Divine Detours with Lori Ann Wood

https://loriannwood.com/

Lori Ann Wood is a heart failure survivor and award-winning essayist whose work has appeared in numerous websites, anthologies, and magazines, including The Christian Century Magazine, Just Between Us Magazine, The Joyful Life Magazine, Bella Grace Magazine, Sweet to the Soul FAITH Magazine, and Pepperdine University Press.

In this episode  Lori Ann Wood discusses her unexpected journey with heart disease and its impact on her faith. 

Lori Ann shares how her lifelong Christian beliefs were challenged and deepened through her health crisis, leading her to write a book that resonates with others facing life's detours. 

Her journey from teaching accounting to writing Christian nonfiction highlights a newfound urgency to use her time meaningfully. 

With the support of her faith and community, Lori Ann embraces the challenges, finding peace and purpose amid her struggles.

More importantly, she hopes that her journey would enrich and enlighten those whose journeys have faced detours.

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Transcript

Jan: Welcome to Just Talking About Jesus. I'm Jan Johnson, a seasoned believer who loves relationships and, you know, just talking about Jesus.

My guest today is Lori Ann Wood. Welcome, Lori.

Lori: Oh, hi, Jan. It's great to be here.

Jan: Yeah, good to be here. I read your book. Just it's been almost, maybe last summer, I think, is when I, when I came. Came to. At first, I did it by audio, which I love because I live a half hour from town.

So every place I go, it's just enough time to listen to a chapter or to something else to, to really ponder and think about. But let's start out. Tell me some about your testimony.

You've been a Christian forever and ever, or you just like, what, what's your story?

Lori: Yes, I, you know, I look back and I think I've known about God almost as long as I've known about my parents. Probably.

I don't, you know, I don't ever remember a time where it felt like.

Lori: New information to me.

Lori: It was just. I was surrounded by it my entire life. And I married a man, Christian man. We raised our kids in the church.

And it just felt like a part of who I was and my story. And there was a part of me that's always felt like I had this sort of family heirloom that got handed down to me and what am I going to do with that?

And so that was part of the story as I went along. But, you know, I just, I've been a believer all my life, and it sort of took a turn in there when things happened a few years ago, but not in a way that was kind of an aha, I understand God, or I, I understand salvation, but more in a deepening of my faith situation.

Jan: You know, maybe God waited this long, you know, for you to just have a solid foundation and to be able to go into something that was rough and still know that you already know he's there because he's been there for you at other times in your life, right?

Lori: Yes, for sure. And that was part of that. You know, I felt like I had been given that heirloom faith, so precious and, and, and so almost fragile. But I wanted to protect it so that I could hand it down to my kids.

And I thought when I hit this bumpy road like so many of us hit in life, at some point I thought if I bring that family heirloom along on that bumpy ride, I might break it.

And then I can't hand it down to my kids. And so I had this point where I knew God and I trusted him, but I was a little bit afraid to really try out that faith and put it into practice when life was.

Just felt like it was going off the rails and I didn't know how that would. How that would end up.

Jan: Well, and we never know. Yeah, we never know. And that's part of it. I think that's what makes us anxious sometimes. You know, it's like, if I only knew what was going to happen, then it's like, no, God.

It's not like God says, no, you don't really want to know.

Lori: Yeah, that's true.

And we. We don't know all the things that we're protected from in that not knowing. We. One of the things that came up early with me was I just have this kind of peace in the middle of all the health issues that I was dealing with, this peace that came in that I'd heard about, but I didn't.

I had never really experienced it. And that was something that was such a blessing. My husband and I can both look back on that and say, wow. It might have looked like denial from the outside, but from the inside, we knew that this was that piece that we couldn't manufacture on our own.

Jan: Yeah. Yeah. What a gift, right? What a gift.

Lori: Yes.

Jan: It's like, I know you're going to go through all this kind of stuff, but here I'm going to give you this piece and you're going to be able to make it through.

Right, right, right.

Lori: And I. I don't know. It was a blessing to experience that because I had never experienced it before.

And so many of the things. When I got that faith down and I took it on that rough journey.

Lori: I started to understand some of the.

