Stephanie Daniels welcomes married couple Cedric and Michelle White to the podcast. Both pastors, authors, and counselors, Cedric and Michelle work together in ministry strengthening families through biblical counseling and coaching. They also understand firsthand the struggles that many Veteran families face—including PTSD and moral injury—through Cedric’s experience serving with the U.S. Navy. This Christ-centered couple shares about the journey that led them to care deeply for Veteran families. They will also give you encouragement and tips to help you and your church come alongside military families who may be struggling to find hope, healing, and belonging within the body of Christ.
Stephanie Daniels welcomes married couple Cedric and Michelle White to the podcast. Both pastors, authors, and counselors, Cedric and Michelle work together in ministry strengthening families through biblical counseling and coaching. They also understand firsthand the struggles that many Veteran families face—including PTSD and moral injury—through Cedric’s experience serving with the U.S. Navy. This Christ-centered couple shares about the journey that led them to care deeply for Veteran families. They will also give you encouragement and tips to help you and your church come alongside military families who may be struggling to find hope, healing, and belonging within the body of Christ.
Learn more about Cedric and Michelle's ministry work, Healing Thine Hearts.
You can connect with them on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
If you or someone in your family is a U.S. Veteran or currently serving in the military, Joni and Friends would love to welcome and honor you at a Warrior Getaway!
Our Warrior Getaways are designed to serve our American servicemen and women who have visible and invisible injuries as a result of military service. Veterans, along with their families, are provided a safe space for respite, spiritual renewal, and healing. Families experience fellowship with others facing similar challenges, and find new hope in Christ. Come enjoy a wide range of accessible family activities, powerful speakers, counseling opportunities, and time in God’s Word.
Learn more about attending Warrior Getaway
Sign up to volunteer at Warrior Getaway
Learn more about Cedric and Michelle White’s ministry, Healing Thine Hearts
KEY QUESTIONS:
What is post-traumatic stress, and how can it lead to post-traumatic growth?
What is moral injury?
How can your church serve and encourage Veteran and military families in your community?
KEY SCRIPTURE:
Matthew 6:33: “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
Crystal Keating:
This is the Joni and Friends Ministry Podcast and I’m your host Crystal Keating. Each week we’re bringing you encouraging conversations about finding hope through hardship and practical ways that you can include people living with disability in your church and community. As you listen, visit joniandfriends.org/podcast to access the resources we mention, or to send me a message with your thoughts.
Stephanie Daniels:
Cedric and Michelle White have dedicated their lives to the success of today's family and helping to heal the hearts of those hurting from misguided relationships. They're the co-founders of Healing Thine Hearts, a biblical counseling, coaching, and training ministry focused on building better families, and the founding pastors of Heart Fellowship in Prosper Texas.
As pastors, authors, and counselors, they facilitate programs and collaborate with organizations to empower and strengthen families. This couple has participated in several Joni and Friends Warrior Getaways to facilitate training on PTSD management and many other related ministry programs. Today on the podcast, Cedric and Michelle will share about the journey that led them to care deeply for Veteran families and how the church can come alongside Veterans and their families as they find hope, dignity, and their place in the body of Christ.
Cedric and Michelle, welcome.
Michelle White:
Thank you so much, Stephanie, for having us on the podcast.
Stephanie Daniels:
I'm excited, guys. I feel like I'm talking to mom and dad. These two people are precious to me. So, Cedric, I'll start with you. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey? I know that you're a Veteran, but I'd love to hear more about your service in the Armed Forces, like when and where you served, and that kind of stuff.
Cedric White:
Well, again, thank you for having us on, Stephanie. Thank you again for the collaboration with Joni and Friends. I was one of those “never” guys when I grew up. I was never going to join the military, never going to join the Army. Until graduation night, when I got in from all the parties, I laid in my bed staring at the ceiling, and had literally no plan for my life.
I had teachers in school that had tried to get me to take college classes. I was the president of student council and all of those kind of things, but I always said they were trying to break up my fun that I was having in my junior and senior years in high school. But then I found myself literally laying flat on my back staring at the ceiling asking myself, "Now what?" I got a job at U-Haul. This is Texas summer, so it was mid-June. And about halfway through the first day I said, "this will not work. This will not work."
