Allowing Our Pain to Turn Us to Christ | An Interview with Joy McCullough

Joy McCullough is a Protestant, Evangelical with a background in
professional counseling. She is the wife of Pastor Jeff McCullough,
the creator of the YouTube channel Hello Saints. She has four
children and recently relocated to Utah from St. Louis. Joy spends
a lot of time doing photography, thrifting, and playing violin,
along with staring at the Wasatch Mountains. She completed her
undergraduate degree in speech communication from Greenville
University and received a Masters in Professional Counseling from
Liberty University in Virginia. Joy is not afraid of her own or
other people’s brokenness. She has a heart for creating space for
people to come as they are and to find true healing and hope
through authenticity and honesty, free from shame. Her faith in
Jesus informs this passion and approach. Links YouTube @HelloSaints
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podcast Highlights 3:50 Introduction to Joy, a therapist and wife
of Pastor Jeff from Hello Saints 4:50 What moving to Utah has been
like as someone that isn’t LDS 6:30 Joy’s faith development and
journey 10:00 The stigma of being a pastor’s wife and high
expectations of other people 11:10 Advice to a pastor’s or bishop’s
wife 14:15 Journey to becoming a therapist 17:00 Religion and
shame. We don’t experience God’s love and grace through shame.
21:40 Helping someone through their shame 26:40 There is no shame
in having a need or desire. You deserve to have your needs met and
don’t need to feel shame. 28:30 When we feel broken we often feel
shame. When people feel shame it’s because they have some sort of
need. However, brokenness is an opportunity to receive and feel
God’s love and grace. 32:30 How can a bishop help someone buried in
shame? 34:00 Joy shares an experience she had as a teen with an
abusive pastor. She carried shame from the experience for many
years. However, she was able to heal by instead of saying what is
wrong with me? But what happened to me? 36:00 We focus so much on
the sin and behavior but we should ask what happened? Why are we
going towards sin? What led to the addiction? 38:00 Sin destroys
our identity. Knowing and feeling the love of God. Do you
understand and feel your belovedness? 39:45 Even with grace our
lives will not be pain free. We can experience grace but we are
going to have to experience grief and sorrow. 41:00 Wounding and
brokenness. We have to allow our pain to lead us to Jesus and not
sinful behavior. 44:00 When we hyperfocus on the behaviors we
bypass our hearts, we bypass our feelings and our emotions and try
to achieve certain behaviors and what looks good on the outside but
inside we are still a mess. We haven’t truly healed. 51:00 Showing
up for people and lamenting with them. How can we do that when we
haven’t experienced what they have experienced? 53:30 We shouldn’t
try to pull people out of their pain but sit with them in their
pain. We have to feel discomfort in order to heal. 54:30 Where
there is shame there is also self hatred or contempt for others.
One thing that transforms shame is compassion. 57:00 Joy shares how
she has experienced Jesus in her life through trauma, wounding, and
healing. “Jesus has held me together.” The Leading Saints Podcast
is one of the top independent Latter-day Saints podcasts as part of
nonprofit Leading Saints' mission to help Latter-day Saints be
better prepared to lead. Learn more and listen to any of the past
episodes for free at LeadingSaints.org. Past guests include Emily
Belle Freeman, David Butler, Hank Smith, John Bytheway, Reyna and
Elena Aburto, Liz Wiseman, Stephen M. R. Covey, Julie Beck, Brad
Wilcox, Jody Moore, Tony Overbay, John H. Groberg, Elaine Dalton,
Tad R. Callister, Lynn G. Robbins, J. Devn Cornish, Bonnie
Oscarson, Dennis B. Neuenschwander, Anthony Sweat, John Hilton III,
Barbara Morgan Gardner, Blair Hodges, Whitney Johnson, Ryan
Gottfredson,