E32 Finding Purpose After The Diagnosis: A Faith-Filled Conversation on Resilience and Joy with author Heidi Gray McGill

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Jen Cudmore (00:00)
It happens way more often than we like. We have a plan for our life. We think we know where we’re headed. And then suddenly something completely unexpected knocks us off course. Today I’m joined by author Heidi Gray Mcgill to discuss how to regroup when you’ve been blindsided. You have a choice, right? Will you settle for less than God’s best or will you choose joy, resilience and purpose? Come dive below the surface with us today.

Welcome back to Into the Depths podcast. I’ve got Heidi with me today. I’m excited for y’all to meet her. I met Heidi at a writers meeting through American Christian Fiction Writers. It’s been like a year, but we’ve only talked a couple of times. We don’t know each other very well, but thanks for coming, Heidi. Glad you could join us.

Heidi Gray McGill (00:43)
Good morning Jen and thank you for having me.

Jen Cudmore (00:47)
Of course, of course.

So I can’t wait to dive into your story. Let me really quick just read a few bullet points off your bio so everyone can kind of get to know you a little bit. So Heidi Gray McGill writes Christian fiction. She’s also an award winning author. So I want to hear more about that. She writes historical and contemporary novels ⁓ offering relatable characters, biblical truth and emotional depth. And y’all know I’m very into going deep. ⁓

So despite blindness, Heidi continues to write with clarity and purpose so you can learn more and even get a free prequel at HeidiGreyMiguel.com. And I’ll make sure that I have a bunch of links for all of Heidi’s social media and her books and stuff in the show notes. So make sure you go check those out and buy a few books. She’s a really good writer. So, all right, let’s get into your story. ⁓ Let me start off by, I wanna tackle the idea that you are

you have you are legally blind. So before your official diagnosis, what was your life goal or your mission? Like what what did you feel was your purpose?

Heidi Gray McGill (01:54)
I absolutely love this question and I think the reason that I like it is because I am not a career minded woman. So I didn’t start out to be a nurse or a teacher or something like that. What I did start out to do was figure out how I could share Jesus Christ with somebody every day. Then it’s not that I’m great with apologetics.

Jen Cudmore (02:01)
Mmm.

Mmm, love it.

Heidi Gray McGill (02:18)
I am certainly not one to be able to argue my faith, but I know how to live out my faith in front of someone and not be ashamed. And so every place that I have worked in my lifetime, it has been something that I have been able to do. I’ve worked for the American Red Cross. What a mission field. I absolutely loved that job. I got to do a tremendous amount of travel with disaster relief and help the state of South Carolina with disaster fundraising.

Jen Cudmore (02:25)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Okay. ⁓

Heidi Gray McGill (02:47)
I worked at Clemson University and Southern Wesleyan

University, several other places where I did fundraising and was able to help those schools with their scholarship programs and other events that they were doing. And then ⁓ I just transferred into being a mom. Jen, it was just fabulous. And that’s a home and mission field right there on its own. You’re training your children in the way that they should walk. And so every job that I have had in my lifetime,

Jen Cudmore (03:09)
⁓ Yes, it is.

Heidi Gray McGill (03:16)
My sole purpose was not to be a moneymaker, but to figure out how I could do something that I enjoyed, where I could help other people and I could shine the light of Jesus. And so, as I was a mom and my kids were getting a little older, I met a woman at our Chinese restaurant whose son did not speak English and he would have to come to work with her. She owned this restaurant.

and he would stay there all day long. And we went at least once a week because we were remodeling our home and had no kitchen for about six months. So when my kitchen was finally finished, I said, Amy, would you allow me to take your son home with me just for the evening while you work these late hours and you could come pick him up at 10 when you get off work?

Jen Cudmore (03:47)
Yeah.

Heidi Gray McGill (04:00)
and that developed a friendship and that was in 2001. And then she began coming to my house for learning how to speak English better. And so I’ve even got trained in ESL, English as a Second Language. And it blossomed from there. I became the founder and director of an English as a Second Language program. And for up to retirement, that was my love. Just…

Jen Cudmore (04:04)
Wow.

Okay.

Hmm.

Heidi Gray McGill (04:27)
giving to these men and women who desired more than anything to not only become citizens of the United States, we did have a program for that, but just to learn the language. They just wanted to be able to communicate with other people. And in that process, we were able to lead numerous women and men to the Lord because we were meeting their personal need. And that’s the kind of job that I’m.

