Are you in a position where you're defined by your age and that's limiting you to pursue a dream or goal you want to accomplish? The More Than Your Age podcast is about having conversations with women who fully live their lives without being dictated or defined by their age. This is a space to encourage women who fill blocks to pursue a dream or goal based on their life circumstances. Welcome to the More than your Age podcast. I am your host, Erica Pasbar. Let's start living life fully
and become more than your age. Welcome Vicki Turley to the More than your Age podcast. I'm glad to have you here. Oh, thank you so much and I appreciate so much the opportunity to do this today. Yes, absolutely. Vicki, you owned a thriving virtual assistant business for many years, but you did have to shut that down in 2011. You were suffering from chronic pancreatitis for almost 20 years
and you had to go on disability. I want to know, wait, what was life like when as you suffered during those 20 years? I'm sure it kind of varied in each season. It did. As the illness progressed, it got worse and worse. The two things I think that were the worst part about it is #1 the unpredictability. I could wake up and feel, be feeling great and I think I can go to work and go and then the next thing I know I'm just hit with a develop debilitating pain.
I have to go home. And so that that's what happened is it would just, you never knew when it was going to hit you. And so making plans, living life was it got to where it was just very difficult to do. Where? Where was the pain like and where would you experience the pain? The pain was absolutely horrible. I, I honestly, I've had two children. It was so much worse than having children because it was constant.
It was all the time, even when it wasn't just debilitating it, you could feel it and it was in the lower right side of my pelvic area and just it would radiate through my back and cause headaches. It was unreal. Did you because it was sporadic or just unpredictable, did that hinder you from making plans with people or did you just say, OK, I'll make plans and if, if something flares up then I'll cancel? Well, again, as as the years went on, I found out I was making less and less plans.
When it first started, I couldn't figure out what it was. It was something that came on after my gallbladder surgery had never had any issues before that. And so I thought, oh, this is just, I don't know what it is, but I'm going to go ahead and make my plans with my life. As it went on, as months went on and then as years went on, it was like less and less going out because I had to cancel all the time. And I hate that that is a kind of a pet peeve of mine. And so I just got to where I
wouldn't make plans. Yeah, and I bet that was really challenging with, you know, just having a social life and your overall well-being and you know, time with family, I'm assuming and I know we'll we'll kind of touch base with that as well. When? How did? I'm curious to know You may have touched. You kind of just mentioned this briefly just now, but how did it get so bad to where you were just unable to work like you had
been able to work previously? Well, as I said, I went through a few years of it and I was going to doctors and I had so many different things that I was told. They ran lots and lots of tests. And most of the doctors that were here in my town at that time were not familiar with pancreatitis. So they were gastric doctors. They told me I had IBS. They told me I had gastrointestinal issues. I actually was told that it was all in my head. It's very, very frustrating.
It's very depressing that number 1, it gets to a point where you are second guessing yourself. You know, maybe this is just me. Maybe it's all in my head. I went to counseling because of that. And finally, finally, just I realized that this is going to continue. And I can't seem that I can't find the answers. So at at a certain point, I just had to say I can't work anymore. One of the issues I had was letting people down.
I don't like to let people down. And so if I made a commitment, a work commitment or going out with my grandchildren and then had to reschedule or just say I'm so sorry, I can't come it, it was that was such a a mind. It messed with your mind, you know it Just yeah. Yeah. Well, and then you said too, that doctors were saying, oh, it's in your head or, you know, they weren't really able to treat it. And, and I mean, eventually you had to find somebody that figured out what was going on.
Was that when in 2016 when you'd begun the TPN? About 2014 actually, my just my general doctor, he had been with me through this whole journey. He had referred me to many physicians and, and we just couldn't get to the bottom of it. And I went in to see him one time and he I was losing a lot of weight and I was sick all the time. That's something that came afterwards too. It's not just the pain. Then you start being not being able to keep food down.
