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If you’ve ever felt unseen, disconnected, or tired of pretending you’re okay, this episode is for you.
This week, author and speaker Toni Collier shares how healing begins when we stop hiding and start letting others in. Through her own story of heartbreak and redemption, you’ll hear encouragement and practical wisdom on finding safe people, breaking toxic patterns, and walking with God and others toward healing.
Toni (00:00.11)
There is a difference in how that makes you feel when someone doesn’t have to be there for you. Someone doesn’t have to help you process through hard things. They choose to be. They want. My goodness, that’s powerful.
Juli (00:20.942)
Hey friend, welcome to Java with Juli. I am Juli Slattery and I’m really glad that you joined me. This podcast is an outreach of Authentic Intimacy, which is a ministry dedicated to helping people make sense of God and sexuality. My guest today is Toni Collier, and she is the author of Don’t Try This Alone: How to Build Deep Community When You Want to Hide from Your Pain. Toni has personally walked through a lot of pain, including childhood trauma, spousal abuse, and broken relationships, but she has discovered the healing power of surrender, faith, and authentic community. In this conversation, she really opens up about her journey from isolation into finding the kind of friendships that form deep connection and why you, none of us, any of us are really meant to heal alone.
And I’m really grateful for her boldness and her vulnerability and her challenge to each of us to get out of our comfort zones and really start to form the kind of relationships that bring healing. Now this conversation is real, raw, and it’s full of hope. It’s one that you’re definitely going to want to share with a friend. In fact, as you’re listening in on our conversation, I challenge you to be thinking about a person that you can approach and just say, “Hey, I want to build some friendships that go beyond the surface level. Are you willing to go deep with me?” And you’ll understand more of what that means as you listen. Now let’s head to the coffee shop for my conversation with Toni Collier.
Juli
Toni, welcome to Java with Juli. Thanks for joining me all the way from Atlanta. First, I just want to talk about the name of your organization, which is Broken Crayons Still Color, which is a pretty cool name. So I want to know about that, like where that phrase came from.
Toni (02:10.752)
Yeah, I it’s a long story, but my daughter and I were going through a really, really difficult season. I was in an abusive marriage and was transitioning out of that marriage and I guess just wanted to create beauty for her. So I got her like the 64 box of crayons and a whole bunch of things to color. And for some odd reason, I gave a two year old 64 crayons and it just was not a good idea. They were just all over the place. Okay. She had robbed them of their dignity. All their little clothes was off. It was crazy.
But she just was still coloring with them. And at the time I was a youth pastor and was transitioning off staff, taking some time to heal. But I still had one more rep, one more speaking opportunity. And I was just praying that day, like, Lord, please give me a message or a sign or something. And I’m just scrolling on Instagram and I roll across a little graphic that says, Broken Crayons Still Color. And literally from there, I created a message for that very last talk and it totally changed my life.
I mean, people started asking me to do that talk. Years later, they just, it was crazy. I started a blog talking about it. Then I wrote a kids book, and it just was like an amazing little thing. And I think for me, because of the pain and childhood trauma that I have in my story, I think there’s just something about that childlike wonder of creating beauty when something is broken, of being able to be used to create really cool things, even when you feel crushed.
And so it’s always just been a sweet little thing for me.
Juli
Yeah, just a phrase that gives you hope. And how do you see, even in this season, like God using your brokenness even and all that you’ve journeyed through to color, like to make a difference?
Toni (03:52.802)
Yeah, I say this phrase all the time. You know, the pain, in my opinion at least, is never worth it, but it’s also never wasted.
Juli
Wow
Toni
I’ve been through some really very difficult things in my story from sexual abuse and trauma, parentification. My mom was really sick growing up, so I really had to parent her before I was ready to be a parent. Betrayal, I mean, in my marriage and divorce twice. mean, an eating disorder, addiction, so many little things.
And I love that there are moments when I get to serve women or speak to women or create a resource and a woman says, my gosh, me too. Like that’s been a part of my story too. And so I think, I don’t know, I think I see God saying you are holding pain so well, but even more than that, you’re allowing me to use that pain and to encourage and find hope with other people. And I think it’s really cool.