Lori: Things I'd heard about but never experienced in that. That was something that I was glad I got to do, even though it was. It's not a path I would have picked for myself.

Jan: And, you know, isn't it something that. How. It's kind of. It's like God has these things for us, but they fit every situation.

Lori: Yes.

Jan: You know, they fit yours with your heart disease, and they fit somebody else who's got, you know, a child dying, or they fit something, you know, whatever kind of thing that happens in your life, but it's the same.

Same God with the same covering that he's got for all of us, you know?

Lori: Yes. Yes. That's one of the things about when I started writing the book I was writing from what I knew, which was this diagnosis that I had, and I knew I was writing to A bunch of people who probably didn't have that diagnosis.

And I thought, what do they care? You know, how are they going to relate? But I think in ways that only God can.

Lori: He engineered what I was writing so.

Lori: That it would apply to people that are going through other kind of detours, like divorce or like you said, loss.

Lori: Of a child or bankruptcy.

Lori: Loss of any kind of dream, really. And that book took shape in a way that I never would have formatted on my own. And part of that was the shorter.

Lori: Format in the essays that you were.

Lori: Talking about with the audiobook. That was just, you know, I. I was in a place of deep pain and trauma, and I had a short attention span. And I learned that everybody that's in trauma situations or in deep pain have.

Lori: A short attention span. So as I was writing short pieces.

Lori: That's just what my reader was needing, was short pieces. And so again, God's hand was in the middle of all that that I didn't.

Lori: I didn't understand at the time.

Jan: Isn't that cool?

Lori: It's very cool.

Jan: I suppose that you've had people respond or comment too, to you about the situation where certain things have touched them, you know, that you have written about.

Lori: Yes, yes, that I think of anything. I'm always surprised that someone would pick up my words and read them. I still am. And that is such an honor that someone would invest time, but then that someone would take that extra step and reach out and text or email or, you know, send a physical letter.

And that's when I know that this is something I need to be doing, because those are people that I would never have met. There was a one lady that I had met just online.

She used my book in a women's correctional facility in a state I don't think I've ever even visited that state.

And that's things that I couldn't have engineered.

And it was two people being. Ministering to people that really have nothing to do with my personal story.

But in the same way it was. And so that's so validating, that personal connection for people that read it, that respond.

And just hearing the ladies comments from that class was just.

Lori: It was humbling to me because they've.

Lori: Been through so many detours. And, you know, generationally, the pain that some of them are bearing is just. It's a lot.

Jan: And when something like that happens, at least when that happens to me, it's just kind of a confirmation that I kind of get the tingles, you know, of like, oh, I really am doing what you want me to do God.

Lori: Right.

Lori: Right.

Lori: Because I can step back and think, you know, 10 or 15 years ago, if you had said that I would have a book that someone was using in prison to teach, when I would have thought, yeah, because I was teaching accounting in college 10 years ago, and I'd been doing that for 25 years.

And so the thought of writing a Christian nonfiction book, really.

It wasn't really in the life plan, but it. You know, clearly God had it in my life plan. I just didn't know it at that moment.

Jan: Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's go backwards. Let's talk about what. What did happen to you? What sparked this whole thing?

Lori: Yeah, well, it. It sort of all started about. It's been about nine years ago. I.

Lori: It started with the medical evaluation for.

Lori: A life insurance policy, actually, and I was trying to figure out if I could get preferred life insurance. And they said, you're in great health, and you have less than 3% chance of ever developing heart disease in your lifetime.

And I wasn't very surprised about that because I've always been really healthy. I've always had low blood pressure and low cholesterol and all good numbers, and I thought I was eating right and all the things.

And then about three weeks after that evaluation, I just wasn't feeling well.

Lori: And I'd gone to convenient care a.

Lori: Couple of times that week, and they gave me an inhaler and an antibiotic, and I knew that wasn't it somehow.

And when I finally went to my PCP later that week, he listened to my heart with a stethoscope and said, if we're lucky, it's pneumonia.

And what he found instead with the chest X ray was an extremely enlarged heart, and I was admitted into cardiac ICU with my heart functioning at just 6%.

So that was something I never saw coming because we don't have. I don't have any family history, and I don't have any risk factors.

