Transcript

Ellen: One More Step
Season 1: Episode 9

Carol: 0:07

Welcome to the God Is Good podcast where we share stories of everyday people who have reignited their faith in Jesus and experienced remarkable life transformations. My name is Carol O'Brien, and I'm your host for this podcast. Jeremiah 29 verse 11:"For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope." I feel very blessed to introduce you to the newest storyteller to join our podcast, Ellen. Ellen and I met a short time ago, but I feel like we've been friends for years. She's one of those people who doesn't ever meet a stranger and is always willing to jump in and help wherever she's needed. Ellen serves multiple ministries at church. And we bonded over serving the homeless and hungry. It's a mission that's a passion of both of ours. Ellen's story is one of hope and growth. Even when we think we can't go on any further, God is ready to walk one more step with us or for us. He asks us to become closer to Him every day, and Ellen is a beautiful and faith-filled example of how to do that. So please join me in welcoming Ellen to the podcast. Hi Ellen. We're so excited to have you here.

Ellen: 1:30

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

Carol: 1:32

So Ellen, if you've heard the podcast, you are probably aware that I ask all of our storytellers about their growing up periods and their faith foundation. Is that something you can share with us?

Ellen: 1:44

Oh, I was very blessed. I was raised in a faith-filled home. Now granted it was a very simple faith. It was basic. We went to church every Sunday. We were involved at Lent and went to Mass early in the morning. We weren't saying the rosary together as a family every night, but we were very aware of saying grace. I was sent to Catholic schools all the way through high school. And then I went on to a Catholic college. So I've always felt very grateful for my faith. It has always grounded me. I always thought it was really strong. It's had its ups and downs, but on the whole, it's always been there.

Carol: 2:20

So you mentioned your college life-- during that time, would you say your faith was very strong? Do you feel that you were on fire for Jesus?

Ellen: 2:28

It was Catholic College, All girls school, you know, back in the day. So this was late sixties, early seventies. We thought we were really cool. We were transitioning from being that very traditional woman to being that kind of out there person. So going to Mass every week, even though we had the option to go to Mass, didn't mean we always were going there. So it was always a part of my life, but I didn't see it as being as critical as like I do now. Now it feeds me.

Carol: 2:57

Oh, I love how you described that, that the Mass feeds you. That's wonderful. And it leads us up to a point in your story where you met your husband. Can you tell us about this?

Ellen: 3:08

You'll find out I'm the queen of blind dates. My first husband was a blind date. He went to Notre Dame. My best friend went to St. Mary's College, which was the sister school for Notre Dame. She and her soon-to-be husband fixed the two of us up. If I had known what was involved in marrying John, I probably would've said no because he went into television news and I had been an incredible homebody. I went to a college that was only 30 minutes away from mom and dad. I was locked in at the hip and here I married this man that we moved six times in eight years. That's what you do in television. You start at very small stations and then move up the ladder. When we were forced into these moves, I was forced to grow. There's an expression grow where you're planted. I found out that either I was gonna grow where I was planted or I was gonna just fall apart. And so I learned to stretch myself and reach out to people that I didn't know, to create connections, to get involved in the community, the children, their schools. We eventually wound up in Philadelphia, which was great. But then he got an offer to go and be a consultant for television news in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. And we wound up living there for 19 years. That was where we raised our family. We had a wonderful marriage, very stable. I could always talk to him.

Carol: 4:33

It sounds like it was really wonderful. So your husband's career was taking off and your family was growing. What was happening with you at that point, Ellen?

Ellen: 4:43

The older two children are three years apart and we had wanted that third child. Then I went through a series of miscarriages. So there were three miscarriages in a row. The first one you kind of considerate just a fluke, and it was just something that just happened. Now the second one. John traveled an awful lot and it always seemed like if there was gonna be a family crisis, he made sure he was out of town. So I was probably only eight or nine weeks. It was not very long, but again, started showing symptoms that I was going to lose this baby. My parents actually drive the four and a half hours from Chicago to come in and help as the doctor had put me on immediate bedrest. The night that I had the miscarriage, my mom and dad were there. Neighbors had taken the children to a pizza parlor to get them dinner. And it was a type of place where they had those old fashioned gumball machines and the little ones had gotten into the gumballs. Peter was three. He had gotten a gumball and he started to choke. Everyone-- the ladies were in a panic. A stranger came, picked up, Peter. Popped the gumball out of his mouth and disappeared. They got Peter all sorted and when they went to find this person, they were gone. I will not believe anything other than it was an angel. On the way to the hospital that night, my mom and I cried. I said, God showed me very clearly that I was not gonna be able to keep this baby, but that I would still have Peter. It just helped so much. It took so much of that pain away. So that was a miscarriage number two. Well, by the time we got to the third miscarriage... I again, the pain of the miscarriage. Just emotionally, every woman that's ever had a miscarriage will tell you those babies are very, very real from the second you find out that you're pregnant. I don't think I was angry with God as much as I was just disappointed. And at that point it was like, I don't wanna ever, ever, ever go through this pain again. We're done. We are done. We're not gonna do this.

