Hey, everyone.

It's so great to have all of you here today.

Before we get started with today's interview.

I want to

Let you know I will be teaching an online course on overcoming procrastination during the month of October.

So I will have more information on that soon, but just wanted to give you a heads up on that.

I'm really excited about today's interview with Linda Dillow.

Linda is 83 years old.

I can't remember if she mentioned that in this podcast or if I heard that in another episode of hers, but she has so much wisdom after living with God and walking with God for that long, so I'm excited to share that with you.

Let's get to today's episode.

Hello, everyone.

Welcome to the podcast.

It's so good to have all of you here today.

I am excited to have Linda Dillow with me today.

She is a best-selling author and a respected Bible teacher and conference speaker.

Her books include Calm My Anxious Heart, Intimate Issues, and What's It Like to Be Married to me.

That's a great title.

Linda is the mother of four children, including one who is now with Jesus and grandmother of 10.

She and her husband, Jody, lived overseas for 17 years and now make their home in Monument, Colorado.

Welcome to the podcast, Linda.

Thank you, Barbara.

It's a privilege to be here.

It's good to have you here.

And talking about your book, I know Calm My Anxious Heart.

I suppose that's a little bit more about anxiety.

And then Hope for My Hurting Heart is a little bit different.

So I guess, to begin with, why don't you tell us, you know, why you wrote that book?

And how is it different than, say, Calm My Anxious Heart?

Well, Calm My Anxious Heart really is to help us as women to give our anxieties to God and to learn to trust him with them.

In our world today, we have lots of anxieties, anxieties about our children, everything in life.

Can I buy a home?

Where do I send my children to school?

Will I keep my job?

And get it off.

Our health.

And how do I live with this?

So many are going to counselors to talk about their anxiety, and often that's a good thing.

But what do we do with our anxieties?

And Call My Anxious Heart talks about how we can be content in all things, as Paul talks about in Philippians 4.

And what do we do with our anxieties and where can we put them and I wrote that book oh in 1999 so let's see that's 26 years ago that's

A long time ago we have a lot more to be anxious about these days wasn't some of us.

The same we really do don't we right and so I really wasn't planning to write again and um I think that I had this idea that as we got older, life might become smoother.

Well, didn't happen in my life.

I hope all of you listening that it will happen in your lives.

But it didn't happen in our life.

And during COVID, I know COVID was not a real easy time for anyone.

But for us, we have four children.

Two daughters and two sons.

Three of them I gave birth to.

One we adopted in Austria when we were missionaries overseas.

And both our daughters had cancer during COVID.

And one of the daughters was living in New York, New Jersey, right on the edge of New York.

and the other daughter was living in California and we were in Colorado.

And if you know, if you can think of the map of America, Colorado is not near California or New Jersey.

Right.

And if you remember the time of COVID, we wore masks.

Many of the schools were closed.

Even many churches were closed.

And we were told not to travel much.

In fact, our son, who is the headmaster of a large private school in Connecticut, called and said, mom, I've been doing lots of research on this pandemic and you are in the age of the elderly.

I said, excuse me, I'm not elderly.

You can call me elderly when I'm 90 and I'm not near that yet.

So, no, mom, you're in that age group that they have for the elderly, and they're telling people who are in that age group not to fly because in my research that I've done for the school, those in this age group are going to be more at risk for this pandemic.

And so I'm trying to protect you and dad please don't fly I said but your sister is going to be going through chemo in New Jersey and we need to go help her and your sister in California Is very ill, and we want to help her.

Mom, would you listen to me?

Well, my daughter Robin was going through chemo.

She had three daughters that were taking school online at home, and she was quarantined in her room, so we were going home.

We were going to fly there to help, and our bags were packed, two suitcases, one with things for my three granddaughters, of course and then one with clothes and the night before my son-in-law called and said I just hate to tell you this but the doctors called and you can't get on the plane because even if you fly to New Jersey our house is quarantined and you are not going to be allowed to come in the house Oh,

Wow.

And I said, this is her daughter and we're coming to help.

I'm sorry we've talked to the doctor and you are not allowed in the house.

Oh, that's terrible.

So, Barb, I did what any self-respecting mom would do.

I went and I sat by my suitcases and I cried.

And I wept until there weren't any more tears.

and about a week later after Robin started started chemo she had a horrible reaction to the chemo and was taken by ambulance in the night to Sloan Kettering Cancer Hospital in New York and that began a very hard time so it was a difficult difficult time in our lives and And part of it was sitting around the bed watching our oldest daughter, Joy, die.

