Unprocessed trauma does not simply disappear. It shapes our patterns, relationships, and even our view of God.

In this powerful conversation, I sit down with Mary DeMuth to talk about what happens when we suppress our stories and why healing begins with honest acknowledgment. Mary shares how untold pain keeps us stuck and how Jesus meets us in the very places we would rather avoid.

We discuss the courage it takes to confront past wounds, the role of community in restoration, and the truth that healing is not a one time moment but a layered journey. If you have ever wondered why certain struggles keep resurfacing, or if you feel hesitant to share your story, this episode will help you understand why your voice matters.

Your past does not get the final word. God is still writing your futu

Takeaways

• Suppressed trauma often shows up in repeated patterns and emotional triggers

• An untold story remains unhealed and keeps you isolated

• Naming your pain is a critical step toward freedom

• Jesus restores what shame tries to silence

• Healing requires safe community and honest conversation

• Forgiveness is layered and unfolds over time

• God can redeem even the most painful chapters for purpose

Connect with Mary at https://marydemuth.com

Grab the Rewire Your Mind: From Negativity to Joy- download here.

Grab the Joy Rising- Daily Gratitude & Joy Journal here.

Download My Free Joyful Living Devotional: https://kristinfitch.com/devotional

Ready to take your first step towards a more joyful, faith-filled life? Download our Reignite Your Passion Workbook and start living with purpose today!

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Is what's happened to you in the past holding you in that same pattern.

Today, my guest is going to share with us what happens when we keep our stories locked within, when we push them down deep and opt for a facade of normalcy.

Because that's what she's going to tell us, is when we don't grow and when we don't work on our stories, we tend to relive what's been done to us.

We repeat what we don't process.

And she says an untold story never heals.

So today we're going to talk about how do we actually work through our trauma and our hard seasons of things that have happened in our past, and how do we restore our lives, get re centered on Christ and step into the beautiful story he wants to weave into our future.

Welcome to Faith Fueled Living, the podcast that equips you to live well spiritually, emotionally, physically and purposefully.

Each week we'll dive into conversations and biblical truths to help you strengthen your faith, pursue meaningful work, care for your whole self, and live in line with what matters most.

Hi.

Today on the podcast, I would like to welcome our guest, Mary E. DeMuth.

She is a bestselling author of over 50 books.

She's an international speaker and the host of Pray Everyday Podcast.

She's also a literary agent.

And her newest book is called Restore youe Life.

How Jesus Reframes your Past, Rewrites your Present and Redefines your Future.

And I'm excited to have her on today because we're really going to talk about all the things that so many of us have walked through.

We're going to talk about how, yes, that can be traumatic or it can hurt, but how God just wants to take those things.

He wants to heal us.

He wants.

And he wants to write a better story with and through us.

And so we're going to talk about how do we do that and how do we step into everything God wants for us, even when it doesn't feel like there's any way he could use us or what we've been through?

So, Mary, welcome to the show.

It is great to be here.

And thank you so much for wanting to talk about this because I think it's an important topic.

Absolutely.

I mean, you've obviously written many books over the years.

Lots of different themes.

Obviously some have, you know, you know, themes that have woven throughout.

But what would you just say is your main reason for writing this one?

Right.

Restoring our lives and why it's so important?

Well, a couple years ago, the Lord just dropped that word into my mind and kind of, you know, as I was walking, taking a walk, and it just encapsulated really what he had done for me.

And up until that point, I had kind of felt like, well, the whole point of this thing is that Jesus heals me of this terrible past that I had.

But I. I was beginning to see that.

No, yes, that's true.

And I love being healed and walking through healing.

But that there was a so what to that story.

This restorying process is not just for me.

It's actually for you and for everybody else.

It's.

It's part of the act of discipleship.

It's part of the act of sanctification.

It's part of the act of community, where God uses those very broken places of our lives to bring light and life to people who are suffering.

And that has brought me a tremendous amount of joy.

