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100. Faith: Surviving the Loss of Her Son and Herself with Alma Thomas
871 Plays2 months ago
"To lose thee is to lose myself," John Milton wrote in Paradise Lost. But what happens when you lose both? Alma Thomas lost her teenage son to a sudden heart attack at the age of 18 and then a few years later lost herself to a stroke.
Alma, an author, was given a 1 percent chance of survival by doctors. She survived and says she has thrived. Alma says in this interview that part of what drove her to write again and help people was to send the message that "cemeteries are filled with unfulfilled potential" and that she did not want to die with her "purpose inside" her.
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Transcript
Faith and Personal Trials
00:00:00
Speaker
Because through it all, I held on to my faith. I held on to um my integrity and that I know that, like Job, and he said, though he'd slay me, yet well I trust him. So I trust and depend on God.
00:00:20
Speaker
for everything, even from the death of my son, which was the darkest days of my life. And I think being able, going through my son's death, standing in a cemetery and watching them lower his body into the ground helped me go through this stroke because to me, I had already gone through the worst thing in life that a parent can go through. So it was, you know, I trusted God in that. God showed up for me.
00:00:56
Speaker
in that, that my son was 18 years old and he suffered a heart attack. And you know, you know, most times we don't think about putting our children in insurance because we want to make sure that we have insurance. So after we're gone, the burden will be less on them. So I didn't have any insurance um for my son and I saw the hand of God because in two days without a GoFundMe page, without posting anything on Facebook, my friends raised over $10,000 towards my son's funeral.
Introduction to Alma Thomas
00:01:43
Speaker
roll and The funeral director, so many people was calling him and telling him what an amazing young man my son was.
00:01:54
Speaker
That's Alma Thomas, a minister, educator, an author, and a stroke survivor. This is the Silver Linings Handbook podcast. I'm Jason Black.
00:02:22
Speaker
woman of many facets. She holds the titles of ordained minister, motivational speaker, playwright, and author. Alma is also a single mother of two children whose son, Taichuan, passed away in 2009, leaving what she describes as an indelible mark. Thirteen years after her son died, Alma experienced a dehabilitating stroke, but has continued her fight to help others live better lives.
Alma's Books and Achievements
00:02:51
Speaker
In 2017, Alma published the book Dream Killers, which focuses on how we're all born dreamers. From the point where little children, whether awake or asleep, we dream about what we're gonna be when we grow up. Alma says that when we mature, our dreams shift to other goals, whether they're for our careers, our children, or other things. She says, however, that for many people, their dreams do not die in natural depth.
00:03:20
Speaker
They are instead killed by circumstances and life experiences. She focuses on some of them in the book, ranging from the low self-worth that some people feel or the lack of resources. She encourages people to dare to dream once more.
00:03:37
Speaker
Alma is the author of another book, Love, Marriage, and Divorce, which tells stories of partnership, commitment, and the hurdles that get in the way. She's also the author of From the Waiting Room to the Recovery, and this year she published a new book, Surviving a Stroke Against All Odds. That book focuses on faith and recovery following her stroke and how, like grief, it's made her grateful for the precious gift of life.
00:04:06
Speaker
She's a graduate of Empire State University, where she obtained a bachelor's degree in human services focused on children and families. She also obtained a degree in Christian studies from the Mount Carmel Theological Seminary.
Themes of Adversity and Faith
00:04:22
Speaker
Today we're gonna discuss adversity and triumph, faith and recovery, and those necessary losses of our dreams, of our younger selves, of the people we love,
00:04:35
Speaker
that are necessary.
00:04:52
Speaker
So I just wanted to thank you for joining. um i And I just wanted to mention like in listening to your story and hearing about your story and then reading some of your books, how impressed I was by, you know, both your charm you know your losses and your recovery, but also from the insights that you had for them. It is hard enough to deal with loss and recover from it, but I think it's also really hard to um take it in what is relatively a short period of time and turn it into something that can help other people.
Grieving and Community Support
00:05:32
Speaker
Yes.
