The Faith Collective: Recent Episodes
Kati Ellis
My son was born with only half a heart – a single pumping chamber – that required a series of surgeries in his first months of life. While the doctors are pleased with my son’s progress during the two-year lull between rounds of surgeries, my husband and I face the unseen horrors of the aftermath, often in the dark of night. Even after he had fully recovered from his latest surgery, for ten consecutive months my son woke up every fifteen minutes in the grip of night terrors, screaming and inconsolable though no longer in physical pain. It was these moments – exhausted beyond reason, emotionally spent, and each night hopeful, even desperate, for relief that did not come – that brought me abruptly to the limits of my faith.
Gratefully, with incredible support from my family and congregation, I realized that I was in charge of the narrative, and I received reassurance that I had given what had been asked of me. The Lord had received my little offering, my “loaves and fishes.” But little did I know that was just the beginning of owning and creating new narratives with God.
*We had never been happier than the day we found out we were pregnant. An immediate love, connection, and joy filled my body knowing our little growing angel would call it home.
In just one day, it felt like I lost everything.*
Have you ever found yourself curled up in a ball thinking about how you honestly don’t know if you will make it much longer? Or have you, at times, felt so angry with God that all you wanted was to yell at Him and never talk to Him again unless, of course, you needed to yell at Him some more? If you’ve answered yes to either question, this story is for you.
To keep it short, I’ve had major health problems since I was 9: systemic scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis, and Raynaud’s syndrome, which also led to major emotional and spiritual problems.
I pulled up the sleeve to her hospital gown and saw she had a tattoo on her arm I had never seen. “Time waits for no one,” it read. I was standing in a hospital, with a woman I’d been disconnected from for years, who I hadn’t allowed to meet my child, and she was dying. My mother was dying. Quickly. She was losing her almost forty year battle with addiction. I had mentally prepared for this day most of my life, yet here it was and I needed time to pause. I needed time to wait. I had so much more left to say.
I remember being so scared, putting on a brave face for my family. God, please see me through this so that I can see my kids grow up.
I wasn’t supposed to give birth this early, but I felt something was not right. God, please bring my baby into this world healthy and safe.
I have sickle cell anemia and pulmonary hypertension which is very risky and rare. Most women don’t survive childbirth, my doctor told me. I was scheduled for an emergency C-section that day, but I refused. I felt in my heart that if they cut me open, I would not make it to see my son’s beautiful face.
Navy’s affinity for hearts grew when her aunt gave her a heart blanket the year prior. It had turned into warrior-Navy’s shield, held tightly over her right chest where her implanted port resided. This small spot on her body held so much pain, anxiety, and PTSD from poke after poke. Heart blankie bravely protected her and comforted her.
I decided to turn my pain into purpose. I started to share my faith on social media. I had numerous messages tell me that my faith and perseverance helped strengthen their own faith. My relationship and love for my Savior grew in ways that I don’t think would have if I hadn’t been suffering the way that I was. This pain wasn’t something my closest loved ones could even begin to understand, but Jesus could. He knew.
Nora is our miracle baby. She was a sassy little thing in the NICU and I feel like that’s what kept her going. She didn’t have any major problems. She was just little and needed time to grow. I realize now how this experience could have been devastating, but this experience was a beautiful one for me. I know God has a plan for His children. For whatever reason Nora needed to come sooner. For whatever reason Nora was saved and she is still a little sassy thing. She is strong. She is resilient. She is beautiful. She is a daughter of God and she’s my miracle baby.
After I hung up with my mom, I found a secluded classroom in the church building and knelt down to pray. Prayer felt like a last ditch effort to save my dad. As I was praying, it was becoming more and more clear that my dad had died. I continued to plead with God to raise my dad from the dead and keep him alive.
I was too fatigued to make it all the way down the stairs, so I just sat there while processing, and words and a melody started floating to my brain. They demanded attention.
So I started writing it all down in the Note app on my phone. When such a perfect creation is essentially sent from heaven and downloaded into your brain, you have to ask God, “Why did you send this?” His answer: “I want you to sing it at his funeral.” That’s what I was afraid of. Why did it seem like God was always asking hard things of me?
I prayed and pleaded with God to help me not look the way I did or for Him to help me lose the “extra weight”, so I could feel pretty enough. For years I thought weight gain was my trail in life and that the only way I could feel joy again was if I lost weight. I was so wrong!
After years of struggling with this eating disorder and feeling completely hopeless, God helped me see that I could not overcome this alone.
