Jacob Lorion Barr discusses with Chelsey Painter Davis her transition from a pro-life supporter to a professional speaker, focusing on her own struggles with vision loss and advocating for the sanctity of all life, regardless of disability.
Summary
This is Jacob Barr, and I want to share my reflections on the pro-life Team Podcast where I had the opportunity to speak with Chelsey Painter Davis.
In our conversation, Chelsey shared her deeply personal journey from a pro-life enthusiast to becoming a professional speaker, despite facing significant challenges, including her nearly complete vision loss due to complications from birth control pills. Her story is a powerful testimony to the pro-life ethic, emphasizing the value of every life, including those with disabilities.
Chelsey’s experience with medical negligence and her fight against societal pressures to abort her son after a prenatal diagnosis truly resonate with the pro-life message.
Her upcoming podcast, Blind Mom Life, aims to further this conversation by exploring themes of conquering disabilities, cherishing motherhood, and choosing life.
#Hashtags: #ProLifeJourney, #OvercomingAdversity, #CherishingMotherhood, #ConqueringDisabilities, #ChoosingLife, #BlindMomLife, #EthicalChoices, #LifeAffirmation, #InspiringStories, #ProLifeAdvocacy
Transcript
The transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Welcome to the pro-life Team Podcast this is Chelsea Painter Davis pro-life Christian speaker and host of the upcoming podcast Blind Mom Life. I’m here with Jacob Barr as we discuss my journey from pro-life enthusiast to professional speaker and the hopes and the trust that we can give to God.
Jacob Barr :
Well, Chelsea, I’m excited to have you on the pro-life Team Podcast. Would you introduce yourself as if you were speaking to a room of pro-life leaders?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Yeah, so my name is Chelsea Painter Davis. I am an upcoming pro-life Christian speaker living in Lakeland, florida. I’m a wife to my high school sweetheart, Austin, and mom to our two Littles Emberley in Dallas but the big twist is that I’m almost totally blind. So God has given me a really diverse testimony that includes resisting pressure to abort our son after a prenatal diagnosis, losing my sight because of birth control pills I did not want to take in growing up a survivor of in vitro fertilization. And I just. I think that my story really articulates the pro-life ethic, that all life is worth living and I just love sharing that with other people so much that I’m going to launch a podcast in January called Blind Mom Life, where I’m going to invite other inspiring, relatable guests to share their stories and dive deep on conquering disabilities, cherishing motherhood, and choosing life.
Jacob Barr :
Wow so yes will you tell us your story of, you know, the chemicals that you know, the birth control or the, you know, the essentially the story of how of what you were told to take or back story on all of that and then how that led to this, you know, when it came to your eyesight being impacted severely?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Yeah, so I was planning a wedding on my freshman year of college me and Austin were about to get married, so I did what all the girls are supposed to do in I grew up in Arkansas and they were very heavy on birth control pill education, except no education at all. Besides, you just take birth control pills and magic things happen and you don’t have to worry about getting pregnant anymore. And so I just was like, OK, I’m about to get married i need these pills to start working so I went to the doctor. But I had done a little bit of research before, so I kind of understood that hormonal birth control pills, at least from my research, I knew that some of them could cause the uterine lining to, like, refuse the embryos to attach. So I brought this up to my doctor at my doctor’s appointment, I was like, hey, so I need to pick out some kind of birth control pill for my upcoming wedding but, like, I need it to not like, you know, flush my baby like, how can I do that? I don’t really want to take the normal birth control pills what I do and I just remember her looking at me like I was the stupidest person who’d ever come into her office. And she didn’t give me any information back she didn’t say, Oh no sweetie, that’s not, that’s not what these pills do. She just looked at me like I was dumb and I was only 19 years old so I was sitting there with my mom and my doctor and they’re like, you just need to take these pills. If you really insist, like I’ll give you like some kind of like low dose birth control pill. But it’s you just this is what you need to take and so I did i took the medication i was on it for about two weeks, a few months before my wedding was supposed to happen. And I started having chest pain. And at first I was like, oh, my goodness, I need to work out where I’m getting chubby at college but I went to the dining hall and I climbed like one flight of stairs and I had chest pain for like 4 hours and I called my mom she called my doctor and they’re like, OK, you need to go to the hospital right now and I ended up having a pulmonary embolism. So I got off the birth control pills they found out that I had two blood clotting disorders. I was lucky to be alive from those birth control pills, but I continue to feel kind of sick and stuff. I started getting frequent headaches. We moved my wedding back because I’ve been so sick from the pulmonary embolism and needed time to figure out what was going on with my body. We pushed the wedding back the whole three four months, but I started getting headaches all the time i remember carrying a bottle of Tylenol around with me wherever I went, and I didn’t think anything of it because I was like, OK, I’m taking summer classes now. I’m under a lot of family stress i’m planning a wedding, you know? It just makes sense that my body’s going to feel sick. But it wasn’t until we were on our way back from our honeymoon that the headache just wouldn’t go away. And I went to see my primary care physician, the same one who had talked me into taking those pills in the first place, and she told me there was nothing wrong with me. She said I just needed to calm down, drop a couple classes, stop being so stressed out and maybe get a massage. And unfortunately I believed her but not only did I take her at her word, i felt really embarrassed from the way that she was treating me, dismissing my concerns and making me feel dumb for coming in for something like a headache i just really believe that nothing was going on and I just needed to be quiet until the headache went away. And the problem is that the headache did go away, but my vision started to blur. And if this really weird thing happens when you’re getting very sick, you go into a state of denial and you honestly do not realize what’s going on i just thought I needed to get a new eyeglasses prescription or update the light bulbs in my house. I had no idea I was going blind. When I finally found a Doctor Who would listen to me, she told me I had pseudo tumor cerebri and I had to have emergency surgery because I was going to be blind in three days. But somehow it took the hospital two of those days to get me into the operating room. After my VP shunt was placed I my vision continued to deteriorate for about 3 more weeks. But at that point there was nothing anyone could do anymore. I went home just basically being told I was going to be blind for the rest of my life and I started seeing all these ads on TV like did you take birth control pills and develop pseudo tumor cerebri? There might be a lawsuit for you and I was like wait are you guys? Are you kidding me right now? Like, am I am I blind because of those pills I didn’t even want to take in the 1st place. And then I was misdiagnosed by the same doctor because there was no warning on these pills that it could cause pseudo tumor cerebri. And so now I’m just picking. It was nine years ago and I’m still suffering from these birth control pills that I only took for two weeks. But I I’m trying to accept that even though my doctors made mistakes, the hospital made mistakes that doesn’t mean that my life is an accident and God has a plan for me and I’m just trying to give him the glory for everything I do and let him use my pain for his purposes.
