If Your Life Feels Irreparably Broken, Mary DeMuth Has Good News for You

Shaun Tabatt Show Episode 992: If Your Life Feels Irreparably Broken, Mary DeMuth Has Good News for You

Shaun Tabatt:
My guest today is Mary DeMuth, and we're gonna be discussing her brand new book, Restory Your Life: How Jesus Reframes Your Past, Rewrites Your Present, and Redefines Your Future. Mary, it's always a pleasure to speak with you. Welcome back to the show.

Mary DeMuth:
It is so good to be back here. Thanks for having me on, and I'm happy to have a good conversation about this book.

Shaun Tabatt:
Well, you and I both keep podcasting and writing books, so we're gonna find each other every few years.

Mary DeMuth:
We keep running into each other.

Shaun Tabatt:
Yes, yes, absolutely. I know I've had you share this in previous conversations, but let's kick this off by having you share a little bit of the Mary Demuth origin story. You're kind of a unique author in this Christian publishing space. You've written lots of books. You agent, you do a bunch of different things. So for the person who's meeting you for the first time, give them a little bit of context for how broad your career is. And you do lots of things.

Mary DeMuth:
I do. I was joking before we got on here that I have 5 jobs. So one is literary agent, one is writer, one is speaker, one is podcaster, and one artist. So I'm juggling all 5. I don't want to, but it is what it is. And when you're in the arts, you kind of have to do that in order to make a living and to make ends meet. And so that is what I do with my time.

Shaun Tabatt:
And how many books have you written at this point?

Mary DeMuth:
I think I'm at 53 or 54 now.

Shaun Tabatt:
Wow. I like— that makes me shudder a little bit. I'm at 4, working on number 5. I'm like, wow, I got a lot of years to catch up to you and some of the others who've been writing a lot longer than I have. I think next I'd love to hear kind of the story behind the book. Like, don't overly get long into it. We're going to discuss that and unpack that here in a bit. But I felt as I was looking through the press materials and skimming through the book, and I wonder like, is this the book you wrote for your younger self? Is this the book you wish you could have had years ago as you were starting your own re-story journey? You probably wouldn't even call it that back then.

Mary DeMuth:
Right. This is a new term that's come to me in the past 10 years. And I definitely have a difficult story of upbringing and growing up and all of that. And as a lot of listeners do as well, like there's just things that are hard in our stories. And for a long time, it was all this idea of, I just need to be healed of this because I am a mess. And then that happened slowly, not instantaneously. I wish it would have been instant, but it was slow. And then I got to this place of like, wait, this is— God didn't just set me free for myself.

Mary DeMuth:
He set me free to be an emancipator of others. And that's kind of the whole idea behind ReStory that we're We're healed to become healers. And that's actually some of the most joyful parts of the Christian life is being able to work through your story and then walk alongside someone else so that they don't feel alone anymore. And that's kind of the whole underlying message of the book.

Shaun Tabatt:
And kind of that idea that the things that Jesus heals us from, he gives us authority to help other people. And sometimes it's those places we may not even want to go back to, but we're the relatable Jesus with skin on, so to speak, so those people feel like we understand them because, like, you've gone through exactly what I've gone through. And so, you know, we get to use those things that were pain points and use them to minister and encourage and really, I feel like, transform other people's lives. I loved just some of the opening things in the book. Like, it just felt so relatable. I'd love to have you unpack a little bit about your experience of encountering Jesus at camp. And how you thought that was, you know, like things were just gonna be instantly fixed and healed. And then a little bit later you talk about how, uh, I'll just read a quote I wrote down.

Shaun Tabatt:
I thought I could outrun my story, but it had legs and chased me to the piney woods of East Texas. I think that just feels so relatable cuz so many of us when we're teenagers, we find Jesus and we experience some level of relief and healing. But when we grow up and we have a job and we have a marriage and kids and all the things, it's amazing how the things that were parts of our childhood and the way we were parented, we suddenly have just randomly pop on up again. We're like, Jesus, I thought I left that behind. So take us a little bit into that camp story and just that realization that not everything was healed at camp.

