Be Well Presents: A Coping Conversation - "Perseverance"

Are you in need of perseverance? Listen in to our Coping Conversation with Kathy, who shares her inspiring story of perseverance.

Kevin: Welcome. I'm Chaplain Kevin, and today I'm talking with Kathy, who, after becoming a single mom, was faced with the choice of family stability over financial stability. And in the process, she defined what it means to persevere. This is “Coping”. Well, Kathy, thank you so much for joining me today for this conversation. Really appreciate you being with me today. So one of the things that arose in your story is a theme around perseverance. 

Kevin: How do you define perseverance? What does that word mean for you?

Kathy: Sure. Well, I like to think of perseverance as an analogy of when we are at the beach and we are walking along the ocean and maybe wading into the ocean and if we are deciding to go for a swim. 

Kathy: That when you try to maybe ride with the waves as the waves get stronger and stronger if you're walking against the current that some waves may knock you off your feet and topple you over. And I've always thought that perseverance is trying to find your footing in the midst of crashing waves coming again and again, and just even if it topples you upside down and swallow saltwater. Figuring out a way to get back on your feet. Wow. Where in your life did you have to find a footing? Where have you been knocked down by the waves in your personal life? Well, there are many stories. 

Kathy: Like most people's lives, I have numerous areas of my life where I've been knocked down. The one that comes to mind is about twelve years ago when I became a single mom. I was the mother of, at that time, three children under the age of five. And I felt completely knocked off my feet because it was very quickly and abruptly and found myself in a situation where I didn't have a job, I didn't have family around. We were in a new city and had, like I mentioned, three kids under the age of five find myself trying to figure out how to put one foot in front of the other. And had been literally everything that I could think of had been taken away from me and removed, including my ability to work. Because now I have three young kids to take care of and no help or support to get back to work or to afford to put them into some sort of daycare. 

Kevin: How did you find a footing? The first thing was to figure out what my responsibility was and where it was and who it was too. And I knew that I had had what I would say. A divine word that I needed to stay home, which sounds a little bit crazy and also counterintuitive that I would stay home as a single mother. 

Kathy: But what I kept hearing again and again is that there needed to be some consistency in the lives of my children. So I needed to be that stabilizing force. So I had to be there to drop them off to school, to pick them up every day, day, to put them into bed at night. 

Kathy: And so the first thing that I did was decide what my responsibility was and how I had to move forward with that in my life. And that was to make a decision to not go back to work as a single mother. You would think that going back to work would be this stabilizing force for yourself, for your family. 

Kathy: And you chose the opposite. How is that a footing for you? How did that become the way that you found stability for your family? Well, it's something that I now teach a lot. It's about figuring out what your values and priorities are and honoring those and making decisions based around that. 

Kathy: So if I knew that my value was family, and especially my three children who didn't have stabilizing security in their lives, then for me to be that person that would be consistent for them would be to honor the value of my family and to be there for them. And what I've often told single moms is that we can't put a price tag on how well our children are doing. So have been making all of my bills on time, but then very possibly, my children would have been suffering more emotionally, physically, spiritually, relationally. 

Kathy: And so my choice was to stay at home. And be there for them in every aspect as much as I possibly could. 

Kevin: You were valuing emotional, spiritual well being, their mental well being, over financial well being. 

Kathy: That was the value, yes, absolutely.

Kevin: Tell me more about some of the obstacles that you faced as you're trying. To find your putting so obviously with deciding to be a stay at home mom as a single mom. 

Kathy: It, of course, had the consequence of bringing up this question of where was the income going to come from and how would we make it day to day? And so the financial picture soon became very bleak, and I had to face the reality of asking for help and reaching out for all sources of income. 

Kathy: So, for example, I didn't want to consider this, but I found myself going to the office for family services and filing for paperwork for food stamps and getting government assistance, which I could never have imagined having a higher degree education. 

Kathy: It was unthinkable to me. So another thing that happened is we fell behind on our mortgage, and also we lived in a townhouse. We fell behind on both of those and began to face the consequences of that. One is we got a lien placed on our house. And then also there was one day that I recall where my kids were playing outside and they. I was there and I saw a gentleman come start taking pictures of the house. 

Kathy: And when I approached him, he said he was taking pictures because the house was going to be foreclosed. 

Kevin: Oh, my gosh.