And her sister, Robin, took care of her with Joy's husband the last six weeks of her life.

And so our family went through a lot.

And we asked lots of questions.

I, of course, asked God.

God.

I'm in my 70s.

I was at that time and I said, did you not see me?

I haven't had cancer.

I would take this cancer from both my daughters.

God, please, why didn't you give it to me?

I don't want them to suffer.

And I'm watching both of them suffer very, very much.

And I'm watching my grandchildren suffer.

And my son-in-law suffer.

And our whole family suffer.

and um i spent a lot of time on my knees on my face i had a a cancer survivor song um new wine by hillsong and it says that god is going to dig up new ground and bring new wine into our lives.

And so that new wine that I believe he brought into my life is what I call in the book that he literally kept kicking me until I wrote.

And it's the eight heart skills that help you cling to God and not give up.

Because when you're in a lot of pain, and the book is I wrote for people who are in pain or have shattered dreams and I think that includes most of us at some time or another We sometimes want to give up and so God began to just affirm to me these skills that Some wisdom that he had been teaching me really since I became a Christian at age 20.

He just solidified them and made them stronger.

And so I wrote about these eight heart skills in the book.

And each of the heart skills is in one of the eight chapters and each of the Bible studies of the book.

And to me, they're what, it's how we live the Christian life.

Right.

And I'm sure you use all eight of them, you know, as you go through your struggles, because that's certainly just such a hard thing to go through.

And I know you've had other hard things too in your life that you talk about in the book.

Is there anyone that jumps out at you or a couple that jump out at you that really helped you?

Barb, maybe the first one because it was how God got me started really thinking that these skills that he had been nurturing in my life since he began teaching me at age 20.

Uh and it's my hope declaration my declaration of hope because um when my second daughter called and said mom i don't know how to tell you this but i have cancer i just walked around the house and said, God, both daughters have cancer.

And I just kept saying, God, I know your word and I'm clinging to your word.

I...

I know your presence.

I know your voice.

I'm going to be on my knees, but Lord, I feel I'm sinking.

I feel that in a sense, I'm sinking.

And I kept doing everything I knew.

I was in the word.

I was in worship.

But I felt myself going down this slide.

And it wasn't a good slide, Barb.

It was a slide that started with despair and just doubt and despair.

And it was going all the way down to depression.

And I knew that I wasn't going to help myself.

And I certainly wasn't going to help my daughters or anybody in my family, my grandchildren.

Children uh and i just said god i don't want to slide down this slide and so i was on my knees one day and i said god show me what to do and i just felt him whisper to me make a declaration of hope before god he is the god of hope and he wants to pour hope into you and right now everything looks so black and in fact the whole society is black with this pandemic but you got to cling to God's hope and so I wrote a declaration of hope.

I got out my trusty yellow pad and i wrote three things and the first thing was god don't waste my pain

That's a good one.

God if i have to go through this i don't want you to waste it i want you to be glorified in it And number two was, Father, use this pain to build perseverance and character and hope in me from Romans 5.

I want to be changed.

I don't want to come out of this the same.

I want you to make me more like Jesus.

So number one, don't waste it and you be glorified.

Number two, don't waste it in me.

I want to come out of this differently and then number three I said Abba You say in 2 Corinthians 1 that you are the God of all mercy and the God of all comfort and that you will comfort me and God I'm sinking and I ask you to wrap your arms around me with your presence and comfort me.

And I want to feel your comfort.

I want to know you're comforting me.

And you say that you want to comfort me so that then I can in turn reach out and comfort others.

So God, the third thing I'm writing here is, Abba, Father, will you comfort me?

And then I want to reach out and comfort others.

And so those were the three parts of my declaration of hope.

And I put that as a stake in the ground barb.

And when I began to feel like I was sinking, because we're human, and when a daughter calls sobbing and there's some new horrible thing the doctor has said your heart breaks and I just said no God I've put my declaration of hope there.

And I am hoping in you.

And I would read the three things in my declaration of hope.

And it turned me around.

I did not go down that slide.

I did not go down that slide.

And God comforted me.

And he did change me on the inside.

But I believe he also was glorified.

Yeah, that's interesting.

So when you said those things, you know, each time you're going down that hole, did it just kind of, I don't know, give you a biblical perspective on what was going on?

Is that why you got the hope?

It's absolutely, absolutely.

But it was, it's, I believe the enemy comes at us and tries to say, well, you really aren't trusting God or you really you really are going down that slide and I would just look him in the face and say Satan get out of here I have declared these things before God and I believe them and I have hope in my God and these things are true and my God is a God of hope and I am putting my hope in him and I just can't tell you the difference it made that there was a specific time when I declared that it changed it for me.

