A Leader’s Spiritual Journey Through Faith, Miracles, And Christianity With Candace Mae
When it seems like all hope is lost, we can only pray for a miracle. But what if we don’t recognize it? Maybe that’s the reason a lot of people are wallowing in self-pity or despair. If we could only discover and realize that we receive miracles every day, we could strengthen our faith and believe that God is the ultimate power to guide us to the right path we need to take. Chad Burmeister discusses powerful insights with Candace Mae around Christianity and our belief in God. Candace is a leadership and strategic business consultant, executive coach, and the author of the upcoming book, Heaven Within. In this episode, she dives into having a great relationship with Christ and shares how she copes with difficult situations in her life. She cites instances of an extremely painful process that she went through and how she found Christ amidst all of those. It’s not about the material things anymore. It’s not about having the nicest car or the most expensive bags. Life is about love and Christ.
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A Leader’s Spiritual Journey Through Faith, Miracles, And Christianity With Candace Mae
I'm with an author who is putting out her book and it's the most amazing title I have heard. I'm super excited to talk to Candace Mae about what she is doing with leaders in the world around Christianity and belief in God. Candace Mae from CandaceMae.com, welcome to the show.
Chad, thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Tell us the title of your book before we go further because that sets the tone for the conversation.
The working title is Heaven Within. There will be a subtitle added to that but I'm still working through all the cover's issue.
If you are heaven on Earth, when you get your mind around it and start thinking like, "I can go anywhere I want. I can breathe, talk to people, have sight and touch," it's such an amazing extraordinary thing when you realize that. No matter what happens, it's amazing. It's like a gift.
Especially when you have a relationship with Jesus Christ and he is living in you, there's more of him and less of you. You are giving your ways and thoughts to the Holy Spirit to lead and guide you with love because essentially, God is love. He has put that seed in us as man but it's not activated until we accept Christ. When we accept Christ, that's when the inner transformation begins. God has to work in us before he can work through us. That's what Heaven Within is about. It's about the journey. It's a book for the masses but it focuses on mankind and how our relationship is spiritual first and foremost, and yet, how we were originally designed and then twisted through Satan, the Garden of Eden and the lies that we bought into. We became our own God with a sinful nature, which is Satan's innate nature, a sin as I am.
That becomes the default. If you think about computers and software, there's a default setting that always takes over unless you reprogram it. When that happened in the Garden of Eden, our default mode became sin and there's no way around that. That's a fact. It's the default mode. Only until we accept Christ and his spirit comes in and starts to transform us on the inside that our default mode gets reset and becomes Christ-centered. The power of the lessons of the world is what shapes us. That's how he does the work within us. It's not about what happens to you in the world. It's about how you respond to the events that happen to you.
I went to an arcade with my brother for his birthday. It's games from the '70s and '80s, Tron and Centipede. They were well-played. I went back that many years and knew exactly the moves to make and how to play those games. When you talk about that level of deep programming, that was a perfect example. Like on Tron, I moved all the way to the right and shot to the right. I knew every move. It has been many years and it's embedded to the core unless you can come outside of your body, look down and go, "I need to accept and do things differently." It starts from within like you are saying.
It's important to understand that we are spiritual beings. I grew up thinking that everything is physical and we have our five senses, and that's it. There are spiritual senses that were given to us originally and then the physical part of the curse that came upon us is that we were stuck into the physical realm, and those five senses became the primary dominant. We need to refocus back into those spiritual senses as well. That has been lost over the years within the church. There are some truth and powers that he had given us that the church has not focused on.
The secular world has picked it up and then the church looks at it. It says, "It's evil because the secular has picked it up." The secular picked it up and took out Christ, the core and meaning. Anything designed for good can be used for evil. Satan is here to lie, steal and rob. We have been lied to our whole life. We have been brought into this world and taught lies that we are limited and have no power. All of us deal with shame, guilt and a sense of unworthiness. That's not how God designed us.
To talk more about the next chapters in your life, how did you decide to move through everything? Were you able to witness it to your family at some point and love on them? How did that play out?
That's an ongoing issue. Both of my parents are passed but I remember having numerous conversations with my mother through the years of faith, what that looked like and our relationship with Jesus Christ, whether she accepted Jesus Christ or not to this day, I don't have a solid answer on that. She was active in the church and tried to do the right things. We will find out one day.
That was a good time that she was in the church.
