Stacey Thacker is back for Part 2 with Julie Lyles Carr and this time, we explore what it’s been like for Stacey as the mom of a daughter with a chronic medical conditions, what she’s learned about navigating frequent hospital stays and treatments for her daughter, and how she’s preparing her daughter for living her adult life with this condition on the AllMomDoes Podcast.
Special thanks to Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission, for powering the AllMomDoes Podcast this Christmas season!
Show Notes:
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Transcription:
Julie Lyles Carr:
I’m Julie Lyles Carr, you’re listening to the AllMomDoes podcast, and we are back for a part two with my friend Stacey Thacker. If you didn’t hear part one, go check it out. We talk about what women’s ministry looks like today and our different experiences. Me having been in women’s ministry for a long time prior to the pandemic and then Stacey coming into that role after the pandemic and the things and the trends that we are seeing in women’s ministry.
Today, Stacey’s back for part two with a real turn, a real different kind of conversation because she has walked through a season with one of her kids that is so profound and the things that she has learned and the wisdom that she carries. I’m excited for you to hear this. So welcome back to Stacey Thacker on the AllMomDoes podcast for part two.
Today on the AllMomDoes podcast, we’re back for part two with my friend Stacey Thacker. She has so much wisdom about so many topics and if you haven’t listened to part one, go back and listen to that because we talk about women’s ministry and I spent many years in that seat and now Stacey is newly in that seat and we’ve almost swapped out in a sense because we’ve both been authors, we’ve both been speakers, but in different perspectives and she has so many great things to say about what she’s seen today in women’s ministry. But Stacey also has other aspects to her life in which I knew that you listener would benefit so much from hearing her wisdom and experience in another particular area. So Stacey, thanks so much for being willing to come back on and do a part two with me.
Stacey Thacker:
Yeah, it’s my pleasure. I think we could talk for days, Julie, so-
Julie Lyles Carr:
I think so.
Stacey Thacker:
… yeah, we’re good.
Julie Lyles Carr:
I think so. You’re so gracious with your time. Thank you. Well, Stacey, I wanted to have you back in for a two-parter because you have walked a road and as I was sharing with you, I’m not sure that we’ve really unpacked this. We’ve talked about families who have children with special needs in a variety of ways, but I don’t know that we’ve really sat down and unpacked what it’s like when someone has a child who has a complex medical condition.
And in the midst of you writing about prayer, in the midst of you writing about discipleship, in the midst of you pursuing ministry, alongside that you have been walking alongside one of your daughters who has had a long history of being something of a medical mystery. She’s neurotypically on page and in school and all those things. One of those deals that somebody probably observing her might not know there’s this complicated medical situation that’s been going on. But at the same time, the ramifications of what that has been.
Well, first you know what, you and I got to talk about this a little bit. I want the listener to hear this. You’re not going to disclose what her actual diagnosis is, and yet you’re very open with your story. This makes me beg the question because we have a lot of this coming up today. There are a generation of us as mom bloggers where we were putting everything online, and yet when I started, we never put our kids’ names. And then we went into a situation where people were using their kids’ names, and they were putting up all kinds of content regarding their children.
And now it’s like we’ve swung back even further back than when I started blogging where people are not putting their kids on at all and talking about privacy, which I don’t have. I am not trying to say one is better than other. I don’t have a dog in the hut. I want to honor whatever people want for their kids. But it is interesting trying to talk through certain aspects of your life without talking about certain things on and on. How did you arrive at this place where you’re both transparent with your story, but there’s also a certain level of privacy because I think the blend you’ve achieved is really unique and really powerful.
Stacey Thacker:
Well, all of that is true is originally when I started blogging, Julie, I didn’t use my name. My blog was called 29 Lincoln Avenue ’cause we were all convinced that people were going to hunt us down and kill us in the night, the stalker whole thing. And then I swung back to now I have my blog at staceythacker.com because as an author, people are looking for you. And I’ve been writing… It’s been about 14 years.
