Kristy 0:06

Welcome to Unshaken, the podcast where unwavering faith meets real life. I'm Kristy, 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. Hi, Unshaken family. Welcome back to another episode. I'm Kristy and I'm here with my husband Tony. Today we want to talk about questions and not just any questions, but those questions that we ask or that people ask us that are just a little bit weird. It might hit you funny, it might, it just might be one of those awkward situations. I think that there's a difference in that sort of situation between the first time it happens when it's just a one-off thing and somebody was just a little, a little awkward, and like the 50th time that it happens. And it happens all over the place, right? I think people mean well. I think, generally speaking, people almost always mean well. And nobody means to be unkind or to spotlight something that makes people uncomfortable. But sometimes that's what happens anyway. And explaining those kinds of things repeatedly can really wear you out. Disability is one place where this happens. It happens a lot with Tony when we're out in the world, just because his disability is so visible. That's not the only place it happens, though. I think most of us have experienced some version of it. When are you guys getting married? Or was your pregnancy pregnancy planned? It could be, you know, why does your child go to that school? Or just on a more common scale, diet soda, right? I don't think any of those questions are necessarily overtly offensive or meant to be rude. I think it's all tied up in kind of a bundle of string with privacy, agency, relational wisdom, I guess you could say, fatigue. Uh and so we want to talk about that. And I want to start it with uh some scripture that is it's good advice no matter what. But I think when you look at it through the filter of this topic, it becomes just really insightful. And it says, be wise in the way you act toward outsiders. Make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. And that's from Colossians four, it's verses five and six. And I guess the direction that I'm I'm going with this in this moment is a question. I'm gonna start with a question for Tony. And that is, Tony, what changes when a question that you've answered easily a few times becomes something that you answer over and over and over again?

Tony 3:26

I think the biggest thing that I have to guard against is the fatigue, because when there's fatigue, there can be a lack of patience. For me, it might be the 50th time that I've answered a question, but for the person that's standing in front of me, it's the first time that they're asking. And so I have to remember that even if the question in and of itself is silly or ridiculous in in some cases, if you are tired of explaining the same thing over and over and over again, and you're experiencing that fatigue, you have to just protect your own boundaries because you don't owe the world at large endless access to you.

Kristy 4:25

I think that as a rule, the society in general doesn't really prepare us with how to ask those sort of nuanced questions. It could almost become like the elephant in the room when it's just an obvious thing and people don't really know how to address it and whatever. We haven't been prepared well to ask questions about those kinds of things. What we've been taught is to not bring attention to it, don't ask about it. And that's just not a practical way to live when you're in a situation where you're going to interact with a person and there's that elephant between you and you're you're trying to connect. It just doesn't work out that way. The other thing I think, and it I this came to me when you were talking about fatigue, is that you know, you answer a question once or twice and it's just the question. But when you're asked the same question over and over and over again, maybe it's not about something that you would consider to be primary about yourself. And the example I'm going to go back to is diet soda, right? Maybe you get that question because, or maybe I get that question because I'm a woman. And I would guess that, you know, maybe diet soda is a more common thing with women, or maybe it's because I'm I'm a big girl. And I think the first few times you don't think anything of it. But after a while, being asked the same question like that, it can make you start thinking something about yourself that may or may not be true, or that may or may not be something that you really want to put focus on, or that doesn't even need focus on it. But because other people have spotlighted it, now it kind of becomes central to your thoughts. Has that ever happened to you?