Carol: 6:50

Oh my goodness. Having gone through multiple miscarriages myself, I truly understand the pain that you went through. Miscarriages are so hard to understand. But it sounds like your faith was really strong. Were you able to find any positives throughout the experience?

Ellen: 7:06

After the miscarriages, one of the blessings that we were given was that we had an opportunity to become foster parents for newborns. That was when Catholic Charities came to our church and asked was there anyone that would be interested in becoming a foster parent? And the mom, if she was considering adoption, she didn't wanna take the baby home with her. Where's the baby gonna go? They needed foster homes and I was like, this, we can do. And that began our two years of foster parenting. We actually had 13 newborn babies in two years. Which was a fabulous experience. We had a 7-year-old and a 4-year-old of our own, and then we had all these babies coming in and out of the house. So it kept us, kept me incredibly busy, but also very joyful'cause I had that nurturing instinct. So, on baby number nine, I very unexpectedly got pregnant with our last baby.

Carol: 7:58

So many changes. Were you done at that point with all the changes or were there more still to come?

Ellen: 8:04

So, Iowa, as I said, it was a great time. And then his company really changed. The ethics changed and John wanted out. Our youngest was about ready to start high school, so we moved 1000 miles away from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. And he took a job as vice president for a dot.com, and he knew that it was a risk, but it was one that we felt as a family we needed to take. So life was good for me. Very, very busy, but very, very good. We could see God's hand in all of it.

Carol: 8:35

So you had moved away from your school and faith community and moved across the country. What happened when you got there?

Ellen: 8:43

We got here in February of 2000. By September John found out he lost his job. a then we found out in January that he had terminal cancer. So less than a year after we had gotten here, we were just on an incredible roller coaster a thousand miles away from everybody that we knew, all of our friends, all of our family, brand new community. It was complete disaster. John's very unexpected illness. And that was the point where Jeremiah 29 11 and I became great friends. Every single night, I would pray that over and over and over again. There was a plan. That there was gonna be hope that God was not gonna leave us. Somehow or another this was gonna come out all right. And, it truly did. We were given everything we could have possibly needed. The community was amazing. Everyone just rallied around us. I had nurses that came in. The hospice people were great. There were meals showing up for a year from people I didn't know. God gave us everything; we had everything we needed. He died on September 6th, the year of 9/11. In fact, we were at Notre Dame with his ashes when the towers fell. And it was just a very, very traumatic time. You're not supposed to die at 51.

Carol: 10:07

Oh, I'm so sorry, Ellen. I can't imagine the trauma that you experienced losing your husband at such a young age.

Ellen: 10:14

But Jeremiah 29 11, I kept going, there's a plan. I know there is a plan. Towards the end of John's illness, he sat me down and he said,"Ellen, promise me that if you can, you will remarry again. Promise me." And I was like, my normal joking stuff,"Yeah, right? Who the heck's gonna wanna marry me?" And he's like,"No, I am serious about this.""All right, I promise you that if I have an opportunity, I will remarry." Well, God had a plan, and five years later I met this incredible Texan. Total opposite of my first husband, but totally, equally as wonderful. And we knew instantly that this was supposed to be a good thing.

Carol: 10:58

So how did you meet him?

Ellen: 11:00

I was teaching at this point. I had been teaching preschool and I had been blessed to get a job teaching kindergarten, just that little baby step up from preschool. There was a teacher across the hall and at one point she said,"Would you like to meet this man? He's incredibly wonderful. He's handsome. He's funny. He's very intelligent." She said he's just great but he's not the marrying kind. He has been single for 26 years. He had lost his wife to cancer. Well, I'm not looking to get married, but dinner sounds nice. So it was a blind date. They fixed us up. We made an instant connection. We were totally different, but very similar. He was this Texan, very industrial background, here I was a city girl from Chicago. We were different, but we both were very Catholic. Both of us had had wonderful first marriages. We scared our children, because six months later we were getting married.

