Dealing with the death and life's hardest hits

The speaker, Care Bear, opens up about the recent passing of her brother in a motorcycle accident. She shares her struggle to record this episode due to the difficult time she's going through. She emphasizes the importance of being transparent and real, and how her brother believed in that as well. Despite the pain and sorrow, she finds joy and hope in the knowledge that her brother is with the Lord and died doing what he loved. She encourages others going through hard times to find moments of joy and beauty even in the midst of pain. She shares her personal journey of dependency on God and the comfort it brings. She acknowledges her own brokenness but strives to love the Lord and others. Hey everybody. Welcome back. If this is your, you know, if you're a repeat offender so to speak, or welcome if this is your first time. This is Care Bear and Sugar. I am Care Bear. Sugar may, you know, pop in here every so often with a meow or whatever. But I wanted to come and record this episode because honestly, I was sitting here and I was thinking, I don't want to, because this is technically the second episode. And I didn't want to start off the episodes and I didn't want to start off the podcast on a negative or a down, gloom and doom type of feel. But the more I sat here and the more I thought about it, I thought, you know what, sometimes you can't help it. Sometimes you're just going through stuff, you know what I mean? And you can't help but, you know, just talk about what's going on right now. And that's the thing is that that's what I wanted this podcast to be about was just life and the good, the hard and how to get through it with gratitude. And before I continue, I do want to point out, you will hear my voice change right now. It's different. I do have a device in my chest that shocks me every five minutes. It's for my epilepsy. It's called a VNS system. Like V as in Victor, N as in Nancy, S as in Sam. VNS system. My voice is clearing now. It's not shocking me anymore. Every five minutes, it does shock me for 30 seconds. So you'll hear my voice kind of soften or fade a little bit. That's when it's shocking me. So just so you know, if you hear my voice change, it's not because I'm sick or you know, I may be sick, but you'll probably hear me cough or you know, sneeze or whatever. But on a normal regular basis, it's because I'm getting shocked every five minutes. It does not hurt. The lead is just right next to my voice box. So when it's when it shocks me, it'll change my voice a little bit. Okay. Any who's off that topic onto this one. So you'll, you'll, you guys will get to know me over time and you'll get to know all my quirks and all my weirdness and all my, all of me. And I want to be very, very real, very transparent with you because this is who I am. I'm not fake. I can't be fake to save me. So, you know, here we go. So the reason that I was sitting here contemplating, you know, whether to record this one was because of, and you're going to hear me get choked up. Because I'm gonna, I'm gonna cry. I'm just gonna be honest. I have, I don't have tissues here. I have a roll of toilet paper. Okay, super, super real. But the reason that I didn't necessarily want to record this just yet, because it is early on in our podcast relationship here. But unfortunately, this is what's going on in my life right now. Not even, I mean, we're three days away from it being a month ago, which is crazy that it's almost a month. My brother just passed away. And it was super sudden. He was in a motorcycle accident. And it was literally one second to the next. He died instantly. He was taken to the hospital and they tried to revive him, but it did not work. Again, I don't want to like share tragic things. But I also understand that a lot of you go, you know, who may hear this, maybe experiencing the same thing. We do. We do work in a family business. Zeal Cigars. I've been on that podcast. He did podcasts and he did podcasts. He did YouTube. He was very, very well known in that community. And wildly enough, the last podcast he recorded was about death and how to deal with it, because he had just lost a mentor of his. And he, he was very, very much the man who believed in being very transparent and very real. So like my big brother. That's what I'm doing. As much as I didn't want to, as much as I just wanted to sit here and be all, you know, butterflies and unicorns and all that stuff. I can't. I just can't. I have to be honest. I have to be real with you guys. And I want to, I want to be very honest about how the last month has been, because we're three days away from it being a month. And this has been the hardest thing I've ever gone through in my life. And I've gone through some hard, hard things in my life. But this, it was, I've never, I've never had time stop like this ever. And when my dad told me that he was on the phone with, he had called me and I was expecting an update, honestly, because I knew that he had been taken to the hospital. And I was expecting, you know, he broke a leg, broke an arm type of situation because my brother's a big guy and he's Superman, right? Because he's my big