And he said, I think I'm going to send you to Louisville. I know about this doctor there. He's really, really good and he's written pay papers even on pancreatitis and chronic pancreatitis. And, and so I went to him and oh, it was such a game changer. Such a game changer. Wow, how far is Louisville from where you are now? It was a four hour drive, 4 hour drive.
So yeah, once we did start becoming, once I became a patient of his, we were making many, many trips to Louisville, my husband and I. Wow, well in that even itself I would imagine it's very exhausting 4 hours away. Very exhausting, very time consuming, very expensive. I wasn't working by then. So it was, we were on one end and yeah, it was. And then too, the other thing was once I'd get there, I might get so sick that I'd end up in
the hospital. So then I have to be in the hospital in Louisville. So then a trip that you're expecting to take one day, it's now turned into four days to a week. Wow, how often would you have to take those trips? I went probably once a month until as it got worse and worse, it was even more often than that it, it got to where we were going probably every two weeks. And at this time, this was still in the phase of them trying to figure out a treatment that would work for me.
So we're trying all different treatments. We're trying procedures. I was put to sleep so many different times, which I don't know if you know, but that is really hard on the body and just we just couldn't find anything that would really work. And then here at home I was doing things such as I went to, I was going to pain management had pain pumps put in and the pain pumps then would something would go wrong with them and I'd have to have surgery for that.
And it was constant medical issues. I just got to a point where it was exhausting and tiring and just depressing. Yeah, my goodness. And then on top of all of that, then you just think the financial burden of it too 'cause like you said, you had quit your business and you're on one income and so that's going on. OK, so you told me too that in 2016 you would begin and I may pronounce this incorrectly, incorrectly TPN intravenous Venus.
How do you pronounce that? Intravenous feedings and between and hardly being able to eat anything. The pain was extremely intense, like you would share shared with us. How long were these feedings? How long did these take place? The feedings, I was on TPN off and on for a period of almost three years, so there were times when I could go off of TPN for maybe a week and then an attack would happen again. I'd have to go back on it.
So we got to a point where we just had all our supplies sent here to my home. I got really good and my husband got really good at knowing how to put, put it on. I mean, it's just like an IV basically. And it's your, your, your feedings all through a tube. I had a port put into my chest so that it would make it easier because of my veins were collapsing. You know, you couldn't even hardly get blood from me anymore. My body was just shutting down.
Yeah. Did you feel like like, is this is just how I'm going to live for the rest of my life or were you hopeful at all? I was hopeful probably until about I'd say 2014 maybe, let's see 2009. No 2000 and and 16. By that time it had gotten so bad, I was either in the hospital constantly and it got to a point where I was doing so much at home that when I went to the hospital, all they do is give me Ivs and pain medication. So I thought, well, I can do that at home.
So it got we then decided we're not going to the hospital anymore. It costs too much, even with insurance. I mean, we were, it was ridiculous. So I got to a point where I was in bed all the time just just sick and having Ivs running through me and the pain was I, I just can't even describe it, how debilitating it was when it would hit and go through your body and come out your back it, it was just unreal. Yeah, it sounds, it sounds miserable.
You you shared with me that you basically gave up at the age of 58. You became addicted to the pain medication and you fell into a deep depression and you stayed in bed for days and weeks on end. You were questioning God about like why? Why were you still here taking up space on earth? You would only listen to the nasty whispers of the enemy that you were worthless and no good to anyone. What? What did your friendships look like? What did your value of yourself
look like at this time? There was none when I fell into that deep depression. Let me just tell you, I've been a Christian almost my whole life, but I would call myself maybe a fair weather Christian. I wasn't, I wasn't in a real close relationship with God. And so when this all first started, I was really turning to him. Oh God, you know, what is this? Help me get through this. But after many years and ending up in bed a lot, I did.
I started listening to the whispers of Satan like this is this is how you're going to live the rest of your life. You are worthless. You are worth nothing. And I've tried to tell you that my your whole life. And so I started listening to him. I started, I stopped answering calls from my sisters. I had three sisters who are just my best friends. I stopped answering their calls. I stopped answering their texts.
