#86 S4 EP 6: Darcy Steiner's Reflections: A Disability That Unleashes God's Abilities

Hello, hello, welcome back, gosh diamonds in the rough. We are so excited to be here. For those of you who don't know who we are, I am Catherine.

And I am Michael.

And we are always so glad to be before you one more week. Amen For those of you who don't know who you are. You are a diamond. Come on somebody, you are a diamond. We're all going through, but we're coming out on the other side. We want to help you see yourself the same way that God does. Honey, how are you?

I'm doing good and, yes, I'm going to tell y'all now, every time we get on this podcast I am smiling because you know even when I say my name. Because we got to realize, look, we got to stop frowning and start smiling. Oh, right now you know it doesn't matter what you go through in life. You got to continue to smile because if you continue to frown, how can things get better? You got to live out your things that you go through, even if it hurts. You got to smile because you know it's going to be a brighter thing at the end.

Yeah, yeah, it's rainbow on the other side they say Always yeah, so.

And no, we're not talking about the lucky charm looking for the gold.

That's right. So y'all know what we got to do before we even go anywhere any further. So if you didn't know, here we go.

Let us pray. Dear Father, we just come to you right now saying thank you. We thank you for your grace and your mercy. We thank you for your love and kindness and tenderness. We beg your forgiveness for anything we might have said, done or thought. That's not pleasing to say that you are grateful for giving us and cash it back into the picture where it came from. We put the enemy on notice and counsel any assignment that he has planned for us. They'll be sent back into the picture where it came from.

We pray in an image for the ones that has no desire to know who God is. We pray in an image that he would touch them right now, wherever they are from the crowd, that they hear to the souls of their feet that the newness of life will hit them. We pray in an image, as they get hit with the newness, that they don't feel hurt. We pray in an image that you are touched, the ones that has a desire to know who you are but don't know how to. We pray in an image that you are to touch them and give them to know how. We also pray for the ones that just has slid in the way and can't find their way back. We pray in an image that your loving light will shine them to their way. We pray in an image you will just have your way. We ask these things and all things in Jesus mighty and Max's name. We say thank you and we say amen, amen, amen.

Amen, amen, right. Well, to God be the glory. Again, we are so glad that you are here. So today we are going to be talking a lot about the reality of pain, the reality of disabilities, the reality of that fact that sometimes we suffer. As a matter of fact, the word tells us that we will suffer many things in this life, but we have to decide not to be defeated by it, because we are not. We are victorious in Jesus, amen.

So today we have a special guest with us who's going to be talking about her life and the things that she's been dealing with and just give us her insight, because she's going through it, amen. Her name is Darcy Steiner. Amen, she is an author and and she has discovered some gifts in regard to suffering and she's just. You know, it is something when you have to go through Amen, and so often time we want God to take us out of it. But through her story and through her witness and testimony, she's going to unveil the power of God while in the midst of the suffering. Amen. So, darcy, will you say hello to the diamonds in the room?

Oh, thank you so much, catherine and Michael, for having me today, and to all who are listening. I just appreciated the prayer, michael, that you prayed, because we're all in one of those categories. You know. We all need the Lord, and so thank you for doing what you're doing here, and I'm excited for our conversation today.

Amen, we are as well. So why don't you tell us to everybody just a little bit about yourself and a little bit of your journey before we start with questions and answers?

You bet. So I'm a Coloradan. I've lived in Colorado most of my life, except for four years Living in Los Angeles with my husband. We got married there, actually, and we were there during the riots and the Northridge earthquake, and so, because of all that, we moved back to Colorado. So here we are, so go ahead.

No, no, no, no, you go ahead. I'm sorry.

Well, I was just going to say a little bit about my story. Yeah, please do so. In the year 2000, I fell down the stairs in our home and my kids were two and a half and five. I have two daughters and so they were home, my husband was at work and I slipped on a piece of paper, of all things, and I had socks on, and our stairs, our carpet, was kind of old, so it was slippery, and I had the baby gate up at the bottom of the stairs and so I'm falling.

