4:13 Podcast: Can I Recover From Trauma? With Mary DeMuth [Episode 399]

Mary DeMuth: Truth is is that God is in the business of redeeming. And think about when Jesus talks about unless a seed falls to the ground and dies -- you know, unless it does that, it won't bear the fruit. So you have to -- there is this part of healing that feels like death. It feels like a breaking apart of the seed. And it's almost as if you cannot see what good could come out of breaking up of a seed.

But death always comes before resurrection. And so if you're in that place of sorrow and death, just know that Sunday is coming and resurrection is coming. And God loves to redeem a difficult story.

Jennifer Rothschild: Today's guest, Mary DeMuth, really knows what it feels like to walk through trauma, loss, and deep brokenness, and she still finds God in the midst of the struggle. So on today's episode, our friend Mary is going to show you how she lived a story that, oh, she would have never written for herself. And she celebrates that God rewrites, redeems, and restores all of our stories.

She is going to introduce you to how Jesus meets you in your past, transforms your present, and sets a new course for your future. Jesus is still writing your story, my friend, so let's trust him with the pen.

All right, here we go.

KC Wright: Welcome to the 4:13 Podcast, where practical encouragement and biblical wisdom set you up to live the "I Can" life, because you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.

Now welcome your host, Jennifer Rothschild.

Jennifer Rothschild: All right, that was KC Wright, my Seeing Eye Guy, and we're so glad you're here. I'm Jennifer, and I'm just here to help you be and do more than you feel capable of as you're living this 4:13 life.

Oh, my friends, I gotta tell you, though, my house is very loud right now. It is so loud that even though KC was planning to come over and record, there is so much banging and drills and saws, and here's why. I'm getting new floors upstairs. And as you know, the podcast studio is under the stairs. So everything was so loud, I had to tell KC not to come.

I've got to tell you what happened. So the other day I was like, "Okay, I want to record, let's" -- you know, "come over," and he's like, "Absolutely." Well, KC and I, we often talk to each other on audio texting. And, you know, KC's a goofball, and you know how hilarious he is. So when I asked him, "Hey, you know, can you come over and -- I finally got my schedule together, come over and record," I want you to hear what his response was.

And by the way, I wonder if he's listening, because I did not tell him I was going to do this. This might have been just for me to hear, but I think you'll like it too. All right. So when I said, "KC, can you come over and record?" this is what I got back.

KC Wright: (Singing) Thank you for asking me. Thank you for asking me. I love to record with Jennifer Rothschild. Thank you for asking me. Thank you for asking me. Yes, I can, I can record. Yes, I can, I can record.

How was that?

Group of Women: We love you, KC. (Cheering)

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes, it's true, we do love you, KC. How was that? That was excellent. We love you and we miss you. And hopefully my floors will be done soon, honestly, because I want you to get back down here under the stairs with me. And also, honestly, I live in a dust bowl right now. It is so dusty upstairs.

Okay. Let's get to Mary DeMuth, because this was a good conversation. She's been on the podcast before, and, of course, I will link you to her other episode that she was with us. But today we're talking about rewriting our stories.

So Mary DeMuth is a speaker, a literary agent, and the author of over 50 books, including the one that we're talking about today, which is called "Restory Your Life." She is also the host of the Pray Every Day podcast, and she and her hubby, Patrick, have been married over 30 years and they live in Texas.

All right, here's me and Mary. Or Mary and I. Or Mary and me. I forget how you say that correctly. But you get the idea. Here we are. Listen in.

All right, Mary. I told you before we got live here that I'm happy you're back. Your last episode was one of my favorites. And, in fact, you're one of my favorites. So I'm glad we get to talk about this book, because it has a clever title, "Restory Your Life." So this is how Jesus reframes your past, rewrites your present, and redefines your future. I mean, what a huge promise and what a clever title.

So I want to know, what about a restory? Like, what is it? What do you mean by that? And for you personally, did you ever have a time when you personally needed a restory?

Mary DeMuth: Well, I feel like I need a restory every single day --

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Mary DeMuth: -- in the times that we live in. But I would say restory means that -- God has given us all a story, right? And we -- a lot of times we come to this world with hard things in our story. I know you have hard things in your story. I have hard things in mine. And yet when Jesus intersects that story, he restories us, he gives us a brand-new story. And that story isn't just that we're healed, it's that we're healed in order to be agents of healing in a broken world. And that's kind of the whole concept behind it.

There's your past, there's your present, there's your future. Your past, you can't change it. Your present, you can revel in the joy that Jesus has brought you today. And then you can look forward to anticipation in the ministry that God has for you, no matter what shape that may take.

