What happens when faith meets adversity? Meet Catherine Segars, an award-winning actress, playwright, author, speaker, podcaster and a strong advocate for motherhood. This episode takes you on Catherine's impactful journey of loss, grieving, and finding redemption after the loss of her unborn child. We delve deep into Catherine's article, 'Eight Steps to Find Redemption After Loss', and uncover the challenges she and her spouse faced while trying to have children later in life.
Catherine's story is not just about loss. It's about the fight, the faith, and the power of prayer that led her to redemption. She shares her righteous indignation following the loss of her unborn child and how, armed with scriptures as her weapon, she found strength to fight for her feast. Listen as Catherine details her friend's story who, after experiencing four late-term miscarriages, found hope through praying over scriptures and eventually gave birth to a healthy baby. It's a testament to the power of prayer and courageous faith.
In the latter part of the episode, Catherine delves into her journey of prayer and courage that eventually led to the birth of her daughter. She talks about how her family used praise during their fertility journey, celebrating a victory they had not yet received, emulating how ancient Israel sent worshipers to battle before the fight. Catherine’s story is an intimate exploration of loss, hope, courage, and redemption, and a testament to the power of prayer and faith. Don't miss this inspiring episode filled with hope, courage, and the power of redemption.
Find more about Catherine:
www.catherinesegars.com
Instagram: @catherinesegars
Facebook: Catherine Segars
Christian Parent, Crazy World - Podcast
FREE scripture recourse available at www.catherinesegars.com
Follow on Instagram & Facebook: @AndyBHoward
Buy the book on Amazon: www.amazon.com/When-Words-Dont-Come-Easy/dp/1955362084
Listen to the first chapter: soundcloud.com/andy-howard-788712319
Learn more at AndyHoward.com!
What happens when faith meets adversity? Meet Catherine Segars, an award-winning actress, playwright, author, speaker, podcaster and a strong advocate for motherhood. This episode takes you on Catherine's impactful journey of loss, grieving, and finding redemption after the loss of her unborn child. We delve deep into Catherine's article, 'Eight Steps to Find Redemption After Loss', and uncover the challenges she and her spouse faced while trying to have children later in life.
Catherine's story is not just about loss. It's about the fight, the faith, and the power of prayer that led her to redemption. She shares her righteous indignation following the loss of her unborn child and how, armed with scriptures as her weapon, she found strength to fight for her feast. Listen as Catherine details her friend's story who, after experiencing four late-term miscarriages, found hope through praying over scriptures and eventually gave birth to a healthy baby. It's a testament to the power of prayer and courageous faith.
In the latter part of the episode, Catherine delves into her journey of prayer and courage that eventually led to the birth of her daughter. She talks about how her family used praise during their fertility journey, celebrating a victory they had not yet received, emulating how ancient Israel sent worshipers to battle before the fight. Catherine’s story is an intimate exploration of loss, hope, courage, and redemption, and a testament to the power of prayer and faith. Don't miss this inspiring episode filled with hope, courage, and the power of redemption.
Find more about Catherine:
www.catherinesegars.com
Instagram: @catherinesegars
Facebook: Catherine Segars
Christian Parent, Crazy World - Podcast
FREE scripture recourse available at www.catherinesegars.com
Follow on Instagram & Facebook: @AndyBHoward
Buy the book on Amazon: www.amazon.com/When-Words-Dont-Come-Easy/dp/1955362084
Listen to the first chapter: soundcloud.com/andy-howard-788712319
Learn more at AndyHoward.com!
Hey, what's up everybody? Today is going to be awesome. It's going to be awesome. I got a new dear friend of mine. Her name is Catherine Seegers and she's going to join us. But you're gonna hear a powerful story. A powerful story of what it's like to hold on to faith All the way through to the finish line, even when it gets hard. She's gonna leave you with a lot of powerful tips on how to recover from a great loss Actually, eight steps on how to find redemption after a loss so powerful. But even in the end there's a free resource. So you got to stick around to the very end. We're gonna give you a free resource that she has made available for you today. And that's at the very end. All that and more. It's happening Right after this.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to the WinWords Don't Come Easy podcast. I am Edie Howard, and it's always good to. If this is your first time to join, it's always good to meet you. I am excited today I have a special guest going to be joining us shortly. But this podcast is always about hope and I always want to do my very best, whether it's something that I am sharing or whether it's a guest coming on, and today you are going to be blessed by Catherine Seegers. I do want to read her bio before I bring her home, but Catherine is an award-winning actress and playwright.
Speaker 1:Turn stay at home. Mom, turn author, speaker, podcaster and motherhood apologist. The homeschooling mama. This homeschooling mama of five has a master's degree in communications and, as a host of the audio life audios, christian parent crazy world, which was named 2022's best kids and family podcast by spark media on CPC W, catherine navigates through tough cultural and theological topics to help parents establish a sound biblical Foundation for their children. She is also an award-winning writer Whose art, regular articles on family, faith and culture reach hundreds of thousands of readers on crosswalk, I believe, bible studies tools and Easy for me to say, christian headlines. You can find Catherine's work at wwwcatherineseegerscom. So anyways, without further ado, now, this is really cool. Welcome, catherine. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me, and it's an honor to be here. I'm so excited.
