When Life Becomes Good Again

Twanna Henderson: Welcome to T Time Spiritual Conversations For, With, and About Women. I'm your host, Twanna Henderson. And as always, I want to remind you to like this broadcast and to definitely share it with someone in your life.

Well, I'm so excited to share today's guest with you. Our guest is Lisa Appelo. Lisa is an author, a popular blogger, and a Bible teacher who loves seeing women flourish in the strength of God's promises. Lisa is also a widow and mom to seven amazing children. As a member of the widow mama collective, which is a Facebook community for young widows, she helps women find hope in the hard places of life. Lisa, welcome to T Time.

Lisa Appelo: Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here.

Twanna Henderson: Yes, it's so glad, I'm glad to have you here. And, you know, I'm just really excited to talk with you today. You have an incredible testimony that I know is going to help so many people today. And so I even want to encourage our listeners right now to really lean in, and to get ready to prepare for a blessing today that I believe they're gonna get. So, Lisa, your family has been through a tragic loss with the unexpected death of your husband, Dan. Share with us that story.

Lisa Appelo: Well, for us, it came very unexpected, like you said. There were no signs, no symptoms that anything was wrong. And so on a very normal, what felt like normal, Friday morning in June, I woke still in the dark, early hours of that morning to my husband's funny breathing on the pillow next to me. And I wasn't even awake enough to truly comprehend what's going on. I thought he was just having a nightmare. And so I just reached over, my eyes didn't even open, I just reached over kind of instinctively for all those years of marriage and nudged him and said, "It's just a nightmare hon," and thought that he would turn over, and that we'd fall back asleep and wake up to his alarm in a few hours. But, he didn't turn over and that breathing continued, and it woke me up enough to jump out of bed and turn on the overhead light. And I could see immediately that something was very wrong. And so I did the only thing I know, you know, I called 911. I started CPR. And as it happened, my, our air conditioner had broken upstairs, my kids were all in sleeping bags, right outside of our bedroom downstairs. Four year old had crawled up like she did every night into bed in between the two of us. It's such a mix of like, you know, life as I knew it, and then this unfolding crisis. And so I just went into management mode. Calling my daughter to take the little ones upstairs and my son to call 911 and another son to run down and get our firemen neighbor, but the paramedics are right outside of our neighborhood. And so I did not even get through two full rounds of CPR with the operator before they were there. And they took over. And I thought, "Okay, good. He is in good hands." And I could hear, they shushed me out of the room, but I could hear them working on him and hear some good comments from them. They took him by gurney to the, to an ambulance to the hospital. And I followed, and it was not long after I got there that they called me into that room that you never want to go into. I wanted to go into a patient room, but they called me to that counseling room and an ER doctor said that they had worked on Dan for over two hours. And they had never been able to revive him. And so that was it. Life just shattered in every way imaginable.

Twanna Henderson: And how long ago was that?

Lisa Appelo: We are coming up on our 12th Heaven-versary for that. Which probably for somebody who's not walked through any kind of, this kind of deep loss, seems like a long time, and it is. There's been a lot of life that's happened. And I'm no longer that raw, you know, really physically, painful grief. But on the other hand time warps. And sometimes it can seem, you know, not that long ago that life changed on a dime.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah. So talk to us about when they shared the news with you, the doctors and yeah, nobody wants that, to go into that room. What emotions did you feel? I mean, or could you feel. What was going through your mind?

Lisa Appelo: I felt, I don't think, I think in that moment I understood what marriage was more than I ever had before. I understood that God absolutely makes two into one, it's not just this saying, it's not just a metaphor, that all of the daily, ordinary moments, the thousands of decisions, the fights, the arguments, the makeups, the struggles, the problems, the joys, the dreams, all of those knit two people into one. And so when that was gone, I felt like, I know your listeners can just listen to this and not see it, but my mom used to take our old towels, and she, our old cotton towels, and she would snip it in the middle, and then she would just rip it in two, and these threads would be hanging, dangling. What was once woven together was now two with this raw edge and these dangling threads. And that's what I felt like. I felt like, you know, anybody who didn't know me can just see this whole person, but I was shredded inside. And, and you know, of course, also feeling the despair for my children, and not, and their grief that they were walking through and not being able to fix it.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah. And you had been married, how long at that time?