When she passed away, I made it to her. She was in Michigan. I was in California. I flew in while she was in the hospital. My oldest daughter and I have got there but she passed away after we landed before we’ve got to the hospital. When I’ve got to see her, I will never forget the expression on her face. It was disbelief, shock or like, "What am I seeing?" I know she had an encounter and there's more.
That's the thing that people need to understand who read this no matter what you do because you are going to do stupid stuff in your life. On a scale of 1 to 10, to God, a 1 is the same as a 10. It doesn't matter. Sin is sin. Everybody sins and that's why Jesus matters because he takes it all away. He says, “It's okay.”
There's no condemnation for those who love the Lord. Why is that? It's because we put Christ first and focus on submitting our lives to the Holy Spirit. We are not perfect but we are trying. God is transforming us from the inside out. It's amazing how our beliefs and values shift. I know for me, they shifted. I liked pretty and nice things but there was at some point where the things didn't matter anymore. It wasn't about the house, the China, the car, vacation pieces and all of the things. It was about love, the people and Christ. It's more of Christ and less of me.
We had a guy named Dr. Jim Wilder to the firepit one day and he is a neurotheologist. Early in his days, he wasn't a believer. His parents were missionaries. Finally, he tested the Lord and said, "Me and a friend are going to pray every night. We are going to compare notes and decide if we believe." They compared notes every day for 30 days and got the same message. They were like, "Okay."
This is the thing. If we have the spirit living within us, shouldn't we be getting the same message?
This is interesting because you are on the same path. I said, "People are making choices. I started to make a book. How do you make good choices?" I was doing research. I talked to my mom because she was a great decision-maker. She gives me a set and then I talked to my business partner. It was completely different. No matter who you talk to, it's always different. There's no one right answer to say how you make a decision. After years of studying this, he said, "The one you have always heard is, 'What would Jesus and God do?'" That makes sense. It's above my pay grade to make it.
Is it intellectual or spirit-led?
It's spirit-led. The one that hit me in the head was, "How do you optimize for the end of time?"
It's all about the end game.
Faith And Miracles: When you have a relationship with Jesus Christ, and He's living in you, there's more of Him and less of you.
It's all about the end of time. I'm doing these conversations all the time. I'm like, "Even though it's monetarily, it doesn't do anything for me. I don't think, know and care." I'm in the passenger seat. God is driving and I'm like, "You tell me where to go and I'm there." It has been a lot of fun.
Divine appointments are brought to you in such wisdom and joy in the conversation.
We started the conversation in an interesting way. I thank you for sharing that. Everybody faces speed bumps along the way. You had one at a very early age. I assume there's another 1 or 2 through your life. There were a few in 2021 that were big speed bumps. Is there another one you would be comfortable sharing that, "Here's what happened and how I made it to the other side?" Maybe there's somebody out there that's experiencing something similar. What was your way to getting over the mountain or around it?
I will be honest with you. One that was extremely painful that lasted over six years was through a divorce and alienation of my children. It was a tough and extremely painful process. I believe Satan is here to rob and steal, just as Joseph in the Bible was twisted and sold off into slavery. An autonomous wife tried to sexually persuade him and then he wouldn't comply. They put false accusations against him and he was thrown into prison. He went through a lot of tumultuous things but God's grace, mercy and transformation were with him the whole way. He was preparing him for greater work. He became a very powerful ruler in Egypt that could protect his family and provide in a way that he would never have before.
That's how I’ve got through those years. It was so much difficulty. I had to seek out a stronger message and center myself on Christ. I had to say, "If I lose my family and home, where's my center? Christ is my center. This is my strong fold as long as I'm focusing on Christ and what he is teaching me through this process. If I can stay true to my faith and hold my identity of who I am in Christ, it doesn't matter what false accusation comes against me. I know the truth in God will work in that."
Gary VanDyke is the Founder of Food For Orphans and he shared a similar story. After twenty years of marriage, his wife comes, "I'm moving in with the boyfriend," and takes the five kids with him. He went to see a psychologist and the psychologist said, "It's as if they all died in a car accident because it's that level of trauma." It's the positive impact that he has had on the world. As a result, he was like, "That happened to me for a reason." His reason was now he has fed nine million meals to people in sixteen different countries over the years.
Now, he is retiring from that, handing it over to his son-in-law and we want to help him. We were like, "I'm throwing a lot of time and my other company does a bunch of cool stuff for outreach." He was like, "Chad, I want to make sure you are doing some things here. Is there any payment required?" "No, there's nothing required. You have already done your part. Now, it's time to let other people help you to take it to the next level."