Tony 6:09

I think for me, one of the things that that I was asked a lot about, it was a ridiculous question, but I was asked, are you able to have kids? I was like, Yeah, I've got cerebral palsy and it affects my legs, not my reproductive system. And honestly, I've I've seen this with like other people too. One of the guys that I admire and that is an inspiration to me is Nick Vojachik. And you guys have heard me talk about him before, and obviously this guy is way more famous than I will ever be. But this guy has gone on so many interviews, and so many times I've seen professional commentators ask this question of, are you able to have kids? You know, like before he was married and before he had kids. And props to him because he always had patience, he never broke the professionalism that he had, and you know, he would always say, Well, you don't need legs to to have a child, you know, and he would leave it at that, and he would move forward. And and again, just props to him for that. In an interview setting, when you are a professional and you are interviewing somebody about the work that they're doing, why does that matter? You're interviewing him and you're praising him for all the good work that his ministry is doing, you're learning about his life, and he tells this incredible, amazing story. That's one of the first questions that they ask when he's done sharing his story. And I just, it just really never made sense to me.

Kristy 7:55

How rude and how irrelevant, and how horrified would anybody else be? You know, if it's after a football game and they're interviewing the, you know, the star receiver that caught the pass in the end zone and whatever, hey, can you have kids? I mean, it's just as irrelevant and the the world would blow up about that.

Tony 8:17

I think, you know, intent and impact are not the same thing. When you have someone that is asking for the first time, the person that's on the receiving end of that question, the first thing that goes through my mind is what's the relationship like? Is this a person that I know well? Do they know me well? In those cases where there is a good, solid relationship there, I think there's a lot more patience because I believe you understand that this is a person that loves you, maybe is just genuinely curious about something, and they just don't know how to ask in any other way, but this way. A lot of times, in in those cases, they'll apologize profusely before and after the question, and then you have the other end of the spectrum of the person that's asking the question, there is no relationship. And then in a lot of those cases, they don't even care about the answer. What they're trying to do is they're trying to get a rise out of you, they're trying to elicit some sort of reaction, almost in like an entertainment sort of mode or way, and that's something that really does impact how you deal with these repeated questions. If I know that it's not coming from a genuine place, what I've learned to do is I've learned to kind of give a very brief response, a very brief answer, not rude, not you know, not condescending or anything like that, but just brief that just reestablishes my own boundary and my own agency to say, here's what you need to know, and I'm going to move on. You can stay here all you like, but I got somewhere to be, I got things to do. You don't owe endless time when it's obvious that it's not going to be productive.

Kristy 10:20

And at the same time, you know, over the years, I've heard you say so many times, especially with kids or, you know, with with people that are new to your circumstance or your situation, like, please ask. I would rather you ask than just stare or wonder or whatever like that. So I think it's important that we call out that we're not trying to say that these questions are necessarily bad questions. I think it's more on the nuances of how you ask and the reason behind why you're asking.

Tony 10:56

Yeah, absolutely. I would never want anyone to just go off of whatever they assume to be correct. Please ask. If you genuinely, you know, want information or your kid wants information. I have learned to smile at kids, especially when they continue to stare. Sometimes I'll turn to Kristy and I'll have a conversation with Kristy in a louder voice so that they hear me talking and so that they know, oh, he's just like me. He can talk, he can laugh, I can kind of see them out of the corner of my eye, and it's okay, now they're they've moved on to something else, and they've got the information that they wanted. You know, and so that's great. I always welcome any questions and as many questions that as there is when it comes from a place of genuine curiosity, because you want to understand and you want to know better. That is something that I will always have patience for. Because I I believe that the more information that we are able to get out there, I believe it it provides a better environment for all involved when we're able to have better understanding versus more fear.

Kristy 12:20

Something that you brought up when you were answering my question a moment ago was agency. And I think that kind of for me is the tipping point, right? It's who has the agency, who has more directive control, I guess you could say, of the conversation. And as long as it's the person who's answering the sensitive question, I feel like that's probably a better situation. People ask about your disability because it's visible. That doesn't necessarily mean that it is public. And I think you have to be the one who divvies out the information, if you will, as you feel is appropriate. And I think for us, Tony and I have had like very clear, very detailed, proactive conversations about this kind of thing. If someone would ask me, and a lot of times people do ask me because they feel like it's less awkward than asking him, or I don't know. I don't know why people ask me, but they do.