So that. That took some getting used to. The idea that that is part of my story.

Jan: Mm. Yeah. And. Absolutely. A detour.

Lori: Yes.

Lori: Yes, It. It really was, because I. You know, I. They didn't expect I would leave the hospital with the heart functioning at that low. And after a couple weeks, I did leave the hospital, but they sent me home with a hospice binder, and I was wearing an external defibrillator vest that I wore for nine months and onboarded all these medications, and we just kind of waited for about 18 months, and really nothing.

Lori: Nothing happened.

Lori: I was alive, but nothing much happened.

Lori: I did get an internal device at.

Lori: That, sometime in that. Within that time frame, but it just didn't really.

Nothing really affected my heart function in a meaningful way. And I had, you know, during all that time, I had so much prayer support and so much church support and so much care going on.

I just, I couldn't imagine that, you know, something wasn't going to turn around in my favor.

And it actually did temporarily my heart function. I came down with appendicitis and my heart function at that moment showed near normal.

And. But it was a temporary normal and they took my appendix out and I survived. But since then my heart function has decreased and I'm back around 20%.

But, you know, the more I learn about heart failure and what it is, it's really a chronic progressive disease. And so it. They don't really know what happened to my heart.

I don't have any genetic issues and I don't have any risk factors, but they suspect that maybe a virus attacked my heart at some point in my life.

And, you know, it only once you're diagnosed with that if mine was pretty far advanced. So if you catch it early, you have a better outcome. But mine was pretty far advanced.

So really it only goes in one direction.

And even though I had that spike up to get my appendix out, as my friend told me, God intervened and made my heart normal so I could get my appendix out.

My overall direction is still down with my heart function, but I do really well with my 20%.

And God has been gracious and given me opportunities and energy, and I just.

Lori: Structure my days around a much shorter time frame.

Lori: And that's kind of how we do it and see what. See what next. God has for me.

Jan: Has it changed your perspective of, I. I guess the value of life and, and where you're going and protecting your time or, you know, maybe your visions of things that you want to get done or whatever?

Lori: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think there's an urgency of the things that I think are important. And I think before I had ideas of what I would do one day.

Lori: But there just wasn't that urgency.

Lori: And, you know, I don't know. I know none of us know how much time we have, but I've kind of got this clock ticking and I know that there's some things I want to get done.

I. Since I had this diagnosis, and honestly, doctors were saying originally the real optimistic ones are saying five years. And then the more realistic ones were.

Lori: Saying, you better plan on six months.

Lori: And that was nine years ago.

But since then, I. I've seen my children graduate from high school.

One of my children got married.

I have a grandchild. I have a second one on the way. And none of that was.

Lori: And this book was born as well.

Lori: And none of that was expected.

Lori: And so all those are just blessings.

Lori: That have come about. And I think I've learned to just really recognize those things when they pop up more than I did before, more than just like, oh, that's part of life.

But, like, that's a blessing. That's something that I didn't deserve, that I didn't expect, that I just got.

And so it's a little. It's a little bit of a subtle shift, but definitely a shift.

Jan: Not just a gift to you, but to your family. You know, I got my mom to be here. My mom was still here. She got to see my kids, and she gets to, you know, participate in that and see my graduation, those kind of things.

So, you know, it's. Yeah, it's about more than, you know, just you. It's how it affects people in your life as well, you know, for sure. Great. That is. Tell us about the COVID of your book.

Lori: Well, the COVID of my book is kind of a funny story. I'm traditionally published, so I didn't get to pick the COVID But the COVID turned out to be so perfect for what was inside the book.

Because if you can see it here it is a. It's a path. There's a. There's a path that it's. It's not a great road. It's not paved. It's kind of bumpy, and it's probably gets ruts on it when it rains and easy to slip off into the ditch and all of that.

But one thing I love about it is you. You don't really see where you're going. You're going somewhere, but there's a turn in there. You don't know where you're going, and.

Lori: You sure don't see the end of.

Lori: The road, but you're on this path. And the other thing I like about it is most. Well, several of the stories, maybe most are set in from my childhood. And I grew up in rural south central Kansas, which is a big wheat producer.

