S1E43: Is God With Me in Tragedy and Darkness? - Melissa Ashton
There are some things in life that we never see coming, some tragedies that change us forever in the blink of an eye.
On today's episode of Pain to Passion Live, I am chatting with my dear friend Melissa Ashton about her story, and how tragedy and darkness have impacted her life and her faith.
On this episode, Melissa shares several truly moving stories, including one about her eldest son being in a car accident as a young child that resulted in significant brain damage. I was so moved by her telling of this story, especially when she shared how she got on her knees and told God that if He wanted to take her son home, that He could do that. I can't even imagine how living this felt, but I do know that it is such evidence of the reality of God!!
We also talked about Melissa's beautiful adopted daughter, Olivia, who is blind but who still sees life so clearly, and how she has taught Melissa what love truly looks like. As an adoptive mama myself, this of course spoke to my soul!!
Throughout this conversation, Melissa spoke vulnerably and authentically about how God stays with us when we are in the darkness and when we experience tragedy. He doesn't orchestrate the tragedy, but He still amazingly works through it to create in us the very strength and tools we need for what comes next in our lives. We have both experienced this again and again and have learned the value of trusting this aspect of God and putting one foot in front of the other when all hope seems lost.
You are not alone, my friends! You are seen and held, even in the darkness.
I hope you are so blessed by this episode!!
As always, if you are enjoying this podcast, please rate and review so more people will get the chance to be encouraged, too. Thank you!!
More About Melissa:
My friends call me Missy:)
Executive Leadership Coach
Speaker, Author
Mom to six amazing humans.
Connect with Melissa:
Instagram - @melissalynneashton & @themelissalynneshow
Facebook - facebook.com/missy.b.ashton
Connect with Gabi:
Instagram - @gabiruth
TikTok - @gabiruth84
Facebook - facebook.com/gabiruth84
Website - gabiruth.com
Coach with Gabi - gabiruth.com/book-a-1on1-call
Invite Gabi to Speak - gabiruth.com/speaking
(TRANSCRIPT) S1E43: Is God With Me in Tragedy and Darkness? - Melissa Ashton
Note: Transcript is created by AI. Please excuse any errors.
Gabi: Hello, beautiful people. Welcome back to Pain to Passion Live. It's gonna be a wonderful, beautiful day because I get to speak with one of my favorite people. Missy Ashton, she is beautiful and amazing. Um, and I actually just met her, gosh, less than a month ago. Yeah, that's crazy. That's wild. But you know, sometimes you just meet people and you're just like, yeah, they get it, and you click, and she is definitely one of those people.
So, I'm so thrilled to have you here today, Missy. Thank you for being here.
Melissa: Thank you for having me. I so appreciate being here and you asking me to come. Uh, that's an honor to me, and I just have to echo, you know, sometimes you meet people and you, you just said like, I think it was around a month ago that we met, and it's like, really?
It seems like we've like just known each other forever. So, yeah. I, I love when you meet, when you meet, we get to meet people in life that we feel like we've known forever. That's, A
Gabi: blessing. It is. It is definitely a gift and it's not something that happens every day. So I'm really grateful for you and I would just love for you to introduce yourself.
I don't tend to read bios on the podcast cuz when people tell us about themselves it comes out differently and I like that. Okay, so go ahead and just tell us who you are, what you do.
Melissa: Well, my name is Melissa Ashton. My friends all call me Missy. I, um, professionally I work as an executive leadership coach.
Um, I work with people individually and I work with their teams and organizations. I speak, um, I write, um, those are the things that I do, um, in the professional world. I, um, most importantly am I'm a mom to six amazing humans that I love and the thing that I'm most proud of and I think gives me the most sense of accomplishment in life.
Aw. Um, I, I am, I'm born and raised in Texas, a Texas girl, and have four younger brothers that they are growing up, life is a big part of my story and, um, I'm the only girl there. So anyhow, I am, that's, that's a little bit of me in a nutshell, and I'm, I'm happy to be here.
Gabi: I love it. And yeah, of course, six kids is gonna be a huge part of your life.
And tell us their age ranges.