I wouldn't talk to my mother. My friends were I just they were gone and they kept trying to reach out and I wouldn't talk to them. It got to a point where I would rarely even talk to my husband. And yes, you can't imagine the shame, the guilt, all of that that you feel when you're this age and know you've been a Christian your whole life and yet you know that also you're abusing your pain medication.
That was it became my out. Even though the pain medication never took away the pain, but it dulled my senses enough that I didn't care. I didn't care. I was just in a fog. And in that fog, what I was doing was listening to the enemy. And was must have been just really, really lonely and really hard. And, you know, like you were saying to just kind of, I mean, just pushing out everyone away because you were in so much pain and and hurting so much.
And, and there was one point your husband walked in and he said something to you that changed everything. What did he say? He walked in and he said he wanted to talk and I said OK, of course I'm laying in bed as normal and he says I think I want a divorce. And it, it shocked me. I have been through divorces before, but Rocky, my husband was the one that I knew was going to last the rest of our lives. He was the one I knew that God had brought into my life.
And so when he told me that at first I got really mad, really mad and all this is not my fault and how dare you, How can you leave me and, and all of that. Then I, I got to a point where I was, well, maybe you should talk to some other people about this and see what they think. I guess I thought in my, in my fog that they would all take my side. Oh, she's sick, you know, But what the reactions were was, is she doing anything mentally, I guess, to help herself, even
with the pain? Is she gathering her community around her? Is she talking to God? Is she listening to her family? And the answer was no, I totally isolated myself. And so he, you know, he said there's, I've got to have one thing from you for us to stay together and you've got to get off the medication.
He said, I know that you can't get off of it, but you've got to stop abusing it. So I, I went to my doctor and I was very honest with him and told him I was abusing my medication because I'd been on it for so long and was on a pain pump. In addition, he felt the best route was for me to go into a treatment center And I prayed about it. I did a lot of praying. I all of a sudden the, the fog almost seemed to lift.
It was really odd because I was still on the medication, but it's like a little light came in when all this happened. And so I prayed to God and I just said, OK, if this is, if this is what's going to help and this is, you know, this is what I need to do. I cannot lose my husband when I've lost everything else or I knew I truly didn't think I'd have anything to live for. So after praying about it, I felt like I could do this without going into a treatment
center. I don't know why, I don't know how, but with my doctor's help, we did it ourselves. I didn't go into a treatment center, I just started backing off. He had me on a specific plan where we would just back off their medications. You can take to help with the the withdrawals that you're going to have. And they were rough. They were rough, but I got back to a point where I was only taking the medication when I actually was supposed to and and and when I needed to. Wow.
So it was, yeah, it was God. It was absolutely God. I think he was showing me Erica. I think he was telling me that, Vicki, I am so not done with you yet. And so here's the first thing. We're going to do this together. And we did. We did it. That's that's phenomenal. Well, and I'm, you know, even thinking too, your husband comes in, he says, I want a divorce and this is a shock to you. This is the man you want to be with for the rest of your life and you like you.
I mean, that was a wake up call. And so did you know when he said this? And then, you know, he he said, oh, you know, talking to other people or, or they said, you know, get in community and what's she doing? What did I guess, I mean, he says, I want this divorce.
What more? So I guess in the time following, however, you know, whatever time frame that was, what did you say to him or I guess have to show to him where he was able to say, OK, I see that she really is making a change or she's she's going to practice what she's preaching with this Are these words that she's she's sharing with me. Well, the one thing he said to me when we had this conversation about divorce, he said, I don't know you anymore.
I don't know who you are. Like, I don't know if you even realize the person you are. He said, in fact, you're you're like a shell. And I think that part kind of really spoke to me too, is that. Yeah, I had just, I was a shell. I wasn't a person anymore. I definitely wasn't living. And so all of that I think gave me a motivation, you know, and I've never really even thought about that. But I think, yeah, it was motivation then that made me get
up out of the bed. Even if I could be up out of the bed in a day for 15 minutes, that was that was progress. And so each day I'd make sure that I tried to get up out of the bed. I made sure that I tried to get a shower. I made sure that I tried to just talk with him, just have a conversation that wasn't totally surrounded by pain and illness and pancreatitis. And as it went on, it just, it was like I came back.