Yeah, it's interesting.

I was just at a biblical counseling conference last, I think it was last weekend, about a week ago.

And a lot of the talks focus on hope and how important having hope is.

And when we lose hope, it does send us into despair and that sort of thing.

And one other thing you talked about in the book, and you actually have this in the appendix, is reciting the hundred names of God.

So can you tell us a little bit about that and how that affects hope or how that helps you through hard times?

You know, Barb, I know that you talk a lot about that we're transformed by what we set our mind on.

And I really learned from a dear friend.

I've walked with her for 25 years and watched her go through losing much of her insides.

I've watched her almost die in the hospital.

And she was a marathon runner.

When I first met her, she was training for her fifth marathon.

And I think sometimes it's harder for people who lose their health who've been real athletes.

And she was a real athlete.

And her children were real athletes.

And...

And...

Her disease caused her to have to wear maternity clothes for two years and she wasn't pregnant.

Now, that would be depressing.

I mean, when we get pregnant and we're having a baby, it's fun.

It's fun to wear maternity clothes.

But not when you're not pregnant.

And today, after 25 years, they still don't have a diagnosis for her.

Oh, wow.

Wow and she's just it's just like the mysterious disease and she was down last year to being able to eat like five foods and now they have her on a liquid diet and have told her that she'll be on this liquid diet for the rest of her life

That'd be hard.

It's very hard and it's just it's and her husband, her Christian husband, left her for a woman who was athletic because she can't do those things anymore.

So she's lost everything because

Her body betrayed her.

That's hard.

And so she began by memorizing 10 names of God because it helped her focus on the character of God and who he was.

And she would say them when she first woke up.

And then she memorized 50 names of God and said them three times a day.

She would declare them.

She didn't just say them.

She would say, you know, Abba, Beloved, Christ, Deliverer.

But she went to 100 names of God.

And she declares them three times a day.

And what can I say about my friend Valerie?

She is a woman of peace.

She is a woman of faith.

She is a woman who is focused on others when anybody else in her situation Would be moaning and focused on themselves.

And to me, that just proves what you teach, Barb, that we are transformed by the renewing of our mind.

It's what the Bible says, that we are transformed by the renewing of our mind.

And so I learned from my friend Valerie to declare the names of God.

And when Joy died, she made me a tree With 100 names of God on it.

Oh, wow.

And it is right now it's up in my closet because one little branch of the tree broke and she's coming to fix it and put it back up and show you.

But it's it has the hundred.

It's one of my most precious possessions because I have it right where I kneel to worship.

And I, I look at it and it motivates me to declare the names of God.

What's interesting because she is a woman who used to pursue God in her athletic life, you know, pursue, you know, physical fitness and go for it.

And now she, maybe she did this before too, but she's really using the same approach to pursuing God in the midst of struggling because it's easy in the midst of struggling just to sit back and be sad and complain and say it's not fair and just, you know, just be super depressed because, I mean, that's kind of our natural reaction.

But by using those names of God, she's fighting against that and walking through her trial with God and experiencing the fruit of the spirit, the joy, the peace, the love that she wouldn't have otherwise.

No, she's amazing.

yeah I remember going to see her one day when she was in maternity clothes and her children lived downstairs in the basement and she had not been able to go down to where they lived for eight months because she couldn't walk down the stairs and I just said Valerie how do you do this how do you live this life and she said I spend three to four hours a day in the word it's the only way I can do it.

And when I said, she says the only way I can keep my mind straight and keep it set on the right things.

And I knew she spent a lot of time in worship and in prayer, and she was then declaring the names of God.

It was all, she had it all centered on him, because she knew if she didn't, she'd go down the slide.

We all know that slide that starts with despair without despair it starts with discouragement and and all the d's right down it goes down to depression and you stay there and we don't want to go down that slide and it starts when we get our mind on the wrong things yeah

And i think you know i think we've then trained to think, oh, that's just terrible.

You know, life is terrible when you're going through hard things.

But there is a certain intimacy.

If you pursue God during it, there's a certain intimacy you get in the midst of those hard struggles that you, even though you feel close to God in regular life, that it's a little bit different.

Don't you think there's just a little bit of a different intimacy with God when you're going through hard things and following them?

Absolutely.

And I think that your intimacy gets deeper because he meets you when you come to him and you, you know, Paul said, Paul said in Second Corinthians 12, he said he'd he'd he'd changed self-dependence for God dependence.