00:05:34
Speaker
So I wanted to just sort of like start off by asking you, you know, a little bit about your journey. I know that, you know, you had already, you know, been an author. You grew up where you were in Long Island. You know, you had dreams and you, you eventually you lost your, your, your son. He died. Yes. And You know, then you also had um later, ah you know, almost 13 years later, you had a stroke. And I was wondering what some of the similarities and differences were between the loss that came from losing your son and then the loss that comes for people that we don't think about often when you sort of lose yourself from something like a stroke.
00:06:27
Speaker
Well, um the similarities are that for a both, you go through the stages of grief. um Like first, you're in denial and, you know, this didn't really happen to me. um This is not my truth. And then um you go through being depressed over it. And finally, you get to the stage where you were accept it.
00:06:58
Speaker
and you tried to turn your pain, as you said, into something um positive. And um I realized that my stroke wasn't for me, but it was for God to get the glory out of it.
00:07:22
Speaker
Because through it all, I held on to my faith. I held on to um my integrity and that I know that, like Job, and he said, though he'd slay me, yet, well, I trust him. So I trust and depend on God.
00:07:42
Speaker
for everything, even from the death of my son, which was the darkest days of my life. And I think being able, going through my son's death, standing in a cemetery and watching them lower his body into the ground helped me go through this stroke because to me I had already gone through the worst thing in life that a parent can go through. So it was, you know, I trusted God in that. God showed up for me
00:08:18
Speaker
in that that my son was 18 years old and he suffered a heart attack and you know you know most times we don't think about putting our children in insurance because we want to make sure that we have insurance so after we're gone the burden will be less on them so I didn't have any insurance um for my son and I saw the hand of God because in two days without a GoFundMe page, without posting anything on Facebook, my friends raised over
00:09:01
Speaker
$10,000 towards my son's funeral.
Lessons from David and Goliath
00:09:05
Speaker
role And the funeral director, so many people was calling him and telling him what amazing young man my son was that he took off every course that he would have made. He made no money off of my son's funeral. We only had to pay for opening up the gravesite and his casket and everything.
00:09:31
Speaker
So even in that, it's like David, David was, uh, anointed king, but he went back out into the field to get some experience with God. So he knew that God had helped him fight the lion and the bear. So he knew God was going to help him with the giant. So I knew that God was with me and the death of my son. So I knew he was going to be with me throughout this stroke journey.
Faith and Suffering
00:10:02
Speaker
yeah You mentioned um Job as an example, and you know the biblical story of Job was that he was so faithful to God, and you know Satan came down and sort of said to God, or came down, but said to God that he bet he could break Job's faith, and God said, you know,
00:10:28
Speaker
that that he believed he couldn't. and you know God then you know allowed Satan to to essentially go at Job. and One of the things like that I've always thought about, and I wonder whether you ever wondered about this, like with the loss of your son, is is why would why would God allow his faithful or one of his most faithful servants to suffer like that?
00:10:58
Speaker
Because um to me, um he never promised us that we wouldn't go through things. And he rains on the jest, just like the unjust. So but like like people think like, oh, you love God so much. Why is it that you suffer the stroke? And I tell him that the word of God tells us many other afflictions of the righteous, but that God will deliver you out of them all. So this life wasn't promised to be an easy bit of ease.
00:11:37
Speaker
suffering because of the sin. Because of the sin, we are all now prone to this is suffering. But the suffering that we go through nothing that now is nothing compared to the glory that we're going to feel after this.
00:12:00
Speaker
One of the things that I wondered about for you, were there moments in your faith where even though you you knew those things and you knew that part of what comes out of suffering is growth and part of what comes out of south are suffering that you know I've certainly found in my life or often miracles come out of suffering like enormous, enormous growth or benefits or being able to help people.