I can't even quantify how much joy it's brought me to know that my own difficult story has been helpful to other people.

So true.

I mean, whether it's things I've talked about, you know, on.

On my podcast, obviously, you have your podcast and written a lot or so many guests I've talked to every one of them that shares their testimony and their story, whether it's about coming through a traumatic experience or hurt, whether it's betrayal, whether it's healing.

Right.

From some major illness.

All of them say that it's when they didn't just experience the change or the healing, but it's when they did exactly what you said, which is they spoke about it.

They were willing to be vulnerable about it and share their story because that gives others hope, that gives others a place to move towards right.

And that to know that this is possible for them if they haven't experienced that same thing yet.

And I think it's so powerful.

Yeah, I think, you know, the main reason we.

We walk through these stories and we talk about them later is so others don't feel so alone.

And I definitely feel like there have been many times where I felt really alone in my life.

And then someone will come along, and I will have thought I was the only one dealing with that.

And they share their story.

I'm like, oh, thank goodness.

There's this holy exit exhale of just like, I'm not the only one that has struggle, struggled with this.

We can be so isolated in the world that we live in.

Right now, we're living behind a screen.

It's becoming more difficult to hear each other's stories.

In an authentic way, I agree with you.

And when I have three college age or just beyond college age sons, and they're all at home at this point, and one of them has walked through depression and, you know, that kind of stuff.

And having shared that with friends or people I know, part of the reason I shared it was because I would have wanted somebody to tell me, this is what it looks like, or this is what I'm learning through this or.

Right.

But it's because if I can say something that would help someone else, it's when we are willing to say, I'm not going to be embarrassed or have shame or guilt around it, whether it's something we're going through or a family.

Right.

It's that I think this is important to share with other parents or other.

Right.

Or in your case, like what you've walked through.

And so what would you just share with people that might be hesitant to share their story as they've experienced healing or just, you know, God kind of taking it from them and restoring it?

What would you just share with people that maybe have been hesitant to share it because they still feel some of those holds upon them?

Yeah, I think part of that is fear, part of that's embarrassment.

Part of it is a lack of understanding who we are in Christ.

And so we.

We shrink back.

We don't feel worthy, we don't feel seen.

And so part of that work is just going back to realizing who we are in Christ.

And when we are settled as children of Jesus, we have more of an ability to not worry so much about our reputation and to be more concerned about other people hurting than we are controlling our narrative.

And I would say that also along those lines, there's some people listening to this podcast today who have a secret and they haven't let their story out.

And I often tell audiences, an untold story never heals, and if you never let it out, it won't get out into the light of day in order to have the beautiful sunlight shine on it and heal it and the Lord to shine on it and heal it in the beautiful power of community.

And so part of that is we have to begin by sharing our story.

And that needs to be with a safe person, not someone who's already trampled all over you.

And that's, you know, kind of a discussion for another time.

But that's the beginning of that healing, is being willing to share your story with one safe person.

100%.

I do want to jump into that in a second.

Right.

You talk about sort of how do we get or make sure we're in safe spaces or how do we even identify that?

But before we do.

Yeah, I thought, I love that you talk about that, you know, that our bodies remember, you know, and that these past hurts, traumas, unresolved feelings or things we've been through do keep us or can keep us from moving forward.

They can keep us stuck in that pattern.

And to me, I even like the.

I think it's interesting, the connection with mind, body and spirit and how when we don't heal these things, we start having the stress or we can have physical ailments from them because we're holding on to these things.

Right.

Instead of going to the Lord and, or doing the work we need to do with counselors or whoever.

But to release it, like you said, to address the things that we need to work through instead of, like you said, tamp them down.

And so I think that's really important for people to know.

Right.

This is not only spiritual, which is obviously probably the most important thing, but it's.

It's every layer of us that it's tied to.

I agree with that.

And that's why health is so important.

