Unshakable Faith

God Hears Her Podcast

Episode 229 Unshakable Faith with Kathy Troccoli

Elisa Morgan & Eryn Eddy Adkins with Kathy Troccoli

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Kathy: I always say this, God will use your gift. It’s intact, but you could be a mess. So that doesn’t mean I wasn’t sincere. That didn’t mean I wasn’t giving my all, but there was a lot going on. Plus, before I got to Nashville, you know, just that little year in between, I’m singing all over Long Island. Who’s falling on the floor? Who’s speaking in tongues? Who says you can’t speak in tongues? Who’s raising their hand? Who’s not raising their hand? Who’s doing communion every Sunday? Who believes in the saints? Who? And I got home one day, put my guitar on the floor, and I just cried and cried and cried. And all the Holy Spirit said to me was, you keep on looking at My Son.

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Vivian: You’re listening to God Hears Her, a podcast for women where we explore the stunning truth that God hears you. Join our community of encouraging one another and learning to lean on God through Scripture, story, and conversation at godhearsher.org. God hears her, seek and she will find.

Elisa: Eryn, you know how there’s just some people that you meet. And I mean, you could sit down and just feel like they are literally a hug. I mean, that’s what they are. They’re a hug. And…and we’ve got a friend joining us in this conversation who’s kind of like that. Years ago we got to minister together. I mean, I’m not even sure where it was. But she is, yes, our favorite Christian artist of all time. [laughter] Welcome, Kathy. We’re just delighted that you’re gonna help us [inaudible].

Kathy: Where do I send…where do I send the check? I told you.

Elisa: Our Daily Bread Ministries.

Kathy: There you go.

Elisa: [inaudible] so good.

Kathy: That you guys, it’s so great to be here. And that you said is like a hug. That blesses me so much, and especially being Italian, you know, it’s like…

Elisa: I know that about you. I know that about you. I’ve sat in the audience while you have sung and performed and shared your heart for Jesus. And you know, every time, and then I’d be with you sometimes in the backstage and we’d be talking in the green room. Every time, Kathy, you just, I don’t care if there was one person there or 10,000, you made us all feel like we were in your lap having a hug.

Eryn: That’s a gift.

Elisa: Yeah.

Kathy: That…that blesses me so much. Yeah. I…I tend to, uh, invade people’s space. I have to watch.

Elisa: Now that’s another way to put it, yeah.

Kathy: Just…I’m…I’m going…I’m going for the hug, and they do the side hug. And I’m like oops, okay.

Eryn: Oh.

Kathy: Sorry, sorry.

[laughter]

Eryn: I love that.

Elisa: Okay, so Kathy, you recently did an episode on Unshakeable Moxie, which is another ministry product of our Daily Bread Ministries. Phenomenal stories with women who’ve demonstrated moxie, I mean, chutzpah, I mean the thing, bravery, courage, sticktoitiveness for Jesus.

Kathy: [inaudible]

Elisa: Yeah, yeah. So tell me, what was your experience like filming that, and what’d you discover about yourself?

Kathy: I’m not sure I discovered a lot about myself in that I’m a pretty introspective, as extroverted as I am, there’s never a real time that you could go, Kathy, what are you feeling that I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I’m pretty aware of my emotions. And I’ve been doing this for, I…let’s see, I started in lying about my age at 15 in clubs in New York, and then I became a national Christian artist in ‘82. So I’ve been doing a lot of different things for a really long time. So filming was really natural for me. I think the thing that I loved about it was being with two young women that…

Elisa: Mm-hmm.

Kathy: …I felt like, you know. Cause I prayed before I even did the documentary that not only it be used for people to be ministered through my life, but I always pray that the people that are doing it are ministered to too. So I think, um, being with the young girls, even though they were the hosts, was really great. Cause you know, you can’t help but use your years in those environments of what you’ve learned and what you’ve been through. So, um, I think that was a joy for me too.

Elisa: What a great answer. You were talking about Toni and Mariah, and they’re just beautiful women. We’ve got to know them too through God Hears Her. You know, and that’s saying, and I…I know Eryn’s super interested in this. Take us back into what you were sharing about lying about your age at age 15 in the clubs in New York, you know, what’s your passion? How’d you get started? Who were you? Who are you? That’s a big old question.

