Finding Joy In Pain: Overcoming Adversity Through Faith With Mischelle Saunders-Gottsch
Pain and suffering are constants in our world. But there is a way to overcome such adversities in life: through faith. In this episode, Mischelle Saunders-Gottsch joins Chad Burmeister to share her own story of conquering the challenges life has thrown her way and how that led her to her mission. She is the CEO and Founder of Altered Stories Ministry, a faith-based evangelistic storytelling ministry that helps women share their God stories to reach and inspire other women across the globe. Mischelle opens up about her traumatic childhood and the many ways it propelled her to pursue a God-centered life despite facing abuse in a Christian cult. She also shares how a shift in perspective taught her to see joy in any circumstance.
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Finding Joy In Pain: Overcoming Adversity Through Faith With Mischelle Saunders-Gottsch
I’m so excited because I have someone on the show who is not only originally from the Colorado Springs area and in Colorado where I am. She’s now in Overland Park, Kansas but she too is following the tug of God. God seems to have her ear. For the last few years, she has run a business called Altered Stories Ministries. I’m going to ask her to tell us what that’s all about. Mischelle, it’s great to have you on the show. Thanks for being here.
Thank you for the opportunity. It’s an honor to be here and be able to take this opportunity to share. Altered Stories Ministry is a faith-based women’s evangelistic storytelling ministry that’s located in the Overland Park, Kansas area. Our mission is to help Christian women share their God stories so women around the world can hear them. We are very focused on transformation and that is how we push the stories out that we share, whether it’s through the global podcast platform that we have out there. You can listen to all of the 56 stories that I’ve shared on the various podcast platforms where we can be listened to. We’re on Pray.com, which is the number one prayer app. We are on Google, Apple, Podchaser, Pandora and AmazonSmile.
On our website, www.AlteredStories.org, is where all of our podcasts are housed to. In addition, Libsyn host us and we’ve been out there. We’re on Eternity Ready Radio. You can listen to our show every Tuesday from 7:00 to 8:00. The ministry is growing, flourishing and God is good. We are grateful to all the listeners and those women who are so courageous in coming on the show and sharing their God’s stories so other women can hear them. We are making a difference in the lives, women who listen to the stories and there’s a lot of transformation that we’re finding is taking place in the lives of the women who are hearing the stories that are based on various circumstances and situations where God’s come in and make a huge change.
The purpose of the episode is to help expose your story a little bit. I’m sure you’ve told that over time but it’s always fun to play the other side of the table from time to time. I did visit your site. I will point out the very top Bible verse of the day says, “Love your enemies, do good and lend hoping for nothing in return and your reward will be great. You will be sons of the most high for he is kind to the unthankful and evil.” That’s one of those that I mentioned to you that I had been persecuted under one of these news stories that came out and put out a bunch of fake information.
My immediate reaction from God was, “That’s okay, forgive them. They know not what they do.” When your enemy want to come after you and try to take you down, turning that and approaching them with love is a very hard thing to do, having gone through that for a quarter. The contempt that I felt for my enemies was 0 out of 10. It was illuminated that they’re waking up. They’re doing what they know how to do. They’re in the position they’re in because of the upbringing they had. We all have our own personal stories. Leaning in with love is super important.
I’m so grateful that scripture could minister to you and even others who are feeling attacked in going through difficult things as a result of stepping out and being faithful to the calling God has.
It’s amazing how everything lines up when you put one foot in front of the other and recognize that we all are our individual fingerprint. I’ve got a poster on my wall and it’s a fingerprint with Bible verses on it. It’s made out of Bible verses. It reminds me every day when I go into the office, “Live your individualism.” That’s what I want to start to get into with you, Mischelle, is let’s go back. Thinking for some of your first memories, 5, 6, 7 or 8, what was your passion when you were very young? For most people, those are the first ages of life where you have your first memories. What can you remember? What were you passionate about then?
