[DAWN GABRIELS]
Faith Fringes is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Faith in Practice, Beta Male Revolution, Empowered and Unapologetic or Impact Driven Leader, go to the website, www.practiceofthepractice.com/network.

Hi, I’m Dawn Gabriel, host of Faith Fringes Podcast, recording live from Castle Rock Colorado, not only where I love to live, but I also work as the owner of a counseling center in the historic downtown. This podcast is a place to explore more than the traditional norms of the Christian culture. For those desiring deeper connection with God and engaging their spirituality in new ways, this will be a safe place to allow doubt, questions and curiosity, without judgment. We will be creating intentional space to listen in on other’s faith journeys, whether that is deconstruction or reconstruction, with the hope of traveling alongside you on your own spiritual path. If you’re interested in getting even more out of this podcast, grab my free email course Spiritual Reflections on my websitefaithfringes.com. Welcome to the podcast.

Welcome back spiritual explorers. Thank you so much for listening today. I hope you’re having a great day. As you know, I love hearing people’s stories and I love allowing space and creating space for people to tell their story. I think it’s such a powerful tool and in fact, that’s one of my pillars of Faith Fringes. So today I do have a story that I think some of you can relate to. I know I’ve heard this story, what Christy deals with from a lot of different people and I’d love for her to share her story today. I think she is so brave and doing it, and it’s a powerful story. So I met Christy through a group I was in and I just think she is full of life and full of inspiration and I’m so glad she’s here today. Christy Pennison is a board certified professional counselor, a single mama to a fun-loving pre-teen daughter and six furry rescue animals.

She is an inspirational speaker and a car singer extraordinaire. As a former “stuck” person, she is passionate about helping individuals discover ways to move forward and live fully. She hopes by sharing her story anyone can realize that no matter how fringed do you feel your faith is never lose hope. It is in the fringes where faith can grow. I am so grateful for Christy to come here and share her story. I think it is one that we need to hear and talk about on how the church responds to certain people’s stories. So today I want you guys to welcome Christy to this.
[DAWN]
Welcome to the podcast, Christy.
[CHRISTY PENNISON]
Thanks For having me, Dawn. I’m really excited to be here today.
[DAWN]
Yes, I’m excited too, because I know you have a story to share and I know listeners love stories, and I think today what we had been preparing for is what happens when your faith journey, or you’ve been raised with a certain way, and your faith has prepared you for life to turn out this way, but it doesn’t turn out the way you expected and kind of what do you do with that? And I know I’m sure you’re not the only one. I know, I’ve been there too and other people, so I’d love to hear more about that Christy. Like what happens when you grow up believing one thing and life turns out a different way?
[CHRISTY]
Yes. Well, I guess I’ll just tell you a little bit about my backstory and that may just give some context to what we’re going to talk about today. But I used to make a joke that I was drugged as a child, but not in the way that you think. I was drugged to church back from church. I was raised, I’m from Louisiana, so I was raised in a Southern Baptist church and faith was always something that was a part of our daily lives. You know, from the time I was real, real small, my parents taught Sunday school in a Baptist church and at some point they even told me that they had done a young adults ministry. And I can remember being in children’s choir. My mom always jokes that I was the loudest one and could be heard from the back row. So church was just such an integral part of my childhood. I mean, there’s really no part in my childhood where I remember where faith in church, wasn’t a regular part of it. Even whenever it was time for me to transition into young adulthood, we would go, I got super involved in my youth group.

I really have to give my youth pastor a shout out because he really went through a lot with me. He really did. We were in a small church and even for the size of our church, he provided such great opportunities for us to be able to get outside of our own community, to see the world, to serve, whether it be us going down to New Orleans to serve in a homeless shelter, or whether it be driving to New Mexico, to serve at a, I guess, a reservation that people, community lived in. So I think God was always a part of my life and I feel very fortunate because I had such great individuals that spoke into me throughout my life, but it wasn’t always easy. Because I had such a firm foundation and God was always there and that when people share their testimony they often talk about this life-changing event that happened to them.

And I just, so my testimony was always that I never felt that God wasn’t there. It was just my knowing of Him got deeper as I got older and through a lot of life challenges. But I remember the biggest change when my childhood was when my parents divorced and actually even seeing the way that the church responded to them in that time, I didn’t fully understand it because I was 10 years old, but I just remember going through that and having to change churches. And in hindsight, looking at this because my parents were very active in one church and just the dynamic of them splitting. And so even at that age, I felt that part of, that was an interesting thing to look at from a child because we didn’t know maybe why we were changing churches or why we were going over here.

