Brenda Seefeldt - I Wish I Could Take Away Your Pain

helped her carry her pain. She continues to share stories of bravery through her website, and she is my guest today on Bleeding Daylight. Brenda, thank you so much for your time.

came down to making a brave decision about it. And I came up with this definition of bravery as your decisions to actually trust God. And that is full of vulnerability. Because with God, there's no guarantee of the controlled outcome you want. As I've been reflecting back on my 60 years, and my 45 years following Jesus, and 43 years of that as being in the ministry, it has been like one brave decision to

brave decision to brave decision, where I've just knew I had to go in this direction. I knew there was some risk involved in it. But I just had to go in this direction. So I started writing about how our faith is made up like a brave decision to brave decision.

and yet we know that we have a God that we can trust. Can you talk to me a little bit about that balance, knowing that, hey, I'm not sure of the outcome, but I know that it will be for God's glory?

college training. That was all in the early 1980s As a woman, and that was against the norm yet the time against expectations of me as a daughter and as a woman in society. And I just kept following these brave decisions, again, has not been promises up and good has not been easy. But I have had a life of few regrets because of that. This gets to the trust issue because at my age now I can say I trust God with my

everything in about 1990 I had a smashing year by year nine in the ministry. And I was an overworked burnt out over achieving youth pastor at my church. Everything that was supposed to happen. Didn't happen. And my life was broken. There was a season there where I'm like, God, I've been following you and following you and where has been your promise back to me. You didn't take care of me going through this

kind of a back and forth thing. And in this season. And it was a good long year of figuring out my faith, figuring out if God is trustworthy or not. If God did not abandon me, I discovered the story of Jacob in Genesis 32, where he wrestled with God, this story has just been the foundation of my life ever since. Because in that story you got Jacob wrestling with God is going back to meet up with his brother is bringing

his family his successes he's had along the way. But the night before he meets up with his brother, he has this encounter with God. And instead of saying, Oh, God, Oh, it must be you. I'm going to sit here and be quiet. And let you bless me. He said, No, I will not let you go

until you bless me. They had this night of wrestling. And this night of no wink, that Jacob had the blessing. And the morning came, Jacob didn't go, Oh, my goodness, I've been wrestling with an angel or with God, whatever you want to believe that you know that Hebrew word is? He did say, Oh, let me pick you up. God, let me clean you off. And I'm sorry, I spent all night doing this with you, I should have

trusted you more. At the moment, he realized who he was wrestling with. It says he held God down and said, I will not let you go. Until you bless me. When I heard that, I decided I've got to know that I'm called to be in the ministry that I'm called to this path that God is with me, and I will know that I have this blessing. And I have just not let go of God ever since. When things have been hard. And they have been hard.

They've been harder. Since 1990. I've just have not let go. I have wrestled, I've been angry, I got so angry. But he's known it. And he's never abandon me. And when I come through, there's this deeper knowing that God has always been with me, he's never been to me, he does not roll his eyes at me. And that knowing just keeps me going to the next day into the next brave decision. And now at 60. golly, I have lived quite a life.

who we see from time to time saying, no God, you just need to bless me with all the material blessings, or whatever it might be, and this Lord, you bless me in the way that you see fit.

understand what is going on in my life right now. And it was it was it was a turn out this way. But like in that one season, when I was pretty angry at God for not being married yet, for so many, many reasonable reasons. I really feel that to this day. It was three years later, when I did get married to a man I hadn't met yet. This is a very good match. This has been a very fun, healthy marriage that I just had to realize,

in that wrestling season, God still had me. And then once I got the fruition on my wish, three years later, which is sometimes not that long, really. But it felt like forever. God's faithfulness, showing up giving me a really good marriage. And I cannot stress that enough. During the ministry, this is so hard, helps me at the next time to say okay, right now, I'm not getting what I need. I'm not getting the

solution. But I know there is going to be something better for me if I just wait this thing through. And then suddenly, we're talking about a lot in my church. We've a lot of conversations as part of our church worship, is how God doesn't answer our prayers in sequential order. And sometimes we get a little bit early, since we get a little bit late. Sometimes we get it all at once. And as we get it over time, and that

when we have an expectation of sequential order. I think we're coming into a pro with an with an expectation. And when God answers prayer, it just is not sequential.

of ministry that you were entering. Do you think that part of the burnout was because you felt that you needed to achieve in this area that you needed to prove someone and this just proved to you your alliance more on God, but that you are trying to do this in your own strength? Because I think that sometimes we all get caught in that trap of trying to achieve the right things for the right reasons but in our own strength?

