Transcript

Kylie: The Lord is Near
Season 1: Episode 11

Carol: 0:08

Welcome to the God is Good Podcast, where we share stories of everyday people who have reignited their faith in Jesus and experienced remarkable life transformations. My name is Carol O'Brien and I'm your host for this podcast. I'd like to take a moment to say thank you to our supporters, both financial and those who like and subscribe to our podcast. It really does help support us and make this podcast possible, so thank you so much."The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all, but in everything by prayer and petition with Thanksgiving. Make your request known to God, then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians four verses five through seven. Good morning friends in Christ.; I'm excited to introduce you to our guest, Kylie. After spending 13 years in education, serving in various roles, including a teacher and a coach, Kylie had an experience that resulted in a dramatic transformation. She realized God was calling her to start anew. The journey would require her to reflect on painful moments and guilt from the past and make changes in the way she was living. But the process led to self-discovery and spiritual growth that opened up exciting new opportunities. Kylie's story makes me reflect on moments in my own past, especially when I had to rely on that same scripture, Philippians four verses five through seven. I believe that at times we have events in our lives that we know are going to transform us. Other times, there may be small moments, those times when we think we have enough time to make changes if needed, those small moments that end up having dramatic impacts on our lives. But before we get too far down that road, let me tell you a little bit about Kylie. She counts her family, her faith, and the work God drew her to as her blessings. She is passionate about bringing souls to Jesus through prayer. To do this, she's highly active in live speaking engagements, coaching, spiritual directing, podcasting, and teaching. As busy as she is, she prioritizes time with her loving and supportive family. But enough for me, let's hear from Kylie. Hi, Kylie. Welcome to the podcast.

Kylie: 2:40

Carol. Thank you so much for having me. This is truly a blessing, and your ministry is beautiful.

Carol: 2:46

Thank you! So let's get right to it. Can you tell us about the spiritual foundation from your youth? Did you have a strong faith-filled background?

Kylie: 2:55

Absolutely. I grew up in the Catholic Church. My mom was a Catholic. My dad was not, but we went to Mass every week. I would say I had a relationship with God. I remember even in middle school and high school reading my Bible, but my prayer, I wouldn't call it deep, right? It wasn't that I didn't have conversation with God, but I didn't know the depth and breadth and beauty of what a relationship with God could really look like. And through my own fault, I really hindered that relationship. Had in my very late teens, early twenties let that sin creep in and then came the shame and the excuses to keep sinning. And we know that when that happens, we really block the voice of God. We can't hear what he's asking us because we're so focused on us. I never left the church. I was still going to mass. I still said some prayers, but God was not my priority.

Carol: 3:51

You were lukewarm, right?

Kylie: 3:52

Yes.

Carol: 3:53

So when I hear someone who has accomplished as much as you have in life, I always think about striving and what we're actually striving for. If you've listened to the podcast, you've probably heard me talk about how we try to fill God-sized holes with everything, but God. Do you feel like you were striving for something to achieve that wasn't necessarily related to your love of God?

Kylie: 4:16

Yeah, I think it was really rooted back in a wound that came up, and I didn't even realize this. I knew that it had something to do with my family life. There was a situation with my parents where I was probably about 12 or 13, and they got in an argument over money. And it had nothing to do with me, but I was like that final linchpin that caused the fight because the money was about me wanting to go out for club volleyball. And it wasn't a lot of money. It was just the financial stress that they were under at that point in time. And it created this lie in my mind that I'm a burden. That then carried forward where I need to earn my way. My parents never really put pressure on me to achieve. It was very self-induced, I would say, but being the fourth child out of five and seeing the pain that my mother went through with my much older siblings when they weren't always living in their faith. It rooted something into me of I need to do better. I want to do better. I think there was always this deep seated desire to do something great. I was one of those people who was really good at a lot of things, but I never felt like I was great at any one thing. And I went to a very small public school, so I was involved in all the activities, every sport, every club. I did them all. And my parents actually encouraged me to do less. It was the pride creeping in, but I created a habit of busyness that carried with me and that became my idol. And busyness is a way that we distract ourselves from what we're really feeling. But again, I didn't know that at the time.