And this looks exactly like we were there in May after the book was published. And I was just, like, amazed at how those roads where I grew up look exactly like the book cover, which my publisher couldn't have known that.

Jan: Yeah.

Lori: And. And there it was. And I took pictures on my phone. I'd be like, side by side. You know, they look exactly alike.

But another cool thing is I later learned that the.

The image is actually artwork from Ukraine.

And anybody that grew up in Kansas knows that. Well, in my day, anyway, knows that Kansas is called the Breadbasket of the World, and Ukraine is also called the Breadbasket of the World.

So that was a cool tie in as well. And I just felt like that was another part that God had engineered and. And directed. And the other part of it was I really wanted the book to appeal to men and women, and so I didn't want it to be too feminine.

And I didn't like. Again, I didn't have any say over the font or anything like that, but they made it so that it would appeal to men and women. And that was something that was.

Has proven to be a really good outreach because there's not a lot of books like that that are written for men.

Jan: Yeah, yeah, that's true. I think that that is true. So talk about the format of your book.

Lori: Yes, well, we touched on it earlier, but they. There's actually 40 essays, and all the essays are somewhere around a thousand to twelve hundred words. And you can easily listen to them in fifteen minutes.

You can read them fifteen minutes.

And they are designed to be sort of standalone essays so that you can go to the table of contents, and if there's one that seems to speak.

Lori: To you, you can flip over to.

Lori: That one, and they all have their own individual story, and they all wrap up. Now, when I say they wrap up, that doesn't mean that I answer all the faith questions in there, but I do, I think, in each one, try to direct the reader back to God's goodness and his faithfulness and his trustworthiness.

So trying to just validate that if.

Lori: You get off on one of these.

Lori: Roads, like was on this cover, one of those bumpy, dusty roads that you don't want to be on, you're going to have some questions, and it's okay to ask those questions.

And that's what the essays are really supposed to be about, is enabling and really empowering people to, even if you've been a believer all your life, that it's okay to ask some faith questions when you're on that road, because otherwise you might just be silent with him.

Jan: Yeah. Yeah. So although sometimes that feeling silent might be a time when actually listening to him.

Lori: Yeah, that's true, too.

Jan: In between, what's one of your favorite stories or parts that's in there?

Lori: You know, I think maybe one of the essays that maybe one of Them that I've gotten the most reader response from is learning to lament. And that is a, an essay that talks about how we're sort of afraid to lament because it feels a little bit like you're complaining or you're have a weak faith or you're not being joyful.

And that sometimes doesn't sit well with us as believers because it's kind of. It feels messy. But there's this. We know about God, but we also hurt. And how do we reconcile that?

And so that particular essay has touched a lot of people because it really explains the worshipful aspect of being able to lament and laments all over Scripture.

And it's not something that we need to feel bad about or feel ashamed about or feel like our faith is weak.

Lori: In fact, sometimes lamenting is the best.

Lori: Thing you can do for your faith. And so that essay has really been one that people have felt like it validated some of their feelings when they were hurting deeply.

Jan: Well, and why would we have lamentations or have all of those psalms in there if that wasn't like, okay, you know, exactly. Or that we had those role models in the Bible to go from, you know, to.

It's a normal thing to do that, to shy away from. You know, it's hard to. When you're in the middle of things to really know and things that are new to you, experiences that you don't really know how.

It's not a path you've gone down before, particularly. And it's like, well, how do I really do this? And especially when it's a long term thing, you know, yeah, yes, term chronic.

And, and you're not feeling well and you don't know what's going to happen next and you.

Lori: Yes, yes, I, I totally agree with that. And I think one of the mistakes that I made originally was that I didn't understand how faithful lamenting could be. And so rather than lament, I just sort of, I was quiet because I, I felt like my faith wasn't lining.

Lori: Up with my life.

Lori: I believe this, but this is what I was living. And that that silent period was when.

Lori: I wasn't talking to God, when I.

Lori: Wasn't getting that vase down and using that faith, that's when I really ran.

Lori: The risk of walking away from God.

Lori: And not coming back at all. But when I started to ask the questions, even though I didn't really know at that time what lament, the word.

Lori: Meant, maybe, and I didn't really understand.