And let me back up. I have four girls. My oldest is going to be 24, my next oldest will be 21, and then 17 and almost 14. So my girls are older, but for the past 14 years… Especially my youngest daughter, I’ve always written, and I always say, “If you’re related to a writer or your friends with a writer or a person-
Julie Lyles Carr:
Just get ready.
Stacey Thacker:
… communicate…” You got to realize most of the stuff that happens in your relationship is fair game. However, I say that kind of ingest, ’cause I try to honor those relationships. Of course, with my girls, I backed into this the hard way with one of my girls. And I had shared a story that I thought it was okay to share and I thought we’d actually talked about it, but then found out that maybe we hadn’t talked about it to the depth that I had in my own head. Let me just say it did not go over well. And so I learned, “Hey, you know what? I need to be very clear on what I’m asking my kids to be open-handed with.” ‘Cause you know, Julie, I am just an open book. I’m willing to talk about anything, but come on I’m 52. I’ve been through it.
There’s not much I wouldn’t say or share from my life ’cause I feel like, “If God has allowed me to go through a hard chapter, I definitely want him to use it for good for you.” I don’t hide a lot, so that could just possibly be my personality. I need to recognize that with my family and my kids and even best friends, that they may not have that same level of openness and I need to be okay with that. So with this particular story that I realized that I overshared, I had to apologize and say, “Hey, look, I’m sorry. I misunderstood and I’m really sorry that hurt you. My intention was here.”
And so what that taught me was I really have to have almost an individual contract with each of my kids, and I have to have that conversation now because I have all girls and because we really, for so many of our years, live life right on top of each other, we’re a homeschool family.
We are very family centric. So many of our stuff is tied together. So I really have had different conversations with them. The particular daughter that we’re going to talk about today, she was diagnosed with a chronic illness right before her ninth birthday. So we’ve lived with this for about a little over eight years. And so from the very beginning I was already writing. In fact, when she was diagnosed, I had just signed a book contract and was getting ready to write this particular book, a certain book.
So she was already living that lifestyle of the daughter of an author. And so I asked her, I said, “Hey, I know this is hard. And even in the early days when we didn’t know what we were dealing with, I won’t write about this. It was so core to my story; it was going to be really hard not to.” But I said, “I won’t write about it now.” I would like to say she’s a little bit of the spice in my family. And so she came back at me with, “Mom, I really want to be famous, so I am totally fine with you talking about whatever you want to talk about from my story.”
And so now I probably should recheck that since she’s now a teenager. But she is so on board, and I have tried to run things by her, but she usually is like, “Mom, it’s fine.” I have made a commitment to her without her asking me just that I wouldn’t say specifically what her illness is because we know once things are online, it’s forever. It’s always there. And so for her, I just thought she may not want people to know the intricate particulars of her chronic illness, but we talk a lot about her treatment. We talk a lot about the journey. We talk a lot about the dailiness of it, and she’s 100% okay.
Now my other girls maybe not so much. So I’ve had to really honor that as much as I can. “Hey, I’m not going to do it perfectly.” I know that I probably share things that I should probably wish I could take back in a moment’s notice, but I’ve had those conversations with each of my girls. I try really hard to honor that. So I would say if you’re a communicator, you’re online or you’re sharing your story in any way, if you’re a writer, respect those people in your family and realize that your call is to writing and to sharing. It’s not necessarily their call as well. So you have to tiptoe a little bit around those stories. But that’s been how I’ve done it.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Yeah. And I think too, the grace that we need to give ourselves or to others that… Let’s face it, this is the first time in history that moms have been faced with having to navigate an online life. And so things that you might naturally have just told two or three friends at a coffee shop now become something that has broader reach and the ramifications of that.
We’re all still figuring out this is still an emerging thing. And I’m sure there will be generations who disagree with the way we did some of it. And there will be other generations who are like, “I’m going to do that too.” So I love your wisdom on that and just that check in and this separate relationships, that’s really important too because I’m like you. I’ve got one who wants to be famous, she doesn’t care. She posts it all, tag me on everything. And-
Stacey Thacker:
There’s one in everything [inaudible 00:09:36]-
Julie Lyles Carr:
… there is there. You got to have one.