One of the things that I try to push people a little bit with is I've heard people kind of like, push back, like, well, I don't want to be self absorbed and I don't want to look at this thing because it seems selfish to me.

I've got, you know, too many things on my plate.

This is the last thing I want to look at.

But my encouragement is, is that your family needs a healed you.

Your children need a healed you.

Your husband or wife needs a healed you.

Your aunts, uncles, your cousins, your friends, they all need a healed you.

And so if you cannot heal for your sake and you're just like, well, I think this is selfish.

Heal for their sake.

Because you will be changing direction and you will be putting a holy stake in the ground saying, no more.

Is this happening on my watch?

By the power of the Lord within me, I'm not going to, you know, bootstrap it myself.

But, you know, I see that with my kids, like, in terms of becoming a different parent than the way I was parented.

I just stuck that stake in the ground.

I can't.

That was devastating.

My childhood was absolutely consumingly devastating.

And I had no one to help me.

And I made a determination with lots of tears and lots of weakness of, I don't want that.

I can't do that to my kids.

And so by the grace of God.

I made lots of mistakes, but I didn't duplicate the home I was raised in.

Yeah.

So powerful.

Yeah.

And so let's talk about a little bit about spaces, because, you know, as you talk about in your book, in.

In other books as well, but we can often find ourselves in a space that doesn't feel safe for us for many reasons.

Right.

It could be someone that's.

That work that's in our environment.

It can just be so many things.

But would you just share with us about people that might be finding themselves a situation?

They can't really name it, but they just know something about it just feels off or it's, you know, causing them real angst, I guess, you know, that's.

That's really.

You've answered your question.

The question.

For me, it's this, paying attention to your body.

For me, my nerves go to my stomach.

And so if I walk into a situation and my stomach turns, I used to just be like, come on, Mary, just deal with it.

Just push through.

And I would neglect what my body was telling me.

And now I'm learning I'm not perfect at it, but I'm learning more to trust my gut and to know that if something doesn't feel right, if something feels off, there's no harm in stepping back.

There could be harm in stepping forward and entrusting yourself to that environment or those people.

So just give yourself a little break and step back.

Observe it more.

Maybe talk to someone else about it.

And don't jump in until you feel safe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then would you say that there are certain things.

Look, when you found yourself in a space that didn't feel you could be yourself or that didn't feel safe or a narcissistic person, were there things besides what you just shared?

For instance, was it.

Was it journaling about a situation or just trying to uncover it?

Because I think sometimes, like, you start to identify that you had a physical.

Your body trying to tell you something.

Right.

But if we're not having something that's maybe so obvious, or at least not on the surface, do you find that people trying to kind of dig into it a little bit more is helpful?

Yes.

And.

And it doesn't.

It's not just your body.

Your mind will think something, too.

So I'll give the example of we left a church a couple years ago and turned into an unsafe environment.

And I. I had the stomachache and all that stuff, but I also had this, like, something's not right.

And what that person said was weird.

And so what I did was I went outside of the church to some wise friends because I needed a.

A perspective that was on the outside, that was not biased.

And I also didn't really want to bring any sort of discord.

So I went outside of the situation or outside of the environment and started asking questions.

Is this normal?

What would you think if this happened to you?

Are these statements correct?

And that just helped me not feel so crazy because we're.

Especially when you're in a church, when you're in an environment and you're swimming in it, it's really hard to have discernment about whether that's safe or not.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I can see that.

Well, very good.

So what else would you just share with us about your book as far as how you want to encourage people to look at their own life, their story, look at those inciting incidents, the different pivotal points, and what can we do with it?

Right.

So that we step into, you know, our best future, if you will.

Yeah, I think being curious about it is great.

And also creating timelines is lovely.

Like, even physically writing down this happened, this happened.

Those are the.

The, you know, all of the obstacles on the way up to the climax of the story.

And, you know, we're.

In a way, I kind of look at it that the climax of the story could possibly be meeting Jesus.

And the denouement, which is the working out of that climax, is.

