What if the hardest things that ever happened to you became the very tools that set you free?
That’s the surprising turn in our conversation with author and speaker Michaela Cox, who faced the “triple D” by 38—disability, divorce, and death—and learned how to transform crisis into clarity.
Born totally blind and later regaining impaired sight, she grew up solving problems most of us never consider: accommodations at school, transportation without driving, and parenting with a body that plays by different rules. Then life widened the challenge. Divorce pushed her to rebuild. The sudden loss of her husband turned everyday moments into a masterclass in courage while raising two young kids.
If you need a roadmap to navigate grief, chronic challenges, or the long rebuild after life breaks your plan, this story offers hard-won tools and warm company for the road. Listen for the moments on faith, mindset, and practical logistics you can apply today. If this conversation helps, share it with a friend who needs hope, hit follow, and leave a quick review to help others find the show.
If you want to connect with Michaela, you can follow her on Instagram @nowisee779 or if you want to hear her TEDx talk go to Youtube at https://youtu.be/Lib2zOIPh8U?si=P7aH1s0Nh
To download a free chapter of host Sylvia Worsham’s bestselling book, In Faith, I Thrive: Finding Joy Through God’s Masterplan, purchase any of her products, or book a call with her, visit her website at www.sylviaworsham.com
Transcript:
If you’ve ever struggled with fear, doubt, or worry and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, Sylvia Warsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, Sylvia Warsham.
Hey library, it’s Sylvia Warsham. Welcome to Release Dot Reveal Purpose. And today is Michaela Cox. And we’ve had the most fantastic conversation prior to this podcast interview. And I know we’re gonna have an awesome show. In fact, I’m feeling the Holy Spirit as I’m saying this, so I know everything that she has to share. It’s meant for someone listening on the other end. So without further ado, Michaela, thank you so much for joining us today on Release Dow Reveal Purpose.
Well, thank you for having me. I’m glad to be here and share with your audience what I have as part of my story and my writing and all the things. Uh like you said so perfectly. I am Michaela Cox. I am a multi-published author and a speaker and a whole bunch of other things. Everything people are like, girl, like what are you doing? Like, I can’t just do one thing. Like if you do what I got in college and graduate school, you’d be like, okay, never mind.
You’re a Renaissance woman. That’s what it is. You know, I mean, when we think of the Renaissance man, they did everything, right? They dabbled in this and that. And the truth is, we’re all kind of a little bit like that, right? Because our our lives, they’re not linear, they take so many detours. We have so many things that happened initially. You know, we’re little kids and we the modeling we receive from home, and we end up in in acts that are not really meant for us, right? And then something happens to us, and that’s when our lens shift. And I know you have an amazing story of transformation to share with us on legal blindness, disability, and divorce. The double D. And you not only survive both, most people can’t survive one, you survive both, and now you’re thriving at life. So please, please let us know your story of transformation through these major things that happened to you.
It’s actually three D’s, it’s disability, divorce, and death. Um, all by the age of 38. So when I say 38 triple D, it’s not what people think. My two kids are 12 and 15. So it’s been a while since I was dealing with that. But um, I think it’s funny before I get into that that you mentioned Renaissance because that’s like actually one of my favorite time periods to study in history. So I thought that was kind of interesting. Um, yeah, I was originally born in Houston, Texas, so I’m a Texas girl, so I don’t know if your audience will be able to see me, but I am a redhead southern Texas Scorpio, so um, let it your imagination and the reputation probably perceives itself for better or for worse, but it is what it is, and I’m okay with that. Um I was born actually totally blind, and I very much come from a background of Christianity and faith, and faith is a huge part of my story and my life and a cornerstone of it. So in our family, we very much believe that even though I was born totally blind, that at seven months old God granted me healing in my sight, even though it’s impaired. And so now it’s just very much impaired in legal blindness, and there’s a lot of pieces to that. Like I’m fixing to show my age, I’ll be 47 in November. So I was born in 78. So not that we know all the answers now, but we are light years ahead of where we were at in 78, obviously. I mean, dear Lord, please, let’s hope so. Um so I was what was considered a medical mystery or fluke because other than your typical vision problems of like, okay, you had