Speaker 1:Well, I am excited too. I feel like we're lifelong friends I just minutes ago actually, but it's so cool getting to connect with you and how God brings brings all of us together.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I am honored to have you and you actually wrote an article recently and you're a very gifted writer. I went back and read many of your articles, but there was one recently that just really jumped out to me and I thought we'd dive into that today, but it's. I want to find the exact title for it. But yes, eight steps to find redemption after loss and.
Speaker 2:I.
Speaker 1:I mean, whether you are going through loss right now, whether this is something that's gonna be for the future for you. You never really experienced loss. This is something that all of us have to deal with at some point or another, and so such a powerful, powerful topic. So thank you for jumping on, first of all, but let me just ask how are you doing and what's the latest going on with Catherine Seegers?
Speaker 2:Well, we're gearing up for another homeschooling year. We have five kids. My husband and I do. We just graduated our first. We had a senior graduating and a kindergartner graduating the same year. That was fun.
Speaker 1:Those pictures.
Speaker 2:Those pictures are super cute. So, yeah, we homeschooled so we're trying to trying to get back in the swing of things, taking a bit of a slew start. So hopefully that's kind of what's going on in our world, trying to survive the heat. Down here we live in Alabama. It's been a hot one, so we've been hitting three digits, sometimes Some pretty much lately, and it's it's been a little bit, a little bit sweaty. You don't know anything about that. In Texas, though, at least it's a little drier. I'll give you that. A little bit more dry, hot heat, this humid heat can can get to you. But it's beautiful where we live. I'm very, very grateful we live Outside of Birmingham. It's just luscious and green and rolling hills and ponds, so we're very blessed, even though it's hot. Well, we'll get to the cooler, cooler months coming up here. I hear they're ahead, that for sure.
Speaker 1:Well, it's always good connecting with you and you had, like I, mentioned this topic. I think it's very powerful. In the very first point, when I was reading your article jumped out at me Because it's it was a powerful scripture for me. The smallest verse in the Bible, it's two words Jesus, well, john 11, 35, but that that's just a piece. I don't want to get ahead of it. But it's number one, which is grieved with your heavenly father. Why don't you dive into that and tell us a little bit more about what you mean there?
Speaker 2:well, just to give the cliff-notes version of the loss that we went through. We my husband and I we kind of had kids later in life. I was very career-oriented. You read my bio earlier. I was all about. I was an actor. I spent a dozen years on the stage doing everything from musicals to Shakespeare to comedy improv, and that was okay. I just launched into this and realize it's probably not the clip notes. I'll try. But we started. We started having our kids pretty late. We had our first at 34. I Was almost 34, and then we had one like 37. So we wrap. Our third one came. I was almost 39. I turned 39 right after that and I figured, okay, well, it's probably time to close up shop here, move on to a little more peaceful stage of life.
Speaker 2:You know that didn't involve, you know, midnight feedings and Naps diaper bags and high chairs, and you know applesauce across face and so that was just kind of my line of thinking. God has a way of you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the best laid plans of mice and men, so, yeah. So when I was 42, I was leading a woman's Bible study. You know, I was thinking, you know, I'm surrendered to the Lord, he's Lord of my life. And I started having these dreams over and over and over about a little boy and it kind of got obnoxious at a bit. I'm like God, why do I keep having these dreams? And the Lord just really impressed upon my heart that I was done with our Family and he wasn't. And I'm like, okay, god, I'm like 42 at this point.
Speaker 2:I, you know, I was about to go to my 20-year college reunion. I mean 20 years. Okay, most of my friends were graduating than their kids from high school. And and I'm like, what do you mean? And he's like he just Impressed on my heart, we had been very much in control of our, our family. I guess you could say you can kind of figure out what that means. And we, so I was not really open to this idea. It's like, you know, but you call me Lord of your life, do you think you have a better plan than me? And I was like about that?
Speaker 2:No, I know it was one of those big ouches and I'm like okay, here's the problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do. If you, if you want me to go back to baby town in my 40s, I'm thinking I probably do have a better plan than you. And clearly that's a problem because you're God and I'm not. So you know. He really pressed in. He said why do you call me Lord and I'm not Lord of your family? Wow, and then he got really personal. He's like why do you call me Lord and I'm not Lord of your womb? Is there other parts of you that I'm not Lord over?
Speaker 2:And so it kind of it really Wiped the spiritual legs out from under me because I thought, I thought he was Lord and yet I realized Very clearly that he was not, because I had been very much in control and I didn't really pray about what he wanted to do with our family and I didn't have a heart to have another child. I wasn't interested in that, but I praised. I prayed a wise prayer. At this point I think the Lord must have given it to me because, yeah, it probably, I'm sure, didn't come from me. But I'm like okay, lord, I don't want to have another child, but if you want me to change my heart, change my heart, and I did. I freely offered my heart to him and over the course of six months I wrestled with this and you, the Lord, brought me to this place of. I wasn't telling anybody, because I'm like that's just crazy.
Speaker 2:Who does that? You know, I didn't want to be in a medical journal and my last name is not Duggar. So I'm like and I'm not a celebrity they always have babies late in life and I'm like this just doesn't make any sense. But I'm like, okay, god. And finally I went to that 20 year college reunion and on the way home I'm sitting next to my husband in the car. We hear about all of her friends who are graduating their first kids. I have a conversation with my husband about having another baby.