It was like I woke up. I can't tell you a lot of what happened during that time during that fog. I know it was dark and deep, but my memory, I don't it. But I can tell you when I woke up because I can still remember the difference and I'm going to live again, whatever that looks like, I'm going to do it so. When you decided to make this change and get out of this fog and you know, you had, you said kind of stop talking to your sister, stop, stop, stop talking
to your friends. When, when did you reach back out to your sisters or friends? Or, you know, at what point did you reach back out to them and say, hey, you know, this is what's going on And, and how difficult was it to, to kind of humble yourself and, and say, I was wrong? It was very difficult. I started with one particular sister who's always kind of been, I just am able to talk to
her very easily. And so I called her first and I told her that he had Rocky had come in and said he wanted to divorce. That's when I first reached back out to her. And so we got to talking about it and. She said you, you've really scared me, Vicky. She said I just you isolating yourself. I think it's the biggest thing. And so after our conversation and she told me there's nothing you can do that will ever make me stop loving you. And I believed her. And so I started believing those
things. And so that made it easier for me to reach out to my family. I told them about the abusing my medication and what that had done to me. And, and I was very, very honest and open with them. And there was a lot of tears, a lot of crying. But in all that, there was so much love and so much
acceptance. I think maybe that's one of the things too, is I was so afraid that if I told the truth about how dark it had gotten and what the things I was doing abusing a medication, that they wouldn't love me anymore. And it's so funny because they said they all knew it anyway. They knew I was abusing just because if I was around them or if I did speak to them, there was no, it was AI think they call it a flat affect. And that's how I was. There was no emotion, no, no anything.
So they knew it all along, and yet they still loved me. That huge? It was, yeah, yeah. It helps so much towards my recovery.
I bet, and I know that I know this like this, just as having this conversation is not a nor you know, we talked before that this is your first time doing a podcast and it, and I can just tell how emotional it is affecting you and just going back and talking about it. And I, I, I love that your sister, you know, your first sister you spoke with said, no matter what you do, I, I'm going to love you. And then your family continued and your friends and, and
obviously your husband too. I mean, just huge in the recovery and you, you know, you were also given a specific surgery that could save you as well. Walk us through that surgery and and how how this helped with the feeling as well and then time frame of all of it too. So it actually started in 2017. The physician, I was singing a Louisville. He said I really believe that it's time for us to think about a total pancreatectomy. I know nothing about this and honestly, a lot of people still
don't these days. I said I didn't know you could live without your pancreas. And he said, well, you can, they have this surgery now and it's a total pancreatectomy with islet cell transplant. So basically what they do is they take out your pancreas, they then send that to laboratory and they take your islet cells, which is what
produces insulin in your body. They take those out of your pancreas and they do some medical things to them, but then they come back and they put pills into your liver. And then your liver, if the surgery is successful and all the islet cells live in your liver and your body is actually able to still produce a little bit of sugar of insulin. So this was about a 12 hour surgery. Wow. And he told me that it's very, very difficult that usually recovery takes about a year.
So it took me almost two years to decide to do the surgery. I thought what, what my rationale was, was even though things were in, I was in such bad shape, I wanted to try every single known treatment before that to say that I had done everything possible I could do before I went this route. And so he supported me. The doctor supported me in that my my husband supported me. And finally in 2019, I had the surgery. I was, I woke up, it was on.
I'll never forget this. It was on July 31st, 2019. I woke up in ICU August 1st, and the first time I can remember waking up, you know, and the first thing I knew is I had no pain, none. And it was the first time in almost 20 years I had been without pay. And even that in itself was a little unusual because he had told me most people, you're still going to have pain for a
while. The body has a way of once you've been in pain for that long, the body has a way of even when it's gone, it's like you're missing limb syndrome. I don't know if you've heard, but when people lose an arm or leg, sometimes they feel like it's still there. The body does the same thing with pain. Even though the pain is gone, the body says, oh, it's still here and you've still hurt. I did. I woke up and I was pain free and I was praising God.