Kathy: And the truth of that was, is that in the years of me being a single mom, we almost lost our house three times, and we were within 90 days. The closest we came was 90 days of being evicted from our home. And so the reality of the consequences of my choice to honor my values really was tested. And this is where perseverance, where the rubber really meets the road, where you are really called to decide if this is the footing that you're going to stand on in the midst of so much loss and hardship. 

Kevin: It goes back to your definition of perseverance. Right. That you keep getting knocked down by these waves. The waves just keep on coming one after the next, making your footing feeling like it was even more insecure. 

Kevin: Feel almost like you're drowning, right?

Kathy: Absolutely. 

Kevin: Where else did the help come from? Where did you find yourself asking for help?

Kathy: So anything that I could think of for help, obviously family came alongside and helped in a significant way. But anything that I could think of where income could come from, then I pursued it. 

Kathy: For example, for the kids to have Halloween costumes every year, I would resell their old costumes on eBay for us to go on vacation. We would have a garage sale or yard sale in front of our house. For the kids to have a birthday party or Christmas gifts. I would sell anything else that we had in the house to come up with income. I would go to resale shops to get clothes and things like that. What was very important to me, one of my values is that the children would never know that we were in such financial dire straits because they are children and it shouldn't be a burden of theirs. 

Kathy: So even to this day, if you interviewed the children, they are aware of it. So I always wanted them to know that we weren't wealthy, but they didn't know the depths of the hardship or how close we came to losing the house. And also I filed bankruptcy twice and was was also sued by a credit card company and had to file a lawsuit against a credit card company to prevent lien getting slapped on future wages, for example.

Kevin: What do you say to anybody who looks at your value of choosing family over finances and says to you, it's just too much that it can't possibly be the right thing or God's will for you to be in such financial trouble, and that the consequences that you're facing was the result of bad choices rather than hard values choices?

Kathy: Well, it was a question that came up and it was something that was told to me that I was being financially irresponsible. So it is something that I wrestled with. At the end of the day, each person has to make their own choices about what they value and what the consequences of that are. 

Kathy: And so for me, and I know that our time with our children is a very short time, and I made the choice to sacrifice for them. And in the middle of all of it, I started two businesses. And so I was working. 

Kathy: The income that was coming in was not enough to cover everything. So it wasn't that I wasn't working. I ended up creating two of my own businesses that once is still in existence today. Tell me a little bit about your financial situation now. 

Kathy: Well, miraculously, we have been climbing out of debt for about twelve years and still are climbing ourselves slowly out of that. We have not been released completely from the financial hold that we've been under, but there has been. Huge blessings that have come in the way of income. And even during COVID people were out of work, our business actually picked up and doubled and tripled and that was a huge blessing to us. And so we are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel financially, finally. But know that it is grace. And if someone came in to look at the books over all the years, couldn't come up with how it is that we made it through this far. 

Kevin: A miracle, like you said. I wonder, what do you say to those who are struggling to persevere now? What encouragement do you have for them in the midst of the crashing waves? 

Kathy: Well, I would say a few things. One would be that there's always light in the midst of the darkness. So we have to seek out the light every single day. 

Kathy: We have to find the places of gratitude, of hope, of joy, of peace. And I kept holding on to those every single day, even if it was an expected check that came in the mail or my children doing well at school or getting a surprise visit, something every single day. Find the light. Look for the light in the midst of the darkness. God is always trying to shine light into the darkest places. That's where I believe he does his best work. And so that would be the first thing that I would say, is look for light in the midst of your darkness. 

Kathy: One other thing that I'd like to say is that when we're in the midst of the hardest storms of our lives, we don't feel brave, we do not feel strong, we don't feel like we can get up the next morning and do that. 

Kathy: But my admonition is that you don't have to feel it, you just have to live it. And you have to just keep putting one foot in front of the other and ask for the strength and the support and the help to keep going. 

Kathy: So perseverance is not a feeling, it's an action. And much like faith, I encourage you to just keep on keeping on, as the saying goes, and finding the help, which would be another one of my pieces of advice. 

Kathy: I never wanted to take help, and I learned hard lessons about taking help and the value of help and taking help from others. So that's what I also like to say. 

Kevin: Kathy, thank you so much for your time today. I just really appreciate you sharing some of your story with us, these bits of wisdom and advice for others. Thank you.