Taking the Hand of Jesus in Pain and Suffering with Heather Bradley

Unthinkable book

Truth Freedom MInistry

In this episode, Heather Bradley shares her inspiring journey of faith and resilience after experiencing the unthinkable loss of her son. Heather recounts how her grief led her back to God and ultimately shaped her ministry, Truth Freedom Ministry. Through her story, Heather emphasizes the transformative power of surrendering to God during life's hardest trials. Her journey highlights the sanctifying process of suffering and how, through Jesus, we can find hope and healing amidst the ashes. 

Music from #Uppbeat

https://uppbeat.io/t/aylex/wonders

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From the day we’re born, we begin a journey. It will be molded by our families, our environments, our beliefs, and motivations. 

God, as the alpha and omega is with us each step of the way, whether we follow him or not. 

Just as we have our own personal journeys, each character in the Bible has theirs. Each have had their own lessons to learn. 

And higher than that, God has used each one in his ultimate plan. 

Discovering your Journey– finding God i

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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. Welcome everybody, to a new episode of Just Talking about Jesus.

My guest today is Heather Bradley. She is the founder of Truth Freedom Ministry, a social media ministry for women to be equipped and encouraged in the things of God. She's in the right place, right?

She is passionate about helping people walk through the hard things in life by taking a hold of the hand of Jesus. She published her first book, Unthinkable this year and spent years in pastoral counseling ministry on staff at church.

She is on a new adventure with her husband, working at an RV park and getting ready to buy her first rv. How fun is that?

Heather: Well, thank you so much, Jan, for having me on your podcast. I feel so honored to be on here and getting to know you and to have a conversation with your listeners.

Again, I'm Heather Bradley and I am currently, as you said, working in the RV world with my husband. I took our, my, my personal life took a radical change this year and I went on staff with my husband because he took a new COO job at an RV trade school which has an RV park and I'm running that with him and it's a lot of fun.

Before that I was a stay-at-home mom and I homeschooled all my children and I was on staff at church for years, volunteering. It was, it was a church plant we were part of and then became on staff and did pastoral ministry there.

And I loved that. And yeah, so my social media ministry just started years ago. I just felt the Holy Spirit one time, tell me, I just want you to start writing online.

Just go to. On a space online and to write. And I really knew for years that I was going to write a book. Cause the Lord had put that on my heart.

I just didn't know when. But I thought, you know, he always uses the puzzle pieces of our life to train us, right? For all the things that are coming and all the years that I spent posting and still do post on social media and I would write content actually was training ground for me to be able to write a book when I looked back on it.

And it's wild how that works. I didn't put those pieces together at the time, but it is a place. And really again for me, I just love talking about Jesus, which is obviously you do too because you have a podcast and usually podcasters that have them about Jesus, they want to just talk.

And so I think when I started writing online I'm not sure if there were podcasts then, I don't really remember, but it was really a place for me to have an overflow, like I need to talk and I just want to share him with others.

And it really served a purpose of equipping and encouraging others, but a place for me to just to get it out of my system, I think.

Yeah, but. Yeah, so this last year I published my first book, which is super exciting. Was something that the Lord had put on my heart years and years and years ago.

And I took about six months I think, to write it. I had to get serious about it cuz I had spent a few years dabbling with my big O to do list and then every day would be like, I'll get to that.

But I didn't. And then at one point the Holy Spirit kind of got ahold of me and he was like, I need you to literally cease all activity. And I was like, really?

Like, what do you mean by that? Like cease all. So I, I stepped back from working on staff at church, which was crazy because that was a dream that the Lord had put on my heart years before that.

And I've learned that what he calls us to eventually he makes happen. But things are very seasonal in our life. It doesn't mean it's forever. Right? And so I did, I stepped back and everybody that knew me well knew I was on a mission.

And it was amazing how much you can get done when you actually sit down and focus.

And I'm like, huh, I did this when there's no other distraction.

So anyway, so that's, that's how I got to that place. But it's been so. It's been such a great journey, essentially. My book Unthinkable is. It's a little bit of heavier content.

I asked the question in my book, have you. You know, have you ever been in an unthinkable story? And I think what I've learned, especially in pastoral ministry is everyone has a story.

You know, Jesus himself said we would have trials and tribulation.

And I was a naive Christian some on some of my walks with Jesus before I learned about suffering and how we can identify with Jesus in that. And so he's really taken me on quite a few journeys in that.