Is where we are today.

Like, this is the working out of the climax, but we also have to go before the climax and see, you know, all the things that have happened and even the things that have been difficult since then of.

Of asking, what is the redemptive thread in this?

I was recently reminded of a practice I did when was in college, and I went to college in the Pacific Northwest.

That's where I'm from originally.

And if you know anything about the Pacific Northwest, it rains all the time.

And so we had this internal track that was like an eighth of a mile long.

And I would just run the track when it was raining outside.

And the Lord just had me do something during that time.

You know, I was only like 19 years old, so every lap that I did, I would recount that year of my life.

Year one, year two, year three, year four.

And initially it was just recounting all the bad things.

And then as I continued, it was find God's intersection in that.

What did he do to help?

What did I learn?

What am I using now as a resource because of what I went through there?

And so that's just a really interesting practice that I did as a runner, but we could do in our journal or talk with a friend.

It would be a really interesting conversation to have with a friend just to say, I'm going to give you three sentences about God's faithfulness when I was 1 and 2 and 3, and keep going from there.

I love that.

Yeah.

And the book, the Gift by Edith Eager.

She's a psychologist.

I don't know if you're familiar with her, but she talks about.

She was a Holocaust survivor, but she talks about all the people she's worked with and even through her own experiences that so many times we can get stuck before we heal with the why me?

Right.

Like, why did this happen to me?

Which I think we probably all ask that about probably many things in life.

But she says it's when we.

We do the healing, of course, but then we shift our question or framework to what now or what's next.

In other words, that hope.

Right.

Coming alive.

Like, seeing that, yes, something in our past has happened to us, but we aren't the thing that happened to us.

And so I guess for you, what would you just share with people?

Because I think it is easy to take on the identity of something that's happened to us or a diagnosis.

It can be anything.

And of course, you know, you know, we want to have the identity in Christ, but what would you just say to people that maybe you're still holding on to an identity from something that's happened to them or that they're.

They've been identified as.

That's a great question.

Thank you for asking it.

I think as I think about that, I think about those years of healing where I was slogging and I was crying out, how long, oh, Lord, how long?

And I just want to dignify the person listening today who's in the slog of.

Is very normal to be in the darkness for a while.

The St. John of the Cross had a dark night of the soul.

We're all going to go through that.

So I just want to say that first, and then I want to think about the now and the not yet.

So here we are now, and we are loved and held and forgiven and all of these wonderful things, children of God, all of that identity.

And the not yet, as you mentioned, is that working out what's next?

But what I've had to come to is, yes, that's great.

And yes, I'm seeing fruit in my ministry, but there is an eschatological hope of one day all These tears that I've been crying during Epstein file.

Things that I have been weeping.

Yeah.

How long?

Oh, Lord, how long?

When is there going to be justice?

It may not happen here.

It won't happen in a perfect way.

And so I have to set my mind on that eschatological hope of new heavens, new earth, tears wiped away.

No more cancer, no more pain, no more pedophiles.

All those things.

And that helps me to endure.

Yeah.

So good.

Yeah.

So it's kind of, you know, that setting our sights, you know, both in, you know, not the.

Not the world we live in.

Right.

You know, the.

The eternal and then also the.

We may not always understand why things happen too.

Right.

In other words, at some point, like you said, we can't take on the weight of every single thing in the world.

It doesn't mean we shouldn't have causes, and it doesn't mean things shouldn't upset us, but it does mean that we can't take it all on in a.

In a daily physical way.

Right.

And so we have to start looking at how do we still live in this world and have hope and know what's our part of these things to carry or to.

To move forward with, I think.

And that's where we have to take our souls seriously, in the state of our souls and be very cautious about what we put in there.

And, you know, maybe the Lord is calling you to a social media fast or a news cycle fast, because I have just found that knowing more information about the terrible things in the world, because news is only terrible things.

I mean, pretty much they don't say something wonderful happened today like this disaster happened.