That's the story and the Hero's Journey. We all have a hero's journey. It's coming into this world, the challenges we have faced, where that big abyss and huge thing are that we have to get over and what the solution and elixir are that we can bring back to others to share and give them hope. It takes hope, faith, love to get through this life, have a strong relationship in Christ and let the spirit move. God forbid, I went through all that pain for nothing. If I can share my stories, the hope and guidance that God provided for me that could help others get through, it would be all worth it.
Let's talk a little bit about CandaceMae.com. Why do you like to work with leaders and teams? What do you do when you go into a company and help them?
Leaders are people but leaders have a stronger sense of influence at a higher level. Parents have a strong impact on their children. They need to lead with love. Supervisors, managers and chief executive officers need to lead with love. Too many times, you walk into a workplace and it's toxic. People leave bad bosses. They don't leave companies. We need to bring in compassion, empathy and love. It's okay to use the word love in the workplace. We think we can't do that, "We can't talk about love in the workplace."
What is love? It's not the twisted things that Satan has brought us to believe of lust and all of those feel your sensations and whatever you want. Love is about truth, knowledge and taking action. It's not what feels good, let it flow and, "I'm angry. I'm going to let it burst out." Love is peace, joy, self-confidence, self-control, goodness and all of those things in Corinthians that talks about. The fruit of the spirit is the element of love. That's what we need in the workplace.
I went to this pallet company in town. C12 is a Christian organization. I went in and checked it out one time. They had a meeting at L&R Pallet and it was awesome. They have a bunch of people building pallets. They used to work with immigrants to the country but then they shifted to people who were transitioning from prisons back out into the world. These are people from twenty different countries with all different languages. He has Christ, God, Bible verses and prayer time. He does it in a way that's not, "You have to believe what I believe. Get out of here."
They were interviewed and were like, "I don't know if I believe this." He was like, "Perfect, then you are welcome here." He does it in a way that's awesome and just the right way. When I did go to one of those C12s, they gave me a handbook. What's possible inside of companies about religion is way more open than you would think it is. You've got to check the box and make sure to do it in an appropriate way, that you are following HR guidelines in the wall but a lot of people think, "That would be inappropriate." It's not.
It doesn't have to be. The marketplace is the world's largest mission field if you think about it. Everybody has to go to work, make a living, be fed and feed their children. If you have a relationship with Jesus Christ and the spirit is transforming from the inside, it's about you embodying love and putting love into action. It's not meeting people where they are. It's about having empathy. You don't have to preach religion. It's not about religion. It's about relationship, connection and giving Christ glory as preeminence.
That's the end game. They have it on Earth as it is in heaven. How does that happen? It happens when we go within, develop and change. We say, "It's less of me and my fleshly sin nature. I'm going to choose more of the spirit-led choices." How do you make a strong decision? You submit yourself to the Holy Spirit, ask for wisdom, guidance and weigh those out against the principles of the Bible. The Lord spirit will speak to you.
Have you ever seen the show "O" Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas?
Maybe not the "O" but I have seen several Cirque du Soleils. I love them.
I have seen "O" twelve times and it's just as good every time. They change it up a little bit every so often. I love it because there's a kid in the audience who gets pissed. It turns out he is part of the cast. They take him up to a 100-foot-tall thing and he jumps into the water. He goes around life and meets all these people, really tall, wide and colorful. He takes it all in. He was amazed at the creation. To me, that's living your life when you meet people with different stuff.
Going into Costco, there was a guy with two backpacks on. My wife was with me and I said, "What do you think of that guy? What's going on with him?" She went, "He is on a mission. I don't think he is your normal homeless person. I think he is on somewhere." I was like, "Okay." I was getting that that person was a person. A lot of times, when you take the minute to talk to someone, lean into them and show them the whites of your eyes, they are like, "Wow." You can impact someone like that.
Robert White, one of their top trainers, if not the top trainer, did an exercise one time and said, "Let's go out, talk to people and have a conversation." They brought a guy back to their mindset workshop. His name was Art and he was living under a bridge. He became part of the transformation exercise and ended up becoming one of the top trainers there. Art got there somehow and he didn't belong there forever. Now, that story will live on forever in the book called Living an Extraordinary Life. Like "O", everybody you uncover if you can show.