I was praising God. I was in ICU for I think four or five days and then went to a regular room and I was there for almost 2 weeks, just getting up every day, trying to walk. Making sure my body is going to work, make sure my kidneys work and make sure that the that the islet cells were working, that I was obviously was going to be diabetic and had to have insulin, but that it would my body would still produce some insulin like recovery instead of taking a year and three months.
I felt amazing, not 100%, but I felt really, really good. And I honestly called a friend of mine to see if she was looking for any virtual assistants that we could work together. And sure enough, it was perfect timing. And I've been working with her ever since and I've been working since then and living my best life. You know, your, your podcast. The reason I was so drawn to it is, is the name of it.
It doesn't matter the age. I feel like I started living my life on July 31st, 2019. I mean, my best life. I'm so much closer to God than I ever thought possible. I every day will tell someone if I can that he did a miracle in me and he continues to do him every day. Absolutely. I mean, this physical healing where you wake up and you're pain free, your marriage was saved, your relationships were restored, I mean, that's huge. Something you said earlier too, was that, you know, God is not
finished with you and he wasn't. And I mean, man, it's just so powerful. How much also do you believe that there's this physical healing from God? And also, how much of it do you believe that some of your mindset helped with recovery? Oh, I think it played a huge part. Absolutely. The day that I decided to get off the pain medication or quit abusing the pain medication and I started getting up out of bed, I spoke out loud to Satan. And I don't do that.
I have trouble praying out loud. It's just something that I'm not comfortable with. So I've never spoke out loud to Satan, but I spoke out loud to him and I said I am done with you. I said I am tired of listening to your lies. You know you're not going to control my life like this anymore. I said I am a child of God and that's something I've forgotten and he loves me and my family loves me and my husband loves me and I'm about to just show you some things and I did.
I almost, in fact, I think back and I think I almost kind of gave him a dare, you know, like I just dare you. And he did. It wasn't easy. It wasn't all a bed of roses. Trust me. There were days when I thought, Oh no, you know, but but the mindset was it. That change made a huge impact on my recovery, on my relationships. Absolutely. And just instead of leaning into the enemy's lies, I was leaning into God. And Oh my goodness, He's so, so big enough to handle that.
Yeah, that's huge. Absolutely I was going to say something and then it just, it just slipped my mind to something that you had said. If I think of it, I'll, I'll come back to it. And you, you told me to, or, you know, you shared it here just now that you had struggled with understanding your existence for living and God's work in your life when you were in that in just the deep, deep, deep low
part. And and then now just saying you that you were telling Satan like, you know, I'm done with you. Where, where are you at with God now? And and and and talking about this purpose of feeling like I have so much of A purpose now. Where? Where are you at with all of that now? It's pretty amazing. You know, as I said, I've been a Christian my entire life and I've gone to church most of my entire life. So I'm familiar with the Bible and I can quote Bible verses and
all of that. Even when we were young child went to GA's, girls in Action and things like that. But we never there was something about an intimacy that I thought I would never have. I thought that that that just wasn't for me. And a lot of that was part of myself worth problems. After the surgery, one of the things that I determined that I was going to do was to go through some intensive counseling.
Now, I've been through counseling before and I thought I had dealt with a lot of things, but I really hadn't. So part of my recovery was going through counseling and really embracing the fact that God does love me. He loves me just as I am. He loves me as a Sinner and my imperfections. And because of that, I am. I embraced it. I just, I embraced it holy. And so that really helped with the relationship. I am in an intimate relationship with him now.
I, I get up and do devotions and Bible study every single morning. For me, that's when I have to do it before the day gets going and you, you know, everything else gets in the way. So that time with him is it's almost like breathing for me. It is so part of me and who he meant me to be. The purpose. All my life I struggled with what my gifts were.