Speaker 1:I want to know how that went first of all, yeah.
Speaker 2:It was very quiet from the driver's side. He was driving and he was like I think I could have probably said, honey, I think God wants us to be missionaries to the planet Mars, and he would have been less shocked. I mean, he was so surprised and I'm like Brian, just think about it, just pray about it.
Speaker 2:I don't know what else to say, other than God has really convicted me that we never, gave him this part of our lives and maybe he doesn't want to do anything with it, but at least I think we're supposed to surrender. So you go see what. You go talk to him and see what he says. And I did something very wise that I don't normally do as a wife I shut my mouth about this topic for like five, six weeks. I didn't say a word and I just let him pray about it. And our pastor started preaching sermons like God wants to do something amazing in her life. But it might seem crazy and all of this kind of like were you there? Were you a fly on the window in the car? And so I came back about six weeks later and at this point, andy, I have to tell you God radically transformed my heart. I went from not wanting another child to wanting another child worse than I'd ever wanted one in my life. He did, he changed my heart to where I wanted it more than anything.
Speaker 2:And so then my husband was like, yeah, the Lord's been speaking the same thing to me, and I kid you not, we had our pastors pray over six weeks later, I'm pregnant with a little baby, oh man. That is an incredible story I know. So and something odd happened. It's kind of I'm trying to get to the cliff notes part of this.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're good.
Speaker 2:I started at this point, I started having dreams of a little girl and I'm like what is that all about? God, like one baby in your 40s, you can kind of pass off as well. Well, that happened. Two seems to seem a little like purposeful and crazy. You know, people are going to start wondering what's wrong with it.
Speaker 2:But when I was holding my son, my fourth child his name was Weston when I was holding him in my hands and I looked at this human being who I knew would not have existed had I not said yes to the Lord, cause he didn't. He wasn't going to force it on us. You know. We could make choices to. You know, prevent that from happening. I'm not talking about, you know, I'm very, very pro-life, fyi just. But we could. You know, we didn't have to be open to that opportunity. So I was holding him, I was just overwhelmed. I'm like God, I never want to say no to you again. You do know what's best. I would have said no to this. And yet this little miracle, this life, and, oh my gosh, he's so amazing, he's the cutest kid, such a blessing.
Speaker 2:I said I never want to say no again and I kept having these dreams of a baby girl. And so I'm like, lord, what do you want to do here? And so I was. I'm like, okay, let's just do this thing If you want to do it. I don't want to be 45 and pregnant, let's just, let's get her done. I'm like let's. That was my thinking. And so, anyway, what ended up happening? I went through the season where I'm like we get to the place where I'm like I'm gonna be 45. And so I must not have heard God right. And so what ended up happening was we found out we were expecting. It was November of 2015. And it was a very, it was an extremely supernatural journey. I keep having these dreams. At the beginning of the month, I had a dream, before I even knew I was pregnant, that I was in a doctor's office and I was holding a tiny embryo in my hands.
Speaker 1:Oh man.
Speaker 2:And I woke up with this, just feeling that a child that small in my hand couldn't be alive. And my husband was with me in the dream and it was just kind of. And then we found out we were expecting. And then, on Thanksgiving day 2015, I had a dream that morning. We had just found out we were having a baby. We were getting all excited. We were gonna tell the parents and put the sonogram picture under the tree. I had a dream that we had ordered a bunch of baby items in the mail and they came and they were all broken and I didn't wanna pay full price for them, but I had to anyways. That was my dream. And right before Thanksgiving dinner, I start having a miscarriage and I had to go and sit. Nobody even knew I was pregnant. I had to tell everybody I'm pregnant and I think I'm having a miscarriage, all in the same sentence. Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:It was an early thing. We didn't. I know I'm not trying to compare it to what people I know people who have lost babies much later and lost children, and certainly your testimony, which you just shared on my podcast, is there are people that go through a lot worse, but I'm like God, I thought you promised this to me and yet I've lost this child. And so that's when I started to walk through this process of loss and redemption, and the very first thing he showed me was the step you mentioned was that we need to grieve with our heavenly father when we go through a loss, because Jesus came to offer life. It's the enemy that comes to steal, kill and destroy. So if you've lost something, if something's been stolen from you whether it's health, or whether it's a child, or whether it's a job or a mission or a dream that the Lord has given you and it's been stolen from you that you have a right, you need to grieve over that and it's okay to be. It's not okay. It's necessary, it's absolutely necessary to take that time.
Speaker 2:And the scripture verse you mentioned is John 11, 35. It's the shortest verse in all the Bible. Jesus wept and what's amazing about this? If you know the story. He showed up on the scene where Lazarus is dead. Everybody's weeping and he knows what's about to happen. He's about to raise Lazarus from the dead, right? Why? If it were me, I'd be like you guys you're not gonna believe what's about to happen.
Speaker 1:And I was like so you're gonna be would you like two sisters who weren't very happy with him at the moment?