Faith and Mental Health
00:12:28
Speaker
But in the deepest,
00:12:31
Speaker
darkest moments. Was your faith tested at all? That um when my son passed away, my spiritual man was all right because I knew to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord and that my son was young, but he was saved. He was, you know, prepared to go to heaven, but the mother in me wasn't doing okay. The mother in me was suffering in silence. um As a matter of fact, he passed away on February 13, 2009. On April 17, 2009, that was his first birthday in heaven.
00:13:27
Speaker
and I was going to unalive myself, not because I wanted to be unalive, but because I wanted to spend his birthday with him. I woke up that morning and I was like, I wonder if my grandmother is baking him a cake and the angels are singing a happy birthday to him. And I decided that nobody could celebrate my baby like I could. So I took a whole bottle of pills and placed them in my hand and I was about to put them in my mouth. But as of as I was about to take the pill, I know that God is real because a still voice said to me, if you do it, you'll never see him again. And I put the pills back in the bottle and
00:14:17
Speaker
I remember crying myself to sleep, but it was that day that I decided that I needed, the mom and me needed help. That I didn't know how I was going to get through it. I know that the Bible says that weeping only endures for a day and joy is going to come in the morning, but I didn't see my joy. I didn't see how when my weeping was ever going to end and that point
00:14:58
Speaker
I decided that I was going to church Sunday after Sunday and I was coming there with a heavy heart and I was leaving in the same condition just a little bit of oilier for them slapping the oil on my face and saying it's gonna be all right if you love God and I knew I loved God with all my heart but it just wasn't all right.
00:15:22
Speaker
And ah that's the day I decided it's okay not to be okay and to seek mental health. And if you know anything about the African-American church and community, mental health is taboo. We don't tell our business to strangers what goes on in this house, stays in this house. We don't need no therapy. You got Jesus.
00:15:50
Speaker
And I realized that Jesus and therapy go hand in hand. Just like if you go to the doctor and you get a physical diagnosis, it's all right for you to take your medicine and do whatever the doctor says in order for you to get better. But it's the same thing with your mental health.
00:16:09
Speaker
that mental health and Jesus go hand in hand and whatever you need to get back being healthy, you gotta do it because so many people in churches are suffering in silence because of the stigma associated with um seeking mental health.
Stages of Grief
00:16:29
Speaker
But in my mental health journey, I was able to talk to someone that was an outsider and even though I knew the stages of grief because I minored in psychology in college but knowing the stages of grief and actually going through the stages of grief are two different things because when you read about the stages of grief they're in a time they're like in a line
00:16:58
Speaker
But the reality is that they happen in any order, sometimes at the same time. It's a different experience. you know it's um One of the things that you said just really struck me because when I was a kid, one of the one of my one of the Bible verses that stuck in my head And I don't know why it stuck in my head, I have a theory about why, but it was weeping me tarry for night.
00:17:30
Speaker
but rejoicing comes in the morning, or joy comes in the morning, and it's like Psalm 35. And you know I think about, as somebody who also comes from an African-American background, I only remember my grandmother, my dad, all sorts of other people, I actually think my dad said it to me a couple weeks ago, that this too shall pass, and that suffering comes in seasons, like just like it did for Job. It really comes in seasons.
00:17:59
Speaker
by But one of the hardest parts of it is when you are in that seizing of suffering. It's, um you never you never, you feel like it's never gonna end. And your other point I think is a really, really, really great one about mental health help because I remember with my own mental health struggles were which were quite public and they were when I was living in New York and then I came back to the DC area mainly because my family was here for support.
00:18:29
Speaker
But I went out with several people from my old church, and they were very skeptical of like medicine and therapy, and they were trying to encourage me to pray. And I remember sitting in one of those conversations and just saying, don't you think God gave us medicine?
God's Help Through Medicine
00:18:45
Speaker
Don't you think God gave us therapy? like It's that old story that you hear about a man you know being in a flood, and he climbs to the top of the building, and a guy with a boat comes by.
00:18:57
Speaker
And the guy with the boat says, I'm here to rescue you. And he says, no, God will take care of it. And then you know somebody is comes by in a helicopter and and and says, I'm here to rescue you. And he says, no, no, no, no, no. God will god will take care of you. And then someone swims over to the building and says, I'm here to rescue you.
