Episode transcript:

Hey, friends, welcome to the Life Renovation Podcast.
We're your hosts, Glendie Loranger and Elizabeth Morrison, and together we're breaking down the walls that divide us through meaningful conversations around faith, family, and sexuality.
Hopefully, you joined us for the first podcast ever a couple of weeks ago, and this is podcast number two.
Good morning, Elizabeth.
Here we go.
Good morning.
Yeah.
And so for the next three or so episodes, Glendie and I are going to tackle some of those hard conversations around faith, family, and sexuality so that we can hear from local experts, hear from pastors, share our own story, help you to not feel alone in these areas, and then also give you the tools to heal some of these areas.
Yeah.
So we're really excited about the content.
Yeah.
We just have the passion for this.
So if you don't already know, the Life Renovation Podcast is sponsored by Life Services Spokane, which is where Elizabeth and I both work.
And really what our goal here is to empower you, whether you're a guy or a gal, to consider who God created you to be by looking at these areas, faith, family, and sexuality, through a Christian worldview, taking the lens of scripture.
And so you don't have to be a Christian, but we do want to just invite you into these conversations to consider how does scripture actually play into this and how could that actually affect your life?
So we are going to do probably about 20 minute podcasts.
I think it depends on how long I talk, right, Elizabeth?
We're going to embrace the awkward because we're both really awkward with microphones, but we're also just going to lean in.
And we hope that you will feel like you can trust us.
And so one of the ways that we know that we've both discovered that we learn to trust people is by hearing their stories.
And so Elizabeth has graciously agreed, she just wanted me to quit twisting her arm behind her back.
She's agreed that she gets to go first.
And so I'm just gonna share some of my story and hope that that encourages you guys.
Yeah, I grew up in a Christian home and we were a military family.
So we moved around a lot.
So I have seen all the corners of the United States.
Okay, what was your favorite corner?
My favorite corner.
Okay, so I lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico for a bit.
It's like a whole other world down there.
It's really cool.
Cool, and really warm.
And all I think of Albuquerque is I think of cactus and rattlesnakes.
Yes, yep, that's accurate.
Oh, okay.
Yep.
And you liked it.
And you have like green chilies and the food is amazing.
And it was amazing the people that thought that I said Mexico when like, where do you live?
Like New Mexico.
It's like the forgotten state or something.
They forget the new.
Yeah.
So for everybody that's listening from there, hello.
So yeah.
Welcome New Mexico.
Yes, New Mexico.
So we moved around a lot.
I think that helped me to really know how to meet new friends and know how to be the new person.
Just kind of gave my siblings and I the confidence to be the new person in the room.
Experienced a lot of different churches as we were growing up and yeah.
How often did you move?
We moved every three years.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Not many people have experienced that.
Well, a lot of military.
Yes.
Military people understand.
We moved every three years.
And it's cool with Facebook that I can still be like friends with people that I met in like elementary school.
Wow.
And then you landed.
Okay, where was elementary school or middle school to high school years?
Where were you guys?
Yeah, so when I was, I think I was in sixth grade.
Yeah, so I finished sixth grade in New Mexico and then we moved back up to Washington, south of Seattle, where my dad finally kind of retired.
And so I spent the most of my life up there.
So junior high and high school and then moved across the state to Spokane where we are now for college.
Yeah.
And so describe your family a little bit for us, if you would.
Yes.
So, yeah, mom and dad, they've been married my whole life.
So they have a great marriage and healthy people and have a twin brother, which is pretty unique.
Yeah, that is.
Let's do this.
Best and hardest things about being a twin.
Well, we definitely had to share all of the birthdays.
And I remember on more than one occasion, he'd blow out my candle.
Oh.
Like you can't, when someone's turning 11, you can't have 22 candles on a cake.
Right.
You have to have one each and he would just, he'd blow it out.
Not fair.
I know.
And I fell for it like three years in a row.
I could just see your brother just living for this day.
Oh yes.
She's gonna think she gets the candle.
Yep.