Everybody is extraordinary and has that beautiful piece in them. It's just a matter if they can tune into the spiritual piece and the relationship with Christ for that original design to become the default. When you think about how desensitized we have become to homeless people and people that are not normal, we don't want to see, look at and make eye contact with them so we can show them the whites of our eyes. They go, "Do you recognize me?"
This is one of the things that I have seen and observed as a white person. It was always, "I'm colorblind. I don't see anybody." If you speak to someone of color, they would say, "You need to see my color. I want you to see my color." You would go, "Why? I'm just saying you are a person and we are all the same. I'm not going to differentiate you." They say, "If you can't acknowledge that my color is different than yours, then you do not see who I am."
Faith And Miracles: When we put Christ first, we focus on submitting our lives to the Holy Spirit. We're not perfect, but we're trying, and God is transforming us from the inside out.
"I'm special. Treat me as special, unique and 1 of 1."
"Acknowledge the unique characteristics that I have that may be different than yours. Don't pretend they don't exist." That was eye-opening because sometimes people think being colorblind is a good thing but when they stopped to realize a different perspective, it's powerful. I want to show you something. This is one of the training pieces I use. When you are looking at this ball that I'm holding here, what do you see? It's the beach ball. What colors are you seeing?
Yellow and white.
I don't see yellow and white. If you were to talk to me about what you are seeing is yellow and white, I would tell you, you are wrong. There's no yellow at all. What I see are blue, white and red. There's not until we turn the ball five ways that we can see all of the perspectives that are there. You were right. It is yellow and white but it's also red, white and blue.
Everybody is right. It's a 360 view.
We need to take that empathy, compassion and acknowledge that you see something different than I do. I don't have to tell you that you are a liar and you don't exist or that's wrong. I can say, "That's an interesting perspective. That's not what I see but that doesn't mean you are wrong." This happens in families. We get into hurtful situations and stop talking to each other or in the office place. Teams have conflicts in personality challenges because they are thinking, "It's my way or the highway. I don't get you. You are not making sense. We do not see eye to eye." Shift the ball and see that they are right.
As a mother, I had experiences that were extremely painful to me through those years of divorce and alienation. My children had experienced this too. They were different experiences from my experience. They were a child. They were controlled and didn't have the power to handle certain things. I was put under a microscope. There were things that I wanted to raise my children and teach them that were taken away from me and put constraints on me. How do I embrace those and get through?
When we talk, it had to come to a point where we could say, "Your perspectives are valid. I'm sorry you went through that. It's difficult." Their father has passed away as well. There's complicated grief and all those things to work through. Perspective is essential that we give people permission to have their feelings, experiences and validate them. We don't have to agree with them. We just have to acknowledge, "That was your perspective of what you went through."
I had someone on the show that spent nine years in seminary. In 2008, he wasn't able to go exercise that skill. For a decade, he did something that he didn't want to do. It's an accounting or something like that. When we were talking, we were coming out with this app called 77Pray. It helps people connect and communicate with God on a daily basis. It takes a couple of minutes a day. You pray in the morning, read a Bible verse that randomly pulls in through the app and pray at night. It's very basic and simple, and then shares it in the middle of the day. At noon, you will get a little pop-up and it says, "Share this because God tells you to share it." Traditionally, maybe your skill is not to be on the corner and say, "Come to Jesus."
It's passing out tracts and holding up signs.
They can text or post on Facebook what they believe. We believe this app is going to grow pretty rapidly and help. We talked to someone in Zimbabwe that said, "I'm going to pass it out to my three churches in Africa." I was like, "This is going to be amazing." My question is this, “Connection with God or research and reading the Bible, what's most important? Is it ABC, all of it is important? What's first, connect to God through prayer or study about the Bible?” What's your perspective on that subject?
I'm seeing, "Is it the chicken or the egg that comes first?" The Holy Spirit can find us. The Holy Spirit is the one that gives us faith and empowers us with love to reset that default mode. Prayer is essential and I learned it early as a young girl. I found a book in a bookstore called The Practice of the Presence of God. I read that and it made such a strong impact on me. It's about connecting with Jesus and the Holy Spirit as if it's a person and having conversations throughout the day.
Prayer doesn't have to be just on your knees with petitions and confessions. It can be an ongoing conversation all day long. That's how I have my relationship with Christ. I'm talking with him all day. Christ owns my business. I'm a Chief Executive Officer of Jesus Christ. He is first and foremost. I'm not working for myself. I'm working for God so he is impacting. For me, prayer is about participation with the Holy Spirit all day long. It's practicing the presence and having the conscious awareness that I'm not alone ever and Christ is always with me.