Jen Cudmore (04:49)
Awesome.

That’s awesome. I love that. think ⁓ definitely that’s the best way is to build relationships and just show them Jesus before you. ⁓ Not that it doesn’t work just to instruct evangelism, but typically that relationship is so valuable. So valuable. So that’s awesome. Okay. let’s kind of where, what was the pivotal point for you of when you’ve officially reached your diagnosis and kind of your life began to change? Tell us about that.

Heidi Gray McGill (05:12)
Yes.

So when I became pregnant with my first child, my hormone counts just went off the board and my doctor said, hi, I’m letting you know, you either have twins or you are most likely going to have a Down syndrome child. Well, my heart says that this is God’s gift to me, this child, and I will do whatever God believes I can handle.

And so we had this child and she had absolutely no issues whatsoever. Baffled everyone. So two years later, I went through the exact same process. And they said the exact same thing. And my second child had no issues. But I had what we did not know was a

Jen Cudmore (06:00)
Hmm.

Heidi Gray McGill (06:13)
Adornment gene for retinitis pigmentosa. It is an eye disease It’s genetic and mine was considered sporadic case and the change in my hormones just set the the wheel in motion and I went from 100 % peripheral vision down to 20 so my vision closed And I didn’t figure it out right away. I just had a baby. I was going through suppose part of depression

Jen Cudmore (06:42)
⁓

Heidi Gray McGill (06:42)
was a tremendous

pain. She was a 10 pounder. You know, just lots of little things. And so things didn’t click right away. My girlfriends, however, asked me to go and get tested for MS. I was falling, tripping, running into things, and I just couldn’t figure out what they said. Heidi, something’s not right. And we learned that everything was fine until I moved to South Carolina, to the upstate, and we had to get a brand new eye doctor.

Jen Cudmore (06:50)
Okay.

⁓

Heidi Gray McGill (07:12)
and I was diagnosed that day with retinitis pigmentosa. Completely shocked everyone. ⁓ It was like a death. I felt like my life had ended ⁓ because there is no cure for this eye disease. There is no medication. There is no surgery. But Jen, it doesn’t mean there is no hope. And so for me, ⁓ it was a new lifestyle change of I’ve adjusted

Jen Cudmore (07:24)
right.

Mmm.

Right.

Heidi Gray McGill (07:42)
all these different times, with all these jobs, and becoming a mom, becoming a wife, I can adjust to this too.

Jen Cudmore (07:48)
Absolutely, absolutely. And that’s the attitude we have to have. think there’s going to be a little bit of a grieving over the life that we wish that we could still have, right? But then how do you adapt and move forward? So let’s talk about that for you. What did that look like? This new way of living.

Heidi Gray McGill (08:05)
Well, the first thing was that I had to give up driving at night. was legally night, I’m completely night blind. I, when you, when we walk into a restaurant together, if you step away, I do not see you. is black to me. It takes me several moments. And the way to explain that is, um, have you ever had a photo taken and the camera blinks and you’re just like, Oh my goodness. And you can’t see for a moment. It takes you a couple seconds to your eyes back. Well, it takes me about.

Jen Cudmore (08:19)
⁓

Right.

Heidi Gray McGill (08:35)
⁓ about a minute to get that back

Jen Cudmore (08:38)
Wow.

Heidi Gray McGill (08:40)
The other thing that changed was when I wasn’t able to drive at night was that there’s something in your brain that when somebody says, oh, you have ADHD, then you start recognizing all these little things about, oh, I never realized I did that before. and so internally I was processing.

Jen Cudmore (08:39)
Mm-hmm.

Right, okay.

Heidi Gray McGill (09:04)
Oh, I guess I didn’t see that. Oh, I don’t know where that is. Oh, I can’t find that. And it became a little bit of a self-pity. Oh, I just can’t because I’m blind. I had to get over that really fast. You cannot live life bountifully in that mindset. I had two children I had to raise. So one day I was doing my devotions done and I was sitting at my desk and

Jen Cudmore (09:17)
Hmm.

Sure.

Heidi Gray McGill (09:32)
⁓ I was really struggling. So one of the issues with your peripheral vision coming down smaller is that left to right movement and back to left. And so I’m reading my Bible and I am struggling because I’m reading to the right and then coming back down and I’m missing my line and I’m getting really frustrated. And I’m thinking, okay, I love to read. What am I going to do?

Jen Cudmore (09:54)
Okay. Yeah.

