The Fight To Flourish | Interview with April Carter

you have gone through so much I mean just in your life in general but this past year has brought so much I just wanted you to share I mean what whatever you're comfortable with but sharing just a little bit of what has happened and so we kind of get an idea of who you are April Carter so my husband my been pastoring a church for 14 years in the city we grew up in so over 38 40 so literally our entire lives in this small town in Washington State and life was really good life was really good we were getting ready to build a house my husband had a book coming out we're excited about that we're getting ready to do our annual conference so wife is great and my husband ended up going through some mental illness challenges and through that an incident happened that caused us to lose everything so in one instant he came and talked to me and everything was gone a church that we were pastoring wasn't just a congregation to essence family and so we moved across the state the United States so for literally from the corner of Washington to Alabama and lost the Homare building um the book he was writing we really know what's gonna release a few weeks later all our family and friends everything like we lost everything in the matter of the day packed up everything into a moving truck it really didn't even know where we were going Jenny it was we knew we were going to Alabama but we didn't even have a home and we get here and we're loved by an amazing church here and they've been great to us four weeks later we celebrate our 20th wedding in or three and then the following week I was diagnosed with cancer I was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer I had it in my right breast and in my lens notes and so I going they tell me I have it and they told me at the following week I will start by what are five months of chemo and I was on my hair so that's like a snapshot of my crazy 2019 to 2020 and in corona Kovac you don't throw that in there and that's just a snapshot of what has this looked like for you fighting through fighting through this and obviously we get to see the picture of man you're flourishing in the middle of this but I know that it's also just been such a fight and how what does this fight look like for you when this first happened it was so big I didn't know if I would even get up off the floor again I mean not just losing everything but then my health it was like whoa whoa whoa whoa this is so much it one time I had to look at it one round at a time I just had today and honestly not even guaranteed today so I have these next five minutes and what I'm going to do these next five minutes and just trying to press through five minutes at a time breathing and just trying to keep my head up you said something else Jenny that it's probably one of my favorite parts here but you said we can experience mountaintops and valley lows at the same time and I've learned to be okay happy and hurting and I think those two things seem so polar opposite but I'm learning not such a normal rhythm to be happy and hurting that they're there been moments in this last year where it's like COD my whole family's in one home and all my kids here are marriages thriving life is healthy and good but the nurses aching and this Lloyd or this whole in my soul and it's like this weird you know combination of happy and hurting and you know when you said what Katherine rule said that things can be very hard and very good at the same time that has been my year it's watching God's provision had I got this cancer in the city that I was in I would not have gotten the care that I got and got it as quickly as I got in and the insurance benefits that I have and just watching God just hung in there you talk about silent seasons and I think silent seasons were scary and I loved to read you when he wrote that because that's so real and I don't know how much we talk about the silent seasons I had heard so many friends go through tragedy and they had these amazing God encounters or God moments where he woke them up in the middle of the night or someone did this or and I felt so much silence [Music] I caught it right here you mean can I do something you know you sort of question your character like okay there's sin in me God I bring that sin to the surface if it's something I've done and I'll repent of it but looking back in those silent seasons I realize that he was silent and it felt silent but I wasn't empty and I think that's the difference is though I wasn't hearing what I wanted to hear or feeling what I wanted to feel I wasn't empty I knew God was for me I knew he had a plan it was dark you know you'd mention Plan C darkness to grow good Lord Jesus I've had some darkness to go I'm still trying to grow what has it been like physically for you oh my goodness so in the midst of what just happened and still trying to get my footing and the cancer diagnosis comes so I'm physically already not healthy I'm down 20 pounds I'm you know I mean obviously not going to I have no energy there were moments that I would even stumble walking because I was just so much pain like emotional trauma pain that it was like crawling sometimes and so when the cancer came I had a start a very hard chemo I had a very aggressive cancer that they needed to treat with one of the strongest chemo in the market and it knocked me out I think the first round I was like okay I got this you know like just be bumping around like shave my head GI