I moved away from those two men, and didn't have good men speaking into my life. But one that was I was just never enough for him. And as a woman, and I, you know, it was never enough. Letting down a male figure when I had two really good ones was just backwards, but I didn't know it at the time. And I was so used to success, probably too early. It was a very, very hard season. But it has changed me so very much. I'm a much

better humbler minister than I was in the 1980s. Loved my ministry then, I loved the teenagers I met with then now. youth pastor, I loved those teenagers. And there's a lot of bonds between us to this day. But how I approached my position has changed greatly, because I see my identity is in God's pleasure and me, not me pleasing the man I have to work for at this church.

of the church. And so finding the brave decisions is just gotten easier and easier. And again, as I get older, I need to rest war to sustain big a ministry this long, and to brave decisions are just there with age, wisdom wrestling, I know what they are, and I know when I need to make them.

match. He was not at all who I thought God had for me to be. If you can imagine, you know, you're the single pastor and church dating in church, and all the gossipy people in church, that it was just always there's always extra, it goes could never date. Normally, there's all this extra going on. But I will say that that those gossipy people also kept me in good boundaries. I will add that blessing to that. When I

met John and he was not my type. And he knew I was not that interested in him, but he was very interested in me. It was the people in my church who kept telling me Look at him. Look at him. He is great. Look at him. And after a good year and a half of rustling over this decision. I saw John for how the people in my church saw John, then the decision was really easy. But that was a good long wrestling season because I knew

what I was giving up at this point. And I was pretty content being single, but I was a good one. But probably my bravest decision. was becoming a mom to our four boys which are not men. By the way. This was, again, one of the ones you make and resting was also an obvious one, but also a lot of unknown and fear attached. I been a youth pastor, my whole life. My whole adult life literally. I met some boys doing

youth ministry work, I met some boys who are not church kids, and came from a really rough, underprivileged background. And they attach themselves to me in such a way that I noticed God saying, look at these boys, look at these boys. And I was single at the time, and I'm going, Okay, I will follow you God with this relationship with these boys. But I am single, what are you doing, and I would follow them to their

homes, meet their meet their parents, I'd follow them to the drug corner. And I can't tell you how many hours I spent with them on that drug corner. Just talking to them. It's sharing faith, and they were drawn and they kept showing up, they kept coming to church. They kept attaching themselves. To me. It was at the same season of life when I had met John. And we had to, like a short dating season because I ready

there was this long wrestling season before that. When I introduced the boys to John, there was this moment. We told them, we're getting engaged. And I was excited because I had just made this grand, long rustling decision. The boys pulled me aside and said, We like John and all. But we think it'd be like every other step parent and take you away from us. And was in that moment, I knew that this was different. And I heard

God say very clearly, and you have been able to hear this. So this is in the resting and this is in the God What are you doing? heard God say very clearly saying, You need to parent these boys, not pastor, these boys. John and I had a big discussion about this. And we agreed. And they were in and out of our homes until they turned 18. And then when they turned 18 Their parents turned them over to us. And

we've been raising them now for over 30 years. There's a lot in that decisions, a lot of pain and that decision. It's the best decision my life since becoming a Christian age 15. It is the one that shaped me the most. But I had to follow God into discomfort into unknown. But when you see God's hand like that, you just get curious enough and you follow? Because you just see something's going on here. Why are

these boys so attached. And now 30 plus years later, and we're recal reflect on these tumultuous years. We all of us, all six of us, the boys and John and I just see God's hand time and time and time again, that led us through all these decisions to give us this great story.

took you away from them. Do you think sometimes there's a parallel between that and the way that we view God we feel no have been let down? Again? I'm not sure I can commit fully to this God that I read about in the scriptures

them through some bad decisions, and they had that has not disavowed them from our lives. You know, we've stuck with them. And now we're coming to this good part. You know, they're over 40 Now, so they're, you know, they're reflecting back and seeing God's hand through everything and that wellness, they're now passing on to their children. It's a beautiful story.

some people in my life who are really with me in my life. So let me tell you about my moo group, I have a small group of women were called moos, as in mothers of offenders, the hard part of my life still, is that two of my sons, despite having us in their lives, still did not make it away from the prison system. And there was we're still dealing with the prison system now for 25 years. This is part of my life. And,

that a church 25 years and this church just supported me beautifully with these boys. They the one that told me that John was okay to marry, it was really good 25 years of my life, there were this group of mothers of offenders. And we get down, we sit together, and we can

tell each other stuff that we understand. And they hear my sobs and say, Me too, and I know they mean it, they're not going to give me what I call a drive by prayer or a platitude, because they're trying to remove themselves from my pain, because I know the story is painful. But they just sit here and say, Me too. And once I can share it with my moo group, the rest of my life becomes a whole lot more manageable.

