Season 3, Episode 13: Steadfast in Suffering

0:00:00 – Announcer

We go together like Peas and Carrots. The Peas and Carrots Podcast, sharing life from our piece of the vegetable patch, Brian and Kayla Sanders. 

0:00:11 – Kayla

Welcome to the Peas and Carrots Podcast. I’m Brian and I’m Kayla. Good to have you along this week, and this is going to be a very special part one of two podcasts that we had the privilege of sitting down with your executive assistant, Adam Read, and his wife Trisha, and so we’ll get to that in a minute, but let’s start here. What’s up in the Cabbage Patch? 

0:00:37 – Brian

We’re very busy right now. 

0:00:39 – Kayla

Yes, we are. 

0:00:40 – Brian

We’re in the middle of our fundraising season. Well, actually it just began. It’s like a week old, I guess. 

0:00:46 – Kayla

Yeah, we will have three weeks to go as of the time this drops, so yeah lots of caffeine. 

0:00:52 – Brian

We’re in the thick of it seeing God move. Very little sleep.

0:00:56 – Kayla

So yeah, it’s good and in the midst of all this, for those of you who know me or have followed us for a while in this crazy adventure, I love sweets, but I’ve been trying really, really hard to choose fresh food and not junk, and man, this is hard. So, yeah, even chocolate, which we took like a three-year hiatus from each other. 

0:01:29 – Brian

We broke up for a while because of COVID. Are y’all back on speaking terms? 

0:01:33 – Kayla

Certain kinds of chocolate, yeah. 

0:01:36 – Brian

But I don’t crave it like I not really, not like I used to. You’re eating this hue chocolate. 

0:01:43 – Kayla

It’s pretty good, it’s all natural, it doesn’t have a lot of additives and it’s dark chocolate. I can only do dark chocolate now. But yeah, so there’s this meme, all of that, to say this it’s a dog and he’s sitting in front of a wall with a hole in it and it says I miss carbs, I ate a wall. So I feel like that’s who I am right now. 

0:02:09 – Brian

Yes, preach sister. So Sunday morning we were leaving for church and let me just say this I love pins and Adam Read. 

0:02:20 – Kayla

You have a little bit of a fetish over pins. 

0:02:23 – Brian

Adam Read, who you will hear from in a few moments. He’s my executive assistant. He also is one of my very best friends in the world. For Christmas he got me a Darth Vader pen and I loved it. I mean it writes well. I mean I love a good pen. So I went and ordered I found out where they came from Went and got the Kylo Ren pen, the R2-D2 pen and an extra Darth Vader one. Well, Sunday morning I just put the Kylo Ren pen in my Bible. 

0:02:54 – Kayla

And I am sitting in our women’s Sunday school class. 

0:02:57 – Brian

So I get to church, I drop you off at the door, we get to church and I go to the back seat to get my Bible out to walk in for Sunday school. I don’t see the pen. Well, I look all over that truck, I look outside the truck and I go into church and I’m walking by your Sunday school class. 

0:03:12 – Kayla

Stick your head in and say Kay, do you have my Kylo Ren pen? Do you know where it is? 

0:03:18 – Brian

And five ladies’ heads, five or six ladies’ heads. They turned and looked at me and our director of ministries Her name is Christy Schrader she says I think that’s fantastic that you have a Kylo Ren pen and she says, would you like a normal pen? I said no, it’s not a Kylo Ren pen, but good news. 

0:03:37 – Kayla

We found your pen in the front yard when we got home from church. 

0:03:43 – Brian

So, yeah, I’m pretty happy about that. So we spent some time with Adam and Trisha Read, okay, and we’re going to introduce them to you. He will tell his story and then we’re going to come back and we’re going to comment on some things that they said. We think that this is going to be a powerful, powerful time and, as promised, we are joined by Adam and Trisha Read. Thanks for joining us today, guys. 

0:04:14 – Adam

It’s good to be here. Thank you for having us, Brian and Kayla. 

