Kristy 0:06

Welcome to Unshaken, the podcast where unwavering faith meets real life. I'm Christy, and together with my husband Tony, we dive into authentic conversations, offering biblical insights and sharing stories that inspire resilience, especially for families navigating the unique challenges of disabilities. Join us each week as we explore faith, family, and the journeys that keep us grounded in Christ. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Let's stand firm together.

Tony 0:39

Welcome back, Unshaken Family. This is Tony, and I'm here with my beautiful bride, Christy. We were having an interesting conversation earlier this week, and we were just talking about the road that has brought us to this place where we are today. One of the things that kept coming to mind for me is a question that I get often. If I had one wish, would I wish to not have cerebalsy? I get where that question comes from, because I mean like the obvious answer, you know, everybody thinks of and and that everybody expects. But I I think though that it's a much deeper question than that. I think that there's so many kind of nuances about that. And and it's more about if there was something hard that was going on in life, would we choose to get rid of that? Christy and I were were able to have, you know, a conversation about that. And rather than speak for Christine, why don't you tell them, you know, kind of what we talked about?

Kristy 1:46

So it kind of like Tony said, it started, you know, with kind of how did we get here? It's this crazy path that I don't think either of us would have chosen that really brought us to this place where we feel equipped, you know, called and equipped to meet you every week and have something to say. You know, for Tony, it was kind of his CP. For me, I think it was a little bit more of a roundabout path. Um, the difference I think is that CP has always been with Tony. And for me, I didn't take sort of the turn off my my what I thought was my main road to get here until just a couple of years ago. So it was just kind of like a bunch of things happened all at once. Let me go back a step. Before I worked at the school where I am now, I always, across my educational career, I've worked in higher ed. And I was the dean at a small technical college. Um, it was in a family of seven schools, and that group was purchased, and my position was made redundant, and I lost my job. Overlapping that, our youngest kiddo was having some really significant um mental health challenges. Um and I had always worked out of town, you know, hour and a half, two hours away, which made it convenient for me to spend half the week with Tony and then half the week with with my kiddo when um as the custody agreement kind of made it work. And so what I needed was a job close to home. There just aren't that many higher institutions of higher education in Pinellas County, Florida, you know, that had a job at the at the level that I was working. And so this job, it, I mean, when I say it fell into my lap, I've probably talked about it before on this show, but I found out it existed at six o'clock one evening. Um, at nine o'clock the next morning, I heard from the headhunter. And three days later I had the job. Probably the biggest reason, um, you know, other than that I have had experience in leading a school that I was able to get the job was because of Tony's, you know, his situation with um cerebral palsy and and because disability had been part of my life. And man, if you had asked me like three years ago, do you would you see yourself, you know, in this kind of role, like leading a school that supports kiddos with significant sensory and motor differences, or you know, being part of a podcast where disability is part of what we talk about each week, I would have been like, are you crazy? No. Um, like there's just no way. God is good and he has a path for you know for each of us.

Tony 4:29

I think it's important too that while we can see, you know, so some of the good from being able to look back, sometimes it's hard to see that when you're going through it, when you're in the middle of oh yeah, of I don't want to say transition, but when you're going through something and you believe and you have the faith that God is preparing something for you, that doesn't mean that you have to like be happy or lucky uh in the middle of that muck. Because sometimes that's what it takes. It takes being in the middle of it, and sometimes it it's painful to go through whatever the transition is. So it's so if you're in that place where you're in the middle of something and you believe, again, you believe that something better is coming, and that's what you're praying, that's what you're hoping for, you can still be grieving the spot that you're in. You can still say, you know what, this is a hard time in my life. That sort of grief and that sort of like pain is not a lack of faith on your part, it's just the season that you're in right now. There's kind of a a difference, right, between denying the pain and discovering that growth.

