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Welcome to the spiritually minded women podcast. If you’re a woman who is ready and willing to be a follower of Jesus, you’re in the right place. Join me as we dive in deep to learn how to embrace your journey on the covenant path with checkpoints instead of checklists, I’m your host Darla Trendler, and I’m cheering you on.
Welcome to your journey.
Darla: Welcome to the spiritually minded women podcast. This is Darla and I am really grateful to have my guest today. Her name is Christi Hibbert and I’ve followed and known Christi for a really long time. And she has so much to share. So I am very excited to welcome you today. Christi. Thank you so much for being here.
Christi: It’s a pleasure. It’s so good to be with you.
Darla: Will you just take a second and introduce yourself?
Christi: Sure. I’m Christi Hibbert sometimes known as Dr. Christina Hibbert. I’m a psychologist and author and speaker, [00:01:00] but I’m also a mom of six and I’m a breast cancer warrior most recently.
And I’ve been through my fair share of challenges. As I tell people, I may have a doctorate in psychology, but what I really honor is my doctor of life degree, that so many of us get in our lives through overcoming becoming and flourishing through our challenges, as I like to say. And yeah, I’ve been going through.
Very intense breast cancer journey for now two and a half years. I would say, I feel like I’m still in it. Not even done yet. And yeah, lots of twists and turns along the way, but it’s also led me now to start a podcast and it’s really strengthened my faith and my relationship with my Savior. So I hope that’s what we get to talk about today.
Cause it’s, it excites me that has happened through all these horrible trials I’ve had to go through.
Darla: Yeah, definitely That is what we’re going to talk about. And [00:02:00] really I know a little bit about your life. I’ve read your book. This is how we grow a couple of times. And there’s so many things that we could talk about.
And I know that you could testify of how the Savior has shown up in your life in so many ways through these experiences. But I really would like to talk more about this most recent experience. Like you mentioned, Going through breast cancer and what the last two and a half years have looked like for you.
So let’s start there. What do you want to start with, to share about that experience?
Christi: I’ll just try to briefly sum it up because it’s been kind of of crazy. I was actually diagnosed with stage one, triple negative breast cancer, and also with the Bracco one genetic mutation at the same time, essentially in July of 2019.
And it was a time in my life where I felt like I was ready to launch in my career. I was working on my fourth book mastery of motherhood. It was the biggest one and I was ready to do this. And I was about halfway through writing and I’d created this course and was doing this live event.
And, I felt like [00:03:00] I was really ready to go. And then it just felt like bam. I feel like God reaches in and turns the wheel 180 degrees or however many degrees. And you’re like wait, I thought I wanted to go that way. That’s where I was headed. And he’s Nope, this is where you’re going.
And as my book, this is how we grow is about how that happened when we first became parents as well. How we inherited our two nephews after my sister and brother-in-law both died, when I was pregnant with what I thought would be our fourth. And suddenly we had our two nephews, a baby, and three other kids, and went from three to six kids overnight.
It felt very similar this time to that feeling but wait a minute, I was ready for this path and this is what I see for myself. And this is what I’ve been working so hard toward. And why has this happened? And so when I received this diagnosis I thought, okay, I can do this. My mom’s a three time breast cancer survivor.
That’s partly why we ended up realizing that we both have the BRCA one genetic mutation. [00:04:00]And another reason why from the day that I was diagnosed one week later, I was already having a double mastectomy. So it was all very quick. And the way that I describe it is I felt like I was strapped into a rollercoaster and it just started going and every time I’d come around and finish it, I’d be going, wait, I want to get off.
And it just would keep going around and around. And for months I felt that way. So I thought stage one. It was triple negative, which is the most aggressive kind and the hardest to treat and can become really incurable if it spreads. So it’s scary in that sense, but we caught it super early and there were some real miracles that happened right from the start too that, I guess I’ll share because I feel like they’re so important to this whole experience.
For one, I went in for my mammogram. As a followup from the year before I had found a lump and they [00:05:00] had done a biopsy and it was negative for cancer. And so I was supposed to come in six months later for a follow-up. At that six month, mark was right when I was doing this big event and I’m working on all this stuff for mastery of motherhood.
