is that I didn't so much want the answers or even need the answers I just needed permission to ask the questions and permission to say I don't get it and it doesn't make sense and can you still love me and can I still love you when this doesn't make any sense and so that's what I've been dealing with as I've gone through this and through the ups and downs of my health but you know really if I were to put it in a nutshell I'd say I learned that the opposite of Faith isn't doubt it's not questioning the opposite of faith is indifference just walking away and saying I don't get it and I'm not going to wrestle with it and so that was a realization for me because at first it felt like I was not being a good believer a good Christian when I started asking sure and it's interesting because I mean like sometimes asking questions can seem like the worst thing concept like you can see my oh I'm doubting of questions my faith must be immature but actually and there can be this kind of worry about opening up that kind of worms almost like what if I start asking these questions and they're too difficult um I don't find the answers or you know it's it undermines everything but I think our faith is so much more stretchy and bendy and pliable than we think it is and it's not easily breakable um actually that that kind of wrestling with tree says what God wants us to do and wrestling with his word and yeah and I love the fact that you said that it was actually that process that Drew you closer to him so it actually led to intimacy not kind of that kind of often Fair we can feel about it pushing us away from God I actually dreaming closer to him so interesting yeah and I love what you said about it being pliable and and bendy because I think when I was you know I shied away from questions even with my kids when when they would have a faith question I'd be like Oh I'm not sure I have the right answer for that so I didn't entertain their questions like I should have and I think we can get into that position where it feels like we have to cover for God like what if this doesn't turn out like I we want it to and then what will they think of God and what will I think of God and so I was in this process even with my own health about like ooh when my prayer warriors were just praying so hard and nothing was happening I thought you know I I don't know how this is going to end and I don't know what that's going to do to their faith and what that'll do to my faith and so yeah we don't have to cover for God but it sometimes it feels like we do yeah so true and I think we can feel like like we have to get all the we have to get the answers to prayer we can be very resource orientated can't we about our faith and like I mean if I pray I need to get the answers to that prayer and and that answer has to be in the way that I expect it to be and I ask for it and actually sometimes the healing and the answers are less important than the journey with God I think this is a recurring theme on what's the story recently lots of people have touched on this but you know sometimes that's more important than getting the answers anyway right just that relationship with God and that intimacy so so true and I I always think about what my husband said something to me early on he said you know if we don't get the answer for your health situation the way we want all we're doing is trading what we can't keep for something we can never lose and it made so much sense because I wanted that healing but you know any healing any physical healing is only going to be temporary and I think God has his sights on something so much more permanent than that and he's he's always been about seeking a relationship with us and he'll go to any links you know any cost to him any cost to us to have that relationship and I think that is what one of the you know one of the real bonuses of having this long-term health condition has shown me is that what I really needed and wanted was that relationship and not so much that healing that I started out thinking that was what I really needed um yeah and I'm interested to hear as well how have you seen God use this challenge in your life since then because you talk about that kind of Faith Journey that God's taken either way but also I know God's used this to sort of touch other people as well through your writing different things you've been involved in so can you tell us a little bit more about that yes so I I mentioned that I have a background in accounting and and tax and so I had taught college classes for more than 20 years and done some other speaking in that area and I found after I got heart failure that I can't I couldn't stand up and lecture for hours at a time and so I I wasn't sure what was next for me and I had some other ideas of what I had hoped to do next but they didn't pan out because part of it was because of my stamina and so those things those closed doors that I ran into ended up being this other door opening where I was I found that I couldn't I couldn't stand up but I could sit down and type all day and I could be on Zoom you know and not have to travel and all of these things were just coming together at the same time and that is when I realized that especially for me I can get distracted by too many options you know if there's too many open doors there's too many uh you know crayons in the box or too many opportunities out there sometimes you just don't do anything because you're paralyzed by all the possibilities and when when circumstances shut several doors for me I was able to focus and I started writing this book The it started with the the blog that I talked about and the journaling that I talked about and it ended up being a book that I had always hoped to write a book but I never took the time to do it in a safer healthier life and that was a a door that opened up that really I wasn't expecting it to open up at that time but it came at just the right time for me and I I'm just so thankful I can look back and be so thankful for doors that have closed but sometimes it takes a lot of time perspective to get to that being thankful for closed doors yeah for sure and I know you wouldn't have chosen that path of like ill health um but it's it's so cool to hear how you can see God's used it and how he's used it to reset because of course of your life moving forwards from from there so yeah it's really inspiring to hear about and like tell us a little bit as well where are you where are you up to with at all today because you're not like cured are you either you know you're alluded to this before there isn't a cure for heart failure but but how does life look now what are you up to and where are things at now yes I have one of the things