00:19:21
Speaker
and The guy says, no, God will take care of it. And the man dies and he goes to heaven and he asks God, why didn't you rescue me? And God says, I sent you a helicopter, I sent you a boat, and I sent you a swimmer.
00:19:35
Speaker
And I think it's really important, I think, for a lot of people, whether it's because of your faith or because, like you were saying in the African American community, we're much likely less likely to ask for help, to realize whether you believe in God or not, that we have these gifts in life that can help you. And I think that's like a really important lesson for people.
00:19:56
Speaker
Would you agree? Yes. they I feel that in the church, um it's people should be educated on the fact that your mental health is important. And don't listen to, when I was going through, I didn't listen to the ah legalism, the traditionalism. I just knew that I love God and I needed help and that God, like you said, God was going to send that help any way that I needed it, but I was going to get that help. So it's important that the church realizes it's not therapy or Jesus. Jesus and therapy go hand in hand. Yeah.
00:20:44
Speaker
I remember just different moments in my life where that's happened to me. I think about last year when my mom died, um somebody had noticed like an acquaintance had noticed that I had just sort of disappeared from conversations and reached out. And, you know, for the next six, seven months, that person was my rock and totally supported me through my loss and helped me manage and and deal with it. I just thought to myself, God, or really, I think about it like my mom. It was like my mom had left and then she had handed
00:21:23
Speaker
loving me off to this other person who is able to stand in the breach and give me the advice and the strength. So it comes in unexpected places. And one of the lessons that I learned from that, because I felt such a sense of hopelessness of that moment, is that you have to keep hope alive even in the darkest moments.
Inspiring Through Adversity
00:21:49
Speaker
How were you able to do that?
00:21:51
Speaker
and well um As I was going through my stroke journey, I was able to keep hope alive because as I said earlier, the stroke wasn't for me.
00:22:04
Speaker
But it was to inspire and motivate people that no matter what you go through in life, not to give up, not to give in or to give out, that God is faithful. And even going through my wilderness experience, he reminded me that he took care of me while I was in that nursing home for two years. And my daughter, um who was 18 at the time, and had to grow up really quickly that we never lost our apartment. She never went hungry. I had everything that I needed in the nursing home plus more. So God was like, I needed you to be in the wilderness so you can hear my voice because there were voices talking all around you and you couldn't hear me, but I needed for you to hear my voice.
00:23:03
Speaker
So, you know, God was there. God is so awesome that over 20 years ago, it was prophesied that I wasn't just local, but that I was global. And, you know, life happened and I'm thinking my plan is that, you know, God is going to heal me from my fear of flying.
00:23:28
Speaker
and I'm gonna travel all over to China, Africa, and everywhere spreading God's word. and um And life happened, like I said, all this disappointment, you know, ah my son passing away, um having a fire in my apartment complex, but my apartment didn't burn, but it was condemned, the whole row of apartments, going through a divorce,
00:23:57
Speaker
and finally having a stroke. So all of that was pushed in the back of my mind. About a year ago, my apostle um prophesied to me that I was an ambassador, so now I'm laying in my bed.
00:24:14
Speaker
And my whole right side is immobilized. And I'm saying, okay, God, I know that you promised me that you are going to heal me. So am I going to go global all over the world, beginning people after you heal me, what's going to happen? And then I didn't, you know, life went on. I'm laying in my bed.
00:24:34
Speaker
Matter of fact, that's where I'm conducting this interview from today in my bed. And um so in the very place where the enemy told me it was over, in the very place where the enemy told me that I would never preach again, in that very place, I looked on my test and I've spoken at over 300 conferences seminars and podcasts since January of 2024. And these podcasts and conferences were all over the world. So God used me right here from the place, right from my bed, to inspire and motivate people that you have two arms and you have two legs. To do what God has called you to do, don't put off tomorrow.