Carol: 5:57

Oh, that's such a great insight, that busyness is a way that we distract ourselves from what we're feeling. Let's turn now to talk about your relationship with God. Was it ever shaky or distant?

Kylie: 6:09

I would definitely say it was shaky and distant, probably from about 17 to 22. Again, it was never that it was non existent, but God was definitely not close. I was not listening for him. I wasn't even really trying to listen to him consistently. It wasn't ever that he wasn't there, but I wasn't walking closely with him. We know he never leaves. He's always striving after us. He's the initiator. But I wasn't responding to him initiating that relationship.

Carol: 6:36

Did you know that you were supposed to have a relationship with Jesus? Sometimes God can seem so far out there and we don't even realize that a relationship is there waiting for us.

Kylie: 6:48

I feel like I knew, but I didn't know the fullness of how beautiful it would be. I don't think we can fully know that until we just seek it and he responds in that way. So I would say I knew it was there. I knew it was available. But I was running. Again, running back into the busyness, probably because I didn't wanna face what he had to say to me, and I didn't understand who he was. I think that's an even bigger part of it. I didn't understand that he was a loving God. So we know that the image that we see of God is often related to our relationship with our parents.

Carol: 7:28

Okay, let's talk about your relationship with your parents then, and how that caused you to see your relationship with God.

Kylie: 7:35

So my dad was definitely more challenging to get along with. My dad is what we would call a choleric temperament, so quick to anger. He could be this most patient, gentle, loving person, but then flip a switch and be yelling in a matter of seconds. And I know that that was hard for him. He didn't like to be like that. He was a prayerful person. He, I think, always wanted to do what the Lord willed. He was also brutally honest. It's a good thing. I can look back now and see how beautiful that is, but sometimes he just didn't have the empathy that my mother had or the sympathy that my mother had. Whereas she was very patient and gentle, sometimes he was more quick to just tell you how it is.

Carol: 8:23

And so is that how you saw God, someone who is going to be quick to anger?

Kylie: 8:27

Looking back, I can realize that that was the image of God that I had, that he was gonna be angry with me. And so not being able to go to him. And then again, my pride, not being able to be vulnerable with the Lord and say, these are the things that I have done, and trusting that he was gonna still love me in that.

Carol: 8:47

So your relationship with your dad really had a profound impact on the way that you saw God. Now, what about the relationship with your mom? How did that impact you?

Kylie: 8:58

My mom was the exact opposite. She also a striver. She really was a perfectionist in certain things that she would work on, but she was the most gentle and patient person. She was very slow in terms of reaction time. So a beautiful balance for my dad. And we had a great relationship. I feel like she was someone I could talk to about most things and we could spend time together. She helped me to learn to be more patient with my dad and to love him as he was. But with mothers, I will say, and this is part of my story, mothers who are always there for us and always supportive and always patient often get our worst because we know that they will always be there. And we know that they will be patient and they will be kind, and they will be loving no matter how we treat them. So I would say she got the brunt of my worst sometimes because all of the frustrations that maybe didn't come out when I was at school, because again, that's image that I was portraying, that I had it all together all the time, and I would feel like I had it together. But when I got home and it all fell apart, she was the person who would bear the brunt of that stress.

Carol: 10:19

As both of us are moms, I know we can relate to the other side of that situation. So let's get a little deeper into your story. I know that you have faced a couple of losses in your life. Can you start with the loss of your mom?

Kylie: 10:33

Thanksgiving break, I was home and I told you sometimes we treat the people closest to us the worst. Preparing for family get togethers, in my mind, I had this lie that it's always stressful because of the cleaning and the chaos. So, my mom and I had been preparing to have everyone over to my parents' house. We got into a discussion in the kitchen. It was, again, me, quick to anger. I didn't feel like baking the cookies. The brown sugar was lumpy. The bowls weren't where they used to be. It was all of these things. If you've ever watched a teenage girl in conversation with her mother when they're not at their best, you know what this is like, even though I was 22, it was still the same situation. Normally I would've just separated myself, went up to my room, something like that, just separated myself from the situation. But on that particular day, I didn't. This was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so the end of November, and it got to a point where I had just been shoving down all the stress from my own job and that chaos, and it kind of erupted in this moment. And I said, you know what? I'm not making your day any better. This is not making my day any better. I do not need this. I'm going to separate myself. My mom thought I'd do what I normally do and go to my room and just cool off and come back down. But I didn't. I actually left that day and so I drove home and that was the last time I ever saw my mom was that day. So we can live our whole life. And do good things. But that one day I, not knowing how to manage my emotions, not recognizing all of these things that had been building up and not taking care of them, I didn't say goodbye. I didn't say, I love you. I didn't hug her, and that was the last time that I ever saw her. Two weeks later, she passed away.