Speaker 2:So like why does he take the moment to do this? It's so curious, isn't it? Why would he do that? He knows he's about to raise him from the dead and yet he takes the time to grieve. So I think what God wants us to know, and whatever loss we have, he has a redemption planned. But we do need to go through this process and grieve with our heavenly Father. He invites us to come into this lament with him and so many of the Psalms. That's such a great place to camp out when you're going through something like this and understanding our heavenly Father's heart towards us and pouring out your heart to him. The scripture says that. I think it's Psalm 62, five through eight or somewhere in there. I think it's pour out your heart to him, all my people, for God is our rescue and I just love the Psalms. So take the time. Take the time to grieve with God, recognizing that he's there with you and he has a plan to redeem it.
Speaker 1:That is so good. I almost missed the whole beginning of that and I should have set you up better, because you can read the story before we jumped into the grieving part.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wanted you to understand what we were grieving through and what the loss was For sure.
Speaker 1:And then you're exactly right. The Psalms are so good for encouragement through no matter what you're facing.
Speaker 1:There's so much to gain from there. Well, your second point you talk about in the article that I thought just was so brilliant. But you talk about realize and I went through this myself, through my story but realize you have a right to be angry. And I think so many times and we still respect the Lord. We respect God, that he's sovereign. I know I did when I went through it, but there's still. You're still human. He understands, he knows you're a human and you're dealing with emotions and anger isn't a motion by love. That why don't you explain more about that, that you have the right to be angry?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because, like I was saying earlier, that the enemy has come to still kill and destroy and when he's done that we have a right to a right to be angry about that. That's okay. But we have to direct our anger in the right direction.
Speaker 2:Right reason Not towards not towards God, but towards the enemy, and as too often we direct it towards God. Why did you allow this? Why didn't he prevent this? And those are legitimate questions to ask. I think that's perfectly. My experience is he doesn't often answer good and ask Maybe I'll answer you, but you know the why. Sometimes we don't know in life. Sometimes we get you know. We'll see the beauty, and the beauty from the ashes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But anger is just a natural and justified response to our loss.
Speaker 1:To hurt yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have to target that at the one who deserves it, the one who stole from us, the author of death, not the author of life. And so it's okay to be righteously indignant at that, and it was interesting. As I was praying through this process, I felt the Lord just give me the green light for that and say you have to walk through that and get through that and make sure it's channeled in the right direction.
Speaker 1:Right yeah.
Speaker 2:And that kind of fuels your passion to see redemption fulfilled.
Speaker 1:And so even going back to John 11, I love that so much. But even Mary and Martha, they both asked the exact same question because they were all close. They were all close to Jesus, so that's why I relate to that chapter so much. I was like, don't you care? If you'd have been here, my brother wouldn't have died. I see them asking the question. So I understand. But then at the same time, I hear you Don't lose focus. Designate it to the. Designate your anger to the right source and not to God. Number three, which I thought was great you have to choose to fight. It is a choice. Choose to fight for redemption.
Speaker 2:You do. It is a choice and I think we all know people in life who kind of get wallow and the hardship and the suffering and the loss and I'm not blaming anybody or casting stones, they're you know what you know your families walk through was much harder and longer than what. Then you know we walk through in this instant and other families I've seen go through that. I don't mean to patronize anybody who's going through serious loss, but we have to, we have to make it. You know, redemption is a choice. We cooperate with God to see it fully fulfilled. And God gave me like you probably figured out by now my dream. I'm a dreamer and you know he did that in both testaments, with both Joseph's and lots of other people, and I don't think God has changed his communication patterns personally. But I had, I had a really poignant dream. It was a few days after we lost the baby, which, by the way, we named her Hope. I named the one, we the child. We lost hope.
Speaker 2:So I had this dream that I was traveling through Iraq and Iran. Just a little me, I'm kind of petite, blonde, white chick. I think I would stand out there if I were there, especially without a burqa. So I, but I was actually in this, this field, and there was an enemy compound in front of me. I could see the dark windows and I knew that the enemy was there, and I had no cover, no place to run, no place to hide.
Speaker 2:Suddenly, though, a table appeared before me, and it was ah, there was this compartment underneath the table, and it opened up, and I hid in there, and when the threat had passed, I was able to get out, and I stood beside the table, and I woke up skype, and I immediately thought of Psalm 23, which says you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
Speaker 2:And it was such a beautiful representation of that. This table appeared right in the presence of my enemies, but I love what the New Living Translation says. It says you prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. And I realized, okay, god, I see the table, but there was no feast on it. And that was the determination within me that started to well up. I'm like, okay, okay, you stole something from me, satan, and now I'm demanding my feast. God has given me a table and I want my feast on it, and you're gonna watch me eat it and you're gonna regret the day you ever stole that from me. And it just that's what that righteous indignation fueled in me, because it was angry not at God. God's my partner for redemption.
Speaker 2:I was angry at the enemy of what he had stolen, and so I was determined. It put this determination inside of me, and that's what I see so much in your testimony too is that you have a feast, you have a table with a feast. Is it hard? Yes, it's hard, but look what the enemy is watching you eat with this podcast and with your book. I mean, come on, I know that's what I'm saying. It's awesome. You have a feast here and he continues to supply a feast, and every person you share your testimony with is eating of that feast, and the enemy is like you know, and so regretting what he stole.