Tony 13:24

I think sometimes we are in a situation where I'm in a wheelchair or scooter, there's an assumption that I can't speak for myself. You and I have both seen where people will talk about me to you while I'm sitting literally right next to you.

Kristy 13:46

Yes. Yeah, I think that somehow sometimes we think because someone is disabled that everything about them is disabled. And that's it's just never a safe assumption. It's virtually never an accurate assumption. But those questions, if they come without those proactive conversations, you can really find yourself in a pickle. I need to know what Tony wants me to share, how far he wants me to go. If he wants me to just say, ask him, he's right here. Why don't you go ahead and ask him? And I think that as long as the agency again stays with him, it's all good. It's not my decision. I don't need to be an agent in this situation.

Tony 14:30

For us, we've had these proactive conversations because we are in a lot of situations where we're separated. I'm having one conversation with somebody, and and this happens a lot in ministry. When we're working and we're serving either our own ministry or we're working with another ministry, if we're in just different spaces to be able to double the production, you know, I'm having one conversation and Kristy's having another, she's able to know what she can share and what needs to be redirected to me.

Kristy 15:10

It's true. I think a lot, Tony tends to be more stationary. He might be sitting at a table or at a counter, whatever, like in a spot having a conversation, and I'm wandering all over the place because that's more typical of me. And he's right, people do tend to ask me a lot when I'm by myself. And again, I think it's it's just that awkward factor and and what have you. So, anyway, all of this to say Tony and I have had those conversations, and I can give you an example of a time when I did reveal something intimate, but we had talked about it up front when Tony, uh, when he first started the All Abilities Ministry with FCA when he worked with that organization. We did a kickoff event, and it was meant to be a fundraising event. And I had the tremendous privilege of introducing him and said a few words, had a little, you know, thing prepared, whatever. And as part of that, what I brought to light was how difficult it is for Tony to put his socks on. And here I'm doing it again, but we've talked about it, and he's okay with me sharing this. And what's interesting about that is that it's something that he takes tremendous care to avoid showing the public when he's on his own. To me, it's it's intimate information. It's not, you know, it's funny, it's something that I didn't know when we were friends and, you know, just hanging out. I never really had cause to be around him when he put his shoes and socks on. Sometimes he gets his socks on and, you know, in his shoes in five minutes. And sometimes it takes an hour and he has to change his shirt because it's so sweaty from the effort that he's exerted. It just depends on how his body is that day. I would never have shared that sort of information at that event, certainly in front of all of those people that we were trying to make a good impression on, or even here today with all of you friends, because it's not my information to share without his express go-ahead to do so. And I think this becomes really important when we're speaking for our kids. I know my own students are non-speaking, many of them young adults, and people ask questions all the time. And it's not easy for them. They, you know, they have to spell it out, or in some cases, they they haven't mastered that method of communication yet. And so somebody really does need to speak for them on their behalf. And I think it's just really important to be thoughtful about what we share and how much we share, especially for kids, because they're going to grow into whatever truth we have put out into the world about them. You know, if we're telling information that is, it might be embarrassing or sensitive or might limit them in some way going forward and in an unnecessary way. We just have to be really careful about what we what we bring up. And I think as they get older, it's important to have conversations about their comfort level and also not just getting information from them, but explaining to them why, you know, why we ask this question and why we share certain information and not other information. Because to, I guess what becomes everyday stuff, every just happenstance on a Tuesday for them is different. It might be more noteworthy for someone else. And so I think it's good and important to impart to them kind of which parts of their story maybe are better kept close to family and that sort of situation. All of this to say visible doesn't mean public. So when you see, you know, a wheelchair or somebody whose gait is different, you know, or or a scar or someone who, you know, is missing a limb or or some visible disability, or even just an accommodation, you know, as I'm talking about this, why do you have that accommodation is also not necessarily something you want to ask. You just have to be careful, right? I don't think any of the questions, again, are necessarily bad questions. It's just a matter of the level of appropriateness based on the situation and the relationship and the need to have the information. And I know that this is probably not making it a whole lot easier for anyone to know what to ask, when to ask, how to ask. But what I hope it's doing is making the askers think and the answerers have some comfort in knowing that it's not just you. And it's okay to say, I don't want to talk about that, or that's, you know, that's just for me. As always, when we go to scripture, and as Tony and I have been talking about this topic and kind of thinking about how we wanted to lay it out, there's a lot of scripture that keeps coming up and it's it's just so pertinent. Um, so this is Philippians 2, verses 3 and 4. And it says, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of the others. And if there's a more appropriate scripture around, you know, asking sensitive questions and sharing sensitive information, I don't know what it is. You know, I just think it's important to make sure that we're protecting people's dignity and their privacy, their energy, their agency, and their story. Because once you put information out into the world, you can't recall it.

