Welcome to the Loved Called Gifted Podcast. This is your place to come for musings about spirituality, identity and purpose. I'm your host, Catherine Cowell.

Catherine:
So I am absolutely delighted to be joined this morning by Carol Barwick. Good morning, Carol. Good morning, Catherine. So would you like to just introduce yourself, tell us where you are in the world and what you get up to?

Carol:
Yeah. I'm Carol Barwick I live just on the border of Leeds and Wakefield, but I'm originally from London and I live in Leeds with my husband and my thirteen year old son as of a few days ago and my cat. And what I get up to is I also podcast. which is why I've built this lovely link with you, Catherine. And I have a business slash ministry called Raise, and that's all about raising confidence and inspiring creativity.

Catherine:
Fantastic. This is actually one half of a two-part conversation. So half of it is going to be on my Loved Called Gifted podcast and then half of it is going to be on your Rays podcast. So once you've listened to this half of the conversation, which will all be about Carol and her story, then the next bit will be coming out the day after we release this. So this will come out on a Friday and the next bit will come out on the Saturday. So you can pop across to Carol's podcast and listen to that bit and all the links will be in the show notes We're going to be discussing a word on your podcast, aren't we?

Carol:
Yeah. So what what God's kind of showed me is I mean I've always loved words. I am, as they say, a word nerd. And I've loved words from an an early age and I think that's come through my parents and my my uncle particularly really loved words. And what I realized was that one word could really shape a particular time in my life. And so particularly over COVID, I found that just having one word a week helped me to kind of shape that week in a different way. And so I formed a community, a Facebook community, out of people that I'd actually worked with physically over the years before And we started looking at just one word each week. And then I'd already been thinking a bit about doing a podcast. And so I thought we'll explore that word a bit further. And so I did that for a number of years with guests. Generally I do that just by myself now because it's a bit easier to manage, but I'm really excited about having you as a guest. And I think the word that we're going to look at is doubt, which is always a really interesting word. And I'm really excited about doing this kind of tandem idea.

Catherine:
I've not done that before. Yes. So you always have a raised word, which I think is a brilliant idea. And I think we won't talk about this now because we're talking about it on your podcast, but I I think the link between this conversation and the word doubt will be clear. But I'm really excited about that because I think doubt is a brilliant word and that it opens the door to huge amounts of growth. and new adventures. So that's just to whet your appetite. So anyway, let us dive into your story a bit. So you talked about Your ministry is being about raising confidence and inspiring creativity. And I know that you're a really creative type. If we kind of go back, where did your creativity begin to emerge in your life? So all throughout my life my mum had serious depression.

Carol:
I think we're, we're wondering now whether possibly it was schizophrenia or I'm not sure. Now we know so much more about things. But basically she always struggled with life. So I think creativity became an an outlet for me from quite an early age. And one of the things that happened, which was a real milestone, was a neighbour across from me came to our house one evening and he bought it's called a minute book it's like a big ledger kind of book And it was just full of lined pages, but obviously completely empty. And he said, Oh, I wondered if uh Carol might like to use this. I mean, I still have that book now, and that book just got full of pictures and poems and I think from quite an early age I realised that songs were really just poems with some music attached to them. So I wrote a few little kind of worship songs in there. And we're talking about this was age seven. I got the book. And so probably by the age eight or nine I'd written some songs and I just found that that creativity was a way of escape really. And my mum was an incredible person and she used to sing and she journaled and wrote poems and things like that a lot as well and and so does my dad. So I think I had a real creative basis, but it became personal to me at a really early age and that's never changed. I mean I remember being bullied at school and sitting in the toilets at school and writing a story about being bullied. That that's what I did to es escape from it. So creative writing has been absolutely an outlet in so many different ways.

Catherine:
Yeah. I love to know where people discover kind of their life purpose. It could have Got all sorts of ways, couldn't it? Being handed a book. It's really interesting, isn't it, how there can be these little moments when something emerges in your life. But I imagine there are quite a lot of kids For whom that would have been of oh absolutely no interest whatsoever. So what is it like for you when you are in the midst of some creativity? What is going on for you?