And I put it off for a couple months. And I thought, okay, two months, that’s not a big deal. It’ll be fine. It ended up saving my life, honestly. I went in on July 15th, 2019 for my mammogram and on July 1st, 2019, they had actually for the first time had a breast radiology specialist start working there and my tumor was so small that only a specialist in breast radiology could have found it. So had that man not been there, they would have missed it. And I wouldn’t have probably come back for at least six to 12 months. And this aggressive cancer would have definitely spread and had been at least stage three or maybe even four. So right from the start, that was a complete miracle.[00:06:00]
The second miracle came really closely after when my mother had done genetic testing and been told that she had this variant. They didn’t know what it was. They couldn’t really give it a name. And because it didn’t have the name of a BRCA gene they basically wouldn’t let my sisters and myself get tested to see if we by chance had the same thing.
The testing, when I did the testing, which I did right when I was diagnosed, It came back about two weeks after my diagnosis and one week after I’d already had a double mastectomy. We just went right for it because of my mom having had it three times. Anyway the miracle was that it came to us in that very week that they did my testing, the testing company that we did it with reclassified, that variant as part of the BRCA one genetic mutation. So that very week of all the times, and of all the companies, they were the first to do it. And all of a sudden we knew what it was [00:07:00] and then I knew that my choice to do the double mastectomy was correct. It also was able to help me decide yes, I did need to do chemotherapy because of this genetic risk. And also because of this aggressive cancer, even though it was small. So it actually helped me to plan my progression in my treatment. And also my siblings got tested right away and my sister was about to have an elective hysterectomy in a year or so, because she thought she probably had it and it turns out she didn’t even have it.
So right away, there were these miracles with this craziness going on and it felt like every week something new was happening. Long story short it did not go short. It did not go short that’s the long story is it’s still going on because I ended up with having a hysterectomy because of the BRCA gene and with my breast reconstruction, we kept having problems.
I kept getting staph infections. We had to remove one implant, remove another implant, try over again with [00:08:00] expanders again, had to replace them, get them out, get them put back in. I ended up with kidney stones and blood clots through chemotherapy. I did intense chemotherapy and I was able to do cold capping to save my hair, which was another blessing and a miracle to me, just to have that one thing that made you look and feel like yourself.
And I definitely would have been completely bald. Had I not done cold capping, which I didn’t even know about before. I thought I was done about, 2020 in the summer and started getting sicker again. And it turned out that I had breast implant illness. So my body is very sensitive to anything in it, even stitches.
Everything was getting infected anytime there was something in there. And so the reconstruction actually made me sicker and I was getting worse and worse. And so I decided to start all over again in 2020 and go for a deep flap, which is [00:09:00] reconstruction. They cut you from like hip to hip and take your fat and transplant it up into your breast area and also take little arteries from your abdominal wall and transplant it with microsurgery and attach a blood supply. So it’s like living tissue it’s crazy. And so really intense surgery, which actually was a very rough healing anyway, but from that surgery ended up with a massive strangulated hernia. And back in the hospital, after having been in there for six days, recovering a day later, I’m back down there and having emergency surgery.
That was the scariest time because it was like we need to do this now, or this will kill you. Everything was cut off all my intestines. My digestion was cut off. And essentially because of that, Last year when I thought I finally was done and my doctor says you’re done with treatment.
After 13, total surgeries in 18 months and chemotherapy and blood clots and kidney stones and breast [00:10:00] implant illness, and all of those things finally thought I was healing and started feeling sicker again. And we know now that I have what’s called gastroparesis, which means that my stomach and my colon are paralyzed.
And that’s from the Hernia surgery and not to mention menopause on top of all this. So I’m still trying to figure that out. We’re still trying to find the right medication. I have a hard time with, going to the bathroom and eating like basic stuff. I’m like a baby. So I’m still going through it and believe me, I have wondered all along why.
Not only did my closest sister die in 2007 with my brother-in-law, who was our close friend, but also my littlest sister died when she was eight and I was 18 and she died of cancer as well. And so it’s been a real rough road and not just physically, that’s been a whole different thing for me cause I’ve been through a lot of loss and grief in my life.
I also had a very close friend who [00:11:00] dropped her daughter at our house a couple of years after my sister died and drove to the Grand Canyon and I was very involved in her family and trying to help them get put back together. So it’s been this, why do these things keep happening? And I’ve always had this perspective of personal growth that we can grow through our challenges.