Eryn: Yeah.

Kathy: Oh my gosh. Wow.

Elisa: Yeah.

Kathy: Okay, so brought up in a uh, extended Italian family in New York, born in Brooklyn, raised in Long Island. And, uh, even now in Nashville, people want to know about New York City. And I’ll go, no, no, no, no. I was brought up two miles from the ocean. And they’ll go, because you’d think of New York as the boroughs. And cause I’ll go, I miss the beach. I miss the beach, and I’ll go Long Island’s an island, you know? And um, so I was brought up in that extended Italian. There were the Espositos, Gallellis, Striccolis, um Pillecias (sp). It was all the screaming out the doors and the cousins. And we’d have meals and coffee together so most of my life until junior high was just family.

Eryn: Okay, yeah.

Kathy: But there was always a part of me that felt a little, um, lonely even though I was around them. Like, I would kind of…we’d be playing, and I’d be kind of looking at the stars going, wow, what’s…what’s behind those stars? And what…why, you know, all those questions that, and so um, I’ll get to the singing part. But one of the things that was very moving to me as a child that prepped me for it was like I didn’t know at the time was the Holy Spirit kind of touching my heart, preparing me to one day meet Him and know who He was. Was it was the first time I was watching The Wizard of Oz. I think I was six years old around there. You know, running under the couch cause of the monkeys, I was so scared. But Judy Garland, and I become a big fan of hers, but when she was Dorothy and she’s singing and she’s imagining this place. And as a little girl feeling isolated, like. Why do I feel so like a little bit lonely in that there’s more? There’s more when I look at this great big sky. And…and I always had this, yearning and this, like there’s something that there’s something missing, something missing. And I didn’t know until I met the Lord that it was Him.

Elisa: Wow, Kathy, beautiful.

Kathy: He…even at six years old, He was wooing me for that. What is it and who is it? And what’s beyond the beyond, you know?

Elisa: Yeah.

Kathy: And then the voice wasn’t discovered until, Elisa will know, you’ll know this, but I don’t know if Eryn will. There’s a record. Carole King made a Tapestry record, and it was…it was a huge record in the seventies. And I was singing in my room to the record, and it was a song called “So Far Away.” And some of your listeners may know it. So anyway, so I hear knock, knock, knock, knock, knock. And my dad, he said, “Kathleen, Kathleen opened the door for daddy.” And um, he said, “I was listening to you sing, sing that again. “ And honestly, that’s how my voice was discovered.

Elisa: Wow, your dad, oh.

Kathy: Yeah. So he never…he never got to hear what God intended for the voice he discovered. But up until, I mean, it was a little time after that he passed. But he’d always go, “Sing for daddy.” But so then I had a teacher. I think teachers affect lives of kids like more than they know. And I had a Spanish teacher that I brought in my guitar, uh, one time during the lunch hour and sang for her. I liked her so much. And she loved my voice so much, she made a variety show after…just for my peers to hear me.

Elisa: Oh.

Kathy: So there was this variety show, and I still have the poster that says, “Kathy Sings King.” And I only knew two Carole King songs. And I sat at the edge of the stage, and I remember I had 101 fever, but I couldn’t let her down. And…

Eryn: Oh.

Elisa: Oh, sweet thing.

Kathy: …and after that show, I became the singer in school. I became the stage [inaudible] singer. And then I got a gig through a drummer, and I was starting to sing the standards in clubs, you know, dinner lounges in New York and would go, 11th grade at night on Wednesdays. Fridays and Saturdays. And, um, you weren’t allowed to do it that young, but I lied about my age. And so that’s what I was doing up until I met the Lord.

Eryn: As you were discovering your…your art, your talent, and you started being vulnerable and showing the world it, what was that wrestling like with, uh self-doubt? Did you ever have any self-doubt entering into those spaces, or was it this like child, like “I can do anything” kind of mentality that sometimes we do have when we were younger? I’m so curious…

Kathy: I think…

Eryn: …as what that journey was like for you.

Kathy: You know, I think because, this goes back to even when I…I sing now for the Lord, I think somebody having the glory of God singing on them and people weeping is different than people just weeping for your gift.