Everybody talks about spiritual gifts and I think my understanding was a little bit skewed in that I didn't have a spiritual gift of ministering to people or to, I wasn't a pastor, I couldn't be a speaking leader or I could teach children. But so I always thought I, I just, I don't know what my gifts are. I don't have gifts and he has shown me that. Oh my goodness, the gifts that I have might be different from others, but they're still gifts. I have the gift of encouragement.
I've always been an encourager and I tried to whatever someone's going through to not. I don't dismiss their struggles. I try to empathize, empathize with their struggles, but show them that through it all, God's going to make us stronger and that He's going to be there for us. So I'm going to encourage her. The other thing is my business acumen. I have been an amazing business person since I was 17 years old. I love computers.
I'm a tech person. You give me a program, I'm going to learn how to do it, and then I'll teach you how to use it. Those types of things. And I never felt like those were part of my gifts, but I realize now they are. God gave those to me. He gave me the passion for them. I love that kind of thing. He gave me the the skills to do it, to understand and to be able to teach others. And so those just like being a teacher or a preacher, those are
my gifts. Those are the things that I can do. And when I was able to embrace all that and realize that me, Vicki and me, the professional Vicki, we're all in one, my, my life, all of that is me. And whether that be my personal life or my business life or whatever, it's all from God. And all I want to do now is, is serve others and point them to Him. Around what age do you think or do you feel like you came to
that realization? Well, let's see, my surgery was in 2019 and it's now 25. I have to count I'm 67 now. So I was about 60 years old. It's been about 7 years close, so 6061 years old. Yeah. Then I came to that and. And The funny thing about it is I truly am living my best life now. I'm not that I didn't have good times before, I had great times. I have children, I had a wonderful marriage.
The thing now is the joy that I have, I know that is rooted deep inside me and there's nothing and no one that can take that away. So at 61, I now am just the most joyful, you know, person that you can meet. I, I, I just, it might have taken me a while, but you know, I got there. You got there and you had to go through some really hard things to get there.
I, I want to share something that you wrote that you wrote to me. You said I don't take one single day for granted and I thank him God every day. I live life to the fullest. I work, I take my grandchildren on adventures and first and foremost, I try to be more like him every day. And then with that you shared, you decided to start working again.
You called your friend to say, hey, you got you have any virtual assistant work and you got that you're starting newer, new at A at a later stage in life. You felt this nudge to start writing and then another nudge working outside of your comfort zone to offer services to female small business owners and provide proofreading and editing. Tell us about this this nudge that you you felt at 67. Yeah.
Well, last July I went to a writers conference, my first one, and I just knew that God was asking me to write. Well, I guess maybe it was peer pressure. Everybody writes a book, you know. And I thought, oh, I've got to write a book. I've got a story. I do. But for six months after this conference I thought, do I keep blogging? Do I write a story? Do I write a business story? Do I write my personal story? All of this for six months. I was stuck in January of this
year. Well, probably mid-december, I don't know what happened, but it just one day it hit me, it popped into my mind and God said, Vicki, here's what I want you to do. I want you to continue blogging. That is writing. I want you to post, I want you to blog and that's your writing for now. A book at this point would it would hurt some people that I love. And it is not time for that. It's it's just not time now. But here's what else I want you to do. Here's what I'm gonna stretch
you and grow you. And I'm thinking, wait, wait, you know, this is enough. I wanted you to take your encouraging. I want you to take your skills and proofreading and looking at stories and getting so involved with those stories that you're wrapped up in it and helping to enhance those stories and helping to enhance characters. And I want you to support writers and authors and editors, people who support writers and authors.
And I'm thinking what what I mean, I'm all about living my full life and living every day to the fullest. But Lord, that's a little scary. And he says to me, you know, I want you to stretch. When you get inside your comfort zone for so long, it's almost like you put yourself in a box and this box doesn't grow. You get really comfortable there, but you get stagnant. And how can you really learn and grow if you're not moving? So he asked me to step out of my
box, and I've done that. It has gone amazingly well so far. I have so many friends who support me with everything, and I think that kind of gives me the validation to know that this is from God. Pieces are falling into place, People are supporting me, they see the need and so I'm just following God and seeing where
He's going to lead next. You know what's so what's so cool for me to to listen and hear in this is that you know, a lot of people retire at 6567 and you're choosing to start this new chapter and listen to what God is asking you to do. When you know, when you hear that people retire at and everyone is doing whatever they're doing for you know, whatever reason, that's their life and their story.