Heidi Gray McGill (10:02)
I mean this is really difficult for me. And something snapped and I got really angry. And I just told God, you know, this is not fair. I am, I am, I’m not even 50. I am not gonna be able to drive. I want, I don’t know how long this is gonna last. I had just finished a devotional Bible study by…

Jennifer Roth’s child and it’s called lesson I learned learned in the dark. Well, she lost her sight at 15 and it’s the same eye disease right night as pigmentosa and the journey that she went through and And ⁓ I knew that I may not have time it it may happen quickly and I just laid it out I mean we’re talking I was so disrespectful to God

snot

coming out of my nose and just and it’s speaking to God in a tone that is totally inappropriate and Letting him know this is not fair. I want to see my children graduate from high school I want to see them get married. I want to meet their husbands face to face I want to not only touch my grandchildren I want to see my grandchildren and I just laid it out and wept and I laid my head on my desk and Sawed and I said why why why?

Jen Cudmore (11:07)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Heidi Gray McGill (11:21)
And I felt no answer. But I felt like every last tear that I had just dropped released what everything was that it was just weighing on me. And I said to myself, okay, I don’t have to see my grandchildren to know their hearts. I don’t have to see my child get married.

Jen Cudmore (11:47)
Mmm.

Heidi Gray McGill (11:50)
to know that she did. Seeing is going to take on a new meaning for me and it is not going to be the same as what I felt before and when I embrace this new…

And I chose healing even when I wasn’t doing it.

Jen Cudmore (12:08)
Hmm.

Right. Wow, that’s amazing. I’ve been learning a lot about lament. I’ve been sort of doing, I’ve done some different studying over the last few years and just recognizing that how that is such a valuable process that God set in place for us to help us process our emotions and that we have to get it out. And even when we tend towards being disrespectful and we’re yelling at God a little bit, how

he allows that space for us because he knows we’ve got all that emotion. We’ve got all those things going on that we don’t know how to deal with and we don’t know how to define. And so I just, I’m so thankful for the, know, opportunities like that where you can just get it all out, share your grief with him, share your, like the things you don’t even know that you’re feeling. It’s so valuable. So I love that you

Heidi Gray McGill (12:55)
Yeah.

Jen Cudmore (13:02)
we’re able to do that,

so the opportunity to just get it off your chest is so important. And I just think God is so smart to create that for us and then give us a process for it. Absolutely. Yeah.

Heidi Gray McGill (13:10)
and he’s big enough. He is big enough to handle it. And

you know, he loves me even when I am disrespectful. If I’d spoken to my mom like that, I would have had a soap in my mouth. But God just gave me the time to let me get it out.

Jen Cudmore (13:20)
Right.

yeah, for sure.

He does, and ⁓ he recognizes that, he gives us the space. The trick comes in, are we gonna stay there? Are we gonna move into rebellion and bitterness? Or are we gonna get over it, surrender and move on? And I think that’s definitely the catch. And so you chose surrender, you’re gonna make it work and move on. So tell us more kind of what that next step looked like for you.

Heidi Gray McGill (13:57)
Now that next step was ⁓ not only accepting but learning to live within my boundaries.

Jen Cudmore (14:06)
Okay.

Heidi Gray McGill (14:06)
Um, Jen, that’s going to be different for every person. It may be that, um, it’s mental health and you need to say no to some things. It may be that you have a really difficult marriage and you need to learn some new ways to adapt and change to make, because you can’t change your spouse.

Jen Cudmore (14:28)
Right.

Heidi Gray McGill (14:28)
For me, it was I felt like I had lost my joy. I felt like I had lost everything that was important to me, which is totally ridiculous when I’m looking at it from this side of the ocean. Ocean it is. This was not a river. This was an ocean.

Jen Cudmore (14:43)
Yeah.

Right.

Heidi Gray McGill (14:48)
and I made the decision to choose joy. And what that looked like for me was I had to do it first thing in the morning. So before my feet hit the floor, I would lay in bed and I would think of something that I could be thankful for. Jen, sometimes it came early. I’m thankful for my children. I’m thankful that I still have my sight. I’m thankful for a husband who doesn’t snore. I mean, I had to be creative. There were some days I really had to be creative.

Jen Cudmore (15:05)
Okay.

Heidi Gray McGill (15:17)
⁓ And other days, Jen, I lay there until my bodily function said I had to get up. And I said, well, I guess I’m thankful I’m alive. I mean, I had to come up with something. But it was a choice. I had to make a choice. And then it started getting easier. The more I did it, the…

Jen Cudmore (15:29)
Mm.