And since I cannot do anything for most of those things, causes me to feel very helpless about the state of the world.

And it also immobilizes me.

It also puts heaviness on my soul.

And Jesus reminds us that we are to give him our burdens.

And he reminds us that the yoke that he gives us is light.

But, boy, I feel heavy in the news cycles.

And so I've had to say, okay, how do I, as a discipleship of Jesus, steward my eyes?

Yeah.

Because I cannot carry this anymore.

Yeah.

And I. I've found that too.

And years ago, I stopped watching most TV news, Right.

And I'll just read small amounts of it, right.

Because.

Yeah.

Even during COVID Not specifically because of COVID but I found myself in these worry or anxiety patterns.

My son came home from college with depression.

Like, there's just too many layers.

But the point is, I didn't realize the creep that had come in, right?

I was spending more time in my day.

Consciously or it wasn't.

People on the surface wouldn't have known, but in a state of worry or what if, what if this happens?

Or what?

And I really had to take that to the Lord.

But I also had to start changing my habits, right?

And I wasn't being consumed by the news, but it didn't matter.

It was only, like you said, heavy and concerning and.

And so the other thing recently I found is I was having a hard time in the last couple months doing my solo episodes.

Like I was doing tons of interview episodes, no problem.

But what I found is I had stopped.

I was still doing my daily morning spiritual practices, but in the past, I had been spending more time sometime in my day reading Christian authors, like, doing more in depth stuff related to my faith.

When I had pulled away from some of that, I was.

The other things, the bits were consuming me.

In other words, I had to dig deeper for the type of work that, you know, we're doing in the world.

I had to dig deeper in the things that fill my soul up.

And I minimize or turn down the volume on the other things so that I could actually do and speak into what God's telling me to do.

And so for me, I had to really say, like, what's changed in my life?

Why don't I feel like I can.

I didn't have the capacity, I felt like, or the, or the thought to be able to do those episodes.

But when I started going back to some earlier practices, that changed.

And then it just kind of started, you know, becoming easier again.

But it was, it was that whole choosing the amount I was letting in of these different, you know, these different sources, if you will, of information and what's filling me up, if you will.

Yeah.

And I think we need to remember that the enemy of our souls is really good at distraction and really good at causing us to look elsewhere rather than Jesus.

And the work that God calls us to is a deep work.

It's not superficial.

Like you just said very well and articulated well is we need long periods of time of study.

We need, as Cal Newport calls it, deep work.

We need to tend to our souls in that way.

Because if we're on a diet of, let's just say, candy, if I just have a diet of candy, I'm not going to be very effective in this world.

I have to eat a balanced diet and I have to take care of myself.

And it goes for our sources that we're looking at as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

I also wanted to let you know, if you haven't already grabbed my Rewire your Mind workbook.

It's completely free.

Head over to KristinFitch.com and go to Workbooks and it's at the bottom of the page.

But it is, it is a great and easy tool that you can use to really get behind what's going on with your thinking and your thoughts and how you can start shifting those.

There's a check in chart and a joy tracker that really help you start shifting your mindset and your thoughts.

It's super powerful.

And when you sign up for that, you'll also start getting my Faith Friday emails that will lift you up and encourage you from a faith lens for all parts of your life.

I would love for you to grab that because I think that aligns so well with what we talked about today.

So, speaking of that, so what are some of the daily practices or spiritual habits that you have that you find have been helpful to you now or just in this current season you're in?

You know, journaling has always been there for me.

It's been a practice I've done since I was a little kid and so that's been lovely.

I know not all people are writers like that, but it's helped me tremendously.

Also, just conversations with other Christ followers and when I'm in a conundrum about something and I cannot untie it and there's a big, you know, there's 58 knots and I'm very frustrated by them.

Someone else helps me untie them because they can see the knot better than I can and, and then reading the Bible.

For me, I've been doing a practice of reading the Bible rapidly, either the whole Bible in two months or the whole Bible in three months.