I spent some time reflecting on it. I was very much into Sunday school at that age in my life. I was attending a church with my mom. My dad was in the Air Force and had been deployed over to Vietnam. I was being raised at that time with my mom and my brother in Rhode Island. We were attending a Missionary Alliance Church. I loved the Bible and learning scriptures. I read at a very young age, at five. The things that I remember back then were around going to Sunday school, being with my class, my teacher and going to school. I skipped kindergarten and went into first grade.
I can tell you, one of the things that I enjoyed was being a leader in the classroom or opportunities where I was able to step into a leading role or being in charge. I remember when my teacher in first grade said, “Would you be willing to be the substitute. You’d rotate?” I said, “Sure, I would do that.” I thought it was all that walking around at that age, even though I know she probably was not being gone very long, and I’m sure that she was very careful and cautious about appointing a young student over others. I do remember being very passionate about having the opportunity to lead, be in charge or be influential in the areas that I was able to do.
Nowadays, many people are logging into social media, so the thoughts in their minds are not biblical. Many years before this generation faced similar trials. There are people on planet Earth that do things that they do. The biblical stories have lived on for thousands of years and give us glimpses into what’s right and wrong, up and down, left and right. You had all that. It’s awesome. Going forward to your career now, you’re obviously leading people in this area you were focused on the family in Colorado Springs at one point and did some work with them too?
I did. It was a short stint but enough to learn a lot about broadcasting and podcasting, believe it or not.
How’s the thread if you look at your life from then to now? What’s always interesting to me is that people who are enjoying what they’re doing now line up to what they enjoyed when they were younger. You’re the same person you were when you were six that you are when you’re older. What in those two things line up for you?
Overcoming Adversity: Remember that God loves you, and He never purposes to have you go through suffering. It is, unfortunately, people's decisions and choices that affect other people.
My connection in helping others and raising standards, quality and all of those things from back then and being interested in the word of God, who Jesus was. I’m very passionate about scripture memorization and understanding leaned and served me well into what God has me doing and has had me doing even through the years when I was in women’s ministry, volunteering on a board for a women’s retreat ministry and connections. The whole storytelling component and making connections with women and helping them share stories, giving them a voice and listening to who they are and caring. All of that has made a huge difference. The faith component in what I’m doing and how relevant that is in everything that I’m doing in the Altered Stories Ministry role as the CEO, Founder and Chief Storyteller of the show. I know God intended it and it’s definitely been worth foretold.
My next question is around everybody faces challenges in life. I heard a sermon by Elevation Church. We lived in North Carolina for a while. Pastor Steven Furtick talked about how to God, the challenges we face are small. I liken them to speed bumps in the road or to God they’re not even bumps they’re just how things happen. To us at the time, they look like the biggest mountain peak you have to climb in the dead of winter with no shoes on. “How dare you give me this challenge?” Yet to God it’s little. What was that big challenge for you and what did it take for you to overcome it?
My altered story’s been out there for a while and I have shared it numerous times. The biggest challenge as I reflect is having been a childhood cult survivor and coming out of a situation where I had encountered pastoral abuse. That came through the cult that my mom immersed herself into and brought us through as kids, trying to shake that and come out of that on the other side without being scathe on Christianity for the rest of my life and moving into a total atheistic perspective. Because of my experience with the chaos, abuse, dysfunction, control and oppression that went on from the time I was seven up until my mom made a conscientious choice to leave and move forward out of that situation when I was around thirteen. There were six difficult years in my family’s life that broke our family apart. Coming out of that and still being able to heal in a healthy way to be able to then not bring in my bias on Christianity totally. Not all Christians operate the way that these Christians did and this leader did in this cult.
Talk about a peak to overcome or go around or figure out, “That’s it.” For people reading, my son was in a burn accident. He’s fine now but it was bad. 2nd and 3rd degree burn, face and hands. It was like, “What’s going to happen?” We turned to faith immediately. That night I posted on LinkedIn, “Please pray for my son,” and there were people praying all over the world. For me, my faith in whatever it is I’m going through was what I could lean on. I could see how, at the time, when your faith is shaken or could be shaken, your knee-jerk reaction might not be, “Let me turn to God,” because you’re curious and questioning, “Is God even in the middle of all of this? How is this possible?”