Heidi Gray McGill (15:37)
The more I was able to just flow and I’m like, okay, now I have to get up because I’ve got something I’ve got to do. But I’ve been laying here for an hour just talking to the Lord and saying thank you and being grateful for so many blessings. it was recognizing God’s hand in everything.

Jen Cudmore (15:54)
Mm.

Heidi Gray McGill (15:55)
And the constant everyday habit of choosing to choose joy became my mantra when I would wake up and it became the carbon of my life. I began to see God more clearly in small details. And that became not only the fact that I was choosing joy, it became joy itself.

Jen Cudmore (16:12)
Right.

I love that you were talking about how you started with gratitude because I personally, that’s how it’s worked for me. When I choose joy, I typically have to start with gratitude as well. This is what I’m thankful for. I’m going to choose to focus on the good in my life instead of the negative. I mean, and that’s kind of a huge negative to overcome. So I love that you just kept practicing that over and over and over. ⁓ You know, it can be something huge like that.

where we have to just keep doing it every day for weeks and months. Or even the small things though, when you’re just upset over a little thing that happened in your life that didn’t go your way, choosing to say, okay, I’m gonna be grateful, I’m gonna be joyful regardless of my circumstances. So big or small, gratitude is a huge step in choosing joy, so for sure. All right, so I would like to hear how you got into fiction writing. Tell me about that.

Heidi Gray McGill (17:10)
Oh my

goodness. So I told you that I was the founder and director of the English as a Second Language Program. And truly it was my joy. Well, in 2020 we all had an adjustment and that happened. And so I needed to close that program. We just were not able for many reasons to continue even with an online resource. And so we shut it down and it broke my heart, but I knew that it was okay. It was God’s timing.

So there was one thing that I knew I had to do and that was I had to have a platform to share Jesus. There is no other option for me. It is my heart’s desire to be able to share Christ. But like I said, I am just not strong with apologetics. I don’t sit next to you on a bus and just start talking your ear off. I’m going to be your friend first. And I thought, what are the opportunity now that we’re in this shutdown mode, what other opportunity do I have to share?

and showed him through my life. So I have been a beta reader for many years for several actors. Now a beta reader is for some people this is what their description is.

Jen Cudmore (18:17)
Okay.

Heidi Gray McGill (18:22)
An author sends their book to someone to get to be edited and we love an editor. But when we make those changes that the editor suggests, then we sometimes make new errors.

That just happens. And so a beta reader is that first line of defense that’s going to read that book. And sure enough, I’ll have two thes next to each other that I didn’t notice ⁓ when I changed something. And it’s not that the editor missed it. It’s usually that I made the error in the corrections that the editor gave me. And so I have been doing that and getting some advice. so silly me thought, how hard can this be? write a book.

Jen Cudmore (18:51)
See ya.

Heidi Gray McGill (19:10)
is really hard. ⁓ So I had written something and in the summer of 2019 my sisters and I went on a vacation. drove up to Ohio and I read this story to them at the car and they were typical sisters saying, ⁓ it’s so good we love it and then my honest sister said don’t you dare put that out into the world. It is

it needs a lot of help. I thought I love you. Thanks to Lord for honesty and family. So I actually I just put that book on the shelf and hadn’t done anything with it. So when COVID hit and I needed a new platform I thought, you know what, I don’t have any excuses. Maybe God is between me all along and I just didn’t know it. And so I pulled that book out and from March through November I

Jen Cudmore (19:40)
Thank

Okay.

Heidi Gray McGill (20:07)
finished writing that book, I did as best as I knew how at the time that I published it. Now, I have to say I chose my maiden name in my name as Heidi Gray McGill because I honestly thought, Jen, that the only people that were going to buy this book were probably my mom’s friends and a few of my friends that felt sorry for me. But the book did really well, even with all of its errors. So if you know anything about

writing I had what was called point of view. think I had 12 in one book. It makes it really easy to follow along more like a movie ⁓ and then I also had serious head hopping where I could see what the one person could see what someone else was thinking or doing even though they weren’t they were turned around ⁓ and so that’s my head hopping and I was giving people whiplash.

