Take Your Hands Off the Wheel!

Dannah Gresh: She was driving the moving truck. Her husband Troy, napping in the passenger seat. Suddenly, Donna VanLiere felt paralyzed by fear. Troy woke up when he noticed they were barely moving.

Donna VanLiere: And he said, “Donna, what are you doing?”

And I said, “Don’t say anything, I’m trying to get across this bridge.” (laughter)

Dannah: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of You Can Trust God to Write Your Story, for April 1, 2020. I’m Dannah Gresh.

We’re living in a day when fear is everywhere. All we have to do is check the latest headlines, and we might have to immediately pray to keep from panicking. For some, fear can actually cause them to freeze up.

Here’s our host, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, with more.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Irrational, debilitating fear can sometimes crop up in some strange places. But today we’re going to hear how working through paralyzing fear became a metaphor for Donna VanLiere, a picture of her learning to trust God.

Yesterday Donna shared with Dannah Gresh about how the pain of a traumatic childhood experience affected Donna all the way into her adult years and about how her pain was replaced with healing and joy in the Lord.

If you missed that program, be sure to go back and listen to it. You can do that on your mobile device, through the Revive Our Hearts app, or you can listen at our website, ReviveOurHearts.com.

Following what Donna shared about yesterday, there was more pain to come in Donna’s life. This time, it was pain of a more emotional nature. We hear about that today.

So even though God is writing a beautiful story in the life of each of His children, sometimes that story includes chapters that we initially wish weren’t there. Let’s listen as Donna continues her conversation with my co-host Dannah Gresh

Dannah: Let’s fast forward to that twenty-ish-year-old. You said earlier that you watched Fred Astaire, and all these dark-haired, main-leading roles in black and white, and you dreamed of being married to a man like that. Is that how the story unfolded in your twenties?

Donna: (laughter) Well, I went to college, and on the very first day there, I met a man named Troy VanLiere. He had auburn hair and fair skin and was so funny. We just became instant friends—and you know that. We were all friends there. He was just a great friend to have in class, and I just enjoyed being with him.

But then something happened about two-and-a-half years later in our junior year. I thought, Hmmm, I actually don’t see him as a friend anymore. Something was changing! But then I thought, Well, Lord, didn’t You get that memo? I said that I wanted a dark-haired man like all these guys back in these movies from the ’40s.

But we ended up getting married, and several years into our marriage, I got pregnant. It was one of those pregnancies where I was sick every single day. I knew women who were pregnant, and boy, they would just get up with such a bounce and a skip in their step. I thought, Wow! This is not me!

Every single day I was sick. I would walk our dog in the neighborhood and would literally stop and vomit in someone’s yard. It was awful. It got to the point where I was thinking that the neighbors were saying, “Here she comes!”

Dannah: Get out the bucket!

Donna: Right! (laughter)

But one day fourteen weeks into the pregnancy, I got up, and I wasn’t sick. And I thought, Oh, that’s weird. I’m not sick today. I mean, you come to expect these things. I thought being sick meant it was this healthy pregnancy for me. Well, I wasn’t sick the next day either. And a few days later I went to the doctor and discovered that we had lost the baby.

And fast forward a few years later, we’re still not pregnant again. We sat down with a specialist in Nashville. Without any small talk, after he’d done his series of tests on both of us, he said, “You two have a 10% chance of having children.”

I immediately flashbacked to that farmhouse all those years ago. Because of the plaques on my wall that says I’m a doctor and my medical degrees that I have, I just knew that what had happened to me is the reason that I couldn’t have children.

Dannah: That’s the belief that you had in your heart.

Donna: That was the belief, yes.

Dannah: So, you’re not a doctor.

Donna: No, I’m not a doctor. (laughter) But I was very wise within myself, saying, “This is the reason why.”

Dannah: So you linked this infertility to the abuse that happened to you when you were a little girl in that farmhouse.

Donna: Yes. Right.

