Other Side of Hurt

Tristan interviews his good friend, counselor, and pastor, Loren Fritze. Loren shares about the great sufferings he has faced over many years and how God has brought healing and redemption in his life and work. 00:00 - Introduction 01:17 - Growing up and Chronic Illness 05:26 - Close to Death at 18 07:25 - Facing Death Again with Horrible Injury 12:34 - Never Going to Walk Again 15:22 - Long Rehab 17:07 - Keeping Perspective 17:50 - Miracle of Walking Again 19:44 - Returning Home 20:18 - More Suffering, Boils and Fevers 22:03 - A Month in Isolation, the Darkest Time 25:09 - The Year of Trials 25:37 - Beginning to Heal and College 28:02 - Two More Years of Great Sickness 31:00 - Becoming a Counselor 31:32 - God prepares us through suffering 32:27 - Dark Night of the Soul 34:16 - The Wounded Healer 37:25 - Counseling and Gettiing to the Root 39:56 - God Making Sense of our Suffering 43:24 - God Uses our Suffering

Tristan and Kayla return after a few weeks break to talk about some big news and finding hope and joy after suffering.

Tristan and Kayla talk about the hardships, grief, and tragedies they have experienced and their hopes for this podcast. They want to talk about hard and sorrowful things but also find joy and beauty in the middle of it all.

Tristan talks about the good and the bad of the internet and our need to find flesh-and-blood, healing relationships.

Tristan and Kayla reconnect and talk about what's going on in their lives. https://smileagaingriefministries.org

Tristan is flying solo this week, so he talks about the struggles that men often face going through grief and gives practical advice on how husbands and wives can learn to grieve and go through hard things together. 00:00 - Lonely Tristan 00:25 - Men and Women and Grief 01:11 - Scary Statistic on Divorce and Grief 03:44 - Generalizations and Stereotypes 05:49 - A Time Not to Grieve 08:46 - A Time for Grief Must Come 10:47 - Not Knowing How to Deal with Tragedy 12:37 - Avoiding our Inadequacies 14:16 - Push Through your feelings of Inadequacy 16:58 - When Tristan’s Life was Falling apart 20:12 - A Suggestion of Wives

Tristan and Kayla talk about how their faith in God has been strengthened and stretched during their times of hardship. 00:00 - Faith in God in a world of Suffering 03:27 - Don’t answer questions people aren’t asking 06:56 - Scriptures and suffering 11:39 - Unchanged aspect of faith 13:30 - Do I really trust God? 15:18 - The Scripture is full of examples 16:42 - Redemption and Suffering 19:38 - The Pieta 22:06 - Love is greater than Freedom 24:30 - Trusting the will of God 26:33 - How do you actually trust God in tragedy 28:16 - Tristan’s faith recently growing 31:17 - God actually cares for us 32:59 - He’s not safe, but He’s good 34:44 - God can and will use terrible things 35:36 - God understands 40:14 - It’s all mysterious and messy 42:58 - Beauty 47:39 - Think about these things ahead of time 49:00 - Sitting with people in Grief

Tristan and his wife Jill talk about meeting, planning their wedding, and then going through the unthinkable process of planning a funeral for their 3-year-old daughter. They recorded this over three months ago when preparing to start this podcast. https://smileagaingriefministries.org/ 00:00 - Intro 00:57 - Our baby hates me 02:06 - Planning a Wedding and Funeral 03:03 - Jill meets Tristan 04:17 - Tristan’s perspective 06:11 - Asking permission to marry Jill 08:13 - Jill is cautious 10:05 - Making a plan 10:51 - Simple, Meaningful, and Enjoyable 15:53 - What would you do differently 17:12 - Losing our daughter 18:46 - Jill gives birth and funeral postponed 21:29 - How do you plan a funeral for your child? 24:26 - Planned Too Much 26:45 - The Power of Music 27:42 - The Graveside 30:24 - Jesus Loves Me 34:39 - What would you do differently 36:34 - You do the best you can 37:16 - Laughter even at a funeral

Melanie was a 26-year-old wife and mother of two young girls when she was diagnosed with life threatening cancer. She comes on the podcast today to share her story of faith, joy, and defiant hope in the midst of her diagnosis and eventual amputation. http://smileagaingriefministries.org

My friend Dave came on to talk about walking with his brother through a very hard season and then through his brother's death by suicide. Dave and his wife have started Camp Christopher in after their loss, helping other families who have also been affected by suicide. https://www.campchriscotton.com https://smileagaingriefministries.org/

Tristan and Kayla discuss what was helpful and not helpful when they were going through their personal hardships. They tell their stories and give some practical tips on how to love and help people who are going through sorrow and crisis. https://smileagaingriefministries.org 00:00 - Introduction 00:29 - Every Suffering is Unique 02:53 - Pity vs. Charity 06:35 - Loving us is knowing my son 12:46 - Hard to help with tragic death 14:54 - Don’t Intrude 18:56 - People want to do something but don’t know how 24:35 - Know your motives for helping 25:51 - Embrace being awkward 28:57 - Being present in crisis 31:11 - Loving over the long haul 36:51 - Keep asking questions and saying the name 40:38 - Others Loving our children 44:28 - Final Practical Advice

Our friend Denny was just diagnosed with a very serious cancer about a month before we recorded. He came on the podcast to tell us how he's facing it. https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/dennypluimer

Kayla shares the story of her son, Nolan's birth, the many challenges Nolan has faced in his first two years of life, and the joys and difficulties Paul and her face as they love and parent their family.