00:25:29
Speaker
for what you can do today, because when I laid down on April 23rd, 2021, I had plans for January 20, for April 24th, 2021.
Fulfilling Purpose and Dreams
00:25:45
Speaker
But when I woke up, ah I couldn't move my arm. I couldn't move my leg. I was mobilized. So all the plans that I had for January 24th,
00:25:58
Speaker
I couldn't do any of them. So don't put off today what put off for tomorrow what you can do today because the cemetery is full of unfulfilled potential failed dreams and and dreams and visions don't die with your purpose inside of you. Whatever it is that God has told you to do, whatever is your God-given dream, whether it's write a book, whether it's start a business, whether it's go back to school, whatever it is, do it.
00:26:38
Speaker
don't let nothing stop you from living your God-driven life. I found out that I embraced the things that I can still do and I accept the things that I cannot do. People that had strokes seem The doctors gave me a 99% chance of dying and a 1% chance of living. When you beat odds like that, you can't just lay on your bed of do nothingness and do nothing. I had a choice. I could be better or bitter and I chose to be better to live my best life. Like I said, I'm an author. So before I had to stroke,
00:27:28
Speaker
I wrote two books. After I had the stroke, I'd written three books with one hand on my telephone, so I haven't given up.
Pursuing Education Despite Challenges
00:27:41
Speaker
I still teach Bible study once a week. I just signed up for my master's program, and I'm gonna get my master's in divinity. Tell me God ain't good.
00:27:56
Speaker
One of the things that I kind of found interesting was your book, the 2017 One Dream Killers, which, you know, focuses on how we're all born dreamers, right? at Like the point that we're little children, whether we're asleep or we're awake.
00:28:14
Speaker
We dream about what we're going to be when we grow up. you know We become older and we dream about our careers, our goals, finding a love, all sorts of other things.
00:28:25
Speaker
and then There are things that get in the way of those dreams, right? They might be life circumstances. It might be a mental health thing. It might be trauma. It it could be different for everyone or a combination of them. And you say in the book that our dreams don't die a natural death, that they're murdered. And ah you know i I was just thinking about that concept and that idea that so many of your dreams were derailed by circumstances. But tell me about that idea that they get murdered. Do they get murdered by us? Do they get murdered by life? Like what? They get murdered by us?
00:29:07
Speaker
We are self-sabotage. We procrastinate. We doubt that we can do it. They get murdered by other people because other people will kill your dreams either intentionally or unintentionally.
Overcoming Self-Doubt
00:29:23
Speaker
guy um The devil has placed some intentional dream killers in our life But then there's the unintentional dream killers that states the obvious, but they make you begin. Like they'll see you say, I want to go back to school. And they'll say, are you too old to go back to school? And then you'll begin to be like, yeah, I am older than the average freshman. I haven't been to school in 20 years. Maybe I can't do it. And you begin to doubt your ability and then circumstances on the past.
00:29:59
Speaker
has killed in so many people's dreams that you're so hooked on the past that you can't get past it and look at your future. So I think that we we kill our dreams and we let other people kill our dreams. Yeah. and But your case, like and thinking about your life,
00:30:28
Speaker
Yeah. So many obstacles and roadblocks and some dream killers that definitely were not, um, not by your hand, but it got me thinking like one of your books, um, love marriage and divorce. You know, I, I often find like loss can be cascading. Um, like sometimes when people lose a child, it creates challenges and their marriages that are so difficult that it's almost you know too hard to to overcome, um that it can be a spiral over time that's very hard to figure out how to get out of. I think that being true from everything from drug addiction to mental health challenges, like how do you how do you break out of the spiral and keep things keep it from being like a domino where one domino falls and then a bunch of others fall?