Carol: 11:59

I can imagine your kids were surprised. Was life easy from there on out?

Ellen: 12:05

Well, things were going along swimmingly. We were approaching our eighth anniversary. At that point we had nine grandchildren. Art's job was going well. I was happy with my job. Everything was really mellow, wonderful. We were enjoying each other's company. It was a very happy marriage. It was one of those years where we had Valentine's Day over the weekend and then went straight into Lent on Wednesday. Art got sick and they were thinking it was just the flu. And so for five days, he was getting sicker and sicker and sicker, wound up hospitalized. They're still saying flu and his body is swelling up. Finally after five days, they figured out that it was not flu, that he actually had a horrible infection, and that it was basically everywhere. He had had four joints replaced over the years. This was a number of years after that surgery. Those joints for whatever reason, not just one of them, which is typical, but all of them had developed infection sites and he was one very, very, very sick man. Took eight hours of surgery just to clean out those sites, and at that point there was-- it was not looking good. All of his doctors just shook their head, had furrowed brows. Every time we would say, is he out of the woods? They'd say, not yet. So this went on for an extended period of time. Because of the nature of his illness, he needed to have someone with him in the hospital 24 hours a day. He was an intensive care total of 19 days He also was very delusional. He could become very anxious and frantic. He would try and get up, and he wasn't supposed to. He needed more care than even intensive care nurses could give him. And so we were all taking turns just trying to provide 24 hour care. Spiritually, I was falling apart. As day after day went on, I was getting angrier and angrier. I. I'd look at the ceiling and, and I'd literally yell,"I am not Job! Why, God, are you doing this to me again?" Jeremiah 29 11, it wasn't cutting it the way it had before. It was like I paid my dues. I already suffered. I already lost the love of my life."Why? Why? God would you do this to me again?" It was like I had already, I already put the coins in that cash register. I'm supposed to be getting the payback. This is supposed to be the good part. You gave me the gift of a wonderful second husband. Why, God would it look like you're gonna take it away?

Carol: 14:59

I imagine all of our listeners would agree with me in saying that it's completely understandable where you would be questioning and wondering why, God, why this time, what was happening here? And I know it all came on so quickly, especially since you'd already been through an illness with a husband.

Ellen: 15:15

It came on fast, but I could see that it was going to last long. There was gonna be a lot of pain and suffering, not just for him, but for me. And I didn't want to do it. I'd done it. I was done. One night I'd had enough, I was exhausted, emotionally, a wreck. I was just totally breaking down and I was so angry with God. God was over here and I was over here and there was this big chasm between the two of us.

Carol: 15:46

I think this might be a good time for a brief pause to ask you quickly about your faith journey. Even with everything that you went through before, you never felt that God had abandoned you? And if not, what was so different this time?

Ellen: 16:00

Nope. Never. I had always felt like He had been walking with me. Sometimes I'd be like, why is this happening? But very quickly could go,"Oh, I see part of the plan." It was like I had seen God take me through everything. He was always there. With John's illness, I felt God's hand and I saw him all these places and all these people that had gotten us through. But this time I was like, what on Earth is going on? Why did you abandon me now? You gave us all these blessings. I didn't ask for this man. You gave him to me. We have these grandchildren. We have all our children here. Everybody's getting along. We support each other. And wham, you're gonna take this all away? Why would you do this? I was just mad. At that point, I couldn't get any more tired. I couldn't, I couldn't dig myself out. I was down at the bottom.

Carol: 17:04

At least once in our lives, I think all of us have been where you were. Where you just can't take one more step. What did you do?

Ellen: 17:10

I went to our parish priest for counseling. I must have gone through a box of Kleenex. One thing he said that really resonated with me was he was like,"Ellen, every sentence that's coming out of your mouth starts with I." The whole thing was about me. It was my pain, what had been done to me, what I deserved. I just hit a brick wall of faith. And it was definitely an aha moment. I had to reevaluate. And right after that, I was walking to Palm Sunday Mass in the hospital. All of a sudden it was like a light bulb went off and I got this vision of Mary. And I was like, what did Mary suffer? She didn't wanna watch this person that she loved so intensely experience all that pain, which was exactly what I was doing with Art. I was watching his pain. I was like, Mary had to experience all this pain, and she did it just by taking one more step, one more step. God's calling me to do that too. I can't fight the suffering. I need to walk through the suffering, and I can't do it alone. I have to do it with Him. I need Mary's support, and I had a very clear vision of not just her holding me up, but me holding her up in this corridor as we were walking towards Mass. I had her elbow and she had me, and we were walking together. And it was like, Mary, I can do this if you and your son are with me. All of a sudden, I had the realization that I was supposed to take my pain and my suffering and unite it with theirs, and that it was going to be all right. And that changed everything.