Dannah: That must have been an unbearable load in your heart.

Donna: Right. It was terrible.

Troy and I went to lunch following that appointment, and I cried through the entire meal. I cried so much, Troy finally said, “Are you going to eat those fries? Because you’re ruining them.” (laughter) He kept me laughing through it all.

But it was still—it’s a hard place to be when you want to have children and the doctor says, “Really, there’s a very small chance.”

Dannah: It’s probably not going to happen.

Donna: Yes.

Dannah: Take us into some of the moments of infertility—for those of us who . . . I mean, this is a very widespread problem today. So many of our friends are struggling. You may be listening and be struggling and looking for a lifeline of hope today. I promise you that Donna brings that with extra measure of love and grace and truth.

But you also may be listening, like me, and have not struggled through it. And, Donna, I think being able to sort of walk with you through it has changed my interactions with other women because I understand the pain.

Can you just take us into some of the moments of infertility that you and Troy had to walk through together?

Donna: Well, it’s very clinical. For any woman who’s out there listening right now, who’s going through it, she knows. It is a very clinical process. You go into a doctor’s waiting room, and there will be couples just lining the walls, waiting to go in and see the doctor and find out what treatment plans are available for that particular month—or however long they’re going to be trying the plans.

So it’s just, really . . . I don’t recommend it.

Dannah: But it’s almost . . . That clinical aspect of it, isn’t it kind of like an extra slap in the face? “I’m hurting here. I’m in pain. This is an emotional thing I’m going through. But I’m going to put on my face for the doctor’s office.”

Donna: Yes. Absolutely. At one point, Troy and I had to sit down, and we had to watch a video about how he was going to have to give me shots. And the shots could go either in my stomach or in my hip. They showed this particular video, and I wasn’t feeling well that day. Either I was hot or the clinic was really hot, but I was just burning up. Because I was just queasy, not feeling well, and they showed this video, I was, like, “Oh boy, I’m getting really lightheaded.”

And the nurse showed Troy how to give me the shot. She said, “Do you want it in the stomach or the hip?” And I thought, Oh, the hip! The stomach sounded awful—doesn’t that sound awful?

Dannah: Yes.

Donna: So she put saline solution into this needle, and he was giving it into my hip, and I just passed out. I fell right onto the floor.

Dannah: And doesn’t that just bolster your husband’s confidence in the process!

Donna: Right. His words to me were, “Did you faint?” I mean, he was just so shocked at what just happened. He and the nurse got me up on a chair. And, again, I thought, Oh, what a horrible process this is to be going through this. So we had to go through those shots for several months. And nothing worked at all. That was many months.

We ended up moving to Missouri for a while, and we had to find a specialist there. Same thing—different medications. Had to go through a lot more treatments, a lot more prognosis—that sort of thing. So it just seemed to never end. That’s how, I’m sure, many listeners feel right now. “Is this ever going to end?”

I felt like I was spinning plates in the air so many times. It felt like a magic trick almost, like we were waiting for the magic trick to reveal itself. So it’s just a long, laborious, clinical process.

And in the meantime, you have friends—well-meaning friends, and I can still see their faces—who will say things like, “Well, you can always adopt.” And that is the last thing you want to hear when you are going through weeks, months, years of fertility treatments.

Yes, I knew that I could adopt. Every woman listening who’s going through it now, she knows that she can adopt. But there’s something in a woman. You think, I really want to have a baby. I want to see: Does the baby have my eyes? Does it have Troy’s mouth? You want to go through that process.

So, it just seemed to be a never-ending clinical process.

Dannah: I think that desire: “Does the baby have my eyes? Does it have Troy’s mouth?” I think that’s a part of being created in God’s image. If we were created in God’s image—and family and marriage is a picture of God’s love for us—then isn’t life and birth a part of that, too? Isn’t us looking at our children and saying, “Oh, look, they have a little bit of my image stamped in them,” that’s a little bit of a God-like thing in our hearts.

