Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick out the darkness until it bleeds daylight. This is Bleeding Daylight with your host Rodney Olsen.
Welcome. Please share bleeding daylight episodes through social media and word of mouth so that more people can kick against the darkness. Our social media links are at bleedingdaylight.net Are the trials we face an inevitable part of life? Will there always be hard seasons to face? Today's guest has learned to reframe life's struggles, and she's helping others do the same.
Today's guest is an author who has published books including covered living in triumph while going through trials, the book speaks about walking in peace despite the circumstances. She's a mom of 10, a coach, speaker and host of the dripping with abundance podcast, I'm pleased to welcome her to bleeding daylight today. Jackie Dighans, thank you so much for your time.
Thank you, I'm glad to be here.
There's so much that you're doing to help others to face their trials and to triumph. But the help that you offer is far from being theoretical. You lived your own trials, and it's your experience that you use to serve others. Tell me some of the background that led you to where you are today.
Early on, I was early elementary when my parents were divorced. And it was a fairly peaceful divorce if there can be one like that. But then my dad was killed in a car accident when I was 12. That was kind of the beginning of realizing, I get to decide what I do with the things that happen in my life. So we all have things happen. It's something we can't get away from, right? There's always trials and
struggles and problems of many different sizes, and severities. My dad being killed when I was 12 was the first really big one in my life that helped me realize like, what am I going to do with this the rest of my life? Is it going to define me? Or am I going to choose growth through it? As I you know, finished high school and continued on, I knew that I wanted to help people get through their struggles. And then I had 10
children. So that that was a preparation that God used in my life to then call me to be a faith based coach and author of a book that could share about how I made it through. And that's some of the battleground.
Take me back to the mind of that 12 year old girl where you've already lost family as you know it through that divorce. And thankfully, as you say, it wasn't a terrible divorce, as you say, even if that can be the case. We certainly want to see people stay together in a marriage, but losing your dad at the age of 12. What did you start to think, as a 12 year old, you've already lost the family that you
know, you've now lost your father? What were the sorts of things that you started to think through in your own mind about life at that stage,
my dad had moved away. So he wasn't in the same state when he was in the car accident. And I was hoping to go and live with him for this summer. So that ended that dream, if you want to call it or plan. I realized that I got to decide what I did with this. Even at that young age, it was almost like okay, so I don't have a father anymore. But I had been introduced to a heavenly Father. I maybe hadn't taken much
time with that relationship. Up until then. But I, I decided to start looking at that a little bit more. One of
the things that we often hear from people is that idea of Heavenly Father, and we start to, I guess, Project everything back on to God and say, Okay, well, if God is a good God, why does he let these things happen? Did you have any of those thoughts or did you start to think no, this is a good God despite the circumstances.
Of course, we don't always understand why things happen. But as I move forward to my high school years and tried a little bit of drinking It tried some relationships for a short time. But I really knew that God was good. Somehow deep in me, I just knew he was good. And I saw how my dad wasn't in the best place at the time. He wasn't in the greatest mindset and space. So to have myself and possibly my two sisters go live with him. I almost felt like God protected me from a bad situation.
There's a lot going on for a young girl. And as you move into those high school years, and starting to think through these things, was there anyone there as as a mentor, or someone that was helping you to, to process some of this at that stage, as far as your faith goes,
Probably the main thing that happened, my family moved a couple of years after the death of my dad, to a bigger city. And I got involved in a youth group I had been one previously, but this was maybe another level of when I don't know that they really helped me process. But just as I learned more about God, I just applied that to my situation, or, you know, just just saw how he really did want a relationship with
me, he was working all things for good. And so at that young age, I just was seeing a picture of God of a relational God of a loving God admits the trials in my life and in the world.
So those were the early trials that you're having to deal with. But as you say, as life moved on, and you moved into motherhood of 10 children, there's obviously trials along the way, what was some of the other things that stopped you in your tracks along the way that you had to stop and reapply those lessons of trusting God in the hard times?
One of the first things that happened specifically was I was in my late 20s, I had three children. I had an older sister that was diagnosed with cancer, and she was just three years older than me. We both had three kids, as I watched my sister walk through this battle of cancer and the different medications that would cause her to lose her hair and things like that. I just realized what a privilege it was to
live and to be able to have life, to be able to take care of my children and have a husband and just all the things that we get to have in our lives. But yet, sometimes we end up taking them for granted.
We can end up taking things for granted, we can also start to think well, why me when the bad things happen, but also why not me when we see bad things happen to other people? Did you ever go through that? yourself when you saw your sister suffering and thinking, Well, why is it happening to her and not to me?