There have been many moments of sorrow and tears lost in dark closets. There have also been profound, heart-pounding times of joy. And lately, as I’ve reflected on it all, I’ve wondered: Was I faithful enough? Am I faithful enough? Could my faith stand in the deepest of waters, trusting fully in the abounding grace of the Lord that I would call upon Him as I’m led deeper? Or would I drown?
In these meditative moments, I’ve felt a gentle but resounding answer:
I do not mean for you to endure alone.
I needed my Christmas baby.
It was the most special Christmas and it wasn’t because of all the things we checked off our Christmas calendar, but it was because our family had been given a reminder of what it is all about. While I still love to do all of the Christmas activities and look forward to them, I will never forget that Christmas. If we don’t get to all of the activities or traditions, I let go of the guilt because it’s not what I need. I need to find the magic in my kids serving one another, the magic in us going forward in faith and putting our trust in Him not knowing where our paths will lead us, the magic in our stories and taking time to reflect and ponder on what is important in our lives, and to take time to ponder about the miracle baby- our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and His faithful mother, Mary.
My charismatic non-denominational church family doesn’t have many liturgical style traditions, but every year on Christmas Eve, we host a small, low-key candlelight service. I love it. In the midst of the crazy hullabaloo of buying presents, welcoming friends and family from afar, prepping a ridiculous amount of food, all while navigating snow and ice, we gather to remember Emmanuel—God with us.
After the long season of praying, “Restore to me the joy of my salvation,” I’m not sure I was expecting my prayer to be answered. But that Christmas Eve of my senior year in college, I was surprised by God’s presence as we began to sing.
Throughout the whole next day I prayed and wrestled. The idea of religious intergenerational trauma was new to me. I’d never considered religious division as a spiritual seminal wound before. I thought about the cruel responses by some traditional Christians, in the name of God, during the establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My heart filled my throat as God’s compassion in me grew.
I went on walks in the woods as I had done years before, and in the quiet stillness I listened. God spoke peace to my soul and reassured me of His sovereignty. I declared powerful truths aloud until my heart really believed them. “Thank you God for working all things together for my good (Romans 8:28). I will not fear, because you are with me (Isaiah 41:10). You are my shield and my stronghold (Psalm 18:2). Jesus, you said that mountains can move with a small amount of faith” (Matthew 17:20). I internalized the possibility of God moving my mountain and visualized being healed. The God who parted the Red Sea could make a way for me to walk through surgery unharmed.
Written story and photographs here:
https://www.thefaithcollective.org/the-faith-collective/let-god-be-magnified
Why could I not control this?
I felt stuck. Hopeless. Ridiculous.
Then, in His unmatched and unexpected way, the Lord stepped in to deliver me from bondage.
I remembered a friend who had spoken of similar struggles with food and body image. I reached out to her immediately and she lovingly shared her experience in a 12-step program for food addiction recovery. My decision to join the program was influenced entirely by my trust in her.
At the end of my senior year the anxiety was especially high as I prepared to graduate, to leave my family and home, and to start a new life at college. I felt like everything was coming too quick. Too much change was about to happen and I wouldn’t be able to deal with the stress of it all. I wasn’t happy with who I was and didn’t feel I was ready for it all. I remember one night praying, begging, crying to my Heavenly Father that I might feel His love for me and to know that He is aware of me and my struggles.
But we all have a story. I do have a story.My story is made up of many small moments that make it mine and nobody else’s. Those small moments, along with the people around me, both in heaven and on earth, have helped my faith grow and make me who I am.
It would be impossible to list all those little details and simple experiences, so I will share just this one. It is simple, but it means so much to me.
In the winter of 2017 I started battling depressive thoughts for the first time. I would come home to my beautiful luxury sky rise studio apartment, throw myself on the couch and cry for hours. I felt lonely, empty and hopeless. It felt like Heavenly Father had forgotten about me. It felt like all my friends were having children, getting married or had amazing jobs, and I was getting left behind. I had wasted time, made too many mistakes and that Heavenly Father was disgusted with me.
I always say that it’s the things we don’t expect that make life tough. We can mentally prepare ourselves for many types of life situations or circumstances but still there will be things we don’t see coming and those things always seem to be the most difficult. In my case, I never planned to be single at the age of 30. In fact, I remember seeing women in their mid-20s when I was younger and feeling so sorry for them.
Two months later we found ourselves in the ultrasound room. “Well, I have some news," the tech said as she typed 'Baby A' and ‘Baby B’ on the screen. "There are two sacs! You have two children coming.” I began crying and laughing at the same time. We were having twins! Jenna Mazey (now Greiner), who was always ready for an adventure, was having twins! Exciting, right?