brother. I've never known life without him. So that clearly, if he was in an accident, that's all that's going to happen to him. And, and I got the call and my dad said that he didn't make it. And it's, it's very, very surreal. And it was very surreal. And it was. And right after, it was just, just everything went into very slow motion. It was like trudging through concrete. And just everything stopped in me. Everything, like nothing was worth doing. I didn't want to shower. I didn't want to eat. I didn't want to process. I didn't want to do anything except sit in my sorrow. And he lived in another state. He was still, he's in Arizona. And so we all had to go out there and do the funeral and go through the whole motions. And our family business is out there. So we had to take care of business, you know, take care of business. Anyway, it's, it's been the longest years of my life this past month. If that makes sense. And if it doesn't, that's the only way for me to describe it. But I don't want to sit in that sorrow, because I, I have joy in the pain. I have beauty for ashes, as the Bible says, because I know where my brother is. My brother was a Christian. He loved Jesus. And I know that he is with the Lord. There's my joy. There's my hope. And he died doing what he loved to do. As much as I hated motorcycles, he loved them and he loved his bike. So I know he died with a full heart. So there are things that I can take away from the horrific tragedy that it was. And go, you know what, I can I can see that I can see the hope and the joy and I can see the beauty and the pain. And I can thank the Lord for those things. So if you are going through a very hard time, if you are going through something very difficult to deal with, I encourage you to try to find those those little nuggets of joy, those little nuggets of dig through the ash, basically dig through the ashes and find the beauty, even if you have to dig. Hopefully you don't. Hopefully you're able to find them, you know, right on top. And it's, it's wild, because as much as it's, it's been a difficult process. And it's been like the the sorrow will come and hit me in waves. And I've described this to a lot of people that the love comes in tsunamis, almost right after my God is like, I'm not gonna let you. I'm not I'm not gonna let you feel that pain, at least not for too long. Here comes here comes a tsunami and I'm gonna hit you with it, which is unbelievably comforting and reassuring. And even in in in the little things like I have a project, a nonprofit project that I'm, I'm working on, and I got the final approval for it. Right after I got home from being in Arizona, it was like, Oh my gosh, after working on it for like nine months, this is when the approval came through. So like all of these little joys in all of this pain happened. So the reason that I'm sharing this is that there are going to be times in our lives that there are so like there, there, there's such a dark time that there's such a hard, hard go a hard time. And it may be a death of a loved one, it may be a diagnosis, it may be separation from people, it may be like everyone went through a real hard time during COVID. It may be just any, whatever, whatever that dark period is for you, you know, fill in the blank. And I want to encourage you from someone who has gone through their fair share of dark times to really, really encourage you to dig through those ashes, dig through those hard times. Search hard if you need to, because there's always a light. There's always a, a beautiful moment. It's almost like you know that, that thing that's always darkest before it's dawn and it's true that you can see you will see that positivity, you will see that light if you're looking for it, but you got to look for it. And it may feel like an impossibility, you may not be able to feel like you can breathe because trust me, I shared this on the podcast that we did for my brother's podcast and I'll always call it his podcast. It was the Cut Light and Smoke podcast. I shared it on there that one thing that I've struggled with in my walk with Christ is dependency. And it's because I've always been a super independent person. And so it's real hard for me and I, I struggle with it every single day to be dependent on God because I'm, I'm so independent. I'm, I'm fearlessly independent. And when this happened, when, when my brother was taken so quickly, I, I fell on the floor sobbing and I just started to pray and I said, God, I, I don't know how to, I don't know how to breathe at this point. My dependency on God went from practically nothing to every single fiber in my body was dependent. I couldn't breathe without him telling me how. I couldn't walk without him telling me how. I couldn't function without him telling me how. And it was, it felt really good. Honestly, it felt very foreign. Don't get me wrong, but it also felt very, very good. And I, I strive for that. I don't want how I got there to happen again, but I want that every day. And I know that that takes discipline and I struggle with discipline. I'm a very, I'm going to be very, very real with anyone who listens. I'm just a very honest person and I'm a very real