But there was still a part of that faith that things are going to work out. This doesn’t make sense. This is hard, but it’s going to work out. So I guess when I grew up, I always thought that my life is going to go a certain direction because that’s what I was kind of taught. Like you’re going to like really follow God and you’re going to trust the path and at some point, God is going to provide this amazing man for you. He’s just going to fall out of the sky and all these Christian books about like how to find this. So when I was going to get into young adulthood, I was going to meet this person in college and we’re going to have this wonderful family and this is the way that life was going to get.

And it’s really interesting because I even got awesome experiences growing up at a young age at 16. I had, was able to do some work with like international missions where I was able to go to a different country on a short-term mission trip and really see ways God moved in those areas. And I even as a young adult, went to at 18, went to a thing called discipleship training school with Wylie, Youth With A Mission where it’s a five month, I guess, intensive of where you’re learning more about who God is, and then also being able to make Him known. So there was this culture that I was always around, like had these foundational things that you just kind of built your life around, I guess, so to speak. But we’re, we’ll talk about this in just a minute, but then life changed for me when I got later on in my young adult years and I was left kind of with the question of like, “I did not get the playbook. Okay, of how to deal with this.” You know, these situations.
[DAWN]
Yes. So it sounds like, I mean, not just God, but even just the culture of Christianity and church was so much a part of your life from when you were young, even into your young adulthood and then, but yet life happens and we’re like, wait a minute, we didn’t talk about this.
[CHRISTY]
We did not talk about this. Yes, and I mean, I even had great, like I said, these great mentors. One of them comes to mind who just, I remember it was probably about sixth grade who taught me about the difference between just religion and relationship and really how to cultivate that relationship with God, where I just came to Him and wrote down all my thoughts and feelings and have just this dialogue. So even that, I really felt that even at that young age, I had started to cultivate this relationship with God. And so as that relationship deepened and changed, and of course just like any teenager, their reports were pretty much probably stepped away from my faith for a little bit, but it was always something that was there and foundational that I came back to. So I think what happened is when I got older and there were these things that came up in my life that weren’t aligned with the values or what I had been taught or things that I was choosing that maybe you were taught as kind of like, you should not do that. I always had this internal battle within me of how do I move forward in this?
[DAWN]
Okay. Yes. So you’re saying some stuff came up that was different from the values you taught and you weren’t sure how to navigate that within your actions, within your soul, and what do I do with it?
[CHRISTY]
Right.
[DAWN]
Okay. Can I give, can you be more specific or is that —
[CHRISTY]
Yes, and so we were talking about, I kind of alluded to the fact of, one of the things that I always thought about was that at some point God was going to drop this amazing man in my life and this was going to happen. So what I was never taught about was like, what happens when you’re a young adult and you’re getting into relationships? And whenever, sometimes there isn’t hard, it isn’t as easy to draw the boundary in the line to say like, “okay, I’m going to wait for marriage.” So what I happened was in college, I found myself in a period I call kind of wondering or meandering through my faith. I used to have this great professor in college. I’ll also went to a Baptist college for undergraduate, just to draw the picture, even wider.

I did religion as an undergraduate, I had this great professor. He said, “There’s going to comes times in your life where you aren’t going to do this thing called SWG.” He said, “You are going to struggle, wrestle, and grapple with your faith.” And I feel like he was trying to prepare me, but I wasn’t ready to listen that there are going to be times that we each have to find our own faith, that we each have to find our beliefs and what faith means to us and what God means to us. And just, we each have to do that. We can’t, there is at one point in your life where you’re going to have to strip off everything that you were taught to believe and figure out for yourself what actually holds true. So what ended up happening is at 22 years old, I became pregnant unexpectedly. And to be honest on, it was a relationship that really wasn’t very meaningful to me and so I was really involved in my church and this is where everything came into play.