readers, no one in my family has the particular vision problem that I have, and my kids don’t have it, so thank God, thank you, Lord Jesus. But I don’t know if there’s a way genetically to find out now, but it’s proven they’re not because they don’t have it, so it’s not genetic, so it was a fluke. So the doctor’s in 78, and he was so like, I don’t know why she was born this way, I don’t understand why she can’t see, and then we’re like, we really don’t understand why she’s seeing what she’s not supposed to be seeing, and we don’t know how any of this happened. So they’re uh what to tell you. So it was kind of a what do we do with this? Um the root cause of my um medical visual issues, and when I say this, I don’t mean normal and what the heck is normal. I mean anatomically from a medical, physiological, healthy, normal, okay? What they would expect to see if you were the way it’s supposed to be. I don’t know if anyone has a medical background in your audience or if you do, or seen pictures in like biology or an anime physiology class or your doctor’s office. The optic nerve is supposed to have a proper shape. It’s either I it’s either whatever shape it’s supposed to be, mine is the opposite. I can’t remember if a healthy optic nerve is cone shape or round shape, but whatever it’s supposed to be, I’m the opposite. And the optic nerve, a healthy optic nerve, is supposed to be purple, actually what I have on today. And when reality, it my optic nerve is more like the pale um manila folder, like my skin color is. I’m as pale as you can be. So what that translates to in real life, it means because the optic nerve is not the way it’s supposed to be, the blood can’t go through properly to send the right signals to the brain to tell the eye what to perceive. So it’s like a delayed effect. And it takes me longer to do everything. And then if it was only that simple, which it’s not, because it can’t be fixed, um, which is fine. I don’t want to go messing with my brainstem anyway. Okay, I’m good, I’ll stay pet. I’ll keep the devil I’ve known for almost 47 years, okay? I’m good, thanks. Um you throw into that mix uh nearsightedness, um, peripheral vision, nope, not good peripheral vision, horrible death perception, astigmatism, and astigmatism, it makes for a very lovely, complicated, not as simple as everybody would like to think, visual concoction. People ask you. This is what you’re born with.
This is what you’re born with, this is what you’re presented with.
Yeah.
How do you thrive?
How do you thrive out of that?
There’s never been a day or will there be a day where I won’t see what it’s like to see normally like what y’all see. Y’all have no clue what I see, I have no clue what y’all see. Because mine are just totally jacked up. Well, I was raised with the ideals and beliefs of you don’t quit, you don’t stop, you don’t give up, and let’s see what she can do. And for me, that looked like with a lot of faith, a lot of hard work and determination, in my opinion. If you can’t move the mountain, then you either go under it, over it, through it, or whatever. You find a way to go through it. Now, there are a few exceptions to that because I’m sure y’all can imagine if you are legally blind, you have no business driving. Legal blindness and driving should never go together. So, everybody, welcome. I stay off the roads. Now, that being said, my daughter’s 15 and she’s gonna start driving next year and go, Hallelujah, thank you, Jesus. Okay. But um, yeah, so other than what is not medically or legally advised, I don’t try and get around that, but I can do what normal people do. I just do it differently. Like um five year olds, five years old kindergarten through grad school, I had accommodations. I don’t drive, so I hire people or I get rides or I Uber or I lift or I whatever. You know, there’s ways of doing things. There’s usually more than one way of doing things. Um I learned easily early in life with a disparity, like I said, every day of my life has been like this, so it’s never not been that it’s about choices, so you can either accept the hand of card you were dealt or you can decide to not be defined by your circumstances, but to define it for yourself. And once you make that chur choice of not just being a survivor but thriving and to be a victor and not a victim and you know all the verbiage, um once you make that choice, you don’t have a choice because overcoming is overcoming is overcoming. Yes, each obstacle in life is different and has its own idiosyncrasies, but to overcome it is still the same skill set and idea. Um it’s not a question in life as to whether we will or we won’t have adversity. I’d like to see anyone say, I got through this life unscathed with nothing. I’m like, uh, you need to bottle that and sell that you’d be a rich man and have to work a day in your life or woman. Um we all need that get out of obstacle car, which you’re not gonna find. So would you rather be frozen in life when things come? Because they will come. It’s a question of who what, to what degree, how many and when. Would