Yeah, it's like Charlie Brown, you're way younger than me.
Charlie Brown pulling the football?
Yeah.
Or no, Lucy pulled the football.
Yes, I know that reference, yeah.
So that was always interesting to share birthdays.
We weren't really friends in school.
He was very popular and I was very not popular.
And so it was weird because like the popular kids would come to my house, but not because they wanted to spend time with me, you know?
And my friends are like, oh, that person came over, can I spend the night?
I'm like, no.
You're like, you gotta come spend time with me.
Yeah.
Can we go to your brother's soccer game?
All the cute boys are there.
I'm like, no.
That would be awkward.
Yeah.
Yeah, no wonder, yeah.
We're close now.
We're really close now, but growing up, we were just so different from one another.
We had to share a car, which is horrible when you're 16.
Right.
Oh, I can't imagine.
Did you ever have to, did you have to be the third person on a date?
No, no, I did not, fortunately.
Yeah.
But we did, I just remember this, when we took our photo for our senior prom, my grandpa didn't recognize me, so he thought it was his date.
And so he like commented on the Facebook photo, how pretty his date was.
And I was like, grandpa, that's me.
So it just made for some awkward situations growing up.
But I think it is really cool to have someone your age, especially that he was a different gender than me.
We never compared ourselves to one another.
And we just, yeah, we grew up together.
And so going off to college, separate colleges, was really unique for us.
Yeah.
That's good.
And then I have a little sister two years younger.
And so we were close growing up too, and we still are.
So that was our family.
Three kids.
Yep.
And you were smack dab in the middle.
Yeah, I basically acted as a middle child because he was like five minutes older than me.
Five minutes.
Yes.
Yeah.
And he would remind me of that.
That's hilarious.
Yeah.
So you mentioned college.
You want to tell us a little bit about that?
Where'd you go?
Yeah.
So I moved, like I said, I moved across the state to go to college.
And I didn't do that intentionally.
It was just kind of where I ended up.
And so I moved from the Seattle side to the Spokane side.
So it's about five hours apart.
And I went to Eastern Washington University for graphic design.
Go Eags!
Go Eags!
Go Eags!
Glendie lived there, too.
I think we actually were in the same dorm.
Pierce Hall?
Yeah.
10-02 Pierce.
See, I was 10-09.
Same floor!
We were on the same floor.
Oh, all right.
We're discovering things.
Many, many years apart.
But yeah, same floor.
You didn't have to say that many minis.
There's just a little bit of an age gap here.
Just a little bit.
Yeah.
And so I went to Eastern and I just always knew I wanted to do graphic design.
My parents were like, if you're going to do art, you have to do graphic design.
You have to match it with a computer because you can't just sell your art on the side of the street.
Like you need a career.
So add a computer and then you can be a graphic designer.
I was like, okay.
And she's so good.
So just a little history.
We're going to wrap up this little segment and come back with a second one.
But Elizabeth came on to Life Services and I've been the executive director here now almost seven years.
And Elizabeth came on as our graphic designer about four years ago, right?
And Elizsbeth has done some incredible work for us.
And now she's our business development director and just rocking that.
So fun to hear more of your story and to realize that we're 10th floor Pierce buddies.
We are 20 years apart.
Thanks for joining us today.
Life Renovation is sponsored by Life Services Spokane in Spokane, Washington, the Christ centered organization offering professional medical care, truth and support to anyone impacted by unplanned pregnancy, helping them to choose life and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Life Services Spokane has been bringing hope to life since 1991.
Find out more at lifesservices.org.
That's lifesservices.org.
Back to your story, Elizabeth.
Thanks for sharing just some of your childhood.
I would love to just hear where faith played a part in your childhood.
Is that okay to ask you that?
Totally.
Yeah.
So, you know, I grew up in a Christian home.
And so we always I think one of the first things we did when we moved was find a church.
We knew that because we were moving around, we needed that community.
We were never close to family, all of my family's on the East Coast.
And so the church became our family anywhere we went.