Lisa Appelo: We had been married 26 years. He was my first date. And my only date.

Twanna Henderson: Oh my goodness.

Lisa Appelo: He was, we were in, we actually knew each other from seventh grade, but he was just another boy in youth group. But by high school, we were in a group of friends together. And then by my 11th grade year, he asked me out. And that was it. I mean I knew we had been such good friends that I knew that, this was it. I thought this was the rest of my life.

Twanna Henderson: Wow. Wow. That's pretty amazing. I know I shared in your bio, that you are an author, and your book is titled, "Life Can Be Good Again." Now, that's a big promise.

Lisa Appelo: It is.

Twanna Henderson: Especially for someone who's grieving. What does that title mean for you?

Lisa Appelo: I remember, in that fresh grave, in those early weeks, thinking, "I will never smile again. I will, I will make the most of this for my children. And I will try to show up and parent well, but I will never feel real joy again. All of that is behind me." But I didn't want that to be the truth. I didn't want that, you know, I wanted to I, I wished that I would feel real joy again. And so I wish that I had somebody who was just a few steps ahead of me who could turn back and kind of take my hand and say,"It is painful, it is grueling, and it is hard to walk through. But, it will not always be like this. And if you do the hard work of grief, life will feel good again." You know, God doesn't stop and start on his promises. It's not like his goodness stops and starts, and even though that point in time very much feels like a fulcrum in life, and probably always will be one of those fulcrums in my life, God's goodness didn't stop and start on his promises...

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, you know, you said something, I think very important having someone just a few steps ahead of us. And, you know, how important is that? I mean, to be able to, to have somebody who's kind of walked that journey. And I think it just lets us know how important it is to share our story because we never know how it's going to impact someone else or help someone else. You know, a lot of times when the unthinkable losses happen in our lives, fear, you know, has a way of creeping in. How can we move forward, you know, again, without fear and, and even anger and bitterness?

Lisa Appelo: Yeah. So I want to say something about you saying, "Sharing our stories," because that is so important. And even this book is not just my story, there are a lot of ways that a life can shatter. It can shatter you know from an unwanted divorce from a spouse who walked out and says, "I never loved you" or a diagnosis for ourselves or somebody in our family. I even, you know, I have taught women for a while and I have watched them go through situations that they never saw coming, you know, businesses that they put their whole heart and and money into. Just something happened in that go and so there are a lot of ways we can come to these huge life altering losses. And fear is a huge one because once that door opens, you know, I think always death. Dan's early death wasn't even really on the horizon for me. It wasn't even something I feared. I had some, a lot of fears, but that was not even part of them. And, but when that happened, and something that seemed so unimaginable became real, it opened the door to all kinds of other fears. And other things that maybe weren't so far fetched. And, you know, we were a two income family, I'm sorry, we were a one income family. And that one income was now gone. I had five boys, I mean, three were teens or preteens how in the world was I going to get these boys grown to adulthood and help them become godly men? I was scared for their health, and their future. How they would act out. I had so many fears. And I realized early on that, that those fears were paralyzing me. That I wasn't even able to parent. I wasn't able to make decisions because I was in this vise grip of all these fears. And a very dear friend shared with me, she, when I spoke to her one day over coffee, she said, "I know this one." And she herself had a chronic diagnosis that she was, unless God heals her, she will continue to walk out. That is very difficult, and continues to take things, you know, to alter her life. And she said, you know, she gave me the verse in Corinthians that says, we are to take all our thoughts captive to the truth of Christ. And so I began to put that into practice very intentionally. And this is how it looks. When I would have a fear, the first thing I would do, like, say, the fear of my, our income, that income was gone. And so I fear financially. How in the world was I gonna raise these kids and meet our obligations. And then, the first thing I had to do was identify the lie under that, because the lie is that God wouldn't take care of us in this.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Appelo: So identify the lie, and then take it captive. Like, like, take it actually, lasso it out of my mind and take it captive to the truth of Christ. And the truth is always based on God's character or his promises found in his word. And so his character is that he is a hearing God. He cares for us. He is a kind God. And he is an all powerful God. He can do things that we don't see that we don't, he has resources that we don't have. And then his promises, just one of them, I mean in the Bible says that, "My God shall supply all your needs, according to his riches in Christ Jesus" Philippians 4:19. And so to replace each of those fears, with the truth of Christ, and at first, it was very clunky, you know, as I did this, and, but the more I did it, the more my mind would immediately go to that promise and not sit in that fear. And the longer I did this kind of exchange, the less fear I had.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, you know, I can kind of hear the person listening who's saying, "Yeah, that sounds good, but I'm not even at a place where I can capture any thought. Where I can, you know, be able to, to even process that and do what I know needs to be done biblically. But I'm just not there." What do you say to that person?