Melissa: Well, they're a huge age range. Our oldest son is 32. And let's see, you're gonna make me think of all their ages on, on the spot. So Cade, our son, we have four sons and they're, Cade is 27 or will be this year. Rhett is um, he'll be 23 this year. We have a daughter McCall that is 20.
We have a 17 year old son that lives at home and we have little Olivia that will be 10 next. Oh, happy birthday, Olivia. So I don't think I missed anybody. I, I think I got 'em all in there. If I did, I'm sorry.
Gabi: But in essence, there's a 22 year age gap between the oldest and the youngest, which is pretty amazing.
Yes, yes. So, as you guys can probably tell already just from the little bit, is that Missy has a lot of stories. She's lived quite an interesting life and, um, within, even just with her kids and everything, there's a lot of different stories. So we will be able to talk to her about all of it. Today, she better write a book so we can just read it.
Is that in the plan at some point?
Melissa: It is actually. It is, yes.
Gabi: Cool. Awesome. I will definitely be the first in line to get that book. Um, but I would love just to hear from you, Missy, kind of like what has led you to be even an executive coach. Like what has drawn you into where you are now as a human? Whatever you wanna share.
Melissa: Well, it's interesting that you asked that question because I really believe, looking back over my life, that all the different things that I've been through, really the good and the bad, you know, the difficult, um, you know, I, I've also, I people say to me often, I hear you've been through harder things than anyone that I know.
Mm. Which I don't think we're in a contest, by the way, but, and, and, and maybe that's true in some ways. Maybe, you know, Other ways it's not. But nevertheless, I have been through some really hard things, but also I consider myself to be one of the most blessed people. Like, I truly feel like I'm, um, unusually have been blessed in my life and been given a lot of, of strength and grace and, um, power beyond my own to get through the hard things.
But the reason I say all of that is because, Now that I'm older and I, you know, have lived some life, and I look back, I see these things that have happened in life that have really led me to do, um, well, to be able to do the next thing that I needed to do. And the next thing now I see God's hand in it all of leading me to where I'm supposed to be and who I'm supposed to be and to what I'm supposed to do.
So I, I grew up, if you, if you rewind back to my younger days, I grew. I had four younger brothers. I was the oldest and when I was young we had a very loving, happy home. It was clean and organized and you know, my parents loved each other and you know, it was just a well-functioning, loving home. From my, my memory, as we all started to get older, as my last little brother was born, my mom started to have a lot of health issues.
Um, she had grown up in a extremely abusive, traumatic ho, you know, situation and her upbringing, up upbringing, and that started to come into play. The older we got, she started having health problems and started developing some addictions, and our home became more and more chaotic. Mm-hmm. Unpredictable, you know, fighting starts between my mom and dad and, you know, it just became chaotic.
I started really trying to step in and help take care of my brothers and took over a lot of an adult role at an early age. And, um, at the time things seemed normal to me. Like it seemed normal for me to do, be doing a lot of the things that I was doing. It seemed more normal to me to be making dinners and, you know, taking care of my brothers and getting him ready for school and doing these different things.
Um, and then as I got older driving, like, you know, taking 'em with me everywhere and really having this sense of I was responsible for them. Wow. And, and not only to take care of them, but to protect them. Like, I really at a young age felt that I didn't realize all that. I, I don't think I would've been able to articulate all that at the time, but now I can articulate that I felt that, and.
Um, became, started doing adult things, you know, early on as a child. And once I did leave home and there came a time that I did like really have to leave, I decided as a teenager, probably around the age of 16, that I, I wanted a different life. I made up my mind and I think this is something that, you know, I think there's these trajectory moments in our life and we may not realize.
At the time, but looking back, I realized that this was, this was a trajectory moment in my life that I made this decision that I will not live like this. Wow. I ma made a decision that I would have a different life, and so I, without realizing what I was doing, I started making decisions to that. And one of those hard decisions.
One of the hardest things I've ever done is when I, I was 18 years old and I realized that I had to leave. I was a single mom at the time, living at home. I had a, I had a baby, and I realized that in order for me to have that different life, I had to, I had to get out and I had to walk away. And I remember driving out of my drive.