So the friend of mine that hired me for U-Haul ,we graduated together, he was a manager there. We both decided we were going to go into the Air Force together. We went to the Air Force recruiting office, they were closed. Next door was the Navy office. They were open, walked in to the Navy recruiting office. We took the ASVAB pretest, he couldn't pass it, I passed it, and honestly the rest was sort of history from a military perspective. I signed up, went home, told my mom, she cried like a baby. I signed up for four years, got advancement, added another year, and then I served my time.
When Michelle and I got married, we formed a blended family. We got reinvolved with the military. We started working with people in our church, started working with people at other programs, other organizations, and they would pull us in more and more. And we decided that we would share and give back and we've never looked back.
Stephanie Daniels:
I absolutely love that. Thank you so much for your service. Okay. So, let's back up a little bit then. Michelle, can you tell us how the two of you met and Cedric, you mentioned ministry. So how did you guys find yourselves in ministry together, now running a church, and counseling people?
Michelle White:
I have to tell you, it was truly a God thing, Stephanie. I had just recently moved here to Texas from Las Vegas, Nevada. I was doing convention modeling. So, one of the biggest conventions in the world was a convention called COMDEX. And so, I flew back to Vegas to do this show and it was interesting all the years that I had my modeling career, I never had my real name, nor my city, or state that I lived in. That particular year I got my badge ahead of time. It had Michelle, then my last name, and then it had Carrollton, Texas.
So, I was on the showroom floor and this gentlemen right over here came and asked me questions about the product. And he noticed my badge and he said, "Oh, you're from Carrollton. I'm from Dallas. I've been attending a church in Carrollton." The same church. And we just connected.
Stephanie Daniels:
Wow.
Michelle White:
He asked me for my number, and it just felt right. So, that's how we met. I was just recently divorced, and I was really in a bad place. Got plugged in to a church, started working with single moms with their sons, pouring my heart into that situation and just never looked back. I've been doing ministry from that point on.
So, when Cedric and I got married we started working with blended families cause no one was serving blended families at that time in the church.
Stephanie Daniels:
Mhmm.
Michelle White:
I went to ministry school and Cedric went back to school to get his counseling degree, and we've never looked back. I never wanted anyone to hurt like I did and not have any resources.
Stephanie Daniels:
Okay, so I love when God does a thing like he really does a thing. And so, you two your match sounds like he had purpose for it from the beginning. You both have a compassion for people in all walks of life, but especially Veterans. How did God develop this specific care in your heart for men and women who have served our country?
Cedric White:
Well, I'll say for me, since I've been serving Veterans, I feel that I'm getting more from the military now than I did when I was active. It provided me with the skill. It provided me with a lot of discipline that I needed. Provided me with a way to care for my family. But now the ability to care for others, to understand some of the things that I actually lived, and now to go back and be able to walk alongside individuals who are dealing with some of those same things.
As Michelle said, the one thing that we had in common that I think drew us together was our heart to help people. She had previous military spousal background, I had previous background, and God just literally started to open doors for us to serve. It was natural to walk through it and to help those people, and people were very accepting because we had a connection.
Michelle White:
Add on to that Stephanie, when I was going through my situation in my previous marriage, there was no resources, zero, I mean our marriage was failing and there was no workshops or counseling opportunities that the military was offering during that time. And that is the other reason why we're so determined to serve this community.
Stephanie Daniels:
That's really cool. I don't know if anybody listening might be wondering, "What is my purpose?" But the Lord was opening these consistent doors, and I love that as they were opening you were like, okay I just kept walking through them. Do you have something to add to that Cedric?
Cedric White:
I'm sitting here, like biting my lip, but what you're saying is so on point. My marriage, when it ended, I was in ministry at that time, I felt as if I was such a loser. I felt that I had failed in a huge way. But God took that, and he used it. That was 1995. Some people who will listen to this weren't even born then, but from '95 to now, God is still using it. That very thing that literally had me contemplating suicide.
And here we are, we just celebrated 25 years, getting ready to celebrate 26 years of marriage, and how God has not brought me into a relationship with somebody who I'm just crazy head over heels with, but that we get to work with and utilize the very thing that I felt at the time was really going to take me out. God has taken that and used it in a way that we get to help people.