Eryn: Yeah.

Kathy: Does that make sense?

Eryn: Yeah. Explain that more.

Kathy: So people…people, would tear up in the clubs if I sang “Somewhere of the Rainbow,” but that didn’t mean…mean that they…they were moved by my gift. They weren’t moved by necessarily the Holy Spirit in me. So I wanted to say that in that I never…I never had doubt when I first started singing for the Lord that His Spirit in me through the songs was touching people. The only time I got insecure was when I got into the business of Christian music.

Eryn: Yeah, yep.

Elisa: Before we go into that, Kathy, I love how you shared the Holy Spirit’s wooing of you in watching The Wizard of Oz, and then how gutsy you were to go into the clubs and sing. How did you connect your music with God? How did that connection happen for you?

Kathy: I became a Christian through a girl at a summer job. I was, um, I never finished college cause of my moving to Nashville. But I wasn’t making enough money in the club, so I took a summer job. And there was a, a girl that was reading her Bible every day. And basically she, not only was reading the Bible, which I never opened or read, it was on an end table in a room in my house. I called myself a Chreaster. I went to church on Christmas and Easter, and I had no…

Eryn: I love that term,  Chreaster.

Kathy: …yeah. I had no…

Eryn: I’ve never heard that.

Kathy: …no clue about the Lord. But she basically, it…it’s…it’s a long story, but it’s a sweet story. But I…I won’t get into that. All to say she lived out Christ, and it meant more to me than seeing her read the Bible, although I was inquisitive about that. There’s something about that aroma of Christ that you can’t deny that you don’t have to be inquisitive about. But if you are, it’s nice to have the answer be Jesus but that you experienced Him before the person said they were a Christian and you’re going, oh, they’re a Christian? Oh my gosh.

Eryn: Yeah.

Kathy: I, something was different about her, and it made me inquisitive about Christ.

Eryn: Hmm.

Elisa: That’s cool.

Kathy: And so she ended up taking me to her…her church at that time, and I ended up praying with the pastor to invite the Lord in my heart. I didn’t know any…anything about that. But to answer your question, I played a little guitar and piano, and I immediately started writing songs to this God I fell in love with.

Eryn: Oh.

Elisa: Wow.

Kathy: And I had no clue that there was Christian music out there.

Elisa: Now how old were you then, Kathy?

Kathy: I was, uh, I was…let’s see, 20.

Elisa: Okay.

Kathy: I was 20 years old when I met the Lord. So you had a little bit of Amy Grant before she really kicked up, but you had the, more of the Jesus Movement people back then.

Elisa: The first, yeah, the first album I remember is Love Song.

Kathy: Love Song, that…somebody gave me Love Song.

Elisa: Yeah, yeah.

Kathy: And so I brought the songs to this youth pastor that led me to the Lord. And he was going, “You know, there’s music like this out there.” And I said, “No, I thought Christian music was, Black Gospel music,” you know, the Mahalia Jackson type.

Eryn: Wow, yeah.

Elisa: Yeah.

Kathy: So that’s how it came together. And then when I started to sing for the church, then somebody would go, Hey, there’s a coffee house that I’m sure they’d love to hear you. And before I knew it, I was just going around with my little guitar singing, you know, these little songs. And my family, and my mother was a widow, they were freaking out, which is a whole other story. Because the daughter was born again.

Elisa: Oh yeah, yep, yeah [inaudible].

Kathy: She was born again. She’s in a cult.

Elisa: Yeah. My dad told me I didn’t have to become a nun.

Kathy: What are we doing to do with her?

Elisa: Yeah. Calm down.

Eryn: What are we going to do with her?

Kathy: You didn’t have to become a nun. That is hysterical.

Elisa: I know, yeah.

Kathy: Oh my gosh.

Elisa: [inaudible] Yeah.

Kathy: Well no, they…they didn’t. So here her daughter is doing this Christian music. And then like I’d come home with $12 and 70 cents, you know. What are you doing? You, so it wasn’t until, um, the group Glad was coming to my church. And the pastor that led me to the Lord said, “I’d love for you to sing your few songs in front of them.” And…

Elisa: That’s awesome.