But when you hear that and then you know that you're in this, this other chapter, what do you think of that? I think that we think wrongly about the word retire. I think for me, what I've found out is that retiring is just a transition into the new chapter of your life. Because here's the thing, if you retire and just sit and do nothing again, your body starts going down, your mental stability starts going down. As long as you are living and
moving and growing. I think that's what God wants for us. And who wants to stop? I mean, as long as I can work and as long as I can serve others, I am going to do it. And as long as I can also then take my grandchildren on adventures, which we'd love to do, as long as I can spend time with my husband and us go visit our state parks, I'm going to do all of that. And I'm able to do that at my stage of life. So it was like perfect timing really.
I imagine I'm just, I'm listening to you talk and I'm thinking, you know, I'm, I'm hearing this, this woman who has so much just so full of life has this purpose as a second purpose of you. You know, you could say that and thinking about just me visualizing the Vicky that I see in front of me, visualizing the Vicky that was in bed all the time and, you know, stuck to these pain medicines and.
Keeping the people that you love the most out of your life because you were hurting and you were in a dark place. And just this Vicky, now what are you proud of? I'm proud of the fact that I had the courage to do the surgery. I'm proud of the fact that I told Satan get away from me. I'm proud of the fact that I went all in with God.
I just said whatever it is, it is still scary, it's still hard, but whatever it is you want for me, I'm proud of the fact that I finally embraced His love and and His goodness and His mercies every single day. I still mess up every single day. And man, he has so much patience and so many mercies and so much grace. And he just says it's OK, we have tomorrow. And so I get up the next day and I thank Him for allowing me to wake up, and then we have a whole new day of mercies and
grace. It's it's beautiful. I even more just thinking of as you were talking, I was thinking like, one, everyone needs to hear your story. So there's that. And then two, I was just thinking like, man, what the power of God's work in your life and how also visualizing again, a lot of your story, I'm visualizing you, you know, telling Satan, like you do not have a hold in my life anymore. I'm done with you and how your life has just transformed and it's just changed.
It's beautiful. I also, I want this, I think was my question. That was just a brief question. I wanted to ask where I was like, Oh, I forgot your your pain. You said that you woke up that one day and it was gone. How about now? Because you were also saying that, that your body has a memory of the pain. So wait on date, maybe not day-to-day, but on occasion. How is the pain for you? Is it still completely gone? It's completely, completely
gone. My doctors kind of freak out about it. They say like never, never. I I have not had a pain. In fact, it's really funny you asked that question. Just recently I was, I had some gastritis, went to the doctor and they wanted to just make sure everything was OK and did a CT scan. And I had been having some pain in the same area and I thought, oh, no, after six years, is this is this it? You know, is this the pain coming back? And it wasn't, it was something else.
They actually found a mass on my lower pelvis. And I just got the news that, praise God, everything is fine. It's wonderful. No cancer. I don't even know if we're going to have to do surgery on it. So again, he just amazes me. What I do want to say though, is I would not have wished those 20 years, almost 20 years on anyone, but I know that only because of those 20 years am I
living the life that I am now. And if we don't know how far down we can go, how deep we can, how, how dark it can get, how can we know to praise God and be thankful every single day and grateful for how far He's brought us? Thank you, Vicky, Thank you for saying that. I really just love how God has worked in your life and even just like you were saying, you wouldn't wish those 20 years on anybody, but you went through those years to get to where you are now, all the good and the bad.
And there I know there was a lot of bad. You said this, you said God has shown me so much more. He's shown me that he's not done with me yet, which we've talked about. He's shown me that there is more to work, work to do. He's shown me that I can still use my skills and my passions to be able to supplement our income, which we talked about with your job. You also said you don't know if it will stay small or grow big, but what you do know is that you're giving it all to God.
