Christine Stone experienced a horrific accident that changed her life forever. Through the process of healing from that accident, Christine met God in all new ways for herself, and also allowed her pain and brokenness to be used to empower other women to seek and receive counseling for their own stories.

Christine is a hopeful, honest, and strong voice to speak to the incredible truth that God is present and beautiful to each one of us, even in unspeakable hardship. She has been integral in the Collide story and we can't wait for you all to hear Christine's heart and connect with her amazing story of one woman's pain being transformed into a ripple effect of healing for hundreds of women.

You know, I had. I had this view of safety that God would, you know, protect me, and to have something like that happen just totally shook that.

That part of my relationship with him. How was he taking care of the young girl that died and her family? Like, how was that all? How can I make sense of that in my fai?

Welcome to the Collide Podcast. We're a growing community of everyday chicks colliding with Jesus in our mess, our pain, our joy, and our stories.

We value showing up as we truly are. So that's what you'll find here.

Walls and masks being torn down so that we can allow Jesus to meet us where we truly are and hear about other women doing the same. We can't wait to collide with.

Welcome to the Collide Podcast.

I'm Willow Weston, the founder and director of Collide, and I'm so excited to introduce all of you to my good friend and a true hero of mine, Christine Stone.

Christine was in the original Collide Bible study that began years ago, and she was a college student and one of maybe 20 some college students that showed up at my door. I thought maybe there'd be four because I said yes to mentor one girl, and she said she wanted to bring some friends along.

I opened up the door, and there were a ton of college girls, and Christine was one of those. So welcome, Christine.

Thank you for that introduction.

Christine, it was such a joy to share that experience with you when you were a college student.

And I'm wondering, like, when you look back at those times in what you ladies coined the Wounded Collision Bible Study, how did that experience in that group shape and transform you?

One thing that was huge for me, I grew up in the church. I grew up reading the Bible, praying. But I. I don't think Jesus really felt real and personal and caring to me until. Until that Bible study.

We looked at all the stories of Jesus colliding with people, and you just made it so real, like.

Like these were real people with stories and with real pain and history and Jesus running into that and meeting those people where they were and giving them just what they needed in that moment. And the New Testament became real for me in that Bible study.

And just the community of women that we had and the support and as we went along, the willingness of. Of the girls to share their stories and their own pain and to be real with each other. It was a really beautiful thing.

Yeah, it was.

I think back to it and I just picture the living room filled with all these different girls who had different stories, and I Remember some that had self image issues and eating disorder struggles, and one that was abused by her father and others that just didn't feel like there was anything unique about them. And they struggled with that and others that struggled with faith and doubts and being mad at God. And it was a super cool time of gathering together.

Yep. Yeah. Really something special.

Yeah. And seeing everybody run into Jesus and allow him to meet them and then see their lives changed was pretty crazy.

Yep.

So we were in that Bible study for how long do you think?

I want to say three years.

Yeah, several years. And you guys were moving towards graduating from college at some point.

And one night I was on my way to my kids open house at school and my phone was blowing up and I didn't answer it because I was trying to be a good, you know, engaged mom. And finally I was like, why is my phone going crazy with every girl in the Bible study calling me?

And I answered it and I think it was Becca who was in our Bible study. And she said that you were in the ER in a horrific accident. And I'll never forget that night, as I know. Of course you won't.

But I drove to the ER and went in and your parents were in the room and you were in a horribly tragic accident to no fault of your own. And a child was killed in that accident.

Yeah.

And that was a moment that changed your whole life. Can you describe that a little bit?

It's interesting. As I hear you talk about it and talk about the emergency room, I go right back there. Life just changes in a moment. You know, I just.

I remember just feeling so scared. I remember in the days following, I'd look at myself in the mirror and I just like looked different. I looked older and more sad.

And, you know, I grew up praying for safety. Like as a little girl, I would pray against tornadoes and earthquakes and like all these things that were totally unfeasible as a 5 year old.

But, you know, I think I had a lot of anxiety that I carried with me even as a child. And so I would pray against those things. And, you know, I had this view of safety that God would, you know, protect me.

And to have something like that happen just totally shook that, that part of my relationship with him. And, you know, what does it mean for God to take care of me? And is he still taking care of me even though this horrible thing has happened?