So, when you're talking to your audience and saying those doors opening, sometimes the door that closed maybe God is pruning. Maybe God is preparing. Maybe God is even promoting. I'm not telling somebody to go ahead and divorced, it's not what we're saying, but what we are saying is that sometimes there are trials and things that we go through in life and always ask the question not, "Why God?” But, “What God? What are you going to do with this? How are you going to use it?"
Stephanie Daniels:
That makes me think of something my husband and I have spoken about. Sometimes promotion looks like demotion. So, we can't judge what we see.
Cedric White:
Yes.
Stephanie Daniels:
And I love that too. Sometimes God uses our deepest pain to be the thing that is going to be really fruitful in blessing others.
Michelle White:
Really truly, that's what God has done in our lives. You know, it's not about us. It's all about him.
Stephanie Daniels:
Amen. Amen. Well, I see that as an onlooker in your life. So, thank you for displaying that. Can you share about the heavy weight of caregiving that so many spouses of Veterans often feel? I've heard you call this the quote unquote "Caregiver Burden." What are the ways that we can, as believers, effectively minister to these caregivers?
Michelle White:
Well, I would say number one, we need to help them to know their value. Because sometimes society can compromise what we feel that our value is.
I would say number two, their individuality is very important. You are uniquely made.
Lastly, what they do is literally vital and lifesaving.
Stephanie Daniels:
That's really encouraging, and I think that's helpful for all of us to remember. Well, you have both served at multiple Joni and Friends Warrior Getaways. For those of you listening who might not be familiar with a Warrior Getaway, it's one of our ministry programs that serves Veterans who have visible or invisible wounds as a result of military service, as well as their families. And I've seen the Veterans who attend these events really start to open up with you, Cedric, and the women with you, Michelle. How do you guys connect with these men and women, and why is it important to develop such a relationship?
Cedric White:
One of the biggest things I think is that we're both connected militarily. We have some understanding. You can speak the same language, right? You can talk about some of the same highs and lows and people can respect that there's a level of almost immediate trust. Now, not totally, but they're more open to listen to, to discuss with, to ask questions of someone who they feel like, okay, you, you truly understand what I'm going through.
You don't just have book knowledge. It's not just knowledge that someone has told you, but, you come along with the experience and the compassion. Because I think they both go together, right? It's one thing to have the experience, but it's another thing to truly show that you care, not just the words, but listen, if we need to sit down, if we need to go get in a corner, if we need to cry together, whatever it is.
Right. And if, if we don't have the answer, we'll find the answer. If there's an answer, we'll ferret it out, but understand that we're here to walk alongside of you. And that makes all the difference in the world. It really does.
Stephanie Daniels:
So common experience is important. Okay. Well, what are some of the topics that you focus on with the Veterans when you work with them?
Cedric White:
Oh, we cover the gambit. There's always, of course, communication, right? And whether it's a Veteran or not, communication is key. And we share with people that communication in a relationship is as important as blood is to the body. Right. You stop blood flowing to any portion of your body, that part dies.
Same thing with communication in a relationship. Communication is vital. So, we have to teach people how to allow communication to flow. We have to teach forgiveness. Sometimes of their mate, the enemy, sometimes of themselves. We have to teach you trust, broken trust.
That's huge, right? And it doesn't necessarily have to be infidelity, but trust issues can come a long way. Just the fact that I trusted you with my children and it didn't happen, a lot of examples come up. And then also intimacy. Whether it's physical intimacy or just a relational, emotional intimacy.
We had one guy that told us he was taught to be a jerk, and he did not feel that he was good for anybody. If he wasn't, and jerk wasn't the word he used by the way, but he didn't feel like he was being good or true to himself unless he was a jerk to his wife. A jerk to his children, a jerk in every aspect, and we had to help him to understand, no.
There's a level of aggression that's needed on the battlefield, that's needed in battle, but that is not the battle that you fight in all the way that you fight when you're at home with your family.
Stephanie Daniels:
Oh my goodness, that will definitely help somebody be more successful in their relationship.
And I'm just thankful that you guys are there to just kind of hold the mirror up for people to see themselves. I feel like you guys are helping call out our blind spots. So that's really powerful. Well, over the years, Michelle serving as a counselor, what are some of the most common challenges you hear from wives of Veterans, especially if the spouse has been away and perhaps their husband comes back changed.
How do you encourage them?
Michelle White:
Well, one of the things is the significance of their roles. Don't take yourself for granted. God chooses you to care for this person.