0:04:18 – Brian

Let me just say this Adam Read is the director of digital media for the ministry that we serve at, positive alternative radio, and his other role, which is his cross to bear, is you are my executive assistant, yeah so I get a break from you during the day so I try and make your you know absorb some of it so that when he comes home, at night. 

0:04:43 – Adam

Thank you, it’s a little easier for you. 

0:04:44 – Brian

Hopefully, this is my life. Y’all, this is my life. You’re so blessed, Brian, so Trisha and I try to take some of this off of you during the day, okay. 

0:04:54 – Trish

We attempt to balance it out there. 

0:04:59 – Brian

So Adam and I, we are great friends, but I also need you to know that, Adam I’m talking to the audience right now, but you also have a medical condition, and if you could tell us that story. And then we want to ask Trisha how y’all have seen God work through this in your marriage. 

0:05:22 – Adam

Sure, yeah, I think it might be helpful to start just kind of explaining what the story is of. The condition is so a little bit of background into what my life is like, and my wife is such a support through all of it, and has been even before we were married, as things started to show up. So I started having some medical issues when I was about 16 and really didn’t know that they were related to anything. It was just kind of like, okay, that’s odd, and we just started to think that it was a one-time issue. And then, about the time I was 20, shortly after, well, a month after really, we started dating, I had my lung collapse once and I was like, okay, that was another really odd thing, it was just spontaneous, it just collapsed. 

0:06:06 – Kayla

For a 20-year-old yeah. 

0:06:07 – Adam

Yeah, I mean, it’s just your middle of college. You think you’re kind of invincible at that point, you know like you’re supposed to be at your peak of health or so, and just it kind of shuts you down. Ended up having surgery for that. Things looked like they recovered and then, a month to the day from the first time it collapsed, it collapsed again, oh my. So they ended up doing the same surgery again, but it didn’t work the second time and so they ended up doing a very invasive surgery where they went in through, they cut some ribs, went in and worked on the lung itself to actually staple off a bunch of what essentially most people would think of as like blisters across the lung. But I couldn’t collapse and during that time I was dating my wife and her and her family were in the area where the college were and she stuck with me through all of that, even got. Did you get a speeding ticket? 

0:06:57 – Trish

A warning. I just got a warning. 

0:06:59 – Adam

On the way to the hospital. She was so intent on coming to see me, Brian, I want you to know she cared. Would it have been worth a ticket? So intent on coming to see me, Brian? I want you to know she cares. Would it have been worth a ticket? 

0:07:06 – Brian

Well maybe it’s just. 

0:07:09 – Trish

Oh I like that. 

0:07:10 – Brian

She paused. She paused, I like that. 

0:07:13 – Trish

I think maybe the more important thing is I probably was late, which maybe is something. 

0:07:18 – Adam

Late to what. 

0:07:18 – Trish

To like. 

0:07:19 – Adam

Class. 

0:07:20 – Trish

To like when I was supposed to be there, oh so when you were supposed to be here. 

0:07:23 – Adam

Well, I would have forgiven you for that, but I might not have to struggle with that delay. So yeah, she was there through. All of that Ended up was actually kind of funny. After I had my second surgery it was a very long recovery just to be able to get up and walk around again, really because of the amount of work they did. So it was multiple months and she worked at camp that summer away from her home, just a few miles away, and I actually lived at her house with her parents and so I got to know her parents real well and they got to know me and they still somehow put up with me after all that and liked me. 

0:07:54 – Trish

Maybe like you better. They like me better than you. 

0:07:58 – Adam

I don’t think so. 

0:07:59 – Brian

I don’t think so. 

0:08:00 – Adam

But yeah, so that kind of started it and honestly we didn’t know what caused all that. But we kind of looked around a little bit but thought, okay, that’s probably over now. And then just through the years till now it’s just kind of been a constant roll of things. We had a lot of issues come up. I’ve had over a dozen surgeries now, including two brain surgeries, three lung surgeries and multiple other stuff, you know, cutting bones, connecting, reconnecting stuff that’s coming out of socket. So it took us. I think we decided we’re talking about it last night. Was it like? 