Then why wasn’t I handling it the way I thought I should be?
At age 19, I found myself married to who I thought was my forever companion only to discover that a pornography addiction had such a hold on my spouse that it left me divorced, broken, and completely shattered at again, age 19. We didn’t even make it a year together.
This was not part of my plan! This is completely unfair! How could I have not known? I thought it felt right? Do I not know how to recognize the Spirit in my life? I’ve lived a decent life! The injustice of it all sent me into a downward spiral of doubt and questions.
Fast forward a few years, and a bad thing happened. I found myself the victim of rape, and I had all the guilt and shame that comes with that. I felt guilt for going over to my boyfriend’s house when I knew his parents weren’t home. I felt shame, as if I’d broken that covenant with God to wait until marriage. And I felt that surely, God couldn’t love me anymore.
Was my rebellion part of the plan? Was I supposed to suffer rape alone? What about when I sobbed in agony when I got a divorce at only age 20. When the gun was pressed against the fragile skin of my head was that planned too? Was the pain from childhood meant to be carried alone? Where was His love when all I had to feel ok was drugs and alcohol? For one who has suffered it might at first glance seem cruel to think that it was in some ways planned but not to the soul that has faith.
My husband and I spent much of the next week at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City with Matthias, where he had a surgery to biopsy the tumor and place a port on his chest for chemo. He was diagnosed with stage 3 neuroblastoma, and the months of treatment began. All told, our little guy would go on to spend 79 days in the hospital and have 5 rounds of chemo, 4 surgeries, and 5 blood transfusions, along with a garble of other acronyms.
I had been living in Mumbai for almost two years. I had fought my parents to move there on my own for what I was certain would be a uniquely creative job opportunity. Having been in an all-girl Catholic boarding school all my life, they probably understood I wasn’t ready to live in a big city by myself, but I was stubborn. Very stubborn. I left them crying at the railway station, certain this was my ticket out of my humdrum existence.
If it weren’t for my abusive mother giving me away, having to flee Afganistán, my arranged marriage, the loss of my son, the imprisonment of my ex-husband, and all that I endured since then I wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t be doing what I am doing today. The Lord strengthened me through my experiences. Now I don’t see them as punishment and a curse, I see them as a blessing in my life.
There was a small church nearby and I began to attend. It wasn’t the same denomination as my childhood church, but I was a part of a Christ-focused community again and I was ready to be spiritually fed.
Juanita is my maternal grandmother. She is the grandmother that marked a big path in my life. She came from humble beginnings, and she did all she could to raise five daughters on her own. She immigrated from Mexico to the United States with the clothes she had on and nothing else.
As we walked the streets, we were encouraged to reach out and humanize the members of the colony with a simple handshake or touch. But now that I was here, with that rancid smell and that heavy heat, I was filled with shame as my fear of contracting leprosy had robbed me of the ability to perform even this simple act.
I sat on the bathroom floor, the positive pregnancy test in my hand. I had been sure I was wrong; after all, I couldn’t be pregnant!!! I had an IUD. I looked up at heaven, “Why God, why me?”
I immediately felt guilty. I’d always believed a child was a gift, and I knew mothers who were fighting to conceive. How could I dread such a blessing?
I stood up, dried my tears and went to tell my husband that we were expecting number six in eight years.
I wasn’t ready for the postpartum darkness that would ensue. Everything was in question, which was so unlike me. My faith, my self confidence, my ability to do things, my ability to ever be myself again.
I would go to church where it felt like EVERY SINGLE sermon and lesson was about the beauty of families and how a husband’s duty is to protect and love his wife. But I didn’t have that. Church quickly turned from my refuge to a place that brought pain. I had lived my life exactly the way God had asked me to live it. I did everything right. Yet the love I was promised was replaced by severe mental, emotional, and verbal abuse.
I won’t ever forget the look on the doctor’s face as he delivered the results of the test– it was filled with grief. All I heard was, “eye disease… blindness…and no cure or timeline.” My only thought was that there must be a mistake.
A phone call awoke me to the news: there was a plane crash. In that single moment I lost my sister who had been my role model from the time I was born, my brother-in-law who was the big brother I never had, my 15 year old nephew, and my 12 year old niece. It was something I never could have imagined in my worst nightmares. It was a devastating loss for our family, no doubt.
But we needed something different and as we thought more on it, the idea of moving from California to Utah started to feel scary, but at the same time made sense. There is always a lot of chaos and nerves around making a big decision, but the moment we decided to follow the prompting, everything felt so calm.