Mary DeMuth:
Yeah, boy, that would have been nice if it had been. But, um, I, one of the things that is part of my story is, uh, sexual abuse at age 5. And a lot of times it happened in the woods. And so big old evergreen trees, I'm from the Pacific Northwest, have a big kind of part to play in that story. And when I, I heard about Jesus at a Young Life camp at 15, I remember going outside at night and praying and asking God to please be the God who will never leave me. Will you be the daddy that I need? Because I had had several fathers by that time and they were not in the picture anymore. And, and I sat, like I said, I sat under an evergreen tree. So the symbolism of it all was just quite beautiful and quite ironic and painful and beautiful, all the things.

Mary DeMuth:
And Jesus died on a tree. I mean, there was just so many like beautiful symbolism. But yes, you're right. I did experience this like amazing intersection of a Father who would never leave me. But that was the beginning of walking out my story. Because up until that point, I was not brave enough to tell it. And whatever happened in that moment with Jesus, he unleashed me and I began to tell that story. And so I was probably an oversharer.

Mary DeMuth:
I was probably an awkward girl who kept sharing her story over and over. And then had this significant amount of healing in college where people prayed, prayed, prayed, prayed, prayed. And I just kind of made a decision. Okay, it's done. I am 21 years old and I have been prayed for and I'm healed. Only to, like what you said, get married, lots of triggering there, and then having my children and having them turn ages that I was when these bad things happened. And so I was mad at God. So I was like, no, I'm done.

Mary DeMuth:
I finished. And he's like, no, there's another layer and I'm going to be gentle with you, but we need to go through this new layer.

Shaun Tabatt:
And I, I smiled a little bit, uh, not because it was funny, but you're talking about in the book that you, rather than going out seeking outside help, because you really didn't have the finances to find a counselor at that point in your marriage, but you were reading every Christian book, doing every workbook. I think a lot of us, you know, whether we have the resources or not, I think because of shame, pride, a lot of us would rather, You know, big brown bag to the bookstore, get the books we don't want anybody to see we're reading, and then just try to fix it on our own. We're trying to heal ourselves, but a lot of us need help. Like, what's that balance of it? It's fine for us to get books that can help us and do workbooks, but there are some things that can only be fixed really by bringing another competent person in to help us unpack and kind of retell our story and figure out how to integrate this with who we are, you know, who we were with who we are. In your journey, have you found a balance of, you know, in terms of feedback for others at how you can walk that out?

Mary DeMuth:
Well, well, I think, you know, just the economic picture or piece of that, it was a reality for us. So I literally couldn't pay for someone to help me, but I did have good friends. And like I said, I did go through all that. Like you said, I went through all those books, but those friends were very helpful and they were wise. Thankfully, it wasn't until later where we were able, my husband was going to seminary and they allowed spouses to see like the people that were in training to become counselors, you could go for free. And that's when I started my counseling journey. And I was really grateful to have that experience. But I also just want to leave space for people who are like, I just can't afford it.

Mary DeMuth:
That's very normal. And that's where I was. And I can only just be so grateful for really wise friends who walked me through that dark time.

Shaun Tabatt:
Yes, I can relate. My late wife and I, when we were living at the seminary, still in Bible college, and we did some premarital and after we got married counseling with a psychologist in training. They're like, hey, free counseling. We're like, hey, that we can afford free. This sounds like a really good idea. I remember it was a challenging experience, but we did find it very helpful. In terms of like your, your journey. So you were reading books, you know, you were talking to people when you could, your friends were helping you out.

Shaun Tabatt:
Like in terms of like, was it, was there a big breakthrough moment or like a dramatic time when you, when you were like, okay, I'm more healed than I thought I could be from, from some of this? Because I feel like as any of us are going along, as we go through the seasons of life, new things come up that we still have to deal with. But was there kind of a threshold where you could maybe now be more of a help to others?

Mary DeMuth:
Yeah, there's a kind of a two-part answer to that question. One was I had been kind of mad at my mom for not protecting me, and a friend of mine sat me down and she said, it's often the other parent that you're most mad at. And I was like, no, it's my mom. And then I, you know, brought up my father and he was very naughty and not a good man and was pedophilic. I mean, just not a good guy. And I just hadn't seen it until that moment. And then I saw it and my statement was, but if I admit that he didn't really love me, then what do I do with that? And that I worked through that. And then I had a very supernatural experience when I was in my late 30s where a team of prayers came.