Lisa Appelo: I would say two things: that God understands, and you don't have to show up all put together and fake that you're fine with him. God who made you made your emotion.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Appelo: And he understands the confusion this has caused for you. The unrest, the fear, the anger, the despair, all of these feelings, the sadness, the regret, all of those emotions. And Jesus walked through emotions, hard emotions.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Appelo: They unsettle us, but they don't unsettled God.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Appelo: And so just to take your very real emotions and your very real questions to the, to the feet of Jesus. And, you know, he's not most of the times he doesn't answer those hard questions like, "Why? Why would you allow this? Why would you take somebody a father of seven kids. Why would you take such a good guy so young?" Or, you know, he doesn't show us his life, his 20 year life plan for us when we say, "How in the world are you going to walk us through this? How are you going to provide? How are you going to fix eight broken hearts?"

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Appelo: But we can take those questions to him, and then follow it up with this: in all the unanswered, in the middle of the, of the emotion say, "But I trust you."

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Appelo: And it's just that little step, day by day. And God will slowly walk us through it. It's not a one and done. It is a process to do these things.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, I agree. I think that's good because he is such a good God. I mean, we can just kind of lay everything, you know, at his feet, and it can be ugly, it can not be pretty, you know, but he's, he's there to accept it all. And just knowing that we can do that, you know, is comforting. I want to talk about your kids. Because, you know, as you said, you have seven, seven kids. And first of all, just one child, you know, but to have multiple children at that time and, you know, trying to be a mom, you know, you not only losing your husband, but then losing their father. What was that like for them, and, and how do we support those who grieve alongside us?

Lisa Appelo: Children grieve differently than adults. And I was so grief naive, I did not know a lot about grief. And so we were really in that together. To learn what grief would look like. But I did know enough to know that we would need grace for each other. And I said that, I think the first like gathering, just our little nuclear family, just the seven children and I after, after Dan's service, and everybody had gone back to their lives and family had gone back. They're sitting around the living room, and I said, "We're going to need grace with each other. We're going to need a lot of grace." Knowing that it was going to look, grief was going to look different for my four year old, my six year old, my teen boys, my teen girl, my 19 year old son, that it would look different for us on different days. And, and, but but also that grace was, I needed grace as a, as a parent. I had never single-momed before. And, you know, I just, we just had launched our oldest into college, he'd made it through his first year. And I remember thinking to myself, "Okay, we just need to do this, you know, six more times." And then to be thrown into this whole world of single mothering. And this vulnerable place of walking them through their grief. I think the best thing we can do in our, in any kind of situation where we're walking our children through a hard place, is to be there for them. And, and to, we can't fix it for them. We're not supposed to fix it for them. Only God can do that. But we can point them to God. We can point them to truth. We can listen to them. And we may not do it perfectly. I didn't do it perfectly, for sure. But as much as we're able to, you know, to point them to the Lord and point them to... We had books that we read during our Bible study time, was very intentional with that time. We read books on heaven. We read books, we answered a lot of questions just because I knew that they would have them. And just I tried to keep an ongoing conversation with them, where the house was a place where they could talk about their dad and talk about their grief, even if their friends didn't understand it. And then coming alongside somebody is so important. And it can be awkward, you know, it can be awkward to receive that help. And it can be awkward to give that help. So I think the first thing is just, just be okay with awkward, and just just know that that's, it's gonna look awkward, not, we're not gonna have the perfect words to say to somebody. And that's okay. Again, just being with them is so huge. But two, to, to pray and ask God to show you how to come alongside. And somebody. And it may depend on whether that's a very close friend or somebody in this kind of a secondary circle for you. But ask God to show you how to reach out and then expect him to show you and then follow up on that nudge. And it may be something very ordinary, like showing up with a meal. It may be, "Can I take your kids for a playdate today so that you can have time to yourself?" It may be sending them a text. It may be sending cards on big milestone days. It may be, this was a huge one for me and very easy for us to do. When friends said, "How can how can I help?" I would have a very specific prayer for them. It would be either one of my children or a very specific need I had. And I would say, "Would you cover this in prayer?" And it helped both of us so much. Because I knew that prayer, I knew that need was covered. And that as, as the person who wants to help, it gives us a task that we can be like, "Yes, this I can do."

