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Read Rachel's book, The Widow Chose Red, by clicking here!

Her husband was diagnosed with ALS during a routine executive physical. Two to five years. Go home and get your affairs in order.

Rachel Kerr Schneider asked God for healing for two years. At the start of the third year she realized she needed to prepare for a different kind of life. Their boys were seven and eleven at diagnosis. Ten and fourteen when he died.

Three things you will take from this one.

Faith does not make it easy, but it makes it possible. Rachel is honest about the anger, the anxiety, and the nights she could not eat or sleep.

You are not Jesus. Her counselor reminded her that even He had twelve men helping Him, and He chose them on purpose.

Paul wanted Rome and got there in chains. He was no less effective. Your platform does not have to look the way you pictured it.

Her book is The Widow Chose Red. Find her at on her website, by clicking here.

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Contact Melissa Jean Rod on Instagram.

Her memoir is The Daddy Files, an award winner that reads like a memoir and a workbook together, with questions and prayers at the end of every chapter.

Some stories are not for scrolling past. This one belongs to Melissa Jean Rodd.

She grew up not knowing her birth father. As an adult she found him. Then, years after he had died, she learned he was not her birth father at all.

Her mother knew who was. She would not say.

Melissa had to play detective and find out on her own.

Somewhere in the middle of that, she started grieving a second father she had already grieved once. She describes standing at her kitchen island stomping her foot like a two year old, reminding God of every promise He made in the Bible and telling Him to make good on them.

He did.

What she found on the other side is the thing she now tells other women. It stopped mattering who her earthly father was, because she knew whose she was.

That distinction runs through this whole conversation. Knowing who you are is one thing. Knowing whose you are is another, and it is harder to reach when the picture of father you grew up with had a hole in it.

Melissa also talks about forgiveness, which is the subject of her signature talk. She calls it the F word, and she means the harder one. She had to forgive the man she believed was her father for not being there. Then she had to forgive her mother for the lie. She is clear that forgiveness is not a free pass for anyone, and that it is not one and done. Sometimes it is forgiving again two seconds later because it came back.

Her line at the end of the episode is the one to keep. It is not for him. It is for you.

She used to hate speaking in front of people. Radio interviews made her a wreck. Now she speaks from stages, because she figured out that God's purpose for her story does not move if she stays quiet.

She has a hundred day devotional called A Daughter's Quest with her editor now. And she is one of fifteen authors in a collaboration called The Gratitude Project.

Find Melissa at melissajeanrod.com. Her book is on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and her website.

This is The Calling Table Sessions on the Stuck No More Voices Podcast. One seat. One woman. One story handled with care.

If you are a Christian woman leader with a story that could reach the woman you used to be, there is a seat here for you at theresacroft.com/yourseat.

Share this episode with the woman who came to mind while you were listening.

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Hosted by Theresa Croft, a Visibility Strategist who helps Christian women move from their calling to their story to being found with a message for their ideal audience.

Register Click HERE: The Story Gold Method: Learn to connect to your audience with stories from your experiences. The best strategy for content? Your Story

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Melissa talked about something Free Assessment to bring calm and safety back in your body.

Click here for that tool.

A listener note before you press play. This conversation includes the loss of a family member to violence.

Some stories are not for scrolling past. This one belongs to Melissa Turner.

She spent almost eight years as a retail pharmacist. She still dreams about that store. Both drive thru lanes full, a line at the register, two phones ringing, closing time coming, and no way out.

Then came November 30, 2018.

She had gone in early to get everything set before the doors opened. A phone call came. Her sister Katie had been shot and killed by their uncle in their grandmother's house. He killed Katie's boyfriend too.

Five days later they held the funeral on what would have been Katie's twenty sixth birthday. They sang Happy Birthday and then they said goodbye.

She stayed at that job another two and a half years. Almost two years to the day after Katie died, she was at work again when she found out her father had died. Then the pandemic. That was the end of it.

She was angry at God, and she says so plainly. Then came the harder question. How do you come back to Him after you have been mad at Him?

She came back slowly. Her husband pastors their church, and for years her schedule meant she was rarely in it. Once she left the pharmacy she could be there every Sunday. She started a women's Bible study she had always wanted. She started writing again, a couple sentences at a time, a verse and a short prayer.

She built on that.

Now she helps Christian women heal their nervous systems and renew their minds through scripture. She brings the science with her, because she says a woman needs to understand that she is not weak willed. Her nervous system has been running survival for years, and it will choose the familiar hell over the unfamiliar heaven every time until she gives it something new.

The work she does is about capacity. Not reaching a finish line where nothing hurts anymore, but being able to hold joy, grief, disappointment, and anger without collapsing or exploding.

She is honest that she still uses these tools on herself. She describes something that happened just this week that pulled up the old feeling of being forgotten, and she walks through exactly what she did with it.

Her book Rooted in Prayer is in progress, built around the six parts of the Lord's Prayer. She is also co hosting a new podcast for Christian healthcare professionals with Todd Urie of the Pharmacy Podcast Network.

She is offering listeners a free survival mode assessment, about twenty four questions to show where you are and what is running underneath. Find it here,

Connect with Melissa at turnaroundwellness.com, on Instagram at turnaroundwellnessnc, and on Facebook at Turnaround Wellness.

This is The Calling Table Sessions on the Stuck No More Voices Podcast. One seat. One woman. One story handled with care.

If you are a Christian woman leader with a story that could reach the woman you used to be, there is a seat here for you at theresacroft.com/your-seat.

Share this episode with the woman who came to mind while you were listening.

Subscribe on YouTube. Share on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Register Click HERE: The Story Gold Method: Learn to connect to your audience with stories from your experiences. The best strategy for content? Your Story

Home TheresaCroft.com
Instagram: https://instagram.com/theresacroft
Facebook: https://Facebook.com/theresamcroft
YouTube: https://YouTube.com/@theresacroft
More Podcast Episodes on Apple and Spotify