Kathy: I was so nervous. You know, cause I was still green about it all. I mean, I knew, people were…were drinking and I was…I was in smoke-filled rooms, and it was just so different. And, um six months later, I got a call from Glad and said, “We…we’ve been thinking about you since you opened for us, and um, we’d like to pay for a demo. And we’d like people in Nashville to hear it.” And then at that time they were with Word Records. Well, little did I know that Mike Blanton was a major person at Word Records who was joining up with Dan Harrell, Amy Grant’s brother-in-law, to form Blanton and Harrel. And they heard the tape, and pretty much I was moved to Nashville at 22 and was national at 24.

Eryn: Wow.

Elisa: Wow.

Kathy: I know, it’s crazy. It’s crazy.

Elisa: Yeah.

Eryn: How did you…I was gonna ask you, you know, how did you respond out of like for…for family to be like, oh my gosh, like where are you? What are you doing? And…

Kathy: Yeah.

Eryn: …you’re bringing $12 home. How do you persevere and not have again, like that doubt of, am I crazy? Should I be listening to my family? Like I know that there’s a lot of young 20-year-olds that wrestle with that, especially if they don’t finish college, they don’t go to college.

Kathy: Right.

Eryn: There is that fear of, am I gonna be a failure that my family may…

Elisa: So good, yeah.

Eryn: …subconsciously project on me? But they love me, but they also are worried.

Elisa: Yeah.

Kathy: Yeah.

Eryn: How did you wrestle with that?

Kathy: Well, when you’re just talking about not career, when you’re just talking about faith…

Eryn: Yeah.

Kathy: …there was no way that because they thought I was in a cult, I was gonna turn my back on the Lord, you know? Um, because most of them weren’t even going to church. It was…it was just about religion. I had one cousin, bless her heart, and I still kiss her and hug her to this day. She was, my mother’s name was Josephine, and she’d go, “Jo, she’s not hanging out by the 7-11 drinking and smoking. She found God.”

Elisa: [inaudible]

Kathy: “She found God. She found God.”

Elisa: That’s so good.

Kathy: But I know…

Eryn: That’s so sweet.

Kathy: Yeah, it’s so, so sweet. Um, but the thing that was my salvation and my sanity at the time. Listen, you can have any problems you want to have with the local church, right? People, ah, this church hurt me. This…I’m not going to that church anymore. And when people talk that way, I always go, but what does that have to do with Jesus?

Eryn: Yeah.

Kathy: But what does that have to…and so it’s like you know, when they fall and it’s like sometimes they just stare at me. Like, but…but let me say this at the time. The local church at that time had some really substantial Christians in it. And for, you know, you’re…you’re asking about the young people. It’s important that your peers are not your only advice and not your…the wisdom you hear.

Elisa: Oh, that’s good. Yeah. That’s good.

Kathy: I had older women. And I c…I still to this day, I called those kind of Christians, remnant Christians. I’m not talking about the coffee clutch Christians. I’m not talking about the Sunday, I’m gonna praise the Lord. And then I’m gonna go next Sunday and next. And I’m not talking about that, the checklist Christians. I’m talking about the Spirit-filled, following the Lord, walking the narrow road, which is a big life. Those people that have a big God on the narrow road. Those are the people that were at this church when I was a young, young Christian.  And they would, um, I’d go to the diner after church, you know, and they minister to me. I’d um, I’d joined the choir at the time, like the older women, they were so sweet. Because even at that time, girls like, I sobbed every Sunday during communion.

Elisa: Oh precious.

Kathy: It was like so moving. And so people that were visiting or people that didn’t know me, they would come over to try to comfort, and they would push them away going, “That’s just Kathy, leave her alone.” She fell in love with Jesus. She doesn’t need comfort.

Elisa: Oh, oh my gosh.

Kathy: But…but what…what was so great was I had some of that net…

Eryn: Yeah.