Tony 21:06

I love what Chrissy said. You know, that being visible does not make your story public. You are allowed to decide who gets access to the parts of your life that are personal. We also have to remember, especially for those of us that are answering these questions, we don't have to make every question that we answer a teaching moment. Do I enjoy being able to help someone understand cerebral palsy? Sure. I believe understanding takes away fear, and when you take away fear, now you take away boundaries for genuine connection and relationship and all of those things, but there are situations. Where you don't owe that. You never owe the education. How much you want to disclose and share about whatever it is that you've been asked about is completely up to you. Whether you give a full answer that gives them all the detail that they want, or you give them a short answer that just gives them the bare bones, or you just say, you know what, that's private. I'd rather not talk about that. Every single one of those options is valid. There's nothing to feel bad about. There's no shame in offering any of those options. And there's also no shame in discerning when to shut down a conversation. Maybe a conversation started well, and maybe the questions started well and they were well-meaning and they were well thought out and whatever, but then it went downhill at some point. You still have the agency to be able to say, okay, this is enough. We need to move on. One of the things that I always think about and I always have in the back of my mind is that when you look at like professional athletes and you look at the post-game interviews, they don't have to stand there or sit there and answer a hundred questions. They have a set amount of time, and the reporters know ahead of time. They have a set amount of time or a set amount of questions, and that's it. They get to walk away. We have that same right to end a line of questioning at any point for any reason. It says in Ecclesiastes chapter 3, verse 7 there's a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak. I think it's important that we use discernment to understand when we're in those different situations. Sometimes a faithful answer is just short, sweet, to the point, and you move on. And sometimes it's simply I'd rather not answer that, or I'd rather not talk about that. And that's just fine too.

Kristy 24:20

So I think agency is important from an external situation like that, like you're like you've been talking about, like but you know, between someone that comes to you and asks a question. I also think it's important to protect people's agency inside a conversation. And I'm gonna give you an example. So at the school, all of my kids are non-speaking or minimally speaking, or unreliably speaking. And because of the apraxia that causes that, their bodies are not typical and their bodies will do things that they wish they wouldn't do or not do things that they wish they would do. And sometimes those things can be embarrassing and they're run of the mill. It's, you know, it's things that we expect. You know, we handle any number of bathroom accidents in a week. Kids' bodies get, you know, dysregulated and maybe they're injurious. Maybe there's scripting where they're repeating something that they've heard on TV and they're swearing. Like all of these are things that happen and it it's just a non-issue with us, you know, and you can can start to think of those things as pretty normal in that environment, but we still don't talk about it in front of the kids. We have a policy that we don't talk about our kids in front of the kids, even if it's positive, even if it's, you know, so-and-so is having an incredible day, like they spelled this whole answer to this whatever, or they did this amazing motor activity, something they could never do before. We just don't do that. We use uh Google Chat and, you know, we message to each other about a situation. And so, I mean, just because maybe it is commonplace for this 13-year-old boy to have bathroom accidents, that doesn't mean that he is any more comfortable for his classmates to hear about it. It's it's enough that it happened and they probably know it happened. You know, so I think it's we can do a lot to protect somebody's dignity in just not talking about things that don't need to be said out loud. And even when it's positive, I know all of us have had a situation where somebody, our parent or our spouse or whatever, like was talking us up and you know, saying what a great thing we did or whatever. And even that can feel a little bit embarrassing. And I think, I think it's just better to be careful how we how we talk about people that that may not have the ability to speak for themselves in any given moment. And if they do, we need to be turning those questions over to that person.