When I have those moments of doubt or anxiety that come in, I know that's an attack and my sinful nature wanting to take over. I just have to spend the time connecting, reassuring myself, picking up the Bible, grounding myself in the word and holding onto the promises that God gives us in the Bible because those promises are there. He says, "Hide my word in your heart so that when you hit these times, this life will bring you pain." It's guaranteed.
We are not told to be a Christian, have a relationship with God and it's smooth sailing. God uses the circumstances in life to shape us and show his miracles. It's those difficult situations where the light shines brightest. If you are in a room full of light and you turn on the light, you don't notice the light so much but when it's pitch-black, hopeless and you turn on the light, it shines so bright to show the way.
We talked about it at the beginning of the conversation is that when it gets darker, the world seems to be on a track towards that. Sometimes, I think a lot of that is what my grandparents thought, too and they were right.
They were right because it's getting darker and more evil. It's a trajectory.
The default switch has gotten so sophisticated. The delivery mechanism through media, Facebook and Google when you search is so deeply embedded in people's brains. When you can feel it in your own home, family and with your friends, you go, "How is that possible?" You have to take stock of your inventory sometimes too and make sure your default is not trying to pull you in the wrong direction. That to me is why it's understanding the Bible because all of this has been seen 2,000 years ago and through the history of time. We can learn from all of those other people's lessons that they learned years ago.
Isn't that what the Bible is all about? It's the most popular book sold but it's the least read. It has got so many stories. If you want romance stories, you will find them in the Bible. It's not just about the Ten Commandments and the law that took place. There are murders, mystery, romance and horrible stories but it's always about how to navigate those challenges and difficulties of life in the hope that God comes in, meets you in those painful moments and brings you out on top to overcome.
If you think of Marvel and the superhero movies that are being pulled back out of the archives, how cool would it be to have a Hollywood producer go deep with each of the characters just like a Marvel character?
They can do that. We've got some Christian authors here that are reading. That's an idea.
There was a book I read. Deb Brown Maher wrote a book called Sell Like Jesus. We were thinking of writing a book called God-Centered Selling and then we met Deb. We were like, "You already wrote the book. That's perfect." She told us about another book called The Seven Mountain Prophecy. It's such an interesting read because these two people have the same prophecy that came to them. It was about the seven mountains, education, the news media and entertainment.
Faith And Miracles: Everyone’s perspectives are valid. We must give people permission to have their feelings and experiences. We don't have to agree with them, but we have to acknowledge what they went through.
Some people call those the seven mountains. I call them the seven influences but I have added an eight one. It's not me but I think an eighth one is powerful and that is healthcare. If you go to my website, CandaceMae.com, you will find on my About page a whole section about what you are talking about. The eight influences of the city are the same seven mountains.
You can see it playing out. What's neat is I was at a conference and a woman said, "God talked to me recently. I had a really good job. All of a sudden, I had to quit." I went to the church and I was like, "Let's pray." She said, "The pastor came up to me about 100 people with an altar call. He put his hands on my shoulder and said, 'You need to go take the mountain of education.'" She talked about it at this event. It was an ordained thing that she was connected to go do this. Those are the things where to your point, "Look out because the light is bright. When it gets darker, the light is going to be bright and shiny." My last question, we have already touched on it but I will ask it anyway and that is about faith. What role does faith play in your journey?
Faith is my journey. I studied the fruit of the spirit for many years to understand. Coming from that childhood background that I did, there wasn't love demonstrated in our home. I had to understand, "What is goodness? What are joy and peace? What do they mean? What do they look like? What does it mean to respect somebody? Can I have a conversation with them and disagree?" I can tell you what that all means now. That's why I teach and lead leaders because, when we want to make a warm and welcoming environment in the workplace, we have to know what that means, what that looks like and how we embrace each other.
I used to be amazed at that scripture, "What is faith, hope and love?" In the worldly terms of love, we love pizza, dogs and flowers but that's not the same love. In Greek, there are different verbs and terms that are used for different types of love. It's a powerful process. Faith is my life and everything. I have come to a new appreciation when they say less of me and more Christ. On December 9th, 2020, I woke up at 3:00 in the morning, working hard on things I had going on. I had a group I met with at 5:45 in the morning over Zoom. About 6:30, I said, "I'm tired. I need to go take a nap."