How was he taking care of the young girl that died and her family? Like, how was that all?

How can I make sense of that in my faith with this thing that had just happened, and I was kind of thrown into this world of anxiety, and it became really hard for me to get in a car and to drive. You know, whether I was driving myself or somebody else. I plan my routes hours in advance of.

Of where I was going to go and how I was going to get there to try and keep myself safe. Like, I would have this, you know, try and control it, even though you can only do that to some extent. Yeah. So there was.

There was a lot there to work through.

And what do you feel like? Because how many years ago was this?

Eight.

Eight years.

What do you feel like when you look back over the eight years has helped you with that sort of debilitating fear and the anxiety that kind of invites you to control things and keep yourself safe?

I. I jumped right into counseling, and that made the biggest difference in my life. I don't know where I would be without it.

Um, I had some really caring professionals who walked me through it, and we looked at how it intersected with my faith, and we looked at practical solutions and, like, what can we actually do today to make this better? And just worked on it for a lot of years. Yeah, I had some really, really good people come alongside me.

I feel like there's probably so many women who are listening, who can resonate with the struggle to believe that God's there taking care of you, protecting you, still real when they've undergone some sort of tragedy or suffering.

And I'm wondering, you know, I've watched you over the years, and you've still clung on to God and you've still held out hope and faith and belief, and you into him instead of run away from him. And you've still claimed his promises and his character. How and how have you managed to be able to do that?

I feel like part of it is throughout my life, I've had little collisions with Jesus where he's been very real to me. The one story that always comes to mind, and this was long before the accident. I was a lot younger on a drive to Bellingham.

It was in the fall, and the colors were just brilliant. Like, it was that prime time of fall, where it's just amazing. And I just remember looking around and going, like, what is this for? Like, why?

Like, why is this all here? And it wasn't an audible voice. It wasn't like I heard God speak to me, but I just had this feeling, and I knew it was God saying, it's for you.

Like, this is for you. And so when I've had Those moments where it's been easy to doubt and. Hard to trust.

There's been those times like that drive through in the fall leaves where you just have to cling to that and trust that that's the God that you serve, and he's not changing based on what. What you go through.

That's such a good word, Christine, because I feel like, you know, to have to go back and kind of hang your hat on. But this is what I know about God, and this is what I've experienced about God.

You have to kind of remind yourself what you know to be true when you're having a hard time believing it to be, so.

Exactly.

Yeah. Wow. I. I ran into a woman at an open house just two months ago, and she was. I don't really even know her.

She just started talking to me, and she's a single mom and totally broken up. She said that she has breast cancer, and she has a cancer in another place in her body.

And here she is raising her two daughters, and here we're standing outside the hall in high school, and she just starts breaking down and crying and telling me her story. And she said she took her two daughters to church. I don't know that she's a regular church attendant.

She said she went to church and she left the service, and she looked at her daughters and she said, I don't even know if God's real. I don't even know if Jesus Christ is real, because why would I have this cancer?

And she starts crying to me in the middle of this high school hall, you know, last month. And I'm thinking, oh, my gosh. Whoa, this is really intense. And then I just stood there and let her cry. And she said.

And her daughter, her high school daughter looked up at her and she said, mom, you've always told me that when I only see one set of footprints, that that's God's and that God's carrying me. And right now, God's carrying you. And you have to believe that.

And the reason why I'm sharing that story with you is because I love that this woman, who isn't even sure where she's at in her faith, had this experience where God used her own daughter to remind her of what she knows to be true about God that she at one point believed.

And I feel like that's what we can do for each other, too, when we go through tragedy and suffering and we begin to doubt that he's here and he's real.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, so I brought. I brought a binder with me.

It's a binder of all the letters and cards and beautiful words that people wrote to me when I was going through that time. And one of the things I have in there is from the first Bible study we had after, after the accident. And we all sat together in my living room.

And I don't remember what exactly the question was that you asked. I think it was something like, what does Christine need to hear right now? And everybody wrote on post it notes what they felt like I needed to hear.

And it was beautiful words about who God was in that moment for me or who. Who I was. And I think you're exactly right. Like, we need to speak those things to each other.

Yeah. It's funny, I forgot about that night until you're just now telling. Telling me about it.