Mary DeMuth:
We were living in France at the time. We were church planters and they were praying for me and they said, do you see a picture? And I saw a picture in my mind, but I thought it was stupid. And so I shared another picture that seemed more exciting or whatever. And they're like, no, that's not the picture. So I told them the picture and similarly to with my father, it was with my grandparents. I lived with him for about 9 months when I was like 4 and 5 years old. And I have no memory of my mother. I have no memory of my father during that time.

Mary DeMuth:
I was a little orphan girl during that time. And the, the image was I was standing in a crib at like 4 or 5 years old alone. And that was the memory. And I suddenly, once I said it out loud, I just started weeping because I realized I was hanging my hat on the fact that at least my grandparents wanted me for 9 months, but actually they didn't. They put me in that room in the basement for hours at a time. They would, when my grandmother went to play bridge, they would put me in the back room and I would have to be quiet and sit in a master bedroom of a place I didn't know for hours on end. And so the profound healing that happened in that moment was, um, yeah, they didn't really love me and they didn't really want me, but then I got to see Jesus come into that memory and really do some profound healing in that moment.

Shaun Tabatt:
Well, and the moral of that story is if you have some charismatic-leaning friends over asking you for the picture you see while they're praying, tell the truth, tell the truth, because they're going to start questioning you like, yeah, that does, that's not what we're seeing. I don't know. It doesn't make any sense. In terms of your own journey, I'm curious to hear if there was ever a time where you just felt like, you know, the redemption of your story was just too big or too messy for God. Because again, I feel like so many of us, when we look at the pain of our past, especially hurts that deal with our parents and our siblings, like, God, this is all so screwed up. It's even too much for you. Did you have to get past a point there where you thought not even God can fix this?

Mary DeMuth:
I definitely have felt that way. And there was about a period of about 10 years that were pretty dark. It was kind of a dark night of the soul. St. John of the Cross, and I would cry out to the Lord, how long, oh Lord, how long? This seems really long. And I didn't really realize that really great things happen in wintertime, that roots grow and things happen beneath the soil of my life. And now looking back, having gone out of that winter season and into a season of springtime and summer where fruit is coming out, I'm so grateful. But during that 10 years, I was just like, What is this? It's too long.

Mary DeMuth:
It's too dark. And I felt like I wasn't a very good Christian because I was sad all the time. And I just want to dignify anyone that's walking through that part of their story. This is part of the healing journey and it doesn't look very fantastical. It looks dark. And I just want to dignify the fact that that does happen and you're not crazy.

Shaun Tabatt:
I think a lot of times, especially when we have father trauma, it shapes our vision or warps our vision of God. Talk to us about, I guess, kind of the evolution of your vision of God as you have walked out your healing? And then how did you see God's presence in your pain? Because I think, I feel like when we haven't gotten a lot of healing, we just feel like God was absent and God was silent. And yet, as we get more healing and more understanding, we realize often Jesus was right there with us. We just didn't realize it.

Mary DeMuth:
I do feel like he was with me, but like you said, I didn't always feel that way because it was a hard story. And there's questions that you would ask yourself, like, why didn't he rescue me from that? I'm a good mom, and if I knew my kids were hurting, I would rescue them. Why didn't you, if you're a good dad? Like those kinds of questions are very, very normal and he knows we have them anyway. We may as well ask them and work through them. So that is part of it. And then the father issue, I think I'm still working through that, to be honest, because of having a predatory father who exploited me. It's just hard to reconcile that. Having other spiritual fathers in my life, like people with skin on, has been very helpful.

Mary DeMuth:
And so if you can, that's why the beauty of the church is so strong. Like you having multi-generations under one roof, seeing those older distinguished men of the faith has been very helpful for me to reframe that. Same with mothers, same. And then in terms of finding the Lord in my story, one of the things I started to do in college was lived in the Pacific Northwest, as I mentioned before, and they had an indoor track that I would run when it was raining and it was like a quarter or an eighth of a mile. And I would run it and I would recount every year of my life as I ran around that track. And for a while it was just recounting the trauma over and over. And then eventually after I did that enough, I would start asking the question, how can I see God in that? And I began to just start to, because I hadn't, I was so dark. I couldn't see.