I’ve thought of this before when bad things happen, “Why?” I’ll even be driving in the car, a grandparent passes or stuff in life. What would be your counsel or guidance for someone who’s going, “God, you turned your back on me. What is going on here?” How’d you get through those years? What would you recommend to others going through something that’s painful to them at the moment?
First and foremost, I want to say that God is a good God. Unfortunately, people are inherently evil without God. Sometimes people due to the fall have challenges and are broken. Broken people hurt people. Remember that God loves you and that God never purposes to have you go through suffering. It’s not his intention. It is unfortunately people’s decisions and choices that affect other people. Even in the midst of that suffering and what I went through, I endured the humiliation, ridicule, abuse, difficulty, challenge, I know God has this way of still being able to guide you to other successes or wins to show you that you matter in different ways. Definitely with me, he gave me a lot of gifting and success outside of what I was enduring, other areas and encouragement to help me go when I was going through the difficult times.
Even though I didn’t know at that time how and understand because I was younger. At least, there was an outlet, something else that I could strive for and be successful in. You have to look for the best in the situation and the circumstances, no matter what. There are people that are out there that care and want to help you. You got to find support and people that you trust that will guide you where you need guiding or help you. God does work through people in helping us as we go through difficult situations. My experience was counselors came in, other people that God used my teachers, people that were trustworthy to listen into, pray for me and help me. I believe that is the God we serve and that is how God sometimes operates. He might not lift you out of the circumstance because it’s something imposed on you that you don’t have a lot of control over, but he will give you that sustainability, strength or someone to come alongside you that has compassion or caring to show you that there’s hope. I hope that helps.
To summarize, phone a friend is something. Find a mentor or someone that you can talk to would be a good piece of advice. A friend of mine, John Guydon, played for C Buffs. I met him a couple of years ago and he’s a motivational speaker. His thing that rings true for me is something that says, “Yabba dabba doo,” like in the Flintstones. It’s “Yeah but you don’t understand. This is hard and painful. Yeah, but you don’t understand my mom’s involved. Yeah, but you don’t understand my pastor is involved.” All these, “Yeah buts,” and then he goes, “Yeah but do,” and if you take the first step of the do, the do could be, “Read a chapter in your Bible every day. Go to church on Sunday.” In this world, go find an app, Pray.com. We’re putting out an app called 77Pray.com but yabba dabba doo. Don’t sit and wait. You have to move forward and pursue life.
That’s a great simplistic way of being able to move ahead. I’d love that.
I was on this podcast called Joyely. This woman who started it brings around this big, huge chair to different states and has people sit in the chair, ask them questions and has them go through moments of joy in their life and connect the dots on, “Tell me about a time you were joyous.” There was another doctor who was in the room later that into the day and it’s called Joy Stacking. A lot of times, we chase the painful memories or we read a news article and then we talk to someone about it. It’s negative chasing. Whereas if you think about, “I was happy when my son and daughter were born and the day I was married.” If you can think about those 2 or 3 situations, it’s amazing how your brain will start to rewire. The 80,000 thoughts you have a day will start to become instead of half negative, you can get that negative piece down to sub 10,000 or even less than that by thinking about positive things as well.
Our pastor was talking in series of joy from the Bible in the Book of Philippians, how Paul ministers to others around being joyful and how we should approach joy in our circumstances. That’s a great way of bringing a different perspective into circumstances that we seem to all encounter and struggle in and how we approach the situation without “Why me, God?” But, “How can I grow through this? What can I learn through this? How can I bless others through this situation?” It takes the perspective of you and puts it out there in a whole different way. That is a very healthy way of approaching that.