Tony 26:56

If people are talking around you instead of to you, it doesn't mean that your voice doesn't matter. Your voice actually still does matter. Kristy supports me in countless ways when we are out in public, but her support and her caregiving, if you want to want to think of it that way, doesn't take away my dignity and it doesn't take away the ownership of my story. I still own that, and I still own the agency of what is shared about me. If you're someone that has a caregiver or a spouse that's helping, you still have a voice and it still matters, and you as a person still have value.

Kristy 27:50

I think obviously every single one of us, however we're made, however we look, however we move, however we communicate, we are all image bearers. We all bear the image of our maker. And that can look any infinite number of ways, but foundationally, that is still at the heart of the truth. And we just kind of have to keep that in mind and respect that in each other as we ask and answer these questions. I think it has to happen on both sides. I guess the last thing I want to say kind of in this bucket is you know, families should decide together how that's gonna look, what it's gonna look like. Because if a parent has a disability or, you know, maybe a diagnosis or something about their appearance or or whatever is gonna draw questions, kids are gonna ask about that at school where the parent isn't even part of the equation. And the kids need to know, you know, what is fair game to share. If it's asked in a, you know, an unkind way, they need to be prepared to answer those questions in a calm way that's not gonna fuel the flames. You know, if and if it's the other way around, again, we need to know what our kids are comfortable with us sharing, or we need to be explaining to them why we're giving certain information. I just think that is really, really important because the people that are the closest to you are also going to be asked questions and they need to know how to address that.

Tony 29:28

We've talked a lot about the questions from the asker side, but I think it's important to also talk about the questions from the person that's giving the answer, the answer side. One of the things that I wanted to talk about here was that there's grace, and grace leaves room for people to learn. And even within that grace, the boundaries remain real, they don't go away. There's good and bad ways to handle these questions as the person that is being asked. Questions are not usually asked out of hostility, they may be asked out of ignorance because there is no other way for someone to ask something that they want to know, but it's not really the question that they're asking. It's important that we kind of understand where they're coming from and help them to get the information that they really want. If we have time and the emotional energy and the willingness to get them to where they're actually trying to go and not where they went and just not knowing. Yeah. Right. Here's an example of this. And it happens to me and Kristy when we're in parking lots all the time. So either we're walking into a store or we're walking out of a store, somebody will will come up to me and say, Hey, would you mind if I pray for you? I said, Okay, no problem. I'd I love to be prayed for. I'm never gonna turn down, turn down prayer. And they start praying, and inevitably, somewhere in this prayer, the word cancer is thrown out. God, please give him more strength, give him endurance to deal with whatever cancer he's got going on. And it's because I've got no hair on my head, I'm completely bald. So it is really easy for people to assume that I've got cancer. In this situation, I let them pray, I smile to myself because I I know what's coming. And when they're done praying, I I try to grab their shoulder because I don't want them to run. Because what I have to tell them is like, thank you so much for praying for me, but I don't have cancer. And immediately when when I say that phrase, I feel them tense up and I feel them want to like run and hide. And what I say to them is like, please don't feel bad. I love the fact that you came up to me and you and you wanted to pray. Thank you so much for praying. Please continue to do this because there are people that are out here that are doing the best that they can, and to have someone pray for them would make their day. And so I I always try to encourage them to say, thank you so much, keep doing this. But then I also correct the false information because I don't want them to have that impression of me. And when these questions or these situations happen, someone could easily just laugh hysterically and oh my gosh, I don't have cancer, and like and just blow it up, and then and then we'll what have you accomplished at that point? Now you've just embarrassed the person, and they may never pray for another person again out in public. And we don't need less prayer, we need more prayer. So I think it's important that we give grace and and we help people to understand you know what's going on. And the conversations that that we have and the corrections that that we sometimes have to make don't have to lead to humiliation. There can still be boundaries and there should still be boundaries. But we can do these things in a loving way and a gracious way to be able to protect the dignity of both ourselves and of the other person.