Kristy 5:52

I think of it as like a silver lining type comment. I think when we go, when we as we live our lives like out in the world, and you know, you share that you're struggling or something is happening, people toss these comments out like they're like nickels, like it has nothing, no real value, you know. Oh, it'll get better. Oh, you know, God has a plan, you know, and yeah, he does, but like that doesn't help it feel better in the moment. And so I feel like, you know, oh, well, you should be thankful for what you do have, or you know, if there's any number of like sort of these silver lining comments that come up. Some of it is I think people don't know how to relate, they don't know how to empathize, like they don't know how to sit with you in the hard spot that you are, or, you know, even just to say, like, man, that just sounds rough. I don't know, you know, I don't know how to help, I don't know what to say, but you know, I'm with you. You have my absolute support in this, or people just don't know how to say that. You know, so they toss off one of these little comments, and sometimes, I mean, I would say they go so far as to even feel a little insulting sometimes, like, seriously, you're minimizing like this major thing to like, oh, it'll pass. Maybe they're trying to make me feel better, but really I always feel like they're trying to make themselves feel better. Like it's just this sort of awkward thing, you know. But really, I think there's something deeper that even when that's what somebody says, for me, the the response can become, yeah, God does have a plan. Um, you know, and because of this, I've been able to grow, or because of this, you know, something good came out of it. And I think to be able to point that out, even to be able to say that, you know, it feels terrible right now, but something good is coming, you know, I think it has a lot of value. And it it kind of helps us to turn those sort of silver lining comments around, right? And make it like make them more substantial so that they don't minimize the pain, deny the pain, but they do sort of spotlight the growth or the gifts that are to come because God always has something for us on the other side of hardship. It's never, ever, ever gonna just be hardship forever and ever and ever. There's always something coming. And that's not just a a silver lining, like that's a promise.

Tony 8:11

This episode is is not about bumper stickers. We're not just gonna give you some nice little sayings and then like send you on your way. I mean, we know that God works all things together for his good, and we we know that we believe that that's that's scripture, but at the same time, like life can still suck, and there is still pain that can happen, and and it's okay to name that. The great thing is is that we can bring that pain to God, and we can say, God, I'm here, I believe you, I believe in you. I know that you have things that are gonna work out, but this still really hurts.

Kristy 8:52

So this goes back to kind of what you were saying a minute ago. It's in those tough times we can't see what's coming. You know, uh we have we we can hope it, we can have that biblical certainty, that hope that it is coming, like the promise of something to come. But man, we're human. And if we can't see it, if we don't know what it is, if we can't, you know, call it out and know how it's gonna show up, and you know, on which Tuesday at 2 p.m. it's gonna be there, it's really hard to have faith. I mean, like, we just need to know, you know, we're a need-to-know kind of people. And I think that's um, some of that is just by virtue of being human, some of it is by virtue of the society that we live in. You know, if we get quick answers to everything, a friend of mine, and you know, not to minimize anybody struggle, but has a really tough health diagnosis. And she knew what was happening a day and a half before her doctor was able to get the results and and review them and call her. I mean, because she was able to look online and, you know, as soon as the lab stuff came up, there it was. Like we have instant access to what's coming. But God doesn't work like that. God does not give us that instant access. And so it is really, I think, difficult sometimes to be living in the in the painful situation and not, we don't want to deny it, but we also don't want to dwell in it, right? We have to lean toward that hope, even when we have no idea what it's gonna look like, what that outcome is gonna be.

Tony 10:23

As a kid, laying in bed and and staring up at my ceiling and you know, saying, God, why me? Because of how tough cerebral palsy was for me growing up. But looking back now, I mean, to look at the gifts that I have been given because of the cerebral palsy. Right? That would not have happened had I not had cerebral palsy. It's amazing. And and one of those things is having a deeper sort of empathy for for others that that are in similar situations, you know, because I can have that understanding. I can I can walk into a rehab center that is working with kids and teenagers and and even adults with physical therapy or occupational therapy, and I can sit and and encourage them, and they look at me and they see me walking with the crutch and all that kind of stuff, and they they instantly know that I know what they're going through. But that happens because I have the cerebral palsy, and it's given me a different understanding of like my own faith and about how my faith is supposed to interact with my circumstances. Just the ability to sit with people when they're going through tough situations. I mean, being able to sit with a mom and a dad as as their child is going through surgery to maybe lengthen their hamstrings, to help them be better able to walk, or to give them the opportunity to walk, to be able to talk through some of those things, talk through some of the therapies that that the kid is going to face to provide some encouragement and some reassurance in some cases about what can happen and what what the road potentially could look like ahead. And but those things I'm only able to do because of of my cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy is not easy, it costs me a lot every single day, but that cost is nothing compared to what I've gained because of it. What about you, Christy? You talked about how like this road to Invictus has been different. This has has been a weird kind of turnoff for you. So like t tell me about that. Tell me tell me what what you think you've gained as as you've kind of gone through this process.