Stacey Thacker:
… there’s one.
Julie Lyles Carr:
You got to have one. And then I’ve got others who have completely exited social media altogether. And so I’m trying to be really thoughtful as best I can with that. So-
Stacey Thacker:
Same.
Julie Lyles Carr:
… catch me up on this daughter. What was the process by which you started realizing something was going on?
Stacey Thacker:
Oh, this is a whole conversation, and I want to say this because at the time I had all four girls. My youngest was about four, she was four ish. So we had all the girls in the mix. And I often tell people, “Had this been my first daughter, I probably would’ve had her at the doctor on the day after the first symptom showed up.” Because again, we were living life on top of each other. My husband was doing a lot of traveling at that time.
It happened so subtly I didn’t notice the things which contributed later to an excessive amount of mom guilt. “How could I not have seen it? How could I not have known?” It just slipped in almost very quietly. It almost just was so subtle initially also, and I don’t know if it was where I was just in my life at the time. She was able to hide things from me. She would tell you; she didn’t tell me. And I said, “Why didn’t you tell me?” She’s like, “Well, I didn’t want to bother you.” It was one of those things.
But I had a lot of guilt, Julie, in the beginning because I didn’t know, just had some things happen. She got really sick, and we took her to the doctor and they’re like, “Oh, it’s the flu kind of thing. And we were at church and she passed out some things like that. And I remember, this is why I said that about my first daughter is when we talked to the medical professionals when this happened at our church, they said, “Well, you need to take her to the ER right away.” And I was like, “She’s fine. She’s going to be great. She just got over you.” I didn’t have a knee-jerk reaction.
Julie Lyles Carr:
You pretty similar.
Stacey Thacker:
And she was okay. Yeah, she’s fine. And she was telling me she was fine. So I was communicating with her, and I gave her… Anyway, it was just funny to me ’cause I look back and man, if that would’ve been my oldest daughter, I would’ve been in the ambulance on the way. I was lot less stressed at the time because I’d done it all as a mom. I thought she’s going to be fine. We did make an appointment for the doctor, and we were going to see them, and that was what the follow-up with the EMT at that time had said. And so just one thing led to another, and it just took us a long time to get to that doctor’s appointment and really discovered what we were battling through blood work. It just was a regular blood work situation. Honestly, I was on my way. Ironically, I think I was coming to Austin for a writer’s retreat, and our doctor called us in the middle of the night and said, “You need to take her to the ER immediately.” And we’re like, “What?”
Julie Lyles Carr:
What? Yeah.
Stacey Thacker:
I was supposed to leave within five hours to come to Texas, and we were shocked. We had no clue. But then as we started unraveling the story, it took a while. They really thought it was one thing. It took a couple days for them to unravel really where we are. And then we had to have more specific testing, but there was a lot of panic on our hearts. I remember that first night, Julie, so afraid I was sitting. They had put us in a pediatric intensive care cancer unit is where they had plopped us. And I think it had more to do with bed space than anything.
But in my mind, it was the worst-case scenario. “Why would we be here?” And I was in this little bitty room, and she was trying to sleep, and I was not sleeping. And my husband had gone home because we had other kids at home, and he had to be there with them. And so I literally was with her alone in a hospital room the size of a car, and I was terrified. I was terrified for her.
As a mom, I think we often feel like, “Oh, well, how did I miss this? And how come I can’t fix it and what do I need to do?” And there were no quick answers. And I remember sitting there and just crying. And all I could think about was the story, and I’m not going to get the whole story, but in scripture when I think it’s the centurion comes to Jesus and he’s like, “Hey, I need you to heal my servant.” They have a conversation, and he goes, “No, no, you don’t have to come. You just need to say it. I just know whatever you say will happen.” And Jesus was like, “Oh, your faith is so great.” And he left and his servant was healed. And so I remember sitting there going, “Okay, Jesus. Just say it. Just-
Julie Lyles Carr:
Do the thing.