So we would do Awanas, we would go to the camps, we would go to the service every Sunday.
Like it was just who we were.
And so I really, really fond memories of church and the people that I met there and always felt safe in the church, which is I'm super fortunate for.
And so when I got off to college, it just kind of became the natural thing that I did.
I found the church group.
I think I was involved in like three different church groups my first year.
I can see you doing that.
And so I just naturally found church again as an adult and really made it my own.
You know, I think that's one of the things that happens when you leave your family of origin is that you decide what's yours and what was theirs and faith became what was mine.
So I got baptized.
I read the whole Bible for the first time in my life, you know, cover to cover.
Wait, when you were in college?
Yeah, my freshman year of college.
Yeah.
So cool.
One of the things for those of you who are listening is faith is such a big part of both Elizabeth and my life.
So you're going to hear a lot about it.
But we're also we realize that not everybody's had a great church experience or faith experience.
And so we're going to be addressing that in the podcast later on in some of our episodes.
And what do you do with that?
Like, how do you actually open yourself up if you've been wounded?
Elizabeth said, you know, she actually had a really safe experience.
We both know people who didn't.
So we're going to go there.
But I'm so thankful that you did.
You said you were involved in like three different groups on campus.
What were those?
So one of them was called CAIAFA.
It was like an Assemblies of God denomination.
And then another one was called CRU, Campus Crusade for Christ.
Oh, yeah.
And then I think I dabbled with another one, but it ended up not being a true Christian place.
And so hence the word dabble.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I quickly figured out that this isn't the same message I'm learning from the other two.
Got it.
So I would say that's when my faith really became my own was in college.
That's amazing.
Well, OK.
So four years at Eastern.
Yes.
And then tell us what happened.
What happened next, Elizabeth?
Yeah.
And so I ended up doing ministry the year after I graduated.
You know, I wanted to do design and I really enjoyed it.
But I felt this call into ministry as a vocation.
And so I ended up partnering with the Chi Alpha group to do a campus ministry at Western Washington University in Bellingham, back on the other side of Washington state.
And I learned so much in that year.
It's I could I could write a whole book about it.
But yeah, just kind of exploring if ministry was my calling as a vocation with graphic design.
Yeah.
So let's just clarify that ministry and graphic design can go together.
They can.
And I didn't think they could for a while.
But then, like Lindy said, when I got hired on Life Services to do graphic design, I was like, what?
Like you can do ministry and design.
I thought I'd have to choose between the two.
Yeah.
But I've worked vocationally in ministry.
I've worked secularly in graphic design, which I also feel fortunate for because then I can appreciate our workplace even more because I have worked in the secular realm.
Yeah.
And we both work in the best place on earth.
We do.
Yeah.
I would agree.
I didn't pay her to say that.
Well, actually, I do pay her, but I didn't pay her to say that.
No.
But I might get a bonus for Christmas.
Oh, you totally threw me.
All right.
Coming back from Christmas bonuses.
Yeah.
And so one thing that just hasn't come up as we've been talking is that through this time I started dating somebody.
Oh, dun dun dun.
I know, right?
So I had never really dated growing up.
And it wasn't because I was avoiding it.
I think I just there were never any prospects that I wanted to give my time to.
Well, it seems like your brother kind of monopolized.
Oh, yeah.
Big brother.
Yeah.
Right.
I'm like, if any guy talked to me, I'd be like, are you just trying to get to know my brother?
Like, yeah.
Wouldn't you want to be friends with him?
Why are you talking to me?
I didn't date anybody until college.
And I remember thinking, okay, I'm across the state from my family.
They don't really know this guy.
My sister went to college with me, so she knew him.
But when the conversation started to come out of like, hey, we don't really agree with this relationship.
We have a lot of questions.
It felt like they didn't trust me.
And as like a young person, I was like, well, I'm an adult.
I'm in college.
You should trust me.
And so I really didn't take their advice.
Mom and dad's advice.
You know, I felt like, well, you just don't know him like I know him.
And they ended up being right.