And I feel very passionate to help others in their hard places because I truly believe that when we go through hard things that the enemy wants to trap us in those stories and define us and take and steal and kill and destroy.

 And some of our stories, people's stories, can be very hard. But God. The enemy will use whatever it takes to take us down, but God will use whatever it takes to get us to Him.

So I love just being passionate about that. That it's not that we go through hard things, that God is not there, it's that he enters in with us because he never leaves us or forsake us.

And I think when we can step back and as we go through our trials and tribulations in life, we can really gain this perspective that he is with us in these places.

He can bring beauty, as the Bible tells us, out of ashes. But the key piece to that is grabbing hold of his hand and also just surrendering these hard, hard places.

Because when our stuff meets the altar of God, that's where healing occurs. When we'll give it to him, it's not what we can do, you know? And so in 1999, my husband and I had a baby.

And this is the story, the catalyst I share in,

in my book, Unthinkable. And we were just living life. And honestly, we weren't really walking with Christ at the time, but I had grown up knowing who Jesus was, and I just wasn't walking with Him.

But if you'd asked me who he was, I would have told you, yes, I know who he was. And so I was married. We were having this baby, and he was born on my husband's birthday, and he lived for four months.

And at four months old, he had a heart attack. And we spent a few days in the hospital, and we found out that he had been born with a heart condition, but he was kind of thriving.

So it wasn't super noticeable, like. Like a normal child who would have a heart defect. 

He passed away. And where this story radically had two journeys you could have gone on. While I was at the hospital,

right before he passed, he had crashed in the ER room. And they were trying to revive him. And, you know, you have to get out of the way, essentially. I remember walking down the hallway and there was this little bathroom, like a single bathroom that only I could go in.

And I was trembling with fear.

And I went in this bathroom, and I shut the door. And in that place, I heard the Holy Spirit say, Heather, this is about you coming back to me.

 Because, see, I did know Jesus, and I wasn't living with him, but he was going to use that very difficult journey that I was about to go on for his glory.

And he was going to bring beauty from that ashes, and he was going to bring me back to him. And not only me, an entire family line and so many people since then.

One of my favorite scriptures I want to share with you about this is in 2 Corinthians 4:17, 18. And it tells us, for our light and momentary troubles are retrieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

So we fix our eyes not what is on what is seen, but on what is unseen. Since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. And when you think about that in perspective to eternity with our Father in heaven, everything we go through here is like this moment.

It's a momentary light. Affliction is what the Word says. But through our suffering, if we submit it to Jesus and identify with him in it and let him do his work in us, it actually causes us to be like Him.

It's a sanctifying process. And we can either suffer to suffer like the rest of the world because of we live in a fallen world, and we can't get away from the things in this world.

It's the consequences of sin and the consequences of death and everything that's happened, or because Jesus is so amazing and so good, he enters into it and doesn't leave us there.

And we're gonna go through hard things, but when we hand them back to Jesus,

he does something miraculous in it. And that's really what my book's about, like how we can take these hard things given to Jesus and what he can do for us.

And ultimately, to me, it's about serving others. In the end, it's not really about us.

Jesus showed us how to suffer well, and I have a whole chapter on that at the end about Jesus because he was willing to be obedient to the Father unto death.

Not my will, but yours. And it wasn't easy. That's not the point. But he was going to trust him in his suffering. There's a scripture in Peter that talks about he trusted God in his suffering.

He knew that he would bring him through. And, you know, we like to talk about all the good things about God. And that's great. I love that, too. And that's where I like to stay.

But we can't, you know, pretend that this other part of our life doesn't exist. And that's why I say I Used to be very naive. I'm like, well, you know, I've been through hard things, God.

Nothing bad else can happen to me. 

God can do so much in the place of suffering. And, you know, when we can see what Jesus did on the cross, it looked really bad, right? He died. And then the disciples were like, oh, my gosh,  do we believe what you said? Is this gonna happen?

In their minds, they don't know. Everything looked really dark. And that's the same thing that happened in my story. My son died. And we all have our story,

but resurrection comes from death.  Jesus paved the way. And so we can't bring resurrection to ourself, but Jesus can. And it's only by the power and grace of God and his mercy and the love that he has for me and what I've experienced with him that I can say that I did go through that hard,

unthinkable story. And obviously I would never forget it. But what I've come out of it with by taking a hold of the hand of Jesus is more than I could have ever obtained from that one moment, you know?

Jan: Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, if you don't go through tough stuff

where are you closest to God?