I don’t want to sound like a pain junkie, you know what I’m saying? Like, oh yeah, give me some pain so I can use it, you know? And I feel really grateful that I am able to use my pain to create hope for other people. I just think that’s, I don’t know, it’s a privilege.
Juli
Yeah. Well, Toni, you just listed a number of things and you kind of went through them quickly as a list and you said ‘all these little things’ and they’re not little things. Like each one of those is a big thing. And the reality of it is in our churches today, in the family of God, most people can identify with at least one of those things, if not many of them. But they don’t feel like they have the freedom to even admit like I’ve been through a betrayal, or I was sexually abused as a kid or I have an eating disorder. But you just say those things so naturally. Like, how did you get to the place of authenticity where you could say those things without feeling just covered with shame?
Toni (05:48.812)
Yeah, I like how you phrased the question. You said you just named those with so much freedom. And I think that’s what it is. I think that I feel more free than I ever have in my life. And that is not at all because I’m a single woman. And it has everything to do with the fact that I feel like through this healing journey that I’ve been on, and I’ve been in counseling now for 10 years, started off going weekly, did rounds and rounds of EMDR trauma treatment, lots of betrayal trauma intensives, lots of women’s intensives, I mean all the things. And I think that healing has given me freedom from insecurity, which I think has helped me to fight the shame in my story and be able to have the freedom to say it out loud. I think I’ve also done a lot of healing around people pleasing.
And so not being embarrassed at my story, and knowing that the people that are for me and with me won’t leave the room, even with the details of my story. And I think maybe some freedom around forgiveness, being able to genuinely, like genuinely forgive to where I can talk about really painful things that have happened to me and not be overwhelmed with anger at the people whose hands it was given to or it was received at. And I just, I think that’s what it is. I mean, I tell people all the time, you know, the healing journey is not a magic wand to never having anything happen that’s bad in your life. I think it’s the hard work to create the capacity to hold the pain. And I think that’s real freedom.
Juli
Boy, you seem too young to have worked through all that. I don’t know how you did it.
Toni (07:34.84)
Terrence House is 16, which is a part of my story. So I think I got like a head start on life. And you know, I say sometimes we have gifts, but they have shadow sides. I think the gift is that I’ve lived a lot of years in a short amount of time. And the shadow side is that I’ve been through some really hard things. And that’s why I think that I am the way that I am.
Juli
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So one part of your healing journey, and really I think all of us, if we’re going to go through a healing journey, is the thing that you wrote this book about, it’s called Don’t Try This Alone, How to Build Deep Community When You Want to Hide from Your Pain. And so this whole book is about when you’re suffering, when you’re in any kind of pain, we tend to want to isolate, but actually we don’t heal through isolation, we heal through community.
So share a little bit about how you learned that. Did you have seasons where you wanted to isolate in your pain?
Toni
Oh my goodness, I grew up that way. And I think the truth is that what, 34 years old, I have lived more years in isolation than not. I mean, maybe around 25 is when I really started getting serious about my healing journey and serious about finding great, safe friends. But before that, I was the strong friend, right? Like I was raised in a household. My dad was an alcoholic. He was very verbally abusive. My mom was very sick.
And there just wasn’t anyone to hold my little feelings or for me to process feelings with. My dad used to say, ’emotions are excuses’. And so I did a lot of numbing and a lot of stuffing at a very young age. And I just carried that obviously into adulthood. It was what shaped me. And so it’s how I lived out my life. And at 25, when I went through my first divorce, I was so alone. There was no one.
Toni (09:33.772)
There wasn’t anyone there to really catch me in a hard season? And I realized then that it was time for me to live a life on the offense, not the defense. What did that mean? Well, I got to build up a team, a village, a lineup of people who when hard times come, because they’ll come, I already have them in the reserve. They’re already on the sidelines, ready to be put in the game. And so it just took me a lot of years and a lot of undoing and unlearning and healing to be able to get to the point where instead of finding pride in being the strong friend, maybe now I think I have more pride in being the safe friend, that has safe friends.
Juli
Boy, well said. And at what point did God enter this story for you?
Toni
But at 21, I was what, two years freshly removed from Texas, which is my home state that I love so very much. I mean, I just need Texas all the way. But I moved to Georgia with a guy that I had met three months prior. I was a little wild, a little crazy there. And also seeking attachment. You know I didn’t have a lot of secure attachment growing up. And so just anybody that would love me, anybody that would hold me, you know, like, yes, I’m in.