Kristy 13:12

So, first of all, it it it hasn't really been a linear process, right? So when I first got the job, when I first started at Invictus, it was overwhelming. It felt like I was so unprepared, um, just a totally different world, right? And I was still grieving. I mean, like I had worked for like 15 years in higher education before this, and that's what I thought I was gonna be doing for the rest of my career. So this thing happened, and you know, like I said, I needed to be close to home. And, you know, boom, here's this, you know, this job shows up. It's at the church that we attended as a family here, the school rent space there. So, like for starters, there's that. It was on the way home from the high school where our kiddo went that just really needed a parent's nearness. So I was able to see that kiddo every single day on the way home from school, even if it was a dad day, even if there was theater practice, even if no matter what, I was able to see this kid. So, I mean, there's all these good things. And at the same time, I'm so sad that I miss what I used to do. I'm feeling like a fish out of water, you know, in this, in this new space, trying to learn as fast as I can. The team that I have now is, they have nothing in common with any team that I have ever led before. My students all of a sudden have parents that call me all the time. You know, they show up at the school, they want to meet, they, you know, they want to advocate for their kiddo. And it's hard. It's, I mean, it's hard. I can tell you all day long about how, you know, how I just really felt like so unprepared. And this is not what I expected. It was not what I wanted. It was just, it was just what I got. And I, and I knew that it was what I was supposed to have just because of God's hand in making it happen, but none of that made it seem like it was a great idea. You know, and it's only been with time that I have have realized some of the gifts. You know, I was talking, this is probably, I don't know, probably maybe six or eight weeks ago now. I was talking to my dad one night about this. And um, and I was telling him, like, I feel like like I have always been a fixer, like that's been my role. You know, I would go to a campus where there was, you know, struggle and kind of settle things down. Like that's sort of been the role that I've played. And I came to this campus and there was some struggle. And, you know, things are are a lot better. We we have changed processes, we've made a lot of change there. And it's time now where this team was needing to kind of raise their game. Like we we've settled everything and we, it's time to go forward. And I was having a really hard time motivating this particular group of people to do that. And I was talking to my dad, and I was like I said something like maybe I am not the right person for this. Like maybe God brought me here for what I've already done, not for what is to come. And I'm here to tell you, my dad looked me straight in the face and he said, Kitten, he said, you know a lot of people in education. He said, Who do you know right now that could step in and do this job any better than you? And I sat there for a second and I said, You know what? Nobody. It's not because I'm great. It has nothing to do with me whatsoever. It's because God has brought me on a path to this place when I had no idea what was what was happening. Like he was opening doors and like, you know, changing my track and moving me this way and shaping me that way and growing me to a place where I would be ready for this because he has always known that this is what was going to happen. When he calls you, when God brings you somewhere, you are the right person for the job. Like you are equipped. If he calls you, you are equipped or you will get equipped in a hurry because that's the kind of God he is. Like nothing is a surprise to him. And so I felt like that was kind of a kind of like a pivotal moment for me where I realized, okay, like I can doubt myself all the live-long day. But knowing that this is what God has for me, he brought me here, he put me in this place. I need to like buck up and do it. I need to figure out how to do it. And I need to not try to do it on my own strength. Like that's where the weakness comes, is it's it's me trying to do it by myself. Like, so asking him, please, like, show me, help me, fight with me, stand, you know, stand there at my back, like help me get this done, help me know what to do. It's really made all the difference in this, you know, this last couple of months. Even in the the renewed energy that I've had and and like forgive me, but also the improved attitude. I've tried to have a better attitude about things, I still miss my old world. You know, I keep my hand in it, I still teach as an adjunct, but when I see stuff on LinkedIn and I see like all the Instagram posts from my old campus, I'm here to tell you it still stabs me in the heart. It still hurts. It really does. And so I think there's there's something about like holding that grief, but also feeling the gratitude and the the joy at the the growth opportunities in this new space at the same time that has been really powerful for me. It's it's you gotta be able to do both at the same time. And Tony, I don't how does that look for you? I don't know, because it's not a new situation for you, but kind of it is also.