And I do that once or twice a year.

And that has changed my life completely.

I'm completely a different Christ follower because of it, because I also study the Bible deeply.

So don't get me wrong, but this helps me understand the story arc of Scripture.

Talking about story, the narrative of scripture is profound and we will not see connections between the Old and New Testament or even within the Old Testament if we aren't reading large swaths of it at a time to be able to logically make those connections.

I love that.

Are you, are you.

Do you just have your own system for that or are you following like a plan or.

I created a plan and I have a book called the 90 Day Bible Reading Challenge.

And so I just go through my own Book.

I figured, well, that's easy.

I'm not about it.

I love that.

Great.

So good.

Okay, so what would you just share with us that we haven't already covered, that you just want to share with us about Restory and, you know, just the, I guess the encouragement or thing that you want to make sure we get across to listeners that you think might be helpful?

You know, I think for me, it has been that I have.

I've learned that I tend to let little setbacks, you know, sideline me, and I catastrophize them.

And so recently, for instance, I was watching a TV show, and in the TV show, there was a father that interacted very positively with his daughter, and I just burst into tears, and I was like, gosh, I wish I would have had that.

And it was just that layer of grief, and it never really goes away.

It's always there.

It's better, but it's there.

And in the past, I would have said, oh, I must not be healed at all, because I cried at that show.

When in reality that's just another trigger.

It's just minimize it and say, Yep, I'm broken.

100% of the humans are broken.

Yes, I have a hard story.

Yes, this triggered it.

It doesn't mean that it's a catastrophe.

I will move on from this.

And so my encouragement is, don't let those little weasels and those little rats and those little triggers make you think that you aren't farther than you are also in terms of forgiveness.

So that journey has been really hard for me.

And so I'm going to choose to forgive that layer today.

And.

And so just doing that is going to really give people a really lovely foothold to be able to keep moving forward.

So true.

Yeah, I mean, I.

There was an example in my own life where I didn't realize that I had any unforgiveness towards someone in my family, but I felt hurt by them.

Right.

Is what I should say.

And it wasn't purposeful.

It's like a long as they all winding story, but I didn't even realize until something happened where somehow I look like the bad guy and I wasn't actually the one involved in the story, you know, But I was like secondary.

But the point is, is I thought I had released it and forgiven it and let go of the hurt until something else happened, related and it came flowing back.

Right.

And so the point is, it took me, you know, two or three years of just couple things over time to

I would wake up in the night

on occasion, I'd be thinking about it.

Right.

Because once again, I felt like, I think, a victim.

Right.

Or the person, like.

But I didn't even do anything.

It doesn't matter.

That's not how the world operates.

And so the point though is I believe I forgave the person and I released it.

But it doesn't mean.

To your point that things don't still hurt or feel sharp.

Right.

Or make us have tears and you know.

But it's a process, isn't all of it the healing, I mean, I'm sorry, healing from trauma or from an illness, or healing from hurt or betrayal.

All of it's a process.

I mean, yes, you can have it released, but I'm saying we're human still and so we're going to feel the things.

And so I think that's such a good example that you gave, which is you still might have things that stir your soul or make you cry or trigger you, but that doesn't mean that you haven't grown or gained from something.

It just means that you're still human and you still feel things, things.

And then you might have to come back to God and say, I thought I forgave here and maybe I did, but maybe I need a little more work.

Right.

Maybe I need to do a little more here and that that's okay.

And we all probably have experienced and will have those things.

But to your point, we need to look at it from a different perspective, I think.

Yeah.

And just to be kind to yourself too.

I feel like we're harsher with ourselves, but we wouldn't have that kind of script with our best friend.

And so we have to learn how to be kind to ourselves too.

So true.

So I guess one thing I would ask you is what about when you are walking through with your.

A friend or a loved one and they're struggling with some of these things.