Mary DeMuth:
Now I could see. And I started to see these little pinpricks of, oh, he was wooing me there. I had such a strong conscience there. That's weird. And just the ways that he delivered me. And so maybe if you have a, like a track somewhere, you might try that. Or, um, as you're walking around your neighborhood or whatever.

Shaun Tabatt:
Yes. God often shows up when we have quiet moments of prayer. At least I found that too. A lot of my listeners know that my wife passed away about 2 years ago from brain cancer. But throughout that whole journey while she was sick and afterwards, I would just go for long walks in the morning, sometimes an hour, sometimes 90 minutes. And I would just pray and listen. And it really kept me sane during that time. And so, you know, it might seem kind of dumb if you're not a walking person, you're like, oh my gosh, I don't want to get up early and go do that.

Shaun Tabatt:
But man, when there's nothing else to distract you and it's just quiet, and I found especially for me in the mornings, even if I'm just pouring my heart out to God, I know he hears me. And it really just allowed me to deal with all that I was carrying in that season. So walking and praying. God seems to like to show up. So I can definitely relate to that. In terms of the, I don't know if we want to see the identity journey with the book. I'd love to have you kind of set up the journey that you're inviting readers on. I smiled when I saw that you open each chapter with a biblical character for us to relate to.

Shaun Tabatt:
I was like, this does not surprise me at all coming from you. But set up the journey. What kind of an experience are you inviting us into?

Mary DeMuth:
Well, I'm taking us all back to English class in high school before the invention of AI. And this is the idea of a story. Arc of beginning with an inciting incident, which is the day you're born, and then all these conflicts, and there's a climax and a denouement, which is a fancy French word which means the walking out, which is where we are right now. We're walking out our stories. And so I'm helping readers kind of find themselves in all of the elements of storytelling and be able to see the great storyteller in their life and looking at, okay, what does this mean? Why did I go through this? And we may not have full discernment on that. I still, there's Some things I'm like, why did that happen? I don't know. I will know on the other side, but I don't know now. We hold that intention, but my hope is to bring people on that journey of just being able to analyze their story and to see the footprints of God in that story, the fingerprints of God, and what he may be doing really uniquely special in your life for the kingdom in other people's lives because of your unique and beautiful story.

Shaun Tabatt:
Talk to us a little bit about divine turning points. I feel like often we only see those in hindsight, like as we're kind of in the eye of our storm that we're walking in., you know, we don't notice necessarily, but looking back, we were like, oh wow, God, you were here. You showed up there. You orchestrated that. How do we recognize? And then why are those significant? How can they shift our perception?

Mary DeMuth:
I think one way to recognize them is kind of an odd little thing to say, but if we can learn to turn off our phones, we're going to be more apt to pay attention to God's handiwork in our lives right now. We are so distracted. That we're having a hard time finding God during the day because we have been distracted to death. And so maybe that's just a little practical thing of how can we hear the voice of God in the cacophony of looking at a phone all the time? So we need to do that. And I preach that to myself. I struggle with it too. I'm not just saying, well, I've conquered that. No, it's a very dopamine-enhanced addiction that I am working on.

Mary DeMuth:
And so I don't know if that answers your question, but I think that's one like practical thing that we can do to recognize those turning points before we have to look at them retrospectively, which we can usually see, but it's hard to notice them in the moment because we're so distracted.

Shaun Tabatt:
Yes. As we tell our kids, put the phone down and, you know, pay attention. There's a bunch of people here at dinner that you can talk to. You don't need to find out what your friends are doing. But, you know, we all, just like you said, we all find ourselves distracted by these devices too. Like a lot of times I leave it in the other room at dinnertime. So I don't feel like I, constantly need to pick it up. I'm curious in terms of, uh, testing your, your system or the journey you're taking people on.

Shaun Tabatt:
Have you had people kind of walk through your restoring process? And I'd love to hear some of the transformation they've experienced when they've applied this to their own journey, their own circumstance.