This is how we grow when life throws you in the mud, plant yourself and grow. I really believe that I really do. And I really believe that we can overcome and become and flourish, but I have to say that even before this all happened with the breast cancer, I realized that I’m really good at telling other people that they can flourish and helping them to flourish and really seeing that potential and believing it.
But there was a year there probably 2018 where I wasn’t sure that I was meant to flourish and I doubted myself. I felt like maybe I’m only meant to overcome, because all these things keep happening and it’s just never ends. And at the time I was really struggling and I was really working on it.
And [00:12:00] then that ended up being the year that actually. And it wasn’t until I really had worked on my sense of self-worth that this happened. But I actually was named mother of the year, that year when I was doubting myself the most. And then I started to believe, you know what, maybe I can flourish.
So that’s where I was. Flourishing. I felt like finally, I’m flourishing and oh, now you have breast cancer. Oh I’ll get over it in a few months. No, you won’t because all these bad things are going to keep happening. And here I am two and a half years later, still wondering what happened and dealing with the trauma and the PTSD and the depression and doing a lot of therapy and work emotionally as well.
But also really seeing how it has brought me closer to the Savior because I’ve had to rely on him every single day for hope for life, for being able to get through this and not have cancer anymore. And for hope that it won’t come back or I won’t get cancer somewhere else, because I’m at a very high risk for all these things.
And also for that [00:13:00] healing that I’ve realized, we don’t heal ourselves. Only He can heal us. And that’s where I am.
Darla: So there’s just so much to your story in so many things that you’ve been through and you started out telling your breast cancer journey and you started out with these miracles, but I am sure, because we’ve all been through it ourselves or seen other people go through hard things and there’s always dark moments as well. There’s the miracles and these great things, but there’s always dark moments.
Christi: Yes.
Darla: How did you get through those dark moments? And, you said that you’ve come closer to the Savior.
Where was he and how did you see him? And you have any specific examples of what that looks like?
Christi: Yeah. I have two that come to mind in particular. Maybe three, but the first one came when the first time something went wrong, which was I thought I was going to be real sneaky and have three surgeries total by having my hysterectomy and my reconstruction surgery at the same time.
So I would only have to have two times of surgery, but really have the [00:14:00] three surgeries. And I was all pumped up for that and thinking, okay, then I’ll have this much time to recover and I’ll be better. This is before I knew I had to do chemo too. But within 10 days of having those surgeries, my right side breast just was super swollen and it was infected and it turned out that it was a staph infection.
And again, those are very dangerous and then they put me on really intense antibiotics and put me in the hospital to see if we could kick it. And I got allergic to the antibiotics and, just like everything just kept going wrong but I was still hopeful. I was still hopeful. I was like, okay, I can do this.
I can beat this. We can overcome this. I’m not going to have to lose this implant and start over. And by then I knew I was going to be having chemotherapy. I’m not going to have to push chemotherapy off because I’ve had surgery. Anyway, I was in there for six days fighting this thing and it wasn’t really getting better.
And one night the power went out in the hospital. This is crazy. It was like one in the morning. And all of a [00:15:00] sudden everything’s super quiet. There’s this person next to me, moaning like a ghost. I’m like, oh my gosh. It’s like the haunted hospital. It’s super scary. There’s, like weird beeping and the lights are dimmed.
And I was so swollen and I’d been putting ice packs and was really hot. This infection. Even the ice was locked down. The whole unit was locked down. The ice was locked down. All the medicine pain meds were locked down. So I’m there with like Italian ice cups on my breasts, trying to bring down the swelling at one in the morning with these people moaning.
And I just started praying and I started listening to abide with me tis even tide over and over again. And you might remember from my book, this is how we grow that I did that too the night before I had to go to my sister’s funeral and face the fact that I was suddenly going to be a mom of six. And I had a very personal experience at that time with my sister, listening to that song over and just feeling so inadequate.
Like how could I ever be [00:16:00] this mom to all these kids and in the midst of grief too. And when I’m grieving as well. And I just felt like the Savior’s arms wrap around me in that moment before my sister’s funeral. And it’s like that knowledge that I could do this with him. I couldn’t do it, but I could with him.