Carol:
Wow. It's different. It's different for the different things that I create. Poems are very quick. It's really hard to describe but almost like a bit of a a rush. The words will tumble out I need them to rhyme, not because I think poems should rhyme, but for me the rhyme and the rhythm helps and that helps it to kind of tumble out. I think probably if I was cool and thirty years younger I'd be a rapper. Because that's kind of how the poems come out. It's almost like a rap. But I'm not cool and I'm not 30 years younger, so really they are more like nursery rhymes and verses. But what it means is that I can articulate how I'm feeling. very quickly. So that's poems. When it comes to writing a song, it's like I get wrapped up in a world. It's a very different process. I'm just looking at my piano now. So if I'm kind of t playing around on the piano, a tune might come first and then lyrics come after, but sometimes lyrics will just come from God and then I'll put a tune to it because I want to be able to share it with other people and I want other people to be able to sing it. That's when I'm writing my own songs. I also loved being creative when I have my choirs and what I would do is rather than a lot of standard choirs who will take one song and have arrangements within that song, what I would do is use lots of different songs. to create one arrangement, so like a a mashup. And I I absolutely loved taking an old song, for instance. the New Seekers song I'd Like to Teach Her World to Sing and mash it up with My Chemical Romance where there's an amazing song called Sing which is very much one of my anthems and mash them up together. And it was always incredible how I could make the songs fit together. And I could. I could. I mean there were there were times when I'd say no that that song really doesn't go with that song But I think I could just hear how musically they would work together and what it meant was everybody could sing it. 'Cause people would either know I'd like to teach the world to sing, or I could teach them the other song and then you could put it together so it meant that everybody could sing an original arrangement in a relatively short space of time. And I loved that idea. And I think probably those are the three types of creativity that are in my kind of wheelhouse. I'm definitely not a crafty arty kind of person.

Catherine:
Yeah. I know that creativity and art, it's not necessarily held in the highest esteem when it comes to kind of academia and careers and so I'm wondering whether you have manage to stay in that space or whether there has been there have been times in your life when you kind of ended up getting pulled out into something less artistic.

Carol:
I think I just brought that space in with me, Catherine, to be honest. I just couldn't accept that that space didn't exist. Somewhere. But so when I worked, I ran Ray's as a business for quite a long time. I was employed as a church children's worker in Bradford. basically they asked me to work across the church, which had four congregations, the community and schools. They wanted me to work across all those things. And what I found as I started to put things in place was that the children were confused about who I was and what I was doing. So I put it under a kind of a banner of of race. And through that I did lots of different work in in schools and one of the things that I made sure that I did was allow the the young people that I worked with space to do things like write raps and poems and have that uh creative space and expression. So even if they weren't being given it at school, I would take it in for them and say this is your creative space and I don't believe that nobody can be creative so I would help them to kind of draw it out and if they add words that they didn't know how to share, then I would help them to do that. So I never sat them down and said, We're writing a rap, I don't care if you don't want to you're far from it. But just bring out different elements of of expression f for them. And and sometimes they would want to draw and and that kind of thing. And that was great because that was what they they wanted to do. But I was a big believer in them sharing in the way that they wanted to. So giving them the space to be able to do that. Yeah. Yeah. So where did your faith first emerge? So one of the the biggest things about my my mum was she was a Christian and her faith was everything and it was it was very interesting because I now realize as an adult that when she was well, her faith was beautiful and it was safe and it was strong and lovely. But when she was in in a bad space mentally, her faith became quite manipulative and painful. But what happened w when when I was little certainly was we would do like devotional books. I don't know if you will remember that they're called Simon and Sarah books. I've not heard of but d do you know what have you ever heard of them? No, I haven't. So I might have just made them up. I don't think I have. I remember they were like stepping stones and you had to colour the stepping stones in every day when you'd done it. Anyway, and we did those from a really early age. So I know that I was about four when I said that I wanted Jesus in my heart and I meant it. And it was a positive space at that time. So I wasn't doing it for my mum, I wanted it for myself. And had a very interesting religious background and I've since found out that I'm I'm called a Quanglacun. So my dad was a Quaker and my mum was Anglican Church of England. So we would go between Quakers and Church of England for quite a long time. And For those uh of your listeners that know about Quakers, one of the things is that it's very silent. It's a very silent space. And even though I went to the children's part of Quakers it was still a kind of a space of peace. And I remember there was always ten minutes at the end where the children came in and you had to be quiet. And it felt like Weeks. Weeks of silence and all you wanted to do was get to the bit where you shook hands and then you could go in and get sugar lumps My faith is just fueled by bribery. No, so um so it was an interesting base for me to grow up in, I think, this kind of idea that Faith was very, very quiet and nobody said anything versus really kind of happy, clappy and being in a Sunday school where actually Children were quite mean to me. It's very hard growing up with a mum who's got serious mental health issues because you get bullied So even in church, that that was one of the things that I I do kind of remember was just not being really understood, but my faith stayed strong.