Speaker 2:But because God has turned it around and my life versus Romans 417,. He is the God who brings life from the dead and calls things that or not, as though they were. So, yeah, does it look like death happened in my womb? Yeah, it did. It did, but I'm like you're gonna produce life. I said that last thing that happens in this womb of mine that's getting pretty old right now is not gonna be death, it's gonna be life. And so that's what I determined. I determined that I was gonna choose to fight for my feast and receive my redemption.
Speaker 1:Katherine, I'm loving this. I forgot the podcast for a second.
Speaker 2:He just said it that was good stuff. I can do that. I am good stuff, I am known to do that.
Speaker 1:I love it, I love your heart and I love your passion for this. And so number four is great, and just in the short time that I've got to know you, I know you have a lot of weapons, but it's the number four that's gather your weapons. I can tell you know scripture, you know it Forward and backwards, because I've heard you quote it. It just comes out of you which is beautiful, and so that's what you talked about in your article about gathering weapons. So number four yeah, explain that a little bit more for those who haven't got to read it yet.
Speaker 2:Our greatest weapon is the word of God and our prayers that come from our mouth. And there's nothing more potent or powerful than when we pray verbatim. What the word of God is? It's like unadulterated, it's like espresso. It doesn't have filler in it, it's not watered down, there's no saccharine or sweetener or whatever. It's just straight up, potent word of God. And when we pray that and, andy, I didn't always know the word of God like this how did I learn it? How did you learn it? Well, you went through the fire, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, come on and so I'm like what I did. I had this friend she had had four. I didn't even know, I thought she had only had one. She was pregnant with a child. She had lost a little one earlier that year named Rosie. She was like at 22 weeks, my goodness you know, just heart wrenching. She knew this child and felt this child and had a miscarriage very late. But at the time she was pregnant with this baby named Joseph and right at the end I'm like how in the world did you have the faith to believe for that? And turns out she had not had one miscarriage earlier, she had had four in a row, like four late term miscarriages in a row.
Speaker 2:I said, how did you end up here with Joseph, healthy, whole, about to be born? And she said that these women at her church had given her this list of scriptures and there's some scriptures I have listed on. I have a lot of script, list of scriptures to pray, because that's what I believe very strongly and is just praying the word of God. So this list of scriptures to pray if you've had loss or a miscarriage, and I also have scriptures to pray over prodigal children or over your kids or whatever, and so I believe very strongly in that and there are free resources on my website. But so she I said, like, get me those scriptures. So I got them and my husband and I and I added a bunch of other scriptures the Lord gave me to those and we started praying them over my body every day, just speaking the word of God over my body.
Speaker 2:I'm 44 years old and at this point I turned 45, okay, and just to say that it did not look very hopeful. I mean, I'm like paramount apostle, almost metaposal, and it just did not look like that was gonna happen and the natural and you know so many amazing things happened. I remember going to see my OB and I'm sitting in the office 45, I was almost 45 at this point surrounded by 20 something pregnant girls. I'm like you're an idiot. This thoughts are going. What do you think you're doing? I pulled out my scriptures, I prayed through my scriptures and the faith started to build up.
Speaker 2:I go back into the actual examining room. I hear in the next office this sound. If you've ever had a child or been in an OB office, you know what that is. It's the heartbeat monitor from the next room with her and her healthy baby. And I'm sitting here with an empty wound almost 45 years old. You're an idiot. These thoughts going through my head. Who do you think you are? It's the enemy's voice. What do I do? I pulled out my scriptures. I pray through my scriptures and my faith builds a little bit. So those were my weapons. My husband and I committed to every single day it was like four pages of scripture, praying them over my body. It didn't matter if it was 1 am, 2 am, sometimes it was close to three by the time we got around to it, if we had a late night with the other kids. We prayed those scriptures over my body every single day and just committed to that. We were warring in the spirit. That was actually. I preempted you. The next Number five is pray like a crazy woman.
Speaker 1:Pray like a crazy woman.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you're not a woman, don't do that. Pray like a crazy man or pray I used to like to say pray like a Benedictine monk. That's what we did. We just prayed like crazy every single day. So that's. I'm sorry, I don't wanna. If you have any thoughts on that last point, no, you're good, Don't keep going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you, all right.
Speaker 2:So pray like a, just have this commitment. And this is a tough one because I think some people get distracted in prayer and I do too. You start this is something I've said on my podcast before Prayer warriors aren't born, they are formed every time. Nobody is born with this discipline. Start with five minutes, start with 10 minutes, start with you know, and if you've got scriptures, it kind of gives you an outline. So it's not, it's not as hard, you just like.
Speaker 2:For example, I'm pray over my kids and one of the verses I love to pray is create in my oldest child, for example, create an afton, a clean heart, renew a right spirit within her. Do not cast her away from your presence, lord. Do not take your Holy spirit from her. Restore to her the joy of her salvation, your salvation, and renew a right spirit within her. So you take the scriptures and you can personalize them and just pray them over your situation.