In my, you know, little car and everything. I owned, packed in it with this baby. And I remember tears running down my face. And, you know, looking back, I should have been afraid because I wasn't, I didn't really have a place to go. I was going to like camp on a friend's couch. Mm-hmm. You know, I, I really didn't have a, a, a good plan or, you know, really a, a good, um, program or plan or in place.
I didn't have all that, but I knew I had to go. Wow. But what the tears were from, they should have been tears of being afraid of what I was stepping into. But what they, they really weren't, I was completely settled that this, I was gonna, I was gonna move forward and I was gonna make it work. Um, the tears were from, I felt like I was betraying my brothers.
Hmm. Or leaving them behind and, and leaving without. And, um, that's been a hard feeling to overcome throughout my, really, my entire life. Wow. I've had this sense of being responsible Wow. For them. So I did, I did that. Like I, I left and, and moved out and, and started, you know, creating this life of my own.
And, um, I eventually met someone. We started that. Like we, we got, we're married and we did create, we didn't have, you know, a lot of money or anything like that, but we created this little happy home. Mm. With, you know, no yelling and no, you know, there was no, things were predictable. Yeah. You know, and we were able to, you know, create a, um, to me it was just a very, Existence at home started having our little family.
Um, you know, I thought that I had done it. Like at that point I was like, I made it like I did it. You know, I, I did what I set out to do. I wanted a different life and I have it. And, um, I just thought this white picket fence life that we, you know, had created that, that. You know, it was just gonna continue to be, and I was just so thankful and happy for that.
And we had, um, we had two more sons, um, and then we moved. We decided to, my husband had graduated college and we decided to take a job out of state and we packed our little family up and moved across the country from Texas to Utah. And we have lived there a really short time, just a few months. Um, while we were there, um, we, our oldest son Travis, who was just an exceptional athlete and, you know, really could do a lot of things really well, played the piano, really was really smart in school.
Everything kind of seemed easy, came easy to him. We had signed him up for, to play baseball and just a regular day. Um, we were going to that little baseball practice. I had my younger. Sons, Caden rat with me and went to his little baseball practice and he was gonna leave and go to the roller rink with his cousin and two friends.
She was gonna take them roller skating, just, you know, nothing out of the ordinary, regular day. Mm-hmm. I took my little ones home just to get ready for dinner and, you know, not even ever imagining, um, you know, what was to come or how quickly our life could change. Wow. And that. That evening, I got a phone call that, um, our, the kids had been in a car accident that I needed to come to the hospital and I made arrangements quickly to with, to leave my two little ones with the neighbor and rushed to the hospital.
And I walked in to a scene that is, you know, really a, a mom's worst nightmare. Yeah. In the emergency room. Um, I, I walked in and I saw my son's best friend Derek. He was covered in blood. You know, he was sitting up and I, and there was a lot of people, it was kind of frantic in the room, but I remember thinking to myself, okay, he's sitting up, he's conscious, he's awake.
Um, in the background I could hear, um, A lot of screams and shrieking it. And when I think of this in my mind, it, it seems like it's in slow motion. Like I could see it almost like in a movie, and it's all happening in slow motion. But I remember turning and like following these sounds and realizing that that was our son Travis' voice.
Wow. Uh, he was the, the streaks and the screams were coming from him. And I followed, followed the sound of his voice and walked into a scene. That is like a horror movie, you know, to any parent. There was a lot of, um, a lot of people in the room, a lot of, uh, medical professionals rushing frantically. I could sense the energy in the room.
Um, his clothes had been cut off of him. I, I just immediately walked up to him and put my hands on him. He didn't respond to me at all. Wow. I could only see. I can only see the whites of his eyes and his eyes were ruled back, and then the screaming stopped. Mm. The shrieks, it just went silent. And at that point, um, I don't know who, I don't remember who, but I remember them taking me into a room and putting me in this room and, and.
Saying, we're gonna have to run some tests. We're likely gonna have to move him. We'll, we'll, we'll come and update you. And at that point, I really knew in my heart the gravity of what was going on with him. I knew that he was really teetering between life and death. Wow. Um, I remember getting on my knees and saying a, a really heartfelt prayer that, I didn't really think I would have the courage or the ability to just offer or say that kind of prayer, but I just, I just remember pleading with God and telling him that I, I wanted my son to live.