They talked about happiness can be fleeting. “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.” Seeking joy is a different thing than seeking happiness. I hadn’t put those two things on a scale and tried to compare them before but it was interesting that she pursued happiness all her life. That’s what she was told to do as a young child. When she discovered that joy resonates at a much higher frequency, being joyful, it does. Her advice is, “Try to do that three times a day for a minute each or on your calendar. Maybe it’s first thing in the morning, noon and night.” It’s amazing to see because I’ve done it. Any level of stress like we have to move the show. Traditionally I would be like, “This is terrible,” but I’m like, “Everything happens for a reason. Let’s let the pieces fall where it’s supposed to fall.”
You chose to walk in joy over it.
Overcoming Adversity: He might not lift you out of the circumstance because it's something imposed on you that you don't have control over, but He will give you that sustainability or that strength, someone to come alongside you that has a compassion to show you that there's hope.
Normally I would ask the question, “How did that challenge that you face become a gift later in life?” I’ll ask a point-blank question. Does Altered Stories Ministry exist without you going through those trials and situations? You may or may not be able to answer yes or no to that but I’ll bet you have a good idea.
Altered Stories exist because I went through those trials and tribulations. That’s the way that God used it for his glory and story. I don’t think I’d have a story that would be as profound or would encapsulate why I’m doing what I’m doing. God definitely changed me through the circumstances I went through. That’s what brought me to why I wanted to launch a ministry around storytelling because the story inside of me that I needed to share and how important it was. When I saw, after I shared my story, transparently, how God worked through it, blessed others and helped me heal through it.
I started to tell you the story of my son. When he asked the day after the burn accident, we’re at the hospital. He was in for three weeks and had surgery. The nurse would ask, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how much pain are you in right now?” He’s an engineer. He’s like, “Compared to what? I don’t know. What’s a 10 and a 1? A three.” He was in pain. To you or me, it would be a 7, 8 or 9. They’re like, “No problem, no meds. You’re under a five.” He goes, “If you’re telling me that it has to be a five or higher then now it changes it. I’m a 7 or an 8.”
I talked to a Marine who came to my house during those times. He was here to listen and talk. I said, “What’s the most amount of pain you’d been in?” He said, “I’ve been shot, stabbed and blown up. The worst pain is a kidney stone.” I’ve heard having a baby and a kidney stone are two peas in a pod. My point of that is there’s only a scale of 1 to 10. There’s no 15. A lot of times, no matter what it is, you went through a ten in my view. Somebody else could have gone through something that feels to them like a ten. It’s whatever weight that we’re carrying in life could be a 1 to me or 10 to someone else. It’s hard to compare.
It’s all relative to each person and what they are experiencing. Pain is pain and suffering is suffering. Everyone has to deal with it and endure it in this life because of the way that the world is in terms of brokenness. That’s why Jesus died on the cross, was resurrected and brought hope to those of us that fully trust that he paid the full price in our lives and are serving him to give us that hope. Jesus knows he suffered rejection terribly before he went on the cross and was crucified. He was all the time being challenged and persecuted and he understood.
That is what’s so important to others to know is that Jesus understands your suffering and what you’re going through. He’s so for us. I know it’s hard because there are things that transpire in our lives. Unfortunately, those things do happen like your son, a horrible thing your son had to go through and those scars, they’ll heal. There’s emotional and physical. It’s unfortunate but thank God you have a lot of people that are around you and him. He’s getting the best care. He’ll be able to use that for a different purpose in his mind.
It would part of his long-term story and mine as the father. Like I asked you the question, “Does Altered Stories Ministry exist without your trials and tribulations?” The answer is no. Does 77Pray exist without what happened with my son? No. It’s going to be a simple app. When you wake up in the morning, you check a box, “Did I pray this morning?” A lot of people either choose to pray at night or in the morning. We think you should bookend it. If you open with prayer and close with prayer, that’s a good thing. You read a quick Bible verse like Pray.com. You click the box. I did that for the day. You act according to what the message is that you get. The holy spirit talks to you if you open up your ears and listen.