And I do remember it clearly that we all wrote on those post it notes. And I do think sometimes we have to hold each other up in faith and belief. Yeah. Well, it's been amazing to see you continue to cling on to Jesus.

And I know that you mentioned counseling played a huge role in the supportive community and you going back and remembering things you know to be true about God.

It seemed like there was a point, and I don't know how many years after this, where you came to me and told me that you were being given some money from this accident and you, you didn't want it and you were struggling with that and didn't feel like there's anything that could possibly redeem the loss of a child or their parents. And that was a real struggle for you.

Yeah.

And then you said that you and your husband Chandler went and prayed separately. Can you share a little bit about what that looked like for you guys to lean into what God had for you in that?

Yeah, I'd love to say it was some, like, amazing spiritual moment where we went to separate rooms and shut the doors and then met and we were like, God told us the same thing.

But it was really beautiful because I was in such need of confirmation from God of what to do and how to handle that money from the insurance company. And so we did. We said, let's think about it and pray about it. And when we came back together to talk about it, it was the same amount of money.

And that was exactly what I needed. I needed that confirmation from God and from my husband that this was what we were to do with the money.

And what was that?

Oh, sorry.

No, you're great. I think it'd be cooler for it to come out of your mouth than mine.

So we knew we wanted to do something, something to help other people with a part of that money and went back and forth about what that would be. And I realized that the most helpful thing to me in that time was, was going through counseling myself.

And I wanted that to be available to other women because in my life I was young, I was working a part time job, and in order to go to counseling, I was scraping by each month like it was the last part of my paycheck. And it was such a priority to me that I was willing to do that.

But I knew that there are plenty of women that that's not even an option for them, but that they have these stories of pain and hurt and could really use someone to walk alongside them in that and really dig deep into it and work through it. And so we spoke with you actually about this idea to have a counseling program where women could get financial help in order to see a counselor.

Yeah.

And for those of you who are listening, just to catch you up, if you don't know the collide story, I was mentoring a girl that then became the Wounded Collision Bible study and Christine was in that. And then years later, it had grown into several hundred women coming to these events and colliding with Jesus.

And we were putting on classes and what started to happen and, and you couldn't, you couldn't write this story. I mean, we were just talking about this, Christine and I, that you couldn't write, write this whole thing the way that it happened.

But we had so many people because I was sharing my story of brokenness that collide and my story of needing Jesus. And we're inviting all these other women to be real and share their brokenness. All these women were coming out with their brokenness.

We're all broken. It's not, not that we're attracting especially broken people, Clyde, it's just that we're being real about it. And we started being real about it.

And next thing you know, I was meeting women at coffee shops hour after hour every day of my life. And these pastors wives were coming out with their deep seated loneliness because they're not sure anyone, you know, likes them for who they are.

And women who'd been bulimic, who'd been puking for six years and never told anybody, and women who'd been cheated on their husbands and women who didn't feel a sense of purpose in their life and all this brokenness started coming out and I was feeling overwhelmed and I was praying about, oh my goodness, Lord, what Do I do with all these broken women coming to me who've been sexually traumatized and who are suicidal and who are cutting and all of these things. And at the same time, you were in this horrific wounded collision.

And here years later, you were being given this money that you didn't want and your husband and you prayed about it and led you to say, why don't we give a seed gift to start this counseling program?

And so we were able to get a network of Christian counselors together and form this program where when women come to our events, and this has been going for years now, where we just have removed the stigma of counseling, we've removed the stigma of brokenness. And it's a huge part of our message that Jesus wipes brokenness all over himself. He enters people's mess, he enters their pain.

He wants to get his hands dirty. He wants to be in the middle of our life and he wants for us healing.

And so we've taken away all the obstacles of women being able to say yes to healing. And it was in a huge part due to you and Chandler giving us that seed gift to start this counseling program.

So now any woman who needs help and doesn't have the financial means to get it, who comes to our events, we can say, hey, we want to remove that obstacle in the way of that to get help. Pretty amazing. I want to read to you some quotes from some women who have gone through our counseling program. Christine, here's one.

I reached out to Kolide out of desperation because of a severe battle with anxiety and some depression.

In the brief time that I've been in counseling, I've learned to form healthy attachments and take baby steps towards building deeper relationships with healthy people. It's a daily process. But I've changed a lot since I fully surrendered my life to Christ and found healing in safe emotional spaces.