Stacey Thacker:
… say it. Do the thing.” I didn’t even ask. I was even in my grief at that time saying, “You don’t even have to come. Just say it. That’s all you…” That’s all I could remember in that moment. I couldn’t remember all the Bible verses. I couldn’t remember everything I just remembered, “Just say it, Jesus, just say it.” That’s all I did. And somewhere in the middle of that wrestling match that I had with the Lord that night, he reminded me that he was in control and that he loved her more than I did.
And I began to take my hand off of the story and just open it and say, “Okay, Lord, you love her more than I do. Help me navigate this well.” And so many mistakes, trust me, so many mistakes. But in learning to be patient and trust him with her life, man, that’s hard for any parent, for any situation, whether it’s a bully at school or a failing grade or a boy breaks their heart, whatever.
But that medical challenge was probably one of the first things I realized, “Hey, this is out of my league. I don’t have the resources here to mom this. I am a participant as much as she is in this journey.” And that was a very painful process. And let me just backtrack too, the year before, almost to the day my dad had passed away. And so I lost my dad in 2014, and my daughter was diagnosed almost a year to the day. And I remember in losing my dad, I remember God saying, “Do you trust me with your past, your anchor, your dad, your history? Do you trust me with your past?” And suddenly I was sitting here with my daughter and the Lord was saying, “Do you trust me with your future?-
Julie Lyles Carr:
Wow.
Stacey Thacker:
… trust me with what’s ahead, and will you walk with me through this even though you can’t see your way through it?” And man, I would like to say I learned that lesson quickly. It took a lot of time and even more challenging situations for me to finally just say, “Okay, Lord, hands off. I’m just going to walk with you through this. You just had to show me the next step.” So that’s the beginning of the story and how that all began in a rather traumatic, chaotic way from the very beginning.
Julie Lyles Carr:
That line, taking your hand off the story. That’s a really profound way of saying that. And I think as moms, whether we are dealing with something in one of our kids that is a chronic illness, or maybe they are differently abled or maybe they’re just really struggling in algebra, whatever the thing is, that moment of saying, “Wow, how can I be both their advocate and do what I need to do as a mom, and yet at the same time recognize that there are going to be things that I can’t do?”
How did you stay in a place of faith as the story continued forward? There was that moment where you’re like, “Okay, trusting God with your future.” What an amazing way to say that. How often did you have to remind yourself to go back there, or did you really have that moment of release? Because I feel like it’s just something that maybe for me, I’d have to keep practicing.
Stacey Thacker:
Well, it’s interesting. With chronic illness and the particular one that we’re up against, it’s a daily battle. And so I always tell people whatever their diagnosis is, it takes about two years. It’s a puzzle anytime you have anything like this. And so I noticed for us that first two years was awful. It was like ups and downs and lots of different medicines, and we were just trying to figure out, “What was it, a circle or a square that we had to put in the peg?” We had to figure that out. And then even all the parts were confusing.
So in those days, we might have some seasons in that two-year time that were normal ish. We’d get back to our normal everyday life and then it would explode again. And I’d have to revisit these lessons. It’s never a once-and-done thing. And really for me, it’s levels of trust and levels of surrender. And some people describe it like an onion you’re peeling, like God goes a little bit deeper each time.
But it’s interesting, a year in, I’ll tell you what I had to realize was it just wasn’t my story, but this was her story. And God was going to use this in her life. And if I didn’t back off, how was she going to learn who God was? How was she going to learn to trust him in the darkness or the wilderness? I remember about a year in, I said, “You know baby, you’ve been dealing with this a year.” I saw her. And even currently I have seen her go through things that I don’t think most adults that I know could handle. It’s been brutal. And I’ve held her, and we’ve gone through… I could probably do an IV. I don’t have a medical degree, but I could probably do an IV at this point in my career because I’ve seen something we’ve just been through so much.