By doing those simple three things, pray, read a Bible verse and act, imagine what happens when you do that for 21 days in a row and now it becomes a habit. I’ve been doing the beta test of it. At day 18 or 19, I’m not using the app anymore but I’m doing all three of those things every single day. Without that situation as hard as it was and the difficulty we faced now we’re creating an app that’s going to hopefully change other people’s lives and bring them closer to God.
There are so many people that need that. Many are going through difficult things with their children with cancer and loved ones. An avid dear friend there in Colorado lost her wife to AML leukemia. I’m coming in for her memorial service. Having something like that for her family to lean into their faith to help them through as she was going through the battle. It’s important. God is good. I’m excited for that. I hope that gets marketed well and gets out there.
There are two other features to it. One is what I learned through the post on LinkedIn. I have 18,000 followers on LinkedIn. I had the luxury of post something. United Airlines flight attendants and pilots got on board. I got messages from people that you wouldn’t believe. I knew the power of prayer was coming my way. One of the features is going to be you put out your prayer and people will say, “Yes, I prayed for Mischelle.” They check a box and you’ll be able to see, “800 people prayed for me last night.” That’s one feature.
Think about a difficult decision you’re facing. “Should I move back to Colorado Springs? Should I stay in Overland Park? Should I be a pastor and quit my day job or not?” I had a guy at our fire pit named Dr. Jim Wilder who’s a neurotheologist. He’s very smart. He understands the Science side but he also understands Theology. When he was younger, he said he wasn’t sure if God existed. He was like, “My parents were ministry people and traveled around the world for it but I’m not sure.” He and a friend pulled aside and said, “Let’s pray to God every night. Let’s humor this whole thing. If he exists then let’s compare notes at the end of the day and see what happens.” For twenty days in a row, he and his friend would pray and they’d come back. They’d almost word for word have the same exact message every single day.
He discovered, “I guess this connection thing and God is real because he showed me that he’s real.” He studied this for the last decades. He said in the Old Testament, there are a very large number of simultaneous laws that one must consider when making any decision. If you have an A or B decision, it’s not as simple as that. It’s not cut and dry as we’ve seen with the news cycles and decisions around the world these days. 2 to the power of 614 is like infinity. It’s a very big number.
Overcoming Adversity: How can you grow through this? What can you learn through this? How can you bless others through this situation? Take the perspective off you and put it out there in a whole different way.
The second part of the app is going to be, I can’t give you a guidebook for step 1, 2, then 3 for making a good decision but if I post and say, “I got this choice to make, can you comment with a Bible verse, prior experience and we’ll crowdsource your difficult decisions?” It’s never going to be what God would necessarily but we hope to give people guard rails to help them make educated decisions. What Jim Wilder said was, “We should optimize for our decisions in this moment for the end of time.” It’s like, if I’m on a podcast right now and I could be out riding a bike, I should be doing this to optimize for the end of time. I thought that was an interesting way to look at things.
I’ll definitely look forward to jumping on that.
I’d love to have you as part of the first pack of 77 there. The next question is what would you like to accomplish in life? That’s the word I don’t necessarily love. What would you like to accomplish that would change everything for you? If you drop the word, what in life would change everything for you?
I live life to the fullest and every single day walking in my calling. The hardest thing for me is fully trusting God, letting go, letting him lead, not trying to control. My husband and I were talking about this. “I can say all these things because I’m an achiever.” I would love this connection. They’d be doing this and doing that, multi-millionaire and billionaire. When it comes right down to it, it’s truly letting go and letting God. I want to be able to fully do that so that I cannot screw things up in trying to do things on my own. When I let go and let God, it definitely makes a huge difference in setting my expectations in my level of disappointments, my attitude on things that are happening or the pace of things that I’m anticipating should be happening as a result of my work, what I’m doing and in all those areas. It would make a huge difference in so many areas, in my anxiety levels, expectation and the way I handled the successes.