And one of those was collide. Another one. Going to a counselor has been an incredible privilege.

It is helping me find my voice again after giving up ground to the lies that I believed. I'm very much still in the midst of the process, but I have to believe that God will finish what he started. I'm learning and I'm thankful.

The connection I received through Kolide to a God fearing and God loving counselor has been a great blessing in my life. There's another one. I was always one of those people who felt like she never needed counseling. I was too strong for that.

I always thought while years of avoiding healing and the proper coping mechanisms have left me scarred and hurting I'm glad I finally took the chance and utilized Clyde's program. Otherwise, I'm afraid I would have no idea where to begin. Counseling has opened my eyes to how much I've been hurting myself.

It has given me the tools and the knowledge to know when I can say no and to extend grace towards myself. I'm like a counseling evangelist now. I think everyone needs counseling. And I'll read you one more.

I really don't know what I would do without the help Clyde provided me with. I was overwhelmed by support and have found therapy to be so helpful and affirming.

I'm still in the midst of things, but feel confident that I can handle this. I'm overwhelmed by this gift that was given to me, and I hope that others can benefit from this as much as I have.

I hope that I will have the opportunity to pay it forward and be there for someone else in a similar situation. Thank you, Goliath.

Jesus.

Christine. Yeah. How do you feel hearing those stories?

Well, the first thing I feel is I feel like it has nothing to do with me. That's all God right there. Changing lives. And. If any part of my story and my pain could be redeemed through this, it's. It's just a beautiful thing.

Yeah. I was going to ask you. Did you ever think bringing healing to others because of your own pain could have been possible?

No, I don't. I don't think I ever. I don't think I ever thought that would be possible.

Mm. Like when you go back to the darkest hours and moments of time you probably never imagined.

No, no, it was just. How do we get through this? How do we take one more step? I wasn't even thinking about how God might be able to use it in the future.

How does it encourage you that somehow, in the midst of your greatest suffering, God has used you to meet others in theirs?

It's just. It's so hopeful, you know, I. I don't think that that story of the car accident will be my only pain in life, you know?

And to know that God can use it is just really hopeful. Gives me a lot of hope for the future.

Yeah. And I think of women listening who maybe are going through a divorce or who are sick or who are suffering some major family loss right now.

And it is so hopeful that somehow, right now, in whatever. Whatever you're going through, God can use your pain to help others in theirs. And that's such a beautiful thing.

And that's what he does with his own life. That's what I Love so much about Jesus is that he, you know, scripture says by his wounds we are healed.

Right.

What a beautiful God we have. In fact, you've made me a chocolate word that says that. That's true, and it's on my mantle, and I love it. I remind myself of that every day. To.

To those who are listening who are undergoing suffering and are struggling to believe that God is in the midst of it, what would you want to say to them right now?

One thing I would say is don't be afraid to show up and enter into the work of your own healing with God alongside God.

You know, show up to the counseling appointment, show up to coffee with a friend who hasn't heard what you're going through and tell them, be willing to show up, even though it's. It's going to hurt and it's going to feel vulnerable. But you got to start somewhere.

That's some good truth right there. I think of how many times did Jesus collide with someone who was hurting and wounded and needed healing?

And he invited them into the opportunity to be whole, but he also wanted them to take part in it. Right. Like when you think about him asking the blind men, what do you want? He wanted the blind man, right.

To.

To say what he wanted or with the woman at the well.

He helped her sort of recognize patterns in her life that weren't working, that she went from man to man to man to man, and he helped her recognize the pattern. But it was up to her to choose what she wanted to do with that recognition.

Yeah. Yeah.

So taking part in healing, saying yes, and then taking part the next step, what do you feel like is the hardest thing for women when they realize that they need help? They realize they need healing. What's. What's the hardest step?

I think as women, we compare ourselves a lot. We feel like my pain isn't as great as hers, so I shouldn't feel this way or I should be stronger than this. I should. I should be more like her.

You know, we just compare constantly. And I think when you've reached a point where you know, you.

You're recognizing your brokenness and want to, you know, work towards healing, there can be a lot of shame there about. About that and about needing help and admitting it and how people will respond to you, how people will see you.