Lori: The process or any of the particulars.

Lori: When I was just talking to God.

Lori: And being honest, that was my tether to him in those really dark days. And I just would encourage anybody that feels like I don't know what to say. I'm sort of mad at God.

I'm sort of disappointed in him, that sometimes all you can do is just.

Lori: Keep talking to him.

Lori: And it won't be just right, and it won't be exactly what you want to say, but the worst thing you can do is just slam your bedroom door and keep him out.

Jan: Yeah. Yeah. Because he wants us to draw near. Would you be willing to read that essay?

Lori: This is in the first section of the book, which is where we talk about the first big life question. And that is, is this life while there is? And that's what I call a question of worry.

It was an ordinary Tuesday.

Lori: As I slipped into the choir room ahead of the bell, I remember seeing her older brother pacing outside the school office waiting for her to be released from class.

My childhood friend's mother had died after a long illness when we were seniors in high school.

Lori: I knew her mother was sick, but.

Lori: My world was spinning in a regular.

Lori: Orbit, so I had never mentioned it.

Lori: For years, I pretended not to notice her mother's decline when I spent the.

Lori: Night enjoying her dad's culinary expertise, when I hung out in their upstairs TV room after school, or when I tagged.

Lori: Along on their family vacations.

Lori: When I heard the news of her.

Lori: Mother'S passing, I didn't go to my friend's familiar house to console her. Her pain was something I couldn't understand.

Lori: And didn't want to see up close. Truth is, I felt a new kind.

Lori: Of fearful sadness of my own that.

Lori: I didn't know how to express, so I ignored it. I attended the funeral but pretty much.

Lori: Expected everything to be back to baseline soon afterward.

Lori: I'm not sure I ever talked about her mother's death to anyone, especially God.

Lori: Who had apparently dropped the ball. My friend and I tried to continue our normal teenage lives. Later that year we graduated and went.

Lori: Our separate ways before Facebook, and at the height of long-distance charges, we drifted apart.

Lori: I put my God and my friend.

Lori: In a box marked high School and.

Lori: Didn't take either one out for years.

Lori: I often wonder if it really was.

Lori: Distance and decisions that came between us. I wonder how my relationship with God and my friend might have been different if I had expressed the unfamiliar disappointment, anger, disillusionment, Fear.

Many of us eventually begin hurting in.

Lori: Unexpected ways, too, and most of us never articulate it.

Lori: So hard as we might try to.

Lori: Hold it together, grief seeps out in.

Lori: Small drips and large downpours. It catches us off guard and spills over onto unsuspecting family members, supportive friends, and concerned coworkers.

God understands, and he wants us to talk about it. He wants us to lament.

Lament is a passionate expression of grief or sorrow. It's more than just feeling the heartache. It's openly admitting to God the intense, confusing pain.

As humans, we suffer, but only as believers do we lament.

And it's uniquely difficult because of the.

Lori: Closeness of our God.

Lori: We know his promises and we know him, yet we live here in a world of sorrows, just as all his followers live after the ascension and before his return.

We live between promises, and so with feet in both worlds, a lament feels messy. We believe, but we hurt. We know, but we question.

Russ Ramsey, in his book Struck, describes lament as a complaint bound to faith, confusion bound to trust, petition bound to allegiance.

For the believer, grief seldom stands alone. It takes on a deeper dimension, a harsh reality hurts more coming from someone we love and trust.

In lament, betrayal mixes in with the.

Lori: Grief from my journal the first year of my disease.

Lori: Nine months into this heart failure journey, I'm wondering when God is going to step in. I'm giving him all the glory for holding this thing together so far.

Lori: I know I should have never lived.

Lori: This long in my condition. But now it seems like a logical next step.

Lori: With me on so many prayer lists.

Lori: To heal me and be done with it.

Lori: I've learned to rely on him, and.

Lori: Now it's time to display his love and power.

But we're getting nowhere. No measurable improvement despite all the meds and all the interventions.

When I vowed to never need the internal defibrillator, I was sure I was just claiming an early victory for God.

Now it's scheduled to happen.

Lori: I don't get it.

Lori: Why not heal me, God? Why not demonstrate your majesty? Why not move while people are watching?