So I’m 22. I find myself pregnant, I go to a Baptist college, I was going to like an denominational Christian Church at the time. But I just remember when I found out that I was pregnant, there was this overwhelming feeling of shame and guilt and like, “Oh my gosh. Now everybody’s going to know that I struggled in some areas in my life and I’m not perfect in this.” And by the way, I didn’t get to marriage. I didn’t make it to marriage to save this thing for?
[DAWN]
So it was like it’s so public when you’re pregnant. It’s like other things you can hide, but when you’re pregnant, it’s like, I can’t hide this.
[CHRISTY]
Right. So no longer was this thing that I was taught really, as this sin that you are not supposed to do. Like I just remember this was drilled into me so much, like from true love waits. I don’t know if you ever heard about that.
[DAWN]
Kiss is stating goodbye.
[CHRISTY]
Oh my gosh. I read that Dawn.
[DAWN]
Or I’m for Jesus. A shout out to the purity culture that did not prepare anyone for reality.
[CHRISTY]
Well, I don’t want to discredit them because it was all great things and like theory. But then whenever you, and I remember kind of when I made that choice to kind of say like, okay, I’m going to explore this area of really my sexuality, I guess, it was always this back and forth dialogue of like, “Okay, I’m doing this. I know I’m not supposed to be doing this. Dear Lord, please take this, this is a way for me.” Like, I honestly, Dawn used to sit and I would journal and I would cry. I would cry about it so much because I knew I was out of alignment or I felt like I was out of alignment of what God wanted for me. But it was just one of those things that was just so hard for me to just not go there and —
[DAWN]
Let’s pause there for a minute because I think that’s such a good point. I mean, I was raised some very similar, but the reality is no one was talking about it. And I feel like we need a safe place to talk about this, but no one was talking about what do you do when your body is responding in ways no one prepared you for it? Like we are made to be sexual beings and that’s how God made us. So what do you do with that when you’re in a relationship? Whether it’s serious or not, like your body is made to respond to one another sexually. So, yes, I feel like there was never, I don’t remember ever having a conversation like that or reading a book about that part and that is the reality. Like, that’s what we need. I feel like, I used to work in a university and a college and I was like, “We have to talk about this.”

And I felt like I wanted to create a safe place for my college girls so that we could talk about the reality of it. And I felt like it was so much more healthy and important to say that, or I know in my family it was talked about don’t have sex until you’re married, but they didn’t even talk about birth control. Like acting like that was it. And then, I mean, if I anyway —
[CHRISTY]
And I’m glad to bring that up, Dawn, because there was some armies to my story. That was something I had just started to look into.
[DAWN]
Birth control?
[CHRISTY]
Yes, disclosure for a complete disclosure. But I remember I didn’t for so long because I felt that if I did that, then it would give me permission to do the thing I knew I was not supposed to be doing.
[DAWN]
Right. But then you were praying for God to take this away, but yet, so it was very, there was a big gap between reality and what you were taught and realizing how do I, what do I do to bridge the gap? And yes, I can see that.
[CHRISTY]
Yes. And it’s, and when you do, if you’ve cultivated that faith of like, I feel like I can have this dialogue with God, you know it can really enter a lot of dynamics of like, do just feel that you’re not strong enough or maybe you’re not even worthy. And where did those, where did those messages come from? And you really have to kind of, so there I was at 22, I found out I was pregnant, I was pretty active in my church at the time. I mean, a year prior, I had just got off of a whole summer mission trip where I went to Kenya and Africa for a month and served. I was in different organizations that I had served with in the past. So everyone had this perception of me and that’s another thing that comes into play. The people in the church had this perception of me, like Christy is just this faith-filled girl, which I knew somehow that was true, because I was, but they didn’t see the other side of the struggle and there wasn’t a place, like you said. And I’m so glad to hear that you, when you are doing the college kind of dialogue or ministry, that you’re able to have these conversations because there was never one person in my whole, whole faith journey that says, let’s talk about the reality of this.

And I don’t know if it’s because maybe I didn’t have this dialogue, so people that never struggled with this, or maybe that it was because that purity was so like enamored into the culture that I was a part of a faith. Like that, we don’t want to talk about it because we don’t want that to be an option. It was like, you either do this or you are like severely lacking in your faith.
[DAWN]
Yes. And it’s like, I think we need to hear more of, I am a strong faith person. I have a strong faith and I’m not perfect and I struggle. There’s both there. And guess what? God is in the midst of both. Like you don’t have to have one or the other. You can have both.
[CHRISTY]
Yes. And God is in the midst of it. And God was in the midst of that too. I always say that God has really taught me some things throughout my time. And I used to say, God has jokes because, I do think He does. He’s a humorous person. That’s just my perception. I think He has some humor. That’s where we get humor from, right?. But I used to say, God really has brought me to a point in my life. Anything that I said I would never do somehow came into fruition. And Dawn I thought about this is, is when I was a teenager, this is how much this purity concept was ingrained in my brain. I used to have these dreams, not frequently, but I had dreams and maybe this was like prophecy or something. I don’t want to talk about that lightly. But I used to have a dream about this girl walking, and the girl was me walking into a church pregnant and everybody looking at her, intense. I know this is weird and it wasn’t until I got pregnant and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I remember these.”