0:08:39 – Trish

Around 2013. 

0:08:40 – Adam

2013. So it took us like 13 years to finally get a diagnosis, because it was a rare disease. 

0:08:46 – Kayla

Oh, wow. 

0:08:47 – Adam

And so it’s called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Eds is the short term and it’s a little bit more commonly known now because there’s been some awareness projects around it and there’s various types of it. But for me it’s affected my whole body, so I live every day in pain. I can’t remember what a day without pain is like. And then God brought you into my life, and then my pain tripled. Okay, maybe not that bad. 

0:09:19 – Kayla

I have to interject here, though, in all seriousness and I can’t speak for Trisha again home life. You know you’re entitled to be grumpy there. No-transcript, in as much pain as you wrestle. I just need to interject that, that you are one of the kindest and most gracious and, again, I know we all have our moments. So I’m sure Trish is sitting there going. Are we talking about the same? 

0:09:45 – Trish

No, actually I think especially specifically like hospital situations, when things are serious, like he gets calmer, I necessarily but she’s a great advocate you get calmer. 

0:09:56 – Adam

She’s a huge advocate for me and I’m more like, okay, like I process it and I actually get humorous at that. 

0:10:04 – Trish

Like it’s really bad If I get really nervous. 

0:10:06 – Brian

So when you’re facing death. 

0:10:07 – Adam

you’re cracking jokes. If it’s that serious, I’m cracking jokes and then she knows I’m worried. 

0:10:13 – Trish

Okay. But then there’s an aspect where then I kind of get into like, okay, let’s get things done. 

0:10:19 – Adam

But she’s been a great advocate for me when I’ve not been able to speak for myself, literally about what’s going on? It’s been a huge thing to have her and her support. Like me, being who I am today is obviously our savior, is who we rely on and all of it, but it is a huge part to my wife. 

0:10:37 – Trish

I think we all have our moments. 

0:10:38 – Adam

Yeah, absolutely on in all of it, but it is a huge part to my wife. I think we all have our moments. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I mean I have a rib that’s constantly out of place and other ones that separate, if I move around too much, from the sternum or from the spine, so it’s like every breath is painful, like it’s just the way I live. And since then I’ve been diagnosed. Well, I have three rare diseases. So I’m just trying to add up and be a little more weird than I already am, Brian. 

0:11:05 – Brian

So yeah, nothing on that. What are those? 

0:11:07 – Adam

I’m trying to be really nice to you. It’s not working. 

0:11:11 – Brian

I can see it in your face. You don’t have a straight face. What are those three diseases? 

0:11:14 – Adam

So there’s of course the EDS, and then I have autoimmune autonomic ganglionopathy. 

0:11:22 – Kayla

Which is that sounds terrible? 

0:11:22 – Adam

Yeah, your body is attacking. 

0:11:23 – Kayla

Itself right. 

0:11:24 – Adam

Yourself and eventually affects the small nerve fiber system. So it creates neuropathy in my heart, in my blood vessels, like how your body communicates to those to make them contract and regulate blood pressure or to like keep the blood flow flowing correctly throughout the whole body doesn’t work properly and that’s why I have the monthly infusions that I have. They don’t do anything for the pain or whatever. It’s just to help the body not attack itself as much, so it can kind of attack the other things that I get, and then the other ones are bleeding disorder. That’s rare. 

0:11:55 – Brian

Yeah, let me go back to what Kayla said. I’ve never heard you grumble. 

0:12:01 – Kayla

I’ve never heard you complain. 

0:12:02 – Brian

I’d be a walking complaint department. I just want to say that, and so part of the reason why we wanted to invite you two on the podcast is because you’re both very humble. You lean into Christ more than I’ve ever seen. I mean, I don’t understand that. So here’s what I want to ask you to how do you do that? 