Cedric White:
That's huge that you were chosen to care for this person, right?
Somebody could have been with somebody else around somebody else, but he chose you. And you may feel inadequate, be frustrated. At times you may be tired, but God knew that you had whatever it takes or took to care for this person, but not to lose themselves. And we've said this in conferences. Listen, your child, your husband, your wife, that you're, caregiving for, they're not your God.
So don't expect to be empowered by your role. You're empowered by him. You seek him, seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these things will be added to you, right? Oh yeah. Seek him first for those things that you need to know, but don't forget, you're important.
Michelle White:
And I think that some of the things that the caregiver has problems with is feeling guilty.
You know, guilt sometimes overpowers them as well. We talk to them about those things in the counseling sessions because they feel, like we said, unequipped, you know, not equipped to fulfill every need of their family, or the warrior. So...
Cedric White:
And can I, that sometimes feel guilty for wanting something for themselves.
They feel like they should self-sacrifice every waking moment. It takes a little bit more management, a little bit more planning, but it's okay for you to do something for yourself. Get your hair done, get your nails done, get something done, do something for yourself and it's okay.
When you're doing something for yourself, it doesn't mean that you don't love the person that you’re caregiving for. It simply means that you love yourself as well.
Stephanie Daniels:
Something you said about being chosen for this role. I used to hear my mom kind of say, like, I didn't sign up for this, you know. And I'm well, yeah, you did. Cause you said “I do,” but not this specific journey. But I think as you were sharing it just then, it's, it's humbling a little bit to think, man, the Lord chose me for this role,
Cedric White:
Yeah.
Stephanie Daniels:
and he thinks that I have what it takes to do that. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Is that something you can expound on?
Cedric White:
Sure. It's quite often we sell ourselves short to do what God calls us to do. Right? Not only do we not feel like we were capable, sometimes we don't want it.
You know, I have a different plan for my life. I'll honestly say this. I didn't plan on being a relationship counselor. I was in IT. I was making great money. However, it did not have that soul satisfying aspect of it. The Lord knew, and God knew, there was going to be people who needed me.
Michelle White:
Amen.
Cedric White:
I was chosen to do this. I've had guys that tell me, man, how is it that you can listen to people's problems all day long and not allow it to become part of you?
Why? Because he chose me. He destined me. He destined us to do this. So we can listen to him all day long. Sometimes from 8 to 9 and 10 at night. But we don't allow that to become a part of us. Why? Because he made us relational Teflon, if you will, it falls right off, but he gives us the compassion to love people.
It is chosen. I didn't choose this. God chose me, chose us.
Michelle White:
I am so thankful and grateful, just how God took all of my mess and made it my testimony. And then I get to use that testimony daily.
Cedric White:
And she was a mess! I was a mess. I really was. She helped me along. As a matter of fact, if I may, Michelle, God used her very vitally. Because I was anti-counsel. I don't do counseling. Hey, I'm a black man. I don't, that was my mindset. I'm serious. It took her 18 months.
No, it took her actually two years. It was 18 months when I threatened that, hey, our friendship would break off. And then another six months. That the Lord dealt with me to where I finally went to counseling. And then it was in that session where he told me, this is what I'm going to have you to do. That's when he spoke to me and said, this is your calling. I want you to go back and help my people.
Stephanie Daniels:
I mean, I get that though. I feel like, sometimes getting counseling can be hard. Hearing about yourself and doing the work is difficult sometimes, but it's necessary. So, the second part of that question, so, what does this look like for female Veterans and their husband? Sometimes it's not always the husband is the one that's deployed. And so, what does this look like for female Veterans and their husbands? Are there different experiences or unique needs that you've seen?
Michelle White:
Well, Role reversal can be a problem, right?
Female leader versus possible household husband. You have to learn to use both strengths and, as your power, right? So, I think that as long as they can stay in that lane and know their purpose and know their calling, it can function very well. A lot of times, we have seen it. We have seen the female Veteran who has been trained in a certain way. The female leader is a Veteran in that role. Maybe they function very well in the household, but the male that is handling the household doesn't know what he needs to come to the caregiver sessions with all the women that are typically. And it's been like the last couple of years, we may have had one or two husbands that are not Veterans, but we try to make them feel as welcome. You know, just sit in on the sessions and see how it can apply to you and be better in the role of where God has you right now.