you rather be frozen staring into the headlights of life going, oh crap, I don’t know what to do, I can’t move? Would you rather risk drowning in the life storm you’re in? Or would you rather I always believe in door number three. Why does it have to be one or the other? Find your own way if you have to, or make your own way. Have a plan or a roadmap of somewhat to speak, because there is no actual roadmap or instruction manual, wouldn’t that be nice and easy? To help you know that in those hard things you know exactly what to do, or at least a path through. And so I did these things when I was a kid, I just didn’t know I was doing them, or at least to word them the way I do now. And then so when I got divorced, I thought what the crap now? I was like, oh, I’ve done this before. I’ve worked through hard stuff before, so I’ll just do what I did before and do it again in just different ways. When my husband died in 2017, oh not really, I hadn’t dealt with grief before, but I knew what it was to get through hard things. It’s and so I thought, oh, I’ll just do this again. And I’m still applying those things, and uh I was having a conversation with uh a a friend and colleague in another in uh industry and thing I w I work with, and we were talking about what I’ve been going through in my grief journey, and she’s like, Girl, you need to give yourself some grace. I’m like, yeah, I’m not very good at that. I’m going, wait a minute, grief, grace, grief, oh my gosh, blinding grace through grief, there you go. And so that’s how I came up in that vertage and that series to write, because I write actually six series I’m building out, and I don’t know, I’ve lost count how many titles I’ve written, and I’ve just almost done with almost another manuscript, and I’ll probably add two more series, all the things. And so what I did was I took these five pieces that got me through because these five things I’m fixing to explain to you guys of how you go from surviving to thriving, it’s really universal. It’s the idea of what you need to overcome no matter what you’re trying to overcome. Yes, I talk about it in the context of grief because that’s what I’m working in, but I did it when I was when I had was born disabled, did it as a kid, do it an adult being disabled, did it when I got divorced, and still doing it with grief, because it’s just me overcoming whatever’s been thrown in my path. Because, like I said, I may have gotten dealt this hand, I didn’t choose it. Yes, I chose a way to work a walk away from my first marriage, but it was no longer a tenable situation, and I wasn’t gonna stay in it. So I chose to leave, but I did not choose the circumstances that caused me to have to leave. But I get to decide, I get to define what my life is gonna look like. These circumstances don’t have to define me.
And and I totally agree with you on that. Totally agree with you. It’s a matter of mindset. I remember interviewing um trying to remember his name. He was a Canadian, it was the very first interview I had from PodMatch.com, and he went, he lost his sight in the middle of the metro station in the UK and for like 20 minutes, and it turned out to be a brain tumor. And by he lost, like the circumstances he found himself in, he said he had a choice. My mindset determined whether I survived or thrived through this episode, and I totally get that. I totally get that because you’re right, it is a choice. Sometimes it’s not like the wounds that we’re working through weren’t our fault, but they are our responsibility, and what that entails is the choices we are making. It’s completely a conscious choice that we are making to view it one way or the other. You either be a victor or a victim in this situation, and we know that when we are a victim, you’re gonna stay stuck there for a long time, and it’s not gonna bring you joy, and it’s not gonna bring you satisfaction. It’s gonna you’re gonna stay in your miserable box, right? We always say your comfort zone, and my husband always brilliantly says, that’s not comfort at all, that’s misery zone. Right? So I love your take on this, that you could have easily said, Well, this happened to me, and so I’m just not gonna do anything about it. No, you actually learned because of your disability, because you were born blind, you learned certain things that equipped you for the divorce, that equipped you for the death of your second, the love of your life, you know, the father of your children.
I went to high school, I went to college, I got married, I got divorced, I’ve mothered two children, I got my master’s, I’ve written, you know, all it it’s harder, it’s not easy. I’m not saying I have all the answers, but you figure it out.
You know, I there’s so much wisdom in that though. My goodness, like right now you’re in a point where some people would want to be you with the level of wisdom you’ve gained as you’ve journeyed through disability, as you’ve journeyed through divorce, as you’ve journeyed through your journeying through grief. Because how long ago did your husband pass away?