Catherine:
Through it all. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what kind of Anglican church was it? 'Cause they vary, don't they? Oh yeah, yeah. It was a lovely

Carol:
church. It was a very they had it like a soup kitchen. My mum is very involved in the community side of it when when she was well um and when she was at at home she she was very much involved in that that kind of community side of it and it was a real musical church And I remember they did musicals and I was in the choir and involved in quite a lot of the musical side of it. So there was a lot going on. And it and that was lovely to kind of be involved in. And it wasn't till much later on that I chose to go to a Baptist church when I was a when I was a teenager later on.

Catherine:
Yeah. Yeah. So what are your earliest memories of of your encounter with with God?

Carol:
Well, I wrote my first worship song when uh when I was about eight eight or nine, I think, and I think that will have been and I was just a aware that that God is my friend and that he it's it's a hard one actually. probably it was more my teenage years where I really started to know God for myself. I think there were lots of different parties going on and and people were starting to explore lots of different avenues as as teenagers. And I remember God saying very clearly to me that didn't want me to be involved in that because I've been kind of was set apart for what he wanted for me. And I took that very seriously and was known for not getting involved. Having said that, we also had the most incredible Christian union. It was called TFG, so my school was called Twiford, so it was Twiford Fellowship Group And there was just one guy, Jeff Lumley, and he he just created this space for teenagers to be who they were, but he showed us just the the love of God and how he wanted to be involved in every area of our lives and he allowed us to lead So when I first started TFG we went on this weekend and the worship was all led by older teenagers and there were lots of teachers lots of teachers there as well. but it was very much about how we could own uh our faith and our relationship and and that it wasn't about it being done to us. It was about us being involved. And I I mean I'm actually going to a party on Saturday and Lots and lots of people from TFG will be there. And we were a family, absolutely a family. And it wasn't culty kind of thing. There wasn't anything bad about it. It was just an incredible space that this guy created for us. And we almost kind of we didn't We didn't run the school. It was a Church of England school, but we were very much known for when people had problems they would come to someone from TFG and be prayed for and There were a lot of people that dipped in and out depending on what was going on in their home lives. It was a real ministry we were allowed to have, and not just allowed, but empowered. and enabled to have a ministry at school, whilst being school kids. Yeah, so I think that was where it really landed.

Catherine:
Yeah. Yeah. It really sounds like your growing up has gifted you with quite a lot of spaces that have allowed you to be you. So that that combination of the Anglican space and the Quaker space would have had within it some diversity and this beautiful sort of school space of really embracing and celebrating what it was that all of the kids had to bring for one another. is is quite incredible. So what was it that drew you to the Baptist church? What was it that you were seeking or what was that giving you? Boys.

Carol:
There's no other way of saying it. It was because of TFG and because of school. what we found was that different people from TFG went to different churches and uh there was a Baptist church and I th it wasn't me, I don't think, she says, hopefully, it was a friend that wanted to go. And again, it's very interesting. It was the boy that I was speaking to this morning. My friend wanted to go to the church that this boy was at And that was why we started, but actually when we got there, again, another space where the young people can minister. Probably a little bit more needing to kind of not toe the line, but um it was more structured and we were expected to kind of follow that structure a little bit more. But it was a wonderful space for young people and it was it was busy and again a lot of music. So I was involved in in the worship, but also I think by that point I was really writing quite a lot of songs myself and the worship team allowed me to kind of experiment with sharing those and I was known for m writing the songs and things like that. So although it was a boy that that uh uh uh uh uh you know um theoretically took us there Initially, I really found a space for myself and it was quite a difficult conversation saying to my mum, you know, I I want to go to a Baptist church and I want to be baptized. But it was the right the right thing to do for me. And it was an important time of me saying I I need to take ownership of my own faith now.

Catherine:
Yeah.

Carol:
Yeah, yeah.

Catherine:
So if we sort of fast forward a bit, you've talked a little bit about your raise ministry. And so if I'd met you eight years ago, what would you have been up to?