Mm-hmm. And I wanted, I wanted to raise him and I wanted him to live, whatever that meant. And, but also knowing my son's heart and his spirit, like he's an all in kind of kid. Mm-hmm. He. Super brave and courageous, and his personality is really big and he has a very loving and big heart. And I just, I had the sense that if God was calling him to do something else, to be called home, I just knew that that's what Travis would wanna do.
Wow. And so I remember saying the words,
Not my will. This is what I want, but not my will. You know, I, I prayed that what Travis is, Travis will have a choice and that God's will, you know, would, would be done. And I really didn't think I had it in me to say something like that and wow. Especially and mean it. But you know, when you get into situations, you find that you have strength and abilities and.
Encouraged that you didn't know that you had? Um, so Travis was, you know, he suffered a really traumatic brain injury. He was life flighted, um, to a, a children's trauma unit. From there, um, surgeries had to be done to save his life. His, uh, they had to, it's called a bone fla. They remove half of your skull so that your brain.
Um, room to swell. They save it. I mean, save it. They, they freeze it. And then, like, this is reattached later. It was in a coma for quite a few weeks. Wow. Um, a lot of, of really, you know, intense things. But Travis did live, um, we did spend, spend, um, the next month and years of him and being in rehab and therapy.
He didn't come home. That all happened. Um, at the end of March of that year, it's when he was 11. He was 11 years old, and I remember he came home from the hospital a few days before nine 11 happened. Wow. So that's how long he was in the, how long he was in the hospital from March to September. Wow. Um, so anyway, it to say that it changed our.
Forever is an understatement. Um, so the next years and, and a and a lot of my time and effort en and energy became towards helping Travis heal. Mm-hmm. And helping him, you know, recreate brain connections from his brain to his body. He, when he did come out of a coma, And he was healthy enough to start doing rehab.
He was like a, like a, he was like a vegetable. He was like a wet noodle that could do nothing. He couldn't blink his eyes, couldn't squeeze your fingers, couldn't hold his head up. Wow. A, a newborn. A newborn baby really can do more than he could do. Mm-hmm. And so that's where we started to help him to rehabilitate.
And so I really dove into helping, helping him. Uh, navigate that and finding the best way in the treatments and every kind of therapy. Um, you know, as a mom, you know, I'm sure you can relate to this, that you are willing to, to leave no stone unturned to help or save your child. Yeah. Whatever it takes, you know, you're willing.
And so really set out on this journey to, you know, help him. You know, rebuild his life and his brain and his body and make these connections so he could function, you know, in, in this life. And, um, he, he, he's made tons of headway, um, and progress where he is today. Um, he is able to, um, he's able to take care of himself primarily.
He can dress and eat. You know, make himself something to eat, can stay at home alone. Um, he has all of his memories. Wow. He has all of his short, short term and long term memories. He's cognitive, he understands, he's still funny. He still has the same sense of humor, still has similar, his personality really hasn't changed still.
It's still super big heart. He's super stubborn. He's super de determined. Um, he. He cannot talk. He hasn't been able to speak. I mean, he does, he communicates. So he sign language and he is different ways of communication. Mm-hmm. But what happened to me is year, like a few years into all of that, like this white picket, fenced life and, and for me personally as a person, yeah.
Like I realized, like I began to crumble. Yeah. I began to realize that I had really lost. The person that I was, um, I, I didn't even know myself anymore. I had forgotten how to be me. I wasn't, I didn't know how to laugh. I didn't dance. I didn't, I used to plant flowers. I used to cr be super creative and, you know, do all kinds of creative things.
Like all of that was gone in me and I just remember. I remember looking in the mirror and thinking, I don't even know. I don't know. I don't even know you. I don't even know the person that's looking back at me. Yeah, for sure. So this really moved me too. Um, Realizing that I had been spending, you know, dedicated my life to helping my son and helping him.
But then I realized like, I, I need some help.