Almost eight and a half in October.
Okay. But it’s still when you see the kids and you have to parent them alone, that’s a constant reminder that he’s not there.
I met her 12 and 15, and I don’t want to get into politics, but my heart sunk um for uh Erica Kirk last week when because I had her kids, her daughter was three when my son was three, so I’m going, oh my god.
Yeah, you could relate. You could relate. And I I think all mothers out there and all wives out there related to her. It’s so sad that it was just and regardless of politics, we’re human beings first and foremost.
And as human beings, we could certainly like relate to her, and it was just not thinking about the situation and knowing how old my kids were, they’re a little bit older than her, but like I said, my son was her daughter’s age right now, three, and then my daughter was sick. So my kids were a little bit older, but I was just like I was sick to my stomach for her. I was like, oh my god.
Yeah, and I was too my heart broke for for those children in particular, because little kids, they they have nothing to do with anything that’s going on in the world. They don’t, they’re they’re totally innocent pieces of the puzzle, you know, and and it’s years, but she’s just now starting and like going, oh dear God. But you know what? Your books and your tips can help someone like Erica Kirk through a dark chapter like this. So come and get it, give us some perspective on the five keys of grace.
The first thing is once you’ve made your decision to like, okay, screw it, I’m gonna overcome this. I’m gonna I’m going to choose what I do with the cards that were dealt me. You have to have your grounding. You have to know your purpose, you have to have know your why. What is gonna keep you going in those hard and dark days? Like for me, it’s my faith, it’s my family, it’s my friends. It may be something different with you, but you need something to stand firm on that’s gonna hold you steady so you can keep doing the next thing. Um so know your foundation, what is gonna ground you? A lot of times you have to have a purpose, you have to have a why. And the very moment that I found out that my husband was gone, I didn’t know a lot, but I knew and immediately, I’m not, there’s some things you just it never leaves you, you’ll never forget it. Um I remember standing there going, okay, I don’t know what’s gonna come, I don’t know how this is gonna go, but I have to at least do everything I can to be make sure my kids are okay. But it just becomes more urgent and more like because you know you’re the only one that can do that now. And so it’s like it’s all on you, so you have to do your utmost more so than ever before. Um, and so they were my they still are my why and my purpose, and then um that’s what got me through those hard first moments, was like I had to and I’m not taking for someone grief is grief is grief, and it’s all hard, but it’s a very different journey to walk when you’re like a Erica or um even a me, even though my kids were a little bit older. And you like I found out at nine o’clock on the East Coast, because we were living in New Hampshire at the time, he was gone, and less than ten hours later, I had to get up at six and make my daughter breakfast and get off to school. If there was ever an Oscar-winning performance in my life, that should have gotten me the Oscar because she didn’t have a freaking clue what was going on. I don’t know how I did it, I really don’t.
I know your faith. Right. God is there with you. Like when you ask him for help, yeah, and when you think that you can’t, you’re right, you can’t. That’s why he’s there. So he can supernaturally provide us the strength and the courage that we need to get to the next day.