Carol:
Eight years ago I had story sessions with songs that I written myself. So I created a story session called Raise and Shine Storytime And that was created through uh when when I had my son, my mum died in the same year. And so I had uh probably thinking back to it now some kind of postnatal depression, but I really found it difficult and so I wrote songs to help me to do the things that I needed to do as a mum, so I wrote a bath song and a potty song and and then what I did was I used those songs to shape this kind of story time I had probably three or four choirs. I had a choir in a school. I had a community choir in a place called Putsey. I had a youth choir in that same place. and then I had an intergenerational choir in another place. I was still going into schools and working with uh young people. doing sessions around self-esteem and confidence, helping them to help each other, so peer peer mentoring

Catherine:
Yes. Yeah, I think it's interesting that thread that's come through of of you having the space to kind of express yourself under minister and then passing that on to the young people that you worked with, which is lovely. That's the legacy of Jeff Lumley et al. is quite brilliant, isn't it? When you were describing all the things that you were doing, like four choirs, I think you said that you've got five different sets of story times every week. You were doing songwriting, you were doing youth work, you're doing schools work, you were working with young carers. It's just You know, so just an absolute, an absolute mass of stuff. And I my sense was had we met then you would have given me the impression of being the kind of person who had more energy than is than should strictly be allowed for one human being. Maybe. Or I'd just be very tired. But certainly really, really busy. And then I know that that has really changed since COVID. Do you want to tell us a bit about that?

Carol:
Yeah, so in 2020 I got COVID fairly early on and it was pretty mild. I had a cough for about between eight and ten weeks, something like that. Which wasn't fun, but apart from that, it I really didn't have it that badly. And as with the rest of the world, everything was taken online. So throughout that time that I had COVID, I did story sessions online still and tried to do some Facebook lives with the choir. And someone said, Oh, can we do a Zoom choir? So I I did a Zoom choir for an hour and well I basically couldn't get up the next day. And it took me two weeks to fully recover and feel like I had at least some energy to do something. So that day I think my son and I went out for a walk, which we would do very normally, didn't think anything of it. And again the next day I couldn't get up and it took me two weeks to recover. And I then started having very strange symptoms that were not what I was used to, bizarre feelings in the bottom of my feet and strange pains that I'd never had before. And I can't remember quite how it happened, but the the words long haul COVID came into my arena, probably through Facebook or something. And I went onto a Facebook forum for this long haul COVID and discovered that there were people like me that were having the same weird feelings that I was. And I, you know, y you could say things like, I'm having a weird pain here, anybody else and suddenly twenty people would say, Yeah, yeah, me too. And I realised that you know, there was something really wrong, something had really changed. And uh basically over the space of the last six years, having had COVID twice more and had a spate in hospital, I'm now disabled. So life has completely, completely changed, completely changed for me. And even when you were saying all the things that I used to do, I could feel the lump the lump in my throat because life has completely changed.

Catherine:
Yeah. Huge amount of loss in that.

Carol:
Mm.

Catherine:
Yeah, yeah. And not any sense of When does this end? It's not like there is a kind of an end in sight at the beginning of that journey, is there, of what this might be like. So you were really walking into the unknown.

Carol:
Yeah, I thought one of the things that the the GPs are still saying is you're the experts on this and we're learning from you, which is really hard because you want someone to be able to say, Don't worry, we've got this and this is what we can do It's just not working like that.

Catherine:
Yeah. So w how has that shifted your sense of who you are and who God is? Lots of soul searching, lots of grieving and lots of doubt coming before God and saying

Carol:
What does this look like then? And are you still gonna use me? There's an amazing song called Scars by Brandon Heath. And that there's a line in it and it says, If I'm not gonna lose it, promise me you'll use it And that absolutely became my mantra. Just saying to God, you know, if I'm still here and I'm still got all the things that you want me to have, then promise me that you'll you'll keep using it. And there's another line in a DC Talk song. The song's called Consume Me And the line is, doesn't matter what I lose, I'm yours. And that became a mantra years and years ago and has been through am I going to be able to keep my son when I was pregnant and just having the the normal fears of, you know, oh I can't feel him kick in today kind of thing all the way through to, you know, a couple of weeks ago where I lost all my social media Doesn't matter what I lose, I'm yours. That that's it. And just having to say that over and over again and come to the keep coming to the place of, no, I do still mean it, I do still mean it. But honestly, really, like do I have to keep losing don't have to keep losing stuff. And it has felt like that. That's the thing. I still have things that I'm doing, but I've definitely lost a lot I have it doesn't feel like a replacement because it was such a big life. And it doesn't feel like a big life anymore.