0:12:26 – Adam

Well, first of all I would say I don’t feel like I’m those things. I feel like I have a long way to go in any of those areas. I think when you have nowhere else to turn, you’re going to turn to various things. You have various options anyway to try and escape when you’re in pain. One is to just dull it by looking for hope, other places, right, and that never lasts, and I think there’s been times that I’ve done that, you know, like tried to find relief and other things that could distract from the pain. 

I think the other thing is trying to put your hope in things that the world holds on to and you realize when you’re in a condition like mine, that is only going to get worse over time. Those things aren’t going to last either. So it kind of gives you a different perspective on life in some ways. The things that I would normally have held on to in life the Lord has, because of his graciousness and allowing me to even have the stuff that I have and I say that in a kind of a weird way because that sounds odd, but it’s true he’s pulled some of the stuff that I would have naturally held on to away from me and that’s been not fun. That’s been a whole lot of hard days, wouldn’t you say, babe? 

0:13:36 – Trish

Yeah, I think one of the things we talked about with the kids last night we were asking them and they said, like we didn’t really have a choice, like it wasn’t like we picked this and so from that, then knowing that all good things, but also all things, are from our heavenly father. So just seeing that as like okay, it’s not us choosing one thing or the other, just seeing that as like okay, it’s not us choosing one thing or the other, it’s that we’ve been given this and attempting to steward it well. 

0:14:00 – Brian

The Lord’s given us this and we’re attempting to steward it. Well, yeah, how do you look at your husband, who you know is in pain, and say, okay, god, you’ve given this to us. Help me see this as something good and to steward it, because I find that kind of faith amazing. 

0:14:19 – Trish

I think it’s part of what we have like, just in our faith, trusting in Christ, and if we trust him right for eternity, right, so if I’m trusting him for eternity, then I’m also trusting him for today. So if he’s big enough for our eternity, then he’s enough for what he has given today. And I think, just remembering like the world is broken right, like all of us live in a broken world, so our broken is every day, each of us. So when we say like well, well, this situation, like he’s not grumpy or whatever, but I also see it as like, okay, we have a choice today. 

0:14:55 – Kayla

Yeah. 

0:14:55 – Trish

Just like what I tell my kids every day Okay, you have a choice, what are you going to choose? And so, if I’m living for myself, yeah, this isn’t fair, I don’t want to do this, and we have those. We have to fight that. It’s not that it’s not a battle, but it’s making sure our perspective is correct of like. I don’t deserve easy. That’s not what Christ has called us to.

0:15:15 – Adam

Yeah, and I think we’ve kind of come back many times to like, if I understand scripture correctly, what I deserve is death and separation from God forever in hell. That’s what I deserve, and so anything less than that is his grace. And that still doesn’t sound fun and cheery sometimes. Like we want, like we want always, like well the gospel, everything will be great. Well, the gospel doesn’t say that life on this earth is going to be all roses and happiness. And you know, rainbow, like it’s going to be hard, like it makes it clear that life on this earth is still going to be hard. And, as a believer, there’ll be difficult things. And I think some of the hardest things we had to wrestle with is like the death of what you thought were dreams about what life would be like, like thinking like life’s going to be good. 

0:15:59 – Brian

You got stuck with me. 

0:16:01 – Adam

Yeah, that On an everyday, Brian, 3 am to 5 am on my knees, but no, it’s like life is not what we expected. It. It’s just so different. 

0:16:13 – Trish

I think we say this is plan what. 

0:16:19 – Adam

Yeah, we’re like, are we through the alphabet? And starting over again on what we thought? Because then you get a new diagnosis and you’re like, okay, well, then this changes. And struggling with you know, like okay, my kid wants me to go play ball with them and not able to do that right now. Or it’s just those little life moments that you think about and you’re like, okay, like I don’t want my kids to have to deal with this issue, like I’d rather them just have a normal dad. 

And I struggled with that for quite some time. But I mean, this is a very simple truth. I don’t know why it took me so long to realize it and why it’s taken me so long to go. Like I have to remind myself of it is that God chose to put them in this family and he has promised to give me grace for whatever he puts in my path. He has chosen to put them here and he has promised to give them grace for what he puts in their path, and part of that is the family he’s placed them into, and so we’ve seen God work in ways in their lives through it too, even though it’s not always been easy. 