Adapting to Life's Changes
00:31:22
Speaker
Then, like I got said, life happens, but you can't allow circumstances to kill your dreams to stop you. You gotta continue, no matter what. You gotta keep on reaching for your dreams, because circumstances are gonna happen. It's just like, if you plan the trip,
00:31:48
Speaker
And you make a wrong turn and you miss your turn. You don't pull over to the side of the road and say, I'm not leaving from the spot because I plan to make a turn back there and I missed it. So I'm sitting right here. No, you put it into your GPS system and the GPS system says,
00:32:10
Speaker
rerouting, rerouting. Well, that's what happens with God, that we have plans and we plan to do something this way, but God puts it in the GPS system, rerouting, rerouting, and we get to our destination. That's not the way that we planned. Our current situation is not our final destination.
00:32:38
Speaker
This is not the last chapter. And maybe we're not always aiming for the right destination that we were meant to be somewhere else. One one of the things I was curious about. So I think a lot of people cannot imagine the loss of a child. Right. And I think like, you know, everybody goes through the loss of a parent. And that is probably, you know, like you can never replace a parent, you can never the you know It's earth shattering and life changing. um we We lose relationships. like We lose our partners, um whether it's to death or it's to something else. and you know I think about like you know the difference between me and some of my friends who have not lost their parents. and
00:33:26
Speaker
You know, that idea that you were talking about before where there's like a stage of grief and people expect you to go through the stage of grief and that they don't understand. And I think someday if they lose their parents, when that day comes, they'll have a better understanding of it is that grief never ends, right?
Grief as Compassion
00:33:44
Speaker
Because I think people don't realize that what grief really is on a lot of levels, right? It's a lot of things. But one of the things that I've learned It really is, is that it's love that has nowhere to go, right? But you can take that love and you can find opportunities because, you know, one of the things that I really believe is that when you suffer loss, it helps you better understand other people's losses. And when you understand their losses, it helps you love them more.
00:34:24
Speaker
and I think about something like losing a child and I cannot imagine what it's like, but I also cannot imagine how it has an opportunity to build so much compassion and ability to help others. so For you, what what was it what was it like and then how did you find good that could come out of it?
00:34:51
Speaker
and and And what advice would you have for people who go through losses like that? So this grief that never ends can be, you can find peace in it, but also find good in it. Well, I turned my pain into passion after um my mental health journey.
00:35:14
Speaker
I started a scholarship and my son's honor that I show on friends and family scholarship. And to date, we've given out 17 scholarships to African-American boys of single parents who have been
Coping with Grief
00:35:34
Speaker
accepted into college. And we give them $500 that they can use towards their books or anything that they might need. So you have to find a way. Like I just taught last week a workshop on coping with grief and we did an exercise um called Memory Journaling and we closed our eyes and I had some
00:36:04
Speaker
think about that person's favorite scent. I had them think about their favorite color, their favorite holiday, and you know you write it down, um and that helps in order to deal with those emotions. ah And then there's things that will forever trigger you that it's okay not to go like,
00:36:30
Speaker
I don't like going um to weddings because my son never got the chance to get married. So when I go um to a wedding, I'm thinking about how would it have been you know to see my son get married. So I declined a lot of invitations um to weddings. I told them you know that no matter how close we are, that that's a trigger for me.
00:37:01
Speaker
So you have to be honest with yourself and others about your triggers, um five ways to um remember your loved one.
00:37:13
Speaker
And if it's doing something positive um that will keep your loved ones legacy alive, like my scholarship fund, you know, it gives me something to do and a way to keep his memory alive, not just for me, but for others. You know, you you mentioned this phrase before and it it's always resonated with me, you know, like,
00:37:43
Speaker
And I think with every loss, I get a deeper understanding of it. But you had said before that it's okay to not be okay, right? And I think for many of us,
00:37:58
Speaker
You know, like maybe we feel like it's okay in private to not be okay, but I think a lot of people struggle with that, that it's okay to not be okay
Expressing Mental Health Needs
00:38:06
Speaker
in public. A lot of people struggle with that. But when you say that phrase, when you say that it's okay to not be okay, would what do you mean? I mean, you know when people ask you, how are you doing?
00:38:21
Speaker
And people just say, okay, because that's what they expect people to say. But if you're not okay, it's okay to be, I'm not okay, I'm not strong today. Because people would say, oh, you're so strong. And I'm like, no.
