Transcript

Ellyn (00:06.638)

Hello listeners, thanks for listening today. We are going to talk today about a vital part of our lives, our Christian faith, and how it has changed our perspective on life. Let's get right into it.

Lauren (00:24.238)

story. So I don't know if you guys, many of you go to church, but a lot of times people will get up and give their testimony, which is how they became a Christian and like the influence that it's had on them. So we're going to do that today.

Right, Ellen? Okay.

Ellyn (00:47.981)

So, yes we are. So when did you become a Christian?

Lauren (00:54.254)

I became a Christian when I was seven years old at summer camp. Our parents sent us to the most wonderful and fun camp.

Lauren (01:21.326)

it was a very God centric summer camp, but they did other summer campy things too. They had, I remember they had archery. That's where I got to love archery too. God and archery. Yeah, it was, it was a good time. We sang songs. We, we raced, uh, we did Bible races where we opened our Bibles to a certain verse in race fashion. Like, people could win. It was a game. Who could get there first? And I just loved that camp from the time that I was seven, the first year that I went, all the way up to eighteen. And I worked there too. It was just a good time. And I got saved then. My journey has certainly had its ups and downs. I definitely had a time when I didn't really care what God thought about anything that I did after I moved out of my parents' house and I don't know. He just always called me back to him. And there were so many times that I was in a situation where I should have been scared or lonely or, you know, whatever, but I wasn't. And it's because he was there with me.

Ellyn (03:00.04)

I also became a Christian at that very same summer camp. And , just like Lauren said, I can't say enough good things about it. It made being, how do I want to say it, it made being a Christian cool. It made it fun because we had all these God -centric activities, but we also had the summer camp experience. You get to go and you spend the night in the woods and you get to go on nature hikes and you get, they had a pool and they had an art club and they had just all kinds of

Lauren (03:37.966)

They had a pool.

Ellyn (03:41.542)

fun summer camp activities, but interlaced through all of it was being a Christian and being around other Christians. And actually, I counseled at the summer camp too when I was a little bit older. And my favorite week of the whole year was when we had a busload of kids who came up from New York City. And a lot of these kids, if not all of them, were inner city kids who didn't have a lot of the nature experiences or the God experiences. They just didn't have it. And so they came, they definitely came from difficulty, a lot of them had a lot of difficulty in their lives. And it was the most rewarding week of the entire summer because I got to see kids lives changed and they left on Saturday much different than they came on Sunday. And for Lauren and I, we had, we lived in a Christian home growing up. So it wasn't as stark of a difference for us going to summer camp, but for these kids it really was. And it was amazing to watch their transformation through the week. So I loved that week and I loved that this camp did that. So anyway, that was a little aside, but I also became a Christian at the summer camp. I was a little older than Lauren. I want to say I was maybe 13. And like I said, we had always gone to church with our parents and but I didn't feel the change until I was 12 or 13 and it It was even at such a young age of life altering, but I also had that time where I fell away Like Lauren I when I was in my early late teens early 20s, and I didn't go to church for a number of years, but I still felt it. It was still there. I just ignored it for a while and then met my husband, which can be nothing other than God who brought the two of us together.

Lauren (06:26.734)

Mm -hmm.

Lauren (06:35.374)

Totally. Yep. I say all the time. Not about you guys. I mean, I'm sure it was, but was it was the same for me. I was living in a sinful way and somehow in the midst of it all, I found this man who is and has been so perfect for me. How could that be anything but God?

Ellyn (07:01.12)

Yeah, and I would say, right. For me, I didn't mean, I almost think like joining the Air Force was a fluke because I wasn't going to do it and then I did. And then I didn't mean to end up where I did. I meant to end up somewhere else, but I didn't. And I ended up where I was, stationed in Florida. I could have easily never met him had the circumstances been just a tiny bit different and But I did all of these things did come together and I did meet him and God knew exactly what he was doing because he's just right for me.