Oh, that doesn't sound fun.
Yeah, and so we dated, we got engaged our senior year and then spent our engagement when I was on the west side of the state.
So we were long distance for our engagement.
And I really felt like the Lord said as I was deciding between graphic design and ministry, I felt like I was also deciding between ministry and marriage.
And so when I didn't get the ministry job after that internship in Bellingham, I felt like it was God saying, oh, you're supposed to marry this guy.
And I did.
And I think at the time I was like, okay, Lord, I feel like we've fallen apart.
We really have had some distance between us, but I trust you.
And so I'm going to be obedient to that call and trust that you're going to bring us closer together.
And he did.
The summer after I left that internship before we got married, we read Love and Respect, the book.
And it was amazing.
Love that book.
It helped us to have the conversations we didn't think we could have.
And it really started us off with what I thought would be a healthy marriage.
Yeah, we're going to pause right there with another dun-dun-dun moment and come back to this.
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Back with Elizabeth as she's been sharing her story, having grown up on the west side, military family and she just got to the point where she's talking a little bit about her marriage to a guy who God really confirmed that she was supposed to marry.
You were married for how long?
Five and a half years.
One of the things real quick that we are going to do while you're listening is we're not going to throw anybody under the bus.
So we're not going to name names and we're not going to tell details that expose people.
We really feel like that's dishonoring.
Elizabeth and I have been talking about what is it to honor the people in our life as she shares her story.
And so let me just preface this with Elizabeth, what can you share about your marriage that still feels honoring, but it's still your reality?
Yeah.
So just to clarify, we read all the books we had pastors speaking in, like we had so much support besides my parents.
They were probably the only people that were like, Oh, we have questions.
But everybody in our life that knew us as a couple really just supported us.
And we took all the pre engagement courses you can take.
I think both of us went in with a heart of we are going to make this relationship work and set ourselves on a solid foundation.
And I think we did for a while, but eventually things started to change and it became a relationship that wasn't healthy anymore.
And it was in the middle of COVID.
We're spending all this time together, obviously, because we're all locked inside.
I was working at a church at that point.
And one of my coworkers came to me and she was like, Oh, I'm just so excited that my husband and I get to spend all this time together.
We're just so growing in our relationship.
And I thought to myself, man, this is really challenged our relationship.
And while some relationships are seeing this like forced togetherness as a growing period, ours is just things are starting to really fall apart.
And so I would say right around 2019 to 2020 is when things started to shift for our relationship.
Yeah.
So we've agreed not to go into details on any of that.
But where do you feel like in that dark shift, it got pretty heavy.
Where did you see Jesus in all of that?
Yeah, I think at first, when everything started happening, there was so many questions to God of like, how would you let this happen?
Like we had such a solid foundation.
What happened to bring us here when things started to come to light?
I remember asking God, how did we get here?
What in the world?
Because it really is a slow fade.
And I think anybody who's been through a divorce would say the same thing.
You don't just wake up one day and have this like big thing that happens.
It's just a slow degrading of the relationship.
And even potentially of the two people in the relationship as they lose themselves.
And so I think it really started to become clear that I had some really unhealthy thoughts towards marriage myself.
I was really idolizing my ex-husband and what he was supposed to provide for me.
Obviously, he wasn't meeting that because he's a human
And so I felt like I didn't have boundaries.
I didn't know how to ask for my own needs.
You know, I started to really realize that I was not ready to marry someone.
Despite all of the research I had done into marriage.
And so that became something that really just defined the next two years of my life as I figured out how we got here and how we were going to recover from that.
Yeah.
You were just talking about how we got here.
You want to just rephrase that real quick?
So we ended up in a divorce.
We divorced in 2021.
And so we spent five months in a separation to try and restore the marriage.
So many things had happened that it became clear that we needed some distance to take a healthy perspective.
And kind of regroup, if you will.
And over the course of those five months, just some other things begin to come to light.
And it became clear that the relationship was not healthy for either one of us.
We both had bigger issues than the other person could really help.
And we ended up in a divorce.