And I guess, if that’s you, and you’re listening, I want to say: It’s okay to desire that. I release you to that desire. It is a good part of who God is and being created in His image. If we were created in His image, and marriage and family is a picture of His love, then, of course, you are going to want to have a child and look down and see a little bit of your image in that baby.

Donna: Right. And you should feel no guilt, no shame over those feelings because, like you said, it is a good thing. It’s a good thing from God.

Dannah: So, Donna, take us to that place where you were wrestling with that verse from Galatians where God says, “I have a plan for you,” and you’re saying, “Really? This is Your plan? This is the plan? I’ve struggled with the pain of abuse. I finally forgive my abuser. And now I’m struggling with infertility.” And in your mind, you’re connecting this infertility to that abuse.

Donna: Right.

Dannah: When did it begin to shift for you? When did you begin to feel hopeful that you could trust God with the story He was writing with your life?

Donna: It wasn’t an overnight thing. I think in our human minds, in our flesh, that’s what we often want. We want to wake up one day, and we want to feel better. And for some people, they do. But for other people, it doesn’t work that way. So, for me, it was more like puzzle pieces that were put into the puzzle, and I could see the picture coming into a whole.

One time, when we were in Missouri for a while, I watched the movie, Chariots of Fire. I’d never seen that movie before. As I was watching it, I thought, Wow! This is a very slow-paced movie.

Dannah: (laughter) Give us your honest review.

Donna: Right. But I love true stories, and it’s a true story, so I really wanted to see it. It’s about Olympic runner, Eric Liddell. His parents were missionaries in China. His sister was a missionary in China. And he was going to be a missionary as well, but he’s also this runner, this really great runner.

He’s about to go off to the Olympics, and his sister, Jenny, confronts him at one point, because she’s a little put off that he’s going to run in this little race over in Germany. (laughter)

Dannah: This little race—called the Olympics.

Donna: Right! Because he should be in China. He should be serving the Lord in China.

It was at that point Eric Liddell said something that made me sit up straighter on the couch and rewind it on the VHS tape—because that’s what we had back then. He told her, “I know that God made me for a purpose, for China, but He also made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.” And I kept rewinding it and listening to that. And I thought, That is awesome! That is amazing!

That kind of goes back to Galatians 1:15. God called me for a purpose. He set me apart for His work. Even before I was born, He called me through His grace.

And I thought, I actually do have a purpose—more than just getting up and going to work and coming home and then getting up the next day and going to work and coming home. There is a purpose. There is a plan for me. If I find it, I will feel His pleasure. I will find out what that is.

It just made me think, for anyone who’s listening now, all of us have been given talents. We’ve been given gifts, desires, abilities, skills that are completely unlike anybody else on earth. You and I write books. We would never be able to write the same kind of book. I couldn’t write your books. You couldn’t write my book.

Dannah: Yes. The fiction thing—you write these beautiful fiction stories. I think, Where did these characters come from? Where does that idea come from? It’s foreign to me, the way that you write. It’s beautiful, and I always need a box of tissues.

Donna: (Sounds of laughter.) As is the way that you write is foreign to me, as is other authors. But the gifts that God gives each one of us are central to the reason that God created us. He deposited those gifts into me that are different from you. It’s different from the woman listening. She has gifts and abilities and skills that’s completely different from everybody else. And when you run in that gifting, you will feel His pleasure.

So that was really one part.

Dannah: How does that fit into the battle that you were facing with infertility? How did that create some healing for your heart?

Donna: Well, like I said, it didn’t at that moment. It was just one of those puzzle pieces. I was, like, “Hmm, I actually do have a purpose.”

Dannah: Even in this disappointment.

Donna: Even in this disappointment, there is a purpose for me. It was then I started to believe, “Well maybe God did set me apart, for some reason, either that or the Bible lies, because that’s what the Scripture says, that He set me apart.”