And I know it's so easy and I know you felt this when you were in the low. It's, it's so easy to either look at other people's lives, to look at your own life circumstance and situation and, and struggle and, and go through it and, and, and women will view their circumstance or even their age as a limitation or a barrier.
That's why I'm just so passionate about this of like of, of trying to use your story and other women's stories to really help women realize you're where you are for a reason. What are we going to do about it? And so if you could encourage that one woman who's in the spot where you were 20, you know, or however many years ago, if you could encourage that one woman who feels blocked or limited to pursue a dream or a goal based on her age or a life circumstance, what would you say to her?
The first thing I say is, and I love that you use the word circumstance. When we focus on our circumstances, that's all we're going to see and they are going to swallow us. But when we focus on God instead of the circumstance and what is He teaching me from this? What is He growing? How is He growing me? Then it helps us get through it better. It's not going to take it away. Nothing is. We live in a fallen world and we are fallen people.
But if we can keep stay focused on Him and figure out what is He trying to say to me, then it will make it so much better. And age, it does not. It does not matter. It really doesn't. I think like I said before, if we can constantly be growing, if we can constantly be looking for what God has for us, we are going to find so many blessings, so many things to be grateful for. And isn't that what makes life so much fun?
And this world that we live in with the news and the, and the just the stuff and the wars and the meanness, we can focus on him and his goodness and then see that goodness and other things. And the six inches of snow that we got last night here in Kentucky And the little Bluebird I saw sitting on my bird feeder earlier and my grandson smile when he runs in to give me a hug. I mean, we can find it anywhere. And the more that we focus on him instead of the circumstances, the more we're
going to see those. That's huge focusing on him more so than the circumstances. And I, as you were talking to, I was just thinking like, you know, I've gone through some hard things and then thinking of I know that more hard things will happen down the road. And I'm just thinking for listeners out there, whether you're in the hard or when the hard things do happen, just to listen to the words that you're saying and focus on the Lord because he will get us through
those times. And I'm just hopeful and need to pray myself that now for future me and even, you know, anyone else who's listening to make sure that we're aligned with the Lord when those times happen. Absolutely, absolutely. And God made us for community too. So let's don't isolate ourselves. You know, we tend to do that when things get hard, we're going to isolate. That's the time when we should be surrounding ourselves with community, with our loved ones.
Absolutely. Well, Vicki, I would love, you know, if anyone needs any of your services, I'd love for you to just share where people can reach out to you or your website or any anything else you want to just share. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm on Facebook as Vicki Brack Turley. BRACK Turley, you can find me easily. I'm on Instagram as Vicki Turley Rider. And then my website is just www.vickiturley.com. And I think if you go to my website, I hope people will just check it out.
I think you're going to see me. I hope that you do. I try to be authentic and open and honest with everything and so I hope you see that on the site also. Yeah, I'll put that all in the show notes. And I also like how you said earlier too that you're writing. You said, you know, I'm blogging and you go and you said, and that is writing. I am, I am writing. I think that that's important to to share that. That you're a. Writer. And that's what you're doing. Absolutely.
And honestly, that's kind of why I put writer after my name on Instagram. I thought I am writing, even if one, one person sees it, that's going to be the one person that God wanted to see it. So numbers really don't matter to me. They really don't. As long as I am doing where what I feel God is leading me to do, then the people that need to see it will come to see it.
So that's. So huge yes, Vicki, this was so encouraging to me. So one I want to say just on, you know, on on the recording so everyone can hear that this side of this really spoke to me a lot. And so I know that that's going to help so many other women as well. So thank you for taking the time and for joining me today on the More Than Your Age podcast. Thank you so much, it's been wonderful.
If you were encouraged by today's episode, like and subscribe to this podcast, leave a review and share this episode with a friend. You can find me on all of the socials at More Than Your Age. Keep striving for your goals, live fully, and we'll catch you next time on the More Than Your Age podcast.