I had meetings starting back-to-back at 8:00 or 9:00. I went to bed and about 30 minutes later, I heard a very strong voice that says, "Get up." I couldn't get up and get the covers off me. I was laying there. Have you ever been in bed with your eyes closed and you are trying to get up? I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get up. I said, "What's going on?" I realized my right side wasn't working. I had to literally force my left side to get the covers off. I had my phone next to my bed. The bottom line is I ended up with a stroke and I was going to go back to bed.
I went into the bathroom and called my oldest daughter who is a nurse. I didn't realize what kind of nurse she was. She had worked with stroke victims but I called her. I’ve got her voice message and said, "Something is wrong. I think maybe I'm having a stroke. I don't know." All these sensations started coming through my head and body. I said, "Maybe I was okay and something fell asleep. I'm going to go back to bed. Call me a couple of hours because something is wrong." Had I gone back to bed, I would be dead or total involute at this point. I’ve got up to take a step back to bed. It was like an angel pushed me over. I fell flat onto the tub. I broke three ribs and my lungs collapsed. I was stuck in the bathtub with my arm behind the tub, sitting on the floor and realizing I couldn't move. I was like, "You have had a stroke, Candace. You can't move."
I wiggled my way out of that and laid on the floor. I couldn't call 911. My fingers weren't working and I couldn't stay open. I had a speed dial, which was wonderful. It was the only way I was able to make a call because I could push pictures. I called my oldest daughter back and said, "I had a stroke. I'm on the bathroom floor. I can't move and hit the tub. I think I broke my ribs." Thank God it was my right side that the ribs were broken because there was numbing there and I couldn't feel the intensity of the pain but I was having difficulty breathing because my lungs had collapsed. I called my second daughter and got her voicemail and then I called my son and got his voicemail. I laid on the floor and said, "Lord, I don't know what's going on here."
I was in a two-week silent meditation where I was going very deep with the Lord. I have been working through Jesus Christ Institute, diving deep into the meat of the Bible, my faith and what it means for God to own my business. Three days prior, I had written a personal covenant with the Lord. I said, "Lord, why would you have me sign this covenant with you three days ago? Why didn't you call me to sell my home, stop my corporate career and open up a business to lead others? Now what? Am I done if I have to be able to speak, walk, function and integrate? If you want me to do this, I thought I heard that I was on your path. Did I hear wrong? If I heard wrong and this is the end of my life, then that's fine." As if I had any control, I didn't have any control. It's going to be what it's going to be.
I said, "I will submit. Take me if that's your will. If it's not your will, Lord, you are going to have to provide somebody to contact me because I can't move and get help." If this is truly a stroke, there's only a small window of time where you can get help. I laid there and decided to pray that the Holy Spirit would begin to work in me, heal me and that his angels would come, protect me and start working. I claimed the power through Jesus Christ and his stripes on the cross that I was healed and God would do a mighty work and then laid there. I said, "Whatever it's going to be is going to be." He said, "Try again." I picked up my phone and went to the speed dial. I saw my son-in-law Tim at the top. I pushed the button and he answered. He was in the Navy and was working but he answered the phone.
I explained to him, "I'm on the floor. It appears I have had a stroke. I can't move. I think I broke my ribs. I'm having a hard time breathing. Can you get me some help?" He did. The paramedics and the firemen showed up at my door. I had moved into an apartment complex and called the office the day before. I had it where I could just push the button, reset the dial and get a hold of the complex. I said, "You are going to have to have somebody come open the door." The doorbell rang and I was lying there. I can't open the door and move. Eventually, they opened the door. These men came in, put me on a sling tarp and pulled me out. They had to helicopter me from Wildomar to San Diego for a TPA and surgery. I went totally flat on the helicopter ride over and my whole right side was completely down.
We walked into the operating room and the doctor said, "Do you have how much time to the anesthesiologist?" He said, "Thirty minutes." He said, "We don't have 30 minutes. We’ve got to go in." There they were. You can hear everything. You are wide awake. They put the divider up so you can't see what's going on. I hear them say, "We can't get through. There are two blood clots in the center of her communication in her brain. We can't get through because her ICA on her left side is over 99% blocked. It's a miracle any blood flow is getting through it all." I have to be put in a stent. They were putting in a stent and then he said, "We have to wait five minutes to see if it's going to hold," before I can get through. I hear them say, "It's not holding. We are going through and there are two blood clots."