There’s no reason why I should have been able to do that other than by God. That’s the only reason that happened. Um, and I didn’t tell her for like, I don’t know, maybe looking back as a bad mom, but I did the best. I didn’t I didn’t know what else to do. She found out on Thursday, like less than 48 hours later. But um, so you know, you you need that grounding to steady you to make you be able to do the things you don’t want to do, because believe me, that is hard crap, man. There’s nothing easy about any of that, and it ain’t simple and none of it. And I still feel like I could write a book saying, I’ve never done this before, because I have said that so many times over the last eight years, like I’ve never done this before. Still saying it. But um, and you just do it you can. So the grounding is key, I think, and then we’ve kind of already talked about it. The R of grace is being redeemed and redesigned because when you’re a curveball comes and a knock at your life’s door that changes everything that you thought would be, and you basically have to start over again, like I did after divorce, and then excuse me, sorry, um, losing my husband, you’re like, okay, well, what now? Well, I can’t be defined by that. Yes, it is a part of my story, and it always will be, but I had two kids, I had a six-year-old and three-year-old, I didn’t have a choice. You know, I had to keep doing the next thing, and so it was in that moment I had to decide what do I want to do for them and for me, and um still figure out parts of it, but you know, I had to keep going, and so I made the choice. I just like I wasn’t defined by my disability or my divorce, I’m not gonna be defined by this either. So you get to chart your own course, and then that takes us to A, which you’ve mentioned, and we kind of both have. There’s a reason why in our society that we hear about mind over matter, and that um I think it was Henry Ford and probably a couple other people. I’m not great at quoting quotes exactly, but is if you believe you can, if you believe you can’t, then yes, you’re right. What you put your mind to, you will do. I did say that the reason why I’ve been able to do what I’ve done is because of my faith, hard work, and determination. Okay, it’s my mindset. If you learn to live in abundance, and I’m not talking about finances, although that can be a piece of it. I’m not a financial planner, I have one in Texas, okay? They do that for me. But I’m talking about how you think about things. Like, do you believe you can do it? Do you believe that if you set a goal and made a choice that you want to do something, is your mindset going to carry you through when it gets tough and you know hard to do, and then you just you keep going? So, you know, are you going to be half empty, half full? The see the silver linings, focus on the negative, our mindset and how we protect our positive, healthy, good mindsets and mental space is absolute key in anything that you’re trying to overcome or life in general. So that’s the A. And then these really all could be separate conversations, but the C is next, and it’s about choosing care. Um, it’s self-care, and a lot of people I think there’s misnomers and misgivings about that. But when you really break it down and think about it’s just caring for yourself, like I don’t know about guys because obviously I’m not a guy, but I know I’m sure they have their own versions. But as women, we wear mini hats, y’all. Okay, I’m doing all the things, alright? Like, I’m a busy gal, alright? Like we all are. Whatever that looks like, what your plate is divided up between what you do and life, eventually if you don’t care for yourself, I think of it as like you’re a we are all deep, deep, deep, deep, deep wells, lots of water to give out, okay? And we’re happy to give it out, and that’s fine to whatever we’re giving it out to, but at some point at the end of the day, if you don’t put it back in, you’re gonna end up dry, a mess, frazzled, run down, drained, you know, empty, whatever, and then you’re not gonna be any good for you or all these other things that you’re trying to do. And so self-care is about whatever is giving care to you, yourself, and filling your well back up so that you can keep doing what you’ve chosen, that you’ve decided, and staying true to your mindset and your choices that you want to do, that you’re grounded in. So, like I said, that’s a very wide topic. We’re all unique individuals. Self-care for me is not self-care for someone else. And I promise you, if someone more power you power to you, God bless you, knock your self out. But if your version of self-care is a marathon, I’m not your girl. I’m happy keeping my bed on my couch, drinking a Dr. Pascal, or maybe a wine clear every once in a while, uh, with my uh little snacks and watching Hulu, okay? Or going out with friends. Or the spa or the beach or traveling. That’s my self-care. I have no desire to run a marathon. If that is your gym, I love it for you. But just know that’s my point. We’re all unique individuals, and what fills my soul and refills my cup is not going to be what refills someone else’s cup. And vice versa. And that’s okay. You just have to find what makes you feel that way so that you know you’re caring for yourself in the right way. And then set a date for yourself and schedule out on your calendar. We schedule everything else in our calendars. Why can’t we schedule a date with ourselves and do it at whatever level works for you? I mean, when I was a young mom, I don’t mean young like I was young, but a new mom with young babies. Uh when I had my daughter at 31, like I said, I wasn’t necessarily young, but I was young to motherhood. I had this crazy notion that, oh, you have an eight-month-old, you need to start grad school, and you’re in grad school, have another kid, and oh, by the way, you forget you’re disabled and you don’t have readers like you’re used to? Like, wow. So, you