Jen Cudmore (20:41)
⁓ wow! Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Heidi Gray McGill (21:03)
When I got to the end of that story, Desire of My Heart, and I’ll tell you a little bit more about it in a minute, I really felt the need to write Book Two because my sales had been actually decent. And I thought, okay, there’s a need and I’m serving the purpose of what God has called me to do. I recognized it as ministry and I was able to just to really put myself 100 % into it. By the time I got to Book Three,

I got smart enough, I hired a writing coach, and I devoured every writing fact book I could. So you will notice if you read books one and two, even though I’ve edited them, book three is totally different writing style. But let me just jump back to book one real fast because it ties in with my vision. So in book one, there is tremendous loss. It is a historical loss.

Jen Cudmore (21:42)
Mm.

Okay.

Heidi Gray McGill (21:55)
fiction there is a theme of romance that goes through it but it is true historical fiction it is set in the 1850 age on the Missouri frontier there is something traumatic that happens and when you are longing to write or when you first write many people will tell you in fact that associate American fiction writers assert about ACFW American Christian Fiction Writers that’s the group that we met

Jen Cudmore (22:23)
I mess

it up all the time.

Heidi Gray McGill (22:24)
And

I do too, I call it association. One of the things that they will tell you when you start is write what you know. Well what I knew back in 2019 was still that grief of what I had gone through with my loss of sight. And what I knew was the depression that hit me because of that. And what I knew was that I had come out gloriously.

Jen Cudmore (22:36)
Mm, okay.

Heidi Gray McGill (22:53)
removed on the other side by choosing a journey. And so that book is not only my journey without the reader going through the same process, but just the emotions. And I don’t want to give away these spoilers, but there is a massive black twist in that book that I have had.

Jen Cudmore (23:08)
Yeah.

Heidi Gray McGill (23:11)
Many people message me in the middle of the night saying, I am so mad at you. And so it was a process for me of I needed to figure out how I could still have a platform, how I could draw someone in, much like Christ draws us to himself in a friendship relationship. And then how, because I had earned that trust and that favor, would be allowed the opportunity and the…

privilege to share Jesus Christ with them in a very simple, easy, non-threatening, non-preaching way. And that is my goal with my life.

Jen Cudmore (23:53)
⁓ I love it. So how many books do you have out right now?

Heidi Gray McGill (23:56)
I think I hit 10.

Jen Cudmore (23:58)
And okay, awesome.

you told me you’ve got a new release coming. So discerning God’s best. Tell me about that.

Heidi Gray McGill (24:02)
I’m scared.

Alright, so Discerning Bands Best is the series name. one is Desire of My Heart, 1858. It’s a young woman who is an orphan and she runs into a man whose wife has just died and it’s a marriage of convenience story. Book number two, With All My Heart, there’s some characters from book number one that needed their own story and it’s the story of Pete and Singing Bird who is a Rappahoe Indian.

and it is a ⁓ waiting on God second chances romance. Just as a side note, I am super careful. is no swearing, no violence on page and no sex on page. I am extremely careful. ⁓ And as a writer, you probably understand this. It is

harder to write in love scene without sex than it is with. You have to really, really, you have to work on those emotions. So then there was a side story that came out of Book Two, it’s right before the Civil War, and I wrote a Christmas novella, Stitched on My Heart, and it’s Delphina and Moses’s story, and learning to accept not only who you are,

Jen Cudmore (24:57)
Yes.

Heidi Gray McGill (25:21)
because she was a slave, but also who you are in Christ. And it’s one of my favorites. And Jen, I’m super excited to say It was just awarded second place for the Golden Scroll Award for Noella of the Year. I am so excited. Yes, that one.

Jen Cudmore (25:26)
Hmm.

That’s awesome! Congratulations!

Heidi Gray McGill (25:41)
Thank you. And that book is actually coming out. It’s the next release that I have in audiobook format. So books one, two, and now this 2.5 Christmas novella is available on my YouTube channel for free. Or you can find them on Audible and all the other places. Then book four is Matters of the Heart. And it was my ESL, my English as a Second Language story. And I took stories from those immigrants and I wrote them into a book.

Oh, I had so much fun. have a super sassy character. She is just a mess. And then I have a man with PTSD because this is post-Seminar war and how God brings them to themselves. And it is, one of those stories that you’ll read straight through. The next book is Healing of the Heart. And that is young Thomas, who was the very beginning of the story. All these characters flow through the entire books, but they are spandalined.

but Thomas is going to be a doctor and heads to Philadelphia and it’s his story of growth and maturity that it is not just his parents’ faith but it is his own. And then there’s book five, it’s written on my heart. Oh, it’s book six, no, book five is written on my heart. And it is truly a Western. It’s definitely more alluring and more. There’s a good bit of action. There are three main characters in this story. It’s the…

Jen Cudmore (26:38)
Okay.