You know, I need some help. And so something that is a, was a huge epiphany to me and has really led me to do a lot of things that I'm doing and to actually now teach other people this is that I had this moment where I realized, you know, I haven't helping. Our son figure out how to reprogram his brain for these past several years successfully.
Like successfully, we've been able to do that. And so I thought, you know, if he can read his brain to his body and feel differently and literally relearn and learn new ways to do things and create these new pathways, then I can do that too. Yeah, I can do, I can do that for me. And the very thing that I learned, you know, Just dedicated these past years of my life to, I realized that in helping my son do this, that it was the answer.
It was exactly what I had to do for myself. Wow.
So I began like that really just was like this moment, like that was another trajectory. Like this is, this has been your son's cure, that, you know, this what helped him and it's also for you. Yeah. So then I, I realize like I can do this, I can rebuild, I can, I can rebuild me, I can recreate who I wanna be and who I am and who I used to be.
Mm-hmm. I can find that again and I can recreate, um, those things and I can literally retrain my. Um, to be the person that I want to be. Wow.
Gabi: I'm amazed. I mean, I love this story. Um, it's a lot like you've been through a lot, and I can't even imagine having that experience with one of my kids because, you know, for all the moms out there listening, you know, How viscerally you feel when your kids are feeling something. So that's just. Huge and incredible, but also just what you've, you're saying here at the end about how what you did for your son you realized was also for you.
Like, you know, I can relate to that. I know a lot, which I love because. Totally different situation, but it was the same for me. Like, oh, the way that I'm helping my son heal is exactly how I can help myself heal. And I just think it's so cool, like how God sets that up and does that. And he always makes a way, like I don't, I don't believe that God orchestrated your son's car accident or anything like that.
Somehow, some way mysteriously he can make everything beautiful. And that's just so amazing to me. Um, so I love your tenacity. I love your courage. Like that girl that you were, that was raising those younger brothers was wired. In a really special way to face the things that you've had to face as an adult, which I think is also just the grace of God and so fascinating to me.
So thank you for sharing all of that story. Um, I think probably a lot of people are in tears at this point. I know. I was like, uh, um, because we love our families, you know, everyone can relate to that and. It's really incredible how you fought for Travis and to see the strides that he's made. Like it's amazing.
So, and God is good. Like, I love, I love the different story that's being told.
Melissa: Well, I love, love, love what you said, and I believe that with all my heart is that I don't believe that God caused Travis's accident at all. Uh, but I do believe that he does use things in our. Lives that happen for our good.
Mm-hmm. And that's definitely been the case for me. Um, because of what I went in, went through as a younger person, I was able to have the strength and the tenacity just to face really hard things. Yeah. And then all of that, I thought it was all about me helping my son and helping heal him, which it was.
Mm-hmm. But then I. It was also about that I was learning how eventually I would, what I would need to do to heal me. Mm-hmm. And it was as much for me as it was for him. And then now I have the blessing to teach what I've learned in all of it to other people. And I truly am passionate about that and, and love to do it.
Gabi: That's incredible. I mean, that's what this podcast is all about is like those hard things that you've been through. And for those people who are listening who are in the middle of something extremely hard, it can be so difficult to think like this is gonna turn into something good. And I get that like so much compassion for the people who are in the thick of it.
I hope that these stories will inspire a glimmer of hope. Something beautiful will come and to help you personally, like it helped Missy personally, but now how she's also utilizing this to help other people, um, like nothing's wasted. I really believe that nothing's wasted in God's economy and. It can feel like a waste.
It can feel like, what is the point of this? So much of the time. But these stories inspire me too when I'm in my hard seasons of like, okay, if she went through that and it's turned into this, there's hope. So I hope, and I believe that this story will inspire hope for other people. So thank you so much for sharing all of that.
Melissa: Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to, and thank you for, for listen.
Gabi: Absolutely anytime I would listen to any of your stories, but I do wanna mention that you are also an adoptive mom because I am also an adoptive mom, and this is one of the spaces where we've connected. So whatever you'd like to share, I'd love to hear a little bit about Olivia.
Melissa: Yeah, well it's interesting that you bring her, just you saying that out loud is, uh, like, I got chills and little tears came in because, oh. That's part of the beauty too of, um, of every, all of this that we've been through. And, um, we would probably need to do a few more podcasts to really talk about all of it.