Do you have any just words of encouragement for us there with how do we walk beside somebody when they're doing the work they need to do to heal from something?

I've had enough experience in life where people tried to solve my problems or give me Christian cliches that I know that that's not the answer.

And really, the best gift and one of the most beautiful decorations of love per se is our ability to be curious and ask questions.

And so instead of trying to work it out in your mind while a person is telling their story about how it might be fixed or how God intersects it, just keep asking questions.

How did that make you feel?

Gosh, that must have been hard.

What did you do next?

Or just having this curiosity.

I feel so loved when someone asks me questions that clarify what I'm going through.

I'm not looking for a solution.

I'm looking to be heard.

And so, yes, that is a hard, hard thing to cultivate, but it is, it is a, I believe, a fruit that the spirit gives us of this curiosity.

So true.

I love that.

Okay, so what would be just your.

As we start wrapping up your last just, I guess, message you'd like to leave the listeners with today, you know,

the Lord sees and he hears and he loves to heal.

His way of healing is usually weird and counterintuitive and not the way that you expect.

And so part of that process of getting, being restoried is letting God be creative and kind of surrendering it and saying, I, I want to be healed.

I want to be better for my family.

I want to walk without this limp anymore.

But I also know you are a creative God who created everything that we see and you can do immeasurably, immeasurably more than I ever asked for.

So could you just, I just give you permission to be creative and help me to be expectant of the weird and amazing ways that you're going to intersect my life, to do good things.

I love that.

Okay, so last two wrap ups.

One is all the things you've done writing books, podcasting, speaking, and being a mom, a wife.

What would you just say as your life has been restoried, that intersection of where Christ continues to meet you, what would you just say?

Has been maybe one of the biggest takeaways that you've, you've had just as your story keeps being.

Yeah.

Revised.

Yeah, that's a great question.

I think the relentlessness of God's love.

And I've struggled with that my whole life.

I, you know, that question.

I think a lot of us, if we're really honest, will say, does God really love me?

I know he loves you, but does he really love me?

And so that struggle continues, but it gets a little like the, the day is dawning a little brighter every day.

And I'm beginning to see that he, he just flat out loves me because he created me.

And I, I, I guess I go back to being a mom of I have three kids, too.

They're adult kids.

I love them.

Do they make mistakes?

Do they break my heart sometimes?

Do they do crazy things?

Yes, absolutely.

They don't love those things, but I still love them and I still want to be in a relationship with them.

And I am waiting, you know, in case there, you know, there's a broken relationship.

I'm still waiting.

I'm like the prodigal father who's waiting on the hilltop, waiting for his son.

And so if that is true of me and I am fallible, then it has to be true of our God, who is infallible and all loving so much.

So true.

And yes, as a parent, I 100 relate to that sentiment.

So.

Okay, last question.

What would you say is fueling you right now in your season of media blitzing and your new book coming out is what's just fueling you, whether it's your faith or just your life and keeping you joyful and expectant?

You know, right now it's my friendships.

God has been so good to give me some really strong, joyful, growing friendships of people who just love Jesus.

And in our transition from our former church to the church that we're going to now, God just kind of upended everything.

We lost all that, you know, all those relationships.

But he has beautifully replaced.

Not that I don't mourn, but he's beautiful.

Beautifully replaced with some really amazing friendships.

And that's bring me, bringing me so much joy.

I love that.

You know, definitely that is a gift he's given us, isn't it?

Friendships, whether they're for life or seasons or whatever.

So last thing, where Mary, tell us, where's the best place for people to learn more about the new book, about the podcast, all your other books and all that good stuff?

Yeah, you can find me@marydemuth.com and then I'm on socials pretty much everywhere at Mary DeMuth.

And that's where I'm at.

Wonderful.

Well, thank you for taking the time to join us today and, you know, definitely share a little bit about your book and about your story and just giving us hope as we walk through our seasons in restoring our own lives.

Thank you.

It's been a joy if you enjoyed today's episode.

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