Kristy 33:50

Yeah, I think I exactly was what I was thinking as you were talking is that the questions and the answers should both be aimed toward building relationship and not toward reducing someone to a diagnosis or to idle curiosity. As long as that is the basis of the question asking, I think we're, you know, I think we're good. I also like the scripture that we were talking about here. And it's uh it's that first Corinthians piece that we hear at weddings, right? The love is patient, love is kind, that whole thing, because it is. And I think as we interact in the world, especially as Christian people, and in light of our status as image bearers, we do need to lead with love. And we do need to be asking and answering questions in the spirit of love, in its patience and kindness and spirit of doing no wrongs and everything that it says is what we need to be embodying out there as we have these kinds of difficult conversations. Because again, there's nothing wrong with asking. It's all in this spirit of the ask and the answer.

Tony 35:08

For me, honestly, some of the closest relationships that I've got are people that constantly do ask me questions. But when they ask, it's it's out of that genuineness to know and to learn, even though I've answered this question 500 times over the course of my lifetime for this person. This may be the first time that they thought to ask me this question. If I'm loving this person well, why would I not have grace for them, even though I've answered the question 500 times before? You can leave room for someone to learn without giving them unlimited access to every detail of our lives. And going through this episode, I hope it's helped. I know that Kristy and I have had just fun conversations about how to present this information because it this is real for us. Like we we deal with this daily. We thought, you know what, let's talk about this and and let's talk about it in a positive way, that we're able to kind of give some words to those that are having to answer the questions, but also maybe in explaining and sharing some of these experiences, we're also able to help those that have questions to be able to understand how to ask them in the right way, and so that we all benefit, you know, as as we go forward.

Kristy 36:48

As you were saying that, something that happens, I just comes to mind, something that happens to us all the time is that Tony might fall. And it's just it's a balanced thing, you know. He walks with a crutch, and invariably Tony's on the ground and somebody asks me, is he okay? Like, I don't know. Ask him just so many times, and with the, you know, with the most well-meaning intent possible. So I guess uh I'll leave you with that. Like you can always ask the person. We definitely understand the spirit of the question is well-meaning. Just take your context into account and do the best you can. That's all that we can ever ask. And I think as long as both sides of the equation, the asker and the answerer, are doing the best they can, I think we're in good shape.

Tony 37:41

The last thought I'll leave you guys with is this you are more than the questions that are being asked of you to answer. And your story is not public property. You know, your story is still your own, and how much you want to share of your story is completely up to you. And your worth is not measured by how much you decide to share or not share. Father, we come before you today, thankful that you are with us every step of the way as we wind our way through the story, through all the twists and turns and the ups and downs and the funny parts, the sad parts, the the parts that make us go wow and just take our breath away. Father, thank you so much that you are the author of every story. Father, we just thank you for your son and we thank you that you love us so much that you want a relationship with us because you want us to know how much you love us as part of that story. So give us patience as we answer questions, give us discernment to know when when to walk away and when to lean in, and give us grace to help those that are genuinely seeking to learn and to know more. We love you, Father. Above all else, we love you. We pray in your son's precious name. Amen. Amen. Thank you guys so much. Hope you guys have a great day and a great rest of your week, and we'll see you next time.

Kristy 39:22

Thank you, friends.