Right through those hard things. 

Jan: How have other things that have happened in your life, how has that kind of melded your thinking or you're going through that the next time around? Because 

most people don't do one whammy,

right?

Heather: And that's kind of where my naivety came from. When I say that, I say it jokingly. But when my son died that was kind of like my catalyst moment to come with Jesus, I was like, I'm your faith, girl.

I'm on fire. Let's talk about Jesus all day. But I was naive. And I say this because in the back of my mind,

I think I thought. No, I know that I thought,

I had this bad thing happen.

I'm good, right? Like, we're good. I've done it. Thank you, Lord. We're good. But that's not the story that I have, and neither is anybody else's. 

My other son suffered from mental health issues for years.

God taught me a lot in that journey. And I'm going to tell you, that was hard, because I'm like, I've already done something hard. But the Lord uses these things, like I said, to change us, to teach us, so that we can go and help others get out of their bondage and the things that they're carrying.

And to me, it's worth it when I look back, as hard as these things were, because now I get to speak life into other people and I get to say, there's another way.

But it gives you another perspective. And I do meet people a lot, and I have a friend that always says that. “Man, they must have not been through much because they freak out.”

Like, I stubbed my toe or I freaked out because I didn't get that shirt I wanted at the store. My thing broke. And, you know, we say that jokingly, but it's so true.

When you go through something really hard, especially more than once, and you start seeing this pattern of how God works in it, and, you know, him in it, we get his presence.

That's the gift we get in these places. We get his presence. We have the mind of Christ. 

It's not that we want to go through these things, is it? Who wants to go through hard things? But we start stopping and knowing, hey, God's going to get me through this.

He's going to be with me in this. And so it does change your perspective to maybe those little things aren't that big of a deal, you know.

Jan: Yeah. And you also just know the beauty of what comes through, you know, when you get to that walking with him in the middle of it. Look at somebody like,

Joseph? You know, he had a few things happen to him. 

But you're talking about how God layers those things in your life to get you to where, God's plan for Joseph,

he had to go through what he did because along the way, he was learning to be a leader and learn how to manage things and still stay with good integrity with God?

Heather: Yeah.

Jan: And I think even still, it says God will give you the desires of your heart, but we don't always really understand what that desire is.

And he may take us through those situations because he's what your desire, your desire is really to be close to him.

Those things bring you closer to him, right?

Heather: Absolutely. What better way can he get our attention and show us our need for him than to, enter into these hard places with us? It's so true.

And I do love the story of Joseph is one of my favorite because his life reflects the things we live too.

Like God gives us all dreams and visions just like Joseph had, and then our life looks anything like those things. And I'm sure you've experienced that too, where you're like, no, I know God called me to this.

But all these years went by, or all these other things happen and it almost looks like you're going a complete opposite direction. But it's exactly what you said. They're the pieces of the puzzles that make us who we are.

The things I went through with losing my son and then going through another hard years and years, 10 years in the wilderness with my son who had mental health, like, literally waiting on God for a miracle.

And he did show up in that story so powerfully. But looking back, the things the fruit that's in me now, that comes out of me, the things I know now, they came from those places.

And there's another scripture I love too, and I have it right here. It's. It's in Psalm 126. And the Lord showed me this one day and it says, those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.

Oh, I love that so much because to me, that encompasses my whole story. It's like we're sowing in tears as his children, we are going to God. We are giving him all these things.

And if you don't show up God, I've got nothing. And I often say that. And I often say with God, I want to put all my eggs in one basket.

I don't wanna have a B plan. I don't wanna have any other plan. I'm willing to wait for him because when he shows up, it's exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ever ask, right?

Or imagine.

And that scripture, when we sow our tears in him and let him heal us miraculously, and we can't always explain it, there's a supernatural part of God, and I'm thankful for that because I don't wanna explain him to everyone.

We've got the big things we need to know. But then everything about Jesus is inviting us into a relationship with him. But, you know, I did reap all those tears that I sowed in joy in Jesus Christ.

Jan: Our experiences at the root of them are similar, you know, but God also has an individual plan because he loves us individually,

has his thing that he wants us to learn in the midst which somebody else can go exactly through the same thing you did, but God's going to teach them something different, you know?

Heather: Yeah. So true.

Jan: What happens with you affects so many other people, too, you know, because they're watching you and they're seeing how you're going through this. They're seeing what happens.

I could draw maybe from that.