In our world it feels to me that we have become preoccupied with measuring our success based off the grades we receive, the money we make, or the location in which we reside (to name a few). So much so, that we have lost focus on what matters most. Sure, counting from 1-20 is a good skill to learn; however, I am confident we would all agree being kind far outweighs that.
My story, though unique in many ways, is also familiar to all. A story of struggle, of loss, of pain both physical and spiritual…and in the end, miraculously a story of triumph. I know not all stories have happy endings and for a long time, I feared that mine would not. I was adjusting my mind over time to embrace a new normal. A normal that included physical disabilities, brain damage and mental illness. However, with the Lord’s tender mercies and even just a mustard seed of faith, I held on and the light came.
I spent the next hour or so reading about the terror she felt when she saw the hole in my face. The guilt my dad felt over not having seen the situation and stopping it in time. The miracle after miracle that brought family and doctors into the right situation so that everything worked out okay. But mostly, I read about the love—all the love that my family had for me, and that God had for me. He was there for me. He was aware of the pain, the timing, the fear, and He provided miracles.
God is real. He is a God of miracles, and He can help us overcome our weaknesses, take our pain away, and fill our souls with peace in even the worst circumstances. He knows exactly what we need and He can provide us with our 2lb block of cheese!
A miracle. I wanted a miracle. And I believed God could give us one. It didn’t come in the way I expected or at the time I initially wanted, but it is unfolding in God’s perfect way. A great healing is occurring through small miracles. When my oldest child was a baby, she developed symptoms consistent with food allergies.
Suddenly my world, as I knew it, crashed in around me. Without warning, I was engulfed by an enormous wave swell. I found out I was pregnant. I was scared. I couldn’t breathe. I felt the pull of the water. I was sinking. I tried to swim my way to the surface to get some air. I judged myself really harshly and wondered how I could be so reckless. I felt alone. Hopeless. Faithless.
My life is a mess. LITERALLY. So messy I can’t even describe it, and it really stresses me out. There are so many times when I look around and just see my failures. As I sit there on my couch completely overwhelmed and out of control, I hold on to that thought of a loving and concerned Father, and push just enough of my failures off my shoulder to find the strength to pray.
Many times in life, I’ve found myself in the midst of a metaphorical fog, desperately needing heavenly navigation. The diagnosis came in as choriocarcinoma (cancer of the placenta) and I started chemo immediately. However, as time went on we realized we weren’t dealing with a typical presentation of choriocarcinoma. It was an extremely rare presentation of an extremely rare form of cancer and though my doctors were doing their best, they didn’t know what was going on.
I married a wonderfully, golden soul of a man, one I had known since my childhood, and fell in love with him in the most unlikely of circumstances. My husband had a past of struggling with the disease of addiction and had been through a lot. I was not naive to the daily effort he would have to put forth in order to maintain his already 4 year sobriety. This decision was one of diligent study and prayer despite the concern and doubt from so many outside of our relationship.
In April, 2016, we got a new doctor who sent Woody to UMC for his next hospitalization. He was diagnosed with advanced ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). Now he had 2 diseases with no cure. God was the reason I could do everything and get through all the phases of Woody's growing illnesses. I had to include Him throughout because it wasn't me doing it alone.
I have Lyme disease—a tick-born illness that wreaks havoc on the human body. The longer you have the disease without treating it, the harder it is to cure. (Which made it particularly unfortunate that it took me a year and a half to get diagnosed.) Today is day one of the latest treatment I’m testing out. After six years of debilitating illness and ineffective therapies, I’m more than a little anxious for it to work. I sit up off of the table, and say a prayer in my heart. It’s the same one I have been saying for years:
I ask my God to heal me.
After my brother died, I grieved as best I could, but with my 3-month-old baby boy, any physical or emotional energy I had went to him. I would nurse my son in the middle of the night, tears streaming down my face, a surprising gift of hormones that releases emotional connectedness to my physical self. Keeping a small human well-loved and fed seemed to lengthen my intense grieving period because I was so focused on him, instead of the grief.
I have always thought my story is a little hard to write. It’s something that cannot be told with one event, but rather in a sequence of events. It may feel a little tragic at times-- there is a lot of hurt, but that hurt only leads to greater hope and healing and that sweet peaceful feeling of triumph and joy.
My dad was right, it isn't black and white. There is a grey, and Christ lives there. He sweat great drops of grey, black, and white in the Garden of Gethsemane.