I'm so sorry.
Let me clarify for our listeners really quick.
We're not going to go into the theology of divorce right now.
We know that there's very clear theology out there.
Elizabeth will be back on the podcast.
And we are going to address this in an entire episode, coming in the next two to three months.
So I know that there's some of you out there.
Probably one of the big questions everybody asks is, did you have grounds for a divorce?
We're not going to cover that.
This is Elizabeth's story.
And we want to honor you in that, Elizabeth.
And so now we're going to cover this.
Elizabeth, I think I had asked him a minute ago in that divorce, just even in that big D, we had a mutual friend who actually had a daughter who struggled with the same thing.
And she felt like she'd kind of been branded.
Did you experience anything?
I totally relate to that because you feel like, I mean, I was like 32 shoes, like I didn't do anything wrong ever.
And so at the minute that I realized that divorce was our future, I felt like I had this big D written across my chest or on the report card of my life.
And it was something that would never go away.
It was a statistic that I was now part of that I didn't want to be part of.
It was a story that I could relate to with people, but it's not on anybody's bucket list to get divorced.
Nobody enters into marriage wanting that.
And so realizing that that was my story, it wrecked me because it was the first time that I think I really needed God's forgiveness.
I really just needed God to heal some things in my life at a depth that I don't think I ever let him enter into before or needed to rely on him in that way before.
Yeah.
So what I hear you saying is that in this really painful time and in this feeling like you were labeled, God did bring you deeper.
He brought you down into some of those places.
That you hadn't surrendered to him before.
Yes.
And so he was working in the middle of it.
For sure.
Yeah.
Elizabeth, I remember we were talking about a message at our church that we had heard.
And we were talking about how it struck each of us.
And one of the things that you said was, well, as a divorced person who's now single, that hit me totally different than it did you, Glendee.
And it was the first time that I'd realized, oh, my goodness, of course, we're looking through two different lenses now.
And that I need to be sensitive in what I say, and because I don't think I had been up until then.
So can you speak to that a little bit, what it's like?
Most of your friends are married and have to look through that lens of divorce.
Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, the first question anybody always asks is like, oh, you know, do you have grounds?
What happened?
What's the dirty details, right?
Grounds as in biblical grounds.
Biblical grounds for divorce, yeah.
In other words, do we approve of you or not?
Yeah, right.
And so, and that just is such a hard question.
I think that's a question that anybody who's going through a divorce is asking, right?
And so, I would say that's probably not the question that you wanna lead with.
It would be better to lead with, are you safe?
And how is your mental health?
And how can I support you?
Because divorce is hard, don't matter what the circumstances are, no matter who's at fault, quote unquote, how long you've been together.
I didn't have kids, I guess I should mention that.
We didn't have kids in our marriage, and so we didn't have to deal with that.
But that would obviously add a whole another layer of complications to an already hard situation.
And so just checking on the people that might confess that to you, because that's a huge heavy thing if they've told you I'm considering divorce or we're looking at that.
But back to your question, Glendie, about the sermons and the lenses, I think it had to do with marriage, the sermon.
And I know pastors will always have examples of like, oh, in this marriage, in this marriage.
And when you're kind of on the cusp of wondering if your marriage is headed for divorce, those questions just hit you like bombs.
And you're just potentially sitting next to the person that you're struggling with and wondering, is that me?
Have I done enough?
And not all relationships are safe, right?
There are very clear instances where people need to get divorced.
Yeah, flee.
And usually in those situations, they're just confused, confused in the sense of like, their life is so chaotic that it's hard to make sense of up or down.
And so examples in the church can just make it feel like, oh, I haven't done enough or I haven't experienced enough to be able to leave yet.
So when you say examples, you're talking about when a pastor's making like a scriptural point, and then he's gonna use, he or she is gonna use some kind of real life example or story to pinpoint as an illustration.
So super important for those of us who are listening, who do any kind of public speaking is really to know our audience, but also to be honoring of our audience and realize that we have married, we have divorced, we have never married.