And didn’t have a lot of boundaries because there just wasn’t a lot of safety and understanding as a little girl. So moved to a different state, and we got invited to a church and I’m down to go to the church. Probably just partied and drank my guts out the night before, but I’m like, I’m down. So I ended up going to this church and just being radically changed. I was like, what is this? Who is Jesus? I’m ready. I was raised Catholic, so very structured, but also I fell asleep half the time in church.
Toni (11:17.614)
And I came to this church and experienced a living God and was radically changed at 21. But the truth is, I was a fan of God, not a follower of God for about four years. And I was kind of going through the motions of Christianity. Like I’ll sing on Sundays all the worship songs, but then like Monday through Saturday is a wild living, you know? I was also in an abusive marriage. And so our household was just completely broken in so many ways.
But that’s when I met Jesus. I will say this, I’m glad for salvation because now living a life pursuing sanctification means more. Because it’s, you know, we say yes to Jesus and then we just kind of are like, all right, what now? And I lived in that in-between space. And I think now I look back and I’m like, I’m grateful that I said yes to Jesus and really didn’t live it out because now I know what it looks like to do it wrong.
And doing it right now is, oh my gosh, everything. Everything.
Juli
When you look back on your Christian journey then, you really gave your life to Christ at 21, but it sounds like there’s no discipleship, no kind of mentoring of what does this look like to follow Jesus. It was like, I got my salvation ticket, Jesus saved me, but I don’t know what to do. Is that kind of what it was like?
Toni
Oh my gosh, yes. And I mean, gosh, this is probably a whole other podcast episode, but I do think that has become the problem with the church is that we want to get everyone into heaven, obviously. We’re like so good at salvation. Yes, yes, yes to Jesus, but we don’t live like it. We don’t treat people like Jesus would. There’s not a lot of discipleship. There’s a whole bunch happening in rows, but not a lot happening in circles. And I just think we’ve given people a disadvantage.
Toni (13:09.438)
And I know it, not from a place of leadership and you know, condemnation, but from like deep personal conviction. Like when you say yes to Jesus, that is not the end. That’s the beginning of the Christian walk. And I just think, hopefully as churches, I think we are leaning into that tension and getting better at it.
Juli
Yeah. So what was it for you that made that switch? Like, when did it go from, I’m sitting in a row to I found my circle?
Toni
Pain, okay? Pain changes you. It brings you to your knees in ways that, I don’t know, I don’t want to sound like a pain junkie, you know? I’m like, yeah, go through something hard, your own life’s gonna change. And resurrection doesn’t have a whole bunch of power without death. So there were some things that had to die. My abusive marriage that was not healthy had to die.
Juli
Yes.
Toni (14:03.168)
I had to see my daughter afraid at one years old because her dad was screaming, yelling, cursing me out for the first time. Those things pushed me toward God and not like, God, I can’t wait to meet you on Sunday, but like, no, Lord, can you meet me Monday through Saturday? Like, what does that look like? And that hunger, that desperation, if I’m honest, brought me to a place of surrender. And then I feel like my relationship with the Lord started.
Juli
Right. So you say surrender, what did that practically look like?
Toni
Well, a couple things that I had to stop. I was still drinking a whole bunch. I was serving in student ministry and going to church on Sundays, but not living like it throughout the week. So I stopped drinking. I am a part of the sober community. Okay. No shame and no judgment here. I’m a mocktail mommy. That’s what’s best for me. I have an addictive personality. It’s an all in or nothing type situation over here. You know? I also stopped smoking weed, like that was a thing that was so normal in my community. It’s like everyone just kind of does it. I stopped cursing, which is just a little thing, but same thing with my family. I came from a family where everybody just curses. My attire changed. I mean, another podcast episode here, but I do think that we are looking at a generation of women who’s masking promiscuity as confidence. You know what I mean?
Juli
HMMM Amen. Yeah, yeah.
Toni (15:32.45)
I had to really take a close look at myself and name that my insecurity was driving me to promiscuity, to being half naked for attention, not for confidence. And actually I gained confidence when I stopped showing my body because I realized that my worth was tied up in my identity and who I am and not what I could do or what I could look like.