Lauren (07:47.79)

Yep. There was something mom told me years ago, and I think she told you too, that she prayed for our spouse every day. Like wherever they were, whoever they were to... Yep. To watch over them and bring them to God. And I feel like that little part of our story is just so huge because it's the exact same as mine.

Ellyn (08:01.695)

years and years and years before we met them.

Lauren (08:17.838)

I wanted to go to a duty station that was closer to where mom and dad lived and they sent me completely the other side of the world, pretty much like as far and still be in the continental United States as I could be from the place where I requested. Thank you army. But it worked out and it really was a beautiful place. They sent me to Hawaii. I mean,

Lauren (08:46.254)

Everyone's like, oh, how could you complain about that? Well, you know, I asked to go to the Arctic, but yeah, they sent me to Hawaii.

Ellyn (08:53.758)

where mom and dad were.

Lauren (08:56.046)

Right, mom and dad lived in the Arctic. But I instead I went there and I did find it hard because it was so far away from, it cost me over a thousand dollars to get home, which, I mean, that's a lot no matter who you are. That's a lot for me right now. And then I was just a lower enlisted.

Lauren (09:26.83)

who had to save basically all year to come up with that kind of cash. So it was hard. It was hard being that far away.

Ellyn (09:38.974)

Yep, definitely. And I wasn't that far away, but it was still a long way.

Lauren (09:40.078)

But if... But if but if I hadn't gone there, then I wouldn't have ever met my husband, who lived right across the hall from me. Like, he was a person I could not avoid. God made it impossible. But I didn't even try to avoid him. I really liked him.

Ellyn (10:45.626)

what are some of the challenges have faced in your faith?

Lauren (10:54.414)

I think the biggest challenges have been remembering how present God is in my life. Like, when things aren't going exactly as I had hoped they would. And so many times it's when I look back that I see how much he's done for me. It isn't necessarily in the moment that I see it or feel it. It's always when I look back. Being deployed was hard. It was hard on my marriage. It was, it was strange and, and not an experience that I actually have in common with many other people besides you, Ellen. Um, but none of my friends have spent a year plus away from their spouse. And I say plus because they did this weird training program with us before we left where we were gone basically every other month for a year. And it felt like we had been married a long time at that point, but it really only been five years. And I don't think that makes it easier because we've been together past the honeymoon stage, but not to the, all right, now We're really mucking it in here.

Ellyn (12:57.174)

Which if you've been married for a long time, you know what that means.

Lauren (13:02.894)

 we didn't have any kids yet, which was a blessing. I don't know what we would have done if, like, I know what we would have done, but it wouldn't have been impossible. I got out of the army just so that I could have kids without having to worry about getting deployed away from them for a year because there's no... Okay, well, you have a child, so you can just stay home.

They don't really do that. If you look back when army was basically all men, of course they had to go and leave their families behind. So yeah, that didn't change with the, with women coming into the military. It's the same story. I remember people asking me, Oh, Steve didn't come with you? What, into a war zone?

Ellyn (13:59.734)

That's not how they do it.

Lauren (14:02.798)

No, he didn't. He stayed back and I went and it was very hard on both of us. It was.  I always say that it's harder for the person who stays behind than it is the person that goes. I was very occupied with, you know, what was going on and he had more time to sit around and think about what was going on with me.

Ellyn (14:35.925)

I agree. I would say that the biggest challenges to my faith are stepping back and not and letting go of things that I feel like I want to control. And that has been, you know, as my big kids are starting to really grow up, it's taking my hand off of being in control of their lives all the time. And that's hard. I don't want to because I've been through where they are. So I want to keep handling these things, but I can't. I've got to let them go and make their own mistakes or, you know, not just necessarily their mistakes, their successes and their mistakes. I've got to let them do that. taking my hand off and just letting God handle their future just like I had to do. You know, there was nothing our parents could do to change my mind once I decided I was going to do something as a young adult and I've got to let go and let them decide that they are going to handle these things on their own. And it's really hard. And just letting go of the reins and letting God just handle it and knowing that ultimately he is in control of these things and I'm not. And that's tough. So I would say that that's the biggest challenge for my faith right now. I'm sure I've had other challenges as I was younger, but right now that is my biggest challenge is just letting go. And I don't wanna, but I am.