know, I had a when I was doing my thesis, I had a three-year-old or a four-month-old who wasn’t sleeping through the night. I have no time for nothing that semester except what I was doing. Like, I don’t even think my bestie really heard for me that semester. Probably love to tell. But my point is we go through different seasons. So, what if you’re in a certain season of maybe toddlers or new motherhood, your self-care is going to look very different when you’re thinking, dear God, can I just pee in pigs for five minutes? versus when your teenagers are headed into teenager years and they’re a little more self-efficient, like, okay, peace out, I’ll see you in two hours. It it just you have to make your self-care fit where you’re at and do it in measured forms. But find your own way, find the type that works for you in the season you’re in, and just make sure you do it. That’s the key is doing self-care. And then the last one is um being equipped, essentially equipped. And I think that one scares a lot of people, but like I said, a lot of these steps I did when I was a kid, and I got over it a long time ago. Because I assure you, if you got a disability and you don’t ask for help, you ain’t gonna get very far. So you just kind of got to get over yourself. And really, all that being equipped means is asking for help. I mean, we teach our kids when we send off to school, like, hey, you want to know something? You got a question, raise our hand, find out, learn, go, you know, it’s all right. It’s okay, they ain’t gonna bite. And I mean, we do it all the time without thinking about it, making this all scary up in our head back to middle space. But if you go on a trip, like I said, I like to travel, right? So if you go on a trip, you ain’t gonna get very far if you ain’t got a car with gas in it, or a bus ticket, or a plane ticket, or something. Well, you didn’t get those things poof out of the air with a magic fairy godermon. You wouldn’t go got what you needed. And if you’re traveling, you’re probably gonna get hungry at some point, so you’re gonna need some snacks. You’re gonna, unless you’re going to rare places on this planet where a nudist colony is allowed, you’re gonna need clothing, so you have to pack a bag. You know, you’re gonna want tunes or something to entertain you. So all you’re doing in life is just getting what you need, like if you were traveling anywhere else. It’s not as scary, although I get why people are scared, but it’s not as scary as people make it out to be, because you’re equipping yourself to just get to where you want to be to do the things you want to do. And so it’s advocacy and more importantly, it’s self-advocacy for yourself and what you said, so you can have the care you need to protect your mindset to do the things that you chose to do on your journey that you’re grounded in. So it all works together, it’s all a package.
I love it. This is some of the examples you shared, very relatable, very relatable. Because we all join journey through tough chapters in our life, and if we do apply the law of reflection in our life where at the end of the day we’re sitting back and allowing the Holy Spirit to kind of guide us, we’ll be able to see and reflect what He’s taught us along the way. That equipping piece is really key as we move forward in tougher chapters, in tougher seasons, right? Because we’ve already been there, we know how to do this, but we have forgotten. Like just recently, I um had forgotten the neurolinguistic programming uh teachings of a former mentor of mine from years ago, and I had forgotten that patterns of behavior operate under the surface, and when you just simply acknowledge and accept that they’re there and acknowledge what they’re trying to teach you, that they cease to have power over you. It’s kind of like the identities, right? My anxious identity was showing up in conflict with my husband, as was my teenage bullied self, that was just trying to be seen and recognized and acknowledged for the suffering she went through, right? Because she was being triggered in present-day, right? Present-day identities. But I had learned all of this, Michaela. I had forgotten. And in interviewing uh uh guest on release at reveal purpose, um, Alexis Lee, she wrote a book, uh Pain is a Portal to Beauty. I read a line there and it was like poof, everything came back. And it was God telling me, you’ve already learned this, child. I don’t know why you had forgotten this. I told you you had already learned this. Now you need to apply this because it’s the last piece that you need to get rid of these things that are getting in your way of having the joy you’ve been praying about, the peace you’ve been praying about in your marriage, you have the equip being, you know. And so interviewing you guys now, it’s kind of like a an affirmation from Christ of like, hey, you know this stuff, so get to it. Get to it. You’ve already learned this, right?
So you need to do what you to get what you need to take care of yourself to do what you want to do. I mean, so I mean when I was a kid asking for accommodations, which my parents did, that was giving me the tools I needed to be able to do what I needed to do in school, and which each season that’s brought the vision has never changed over the years, but because each season brings new things you have to learn how to do, it was more of I had to adapt to what needed to be done in this season and come up with new systems of operations and coping mechanisms. So each season has brought me doing new things, even though it’s the same vision. So I’ve always just you’re just getting like as a when I was a parent of my kids being younger, I needed different things in that season. They’re teenagers now, so it’s more about making sure my transportation until my daughter starts driving next year, uh, falls into place. So it’s just getting what you need for whatever you’re trying to do.