And I said, “Baby…” She’s 10 at this point. “What would you want people to know about your journey and what you’ve learned along the way?” And she said, “You know, mom…” She’s like, before I was diagnosed, she’s like, “I didn’t really think that much about God. I just lived my life and you guys took care of me.” And we went to church and everything. She goes, “But you know what?” She said, “Since I was diagnosed…” She’s like, “I’ve had to pray.” And she’s like, “I’ve thought about Jesus every single day.”
And she’s like, “You know even though it’s hard, I really wouldn’t trade that for anything.” And I’m like weeping as we’re driving down the road and I’m thinking, “How do I?” Because if I had written the story, Julie, I never would’ve written this into her story. I didn’t want her to have to be faced with these huge medical trials at such a young age. But at the same time, how do I get in the way of what God is doing in her heart? Because I would’ve held back the storm. And no mama wants their baby to go through that. For me, an easy life is the best life. We’re going to succeed. There’s not going to be any loss or death or trauma.
But what I’ve seen her grow through and the compassion that she has for other people, how she views life this day, she’s not perfect. She’s a teenage girl. She’s not obviously not perfect, but I would’ve written a very different story for her. But the things God has downloaded into her heart because of what she’s had to trust him through are priceless and will completely… It will navigate her through life in a much different way, in a much different world than I had to navigate at her age.
My biggest concern at 17 was, “Is my perm going to stick for prom?” Let’s talk about the ’80s. So for her, the things that she’s learned, that wouldn’t be the right thing to take those away from her. So that’s the revisiting has been reminding myself, “This isn’t just about me. And this is her story, and I get to serve her throughout it and love her and learn from her.” And hopefully be that safe place for her to go through some really hard things together. As her mom, it is really been the hardest and most beautiful seat to be able to be given that option to sit and watch her over these years because it’s blessed me tremendously.
Julie Lyles Carr:
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From the practical standpoint, how have you navigated because with her situation, so I have two children who are differently abled, and there was the storm of getting those diagnoses. And then honestly, for the most part, Stacey, we got in that rhythm, PT, OT language therapy, like all the things, and there became a pattern to it and a routine. And so the initial surprise and all the emotions that came with it, we then had a rhythm.
In your situation following and being your friend on Instagram, things like that. I see how frequently there’s a crisis. Life’s just rolling along and then your daughter has something come up and then you guys are back in the hospital. And that’s something that I personally haven’t navigated, even though there are things in what you’re saying that I very much resonate with. So how have you created some sense of stability and rhythm to life when on any given Tuesday, you guys could end up back in the ER?
Stacey Thacker:
Yeah. It’s interesting because I want to answer this too in the realm of the rest of my family because it has affected all of us.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Everybody.
Stacey Thacker:
She’s my third. So I remember in the early days, my little one when we would go to treatment or we would go to the hospital, she was like, “I want to go. I want to be with mom.” There was obviously some sibling jealousy going there. Others of my girls have been like, “Wow, what if that happens to me? Am I going to get sick?” All of those things, because when one is affected, everyone is impacted. And so it’s become part of our greater story. As we’ve walked through some complicated emotions and things, we’ve realized, “Oh, gosh, I didn’t realize that you had a lot of fear in your heart regarding what was going on with your sister.” So those kinds of things. But as far as I think, again, we have those seasons, just like you said, that are just like, “This is just how we do life.”
This is just normal for us. This is who we are. But when something disrupts it and we think we know how it’s going to go, and that’s something that happened recently. We had to switch where we were doing her treatments. She goes to the treatment center about every six weeks. And so we’re in a hospital environment that frequently. And I’m always reminded on those visits. “We don’t get to choose our story.” That’s part of what we’ve learned is, “I will look around and see people in far worse situations, far worse.”
If you ever want to be humbled to the core, you go to a pediatric situation and you see what other people are faced with. And I am astounded at what other people have walked through. Ours is minor comparatively, but it is constant, and it is medical. And so recently we had a disruption in that we were doing treatment one way and then we had to change it.