Mary DeMuth:
I've had the privilege of walking several people through this process and it has been transformational and messy. I mean, it's never linear, right? But this all started like about 10 years ago with the word restory that the Lord dropped into my head. Then I did two conferences, ReStory Year One and ReStory Year Two. So there's a lot of conversations that have come out of that, those times several years ago of just seeing people mostly just telling their story for the first time, which is step number one. I think we've been trained by our family systems, by the Christian system to be quiet and put a smile on our face. We will never heal from that story if we keep it quiet. And so that's part of it. Is giving people that permission of you can share this story.

Mary DeMuth:
If you can find a safe person to tell it to, you are going to become unburdened and God is going to do a lot of really beautiful work once you get it out of yourself.

Shaun Tabatt:
And for the, for the person who listens to or watches this, maybe they relate to some of what you shared about your journey or some of what I've shared, but they're like, I'm just, I'm stuck. Like, I don't, I don't know how to move past this. This is just the worst, most painful thing. Like, what's that first step to kind of getting your feet out of the mud and even taking that first baby step forward? How do we get unstuck?

Mary DeMuth:
It always involves community. And most of our wounds happen in community. And those relational wounds require a relational cure. Now there's a lot of fear. Let's say you have a difficult story and you have shared only partially about it. One way that you can go about that is you can write it down. Now that's great for me because I'm a writer. I would love to do that.

Mary DeMuth:
And then find a safe person and just push it across the table to them. You don't even have to tell it. Or if that doesn't work for you, to tell it into your phone and then just have them listen to it so that you don't have to deliver that. They can hear it in your presence and then you can have a conversation. It's the most tender way to begin to get that out. And I can't emphasize enough how much freedom comes by telling the truth of your story.

Shaun Tabatt:
There's so many other directions I want to go. Let me hone in on where I want to go next. In terms of embracing or understanding our God-given identity, like, how can that play a part in breaking us free from our old patterns? Because I feel like that's one of the big challenges all of us face as God's healing them from stuff. We still see ourselves as the dirty kid in the ragged clothes and all the things, even though we look shiny on the outside. Our self-perception is usually stuck in 10 years ago, 15 years ago. How do we maybe get more identity-wise, get more in sync with the reality of what God is doing in us presently? Because again, we're often stuck thinking we're that person 10, 15 years ago.

Mary DeMuth:
Yeah, I really resonate with that as well. A couple things I think is just continuing to renew our minds about what the truth of scripture says about us. That we are children of God. We've been adopted into this family. We are— God is for us, not against us. And just sometimes we just have so many bad voices that we just have to kind of reiterate the truth about that. And then the other thing again involves community. My friend Jim says that we're all a bunch of salad dressing bottles and we need someone to read our ingredients because we're stuck inside and we're just a bunch of ingredients moving around and we need someone to read them.

Mary DeMuth:
And that's a very powerful thing. And something that I can challenge all of you to do is when you notice something good in someone else, call it out. Let them read their ingredients label and say, you know what? You are the most tenderhearted person and you listen to people's stories and it is so beautiful. You're making a dent in the kingdom of darkness and you are expanding the kingdom of light. I need to hear those things. People need to hear those things. They are like all of us with those terrible voices inside that say you're never going to amount to anything. You're terrible.

Mary DeMuth:
You're what you were 10 years ago. So part of spreading the joy of that is recognizing and being a student of other people and call them out in goodness.

Shaun Tabatt:
Well, and I think there are a lot of circumstances where the Holy Spirit will prompt us to say something to somebody, to acknowledge them, or sometimes we'll just get these impressions like, buy that person a cup of coffee or do this or do that. And they seem like the most random, inane, pointless things like, oh, they're, they're not going to want that. That's going to be embarrassing. And, but I've found through the years. When I take heed, whatever God's prompt, what I feel like God's prompting me to do and just do it, even if I'm like, this is dumb. I find when I'm obedient, that person lights up and they're like, oh my gosh, I've been wrestling with this. I've been praying about that. I had hoped somebody would come talk to me today.

Shaun Tabatt:
And, you know, as I'm standing in line at the coffee shop. And so, you know, don't ignore those little prompts, the, you know, the voice in your head going, hey dude, look at that person. Do this, that's often God trying to get your attention to impact somebody that he's going to put in front of you today. You've already talked a little bit about renewing our mind and be sure we're thinking the right things. But in terms of day-to-day practices or habits when we're on this journey, are there things we can intentionally do day by day as we're going through the restoring process just to aid ourselves and kind of being in that right frame of mind?