Tony 18:38

It's interesting for me because servopals has been a part of my life, my entire life. But there's still things that I I wish that I could do. I I've always been a big sports guy. I love sports. I mean, I I watch it all the time. There are so so many times where I'm watching a baseball game and I'm like, man, what would it be like to be out on that field, being able to play baseball? You know, and that's not you know something that I've ever you know been able to do. Or same thing with like basketball or or anything like you know, those are things that like I really wanted to do as as a kid. And there are still times where I'm like, how would my life look if I didn't have C P and and I was able to be more athletic? What would that look like? My d my dad um grew up a pitcher. He he you know, and and you know, he played baseball. He played, you know, little league and and you know, and I I believe he also played like in high school and and things like that.

Kristy 19:43

That's awesome.

Tony 19:43

Well, you know, what would it been able to to look like to go out and and to like play catch with my dad and you know have my dad watch me play baseball in little league or or you know, junior high, high school, whatever. There's something different about that, right?

Kristy 20:00

You know, and sorry for jumping in on you. But what I'm it sounds like an opportunity cost. Like in exchange for this, you get this. And and it is a cost, but also like an opportunity.

Tony 20:13

Yeah, and and you can that I I think that's an important thing to to really name is that you can have both grief and gratitude at the same time. You can hold both. And it it's okay to hold both. Like it doesn't make you a bad person. It doesn't, you know, say that you're not faithful or that you're you know, that you don't believe in in the path that God has before you. It just means that you know there's that there's going to be seasons and there's going to be times where where you still see the cost and see what you don't have. And that still can be sad. What would it have been to be able to like run up and down a court and play at Madison Square Gardens? You see those things. You see, you know grief and and gratitude. They can sit at the same table. You know, they they can they can be there in equal measure and and that's okay. And those are the things that while I see those things, I also see the things that I've been able to do because of my cerebral palsy, and I know, man, those are some really cool things that like I would not be able to do. And I was one of them I'll just name two years ago. I was up on stage in front of 2600 other people talking about you know, doing sports and disability ministry, and that was amazing to be able to to talk about that and to to share my heart and to hopefully encourage an entire organization to do more in this area of sports and Disability Ministry. That doesn't happen if I don't have cerebral palsy. I don't even know that I'm in that space or or in that arena had I not had cerebral palsy. And I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. That was awesome. There's always that opportunity and cost at the same time.

Kristy 22:24

So I mean, yeah, that's a highlight of like that piece of your life, but there was so much else going on at that time, right? Like, and when I look, I mean, just as your wife, when I look at all of like all of the meetings that you were having and the different, like the different groups that you were part of, and that you were tight with this, the city commissioners and the small town and whatever, it's like it's not like it's a you know a crazy, you know, rare opportunity. But at the same time, they took you seriously because of how you walked up with the crutch that you use and the experiences that you brought with you. They took you seriously and they took your advice and they allowed you to speak into what happened at, you know, at that park for, you know, for kiddos that have disability and and the families that live with them. And I mean, just so many things. There were so many opportunities like that where I couldn't have, I wouldn't have gotten in the door because I didn't have the credibility, because I didn't have the lived experience that you have. And, you know, it's not to say that that I don't mean to frame it like you took one for the team and then you were able to, you know, to speak up. But really, you know, again, right? It's the path that God brought you along. Like he brings us to these places where where there is opportunity, where there is something, something good. It's something that we can do somehow that we can help, or even just like a cool thing that will happen to us or for us or through us because of him. And he like he brought you there. He brings all of us to that place, fully expecting that that we will show up prepared. And, you know, again, all of this is happening in the background, and we have no idea. Like, I mean, Tony and I didn't know each other 30 years ago, but but the wheels were turning already on my side, you know, and on his side, when we lived in in completely different states that were going to bring us both to this place, to this day, to this ministry, to this podcast, and and have us here prepared. Um, and I just think that's mind-blowing.

Tony 24:37

Because of the experiences that I had, and and because of the experiences that we were able to bring to that park, that park went from being run down and really potentially dangerous spot to where the city actually did a beautiful thing and invested nearly a million dollars to really get that park beautiful again. And it was because of the events that we were doing, but there's no way that those events happen in the way that they happened without, you know, number one, a wonderful team that was around me, but also just the experience and the perspective that I had and and and others had that were that were in this space, that if I didn't have super palsy, there'd be no way that I could that I could bring that same kind of experience to that park. Right? So I think all of the all of the things that that happen in your life, even if they don't feel great in the moment, there's still so much purpose behind those small moments that we don't see in the moments.