And so I had the same thoughts in this moment thinking I have the faith father and I’m praying this, like I have the faith to make this infection better by tomorrow because if it wasn’t going to be better we’re going to have to go into surgery. And I know I do. I know I have the faith. I know that we can do this together.
Like I believe I know, and I’m trying to use my faith to move a mountain. Like you hear about. And then basically the message came to me and it was like, yeah, I know you have the faith, but this is going to happen. And I’m sorry, but this is how it’s going to be. And I just let that song, abide with me tis even tide, Savior stay this night with [00:17:00] me, behold tis even tide.
And I didn’t know that this was going to be the first of many like this, but I knew that he was with me. I knew that he cared and that he was answering my prayer. It just wasn’t being answered the way that I wanted. And I know a lot of people out there, you can relate to that
Darla: Oh for sure.
Christi: Yeah. A lot of that happening. And I have had a lot of that too. And in fact, the second example goes right along with it is right before I was diagnosed the day before, right after I had gone in for my biopsy, I had been sitting and praying in my room and I prayed just like the savior did, please let this cup pass from me, but don’t let me not get cancer.
I really, I thought one of my sisters would get it. Not me. I don’t know why. I didn’t think I would, and my biggest fear because of the death of my sister and the death of my best friend. And I have another friend who died of pancreatic cancer just a year before I was diagnosed who’s another mother figure to my kids was that [00:18:00] my biggest fear has been that I would die too.
And my kids have lost so many mothers that like, they can’t lose me. And I knew it’d be really hard on them. And so that’s why I prayed and asked that and the answer came to me and it just said I’m sorry, but this is going to happen, but know that you have been prepared and that I am with you, you can do this.
And so I knew the day before they told me that it was just going to happen because the Lord told me. From that moment from that very first moment before I even knew that I was diagnosed, I knew that he was with me. And yes, there definitely have been times where I have been angry and frustrated and just a few months ago, going through the emotional part of this journey is just so difficult.
In fact I feel like it’s the most misunderstood and neglected part. People think, if you’re not in chemo or if you’re not bald, or if you don’t look sick that you’re done or you’re fine, or whatever and your support system so easily vanishes and it’s very lonely. Last year was [00:19:00] the loneliest year and the most difficult with my emotional health especially and dealing with all the trauma. And I’ve started a support group for women going through breast cancer, a virtual support group that’s global, because we need that support and we just don’t have it.
So a few months ago, I got to the angry phase, which I’ve been in many times before, too. That grief process that denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.
It’s not a one-time thing. It’s an over and over and over again. Often within the same day or the same hour experience. And I was really angry and I didn’t know what to do. So I went out into the woods. I live in Flagstaff, Arizona. We have beautiful pine trees and I went out and I started walking really fast because one of my books is on exercise and mental health.
I know the benefits for myself and also know that’s a good way to deal with your anger or your anxiety started pushing myself to walk really fast. And I just started praying out loud cause no one was around. And I was just telling [00:20:00] God how angry I was. And if there’s one thing I know it’s that God can take our anger and it’s a really good place to take it, to, take our anger, our frustrations to the Lord and our love to our families and to ourselves.
And I’m really good at blaming myself and turning the anger inward at myself. Thinking you haven’t done a very good job or making myself feel really guilty. Last year, especially was a year of that trying to come to terms with how hard it was on my children and how I couldn’t be there for them in the ways that I wanted to as a mom and I just let the Lord have it. I just told him everything and the biggest thing was why? And as I wrote in, this is how we grow, I know that why isn’t the helpful question because you can’t always answer it. And the more helpful question is how do I move on and how can I deal with this?
But I needed to say why I just needed to say, why did everything just go wrong? And why is it still going wrong? Why am I still sick? And why can’t I just get better? If this had to happen why? And it just was that moment of kind of [00:21:00] understanding, in fact, in that moment, all of a sudden, I see two wolves, like literally wolves and I’m by myself.
Darla: And then you saw them for real,
Christi: Like for real, they were there and they were suddenly like blocking my path. And I was like, oh my gosh, now I’m going to get eaten by a Wolf. Are you kidding me? It was just a perfect example. Like the epitome of my fear. It was like the realness of my fear in form of an animal in front of me.
And so I just freaked out and I started leaving and then I started calming down and it was like the Lord laughing with me. Like those wolves are like the fear that you have in your body. And they do you no good. It’s no good to be afraid of them. You can try to get away from them or deal with the problem in a healthy way.