Okay.

Heidi Gray McGill (27:06)
first time I have successfully written a really bad villain and he made my skin crawl. were nights that I just got the huggie genies when I was writing his story. And then I took books one, two, and that novella and I added an extra story that is only available to read in a bundle and so it’s the Discerning Gods Vest Bundle Collection 1. And then coming out

Jen Cudmore (27:33)
Gotcha.

Heidi Gray McGill (27:35)
November that that just came out September 1st and then coming out November 18 is another Christmas story and it’s a place to belong and back in Thomas’s story when he was in Philadelphia one of the boarding house individuals it’s her story at coming so all of my stories are interconnected and you probably want to read them in order just because you get to see the characters faith growth

and personal growth as they go through and it’s perfect to read on Kindle.

Jen Cudmore (28:12)
Awesome. Thank you for telling us about that. So yeah, again, we’ll make sure that we’ve got the links in the show notes so you can go get a copy of the box set or the first book or however you want to do that.

Heidi Gray McGill (28:18)
Thank

Yeah, that first book, whenever this airs, through the end of September, that first book is $1.99 in both Canada and the US. It’s great time to grab it.

Jen Cudmore (28:32)
yeah,

yeah, definitely. You want to go make sure you get a copy of that while it’s on sale. So for sure. ⁓ Okay, so let’s move back more into your story. So you were sharing with me ⁓ how the blindness didn’t end your calling. It just sort of shifted things for you and refined it. So let’s talk more about that.

Heidi Gray McGill (28:50)
I’m going share a verse and I’m going to pick it up so I don’t mess it up. I made this little plaque and it says Psalm 27 13, I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. When I first read that verse I thought, oh maybe God is going to allow me to have my sight. This is my verse for me.

Jen Cudmore (28:58)
⁓

Amen.

Heidi Gray McGill (29:19)
Over time, I have lowered no day.

I believe in my heart that I’m going to see not, I believe in the goodness of my heart, I’m going to see the goodness of the Lord. No, I believe that I shall see in the goodness of the Lord. It’s the inflection. It is, I am going to choose to see goodness.

Jen Cudmore (29:42)
Mmm.

Heidi Gray McGill (29:48)
I’m going to choose to see what God is doing right now in the land of the living, right this moment. And that is where the scene comes in. It isn’t that I’m going to always have my sight. It isn’t that God is going to bless me and favor me and allow me to keep my sight forever. I do pray that and I ask that He would do that.

Jen Cudmore (29:55)
Yeah.

Heidi Gray McGill (30:13)
But it is that I need to learn to see the goodness. So Jen, when I’m looking at you right now,

If we were at a speaking distance apart in normal conversation and I’m looking at your left eye, I can’t see your right eye and I can’t see the bottom of your nose. I am truly seeing what you would see if you were holding up a toilet paper tube to your eye and trying to look at something close. So I do still have my vision and the

Jen Cudmore (30:33)
Wow.

Wow.

Heidi Gray McGill (30:47)
The beauty of that is it allows me to still be able to use the computer. Now, my husband laughs because when he gets on my computer he cannot help but use it. I have a quarter inch mouse with a half inch tail. it, because I can’t find it on my screen, it just runs away from me. And my font is a little bit larger.

Jen Cudmore (31:02)
my god.

Yeah.

Heidi Gray McGill (31:12)
My favorite way to read, and especially online, is on my phone with a black background and a white print. That is easier for me to read than the glare of the white with the black print because of that white blindness. But the act of on my phone is that short distance going left to right. So it would take me a little longer, first of all, because I make the font a little bigger. So I may need two or three words on my line.

Jen Cudmore (31:23)
Okay.

Sure, okay.

Heidi Gray McGill (31:41)
But I am still then able to read a book without an issue. And it’s mostly when I read something in print, that’s what I do. But I have switched to audio book, I shouldn’t say that, I switch to audio book, where I’ll listen to most of my things. And I take advantage of the free services such as Hoopla and YouTube. And so when I put my books on audio, the first thing I knew is that I had to have an exceptional.

Jen Cudmore (31:57)
Okay.

Heidi Gray McGill (32:11)
I cannot do the digital narrators. So ⁓ I use a narrator named Amy Lilley for all of my Disturbing Thoughts besties and she truly makes the mirrors on my neck rise. She’s just fabulous.

listening to an audiobook is pretty important. It is how I read the Bible. I think I have listened to eight versions of the Bible since I got this. It’s really fun. You get to hear it in the English accent. It’s just really cool.