But yeah. Uh, our youngest daughter is nine, almost 10, and she was born, um, she was born with some, uh, pretty serious medical conditions. And she's, she's blind. She's completely blind. Um, she can see some light and darkness, but beyond that, Um, visually impaired. So our bookends are pretty extreme in age, but they both have these, um, special abilities mm-hmm.
That, um, you know, are, are different, you know, and so raising all that I went through with Travis and learning about therapy and insurance and just all those things. Yeah. It's like I, I, it's like God, like really also was not only was preparing me for to help me, but I mean he really truly prepared me for this child to come to our home and be part of our lives.
And just like you were saying earlier, um, although it has been in so many ways, a huge challenge. I don't even really know how to put this into words, but people say, I'll just say this. People say to us all the time, she's so lucky to have your family. She's so blessed, you know, to have your family to be in and be part of which I, I think that's, that is true.
Um, but we are so blessed to have her. Yeah. And she's just such a little ray of sunshine in our family. And, and not to say that there isn't challenges and there hasn't been because there is and there has been, but there's been so many more blessings and she's taught us so much about love and I, I say often that this little blind girl who came into our lives is truly has taught me how to really see.
Mm-hmm. Like, she really has taught me so much about faith. Her middle name actually is faith. Mm-hmm. Love that. I, I love, I love that. And she's taught me so much about how to really see what matters, um, in life and, um, and really just to, Um, it's, it's interesting because she is our child that's, you know, she's blind.
She can't see, but she doesn't miss a detail. Like she, she observes everything and doesn't miss anything, and we kind of joke around about it. Even to say like, Olivia, like you, you're not really blind. You're just, you couldn't possibly leave because she doesn't miss anything. But no. She has been such a blessing to me and really has taught me so, so much about faith and about.
And led me to do a lot of things that I never would. I'm, I'm involved with a, a program called Angel Reach that helps children who have aged outta the foster system. Just the path with her has led me to so many things like that that I never even would've known about, let alone been involved with and Wow.
Had the opportunity and blessing to be a part of. So it really is. Way back in those days when I was a little girl, it was like, I see it now. God was leading me the whole time. Wow. Every, every stone was to help me to, uh, along the, the places I was supposed to step was the preparation for the next step.
It's incredible. It's clear, it's clear to me now, and I do wanna say, you mentioned, About people who are listening, who are going through really hard things. Mm-hmm. I just wanna say this to you, is that, um, yes, I've, I've been through a lot of really tough things and I want you to know that when you're in the valley, like you're in the middle, you're in the hard part.
It's not likely you're gonna see the good. It's not likely you're gonna see, oh, this was God's hand all along. That's not where you see it, and it's painful and it. But this is what I would say to you is know that he's beside you. Mm-hmm. Know that he's sending angels. Know that he's lifting you and giving you strength and power that you wouldn't otherwise have.
Know that he's guiding you because he will guide you to a place to where all of a sudden you're like, okay, first of all, I'm getting some traction li in life and I'm getting through this. I know what to do. I'm getting some strength. It's like gonna be way down the road that you, you start to see, oh, this is what it was all about.
That doesn't happen when you're in the middle. So I just wanna say, give yourself some grace and also know there is support and help and love that's coming from heaven that you, you don't see it right now. If you look for it, you'll. Yeah, you'll realize that it's there, but you, you just gotta keep going to, to get going.
Yeah. That's just my, that's just my advice is just really to like, keep putting one foot in front of the other and know that it will eventually make sense. Yeah. It will eventually get easier. It will eventually, the storm eventually runs out of. It, it, it does. And in the meantime, like, hang on to that face.
Gabi: Yeah. Thank you for that. I completely agree. Um, it can be so easy to just camp in that space of like, I'm in the valley and I've done that. I've tried that. Um, it felt, it felt good-ish for a while, but what you just said, w you said keep going. I think that that's so crucial is like, yeah, just one step in front of the other, one, one step at a time.