Like, it came back to me. And it wasn’t like frequent dreams or anything, but obviously they stood out to me where I walked down the church aisle. I was at my old church walking down the aisle and just people looking, looking, and then talking and then looking again and feeling that intense, feeling of judgment. So whenever this happened, as my reality, it was just something that I wasn’t prepared for because I thought that this would never, this thing would never be something that would, to me that was not my life journey. That I was going to meet the nice man and do all that, not go through this journey the way that it happens.
[DAWN]
So how did your church respond to when you went to?
[CHRISTY]
It was really interesting how things went. You know, the first, there were a few people that I felt like I had to go tell in person pretty soon. One of those individuals was my pastor and then another individual was this 90-year-old lady I used to visit in a nursing home. I don’t know why those are the two people like outside of my family that I felt like I had to tell. And this was a reality for me that I just, it was never in my cards. Like that was not the thought. So I remember going into my pastor’s office and sitting down and delivering this news to him, and he really is, I have to give a shout out to him. He has been so supportive of me on that journey, that even my whole life journey until now, even though I may not go to that church anymore. And I think he’s always been somebody who has tried to be transparent and then also be able to own stuff whenever things may have not panhandle properly. So I want to give big kudos to him because I really appreciated his authenticity and vulnerability, even with me.

So when I went and sat in his office, I remember I was so nervous. I was so scared because I’m like, I’m about to like, let all my closet, I’m about to open up my closet and tell people what’s really inside and that’s really scary. And I was still processing all this shame and judgment I was giving myself —
[DAWN]
Well, sure, it was a huge life adjustment for you, I’m sure.
[CHRISTY]
Right. 22, you know, and like Alabama and different places, I really wasn’t at the thing of like, okay, let’s, I’m ready to take care of a human being. That was —
[DAWN]
I’m ready to be, let alone, I’m ready to be a mom now. No, that was, yes. So how did he respond?
[CHRISTY]
So he looked at me and I could tell it took him a while to process. His first reaction was, is really interesting because he knew the person that I had gotten pregnant by and his first thought was, he took on this great burden of responsibility that was, I think never has to take on, but he’s like, “Oh my gosh, I feel like…” he felt like he should have warned me or told me. So he kind of felt like, because I guess he knew my story and then he, as a pastor, he knew this other person’s story. And I think he felt like some, in some regards like that, maybe it was like his responsibility that this happened, which was a really interesting thing. And I had to like, assure him, like, “Look, this is not, there’s nothing that you could’ve done.”
[DAWN]
Yes, that’s the farthest thing from my mind right now.
[CHRISTY]
Right. Like there’s nothing. Yes, this was not yours. This was not your choice. Your choice did not lead you to this. Even if you would have said something about this person, I probably would have completely ignored you and did my own things. So I remember I had to sit with him through kind of like, just helping him, like, that’s not yours to carry. You, you have to let that go. And not that he dwelled on that. I just remember him kind of being like, almost kind of like that feeling of I maybe should have.
[DAWN]
Well, and I think that’s interesting. And as a therapist, and I know as a therapist, like that was more about him than it was about being there for you.
[DAWN]
That was more about his own feelings of, “Oh my gosh, my responsibility —

I think, yes, because I think as a pastor, I can’t imagine, I’ve never been a pastor before, but you do feel responsible. I’m sure, just like we as therapists, Dawn do sometimes feel responsible for like sometimes even though we’re not supposed to put that on ourselves. We’re like, “I feel like I’m influencing this person and I want to make sure that this is something that’s a positive relationship and that I don’t steer them in the wrong way or that.” We carry that burden of responsibility sometimes that really is not ours to carry because it’s really on the other person to make choices and change and things of that nature. So after we got through that and I just kind of told him like, “Look, this was a choice that I made,” I have to, and then at that point, luckily I didn’t have the insight to take a hundred percent responsibility.

‘Like this is what happened after I got through the shock. I’m like I had to put my big girl panties on and like these were my choices. This is the outcome of this choice. And today I am super thankful, which we’ll get to that in a minute, but I’m super thankful that for the beauty that God brought out of what I felt was an ashes type situation. And I remember referencing that when I was pregnant, like I felt like that God really just took my brokenness and made something beautiful out of it. I believe she is a hundred percent supposed to be here on this earth. And I’m getting a little emotional about it, because my mom was selfless and I look in hindsight, it’s my life didn’t make sense at that point.