Yeah, it was more like, like a thought of WoW, God, no, of course, wanting to see her rise up from that situation, which she ended up not doing, you know, she passed on after a couple of years. But then really like looking at my own life, like, I don't know how long I have on this earth, I want to make it matter. I want to be intentional with my children. And at that time, I only had three and I wasn't
projecting to have a large family like my husband. And I did not say when we got married, were having 10 children or that became a calling on my life. When I had three kids. Probably shortly after my sister passed, that that calling came into my life. It was almost like wow, God, I do get to be here and have a husband and enjoy the friendships and go to a church and be part of a church family and all the things that I didn't want to take my life for granted.
And of each of these steps where there are trials, you say that you chose what you did with those and the way that you reacted in those situations. But I imagine it's not as easy as I've learned this lesson that I need to respond well to these things. But as each new trial comes along, you have to decide again, what am I going to do in this situation?
Exactly. The thought came to me and this this has been a motto for my life. I don't Wanna go through the same thing the same way again, or a similar thing the same way again, that looked like I had already had a dad pass. And his was that more abrupt passing, you know, it wasn't like watching someone be ill and slowly lose their strength. So I had my dad pass that way my sister pass through the illness, just
realizing, okay, so this trial came along, and I can't say that I won't have another trial like that, like losing someone close. So how can I grow through this, trust God grow in patience, the word tells us Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, knowing that the testing of your faith, so realizing it's, I'm being tested here on how I'm going to handle that, and if I'm going to trust God,
amidst the storm, or amidst the trial, and we get to do that with everything I mean, I we look at trials of like, a car breaking down, or a child having an illness or having to deal with sibling rivalry, or whatever it is, what if we decide to respond differently to all of the trials? From a place of growing through them? Rather than, Oh, no, I just want this to go away that thought of wishing it away, what if we actually choose
grace, so that the next trial, maybe is less painful, or we have a better mindset so that we can rise above it quicker, or, you know, help another person through? That was kind of the track that God put me on of like, okay, these trials aren't ending, you know, as I have them daily, in my home with growing a large family and all of that.
There's four words in the Scripture, those words from the Bible that you just quoted, that I want to focus in on because it says, whenever you face trials, so there's almost an assumption that we will
face trials, do you think that part of the struggle that we have is that, in the back of our minds, there's often this idea that life should be good life should be without trials? And the first part of being able to deal with trials is recognizing that no matter who we are, no matter what our circumstances, life will throw trials up along the way.
Yeah. And it's the trials and the the difficult times in life is actually where we grow. If we always had just the same normal days, nothing else, we would become totally complacent, like we wouldn't have anything to cause us to rise up. So what if the trials aren't all bad? What if there's opportunity in them, just to choose some different even conversations with with our families, or if we can just
look at them in a different light, it becomes a place where we can be excited to see what God is going to do through them, how we're gonna see him in a new way, how we're gonna see him show up for us. That's just kind of the mindset that I've taken like, Okay, God, what are we doing now? Like, what are you going to show me now and more about himself.
And those trials do continue to come, we would like to think that those early trials that you saw the loss of a marriage in your family, the death of your father, then your sister's cancer journey,
and ultimately losing her that those were the things that you've overcome in life has been great since then. But you've mentioned that you grew your family to 10 children, but even that brought up its own trials. And I know that there were trials, even when you were pregnant with that 10th Child, tell me about that.
I was pregnant with a little bit before that my husband had gone through a breakdown depression season, we had shut down a business financially, it was a struggle. I just kind of watched him lose vision and not sure where to go next. And so you know how sometimes when we're going through something, we're just like, almost like desperately going, God what do I do? What do you want me to do it just like
almost like a meaningless prayer. Like a cry out prayer, but then not listening, not wanting an answer. But I ended up stopping at one point and going, God, what do you want me to do here? And I really listened. I just was like, What is my next step here because I knew it wasn't a great place for my children. We were all safe, but just the negativity and volatility of my husband at that time was, was not good and not not a
great spot. And so I just remember hearing, pack your bags. And I was like, but I don't want to divorce and I don't want to leave my family. And, you know, I went into all the what ifs. But God said, Just pack your bag. Don't create any drama around it, just pack your bag. And it reminded me of the scriptures about Abraham when God asked him to sacrifice his son. And it was a simple step of obedience that Abraham just did,
knowing that God was good. That was the only way he could have walked that out is just like, I know, God would not have me do something that would be detrimental. So Abraham took it all the way to He bound his son on the altar, and was getting ready to light it. And God was like, no, stop by provided away. So that's what came to mind as God said, pack your bag. And so I just did, I packed my bag. My husband had taken
the children to church that morning. When my husband got back, he said, What are you doing, and I said, I can't live this way anymore. I didn't say wanted to leave him didn't say didn't love him anymore. It just I can't live this way anymore. After a short conversation, he just said no algo then he packed his bag. And he left for a few days, we had a place out of town that he could go and just hang out kind of refreshed a little
bit. And that got us on a track of restoration. It didn't happen right away immediately. But it did get us it shifted things enough to get us on a track of restoration. A little while later. I'm not sure if it was a year or so. But then he was actually taken out of our home for a year and a half, he was gone more than he was home with a job for a year and a half, which created a space also for him to refresh more
to think about what he wanted, for all S also to miss him and want him back. It's amazing. Some of the hardest things like I could see what God was doing like he helped in the restoration by first me packing my bag, then having my husband leave and be gone more than he was home for a season. So that was another place of just choosing growth through trials.