Speaker 2:And so we started doing that every day and we would do that for about 30 minutes every day, praying for one thing, one thing only.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean we prayed for other stuff in addition to that, but I mean we would commit about 30 minutes a day to this and we just continued in prayer and after six months it still hadn't happened to me. I was starting to get a little weary, I was starting to be discouraged and I went to the Lord and I felt the Lord told us to double down, pray twice as long, twice as hard. So we up to prayer to about an hour a day. We were praying for this one thing and I know that sounds discouraging to some people out there You're like I could never do that. I didn't think I could either and I don't. I'm not gonna lie to you and say I pray like that every day now. But during that battle, during that war, during this small window of time, I felt like I had left for my womb to produce the life that he had promised this little girl. I felt like he had promised we did, we prayed like that every single day.
Speaker 2:We prayed for about an hour a day at the six month mark and yeah, it was interesting and that's why I know scripture so well, because you pray those verses every single day. You start to, they get down in your spirit and you learn them and they become a part of the fabric of who you are and they produce life. They produce life.
Speaker 1:I think that is so good. I've done that my whole life as well, making it personal, cause it's one thing to read it, but then when you put your name in the scripture, or your child's name or whoever, it brings totally new meaning to everything. I love doing that too, even the 23rd song, which is one of my favorite passages. It's just, it's beautiful when you do that. So, and thank you for sharing all this. This is so good. It starts with. It's just like working out or anything you do in life. It's not easy. The hardest part is starting, and then you're I can do five minutes. Well, I can do 10 minutes. The next day, I can do 30 minutes. You just keep going and you get stronger. Your faith. Muscle builds, just like any other muscle builds.
Speaker 2:I love that when he runs a marathon at first they run a mile, so build yourself up to the mile and then go from there.
Speaker 1:So number six, which I'm assuming might be the hardest Maybe not, I don't know but after you've done all these other things, maybe it's easy to be courageous. But number six, you talk about being courageous.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you would think you would be courageous, you would think that I had built up all of this spending all this time in prayer, but honestly, I'm 45 at this point and I'm pretty discouraged and I remember the Lord Came to me.
Speaker 2:This is, this is kind of interesting. So my husband and I are agreeing for this and I I had a few friends that I told about it, some women in my Bible study that were kind of praying for this, but I hadn't told my other kids, I had not told you know, we, the four other kids, and they, they didn't know. I think my oldest might have known that we had had a loss, that we had lost a baby that we named hope, but the the other kids didn't even know. We didn't bring them in on the journey. And I felt the Lord press in and say Be courageous, tell your kids and bite them in on the journey, and I'm like no that's a whole other level, right, it's one thing, After you wait to after the babies here and then you say oh, we did, but no, so this is still.
Speaker 1:Hey this is what we're praying for. This is the truth. That's what that is.
Speaker 2:Well it is, and I I was trying to talk God out of it. I'm like telling him why this is a bad idea.
Speaker 2:It could scar their faith, courage them and all this stuff, and he's like no, you're getting this all wrong. They are spectators and you guys are on the field playing this game of faith. Hey, get them on the field then when there's a victory, they took part in it. Right, they were part of the victory and they get to experience the answer to prayer. And and I was still kind of trepidation about it, but we did we sat the kids down and we told them about it and then we invited them in to pray with us every day. We didn't do the whole hour long With them every day. That might have been a bit, they weren't quite ready for that, but we did. We started playing with them every day for for their sister to come.
Speaker 1:Wow, so cool. I love that part. That is a huge step of being courageous and you could invite.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, just one more thing on that. Just ask the Lord how can you be courageous in this? Who might he want to bless through this journey of being able to join you in prayer for something, for the redemption? And let me just add this in, redemption looks different for everybody. I've known people who have lost kids, who the redemption looked like a ministry that came out of it, or people who have had a tremendous loss. It's not.
Speaker 2:I kind of skipped this step, but I believe very strongly, as I you know, when I, when we lost hope and I was praying about it, the Lord said yes, I have promised you this child, I promise you this child, but you're going to have to fight for her. And that was the redemption he wanted to supply. Redemption could be an adoption, redemption could be, like I said, a ministry. It could be any number of things. It doesn't have to look like again, but the important thing is that you hear from the Lord what that redemption is to pray for. And so we felt very strongly, I felt very strongly that this was what he wanted to do, and so that's what we persevered in prayer for.
Speaker 1:Wow. So number seven uh, talks about praise through to the finish line. Uh, dive in on that topic.
Speaker 2:Well, my husband came to me at this point. So we're like seven, eight months into this journey and, like I said, I know it sounds like I'm some mighty prayer warrior of faith praying an hour a day, but I'm honestly a little ticked at this point. I'm like God, do you see, I'm not even going to be 45 and pregnant at this point. I'm going to be 47. I mean, I was, I wasn't going, I was rapidly approaching the date where I would be 46 and pregnant and I was just like, I was kind of ticked. I was like Lord, why is this taking so long? What's the deal?
Speaker 2:And my husband comes to me one day and he says I hear God telling us to praise him for the victory. Wow, and you think, mighty woman of God, that I am? Yes, husband, oh, one who is so wise, such wisdom. Yes, yes, let's do that together right now. Let us praise that.
Speaker 2:No, that was not my response. My response was I did not feel like praising the Lord. I did not want to. This did not come naturally to me, but I got down on my knees and I sought the Lord and I knew that my husband was right.