Jennifer Rothschild: I like that. Okay, so it's all hopeful. Because you alluded to the fact that we can't change our past. Like, there's some things about your story, some things about my story that we cannot change. Okay. But we can live fully in the present, revel in it as you say, anticipate how God's going to use it in the future. We got all that.

So let's go back to the past, because -- I don't know all the details, but I know that you've been pretty candid about childhood trauma and brokenness, and that was part of your story. So how did that part of your story shape your understanding of God's presence in your story?

Mary DeMuth: Yeah. I didn't know the Lord growing up, but I longed for him. I didn't know what I was longing for, but I had this, like, reach, that I was reaching for something, something transcendent. And in my little life, I'd had -- I'd been a child of several divorces. I'd been in a home with a lot of drug abuse. There was a -- there's crime everywhere. My biological father was predatory. I also was sexually abused my entire kindergarten year by a couple neighborhood teenagers. And so I have all -- almost every adverse child experience that you can get from the ACE study I have, other than I haven't been in a house fire.

So those were some of the things that really marked me and caused me to really get to the point in my life when I was, like, 12, 13 years old, where I was really on the brink of ending it all.

And thankfully, right at that moment in my eighth grade year, I met a counselor in my junior high. He was just like the, you know, random counselor. And he just spent time with me and listened to me, and he really saved my life. And then as a ninth and tenth grader, I started going to Young Life, and I met Christ at 15 through Young Life and a Young Life camp. And so that's kind of where I met Christ, but that's my background story.

Jennifer Rothschild: And so you know what's interesting? Not interesting. That word is not -- it doesn't represent how I feel about your story. But what is -- this is what struck me. After you described everything and then you said, "and a house fire," you know, in a less traumatic childhood, a house fire would have been enough. But -- that's almost an aside. That's like, "oh, yeah, and."

So lots of us listening would say, okay, so without Christ's redemption -- you know, you don't survive a story like that without his love and presence in your life. And so I'm so grateful that he met -- he came and got you and saved you as a 15-year-old.

And so then as you now, decades later, are living the story that God has allowed in your life, I do want us to pause. Because some people just heard your story and they're like, yeah, she sounds so peaceful. I've had a similar story. I'm not there. I am not there. So let's go from just the fact that Jesus saved you to why you are okay. Because your background is not okay. So why are you okay?

Mary DeMuth: Yeah. I really can give glory to the Lord and really testify to the power of prayer. I hoped -- you know, when I met Jesus, I kind of had this naive hope that everything would be better from that point on and I would be completely healed. And, sure, there was part of that, like, there was some really good healing that happened in that very little tiny moment.

But in college I spent time sharing my story. Because I believe an untold story doesn't heal, so I shared it a lot. Probably overshared it. And there were all these people that God placed in my life who loved to pray, and so I had a lot of healing during that time.

But then I kind of made a decision and I said, okay, I'm healed now and I'm never going to revisit this again and I'm just going to move on with my life. Well, that worked for about ten years, and then my eldest child turned five, which is the age I was when all those abuses happened, and I fell apart. And that's when counseling was really helpful. So I don't want to just say, well, just pray it away, it's fine, because it was a lot of different things. It was counseling, it was prayer, it was lots of conversations.

There was a time where I couldn't -- we couldn't afford counseling for a very long time, and so I bought a lot of books and I read a lot of books and I just begged people to pray for me. So I kind of had, like, a patchwork of different ways that brought me closer to the Lord and closer to healing.

But I do want to speak to the person who feels like they're in that place of it's never going to get better, it's so dark, I'm in the slog and I can't get out. And I just want to say that's really normal and that is a part of my story.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, I'm glad you said that, because I do think we compare ourselves so quickly to others and think, well, if she's okay, why am I not okay? And it's just -- okay is a continuum. You're okay, the fact that you're feeling it and recognizing it. And as Mary said, you know, let it be revealed so it can heal.

And I love, Mary, that you also said even when you couldn't afford counseling, God gave you counselors through books. And you've written some of those books. So there are resources. And then, of course, there's always hope in Jesus.

And so you also mention in this particular book turning points. Okay. So we all have turning points in our stories. And so what I thought when I read that was, okay. So, Mary, help us know, how do we know that something is a turning point, like for the good, rather than just a detour or a dead end or a speed bump?

Mary DeMuth: Well, it's -- I'm really smart about that after it's happened. I'm really dumb about it in the middle of it. So usually my response is this is not a good turning point and it's not going to go well. But then in retrospect, I look back and go, oh, my goodness, look at all the great things that God did in that tragedy or that pain that I did not anticipate.

So I think it's -- I think the older we get, the wiser we are and the more ability we have to say, okay, wait a minute, I'm just going to slow down and be, like, leaning into this and asking God to teach me through this. But when I was younger, I was just like, this is terrible, I'm pushing against it, I don't like it.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, that makes sense. I think we're all so much smarter in retrospect. I'm a genius, actually, in retrospect.