Like it did not make sense that this is what I was going through, but to see now what God has made of it is just been super. That’s where your faith does grow because you realize that it’s not a linear path. That perfection is overrated. Like that’s not, God never called us to be perfect. He’s called us to be real and to come to Him with these things. So my pastor eventually was just really supportive and there wasn’t changes in the church, I guess the leadership I was serving on putting some, I guess the person that puts the verses and the songs and the things on the —
[DAWN]
Like the tech side of it?
[CHRISTY]
Yes. So I was serving in a tech role and one of the things that they did ask me to that was kind of hard to swallow and was kind of hurtful which, let me go ahead and disclaim that they did come back in after this whole happened, apologize for that choice that they made. But they asked me to step back from serving because, so that was hard because here I am, I’m serving the church. Like now my choices are going to be very evident. They’re going to grow over the next month and I still want to be able to serve, but that was kind of a choice that they made. But I think it’s because they didn’t know how to navigate that. And I think that’s what we have to remember, is we have to be able to kind of hold people accountable and stuff and things of that nature, even in the church. But I do think part of it’s remembering that the leadership, the elders, whoever is a part of that, they’re human too, and they have flaws too and they make decisions sometimes. So I appreciated what did happen later down the road that they came back and they took ownership of that too, and said, “Hey, that may have not been the best choice that we made.”
[DAWN]
Well, yes, let’s pause here for a minute, because this actually I get really passionate or worked up about this kind of stuff. Because I’ve been in a bunch of churches. I moved a ton and went to a bunch of churches growing up and even in my adult life and I remember some churches where they would, they’d bring a poor pregnant girl up in front and have her confess to the entire church what happened. And I just remember being like, “Why aren’t, well, then do the rest of us need to line up and like air our sins?” Because like, I don’t understand why this one, just because it’s more evident and she can’t hide it because her body’s going to grow and carry a human being like, that she has to stand up and share this when I don’t see anyone else doing this? I want to hear everyone else’s sin.
[CHRISTY]
Well, and how damaging is that to that girl that has to do that? It’s weird to hear that that happens. But it is kind of like we live in these, sometimes I say, I really do feel like religion gets in the way of our faith. I don’t want discredit religion, but religion gets in the way of faith all the time. And it’s kind of like the, I’m thinking about the parable or that’s not a parable, but the situation where they brought the woman and everybody was wanting to stone the woman. You know it was kind of like, okay, pretty much, that was what Jesus did it call it out, like drop your stone if you got something that’s in your own.
[DAWN]
Yes, He’s like, “Whoever hasn’t sinned, you can throw the first stone.” And like, everybody just stood there because obviously He had compassion on her. And that’s the thing, like Christy, I hear you protecting the church and the pastors a lot, which I appreciate because I know they made it right. But I want you to go back to that moment. What do you think you would have hoped the response would have been? Or what do you think would have been more helpful or compassionate for you in that moment?
[CHRISTY]
Yes. Well I think the thing that definitely that hurt me then was the fact that you being removed from a position of service. So just because you know of my choice should that really affect my ability to serve? So that was something that was really, I think in the moment, but I am a person that kind of looked on, I’m glad you picked up from this. I kind of [inaudible 00:01:34] or maybe I call it the, un-understanding, like they didn’t really understand. So I do tend to do that. So try it out for that grace sometimes, maybe till fall, but that was kind of, I think hurtful. And then I do just think it’s hard to know how they responded and look, we put some context. It’s been over a decade ago, so it’s hard to think back on some of this.
[DAWN]
Sure, but I’m just curious, like to people who maybe are listening, who are in leadership at the church and do have to respond to someone who comes to them with something or someone who is pregnant, trying to figure out how to tell people. Like my hope, and I’m really curious on what you think of this, is my hope would be that someone could walk alongside them and say like, tell me more what’s going on? How are you? Say, “Oh my gosh. Okay, now you’re going to be a single mom. Let’s talk about this. How can we support you? And how are you doing with God? What are you and God talking about?” Because what happens usually when we feel so much shame and guilt that causes us to hide from God when in reality, I feel like that’s the enemy’s way of keeping us away from God. And that’s when God wants us the most, is come in all your brokenness, bring your shame before me. I want to love on you here. This is what I want and this is the relationship I want. So real. Bring your shame. I can handle it. And yes, I feel like that is what I would hope could happen where they walk alongside you.