00:38:42
Speaker
I'm not strong because I don't even know how I'm making it. I would never made it without God through that end. And seeking mental health is okay not to be okay. You don't have to keep it a secret. Oh, I'm gonna talk to my therapist. Or if you're on medication, it's time for me to take my anxiety medicine. After all the things that I've been through,
00:39:09
Speaker
I'm still on anxiety medicine until the doctor takes me off. I know that God is able to heal me. I know that God is with me because the word said he'll never leave me or he'll never forsake me even till the end of time. But sometimes it's, you know, you need a little bit more help.
00:39:34
Speaker
Yeah, and then like accepting that. Accepting. And then accepting, yeah. I'm a minister and people expect, I guess, as you know as a minister, you to be super, super strong and you know to say every day,
00:39:56
Speaker
um I just you know rely on God, yeah, rely on God and all the resources that God has given us to make sure, because it's said in his word that he wishes above all that we prosper and in good health. So is he just talking about our physical health or is then he also talking about our mental health because your mental health begins to affect your physical health ah health if you don't get help. Yeah, i you know, so that there's this woman, I don't even know her. I don't know her. i've I've only heard about her from her sister, and she doesn't know who I am. And, you know, like after my mom died, she's a young woman, she's got like kids. And, you know, she got diagnosed with cancer, pretty aggressive cancer.
Finding Strength in Struggles
00:40:55
Speaker
And, you know, she was the sister of my friend, so when they set up a donation, I was going to donate no matter what. And I remember this moment, like thinking about loving more deeply, because I love my friend and I'm going to help her sister. But I remember thinking to myself, like at one moment, you know, after I had donated, where I was like, I cannot imagine her children losing of her at that age, like um like um like I lost my mom.
00:41:30
Speaker
and and And for me, it's an example of how in grief, I'm able to love more deeply. And this woman in the updates that she gives like through the GoFundMe campaign was very open in one update recently where she talks about her mental health and she actually is a mental health professional. And one of the things that I said to her is I'm going to pray for like strength in her healing and that We need more people who are willing to be open about their mental health struggles cuz we have that same bias in the mental health community where therapist will not talk about them not being okay and i was so grateful that she had the care courage. um To share that.
00:42:17
Speaker
And I just think about something like the loss of my mom allows me to love this person I don't know more deeply. who And she's going through her own trauma and her own difficulties that allow her to love other people more deeply and send this positive message. And I just think about that piece of it, that powerful unbelievable piece of it, that all this joy and love comes from loss. That is amazing to me. and I think about your story and it's a very similar thing, like so much love and joy. Yes. Especially this last loss, this stroke, um because I can inspire
00:43:10
Speaker
and motivate so many people when they look at the fact that I've been through all of that and I'm still standing, in that I've been through the water, but the water didn't flood. I didn't drown in the water that I'm still standing. So I thank God that He chose me for this Job experience to go through and for him to get the glory because in everything I do, I let people know that if it wasn't for the love of Jesus, if it wasn't for God being in my life,
00:43:52
Speaker
I never would have made it through these things. It wasn't through my own strength that when I felt like giving up, when I felt like throwing in the towel, God wouldn't allow me. He held me close. So I went and let go.
00:44:09
Speaker
So I thank him for this experience. I thank him for using me and using my life to motivate and inspire people to never give up on their dreams that no matter what you go through in life, what the circumstances look like, what the situation is, don't give up on your dream. Don't give up on God because he's not going to give up on you.
00:44:38
Speaker
Jeremiah 29 and 11 says that God has a plan for our life, a plan to do us good and not evil. So I thank Him for the tears. I thank Him for the valleys because if I'd never been in the valley, if I'd never had any tears, I wouldn't be able to tell you that I know that you can make it through the death of a child. You can make it through a fire. You can make it through a divorce. You can make it through a debilitating illness and you can still show up
00:45:16
Speaker
and show up and do your best you that you can
Pursuing Dreams
00:45:20
Speaker
be. So yes, yes, yes, I thank God for my struggles. I thank God for my tears, my fears, everything I think and for. Is there something that you can think of for people who don't have faith in God and who aren't ready?