I hear adaptability is one of the skills that you’ve adopted over time. And you you adapt, you just simply adapt. That’s the way we pivot from these seasons, you know, at a much faster rate, as opposed to just staying stuck there for a while, right? So it’s like, okay, I see the pivot, I see this thing coming, and so I’m going to adapt pretty quickly to whatever’s coming my way. And I have the tool set. I I already have my tool set, and it’s it’s knowing your tendencies, your triggers, all those are good things to understand about yourself, so that, and that’s why taking care of yourself and really understanding yourself can really get you in that space as well.
But uh, if we’re talking specifically to grief, self-care will make or break you, doing and not doing self-care will make or break you in grief.
Oh yeah. Oh, I believe that girl when when I lost my dad last year. And I played pickleball as many times as I could, and I remember telling my husband in therapy because we’re marital counseling. I said, I preemptively like put scheduled pickleball almost every day because it was the only joy that was coming into my life at the moment. It was it was releasing all these endorphins. I was starting to feel a little relief from the heaviness of the grief. The grief can be very, very heavy, and I was getting the support I needed because my husband was very supportive. Number one, he’s angel from God. He was there to back me up when I had to fly to the valley. Um, because I live in South Texas. My parents live live in South Texas. My mother does now, but my father at the time was down there, and I live in Austin, Texas, and so it was a direct flight. Locally, there’s a direct flight from Austin to Harlingen, and I would take it almost every other weekend, and my husband would support me. So wonderful community behind me. And and I was able to be down there and be with my dad as he was transitioning, right? Because it was a terminal diagnosis he had gotten a meningoma from a service in Vietnam. And um orange exposure, always great.
Oh, um, okay, now I know what you’re saying. Okay.
Oh, it’s a fun one. And I uh was he had received the terminal diagnosis, so it was uh in August of 2023, so all of 2024, we um we knew our dad was was gonna lose his battle pretty soon. Um, because when you have a brain tumor and it’s in the brainstem, and it’s control it’s in the main area that controls breathing and heart rates and all that, you know it’s a matter of time. And so I knew that, and so I I had the support, but going back to the self-care piece, like you said, I put in as much pickleball as I could. It would release the endorphins and I would be able to that would offset some of that major grief and my faith. My faith was truly what sustained me because every day without fail, I was on my knees praying to God, please help me. That supernatural courage that I needed to face my father’s death. I didn’t know if I had it, but I realized and I trusted him. And let me tell you, when he did it pass away that day, I felt such peace. I did, there was it just came out of nowhere, and and I know that was Christ. I mean, I know it because he’s shown that to me in my life before, it wasn’t the first time. This was just the equipping of what daily surrender looked like. I had been surrendering to him, but only in big moments of my life, and that’s not what he wants in relationship with us. He wants daily surrender, he wants to take over the stuff that overwhelms us, that doesn’t bring us joy. He wants to take that from us, right? So I wonder if Jesus takes the wheels. Yeah, I’m like, take it. You can drive my car. Fine. You can do it. I don’t have a problem with it. You you’re the boss. This is your gig. I’m just, you know, I’m your messenger and and my why is very pronounced, and I know what my mission is. And and speaking of missions, what what do you think your mission is?
That was 2016 or the fall. She went back into first grade. So I traded nap time and nighttime in the weekends for that time instead of grad school work, and then I started writing all these books that I’ve been putting out since 2019 on motherhood and faith and you know what I want my kids to know.