And I don’t know about you, but in times of my deepest pain, after I deal with it a little bit, sometimes my service is way more authentic and raw and real than when I’m not in pain or, you know what I mean? Like I feel like sometimes your service could be awesome during that time.
[CHRISTY]
Absolutely. And I think even in this situation, I mean this experience in my life brought me so much more grace and understanding for other people that I never had before. I had not walked this path. So you’re right, I think when you asked, how could the church better respond to this is I think that sometimes we get, what I see is the church gets so fearful of what other people and its membership is going to think about it. I’m worried about what so-and-so is going to say over there. If we allow her to continue to serve, what is this person over here going to say? Or what is somebody going to voice their opinion? And I think there is a fine line that sometimes I understand that leadership has to walk, but like you have to decide as a church, what your culture of grace is going to look like.
[DAWN]
I love that, what your culture of grace is?
[CHRISTY]
What your culture of grace is going to look like? Are we going to extend grace and then take it back when it doesn’t fit in our box? Because that’s what I see. That’s what I see. I see sometimes well-meaning people saying that they’re wanting to extend the grace and like you said, and do that. And I’ve done it too stop. So let me [crosstalk] grace that I’m like, “Oh no, no. That don’t fit in my —
[DAWN]
That doesn’t feel good. I’m taking that back.
[CHRISTY]
I still think you’re wrong in that, yes. So, but I think it’s just goes back to that dialogue of are we supposed to be the judge and jury? And like, I don’t want to be a judge and I don’t want to be a jury. And I believe, and I also know that my understanding, even of God, as much as I’ve walked through my 35 years of life, I still don’t know. I feel like there’s some days I still don’t know Jack Squat. Like my understanding must be so small and there’s that personal Bible that like one day we’ll see clearly, but like it’s really seen through a cloudy. So I think we’re all seeing through this lens, these lenses, and I think the church does too. The church sees through the lens of like, what is the predominant culture?

What are the things that they’ve been taught? What are the things that they, even like you think about it and seminary or whatever. So what are the things that they’ve been brought to believe? But how can we also just extend that parameter? And so what would have been really nice, and I do believe that my pastor did this in the best of his ability, is to just be able to say like, “This must be so hard for you. Let’s figure out how, what we can do to help you through this.” Or, “Hey, can I connect you with another single mom who has walked this journey?” Because this journey didn’t just, it didn’t just end at pregnancy and birth right lines.
[DAWN]
Right, it goes back to what we were talking about. Like how are we preparing our young people that when their bodies awaken and to their sexuality, and when they’re exploring that, how do we prepare them and talk to them about that in a safe, open space rather than shutting it down? Because what I’ve seen is it either becomes like sexual anorexia or overindulgence. There’s no, in-between. I don’t see like a healthy in between of those two in the church for, in the religion culture.
[CHRISTY]
Yes. And I think just, you know, how do you, and I think about, I know what it’s like to be a single mama. I have walked the journey for 12 years now.
[DAWN]
I was going to ask how old she was. 12 years, okay.
[CHRISTY]
Yes. She’s 12 now. So just to think, but I do think that there’s a place in the church and one church that I did attend in a different city that I lived in for awhile, they did have a great single mamas ministry. And I think a lot of times we, the church wants to obviously encourage the traditional family structure. But the truth is like, let’s look at our makeup of families today. We have to be able to help people in the transitions, in the messy bits. And then when life does not go according to plan, how do we help meet them there? And how do we have these conversations where people can view the church as a place that I’m coming in and I want to just, I want to be vulnerable because I think that’s what God calls us to be. He wants us to lay it out on the table, the messy, the ugly. Like He’s got, I tell people, God can handle it. Like I mean, He’s like created a whole universe here. Like He can handle your messy bits.
[DAWN]
It’s not like he does not know what’s going on. He totally knows. Yes, it’s fine. Come to Him.
[CHRISTY]
Come to Him. But how do we create a culture that also allows people, because if we are the church, then we in my mind should be the extension of what, how God is and what Christ portrays. So I think that how can we do that better? But I think one of the things I’ve learned in my faith journey is that God does have to strip away some of this stuff. Like there’s so many things that were brought up to believe or even if you don’t even have a faith background when you were brought up to it, there’s beliefs that we grab ahold of as we’re getting older. And as we walk through this journey of life. And I think sometimes God has to bring us through these hard things, to help us number one, realize our reliance on Him and realize that like we are never alone through this journey.