But if I would’ve just stood there and been scared and done nothing, then that wouldn’t have done me any good. So it was just, it was a good experience knowing that even in my really bad moments when I’m angry or really down and depressed that he hears me and he accepts me.
And he knows me and he knows my heart and he helps me to get through those moments.
Darla: What would you say? I’m just, [00:22:00] I’m thinking about someone listening to this and they’re angry or they have lost hope. I watched your journey on social media because you were very open and shared and it was like, how much more can Christie take?
It was just one setback after another. If someone else is finding themselves in that situation, but they’re angry. They don’t have hope. They don’t think that he’s there. They don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel or any way out. What would you tell them from your experiences and the things that you know, what would you tell them?
Christi: You’re not alone. I think those are the most powerful words we can say to anybody. And it might look like other people going through challenges haven’t figured out, or they’re handling it better than you but they’re not. I look back now and because you followed my journey, you probably saw my Facebook profile picture for longest time was me in chemo with a cold cap on, in a Cape, like ta-da and I had a shirt that said kill it sis.
It was the first day of chemo. And after I got through all that, and after I got through my surgeries last year, and [00:23:00] when I was starting this emotional process of figuring it all out, I looked back on that and I was just like what was I thinking? I don’t have a single picture during chemo where I don’t look triumphant.
Really, I got dressed up, I looked healthy. I put on makeup. I did my hair, which I normally did not do. I put on a bunch of jewelry. I put on a Cape, I had a crown, I had a costume at one point. I was wonder woman, and I was just like, what was I thinking? That’s not at all how I felt, but I realized only in this past year, as I’ve been able to look back and these memories pop up and you look back to a year ago or two years ago. And I realized I was being brave. I was making myself brave and tough and strong to do the thing that I did not want to do. And that I did not feel like I could do, like chemotherapy to me was the scariest thing I could ever have to do.
And so I had to make myself brave in order for that to occur. And yes, I was [00:24:00] going to therapy at the time, the whole time, but I wasn’t able to deal with the trauma of it. Until everything had completed. That’s why this past year, after all the surgeries were finally done and the chemotherapy, even though I’ve been dealing with this gastro-paresis, it’s been a year of trying to heal the trauma because I’ve learned you can’t deal with it in the moment. So what looks like something to you is not really that. And even I have a video of me that popped up last year. That was from the morning that I did wake up after that night, when the power went out in the hospital and we did have to go to surgery right away and get that out.
And I am going down there. My mom’s filming for me and I’m going, all right, I was hoping we didn’t have to, but I got this, no worry. Look at it. Look at the view. It’s so pretty I was just making myself brave. I was so sad and so hurt and felt like why though Heavenly Father? I know you said that this can’t, you can’t cure [00:25:00] this.
Why can’t you just cure this little thing? You can big, big miracles happen. That’s just a small thing, but no, and I’ve had a lot of nos and I’ve had a lot of misunderstandings, but I guess what I would say is the Lord can take it. He can take your depression. He can take your grief. He can take your insecurities.
He can take your anger, your pain, your suffering, your trauma. You don’t have to come to the Lord in a state of understanding and perfection because that’s not possible. Our job is just to come to him. He does the rest. I spoke in church a couple of weeks ago on grace and the enabling power.
I could not do any of this without that enabling power. He does it for us. So all we have to do is just honestly, it’s not even a calm, it’s like a turnaround and see that he’s right there with us.
Darla: Yeah
Christi: He’s right there. And I think it’s so much simpler than we think. And then I think the other thing is let him in. I was talking today on my podcast about repentance. Like another way to say it is repentance [00:26:00] can be also seen as looking beyond the small self. I love this term and it’s change. Repentance is changing.
So it’s being vulnerable to God and saying, okay, I’ll do it a different way. I’ll be humble and let you help me. And repentance, even we think about that as being a big, huge thing or, it has to be this big act on our part, but really it’s just coming and saying, okay, I want to see things a different way.
I want to do things a different way and letting him help us because yeah. We can block him and his love a lot. And I have to say, as a psychologist, that’s something I’ve seen a lot and something I believe fully why so many of us struggle with our sense of self worth isn’t because we aren’t good enough or we haven’t tried enough it’s because we’re not letting the love of God in and we’re just blocking it.