Mary DeMuth: Me too.

Jennifer Rothschild: And you talked about too, like, when you were in college, even just sharing your story was part of your healing. So I assume that that concept is also part -- knowing what your subtitle is, that with the restory that God wants to do, that there is future redemption. Does that come through just time experience and maturity, or is being honest about your story part of that redemption?

Mary DeMuth: I think you can't heal without the honesty. You have to be honest. And if you have, like, a secret story that you haven't shared yet, you won't heal beyond the secret. So my encouragement to people in that place -- and there's a lot of us out there -- is to -- if you're timid and afraid, which is very normal, is to either write it down or speak it into your phone and then find and ask God for a safe person.

And if you've written it down, just push your story across the table to them or push play. And that way it's not as scary as you directly saying it and being afraid you might cry when you share it. But let me just tell you, when you get a secret out in the open with a safe, kind-hearted person, you will be shocked at the freedom that you will find.

Jennifer Rothschild: It's so true. And people -- I think sometimes we over-anticipate how they're going to respond, and it is rare that people don't respond with full embrace and grace.

Mary DeMuth: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: But I think, Mary -- what about shame? I mean, you didn't cause any of your backstory. You were in many ways just -- you were a child. So many things happened to you. Did you struggle with shame? And do you think that is part of the reason that sometimes we don't share our stories?

Mary DeMuth: I think a lot of people have that. And I certainly have a lot of shame in my childhood. One little gift, to be super honest -- during that one year where all those bad things were happening to me, God gave me a gift even though I didn't know him yet. And that gift was I knew that what they were doing was wrong and that they were to blame.

Now, that doesn't always happen to people, so I don't, you know, hold that up as the way to be. And I was only five, so that was imparted to me, that was not my own wherewithal. And so I knew even then that the shame at that point -- the sexual shame did not belong to me, it belonged to the perpetrators. That's very mature. And, again, that's the Lord.

But I would say that as an encouragement to people. If you have been harmed by somebody else, whether it's been physically harmed or emotionally harmed, the shame belongs to the perpetrator, not the one perpetrated against. And that's really hard to unlearn because -- especially if it involves sexual abuse, because it's just such a shame-filled environment. Very hard to remove that from the equation.

But if maybe you can think about -- if you have been sexually abused and you kind of rethink of it like someone, you know, hit you in the face. Well, of course you wouldn't have shame for someone else hitting you in the face. But it's kind of the same idea, like, it's still an injury to your body.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Mary DeMuth: And your soul too.

Jennifer Rothschild: Oh, gosh, every fiber of your being. Yes, it is.

And sometimes I think, you know, when we experience shame, it's like, well, if I had or I could have. And we're almost angry at ourselves for letting it happen, when most of the time that is just not the case. So there's a gentleness and a kindness that we need to have for ourselves.

I was thinking about those listening who have a story and they might feel just stuck in it, like aaah. They feel stuck in their story. So what is step one? If they're realizing -- they're feeling stuck in their story, what is step one to get unstuck?

Mary DeMuth: I think just that recognition is super important, to say out loud, I am stuck and I don't know what to do. And oftentimes it is other people who can unstick us. Because when we've had -- typically trauma is a relational wound. It's not always a relational wound, but it often is. And a relational wound requires a relational cure. So if you're harmed in bad community, God often asks good community to help you heal. And so part of that moving toward health and unstuckness is to ask someone to help you.

My friend Jim says that we're all salad dressing bottles and we need -- we're all squished inside the salad dressing with our olive oil and our vinegar, but we need someone on the outside to read our ingredients because we're so stuck inside that we can't and we need someone outside of us to do that.

And so I think that's one of my encouragements, is to be a little bit brave and to ask someone who loves you well and just say, Hey, I am stuck. I cannot get beyond this. What do you see in my life? What steps forward do you see for me? Where am I -- you know, where am I not surrendering? What do I keep tripping myself up on? I think it's this, but I'm not sure. And you might be surprised at what they will bring forward to you.

Jennifer Rothschild: That is so good, Mary, because I think we don't see it. We don't -- because all we can see is what we know. And you're right. What a good, good word. And I love that you brought out that truth that often those wounds are, you know, relational and so God heals them relationally. Wow. Okay, so that's a great first step. All right? So let's say we've got a good first step there. We're going to be honest with our story and be in community, safe community.

All right. Now, someone's listening and they're like, okay, I could do that. I can even identify some people right now in my imagination and my heart, but this feels very overwhelming. So let's say -- let's just give them some hope of what it looks like after step one. Because you clearly -- as you've walked in healing, you've established some habits or daily practices that have helped you. So what would you recommend for someone?