Kathy: …that steadied me, that held up my arms. That when…when, you know, even this…I wanted to be water baptized. I wanted to do, for those your listeners, I wanted to do the action that we’re told to do where you, it’s death, burial, and resurrection and the water and coming up to that. I wanted all that. And I went to the classes. I wrote a song for it, and a couple of aunts got a hold of that I was gonna do it, got with my mother. And my mother freaked out. And you know, these women that…these people that were around me said, listen, honor your mother. Your baptism is not your salvation. And so I went, and I watched people get baptized; and I sang that song. And when my mother was on her dying year, she had cancer, breast cancer. She asked for forgiveness, that she put that up. She put that on me to not get baptized, cause she what God had done in my life.

Eryn: Oh.

Kathy: But I’m saying that quality woman or man, that quality person. Unfortunately a lot of young people now have their peers as their…I’m not saying that you…you might have substantial peers. But if you are just around your young age group, there’s no way they don’t have the years, they don’t have the mountains, they don’t have the valleys. They don’t have all of that to try to tell you what your next step could be, or if you took the step you want to, what would happen after you took it. Cause you lived there.

Eryn: So good.

Kathy: So that’s what I would say to the young people. Yeah.

Elisa: That’s a really good word for all of our…

Eryn: So good, yeah.

Elisa: …listeners too, and ourselves. Eryn, you know. I know what you’ve been in my life, Eryn, and…and you tell me what I am in yours. And we need each other these multi-generational wisdoms to speak into. Thank you, Kathy. That’s really rich. That’s really good.

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Mary Jo: Hey friends, Kathy Troccoli was also a guest on the newly-released Season 2 of Unshakeable Moxie, a watchable docuseries where you follow Toni Collier and Mariah Smallbone as they learn from different women about how to anchor our identity in Christ. You can watch the series at the link in our show notes and check out the brand new Bible study to fill out while you watch. All of that and more is linked in our show notes. Now back to the show

Elisa: So take us forward then, you know. You know God has gifted you and…and you’ve used this phrase, this differential phrase of when I began to sing for the Lord. And that feels like that’s a…a definition that has become a…an identity of your gifting. Tell us how that came to happen and…and were there hard moments in that understanding that your gift really was His?

Kathy: I gloried in the fact that I understood where it came from and still do. You know, after all these years, I…I really do need to tell you, even as I’m singing these arrangements of this new record. I’ll put my hand on my throat, and I’ll go, “Thank you, Lord. That it…it still works.” I remain with a heart of gratitude. I do need to say though, that at the very beginning, I had to get used to the fact that, at that time especially, there was a lot of energy and a lot of, um, opinion put on doing music for the youth…

Eryn: Huh.

Kathy: …and youth rallies. And Amy Grant’s doing this, and Michael W. Smith’s doing this. And I wasn’t a Sandi Patty voice that was a different kind of presentation. Do you know what I mean?

Elisa: Right.

Kathy: “We Shall Behold Him” is a…it’s…it’s sort of like a Barbara Streisand next to a lot of the pop groups. But I was somewhere in the middle there. I might have been a Natalie Cole or a…

Elisa: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kathy: So what…what happened was my…my little songs I was writing, I understood not in Long Island, but in Nashville. They weren’t good enough for national and they weren’t. You know, you’re in your little pond. Writers think their songs are great, and like most of them, you know, you have to really look at the fact that they might be bad, but your family loves ’em and your friends love ’em.

Eryn: Yeah.

Kathy: You know what I mean?

Eryn: Yeah.

Elisa: [laughter]

Kathy: So…

Elisa: So true.

Kathy: …I got that…I got that jolt of that. And so now, here, bless their hearts, Dan and Mike are in a position of having to find me music.

Eryn: Yeah.

Kathy: But…but the world was, and…and…and you understand this, Elisa, you…you remember back then it was a lot of youth concerts and a lot of music. And I…I just knew singing on a stool with a microphone and maybe three, four pieces and doing those kind of songs. And nobody was screaming, yelling, and nobody was up and down.

Elisa: Yes, yes.

Kathy: So I think the hardest part initially was, I mean, Stubborn Love, my first record was incredibly successful. But the hardest part was trying to find myself…

Elisa: Hmm.

Kathy: …through the music in all those years.

Elisa: Mm hmm.

Kathy: And also, listen, I was a baby Christian, and I…

Elisa: Sure, sure, yeah.