Jenny you know I was like I can do bit if I can do hard things and then the second round I think I didn't get out of bed I want to sync between eight and ten days it was I would get a use the restroom and lay back down sip some water just physically exhausted and then my hair really started falling out so I kind of I shaved it low like it is now growing out because I don't want hair all over my pillow when I woke up I just for whatever reason that just like frightening to me and then it really started to come out and I lost all of my hair all of my eyebrows all of my eyelashes and looking in the mirror is very hard you almost don't recognize yourself it's like you're stricted every feminine feature and then I'm giving it my life I'm SX me at the same time her even for showering day before and just thinking this is it like my body's gonna be altered for Everage for morning and it was um thank you for sharing that even in the midst of your look your low lows and your painful moments through all of this you've still been that and I think God has given you such a a grit and such a grace and yes feeling at your lowest but also just seeing him shine through you and I think that that's just been one of the things I've noticed so much in this whole process is you have just let God show up and be your strength but you've also just let him shine so beautifully through you and I just and I know you're not done yet I know he's not done with any of us yet but I just see that God is doing such a deepening in you I mean your roots are going way down deep and who he is and in who in his word and in all of this and I just see that you're gonna come through this so much stronger so much bolder so much braver and so much more beautiful and it really is like you said that next step and that next five minutes and and I think that that's the key to this flourishing life that God's called us to is it's that step by step slowly depending on Jesus and fully depending on the Holy Spirit and you're living it out literally right now and I think hopefully for all of us we'll see that that it doesn't have to take huge tragedy for that to happen but it can be an everyday dependence on God's like it's our last breath or it's a dependence on on the Holy Spirit like we can't take a step without and we can't take a breath without and we can't show up in our marriage or in our parenting or in our leadership or whatever we can't do anything without his strength but but thank you April for for living this out and for really being an example to me and to all of us of what it looks like to fight through and it's not like you're gonna get over this I mean this is going to be something that's going to greatly define your life and be a part of who you are but I just thank you for for living it literally right now one day at a time i iran i'm keep quoting your book it's love I love love love reading but this book you did such an excellent job of letting us in to the not pretty parts the dirty parts the dark parts the silent parts but I didn't have all these answers and getting debris parts of your journal I looked through my journal and I've been looking backwards and I'm like oh my gosh like that was such a low point or that was at a high point or God showed up there or well that was tough and getting to see that through your book I mean I recommended it to everyone I know struggle or no struggle but you had said sometimes didn't want to accept the phone calls or pray for people because you didn't want to revisit the painting and that spoke to me probably more than anything I gained so many cancer friends through this who they're dear to my heart and or marriages that are struggling or pastors that are you know meeting their ministries in to be graced to suffer for the suffering is beautiful but it is so painful and it's like you kind of become the referral for pain it's like Oh sometimes cancer or some zzz's marriage or so-and-so's ministry and you're so honored and so grateful but there's that part it's like oh my god this hurts and after the phone call you have to go sit and breathe for a minute because it's like it all just there it is and um I was so powerful how you worded that because I I didn't realize that I felt that way about texting calling or social media post but man I mean you nailed it it was like oh I just want to avoid that but I know God is drawing each of the cities graced me to suffer through this for the suffering and I can help somebody and I want to be that I want to be a light in dark places I want to be someone when someone their lowest I'll get in the ditch and he'll pick them up because I know it's like to lay there and I'm just grateful I I wouldn't trade this here Jenny I wouldn't I wouldn't it's made me it's made me a better woman it's maybe love people deeper I've learned to operate on less and less is more I saw I needed a stage I saw be Connie to this book I thought we needed all those things but the people that I've been graced to meet through chemo floors and radiation rooms and Starbucks dried fruits and just being so intentional because it's the only interaction I have I wouldn't trade it so I'm fighting every day for sure I'm fighting every day

Channel: Fresh Life Church

Views: 2,196

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Keywords: fresh life, freshlife, fresh life church, levi lusko, pastor levi, church, church montana, levi lusko sermons

Id: HoeqzfF9wY8

Length: 14min 5sec (845 seconds)

Published: Tue May 26 2020