Speaker 2:Nothing, and this, if nothing else, this is an amazing thing that you can think of when you're praising the Lord in the midst of your battle for victory. Nothing irritates the enemy worse than seeing you praise God when you're at your lowest and when you're discouraged and when it doesn't look like it's going to happen. Because I'm like 45 and it does not look like this is going to happen right, and I'm praising God for this and I'm not telling people to be. You know, I know people who have thought God was going to do all sorts of things or whatever. I've really sensed the Lord was leading us to do this, and so we started praising God for a victory that we didn't have yet, and I think that wasn't easy to do, but we started doing it as a family. As a family we did, and so that's what I encourage people to do that you got to keep praising the Lord through the battle, and that's what you know. When you think about ancient Israel, they sent the worshipers out first, right.
Speaker 1:First, yeah, before the fight yeah, you get to praise them.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm armed with a song here, and but that's what we did, and yeah, so get your praise on in the middle of the battle in the middle of it in order to press through to victory.
Speaker 1:There's so many, so many times throughout scripture. You see that even in you know the prisons and the people where they're supposed to be, you know, depressed, or they're praising God, they find them all in silence. Jesus amen, so cool. So then the last point here of these eight anyways, is press through to victory.
Speaker 2:So Explain that a little bit for us.
Speaker 2:Well, this was a hard one too, in the sense that you just don't know how long, how long do you have to press through and you get discouraged. And so what I encouraged people to do, and what I did in this time, was just surround yourself with stories of people who have had victories like this, like my friend, mary Carol, who had her child I was looking at her little baby Joseph after four late term miscarriages, and baby Joseph was healthy and whole, and so we just kept pressing through. In the way God wrote this story, I mean, if Hollywood did this, they would have said well, you made that up, I'm not kidding, I say the same thing about our story all the time, Like believe this, even if I said it to you, I know.
Speaker 2:It just was on the day. So I was really down. I was teaching VBS at church and it was really discouraged because it was the weak. Hope was due. She was like due on, I think it was on a Thursday or something, and so it was the week she was due. The day before she was due I'd been having dreams that week that were very disturbing.
Speaker 2:But the day she was due I got up and because I was on a progesterone supplement or something just to help with things, I didn't do any fertility drugs. It was just normal stuff that women take prenatal and while they're pregnant. So I was like I was scheduled to go off of it and except, if you're pregnant, you're not supposed to do it. And so I was like, oh, let me just take a pregnancy test. Day hope was due, the day I took a pregnancy test. And, by the way, when I took the pregnancy test with hope, it was kind of a faint line. It was a little bit faint. This one was and it was. It was very early. I shouldn't I mean I probably shouldn't have been able to tell it was something like I don't know like 26, 27 days. I mean big fat positive. Took another test, big fat positive on the day that hope was due.
Speaker 1:I'm like, are you?
Speaker 2:kidding me.
Speaker 1:Like no.
Speaker 2:God, that's how God did it, and we continued with the prayer because it was not easy getting to that finish line.
Speaker 1:I was 45,.
Speaker 2:I started having an abruption at 26 weeks. I was in and out of the hospital for the last trimester. I spent the whole last month in the hospital and then, the day that we had her name, the child is a little girl, just like the Lord had promised. Evangeline Faith is her name. The day Evangeline Faith came into the world, we were trying to get a little bit later, but we we managed to get from 26 weeks to 36 weeks with an abruption. I mean an abruption is when the placenta tears away from the uterine wall. It's very dangerous. The mother can die, the baby can die. We were both was very, very high risk, so that's why they pulled me into the hospital. I had to stay there for the last month.
Speaker 2:Even then, there are times when women can even be in the hospital and it can happen. It can happen so quickly and I'm not going to lie. It's like it looked like an episode of CSI and my hospital room that day it was a bloody, awful mess and they got me in and we didn't have hours, we had minutes to spare. But I'm telling you this was amazing. That child was perfect, yeah, perfect. Not a scratch on her head, nothing unhealthy.
Speaker 2:She was a perfectly healthy baby from a 46 year old almost, yeah, 45, 40, 45 year old egg, and so, yeah, she was amazing and God was totally faithful. It was a rough ride, though, and I know, I know, without doubt you know that that mountain of prayer that we prayed every single day over my body and over her was necessary in order for her to get here a healthy and whole, and she's now six years old, evangeline faith, and she's perfectly healthy and whole, and she's been such a blessing to our family. We're so grateful. But, yeah, that's how the Lord wrote that story, that's how that happened and that's how I learned to be a prayer warrior.
Speaker 1:There you go, you learn and you learn. There's some of your darkest, darkest trials, through the hardest times, where you learn so much about who you truly are, and then who God really is. He doesn't leave you, he doesn't forsake you. He's there. So cool. What an amazing story. I had no idea all that you guys had went through.
Speaker 1:For us so much and I didn't even tell you this on the podcast. But many who have read the book have heard this story. But it was about five years after Peyton's birth. They had did all these because they were going back and forth. Was it genetic? Was there something that happened during the birthing process? What happened? And even my wife was asked. She was happy to have the old Andy back. She was scared If we tried to have another baby, what happens?