Kathy: …and I was bulimic. I was dealing with an eating disorder. So, you know, I always say this, God will use your gift. It’s intact, but you could be a mess. So that doesn’t mean I wasn’t sincere. That didn’t mean I wasn’t, you know, giving my all. But there was a lot going on. Plus, before I got to Nashville, you know, just that little year in between, I’m singing all over Long Island. Who’s falling on the floor? Who’s speaking in tongues? Who says you can’t speak in tongues? Who’s raising their hand? Who’s not raising their hand? Who’s doing communion every Sunday? Who believes in the saints? Who? And I got home one day, put my guitar on the floor, and I just cried and cried and cried. And all the Holy Spirit said to me was, you keep on looking at My Son.

Eryn: Oh.

Kathy: You keep on looking at Jesus. And I did, and it was sanity.

Elisa: Kathy, what a beautiful…what a beautiful example you just shared. Just keep looking at My Son. I mean, how many of us need to do that every single day, you know, whether we’re 22 or 72, you know. That’s what it boils down to. Thank you for sharing that. That is so rich.

Kathy: Yeah, well…well even now, what’s happening in the world if we don’t go back to the foundation of who we are and whose we are.

Eryn: Yeah.

Kathy: You know, it’s that age-old look at God in the circumstance and not just the circumstance. Because if you…if you do, you’re going to, emote from a place that’s not God. You’re gonna speak from a place that’s not God. You’re going to think from a place that you’re gonna treat people from a place that. But if you stay on that path of, let me stay under that portal from heaven under that light, He will. It’s not…it’s not He might. He will guide you. He promises to. He didn’t promise…I said it at my mother’s funeral. He didn’t promise that we’re not gonna go through it.

Eryn: Yeah.

Kathy: This life can be torturous. What He said was, “I will be with you.” And I trust that.

Elisa: Can you share a time when you felt that’s when that message came on and lights in your heart where you were like, I think I want to compromise here, God, and He pulled you back?

Kathy: Well, I discovered my mother had cancer. She died at 61. My sister was going through a divorce. I have one sister two years older than me. My nieces were little and um, I was at Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York City when my mother was operated on to see what was going on. And basically the doctor told me, it’s spread, and she has straight pancreatic cancer too. So, um…

Elisa: That’s really bad then, yeah.

Kathy: It was…it was raining. It was cold. And you know, I’m 50…I mean, I’m…I’m not, I’m in New York City. And, um, I got off the phone. And when you said you wanted to compromise, you know, I, all I felt was like, really? Like one parent? Now You have to take the other one too? There was a chapel that, you know, the hospitals have, and no one was in it.

Elisa: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Eryn: Yeah.

Kathy: And I put down the phone, cause they call you in the lobby. I was talking to the doctor, and I remember slamming the phone cause you’re called to the lobby. I was waiting and, you know, I just, girls, I just laid there and I just thought, I am going to eat whatever I want. I’m gonna drink whatever I want. I’m gonna take whatever I want. I’m gonna live whatever I want. I’m sick of this.

Eryn: Yeah.

Kathy: And it was like kind of being on a…on a mountain. And…and then there was the part of me that couldn’t deny all I’d known Jesus to be.

Elisa: Hmm. Hmm.

Kathy: So I’m saying this. But you know, when you’re just almost like a puppy or a person that you’ve loved, you’re kind of saying all this. But meanwhile I kind of am going, I know I’m kind of breaking Your heart, but I don’t care.

Eryn: Yeah.

Kathy: And so the Holy Spirit, man, I…I envy those that have heard Him audibly. But I…I heard Him in my spirit say, “Am I not still God?” And my wrestling and my anger, it still stayed, cause I was like, what, what…what? Huh? Where? And as He does, and that’s why I understand it in Scripture. It’s amazing. The Lord doesn’t repeat things a hundred times. Sometimes when He says things three times in Scripture, I go, we are just stubborn knuckleheads.

Elisa: Mm-hmm.