We just have to be able to acknowledge that He’s there and to sometimes get things to Him that we can’t handle. But I think two, part of the faith journey is also walking and realizing that there is some things that we have to go through for God to help us, for God to help us understand the greater depth of His love for us. I think that even though that’s a small segment of my life, going through the, just what it was like to feel those feelings and go through that process, I think I’ve realized a greater depth of God’s love in that. Because I wasn’t perfect. And I still, to this day, Dawn, I just have a big confession to make. I’m still not perfect, okay — [crosstalk] Yes. It was real on some days, and I’m not the perfect Christian and I don’t, and I’ll be honest with you, I don’t want to be in a space where somebody makes me feel like I have to be, I can be the work in progress.
[DAWN]
Yes. I always say, if someone hasn’t struggled with X, Y, Z, like I can’t be friends with them. I need some who is pretty real.
[CHRISTY]
Yes, and I think, I mean, you don’t have to go through the struggles to be real with somebody and meet them where they’re at. Like I have a great sense of like, just appreciation for those people who really seem to have walked this faith journey that they really haven’t had some of these struggles. So I don’t want to leave them out in the wind and be like, you know, but I think anybody can be a human being and say like, “What is it like for this person and how would it be to be in their shoes?”
[DAWN]
Yes. And that is actually one of my, a couple of my pillars of this podcast of Faith Fringes, is number one, you have to make space for your own story and other people’s story before judging or not judging at all. But like, you have to just hold space to hear people’s stories. And the second one is, yes, I do think that God uses pain and doubt in our lives to draw us closer to Him. And I had mentioned a quote from CS Lewis, it’s kind of one of my favorites, life quotes, but it’s, God uses pain as a megaphone into our life because usually we don’t hear Him a lot of times through other things, but pain definitely grabs our attention. So that’s what you were saying that even through this of becoming pregnant, like it ended up being though beautiful. Tell us a little more about that, that even though you didn’t expect this, it sounds like your daughter, and I do not know her name. What’s your daughter’s name?
[CHRISTY]
Caitlin. It’s Caitlin.
[DAWN]
Caitlin has been such a blessing and a joy in your life, from what you were saying earlier.
[CHRISTY]
Yes, absolutely. I mean, she’s going through the pre-teen years right now, so I’m not going to lie. There’s some days where it’s hard. I saw a pillar recently that said I think my housekeeping style, but I would change it to my parenting style, is that there appears to have been a struggle. There appears to be a struggle and I do not win the perfect parent award by any means. But one of the things that I would say is that I guess, she has taught me so much about myself and one of the things that I think when you were talking earlier, that reminded me is that part of it is going back to see how God used me. And if you go from the culture of like chains or demons, like are broken, those were all words that like, I think God really just still doesn’t see us that way, but He realizes our limitation, but he sees us as something that’s beautiful.

I mean, you think as a parent, and this is how I’ll draw the correlation of how blessed I’ve been in my life. Like you think as a parent, if you are a parent and I realized some people listening may not be a parent, but when you look at your child, even though the struggle of like the fear pre-teen years, you really look at them, and I still get in the car with her every morning and I’m like, “You’re so beautiful.” Or whatever, even though she may be being ugly in some ways. I’m like, “You’re still this beautiful thing in my eyes and I still believe that you’re this awesome human being that’s in development.” And I think that the way that I look at her has to be how God must look at me. Like He sees my imperfections, He sees the ways that I am failing or that I’m messing up or that I may not be listening to Him. Or He may just be like, I’m waiting for you to just listen to what I’m trying to call you to do. But He still has this love for us.

So I think one of the things about her that she’s just taught me is number one, how God must view us as children. And then the other thing that I was thinking she’s just been a blessing is because, and me and my mom were talking about this recently. She said, “Christine, there are so many things that Caitlin has pushed you to do that I don’t think you would have ever done without her.” Because I had to like say, okay. And I remember writing a essay about this when she was still a baby, like I felt this great responsibility to be able to create a life where I can give her the best life possible and whatever that looks like and to also model faith. So, and I have this thing on my wall that I’m looking at right now, Dawn that says “Faith. It does not make things easy. It makes them possible.” Luke 1:37. And I’m sure that’s just like an abbreviation of that. But I think when we’re being real, like 12 years of parenting alone, it’s not been easy journey. Like there’s been times where it has been hard.
And there’s been times when I’m pursuing things that I feel like is to better us. But I do think that what she’s taught me is that it may not be easy, but it’s possible. And at that point in my life, I honestly felt there was this moment in time that I thought my life was over. Like literally I can remember crying in my bed, thinking my life is over. Like I cannot, there was these plans, these dreams that I had, but that’s not going to be a reality anymore. And I think one of the things that has been the greatest blessing of having her in my life is that life did not end. In fact, it was just beginning, but it was beginning in a way that I never imagined possible. And it was going to be a journey that led me, because there were even the faith time, then there were times that I remember for years I cried and then like still waiting for that man to fall off this God, Dawn.