Dannah: It’s either one or the other—no middle ground here.

Donna: No. There’s no middle ground. Either He set me apart before I was born for His work—He called me through His grace—or He’s a liar.

So it was part of me beginning to believe. Because for so long I thought, No, God has special plans for special girls. He doesn’t have special plans for me. There’s special plans for other people—not for me.

So, again, it was one of those just kind of sit up and listen a little bit closer, because I felt like it was beginning to make sense.

Then we moved from Missouri. We were moving back to the Nashville area. I have a bit of vertigo, some form of vertigo. I don’t know what it is exactly, but if I walk down a narrow hall, my head just starts to swim, or if I stand up too fast . . . that sort of thing.

But a really strange aspect of it is, I can’t drive over a bridge. Some bridges are okay if they have those concrete barriers. (laughter)

Dannah: They kind of tell you that they’re not really there. It’s an illusion.

Donna: Right. They’re saying, “You can’t really see the water.”

So we loaded up a U-Haul, and we have another U-Haul trailer on the back as well. We have our dog—Bailey—in the cab of this U-Haul with us. And the day that we drove, it was a torrential downpour in the state of Missouri.

Troy drove through hours of this torrential downpour. And it finally broke a little bit. He pulled off to a gas station, and said, “Would you mind taking over? I really would love to rest.”

And I said, “Oh, sure. No problem.”

So I went in to get a few snacks, get a bottle of water, that sort of thing, and when I came back to the U-Haul, Troy was already against the passenger-side window. He had his coat all propped up against the window.

Dannah: And he’s all knocked out.

Donna: (laughing) He’s all knocked out. He’s ready to go. So I got behind the wheel, started out onto the road and had driven less than a mile when I saw it. It was the “Golden Gate Bridge.” I had no idea it was in Missouri, but there it was!

I looked over to Troy, and he’s sleeping, and I thought, Oh, how am I going to do this? How am I going to get across bridge?

So I came up with a really ingenious plan. I thought, I’ll just kind of hug the center line.

Dannah: With a U-Haul and a trailer on the back?

Donna: Yes. So I’m not so close to that edge of the bridge. So I can’t see the water because it wasn’t the concrete kind. It was the one that was just metal and the strings.

Dannah: And you could see the water.

Donna: Yes. I could see the water. So I’m hugging the center line. Well, that’s not working. So I thought, I’m going to really crouch down in my seat so that I can barely see over the wheels.

Dannah: That’s a great way to drive

Donna: Oh, it was very safe. So I was doing that, and nothing was working. I thought, I’m just going to go really slow. I’m going to go slowly across this because I’m going to get across this. Me and the Lord, we’re going to get across the bridge.

So I slowed down, and it must have been that action that woke Troy up. He woke up, and I could see him in my peripheral vision. I could see him looking out the window, and he realized we are really far from that bridge. Then he looked up at the front window and realized I’m in the center lane with all this traffic coming toward me.

Dannah: Well, it’s not center lane. Tou’re straddling two lanes. There’s no center lane, Donna.

Donna: (laughing) Right. And traffic coming toward me, of course, can’t get by me. I could see Troy looking at me, but I can’t look at him because I’m just frozen, trying to get across this bridge.

And he literally said, “What are you . . .” And I threw up my hands, like, talk to the hand. Like, “Please, don’t say anything, Troy. Don’t say anything.”

And he said, “Donna, what are you doing?”

And I said, “Don’t say anything, I’m trying to get across this bridge.” (laughter)

So he unbuckled—quickly—he snapped over to my side and said, “Let go of the wheel.” But I couldn’t do it. He said, “Donna, let go of the wheel.”

I’m telling you: My knuckles were stretched white across that steering wheel. I couldn’t let go. I was just terrified. He had to pry my fingers off. He said, “Take your hands off the wheel.”

So I’m smooshed up against the door as he’s driving across the bridge. We exited, and in case you’re not keeping up, from one exit to the other exit, across the bridge, was one mile. So I had driven exactly one mile behind the wheel of the U-Haul.