Mary DeMuth:
You know, again, everyone's unique. So for me, it's writing things down and getting them out of me.. And you can do that with conversation too, but I just, I just don't do well with tangled things inside. And so I have to get them out, whether I'm talking to my husband or I'm writing them down. And being willing and open for new relationships. I think we kind of can get stuck in our old relationships and we, we just think, okay, this is my life and these are my relationships. But what if God has someone really cool in mind for you to walk you the next step of this adventurous journey? And we need to have the capacity and desire to let God write that adventure, which means we have to have an openness to what He's going to do. And I have found that He often answers the cry of our heart in really weird, creative ways that we never would have thought of.

Mary DeMuth:
So having that openness of, I don't know how this is going to happen, Lord. I'm really struggling with this one thing. Send me a person. I don't know, they might be, they might not look like what I thought they should look like or be who I thought they should be. But I am willing to accept whatever it is you're going to bring in to help me.

Shaun Tabatt:
Yeah. I found through the years, just having talked to so many authors, I'm always amazed at how God will use our stories, our books in circumstances like that's not at all what we wrote about, or I never thought that this kind of a ministry would adopt that. Yet God can somehow take our openness and our willingness to share and transform people we never would have imagined who'd be touched by our story, by our journey. In terms of like church communities, small groups, maybe even families, like, how would you like to see them put this resource to use? And then how can we have safe spaces for people to heal and tell their stories? Because again, we've all been in that small group, that Bible study, we're like, great, here's Bob, here's Linda. And you just, you know, they unload, they seem like they're the most traumatic people in the world. They have the worst luck and you're just, everybody gets exhausted. So we tend to want to push away people. Who are very needy and have something that they need to share.

Shaun Tabatt:
Like, again, how would you like to see churches and groups use this book? But again, how do we have that open posture where we're, we're not just rejecting people because we find it a little bit annoying that they need something and they're asking us to love them and serve them in that way?

Mary DeMuth:
Yeah, I think that's where the importance of leadership training comes in for small group leaders, because a really good small group leader will know how to direct folks like that and, and outside of the group say, hey, you know, there's other people that have stories, but that story, um, keeps coming up and I want to be able to pray for you about that, but we need to give other people and become curious about other people's stories. So I think that's, you know, just a leadership issue that we can learn how to do. And we can create those safe spaces by going first, by being willing to be vulnerable as leaders. And then in terms of the book being used, at the end of every chapter, there's questions for discussion. So this is a really easy book to use in those kinds of small group settings or even larger group settings that you can ask those questions and have a good interactive talk And in terms of the reader's journey with the book, they walk, they read the whole book.

Shaun Tabatt:
They, they walk through the process, like in your heart, your mind is the author. You meet that person on the street. They tell you how that they've been transformed. Like, what is, what is that thing that lets you know they've caught the message and they, I don't know, they've achieved what you set out for them to achieve?

Mary DeMuth:
I think it's that they may have felt stuck by their story and now they have not, maybe they haven't fully healed because that's a journey, right? But they're beginning to look outward. They're not myopic anymore, just looking internally about the sad state of their story, but they're like, oh my goodness, wait, there's some other people out there that are struggling. And when that happens, that's when you know there's been this very beautiful transformation of self-absorbed to self-giving.

Shaun Tabatt:
And Mary, for the listeners and viewers who want to connect with you, find out about your many books and this resource, where do we discover you on the web?

Mary DeMuth:
Yeah, it's just marydemuth.com, and then my socials are @marydemuth, so you can find me in those places.

Shaun Tabatt:
And we'll make it easy like we do with every episode. We'll have links in the description and the show notes to Mary's website, as well as her social media handles and links to where you can pick up your very own copy of her brand new book. Once again, our guest today was Mary Demuth. Her new book is Restory Your Life: How Jesus Reframes Your Past, Rewrites Your Present, and Redefines Your Future. And Mary, It's always a pleasure and a joy to have you on the show. Thanks again for joining us once more.

Mary DeMuth:
Thank you.