0:17:12 – Brian

How do the kids respond to this? 

0:17:14 – Trish

Before we started recording, you were telling us a story about yeah, so we have, you know, just as any like, they’re all completely different. So we have one that is absolutely fascinated with the medical field and she wants to conquer, like, she wants to figure out and solve problems. So I think some of that is because of what she has seen, and she loves to see when IVs are put in and all the details she would put it in herself if we’d let her.

And we have one that is incredibly just. She has a huge heart and hates to see anyone suffer, and so her processing looks differently. So, in those aspects of giving them space, first of all, to be able to discuss how they feel, what they think, but also encouraging like, hey, it’s okay to struggle, yeah, giving openness of like, yeah, it stinks, it’s hard, and not pretending it’s not, yeah, and I think that’s one thing I’ve had to work through over the years. 

0:18:10 – Adam

I used to think I had to have like some sort of Pollyanna attitude toward it, like rejoice in all things, Like Like I just need to be happy about it and be like well, this is what God’s given me. This is great guys. You know like just this is super, it’s OK, and just over the years coming around, like no, it stinks. 

0:18:30 – Kayla

But God’s given us an array of emotions. He doesn’t expect us just to be joyful all the time. 

0:18:36 – Adam

Yeah, Like I can of emotions. He doesn’t expect us just to be joyful all the time. Yeah, it’s okay to be sad about things. We live in a broken world and it’s not only unnatural, it’s unhealthy. It’s unhealthy in the sense that if we’re looking for hope where it should be, which is in eternity yeah these sad things help us to see and want eternity, and forever and eternity in a healthy, better way than if we just act like everything’s okay to know Adam, you would never believe he’s lived with chronic pain for as much of his life as he has. 

0:19:13 – Kayla

Because I’m just keeping it real, he is not an Eeyore. He is one of the most encouraging and humorous people that we’ve ever had the chance to do life with, would you agree? 

0:19:25 – Brian

I agree, he razzes me and you’ve heard some of that there. And let me say this he’s one of the most cheerful people. 

0:19:35 – Kayla

Yeah. 

0:19:35 – Brian

He’s the most cheerful person I’ve ever met, even as he carries all this. 

0:19:41 – Kayla

Yeah, he’s cheerful, he aggravates me, he tells me jokes, he smiles and I sit there in amazement at that, because that convicts me, because I don’t have three rare diseases and yet someone that does, can take the time and is willing to embrace the fact that your role requires a lot, that it’s very heavy, it bears a lot of responsibility, and so Adam’s great delight is in finding ways that he can come alongside you and gift you information that you might need, or a joke to dispel some tension. He’s not focused on how much he’s hurting or how difficult his day is. He is looking for ways to make someone else’s day less difficult, and he does this for like 60 team members in PAR. In very different ways, he finds moments for encouragement. 

0:20:43 – Brian

It’s pretty incredible. 

0:20:44 – Kayla

There was another powerful statement, and again we’re going to let you, the listener, sit with your own takeaways, so we’re just going to share a few of ours. It’s easy to look everywhere for relief, and I thought that was very powerful and we’re all guilty of it, but realizing that when we have nowhere else to turn, we can and should turn to Christ. 

0:21:08 – Brian

That moved me. 

0:21:09 – Kayla

So powerful. 

0:21:10 – Brian

That just. 

0:21:11 – Kayla

Because we all have our crutches. 

0:21:13 – Brian

It reminds me of a phrase that my friend Rock Collins once said. He says I’ve reached the bottom and it was there that I found the solid rock. Phew Adam said I can’t remember what a day without pain is like. That can’t remember what a day without pain is like. 

0:21:35 – Kayla

That. That’s a foreign concept to me, because I have many pain-free days. I wasn’t in college starting to deal with a debilitating illness, yeah, collapsed lung, I mean just the very thought of how many. 