Heather: Yeah, it really does touch people. Yeah, I agree. That's why our testimony is so powerful. The Bible's telling us all these things, but we have our own stories to add to this.

Because we are living for Jesus, and it's our testimonies that I love hearing people's stories because I want to know what God did in them. And to me, I'm just like, okay, God, I'm giving you glory for this.

Look at you. Praise God. They spur us on. And it's exactly what you say. If you're in the depths of something hard and you haven't figured out these things,

you haven't wrestled out these concepts yet, or maybe you don't even know Jesus yet. And then they see, how did you do that? And then you get to share who Christ is.

And I have no problem saying, you're not going to get through something like that any other way. We have lots of tools out there and, you know, that's great, but they can't heal you and change you and restore you and redeem you, you know?

Jan: Exactly. And don't you think it seems counterintuitive to thank God for this, for everything in all situations? The thank you is you are in the midst and because of. I am drawing near to you.

We're going through our day and everything's all hunky dory. Yeah, you can just put them on the shelf, like, grab them a little bit. Yeah, I'll do a little Devotion here, I'll sing a song here, do something like that.

And as far as testimonies, what's a testimony if you don't have something to tell?

Heather: You gotta have something to tell, right? 

Jan: And what are the stories that you really cling to? They're the ones where there have been hard places that people have gone through.

Heather: Yeah., I know when I go on podcasts and I share and stuff, I know I seem like, oh, everything's joyful, and it was so great, and it was the easiest thing ever, 

and I know that it wasn't. And I don't want to ever make somebody feel like, well, it was just easy for me, I just bounced right through that.

No, it wasn't. And it was hard. And I understand that place, and I understand feeling hopeless, and I understand how hard it is to put one foot in front of the other every day when you have no desire to go on because what you've gone through.

But, you know, if I can speak to someone in that place, I don't have a magic answer other than if you just keep going to God. That's what I did with my hurt, with my.

I don't understand. Why me? All of it. God can take all the things, and we can wrestle it out in him and talk to him in that somewhere along the journey,

he heals you and he brings something out of it. We can't. I can't even put it in words other than you just keep on surrendering, keep on humbly coming to Him.

And just like I said, If you don't show up God, I've got nothing. And He's there in that. That's exactly where he wants to be with you.

And you get his presence,

and that's everything. And that's the piece that surpasses understanding. And you get revelation and wisdom and truth that we can't have without Him. The Holy Spirit's in us, empowering us to do this, but we can't see these things from ever from our perspective. God gives us his perspective.

Jan: Was this your first child?

Heather: No. I have a daughter that's a little older. So she was six when he passed. She walked through it in her own different way, you know?

Jan: I have a friend, another Woman that I had interviewed, Angie Clayton, she's working on a book called Chosen.

Just about God has chosen me to walk through this. God has chosen me for this. Just look at that perspective.

Heather: And it's like you said, we all can go through different things or the same thing, but get a different, perspective, a different angle that the Lord shows us. And that's what's so cool. Because we can learn from each other like that and be like, man, I never saw it like that.

Yeah. That's why it's so important to share our testimonies.

Jan: It's natural just to just say, come on, God, really, what is going on? I mean, really. And especially things that are like whammy.

Sometimes you just get one right after the other, and to just ask is he really good?

Heather: Yeah.

Jan: Are you really good? You might be mad at God but He's got broad shoulders.

It's kind of like you’re a little kid that's having a temper tantrum.

 And he just grabs hold of you and he just holds on to you until you, until you finally hear his heartbeat and go, okay, okay, okay, okay, you let trust come in.

Heather: Yeah. It is true. And you know, I've met a lot of people, and I think that we all go through this where we have to. Everyone, I think at some point in our life we have to ask, face that question of like if God is really real, why is there suffering? And if we don't understand what the Bible teaches on sin and how we got here and the consequences of sin or death, it's not God causing it on us. Do you know what I mean?

It's our fallen nature. It's how sin came in. We have an enemy that's trying to take us down all the time. And we've got to learn to put on that armor and get the mind of Christ.

Because if we don't, if we can't determine what our flesh is saying, God's voice and what the enemy is saying, it's going to start getting jumbled and you're not going to have a leg to stand on.

We've got to know and be in the word of God so that when the enemy comes, we're like, God's word doesn't say that. So I'm gonna bind you up and take you down, right?

And then that's just my flesh today. I don't feel good, you know? You know, we have to learn to discern this, really.