Catherine:
No. I wonder if there are ways of seeing the world or sort of Christian mantras, things that people tend to say that you have needed to let go of or that it's been necessary to let go of other things that you would have said to people before that you wouldn't say now.

Carol:
Yeah, I mean I I know that wonderful people have kind of said, you know, we're we're praying for your full healing and you know miraculous healing and and just realizing that I have no idea what healing would look like now. I don't physically know what it would look like to wake up and not have anything feeling different or or strange. There's so many different things that have changed in my body that it it would almost be alien to n not feel all that anymore. And also the whole kind of in invisible illness and not judging people. I think God's really spoken to me about not understanding that everybody has different different needs and it doesn't matter if you can see them or not if that's their need. So I think those kind of things that I I was brought up to believe the kind of, you know, total healing and I mean, words were so important for my mum and she would often say, you know, we're not gonna say certain things because it will Like almost like m make them happen and and just uh realizing that it doesn't it it doesn't work like that. And confessing your words are very important and you can u use a word to really reframe and change things. But but you can't make bad things happen by saying negative stuff. I don't believe that. Anymore things happen.

Catherine:
Yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and equally you can't make the good things happen just by saying stuff. Yeah. Yeah. What have been the least helpful things people have said to you?

Carol:
I think things like we're praying for a a miracle for you because I just don't I just don't know. I don't know what that looks like. Um I found it really hard to uh understand, yeah, how that would look and so couldn't kind of claim it from myself.

Catherine:
Th there's also that sort of double thing of if somebody says we're praying for a miracle for you, and that sense of, well, maybe I should claim that miracle, it's That is asking you to step into a a world that does not exist, whilst actually you need to live in the one that does. That can be really really unhelpful because how do you get to grips with walking with Jesus in the world that you are being called to walk in if people are constantly telling you to pretend that you're not?

Carol:
Yeah. I think the the other thing is people Again, really lovely well-meaning people just saying, are you looking really well well today? And just thinking But I I I st I still don't I don't feel it. It it i it's because they want that for you and they just see that snapshot of you. And so then you kind of feel guilty. There's a lot of shoulds and woulds and things with chronic illness and other people, you know, you're kinda like well, I should feel like it's or I should try and do this or you know, maybe I could push myself a bit further, that kind of thing. But but people shouldn't they shouldn't stop saying things like that because you don't want people to get scared to not talk to anybody at all So that's more my stuff rather than theirs really. Yeah. But there's definitely reframing that could happen, things that you could say to people that would just be a bit more open-ended, I guess.

Catherine:
Yes.

Carol:
Do you have any examples? Mm, knew you're gonna say that. Just just lovely to see you. Glad you're here. Those kind of things. Rather than putting any kind of observation or or judgment, however well meaning, just not not needing to do that at all. Just celebrating the person.

Catherine:
Yes. How has your understanding of what it means to be a valuable human being shifted in these years?

Carol:
Yeah Again, going back it's going back to that line about if I'm not going to lose it, promise me you'll use it. I mean, I know that my value comes from doing stuff. That's where I place my own value. So if if I'm doing stuff, if I'm earning it, if I'm being useful, helpful, whatever, then That's where my value comes from of myself. And that just isn't God's value of me at all. God's value of me is just me being And that's really hard because on the days where I am literally d doing well just to be. I don't feel of value. And I think the the most difficult thing for me as a Christian having this. chronic illness is. It's difficult to explain, but obviously spirituality and connection with God is a mental cognitive thing. So you hear words from God or you read words from God or you hear encouragement. When your cognitive and mental ability is all messed up, you don't. And so it's hard to feel that value because you're you're it's like white noise in your head anyway. And those are quite painful times because it you can't access anything at all. It's just like well my my husband just says it I'm not here. That's that's how it is. And I have a poem that called The Incredible Disappearing Woman and it's just about how quickly I can disappear. It's just quite a good one for explaining how it feels because people often they can't access how it that feels to suddenly kind of disappear. Yeah, the incredible disappearing woman. Now you see her, now you don't, travelling the world between the living and the dead, blending into her surroundings as the pain envelops, shield up, camouflage on, she is gone Thank you. And those are hard hard times to access anything at all.

Catherine:
Yeah, yeah. I think that's an experience which is quite often shared by people with mental illness to, you know, if you've got depression just out of energy, then obviously your energy for the spiritual stuff sort of disappears too. Has your ability to embrace God's view of you as valuable just for being? Is that something which you are noticing slowly growing?