If I were to track on a level of 1 to 10 my stresses through the day, week and month, it’s like a 6 or 8 on some days. You’re like, “This is a six-day. How did it get to this?” Since praying in the morning and at night, reading one Bible verse, and then I subscribed to about five different Facebook Groups. My feed is cluttered with amazing Bible verses all the time. That level of knowing I’m living in the lane, we had a tough quarter as a result of what we talked about. It’s $350,000 lighter than where we should have been. We had a 550 commit. We finished at 150.
It was like, “What is going on?” I’m committed knowing that I’m on the right path, “God, I’m following what you exactly need me to do.” Within a couple of weeks of those tough times, I got a note from a prior employer that finally went public after ten years. You can imagine that stock is no longer $1.87 a share. It’s substantially higher than that. God was like, “Here, thank you for your service. Keep the change.” It’s like, “Are you for real? Is there a catch?” The catch was I can’t sell it for six months and the stock went down by half. Yet, I’m going, “God, you know me, I would have sold it all on the first day.” Whatever’s meant to be will be with that. Even at half, it’s still a pretty good size. It’s amazing when you trust, hand the keys to the car over and you just ride shotgun. I do recommend keep the hand on the wheel. You’ve got to at least have one hand in it. You still are the vessel but connect, listen and then do what you’re asked to do.
Let’s see two more questions. Imagine going forward and meeting yourself. You look around and see what’s in the room and what’s going on. You talk to yourself for a couple of minutes then you come back. That exercise that I’ve done multiple times, I do it like once a week because you can direct what will happen in twenty years. It’s a fact but it’s fun to talk to yourself in twenty years and it helps you recognize those things that are like, “I hadn’t thought of that. Thanks for the tip,” and then you come back into now. Let’s do that one. What do you think your future self would tell yourself now to own and focus on over the next twenty years?
My future self would tell me to continue, “Stay the course, don’t give up, keep going, don’t compare, keep your eyes on God and your perspective on that in your life. Don’t get distracted from your calling and try to control things too much. Be strategic, have your plans lenient, appreciate love, live but don’t let it consume what you’re doing. Live joyfully every day and be grateful for each day that you’ve been given and take time to be aligned with what God’s will is for you in your life. Don’t give in to naysayers. Don’t get distracted in areas that aren’t good for your mental health or your overall health and cherish your marriage, granddaughter and everybody that God’s put in your life for a reason and be grateful.”
I love the, “Your will be done,” because in the prayer app, the nighttime prayer is along those lines. “What do you have for my life? What do you need me to be doing?” The morning prayer is more of thankful prayer. I’m sure we’ll do some variations over time. Arjun Sen is a friend of ours. He’s a PR person for some major celebrities, former VP of Marketing at Papa John’s Pizza. This guy knows the brand. He has encouraged people to look in the mirror and figure out, “What is it that you are one of one at in the world?” Not just, “I’m one of one at this,” but literally what is your one of oneness? I watched the silly boxing match with Floyd Mayweather and this Logan Paul guy who’s an internet sensation. Floyd said, “I don’t veer out of my lane. I know my lane and I stay in my lane.” Figuring out what that lane is and what you are purpose-built for is super critical to your life. The last question, we’ve touched on it for sure but I’m going to ask it anyway because it’s a key point of the episode and that is what role does faith play in your journey?
Faith as in trusting that Jesus Christ paid the full price or faith as in my Christianity?
You can interpret the question in whatever way fits what you’re thinking at this moment.
Faith is probably what I am most passionate about in my life at this point in time. It is incredibly critical to everything I do and the way I interact in my relationships with those that come alongside me and support Altered Stories Ministry with all my podcast guests, those that I lead, those in my life, my granddaughter, my daughter, my husband, those men and women who I hang out with. It’s integral. The way I live out my faith is I normalize it in my life because it has become a part of who I am. I don’t believe in the separation of me and my work. I believe in the integration of that into all areas of my life because it is who I am.