I'm not over sharing my story. Because I'm seeking people just look at me and say, I understand. I have that group that says they understand, I know they understand. And that's enough. So I can live again, this brave life, I can live this leadership life, knowing that this part of my life is hurting, and broken, and the prison system does not end. There's unfairness. COVID is in the prison system, there's

unfairness and you got worries that nobody else has, I can tell my women, and they understand me. So my book is about what we have learned in my, my group, and how to really care each other's pain, what to do, and what not to do, there's actually three full pages of a list of what not to do. And that's the worth of the price of the book. Because all those what not to do is is the things that we do do. And I think

we've probably all been victim to them. But these things that we just remove ourselves from someone's pain, because we don't know what to say, we're overwhelmed. It triggers something else inside of us. And we just don't carry it well. So this is how to find your people and how to help your people.

I think sometimes in the church, we forget that. We turn up on a Sunday or maybe a midweek meeting, and we call that doing life with people when it's definitely not, we need to find those people but also being okay with showing the vulnerable side of who we are to those people outside the church. Because sometimes we get this strange idea that we have to try and present ourselves as perfect to those who

don't yet know Jesus. And yet, when we do that, they think that's not something I could ever become, how important is it, that we're able to show our vulnerability and then show them the God that we run to? For those who are not within the walls of a church?

Again, as I was dating as a single person. I kept it vulnerable to the church, even though with the gossipy church ladies, I still kept a vulnerable because one, it gave me accountability. And two, they got to see that I am trusting God for this decision. And again, John starts showing up and now they're telling me what to do because they knew I was trusting God for this decision. So this slightly braver version of

who I am, I'm just continually growing to be slightly braver, I think shows how God is really an active and near podium. My life and can be for you also, that I'm not that special because I'm complete, and all brave. Now, I'm just slightly braver than you because I'm older than you right now, at least.

God is such a big issue. Again, I work with teenagers, I see this, I hear this, I've had so many hundreds and hundreds of teenagers walk away from their faith, because of some kind of hurt, teaching and re teaching this, what I call the larger story, God is that God holds our larger story together. Again, it's not in sequential order. But he holds her largest story together that we just need to stay in this,

because he is for us. And I could just repeat verse after verse, Psalm after Psalm, gospel after gospel to teach this part of Jesus, over and over and over and over and over again. So when that life crisis hits, that they will remember, this is what the Scripture says, not what

they were taught. Not a behavioral modification, kind of teaching. But this is what they're taught. And the second part that is so important, is intergenerational wisdom, that if the more of us older adults who can share what we have learned over the years, can pour that into people younger than us, or indistinct, different generations on us. And they can see us broken, healed, growing, getting slightly braver.

They look at not only the pastor and say, Well, okay, that's the ministry tour going on right there. But they can look at those great saints in the church. Again, we need to be people in the church and say, Oh, I wonder if Miss Mary can talk to me about this. And then Miss Barry loves to, and this is intergenerational wisdom that can be passed on. That is such freedom, and is a goddess for me, because Miss

Mary told me God is for me. When Faith gets shaken those two things, the scriptures about who Jesus is. And intergenerational wisdom will keep people coming back to Faith again, and again. And again.

bravery instead of just the way it was done in the 90s. Let's just say I was there it was sorry about that. People about brave parenting, because, again, to reach the teenagers is got to be the parents. So parents, I'm talking to you how you can I know you feel inadequate with your teenagers. I'm an old youth pastor Gildas one on the world may be telling you, this is what you can do to help your teens to stay in

their faith. And I write about that and pray parenting so that's brave sir.com. My book is the Kindle versions available on Amazon. The softcover version is available through breakthrough.com. But it comes with a card. But I want to talk about this card for a moment. Because this is the card you want to receive when life has smashed you. So the front of the card says, wish I could take away your pain. I also

promise not to tell you that everything happens for a reason. And you open the card up and it says I'm sorry this is happening to you. I'm not afraid of your pain. I won't have all of the answers, but I will be here for you with coffee snacks, am I not perfect wisdom, we will find God in this horrible thing together. I saw that soft cover with this card hoping that you can give this card to somebody and be that person for somebody.