Jacob Barr :
Wow, wow that’s a So yeah, So you literally saw an ad on the TV, like ATV commercial for some, you know, for like a lawsuit regarding the, you know, birth control pills.
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Yes, yes. It’s turned into being a large like class action lawsuit about these name brand birth control pills causing pseudo tumor cerebri. And the doctors didn’t know about it like I didn’t know about it when I was taking them and how many.
Jacob Barr :
I wonder how many cases they have to have to have a lawsuit of that size. I’m wondering how many different people have you know, experienced the same, you know, experience what you experienced.
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Yeah, it’s a really rare condition and they don’t know what causes it they know that it happens to women in their twenties who are overweight and it’s. I just remember listening to my doctor, I’m like, OK, but that’s like exactly who takes birth control pills, the one you’re talking about. So I’ve had like, one doctor say like, Oh no, Chelsea, you just got it because you got it i had another doctor say it was definitely the birth control pills, and unfortunately i’m never going to know if it was those pills, if it just was a happenstance but I it is a thing that those pills do ’cause this condition, and not a lot of people know about it. I know that I’ve heard Abby Johnson talk before about how she developed this condition after taking birth control pills, but she was very lucky that they caught it before it caused blindness, like it did in me.
Jacob Barr :
Wow, so I’m wondering, so we’re so you had you had someone doctor say yes, it’s connected another doctor said no, it’s not connected how many doctors have you talked to?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
I have seen. I spent, Oh my goodness, I was hospitalized 4 times within that year or so. I saw so many doctors, so many specialists i was all through the UAMS in Little Rock with that incident and then later I moved to Oklahoma City and I was going through the Dean McGee Eye Institute there. I had one of my doctors in Oklahoma City say that it was from the birth control pills that he basically said, you know, all your health problems started with these birth control pills, don’t you and I was like, yeah, I kind of figured that out. But it’s hard to quantify and I’ve noticed even when I bring up my condition with other blind professionals, like professionals who are meant to care for blind people, they never know what I’m talking about. They’re used to hearing, oh, I lost my vision because of macular degeneration or glaucoma or retinitis pigmentosis. They’re not used to hearing pseudo tumor cerebral so they genuinely usually never know what I’m talking about.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah well, if someone’s not familiar with that scenario then they may not have much input i mean it’s probably a big, it’s probably a unique area of study I suppose. I certainly don’t know that area of study, but yeah, so I guess, yeah, so that’s just a point what are your?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Go ahead. I was just going to say when you get that condition, you get moved from your normal like ophthalmologist, you get moved to a neuro ophthalmologist, typically based and connected with a hospital so it’s a pretty serious condition it starts out with headaches, then vision loss, then memory loss, then death so it can progress pretty quickly and if your doctors don’t like my primary care physician was not the best, but in her defense, my birth control pill bottle did not say watch for vision loss, then death. It just said watch for stroke, watch for heart attack, all these horrible things. But at the same time, like I told her in that appointment, I don’t really think these pills are right for me. I don’t think it protects my baby if I do happen to have a fertilized egg inside of me i don’t think it protects it enough and she just looked at me like I was stupid. And because I was 19 was stupid and I trusted her. And now I have to live with those consequences for the rest of my life, and she gets to move on like nothing happened.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah that doesn’t sound if yeah, it sounds like injustice it sounds like this is like it sounds like a story that This is why you know future labels warning labels need to have include risks like this especially if there’s like you know a lot of you know enough people for a Class A lawsuit to be taking place it seems to support that there’s a pattern here or a risk.
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Yeah, well, what I do now is whenever it comes up with other women, I just tell them like you do not have to take those pills like you can talk to your husband, you can work something out you do not need to take these pills they don’t respect your body, they don’t respect your baby’s body and you do not need to be taking them.
Jacob Barr :
Do you know what other things might cause this condition?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Well, it’s also called idiopathic intercranial hypertension, and the idiopathic part means that they have no idea what causes it. They have only noticed the correlating evidence that it’s women in their women pretty much exclusively in their twenties who are overweight, which is again, everybody. And it’s just a very high correlation with the women who take birth control pills, and that I seem to have noticed so they don’t. Last time I’ve looked into it or talked to a doctor about it, they have no idea. They just know how to treat it when you get it.
Jacob Barr :
So and you’re so the in the birth control these birth control pill warning labels still don’t include this risk as of today.
Chelsey Painter Davis :
I haven’t checked on these specific ones who were who were sued, so from my recollection recollection, it was Marina and Yasmin who were part of the big class action lawsuit. I haven’t checked their most recent instruction, like directions and warnings and stuff. Usually there’s like a big chunk about heart attack stroke, but I haven’t looked in i imagine that it would have been part of the lawsuit that they’re forced to include it now, but it the knowledge has not translated to doctors is the problem so when you’re coming into your PCP who is not even an OBGYN who has given you this prescription and you’re saying, hey, my head hurts a bit, they’re like, I don’t know, cut some classes, get a massage. So even if it is bottles, they’re not looking for it.
Jacob Barr :
When it comes to, you know, people that are listening, what advice would you have for them to relay to their clients like so essentially let’s say a prenacy clinic executive director or a counselor or client advocate is listening. How would how would you know, how should they be conveying this message of how to shop for a medical professional or how to, you know, sort through medical professional advice when it comes to the risk of some doctors providing you know advice on one side of this topic or this one side of this spectrum of maybe helpfulness and then the and then some doctors being more helpful and maybe in identifying this as a risk tied to this decision.
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Yeah so my big takeaway from that experience is that you can’t outsource your healthcare in the way that you can go to a doctor for advice and explanations but at the end of the day, you kind of have to be your own doctor and thank God that we have Google and things now where I actually can research like I did before I went in to see my PCP, I was like, hey, I want to know if you’re going to get me contraceptive i want to know how it works like what exactly is it doing to my body how is it functioning in regards to respecting zygotes, embryos and fetuses? What is what is happening here? And you can look at these things yourselves you are smart enough to understand this information. And if you go to a doctor and you have questions and all they can do with your questions is just make faces at you, that’s not a doctor, that’s a that’s a pill pusher that’s not someone who’s there to help you. And unfortunately, I’ve had that happen multiple times in medical care when I brought up a legitimate question about contraceptive they just kind of roll their eyes at you and get frustrated because they’re like, oh, can you just like, can this conversation just be over, please and that’s not what you deserve as a as a client, as a patient, you deserve so much more care and respect for your health. And when things do go wrong with your health, like we’ll have, everyone will eventually get sick you need someone who cares about you, and it’s going to take the time with you and pay attention to you. So that’s really like my big my big tell if the doctor’s going to help me or not is if they even spend time answering my questions.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah, it seems like. Well, let me ask you ask the question, did the doctor that identified the risk tied to this birth control, these hormonal birth control pills, was this a doctor that would also not promote birth control?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
It is bizarre because the same Doctor Who told me that all of my health problems started with the birth control pills is the same daughter who told same Doctor Who told me that when my daughter turned 16 she should get on birth control pills. I don’t understand the disconnect there, because on one hand he’s telling me he’s like, yeah, those were crap, they really messed you up but you know, they’re still fine for everybody else i’m like, well, who’s everybody else are we talking about my daughter who might have the same blood clotting disorder as me? That’s hereditary she could have a pulmonary embolism, just like I did. Are we talking about my friend from high school who took birth control pills and had a heart attack on her living room floor and died? Like, who exactly were you talking about here? If they’re fine for everybody else, who’s everybody else?
Jacob Barr :
Oh, interesting so the doctor that identified the risk was actually someone who was supportive or would prescribe birth control, and that was not necessarily a pro-life doctor, right?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Right yeah he was not necessarily a pro-life doctor. That’s not something that I feel they’re very free to discuss when you’re in the patient room with them they seem very kind of guarded about where they stand on those issues.
Jacob Barr :
Interesting. So boy, So what advice well, you know what looking back, what you know, what would you have liked to have done differently?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
I wish I would have been. I wish I would have been braver to look at my doctor and say, hey, I don’t want to take these pills because I know what they do to zygotes and embryos. And that’s not OK with me because I’m pro-life and I wish that when she would have rolled her eyes at me, I wouldn’t have caved and I would just said no, I’m not taking that you have to find me something different even or tell me if there is nothing different than that but I also have a lot of sympathy for myself looking back because now I’m 28 years old it’s easy to say that now, but when it happened I was only 19 and whatever someone in a coat said to me, I believed.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah and my purpose for that question was not to invite shame, but to invite instruction for like how a you know, So when a client advocate is communicating with a woman who is considering or on birth control pills, how she may, you know how that client advocate may be able to be better informed on how to provide advice yeah.
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Basically, it just comes down to like you have the choice to educate yourself with the Internet now. You can look up the warning labels on these pills you can look up how they function you can look up how your body functions. You don’t have to take something just because someone told you to, or just because your husband told you to, or your boyfriend or your friend. And that has nothing to do with what you can learn and decide about your ethics and your body. It’s up to you to protect it, as someone else isn’t going to do it for you, unfortunately.
Jacob Barr :
So throughout throughout this hard experience, where have you where, how have you seen? Where has God been or how? Where have you seen God during this during this time?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Yeah so it’s so hard to pin it down to just that situation of where I’ve seen God. I feel like I’ve seen God, very a slow trickle over these past like 16 years that I’ve been really invested in the pro-life movement. It really started when I was about 12 years old i got really obsessed with it, probably right about when I understood that there was another option for me to choose besides pro-life And I remember when I was a kid, I would, I would get off the bus and I would go straight to my room and I would get on like abort seventy three dot com and I would research abortion statistics and stuff and i would research how birth control pills worked and I would try to understand all these things. And I really wanted to talk about it all the time i mean, to the detriment of family dinner conversations i remember all the time my mom would be like, Chelsea, can we please talk about something besides abortion or birth control pills like, why are we talking about this and I’m like, because it’s so interesting and crazy that this happens anywhere in the world and it just was this passion inside of me and I didn’t really understand why because I never really felt like I could do anything about it. And when I got older, I was 15, and I approached a pregnancy Resource Center and asked them if I could launch a fundraiser for them. And the executive director, she actually told me no. She said I prayed about it and it doesn’t feel right with my spirit. And it kind of crushed me and I just felt even more frustrated with, God, I was like, I want to help with this stuff. I’m so passionate about women and babies and our health and all of this stuff like, why are you not letting me help with these things and I just got even more frustrated when I lost my vision because when you call a lot of pregnancy resource centers and say, hey, what can I do to volunteer? They say, oh, you can come help sort baby clothes into sizes or you can arrange the formula by expiration date. And that’s not a skill set that I have as a blind person to do self sufficiently without anyone assisting me. And so I got even more frustrated with God, I’m like, why would you give me this passion? And then when I try to help, I’m told no and then when I want to volunteer you blind me like, why is this happening to me? And then when I was in college, when I’d returned to college after losing my vision. I had gotten some training at that point and I re entered college. I met a friend and she told me that she’d had an abortion a year before and she was now suicidal. And then I just turned to God even more angry. Like, are you kidding me right now god like, I would have taken her baby like, why did you do this like, why did you not let me meet her one year earlier? So much heartache and so much horribleness could have been saved if you just let me meet this girl one year earlier than I did. And I just remember praying i said, God, i just want to help save one baby. Like, why can’t you just let me help save one baby you won’t let me do a fundraiser you won’t give me a fully abled body to go help at the center like, why can’t why can’t I have just helped save my friend’s baby i’m so mad. And a couple years later, getting more adjusted to the blindness, me and my husband decided to children. I had my daughter everything went well but with my second pregnancy, things did not go well. When I was 12 weeks along, I went in to get my ultrasound and I was so excited i was so confident everything would be great. But when they were doing the ultrasound, they left and then they came back the same tech and her student again and she said, hey, the doctor just wants us to get a few more pictures of your baby. And my husband, Austin, he tried to tell me he said, oh, everything’s fine it’s not a big deal, but i knew everything was not fine and I wasn’t laughing anymore i wasn’t smiling anymore i was scared. I started to feel like I couldn’t breathe. When maternal fetal medicine finally came in, they told me, hey, Chelsea, so your baby has a mass in his abdomen. It’s about a third of the his entire body and we don’t know what it is and we need to talk about termination. I don’t do that came out of my mouth so fast it felt like a muscle reflex, but it didn’t even matter to my doctor he just continued on as if I’d said nothing, as if my baby was nothing, and continue trying to talked me into this conversation about termination he told me that I needed to continue with swift genetic testing because abortions get more expensive the longer I wait. He wanted me to have an amniocentesis so we could check for Down syndrome. He wanted me to do a test to see if I had CMV so I could change my mind and consider the abortion if it came back positive. He called me at home to talk to me about his plan of care and I was so distraught and I was so upset and I just remember laying in my bed for what felt like weeks on end amidst trying to take care of my then 18 month old daughter and I was just didn’t understand what was going on. God, like why is this happening? And I remembered like a light bulb almost. I have so much research inside of me i know so many things that God has been preparing me for since I was 12 years old. I knew what I could do, and I knew that I could call a pregnancy Resource Center and get help, and so I didn’t even think about it before I called i just dialed the closest one up, which happened to be Hope Pregnancy Center in South Oklahoma City, and I just blurted out in a big mess one Is it illegal to get an abortion? And I think I scared the receptionist because she paused And she just said, and I was like, don’t worry ma’am, like I don’t want an abortion. I just want to know when they ‘d be illegal so my OBGYN will have to shut up about it and stop asking me. And she said, maybe I should transfer you to our nurse, Amber. And I said, that’s probably a good idea, But I just. I knew because of all this research that God had given me at a time when I didn’t know what it was for, because I felt like I hadn’t been doing anything with it. I was directed to exactly who I needed to find out what rights I had with my baby, what care we could seek, where I could get a second opinion. All these things to take care of my son instead of just giving in to the pressure and agreeing to have a termination that they could have sold me in the same clinic i was going to get care for him. And it wasn’t until he was about four, six months old maybe, that I remembered that prayer that I prayed when I said, God, I’m begging you, just help me save one baby like, don’t let this research and this passion be for nothing. And then I realized that he’d let me save my son. The one baby he’d given me to save was my son. And within I think that same week that I’d shared with a friend that all I wanted to do in life was to help save these babies, the Hope Pregnancy Center of Oklahoma called me and they said, hey, we want you to come be a speaker for us at our fundraiser. And I went and they flew me from Tampa, florida to oklahoma city. And I felt for the first time in my life, like I’ve been doing what God made me to do, to share about these babies, To tell people that even if they tell you that your baby is sick, even if they tell you that your baby is going to have Down syndrome or has a mass in his abdomen, that they can’t diagnose it, that baby matters. And God gave you that baby for a reason. And I’m just so ashamed of myself for giving up on God in that way and being frustrated with him because now that we’re through it, I can look back and see all these places that God prepared me for that moment to fight for my son and how God prepared me for this moment to speak about that experience. And his fingerprints are all over everything. And it absolutely blows my mind now.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah i can see how Yeah, God is weaved into your story and your story is powerful. So I’ve got a couple of questions one so by essentially having the. Yeah, having these experiences, how is this impacted your passion to reach but well essentially does you know to work with Tracy clinics how is this amplified or impacted your ability and passion even though you know maybe your vision you’ve lost vision. It sounds like you’ve also at the same time have gained something else can you speak to that?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Yeah, So first, the 1st way is I never thought I’d have to talk about abortion. I always wanted to talk about abortion i always wanted to be able to make a difference and stuff, but I never thought it would be an actual conversation that I had to have with an actual doctor. I always thought that pregnancy resource centers were great and they’re terrific, but they helped a certain kind of woman. They helped someone who had been raped at a party or someone who was told her life was on the line. Those kinds. Those kinds of women. Not mothers, not wives, not people like me who went to church every Sunday and we’re so happy to be pregnant and it was just amazing and a blessing. I never expected myself to be on the phone with Hope Pregnancy Center and saying I need your help. I don’t need you to talk me out of an abortion i don’t want one, but I need your help to get my doctor to stop harassing me. He brought he used the word termination with me 8 times. I filed A complaint with palliative care and he still brought it up again to me i didn’t know what to do. Every time I went into that doctor’s office where I was getting the best care in the state, I felt like my baby was being targeted. And I never, ever thought in a thousand years that a woman like me would be in that situation. And that’s so I now see how arrogant that was of me and I feel so terrible that I used to think like that but I always thought these centers were for other women. And now I realize that these centers are for every woman because no matter who you are, you can be connected to a situation like that. And it is. I feel so much more passionate about supporting these centers and lifting them up and letting people know what they do and who they care for and who they help, because they’ve helped me and I know that if they can help me, they can help anybody.
Jacob Barr :
Wow. I think you might need to touch your iPhone i think the video may have it may have gone black, but no worries. And I can still hear you, though. So as you’re yeah, maybe as you’re waking it up, oh, there you go. So what’s your since losing your sight how has that impacted your prayer life? Or how has that impacted your ability to hear God’s voice or to talk to God?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Oh, for the first, let’s see for the first year and a half, it was really hard. I didn’t. I don’t think I turned my back on God, I just didn’t understand. And I would read passages or I would go to church and I would hear people talking about things like, oh, Jesus healed the blind man and I would just get so angry. I’d be like, why are you healing? You healed this guy 2000 years ago and you aren’t going to heal me because i had no doubt that God could heal me. It’s such a weird experience going through a medical condition and everyone tells you you’re going to get better the doctor told me i would be fine there was nothing wrong even when they did diagnose me, I had another doctor say, Oh no, you’re great, you’re going to get most of your vision back. And it is so bizarre watching it, literally watching your vision drip away day by day despite everyone else telling you it won’t. And I was so frustrated with God i was like, what did I do that you’re punishing me by taking away my vision when everyone else says I’m supposed to be fine and people would come up to me that whole year it had just happened and they say, don’t worry. The doctor told me I’d never walk again and here I am walking everywhere or don’t worry, I got so sick and then I was healed. And I was just sitting there day after day going to church and not being healed. And it was very frustrating. But I did make it back to church after about a year and a half of taking a pause and really just sitting with it sitting with that pain and not having to face other people in the congregation asking me, are you better yet are you better i prayed for you. And the funny part is I have given been given so much wisdom from that same passage, passage where Jesus heals the blind man. It’s in John Chapter 9 and it starts in verse one. As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth his disciples asked him, Rabbi who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind. Neither this man or his parents sin, said Jesus but this happened so that the word of God might be displayed in him as long as it is day we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in, as long as I am in the world, I am the light. And now that passage means something different to me. It used to mean, oh wow, Jesus healed that guy why won’t he heal me? And I just thought about my blindness i’m like, what purpose could this possibly serve? I’ve had to give up dreams I’ve had since I was a child i often feel like I’m holding my husband back and as many tears as I cry about it, I will never know what my kids look like. But now when I hear that passage, I remember that there was someone else who asked that same question that I was asking God. A man born blind 2000 years ago left to beg in the street like a dog when his family abandoned him. And this was at a time when a disability might as well have been a death sentence. What purpose could this possibly serve? But it was for me, and it was for you. God allowed the eyes of that man to be closed so the eyes of my heart could be open. And every time I find myself on a pedestal of self pity and self aggrandizement, I can pull myself off, force myself back on my knees and say to God I choose to trust you and I want you to use my pain for your purpose. And that’s really a hard lesson that took a lot of time for me to learn. But now when I pray to God, I can say things like open the doors you want open, close the doors you want closed, and actually really mean it now.
Jacob Barr :
Wow yeah. So when did this happen how long ago was this when your vision started to drift away?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
So that happened in 2014 I got married. I graduated high school in 2013 I got married in August of 2014 and I had lost almost every bit of vision by New Year’s.
Jacob Barr :
So within how many months would that have been going from starting the pills to losing your vision?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
So that’s going to be I took the pills in February or March of 2014 i had the pulmonary embolism within a couple weeks I started getting headaches that semester thought it was stress started getting more this summer thought it was stress. Went to Finally the headache just was constant in August and I went to see my first doctor Towards the end of August, after I got back from my honeymoon. Was told there was nothing wrong. Went to see an ophthalmologist in November. Was told something was very wrong. Was moved to a neuro ophthalmologist. I was given diamox and it did not work on me. And I remember calling the neuro ophthalmologist and saying, hey, I don’t think these pills are really working. And he said to me, you’re just not giving them long enough if you if you insist, I guess I can see you on Tuesday it had been Thursday at the time and I said OK, I guess that’s fine. I went back to the original ophthalmologist and she said you’re going to be blind by Monday. You have to have surgery right now. And I had the surgery that Sunday and my VP shunt was placed. So it basically drains the extra spinal fluid out of my body so the pressure is relieved off of my optic nerves. But by that point the nerves were dead and all they could really do at that point was leave me with some light perception and keep me alive.
Jacob Barr :
Wow. I’m not sure what to ask you next. It’s a it’s a very serious story and it’s so when you reflect on your story what different thoughts come to mind And you know, I feel like does Satan play tapes or like Attack Attack you in certain ways and how have you identified truth to, you know around that.
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Yeah, so a big one. Shame is really hard. The most shameful thing I’ve ever done in my life was in between two of those doctors appointments the first one when I saw my PCP and she told me there was nothing wrong i just needed to calm down. And it was about a month later and I was at my apartment with my new husband and he was just begging me to go to the hospital. And I told him I’m not going to go to the hospital and get made fun of again. There’s nothing wrong with me, she said i was fine. The headache will go away. It’s fine i’m not going to the hospital. And he was right. I was not fine. I needed to go to the hospital and I chose not to. And I’m ashamed because of what that has cost my family that moment. And I’m ashamed that I didn’t go just because my husband asked me to excuse my husband and I should have gone just because he asked. Not for any other reason. And I’m so ashamed that I did that. But it’s really easy to sit in that shame and want to curl up in a ball and want to just slip under the water in the tub but I don’t let myself do that. I’m very good at just putting my head down and getting the work done, and that helped me push through a lot of that shame and a lot of that pain. But I do have to come back to the thought that I was. When I say I was surrounded by horrific medical mistakes on all fronts, it wasn’t just the doctors who made mistakes. I made mistakes. There were so many mistakes from everybody, so many fail safes that just didn’t protect me so many things should have happened where I didn’t go blind and I can sit there and I can point fingers, I can blame the doctors, I can blame myself, I can blame anything you want, any kind of circumstance i can blame that it was a holiday weekend when I tried to go in, but God doesn’t make mistakes, and although horrible things happened and things that really sucked, I’m not an accident. God’s plan for my life is not an accident. And I can decide to boast in my disabilities, just like Paul does in Corinthians, and say I’m going to delight in this because it makes the majesty of God even greater when his glory is revealed in my shortcomings. And that is easier some days than others, and some days it feels impossible to do. But if I can set that to be my goal, that’s what I can try to keep doing. And instead of trying to hide from my disability, or trying to pretend like it didn’t happen, or trying to pretend like the horror with my son didn’t happen, I can lean into these stories and I can lean into them as blessings in disguise. And know that God has been crafting a story with me and my family and my husband, my children. He’s been crafting it for years and it is going to be for all of his glory when it’s all done.
Jacob Barr :
So as a as a part, as part of the body of Christ, how has your, you know, with Yeah, based on where you are today and using your voice and your experience, do you think there’s ever a good time for someone to use hormonal birth control or is there any, like is there any positive good reason that will justify the risk associated with it?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
I haven’t been convinced of one. I don’t think they’re ethical because of what can happen when an egg is fertilized and how it keeps the one of its backup systems is to keep the fertilized egg from attaching to your uterus, basically denying it nourishment. I think that that’s ethically wrong, but I was talked into it at first because I was like, well, I’m not actually. I’m not married yet i don’t have to worry about any eggs being fertilized right now. So I can just take the pills and then maybe later I can switch it when it actually matters and stuff. And so I thought it was fine, but even that I ended up having horrible consequences to my health because of that. So I have not seen a very positive situation with these pills. I know that some people seemed to take them and they seemed to be fine my sister took some and she seemed to be fine they seemed to solve any problem that she had. But I don’t think that the one out of thousand times that the pill really seemed to not hurt anyone justifies the thousands of times that it has caused embryos to die or caused people to have life changing medical issues or even caused women to die.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah, with a fertilized egg being past the point of conception or you know, or being the point of conception perhaps. It does seem like a lot of people don’t think of that as being the same as you know that fertilized egg, you know, nine months later or five months later or even 4 weeks later. What are your thoughts on a fertilized egg and compared to a child who is still not born yet but maybe six weeks old or with a heartbeat starts or when a child is, you know, further on development?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Yeah so I think that all life has to be respected. If it is the human life, it has to have every right that any other human life has. I this is probably so important to me because I’m a product of in vitro fertilization. So I was a fertilized egg in a dish at one time before I was a fetus in my mother’s womb. I before I was a teenager, before I was a mother, before I was an adult. And I really don’t like it when just because the baby is really tiny where we can barely see it with the naked eye. It is treated like garbage. And I get really angry when OBGY, NS or embryologists are not honest with women about the human life that these fertilized eggs or zygotes or embryos are. I have much sympathy for women like my mother who were going through in vitro fertilization in the nineties and they couldn’t just look it up to understand what exactly was happening with the baby when does the baby’s life exactly begin when does it start growing when does it get its own DNA when does it get fingerprints? That was not very easily accessible for people, for women like my mother in the nineties. So when their doctor told them something, they were much more inclined to believe them because what other resources did they really feel like they had? And so when you’re a doctor or when you’re someone’s resource for making these decisions, you have a responsibility to be honest with these women and say, hey, yeah, and a fertilized egg is really tiny, but it’s a baby. It’s not as big as the baby yet. It doesn’t have a heartbeat yet it doesn’t have a full vocabulary yet. But it is a human life that is separate from yours and it is growing and therefore it is a person. And so I don’t like any situation that doesn’t give that human life just as much respect as a 40 year old man or a 95 year old woman with dementia. They all deserve respect and I get very upset when they’re not given that.
Jacob Barr :
So when someone is using birth control, hormonal birth control, or they’re shopping for hormonal birth control, how important would it be for that person to talk to a medical professional at a pregnancy clinic like how would that how important do you how would you summarize the importance of that on how that might steer their decisions when it comes to the you know essentially because most whether it’s evangelical or Catholic as a pregnancy clinic are going to promote you know birth control ideas that are that don’t end with abortifacients meaning you know where the baby you know it doesn’t connect to the uterine wall or they may simply promote abstinence or they may promote you know something that essentially all of which are healthier and yeah not without the risk it’s how important is it for someone to connect with someone of that caliber and that mindset.
Chelsey Painter Davis :
I think it’s really helpful. I think that we did just like I did when I was 19 think we do have the tools to do it on our own, but it’s really hard. And even with my research, I at 19 cave to pressure i trusted the people older than me, even though I knew they were wrong. And I think it’s really important to just have someone that is sitting down and actually listening to you actually explaining answers to your questions instead of just making faces because they don’t have an answer like those OBGYN’s when I said, hey, does this copper IUD like ’cause the babies not to attach the uterine wall, they just went, Nah, that’s not an answer. You’re not a you’re a fake doctor if you can’t give me an answer to that. And I think that it is really good to talk to people who don’t have a contradictory interest in giving you the answer. When someone is trying to sell you birth control pills, they tend to only have good things to say about birth control pills.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah if there’s a sales motive involved that definitely impacts what information someone may consider to be vital to share or what they, you know, may consider helpful for completing that conversation. And then at the same time, yeah, having doctors who will share the risks and understanding that all lives matter the you know, the young woman’s life as well as the potential life of a of a child being created or the OR the life of a child that’s been created and just understanding those different parts and so I just feel like very often PC clinics, you are very obviously very focused on reaching women who are at risk of choosing abortion to provide life giving advice through, you know, after building rapport and trust and really this, you know, this topic is a sister topic to that it may not be, you know, because your story wasn’t you know, you weren’t abortion minded, but you were being promoted or pushed on. You know abortion was being pushed into your pathway by medical professionals and so there were risks associated with the birth control conversation and pushing by some of those doctors and so the benefits for your health is, yeah, it’s just really interesting to think about how important it is to give people really good advice that’s yeah profit motive free and looking out for the well-being of everyone involved, especially the young women who’s being who’s taking on risk by taking these hormonal birth control pills.
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Yeah, I’m one of the IT. It’s horrible to say, but I’m one of the lucky ones i have a friend who took these pills and she died and so it’s crazy that’s me being blinded for the rest of my life is one of the lucky ones.
Jacob Barr :
So for your friend who died, was there a legal response or for yourself, is there, is there you know what are your thoughts on a legal response?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
So from my understanding in Arkansas I only had two years to sue anyone related to that incident. And being so young at the time and it being so traumatic 2 years from that incident, I was still blaming myself. I thought it was all my fault i thought I didn’t. It’s give the doctor enough information i thought I wasn’t smart enough or fast enough or honest enough or anything healthy enough, anything i completely blamed myself. So I think that there it’s there should be some kind of responsibility on behalf of these birth control pills, and there should be some kind of responsibility on behalf of the doctors who ignored me and pushed around my paperwork until it was off their desk. But i will ever have any. Definitely no apology, no monetary compensation. And I didn’t even have when this happened to me with my primary care physician i lived in a very small town and when I lost my vision it went small town viral in a way things only do in a small town. And so I there is no way that my doctor didn’t connect the pieces that appointment where she shoved me off was what caused me to go blind. But I never received a phone call of her checking on me never any kind of apology nothing and The thing is that even if I did receive those things, even if I was given a billion dollars, even if I was given the biggest apology and tearful hug, and even for people like my friend, even if she was brought, even if they put flowers at her grave doesn’t change a thing. She’s still dead and I’m still blind. And these pills are very dangerous and I think the only thing that we can do now is be honest about them and really actually educate women about what they do to our bodies and what they have the potential to do to another human body inside our body so we can make real, honest, educated, ethical decisions so.
Jacob Barr :
As I hear you talk, I keep, I keep thinking how you talk very authentically, like I feel like you. I feel like you’re saying exactly what you have a good way of expressing your you know, what happened and what you felt and what you feel. So how is how is it you know? How has it been to, you know, when it comes to your marriage with Austin? How is that because it sounds like you know you just started losing your vision right at the beginning of your marriage and how is that? Can you describe your experience of being married and how that has been?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Well, it is both of it is both amazing and both a nightmare because on one hand I think it’s fair for me to say on Austin’s behalf in mind that we feel like our life got stolen from us. You don’t expect to get married and then immediately go blind. It’s not what everybody says for sickness, for health, but you don’t ever think that’s going to happen like, that’s just something you say at your wedding. But God blessed me so much with Austin i met him when I was 15, and we got married when I was 19 think that a lot of people expected him to leave me when I went blind i remember I was at church and this little kid came up to me and he was like, Chelsea, you’re just, you’re so amazing and I was like, yes, I know why he was just teasing him. And then he blurted out i just think it’s so amazing your husband hasn’t left you. I was like, oh, I guess that is amazing thank you for pointing it out. But it’s it is true though, because this is not just hard on me, this is hard on my husband. We had so many things, so many expectations for our lives taken away from us and just in a matter of months. And he stuck it out with me i’ve stuck it out with him because it’s not like I’m the only one who brings issues to the table we both have issues in this marriage that we bring to the table. And it is really a blessing to know that I have someone who’s in it for the long haul with me who when things get got really bad really quickly, he was still there. And so that gives me a security that not a lot of marriages have, because I know that when things get harder, he’s still going to be there. And I feel almost a sympathy for other marriages that have truly had things quite easy because they don’t know yet what hardship is and they don’t get to know yet if their partners really going to stay or not. And I just have this blessing of knowing that we have been through so much. So when the tire goes out on the car or when we lose, my husband loses a job or when my we were told that our son would be horribly disabled at best. He was still going to be there for me. And he has been and we have been married nine years and it’s been amazing.
Jacob Barr :
So, and with your son, can you remind me that, you know, so after he was born, were the were the doctors correct or incorrect or was there a surgery needed for that mass? What happened next?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Yeah so at 12 weeks gestation, that’s when they told us that he had the giant mass in his abdomen. They had an interdisciplinary meeting with their best maternal fetal medicine specialists and pediatricians in all of Oklahoma. They met at the we were at the Oklahoma Children’s Hospital and the conclusion was they had no idea what it was and we just continued watching him on ultrasound he had a level 2 ultrasound every four weeks for the remainder of my pregnancy, and at 20 weeks they decided they were very confident it was liver calcifications and they didn’t know if this was going to cause him to have liver damage if he’d have to have them removed when he was born, if he’d have to have surgery, they weren’t sure exactly what would happen they just knew that they could keep watching it because at that point I had refused termination so many times, had that specific doctor removed from my case. They finally figured out I didn’t want to talk about that anymore. So they just move forward with monitoring him until he was born. And somehow I say somehow, but it was clearly a miracle. His liver calcifications completely went away on their own they just shrank and shrank after he was born. Until his last ultrasound which was April seventh of twenty twenty, three they were completely gone. And I remember being in that first appointment with the maternal meal, with maternal fetal medicine specialist and my husband turned him and said, is there any way this ultrasound machine is wrong and he said no. And my husband said is there any way this mask could go away on its own? And he said absolutely not. And there we were, a year and a half later, and they ‘d gone away completely on their own, in a way that doctors will go back and explain like, Oh well, we just didn’t know what it was at the time but it works like this but what me and my husband can look back and say that God healed our Son when we were told by the best of the best in the entire state that it was impossible.
Jacob Barr :
Who was praying for your son during that time?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
I had so many people praying for my son it was. It was incredible. I had my church praying i had my previous church praying i had the church that me and my husband met at in high school praying i had churches of friends praying. I probably had a list of 200 people praying for my son for my entire, almost my entire pregnancy. And it was the sweetest, most kind thing that had ever happened to us in our lives at that point. And it meant so much to us to have all of those prayer warriors not only concerned about us, but on the fight for our son. And I am still and on very touched by all of those people and how much I would call one person and they ‘d call another and then they ‘d call another and they would all just be praying for Dallas. And it was, it was amazing.
Jacob Barr :
The end of After your husband with another Texas city, That’s good. So how old is Dallas today?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Dallas is about 18 months old now he was born on May fourth of twenty twenty. Two so he’s my little Star Wars baby. And so he’s, I’m not very good at math, but he’s about 18 months now and we actually named him Dallas Austin. He wasn’t originally going to be Dallas Austin, but when that maternal fetal medicine specialist just told basically implied that I wouldn’t want my son if he was disabled, I left that appointment so angry i told my husband, I said do you know what we’re going to do now? We’re going to name him after you because I’m so mad. I said even if I miscarry Dallas or even if he’s has Down syndrome, anything, I said, I don’t care we’re going to name him after you just to show that Doctor Howell important he is to us. And I don’t even care that his name is Texas, Texas that’s just how it’s going to be so.
Jacob Barr :
No, that’s a good name. So you his birthday was you said May fourth is that what you said or what was the star? May the Force be with you is that the May fourth? That’s an awesome day to be. What an awesome day had such a fun day with Star Wars and may the Force be with you that’s so cool.
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Yeah, you almost think of de Mayo so it’s like it’s either Star Wars or Tacos. So it was getting.
Jacob Barr :
Good stuff.
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Yeah.
Jacob Barr :
So one of the things I like to do in this podcast is to share encouragement to Prancy clinic leaders and to share new ideas and or ideas that are not commonly known yeah and with that thought, you know, as Prancy clinic directors are listening, how might you know, what would you suggest is something not commonly known, you know, pulling from your story and your wisdom and knowledge, What would you like to convey to them that’s not commonly known? And or what would also be an encouragement in that same space that they could pull encouragement from as they’re looking at maybe building up content about birth control or maybe amplifying their voice on this topic?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Oh, that’s such a hard question. I think, like, my biggest takeaway is that it kind of. I’ve mentioned before when I was 15 went to a pregnancy Resource Center and asked them if I could help and they told me no. And it really, it really crushed me. I at that time, I was so passionate about pro-life and I wanted to help so much and even though it’s not what the executive director said, what I heard was the space for me and not for you. And I left that day thinking, oh, I don’t belong. I’m not wanted to help with the pro-life movement i’m not meant to be here because if I was meant to be here, she would let me launch a fundraiser for her she would let me use my skills to help. And I think that it’s important for executive directors to remember that you guys have plans and they’re awesome and what you’re doing is amazing. But don’t discount other people just because what they bring to the table is a little different or not what you’ve done before. That doesn’t mean that you need to hand over the reins of your entire facility to the 15 year old who’s on your doorstep. But try to figure out a way for them to use their talents to help, and don’t just send them away with nothing at all. And when people come with their weird ideas or their weird passions in that topic, just try to try to take it and try to redirect it in a way that they can work for you with you because there’s so many of us that are passionate about pro-life stuff, but we just, we just don’t know how to best help and we really want to. So part of part of the podcast that I’m putting together is a collection of different people’s stories that I think share a pro-life ethic. So for example, on the Blind Mom Life podcast, our first episode will be January 1st and our first interview is not with someone who resisted abortion or someone who’s post abortive and getting care. It’s actually with a guy who his name is Randy, and he lost his vision six months after he got married. And he has lived out this pro-life ethic with his entire life by choosing not to stay in a chair, but to be a husband, to lead his family, to have children, and to really be a man of God anyway. And his story is not the most traditional pro-life story that we think of there wasn’t a baby that didn’t end up aborted there wasn’t anyone who lived in instead of died. It’s just Randy choosing to just choosing that his life does matter and he’s going to live it the best way that he can. And I think that when we open up our hearts a little bit and our minds to other people’s skills or other people’s stories, even if they’re non traditional, we can really see that this pro-life ethic, this Christian ethic that all life is worth living, really transcends to so many more places and so many more stories and so many more ideas and skills that we can really do something much bigger if we all work together and just share this passion together.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah, that’s good yeah and i agree i think you know the concept of pro-life really is like a well first of all I believe it’s underneath follower of Jesus and then I also think it represents it’s more and it’s not just fighting against abortion it’s really it’s bigger than that it’s about embracing life and really following Jesus into hard spaces it’s a it’s more like about, you know, being life giving more so than just, you know, having life. And so tell us about that fundraiser idea that you had when you were 15. And then also, yeah, tell us what was what was that idea?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Oh, I feel so silly saying it now.
Jacob Barr :
Because it was so silly. It yeah, go for it.
Chelsey Painter Davis :
So my in my little small town we did not have any community theatre and I was really passionate about that i realized about acting and stories i realize now that was God preparing me to be a speak a pro-life speaker now putting that little communication bug here at that time. But so I actually went to my mom one day and I said, hey, what if we started our own community theater and the money that we made out of the tickets what if we gave it to parity? And what if we did a different charity each time, and they were all local charities in our community? So not only could we entertain everybody and have fun, but we could really build up our community together and really do something significant. And instead of my mom saying no, I’m busy, What are you talking about she actually said yes. And we launched what was called Heber Theatre in our little town of Heber Springs, arkansas in, about oh, what year was that i think 2011 And so we had done a few charities at this point at that point. And so we approached the Pregnancy Resource Center it was called Friends for Life. And we said, hey, we would love to do a show that features your center as our as our donor as who we donate to. And we would love to have one someone from your center come and give a little speech before our show. We’re happy to pick a show that really highlights the pro-life ethic and really tells that story. And we would love to direct all of the money that we received for the show to exactly to your center. And I don’t know if it just didn’t make sense to the lady who was running the center at the time or if we just didn’t articulate it very well but she just she just said no and she was that wasn’t a response we’d ever gotten before so we were very was very confused And then unfortunately because I was so passionate about pro-life stuff I just took it very personally as if she was saying no, Chelsea, I just don’t want your help. And I’m glad that I’ve grown from my 15 year old self and I know that that’s not what she was trying to say and that’s not what she probably meant. And even now I’m just glad that even if it was what she meant it, that means nothing about me and about what God is letting me do to help. But just my take away from that is just sometimes if you just open up your mind just a little bit try to understand where people are coming from. There are so many people who really do want to help in the pro-life movement. You just got to give him a little bit of space and a little bit of direction so we can all work together.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah well as a entrepreneur I think that’s a brilliant idea and even for a you know a 30 something year old that would be a good idea to work on and to have a 15 year old who is passionate about passionate enough to like build out a plan and invite someone to you know As for a fundraiser that that’s awesome and my team we were talking a few well maybe a few months ago about an idea of doing a praise night fundraiser where we would have a worship and praise night for people to come and sing praise songs and essentially getting vendors in the area to cover the cost of the well the cost tied to the event. And then working with a church to donate the space. And then letting the ticket price for people to come and attend. Having 100 % go to the pricey clinic with the, you know, essentially based on the fact that we could find some corporate sponsors, that was the idea that we were literally, you know, trying to work on just a few months ago and it’s really not that much different than your idea from And so that’s a strange idea yeah so I would say it’s a great idea and hopefully someone listening will, you know pick up some inspiration from your idea or you know and will work on inviting, yeah work on inviting good ideas like that. And I think a lot of places, clinic directors, they fall into different camps sometimes, like some of them are willing to take a risk and try something new. And then some of them feel overwhelmed or tired. And I’ve got a feeling you probably, I bet the peace clinic director that you were pitching that to is probably more in the overwhelmed and tired or maybe she was also just, yeah, maybe she felt like a lot of ideas that she had tried before didn’t work and maybe she was classifying this idea as one of those but a lot of directors would have had the opposite response as well from my experience, where they would have embraced the idea and would have been willing to try it i think that’s And so I think, you know, it really is sometimes, you know the response you get from pitching idea is greatly depending on the audience you’re pitching it to.
Chelsey Painter Davis :
That is true and.
Jacob Barr :
I’m like you might need to touch your phone, yeah?
Chelsey Painter Davis :
I am so bad at tech i’m so sorry.
Jacob Barr :
No worries, you’re doing great. But yeah, as you’re waking your phone up again, I’d like to just ask for your final thoughts and then also to ask for you to wrap up this podcast with a prayer with the hope and expectation that people listening may join in that prayer as they’re listening.
Chelsey Painter Davis :
Yeah, this is the part I was scared of. It’s nerve wracking. But yeah, so I guess my final thoughts is God can always take lemons and make lemonade. We are very bad at looking into the future and deciding what God’s going to do with some kind of suffering or some kind of thing that we see as a screw up. But God is really good at painting portraits from the background. One of my favorite, but not one of my favorites my favorite book of the Bible is Esther, and the most beautiful thing to me about that story is that God is not front and centre in it. But when you read that story, that struggle, you can easily see how he has orchestrated so many things and turned horrible situations into beautiful victories on his behalf. And it is really important that when we’re looking at our own lives, we can keep our hands open and say, OK, God, I really was attached to my vision or I was really attached to this idea or this perception of what I wanted for my career, or I was really attached to having children. And I’m going to keep this hand open and know that you might take things out of it. You might put things in it, but even though that causes me a lot of pain and a lot of tears, I’m going to strive to be OK with that. And I think that when we trust in God, he can really surprise us, just as he did last. Just as he did when I was sitting in the hospital with my beautiful baby boy, who was perfectly healthy and turning on the news to hear that Roe versus Wade was going to be overturned at the same time, it was just this big moment of God saying I’ve got you, I’ve had you guys the whole time and you didn’t even know it. And I just have to strive, and I hope all of you can strive to remember that when things get hard, when darkness feels like it’s coming in, just remember that Jesus says that he is the light and we can trust that he’s going to be there for us. Dear Heavenly Father, God, I just ask that you bless these people listening i bless that you bless Jacob and all of the pregnancy centers that are connected through this podcast god, I just ask that you give us victories on your behalf, God, and that you help us trust you and trust your plan even when it’s hard god and God, I just ask that you help us measure. These successes in the lives of saved children and have saved women and you just help us keep fighting for your glory god thank you so much and please keep us humble and to know that it’s your victory and not really ours. Thank you in Jesus Name, Amen