and I you know I think I mentioned in the book um The Detour is the expected route now and there's a little bit of relief in that because I had been one who was always you know planning what was going to be next and where I was going I had my GPS set and I was going to get there the easiest quickest most efficient way and so that detour and knowing that it might not be what I want it might not be what I expect but God's using that and I think he he uses detours to deepen our faith um and so even though when we're on a detour we feel like we're lost and we feel like he's abandoned us on this road but it's really just the opposite and so I have uh really leaned into to writing I have tried to help others who have been on a detour and it you know I think I mentioned earlier that most of the people who have you know reached out to me from my book or other things that I've written have said I don't have anything to do with heart failure or health but I have experienced bankruptcy or loss of a child or loss of a dream a a marriage and they feel like they're asking some basic Faith questions and so I'm really trying to lean into being vulnerable and letting people know that asking questions and digging into your faith is exactly what you should be doing I you know instead of saying how did I get this old and I'm still asking these questions I think once you get that pool of Life Experiences that's exactly the time to be asking your questions and and I think you know scripture shows us that that's okay yeah that that's really good and it's it's actually that you can see them as as strengths not failures um you know Divine detours as exactly that Divine not accidental and that even in the midst of it even if it's things God didn't intend for our lives like I'm I'm not saying God Will's kind of ill health on any of us or that his plan is anything bad for us but like I'm so thankful certainly at this I found this in my own life that he uses those things and they're not wasted he uses them for divine good and he draws good things out of them and um yeah and sometimes those hard roads can actually be good can't they because they can even though they're tough they can lead you into good places and uh and so yeah I really love what you're sharing there um this is a really tough question this is always the one that guests say oh no that's hard but um what's if you could just distill this whole journey that you've been on and I know it's not finished yet but up to this point in life and on your faith Journey what's one thing you've learned up to now if you could just distill it down to like maybe one phrase or idea or one kind of motto or something what would that be well a couple of them come to mind but probably um the main one okay is there's a couple that I'll mention one of them is is in Hebrews 11 13 and in that passage it lists a lot of faith Heroes like Abraham and Noah and Sarah and it said they were living by faith when they died but they did not see the things promised and we like to think that our story should make complete sense in our lifetime that we should see if God allows something to happen then before we die we should know why God allowed that to happen and I think this scripture says that sometimes our story overlaps past our lifetime because we're start we're part of this bigger story that God is writing and we have this little part of it but sometimes we don't see the finished end of our story arc while we're alive we just have to know that God's going to finish the story for good and even if In Our Lifetime and we don't see the things promised as some of those Faith Heroes didn't that we have to trust that he will finish it and so that was a comfort to me because I would you know I want to be able we all want to be able to look back and say I know exactly why I had to go through that or why I was on that detour and maybe we're not going to know that was that's one of them and then the other one is in John 13 7 and it's where he Jesus is washed getting ready to wash the feet of the disciples and Jesus says you do not realize now what I'm doing but later you will understand and it sort of goes along with the scripture in Hebrews but it's saying it's going to look confusing to you you're not going to understand it right now and I was of the ilk that I wanted to know why things were happening and I wanted it to make sense and I wanted to be able to reason through it and sometimes we we just can't and so our job as Christians is to trust that he's going to finish the story the best possible way but also while we're living in those confusing times that he's okay with us asking the questions because he knows we're human and he knows that we have some questions and we have concerns and he just wants to hear from us so you know those two scriptures together tell me that we're going to be on these detours because God has something for each one of us that's so much more than this predictable life that we plan for ourselves and on that life that we're going to be living it's going to be hard we're not going to see the whys all the time and while we're on there it's okay to ask God and to talk to him about that confusion yeah and it's interesting because they almost sound like contradictions when you talk about them but they're not are they because it's okay to ask questions and God you know the Bible makes it very clear that God's comfortable with those questions that there's lots of people who question their faith throughout the Bible isn't there you see that all the way through scriptures and maybe that's just the way some of us are wired to to ask these questions and that he's okay with that and testing our faith can help build her right but at the same time there's this kind of I sort of feel like you overlay that with Patrice that we may not get the answers the side of heaven and that has to be okay too and actually that there's some overarching truths um stories that will only make sense later and so it's like a bow fan doesn't it it's like holding both those truths and tension like it's okay to ask but also it it needs to be okay with not understanding at all as well and just thank God Is Bigger Than some requests and that that's kind of a tough thing isn't it when you've got those questions to get to that point of peace I mean I'm interested did it take you long to kind of shift from one point of view to another or to hold the two intention yeah it did because I think um you know you mentioned that some some people may just be wired differently my mother I was you know in the home where I was raised there was never a question in her mind that God was real and active and making a difference in her life and then I married a man who