It took them 13 years to get a diagnosis it’s unimaginable. It was sweet seeing how, in times of great stress, god gave each of them strengths and continues to. We even saw this sitting with them at lunch that day. He cracks jokes and it was interesting. I learned something about Adam that typically when he’s trying to use humor it’s because he’s deflecting something else. So I will be mindful to that moving forward. But Trisha is me. In stressful situations she becomes the take charge get answers. 

0:22:23 – Brian

What do I do? 

0:22:24 – Kayla

You freak out, and that’s OK. It’s just in the moment when there is a stressful situation. 

0:22:30 – Brian

I feel so manly right now. 

0:22:34 – Kayla

I felt this tug in my heart that God gives her the strength in those moments to be his advocate. He even called her that and it was very beautiful, and that’s how it looks sometimes. So yeah, and it was very beautiful, and that’s how it looks sometimes. 

0:22:47 – Brian

So yeah, I love seeing in the room to build on what you’re saying, is that her role of being an advocate and seeing how God has meshed them together. 

0:22:59 – Kayla

Yeah. 

0:22:59 – Brian

And they complement each other. 

0:23:01 – Kayla

Oh, they really do. 

0:23:02 – Brian

Because as the stress gets higher, he gets funnier. 

0:23:07 – Kayla

And she gets serious. 

0:23:13 – Brian

And she has to ask questions. So I find it interesting how God puts our lives together. 

0:23:16 – Kayla

Yeah, and it was really special seeing them together and realizing how perfect they are for each other. There was one other thing that Adam said in this part and again we’re excited to share the second episode next week but he referred to stewarding it. Well, will others be drawn to Christ because of how he handles these struggles? And he and Trisha both reference this because, after 10 minutes with them, I cannot imagine a more authentic way to sum them up is that they want to steward this struggle Well that’s a foreign concept to me. 

0:23:57 – Brian

I got to be honest with you because I want it to get over. 

0:24:01 – Kayla

Yeah. 

0:24:02 – Brian

You’re looking for an out, I’m looking for an out. I’m looking for relief. He’s looking to how to steward it well, how to live it well. That killed me. Trisha made a statement that if the Lord’s enough to get us to eternity, then he’s enough to get us through today. That’s going to become a little quote card for me, because there are days when I feel like he has abandoned me, that he doesn’t care, that he’s left me. But I look at them and I’m not caring near what they’re carrying. And so be of good cheer, be of hope that if he keeps his promises that Jesus came just to die for us and yet he’s going to get us to heaven, well then, certainly he can get us through the problems of today. We hope that you’ve been encouraged by today’s podcast. We know that we have been. 

0:24:54 – Kayla

Our hearts have been encouraged, and we want to end with something special. So for the first two people who go to our website and answer this question correctly, you will win a peas and carrots coffee mug and some cute stickers. We always refer to them correctly. You will win a peas and carrots coffee mug and some cute stickers. We always refer to them. But when you go to our website, look for the trivia button. Click that. You’ll go to the peasandcarrotspodcast.com website. Click that trivia button. Share with us a verse that sustains you in times of struggle. That’s good, and we will actually share that with Adam and Trisha. Oh so if will actually share that with Adam and Trisha, oh so if you will do that, we’re not going to ask you a cutesy trivia question this week. We want to encourage the encouragers. 

0:25:38 – Brian

What’s a verse that carries you through hard times? Simply go to our website peasandcarrotspodcast.com, look for the trivia button and answer that question. 

0:25:47 – Kayla

Share that verse with us. There you go. You can search the Peas and Carrots Podcast wherever you get your podcasts, or visit our website peasandcarrotspodcast.com. When you do, please don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast. 

0:25:58 – Brian

You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Just search for the Peas and Carrots Podcast. 

0:26:03 – Announcer

For more about the Peas and Carrots Podcast and to reach out to Brian and Kayla, visit peasandcarrotspodcast.com. Life’s not perfect. That’s why God gave us friends like Melody and Candi. Check out QuirksBumpsandBruises.com, or search Quirks, Bumps, and Bruises wherever you listen to podcasts.