Kathy: And He said it again, and He said it three times until I calmed down in my spirit. And I knew that it was Him. And I’ve said this many years cause it’s such a phenomenal happening in my life. I knew it was Him because my flesh and my humanness would’ve wanted Him to appear and hold me or say, “Listen, it looks bad now, but I’m gonna heal your mom.” That’s not what He spoke to me. And so I actually was laying on my stomach on a pew. And I kind of…I knew that I had to answer the question, and I did. And I said, Yes, you are still God. And I’ll never forget walking into my mother’s hospital room when they took her. I knew that my countenance, had I not answered that question and the Lord, if He didn’t speak to me the way He did, my mother would’ve gotten an embittered daughter. My mother would’ve gotten anger, fear. My mother wouldn’t in…in what she was gonna have to be told and what she was gonna be dealt with…

Elisa: Mm-hmm.

Kathy: …I would’ve been a chain around her ankles.

Eryn: Whoa.

Kathy: And many people are when the news becomes about them and their circum…you know, so obviously I understand that. But I knew that. And I just reached for her hand, and I was calm, and I kissed her forehead. And we didn’t talk about it all then, but she got a different person, a different spirit from me. And it not only affected my life, but affected the last year of her life.

Elisa: That’s beautiful.

Kathy: And I often say this, how we answer that question not only affects our lives, but it affects the lives around us. And I’m telling you that whole year, cause I went back and forth. I ended up moving her to Long Island, so I didn’t have to travel into the city. And I’d go bring my coffee and sit with her. You know, it was a hard, hard year, But my mother started, you know, long story, I would bring the Bible in. Started reading the Bible to her. It was just a beautiful, beautiful time. Her last hours were a beautiful time, and I watched her go from life to life and not life to death.

Eryn: Oh.

Elisa: Whoa. Kathy, that’s so graphic. And I think that question, in my still…the Holy Spirit, you know, is gonna resonate with so many people. But I…I also wonder if, as we draw this together, if…if you could take a minute to speak to the women who haven’t heard God directly say that, but they’re asking for that kind of clarity. Would you speak to her and offer her what you know is true?

Kathy: Well that, honestly, that’s a hard question for all of us, even though I heard God during that time. Don’t we all want the clarity every day? Don’t we all want to hear that Spirit every day?

Elisa: Yes.

Kathy: For me to say that I do would…would not be the truth. What He’s asked of us is to follow Him, leave everything…

Eryn: Yeah.

Kathy: …and follow Him. So the first thing we must do is to continue to keep our hearts open every day. Lord, what do you want me to know? What do you want me to see? What do you want me to do? I promise you, you’re not going to audibly hear Him or hear Him the way I heard in my spirit. But, because He loves us so much, He’s even used the natural to teach us. What mother and father’s gonna go, “Hey, you know, I know you’re asking me, but you know, I’ll let you know. Maybe, let’s see, two and a half years, maybe five year.” You know, He hears our prayers and so what you need to pray for is, and I do, is an awareness and alertness to the ways He will come and speak to you. Now, obviously you stay in the Word of God. The words of God are gonna always pop up and minister to you.

Elisa: Yeah.

Kathy: But just be aware that it will come through a person, through…the other morning, I was having a hard morning. And I put my hands up and I said, Lord, I just need for You to love on me. I need to know You love me. And I read Oswald Chambers Utmost For His Highest. It’s my favorite devotional. And that November 2nd, it was a kiss from the King. And I got my…

Elisa: [inaudible]

Kathy: …I got my answer, and that didn’t mean I had a couple of days before where I was just aching. I’m saying He will come. He promises to. You just continue to hang in there, because darkness is not dark to God. It’s dark to you. Darkness is not dark to God. He is there. You keep on praying. You keep your heart open, and you will see Him and hear Him. I promise. But most of all, He promises.

Eryn: Hmm. That was so good.

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Eryn: Well, friends, be sure to check out our website to subscribe to our email list or check out the God Hears Her books and devotionals. Find that and more at godhearsher.org. That’s godhearsher.org.

Elisa: Thanks for joining us. Don’t forget, God hears you. He sees you, and He loves you because you are His.

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Eryn: Today’s episode was engineered by Anne Stevens and produced by Jade Gustman and Mary Jo Clark. We also want to thank Luanne and Kathi for all of their help and support. Thank you.

Elisa: Our Daily Bread Ministries is a donor-supported, nonprofit ministry dedicated to making the life-changing wisdom and stories of the Bible come alive for all people around the world.

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Elisa: God Hears Her is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries.