Jacob Barr (00:00)
and how do you pronounce your is it Cheryl Chris bomb?

Cheryl Krichbaum (00:04)
⁓

Crips bomb. Cave rich bomb. Crips bomb. Crips bomb.

Jacob Barr (00:09)
Hey Richbomb, okay,

perfect. Welcome to the Pro Life Team podcast. I'm Jacob and I'm here with Cheryl and today we're gonna hear Cheryl's story. So Cheryl, go ahead and share some of your background and let's get into your story.

Cheryl Krichbaum (00:26)
All right. Well, thank you. Thank you for having me on here. I'm Cheryl Critchbaum. I'm an award winning author, speaker, writing coach. And the Lord has called me to change the abortion conversation, which really comes from the fact that I had an abortion and I was one of those people who ⁓ rallied for abortion for a number of years until the Lord got a hold of my heart and turned me around and ⁓ started my

healing process and then called me into the pro-life movement, which I honestly did not want to do. I went kicking and screaming, ⁓ but ⁓ I realized that I really enjoy being close to the Lord and by saying no to him, then I was ⁓ pushing him away. And so I said yes in 2017.

And since then have been educating myself about what's actually happening in the pro-life world. And then the Lord has just been leading me one by one into ⁓ what I'm doing today. So one of the first things that he had me do was write my own book and then start to do some speaking. And then eventually he called me into coaching other people to write their books.

which was actually a natural for me because I am a writing teacher and ⁓ coach and teach homeschool students and ⁓ have taught in various venues over the years. And so the Lord has really repurposed everything that I learned while I was in rebellion for his glory.

Jacob Barr (02:12)
Wow. So, tell me about how did your faith and your journey or your personal experience, ⁓ you know, with being a mom, a homeschooling mom, how did that shape this mission that you're on now?

Cheryl Krichbaum (02:29)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a good question. ⁓ Well, first of all, I came to Christ because of the man who's now my husband and really because he I tried to scare him away by telling him how different I was than he than he is. ⁓ He's rather conservative. And at the time, I was very, very liberal, ⁓ pro-abortion, as I said.

And so I tried to scare him away by telling him I had an abortion and it didn't work. His response was, okay, so that's in the past, you're done with that. And I was just really taken aback by that. And eventually realized that he was ⁓ being Christ-like. Like I was seeing Christ through him, which led me to being open to Christ and eventually.

⁓ choosing a personal relationship with Jesus. ⁓ And then Jesus himself had a little talk with me about my abortion. And ⁓ I realized that I was completely responsible for my choice. I tried blaming everybody else and ⁓ came to realize just ⁓ thinking on the verse, ⁓ let us reason together from Isaiah one.

that I could have pulled out at any time. Yes, everybody around me supported me, they would have supported me if I had chosen life as well. And then later, as a mom, as homeschooler, so, you know, I taught writing courses at the college level while I was a grad student.

And as a homeschooling mom, had to figure out how to homeschool, how to teach kids how to write. So I went and researched that and then got my kids into a particular ⁓ curriculum that I really enjoyed. And I learned a lot from right along with them and eventually started coaching students to write short stories.

to help them fulfill a requirement that they had. And the Lord said, Hey, Cheryl, why aren't you coaching my daughters? And I knew exactly what he was talking about. And so then I had to figure out how to find people, which the Lord provided, of course, and how to set up all the business end of it. But we've got a what, six people right now writing their

pro-life memoirs. Most of them are post-abortive, have had an abortion, but I do have an abortion survivor, Carrie Fisher. She is hoping to publish in early 2026. And I have a good friend of mine who has multiple pro-life stories, meaning that she chose life more than once when the world said not to him.

And so we're all on a mission to change the abortion conversation. And the Lord really talked to me about preserving these stories to keeping them safe so that the world history really doesn't forget what Roe v. did to us and how Roe v. Wade ⁓ really infected generations, right, with this thinking that it's okay to abort and it's no big deal.

⁓ So, you know, keep those stories safe and to reach not just this generation, but the next generation and even all those left behind that they would find our stories and they would find hope in Christ and realize that they can be healed by the blood of the lamb, just like we were.

Jacob Barr (06:29)
Wow. ⁓ I want you to reflect a little bit more on the importance of preserving stories and how would you say what gets often weaved in? Are you looking for God's fingerprints? What's the point? What's really important to commonly find in someone's story? And then how can someone connect with you to try and

take up this challenge or this idea of preserving their pro-life story.

Cheryl Krichbaum (07:00)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's really good questions. All right. So, you know, typically when you're you have a writing assignment for school, they're like, accomplish this. But my writing process is more along the lines of I want you to connect with the Lord and pray your way through this so that you write the story from God's perspective, ⁓ because that's what happened to me. I sat down to write my book.

because he told me to. I wrote what ended up being the first half of it and thought I was done. Set it on the shelf because I had just pulled my second son out of public school and started homeschooling him. And so I knew that I was going to be much busier at one high school and one elementary school and homeschooling his work. And so I put it on the shelf and a friend of mine was like, Cheryl, you've got to get that book done. You've got to get it out there. And I'm like,

I don't even know if it's any good. And she said, well, let's send it out to our prayer group and get their feedback. And I said, OK, but let me sit down and do some cleanup on it first. And when I did that, the Lord was just like, you're not done. You need to write what's going on in your life right now. And ⁓ my book is titled Retested because I realized when I got done with the whole book, I realized that I had been tested by the same thing.

multiple times over my life. And the first time I clearly failed because I got pregnant and had an abortion. The second time, at least I had a relationship with Christ, but I was a worrier. I was, even though I was quoting every verse I could find in the Bible about having no fear, it was really difficult to actually walk that out and not have fear while we were going through this test again.

And then at the time that I was writing this book, we were going through it again. I so I learned a whole lot about my own story just by writing it out and walking with the Lord and asking him questions all the way through. Like I had no idea that. ⁓ So my the test is family mental illness. So.

⁓ My siblings have a pretty significant mental illness and there was always a connection between a crisis with them and my abortion story. And I didn't even realize it until I got done writing the whole book. So part of the purpose is just for us to better understand our own stories. I truly believe that's why the Lord is calling us to write our own stories.

So even Amber, who just published this summer, she felt like the Lord was telling her to write and she was like, yeah, I don't know how to do that. And then she heard me at a conference and she went, ⁓ okay, Lord, thank you for providing. she, so then she was my first client and started working with me. And even she discovered that her story was ⁓ more than what she expected it to be. So we kind of, discovered that

theme as we're writing. But our stories are not just the abortion story. It's what's, what trauma did we have before we ever got pregnant outside of wedlock? Cause something had to happen. Something had to have been off with our life for us to even think about going to an abortion facility.

So it's setting the scene with the trauma that we had in our lives. For me, it was a sibling with mental illness. With Amber, it was her dad's sudden death when she was a teenager. What the result was of that trauma that didn't get healed, which always involves abortion. And then what sort of consequences we had as a result.

So, neither Amber nor I had physical consequences, but we certainly had spiritual consequences that took us a long time to recognize. And once we've recognized it, then of course, going through abortion healing and realizing how different we were on the other side of abortion healing and trying to communicate that to our readers so that they see the benefit.

of going and getting abortion healing and trusting that the Lord went to the cross for everything we've done and that Jesus wants us completely healed from the abortion wounds. And then, you know, as a healed person, we're different. Like, I'm joyful. I didn't used to be joyful. I'm joyful. And

You know, God has really lit a fire underneath us to go out and tell other women this because we don't want them to go through what we went through. Like, you know, there's a better way than choosing what we chose. But what we're finding is that we're sharing ⁓ Christ's love because we experienced it. So we're sharing that in our memoirs. We

are praying that people choose a relationship with Christ, become Christian disciples as a result of reading our book. We're hopeful that women are choosing life if they haven't had an abortion yet or that they're finding abortion healing if they already have. So, for example, I know that my husband, I was so proud of him, he stuck my book on his on the desk, his desk at work.

And a number of his coworkers asked for signed copies of my book. And I met a couple of them. And I'm just like, I don't think these are Christians. I don't think these are people who are going to church. I think that they ⁓ were curious because my subtitle says the story of a post-abortive woman called to change the conversation. And they wanted to hear that. And so we're.

We're really excited about the possibilities. We know that in some cases we're or maybe in many cases we're not going to know until we're in heaven and we get the full story of what happened. But even the people who have approached us so far and just thanked us for sharing our stories and sharing what Christ did for us or being so open about what abortion did to us or

you know, for Amber, what the trauma of losing her dad did to her, or for me, ⁓ what it is to live with siblings with a severe mental illness. It just, opens up people to addressing their own issues because they realize they're not the only ones. And then I just have to say, because you're talking to people at pregnancy resource centers, we had a surprise result. And that's that some pregnancy resource centers are

reading our books kind of as staff training. So ⁓ like my local pregnancy resource center, I gave them a bunch of copies and ⁓ whenever somebody new comes on staff, they offer them that book to read. And I know that many years ago, one nurse in particular, she had it all marked up. I took her out for coffee and like, what did you find? So like, why do you have my book all marked up?

And she said, well, I'm using it when I counsel women. And I'm like, well, how does that work? Because I don't work at a PRC. don't counsel women. I'm a teacher. I'm much more of a teacher than a counselor sort of person. And she said, well, you talk about what happened as a result of your abortion. And so I say, would you read this?

Or may I read this to you? You know, this is the perspective of somebody who's been through it. Would it be okay to share with you what she says? So it it blows our minds, but we're super excited.

Jacob Barr (15:43)
Wow. A little bit ago, you mentioned that part of this writing is writing it from God's perspective. What does that look like? Is that writing down prayers and what you hear, or is that writing down scripture? What does it look like to write from God's, or to weave in God's perspective into this writing work?

Cheryl Krichbaum (16:04)
Yeah, yeah. Well, OK, so I'm very much into writing process as a writing teacher, very much into writing process, did all sorts of nerdy research on it. But what the Lord showed me was to incorporate worship and prayer into my writing process. So while we're writing, mean, we're we're worshipping God and praying before we sit down to write.

Even if we're just writing down notes and collecting things or working on our timeline, we're praying our way through it. But then even at the end, so I've got a client, another client, Candy, she's hope. Oh, she's awesome. You'll love talking to her. She's like 81 years old and super energetic. And so she is also hoping to publish in early 2026. And she is at the tail end.

of the editing process. And so I just told her today, I said, OK, take care of the little nitpicky stuff. And then you're to take a break and you spend a day praying. And then you're going to come back and you can go chapter by chapter and say, Lord, what is it you want me to emphasize here? And, know, it would just be natural to be drawn to a particular part of her chapter and realize that she could tweak some words.

or just really work on that particular sentence to make it super effective. ⁓ And that will emphasize a point. And so when I went through that process, I was like, my goodness, this book is not what I expected it to be. And like I said, I understood my story in a way that I hadn't before because God answered my prayers and pointed out

things to me that I didn't realize.

Jacob Barr (18:01)
Wow, that's such a beautiful idea to look at the editing process through prayer and asking God, what would you have me change or prune or add? Yeah, how would you like this edited, God? That's such a beautiful question. And then to be praying and worshiping while doing that, that seems amazing. ⁓

Cheryl Krichbaum (18:17)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm

Jacob Barr (18:28)
Yeah, so tell me about the name, my body, my worship. How does that reflect your vision and mission for this?

Cheryl Krichbaum (18:36)
Yeah. Well, first of all, it's not my vision and mission, right? It's the Lord's. Like, I'm just trying to keep up ⁓ with him. He's the one who gave me the idea. A friend of mine and I were ⁓ trying to figure out what to call this thing. And I didn't even know what this thing was. Like, I thought it was a conference at the time. And I do think that we will be doing conferences in the future. just not ready to go out quite yet. We're getting there.

⁓ And at the time, we still had the I bought my body, my choice mantra. And, you know, part of what the Lord showed me is that worship is a full body experience. And, you know, it doesn't mean in a charismatic, you got to dance sort of way. Although you can looking at the Old Testament and the meaning of praise, there are lots of different words for praise in the Old Testament. So you can think of it that way. But really, what ⁓

You know, the early church, Old Testament Jews and early church knew is that Romans 12 one being a living sacrifice meant that our bodies were perfect because they were free from sin. And everybody understood that sexual immorality was a sin. Today's society, not so much. Right. And so what

What I've learned from the Lord about what my body, my worship means is that we are to worship God with our whole cleansed, sanctified, perfected body, which we accomplish by confessing our sins and forgiving people that we blame for things and choosing to be close to Him and walk through life in the way He has called us to.

And by doing that, we're not just going in on Sunday morning and singing the praise song or hymn. We are every single day worshiping him because that's just who we are as Christ's disciples.

Jacob Barr (20:49)
Wow. Can you ⁓ share what it's like, what's your prep or how do you prepare to ⁓ pray, worship and edit? ⁓ Like how do you remove the distractions and how do you really find that focus to hear God's quiet voice?

Cheryl Krichbaum (21:05)
Yeah.

Yeah, good question. All right, so this whole thing is based on second Chronicles 20 verses one through 30. I call it the King Jehoshaphat story. So King Jehoshaphat was king of the southern kingdom of Judah at about the same time Ahab was king of Israel. Matter of fact, ⁓ in the battle where Ahab was killed, Jehoshaphat was in battle as well. And ⁓

And Jocoshaphat is generally considered one of the good kings of the southern kingdom of Judah, but he certainly wasn't perfect. I don't think any of them were like they weren't supposed to go to battle with and they weren't supposed to do anything with the northern kingdom of Israel. But clearly he was going to battle and collaborating with Ahab and his successors. But in Second Chronicles 20, we find out that the.

kingdom of Judah is going to be attacked basically by three sides. were three nation groups coming to attack him. And, you know, Ahab invited him to be in battle because Jehoshaphat was pretty good, but Jehoshaphat didn't come up with a plan for how to go after these three nations to defend Judah, but instead immediately went to the Lord.

And then he called the whole nation to fast and pray and meet at the temple. And so they prayed at the temple. And then somebody there who's a Levite, who's essentially in the worship team, he hears a word from the Lord and God says, don't worry, I'm going to take care of it all. So they showed up for battle. Jehoshaphat.

talks to the people and then they put together essentially a praise band, sent the praise band out and as soon as the praise band started singing praise music, the enemy was confused. So two of the nations went against the third one and defeated the third one and the two remaining defeated each other. Like God just confused them all and the Judeans didn't have to do anything.

And you know, at the time you made money from war by getting the plunder. It took three days for them to collect all the plunder from this battle. They didn't even have to, to do any work in. And so God showed me in the end of my memoir and that third big test that we were going through that when I worship ahead, things just went better. And I

heard more clearly from the Lord. I had a much better understanding as to what it is that I should do and how to respond to things. And then because I was writing right along at the same time, God was like, so do that when you're writing, too. So we praise God and we pray and we ask him very simple questions like, what do want me to write today? Or I can't remember what order things happened because

I'm not 20 years old anymore. Like, you know, it's been a long time, Lord, you know, help me figure this out. Or, you know, there's a detail I feel like there's missing that I need to have here, Lord, can you help me fill it in? Like just asking him. The simplest little things and rather than making it a big presentation, I have to, you know, do all this stuff to pray, just constantly be in conversation with the Lord as we're going along.

So that's kind of the big general picture of what it is that we do.

Jacob Barr (24:58)
Wow. So I used to work at our Prancy clinic, um, 25 years ago and, back then there was, you know, maybe daily prayer or at least, you know, several times a week we would have group prayer, especially when there was an event coming up, we would pray a lot of prayers of protection over, over all the things that could go wrong and how the attacks would come. Um, but I don't remember

Cheryl Krichbaum (25:15)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (25:26)
journaling, writing, or worship being weaved in, at least not in like the day-to-day or the week-to-week kind of work. Maybe at the events there were some worship songs perhaps. ⁓ So how would you suggest a pregnancy clinic consider weaving in worship, journaling, or writing ⁓ into like a rhythm like that might be on a weekly

Cheryl Krichbaum (25:47)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jacob Barr (25:55)
level of kind of rhythm.

Cheryl Krichbaum (25:59)
Yeah, yeah, that's a really good question. You know, I have another book titled Worship to End Abortion, and I'm going to... So this is the original one, it's blue, but I'm going... I'm working on a second edition, also trying to get that out in the beginning of 2026, and it'll be a really pretty red. And it's based on this whole King Jehoshaphat concept of worshiping ahead of everything.

And what we do, what pregnancy resource centers do really is spiritual battle. We all know that. We know Ephesians 6 that our battle is not against people. ⁓ So there are a lot of strategies in that book about just making scripture very practical, like taking the King Jehoshaphat story and making it very practical. So that being said, a couple thoughts pop into my mind.

One, I would love it if at galas, we started with worship. I was at one recently where they did. It was beautiful, know, just to spend time praising the Lord for just who he is. And it brings us together as a people, you know, ⁓ at a gala, you've got people from all sorts of different churches, but we're all one in Christ.

And so it's just a really wonderful way to bring us all into unity together. And but, you know, what about worshipping in your pregnancy resource center? What about ⁓ spending time praying inside the pregnancy resource center? ⁓ Got to be a little careful about.

walking around the pregnancy resource center like you don't want to get into a Jericho walk unless you know that there's some spiritual something or other that you're know wall that you're trying to bring down because you don't want to bring down the pregnancy resource center you know ⁓ in the process but ⁓ you know just thinking about spending time just praising God is so powerful in ⁓ because you know the the spiritual forces of darkness don't want to hear that.

They don't want to hear praises to the Lord. So, you know, they're more likely to get out of your way, which is what I really believe happened with the King Jehoshaphat story, that the spiritual forces of darkness just could not stand being around that praise music. And they got out of the way and God just took care of the rest. So I just I have seen

Praise makes such a difference in my personal life in so many different ways. And now I'm seeing it with ⁓ my coaching clients that that's always my recommendation. Like praise and song and praise and word.

Jacob Barr (29:05)
That's good. So I think there's a reason, there's a really good reason for why church starts with praise music, at least near the beginning, maybe after the commercials, but there's, there's a beginning with praise music and then there's usually praise music at the end. And, and there's, and I'm sure there's some really good reasons for that. And, and also my daughter was telling me maybe two months ago, we were talking about,

Cheryl Krichbaum (29:14)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Jacob Barr (29:34)
praise music and she was saying something to the effect, well, maybe just praise how it's like, you know, it's one thing to pray, but when you're praising, it's almost like you're untouchable by the enemy because the enemy just can't comprehend or get involved. Like it's almost like there's an extra layer of protection during praise. What are your thoughts on, yeah, how prayer, prayer is all, I mean, not prayer. mean, praise provides

Cheryl Krichbaum (29:53)
Mm-hmm

Jacob Barr (30:02)
level of buffering from the enemy and then also, you know, why or what good reasons might church have to commonly start a church service with prayer and then to end with, I mean, not prayer, praise, start with praise and end with praise.

Cheryl Krichbaum (30:13)
Thank

Yeah. Praise.

Yeah. You know, I have never heard historical reason why. Matter of fact, I grew up in the church. I come from a very churchy family. Like my dad is still the choir director and he's 88 years old. But I never understood what worship was. ⁓ And I didn't.

I didn't really understand that that's what we were doing when we were singing hymns before the sermon. Now that I understand the King Jehoshaphat story, I'm like, ⁓ well, now I'm like, okay, marching bands, like going out and having a marching band before the football game. I'm like, maybe that's where it came from. I don't know. ⁓ You know, thinking back to the Revolutionary War and sending out the drummers ⁓ ahead of battle.

It kind of seems like there should be there might be a connection there. I mean, it just kind of makes sense, but I haven't read any historical proof of that. So that's my conjecture. But I absolutely agree with you that spending time in praise, it gives us a buffer. It makes evil one to leave. And I really believe that it opens us up to hearing more clearly from the Lord, which would make sense because we're

you know, we're going to hear message, a scripture-based message from our pastor. So of course you want our ears opened up to be able to hear the Lord through what the pastor is saying. But that being said, I do would like to point out that not all Christian songs are praise songs. So, you know, that's one of the things that I teach is ⁓ we need to pay attention to what the song is saying and whether it's a praise song or not.

So in general, if a song is talking about me, it's a first person, probably not a praise song. But if it's talking about God, it probably is a praise song. Bragging on him, so one of the words for praise in the Old Testament is halal. And from that, we get the word hallelujah. And halal basically means to boast about God.

⁓ In some cases that means ⁓ in an obnoxious way, kind of like dancing as if no one were looking, just being obnoxious about your boasting about the Lord. That's the word halal, where we get hallelujah, right? And so, when you're spending time boasting about the Lord and how awesome He is, or telling Him directly how awesome He is, evil just doesn't wanna be around that.

And God's like, awesome, come closer, come close. mean, really, I mean, that's what we want. We want to be close to the Lord. We can hear better when we are closer to the Lord.

Jacob Barr (33:25)
I think, and I'm stretching my memory right now, because there was a sermon more than a year ago at my church where the pastor was talking about how music, sort of like how music can penetrate the heart while the sermon may be focusing more on the mind side. And also I believe there was, ⁓

Cheryl Krichbaum (33:43)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (33:52)
some descriptions of how music would almost prepare the soil for a seed or an idea to be planted, as if you're running a rake through the soil, getting it ready. ⁓ I feel like, so music has some unique attributes for how it bypasses our certain barriers we might have up for words.

Cheryl Krichbaum (33:58)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (34:17)
music's

able to navigate right through those. It's got some unique attributes. should say that at least. I don't fully understand it, but I know it's good. And it seems like, and then if you mix music with praise or God's word, ⁓ it has other attributes that sort of work together as a really good recipe. ⁓ And so all I'll to say is there's something about, and that's one of the things I've been doing on this podcast is I've been putting, ⁓

Cheryl Krichbaum (34:23)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (34:47)
church music before and after, trying to really reflect some of those attributes that I don't fully understand, but I see that they're helpful for preparing someone to hear a dialogue. And so that's sort of why I do that for this podcast. But at the same time, I don't fully understand it, but I do understand it enough to see the benefit.

Cheryl Krichbaum (35:01)
Mm-hmm.

That's awesome.

Yeah, well, neuroscience research supports everything that you just said. So I haven't gotten all the way down into all the details ⁓ in it, but like the field of neuroscience is just blown up in the 21st century. And so they've ⁓ examined our brains in so many different areas. another day, like another day we can talk about sex education and the neuroscience that goes on there. But for music, there's all sorts of research now.

about how our brain reacts to music. And we've always known that. I mean, we have elevator music to keep us calm going up and down floors, right? We have ⁓ Christmas music that gets us in the mood for the Christmas season. So, and you think about any movie and the effect that the music in the movie has on you, right? So we've always known it. Now we've got neuroscience research that proves it.

And so, there is some, know, God has designed our bodies to react to music. And something to keep in mind is that ⁓ evil absolutely knows that. And so, you know, that's why there's always been talk about, be careful about what your kids listen to, right? Because not only are they getting the words, but they're getting it using music and it gets into their brains.

And we also actually know that from a homeschooling perspective, like my kids at the elementary years, they were learning ⁓ history, but many other facts to science ⁓ by song. Because ⁓ when it's set to a tune, you remember it better, right? And so, praising God with words is good.

praising God with music, it's really, it's supernatural. I don't know how else you would explain it. It's supernatural.

Jacob Barr (37:12)
Wow. So this is a little bit of a tangent, but based on what you just said, how like elevator music will calm someone, makes me wonder what would good background music be in a prancy clinic? What would that look like? And I bet there's something to be discovered there would be there's probably a good genre of calming music that would help someone regain logic, regain their ability to, to slow down, to reduce their ⁓ anxiety level. The

The stress is there, but if we can reduce it using music. I did hear of a psychologist once talk about the benefits of chocolate, how chocolate can help someone reduce stress. I mean, obviously it has its negatives when it comes to sugar, but it does have its positives when it comes to being a way of reducing stress. ⁓ And so there's really good things to consider of like how to help that client.

Cheryl Krichbaum (37:51)
Yeah.

Mm Yeah.

Jacob Barr (38:10)
And music is something that I've not considered before, you know, like the elevator music concept of being applied to help reduce the stress. if you go into a place that has soft music playing, it does have a relaxing effect on those who hear it. you know, the lighting, the wall art, the music, these all play into how we may respond.

Cheryl Krichbaum (38:14)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (38:36)
to those visuals and audio, you know, the audio in the room.

Cheryl Krichbaum (38:36)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And we do that with writing too, by the way. I have my clients use Christian meditative music while they're writing just quietly in the background. Shouldn't be anything that you can recognize because you don't want to get distracted and start singing that song you're supposed to be writing. And there's tons of Christian meditative music out there. The key is to make sure that it's like truly created by a Christian artist.

⁓ My personal preference would be to something that has a natural resonance rather than electronic, meaning that I would take a piano over a keyboard because piano has strings that are plucked and there's something about that that if I dug into the neuroscience research, I could probably find it, but there's something about the vibration like a

My mom was a church organist, so I'm like, I will take a pipe organ over an electric organ any day. And same thing with piano. I'll take piano over keyboard. Anything that resonates ⁓ ideally would be better. ⁓ Although I will openly admit that's harder and harder to find because so much stuff is done by electronics. ⁓ But.

Jacob Barr (39:59)
Yeah.

Cheryl Krichbaum (40:00)
but do make sure that it's a Christian artist who's even performing it because you can go on YouTube and you can get hours and hours of music. So when I teach short stories and I teach, so that's essentially eighth graders who are taking this course for me and I tell them to do this and I said, but of course you got to do it with mom and dad because you shouldn't be on the internet by yourself. But also make sure that you're getting Christian because there's so much non-Christian stuff out there.

And there's even demonic stuff out there. And so you want to make sure that you stay away from that and make sure that you're using music that's not just Christian music, but performed by a Christian.

Jacob Barr (40:44)
Wow, those are good things to consider. And now that I'm imagining how the idea of writing prayerfully and asking God for that feedback and direction and how that would also apply to someone who's playing music or writing music, how if they're inviting God into that writing process or that playing of the music ⁓ experience, I can see how that would.

would be really fruitful and good and something worth pursuing or seeking out.

Cheryl Krichbaum (41:20)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And you you think about it, if you've got ⁓ Christian music playing all the time, once again, spiritual forces of darkness, they don't want to be around that stuff. They would be attracted, of course, to things created by non-Christians or meant to ⁓ steer us in the wrong direction, because that provides them with an opening to get in the way of what it is we're trying to do to follow God's leading. So, you know, the music that you choose is

really, really important. ⁓ you know, and it's, and it's not right to use the word magic with God, but I kind of want to say it's God magic. You know,

Jacob Barr (42:02)
Yeah, I think

it's just a way, because God knows how our brain works, as you know, since He created it, and He knows how our bodies work. And so, you know, in music is, I think we're designed to worship God. ⁓ And so there are certain things that are going on here that are just based on the Creator ⁓ weaving it into us at a deep level.

Cheryl Krichbaum (42:18)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. I agree.

Jacob Barr (42:30)
Well, so before we wrap things up, have any final thoughts or things you'd like to share with those who are listening? ⁓ Yeah.

Cheryl Krichbaum (42:40)
Yeah, OK. Well, you can go to MyBodyMyWorship.com on the home page as ⁓ a free online Bible study that I call your Holy Spirit Advantage, because that's what I tell the eighth graders. I'm like, this is your Holy Spirit Advantage. You're all Christians. You have an advantage over everybody else. And it walks you through King Jehoshaphat and other Bible stories that support this whole idea of using music. ⁓ So, you know, anybody can sign up for that for free.

And then you'll see on that website that I've got Amber's book and my book and upcoming books. So you can see what's what we have coming forth. And then if you're interested in writing your own story, I have everybody start off with like just meet with me and ask me questions. And then I have a two day workshop that will just jump start.

your writing process. And then if you want to go on from there, you can, but you know, just a two day workshop will be a really great jumpstart for ⁓ starting your own memoir writing.

Jacob Barr (43:48)
Awesome, yeah, thank you for sharing that website address. I really, yeah, before we wrap things up, what would you say the mental benefit would be for someone to write their story and revisit those connections and those stories in a way that they do when they're writing? So it's not like just saying it once, it's like they're having to like ponder it and they're revisiting those neural networks of like old thoughts.

Cheryl Krichbaum (44:13)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (44:17)
to the point where they're having to form sentences and then rewrite it and then they're revisiting it probably a hundred times as they're trying to share an idea or story from their past and then reflecting on how God was weaved in. Like what's the benefit of that as someone does that?

Cheryl Krichbaum (44:17)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, anybody writing their story, it's a cathartic experience, right? ⁓ I was healed from my abortion in the process of writing my book. ⁓ Amber came to me because the Lord told her to write her book and she leads post-abortion healing programs. So she not only has been through post-abortion healing, but she's been through it multiple times because she leads other people through it.

So she went in thinking she was completely healed, discovered in the process that she wasn't, ⁓ and worked through things that she didn't even know she needed to work through, just because the Lord brought them up and had her work through things. There were things that ⁓ I thought I had worked through and hadn't, ⁓ and like relationships that I hadn't ⁓ completely forgiven people.

And so you end up coming out the other side ⁓ different, a better difference without even realizing it. And so we're all ⁓ like minded in that we want we want people to see abortion from a different perspective when they don't hear in the media. ⁓ One that we want the church to understand as much as we want the world to understand. ⁓

but we also grow in the process, understand ourselves better, understand our relationship with the Lord better, understand his perspective on things better. And we just come out so much more free and joyous than when we started the whole process.

Jacob Barr (46:22)
Wow, so I've got one more question. And I haven't done this myself. I don't remember ever doing this before myself, but I've heard someone at my church talk about how they would write something down, not for someone else to read, but because they just wanted to get it off of their chest. And then they burned that letter. Have you ever heard of that? And what are your thoughts on, you know, just getting it out and then, but not for someone else to read, but maybe just to...

Cheryl Krichbaum (46:40)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Barr (46:51)
you know, to let it get out of, know, to get it, to get it written down, but maybe not to share it ever.

Cheryl Krichbaum (46:56)
Mm-hmm. That's actually part of some of the post-abortion healing programs. ⁓ It was for mine to write a letter to whoever we were angry with. I was actually kind of a pain in that class because I had already worked through everything because of when I took the class and compared to when I wrote the book. ⁓ And so I ended up taking a different approach to it.

I certainly recommend it because, okay, with all this AI stuff and I'm a writing teacher and working with homeschoolers, I'm pretty anti-AI. you know, so I'm collecting all these articles about the negative things that AI does as a warning to parents and kids, you know, about it so that we're using it appropriately because it could so easily be abused.

So that being said, one of the great quotes that I found to communicate to my students and their parents is, writing is thinking on paper. And lots of people have said that over the centuries. So writing is thinking on paper. So that's why your teachers would have you journal. I always hated it when my teachers said that because they never gave me direction. And you may hear that in Christian settings, in journal your prayers.

Well, that's because it's writing, you're writing and you're thinking on paper. You're writing out your thoughts and you're figuring out things. Right back to Isaiah one, I think it's verse 18, eight or 18, one of those, come let us reason together. It's God speaking through Isaiah, come let us reason together. It's essentially God inviting you to sit down with a piece of paper and a pen.

and reason with him about whatever the situation or the person or whatever so that you can figure things out with God. And then what you do with that is up to you. know, you could stick it in a folder and hide it in the back of a file drawer. You could throw it in a fireplace. I mean, you have to decide what it is that you want to do with it. I, course, want you to write a book.

Right? So that we're preserving these stories ⁓ to reach people and, you know, not just this generation, but as I said, multiple generations. And even after ⁓ Christ returns and you've got all these ⁓ unbelievers who are trying to figure out what's going on and how they get healed when all the Christians are gone.

Jacob Barr (49:47)
Wow. Well, I hope those who are listening will be encouraged to get a journal, get some paper, get a pencil or a pen and to explore this further and also to connect with you and your website and your writing directions. So Cheryl, thank you so much for being on here. Would you close out our podcast with a prayer and hopefully those who are listening will join in.

Cheryl Krichbaum (50:14)
Absolutely. Thank you for having me, by the way. This is fun. When place is in and expected to go. That's really cool. Heavenly Father, we praise your holy name. Father, you are holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. We praise you. We praise you for who you are. And we come before you as your children and just so ⁓ feel so cherished that we are in your family and that we can call you Abba Father.

Jacob Barr (50:17)
My pleasure. ⁓

Cheryl Krichbaum (50:41)
Father, we ask ⁓ that you forgive us our sins. You show us who it is that we need to forgive, for we know that when we forgive other people, you forgive us, just as you said in the model prayer in the Lord's Prayer. And Father, we also ask for more of the Holy Spirit, because Jesus said in Luke 11 verse 13 that we can ask you for that. So we ask you for more of the Holy Spirit, for we know the fruit of the Spirit is agape love.

expressed as joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And we want all of those things. Father, we praise you and thank you for all the work that's being done through pregnancy resource centers, all the women and men who are being saved from the hell that abortion is and also are meeting Christ.

We thank you for that. ask for your blessing and protection on all the pregnancy resource centers and the people working there and volunteering there and all the people coming in that they would feel your presence and feel cherished and loved and just want to stay in that place where they can feel close to you. And Lord, we just ask that you open up more and more and more minds.

to your love, more and more hearts to your love, that people would choose a relationship with you and in the process choose life because your very name is all about life. We praise you, Father. Thank you for this time. In Jesus' name, amen.

Jacob Barr (52:30)
Amen.