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, I think that's wonderful advice. And, and then also, I think, yeah, I think even in my own life, I found one of the things that's been helpful, it's just a ministry of presence. It means, you know, just, you know, just the ministry of presence either being there for someone or them being there for you, and not feeling like you have to say anything or, you know, or have the right words, but just your presence, I think has definitely been something that's helped me. You know, I love the Scripture in Lamentations chapter 3 that says that because of the Lord’s great love that we're not consumed. For his compassions never fail. They are new every morning. What does it mean to lament?

Lisa Appelo: Ah. I would never have understood this. And I didn't even know I was doing it at the time. Honestly, it was, much later that I understood that the cries of this desperate mama, and the cries of this desperate woman, were what, what the Bible calls lament. But lament is simply taking those hard emotions to God and our hard questions to God, and saying, "Lord!" I love this book, "No More Faking Fine" says, "Lord, I am hurting. Will you meet me here?" And it's a prayer God will always answer.

Twanna Henderson: Yes.

Lisa Appelo: And that ministry of presence, God does that for us. He tells us, "You are not alone. I am with you in this."

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Appelo: And so to know that when we go to him and we unburden our heart, you know, sometimes I would go to, go to the Lord. I went to him kind of every morning, in my minivan. I say, "Some people have a prayer closet. I have a minivan." It was just a place, I could get away in the morning and kind of shut out the noise. No kids could slip notes under the door. And I could just either audibly cry or write in my journal or just express all my, my troubles, my worries, my questions. And in that place, you know, God would meet me wherever I was. He would meet me. And it was a place that sometimes I didn't even know what all was on my heart.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Appelo: And so I began to untangle it before the Lord.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Appelo: And, you know, it's too much for us to carry and the being able to unburden it to the Lord is huge.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, because he does, you know, he does help us to hang on to that hope and to really reshape our broken hearts. You know, he does that. You know, one of the things that you write is that when we suffer, that God is not writing a plan B for our lives. I like that. But instead, he's leading us towards chapter two of our lives. Just unpack that for us, if you will.

Lisa Appelo: Hmm. This was huge for me. And I would say somewhere in the second year, which for many people who have gone through any kind of loss, sometimes that first year, you have that fog of grief. It's like, you know, a little natural anesthetic for us. Soft Landing, but that second year, boy that's gone, and the harsh reality is very, very much sets in and so I was really, tasted despair in that second year. And somewhere in that second year in my minivan, I said, "This is not what I ordered. This is not what I wanted." Not not so much in anger, I was just broken. I was just really sharing the, what's in my heart with the Lord. And on the heels of that thought came this, that while I did not see this coming, God did.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Appelo: And that God, while I always thought, "You know what, I will, I'm living the leftovers of the life that I wanted. This is second best, because my first best is gone. And so I'll just, I'll make the most of the leftovers of this life that I wanted." But on the heels of that thought that this is not what I ordered came came the fact that God had allowed this. And as such, it had as much goodness and joy and beauty as all the days before. And it, that God does not give us a Plan B. That he can't give us a plan B. That God was not up there saying, "Okay, I'm just gonna have to roll out something else and, and have to, like, fix, fix this thing that's come along." That this was a very intentional chapter two, and that I could walk out, walk it out and find, find the abundance that he promises. And the thing is, it didn't immediately make me feel better. It wasn't like I was like, "Oh, okay, well, all this pain is all gone. And I'm no longer grieving." I very much had a lot of grief that I still had to process and a lot of sadness and missing.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Appelo: But what it did is it re-oriented me to, and really kind of gave me this new perspective and this, and reframed my grief to know that God does not give us a second, you know, seconds. He doesn't give us a plan B. That it's a chapter two.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah. Yeah, I, I think that is so true. And you said that, I know you said it's been 12 years. Where is Lisa now? What has been the, the evolution, the evolution of Lisa?