That’s it. And a lot of times that’s what it is. It’s, we’re just not turning and we’re just not turning that little bit and letting him love us or asking him to love us and asking [00:27:00] him, to show us how it feels when he loves us or what he wants us to feel. These are all really simple and good questions that you can try, but just know you’re not alone.
Believe me. The Lord has heard it from me a million times, but he will help us when we just ask.
Darla: Yeah. It really is turning to him and it, sometimes it’s just even a desire to turn to him. It doesn’t even have to be this great thing.
It’s very simple. He is right. He will be there. And I love what you said about the enabling power of the Atonement and how, you talked about repentance, there’s the redeeming power. There’s also the enable of power that he understands what we’ve been through and what we’re going through.
And he’s there for it. Like he’s going to show up. He will be there. So I just, I really love. The way that you can express that. And I think it’s such a hopeful message that we can always know that he’s there. Yeah. And that leads me.
Christi: One thing about that. that’s really helpful when in that scripture in the Book of Mormon where it says after all we can do, grace is there. We just need to remember that that “we” part doesn’t mean you and me. It means me and the Lord. [00:28:00] It’s after all we can do the two of us. And when we remember that it’s the two of us arm-in-arm doing it, then we know that it’s just, I do my part and my part is so small. And it’s like you said, it’s nothing, it’s usually just changing a mindset or a thought or something or a turning a little bit. And the Lord does the rest. And that’s the enabling power of grace. He is with us. We do it.
Darla: I really love that. It took me a long time to understand that. I think in my life, I used to think of him. Okay. He’s standing there halfway on the road and he’s waiting for me to get there and then he’s going to help me.
And that is just false. That is not the way that it is. He will be there. He’s there in those darkest moments, in the anger and the hurt and the hard things that we’re going through so beautifully said, and that leads me perfectly to our final question. And that is how have you seen and felt the Savior in your journey on the covenant path?
Christi: Oh, boy, I guess lately it’s been more like how have I not? Because I’ve had so many experiences with grief and [00:29:00] loss and heartache, and now with physical health issues and all of these things, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to get to try and see him with me and let him be with me on the covenant path.
I’ve also been able to I’ve had those moments, especially during this breast cancer journey, I’ve had several moments where it was that kind of emergency surgery emergency something’s happening. That I knew that this could kill me if I didn’t do this. And. When I was going in for my hernia surgery, I met with the specialist and he told me.
We are going to take you to surgery right away, because this is like a four-inch hole in your abdomen because of the chemotherapy it ripped. And there’s two feet of your intestines sticking into your abdominal cavity. All your organs have been shoved to the side and they’re being clamped off.
And so [00:30:00] you’re not getting any blood and this will kill you if we don’t do this now. So we will be coming to get you. And this is serious and see ya soon, and this was during COVID. So I was by myself and I called my husband and I talked to him. I thought I had 15 minutes, but literally five minutes, they came in.
We’ve got to take you now. And I just was just had started to break down, crying to him. What if I don’t come out of this? What if I come out and I can never eat again? What if I can never go to the bathroom again? You know what? I’ve never been this scared and. We set a little prayer together and then I had to go and they were wheeling me down to this room.
And I just thought the only thing I can do is put myself in the hands of God. Literally there was nothing else I could do. I had to trust that he was there with me, that he had a plan for me, that he wanted me to live through this, that he would guide the surgeons and he [00:31:00] did. And yes, it has led to lasting consequences, like I feared, but not as bad as I feared, but I’ve had those moments where I literally I’m so glad I had him because
I don’t know what I would do without that. He was the only one that could do that. And my whole theme last year was to submit as the Book of Mormon says cheerfully and with patients to all the will of the Lord and every time something would happen, I would just think that, okay, my job is just to submit and let this happen.
And later I can try and understand. I just want everyone to hear and know that I have a testimony of our Savior and that I know that he lives and that he knows us personally. And he is with us in those horrible moments when we feel so alone, we’re afraid when we’re not doing what’s right. It’s not that we have to be doing what’s right for him to be there.
He’s especially there when we’re struggling. And that he is the one that heals us too. He is the one that makes us whole again, that helps our bodies to heal, that helps our [00:32:00] minds to heal our emotions to heal, but we just have to let him in. And as I was doing on my, like a water garden podcast today, talking about, we just have to walk with him, and abide with him and he will abide with us.