Carol:
I think that's where the raised word really worked hard because I can access a word. And what what God showed me recently it was funny I was watching, I don't know if you've seen it, the other Bennett sister, which is on iPlayer And um it was just a very simple thing. She was at the o optician, but it she and she had those weird glasses on and then they put the lens in and say, Is it better now or no now? And what God showed me was that that's what the raised word does for me. It's like I see the whole week through a different lens. So everything is like reframed and so I think that value that he's placing on me that comes through the the joy I think of seeing th that word working in the week. So the word for this week is It invite and I did that because it was my son's birthday. But just thinking about the word invitation and looking at it with a Facebook community and hearing how people we always say what's difficult or challenging about the word one day and then we say what's positive. or good about the word the next day and hearing how the word invitation can be such a double-edged sword and how that's opened things up for people and realizing over and over again that my value n now is much more in the ministry sense And it's just gonna happen. It's t it's just who I am. I don't really even have to do anything, although I am doing things. But it doesn't feel like it. People used to say, Oh Isn't the Facebook community isn't that really hard work? It just isn't. It just doesn't feel like work at all And even a few weeks ago, well, I mean, I think that was when again I really just had to come right into the heart of God because all my social media was removed, I was removed out of that community group, my own community group that I'd grown from six years ago. And I had an admin doing it, but I was removed. All of the words were removed And I was like, wow, like now what? I I don't exist in my own Greek And God took me to that place again of, well then where's my value now? Because even the thing that I found easy, I don't have. But what happened then was I found comments about the podcast that I'd never read before where people were saying how much it had blessed them and changed them. and somebody else put some money into a a buy-me a coffee thing that I have. But it was someone that I didn't know. I'm always I've always used to working with people that I either know or get to know And I I didn't know this person. And it was like God just saying, I am working through you. You just just keep being. And when I said to him, right, well, is it time to jack it in then? Are you telling me that I need to stop the podcast, stop the Facebook community, like really who will I be? if that all finishes. And once I'd got to the part of doesn't matter what I lose, I'm yours. If I'm not gonna lose it, promise me or use it. Once we'd bottomed that all out and got to the I'm still using you regardless, then it's like right, then we go again. Then we keep doing what we're doing. Because I know that it's God first, then me. And because he's taken me out of it, so it's gotta be God's still there, so we go again, kind of thing. Yeah. But my word, Catherine. Yeah. Humble doesn't even doesn't even cover it.

Catherine:
Yeah, yeah. It it's interesting. It it sounds I mean I I have so many different thoughts firing off On a really practical level, one of which is just the the wisdom and beauty of having one word, because if your capacity is small. There's so much within Christian spirituality which is about working quite hard. You know, the whole thing about we'll get into the word, i. e. read the Bible a lot. Well that's quite hard work. We'll do some praying and that can be quite hard work. But actually just walking with one one word one word, most of the time, there'll be at least some time in the day where just holding one word is doable. And I think that's really I think that's really beautiful. Um, I've also heard it sounds to me as if your ability to appreciate people for just being and not leading them to do is growing, has grown. Just that s that sense of being and our being being a ministry to people. I remember meeting somebody years ago who was employed by her church. She was an amazing, lovely person and they actually said to her, We're not going to give you a whole list of things to do, because actually we think that you are valuable and you're simply being part of this community is is what we're after. So she kinda didn't have she She didn't really have much of a job description. Her job description was to be who she was. Well pretend she's Maria, but so her job description was to be Maria in that place with those people. And in the end, the most precious, the most precious part of our lives is our relationships with one another. you know, our being connecting with somebody else's being. If you think about being in love, it's really quite I mean it's amazing, but it's quite an intangible thing, isn't it? When simply sitting next to somebody and having the honour of holding their hand becomes this utterly joyous, precious, irreplaceable thing.