And those were just like some of the things. I also transitioned friends. There were moments, even my own brother, like my brother and I used to do drugs together and there was a season when I couldn’t hang out with my brother alone. I was like, I don’t have enough strength for that. I don’t. I have to put some boundaries in place and transition friendships. And that’s really hard. Like I don’t want to discount or make it seem like those things are small things. Those are like severing things. Those are convicting things and it’s hard…
Juli
Yes.
Toni
…and it was so hard and I’m better for it, truly.
Juli
Wow. You know, I think this is so important. You were saved. You were a Christian. You’re attending church on Sunday, and you still had these things going on. You had drug and alcohol. You had dressing for guys to look at you, promiscuity, like foul language, like all this stuff. And I think sometimes we expect that when somebody comes to Christ, like immediately they drop all that stuff.
Juli (17:03.446)
Let me just ask you what… what would you have done if the week after you came to salvation you had somebody come to you and confront you on all that?
Toni
I think I would have ran or I would have lied because I think that discipleship, I think, starts with relationship. And if I’m honest with you, there was a person, but they didn’t confront me at the beginning. They built relationship with me. And it was my mentor, Carlos Torres. He was the youth pastor at the church that I got saved at. And I remember him telling me, hey, I just feel like you have a call on your life. I’d love to see you more involved in student ministry.
But when I came over to church, when I came to church, volunteering in the youth ministry hung over because I was partying the night before. And that was maybe a year or two into knowing each other. And he pulled me to the side and said, hey, I’m really disappointed in you. I didn’t run. And I didn’t lie because he had built the relational capital needed to confront me and to hold me accountable. And a lot of those little moments with him and with other people in the ministry, over time started to change me and convict me. And I realized that, like, oh this is not just like a decision. This is about a surrender, a continual surrender. Let me say that.
Juli
Yes.
Toni
Okay. Because still, I still think about doing wild things sometimes. Like, you don’t just erase 24 years of one way of living and it’s gone. No, like those temptations are still there.
Toni (18:37.4)
Those thoughts and things are still there. Those friends are still there that I miss. But I know it just isn’t healthy to be in deep relationship with them, but to love them from a distant place. And so it’s daily.
Juli
It’s daily for every Christian. Even if you get to the place where those temptations go away, now you get the temptation of pride and self-righteousness. yeah, mean, it just goes until the day that you die. Toni, there are a lot of people, women and men, who have deep pain in their life, have some of the struggles that you’ve mentioned, and they feel like they’re kind of on the periphery of the church.
Maybe they still attend church, maybe they don’t. Maybe they’re even in a small group, but everything is kind of Christian superficial. Like nobody goes to the place of saying, like, I have addiction, I can’t stop, or I’m in an abusive relationship, or my anger is out of control. How do you actually step into finding community where you can be real?
Toni
Yeah. You’ve got to be the first one to ask. I have a friend named Jessica Honiger and I’ll never forget actually, I don’t know why this memory marks me because I have a pretty terrible memory after all the trauma. But I was in the airport right at the top of the escalade, escalator. I don’t know how to say those things. I’m a little country. And my friend Jessica Honiger called me and she said, Hey, I’m starting this group. It’s called a confessional community. It’s seven of us going deep and talking about our griefs and longings. And I was like, what are you talking about? No, that sounds a little scary. I don’t know what you’re saying here. And this was probably about four, five years into counseling and intensives and things like that. And she said, you know, I just think like, I’m tired of surface level friendships. I want people to know, like me through and through.
Juli (20:15.714)
Yeah, yeah.
Toni (20:35.072)
And she started talking about this guy named Dr. Curt Thompson. She’s like, Dr. Curt Thompson says, you know, the seagull’s way is like the four S’s to feel seen and soothed and safe and secure. And we all enter this world looking for someone, looking for us and those desires and needs never go away. And if we really want to be strong leaders, we need to lead the way. And she’s like, just saying all these things. And I’m telling you, I just felt the Holy Spirit in me. And I said, I’m in, I’m down for the cause. I’m just in.
Juli
Yeah.
Toni
I don’t want to live a halfway surface-level life. I don’t want to go wide anymore. I want to go deep. And we are four years in to our confessional community. Last week, we just had our fifth annual retreat. We do an in-person retreat every year. And every month we do three hours of a Zoom call because we’re in different states and even countries. We have Ann Voskamp, who’s in Canada.