But I see this baby gate right. And so what do you do when you see a baby gate? You go over it. You don't crash through it. So I'm falling, but I hurtle over the gate somehow and that causes me to twist and turn and crash into the wall and face plant onto the ground, and so my back injury put me in bed for two years. Yeah, it was really bad, and I was a stay-at-home mom. All I wanted to do was to continue to take my kids' places to the museum, to the zoo, to the park, and all that was taken away.

I'm sure he was close to death at first, huh.

I was. I was nearing death because I was in so much pain I wasn't eating, and so that caused my body to be malnourished. And so I was near death and we prepared my will. My husband was, you know, trying to figure out how am I gonna do this, raise two little girls on my own and work, and he was going through depression because he thought he was losing his wife, you know.

Yeah, so definitely one of those things or one of those situations where faith became. I'm sure it became everything, right.

It's all I had left because I'm, you know, here I am. I developed a condition called CRPS, which is complex regional pain syndrome. I'm hearing more and more people are getting this for some reason, but I get a lot of phone calls from people who have it and don't know of anyone else who has it, and but it's a severe nerve pain disorder that is caused it's a secondary injury, if you will after an injury, usually to a limb or after surgery. So it's so painful that you wanna die like you don't know how to get through another day. And so there's that, yeah.

I'll say so that level of pain is it. If you could put a finger on it, how would you describe that level of pain?

Well, it's described by professionals as the highest pain one can feel.

Yeah, and you imagine folks that go to hell and that pain is probably intensified 100 times.

Oh my gosh, I would not desire that oh.

Jesus and people don't realize that. You know, according to the Bible, hell is real. You don't wanna go there?

Nope, nope, and I have felt like I've been in hell on earth because of pain. It's quite indescribable when you're going through something so severe. People ask me to try to describe it and I have it. Primarily in my feet is where I feel it the worst, so I'm not able to walk very well and I haven't been able to walk for a long time. I'm just beginning to be able to, but it feels like I'm walking on corkscrews. That's the best description I can come up with for people to understand. Yeah, wow.

Michael has a look on his face. What's your thinking? What's your thinking, honey?

You know, as I sit back and listen and ponder and think, you know, I can only imagine the pain that you go through and if I had to put a scale on it I would say it's probably about 30 times more intense than childbirth.

Oh, I would have. I think I would have a million more children before I would desire this.

Yeah, so I can, just, I can, just, I can just imagine, you know, cause, cause I can't have kids because I'm a man, but you know, but I can just think that childbirth would be a breeze compared to this pain.

And wow, childbirth ain't no easy thing, you heard me. It is really not an easy thing, oh my gosh. So you know, we definitely sympathize with you, my friend. So how, with all of that pain that you suffer all the time, how do you keep your eye on him? And when I say him, I'm talking about Jesus.

You know, with the analogy of childbirth, when you have, when you're going through, that you know that you're getting this baby and it's so worth it, right, mm-hmm. Right. And when you have pain, it's so not worth it unless there's something wrong. There's something the diamond. The diamond is there. However, you can't see it. And so in order to see it, you have to have faith, knowing that God sees it and that God is forming it and he's compressing it and he's making space and room for this diamond to be born, if you will.

And so how I get through every day is knowing that God has a purpose for this. This is not for nothing. There is a reason that he allows people to go through whatever it is they go through, because he is forming all of us for his purpose, and that's the beauty that comes through. So that's how I hold on, is I hold on to that faith that he knows what he's doing. He loves me, he cares for me. Everything he allows me to go through is for my best interest, for his purpose. So, even though it hurts, it hurts for a reason.

Yeah, I had a question. I was going to say so with this. What did you call it? What's it called?

CRPS.

And did that happen immediately after the fall, or was that a recent development?

Good question. So I developed it about two years into my first disability, when I was laying in bed, I think. I mean, we're still not sure, but I stopped going to doctors because they're like we don't know what to do for you. Like nobody knew what to do and I had been to dozens and dozens of doctors and nobody gave me a diagnosis. So this is my guess. So what ended up happening during this first disability Because there are two separate disabilities I'll discuss and this one is in the early 2000s.