I cannot tell you the emotions it unearthed in her and I, because so much of our story had been lived out in this one place with this group of nurses and this particular part of the hospital. And the last day we went for a treatment… I’m going to cry. We walked in with cookies, and I just immediately burst into tears because they carried so much of our story and so much of her growth had happened there. And so we had to shift and go somewhere else. Now, it’s fine. It’s going to be fine. The place that we’re at out is great. It’s different. So we’ve even had to learn, you know what?
The things that are true are still true. “We’re still walking this road together. You’re not alone. We’ve got great doctors. Things are going to be okay. We’re going to get lunch. We’re going to go to lunch. We’re going to maybe get a treat on the way home, we’re going to try to book end hard with good and fun.” Those are the things the sisters get a little jealous over the Starbucks runs and things.
But I try to get those for them on other days. But disruptions are going to happen, especially when you have a child that has special needs or you are dealing with a medical complexity, and you have to just remember where you’ve been, what you’ve walked through and remember what’s true is still true, even though you might have to shift and change your path a little bit. So that’s been some things that have helped. But man, it’s not easy. It is not easy.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Yeah. It is interesting that our schedules give us such a sense of control at times. Let’s face it. Some of us are hinged more, that we really need that schedule to feel safe and secure, and some of us are able to be a little more improv with our lives and navigate through that. But those things in unexpected situations that we can make expected, like you said, the staff you’re dealing with, the location, knowing that your favorite lunch place is around the corner, and then all of that shifts, those really do show up as important things when you’re creating some order out of what feels like chaos. And when that whole apple cart gets tipped again to not underestimate how impactful that can be.
Now, for you as a mom and talking about this question of, “Do you trust God with your future?” With her situation, how is the future feeling? How has it changed? How you look at the future? And I will tell you one of the things that’s been interesting with my two girls who are differently abled is we figured out how to navigate their childhoods and teenagehoods, and now I’ve got one launched into adulthood and one that’s right behind her getting to make that same launch in the next couple three years.
And I’m learning that there are new lessons to be learned and them launching because in some ways, Stacey like I… You do create a new little story around the situation. And then there are things that you just simply can’t anticipate until your kid. Is there challenges that you didn’t know were going to be challenges? Because this is your first time too, going through some of this stuff. So how do you view the future now? What’s different about the way you view the future than prior to her diagnosis and this experience, this life lesson of walking through this?
Stacey Thacker:
Well, it’s interesting ’cause we’re right there where you’re talking about, ’cause she’s a senior this year and this shift that we have with this new place that we get her treatment, it’s actually probably a good thing because she’s aging out of pediatrics. Eventually we would’ve probably had to shift anyway in the future because we have a pediatric doctor, we’re going to have to transition to an adult doctor probably in the near future. Our little bubble is changing.
So to speak, our medical bubble that we’ve gotten really comfortable in. But what’s interesting is there’s no cure for what she has, and unless God surprises us, and we certainly pray for a cure, we pray for that she’s going to be increasingly taking over, making decisions over her own life. And so she’s asked me before, “Gosh, mom, if I go away to college, who’s going to go with me to treatment? Who’s going to be my person?” And I said, “We’ll worry about that or talk about that. Someone would go with you.”
And we’re looking at local colleges. We live in a big city, so that’s an option for us. But those are things that we have talked about is her having people that she could trust and who would take care of her. And I think if you definitely are sending out a child who has a medical challenge, helping them find those people, those helpers in their life who can come alongside them, so you don’t feel like you’re launching them out into the darkness.
And here’s what I found is that there are people like that. Say what you will. There are people in the world who will be there for your kids even when you can’t be, because let’s just trust the Lord with that. I remember, this is one of the things someone told me when I had shared online that we had to leave our medical facility and go somewhere else. One of my sweet friends who I just… She’s just super wise, she said, “Stacey, God is already there. He’s already there at that new place.”