And your legacy, basically, right? Like the legacy you want to leave for your kiddos. And that’s exactly why I became an author, too. Aside from the fact that it was obedience to God in 2020, when he said, It’s time to write your book. Trust me, it’s time. And stopped telling me no, because I had told him no for 10 years. So we’re like, okay, you’re the boss. I guess I will be writing it. And I’m glad I did because it healed those parts of me that needed to be healed because he knew what was coming four years down the road, I was going to lose my father. My father and I had a fractured relationship from the start. There was uh a major trauma that I depict in chapter one of In Faith I Thrive, and and it sets the stage for the rest of the book. And in chapter 15, I come full circle. That’s what I’m wearing now. The last gift I got from my parents, which is a diamond necklace that has it’s circular. And I say, I’m coming full circle to the woman that God created me to be before the trauma, and all the layers got on top of me and blurred my view, right? And I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way to you, but it does, it’s a metaphor in that you can’t see in front of you when fear is completely on top of you. You cannot see the light. The light comes from God. When you turn to God in moments of crisis and and dark chapters, he’s the one that guides us into the brightest light, our why, our mission. And so in 2020, he guided me to become an author. And I remember asking him, is this what I’m meant to do? And the big resounding yes came straight out. Like, yes, this is what you’re meant to do. You’re meant to write you your voice and and the way you deal with transition is what I want you to talk about. And I want you to be very clear with people that in times of change and in times of dark periods, they need to turn to me because I’m the only one that can guide them out of there. And that’s the meaning of relationship with him.
So no one can tell our story. We each are individual people that have their own story, their own message, their own voice. No one can tell your story that you’ve been given, and no one can take your voice from you, and it should be shared. I very much believe in echoing like empowered conversations can give opportunity for hope. And so there’s a lot that can come out of conversations and always sharing your voice through either the actual physical word, like we’re speaking, or through written word. Um, and I just I love the written word, and so that’s what I do, and then now I speak because it’s a way to get your message out about what you’ve written, and so those two things, and then I do a few other things, but that’s um like right now my main focus is obviously will always be my writing, but now because of the book series I wrote on Finding Grace Through Grief, which is what I just watched all through of the grace part, um, I’ve started a I’ve created a study, a 16-week study that I’m doing the first cycle through and I’m trying to get the word out of that to hopefully grow it into like a ministry that it gets out there in the world and can help a lot of people. So that’s kind of my other focus right now.
And do you think that that’s the next big chapter or the big why why you’re here on Earth?
I guess.
I mean, it’s just part of my story now, so and I love that because we discover it in such interesting ways, you know. Like in mine was a prompting that came in 2020. And for you, it it sounds like it’s come throughout your life. Like the one thing identifies the next step. You know, the next step in faith identifies the next step and so forth and so on. But we’ve got to be the ones that take the action of staying obedient to the prompting that we receive of like this is the way to be here. Here comes the next step, and we step in there and we have faith. We have faith and we trust that that he is guiding us into our lights. Any last-minute words of wisdom you want to share with the listeners or at least that reveal purpose.
Well, necessarily choose what the next thing is, but if we’re smart enough, we’ll learn from it and if we can see how it could help people, then hopefully we’ll be the ones that want to share what we’ve been given because it can help other people along the way, which is why I do it. I want to empower and equip other people, figure out how to do it, because there is no roadmap for me in any of this. It’s like, okay, I guess I’ll do it as I go. I’ve never done this before. But I will say, um, especially in grief, especially, I would say that like in no other season in life, you need to be really gracious with yourself, give yourself lots of grace, be patient, be kind, be gentle, and give yourself the space and time you need to go through this process and there’s no expiration date, and be comfortable just doing what the next right thing is, whatever that looks like for you. But in general terms, I would say that life is short, there’s no guarantees or promises of tomorrow. We only get one shot, we’re given no guarantees. So take your best shot, choose well so that you can live your best life and thrive.
Awesome. And if I wanted to get in touch with you, Michaela, how do I do that?
I’m on Facebook and then all of my books are on Amazon.
Okay. So your latest and greatest book, what is the name of it so I can find it?
I think the last one that dropped was either Ripple Effect or Finding Grace Through Grief.
Either way, you’re the author of both of those. So thank you so much for joining us on release out reveal purpose, Michaela. It’s been such a pleasure getting to know you. It’s such a ray of sunshine and such a bright spark in my day today. So thank you so much for joining us. And for the listeners, remember Matthew 5.14 to always be the light because you are, and we need it to shine so so brightly for all of us to benefit. Have a wonderful week. Stay safe. Love you all. Bye now.
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