And that when he was weak, he became strong, but his strength was in the Lord.

But you see, even in that book where he shows some of his discouragement, but he also talks about supernatural experiences that he had with the Lord, you see his intimacy with the Lord growing.

And I would say that my intimacy with the Lord has grown just even in weeping before the Lord, because another of the hard skills is lament.

And Barb, I didn't know anything about lament.

I mean, it just sounds like an old word that's of what does it mean?

But it's worship in a minor key.

And we talk a lot about worship in America, but we want happy, clappy worship.

We want joyful worship, you know.

But a lot of the Psalms are David weeping before God and, and, and God, where are you?

God, I don't understand you.

And God, please come to me and show yourself to me and minister to me because my heart's broken.

And I think that there is deeper worship that can be found when we go through Psalm 77 and some of the lament psalms and weep out our pain.

And then worship and praise God joyfully that we find through having been through the minor key of worship and been real with God.

You know, Barb, I don't know if you'll agree with me, but I feel that as Americans, Americans often were not really honest before God or even with other people.

Sometimes I've asked women who have lost a child, well, how are you doing?

Oh, I'm doing fine.

Well, I'm sorry.

They're probably dying inside.

But as a Christian, they feel they should say, I'm doing fine.

And part of the problem is that in our Christian faith, we really don't have a way built into our faith to grieve or to lament.

In the Hebrew faith, there is a whole year process if you lose a close family member to grieve during that year and to work through the sorrow and to work back to trying to trust God.

And I feel like in our Christian faith, we are failing people that we are not teaching them how to do that.

We're not teaching them how to how to work through their loss and work go into lament so we can come back out to trust and uh we're just supposed to go to a memorial service or a funeral and then go back to work and be okay and so in my book i started out with love i mean with hope and love But then we go down to loss and lament and work through those hard skills and then come back up into trust and encourage and praise because we have to face the hard things and be able to give them to God and learn to forgive and it's...

It's, I think that's how we build deeper intimacy with God, when we're willing to really be honest with him and say, God, I hurt inside.

And he says he is close to the brokenhearted.

And do we ever say, I need you to be close to me, because my heart's breaking, and my husband's left me or my child is on drugs or whatever the problem is.

And God, I don't know what to feel.

I don't know what to do.

And I am hurting so much that I don't know what to do with this big ball of pain within me.

God, help me.

Help me deal with this big ball of pain because I want to give it to you.

and I want to trust you.

I want to grow in trusting you.

And, you know, Barb, one of the things that was so sweet for my husband Jody and me was we learned a new kind of intimacy together.

I'd hear him weeping downstairs after our daughter died, and I'd run downstairs and I'd put my arms around him and we'd weep together.

Or he'd hear me weeping upstairs and he would come upstairs and put his arms around me and we'd weep together upstairs and finally one day we looked at each other and said i think we're sharing a new kind of intimacy and it's called a weeping intimacy now it's it's boy is it something you signed up for is it something you want to experience no But are we closer today as husband and wife?

Yes.

And I think our whole family is closer because we have wept together.

My granddaughter, my daughter's daughter, she's a poet, and she's written a book of poetry about her mom.

And um but that's how she got her pain out and uh It's a good thing to be willing to think about the losses and to go down to those places.

And it's, it's not, it's not fun.

But if we just stay up here and say, I don't want to look at anything hard, we're never going to heal.

Yeah, it seems like we can either stay up there and say, I don't want to look at anything and deny it.

Or we can go take the path of bitterness and think, oh, this isn't fair, this is terrible, and just kind of turn away from God.

Or we take that other path of going towards God, processing the pain, and trusting him and who he is, that he's enough, and that he'll be, you know, that he will bring good from it.

He promises that.

Yeah, he promises that.

Sometimes it's a process.

And the other thing about us as Americans, we want everything real quick.

Quicker, the better.

The quicker the better.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's definitely a process.

But the process is helped by continuing to go towards God.

Yes, definitely.

And kind of like wrestle.

It's like you have to learn.

It seems like with new trials, you have to learn the way to God in the midst of it, the way to letting go, the way to surrender, loving him, the whole works.

Yeah.

Well, your book is Hope for My Hurting Heart.

And where can people find that and find you online?

Well, I am getting a new website.

And so they will be able to find me on that.

And it will be Linda.

It'll be under my name.

So they'll be able to find that.

It should be up real soon.

but they can get the book on Amazon.

They can get it and have press, but it's on Amazon.

Okay.

Now I'm also interested in checking out your other books too.

Calm My Anxious Heart, What's.