Kristy 26:03

At the end of the day, Tony, you've said that you wouldn't choose, like you wouldn't choose to not have CP. I mean, is there any turn at which you would have chosen differently? Like, if we could go back and we had a time machine, is there anywhere that you would have turned a different direction?

Tony 26:22

No. I have come to see my cerebral palsy as as such a gift, I can't imagine my life without my cerebral palsy. Again, that's not to say that there aren't hard days. There are, you know, some very hard days that that happen. And I think that it's important to recognize that if God had shown us where we were gonna go in the very beginning, none of us would choose that path. Because we would see how hard it is, and we would pull Jonah, we would go the other way and say, nope, no, thank you, peace out, I'm out of here. Yes. Um, because like none of us would want to pay the cost that it takes in order to get to where God ultimately wants us to be, and so I think that's why we see God directing our steps along the path. There are things that we can plan, there are things that we can hope for, there are goals that we can have, you know, in our lives, and none of that stuff is bad. But ultimately, it's it's God that is going to direct our steps. And um, you know, it says in Romans 5, starting in verse 3, we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance and perseverance, character, and character hope. And I love the way that that ends because, like, because of all of the things, hope is the is the end result. It's that net positive. There's a lot of things that are hard, but ultimately it ends in a positive. That's the way that that God works. It's not about tying a neat bow on on suffering or on heart hardship or pain or anything like that. It's what I have come to understand is that the hard roads are not the last word. The hard roads are what lead to what God is is going to produce ultimately in us that's real and it's it's concrete, it means something. Not because pain is good or or enjoyable, but because we know that God is faithful in in everything that he does. If we can kind of carry that forward with us, I think that we're able to see, hey, this is hard, it sucks, and you can name that, you can name that pain, right? I I don't understand why I'm doing this, I don't understand why I'm in this season or why I'm in this really hard job or whatever the circumstance is, but I trust God. And I trust that his path is going to lead me somewhere where at some point I'm going to look back and say, Oh, that's why that happened. That's why this is the way that this is. And I think that for for both myself and for Christy, we've seen God do that over and over. So now we're when we go through those hard seasons, it's it's a little bit easier for us to say, okay, there's something on the other side. That confidence doesn't take away the pain, and it doesn't take away the fact that it sucks, but we can say, okay, something's coming.

Kristy 30:11

It's almost uh, it's almost like an inside, I don't want to say joke, but joke. Like when things get really rough, one of us will say, Well, something good is coming, you know, and that's our acknowledgement that man, this is hard. This is really, really hard. But we do always have that hope.

Tony 30:28

And really, that's that's been this whole key for years, because Christy, you you reminded me of something that happened. I I remember I was very new in my position, and I was gonna have a really big meeting, and I couldn't sleep the night before. And I got up that next morning, and what did I say to you? I said, strap in, because God's gonna do something.

Kristy 30:55

Yep, something big is coming.

Tony 30:58

And I I I had no idea what that was, but that day I saw for the first time the video of the very first sports camp for kids and adults that had disabilities, and that started a domino effect that has even brought us here today. That was the first domino. I do think that that's just something that we have come to say to each other that hey, when something hard is going on, God's bringing us something, and we just have to we just have to get there.

Kristy 31:38

Even if you wouldn't choose this road again, you know, you wouldn't be the person that you are without the road. That's you know something Tony and I feel really deeply. Be blessed. We'll go to God together. Father, we come before you today very, very grateful for for the path that you always have us on toward something, toward what's coming next, um, and toward the ways that we will be able to be part of fulfilling your plan here on earth. Even when it's hard, even when it feels unbearable, um, we we are blessed to know that there is always hope because we know that you are good to us, that you are a good God, and you love us so much, and that you're bringing us toward something, that you're preparing us, and that you will never bring us to a place where we won't be equipped with your help, with your just with you at our sides, with you at our back to handle any circumstance that comes. Um, we're so very grateful for the ways that you shape us and that you grow us and um for the hope that we have. Um, we thank you for every blessing, the biggest of which is Jesus. We thank you for that sacrifice that you made out of just true, deep, abiding love for us. And all the things we ask, we ask them in his beautiful name. Amen.

Tony 33:01

Amen. Thank you guys. Hope you guys have a great rest of your day and a great rest of your week.

Kristy 33:06

Bye, friends. Thank you.

Tony 33:08

We'll see you next time.