CS Lewis has an incredible quote around Christianity and how it made him see the world differently. That’s how he saw everything. That quote for a long time, I had it on my Facebook it ventured off into other things and embedded in my thinking. I will say that it’s all about how I see things is my faith. How I see when I look out and look at God’s creation, how I see when I meet people like you or I’m being asked to step into things and doing things in the work I’m doing or a new connection. It’s an existence. It’s me. It’s who I am. It’s huge. It’s who I become. I can’t imagine living my life without it.
I heard one speaker one time say, “You have to decide in life. It’s either a heck yes or no.” Another person, “Yeses are great. Noes are okay. Maybes will kill you.” What you are saying is when you do have faith and you are following God’s purpose, it becomes very easy when someone says, “Mischelle, can you go do this activity on the weekend? Let’s have you on this podcast?” All these different competing priorities in life becomes much clearer when you can say, “Does that align to God’s purpose for my life?” Those a lot easier to understand.
Overcoming Adversity: When you let go and let God, it makes a huge difference in your expectations, your level of disappointment, and your attitude on things that are happening.
It’s a very different way of walking. It’s an adventure every day. God knows. He’s amazing. It’s the most incredible thing. I’m grateful.
On our last Living A Better Story Retreat, the very first one that we did, I was put in touch with Deb Brown Maher, who wrote a book called Sell Like Jesus. It was a very controversial book that she put out but it’s very good. Sales, a lot of people think of a used car salesman but that’s not the case. Sales is a reputable profession in this day and age. She wrote a cool book. She followed that guidance. Her Spidey sense is, “God, if you need me to be there.” The day I talked to her, she was like, “Let me pray on it and I’ll get back to you in the morning.” She came back and she was like, “Yes, I’m going to be there.”
Dr. Jim Wilder, same thing. It was like two days later, “We do this fire pit at my house almost every Thursday. Would you like to come to the next one?” Two days later, he’s like, “Yes. I’ll be there.” It’s fun when you can come at it from that angle and ask the question, “God, what are your thoughts? Should I be doing this? Do I need to leave my job? Do I need to move to another state?” Whatever the minor or major decision we face when you turn it over, it becomes that much easier.
Sometimes you have the battle of wills. You do have to take that into consideration. Sometimes the flesh gets in there.
I thank you for joining. Thank you so much for sharing your story with everybody. I know you’ve been on one side of the conversation with 56 people on your show. I’m positive you’re on the right path. My affirmation to you that continue to do what you’re doing because it obviously has an impact. I remember my grandparents they’d help one family at a time with a meal. What they did at their church in Dallas, Texas many years ago still has an impact on me. If I think of the ripple effect of what you are working on by God’s command, you’re going to have a lasting ripple on people’s lives. I appreciate you.
I appreciate that. This ministry truly was also in honor of my mother, who had a story that she could never share and she was broken. She knew this was something that I was doing and she passed before it fully got formed but it’s an honor for me to do this for her. Also, to leave it as a legacy to my daughter, her daughter too and others. Thank you for appreciating it, validating it and for this opportunity. I know God’s going to bless and rock that app of yours, your son and all the things that you’re doing because I think you’re on the right track too. This has been a real fun time.
Everybody, Mischelle Saunders-Gottsch with Altered Stories Ministry, fabulous conversation. We’ll see you on the next episode.
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LinkedIn - Chad Burmeister
Facebook - Mischelle Renee Saunders-Gottsch
About Mischelle Saunders-Gottsch
Mischelle is a CEO/Nonprofit Founder, Podcast Host, Chief Storyteller, Nonprofit Development and Podcast Storytelling Consultant, and Public Speaker.
She has served in highly visible IT/Business/Security PMO, Program, Project, Change Management and Operations Management roles in Global Nonprofit and Fortune 500 companies in the financial services and telecommunications industry to help further organizational missions to increase donations, operational efficiencies and business revenue.
Her recent experience includes Nonprofit development, Volunteer management, budgetary management, fundraising, contractor hiring, recruiting, podcast guest interviewing, podcast recording and producing, organizational communications, donor management, blog writing, editing and Board recruiting.