And Troy got out and stretched, and he said, “Oh boy, that mile is just what I needed to keep me going!” And we laughed! I mean, we laughed all the way home. It was one of those things we laughed about for weeks on end.

But I really began to think about that moment and Troy yelling, “Take your hands off the wheel.”

I thought, That’s what the Lord has been telling me for years. At first He’d been saying, “Let go of the wheel. Let go of the wheel. Let go of the wheel.”

Then He was saying, “Take your hands off the wheel. Let Me drive this thing. Let Me get you through your fear.”

And that was another puzzle piece. It was a huge puzzle piece.

Dannah: Donna, your story is beautiful. The question I’m wondering is: Did you take your hands off the wheel?

Donna: I took my hands off the wheel. I sure did. There came a time I was just like, “Oh, I can’t do this fertility stuff anymore.” I was done with it.

I happened to be in a grocery store near our neighborhood one day, and I saw this little girl. She looked Asian. I don’t know where she was from exactly, but she was so cute. Her dad was a white man. She just held up her hands to him, and he grabbed hold of her, and she just wrapped those little arms around his neck and squeezed her face into his face and planted a big kiss on his cheek. And I thought, She has no idea that she doesn’t look like him. No clue.

And, again, it was another puzzle piece for me. I thought, I’m stopping all this fertility madness. Enough is enough. I’m not going to do it anymore. I told Troy, “I really feel like we’re being called to adopt, and I think we should stop all this fertility medication.”

And he said, “Oh, yes. I’ve been feeling that for months.” He felt it long before I did, but he was very good to me. He let me come to that conclusion on my own, as the Lord was continuing to deal with me.

So we stopped it, and he said, “Well, where do you want to adopt from?”

I said, “I don’t know. I just really feel like God is calling us to China.”

And he said, “That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking.”

Now, the world is a big place. There are lots of countries to adopt from. There’s domestic adoption as well. But for some reason, the Lord had spoken to both of us that we were supposed to go to China.

We started all of our paperwork, and we waited eighteen months—longer than the gestation of an elephant. But that’s how long it took when we flew to China, and we picked up . . . We decided we wanted to name our little girl Grace, after God’s grace. Because, finally, after decades, I was learning about God’s grace. I was learning it is available to me, to just open my hands and receive His grace.

So we went, and we picked up Grace. Then two years later we went back and we picked up Kate. And we named Grace, Grace Zhenli, which means priceless gift—priceless gift of God’s grace. And we named Kate, Kate Meili—beautiful gift.

So we had both girls, and then the time came, again, to adopt. We felt like the Lord was leading us to Guatemala this time. I asked Gracie, who was four at the time, “Do you want God to bring you a baby brother or a baby sister?”

And she said, “I want God to bring me a baby cow.” (laughter) But was very disappointed to get a baby brother from Guatemala instead. We brought David home in 2007, and it’s hard to believe.

Dannah: It is unbelievable.

Donna: One day when we just had the two girls at the time, I was out weeding in a flower bed. Our dog, Bailey, who was a miniature Schnauzer, was very old at the time. He was where I was working. It was in the sun, and I thought, I’m going to keep him in the shade so that he’ll feel a little better. I even brought out some water for him so that I knew he would be taken care of. I had his leash, and I just kind of wrapped his leash around something that was there—the hose spigot, or something. I wrapped it around that.

I was weeding, and the girls were out there helping me. Several minutes later, here comes Bailey, dragging that leash behind him. And I thought, Oh, why did he get loose? So I picked him up again, and I took him back to the shade, and I wrapped it around there again, and went back to work. And here he comes again. And I thought, Well, he can hang out with us for a while.

But he started panting. He was just getting so hot. So I took him back again to the shade, and figured out another way to keep him there, but here he comes again. And I thought, I’m going to just have to take him in the house. So I took him in the house, and I came back.