But, I remember there were times where I would cry in my car as I’m driving down the road and being like, “God, I just don’t understand why this is happening while like,” and I would just, but I think I continued to keep the faith, even though, and I’m not saying it’s been perfect because there’s times when I’m like, “God I’m piecing out today, like not happening today.” But one of the things that I’ve seen time and time again, of how they just proven or shown up in my life is that there hasn’t been easy things, but it has always worked out and God has always been faithful. And He is always showing me, like if I think back on 12 years ago, like you didn’t think, I would have never imagined that I’d be where I’m at today with her at this point in life and have this beautiful life.

There’s been some really awesome things that I’ve been able, that God’s been able to open doors to. To really have a beautiful life, it’s not perfect, but it’s beautiful. And I think that part of it is just remembering that God can handle all the feelings that you have. And that’s where faith grows. It’s whenever you’re able to turn those feelings over to Him, because He’s no, I heard you the other day out on, you said something Dawn, like it may not be popular opinion, but sometimes that cursing God, and look, God has heard some words come out of my mouth before. Like this is crazy.
[DAWN]
Yes. So if you could kind of summarize or if you could talk to someone who was in your position back when you were 22 and just, what would you say to them? Or what advice could you give them?
[CHRISTY]
I think first of all, I would say that you’re not broken. You’re not broken just because of a choice. And I would also say that God has a plan for your life. God has a plan for your faith. You get to, thinking about this, that He may not know where that ends up, but if you trust Him, He’ll never leave and He’ll always walk beside you through that. So I know that it can be really scary. So I don’t want to say like, thinking that for somebody, because when you’re in that moment and you don’t know what life is going to look like, and the plan that you had for your life, the plan that you had for your faith is just disappears in an instant, it can be really uncertain and there can be a lot of uncertainty and a lot of feelings of loss there. Because I do remember I lost some dreams that I had an idea of this is where God’s taking me.

But I think it’s just from to remember that God is big enough to handle whatever space that you’re in. So just to be able to reach out for the help that you need and just know that there is a plan in all of this. You can’t see it, but God is in the midst and He’ll never give up on you.
[DAWN]
So that is beautiful Christy. I love what you said that even though life isn’t turning out like you and it might not be perfect, but God will never leave you. And that’s His promise, like he’s there for us. It doesn’t mean life is this way, but it means we’re not alone. And I think that is so true and my hope is that listeners can find other people who can speak that life into them as well and journey alongside them and in a real space, like what you were saying.
[CHRISTY]
Right. And if they are not speaking life to you, get away from them. I’m just going to be honest. Because some people don’t have good intentions and they have the best intentions and they are going to say some things that are super hurtful and harmful. But you just have to remember that everything that you hear you don’t have to accept. So if it is somebody that is not speaking life into your life, in the midst of your pain, please go find someone else who is going to be real.
[DAWN]
Yes, get away. You don’t have to. Yes, I agree. And I’m just so grateful. I mean, Christy, you have, I know you outside of this and you have such a great personality and you have definitely, you are a positive influence and I know you create that space for other people to be real. So I appreciate that. And I appreciate you coming on the podcast today. If anyone wants to get a hold of you, do you want to mention like where they can find you? I know you do some things also besides be on podcasts.
[CHRISTY]
Yes, absolutely. So if you want to find me and connect with me, I actually do have a personal website. So it’s christypennison.com, [C H R S T Y]. I have to spell that because sometimes people would spell bad. christypennison.com/, you can find out more about me and there’s a way to get in touch with me if you want to reach out.
[DAWN]
Yes. Well, thank you so much, Christy. It’s been a delight to talk to you and hear more about your faith journey. I’ve really enjoyed it.
[CHRISTY]
Thank you for allowing me to share my story, because I really hope that this resonates with somebody out there that may be going through the same thing and just know that you’re not alone and that there’s a plan in all of them.
[DAWN]
Yes. Thanks.

Thank you for listening today at Faith Fringes Podcast. If you want to explore more of your own faith journey, I offer my free eight-week email course called Spiritual Reflections, where you take a deeper dive into your own story included as a journaling workbook that has guided exercises. So if you want to explore more of what you were brought up to believe, or even look at where you may have been disillusioned or hurt, but yet still deep down you desire to authentically connect with God, then this course is for you. Just go to faithfringes.com to sign up.

Also, I love hearing from my listeners, drop me an email and tell me what’s on your mind. You can reach me at dawn@faithfringes.com.

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.

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