And that is it’s so much simpler than we think. I think we make it so hard on ourselves, but boy, it’s so much simpler. And I guess that is my testimony. And I even have to say that the whole idea of doing this podcast came from this illness, and it’s like my book this is how we grow, came from that horrible time of my life.
And then I was able to use it in the world to go out and do the work that he wants me to do. And he will do the same for you too. We can use our challenges as we overcome them, as we become more like him, we will flourish again. I do believe that for me too. And we just have to let him show us how.
Darla: Yeah, and that you just summed that up so well, and I’m just thinking this is why I do my podcast, because I want to testify of Jesus Christ [00:33:00] that he is there. And I haven’t had the same experiences that you have had and, there’s something about the way that you share that will touch somebody else and that they will know that he’s there.
He is there. And, you’ve alluded to this, that you couldn’t have done it without him. Can you imagine how that would have gone down if you didn’t have him right there beside you. It really is humbling to me to be able to share stories like yours and be able to send it out there in the world and hope that it finds that one person that needs that message.
And I know that will happen. I really do. I’ve seen it over and I know that he can use anything to further his work and to help us build his kingdom and help us support each other. So thank you so much for sharing that. And you did mention your podcast and I’ve been listening to your podcast.
It’s brand new and like a watered garden, right? Is the name of it?
Christi: Yes.
Darla: So I want to point people there because I feel like it is so good. So if you’ve liked hearing Christi’s story and what she’s sharing tell everyone about your podcast and where they can find it.
Christi: So it’s called like a watered garden.
And the point of it is we’re following [00:34:00] along with come follow me, but the focus for me is helping others to use the scriptures, to personalize them and use the stories. They’re all models. They’re all examples for us of how we can change ourselves, how we can overcome, become, and flourish in our own lives.
So it’s combining psychology and personal growth with the gospel of Jesus Christ through this year, the Old Testament and it’s been fun. We have a Facebook group, like a watered garden, Facebook discussion group. And we already have a bunch of people in there who aren’t members of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints.
So that’s been really awesome because like you said, it feels like something I can do to help people come on to Christ and to help those who aren’t of our specific church, but are believers in Christ to, to share their testimonies with us and learn together. So yeah, you can find it on Apple, Spotify, all the podcast places like a watered garden and you can also visit like a watered garden.com and find us on instagram @likeawatered.garden.
You can also find me at [00:35:00] Dr. Christina Hibbert on Instagram or Facebook. And that’s also my website, Dr. Christina hibbert.com. Lots of resources for free on there for emotional health and overcoming and becoming and flourishing.
Darla: Oh so much good stuff on there. And I will link all of that up in my show notes. So if you just go to the show notes on wherever you’re listening to this, you should be able to find all those links as well.
But thank you so much, Christi. This has been so good for me. I have loved hearing your story. Just thank you so
much for being here. Thank you for having me. I love what you’re doing too, so I’m glad to be a part of it.
And now here are this week’s journal questions. Christi shared how the words to the hymn abide with me ’tis Eventide have had significance for her. Do you have a hymn, song, or musical piece that has spiritual significance for you or helps you feel closer to God? Listen to the music that inspires you and write the thoughts you have while you listen.[00:36:00]
” You’re not alone.” Christi said these words are some of the most powerful things we can say to someone experiencing something difficult. Who in your life needs to hear these words, “You’re not alone.” Think about how you can help someone else feel that they are not alone and then act on the promptings you receive.
Christi referenced a portion of 2 Nephi 25:23, which says “For we know that it is by grace that we are saved after all we can do.” She shared her thought that the “we” in that verse is referring to what an individual and the Savior can do together. What are your thoughts about this verse? Journal what Christ’s grace means to you?[00:37:00]
I hope you enjoyed the podcast and if you did, please share it with a friend. I would love it if you would leave a review and rate it on Apple Podcasts. This actually helps more women find the podcast and embrace their own journey on the covenant path. To find more ways to be a part of the Spiritually Minded Women community, head over to spiritually minded women.com. For more inspiration follow along on Instagram @spirituallymindedwomen. Have an amazing day. I’m cheering you on in your journey.