Speaker 1:What would, would you be able to get? I had said all the right things but I don't truly know what would have happened. And then we find out we're having a baby and we're so thrilled, so excited and we went to and we did like you mentioned in the article. You didn't even have a time to to present it or tell anyone yet. Well, we did the first thing first. We didn't know better to wait until until we were further along to after the first trimester, I believe, is when they say you should. So we blasted it on social media we're having a baby, we're so excited and, sure enough, we went to the first doctor's appointment and they couldn't find the heartbeat.
Speaker 1:And that was just such another you know, kick me while we're down kind of moment for us. But yet we knew what God had already brought us out of. And once, wild same doctor, we went to a specialist. He was high risk pregnancy because of Peyton's you know thing. So he was this amazing doctor, and he said you know what, you can always try again. You never know. But we we're not even thinking about that moment.
Speaker 1:Three months later to the day, we're in the same doctor's office, exact same room where we got the bad news. This time he sent us up again, just like the last time, to another specialist, Cause he said I want my buddy to to see what I'm seeing this time. And so, seeing one heartbeat, there's a two heartbeats, and so we find out we're having twins. And that's just how good God's faithfulness is for all of it. And so I thank you for sharing your story today, I thank you for coming on and sharing all the heartaches. But, yeah, how you found the power of prayer, how you found the power of scripture through all of it, how you found God's faithfulness through all of it, how you heard from the Lord and you stuck to that. Cause sometimes we hear, and it's easy for us to say I think I might've missed her, God, it's easier for the devil to plant that in your ear. Are you sure you heard that Right, Maybe? Maybe he didn't say that you were having a girl.
Speaker 2:I had those moments too, wow.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, you held on to the faith and you were courageous and I love that. What a beautiful story. Well, thanks for sharing. How can people find you? I shared it at the very beginning, but how can they find your website? How can they find you, either on social media or, if they want to connect with you, how can people connect with Catherine?
Speaker 2:Yes, one final thought, just the connection between the names there just occurred to me while you were talking. I have a child named Hope and she lives in heaven, and all of our hope lives in heaven, because that's where our hope resides. But faith lives here on earth with us, and I have a child named Faith here, and that's what one book I want to do one day is Hope and Faith, the story of these two sisters because, yeah, faith, evangelism, faith wouldn't have existed if it weren't for Hope.
Speaker 2:She was the one who I mean very literally the sister Hope, but also the idea of Hope, so I think that's just such a beautiful connection gave me with their names. But you can find more about me. My go-to place would be Catherineseagr'scom, and you can check me out on Instagram, at at Catherine Seagr's or Catherine Seagr's speaker. On Facebook. My podcast is called Christian Parent Crazy World. It's housed at Life Audio, but you can find it anywhere. You get your podcast iHeart, spotify, whatever. Just look up Christian Parent Crazy World and check me out there. I would love that. And I have one more thing that the scriptures that I mentioned. I do house those on my website, along with some other scripture lists as well, to pray over children, pray over protocols, pray over conception and things like that. The same scriptures I use. I house there. It's not anything we do, but the scripture is what has the power, and so if you're interested in getting a free copy of those, you can just subscribe at my website at Catherineseagr'scom.
Speaker 1:Awesome. We will make that available as well in the show nuts and I will present that here when we when I wrap this up here in a few minutes as well. But thank you for making that available and that is so powerful. I cannot stress enough the power of God's word. It's what we need, it's how we live, it is the bread it's the bread of life.
Speaker 2:Living an act goes sharper than any double edged sword.
Speaker 1:And how, how, I don't know how anyone, because so many people ask, and I'm sure they ask you as well with your story how in the world did you make it through or how did you do it? How would we do it without the scripture, without the word of God? I don't know how anyone could. So thank you so much. Yeah, thank you for sharing and I'm going to push as many as I can to your podcast as well. It's been so nice getting to to know you over the last couple of podcasts between mine and between yours.
Speaker 1:But thank you for sharing and it's you know we'll have to have you back on another time to get some updates for what's going on with your world.
Speaker 2:I would love that back at you. That would be great. It's been such an honor. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. God bless you. Wow, wasn't that incredible. I love man. I love hearing how God is faithful through everybody's story, and you know what he's faithful to you as well. Maybe you're in the midst of the trial right now and it's hard to see where his faithfulness is. That's what faith is all about Hold on to his faith. And he, while Catherine just shared so many amazing points, but the one that jumped out to me mainly was about about scripture, about holding on to his faith or his word, and and she even gave it place a resource, a free resource for you, through her website, catherineseekerscom. If you would go, you can find daily scriptures to pray over yourself, through your trials, through whatever you're facing right now. It will be so powerful and uplifting for you. So, again, that's Catherineseekerscom.
Speaker 1:S E G A R Scom. Such a powerful and inspirational story. Love it, love it so much. So thank you guys for tuning in. Please, please, share this episode with somebody who needs to hear this today. What a powerful, powerful story, and there are so many people I know God was laying somebody on your heart who needs to hear this story for you. So, so please share this with someone. Let it be a blessing to them. And if it is a blessing to you, please leave a five star review for me so others can find this hope and find this podcast and as well. If you haven't heard or got the book yet, go to AndyHowardcom. You can get the book there or you can go to Amazon. It's available there when words don't come easy. Thanks again, my friends, god bless.