Like it can seem so small, but if you just keep moving. You will pass through it. Right? And that can be so challenging. So like definitely for anyone listening who's in a dark space, do whatever you can to first show yourself tons of compassion. What you're going through is legitimately hard, and it's okay to say that.
And also try to find some. Get around you. Yeah. Some safe people, therapists, if you need one. You know, just so you're not alone, because being alone in that is gonna be 10 times more scary and dangerous. But um, again, I think these kinds of stories, if the more you can listen to them, see them, read them when you're in that space, the more you can get that perspective and also kind of that.
To put one foot in front of the other and keep going. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. I, I just know that I've been in both spaces where I've stopped and I've kept going. And the stopping can feel really good for a minute, but,
Melissa: well, and maybe you need to, and another thing that no one wants to hear when you are in the valley and things are so hard, is nobody wants to hear, including me.
Um, this is all for your good. There's a silver lining here. Mm-hmm. You, when you're in that place, you don't wanna hear about a silver, silver lining. And, you know, I remember some, somebody, This was said to me, often God only gives the people who can handle hard things. God only gives the people with the most faith these challenges.
And I would think, well, you know what? I think I wanna take a break from having faith. Yeah. I think maybe I. Like, can we get a memo to God that I'm, I'm gonna just not have faith for a while, and I don't, I didn't wanna hear that. Made me mad. Yeah. And so I just want you to know that we're not trying to say, Hey, this is all gonna be great and there's a silver lining.
No worries. Because when you're in the middle and you're in such hard things, one, you should never say that to someone. But two, you don't wanna hear that in the middle. Right? Right. You don't. You don't. Mm-hmm. And so I just wanna say, I understand that and, and yeah, truly feel that myself.
Gabi: Absolutely. I completely agree a hundred percent.
I appreciate that for sure. Well, I could talk to you all day, as you know.
Melissa: I know. Let's do, let's talk all day. Okay, let's do it.
Gabi: Settle in y'all. Uh, we'll have to do some more episodes I think at some point. Um, cuz we have lots of stories to share. But I so appreciate your time with us today and all you shared, I know it's gonna be impactful for people.
Um, I'd love for you to let us know the best ways to get connected with you. I'll put everything in the show notes as well, but I'm sure some people would love to reach out and say hi. So what would be the best way for people to do that?
Melissa: Um, on all the social media, Facebook, I'm @melissalynnashton on Instagram.
I'm Melissa Lynn Ashton. I just started a new, uh, in Instagram page that has a lot of tips and, and things that I've learned I've been putting out called @themelissalynnshow. Um, that's all on Instagram. Um, I would love for anyone too that is struggling or having a hard time, like please reach out. Like if you have any questions or like anything that, um, I can do to, you know, help you or tell you that like, this is what worked for me or what I did, like, please don't hesitate.
Reach out, say hi, ask me questions. I would, I would love to hear from anyone.
Gabi: Amazing. Thank you so much. And again, friends, if you're listening and you'd like to connect, I'll link everything in the show notes so you can connect with Missy. Um, and I'm just, again, I'm so grateful for this time with you today.
Thank you for sharing with us. Is there anything else you wanna share? I don't wanna leave, leave you like wanting to say something, so if there's anything else you wanna share before we.
Melissa: No, I, I, I think I've really said anything. I, I don't know of anything, um, that we haven't covered specifically. I will just say is I did not do any of this alone.
And just, I would echo what you said that you are not alone. To keep going, just keep putting one foot in front of her and you, I promise you'll get there. There will be a way it does work out is horrible or awful or is hurt or. The world seems like tomorrow's not gonna come. I promise that it does, but you have to just really keep trying.
And like Gabi said, like, reach out for help. Talk to a friend. Yeah. Find a friend, find people on, you know, uh, social media that you can relate to, that can give you strength. I did not do any of it alone. So it's, it's all available to us. And of course, like always we can get on our knees and pray. That's, Available, but I would just say, keep going.
I promise. I promise you, you, you get there, you get to a good place.
Gabi: Beautiful. I love it. Thank you friend, and I'm sure we'll talk soon. Thanks everyone for listening. Make sure to go connect with Missy and I will see you all next time. Bye. Thank you. Bye.