But we're all in the same boat to one extent or another. And one person's pain isn't any greater than another's. It's just different. And we all have something in our story that Hurts.

And I think just remembering that is helpful to me, anyways. Yeah.

It's interesting because as you're talking, I'm thinking it almost feels like we feel ashamed if we're still hurting about something. Almost like there's a timeline or an expiration date on our pain. Like, okay, okay.

Willow, like, yeah, you experienced some hardship when you were younger. You know, you're 44 now. You should be expiration date over. You know, did you ever feel like, oh, yeah, no, I should be over this by now.

I shouldn't still have anxiety or fear about driving or try to control things? Did you feel like there should be an expiration date on? Like, it's time to get over this stuff?

Or people expected that of you, or you expected it of yourself?

Yeah, definitely. I think more that I've expected it of myself where I feel like in talking to other people, I have to apologize. Like, I'm sorry I'm crying about this.

Like, oh, yeah, of course I'm gonna cry. It was a big deal, and it. Like that. That doesn't change. And, yeah, it's. It's definitely a pressure that we put on ourselves.

Mm. Yeah.

It's interesting that you feel like people might judge you for crying, because every time you've ever cried when you've told me this story, all I've ever thought is you have a bigger heart than anyone I know, and you're so compassionate, and I find it so beautiful. Yeah.

So, as you know, we published a Bible study called yes, you, and we use that term around collide a lot when we're looking at our ability as women to discount how God can use our lives for amazing things. And we often think as women. Not me. God can't use me because I'm too messed up. I'm too young. I'm too old. I'm too busy. I'm too insecure.

I don't have enough gifts. Right. And we want women to stop writing themselves off and discounting their potential and assuming that God can't use them because they're too.

Whatever. They think they're too much or too. Too little Love.

And I'm wondering if you've ever had a season in your life where you started to believe the lie that God couldn't use you. And if so, what was that?

I don't know that it's a particular season necessarily. I think it's kind of trickled through my whole life, you know, that I'm. I'm not enough. I need to be more.

More like Willow or more like you know, the authors that I read or again, back to that comparison thing, and I think we have an idea in our head of what it looks like to be used by God. That it.

That it's speaking in front of people or it's leading worship or, you know, it's this usually for me anyways, a list of more visible things, you know, But God uses us in all kinds of ways that we couldn't have even imagined or, you know, if we were the one that dreamed it up, it wouldn't necessarily be God, you know, but he uses us in ways that we wouldn't have have thought of.

Yeah, that's so true. How has Jesus shown up in your life, encountered those lies to help you believe that you. Yes, you can be used by him to do amazing things?

Honestly, I still think I battle it daily.

Me too.

So it's almost more of a looking back and. And seeing ways that God has used me and just having to trust that he will continue.

Yeah, well, we got to do that a little bit today, didn't we?

Just hearing the ways that he's used your life to impact, I would say hundreds and thousands of women who are saying yes to healing because of you saying yes to yes, God, you can use my pain.

Yeah.

To help others in theirs. He certainly has used you, Christine. I've watched you collide and keep colliding.

And I've watched you choose faith in the midst of a dark cloud of doubt. And I've watched you choose healing in horrific pain. And I've watched you choose courage when fear was overtaking you.

And I've watched you choose freedom when everything in you wanted to stay inside and be a slave to fear. What is it about Jesus that keeps you choosing to collide with Him?

I think it comes back to, by his wounds, we are healed. You know, he, by his life, showed the greatest love and sacrifice. Sacrifice.

And when I can get to a place where I truly believe that he did that for me, it's just the most beautiful thing.

It is the most beautiful thing. And I love that you're living that out in your life, and that's the most beautiful thing. Well. Well, what a truly beautiful human.

And you have a phenomenal story of God using your pain for beauty and it's pure joy to walk alongside you.

And I'm so grateful that you're still on the collide team with me, ministering to women in their brokenness and inviting them to collide with Jesus and say yes to healing. And I can't wait to keep colliding with you and seeing what only God can do in other people's lives. So more to come, right?

This won't be your last podcast, guys. Thank you for tuning into our podcast today.

If you want to hear more about our yes you Bible study or our counseling program or our events, check out our website, weholai.net and you can also follow us on Instagram and and Facebook. We would love to keep up with you and you to keep up with us. And we will see you next week on the podcast.