Mary DeMuth: First to saturate yourself in the Word of God and tell yourself the gospel and the truth that you are loved, you're a child of the Lord, he is for you, not against you. We sometimes just have to train those negative voices in our head to believe the truth. So that's very important.

The other thing is -- I'll answer with a story. And this has been a really helpful practice for me, and I don't even know what you would call it.

But when I was in college, I was in the Pacific Northwest, and so it was super rainy, and I loved to run. And we had an indoor track that was like an eighth of a mile long, and so when it was raining, I would run on the indoor track. And I started this practice and -- I don't, you know, even know why I thought of it. But every lap that I ran around that track, I would recount my life. So lap one was year one, lap two was year two, lap three was year three, and so on. And for a while, all I did was just recount the sadness of the story until I got to 19, which is how old I was.

Eventually I began to shift it and I began to look at each year of my life and trying to find God's handprints in them, his fingerprints in my story. And so I would see the rescue that I had at one years old when my parents divorced, which was actually very good for me because of my predatory father. Every year I would begin to see, okay, what were you doing, God? How can I have this curiosity of God's bread crumbs in my story and his beautiful intersection? And that has really been transformative for me.

So you might not need to jog around a track. You can, you know, do anything. But maybe have that practice of recount your life, if you can, in years or blocks of years, and then go back and recount God's handprints in them.

Jennifer Rothschild: That's really good, and very powerful. And I was thinking of the bravery, the courage that it takes to look at those snapshots of memories that might be difficult, but to look close enough to see the fingerprints. Because God's hand was on it, as hard as that is to imagine. Mary, that's really practical.

All right, let's get, though, to our last question. There's so much here. And I'm also mindful that -- I appreciate your depth without you being heavy, because I know for many this is a hard subject. So let's get to our last question here.

So what would you say to the person whose story -- let me put it this way. Sometimes our story is one thing, but then the side benefits, which are not benefits at all, can be just as damaging. So let's say somebody's got a story, but that story makes them feel like they don't have good purpose in life or maybe that God even forgot them. What would you say to them as they are restorying their lives?

Mary DeMuth: First I'll say it's really normal to feel like you are beyond the reach of God, it's really normal to feel like my story's too big. And I've definitely been in those places. So I don't want people to think that I never thought that way, because I certainly did. Because we live in it. You know, we're in our salad dressing bottle, we're swimming in it. But the truth is -- and that's where it's important to preach the truth to ourselves.

The truth is is that God is in the business of redeeming. And think about when Jesus talks about unless a seed falls to the ground and dies -- unless it does that, it won't bear the fruit. So you have to -- there is this part of healing that feels like death. It feels like a breaking apart of a seed. And it's almost as if you cannot see what good could come out of a breaking up of a seed.

But death always comes before resurrection. And so if you're in that place of sorrow and death, just know that Sunday is coming and resurrection is coming. And God loves to redeem a difficult story. And it does take work. So part of it is -- I think some of us think, well, I just wish God would just zap me and heal me. But it is a pursuit. It is active. We must long for it, we must want it, we must grab for it. And we just -- there's no lackadaisical healing. We have to just -- we have to pursue it too.

So it's like you're reaching out of the pit, like out of Psalm -- I think it's 40 or 42 where we're reaching out of the pit. We're doing our reaching, but God does the impossible. He goes down into the miry clay of the pit, pulls us out and sets our feet upon a rock, making our footsteps firm. There's two actions in there. Someone's reaching, someone's grabbing. God's grabbing and stronger, but we need to reach for him.

Jennifer Rothschild: Healing is not easy, but you can do the work. You can reach up from wherever you are down in that pit, because God is reaching down to pull you out. So remember, your story is not too big or too broken for God. God is in it. He redeems it. Oh, there is hope, my friends. So check out her book on the Show Notes at 413podcast.com/399.

And also on the Show Notes I'm going to have a couple of my books that I think will really minister to you based on this conversation. One is called "God Is Just Not Fair." It's where I go through the six big questions of faith like, God, do you care? God, do you make mistakes? God, are you really fair? It's just real hope when life doesn't make sense.

Also, if you want to do something more interactive, there is a Bible study I wrote called "Missing Pieces." And it's just going to help you go through the Scriptures and see where maybe those missing pieces are in your blanket of faith to help you get through maybe as you're restorying your life. So go there to the Show Notes, get all the things you need, read the transcript, because Mary dropped some good truth bombs in this conversation. It was awesome.

All right, my people, I am going to head back upstairs to the dust bowl with my combat boots on, because that's what I have to wear to trudge through my subfloors. But hopefully next week it'll be a little quieter around here. So until next week, remember, whatever you face, however you feel, you can do all things through Christ who gives you strength. I can. And that means you can too. Have a great week.