Jen Cudmore (32:34)
Okay.

wow.

you talked a little bit about how blindness has decreased or increased rather your dependency on God. Share a little bit of that with our listeners.

Heidi Gray McGill (32:58)
So I’m going to start by telling you a little bit about depending on others before I tell you about cutting my dog. So I do not have a seeing my dog. That is definitely in my future. I use seeing my people. And some are better than others. Yes, I have been running to poles and to trees.

Jen Cudmore (33:04)
Okay.

Yes, of course. ⁓

⁓

Heidi Gray McGill (33:24)
If you

read my book, my contemporary, is called Dial E for Endearment, I put some of those stories, real life stories running into place in that book. It’s a cute little novella. Learning to depend on someone else is very frustrating. It is nerve wracking, can be frightening. ⁓ Some people truly are good, they’ll say. ⁓

Jen Cudmore (33:33)
Great.

Yeah.

Heidi Gray McGill (33:54)
They’ll say, we’re getting ready to go downstairs. There’s a railing on your right. They’ll say, your drink is now on the left-hand side. I need to move it to the right. They will move my drink out of the way if they notice that I’m getting too close to it and I’m not even recognizing. I cannot tell you how many friends I have spilled ice water on at the beginning of the meal.

Jen Cudmore (34:21)
dear.

Heidi Gray McGill (34:21)
because I didn’t see the waitress set the drink down. I tend to talk with my hands. I have to hold them down with my lap. And then I use my husband’s arm all the time. so familiarity is there, but even so, sometimes he forgets and he’ll take a step. And he’s six four. I’m five six. And so sometimes I don’t notice that he’s made an elevation change and it’s very difficult.

Jen Cudmore (34:26)
Yo, me too!

Heidi Gray McGill (34:51)
Those are inconsistencies and yet I don’t have a choice. I do use a white cane when I am out by myself in unfamiliar area. But when I am out with a group, it draws so much attention that it’s uncomfortable for my friends. And so when I’m in an airport, I don’t care who I’m with, I’m using it. There are too many bags that are…

Jen Cudmore (35:10)
Mm.

Okay.

Heidi Gray McGill (35:21)
in where I can’t see them, people drag them behind and I can’t tell. So there are some times where it’s just a safety reason, I absolutely will use it. And I’m getting to the place where I need to use it more and more. But when it comes to relying on God, Jim, He is always consistent. He is always there He’s so

Jen Cudmore (35:22)
Yeah.

Heidi Gray McGill (35:42)
consistent that I know what I can count on with him.

Jen Cudmore (35:49)
Right.

Heidi Gray McGill (35:51)
There have been days when I have not felt very kind towards God and I’ve been a little more upset than others. And it is those days that that habit that I created back in 2001 of choosing joy comes into play. It’s the habit of consistency on my part in doing devotions and spending time with God and spending time in quiet time with God. So…

Jen Cudmore (36:10)
Mm-hmm.

Heidi Gray McGill (36:21)
In that first book that I wrote, Desire of My Heart, there’s a character, Grammy, and she’s based on my mom. And one of the things that she does through that book is she helps the reader see God from a bird’s eye view of what is happening to a person in their life when they learn to sit at the feet of Jesus. And it is that timing of you can tell God everything. You can spew words at God, but then…

Jen Cudmore (36:39)
Mm.

Heidi Gray McGill (36:49)
Just like you would not have an argument with your husband and not allow him to have his say, you don’t just walk away. You need to learn to sit. And sitting in God’s presence is not audible. It’s never been audible for me. But there is a presence that comes over, a feeling, a gentleness, an understanding, a remembrance of scripture. All of those things that

Jen Cudmore (36:55)
Right? Right?

Hmm.

Yep.

Heidi Gray McGill (37:19)
play into your mind and you recognize this is God. And there’s no question. the understanding that God is constant and He is always there no matter your circumstances is a tremendous balm to a hurting soul.

Jen Cudmore (37:41)
100 % I agree. Absolutely. The scripture talks about how he’s close to the broken hearted and that’s what it feels like. That’s what it looks like to sit with him and soak in his nearness and just, you know, being still and knowing he’s God, right? As the scripture says. So ⁓ you were telling me a little bit about how you had to practice faith over feelings. ⁓ Let’s delve into that a little bit.