Juli
Yeah.
Toni
We meet for three hours and we confess and we talk about our griefs and our longings. And when I tell you, it has changed the fabric of our very beings. To be that deeply seen and known and soothed and safe has created secure attachments for us that many of us did not get when we were younger. And it has changed us. Every aspect of who we are has changed and healed in a beautiful way.
Toni (22:00.886)
And so if you even hear me talking about this right now, if you’re watching, if you’re listening, be the first to ask, be the Jessica in the story that says, I am tired of people not knowing me for real. I want to be chosen in spite of me. And the only way for that to happen is for people to know who to choose, the real you and all of your mess and glory. Be the first to ask.
Juli
Boy, amen. And I know that there are people hearing this right now who are like, that’s what I have been praying for. That’s what I need. Let me ask you, if they want to be the person who goes first and starts that, like, did you guys have any sort of guide that takes you through that? Like, do you just get on a call and you’re like, hey, share your worst sins? Like, how do you enter into building that trust and safety?
Toni
Yeah. So it was crumb by crumb, let me say that. At our very first healing retreat, everyone, I mean, we were so guarded. I just, a lot of us have, you know, podcasts and books and platforms and all these things. And we were so scared. Cancel Culture was kind of on the rise. It was like 2019, 2020. And we just were like, oh my goodness, like, are we even going to be able to do this? Like, can we trust you guys? One person in the first group was like, can we do a blood pact? Like, let’s just kind of go for it, you know, like.
So we can really trust each other. And the question that we always ask when we gather, and I now do these eight week coaching groups where I help women get into a confessional community. And the simple question that we ask every single time we meet is, what are you grieving and what are you longing for? And instead of any of us trying to solve the grief, try to be the savior in the room, we just share how it made us feel when someone shared their grief and longing. And we have been doing that very thing for four years.
Juli (24:03.854)
And that’s what you do on every call is just what are you grieving? What are you longing?
Toni
We start off the Zoom call, someone does like a grounding exercise or we read a scripture, we cackle and catch up about our kids. And then one by one, we share what we’re grieving and what we’re longing for. And everyone else in the room says, wow, when you said that, Toni, when you said that, Juli, it made me feel this way. And that’s it.
Juli
Right. Wow. That’s pretty powerful. You know, I know Dr. Thompson feels this way too. There’s an awful lot of work that therapists are doing and I think therapists are great. You said you’ve been with a therapist for 10 years doing AMDR, but there’s a lot of work we go to therapy for that actually needs to be addressed in the kind of relationship and community that you’re talking about because your therapy relationship ends and it’s sort of a quasi-relationship, but we need people in our life that aren’t just showing up because we made an appointment but are with us and don’t have those. So I meet with you every Thursday at 10 o’clock, but no, I’m with you. So that’s just powerful. And I think we don’t have spaces for that. We don’t know how to do that.
Toni
Absolutely. And I mean, don’t you, I love my therapist first of all, okay? I love Rebecca from the top to the bottom, but I pay her to help me. Okay, can we just?
Juli (25:30.484)
It’s out there.
Toni
My confessional community is choosing to be there. There is a difference in how that makes you feel when someone doesn’t have to be there for you. Someone doesn’t have to help you process through hard things. They choose to be. My goodness, that’s powerful.
Juli (25:54.094)
It is and I would also say, you know when one person is sharing deeply its ministry But intimacy is when both people are sharing deeply and you can’t have that with a therapist like it’s not It’s not appropriate for them to sit there and tell you about their longings and griefs like…
Toni
…like, Well let me tell you about… it’s like no well let me not know let’s yeah because now I don’t even trust you a little bit okay
Juli
Right! And I’m not paying you to for me to listen to what you’re going through.
Toni
You’re have to give me my money back, okay? Because now I’m counseling on you.
Juli (26:27.554)
There you go. Yeah, so they both have their place. But again, I think we so rely on therapy now that we don’t know how to find those kinds of relationships that are just as important to our healing journey. So I’m thankful that you shared that. And again, I know there are an awful lot of people who want to be part of something like that. Let me ask, have you had in that group, now you said you’ve been together for four years, have you had conflict yet?