Carol:
Yeah. I'm glad you said that because that was very much my thing with my husband was when I w I I I met him at um Salvation Army conference I was working for the Toy Box charity and he was a delegate and my job was to invite people to do a gap here or and go to Guatemala. And he was one of the only people that said, No, m I'm not interested and I was fascinated. I was like, Wow, you're you're honest. You're not just taking the flyer and saying, Yeah, yeah, yeah and then putting it in the bin round the corner. You're actually honest about it. And we connected, we talked for quite a long time and one of the things that I always remember is we really looked into each other's eyes as we were talking to each other and I knew there was something different about him. And then obviously he went because he was just a a delegate, you know, and I I just had to see him the next day and I had no idea whether I'd ever see him again. And there was a something happening and and he said, Well, he might come back the next day. And I remember sitting on this rock by the water, just saying to God I have to see him again. I absolutely have to see him again. Please let me see him again. And God just saying, you can't make a rock. And I was like, what? And you can't make a rock. It just is. It just is. You will be together. And we've really, really taken that on board throughout our whole marriage that our job is just to be together. Not not have to do things to impress each other, but just to be. And actually he has very, very high functioning chronic fatigue syndrome, but when we were first married it it was at its worst. So he was like I am now. So being together was incredibly important. And still is. So m I'm my only problem that I'm the one that has to be doing everything. Everybody else can just be and that's wonderful and valuable. But if I'm not doing something, then what's the point?

Catherine:
So the whole universe has one rule for everybody except Carol Barwick.

Carol:
Absolutely.

Catherine:
Yeah. And yet and yet all around you God has placed evidence for you that God is simply in love with us for simply being. Yeah There's that verse that hit me a little while ago now and I just thought, oh my goodness. You know, there's the verse which says that we were chosen in him before the foundation of the world. So if you ever want any evidence that God doesn't need us to do anything before we are loved and chosen. Well we didn't even need to exist yet. Just just the expectation of our existence. filled God's heart with love. Yeah. I'm just thinking of the way in which all of our love is a pale reflection of the divine love for us. Which means that that that love that you felt for your now husband that kind of gave you that urgency of wanting to simply be with him before we've done anything except refuse your toy box leaflet is a pale reflection of the divine love that simply wants to be and hold your hand.

Carol:
Yeah

Catherine:
I think that's quite incredible really.

Carol:
Yeah, that is love vast as an ocean, isn't it?

Catherine:
Yeah it is. It is There's a friend of mine who I will shamelessly quote. She tells a story of going on a a retreat, one of the early retreats that she went on and saying to God that she felt that this time that she was setting aside just to be somewhere, you know, not doing very much, just being on retreat, she said to God, Well it's a bit indulgent, isn't it? And God said to her, So indulge me. So indulge me. That's just stuck with me, that sense that in our simply being, we are indulging God in our presence.

Carol:
Yeah. Is that just the permission, isn't it? It's like, yeah, I'm giving you permission to just

Catherine:
Yeah. Yeah. And and many of those little interactions that we have with other people where we are simply being and allowing other people space to simply be. is the treasure in the field, it is the great gift, the pearl of great price that we can offer one another, that God offers us. God's being offers something precious to us. Which absolutely doesn't erase the the pain and the struggle and the grief of the stuff that you've lost. But there is something very precious.

Carol:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it's about finding and holding on to those precious treasures.

Catherine:
Yeah. Yeah. So thank you so much, Carol, for this conversation. So tell us a bit about where people can find you. Where can they find your Raise podcast?

Carol:
So I am I am back on Instagram and one of the things that actually losing social media did was it made me just realise that I could actually take the opportunity to kind of rebrand. So I am under the underscore raise underscore podcast both on Facebook and on Instagram and the podcast itself is across all platforms that you listen and I have this Facebook community group that people are welcome to join and that is called Raise Semicolon, raising confidence, inspiring creativity. Could we pop a few bits in the show notes as that?

Catherine:
Absolutely. You forward me whatever you want in the show notes and we will stick them in. So all of the details about how to connect with you, Carol, are gonna be in our show notes And then we are very excited for people to listen to part two of our conversation where we will be talking about doubt. Yes, I'm very excited about that. Yes. I slightly perversely think is a really exciting word. A really exciting word. And thank you so much for sharing your story so honestly and with such depth today. Thank you. Thank you.

Carol:
It's been lovely talking to you and yeah, I'm excited to hear how the listeners, how it inspires and and raises the listeners confidence as well.

Catherine:
Yeah, that's fantastic. Thank you.

[Music] Hope you enjoyed this episode of the Loved Called Gifted Podcast. If you'd like to get in touch, you can email lovedcalledgifted at gmail. com. You can find a transcript of this podcast at lovedcalledgifted. com. And that's also the place to go if you're interested in the Loved Called Gifted course. Or if you'd like to find out about spiritual direction or coaching. Thank you for listening.