My healing after thousands of prayers and tons of faithful surrender, seems to make perfect sense.

Lori: I'm starting to feel duped or deserted, not sure which.

Both David, the man after God's own heart, and Jesus, the man who embodied God's own heart, were familiar with laments.

Each cried out to God when his.

Lori: Belief didn't seem to match his experience.

Jesus pleaded for answers in Gethsemane with the impending crucifixion, and at Golgotha in the middle of it. I don't like where this journey with you is taking me, let this cup pass, he said in Matthew 26:39.

Why have you forsaken me? In Matthew 27:46, David, dismissed, hunted and rejected, penned nearly half the psalms. And one third of those are laments.

How long? Why? Where are you?

God's followers feel it in world problems, individual health crises, wayward children, lost jobs.

Expressing our pain can sometimes feel disloyal, like we're giving up on God's ultimate goodness. Or maybe more like he's giving up on us.

Lori: But God intended it for something much more.

Lori: Lament shows belief like few other expressions can.

In fact, it may be one of the truest forms of praise.

Lament reaches out for him when logic urges us to run away.

Mark Rogo says, the practice of lament is one of the most theologically informed things a person can do.

Psalms, lamentations, Ecclesiastes, all focus on hurt and expressing it. They range from personal pain to shared suffering and almost always end with a statement of confidence in the goodness of God.

In praise.

When we lament, we sift the truth out of difficult feelings and harsh realities, still in the thick of pain. Sometimes a lament feels like we're abandoning.

Lori: Our faith, but it's just the opposite.

Lori: Lament announces that even though we don't like what's happening, we're choosing to trust. When we lament, we are re upping our belief in this God we don't understand.

Lori: We say, I believe you exist, just.

Lori: Like I wouldn't send a letter or.

Lori: Make a phone call to someone I.

Lori: Didn't believe was real. By communicating to God, I'm confirming that I know he's there.

I believe you're powerful.

I can't hold someone accountable unless I believe they have the power to affect a different result.

The fact that you're complaining to God means you know he could have done.

Lori: Something about it and that he can.

Lori: Bring about a different result in the future.

I believe you love me. By sharing your deepest personal feelings with God, you affirm that He's a caring listener. Otherwise, you'd keep the thoughts to yourself.

Lori: You hurt because you know he loves.

Lori: You, and you can't humanly reconcile that love with your current reality.

So rather than suffocating it with silence, Lament breathes life into our relationship with Him. So no struggle is off limits.

Passionate communication creates room for God, especially in our heartbreak.

When we can be honest with our deepest pain, we allow him in. William Arnott writes, when I weep, Christ enters by the openings which grief has made into my heart and gently makes it all his own now.

Years voicing the harsh why not has brought me to a place of faith I wouldn't have found in a quickly restored life.

He gradually dug deep enough into my heart for me to learn this freeing reality. He is in control and my shortsighted requests are not.

I'm finally leaning into that trust with commitment and even relief.

Whatever you're lamenting today, and we're all passionately grieving something in this remodeled world, don't be afraid to bring God into it. One day when we've walked further on the sidewalk, we'll realize even the losses.

Lori: Were meant for more than we know.

Lori: When I found myself in unfamiliar pain.

Lori: Over my heart diagnosis, I shared my.

Lori: Questions and complaints about God online. My high school friend sent several messages of support. This friend also sensed how I was.

Lori: Hurting because I couldn't be with my.

Lori: Parents during their health struggles. Living nearby, she reached out to offer her help. I know she understands my pain and I see her decades old hurt being used for good.

I just wish I'd learned to lament all those years ago when my friend.

Lori: And my faith both needed it.

Jan: Thank you so much. Yeah, that is wonderful. Well, friends, this is Lorianne Wood's book Divine Detour. Where can people reach you?

Lori: Well, I am Loriann Wood on all the social channels and also@loriannewood.com you can.

Lori: Read the first chapter free under the books tab there to see if you'd.

Lori: Like to pick up a copy.

Jan: Yeah. Thank you so much. This is just a delight and it's just been really fun to see you.

Lori: Thank you, Jan.

Lori: Thanks for having me.

Jan: You bet.