But I had a counselor and she was a nutritionist and she was the only person that stood by my side and really tried to help me and she was a believer, but she also was like. She asked me why do you keep going back to doctors? And this listeners. This was for my situation. This isn't for everyone's situation, this was for me. Why do you keep going back? And I said because that's what you do when you're hurt. And she said I think at this point you need to ask yourself the question what aren't you doing that you should be doing? That could help you get better. Great question, right?

Yeah, absolutely, that's the question.

Yeah, I know. So my answer was I need to eat because I'm malnourished. I'm dying because I'm malnourished and I can't eat because of this pain. So we had to figure out how can I eat and the answer came. As I was reading this book, this nutrition book, I found this protein shake and I thought maybe I could drink food, you know.

Right.

I didn't try the insure route or any of that. I don't know why, but I just I guess we didn't think about it. I was young and usually that's associated with older people, so I started drinking this protein shake and I could keep it down and it was easier to consume, and so I gained a pound, and then I gained another pound and so I was able to sit up for longer periods of time. So I was literally just on my back, unable to even reach over for a pen on the bedside table. Wow, that's how bad I was. And so I was able to start sitting up and I thought I need to keep reading about nutrition, and so I ordered books to do this at home.

Study for a master's degree and a big project, right For someone who may not make it. But I thought I'm going to believe. I'm going to believe that I can make it through, that I can get a degree and I can help people. And God enabled me and six years later, I earned my master's degree in holistic nutrition. I was my case study and God used food to help me get better. And in 2008, I opened my private practice for nutrition and I began counseling people to manage their pain to lose weight.

But pain management was a big part of that, and I taught sports nutrition at the local high school, including my children. So my children were able to see me go from near death to teaching them and their sports teams, their classmates, how to perform better in their sport. And I had no pain, katherine and Michael. I had no pain, it completely disappeared. And there is no cure for CRPS. So who took away that pain? Only God could do that. Only God could do that. He performed a miracle. Even though it took a period of time, it's still miraculous because there is no cure.

We say it all the time God is a God. He's a God of process. You ain't willing to go through the prophet process. You might meet, and might not ever meet, the purpose Jesus, somebody that was a bird right, oh man.

You know I got to ask this question. I got to it. How would you say that your suffering changed your relationship with God?

Oh, michael, thank you for asking that such a great question. So in the beginning, when all this happened, I was so angry and I couldn't express it because it hurt, but I felt it inside of me. I felt like I was going to burst, because I felt like, god, why did you give me two kids and now you're taking me away from them? Why are you not allowing me to raise these two kids that you gave to me? Like, what's the harm? What's the harm in raising my kids? Like I'm not asking for a mansion here, I'm just asking to speak into these two souls that came from my body, you know, and that's what I desired. So I was very angry, and so this also was a period of transformation. My counselor really helped. I see counselors all the time. I totally believe in going in and getting counseling. I'm so grateful for the wisdom that they speak into you. But I would say my relationship with God has been transformed more in the past five years, during my second disability, and so how that has transformed was really through writing. Writing about what I've experienced, what I thought, you know, journaling how he maybe felt about this, what he saw. And then I looked at my writings and I'm like I see a theme here. I see a theme of gifts that God has given me and I need to tell the world this time about how he's transformed me.

I didn't the first time, and that may be why he allowed me to go through this a second time, but in 2018, my daughter got married and a chair fell and hit my foot and re-triggered this CRPS. So I went through remission I guess you could call it. I was asymptomatic for nine years, was hiking, doing normal things, wearing high heels, if I never had foot pain. And then, all of a sudden, I'm transported back to the year 2000,. Right, and my heart just sunk and I knew immediately. This time I'm like I'm just, I'm back where I was and God is having me go through this again, and so I'm lamenting again, like why and I didn't realize at first that it would be. It's been over five years now, and had I known that back then, oh my gosh, I would have been. I wouldn't have been able to do it.