And you've said that even as that child and into your high school years, you started looking for being able to help others through trials even through the trials that you were facing. And you've really turned that into something where you're able to help many people through coaching through writing. When was it that you decided that you wanted to turn that heart of helping people into writing into doing that in a bigger way? What was it that triggered that for you?
Yeah, well, I just believe that it was just a track that God put me on. So I had been a homeschool mom for almost 20 years. And then God said put your kids in school. So I had seven left in the home that I shifted over to public school. And we still have five in the home that are in the public school system. God put me through two years of Bible school. It was in our town it was through the church that we had been
going to kids went to school, I went to school. I got done with that. And I was like okay, God, what do you want me to do now? And that was right as COVID hit in 2020. All my kids came back home and my my husband was not back yet. And so I was like okay, I guess I'm homeschooling again. In May of 2020. God brought up coaching which I had never heard of before. And I was like, Okay, I'll kind of look into it ended up being
quite a bit of money to join this account. me. So I was like, God, I don't need to do that. I'll work in the school system, I'll hold another Bible study, I'll, you know, work at Walmart, even whatever. But I just really felt like he said, No, I want you to do this. He provided a way. And I started so summer of 2020, I went through the coaching Academy. And as I finished that, also, my husband came back home about that same time,
I started the coaching academy as well. Once I became a coach, he got me started on writing, he was like, write this book. So it's just been a track of just next steps, just Okay, God, what's next and him showing me and now I have another book out as well called, What if you believed it's a devotional style, Buck 31 beliefs or vs to act on from the Living Word to bring about life change. I also have more books that I'll be writing. And I have coaching groups and one on one coaching as well.
Tell me a little about that coaching, because I'm sure that we've all seen coaches or people that will take the mantle of coach and they can be young people that really haven't had a whole lot of life
experience. Whereas in your case, you had a lot of life experience. And so as well as the studies that you've done, both in coaching and your Bible college studies, you do come from a place of I've been through this, not to say that you've been through everything that people will face, but you come from an understanding and a reality that many don't, it must be incredibly satisfying when those that you're coaching,
have that aha moment. And they suddenly discover a key to being able to walk that next step. And the step after that.
Yeah, very much. So I'm thankful for God leading me to this and, and being able to help people. As I was becoming a coach, I had these verses going through my mind, and I was like, oh, okay, God, I'm,
I'm hearing what you're saying that you want me to do. So it's the one verse that talks about throwing off the weights and sin that are entangling so that you can run your race. So I help people see what's keeping them stuck, see what's entangling them, so that they're not moving forward in their purpose, I help them throw off those weights that are weighing them down, forgetting the past, so that they can reach the goal of the
high call of God. So a lot of times, like I shared in my life, we'll have things happen, whether someone passes on, or a breakdown or numbers of things that people walk through that can keep them stuck. And God's telling
us to forget the past. And that means like, settle with it, like, have thoughts around it that allow you to move on from it, not keep carrying it through life. It's just helping people align with the Word of God so that they can live the full and abundant lives that God has planned for him.
I'm sure that there are people listening who think this is something that I need to learn more about. And whether it's by reading one of your books, either that book cupboard or the newer devotional book that's going to take them through 31 days, to really understand how to face those trials in a, in a new way to recognize that trials are a part of life, and they need to be able to face them, well learn from them,
and move on. If people want to learn more, what's the easiest way for them to connect with you to find those books to to find that coaching.
So I am on the social media, both Instagram, Facebook, they can find me on YouTube as well. I do have an email account Jackie dickens@gmail.com That's the best way to reach me.
I'll definitely put links to the books to the website and, and everything that is going to connect people to you in the show notes at bleeding daylight.net. So you'll find those details there. But Jackie, I want to say thank you for sharing parts of your life with such openness and honesty for what you're doing with those trials and helping other people through the trials that they're facing as well. It's been such an
honor to chat to you today on Bleeding daylight. Thank you so much for your time.
Yes. And thank you for having me and thank you for holding this podcast to get stories out and help other people as well.
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