Cedric White:
Hey, Stephanie. Quite often, military, civilian, we see where, okay, you've got a very well educated, very strong will, very assured female, right? And maybe you even run into a situation.
Okay. Now you got two alpha personality, right? And there has to be learning and maturity in order to make that relationship work. I am married to a very strong female, right? However, knowing myself, then I'm not threatened by her strength. Her strength actually adds to our relationship.
Quite often we'll have to teach couples about that. We had situation a couple of times when we first got married, Michelle was over hospitality in a hotel industry, very well known. And she'd come home and she'd have a gray suit on and you know, and she's still in hospitality management mode. And she'd be barking orders, right? And I'd say hey, sweetie. I don't work for you . You know, let's bring it down a notch. And, but we learned it. It didn't have to be adversarial.
It was a matter of recognizing it, communicating it, and then, okay, let's figure out how we resolve it so that it doesn't turn into an issue.
Stephanie Daniels:
That's so good. I feel like I'm getting relationship advice today.
As counselors, authors, speakers, ministry leaders, and for you, Cedric, as a Veteran, you both are uniquely qualified to deal with the emotional and spiritual fallout of military service. So, what advice do you have for those who've returned from deployment and are now encountering the very real and deep struggles in front of them?
Cedric White:
We have a term, and that's a very good question, Stephanie. We have a term that we use when we're doing training, when we're doing counseling, especially for those who quite often have difficulty turning off the battlefield mindset. Quite often there's a difficulty. I'm going to run my life now, like I'm still deployed.
And we have a four-word phrase that we try to get them to sort of, accept and start to utilize that forward phrase is, “Boots on. Boots off.” And understanding the difference between the two. When I have my boots on, I'm laced up, I'm in the battle, I am deployed, I have to have a different mindset, a different concept.
It could be life or death. There's an order given, there's an order taken. There is no room for why and in-depth explanations. However, when I get home and I'm off deployment, sometimes I struggle with making the transition. So, we have to help them to understand, okay, now I'm moving, even if I'm working on the base and on my way home, we tell them, find a spot between the base and home, a midway point where you literally tell yourself, okay, boots off.
I need to be willing to speak to my mate differently. I need to be able to speak to my children differently. I even have to speak to myself and my expectations differently than when I'm deployed. That's an act of choice. That's an act of your will that you have to implement.
And sometimes it takes a while for people to grasp that.
Stephanie Daniels:
I've never thought about that. I'm so thankful for men and women who serve. Cause you know, we really just can sit at home and enjoy our freedoms because people make these sacrifices and I'm so thankful for that.
But also, I think about these marriages, these people are separated for months,
Cedric White:
If not years.
Stephanie Daniels:
Right! And I'm like, how do you come back together and just kind of pick up and keep going?
Cedric White:
You don't. Um, a lot try to, and of course, it's always the euphoria the first few days that you back off of deployment. I've been gone and right, but eventually reality sets in. Okay now, if I'm the man, then I need to fall back in now. You've been running this house for 14 months. I've been gone.
Kids have been, hey, we've got a routine. Now I want to come in and with the expectation of, hey, now I'm back. You just do it my way.
Stephanie Daniels:
And sometimes different people come home.
Cedric White:
Yes, exactly. Exactly. So, you've got all of that to deal with, you know, not just the individual and the time that you've been gone.
I've had experiences and maybe you weren't in battle, but you were in a battle. Right. And so, you've changed, the children have changed, who know, we may have moved. Oh, there's a lot of changes that now we're going to try to almost instantly mesh together. And the first thing we tell people is don't try it.
This isn't instant. You can't microwave this. You can't just add water. It's going to take a moment. Have a plan and work your plan. Right? They teach us in boot camp, prepare for battle in the time of peace. Well, you know what? You have to plan for peace so that you don't have a battle. Both of us have to prepare ourselves for that again. That's where communication is so key. So key. The more I know about what's going on at home, the better off I am. You know, I got a little baby girl. She's been acting up. Little Johnny, he's been clowning or whatever. If you've been keeping that from me, now I come home and it's a tornado in my house.
We've got a problem and I'm going to come in as a military man and expect you to be Johnny on the spot. That's not going to work. And the same with me. I need to let you know, hey, I've been dealing with this. I've been dealing with this. And quite often as men, we're too prideful to let you know, hey, we've been hurt.