But what happened was seeing these gifts. I saw that. How did I get through? When I felt like I was at the end of myself, I persevered. But how did I get through? It's because God gifted me perseverance for the next day. So I saw the gift of perseverance and then courage. Just like the man with the shriveled hand, he stood in front of the crowd at Jesus' command and he held out that disability for God to use to transform the minds and the faith of the people who were watching. Jesus healed the man with the shriveled hand, but he had the option of running away or obeying, and he obeyed and Jesus healed that man's hand. He had courage and so I felt like God was giving me the gift of courage and this time I decided I'm going to hold out my disability and I'm going to obey and I'm going to follow and I'm not going to run away. And he's gifting me courage to stand there in front of a crowd and let people see me in a wheelchair and not hide in my home. He's going to, I'm going to let people see my pain and I'm going to talk about my pain so that people can see God, heal me and go ahead. No, no, no. I just wanted to share.

One more gift that I felt was you know, gratitude when you have the ability to walk, you're not necessarily grateful for it, like I don't know many people who tell God thank you for the ability to walk today. But when I'm sitting in my home and I'm watching people walk on the trail behind my home and they're walking freely and I can't do that, yes, I can feel sorry for myself or I can feel grateful for what God has given me. I can't forget about the things that I do have. So instead of sulking and watching them, I'm looking at nature on a calendar. I am right now in front of me. I'm looking at this tree that I can't necessarily go walk and see, but I can see it on a calendar and I can be grateful that I can see this beauty hanging on the wall. And if I don't have that, what do I have? So I have to be grateful for what I do have.

I personally I think that often time that God sees, he really sees our heart and sometimes he allows us to go through some things to bring us to his heart. You know, what I mean, and you know, oftentimes we'll call it well, we'll call it disadvantages or disabilities and where as it reflects our position or our condition. And I believe that it's an opportunity for a hand of God to show us that we're not disadvantaged or disabled, but he's able to do something in us that it could never happen without him.

Yes, I mean, and so you know it's definitely to every diamond that's listening. There is purpose in your pain and you know, and let me rephrase, that there is purpose in pain because pain doesn't belong to you, even though you might be going through situations and circumstances and physical elements and all of that. Allow God, as Darcy has done in doing, allow what you're going through to no longer belong to you but to belong to Jesus, because he took that on the cross. He took it, and so you know you might be going through, but it doesn't belong to you. Jesus took it. He said learn of me. Amen, he also said. He also says in Proverbs 3, verses 5 and 6, he's trusting the Lord With all. Trusting the Lord and lean not onto your own understanding, but in all of your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your steps. Amen, that's powerful and you've done it, miss Lady. You've done it and you're doing it, and there's an awesome thing to do. Amen To God. Be the glory, michael, you got to go.

Yeah, I just have a question because if I sit back here and look at your biography and everybody who knows me knows I'm not this type that goes without reading, goes with reading any other books in the Bible. But as I look at your profile, I have to ask about this book and I'm intrigued to actually purchase it and read it the Beyond the Thorns With that book. What inspired you to write this book and tell us more about the book?

Michael, you have such great questions. The book came about because it was my way through my pain. When I write, it's my analgesic, Just like medicine. It allows me to be so consumed with God that I can forget my pain for periods of time, and so I just prayed. Well, so I have to back up a little bit.

This book came about because when my father died, he was dying and my father was an artist and he drew pictures while he was in assisted living. He's dying but he's drawing pictures for other people and I'm like I don't have a gift that I'm giving other people like that. You know I want to do something like that. So at his funeral, when I spoke, I said I want to find a gift that God has for me that I can give to other people. And so I didn't realize that you know I was going to be going through what I'm going through and that writing would become that gift. I had no idea when I started writing, I didn't realize that I was writing a book. I thought I was writing a blog, and so I'm writing this blog and again I'm seeing this pattern.

But the book came about because of the pain and pain management. It was my greatest pain management and it still is, because I'm nearing completion of another set of books that I'm writing about the Psalms. But, yes, it came about because of that. And again, I wanted to share these gifts that God was showing me and there's 30 of them that I share in the book that there are so many things that God gives in the midst of pain. He loves us so much.

And, Catherine, when you said that the pain doesn't belong to us, I love that because he did take it on the cross. It's not ours. He uses it to form us, to shape us, but it's not our identity. Our identity is underneath the surface and he'll make that come out when it's supposed to come out. He'll make it. If you give it to him, he'll show you what that diamond looks like.