Toni
Have we? Okay. We call them ruptures. Thank you for the language, Dr. Curt Thompson. We’ve had many ruptures. And what we have now learned is that ruptures don’t ruin relationships. The lack of repair does. When you are unable to own how you made someone feel or apologize for it, take accountability, process through it, that, in my opinion, is what creates lasting pain, what creates lasting betrayal and the inability to trust again. There is something so special, specifically about our group, that even just last year, we had a really hard moment at our retreat. We had a hard rupture. And we came back to the same place. We decided, so this is a pretty cool thing. So we had a rupture at one place that we did our retreat at last year.
And we decided to do the retreat again at the same place. We change it every year, but we wanted to be so intentional about repair that we went back to the place where rupture happened so that we could redeem it. And I just think, I don’t know, I’m not saying a relationship is great because it goes through something hard and then it becomes better. And I do think that that’s what resilience is. I think that when we look at the need for hope, I mean, it’s in the face of really hard things that we need hope. And so, yeah, I just, I don’t know, I love our little group and I just love that we’re like, we’re not leaving the room. And if we do, we’re coming back. We’re gonna come back here.
Juli (28:26.403)
Yeah.
Juli (28:37.838)
Yes. And part of the power of what you’re describing there, Toni, I think often we find those safe relationships with just two people. And when you have a rupture or a conflict with two people, you both kind of go into my wounded animal mode of self-protection. But when you’re in a community, you have others around you who are watching it who can intercede, can help bring context to it, help settle things down and speak wisdom into it. That again, think again when we do have those attachments, we do have those relationships so often they’re just two people that are isolated that don’t know how to recover from a deep rupture.
Toni
Yeah, that’s really, really good. I didn’t even think about that. It is easier to repair when other people are in the room and not, it’s not about triangulation. It’s not about like, need you to help me soothe this conflict, I need to have somebody on my side, but it’s just this, I think it’s part accountability and I think it’s courage. I think you borrow each other’s courage in the room.
Toni (29:50.722)
And so it’s not as hard to say I’m sorry.
Juli
Yeah, that’s what it is. I think also when I’ve been in situations like that, when you’re in the middle of that rupture, we’ll use that word, all you can see is your side of it. it’s like, you’re just so, the feelings are so strong and all the other person can see is their side of it. And when you have bystanders who love you and care about you and watched it play out, they again can put context, like, I see how you feel this way. I see how you feel this way. Let’s see how this unfolds. That’s what counseling does sometimes if we go to, for example, marriage counseling, but to have that in community is just so powerful. And even as you’re describing that, I wish more people had that. I know, again, there’s a longing there of people, like, I want that. And so you said go first. What does that practically look like?
Toni
Okay, friends. So if you have friends currently, that may look like making the call and saying, I’d love to go deeper. I’d love to practice intimacy and connection, deep connection with you. That may look like just you and I having a conversation. It may look like rallying some of our other friends and maybe just sitting down and asking the questions. What are you all grieving? What are you all longing for? What’s hard in your story right now that we can hold with you? I think if you don’t have anyone, I think it starts with prayer. And this is, this is a part of my story that I felt so, maybe not ashamed, maybe it was embarrassment. I felt very childish. I remember praying and asking God for friends at 25 because I had gotten to the point where I needed to transition friends out because I was like, I want to stop cursing. I can’t be around people that curse all the time. I want to stop doing drugs.
Toni (31:43.278)
I want to stop wearing certain things. And I got friends that are judging me saying I look like a nun now. I need, I mean, this is what I will say. It’s very difficult to heal in the place and with the people that broke you in the first place. I think it’s difficult. I think it’s impossible, honestly, if I were to say it. And so I just remember going to God, oh, that makes me want to cry. Okay, I’m going to say it. And I just was like, I’m lonely. I’m really…
Juli (32:10.158)
Yeah.
Toni
Like I love people, I’m an extrovert, I got that advantage, you know? And I just was like, help me. Like just maybe someone that like understands my story, someone that loves Jesus, that’s someone that can help me. And I’ll never, ever forget walking into my new church, North Point Ministries, and I was helping out and serving, and so I went in the back to the green room, and there was a girl there named Erin Eddy, and she was completely opposite than me. If you’re not watching this, if you’re listening, like, I’m black, I’m kinda tall, blah, blah. She’s like tiny, white, platinum blonde hair, blue eyes, sleeve tattoos, all, I don’t have tattoos, but like, and I recognized her because she owned an organization called So Worth Loving, and I had gotten one of her shirts because I was you know, appealing and trying to become more worthy.