We've been scared. Something has happened. And then it comes home and it's a problem. So, it's preparing for battle in a time of peace. Let's see if we can work some things out. The military is better for preparing you to come back home, but they're a long way from getting it perfect.
Stephanie Daniels:
Mmm. Wow. So, let's talk about moral injury. I don't think this is a familiar term for many people, but can you define what moral injury is?
Cedric White:
Sure, sure. Moral injury, and you're right, most people aren't familiar with that term. But moral injury is that thing that either you have done, or you've seen done, that goes against your very core beliefs. Let's give an example. You're deployed, your group is out on patrol, and one of the sad practices of a lot of the enemies against the U. S. is that they'll send a child strapped with an explosive to take out an entire patrol group. So now either you as a gunner or somebody else in your unit has to make the decision to either wound or fatally wound that child in order to protect these lives here. Now, everything within us, anyone who has any sense, any remnants of human decency is not going to shoot a child.
But in this instance, you're forced to. So now what does that do? That affects your core beliefs, and you carry that guilt with you. Whereas maybe I shouldn't have done it. Was there another way to do it? Or maybe I should have stopped somebody else from doing it. And so now there's a weight of guilt that's carried around with a person for a long time.
Stephanie Daniels:
Oh, man, that's heavy. I'm sure it looks different for everyone.
Cedric White:
Yes.
Stephanie Daniels:
But, how have you seen moral injuries manifest themselves?
Cedric White:
It can go anywhere from a light depression, to emotional outbursts, to heavier, to drinking, to drugs, even to the point of suicide. Because as we say, the battlefield is in the mind, and I cannot.
You know, we talk about biblically taking a thought captive, but I'm having difficulty capturing this thought and using the word of God. What does God say about this? What does the word say about forgiveness? What does the Word say about grace and mercy? I don't have the wherewithal to do that.
And this thought is just overtaking me. It gets to a point to where it's controlling me. And so, it can be very detrimental, even life threatening for some people.
Stephanie Daniels:
This is when counseling can be so important and so lifesaving.
Cedric White:
Right. Right.
Stephanie Daniels:
Well, how can we as believers express the heart of God, a heart of love and compassion for the men and women who've been serving our country and have returned with these deep spiritual, emotional, and physical wounds?
Cedric White:
The biggest thing I can say is literally utilizing the Word of God, right? An example I love to use is King David, man after God's own heart. But we all know that King David sent his soon to be wife's current husband out to the battlefield in order to, with the strict, the exact plan to ‘get him killed so I could take his wife.’
Right. But God still used him. God still had grace, mercy, forgiveness. We have to help them to understand that, you know, yes, this act, maybe it was legal. Maybe it wasn't legal. God knows, but God is a forgiving God. God is a gracious God. God is a merciful God.
Physical wounds, okay. So now these are more visible, externally visible, but yet instead you have value. We minimally, once a week, we share this. We have what we call the 4 0 principle. The 4 0 principle. The 4 0 principle is that if God blesses you to open your eyes, then he gives you the opportunity to overcome any obstacle that's there. Whatever was weighing you down when you went to bed last night. Okay, that's fine. But you woke up again today. So now, we can overcome these things. So even physical wounds there are people who we have Nick, Life Without Limbs.
Look at how God has used him yeah, no limbs, all over the world. So God has no respective persons, so if we can just change our paradigm, change our perspective on how we look at things, right?
We're not useless just because we don't have arms. We're not useless because we don't have legs. We're not useless because we had a spiritual or emotional injury. We can recover from that and God can use it. What the enemy meant for bad, God can take that and use it for his good. And for other people's good.
Michelle White:
And I just think about our story, you know, what the enemy meant bad for our, both of us experiencing a divorce. You know, even in that it was a moral, it was a moral injury for us both. But look what God has used for him to be glorified and the amount of people that are impacted by this ministry that God is giving us because it belongs to him, right?
I agree with Cedric that you can overcome everything with God, all things are possible.
Stephanie Daniels:
Amen.
Michelle White:
All things are possible.
Stephanie Daniels:
Amen. So, every day there's an opportunity to overcome obstacles and God gives you grace to do that. That is so encouraging. And I'm sure all of us need to hear that.