Every diamond has different cuts. Every diamond is formed differently, comes from a different rock and so, yes, it's created from the rough stuff and we have to embrace that rough. That rough is not a fur, it's not wasted. He uses that. Everything is used for the Kingdom of God. So, even if we don't know what it is, if we hold it out to him, I tell him every day God, I'm willing to go anywhere to do anything. You just need to enable me. And so he enables me to do what he wants me to do. And he's enabled me to do things that I never thought I could do. I didn't think that I could do a speaking gig down in Colorado Springs because I was having migraines, and but I'm on my way to Colorado Springs with a migraine and I get down there and it disappears and I'm able to speak. And so he enabled me, and so I'm willing to go. I just, you know, whatever your purposes, you enable me to do so that's right.

Tell me how they can get your book and like your website and any other viable information that they might need so that they can Get a little bit closer to you, and maybe you know you can counsel that.

Sure, well, my book is on Amazon. It's not in physical bookstores unless you ask for it, which I would greatly appreciate, but if you go into a bookstore they'll order it for you. It's in audiobook so you can get it on Audible or an audiobook streaming site that's on Spotify etc. There's also a study guide that I wrote to go with it, so a lot of Bible studies use it. A lot of churches go through it.

I recently went through it with a group of women at my church which it really bonded people who are going through various kinds of sufferings, not necessarily just physical suffering, but any kind of suffering. I have a newsletter that I put out every other week. It's called the Upside of Suffering and you can subscribe to that on my website. My website is just my name, so it's Darcy, with an I, D-A-R-C-I middle initial, j Steiner S-T-E-I-N-E-R dot com, and there's a lot of information on there. I also do writing coaching and I do nutrition counseling, so those are all things I can do while I'm sitting and on Zoom and that kind of thing. So God has made my life full and I'm very grateful.

Amen, this is awesome. So we are down in our last minute, so will you give a final word before we pray, and actually we'll get you to give that word and follow up with a prayer, and then we will close out with Michael and I.

Sounds good All right. Yes, I would just like to encourage the listeners, the diamonds, to just keep holding on. You know you might feel like you're at the end of yourself and you don't have any rope left to hold on to, but God's got you. Never give up. Keep holding on to Him. He's got you. You're not alone.

Amen, amen, hallelujah, will you pray us out?

Father, god, thank you for this wonderful time together. I pray for the people that are listening to this podcast, that you would bless them, that you would help them hold out their pain to you and not run away. Give them courage to hold it out to you for you to use in the way that you want. And I pray for the people that are lonely. That you would help them find community, that you would give them courage to go find people that need them, that you would help them to look outward and not at the pain, but look toward the heavens, look toward the mountains, look toward the ocean and look up to you. Please fill us with faith, with hope, with courage and with perseverance. We love you and we are so grateful for the love that you have for each of us, for creating us uniquely, individually and with purpose. Help us find that and fulfill that for you, in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen, amen. Thank you so much for that prayer and we thank you so much for your presence. Amen, y'all Diamonds, it's been a good one, a blessed one. We hope that this encourages you to keep on pressing forward, that whatever you're going through, it's not the end. Amen, you can make it through. You got Jesus. You got everything that you need, amen. So that's my final word. Again, we say thank you, madam, for being here one more time, and we love you all. Make sure y'all give us your thoughts in our group on Facebook. I am a diamond. Give us your thoughts and let us know what you think about this episode. And Ms Darcy has given you all of her information so that you can contact her. If you need any help and you feel drawn to her, please don't hesitate to go to her website. Reach out to her so she can be that which God desires her to be in your life, honey.

You know I'm going to say like this we got to realize that every time that we go against the enemy, Put yourself in a mindset of when you go into the ring, into a, into an actual boxing match. It's 10 rounds, those are the rounds that we face against the enemy. But we got to realize that and I'm going to use a quote that I heard so many times through Christian rappers that you know the 66 clips. Our clip holds more than 10 rounds. It holds 66 rounds. That's how much ammo that we have against the enemy. But we got to realize that when the rounds get emptied, all we got to do is reload it by getting more into the word of God. Continue to stay in the word of God so when the enemy attacks you, you have more than enough ammo to knock him down. That's my word. And to next time, remember you are a diamond in the rough.

Amen.