Carol: 12:29

These are those moments that we talked about in the beginning. Things that can seem actually minor or trivial, end up having a huge dramatic impact on our lives. As you said you didn't see her again, how did you find out about your mom's passing?

Kylie: 12:44

I got a phone call from my sister saying that my mom had been taken by life flight. And I started driving home. It was a two and a half hour drive home, and I just knew that I wasn't going to see her again. She had woken up that morning and passed from a pulmonary embolism, so essentially a blood clot. It was very, very sudden. We think we have all this time. And I think looking back on that situation, it's just a reminder. We know not the day nor the hour. Our life here is limited on Earth, and so we need to be mindful again, that living in the present of every single day and recognizing where God is in those moments and what he's asking us to do and living in his will. The second I got to the hospital, the day that she passed, I remember the first thing my dad said to me was,"mom didn't make it." And then he followed and said,"I know you're gonna beat yourself up for the rest of your life, but I want you to know that she loved you." And I do know that and I think that's why I can have peace about what happened and I can talk about it is because I do know how much she loved me and being a mother myself, all the tiffs I have with my own daughter,'cause we're so similar. I know through it all, I know how much she loves me and I know how much I love her even when we aren't at our best around one another.

Carol: 14:04

I am so glad that you have peace about it because as we know, God teaches us things through our sufferings. So you had a very sudden loss, and then more recently you've lost your father. Can you tell us about this?

Kylie: 14:17

Yes. It was shortly after we had got back from a beautiful family cruise. My brother got married. It was this wonderful family time. My dad loved to travel, so he was actually just traveling around the country in his van and noticed that he was having some issues with foods and things like that. Came back, got diagnosed. He had stage four colon cancer. It was about a week before the whole country really shut down that we found out that my dad had cancer. We knew that colon cancer was on his side of the family. That's actually how he lost his dad, and then everything shut down. So it was incredibly stressful. I would say that is one of the most high stress times I've ever had in my life. I had two young children at home. We were being asked to teach online. I remember being on a Zoom call and it was like, I don't remember the exact ages of my kids, but like my 4-year-old was feeding my 1-year-old marshmallows to try to keep'em quiet and one fell off the chair, and I remember sitting there in this Zoom meeting exhausted because I was watching my kids during the day. I was making videos at night after they went to bed so I could post them for my students. And in the midst of all this, trying to find time to be with my dad, but also because of COVID, him not really wanting a lot of people around, not always wanting all the grandkids around, and so it was really, really hard. It was a point where I had to lean on my faith. Also a point where it was hard to find that quiet alone time with God because everyone was inside. We were all in the same environment and with little children, that's not always easy.

Carol: 15:59

So what happened after your father died? How did your life change?

Kylie: 16:03

When my dad died his death was much slower. We had about a year with him after his diagnosis. And I remember after he died one morning, waking up and feeling sad, which is normal. But after my dad died, I was really starting to more fully trust in the Lord. Just really feeling like the Lord was saying, You have no father but me. And Mary was saying, you know, you have no mother but me. And not that my earthly parents aren't still there and aren't still very much a part of me, but it was like I could just lean more fully into them. I could give them all of me, and that comfort, that safe place really is there. I found that in the Lord so much more so I think than if I hadn't lost my parents. And I would say a big moment came when I went on a silent retreat and could just embrace this truth that God was calling me out of teaching, to leave behind coaching, leave behind this identity in coaching sports and being a classroom teacher. And to step into whatever it was He wanted. So that's really when I embraced Catholic coaching and I started the podcast and daily mental prayer in the morning. I feel like the flame, like if it had a knob, has just slowly been turning up and up and up, and I do feel like I'm on fire from my faith right now, but it's still growing.