Lisa Appelo: Yeah. Lisa is doing well. I have a smile on my face as you said that. I woke up today with plans. It's summer and I'm excited for some things that are gonna go on. My kids are in good places. I'm a grand mom now.

Twanna Henderson: Oh my goodness!

Lisa Appelo: So life is, life can be good again. And of course there was goodness, even in the hardest, even in the hardest hard, God's goodness was, was present. But I didn't have to wait long for that joy. That joy kinda was there, right there in the midst of the grief. Side by side. I think what the big difference between Lisa now and Lisa then, and I would not want to go back to the Lisa then, is seeing what God has done in me. Not so much, he has done so much for us and so much for me, but what he has done in me is eternal. I get to take that to heaven. And that is just knowing who he is. I always knew he, I had been through hard things before, God had been faithful. But in a way where when life just utterly shattered, and life was way too hard for me to handle, that God was faithful day after day after day. Very palpably and very practically. To see that God has taken a lot of junk out of my heart, that there were some idols that needed broken, you know, needed taken down. And he's replaced them with refined truth. That he has helped me re-anchor in what will never shake. And just given me a real hope for heaven, and an eternal perspective of what matters and what doesn't. Not to get bogged down in things that don't matter, of this world. I'm going through something right now! It's an issue of this world. And I've given it to him. And I don't worry, because listen, I can lose everything tomorrow. And God hasn't changed. He will take care of me.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah. Isn't that so good to know that he does not change. And we can look back to what he did before, and there's no reason that he cannot and, you know, move on our behalf again, as we trust, as you said. This is so good. Where can people connect with you and pick up a copy of your book, "Life Can Be Good Again?"

Lisa Appelo: Yes! Well, you can get "Life Can Be Good Again" at any bookstore. Any online retailer: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, your favorite retailer. Hopefully your local bookstore carries it. You can always call them and ask them to have it delivered to you locally. And then you, I would love to connect with any listener. The best place to connect with me is at my website, which is Lisa Appelo. That's two Ps. One L. Lisaappelo.com, and there are resources there. There are articles there. And that's kind of the hub where you could find me.

Twanna Henderson: Well, good. Well, Lisa, I just want to say that you are an amazing woman who is being used by God to encourage hurting hearts. And even as you go through your own trials, and you are really forced to be reminded that God doesn't change, you're helping so many people, not just women, but people in general. As we close, can you pray for those who are grieving and who may be experiencing any kind of loss, to just encourage them and to remind them of what God is able to do?

Lisa Appelo: I'd be, I'd be happy to. Honored. Let's go to the Lord. "Father, you are our Good, Good Father. You have not missed something. You have not set us aside, father. This day has been ordained by you for us. And your goodness is all around it. I pray that you would give us eyes to see your hand on us and around us walking with us through these situations. For that one whose heart is just broken, that one who is going through something that they never saw coming, who would love for something else to be her story, Lord God I pray that she would be drawn to you. That you would draw her to you. That you, she knows that you welcome her grief and that, that you have healing for her, and that you have much good for her. I pray, Lord, that she would have the courage to take that hard step today. Boy, I know what it's like to just day after day, have new hard things. Lord God, give her your strength to take that step. Give her your wisdom for the decisions she's making. Give her your comfort, and sustaining grace, to walk through this.

Twanna Henderson: Yes.

Lisa Appelo: Lord. And help her to just take this opportunity where her heart is broken wide open, to clean it out. To let you do your work in her so that when she emerges from this, she will not be the same. She will be more like your son. Lord I thank you that you do not leave us to ourselves. That you, that we can cast our burdens and anxiety on you, and that you care for us. Lord thank you for loving us.

Twanna Henderson: Yes.

Lisa Appelo: Remind us, Lord, today, of your infinite love. And let us glorify you in all things. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Twanna Henderson: Amen. With that, Lisa, thank you for just opening up your life so that they can be a help to so many and I know that it's been exactly that on today.

Lisa Appelo: Well thank you for having me. Thank you for creating this, this space for, to talk about hard conversations.

Twanna Henderson: Absolutely. And to all of our listeners, thank you for joining us today. I'm Twanna Henderson. Be blessed of the Lord.