Heidi Gray McGill (37:47)
Yes. Yes.

Hmm.

Great. Great.

Faith over feelings, that’s not an easy one. And this one applies to every person. ⁓ If you feel less than, that’s a hard one to get over.

Jen Cudmore (38:11)
No, it’s not.

Heidi Gray McGill (38:21)
⁓ Just like an author that it’s hard to promote your own books, Jen, you know this, you feel like you’re saying, look at me, look at me. It’s so hard, but the truth is, if you do not let someone else know that your book is there, they may never hear the redemptive story of Jesus Christ that you put in your book.

Jen Cudmore (38:28)
Yeah.

Yep.

Heidi Gray McGill (38:45)
So it is part of the journey So if you have if your issue is that you just have low self-esteem You do not believe in yourself. You do not think you’re worthy the faith over the feeling is that You already know the Bible says that God made you you are fearfully and wonderfully made you are made in his image

Jen Cudmore (39:10)
Yep.

Heidi Gray McGill (39:10)
You are in the likeness of Christ. So, okay, you have no excuse except that it’s really hard. of course it’s hard, and nobody wants to do it. But being reminding yourself that you are worthy.

That’s important and actually I didn’t think about this but I delved into that in ⁓ the dial P for perfect. It’s another one of my short contemporary novellas and in that book Ginger is a plus-size girl and she does not feel worthy and at the end of that book

There is a bonus section that has scriptures that remind you. So if you are in need of that, it’s a wonderful book. Even if you just scroll to the end and go to that ⁓ bonus section where all those scriptures are and go through the scriptures of you are worthy.

Jen Cudmore (40:01)
Yeah. What’s the name of that book again?

Heidi Gray McGill (40:04)
It’s called Dial P for Perfect and it’s the secondary book after Dial E for Endearment. That’s in a series. All the books are standalone. You don’t have to read the entire series, but those are my two contributions to the group.

Jen Cudmore (40:14)
Okay.

so we’re kind of towards the end. So as we wrap up, do you have any last minute things that you want to share with the listener about your journey or just, I mean, whatever.

Heidi Gray McGill (40:28)
Jen, I want to reiterate that this is not easy. I am not over sitting sitting over here with butterflies and cupcakes. what I can say right now is that every single day is a choice. It’s the same thing as if you’re on a diet.

Jen Cudmore (40:32)
Yeah.

Heidi Gray McGill (40:49)
You make a decision.

to do what you think your new eating lifestyle is going to be and then you remind yourself of that every day. Not of I can’t have that, I can’t have that, which is your negative. You say to yourself, but this is where I want to be and it’s worth it to me. I am not going to eat this because this is worth it because I want to be able to whatever your your why is because I want to play with my grandchildren because I don’t want to end up having diabetes because whatever it is, it’s

Jen Cudmore (41:04)
Mm-hmm.

Heidi Gray McGill (41:21)
same thing. This applies to any journey that you’re on and for me I do not want to become bitter. I do not want to become a burden and I certainly do not want to lose the hope that I have in Jesus Christ just because of something as insignificant as sight loss.

Jen Cudmore (41:46)
Right.

Heidi Gray McGill (41:46)
we are all dealing with something. Someone who’s listening has a special needs child. Someone is dealing with an aging parent or a parent with Alzheimer’s and you cannot see the future and you cannot see the forest of trees and you are just hurting on the inside. But the truth is it is not about your feelings. It is about who God is and the fact that he is constant. can, he is always going to be there. And if you

invest the time daily to get to know who he is and who you are in him it makes the journey easier. Not perfect Jen. It’s never going to be easy easy but it makes it easier.

Jen Cudmore (42:22)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Yeah, for sure. can choose to be miserable, right? We can choose self-pity, we can choose the negative, or we can choose joy. We can choose going after our purpose. We can choose resilience. That’s true. And that’s what renewing the mind looks like is practicing every day. You catch those thoughts, you change them for truth, and you focus on that and gratitude. So thank you so much for sharing. I love it. So,

Heidi Gray McGill (43:01)
Oh, Jan, thank you.

I so appreciate you and allowing me to share my heart.

Jen Cudmore (43:05)
⁓

yeah, I’m so glad you came. I’m excited to start doing interviews. all right. So as we go about this week, let’s explore the depths of this final thought. Where is God’s best showing up in your life in an unexpected place or a challenge that you didn’t want or didn’t see coming? And how can you live joyful in a tangible way, even though you can’t see your next step?