And Gracie, who’s all of four years old at the time, said, “Mom, I know why Bailey won’t stay in the shade.”

And I said, “Oh, yeah? Why is that?”

She said, “Because he loves you so much, he just wants to be with you.”

And I thought, That’s how we’re supposed to be. No matter how hot or uncomfortable it is, I want to be where the Lord is. He’s, like, “You’re going to be hot and uncomfortable over here with Me for a while. It’s going to be pretty painful over here for a while with Me.”

But we should say, “I don’t want to be in the shade. I don’t want to be over there. I want to be over here with You.”

Our dreams are made in the shade. Our dreams are wrapped up with bows and ribbons and balloons and streamers. That’s how we wrap up our dreams. We make them in the shade.

But our purpose is found out in that sun—out in that hot sun where it can be uncomfortable. It can be hot. It can be tiring. But that’s where our purpose is discovered—down in those valleys.

Dannah: If you could go back and change any part of your story, would you?

Donna: No. I wouldn’t. If you’d asked me that when I was twenty-five, I would have said, “Oh yeah! (laughter) Sit down. I’ll give you a list of everything that I would change.” But, no. I would not change that. I wouldn’t change anything now. No.

When my kids call me, “Mom,” I feel God’s pleasure.

Dannah: You have truly chosen to trust God with your story, and it is beautiful.

Donna: Yes, it is beautiful. And the awesome part of that is that every life has a story. I know that’s like AME’s tag line, but every life does have a story. God does have a story for you, and He will reveal it to you. He’ll lead you through your story if you will trust Him with it.

Dannah: That’s beautiful.

Nancy: My husband Robert and I say it this way in the title of our recent book: You Can Trust God to Write Your Story.

We’ve been listening to a conversation between Dannah Gresh and our guest today, Donna VanLiere.

You may be facing pain that is similar to what we have heard from Donna—the nightmare of sexual abuse that happened years ago, that we heard about in yesterday’s program or the difficulty of infertility that she shared today. Perhaps you’re facing some other kind of pain. Maybe it’s a chronic debilitating illness or the loss of a job or the breakup of a marriage or the lack of a marriage. Maybe it’s a child who’s far from home and far from the Lord.

Let me just remind you that if you’re a child of God, you can rest in the certainty that there is a God, that He is sovereign, that He is good, that He is faithful, that He loves you, and that He promises you that everything in your life, even those painful chapters, in His way and in His time, it’s all working together for your good.

Dannah: And, Nancy, that applies even in the midst of a global pandemic.

Nancy: That can be really difficult to embrace, the mysteries of God’s promises, but He gives us a lot of examples in His Word, examples of people, like us, who had to learn to trust Him in challenging times when the script went in a different direction than the one they would have preferred. That’s what Robert and I talk about in our book, You Can Trust God to Write Your Story.

There are lots of stories in there, not only from Scripture, but also stories from friends of ours about many different seasons and challenges in life. We share how people have learned to embrace the mysteries of God’s providence, trusting Him to write their story even when it didn’t turn out with just a happy ending and a pretty bow wrapped around it. Some of these people that we talk about are still experiencing heartache and hardship, but they’re finding God to be faithful even in the midst of that journey.

Well, we’d love to send you a copy of our book, You Can Trust God to Write Your Story, as our way of saying “thank you” for your gift of any amount to support what God is doing through the ministry of Revive Our Hearts. We depend on the prayers and the donations of friends like you to support this ministry, so we’d love to hear from you.

You can contact us at ReviveOurHearts.com, or you can give us a call at 1–800–569–5959. And when you make your call to give your gift, be sure and let us know that you’d like a copy of our book, You Can Trust God to Write Your Story.

Now my guess is that, unless you’re really, really old, you use social media. Here’s a question: How can we use social media wisely? That’s something we’ll talk about tomorrow. I’m Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth encourages you to trust the divine Script Writer. The program is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.

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