broken human being who strives to love the Lord with everything in her and strives to do the best that I possibly can and love others. That's my, my goal. So in that, knowing that I'm very, very broken, I know that I'm going to fail. I know that I'm going to set goals and not meet them. I know that I'm going to let myself down a lot, but it doesn't mean that I'm going to give up. I will not give up. I may disappoint myself, but I'm not going to give up. And I hope that you don't either. I hope that even in me, you know, saying, you know, I, this is who I am. I'm extremely human. And I do this too. I hope that you find, you know, comfort and like, Oh, this is who she is. And she doesn't give up either. So I can do it too. I hope that you find that, you know, I hope that, I hope that's who you are too. Like, I hope that, you know, if you're the type of person who's super disciplined, bravo, honestly, bravo. I, I, that's, I admire that quality. And I strive for that every day. But, you know, hopefully, if you if you are working on things like me every day, hopefully, you can, you know, find comfort in a friend, you know, on this podcast saying, well, you know, at least there's another very real human out there and not we're not all Instagram perfect. Not hardly, I have zero filters, absolutely zero filters. Anyway, but even through super, super dark things, even through super hard things, there are always going to be things that you can learn and you can, there's always going to be things that you can learn. And good things that you can get out of it. And that's what I hope to, I hope to give to you guys today. Like, this was, this has been the worst thing that I've ever had to deal with thus far in my life. I know it probably won't be the worst thing that I ever will deal with. Because my life is still going. And it's just the way life is, you know, tragedies happen. But God's given me a lot of strength, even through this, my quiver has built up with strength arrows that I never, ever expected to get. And I have a lot of them in there. But this one I was not expecting to get. But the good that has come out of this, that the beauty that has come out of this horrific tragedy of losing my brother, honestly, has been surprising. And I'm so grateful. Like, I moved to North Carolina a little over a year ago. And I'm so grateful to God. I'm so, so grateful to God for sending me to a church, providing the church before I even got here online. And then sending me to that church once I got here. And they're amazing. They're absolutely amazing. And that church has shown me the true love of God, especially like, even before this all happened, they have been beautiful, absolutely beautiful. And just the gospel walked out. I've never seen a true body of Christ like this, which has been refreshing, because it took me a long time to find this. And during this, during the loss of my brother, I have been held tight, super tight by my church, by my brothers and sisters in Christ. And that has been unreal. And also by my tribe, by my friends that I've known for years and years, some 20 years, some 10 years, some five years or less, like my tribe has held me tight and provided and it's just been beautiful. Sorry, if you hear that beeping. I'm doing this at home and that's my dehumidifier because it's moist here in North Carolina. Anyway, any whozle, having all the people around me that have been around me, loving me through all of this, that you can't ignore that. Like when that happens, you have to look at that and see that good. You have to look at that and go, wow, look at all this good, look at all this love, look at all this provision, look at all of this, just look at all these tsunamis of love that are just crashing in on me during all of this hard time. You can't ignore that. As much as you may want to sit in your sorrow, you can't ignore it because it's just so beautiful. If you are going through something hard, if you are going through, and I hope that you aren't, but if you are going through the death of a loved one or something super hard like this, a fresh diagnosis or a fresh, like losing a job or having to move across the country or across the world, a big, huge trauma in your life and all of these are huge, big traumas. If you have a tribe, if you have people that are stepping up and that are holding on to you and that are helping you and that are just continuing to be there by your side, recognize that good, recognize that love because that is, that absolutely is just love feeding into you. Don't just dismiss that. Don't just push that aside like, oh, well, yeah, of course they're here. Well, there are a lot of people and over the years, trust me, I have had a lot of people just kind of disappear. You know, just, oh, well, you're doing that. Well, I have, you know, I have, you know, emails to answer or whatever, you know, I got to go over there real quick and then you never hear from them and that's fine. I don't blame anyone. Like looking back, people who have left my life, I don't look at them and blame them for leaving or, you know, for not being in my life anymore. I don't at all blame them because there's a reason and that's