Carol: 17:25

I love that your transformation from lukewarm to on fire includes both big events and some nudgings from God to make changes in your life. How would you describe your transformation?

Kylie: 17:37

I think that there is a sense of constant conversion, so we can look back and see all of these beautiful gems that the Lord placed in our life. We don't see them in the moment. We really have to look back, but this was a transformative time for me. Even though I had been pursuing God for many years, it made this giant uptick. I think there was a big shift when my mother died. There was a big shift when I really felt like the Lord told me, you're not going to teach anymore. But I was scared because I didn't know what that meant. What am I supposed to do then, Lord? Because I don't know what else I'm good at. I don't know what else I'm called to do, or how we're gonna take care of our family." It led eventually to me pursuing a Master's in ministry, even though I didn't know what I was gonna do with it. It led to Catholic coaching. It led to me getting a spiritual direction certification that I will finish here shortly.

Carol: 18:35

Speaking of your Catholic coaching, can you explain what that is? What is it that you do, and what is God calling you to do?

Kylie: 18:43

I feel like my God-given mission is to bring souls to Christ through prayer. In a nutshell, my work is helping women declutter their minds so they can hear the voice of God. Venerable Fulton Sheen has this beautiful quote that's attributed to him that says,"anxiety increases in direct ratio and proportion as man departs from God." And I think that really encompasses the work that I do. As women we're naturally driven and we live in a culture that reinforces this message to achieve and succeed. And. We have this beautiful combination of gifts to drive and achieve, but it's also a little bit treacherous because on one hand it allows us to accomplish beautiful things for the Lord, but when our lives are not properly ordered, when we are constantly striving to prove our worth, and we place our identity in that praise or that perfection or that productivity, we lose sight of our identity in Christ. This truly is a calling that the Lord has placed on my heart, and I work with women both one-on-one and in group settings, through workshops, speaking events, and my podcast called Persistence and Prayer.

Carol: 19:57

And who would you say your ideal client is? And if somebody wants to work with you, how can they reach you?

Kylie: 20:03

The perfect person to come to me is someone who wants to deepen their relationship with God. Who wants to order their life in a way that puts Him first. It doesn't mean that other things aren't important. It doesn't mean that those desires on their heart aren't from God, but who just wants to have that proper order. A lot of what I do is help women to understand the foundation of their temperaments, their state in life so that they can love where they are while also having that intimate relationship with God because it is possible to have both. We establish a plan of life that fits their needs and help them make it a habit. So anyone who wants to overcome anxiety and overwhelm by developing a better relationship with God, I would say is the person to come to me. And my website is kylie m hein.com. That's kyliemhein.com. I'm on Instagram at Kylie m Hein and you can find me on my podcast, Persistence in Prayer.

Carol: 21:12

Now's a good time to reread your favorite scripture, which of course is the one we opened with Philippians four, verses five through seven. The Lord is near have no anxiety at all, but in everything by prayer and petition. With Thanksgiving, make your request known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Jesus. Why is this your favorite scripture, Kylie?

Kylie: 21:38

It says God is near. And I think if we can remember that through the highs and the lows and everything else, that God is near, God is in the present, he never leaves us. Sometimes he doesn't feel close, but it doesn't mean that he's not there. He's always there. I think that this verse just has so many beautiful aspects of it in such a short couple of sentences that can really just carry us throughout our day.

Carol: 22:06

I agree. It's one of my favorite scriptures too. Thank you so much, Kylie. I think your story is really powerful because I know we all have moments in our lives that we wish we could have done something different. But I think God uses those moments, even those ones that we regret, to help bring us closer to him. Thank you for sharing. I know that your story is going to touch hearts and bring them closer to Jesus.

Kylie: 22:31

Thank you so much, Carol.

Carol: 22:32

And thank you listeners, for spending time with us. It would mean the world to me if you would like or subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to it. It really will help us bring more hearts to Jesus. Until next time, friends, remember God is good.