Lauren (16:21.262)

Yeah.

Lauren (16:36.622)

It looks hard. I'm glad I don't have to do it for a while. I know. Not really. Five? I have five years in between the eldest and the youngest. That's a long time. Trust me. It's the difference between me and Ellen. I got to spend my last five years at home alone. And... That was kind of great.

Ellyn (16:40.046)

Well, good luck. You'll get there. You get to do all three at once or within a couple of years.

Ellyn (16:53.07)

Okay.

Ellyn (17:01.55)

I spent my first five years home alone when I didn't appreciate it.

Lauren (17:08.109)

I know. The youngest definitely, like in that aspect, I feel has it better because they're so aware of the amount of space that is now available for them and the amount of time and money and you know all of that giant hole that their sibling left behind.

Lauren (17:30.606)

So faith has been huge in my marriage as well. I, again, was blessed to find a man who was already a Christian, although suffering through the same lapse that I was. He already believed and I didn't have to try and talk him into it. And I'm glad because I don't know what would have happened. Like I was in this down period where I didn't have much use for God. And so was he, but we both still believed. So once we did get married, we didn't never find a church that we really liked, but we did church hop around and we talked about our faith with each other, which was kind of nice. But now, especially now that we have kids and, you know, I want them to have a similar experience as the one that our mother and father provided for us.We're pretty hardcore about it. And we talk about it all the time. Like what we believe in because the kids ask. They want to know. So we've got to have answers. But yeah, it's a huge part of our life.

Ellyn (19:02.217)

And I think that living your faith in front of your family is so important because just like teaching them to read and write, you're teaching them to have faith by having faith yourself and by having a relationship with God as opposed to he's some far off deity that we don't have access to. But by bringing God into your home all the time, I feel like we make him more real for our kids. And I feel like that's such an important part of parenting. Just bringing faith and bringing God and being a Christian, bringing that up in your conversations daily or at least, you know, daily, bringing it up daily and letting your kids see that it's not just something we do on Sundays. And it's something that we live every day.

Lauren (20:13.966)

Right. Yep.

And having and answering those hard questions, like there are a lot of really difficult questions that there are answers to, and I'd rather my kids got those answers from me than somebody else.

Ellyn (20:33.19)

Our pastor at church on Sunday said something that made me really think, my husband and I generally do our Bible reading first thing in the morning as soon as we get up before the kids get up. And he said that going and doing your Bible reading in front of your kids shows them that this is what they should be doing too. If you only do it, but when they're not around, then

they never see that that's what they should be doing too. So by demonstrating your relationship in front of them, instead of just letting them always see your closed Bible that they start to internalize and see that that's what is the thing to do as a Christian. You're building your relationship with

Lauren (21:26.99)

Mm -hmm.

Ellyn (21:31.238)

God in front of your kids. And that really made me think because it isn't something my husband and I do. We don't do our Bible reading in front of the kids because if it's in front of the kids, then it's usually loud and you can't concentrate. But it is something you should do at least sometimes so that they can see it. If the Bible is always closed and they never see it open, they don't see that you have that.

Lauren (21:34.894)

Yep. Yep.

Ellyn (22:01.638)

relationship with God.

Lauren (22:01.806)

Yeah.

And there are, like we do Bible study together. So I wonder if that would pass the sniff test for your preacher. I don't know. Yep.

Ellyn (22:10.726)

Mm -hmm.

maybe for my pastor maybe.

Lauren (22:20.238)

Bu this is a really important topic for us. We don't bring our faith up in every episode because we want everyone to feel like they can listen. But I certainly hope that all of our listeners can also listen to this episode and other episodes like it that we're going to have and feel welcome. We still want people to feel welcome to come and listen to this and all of our episodes.

Ellyn (23:02.592)

Very true, yep. We want everyone to feel like they can be a part of our podcast and this community that we hope to be building.

Lauren (23:18.158)

alright guys until next time