00:45:43
Speaker
um ready ready to make that connection. Is there something they can hold on to? They can hold on to their memories, their memories. If it's going through a loss, hold on to your memories. But the best thing ever that ever happened to me was Jesus. But until your faith gets there,
00:46:12
Speaker
Just hold on. Don't give up. Hold on to your dreams, the the you that you used to be, and give yourself permission to live again, to laugh again. and Thinking about your book, Dream Killers, and just thinking about what you said, like you had you talk about your dreams, right your dreams growing up and the reality being different.
00:46:38
Speaker
And if you stop dreaming, is that the path to restarting it? Holding on to that hope? Hold it on till you know that your dreams can come true. That even if they're bigger, the bigger your dream is,
00:46:58
Speaker
the more that God can work, the more that miracles can show up, the bigger your dream is. If it's something that you can't accomplish by yourself, then God is going to show up. Like for years, I kept saying, I want to be a writer. I want to be a writer. I want to be a writer. And then I kept pushing towards that dream. I kept seeing myself writing and eventually one day I became a writer. I kept saying I want to be ah a global speaker and I want to be a global speaker and I had a plan to get on planes and fly all over the world, but God used me right from my bed.
00:47:43
Speaker
boom i One of the things I wanted to give you a chance to you know just thinking about like your journey and holding on to your faith and giving so much love ah to the world and and in accomplishing your dreams. It's so impressive. I just want to see if you had any closing thoughts for people or things that when they're not strong that they can hold on to. Well, I don't know if it's
00:48:16
Speaker
I have just one last thing to say that talking to the dreamer and you, even those dreams that you rocked to sleep, you thought that you could have or have. You remember when you were a child?
00:48:35
Speaker
And you would do something because your friend dared you to do it. And you would come home and your parents would say, why did you do that, Jason? And you would say, um because so-and-so dared me. And they would say, well, if they dared you to jump off the roof, would you jump off or double? Oh, yes, I've heard that one a number of times. Would you do that? So on today, though, I double-dog dared your listeners to reap deep inside them and awaken the dreamer. I dare you to dream again on today.
00:49:16
Speaker
Yeah, and that makes complete sense to me. Well, I just wanted to thank you for coming on, and I appreciate where you you appreciate you coming on, but I also appreciate what you're doing for the world. like These are the kinds of world words that can heal and that can help, and and I really hope people get this out of those conversations. So just thank you, Alma.
00:49:40
Speaker
Thank you for inviting me on today and la allowing me to share just a portion of my testimony and give all glory to God and to let people know that your current situation is not your final destination. Don't never give up. Right. Right.
00:50:04
Speaker
Well, thanks again. um I'm looking forward to ah what's next in your journey.
Engagement with Listeners
00:50:11
Speaker
I want to let you know about a true crime podcasting meetup that we're going to be holding at the Hotel Ivy in downtown Minneapolis on Saturday, December 7th from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. We'll be doing a live show with some great true crime podcasts, have guests from the forensic science firm, Othrom and the Gabby Petito Foundation, advocates and some fun events. We're also going to do a live investigation into an actual case.
00:50:39
Speaker
If you're interested, you can go to our Facebook page to find the event sign up, or to www.silverliningshandbook dot.com to sign up there. There's no cost, and we hope to see you. If you'd like to join me and other listeners for discussions, we can be found on most social media platforms, including a listener-driven Facebook group called the Silverlinings Fireside Chat.
00:51:04
Speaker
For deeper conversations with our guests and live conversations with other listeners, you can join us at our Patreon at www.patreon dot.com forward slash the Silver Linings Handbook. Not only does joining Patreon help support the podcast, there's also exclusive content for all of you to enjoy. I'm Jason Blair, and this is the Silver Linings Handbook Podcast. We'll see you all again next week.