Carol: 19:07

Oh, that's such a beautiful image of you and Mary carrying each other. So he did get better. How long did that take?

Ellen: 19:15

We'd gone from the beginning of Lent to almost the end of Lent so we're talking about over a month. So at that point, they were able to say, He's gonna make it." He did get better, but it was a long process. Multiple hospitalizations, multiple rehab centers, physical therapy, intravenous IVs at home that I had to administer. There was joy. We got to the good part again, and I was also able to see that, that I needed to do this. That God was calling us, both he and I in different ways to tell the story. To show that yes, there was suffering. Yes, there was pain. We could take those pains and that suffering and that there was hope and that we were supposed to share that with other people.

Carol: 20:07

Well, I'm so glad you're here to be able to share that story with us, and that when you looked, you were able to see the plan.

Ellen: 20:14

God really did have a plan. We've learned the lesson that it's not worth trying to fight it. It's so much easier and so much more, if you can say joyful, if you're able to accept the fact that, yes, I have this pain, but it's being used for a reason.

Carol: 20:33

I could be wrong, but I don't think God deals in coincidences. I think there was a reason that you walked this path during Lent. Did you celebrate Easter in the hospital?

Ellen: 20:44

They had sent him to rehab; we celebrated Easter in the visitor lounge of the rehab center. We did get that beautiful Easter, but it was an Easter where he still was in a wheelchair, could not stand on his own. He was still one very, very sick man, but we were starting to see where there was light at the end of the tunnel. It was close to two years before he was really what you would call recovered. Well, now, we just celebrated 10 years. He still has the infection. The infection will always be underlying but they manage it with the antibiotics. He's living a happy, very fulfilled life where he's still working. Life has been beautiful and he's been able to share his story too.

Carol: 21:33

So there was a point where Jeremiah 29 11 was your stronghold:"For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope." Now, I know there was a period where that scripture wasn't giving you the peace it had in the past. Has that changed for you now?

Ellen: 21:56

Hang on just a second. There's really an extension to it, which I think almost is exactly where I am now. Okay. This is the part that is meaningful for me now."When you call me, when you go to pray to me, I will listen to you. When you look for me, you will find me. Yes, when you seek me with all your heart, you will find me with you, says the Lord, and I will change your lot."

Carol: 22:24

Oh, so good. So God didn't want to change the scripture for you, but just expand it. So when you read the full scripture, and that would be Jeremiah 29, 11 through 14, God was simply asking you to grow.

Ellen: 22:40

I was only focusing on that one little brief part. But really the second part of my journey is the second part. I needed to go to Him. I needed to seek him. Before he was always just there, but I guess I went through that desert where I was like,"where are you? Why did you leave?" And I had to go to seek Him and realize that He never left me. He was always there, but it was just not gonna be the way I wanted it to be. But that it was still all right; that that plan was meant to give me hope.

Carol: 23:18

This is such a beautiful faith journey, Ellen. And I think the timing of this is so remarkable. I just heard an episode of Rosary in a Year with Father Mark-Mary, and he was saying really the same thing. He said, how many times have we gone to the same old places where we've always found Jesus before and then all of a sudden we can't hear him anymore? And what God is really asking us to do is to seek him. To have a bit more perseverance. And to take one more step. I know your story is going to touch at least one heart. And I hope it's encouraging to people who feel like they've given everything that they can. God is asking you to take one more step, to keep going, because he's there. He's there for you. Thank you, Ellen, for sharing and being with us today.

Ellen: 24:07

Thank you for having me.

Carol: 24:08

And thank you to all of our listeners for sharing your time with us. Please do us a favor and like and follow our podcast so our storytellers can reach even more hearts and bring them closer to Jesus. And remember, friends, God is good.

Ellen: 24:24

All the time.

Carol: 24:25

Amen.