Heather: So that we can figure out what we're dealing with in our life. 

They'll say, well, you can't explain why they're suffering, or you can't explain the best. I don't think that's true. Because when you read the Bible, especially if you go back in the Old Testament, in Genesis stuff, it does clearly state why there is suffering in the world.

You may not like the answer,

but it's there. And we are the creature, not the creator, right? And so at some point, I think we have to wrestle that God is the Father. He's the one who created us, and this is the consequence of our sin.

And to me, when I can really study that in the Word and realize I'm gonna go through hard things because of the enemy, I'm gonna go through hard things because people have free will and I can't control what they're doing.

And I'm gonna go through hard things because I live in a fallen world that's decaying, and every single part of this world has been affected by sin. Like my son, we can be born with a physical ailment because we have been affected by sin.

You know what I'm saying? And so we can get that big picture and just kind of settle it and then allow God to come into those places. Because God always shows up.

He cannot not show up. If we've invited him in, it may. You may not like the answer, right? But what I've learned is he'll either do this miraculous, as we would call it?

So, like my son that passed away, he did not heal him here this side of eternity,

because he saw the bigger picture.

Like Brennan's with him in heaven. I've actually seen him there. God allowed me to see that. But if he hadn't done that, where would I be right now? I don't know.

I could still not be walking with God. But he saw a bigger picture, and that was more important to God. He gathers a bunch of us into eternity.

He could have healed him, is the point. Now, my other son, I went on and on and on with that one. Like, why won't you do this, Lord?

How's this gonna end? How could I lose another son? I didn't know his mental health struggles were so intense where he was going.

And I would literally pray and be like, God, you know, I know who you are. I know what you can do. Why won't you do this? But then at one point, he miraculously healed my son, like, to where I don't even know him anymore.

So if you look at these two extremes, you could say, well, God healed Nathan. That's his name, and that's amazing. But he didn't heal Brennan. Well, you've got to get the mind of Christ.

You've got to see the bigger picture and what he's trying to teach us and what we need to know and how we're going to use these stories to help the kingdom grow and advance and help others get set free.

We've got to get up to where God's perspective is not ours, you know, because to me, I see the miracle in both.

Jan: Yeah. You know, and what did God do? He gave his son.

Heather: Yeah.

Jan: He was a parent who gave his son.

Heather: Absolutely.

Jan: For all of us, too, you know.

Heather: True.

Jan: I think that because we have the faith in God that we do, and we know that there's heaven and we know where we're going. I mean, that's where hope comes in.

We get to see our kids that are there. For eternity. This would have been a short time on earth.

Heather: Right. Absolutely.

Jan: 

You know, my first husband had a brain tumor and died. And before he left, I said, “well, say hi to our kids” because we had a couple of miscarriages.

Heather: And when you go to heaven they're going to be all there welcoming you in one day. And that's amazing.

. You have to think of an eternal perspective on things. It can't just be finite because it's just like if you do, you just get all wrapped up into everything, trying to  make sense of any of it.

Heather: Well, you get really black and white thinking you can't always make sense. And that's where we have to just be. Okay. That God is God. Do you know what I mean?

And it's not always black and white or our logical thinking. And I have found though, even if I don't know every detail, obviously because I'm not God, he gives me what I need to be okay with what he's saying.

Do you know what I'm saying? He doesn't leave us empty handed. He gives us enough to where we can put it where we need to put it and move on.

And that that'll look different for everyone.

Jan: What would you like to leave your listeners with?

Heather: Well, I would love to just encourage them that if they are going through something hard right now or if they've had something in their past that's probably maybe kind of defined them not in a good way.

I just want to encourage them that whatever you do, just, it's never too late with Jesus. Just stop where you are and just begin to go to him in surrender and humility and just say I can't, I can't do this.

And just start talking to him and just allow him to come in and just begin to do his work in you. Not what someone else has told you to do.

It's not going to look, you know, any other way than what God wants to do. He knows exactly what you need. But the first step really is reaching up and taking his hand and just saying, I, I've gotta let this go.

God does his best work where we surrender to him, whether it's the good, the bad, the ugly. When we surrender to him and allow him to take that lead, that's where he can work and that's where we take what we can do.

Because we can only go so far from the realm of like the earth to the realm of the impossibilities, which is God can do the impossible, but we've got to give it to him to do it.

Jan: When you get to that point where I can't do this, it's like give me a hand here, you know?

Heather: So true.