And I went up to her and I was like, hi, my name’s Toni. I just want to thank you for So Worth Loving. I have like the little blue shirt with like the gold writing on it. And I’m just like telling her about it. And she’s like, my gosh, that’s so cool. Like, tell me your story. And so we start talking. I find out that she’s been divorced. She has this organization, it’s ministry based. And I still wanted to be in ministry even though I was divorced. Like she was like years ahead of me just by a few years, but it was like, literally God was like, boop, like here’s a person. And it was just one. It wasn’t a whole group of beautiful women that happened over time, but it was just one. And me and Erin started hanging out. She’s one of the first people I call when I’m in pain. We have both scenes. I mean, I met her when I was remarried and she was single. And then I got a divorce and she got married. So she’s married now and I’m single.
Toni (34:00.814)
Like, we have seen the years. with each other. And I think it’s just a testament to number one, praying and asking God, can you help me find friends? Can you put people in my path? Number two, being brave enough to say, hey, my name is… Looking for friends, don’t want to be weird, but if you ever want to hang and go for coffee, I’d love it. Like being consistent. And that’s hard. I don’t want again, like one of the things that’s been interesting about researching in my new book, is the difference between making friends as a child and as an adult.
Juli
Yeah
Toni (34:30.286)
Very different, very much more difficult. Because when we’re kids, we don’t carry a lot of shame and baggage into the story. So 52 seconds at the park and my daughter has come up to me and said, I have a new best friend, this is her name, I gave her your number, there’s a play date coming. I’m like, okay, wow, okay. Like, kids can do that because there’s not a lot of shame in the story yet.
Also, as children, our parents curated our community opportunities. So we actually don’t have to do so much work. School curated community opportunities, extracurricular, college. We were around other people our age all the time. We don’t have that luxury now as adults. So we’re going to have to show up consistently. We’re going to have to plan the coffee a month in advance, a year in advance sometimes, you know, a quarter in advance.
We’re gonna have to schedule in community time and it’s gonna be our responsibility to do that. And so for those of you that’s like, okay, how do I do this well? It’s like, well, you just keep showing up and it requires work. Yeah.
Juli
It does. You’re 100 % right. And the other thing with kids is that they get to know each other through activity. So they’re not just looking at each other like, tell me what you’re sad about. They’re tackling things together and doing life together. And I think that’s some of it too is just how do you find people that do life with you?
Toni
The gym, let me list some guys, okay? Church, the gym, the park, a run club, like my goodness, cafes.
Juli (36:16.59)
There’s ministry, you know, like serving in ministry, like a great way to find people that have similar callings. And, you know, I want to say a few things in reaction to what you said, Toni. First of all, hey, I’ve prayed for friends in my 50s, so don’t ever feel embarrassed about that. Like, every season is new and I’m always asking the Lord, like, to bring the right friends into my life. And so that’s a good prayer forever. The other thing I want to say is this is not just for women.
So I know a group of guys in their 20s and 30s and they were all just feeling kind of disconnected and lonely and one of them stepped up and formed a group and they meet together every other week and they’re going through John Mark Comer’s The Way, like just doing the practices of like fasting and giving and solitude and like these guys are growing together for real. And so there’s many ways of doing this but it, it requires, like you said, taking an initiative, being courageous, and really trusting that other people are just as lonely as you are. Everybody’s looking for this kind of safe space. So thank you for the encouragement to do that.
Toni
I love it. I also want to say this about men. I talked about this on my podcast season. I used to say this phrase, women heal eye to eye, men heal shoulder to shoulder. And I want to take that back. I feel like it’s actually pretty shallow and isolating. And I think it’s wrong. I think that we all have the capacity to heal eye to eye, to share hard things, to sit in a circle together, to do what this men’s group is doing and say, we’re gonna read together, we’re gonna dive deep together, we’re gonna practice formation and discipleship together. We don’t have to just be out playing baseball or golf, but we could sit down and be intentional as men. And I just wanna speak that over somebody and just say, I’m sorry for the mini podcast I probably have. That may be in my first book, if we’re gonna be honest. Goodness gracious. Because I have just seen otherwise. And yeah, I’m gonna cheer you on men.