I can feel pain in my head and the lights are flashing in my eyes and brain. I said, "Those are angels working with them." That's how I was dealing with this and getting through. The next thing I know, the surgeon flies up to my head and says, "Can you move your arm?" "I could." He goes, "Can you move your leg?" "I could." He was so ecstatic. Shortly after that, the pain of the broken ribs took over and it was so crazily intense but it was God's miracle. The doctors came in consistently. They told my daughter when I was on the helicopter ride over, "There's no room for your mom." We were in the middle of COVID and nobody was able to go into the hospitals. People were left in the hallways. She was saying, "When your mom gets out of surgery, there's no room."
They did find a room. They had somebody to leave. I’ve got a room with a clean ICU. My daughter is a neuro nurse. She deals with people who were stroke victims in recovery. What a blessing because she was allowed to be in that ICU unit every day. She was by my side as my advocate. They would come in and do all the checks, "Hold your arms out. You are drifting. Your tongue is crooked." I would start praying. They would come in every few hours and say, "You are a miracle." I was increasing my ability. It was amazing. When I couldn't write, I had started to write and it would go down to nothing.
I started practicing writing and praying the whole time. My daughter said, "Mom, you are so pleasant for a patient. Some people are mean. They say you are a miracle. You don't seem to be acknowledging that or understanding what they are saying. People who have a stroke at the level that you did are invalids. They don't recover or recover very slowly over many months. You are increasing by the hour." It was my spirit fully, which was another confirmation for me that he wants me to do this business and wants me here.
Thank you so much for sharing that.
Faith is everything. That was the question.
If you didn't get that readers, then you miss the point. When you submit, you say, "Even if you are so far away and you are on the other side of planet Earth from disbelief, give it an ounce of try and say, 'What could it hurt you?'" I once had a guy call me and goes, "I saw one of your posts online. Could we talk?" I talked to him and he told me about stuff with his family. They were about to get kicked out of their house. I said, "Pray this, twenty days in a row, 'Your will be done at night.' You don't have to get fancy but really mean it. Give the possibility that there could be something bigger out there."
He called me and he was like, "Chad, can I sell to you? I have a team of two people now that everything is good." It changed his life and opened the book. Meaning it's that communication path. Ask for help and it's amazing. I thank you for sharing. I'm positive that this will have an impact on somebody reading now and in the future. Thank you so much for being here. Your book comes out. It's called Heaven Within. When can I buy it?
In a few months, it should be done. The editor or publisher and I are working on that actively.
Visit CandaceMae.com. If you think you have been through a lot in your life, read this again. Jesus saves. God is good. When you believe, miracles happen. Candace Mae is a miracle and an example to all of us. Thank you, Candace.
Here's another thing. They can go to Go.CandaceMae.com and that will take them to an interactive page where they can learn more. That will be changing when my book comes out. That's where they will find the information for that as well.
Thanks for joining the show.
God bless you all.
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About Candace Mae
Candace Mae is a leadership and strategic business consultant. She trains executives and entrepreneurs with tools needed for positive organizational change.
Her process develops leadership teams that result in sustainable employee engagement and effective business operations. Training includes leadership with value-centric ethics, focusing on employee strengths, positive team engagement principles, and management systems that build strong business growth foundations.
Candace Mae holds a bachelor’s degree from California Baptist University and a master’s degree from the University of Redlands. She is a licensed affiliate and Executive Director with The John Maxwell Team and is a Certified Communication and Behavior Consultant. As an executive director with John Maxwell Leadership Coaching Team, she facilitates authentic leadership by developing her client’s communication style, instilling the importance of engagement, and improving operational analysis with the goal of sustainable, effective management techniques and processes.
Candace Mae brings over 20-years in information technology systems and project management. She coaches her clients in developing cross-functional teams and undergoing organizational change.
Whether you are looking for executive coaching for yourself or your senior leadership team, operational S.W.O.T. analysis, guidance in project management, a facilitator for vision retreats, corporate leadership training, speaking, sales, or coaching skills for your leaders, she gets results. Her exclusive content is only available through Candace Mae. Services assist you and your team reach your goals and objectives.
Her comprehensive approach builds high-performance business teams led by positive, engaging leaders. She believes, “Improve your people and processes and watch your profits grow!” is the future of successful organizations.