okay. And there's something, and I think it was probably a Madea movie, something I heard a long time ago that was said, people come into your life for one of three reasons. It's either a reason, a season or a lifetime. And I really liked that analogy. And she said, or he really said, whether it's a reason, when the reason's done, they'll leave. If it's a season, then it'll be for a season of time, right? So when the season's over, then they'll leave or it's going to be a lifetime person and they're there with you until you both leave this earth or one of you leaves. So a lot of times people confuse reason or season people with lifetime folks or they'll put them in different positions. And that's the thing is that if someone leaves your life, they were probably just a reason person or a season person and that's okay, let them leave. Because if they were supposed to be here for a lifetime, they would be. They absolutely would be. And you have to put your, you have to put your hands in your, not your hands, but your life in God's hands. And you have to trust him with not just your life, but with the people in your life. And if someone's not supposed to be there for whatever reason, you have to trust that he knows that reason and he'll get rid of them. And trust me, there have been a lot of things in my life that I've like people I've dated that I'm like, Lord, this seems like a great guy, but I don't know. And it basically like the conversation and well conversation, because the prayers really never stop bending because I walk around the house just talking to God like he's literally standing right next to me, bestie hundred percent. And usually the conversation kind of like ends up being something like, Lord, if this is the guy you want me to be with, open up the doors. But if it's not, slam the door shut. Take him out of my life. Please take him out of my life quickly. Don't like and I am very, very clear. Don't take him out. Don't kill him. But take him out of my life. And I have had people I've had guys completely like goes to me stop calling. Like, I just boom, gone by. And, you know, as a woman, you get a little bit like salty. Like, what happened? Why didn't he call me back? I thought we had a good time. But then God brings back to my memory. Hey, remember what you told me? Remember what you said? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay, well, if you trust me, then trust me. I'm not going to, I'm going to bring people into your life that need to be there. And I'm going to take people out of your life that need to be taken out. So and yeah, yeah, I got a little bit off topic there. We'll cover, we'll cover, you know, relationships and another one. But any who's, I do that. I very ADD any who's. But trusting God, in the good, the hard, especially the hard, is always important and not confusing, whether you know, reason, season or lifetime, people are reason, season or lifetime. And looking for the good in the hard, it's super important. And honestly, looking for good in all of it. Because another thing that I was told a long time ago is, wake up and say what you're grateful for, right when you wake up and, and say what you're grateful for, make it all all the things that you don't think about. Not like the big things, but you're grateful for the fact that you can see, you're grateful for the fact that you can feel grateful for the fact that you have food, like all the things that you don't necessarily, you know, tell God, thank you for, make sure you mention those. Because what happens is when you start saying it, when you start saying, God, thank you so much that I can see today. Thank you so much I can hear today. Thank you so much that I can feel, I can feel the wind on my face today. When you say those things out loud, what happens is you instantly, you instantly become so grateful for not only those things that you're saying, but you realize how many blessings you really have, and how much you don't need. Because we think that we need so much in this life and so much in this world and you realize how much you really don't need when you have your health, your sight, your, you have food on your table, you have loved ones, you have so much. So I encourage you to be grateful, even in the hard times, even in the really, really hard times. And this is coming from someone who's going through the hardest thing that she's ever been through. And I'm, I'm grateful that I can do this podcast. I'm grateful that I'm figuring it out little by little. I'm, I'm grateful for the encouragement to do it. I'm grateful for whoever listens to it, whoever out there is listening. I'm so, so grateful to a wonderful God for giving me a voice to speak, and the encouragement and the courage to do it. I'm so, so grateful for each and every person who hears it. And I'm so grateful that it's gonna, you know, hopefully there was something in this that could settle in your heart and give you strength and encouragement through your day. And I just, I'm grateful for every moment that I get that I can share a piece of my life with you guys. So I hope you have a great day and I can't wait to talk to you on the next episode. Talk to you soon. Bye.