And also, God takes our brokenness and can make it beautiful. So yeah, so many sweet nuggets in this conversation today. Well, for those listening who are married to a Veteran, how can they come alongside their spouse and provide them the room to grieve when there's a disability or a moral injury after a deployment?
Cedric White:
I would say initially, allow space. We live in a society that is so rushed. We want instant, uh, results. You know, okay that's bothering you now. Okay, when are you going to get over it? All right, get over it. That was there. That was then. What people don't understand, the mind doesn't truly understand time. We know time, but the mind doesn't operate like that. You can carry something that happened to you. Something that injured you morally. People carry things throughout life. And so, if Michelle is the Vet and I love her. Then it's like, okay, can we sit down and talk about what it is?
And sometimes they really can't put their finger on what it is. They just know that at this point in time, something happened. And since then, I don't feel the same. So, let's say we go and try to get some help. Let's say we sit down and try to do this thing. And I'm not trying to force you to be what I think you ought to be, or how I think you ought to be.
Michelle White:
Right.
Cedric White:
Compassion and love is so, so needed in these situations, and quite often, unfortunately, some people don't want to either learn or take the time to gain that capacity to have compassion and love.
Stephanie Daniels:
Wow. Well, our response department at Joni and Friends often hears from families who may recognize that they need help or counseling, but they feel it's important that their counselor should have walked the same journey that they're currently going through.
Do you agree? And is it important for there to be a shared experience in order for counseling to be fruitful?
Cedric White:
I agree that it carries weight. If I've gone through something similar. However, I could have gone through the exact same scenario and come out with a different perspective. So, it's not always necessary that we've gone through the exact same journey.
Right. But I think it does help, as we talked about that peer aspect for it to have some level of fruitfulness because everybody's not the same. What I consider to be traumatic, you went through it and it didn't bother you, even something that you experienced moral injury from, I may be coarse enough, it didn't bother me. Right.
But, it is very important for the counselor to have a compassionate listening ear and never ever downplay what somebody, what the counselee or what the client says is important to them, if it's bothering them, if they're there for a purpose. You have to take what they say and then have, again, that compassionate heart of God, to say, you know, in your mind, you may be thinking, are you kidding me?
No, it's real. It's huge to them. It's huge to them. So, it doesn't have to be the exact same thing, but it does have to come from a place of caring is what I tell them. Yeah.
Stephanie Daniels:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow guys, this has just all been so so rich, and I'm so thankful for you both and for your ministry Healing Thine Hearts, and I just want to encourage anybody, whether you're a Veteran or a couple. I don't know if you guys do virtual visits, but...
Cedric White:
Yes, we do.
Stephanie Daniels:
You do. Okay. So, if there's people that are looking for help, if you just need hope and you might find yourself struggling in your marriage just introduced you to two really beautiful people who love the Lord. And I believe will kind of toil through what you're going through.
So, how can we as the church and Christian community come alongside Veterans to help them?
Cedric White:
Here's what I'd say as a pastor, as a co-founder to our organization. I think it's imperative for churches and communities, if they don't have their own Veteran assistance program or something like that, to collaborate with organizations who do.
I think it's very important to be resourceful as a church, just like if they don't have their own feed the community program, they know somebody to refer you. Somebody needs clothing, they know someone. Somebody needs housing. Being abused. They have a referral list.
The same thing here. We may not have someone on board. We may not have Veterans in our congregation, but we know a church or an organization that assists Veterans. And so, we, if nothing else, we can send you over to pastor or brother so and they can help you out. Every church, every Christian community should have a way of connecting Veterans to helpful resources.
Stephanie Daniels:
Well, Cedric and Michelle, this has just been so good. You have shared a wealth of information with us today. And again, I just want to encourage anybody, if you're looking for hope, if you're in a spot where you need help, Cedric and Michelle White of Healing Thine Hearts are a great resource for you.
Cedric and Michelle, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast.
Michelle White:
Stephanie, thank you for giving us an opportunity to share with your community.
Cedric White:
It's been wonderful. Thank you for having us, we enjoyed it.
Crystal Keating:
Thank you for listening today. For more episodes, find us wherever you get your podcast and be sure to subscribe. We’d also love it if you would tell a friend. And for more encouragement, follow Joni and Friends on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube. And visit our website at joniandfriends.org/podcast. Thank you for listening to the Joni and Friends Ministry Podcast.