Juli (38:26.006)
Yeah, thank you. Thanks for it. And I love it when people kind of own, yeah, I used to think this I don’t anymore. That happens to me all the time, by the way, Toni. The older you get, the more you look back on what you thought and what you wrote, you’re like, I do that differently.
Toni
I’m not going to say that every day.
Juli
Yeah. Yeah. Hey, I want to ask you one more question that’s a little bit of maybe sidetracked from what we’ve been talking about. In your story, you mentioned so many different things from sexual trauma and having an alcoholic dad. You talked about having an abusive husband, being betrayed. And then you talked about things that you were engaging in, like drugs, alcohol, promiscuity.
In the healing journey, sometimes those things get all mixed up, and there are some things that we need to confess before God and other things that are shame we carry that we had no control over. And sometimes they feel so connected. So, I’d love to know, in your healing journey, how did you sort through the things that you needed to own and the things you needed to release?
Toni
Yeah, I feel like it genuinely was counseling. I can vividly remember moments when my counselor said to me, that’s not yours to own. No, Toni. I remember, so in my last marriage, just to give context, two years ago, my ex-husband called me to confess that he was being extorted by someone that he’d hired for sexual favors, and it was not the first time in our marriage.
Toni (40:03.488)
And then went on to have a public divorce. So much embarrassment, no repentance on his part. It just, it was devastating. And I remember talking to my counselor about it and saying, well, you know, he always used to say that I wasn’t nurturing enough. And I really think… and she just stopped me dead in my tracks. And she said, Toni, a lot of times men, women with these sexual addictions and who’s in a spiral of infidelity and all these things, they find anything to create excuse so that they don’t have ownership. And what I want you to do is own that you don’t have to own that part, that his decisions and his choices were his to own. And he needs to go get healing from that. And she said, I actually would like to shift to start healing the part of you that feels like you have to own things that are not your fault. And let’s work on that.
And that was when we dove into people pleasing and it being connected to like my dad who was never proud. And so having to prove myself all the time. So having to prove myself in relationship and take ownership for things that I didn’t have business taking ownership for. And so I think it was counseling, but if I’m honest, it was also community. My friends did not say it as eloquently. Okay. But, they are very territorial, you know, but I definitely remember Erin saying to me, Toni, this is not your fault. And Lisa Terkhurst saying to me, you have done nothing wrong. Those voices, when I get in my head and I’m having runaway thoughts, those voices bring me back and ground me to owning the things I need to own about my story. Like asking questions, like how did we end up choosing men like that?
Toni
Well. There’s a little girl that had an abusive father who thought that love looked aggressive like that and not patient, unconditional and kind. There’s a little girl that was like, that’s what it looks like. I deserve this. I’m not worthy enough to be chosen. Those are the things I think over time that have helped me to own the things I need to own and lay down the things that I don’t.
Juli (42:26.924)
Yeah. Again, counseling community.
Juli
Yeah, it’s all about this relationship. that, you know, Juli? Yeah, there you go. Yes. Well, I’m just so thankful to get to know you through this hour and just to hear your story. Thank you for just the ways that you are living out what it is to be in the body of Christ and the encouragement that you’ve given us and the tools that you’re giving us, not just through this conversation, but through the book that you’ve written. So, God bless you, sister. Thank you.
Toni
Thank you Juli. Yay.
Juli
Okay, do you have that person in mind? If not, that’s okay. I have somebody in mind after my conversation with Toni and I hope that you will eventually as well. Like Toni said, you might just start with a prayer asking God to bring somebody to mind. know, church community that goes deep and deeply cares about one another and discipleship is just so essential. So ask the Lord to bring someone into your life that you can be real with. Maybe it’s a small group. And in the meantime, be that kind of friend for else.
We’ll link to Toni’s book, Don’t Try This Alone, in our show notes, as well as a few blogs that I’ve written on healing and community. And when you have a minute, visit us at Authenticintimacy.com for more resources to help you make sense of some of the painful things in life. Thanks so much for listening, and I look forward to having coffee with you next time for more Java with Juli.