you know has really the same spiritual DNA he he knows that he knows that he knows and I just I'm a little bit different I I question you know and you mentioned several people in scripture like you know we have we see Thomas and Peter and Sarah and so many people asking questions and saying wait a minute you know this give me a minute and God didn't love any of those people any less than the people who believed so easily and so I took great comfort when I finally figured out that it wasn't that I was uh a weaker believer or it wasn't that I was more of a baby Christian it was that I came to Faith a little bit differently than maybe some other people and so that was a really relief to me to be able to see that and to to grasp that because you're right you know you have this questioning because you're wired that way but then you have this reality in the other hand that says I'm you may not know and so there's this need to know and then this Faith component that somehow you have to wrestle with God enough to be able to hold both of those together I know I mean I really relate to what you're saying there because I think although my Journey's been different to yours I've had some Divine detours as well which I've talked about on this podcast previously um but I I resonate with that a lot around that kind of coming to a place of Peace whether not knowing and not having all the answers This Side of Heaven not having all those like but why did you do that God why didn't you answer in this way and um yeah and in some ways I think that comes through because you talked about how these questions and that sort of searching and wrestling with God actually brings you into greater intimacy and it is that it strikes me just as we're talking about it is actually that intimacy that allows you to fight no God more and in is alien knowing god more that you find that peace with but he's I know he's good I don't know he's for me and I know he loves me and so I'm okay with the questions so it's like this full circle thing isn't it almost and it's just kind of occurred to me now as we're talking that actually that comes out of a place that peace comes out of a place of intimacy I'm surely fine by pressing into God in a deeper way and you're questioning yeah that's really good I I love that because you know I think in our human relationships we can see that the people that were very closest to we can ask questions but at the base we trust that they have our best interests at heart and so by getting to that deeper place with God we can release that need to control the outcome and it's not something that happens overnight and it's something that you just have to work on you know throughout your life but you're right getting to that place where you can just say I'm okay with not knowing exactly where this road is heading I'm okay with not knowing all the answers to this why this is happening and that only comes by keeping that communication open hmm yeah so good well I do you know I could talk about this with you all day long because I think we uh yeah we have a lot of similar views on this and um it's it's just fascinating to hear your story um but we are kind of rapidly running out of time so um but before we go I do want you just to sort of share with us you know tell us where people can find you where they can find out more if they're interested in our conversation today they want to learn more about your book like tell us all the things where can they find your social website where do we go yes so my book is called you mentioned it earlier Divine detour the path you'd never choose can lead to the faith you've always wanted and that's available on Amazon I also have my website which is lorianwood.com and there's a Books page that has a book trailer and other information about the book and you can even read the first chapter free to see if it's something that is for you I would also hope that people would if if you're in a place where you feel like you're having trouble communicating with God and you can't find the words and you're in that silent period that I talked about that I was in initially in the process I have a something that might help it was something I put together in those Early times and it's called five Prayers and Promises when you can't talk to God and people can download that free from my website it's at lorianwood.com Hope and I would be thrilled to share that with anybody that could find that to be useful where they are right now and I also would love to connect with anybody on Instagram or Facebook you can find me at lorianne wood on either one of those two platforms or even now threads at Lorien wood so all the things yeah um that sounds wonderful and so many great resources there so I definitely want to sort of echo that and say guys if if you're interested in this conversation if any of that sounds useful please do look up lorianne and um I know these will be awesome um lorianne thank you so much for joining us today um it's been so great to have you here and have this conversation yes Anna thank you it's great to see you and talk to you we have a lot in common we should do this again yeah we definitely should on or offline like let's just do it you don't have to do a podcast every time but yeah it's been really fun chatting and um and just to say as well to listeners before we go that if you didn't catch all of those contacts we'll also put them in the show notes afterwards so um you can find all those links in our show notes for today on our website which is www.crowd.church so all the links Florian and how to connect with her will be there as well so thank you again for being here and thanks also to all of our listeners for being here today take care and we will catch you again very soon have a great week everyone and just like that we have reached the end of another fascinating conversation now remember to check out crowd church at www.crowd.church even if you might not see the point of church you see we are a digital Church on a quest to discover how Jesus can help us live a more meaningful life we are a community a space to explore the Christian faith and a place where you can contribute and grow and you are welcome at crowd Church don't forget to subscribe to the what's the story podcast on your favorite podcast app because we've got a treasure Trove of inspiring stories coming your way and we will basically hate for you to miss any of them and just in case no one has told you yet today remember you are awesome yes you are created awesome it's just a burden you have to bear what's the story story is a production of crowd Church our Fantastic Team including Anna Kettle saraf 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