Hey there, Kingdom Warrior!
I’m so glad to be connecting with you all again after maternity leave. It’s been a whirlwind, but I miss giving you these episodes, so I hope you’re enjoying them! Today’s episode is the last one for Season Two of the Heal Podcast. We'll be back for Season Three in September as I figure out recording episodes while also being my daughter's full-time caregiver. Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss any episodes on the pod as we take another break!
Today's guest wrote her book while she was pregnant with her second son, in addition to battling misdiagnoses of thyroid issues and being told she might have cancer. If that wasn’t enough, she was fighting all this straight in the middle of the pandemic and racial upheaval in the United States during 2020. Set against that backdrop, imagine a woman struggling with her health to be obedient to the piece of work God asked her to create – to use voice-to-text to write on days when her hand hurt too badly, to go to the car to write when the house seemed chaotic with children, to wonder each day what was going on that was dying in her body while she was simultaneously trying to create a piece of life and truth for others to enjoy. That’s what Rachel Marie Kang joins us to talk about today.
Not only was this woman down-to-earth and relatable, but when I read her book, Let There Be Art, I was blown away by her prose and ability to put beauty to the pain many of you face when longing to create something of value. I loved our conversation about seasons – how we define seasons in our lives, what it looks like when one area of our life seems to be in a winter season and another seems to be in a spring season, and how we can run into trouble when we start comparing the seasons of life that we’re in with seasons that some else is in. In addition, we delve into a little bit of Rachel’s journey through Rheumatic Fever in the past (caused by untreated strep throat), her eventual diagnosis with Hashimoto’s Disease, and what God has taught her through her own physical struggles.
Because Rachel knows what it is to intimately struggle with physical pain and limitation, she knows how to write and to speak to those of you who are in the thick of your chronic pain fog right now. She can join you in that place, while bringing in a candle to show you the way forward. I think you’ll love this conversation with her, but you’d also benefit greatly from reading her book, particularly the “Let There Be Movement” chapter. Just because your body may work differently than it used to or differently than other people’s, that doesn’t mean that you cannot enjoy creating and creation.
As Rachel says in her book, “for the sake of irresistible pleasure and irrevocable purpose, create with me and come with me to heed and hear the call to let there be art.” A great start would be listening to this conversation with her on the Heal Podcast!
Listen to learn more about:
· How one can both create and partake in the creations of others when something in our bodies has made the act of creating difficult.
· What it looks like to fight back against an illness or pain stealing the childlike faith and joy that Jesus invites us into as followers of his Kingdom.
· Practical steps to both accept the limitations of your body while also giving yourself permission to create, fail, and enjoy life in new ways.
Listen now:
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Favorite Quotes:
· “While I do not know the make of your muscles, the diagnosis of your disease(s), the state of your sickness, what I do know is that creativity is not bound to what you create, it extends to how you create. It extends to the way in which you navigate the actual process of creating. It is cultivated when you resolve to move forward in how you adapt in the expression of your experiences, your emotions, your embodiment, and all else that pertains to the person you are.” -Let There be Art
· “I hope that, even if you cannot create the art you wish, you might come to believe that your body is making. I hope that, in times when you are aware of it and in times when you are not, you’d come to believe that your body is making—making blood, making oxygen, making nutrients, making breath.
Yes.
Even when your hands cannot create, your body already is. Even when your body cannot dance, your blood already is. You, yourself, are already a work of art. Stand in awe of you, the art
that has been made and is in the making. It is a radical act of will, to believe that you are a work of art. And believing in this truth is a radical act of worship.” -Let There be Art
Links from our conversation:
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For freedom,
Tera
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