And it was true because when we got there, it was apparent that he’d gone ahead of us. He hadn’t asked us to go into an environment where he hadn’t already prepared the way. As I’m thinking about the days ahead, as I think, and as you’re thinking about launching your second daughter, you’d think it’d be easier with the second one. It’s not.
Julie Lyles Carr:
No, it’s not. No. It’s still like, “Huh, what is this going to be like?”
Stacey Thacker:
It’s different with every child. And so for us, it’s just saying, “You know what? I have to trust that God has gone ahead of us.” And that if she goes away to school or someday, she gets married and she has kids or she goes away or whatever, that he’s going to help her find the place that she needs to be. Because again, back to that lesson, he loves her more than I do. And this didn’t happen. He didn’t like, “Oh goodness, I didn’t realize your daughter had this chronic illness.” No, he’s part of this story and he is walking with her, and she’s not alone in that.
And I have to realize sometimes that if I don’t let her walk that out on her own, she’s got to own it for herself. That’s part of it too. She’s learning to understand her diagnosis and she’s learning, “Hey, what I eat matters and how I sleep and managing my stress.” And counseling is a good idea. All these things she’s embracing because she’s owning her own health story as well.
So that’s part of that transition is as a mom saying, “Okay, what can they handle? What do I still need to have my hands in?” And I think that’s probably different for every parent in every situation. So I wouldn’t say that’s a clear-cut decision, but it’s definitely conversations you’re going to want to be having as your kids are aging out of your home and your pediatric situation. So we’re right there.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Yeah, absolutely. It is a unique launch, and one that I don’t hear discussed a lot is when you have kids, whatever their diagnosis is, wherever they’re at on that scale, the decisions that families have to make with those children for their next, whatever their next is going to be. And so much wisdom and such interesting insight. Stacy, where can the listener go to find out more about you, about the ministry that you do in Orlando, about your journey with your daughter? Where’s the spot to go?
Stacey Thacker:
Well, thank you so much for having me, Julie. You’re such a gracious host, and I just love being able to talk with you over these episodes. Where you find me, stacythacker.com is my website that definitely needs overhauled. I am ready to overhaul that thing, but that’s where all the information is. I’ve been a little busy, so we haven’t gotten it done. But I’m also on Instagram a ton. I love Instagram. That’s @staceythacker. That’s Stacy with an EY. And you can also go to Amazon. I’ve got several books on there, one on prayer that I would say is where we share our Abingdon connection [inaudible 00:32:37]-
Julie Lyles Carr:
Yes. Exactly.
Stacey Thacker:
Let me say this. I was going to say this right before we closed, is that the thing that all of these stories have done is it’s just made me realize how important prayer is in my life as a parent, as a mom. And so I have a book called Threadbare Prayer. If you are in the thick of a medical crisis of any kind, if you were in the thick of a hard season, I began writing some prayers through her story and through another story, just thread prayers, just simple prayers based on scripture that are easy to remember. You can find that at Amazon as well. And it just became something really shared my prayer journal pretty much.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Beautiful.
Stacey Thacker:
‘Cause I share everything, Julie. It’s just [inaudible 00:33:14]. Why not write my own, share my prayers with you. But that’s where you find me Instagram @staceythacker. I’m also on Facebook official Stacey Thacker. You can find if you.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Perfect.
Stacey Thacker:
So please-
Julie Lyles Carr:
Stacey-
Stacey Thacker:
… it’s a lovely chat. Thank you so much.
Julie Lyles Carr:
… oh, so good to have you on. So listener, be sure and check out all those links. Rebecca puts them in the show notes each episode, so check that out. Go to AllMomDoes.com AllMomDoes on the socials. You’re going to find a community there of women who are walking through a lot of the same things you’re walking through, and they’re going to find encouragement and wisdom there.
And I love to connect with you too, Julie Lyles Carr, all the places, and particularly on Instagram. Hey, be sure and share this episode with someone who would benefit by hearing about Stacey’s journey and what her experience has been. And I’ll see you next time on the AllMomDoes podcast.