Single, so many different elements out there.
And while we can't speak to every single element, to actually have this in the back of our head, to be sensitive and ask the Holy Spirit to help us be sensitive.
So Elizabeth, can I just ask you to come back to one thing?
If you would fill us in as we're wrapping up, what have you seen Jesus do in your story
Can you leave us with some nuggets of what you've learned?
I would say the thing that I appreciated about God the most is that he never changed.
When you marry someone and then you get to divorce, it feels like a different person than who you married.
People say that a lot.
I really just appreciated that about God and how he just, I think he just really sat with me.
I mean, I was so angry.
I was yelling at him, I was screaming at him.
I had so many emotions that I just let off to him.
And it was still with him in the sense of like, I never walked out of the room during the argument.
I was still like actively trying to understand what was happening.
And so that's what I would say to help people that might be in the situation is that God can handle all of your emotions.
He's big enough.
He is.
And when, you know, there were spaces where I felt guilty for things that I didn't need to feel guilty for, but I still did.
There were spaces when I missed him, which most people that heard my story would be like, why would, you know, like, how are you feeling that?
And so whatever the emotions are to just sit in them, be okay with when you miss the person or when you're angry or when you're sad, and let God have all of those because He can handle it.
Let Him have the emotion.
Is that what I hear you say?
Yeah, don't be, don't guard yourself to feel like God, I shouldn't be angry or shouldn't be sad or I shouldn't be missing this person.
God can handle, He made us as emotional people.
And so He can handle our emotions.
He's the safest place for them.
I love that.
Well, anything final that you want to share with us, those of us who may be supporting somebody through this or gone through divorce?
Yeah, I would say that, you know, everybody has a unique story.
And so before you try to attach your theology of what you believe about divorce, sit with somebody.
And if you don't know somebody that's going through divorce, you probably will at some point in your life.
And so take the time to study the scriptures and understand what you believe about it because they might come asking and they might really need that guidance from you.
And that's one of the best things we can do as the body of Christ, especially if someone's going to end up being a single individual.
They're really relying on the church in a different way now.
And so they need people that can guide them.
So come alongside people, sit with them and know what you believe so that you can have some guidance there for them when they're ready.
A lot of my friends had never seen someone go through divorce.
They didn't know how to support us.
We were young, we were 28 years old.
They were like, oh, I just think I know the divorce is wrong.
So I don't know how to sit with you in this.
So we're gonna link in the show notes resources that actually helped Elizabeth.
And again, like I said earlier, we're gonna cover this.
Elizabeth, thank you just for being vulnerable and for sharing.
So impressed just with where God has you and what he's done and just how open you've been to allowing him to work in you in this really hard space.
Can I share a funny story?
Yeah, funny stories are definitely allowed.
Bring us up.
So we, Glendie and I were at this conference, it's called Heartbeat and the speaker was presenting and you know how they try to like hit everybody and like who they talk to?
She goes, for those of you that are mothers and fathers and husbands and wives, like the Lord loves you, the Lord loves everybody.
And I looked at my friend and I was like, apparently I'm chopped liver because I don't meet any of those.
And they just moved on.
But it was like, okay, I don't have kids.
I'm not married.
I don't meet that.
Elizabeth, Jesus loves you and you matter.
Yeah, thank you.
Okay, just for the record, because I'll give my age next week.
Your age officially is?
I'm officially 31.
Officially 31 as of like two days ago, right?
Recently.
Four days ago.
Between the last two podcasts.
Oh, so you'll hear some of my story next week and I'll share my age then.
Okay.
Maybe, maybe not.
We'll see.
We just thank you for joining in with us.
Thanks for listening as Elizabeth shared her story.
Again, we really are seeking to be vulnerable because we hope that these will be areas where you will find that this podcast is a safe space to lean into some hard conversations around faith, family and sexuality.
And so as Elizabeth shared hers around faith and family, next week I'll share mine around faith and sexuality.
As we said last week, we are both queen and queen of the awkward.
So we'll see you next time.
See you.